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Authors: C. Alexander London

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BOOK: The Wild Ones
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Chapte
r Seven

TRAPPED RAT

KIT
dove into the dark hole, squeezing his body into the narrow tunnel. Though the opening was small, he popped out into a vast underground cavern. He rolled across a smooth floor, before knocking into a pile of crumbling bricks. He snatched his hat from the ground, beat the dust and dirt from it, and put it back on his head, low over his eyes while he searched the darkness for the sneaky white rat.

Creatures of all types had set up their apartments in the cavern's nooks and crannies. Two old squirrels crouched beneath an oil lamp playing cards, while a third slept under a raggedy blanket of weeds. Across from them
a red fox mom was curled up with her pups, their tiny red heads poking from beneath her tail. There were other squirrels watching from high holes, guarding their nuts against intruders. In small open-front shops, possums and moles argued over the price of scraps of cloth or bits of food. There was even—Kit shuddered at the sight—a shop where a pock-faced frog in a fur-trimmed coat sold artificial claws, razor sharp, made of discarded metal scavenged from above.

“Hey, you!” the frog called out from his shop door. “Swell jacket you got on there.”

Kit ignored him.

The rat was nowhere to be seen. Kit didn't dare ask anyone he saw for help. He'd learned fast what most folks down there learned young, the first rule of Ankle Snap Alley: Don't trust anybody, not even your own kind.

“I said you there! Stripy tail!” the frog called out again. “You're not from around here, are you?”

Kit kept ignoring him.

“You'll need some defense more than tooth and claw, I think,” the frog said.

Kit didn't like this frog's banter and wanted to be left alone to find the rat. He figured there was one sure way to get rid of a pesky shopkeep. “I don't have any money,” he said.

That was enough for the frog, who flicked his tongue
once, turned around, and hopped back into his store to wait for a better customer to come along.

“Psst.” A whisper turned his head. He looked around and saw nothing. “Psst,” he heard again.

Kit looked down and saw a tiny gray church mouse, wearing white robes and holding the pamphlets just like all the other church mice he'd seen. “You there,” the church mouse said. “You lost?”

“I'm not lost,” Kit said.

“No shame in being lost,” the mouse replied. “We all get lost sometimes.”

The mouse held out a pamphlet, which Kit took from him, just to be polite. On the cover was a picture of a room in a house, where two creatures sat at a table across from each other. One was a raccoon in a long and glorious coat covered with colorful feathers and cloth and beads. The other was a dog in a neat collar and a bloodred waistcoat. On the table in front of them sat a large bone, the bone of a creature much larger than either of the animals seated at the table. It was covered with tiny markings, and standing beside it was a mouse, dressed in robes just like the robes of the church mouse in front of Kit. The mouse in the drawing held a mouse-sized writing quill, and he had a mouse-sized tub of ink beside him. At the same window to the room, all kinds of creatures—furred and feathered, Flealess and Wild alike—peered in.

When Kit opened the small pamphlet, he saw the same picture, but this time the raccoon and the dog were holding their paws up in the A sign, the raccoon's sign of mutual respect, smiling, while the mouse beamed proudly at the bone in front of him, signed with the paw print of each animal. Outside the window, it looked as if a great party had erupted. Cats danced with dogs, foxes danced with hens, mice and rats and birds all danced together, with mugs of cheese ale for all.

“Do you believe the Bone is real?” the mouse asked.

“Uh.” Kit had no idea what the Bone was supposed to be. He was about to ask, but the mouse talked over him without listening, as church mice so often did.

“We mice know the truth,” the little mouse said. “We were the scribes at the signing. Seven hundred and seven seasons ago, we saw when the promise of peace was made. Before the betrayal of Brutus. We mice carry the truth to all mousekind.”

“I'm not a mouse.” Kit tried to give him the pamphlet back, but the mouse didn't take it.

“We are all mice in the eyes of history,” the mouse said. “We are all of one claw if you scratch back far enough.
This
is why history must be remembered!
This
is what the mice believe. Only history will show us the way to the future!”

“Okay. Right. Um . . . I gotta go.” Kit scurried on, away
from the strange mouse and his strange pronouncements.

“Son of Azban!” the mouse called. “You must know the Bone is real! Only the Bone will bring us peace!”

Kit got as far from the crazy mouse as he could. Everyone talked so strangely in this place. Everyone in Ankle Snap Alley, Kit feared, was insane. He wondered if his uncle would be too; if he ever found him.

Suddenly, a loud snap echoed through the cavern. It was followed by a piercing shriek.

“Ow! Ow! Help! I'm caught up! Help!”

“What's that?” one of the old squirrels mumbled without glancing up from his hand of cards.

“Sounds like a rat in a trap,” the other answered.

“Too bad,” the first replied.

“That's the way it goes, eh?” The other sighed. “From howl to snap.”

“Howl to snap,” concurred the first.

Neither of them moved, even as the shouting continued.

“Help! Ouch! Someone help!”

The mother fox didn't look up from her young, nor did the frog shopkeeper come out to see the cause of all the shouting. Nobody paid any attention at all to the poor creature in need. Kit's ears perked in the direction of the noise, and he followed the sounds around a bend in the wall, which led to another cavern and another tunnel, leading out again toward the light.

His mother had always taught him that the only thing worse than a liar and a cheat was a fella that heard another in need and did nothing at all to help. He wished she were here to help
him.
He
was in need after all. Lost and robbed and on his own in a place filled with liars and cheats and lunatics.

But his troubles were no excuse.

He made his way carefully, following his ears until he found a small chamber to the left of yet another tunnel entrance. There was an abandoned shop with a faded sign that read:

GRU
MPKIN'S PAW & PAWN
WE BUY & SELL.

MANAGER HAS
NO KEY TO
SEED & NU
T SAFE.

It looked like the place had been torn apart, completely trashed by something big and angry. The counter was tipped over and broken. All the shelves were knocked to the floor. Even the sign had a big claw mark all across it. It took Kit a moment to recognize the claw marks as words:

CLOSED BY THE FLEALESS

On the floor, behind the broken counter, Kit saw the base of a trap, a big metal contraption with a flat pressure
plate and spring that snapped a bar shut when someone stepped on it.

“Help! Help!” the creature in the trap cried out.

Kit came around the counter and saw that the trap had snapped shut on the tail of the white rat, who was still holding Kit's seed pouch and crying out in pain. The rat was young, about his age, and she had on an oily brown vest with some kind of insignia on it. The insignia was so threadbare and faded that it blended into the vest almost completely. The vest itself looked like it had never been clean.

“Ouch! This really hurts! Somebody help!” the rat shouted as she squirmed in the trap.

When she saw Kit, she stopped howling and looked up at him, her tone changing instantly. She stopped shouting.

“Oh, good, it's you,” she said. “Get me out of this thing. It smarts like you wouldn't believe.”

Chapter Eight

HOWL TO SNAP

YOU
picked my pocket!” Kit yelled at the trapped rat. “You stole all my money!”

“It was for your own good,” she said. She tried to wiggle a little, but Kit saw her wince in pain. She tried to hide the grimace on her face, but she was hurting.

“Hold on.” Kit sighed. “Stop wiggling.”

He bent down beside the spring on the trap and studied it. The black mask of fur around his eyes crinkled as he thought. He looked it over for weak spots and then, using both his hands, he bent back one piece and unwound another part. While he did that, he stretched out one foot and used his claw to pick up a bit of dirt. He stuffed the
dirt into the works of the spring, which pushed the coils apart, just enough to let the rat slide her tail out.

In a flash, she was free and standing back on her rear legs, eyeing Kit warily.

“Why'd you go and do that?” she demanded.

“Do what?” he asked.

“Get me out of that trap so quick?”

“You said you needed help.” Kit shrugged. “So I helped.”

“But you didn't get your pouch back first.” She held up Kit's seed pouch. “You had me caught but good, and you let me go before getting what you was after.”

“So?” said Kit. “I still want my pouch back. You stole it.”

“I know I stole it, tick-brain!” The rat shook her head. “Point was you could've gotten it back from me while I was stuck!”

“That wouldn't have been right,” Kit told her. “Just 'cause you're a two-bit crook and a cheat doesn't mean I have to be.”

The rat sighed and shook her head. “You won't last long here in Ankle Snap with that attitude.” She weighed the pouch in her hand. “Heavy. What you got in here?”

“That's my own business,” said Kit.

“Seems to me that your business is in the palm of my paw.” She tossed the little bag up and down. Kit imagined the Footprint of Azban jostling inside, cracking. His face
tightened. “Oh, lighten up, big guy. You'll give your fleas a heart attack.”

She tossed him the bag and rolled her eyes, watching as he stuffed it into the front pocket of his jacket. “Put it inside your jacket,” she said. “Harder to snatch.”

“That's where it was,” he said.

“Harder for anyone but
me
to snatch,” she clarified.

Kit scowled, but did like she suggested.

“I'm no crook, by the way,” the rat called out. “My name's Eeni. And you are?”

“I'm Kit.” He stopped and turned back around to face her. “And where I come from, if you pick somebody's pocket, that makes you a crook.”

“I was always gonna give it back to you. I told you I stole it for your own good.”

“My own good? How's that?”

“You had to get away from them Blacktail brothers. Bad news they are. Getting you to chase me seemed the best way. You were about a breath and a half away from getting rabbit-rolled.”

“Rabbit-rolled?” Kit wondered.

“Nailed to the wall by your ears by one brother while the other robs you blind. If you struggle, the nails stretch your ears out like a rabbit's.”

“That's awful. They seemed so nice.”

“Folks in Ankle Snap Alley always
seem
nice,” she
said. “But half of them are liars and half of them are pickpockets and the last half of them's both.”

“Three halves? That doesn't add up honest.”

“Ankle Snap Alley's the kind of place where things don't add up honest. They never have.”

Kit frowned.

“So where'd you learn to open traps like that?” Eeni asked him.

He shrugged. “Back home.”

“You from the Big Sky?” Eeni asked.

“Yeah,” said Kit.

“Why'd you leave swell turf like that for here?” Eeni wondered. “Slivered Sky and the gritty old Ankle Snap.”

“I've come to find my uncle,” said Kit.

“Find him? He lost?”

“I don't know. I've never met him. He's my mother's brother. My ma gave me his address on a piece of bark, and told me to find him . . . but . . .”

“But you lost that piece of bark to the Blacktail brothers?”

Kit nodded.

“You don't remember what she wrote?”

Kit shook his head. He felt tears pressing on the back of his eyes.

“Well, don't worry about that,” said Eeni. “You know
this uncle's name? We can't very well go asking around for any old uncle.”

“His name's Rik,” he said.

“Just Rik? That ain't much to go on. Maybe it's best you head back home.”

“I can't do that,” Kit said firmly. “You gonna help me?”

“You helped me when you didn't have to,” said Eeni. “And a rat always returns a favor, so, yeah, I'll help you. Howl to snap.”

“‘Howl to snap'? What is that?” asked Kit. “I heard some other folks saying it.”

“Howl to snap?” The rat brought her tail around and sucked on the tip where it was bruised. She leaned back against the wall. Rats felt best when they were leaning against walls. “It's just a thing we say around here. You know, you're born under this sky howling, and most often as not, you go out with the snap of a trap. Same's true for everyone. But what you do between that howl and that snap, well, that's what matters. Every lie you tell or kindness you create. The stuff you do from howl to snap makes you who you are. Get it?”

“I get it,” said Kit. “Thanks.”

She shrugged. “Don't let it ever be said I'm not a rat who keeps her word.”

“Just one who picks pockets.” Kit smirked.

“When necessary. So, this uncle of yours? Anything else you know about him? How's he make his nuts? He a seed swiper? Paper tickler? Plain old robbing raccoon?”

“No!” said Kit. “He's not a criminal at all! My uncle's like my parents. He's a historian.”


An
historian,” Eeni corrected him. “And that's even worse. History's a dangerous business around these parts.” She pointed up at the scratched sign to the old Paw & Pawn. “The hedgehog who ran this place had an interest in history. He sold all kinds of historical artifacts to all kinds of folks and then he refused to pay the Rabid Rascals for protection. Said history gave him a right to be here and he wasn't gonna pay 'em for a right that was his by birth. Without the Rascals protecting him, the Flealess shut him down, kidnapped his woodpecker assistant too. Better your uncle were a paper tickler than an historian. They live longer.”

“What is a paper tickler?”

“Don't you learn anything out in the Big Sky? Paper tickler's a card cheat. They tickle the paper cards to make 'em jump.”

“Oh . . . right.” Kit thought about his uncle. If he was also in danger, then Kit had better find him fast. He couldn't stand here in an abandoned shop learning new lingo all night. “So, where do we look for him?”

“Normally, I'd say we just ask the Blacktail brothers, because they don't miss a trick around here, but we can't
go back to them. My guess is they're still snarling mad and best avoided.”

“Why should they be mad?
They're
the ones who cheated
me.

“But
you're
the one who let himself get cheated,” Eeni said. “Better be more careful in the future.”

“Isn't anybody down here honest?” Kit wondered.

“Sure.” Eeni patted Kit on the back. “You are!”

Kit frowned.

“Listen, Kit,” she told him. “Honest fellas around here learn quick to keep quiet. Many an honest fella has disappeared into the sewers for talking too much. Everybody who comes here's got a secret. They're either running from someplace or running to someplace or stuck right in this alley with no place else to go. This is home for folks who ain't got a home anyplace else. The Flealess in those buildings all around, they want to get rid of all of us and take the alley for themselves. They terrorize us every chance they get. So the Rabid Rascals help out . . . for a price. Most of them are runaway house pets themselves, and the ones that ain't—the Blacktail brothers and the like—well, they're clever and mean and dangerous too. Folks pay the Rascals for protection, and the Rascals keep the Flealess away. Folks who don't pay, or who make the Rascals mad, well . . .” She gestured at the torn-up shop around them. “Bad things happen to 'em.”

“Why are you telling me all this?”

Eeni picked at the frayed seal on her vest. “Just to tell you that folks here ain't all liars; they're just . . . circumspect.”

“Circum-what?”

“Spect. Circumspect,” Eeni told him. “Means that they don't take risks when they don't have to.”

“So you aren't like other folks down here, then?” said Kit. “Taking a risk to help me out. You aren't so
circumspect
at all.”

“Me?” Eeni shrugged. “I'm just a sucker for an honest fella. Howl to snap.”

“Howl to snap,” Kit repeated, but he felt, of a sudden, circumspect himself, even as he followed Eeni up into the moonlight. “If we can't ask the Blacktail brothers about Uncle Rik, who are we going to ask?”

Eeni called back over her shoulder as she made her way from the small shop. “Why, we're going to ask the Brood, of course!”

BOOK: The Wild Ones
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