Cell 3.47 was situated on the third floor of B wing in Stocken Gate prison, slap bang in the heart of London’s east end. Known as The Gate, the prison had a reputation for being a tough place to do time. The inmates behind the doors at The Gate endured long cold winters in the Victorian slammer that had been condemned many times but had always escaped closure. It was harsh, it was hard, and it was overrun by rats.

Paula Pritchard was the sole resident of cell 3.47, but due to the rodent crisis she was rarely alone. All her schemes to see to them perish had failed miserably and she had to accept that while they might have won the ultimate war, her hatred of the vermin would ensure that her battle against them raged in perpetuity. After all, she had time.

Paula was serving life for murdering her husband after he cut their TV wires in 1986 causing Paula to miss the Eastenders Christmas Special. She was still bitter; there was no catch-up TV back then. In fact, she had more remorse for that than she did for the murder, which wasn’t convenient when it came to trying to persuade the parole board to release her, so she had stopped bothering to try.

Instead, Paula put all her efforts into ensuring that she was in sole control of the contraband that was bootlegged into The Gate on a daily basis. Somewhat against all the odds, she had turned out to be an exceptional entrepreneur with incredible business acumen but would never win a Women In Business award. As she got into bed now, she plotted her next scheme for fulfilling the cocaine orders that always started to pile up at this time of year. The girls in The Gate knew how to celebrate Christmas alright.

Rita watched and waited from her vantage point on the top of the bookshelf. Paula’s eyes were getting heavy, she would be out for the count soon. Rita could be patient, no problem. You learned that as a prison rat. Sometimes tactics were everything. She swung her back paws and applied a little face cream to her tail. One of the best things about living in cell 3.47 was that Paula’s customers often paid in canteen. This meant a reliable stock of snacks, beauty products, paper, and easy access to all manner of things that were dispensed from the canteen hatch. Rat heaven.

Prison life for a rat could be easy but you had to have your wits about you. There was a constant supply of water in the steel lidless cell toilet. Pritchard had tried many times to deny Rita and her crew access to that but had never succeeded. In any event there was a small sink on the wall, and the tap constantly dripped. The sink was big enough for a family of four rats to take a bath, and Rita had even seen a water birth be facilitated in it by the alternative lifestyle rats who lived behind the skirting boards in the staff room in the segregation unit, also known as The Block.

As soon as Pritchard fell into her doubtless drug induced sleep, Rita tucked into a packet of Cheetos. Delicious. Pudding was a packet of Cadbury’s hot chocolate which she’d had her eye on since it had arrived this morning. But during the daytime the rats didn’t come out so much. It was at night when they got their business done. After dinner, Rita was helping to coordinate the digging of a new tunnel after the maintenance team accidently poured concrete into the main thoroughfare between B and C wing.

She watched as Roly gnawed his way into a pot of noodles. He glanced up and nodded to her with his mouth full, powder from the noodles coating his whiskers. She winked at him fondly. They had been together for five litters, and still they flirted liked newlyweds. Roly was a big old unit, a rat who’d eat all night if he could. He wasn’t quite as exacting as Rita when it came to menu choices, and last week had eaten a whole box of tampons which had sent Pritchard into a rage when she’d discovered the mess in the morning.

Roly didn’t care, but it had almost killed him. He hadn’t been careful enough and a piece of plastic applicator had got lodged in his gullet. Rowena, unable to get her paws around him to perform a Heimlich manoeuvre, had jumped on his furry white chest to clear his airway. Rita had been beside herself and if it hadn’t been for her daughter’s quick-thinking Roly would have been toast. But within two hours Roly was reaching for an Oreo and telling the tale as if he was the hero to most of the rats on the third floor. They’d all laughed and patted him on the back.

The next day Pritchard was crashing around the cell, cursing about not being able to find any coffee sachets (Rita had swapped them for a packet of cotton wool with Riccardo from healthcare), and generally being her bad tempered, vile self. Rita knew that at times like this it was better to give Pritchard a wide berth than risk her wrath which knew no bounds especially when it came to rats. Plastic cups and cutlery fell to the floor, books were cast aside and make up thrown all over the place as the fruitless search went on. Rita, Roly, and Rowena went for a nap in their nest behind the wall, tummies full and whiskers cleaned.

It wasn’t until much later that they peered out and saw Pritchard behaving most strangely. She was dressed in nothing but an Avengers T shirt and a pair of woolly socks and appeared to be batting imaginary insects away with this week’s edition of Prison News. She uttered something incomprehensible about jungle fever and then proceeded to attempt some kind of Scottish jig. The rats knew that Pritchard was hallucinating, they had seen it with so many inmates’ countless times. They smoked too much Spice and simply went doolally. Sometimes it went further than that and a heart attack wasn’t that uncommon, but Pritchard didn’t seem to be that far gone despite the pantomime that was being played out before them now.

Rat word got out and several others came to watch the show. Ruby from the canteen had even brought popcorn, but it was salty, so Rita didn’t bother with it. Just before Pritchard was about to climb up to the bookshelf to launch herself into what she believed to be a luxury swimming pool but was in fact her prison issue laundry basket, something caught her eye. The rats froze. Pritchard picked up her radio and launched it full force into the spectating crowd of vermin. Rita watched in horror as the plastic transistor hurtled in slow motion towards them. There was no time to react, and with an almighty smash it landed on Roly. Within an instant two things happened. Pritchard vomited all over the floor, and blood began to seep from Roly’s head. His pink ears drooped, his breathing slowed.

The rats rallied round, hitching Roly’s sizeable frame onto their shoulders and scuttling into the B wing tunnel with him. By now Rita was sobbing, her tail in her paws. Rowena squeaked instructions as fast as she could, but it seemed that Roly could not be saved. His wide black eyes still gleamed as he gazed into Rita’s tear-filled ones. ‘I love you Rita Rat’ he said, and then he was gone. Rita felt like her world had fallen apart. Riley and Rose from education ushered her to their nest. She let them. She let them feed her syrup on a Q tip and then she slept a fitful sleep with Rowena at her side.

The next day Rita felt numb, but she went back to cell 3.47, where Pritchard’s vomit still pooled on the concrete floor, ice forming on it in the mid December chill. Even the family of rats from security hadn’t fancied that. Pritchard herself was akimbo on the bed, oblivious to it all.

Rita stopped crying and looked at Pritchard, that mean tempered woman who had ruined Rita’s life. There was only one thing Rita wanted now. Revenge. And everyone knew that revenge was a dish best served cold.

That night a meeting was called, chaired by Ricky from recycling. He even had a clip board. Hundreds of rats were there to hear what he had to say, while Rita sat quietly beside him with a tissue balled tightly into her fist. A plan was afoot. Pritchard was to get her comeuppance. But were the rats in? ‘Hell yes!’ they shouted, hats and snacks thrown into the like confetti. The excitement grew, and after the meeting, they divided into groups according to their wings and floors. Bigger departments like the laundry would help with logistics and coordination. If the drugs dog from rehab was to be believed and trusted, they had exactly two weeks to go before the cell spin.

Meanwhile, prison life went on. Paula spent hours in cell 3.47 taking orders and singing along to Last Christmas which played on repeat on the radio which she had recently acquired as a replacement by breaking Kelly Gorman’s little finger during a game of pool. She could see her breath when she sang, that’s how cold it was in here. The kettle was on the boil constantly, and for once her hot chocolate and coffee supplies were not being pilfered every night. Odd, but good. If the Christmas trade was as good as anticipated, she reckoned she’d have enough cash to bribe Officer Willis into putting her in for a transfer to a modern prison where she could learn to play tennis and grow old gracefully.

Every night the tunnels were full of rat traffic. Never before had such an effort been orchestrated to help one of their own. Rita was beyond grateful but didn’t know if they could pull it off. But for Roly, she was prepared to try. The day of the cell spin finally arrived. The day when every cell at The Gate was searched, with absolutely no prior warning given to the prisoners who were made to stand on the landing while specialist teams went through their cells with a fine toothcomb. The one thing the rats didn’t know was the time of the spin. But Reece from The Block said not to worry. Everything was in place and Ricky was all over it like a rat rash.

Rita spent the whole day watching Pritchard. It didn’t take her long to realise that Pritchard must have been tipped off about the cell spin, because over the course of the morning all manner of drugs, mobile phones and weapons were dispatched out of her cell by officers who were on Pritchard’s pay role. No matter. The rats had a plan.

At two pm precisely, the alarm was sounded and an announcement over the tannoys boomed out, telling all inmates to exit their cells immediately. Rita’s whiskers twitched in anticipation as the rats behind her began to file into cell 3.47, sim cards under their arms. They dumped the sim cards and left, and a steady stream of rats continued to do the same. Rita had no idea how many sim cards were now piled up under Pritchard’s bed. Hundreds maybe? Collected from every mattress, nook and hiding place imaginable that the inmates at The Gate could dream up, over two weeks the rat teams had found them, stored them in the tunnels and brought them here today.

Pritchard’s face when the officer swept the sim cards out from under the bed was an absolute picture. She went from aghast to betrayed, shocked to furious in less than half a second. But ultimately, she was confused. And angry. Very angry. Two officers took her by the arms and hauled her down to The Block while she screamed her innocence and how she was being stitched up. Rita couldn’t have hoped for more. How the kingpin had fallen.

That night cell 3.47 was theirs alone, and everyone wanted to come to the party. There were rats in the bed, rats on the TV tuning into channels, rats in the drawers of Pritchard’s clothes, and rats hanging from the shelves and bars on the window. Rachel from kitchens had even managed to get four whole boxes of cornflakes up from the basement. They ate and partied until the early hours. Rita had cried as she made a thank you speech, and her heart felt like it might burst. In the morning it was Christmas Day, and this time there was no need to hide at daybreak. Pritchard would be cellular confinement with no windows three floors down and would not be returning any time soon.

Someone turned the volume back up on the TV. ‘Look!’ cried Rowena. ‘It’s a rerun of the 1986 Eastenders Christmas Special!’ The rats were quiet. None of them had been alive on the day that over 30 million viewers had tuned in to watch Den handing Angie her divorce papers, but they had heard Pritchard ranting about it their whole lives. What a shame, thought Rita, that Pritchard was going to miss this episode yet again. That temper of hers really had cost her dearly.

Prison News

Keeping you behind bars, but not in the dark

HMP Stocken Gate is to undergo a full security review after an inmate, who will remain nameless for legal reasons, was found with 347 sim cards in her cell. The CPS say that the occupier of cell 3.47 was taunting the authorities by collecting this precise number of sim cards and making no attempt to conceal them. She is accused of running the biggest bootlegging operation ever seen in British prison history and faces a 61-count indictment. She has been transferred to the maximum-security facility in Market Deeping where she will remain in solitary confinement until her trial.