Squeakers And The Apartment

  Book 1 Of The Squeakers Chapter Book Series

  Fantasy Action-Adventure Adult Chapter Book

  By: Andi Brit (Andrea Britanik)

  Instagram: authorandibrit

  3/2/2025

  Synopsis: Squeakers, a poor mouse, figures out a way to snag a luxurious apartment. Of course, not without some challenges along the way.

  Chapter 1

  Squeakers Charles Macintosh scurried down the alley way of Orchard Street, a street in the Lower East Side in Manhattan, New York. There were awnings on every window just about on just about every level of every building. There were long strings of line going across in order for businesses to transfer packages across, as well as clean laundries. Some of the lines were full of actual hanging laundry. A lot of it white linen. Although some were white cotton. They were all pinned up with wooden clothespins and they were put up there to dry. There were so many of them, and so many lines of them going upwards, that they resembled the sails of a big carrack pirate ship. There were also zig zagging lines of brown steel fire escapes that were made up of steps and sometimes ladders, matching the brown stone non-rusticated brick of the building facades. Balconies had wrought iron Art Nouveau railings that had those curved lines in a dramatic fashion. And those were just about all over the buildings as well.

  It was raining very hard as it was January 1st, 1923, and the rain wasn’t quite sleet, but it was very cold and there were, at least to Squeakers, huge puddles everywhere, which might as well have been ponds. Squeakers dodged them left and right by hopping over them, his long gray fluffy tail bouncing up and down as he did so. He had big, round black eyes and two pointy pinkish ears. His nose came to a sharp point and several black whiskers protruded out from his small snout. He was a dormouse after all. And he didn’t have an umbrella. His gray coat was already soaked from big fat raindrops that kept pouring down onto him. Squeakers did not have much at all. But he did have a tattered brown leather suitcase that he currently had strapped to his back like a backpack with crude straps. But it was not keeping him dry. Squeakers was very poor, so poor that he was a traveling vagrant and he was out of luck as of late. But his luck was about to change, and for the good way. His adventure was just beginning!

  He dodged the feet of the vendors on the sidewalk, who mostly all had umbrellas, which helped slightly, but not as much as you would think. They all wore their spectator oxfords in either black and white or brown or white and their spats, which were the same color combinations and their buttons being either silver or gold, some even copper. The fancy metals, things that Squeakers only wished he could afford, but, certainly not today. Their footsteps created great big waves of splashes that Squeakers was able to avoid until now. A big wave splashed onto him, causing him to be upturned and flow with the water, like a big tsunami and he rolled with the water, and into the street. An umbrella that was just his size began floating towards him from the side. Squeakers aligned with it and the water was able to push him up into the umbrella and he quickly got to his hind legs and looked over the umbrella to see where he was going. He was going fast down the street in the river current that ran along the sides of the street. And he was going to the south, and fast.

  He squeaked loudly as a pedestrian stepped off of the sidewalk right in front of him and into the street, Squeakers narrowly avoiding the stomping of his feet.

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  Squeakers continued to quickly flow down the current and he was heading towards the intersection at Broome Street! It was a busy hour at this time of day, and being in the very late evening, and there were boxy cars with big headlights driving through left and right and through the intersection. Their headlights beaming a bright yellow from dull yellow lamps. A car drove past him and splashed him again, causing the umbrella to twirl. His eyes widened as he approached the intersection and he got down lower in the umbrella and started to whimper.

  But then suddenly, at the last minute, he began to be sucked in by another current unexpectedly. It was the current towards one of the storm drains, which looked like a big gaping mouth at this point, ready to swallow him whole. And it was going to. Squeakers was being sucked into the storm drain. And as he got underneath the sidewalk, he did a straight drop down into the drain.

  “Oh no!” said Squeakers as he fell.

  It was even darker now inside of this tunnel.

  He plopped down perfectly down into another current in the tunnel that carried him further south, but now safely away from the intersection above. But, Squeakers was still scared as he looked bashfully at the surroundings around him. There were ledges on either side of him full of all sorts of creatures that were not intimidated by the huge waterfall that was nearby. First of all, there were rats, and lots of them, dressed in their suits and ties and were much bigger than Squeakers overall. Squeakers hoped that he wouldn’t get robbed of the few possessions that he had left. The rats were already rubbing their hands together and with their gold rings on, gold chains also hung from their waistcoats and what assumed to be a gold pocket watch inside of the pocket of the vest. They were looking directly at small Squeakers. One of them eyed his backpack. No!

  The rats had on bowler hats. Their suits were gray and pinstripe, meanwhile, their hats were black. It was like a uniform. It was a uniform! These were the Pack Rats! They were a notorious gang of rats who roamed the underground tunnels of this part of town, that was, the Lower East Side, and Squeakers was terrified.

  Smaller creatures such as other dormice wearing cream pinstripe suits and ties and gray fedoras stood amongst the rats, looking onwards, with hands in their pockets or rubbing their chins.

  There were also smaller lizards that were dressed in all black, with black suits on and black bowler hats that were dealing with trunks and trunks full of all sorts of books. Because you see, they weren’t just a gang, they were a gang that hid underneath what seemed to be a perfectly legitimate book peddling business, but actually, it was nothing but bootleg books. Books bought and sold within the black market and always stolen in the first place. They would lure people in with the selling of their books and then if they were able to lure you into a dark corner, or a black alley, then your things were most certainly a goner. Whatever you had on you that they wanted, and it would be theirs.

  All of these creatures stood on their hind legs and they eyed Squeakers. He knew what was coming.

  “Well, hi there,” said one of the rats as Squeakers passed by. “Would you like to buy one of our very nice, leather bound books?”

  “No, thank you.” said Squeakers.

  “Not even just a look, just a glance really?” he persisted.

  “I have plenty of books already, thank you.” said Squeakers.

  “Oh, alright,” he said. “But, if you change your mind, then you will be back, then, won’t you?”

  This particular rat had a gold tooth, and it showed as he did a sideways smirk.

  “Oh, yes, I will keep you in mind.” said Squeakers.

  “Alright, have a good day.” he said.

  “And same to you.” said Squeakers.

  Squeakers was relieved to float on and to leave them behind him.