BOSTON — Remy the chef lived happily ever after in Disney-Pixar's "Ratatouille."
The same, however, cannot be said for one particular long-tailed rodent whose body was devoured by a bird in the streets of the North End.
And it was all caught on camera.
Along upper Salem Street in Boston, video captured by British tourist Thomas Oldbury shows a hungry seagull swoop down to inspect a rat carcass lying in the middle of the road.
But this was no game of hide and squeek.
Instead of forgoing a meal the size of its thorax, the gull, sensing nearby competition – perhaps a rat pack of avian pi-rat-es – proceeded to wolf the entire thing down. This much to the utter disbelief of Oldbury and a friend as they witness all but a tail disappear into the bird's gullet.
"Oh my God, it just swallowed it whole," Oldbury is heard saying. "Ratatouille!"
Up to a parked car's roof the seagull flies where it's met by another bird, seemingly interested in what it's hiding in its throat.
"What is going on?" Oldbury asks. A woman imitates a barfing sound. "What is going on?" he asks again, awestruck.
But, as the saying goes, it ain't over till the rat lady sings.
As Oldbury and his counterpart approach the gull, commenting on the tail poking from its beak, the bird suddenly takes flight – 1-2 pounds heavier – southbound toward Old North Church.
A whole new meaning for a rat with wings.
Rat's all she wrote, folks.
