Snip tried everything he could think of to cheer him up, and often talked about the Rat Hall job which he was sure would be given to Mr Trundle in the end, because how could three girls manage a job like that alone? But this seemed, for some reason, to make Charlie even more depressed. He had started going off alone, refusing to answer Snip’s anxious questions. ‘I’m the boss,’ he told Snip, ‘I have to plan.’ Charlie always went out with the intention of continuing with his home-made therapy. But he made no progress. He knew that there was no point in going out, looking at a rat and coming home again. Even some humans could cope with that. So he felt a failure, and began to lose his natural sparkle. He couldn’t sleep for worrying about what his gang would think of him. They would surely lose all respect. Then one morning, on his way home from one of his unsuccessful trips to the back of Andrew Mulligan’s house, he bumped into his friend Timba. Timba was a Border Terrier who lived in a house next to the pub in East Foxmould.
