The Rat Restaurant

• Tahlia Cavallo , Grade 8
• Short Story
• 2021

The dead trees fail to shade the old man that lives under the city bridge. I am in a wet, cold body. I am a rat. I live here, in this dark bricked up place. My stomach growls, I need food. My hunger was like a claw gnawing at my empty stomach. My tiny shadow reflects on the floor from the big city lights. I scurry along the floor as my wet feet pat against the ash felt. I can see something in the distance. A meal! A big juicy steak as plump and full as a balloon with crisp potatoes and creamy peppercorn sauce. It hits my tastebuds and I feel like I'm in Heavan, but it didn’t last. The rain hits me and suddenly I'm back in the street eating a bone as hard as a rock. I go back to my home in the slums hoping I can find food for at least another day.
I venture off to a place I have never been before. There is a building with five big bright stars. It must be a restaurant. I look around for a bin I can maybe score some food from. My jaw drops. “it can't be true”. I really can see peppercorn steak with crispy potatoes and this time it's REAL and I am not hallucinating! I visited every day.
One day, as I'm dining on my delicious meal, I can't help but notice something out of the corner of my eye. I see a man, limping over to a bin right next to the restaurant. His eyes were heavy. He digs through old food scraps to see if there is anything he can scavenge. Nothing. I feel bad. I nudge some of my food towards him. He makes a kind gesture and his whole face lights up like the sun. That night, I couldn’t stop thinking about the man I saw. “Are there more”? I question myself. “why should I get to eat this perfect dinner and others don’t"?
I can see so many people on the streets with no place left to go, no food, in cold weather. “I got an idea to help save these people from eating rotten food”. “I'll make my own restaurant”! We can reduce, reuse and recycle. I’ll gather all the rats I know and tell them about the foo”. Everything is coming together. Everyone is sawing, hammering, building, and I even told them I will pay in food which leaves no one hungry. We will gather the restaurants food (they throw out anything even close to perfection) which cleans their rubbish, so everyone is happy.
Costumers came right away. “one roast turkey and asparagus coming right up”. The costumers came with stomachs, empty as a robbed room and left with full bellies. All the rats in town taught the younglings how to manage the restaurant so they can take over when they are old enough and one day teach their children. The restaurant lives on.