MAGNUS POWERMOUSE

To country mouse Madeleine and Oxford-bred Marcus Aurelius there is born a giant, ravenous baby, whom they wisely/learnedly name Magnus. Fed, in desperation, the Porker Pills unlettered Madeleine inadvertently ate when she was pregnant, Magnus grows bigger, more demanding ("More, Mummy! More! More!")—a trial to his meek, magniloquent father, a worry to his loving and practical mother. With the Porker Pills used up, and fierce Magnus in danger at loose, the two appeal to farmer-fed rabbit Roland—who fancies being called "Uncle" by "the little fellow," then greets word of his giantism with "How perfectly splendid!" The three are ecstatic at Magnus' triumph over a "Nasty cat." ("A positive powerhouse? booms Roland. "Powermouse, you means," squeals Madeleine.) Even Marcus Aurelius expresses his "undying gratitude" at Magnus' springing him from a trap. Then the farmer, noticing the empty rabbit-food bag, the sprung trap, sends for Jim the ratcatcher—behind his back, Jim the Rat. . . and an authorial upending the equal of Magnus. Jim the Rat can smell a mouse (even "a house-mouse'); he treasures the legend of the King Rat—"Could it be a King Mouse?" Baiting a mink trap with a Mars Bar, he catches Magnus; covertly bears him off-to the horror of the watching trio; and sets about taming him—"The way to the royal heart, he thought, is through the royal stomach"—while Madeleine and Marcus Aurelius comfort themselves with Roland's kindly prophecy of his "triumphal return." So, indeed, it will be: Jim's worship of his extraordinary pet ("A ratcatcher may look at a King Mouse") is matched by Magnus' guilty yearning ("All because Magnus was so greedy! Nasty, nasty Magnus!") for his Mummy and Daddy. There is a hint, once they're all happily resettled, of further adventures to come. A disquieting hint, in a way—so vigorously and unexpectedly do the animal world and the human world mingle in this first.