Jerry Filch wasted no time in gobbling the precious morsel, a dirty mixture of salt and grease.  Silently laughing at the other scavengers, the pint-sized champion scurried off to the next feeding grounds. How he loved being a rat! The sights! The sounds! The smells! An endless bounty of information made the very air into a sea of sensations.

And then one particularly savory sound came muttering into his ears. From under a public bench, he watched as she stalked into view, and his eyes widened in glee. Who would have guessed that she would arrive in Prague?

In addition to her normal green coat and fedora, his favorite victim wore styrofoam pellets, a white layer that refused to brush off. “Crazy, cheapskate, idiotic…mailed in a stupid box like some kind of toaster!” Can someone scowl without a face? Her inhuman eyes virtually stabbed the scrap of paper in her knotted wooden hand. “They call this thing a map?” And then it started to rain.

A wordless scream of rage filled the air, Fedora Tanglechild ran off into the night, and shortly after, Jerry scurried back to the dump where his human clothes hid. In his mind, two lists were busily compiling. One was a list of items he needed to hijack her communications implant. The other was the list of taunts and insults he’d been waiting to try out.

And she had no idea what was coming.