%e title
#
#
-#
-%title The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents (1)
+# _The_Amazing_Maurice_and_His_Educated_Rodents_ (sometimes spelled with
+# "his" uncapitalized--the book itself uses all uppercase on both the
+# cover and the title page so doesn't help resolve which is correct...)
+# was the first of six Discworld books marketed for "Young Adults" (at
+# least in the US), ages 12 to 16 give or take, so tended to be stocked
+# on different shelves from the rest of Discworld in book stores and
+# libraries. In the UK, _The_Amazing_Maurice..._ won the Carnegie Medal
+# which is awarded for best children's book of the year.
+# (The other Young Adult Discworld books are the five Tiffany Aching ones.)
+#
+# _The_Amazing_Maurice..._ may well be the most serious Discworld book.
+# (Don't worry, it has lots of humor/humour in it....)
+#
+%title The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents (10)
+# p. 68 (Harperteen edition; _Mr._Bunnsy_Has_an_Adventure_ is a book
+# within the book, and a brief quote is shown at the beginning
+# of each chapter. This one is from the start of chapter 4.)
%passage 1
-The important thing about adventures, thought Mr Bunnsy, was that they
+The important thing about adventures, thought Mr. Bunnsy, was that they
shouldn't be so long as to make you miss mealtimes.
- [The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents, by Terry Pratchett]
+ [The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents, by Terry Pratchett]
+%e passage
+# p. 9 (passage starts mid-paragraph)
+%passage 2
+"Stealing from a thief isn't stealing, 'cos it cancels out."
+
+ [The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents, by Terry Pratchett]
+%e passage
+# pp. 11-12 (rats became intelligent from eating wizards' trash just outside
+# one of the walls of Unseen University; Maurice insists that he
+# never did that, implying that he'd eaten some of the rats instead
+# [never explicitly stated] before he became intelligent himself)
+%passage 3
+They said he was amazing. The Amazing Maurice, they said. He'd never
+meant to be amazing. It just happened.
+
+He's realized something was odd that day, just after lunch, when he'd
+looked into a reflection in a puddle and thought, /that's me/. He'd never
+been /aware/ of himself before. Of course it was hard to remember /how/
+he'd thought before becoming amazing. It seemed to him that his mind had
+been just a kind of soup.
+
+And then there had been the rats, who lived under the rubbish heap in one
+corner of his territory. He'd realized there was something educated
+about the rats when he'd jumped on one and it'd said, "Can we talk about
+this?" and part of his amazing new brain had told him you couldn't eat
+someone who could talk. At least, not until you'd heard what it'd got
+to say.
+
+ [The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents, by Terry Pratchett]
+%e passage
+# p. 32 (Maurice the cat, Keith the human boy, and the intelligent rat clan are
+# in the town of Bad Blintz; people are queuing up for rationed food)
+%passage 4
+"Shall we line up too?" asked the kid.
+
+"I shouldn't think so," said Maurice carefully.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"See those men on the door? They look like the Watch. They've got big
+truncheons. And everyone's showing them a bit of paper as they go past.
+I don't like the look of that," said Maurice. "That looks like
+/government/ to me."
+
+"We haven't done anything wrong," said the kid. "Not here, anyway."
+
+"You never know, with governments," said Maurice. "Just stay here kid.
+I'll take a look."
+
+ [The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents, by Terry Pratchett]
+%e passage
+# p. 52 (speaker is Darktan, the traps expert; "Number One" platoon seems
+# like an obvious joke here--missed deliberately or accidentally?)
+%passage 5
+"All right, Number Three platoon, you're on widdling duty," he said. "Go
+and have a good drink."
+
+ [The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents, by Terry Pratchett]
+%e passage
+# p. 110 (opening quote for chapter 6)
+%passage 6
+There were big adventures and small adventures, Mr. Bunnsy knew. You
+didn't get told what size they were going to be before you started.
+Sometimes you could have a big adventure even when you were standing
+still.
+
+ [The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents, by Terry Pratchett]
+%e passage
+# pp. 127-128 (searching for a secret door...)
+%passage 7
+Malicia leaned against the wall with incredible nonchalance.
+
+There was not a click. A panel in the floor did not slide back.
+
+"Probably the wrong place," she said. "I'll just rest my arm innocently
+on this coat hook."
+
+A sudden door in the wall completely failed to happen.
+
+"Of course, it'd help if there was an ornate candlestick," said Malicia.
+"They're always a surefire secret-passage lever. Every adventurer knows
+that."
+
+"There isn't a candlestick," said Maurice.
+
+"I know. Some people totally fail to have any /idea/ of how to design a
+proper secret passage," said Malicia. She leaned against another piece
+of wall, which had no affect whatsoever.
+
+"I don't think you'll find it that way," said Keith, who was carefully
+examining a trap.
+
+"Oh? Won't I?" said Malicia. "Well at least I'm being /constructive/
+about things! Where would you look, if you're such an expert?"
+
+"Why is there a rat hole in a rat catcher's shed?" said Keith. "It smells
+of dead rats and wet dogs and poison. I wouldn't come near this place,
+if I was a rat."
+
+Malicia glared at him. Then her face wrapped itself in an expression of
+acute concentration, as if she was trying out several ideas in her head.
+
+"Ye-es," she said. "That usually works, in stories. It's often the stupid
+person who comes up with the good idea by accident."
+
+She crouched down and peered into the hole.
+
+"There's a sort of little lever," she said. "I'll just give it a little
+push...."
+
+There was a /clonk/ under the floor, part of it swung back, and Keith
+dropped out of sight.
+
+"Oh, yes," said Malicia. "I thought something like that would probably
+happen."
+
+ [The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents, by Terry Pratchett]
+%e passage
+# p. 231 (passage ends mid-paragraph)
+%passage 8
+He had to admit that he was cleverer at plans than at underground
+navigation. He wasn't exactly lost, because cats never get lost. He
+merely didn't know where everything else was.
+
+ [The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents, by Terry Pratchett]
+%e passage
+# pp. 298-300 (Keith has challanged the professional rat piper and offered
+# to rid the town of rats for a much lower price; Sardines is
+# one of the Educated Rodents, known for dancing all the time;
+# "hwun/two/three/four/" is run-together "one /two/ three /four/";
+# quite a long passage primarily for the 'a bit more grimy' gag)
+%passage 9
+[...]
+"But first I shall need to borrow a pipe," Keith went on.
+
+"You haven't got one?" asked the mayor.
+
+"It got broken."
+
+Corporal Knopf nudged the mayor. "I've got a trombone from when I was in
+the army," he said. "It won't take a moment to get it."
+
+The rat piper burst out laughing.
+
+"Doesn't that count?" asked the mayor, as Corporal Knopf hurried off.
+
+"What? A trombone for charming rats? No, no, let him try. Can't blame
+a kid for trying. Good with a trombone, are you?"
+
+"I don't know," said Keith.
+
+"What do you mean, you don't know?"
+
+"I meant I've never played one. I'd be a lot happier with a flute,
+trumpet, piccolo, cornet, or Lancre bagpipe, but I've seen people playing
+the trombone, and it doesn't look too difficult. It's only an overgrown
+trumpet, really."
+
+"Hah!" said the piper. "This I'd like to see--but not hear."
+
+The Watch came running back, rubbing a battered trombone with his sleave
+and therefore making it just a bit more grimy. Keith took it, wiped the
+mouthpiece, put it to his mouth, moved the slide a few times, and then
+blew one long note.
+
+"Seems to work," he said. "I expect I can learn as I go along." He gave
+the rat piper a brief smile. "Do you want to go first?"
+
+"You won't charm one rat with that mess, kid," said the piper, "but I'm
+glad I'm here to see you try."
+
+Keith gave him a smile again, took a breath, and played.
+
+There was a tune there. The instrument squeaked and wheezed, because
+Corporal Knopf had occasionally used the thing as a hammer, but there was
+a tune, quite fast, almost jaunty. You could tap your feet to it.
+
+Someone tapped his feet to it.
+
+Sardines emerged from a crack in a nearby wall, going "hwun/two/three/four/"
+under his breath. The crowd watched him dance ferociously across the
+cobbles until he disappeared into a drain. Then they broke into applause.
+
+The piper looked at Keith.
+
+"Did that one have a /hat/ on?" he asked.
+
+"I didn't notice," said Keith. "Your go."
+
+ [The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents, by Terry Pratchett]
+%e passage
+# pp. 309-310
+%passage 10
+"You really /can/ talk? You can think?" asked the mayor.
+
+Darktan looked up at him. It had been a long night. He didn't want to
+remember any of it. And now it was going to be a longer, harder day.
+He took a deep breath.
+
+"Here's what I suggest," he said. "You pretend that rats can think, and
+I'll promise to pretend that humans can think, too."
+
+ [The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents, by Terry Pratchett]
%e passage
%e title
#
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