I was a Rat! or The Scarlet Slippers

"I was a Rat! or The Scarlet Slippers" (OCLC|57378478) is a children's novel written by British author Philip Pullman. It was published in 1999. The story is that of Cinderella a few months into her happily ever after, but told from the point of view of her coach boy, a transformed rat who has remained in his human form.

The Story

A nameless boy, who can only say, "I was a rat," and little else, shows up at the door of Bob Jones, a cobbler, and his wife Joan, a washerwoman. He is wearing a page's uniform. They feed him, but he eats by putting his face in the bowl. They teach him to say 'thank you' and to use a spoon. He claims to be three weeks old and to have two brothers and two sisters. They name him Roger and make up a bed in their spare room. After he goes to sleep, Bob and Joan talk about the upcoming wedding between the Prince and Princess Aurelia. Bob's theory is that Roger was brought up by rats.

The next morning they find that his pillow, sheets, and blanket are all torn up. They teach him not to tear things up, to say "sorry," to use the privy, and to use a knife and a fork. They promise to find his home, but he wants to stay with them. They take him to the City Hall, the office where they deal with lost children. The lady from City Hall cannot find evidence of a lost child. While waiting for the lady, Roger nibbled on a pencil. They took him to an orphanage, but they did not even enter it. Then Bob and Joan took Roger to the police station. Since he can't read, Roger looks at the pictures on the wall. He says, "I do know where I come from...I come from down under the market. There's a broken gutter behind the cheese stall, and we had a nest in there. I was a rat." The police officer thinks he has hit his head, so they take him to the hospital where a doctor examines him.

The next day they take him to school. The Head of the school thinks he is about nine years old, so he assigns him to Mrs. Cribbins's class. When Roger laughs in class, Mrs. Cribbins makes him stand in the corner. When another boy hits him with a rubber band, he shouts and then bites the teacher. The Head hears the noise and takes Roger away to be caned. Shortly thereafter, the class hears a scream from Roger. And then Roger runs away to the marketplace, where he tries to crawl under the cheese stall. Unfortunately, he is too big, and he knocks over the stall. The constable arrests him and takes him to the police station. Bob comes to the station and pays for the damage.

The Philosopher Royal learns about Roger from a servant, who is a cousin of the constable who arrested Roger. The Philosopher Royal decides to go to the police station to ask about the case. Then he goes to the home of Bob and Joan, asking to see Roger. The philosopher thinks that Roger has been brought up by rats and wants to write a book about him. He gets permission to take Roger to the Palace for a closer examination. Roger has been there before, and he knows the names of the king, the queen, and the prince. Roger nibbles on a tassel. The philosopher brings his cat, Bluebottle, to the room, and Roger shrieks and jumps through the window into a flower bed and runs away.

Mr. Tapscrew, a proprietor of one of the shows in the fair, is in the market that day. He inquires about the boy who says he was a rat. The greengrocer tells him where the boy is, so Mr. Tapscrew finds him. Roger goes with him. When the philosopher doesn't bring Roger back that evening, Bob goes to the Palace to bring him home. Dr. Prosser says that he ran back home.

Meanwhile, Mr. Tapscrew is planning to showcase Roger as a rat-boy and make money off of him. His wife Martha is making a costume for his act. On their way from the Palace, Bob and Joan meet the greengrocer, Charle Hoskins, who tells them about the little boy and Tapscrew's plan for an act.

Two days later, St. Matthew's Fair opened. The Rat-Boy show also opened with the attraction that the rat-boy would eat anything, but Roger said "Thank you" when someone gave him a potato to eat. The customers demanded their money back because they knew he was a boy in a costume. Mr. Tapscrew insisted that Roger not speak, so the rest of the customers that day were satisfied. Then the fair moved to a new town.

While Roger is sleeping one night, a boy named Billy helps him to escape. He has seen Roger wriggle and thinks that he can use Roger's talents. After a visit to a graveyard, they find their way to another place where they slide down a coal chute. They find themselves among a half-dozen ragged and dirty boys.

Bob and Joan find Mr. Tapscrew, who is unable to put on his act with Roger gone. Mr. Tapscrew finally admits that Roger has broken out and gone. They discover from crowbar marks on the outside of the wagon that someone broke in and rescued him.

The next day, the boys wait until nighttime and leave for some wriggling. They come to a large house. They find a place where a brick is loose, and Roger wriggles inside the scullery of the house. Following instructions, Roger looks for a key and opens the door. While the other boys are removing items, Roger finds things to eat. Unfortunately, he eats some hot chilies, so his mouth begins to burn. Roger begins to yelp. He runs outside to the big barrel and put his head in the water. Then, because he had eaten a lot of dried food, his stomach begins to expand. Suddenly a deep voice says, "What's going on here?" It's a policeman. Roger bites him and runs away into the dark. He has wanted to be a good boy, but he realizes that he is a bad one. He finds a manhole and climbs down. "Once a rat, always a rat," Billy had told him, so he decides it must be true.

Bob and Joan go back to the town where the fair had been and spend all day looking for Roger, but they don't find him. They realize, however, that Roger has brought meaning and purpose to their lives. The editor of the "Daily Scourge" hears about ghosts in the drains and decides to run a story to boost circulation. "Monsters Found in Sewers." They sell lots of newspapers. Eventually they capture the monster and imprison it in the Quarantine Department where the Chief Scientist can look at it. It looks like a boy. They take a blood sample. They plan experiments on it.

The public responds to a readers' poll and determine that the monster must be killed. The Prime Minister, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Minister of Agriculture, the Foreign Secretary, the Minister of Education, and the Home Secretary decide to convene a tribunal under a High Court judge to decide.

The day before the tribunal is to begin, Bob and Joan read the story about the tribunal, which is to deal with the rat-creature. They realize that it could be Roger that is to be decided upon. The next day they arrive at the court building and find it packed. They are unable to get in. Various witnesses are called. Later, when the usher calls for Mr. Gordon Harkness, no one responds. Bob decides to pretend he is Mr. Harkness, and he goes forward with Joan as Mrs. Harkness. They enter the courtroom.

When they take the stand and a lawyer speaks to them, they admit that they are Bob and Joan Jones. They had to pretend, because they have important information about the so-called monster. This is no monster. "It's a little boy called Roger." Then they tell their story. The judge allows them to stay and says that he may call on them again. Then the real Mr. Harkness arrived, and he showed charts and tables to prove that the monster was a dangerous life form.

Mr. Tapscrew also gives his witness, saying that the creature became attached to him. He decided to set up an exhibit for educational purposes. But the creature gnawed through the side of the wagon and escaped. Then the judge calls Dr. Septimus Prosser, the Philosopher Royal, to the witness stand.

Dr. Prosser describes Roger as paranoid and non-human. Bob loses his temper and shouts at the philosopher. "Bring him to the court! Let 'em all have a look! Listen to him spe ak! Then you'll see! He's a little boy!" he says. But the court decides to have him exterminated. That evening Bob and Joan decide to ask Mary Jane (also known as Princess Aurelia), the Prince's fiancee, for help. They decide to take a new pair of scarlet slippers, just made, to her as a present. They take the slippers, but the footman refuses to allow them to see her. Fortunately, the princess herself arrives on her own and invites them inside. She tries on the slippers, and they fit perfectly. Then Bob tells her about his problem. Roger knew her name to be Mary Jane, but no one is supposed to know that.

The Princess says that she knows who Roger is. She promises to help, but it must be kept a secret. The next day, the Princess Aurelia arrives at the Quarantine Department. She wants to see the rat-boy. They allow her to see him alone. She calls him Ratty, and he calls her Mary Jane. The day he was changed into a boy, he was supposed to stay with the coach, but he didn't. He got lost that day and got into mischief with the Palace page boys. Had he gone back to the coach when he was supposed to, he would have been turned back into a rat. Both Roger and Mary Jane wish for the beautiful lady to come back and turn them back into what they used to be, but she does not come. They think they can go on being what they are.

The papers then carry the story of how the Princess intervened, using the superhuman power of her love, and transformed the monster into a normal little boy. Roger goes to live with Bob and Joan. He learns to be a cobbler and hardly ever nibbles the leather any more. He told Bob and Joan that he had promised to be as good a boy as he could and she had promised to be as good a Princess as she could.