The Christmas Rat

NY: Scholastic, 2000. 1st Edition Thus. Paperback. Near Fine-Collectible. NINTH PRINTING. 5.25"x7.75" 135 numbered pages. Spine straight, binding tight, pages clean w/soft tone. Not x-library, unclipped, & unmarked. Secure ship w/track #. Eric's Christmas vacation is not turning out as he expected. With his friends away, his parents working extra hours, and the city penned in by a blizzard, boring is the only way to describe it. But when he opens his apartment door to an exterminator, all his boredom gets blown away. Anje Gabriel, a pale-haired, black-jacketed, ex-military man, is an exterminator extraordinaire. Armed with smoke bombs and roach powders, he also carries a special weapon -- a crossbow with metal-tipped arrows that will annihilate any creature in their path. Anje's number one target? Rats. Eric is at first enticed by Anje into engaging in a war against a rat that has taken refuge in his building's basement. But as he grows to see the rat as a living thing and not just a faceless enemy, he wages a greater war to save the rat -- and himself. Set against the glowing backdrop of Christmas imaginings, this spooky, suspenseful tale will hold readers captive from beginning to end.