The Rockin' Rodents

Ground Control to Gravity

"What foul play?" asked Jimmy.

"I'm afraid we can't disclose that sir, it's highly confidential, although we know it involves the battle of the bands." Said Agent Jake.

"We know it's risky but we need to find out what he's up to and you guys are on the inside. We need your help" said Agent Elwood.

The rodents looked at each other a while, as though trying to read each other's minds.

Jerry broke the silence.

"I say we keep on rocking. Jimmy's our friend and it's obvious that Meowie wants to get him and will never leave him in peace. If we take this fat cat down our friend will be safe. Are we rockers? Isn't that what rocks about? Standing up for the downtrodden, the underdog, the outcast, the freaks, and the different. What do you say Rocking Rodents? Are we with Jimmy or what?"

He looked at his bandmates and friends, who looked back and cried

"Rock ON!"

Jimmy looked unusually sheepish.

"Thanks, guys," was all he said.

With the final decision made by Jimmy, the band went back to work and The Ghost took his place at the sound desk and began pressing buttons and toggling switches and all manner of things on the sound system and monitors.

The first concert was to be above ground (humans often talk of rock being "an underground" music, something that went against the norm, that had to be hidden from prudish eyes in cellars and smoky basements, for the rodents the surface was their underground.)

However, this time it was to be far, far above the ground, in a round tower.

Scattered around Ireland are medieval round towers. These tall circular buildings only have an entrance at the top of the tower which monks would have scaled up the wall with a rope ladder with as many valuables as possible before the Viking raiders stole the lot. Jerry's mother had explained all this to him (she was a human studies teacher and eleven times champion of the local Pub trivia quiz).

This particular tower was in an abandoned churchyard.

The rodents had built a theatre at the top of the tower, Jerry's dad drove the van onto a wooden lift at the base of the tower and a pulley attached to a fan motor which hoisted them slowly and shakily up to the top.

Tina Turtle stared over the side down at the gravestones below before a wave of vertigo made her look up.

"Maybe I should have stayed in the aquarium," she said to herself.

Overhearing her Suzie who was sitting beside her turned to and said

"Come on, we're going to play a great show and bring the house down."

"That's what I'm worried about," said The Ghost tapping the stone wall as they went up, to check how solid it was.

"Don't worry, The" Hammy tried to reassure him "this tower's like us, made of solid rock." He made a horned head shape with his fist as he finished speaking.

"Did you just call me The?"

"Yeah, that's your first name, isn't it? The" then he paused for dramatic effect "Ghost. Shame really, it'd be a great name for a band," Hammy suggested hopefully.

The rodents half groaned, half laughed at Hammy's determination to change the band's name.

"Actually, my name's Kevin, although my friends call me Kev," the artist formerly known as The Ghost confessed sheepishly, as the lift reached two-thirds of the way up.