Notes For the Record

1. Plot Synopsis

Part I is Rob Stetin's story of his last case for the FBI, a manhunt for a pack of escaped rats with genius intelligences. The case undermines all of the agent's beliefs in himself and in those around him and with the death of the mouse Rob had been using to track the rats, Rob resigns to an early retirement as an experimental farmer.

Part II is about the confrontation between the rats and their creator, with the fate of the humanity in the balance and the Brisby family caught in the middle. Just to tell you up-front, I don't like the plot. Actually, I have far too many sub-plots going on as well. I've got good characters and maybe some good sub-plots, and that in my mind makes this story worth saving. Plus, it doesn't need Part I, which is probably unsalvageable.

Yes, this is my sequel to The Secret of NIMH. In a stroke of immense egoism, I leave Mrs. Brisby's fans waiting until the last chapter of Part I while an original character steals the show.

Note: My general practice is to use everything in the book that was not directly contradicted by the movie. One of the things I take is the year, 1968. This year has great symbolic value in American history, and there's nothing in the movie that has to take place in the early 1980's. Nevertheless, I have so far refrained from referring to the year in the story.

2. Major Characters

• Rob Stetin is the hero and narrator of Part I. He is 50 years old in 1960, the year the story starts. In 1938 he was a sensitive youth just out of veterinary school beginning his training in the FBI. He was the drummer for one of the better swing bands in Washington. During a grand ball they were playing for, the minds of everyone present were mysteriously joined. The intimate knowledge gained led many of the members into suicide and murder. Shortly afterward Rob was brought into the "Animal Control" program at the FBI, which was really designed to monitor the mad scientists employed by the government and the monsters they created. From 1946 to 1953 Stetin lead the program. In '53 he came up against Schultz, who had released a memory-destroying virus into the atmosphere to test its effects on humans. The write-up of this case caused the mad scientist program to be discontinued and Stetin finally achieved his lifelong goal of becoming a field agent. In 1960 the Animal Control program was reinstated to track down some intelligent rats.

  At the start of the book Rob is frustrated. He looks back wistfully at his seven years "fixing the problems of human beings." He sees himself in an adversarial role with everyone he knows. With Schultz the relationship is on the disgusted side, while with George it is on the level of playful sparring. Once he is convinced of her human intelligence, Rob attempts to treat Gina as a juvenile delinquent. Her self-sacrifice (and the knowledge that he could have prevented it) shatter him. When he finds George siding with Schultz, Rob sets out to find out the truth in his world. He comes to realize that his hated superior Chenture was really his biggest fan, that he was a lousy field agent, and that he wasted the best years of his life wanting to leave the job that was ideal for him. In disgust of his own ineptitude he resigns and moves out to the farm of Pr. Bantan, the man he had saved in his first case as a field agent. He joins Bantan in his work to create a revolution in farming techniques. By the end of Part I Rob sees himself as the perfect outsider, passively watching Schultz's final defeat in 1967 at the Fitzgibbon farm and contrasting that man with the field mouse he sees watching him....

  In Part II, Rob's student Paul Fitzgibbon gains ownership of the family farm after his parents inheirit a fortune and move out. Paul puts Rob in charge of converting the farm along the lines of the small one he was now running alone since Bantan moved to Europe. He spends his time brooding while the plot spins out behind his back. Six months later he learns Schultz' plans and is then thrust into the company of the Brisbys. Rob attains contact with them, realizing that he was the catalyst at the ball. I am unclear what his role will be in the final showdown, since it seems certain that Shultz will be controlling him for most of that time. For most of this section he is an emotional wreck anyway, the voices in his head from the ball finally driving him insane.

• Pr. Ernst Schultz is the villain. In the movie, we see little more than his hand but he is in fact the creator of the Rats of NIMH. Schultz is 40 in 1960. He was adopted as a young child by a famous female psychologist who already had three sons. Schultz spent his childhood trying to win his mother's love, but she always cared more for her natural children and was quite willing to use the most damaging weapons in her psychological arsenal to keep him from bothering her and her real sons. Schultz grew into a cold man who was an absolute master at manipulation. He became the student of a prominent scientist working for the government who had mapped the rat brain (using genetic techniques not to be known to civilian scientists for fifty years). When the scientist died during WWII, Schultz stole the data for himself. Studying it, Schultz became convinced that there was an area of the brain responsible for psychic powers that was normally inactive in human brains but slightly active in rat brains (allowing them to engage in a limited form of telepathy). Searching the literature, he found an African virus that selectively erased memories. Soon after beginning work with the virus he accidentally let it escape, bringing unwanted public attention to his work. A group soon attached itself to him, made up of the few people he could not control. They already had a use for the virus in its original state, and they agreed to fund him in secret to continue his research, intending in this way to enslave the earth once they attained the powers Schultz promised to deliver. Schultz's first attempt at a controlled effect was a vast expansion of the memory of a group of lab rats. This had the unexpected effect of increasing their intelligence. Schultz used the spendid distraction this caused to his treacherous funders to continue his true line of research on some lizards. On the night before he was ready to test his formula on a human, the rats escaped and came to his home to destroy his formula. Along the way they also destroyed both strains of virus.

  At the start of the book Schultz is emotional for one of the few times in his life. The only source of his virus are the brains of the escaped Rats of NIMH. Knowing that Stetin would be the only one capable of tracking them down, he arranges to have him assigned to the case. Schultz plays the game well with the agent, balancing Rob between hating him and fearing the Rats. At the same time he manages to corrupt George. His failure to control his other assistant Julie leads to her setting Gina free at the moment the Rats were cornered, leading to their escape. In the years that followed, Schultz improved Rob's devices for tracking the Rats while he re-created his work using an inferior breed of virus. On the verge of success his funders finally allow him to pursue his revenge, which is ruined when Rob proves the devices are worthless and that they have apparently destroyed a warren of ordinary rats.

  Dismissing the Rats from his mind, Schultz completes his formula and begins the take-over of Washington, D.C. The conspirator's plans are ruined by the defection of first George and then Schultz to the teachings of Elizabeth Brisby.

• George is Schultz' laboratory assistant. He is also one of the 400 who attended the fateful ball in 1938. This makes him the pivotal character in the novel, the Sullivan to Schultz's Jenner. George is 30 in 1960. His parents (who took him to the ball) divorced and abandoned him when he was 10. He grew up into a bitter man who wanted revenge on the world.

  George sits on the fence at the beginning of the book. He hates Rob for knowing his innermost secrets, and he hates Schultz for assigning him so many horrible things to do to the Rats. He befriends Gina and gives her the best of human literature to read, but he abandons her after feeling the lure of Schultz.

  In Part II, George is Schultz' closest friend, and Stetin's lone Washington contact. Eventually he has to make a decision between the two of them, and the deciding factor in his case is Justin.

• Gina, G9, was the only one of the Mice of NIMH to be captured alive. I've got my work cut out for me with her, since she never speaks and we never see inside her mind, yet we have to completely understand the reasons and emotions behind her last actions.
• Now for the Brisbys. Martin is the most well-adjusted at the beginning. He knew his father long enough to admire him as a person (unlike Timothy, who adores him as a god). He's energetic and also frequently hungry. The major event in the book for him is the discovery of Stetin. Martin dedicates himself to doing whatever it takes to prevent Stetin from stopping the Rats from carrying out his father's Plan.
• In contrast, Timothy is easily the most twisted of the Brisbys. He is the shortest character in a world where size is part of how you are treated. The moment he found out about the Rats he became jealous of them for taking so much of his father's limited time. But at the same time, learning that his father had a position of leadership with them, he desires to rule them. He has taught himself oratory and intends to use it to twist the Rats to his uses. In this he compares to Schultz, and like Schultz he is unable to think beyond the moment of his triumph to what he'd do with it, so he adopts Jenner's idea of turning against Humanity.
• I've assigned at least one pivital action to Teresa, but I really haven't characterized her yet. Teresa is in love with a younger member of the Simmons' family (the Brisbys' next door neighbors in summer), but his parents oppose this because she is the dominant member of the partnership.
• Cynthia is ignored most of the time by her siblings because of the age gap, and so she deliberately tries to be as unlike them as possible. It is for this reason that she is the only one of them to believe her mother's story about that one Moving Day. She is the closest of the children to her mother, and she sees much more to her than they do. She is also the closet intellectual of the family, her specialty being human behavior.
• Mrs. Brisby has had a hard life. As a child she tried to be herself in a sea of conformity and when everyone she knew was killed by the Fitzgibbons she unconsciously blamed her individuality. She was never able to form a strong bond to anyone else after that until she met Jonathan. She spent the marriage trying to be exactly the spouse he wanted and after his death she because the shadow-mother her children wanted. The events surrounding her youngest son's illness were a complete mystery to her, and the frequent subject of her dreams. She is in fact much more than she, or anyone else, thinks she is.
• When Mrs. Brisby used the Stone, a copy of her personality was locked inside. Eighteen months of solitude caused the copy's character to change greatly. "Elizabeth" is what Mrs. Brisby would have become if she had never had that childhood tragedy. She is eternally optimistic and resourceful, unafraid to use her sharp intelligence or the powers she finds in the Stone. Yet she feels herself inadequate and emotionally immature next to her true self and therefore gives up numerous opportunities to gain her freedom to her mission to make Mrs. Brisby into a happier person.
• The Jonathan Brisby that lives in the Stone is the mouse as he was before he met the future Mrs. Brisby. He is as good with words as Jenner was, and the fact that he can make them mean anything he wants didn't take its price on his soul until the Stone gave him the same power over people. He is now an observer, with an opinion on everything (including why he should keep quiet about his other life with his wife) but studiously avoids becoming involved in anything. Since he has no memories of meeting Elizabeth, the great mystery in his life is why he married (his most frequent line seems to be "So that's why I loved her.").
• The head of the Simmons family is the mother, Janice. Janice has known Elizabeth Brisby since they were both children. She continually bugs her family and everyone around her by her nosiness and the fact that she knows everything about everything. I use her as a sort of joke (much like the Shrew, who she takes the place of), in that she shows up at the most unexpected moments.
• There are of course lots of other characters (like Plummet with his spirit-visions), but these are the ones that will get the major attention.

3. Themes

It's a bit tricky to pull the themes out of this one. Communication was the originally the only major one. In Washington and especially around Schultz, communication is impossible, since everything is twisted to satisfy the hearer's view of the world. The survivors of the ball witnessed a communication so complete that identity was lost and afterwards everyone had to deal with all the evil urges of the 400 guests that they could keep secret from themselves. The animals have the perfect medium, in that they can communicate openly with each other. But when politics becomes involved (as it always does among the Rats) it becomes just as muddy as humans get it.

Another theme is organizations. The FBI is the only official organization, but I also have the survivors of the ball, Schultz' conspirators, the Rats of NIMH, and the Brisby, Fitzgibbon, Simmons, and Schultz families.

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