The Wild Ones (12 page)

PAMPHLETEERS

KIT
and Eeni helped Uncle Rik hang a new front door, shared a snail-and-Snickers sandwich from Ansel's bakery, and lay down, dejected, to get some rest.

Kit curled into a ball on Uncle Rik's sofa, and Eeni curled into a ball on his tail. Uncle Rik laid the newspaper quilt over them both.

“So . . . what now?” Kit asked. “They took the Bone.”

His uncle sighed. “I don't know, Kit. I just don't know.”

“Do you think they'll kick us out of the alley?”

Uncle Rik nodded. “I do. But I don't want you to worry about it. You've done enough worrying for a raccoon
your age. When the time comes, we'll find a new home somewhere, I promise. Now get some sleep.”

Just before closing the shade to block out the sun, Uncle Rik cleared his throat, getting both the young animals' attention one more time.

“I have to ask, Kit,” Uncle Rik said. “What kind of a deal did you make with the alligator to escape her sewer?”

“You really want to know?” Kit asked. Uncle Rik nodded. “I promised her a better snack than me . . . I promised her the six-clawed cat who killed my parents.”

Uncle Rik gasped. “I am not comfortable with this bargain.”

“I had to offer her
something,
or I never would have made it back to rescue you,” Kit explained.

“But this promise to her . . .” Uncle Rik shook his head. “It's too terrible to think about. You aren't a killer.”

“I'm not going to kill anybody,” Kit protested.

“You may not be the jaws snapping shut on that cat,” said Uncle Rik. “But if you put the cat on the menu, then you are responsible for it.”

Kit looked down at his paws. He blushed. “Well, it's not like I can just hand over the cat to Gayle anyway. I don't have a dinner bell to ring for a sewer alligator.”

“It's a good thing you don't,” said Uncle Rik. “There is no shame in feeling angry at what Sixclaw did to your family, but Wild Ones do not seek revenge. It is not our way.
The Flealess and their so-called civilization hold grudges and seek vengeance, but in the wild, we forgive and we forget. It is the only way to survive.”

“You want me to forget my parents?” Kit growled.

“No,” said Uncle Rik. “I want their memory to be a source of joy, not anger. Celebrate the time you had with them, not the way they were stolen from you. Choosing what our memories make us is the privilege we have as intelligent animals. If you want to spend your life remembering everyone who wrongs you, you can, but wouldn't you rather be a source of goodness in the world?”

Kit studied his paw and thought. He looked at Eeni. “It's kinda like what you say down here, isn't it? We're born with a howl and go out with a snap, but it's what we do in between that matters.”

“Howl to snap,” Eeni agreed.

“Howl to snap,” said Kit.

“Howl to snap,” said Uncle Rik.

Kit smiled and closed his eyes. He could feel Eeni's breath rising and falling where she rested on his tail. He was amazed at how quickly she fell asleep. He figured when you lived on the mean streets of Ankle Snap Alley, you learned to steal whatever sleep you could get as fast as you could get it.

Before he knew it, he was asleep too. He dreamed he saw his mother and father sitting around a table, playing
the shell-and-nut game with Azban, who was sweeping his winnings off the table into the mouth of an alligator.

“But I picked the right shell,” his mother cried out. “I win.”

“No such thing as winning in shells-and-nuts,” said Azban with a wink. “I should know. I invented the game.”

“But I found the nut. You can't just change the rules of a game as you go along.” His father stood from the table.

Azban turned to look at Kit, who was suddenly standing in front of the table, dressed like a warrior in armor. The old raccoon spoke not in one voice, but in a hundred voices, like the Rat King had. “Who says we are playing a game?”

BANG! BANG! BANG!

A loud knocking at the door dissolved the dream and snapped Kit awake. Eeni was already standing, pulling on her vest. Uncle Rik came scurrying down the hall.

“Who is it?” he shouted. “Who's knocking on my door in the middle of the day? Don't they know we're trying to sleep?”

On flinging the door open, Uncle Rik saw a crowd of church mice trembling in their white robes. The one in front had a black eye and a bruise on his head. The other church mice didn't look much better off.

“They . . . they . . . they just . . . ,” the mouse said.

“Say it, mouse!” Uncle Rik bellowed. “Why are you
knocking at my door at this unmousely hour? What's happened?”

The mouse thrust out his paw, holding a crudely printed pamphlet, which Uncle Rik took from him. “That cat . . . ,” the harried mouse said through trembling snout. “He burst into our print shop just as we were getting ready for bed. He took us by surprise . . . He threatened to eat Martyn if we didn't print this out and give it to everyone in the alley.”

Uncle Rik looked up and down the alley and saw all the groggy creatures roused from slumber, terrified mice at their doors handing them pamphlets. Enrique Gallo, the rooster, stood in the doorway to his barbershop with a sleeping mask hanging from his beak. His feathers ruffled as he read the pamphlet in his talon.

Ansel and Otis stood in the doorway to their home beside the bakery, wearing matching pajamas and matching frowns, reading what the mice had given them.

Even the news finches were silent as they read, and the Rabid Rascals had gone to wake the turtle with a pamphlet.

“We had no choice . . . ,” the mouse muttered. “The Flealess have Martyn. We had to do as they said. I'm sorry, Kit. We had to . . .”

Uncle Rik looked at the pamphlet in his paws. Eeni and Kit had come up behind him to read over his shoulder.

SWORN TESTIMONY OF MARTYN,
CHIEF SCRIBE OF CHURCH MICE

Made on this morning of the 707th Season

As Chief Scribe and Keeper of History, I, Martyn, Parish Scribe, swear before these witnesses that there is no such object as THE BONE OF CONTENTION, nor has there ever been a DEAL giving rights and privileges to the VERMIN of Ankle Snap Alley. All claims by one juvenile Raccoon calling himself “Kit” are false. We are SADDENED that one so young could be so CORRUPT, and we URGE all creatures of the alley to DISFAVOR, DISREGARD, AND DISOWN said raccoon and his family now and for all time.

Pack your things! Leave Ankle Snap Alley! The Seven Hundred Seven Seasons have ended, and this turf belongs to the FLEALESS at mid-sun today.

SAVE YOURSELVES and GO!

Sworn & Sealed,

Martyn H. Musculus, Church Mouse

Kit could feel all eyes in the alley turn to look in his direction. Every creature was sizing him up, trying to decide what to do with him. In a place full of liars, cheats, and thieves, he had just become the worst of the lot. To them he'd done something worse than cheat. He'd given them hope, then taken it away. That was about the most terrible thing one fellow could do to another.

“The Bone's real!” he protested. “It's that letter there that's fake!” He jabbed his paw at the pamphlet. “Martyn would never use the word
vermin
to describe us! Can't you see? They're just trying to scare you. The Flealess want you all to give up and leave the alley without a fight!” He pleaded with the mice. “Tell them the truth,” he begged. “Tell them this is a lie!”

“I'm so sorry,” the mouse whispered. “They have Martyn.” Then he shouted so all the alley could hear. “This is the truth. We don't have the Bone; we cannot prove otherwise!” He whispered again to Kit, “So sorry.”

But whispered apologies aren't worth the air they're whispered with, and the damage of the lie was done.

The alley turned on Kit.

HOME IS WHERE THE FIGHT IS

ALL
the animals stepped from their doorways and moved toward Uncle Rik's apartment. Their morning shadows stretched in Kit's direction, as if a hundred shadow claws already had him in their grasp. The largest shadow of all loomed toward him, and he saw it was cast by the rooster, Enrique, who strutted across the alley giving Kit a pitiless side-eye.

Eeni stepped in front of Kit in the doorway. She flashed him a frightened smile. “Howl to snap,” she said, then shouted at the big rooster and the pack of animals forming
behind him. “You leave Kit alone,” she shouted. “He's the only honest fellow I've ever met. I saw the Bone with my own eyes.”

“Then you're a liar too,” shouted a hedgehog in a dirty bowler hat. He'd already packed his belongings into a sack tied to the end of a stick. “Put them on the train tracks,” he yelled. “All liars tied to the tracks!”

The other alley animals surged forward behind Enrique the rooster.

“
You're
all liars,” yelled Enrique Gallo, raising his sharp talons in the air, and the crowd behind him fell silent. He leaned down to face Kit. “This paper says, however, that you lied about something very important to us, young one,” the rooster told him. “What do you say, Kit?”

Kit swallowed. His throat was dry and his voice cracked when he spoke. “I . . . uh . . .
didn't
?”

Enrique sighed. He whispered to Kit. “You have to do better than that, boy. These creatures are scared, and they need to believe in something. Prove it. Prove to us the Bone is real. The Flealess are coming.”

“I . . .” Kit looked around. Every animal in the alley hung on his words. The turtle popped his head from the Rabid Rascals' van. “They saw it! The Rascals saw it too.”

All eyes turned to the old turtle. He shook his head slowly. “Who can say what I saw?”

“What?!” Kit shouted. “What are you saying? You
did
see it. Your own snake is the one who stole it.”

“I'm sorry, kid,” the turtle said. Then he turned to the rest of the Wild Ones. “All who value your lives, pack up and go.”

“But you can't say that,” Eeni objected. “Everyone paid you for protection.”

“What do you want from me?” The turtle shrugged. “They got my snake. I can't protect this place without him.”

“Basil sided with the Flealess?” Ansel gasped.

“Oh, that's bad,” said Otis. “That's very bad.”

“Extra! Extra!” shouted one of the news finches. “Ankle Snap Is Over! Pack Your Nuts and Hit the Struts!”

“No, no,” Kit shouted. “We can't just give up.”

“We can't prove anything without that Bone,” the rooster said. “We gotta go.”

He turned away, parting the crowd as he clucked back toward his shop to pack his things.

“Who cares about the Bone?” Kit yelled, and the rooster stopped. The crowd looked back at him. “My parents died so I could find it, and now I'm saying so what? I can't prove I found it, and I can't prove it gives us the right to live here. So. What. No one, not even the Rat King, can really know what happened seven hundred seven seasons ago. But we can know what's happening now!

“The Flealess say this turf is theirs, that our time is
up. We say we have a right to be here. But if we flee at the first sign of trouble, if we turn on one another and lie to one another when our community is threatened, then what right do we have to claim anywhere as our turf? What right do we have to call anywhere home?

“A home isn't made by some deal. It isn't a promise made by history. A home is made by friends who trust one another.” He stepped out from behind Eeni, stood proudly in front of the crowd. “It's made by neighbors who share with one another, in good times and bad, even if they don't always get along.” He nodded to the Blacktail brothers, then turned to Uncle Rik. “And it's made by family.

“I've lost my home once already,” he told the crowd. “And I've lost my family too. But coming here to Ankle Snap Alley, I found a new home, a new family, and I'm not leaving it. So I don't care if some old Bone
says
this is my turf. This is my turf because I'm making it mine; I'm living my life here, and I'm growing up here. If the Flealess don't want to share it, then I'll fight for it here, because I'm a Wild One and my turf is wherever I say it is!”

“I'm with you, Kit,” Eeni declared.

The crowd stared back in silence.

Eeni frowned. “Hm, I really thought that would work. Like a cheer or something.”

“Well, I'm with you too, Kit,” said Uncle Rik. “You're family, and if you're staying, I'm staying.”

“Oh, shucks,” cried out Possum Ansel. “That Flealess pussycat broke my bakery. The least I can do is get some payback. We're with you too, Kit!”

“We are?” said Otis at his side.

“Yes,” said Ansel. “We are.”

Otis smiled. “Good. I owe that cat a punch in the jaw.”

“If there's a fight with the Flealess coming, then I'm in it too,” announced Rocks the dog, who usually slept in front of Larkanon's. He was awake now and standing tall on his four legs.

“Nicely done,” said Enrique Gallo, stretching out his rooster wings. “I'm staying too. I've got some fight left in me yet.”

“What about you?” Uncle Rik pointed his paw to the rusted old van. All eyes locked on the turtle, waiting for word from the most powerful animal in the alley, whether or not the Rabid Rascals would join the Wild Ones or flee like the Flealess wanted.

The old turtle cleared his throat. “I'd like to be more circumspect about this,” said the turtle. “It is no small thing to go into battle against powerful foes.”

Kit felt deflated. The Rabid Rascals were the toughest creatures in the alley. It'd be hard to fight off the Flealess without them.

“But,” said the turtle, “we will . . . join this fight.” He gave Kit a wink. “We're no leash lovers.”

“Boss!” Flynn Blacktail complained. “We really gonna risk our necks to help this raccoon after what he done to us?”

“He's a cheat and a liar!” Shane cried out.

“And a liar and a cheat!” Flynn added. Shane glared at him.

“And that is exactly why we'll help him,” the old turtle said. “Because he's a cheat and a liar, and he belongs here, with us in Ankle Snap Alley.” The turtle gave Kit a respectful nod. “From howl to snap.”

“From howl to snap,” Kit replied.

“Don't make any mistake,” Shane interjected. “When this is over, it all goes back to normal.”

“We still run this alley,” added Flynn.

“You mean
I
still run this alley,” the turtle corrected them both. The twin raccoons blushed for the first time anyone had ever seen.

Kit couldn't help but smile. All the animals around him were hungry-eyed cheats, flea-bitten criminals, and no-good, garbage-scrounging liars . . . but they were a community,
his
community.

“So, Kit,” Blue Neck Ned cooed, “you got a plan to fight the Flealess or just a lot of big speeches?”

Kit looked down at his paws, and from one end of the alley to the other. He looked at Eeni and at his uncle Rik
and at the big houses of the People where the Flealess lurked, and he thought about his parents and the pack of dogs that hunted them down and the cruel orange cat who ordered them to do it and then he nodded.

“I think I do,” he said. “We're going to need garbage. A whole lot of it too. The stinkier, the better.”

“Stinky garbage?” Eeni questioned him. “How's that gonna help us beat the Flealess?”

“They think we're all no-good dirty-rotten garbage-scrounging liars,” explained Kit. “So we're gonna show 'em just how dirty we can get.”