We were in. The security guards had been surprisingly lax, the screws on the vents surprisingly loose, the vents above the rooms surprisingly claustrophobic. Only when Richard shimmied up the metal corridor and pressed his shoulder to mine with a questioning glance in his eyes, did I realize that we were completely, horribly, screwed.
“So… what’s your plan?” he asked innocuously.
I shot him a murderous look. “My plan was to follow your plan!”
I would have punched him if my arms weren’t stuck to my sides, wedged between the cold metal wall and Richard’s bony shoulder. He squirmed uncomfortably, trying to pull ahead, wriggling on his belly like some oversized worm.
“You told me you had everything under control!!!” I hissed at him, yanking him backwards by his ankle.
“I got the screwdriver though,” he whined. “And I unscrewed the vents and I got us in here. So I did have everything under control.”
His filthy boots wiggled in front of my face as he pulled himself forward. Anger burned through my veins. “We’re going to jail if we mess this up,” I snapped. “Just thought I’d let you know.”
Richard froze, wide eyes throwing a terrified glance in my direction.
“….Really?” he faltered.
“YES. What do you think is going on right now?!”
“Well, I dunno. If anybody saw us I thought we could just tell them we’re the Vent Guys.”
“The VENT GUYS?!”
“Yeah, duh. We clean out the vents. We make sure everything’s spick and span…. Uh….” Richard trailed off as I shot him a warning look. Laughing voices passed underneath us— deep, booming voices of corporate executives and professional culinary masters. If we were going to do this, we had to do it now.
“The kitchen’s this way,” I hissed at Richard, pushing at his feet. As we crawled through the claustrophobic vents, I struggled to keep my legs from knocking loudly against the metal— a precaution Richard did not have the thought to undertake. It was hard to breathe with the black ski mask covering my nose and mouth, but we pushed on until a vent appeared underneath us. Richard had refused to wear it.
“Screwdriver,” I demanded, outstretched hand expectant. Richard handed me a screwdriver, quietly opening his end as well. The massive kitchen loomed underneath us, rustic red bricks covering the floor, charming French music echoing distantly inside.
“…Is it lefty-loosey or righty-tighty?” Richard asked quietly.
“I will murder you.”
With a click, the vent detached from the hole, and I slid it underneath my belly for safekeeping.
This is it, I thought, heart pounding. I shot a meaningful look into Richard’s vacant eyes. Sometimes I wondered why I even decided to go into this line of business with him. He was more of a liability than an asset.
But everything I trained for led up to this moment—every YouTube video I watched about picking locks, every coupon I used for a free kickboxing class, every criminal Wikihow and Reddit post I read, every magazine letter cut-out I painstakingly pasted onto paper.
Now I was closer than ever to the greatest chef in the world— close enough to smell the aroma of the dishes simmering on the stove, and soon, close enough to even see his face.
I paused for a moment, aligning puzzle pieces together in my head. I had a plan. Finally. I leaned conspiratorially to Richard, my head and neck sticking over the opening.
“Here’s the plan,” I whispered. “So what we’re gonna do is—”
Richard wriggled forward conspiratorially, eyes sparkling with excitement. But he leaned too far forward, torso hurtling through the open hole. He whooshed through the air and landed with a thump on his back on the bricks.
“Richard! What an idiot!!” I whisper-screamed.
“What…?” Richard groaned, blinking one eye at a time. I swore to myself. Our time was quickly running out before security came rushing in, or the chef himself would emerge from the back rooms.
I gripped the metal edge with my callused fingers and flipped gracefully through the vent, landing on my feet beside his head.
“Get up,” I growled, kicking his shoulder with my boot. “We’re getting that recipe, and we’re getting out of here.”
Richard stumbled to his feet, holding his head. I rushed over to the mahogany cabinets and flung open the doors. Rows upon rows of spices and jars and sagging cardboard boxes awaited inside. I rummaged around inside, the bottles clinking noisily. Richard moaned behind me, stumbling around like a bull in a china shop.
I whirled around.
“What are you doing?!” I snapped.
“Looking,” he slurred, leaning his whole weight on his meaty palm on the granite countertop. “I’m…. looking.”
“Look through the pans or something!”
Richard looked right past me, eyes unfocused. “…Okay.”
I turned back to the cabinet when a plethora of cast iron pans came crashing down onto the counters and floor with a jarring clang. Richard looked down unbothered at the massive steel pan crushing his toe.
“Ow.”
“You idiot. We’re not gonna find the damn book in the pot rack—” I paused as a sliver of yellowing paper peeked out from behind a cast-iron skillet. I reached forward and moved the pan aside— and there it was, in all of its glory. The Holy Grail of Culinary Expertise, the most prized possession of the most famous chef in the world.
I flipped through the pages disbelievingly. An incredulous laugh escaped my lips as I showed it to my partner.
“Can you believe this?!” I laughed. “We did it! After so many years, we’ve finally found it!”
‘Yay!” said Richard, throwing his hands into the air.
“We’ll finally be able to make the chef’s world-famous Ratatouille… no one can stop us now!!”
But we celebrated too early. An ominous creaking came echoing from the back room– the chef’s personal office. My breath stilled in my chest as I stared into the beady black eyes of a rat—- with his iconic white hat on top of his head.
“Chef Remy!” I spluttered, backing into the countertop, shoving the book behind my back. My feet itched to run, but I felt locked in place by Remy’s beady glare. “It’s such a… a surprise to—”
Remy let out of a flurry of enraged rat-squeaks, drawing closer with a pitter-patter of tiny little feet.
“Please…” I whispered. “I’m sorry I just wanted—”
In a movement like a bolt of lightning, the rat darted to the pristine granite countertop, his eyes staring unblinking into mine. He squeaked three times very threateningly. I couldn’t understand anything he was saying, but still fear chilled my body down to the core.
“Is that the chef?” Richard pointed a loud, bumbling finger at the rat. The rat whipped its little head around, quickly scrambling up Richard’s arm, little rat hands digging into his hair. To my horror, Richard’s arms rose in a zombie-like manner as he looked down at his own body, appendages wrested from his control. He took a shaking step towards me.
The mouse let out a battle cry and yanked at Richard’s hair. Richard lurched forward at me with a yell, massive paws swiping at me. I ran behind a nearby countertop, cowering.
“Don’t hurt me!” I screamed, throwing miscellaneous spatulas at my once-friend.
But the rat had other plans. He tugged at Richard’s hair once more, sending him lurching into a full pot on the stove. I watched in horror as the contents poured all over him— onions and peppers and parsley staining a savory painting on his shirt.
The rat squealed, appalled. He relinquished Richard’s hair in desperation, crashing onto the countertop. He looked in horror at the mess on the floor, body wracked with grief. Slowly, he turned to look at us, quaking with poorly disguised fury. I grabbed Richard and made a beeline for the door, pushing past the mess on the floor.
Chef Remy let out a guttural rat-scream as we moved away from him. And a faint pitter-patter of tiny feet gathered in the distance.
“Wait!” I exclaimed. “What about the recipe?!”
While the rat was chasing me, I had somehow forgotten it on the far countertop, ruffled but generally unharmed by the chaos in the kitchen. I started back for it, until Richard grabbed my forearm with a vice-like grip.
“Look,” he breathed, pointing a meaty finger to the far end of the kitchen. Rats of all colors, shapes and sizes emerged from every crevice— teeth bared and ears clenched to the sides of their heads. Chef Remy waved them forward like a military commander. I stepped back in horror.
“But the recipe—” I protested.
Richard gestured to his shirt in a rare act of wisdom.
“I have a recipe right here.”
Indeed spices and vegetables of all kinds stuck to his sopping wet shirt— disgusting but doubtlessly delicious. I shot him a look. Maybe he wasn’t that bad of a partner after all.
And we ran out of that hellish kitchen as fast as we could, a furious army of chef-rats on our tails.
But one day— mark my words— one day, Chef Remy’s famous Ratatouille recipe shall be mine.
Just you wait.