The Wild Ones (6 page)

RETIREMENT FUND

BASIL'
S
coils wrapped themselves around Kit and squeezed. The snake's mouth opened wider than Kit's whole head, and his breath smelled like rodent bones and cheese ale.

Kit would not be Basil's first meal of the day.

“Uncle Rik! Help!” Kit screamed.

Eeni punched at Basil's scaly side.

“How dare you come into my home to eat my nephew,” Uncle Rik yelled, rather unhelpfully.

Kit realized if he was going to get saved, he was going
to have to save himself. He couldn't wriggle free, and he couldn't pry himself free. Although he had always been good at using his hands to get out of traps, they wouldn't help this time. He'd have to use his wits instead.

“Uncle! Please!” he pleaded in his most desperate voice. “Just give them your secret stash of seeds.”

“What?” Rik looked puzzled.

“Your life savings!” Kit tried to wink at his uncle without anyone else seeing. “Your reTIREment fund?”

“My—wha—?” Uncle Rik began, then it dawned on him. “Oh . . . oh no . . . Kit, that's worth far too much.”

Flynn raised an eyebrow. Shane cocked his head to the side. Even Basil slowed his squeezing.

Uncle Rik played it up now. “I'm sorry, kiddo, you're a real pal of the paw and all that, but I've only just met you. I've spent my whole life collecting my secret seed savings. I fear I'll miss them far more than I'll miss a nephew. Apologies.”

“But . . . Uncle!”

“No, no, no. Sorry, Kit. Squeeze on, Basil.” Uncle Rik waved his paw in the air. “Just eat my nephew quickly and then we're even.”

“Wait a moment, Basil,” Flynn instructed the snake. “I'd like to hear more about this retirement fund.”

“I won't say a word about it.” Uncle Rik crossed his arms. “Those are my seeds and nuts and scraps and scroungings, and I won't share with anyone.”

“Tell me, Kit.” Shane smiled. “Would you like
not
to be eaten?”

Kit couldn't talk anymore because the snake's squeezing was too tight, but he nodded.

“Do you know where your uncle keeps his secret wealth?” Flynn asked.

Kit nodded again.

“No, Kit, please don't tell them!” Uncle Rik cried out, then pretended to faint onto his sofa, which Kit thought was a bit much, but the Blacktail brothers didn't seem to notice the bad performance. They were thinking about robbing secret riches now and had no room in their raccoon brains for anything else.

Basil loosened his grip and Kit took a big breath. He wiggled himself higher up on the snake's back so he could look down on the Blacktail brothers.

“Well? Where issss the loot?” Basil demanded.

“There's a big tire outside,” said Kit. “He hides it there.”

“Outside?” Shane looked doubtful.

“Of course,” said Kit. “That's the safest place. You hear about houses getting robbed all the time, and if he kept all his seeds here, they'd get robbed too. But you never hear about someone's tire getting robbed. No one robs a tire.”

“It's true,” added Eeni. “I've never heard about a tire robbery.”

“You keep quiet,” Flynn told her. “In fact, why don't
you
go check it out for us. That way, if it's a trick, you'll be the one who gets tricked.”

Eeni nodded and moved for the door, brushing past Kit with a reassuring squeeze of his paw. The others followed her outside—except Uncle Rik, who was enjoying his role, pretending to have fainted.

The Blacktail brothers, with Kit, Basil, and Eeni, stood around the tire outside. A passing squirrel looked away from them, while two news finches pretended not to watch from a high branch. Their little heads tilted with anticipation of a good story to sing about. Windows in the Gnarly Oak Apartments slammed shut so that the eyes of young bunnies, foxes, rats, and mice wouldn't see the ugly scene about to unfold below.

Kit couldn't believe that a whole crowded neighborhood could see the trouble he was in, yet no one moved to help.

But everyone in Ankle Snap Alley knew that creatures who went around witnessing things had a way of vanishing into the sewers or slipping onto the train tracks. Better to see nothing, hear nothing, know nothing, and do nothing. Safer that way. Kit understood the word
circumspect
now for real, and he didn't like it. He was certain if he ever saw another creature in desperate straits like he was in, he wouldn't be at all circumspect. He'd help.

“Get in there!” Shane ordered Eeni.

The white rat sighed and scrambled up the side of the tire, then glanced back at Kit, who tried to warn her with his eyes to be careful. She winked, then vanished inside the tire.

“Wow!” she called out. “There's too much in here to carry!”

“Prove it!” Flynn called out.

A pouch came flying from inside the tire and landed right in front of the raccoons. It was bursting with seeds and nuts. Kit recognized it as his own seed pouch . . . Eeni had swiped it again when she'd brushed past him! How could she risk the Footprint of Azban like this?

Kit tried not to let the surprise or panic show on his face, but he needn't have worried. The Blacktail brothers weren't looking at him. They smiled at each other, and both bent down to pick up the pouch at the same time. Their foreheads knocked together.

“Ouch,” barked Flynn.

“Hey,” barked Shane. “I'll take this pouch, you take the next one.”

“Why don't I take this little thing,” said Flynn. “I'm sure there's a bigger one for you in there.”

“Oh, I couldn't take the bigger one from my own brother,” said Shane. “I'll take this little one, and you take the next.”

“Hey,” Basil interrupted them. “We ssssplit that by three. Not two. I want my share.”

“Of course, of course,” said Flynn. “Once we've seen what's what, we'll split it nice and evenly, three ways.”

Basil's eyes narrowed to suspicious slits. Flynn's and Shane's did too. In a flash, they all sprang for the tire, none of them trusting the other not to take as much as he could for himself. They all dove in, just as Eeni hopped out and hit the ground with a smile.

SNAP! SNAP! SNAP!

Three traps snapped shut inside the tire.

“Ow!” yelled Shane.

“Ow!” yelled Flynn.

“Sssssssss!” hissed Basil.

Kit made the A sign with his paws, and Eeni returned the gesture. “Nasty traps in there,” she said. “Easy to avoid if you're expecting them, though.”

“Too bad those three weren't expecting them, then?” Kit replied, bending to pick up his seed pouch from the ground. Eeni handed him the stone with the footprint on it. She'd taken it out before throwing the pouch to the crooks.

“I didn't want to risk it falling into the wrong paws,” she said with a smile.

“You don't miss a trick, do you?” asked Kit.

“Neither do you, huh, Kit?” said Eeni. “You're a sharp one.”

“Sharp enough to cut yourself,” said Uncle Rik, leaning on the doorframe of his apartment with a grin on his face and a paw resting in his pocket.

“You get us out of here, Riky Two Rings!” Shane yelled.

“You're a lousy, cheating sneak, Kit!” added Flynn.

“Ssssssss,” added Basil, whose head had been clamped in a metal trap and whose body wriggled and shook the whole tire violently. The back of his body poked out from the tube, thrashing wildly.

“So, what do we do with them?” Kit asked.

Uncle Rik looked up and down the alley, and wiped his paws on his robe. “Well, I think we should clean some of the garbage out of this alley!”

Together, the three of them heaved and hefted and levered and lifted the tire up, as the snake and the twin raccoon rascals hurled all manner of curses at them.

“We'll get you for this, you hairball-hacking traitors!”

“No one treats a Rabid Rascal this way!”

“Ssssssssss!”

“Ready?” said Uncle Rik with a laugh in his voice. “A one and a two and a three!”

With that, Kit, Eeni, and Rik sent the tire rolling down the length of Ankle Snap Alley. Moles and stoats and church mice dove from its path as it picked up speed, bouncing and spinning and hurling along. Even the mangy
dog in front of Larkanon's opened one eye to watch the truck tire streak past.

“Gahhhhhhhhhh!” screamed the three hoodlums trapped inside, as they smashed through the fence and flew clear over the train tracks and out of Ankle Snap Alley. A round of applause erupted from all the creatures on the street, furred and feathered alike. Even the big rooster in his barbershop clapped his wings, before returning to sweeping fur from the floor.

“Well, that's that sorted out.” Uncle Rik clapped his paws as if nothing at all remarkable had happened. “Say, why don't we go over to Ansel's bakery and get a bite to eat. He makes the best trash casserole beneath the Slivered Sky. I'm buying!”

Kit smiled and licked his lips. He was starving, and trash casserole was just what he needed after the single longest night of his young life.

“And while we're there, perhaps I can tell you more about this stone you've got,” Uncle Rik added in a whisper. “And how it could change everything.”

•••

As his uncle pulled the busted door into place as best he could and led Kit and Eeni back through the alley toward Possum Ansel's bakery, an orange cat watched from his favorite shadow between two buildings. Next to him, the miniature greyhound growled.

“That's the one?” the dog asked the cat.

“That's the one who got away,” the cat confirmed.

Titus pawed at the dirt. “You think he has the footprint.”

“I do,” said the cat.

“How do you know?” the dog growled.

“A little bird told me.” Sixclaw burped, and a single finch's feather fell from his mouth. “Before I ate him.”

“If that clue leads him to the Bone of Contention, we'll have a problem,” said the dog.

“So you want me to kill him?”

“Kill all three of them,” said the dog. “Just to be sure.”

“If the Bone is real, then don't the vermin have a right to Ankle Snap Alley?”

“That's why the Bone must
stay
buried,” said the dog. “Their time in Ankle Snap Alley is over, and I will see these vermin evicted. No crazy deal some great-great-great-great-granddog of mine made will stop me from getting rid of them.”

“Brutus was no granddog of yours,” said the cat, but Titus shot him a withering glance.

Sixclaw yawned. He didn't care much who he killed or why or what history had to say about it. Dogs loved territory and would do anything to claim it, but Sixclaw, like most cats, simply enjoyed the act of killing. The young raccoon's parents were a good start, but he should've
taken care of the young one himself, instead of leaving the hunting dogs to do it. There was, after all, nothing quite so satisfying to an outdoor cat as a young life cut short by his own claws.

He stretched his back and crept off into the dark, the tiny bell on his collar dinging as he disappeared.

MAKING BONES

KIT CASSEROLE

A
sign outside of P. Ansel's Sweet & Best-Tasting Baking Company advertised the night's specials:

Daily Trash Casserole

Canned tuna and apple core with chocolate sprinkles, beef-bone-and-ant puree in an orange-and-lettuce-juice reduction sauce. Potato chip crust.

Side of fried grubs or carrot stems (vegetarian option).

Kit's stomach grumbled as his uncle held the door for him. Inside, all manner of creatures had gathered to eat,
filling the tattered booths, perching on the stools along the brightly lit counter, and lining up from one end of the store to the other to ogle the pastries and treats in the overflowing cases (which were made from the windshields of People's cars).

Kit's eyes went wide at the stale-sourdough pudding, the lemon-peel honey brittle, the worm-and-bubble-gum-chew pies, and barrels and barrels of acorn candy. He'd never seen so many delicious scroungings.

“Three casseroles, Ansel,” Uncle Rik called out over the crowd, and the big possum behind the counter popped his head up, his red eyes gleaming. Then he froze, completely still, with a cup of sour-cream beet sorbet in his hand. He looked like a statue of a possum serving sour-cream beet sorbet.

“Look what you've done!” shouted a squirrel perched on a stool at the end of the counter. “You've made him play possum! It'll take forever to get our food now!”

“It's not my fault,” Uncle Rik objected as all the customers glared angrily at him. Possum Ansel was the most popular chef in the alley, and folks got impatient waiting for their turn to try his famous treats. “Hey, P, wake up!” Uncle Rik snapped his claws.

The possum shuddered and shook himself awake. All heads turned from Uncle Rik back to Ansel. His red eyes narrowed.

“You've got a lot of nerve coming here, Riky Two Rings,” Possum Ansel hissed, flexing his claws.

A big badger popped his long nose out from the kitchen in the back. He wore an apron over a striped shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his massive elbows. The big white stripe down the center of his face was speckled with chocolate frosting. “You want me to throw him to the street, Ansel?”

“Now, listen here, Ansel, there's no need for Otis to do that,” Uncle Rik spluttered. “I've got my nephew in from the Big Sky and his friend here, and we're just trying to get some dinner. I know you and I have had our disagreements in the past, but there's no need to resort to violence in front of the young'uns. Whatever I owe you, I swear I can pay soon. I'm just a little short on seeds right now, but if you'll wait—”

The badger stepped all the way from the kitchen, his body filling the door, menacing in the way only a badger in an apron can menace.

“Hi, Otis, old pal. You're looking well these days . . . ,” Uncle Rik simpered.

Otis cracked his knuckles.

“Listen, Ansel, I swear I'll pay for my dinner tonight,” Uncle Rik pleaded.

“Your money's no good here,” Possum Ansel told Uncle Rik. In a corner booth, a skinny pigeon cooed. The tension crackled like a squirrel gnawing through a power line.

“I . . . I'm just trying to . . .” Uncle Rik was at a loss for words.

“Because whatever you want is on the house!” the possum exclaimed, throwing his paws up and bursting out in an uproarious laugh. The big badger laughed too, and all the customers cheered and clapped and barked and squawked. “You gave those Blacktail goons what for, and for that, I thank you! They shake me down once a week and never pay for their food. Any enemy of theirs is a friend of mine. Sit, please. This is your nephew? Handsome lad! And his rodent friend? Sit! Make yourselves comfortable!”

Kit looked around for a place to sit, but all the booths were taken. Possum Ansel immediately jumped from behind the counter and shooed the skinny pigeon from his booth.

“Hey, I was sitting there!” the pigeon objected.

“You've been there an hour and had one cheese ale and half a cracker!” the possum scolded him. “These folks are heroes, and they're hungry for real food!”

“Sorry, Ned,” Uncle Rik apologized to the pigeon, even as he slid into the pigeon's seat.

“Sorry don't smooth my feathers,” the pigeon grumbled and strutted out of the store in a huff. Kit felt bad about taking the bird's table from him.

“Don't worry about Blue Neck Ned,” Uncle Rik told him. “He'll find some other place to perch. Always does.”

“I'll get cooking on those casseroles,” said Possum Ansel. “And you folks enjoy yourselves. Fresh acorn bread for the table?”

“Please,” said Kit. He loved acorn bread when his mom made it, and he was happy to taste one small reminder of home.

“Otis, darling, bring these fellows some fresh acorn bread,” Ansel called, and Otis lumbered back into the kitchen.

Once they were alone at the table, Uncle Rik leaned in close to Kit and Eeni. “I need to go talk to that badger for a minute,” he whispered. “You two eat up. Enjoy yourselves, and I'll be back soon, okay?”

“Okay,” said Kit, eagerly watching the kitchen door for the arrival of his snack and glad they might get some protection on their side. Strength ruled in Ankle Snap Alley, and Kit and Eeni had more brains to offer than brawn.

Uncle Rik scurried into the back room, leaving Eeni and Kit to themselves again.

“So . . .
that
was exciting,” said Eeni.

“That was terrifying,” said Kit.

“That's life here in Ankle Snap.” Eeni shrugged. “It's a wild place. You walk out the door, and you never know what'll happen next.”

“I don't know if I'll ever get used to it.”

“An animal can get used to anything,” Eeni told him.
“We're no house pets here. We adapt to the world; we don't expect the world to adapt to us.”

“I never thought about it like that before,” said Kit.

“See? Already thinking in new ways.” Eeni smirked. “This here alley is an education and a half!”

“I guess . . . but, don't you go to school too?”

Eeni shrugged. “My school's the mud and mystery of life beneath the Slivered Sky.”

“You mean, you don't go to, like, regular—?”

Eeni cut him off with a wave of her paw. “I don't want to talk about it,” she said.

“Sorry.” Kit blushed.

“Don't worry about it,” Eeni told him. “By the way . . . I'm real sorry about your parents.”

“Yeah.” Kit wiped his eye with his paw. “Like you said . . . we adapt. It's what wild animals do.”

Eeni nodded. “You're a quick learner, Kit.”

“I sort of have to be now that I'm an orphan,” he told her. “But I made my mother a promise, and if I can figure out what's so important about this clue, then I'll be able to—”

Just then, a loud clatter interrupted him, followed by crashing noise. He'd barely cocked his ears in the direction of the kitchen, when Uncle Rik came flying backward through the door and smashed into three heaping plates of piping-hot trash casserole. An instant
later, Otis came flying through the door and smashed into the pastry case, crushing all the liver cakes and marrow cookies into crumbs.

The customers gasped and cried out. Possum Ansel froze in place once more. Uncle Rik groaned on the ground, and Otis stood up from the wrecked case and flexed his fists. He charged back into the kitchen.

Faster than a hummingbird's wink, the badger came flying back out of the kitchen again just as Uncle Rik stood up again, and the big fellow landed flat on top of the dazed raccoon, smashing them both back down into the ruined pastry case. This time badger and raccoon were knocked out cold.

And then Kit heard the tinkling of a tiny bell.

Ding-ding-ding.

His blood froze in his veins. A large orange cat slipped into the dining room and licked the baking sugar from his front paw.

Sixclaw.

The cat glanced around the room and grinned. “Business is closed for the night,” the cat said. “Everyone out.”

The customers popped to their paws, feet, and claws and bolted through the front door. The possum played possum still; the badger and Uncle Rik lay side by side on the ground, and the cat fixed his yellow gaze on Kit and Eeni.

“You, Kit, I'd kindly ask to stick around,” the cat meowed, although his meow was about as cute and cuddly as a sack of rusted razor blades.

“You . . . you . . . ,” Kit stammered.

“Oh, Kit.” The cat chuckled. “It's a pleasure to meet you again. Or, should I say,
eat
you again. This is a restaurant after all, and I'd love some Kit casserole.”