Jack sighed about as much as a rat could, and settled down onto his paws. He hadn’t been particularly fond of France before this, and his opinion was steadily swinging towards “Never Ever Visit Again”. He’d been naked, covered in garbage and was now a rat. What else could go wrong?
The sound of a drop of water hitting the surface he was lying on interrupted his musings. Lifting his head he gazed past the giant yellow rubber duck towards the end of the bath. Yes, the tap was dripping. Yes, the plug was in. And yes, he really should stop challenging the universe to do things to him.
Scampering down the tub hurriedly, he ended up somewhat skidding into a small puddle of water that had already formed. After spending a couple of minutes trying and failing to get the plug out with his paws or teeth, he was stumped. Crud.
Perhaps one other option? He jumped up towards the taps visible in the air high above him and desperately tried to reach them. They seemed to be just out of reach, and there wasn’t even a chain attached to the plug to try and get it out with. Double crud.
Last chance. He wasn’t quite sure how this tail thing that he now had worked, but hell, it had to be worth a shot, didn’t it? He jumped and tried to scrabble up the tub side towards the taps. Halfway up, he threw himself around in mid-air and tried to somehow use his tail to reach the taps. No good. He landed in the puddle awkwardly and panted in exhaustion for a moment. One more try. He jumped, threw himself around and somehow whipped out his tail – and it connected! His tail whipped round the tap, and Jack forced himself to take his entire rat weight onto the tail and pull the tap round a bit further. Yes!
The tap paused, then reluctantly clicked round to a new position. Jack smiled as the flow of water choked. Then it resumed. Faster than before. Jack closed his eyes and attempted to put his head in his paws. And, of course, triple crud.
Side-note : Due to my computer clock messing up before, I've had to alter the time on this just to get it to post. Grrr. Sometimes I think Luddites had the right idea several centuries too early.
