The rats showed up slowly. One in the cellar. A couple in the granary. The town figured it would sort itself out.
By spring they were everywhere. In the walls, in the beds. They ate the grain, the cheese, the candles. People tiptoed through their own town.
The mayor held a meeting. Round guy, red face. "We need a solution." That's what people say when they don't have one.
Next day the Piper walked in. Tall, thin, weird coat. Plain wooden pipe.
"Thousand guilders and I'll fix your rat problem."
A lot of money. But the rats had already cost more.
"Deal."
He played. The tune didn't work like regular music. It skipped your ears and went somewhere deeper.
Every rat in town came out. Way more than anyone realized. He walked through town, out to the river. The rats followed him in. Water closed over them. Done.
He put the pipe away.
"Thousand guilders."
The mayor didn't pay.
Rats were gone. Emergency over. The math changes when the emergency's over.
"Fifty. You played a pipe. Took twenty minutes."
"It took twenty minutes because I'm good at it. A thousand."
"Fifty."
The Piper looked at him. "You'll pay. Or you'll wish you had."
He left. The mayor laughed.
He came back on a Sunday. Adults at church. Kids in the streets.
Different tune. Bright, happy. The sound of summer and no school and everything being okay.
The kids followed. Laughing, running. Out of town, toward the mountain.
A door opened in the rock. The kids walked through. It closed.
A hundred and thirty kids. One was left behind — a boy with a bad leg who couldn't keep up.
The parents dug at the mountain until their hands bled. They offered way more than a thousand guilders. That's how it always goes. You won't pay the fair price to stop it, but you'll pay anything to undo it.
They never found the kids.
There's a street in Hamelin where no music gets played. Not a law. Just nobody does.
Pay what you owe.
Goodnight.