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Authors: C. Alexander London

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BOOK: The Wild Ones
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Chapter
Nine

THE BROOD

KIT
and Eeni popped from beneath a shed just down the narrow lane from where the Blacktail brothers were still at their work, luring in whatever gapers they could find. Their voices carried through the night.

Quick of eye and quick
of paw,
bet some se
eds and win 'em all 
. . .

Kit glanced nervously in their direction, but Eeni beckoned him with her little hand. “Don't mind about them for now.” She led Kit behind the chicken coop, where a brood of chickens were clucking their nightly gossip.

“I hear that church mouse minister takes a thimbleful of cheese ale daily,” one of the chickens clucked.

“I hear it's more like two thimbles!” another squawked.

The largest of all the chickens, a big lady sitting on a hearty number of eggs, sang a little tune to the others.
“A thimbl
e of ale, be it ched
dar or Swiss, has lu
red many a mouse dow
n to Gayle's Abyss.”
The others clucked wildly as the big lady continued.
“A rooster I knew wh
o took his ale blue.
The cheese was quit
e stinky, his breath
was quite too.”

“Another! Another!” the other chickens cried.

“What are we doing here?” Kit wondered.

Eeni rolled her eyes. “Everyone knows that if you want to know something, you ask the birds. You just got to be careful, because birds love to gossip, and they don't mind so much if what they say is true or not. Come on.”

As they approached, the big hen hushed her friends and peered down her spectacles at Eeni and Kit.

“Now, now, young'uns,” she called out. “What brings you to my fine roost on a night such as this?”

“We're looking for someone, Miss Costlecrunk,” Eeni replied.

“Oh, crack my shell, it's ‘Miss' now is it?!” The big chicken laughed. “I haven't been Miss Costlecrunk since before the Cat Wars. It's ‘Missus' to you, dear.”

“Yes, Missus,” said Eeni.

“Now who's your friend?” Her head turned to the side,
her neck bobbing back and forth with a jiggle. The side eye took in Kit from paw to claw. “Handsome lad.”

Kit felt a blush on his snout.

“Oh! Oh,” Mrs. Costlecrunk cried. “I'd no notion a raccoon could blush so!”

“Must be from the Big Sky,” another chicken chimed in. “Won't find a Blacktail brother blushing.”

“A blush is a sign of manners, I'd say,” Mrs. Costlecrunk replied. “We could use more blushing and less brazenness here in the Ankle Snap.” She addressed Kit directly. “You are most welcome here—?”

“Kit,” he told her.

“Kit. Most welcome.” A chorus of clucks echoed her. “But do watch yourself. This is no place to share your blushes with the moonlight. Add some swagger to your step, and you'll be all right.”

“I'll try to . . . uh . . . swagger,” said Kit.

“We're looking for his uncle,” Eeni explained. “Goes by the name Rik.” Eeni dropped her voice to a whisper.
“He's an historian
.”

“Oh, a nephew of Rik's, is it?” Mrs. Costlecrunk eyed Kit again, more circumspect this time. “Well.” The big hen sighed. “In that case . . .”

She held out a foot, stretching her leg down from her perch to hang in front of Kit's face. He cocked his head at the taloned bird foot. She snapped her chicken toes and
held her foot flat right in front of him. Kit didn't know what to do, so he slapped her claw with his black paw, trying to be friendly.

“What are you doing?!” Eeni marveled.

“I . . . uh . . . was giving her five?”

Eeni shook her head and whispered in his ear, “She wants a bribe.”

“What happened to helping people out who need help?” he whispered back.

“You're in Ankle Snap Alley,” she said. “No one does anything for free.”

Kit considered his options, then reached into his pocket and pulled a few seeds from his pouch without letting anyone see the stone inside. He dropped the seeds into Mrs. Costlecrunk's open foot. She clenched her toes around the seeds and withdrew them underneath her body once more, ruffling her feathers and preening a moment to regain her composure after the surprising and unwelcome “low five” from the young raccoon.

“Well,” she said at last. “You can find your uncle Rik—Riky Two Rings they call him—at the base of the Gnarly Oak Apartments . . . but I don't think you should.”

“Why not?” Kit asked. “I mean, Why not, Mrs. Costlecrunk, ma'am?”

The hen clucked. “He doesn't take well to visitors. Just two nights ago he chased off a flock of young news finches
looking for a story on the woodpecker, and everyone knows he's littered his garden with traps. A church mouse nearly lost his tail trying to shove a pamphlet in the door just this evening.”

“He'll want to see me,” said Kit.

“Oh, I've no doubt.” Mrs. Costlecrunk smirked. “But mind your tail all the same, boy. I'd hate to see a redder blush flood that fine fur of yours.”

“Thank you for your help, ladies.” Eeni curtsied to the hens. Kit wasn't sure of the right thing to do, so he curtsied too, which brought out a whole new round of laughter from the brood. Kit tried not to share his blushing with the moonlight again, but he felt his snout redden anyway.

“Now listen here, Kit.” The big hen adjusted her glasses on her beak. “Mind your step in the alley, lad. Not all traps are made of metal. Sometimes words can be the most dangerous snares of all.”

“Uh . . . okay . . . I'll remember that.” Kit wasn't sure he had any idea what the chicken was on about. Everyone in Ankle Snap Alley had such a funny way of talking. Words were another game to play, like shells-and-nuts, and wherever you thought the meaning was hid, they'd hid it somewhere else altogether. You couldn't win, but you had to play. Kit wondered if he'd ever learn to talk like them, and he wondered if this place would ever feel like home.

Chapter Ten

RIKY TWO RINGS

WHATEV
ER
you're selling, I'm not buying,” a deep voice boomed through the wooden door at the base of the Gnarly Oak Apartments. “Go away.”

Uncle Rik's apartment was tucked among the tangled roots of a massive oak tree that filled the north end of Ankle Snap Alley. The tree's canopy was taller than the People's buildings, stretching from rooftop to rooftop. The upper branches were filled with birds' nests and squirrel holes and the mixed and matched apartments of a hundred other creatures. Their laundry rustled in the
breeze between the leaves, drying slowly in the moonlight. The tree's base was a warren of cramped holes where rat, woodpecker, squirrel, and raccoon rented their turf from the birds above, payment in full at the start of each season.

There was trash strewn all around the base of the tree, garbage that People had tossed into the alley without a thought for the furred and feathered citizens living there. A giant truck tire rested in the dirt beside the door to Uncle Rik's apartment.

Uncle Rik's door was a round barrel top wedged into an arched root that rose up taller than Kit could stand. There was a sliding metal bar that opened just wide enough for the raccoon inside to peer out. His asphalt-black eyes raked over Kit and Eeni.

“I said go away!” he shouted through the door.

“But, Uncle Rik,” Kit pleaded, “it's your nephew, Kit! Your sister's son. I'm not selling anything. I'm family.”

“I've got no family,” Uncle Rik snapped, then he slid the metal bar shut with a thud.

“He doesn't want to see you, I guess,” Eeni said sadly.

Kit sucked in air through his pointy teeth. He had come a long way from the big skies of home. He'd nearly been robbed and rabbit-rolled by hoodlums. He'd met sketchy frogs and gossiping chickens and a strange mouse squeaking at him about a bone that could bring peace.

He was not going to be turned away by his own uncle.

Kit clenched his little black fists and pounded on the door until the slot opened again.

“You do
too
have a family,” Kit shouted. “
I'm
your family, and I've come all this way to find you, and I'm not going away until you let me in.”

“Go home, Kit,” the deep voice boomed. “Go back to your mom and dad under the Big Sky. The city is no place for the likes of you.”

“I can't go home,” Kit said, and now he felt the pressure of tears, his eyes like a beaver dam about to burst. “My home got destroyed. My mom and dad are dead.”

Eeni froze beside him, shocked. The eyes behind the slit of door widened and then dropped. A sad sigh slid through the crack. The door creaked as it swung open.

“Dead?” Uncle Rik, a gray-and-black raccoon, wearing a tattered plaid robe, stood upright in the doorway. He had a stubby snout, long whiskers, and big black-cherry eyes, suddenly filled with sad surprise. At his feet lay a book he must have dropped. Its cover was splayed open like the wings of a bat.

A History of the Turf Wars, Volume Seven

By Rev. H. Mus Musculus III

His uncle paid the fallen book no attention. “Both of them?”

Kit nodded. Now that he'd said the words out loud for the first time, it felt real, too real. He had pressed the thoughts to the back of his mind for the entire journey, but now he couldn't keep the memories away any longer. They swarmed him like fleas. They bit.

His parents were dead.

He burst into tears. The black fur around his eyes glistened as if it were studded with diamonds. The diamonds fell into the dirt, splattered, and his uncle, glancing up and down the alley, beckoned Kit and Eeni quickly inside.

“Watch the tire,” he said as they slipped past it. “Filled with traps.”

When they were inside, Uncle Rik triple-locked the door behind them. They came into a messy living room with a threadbare couch patched with the same fabric as Uncle Rik's robe. There were notes and books covering the broken chairs, strange artifacts and packs of mismatched playing cards on the shelves, several lamps burning on a low table, and countless half-empty mugs of bitter black acorn brew.

Uncle Rik moved some papers and bits of bark off a chair and helped Kit to sit down. He didn't pay any attention to Eeni, but she didn't mind. She wasn't paying any attention to herself either. She was staring at Kit, who had been carrying around his tragedy without a word all these hours.

“My sister?” Uncle Rik's voice creaked. His face sagged like a plastic bag caught in the branches of a tree. “And your dad?”

“Uh-huh.” Kit sniffled. “They sent me here . . . my ma . . . she said you could help . . . there's no one else . . .”

“What happened?” Uncle Rik asked. “I mean . . . uh . . . if you want to talk about it.”

Kit tried to pull himself together.

“I'll get you some . . . uh . . .” Uncle Rik didn't know what to offer. “I only have acorn brew or cheese ale?”

“We're too young for cheese ale,” Eeni told him.

“Right . . . acorn brew, then.”

“We're too young for that too,” she said.

“I'll bring some water.” He scurried from the room, half dazed.

“I'm so sorry, Kit,” Eeni said when they were alone. “I had no idea . . .”

Kit shook his head. “I didn't want to tell you. I didn't want to say it. I thought if I didn't say it out loud, it wouldn't be real. Like it was all a dream, this house, this alley. Even you.”

“I'm not a dream, Kit,” she said. “I'm your friend now, howl to snap.”

Kit wiped his nose with his paw. “Howl to snap.”

“Here's some water.” Uncle Rik handed him a big cup of water, so big he had to hold it with both hands. It was
pink and People-made. Kit had never drunk from a People's cup before, but he lifted it to his mouth and gulped. He hadn't even realized how thirsty he was.

While he drank, Eeni stood by his side, and his uncle dropped himself down onto the couch, sweeping his bathrobe out underneath him. He looked at Kit, his face folded in a frown. “Do you want to talk about it?” he asked.

Kit nodded. He didn't really want to talk about it, but he knew that Uncle Rik had lost his sister, and he had a right to know what had happened. He needed to know
what
had happened, if Kit was ever going to understand
why
it had happened.

Kit had learned something during his few hours in Ankle Snap Alley. Nobody did anything for free in this place. Everything cost something, and the price of Kit finding answers would be this: He would have to tell the story of what happened that day, he would have to say it out loud, and by saying it, he knew he would have to live it again in his mind.

Sometimes telling a story hurt worse than living it, but sometimes telling the stories that hurt the most was the only way to survive.

“I couldn't save them,” Kit began. “I tried, but I couldn't save them.”

Cha
pter Eleven

A DEBT IS DUE

THE
dogs pounced on her because that six-clawed cat made them. And that's why I came here.” Kit finished his story, leaving out nothing. The fur on his cheeks was damp, and he wiped his eyes with his tail.

Eeni and Uncle Rik looked at him quietly, pity scratched across both their faces. But Kit didn't want pity. He wanted to keep his promise to his mother, to grow up brave and quick of paw and to help Uncle Rik finish the work his parents had begun, just like she had told him to.

Uncle Rik appeared to understand. “Did you bring the Footprint?” he asked.

Kit pulled out his seed pouch and removed the stone with the small footprint on it. He passed it to Uncle Rik, whose eyes lit with awe.

“Well, shave my tail, they really found it!” Uncle Rik exclaimed. “A real Footprint of Azban.”

“Like, Azban, the First Raccoon?” Eeni asked, leaning forward to sniff at the stone with her tiny pink nose.

Uncle Rik nodded.

“You mean . . . when I stole the pouch . . . I stole . . . ?” Her whiskers sagged as her jaw hung open.

Kit nodded at her. “See why I chased you down?”

“That must be worth a fortune,” Eeni said. “There are collectors who'd pay anything you asked for a real footprint of one of the First Animals.”

“Oh, certainly there are,” said Uncle Rik.

“Is that why they killed my parents? Just to get rich?” Kit was disgusted.

“Oh no,” said Uncle Rik. “The dogs who attacked your home did not want the footprint to sell it. They wanted the footprint to destroy it.”

“Well, that makes as much sense as a platypus in a parachute.” Eeni shook her head. “Who'd go destroying something they could turn a profit on? Wouldn't catch folk from Ankle Snap Alley throwing away an easy score.”

“I fear the ones who did this are terribly close to Ankle
Snap Alley,” said Uncle Rik. “In fact, Ankle Snap Alley is at the center of this entirely. Kit, do you know what this footprint means?”

He remembered his mother saying this little stone could help stop a war, but he couldn't imagine how.

“It's a clue!” Uncle Rik exclaimed. “This is the clue your parents had been searching for their whole lives. This is the proof that Azban was real. And that Azban was here, long ago. This could lead us right to the Bone of Contention.”

“I heard a mouse talking about the Bone of Contention,” Kit said. “He tried to give me a pamphlet.”

“That's mice for you,” Eeni grumbled. “Always trying make everybody read all the time. As if reading ever helped anybody.” She crossed her arms and harrumphed.

Kit cocked his head at Eeni, wondering what she had against reading, but right now, he didn't want to get distracted. Right now, he wanted to know what the Bone of Contention was and why his mother believed it could stop a war. Why his parents had to die for it.

“The Bone is an ancient contract,” his uncle began, “between Azban and Brutus, the Duke of Dogs. Some say it never existed, but for those who believe in it, it gives the wild creatures all the—”

Just then, someone pounded on the front door so loud it made them jump.

“Who's that?” Kit whispered.

“Hush.” Uncle Rik tensed and bared his teeth. “I'm not expecting any visitors tonight.”

He slid the Footprint of Azban back into Kit's seed pouch and handed the pouch back to him, then his claws came out. He crept toward the door. Before Uncle Rik was even half the distance down the hall, the door bent, like it was being squeezed from the outside, and then burst, sending splinters of wood flying in all directions.

Kit and Eeni peeked out into the hall and saw, much to their dismay, the Blacktail brothers, Flynn and Shane, in the open doorway, and behind them, his body uncoiling, a massive python. It was the same brown-and-yellow python Kit had seen collecting payoffs from the small business owners. The python's rows of needle-sharp teeth glistened in the moonlight.

“Riky Two Ringssss,” the python hissed. “Sssso good to sssseee you thissss evening.”

“And there's Kit, our old friend,” said Shane Blacktail with an oil-slick smile.


Young
friend, you mean, brother,” Flynn Blacktail responded. “If Kit were older he'd know that you don't run out on a losing bet before you've paid. Not on your worst enemy and certainly not on your friends.”

“We'd like to stay friends,” Shane said. “And we'd like young Kit to grow old.”

“We certainly would,” agreed Flynn. “Can't be an old friend if you don't grow old at all.”

“What do you want with my nephew?” Uncle Rik demanded.

“Were we not clear?” said Shane.

“I thought we were terribly clear,” said Flynn.

“Riky Two Rings doesn't listen well,” said Shane.

“Perhaps he'll listen to Basil.” Flynn snapped his fingers. “Basil. Make him listen.”

Basil the python slid his large body past the two raccoons, filling the hallway, and slithered face-to-face with Kit's uncle. Kit and Eeni clutched each other nervously, but Uncle Rik didn't move a muscle. He locked eyes with the snake.

“We just want what's owed us,” Flynn called out from the other side of the python.

“Plus a fee for our troubles,” added Shane.

“Your troubles haven't started yet,” Uncle Rik warned, and his chest puffed up so his body seemed to fill the hallway, blocking the snake from slithering even one scale farther.

“Ssssuch a big talker,” Basil said. “Makessss me wanna ssssqueeze the talk right out of him.”

“If my nephew has a debt, I'll pay it,” said Uncle Rik. “But only if it's fairly owed. We both know that the Blacktail brothers never won a bet fair in their lives.”

“Slander!” Flynn Blacktail cried out.

“Lies!” Shane echoed him.

“Slander
and
lies!” Flynn concurred. He held a paw up to the sky and spoke in a singsongy voice. “I swear before Azban himself that our games are twice as honest as any under the Slivered Sky.”

“Twice of none is still none,” said Uncle Rik.

“We didn't invent math,” Shane replied. “Kit lost his bet and ran out on paying. That's a fact more true than any multiplication table.”

“I didn't lose,” Kit called out. “They cheated. I knew where the nut was, but they must've moved it with sleight of paw.”

“Ssssoundssss like your nephew doessssn't want to pay,” Basil said. His body coiled forward underneath him. He reared himself back to strike. “Sssssoundssss like ssssomeone'ssss got to pay or ssssomeone'ssss got to get hurt—”

“You leave them alone!” Eeni shouted. “We all know the Blacktail brothers cheated.”

The snake grinned at her. “Yum,” he said. “A ssssnack! Doessss anyone know if white ratssss are ssssaltier than gray onessss?”

“If your bets are so fair,” Uncle Rik proposed, “why not make one more?”

“Another bet?” Shane said.

“For what stakes?” Flynn said.

“Forgive what my nephew owes,” Uncle Rik said.

“And if you lose this bet?” asked Shane.

“I'll pay double,” said Uncle Rik.

“Tssss, tssss, tssss,” Basil broke out into a loud, sibilant snake laugh. He laughed so hard all his coils shook and his head hit the ceiling, showering the hall with dust and dirt. “You? Pay double? You owe ussss more than you've got already.”

“I'm good for it,” said Uncle Rik, but Kit noticed his uncle's snout blushing in the same way Kit's did. A family trait. It made the whole family bad at bluffing. Judging by the mess his house was in even before the snake busted down the door, Uncle Rik didn't have a lot of seeds or nuts to lose in a bet.

“You ssssaid you were ‘good for it' at the cockroach fightssss lasssst week,” said Basil. “And at the ssssparrow raccccessss before that. You're in deep to the bossss.”

“I . . . er . . .” Uncle Rik looked at his feet, embarrassed to be called out in front of his nephew. Uncle Rik was a gambler, and not one gifted with either skill or luck.

“We've learned better than to make bets with a historian,” said Flynn.

“An historian,” said Eeni.

“What?” said Flynn.

“An historian,”
Eeni corrected him. “It's the indefinite article preceding a vowel sound.”

“What?” said Flynn.

“You said
‘a' historian,
” said Eeni. “But it should've been ‘an' historian. I'm just saying, if you're gonna insult a fella, get your grammar right.”

“You're a smart one,” said Flynn.

“Too smart for a gutter rat,” said Shane.

“I know what I know.” Eeni folded her arms.

“Well, here's something for you to know, Eeni,” said Flynn. “How long does it take a python to eat a raccoon?”

“She doesn't know,” said Shane. “Basil. Show her. Eat Kit.”

BOOK: The Wild Ones
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