The Wild Ones (9 page)

“I want popcorn,”
it said, and the whole creature scurried deep into the crumbling walls, where Kit didn't dare to follow.

A RAT OF ACTION

KIT
had so many thoughts burning in his brain, he worried he'd singe his fur. How was he supposed to go into the sewers if there was a dangerous beast living down there? How was he supposed to find the one spot this footprint came from once he was down there? And, most perplexing, what was he going to say to Eeni when he saw her again?

In a way, she was an orphan just like him, but in the weirdest way possible. Her mother was alive but had chosen not to be her mother anymore. How does any creature keep going after something like that? Kit was in awe of
Eeni. She might be small, but she sure was strong in ways Kit couldn't begin to fathom.

As he thought about her, he heard the sudden and unmistakable sound of a trap snapping shut.

“Gah! Of all the—!” Eeni shouted.

Kit poked his head around the corner and saw the white rat sniffing at the wire mesh of a cage that had closed around her. Her little pink paws shook the door, annoyed more than frightened.

“You need some help?” Kit offered as gently as he could.

“No, I love being stuck in a stupid trap for the second time tonight,” she grumbled.

Kit felt around for the release lever. This kind of trap had a release for the People to open it and reset it after it'd been used. It was pretty easy from the outside. If only
this
had been the kind of trap that had snared his mother.

But the Rat King was right. The past was past and couldn't be undone.

He pulled the lever back with both his paws, and the door to the trap fell open. Eeni stepped out.

“Thanks, Kit.” Eeni squeezed his paw.

“So, I told the Rat King what you asked me to,” he said.

“I know,” Eeni replied. “I was listening.”

“A pickpocket and an eavesdropper?” Kit laughed. “You're a shady character, Eeni.”

She smiled. “Terribly disreputable.”

“So . . . your . . . mother?”

“Yeah.” Eeni sniffled. “She joined the Rat King when I was little. It's a family tradition. Her mother joined, and her mother's mother joined. I was studying to join too, but . . . I don't know. I was only doing it to see my mother again. But I'm different from her. I didn't want to be a part of the Rat King. I'm my own rat, you know? I don't want to be just one of a hundred pairs of eyes, one thought in a hundred thoughts. I want my voice to be my own.”

“It seems like it'd be cool to be a part of something so ancient and wise,” said Kit.

“Wise?” Eeni grunted. “The Rat King isn't wise. You ever know a crowd to be wise?”

“But it knew all about the Bone of Contention—”

“If it was really wise, it'd know what to do about it,” said Eeni. “Knowing something and doing something are totally different things. Me? I'm a doer.” She looked Kit up and down. “And I think you are too.”

Kit nodded. “If finding this Bone can keep anyone else from losing their family, then that's what I want to do,” Kit said.

“Howl to snap,” said Eeni.

Kit looked at the trap gaping open in front of them. “Well, you've got the snap part down . . . now let's go make those house pets howl.”

Eeni followed Kit back through the building, her white fur silhouetted against Kit's gray, careful to follow in his footsteps exactly.

Just before they stepped back outside into the moonlight, she let Kit go ahead alone. She turned back toward the home of the Rat King and spoke into the dark, hoping that of the hundred pairs of ears listening, one of them would hear her loud and clear. “Bye, Mom,” she said. “I love you.”

Then she scurried outside and ran straight into the coils of a very angry python, who was very eager for revenge.

THE BOSS'S BET

SSSSO
nicccce to ssssee you again,” Basil hissed at her.

The Blacktail brothers had Kit pressed up against the wall at the point of a fork, and two more Rabid Rascals, strays from the Scavengers' Market, held Martyn at bay with teeth bared.

“You shouldn't have welshed on our bet,” Shane Blacktail told Kit. “And you shouldn't have tricked us into that tire.”

“It was a terrible way to treat your cousins,” Flynn added. “And an even worse way to treat the Rascals. We have a reputation to uphold.”

“A reputation as cheats and thieves and bullies,” Martyn scolded. “You should all be ashamed, robbing from your own kind when the Flealess threaten us all!”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Shane grunted. “We've heard your moralizing before, mouse. Keep your mouse trap shut or we'll smash it in a mousetrap!”

“Good one!” Flynn gave his brother a high five. “Now, we're taking you to the boss, and we'll see if we can't make an example of you, your friend, and your lousy, no-good liar of an uncle.”

“An example?” Kit gulped.

“Oh yessss,” said Basil. “Ankle Ssssnap Alley cannot think the Rabid Rasssscalssss are weak enough to be fooled by a child. You cannot wrong ussss without ssssuffering conssssequenccccessss.”

“And your consequences will be very, very painful,” said Shane.

“Of course they will,” said Kit, who was getting pretty used to being threatened by now.

•••

The boss of the Rabid Rascals lived at the end of Ankle Snap Alley in an abandoned van the People had long ago mounted on cinder blocks and forgotten. From the outside, it looked like a rusted heap with wooden boards for windows and vines covering the roof.

On the inside, however, it was a mansion for vermin.
The walls were draped with quilts of scrounged fabric; there were upholstered burrows for sleeping, decorated with ribbons and coins and all kinds of stolen bits and baubles.

The boss lived in the way back, behind a beaded curtain where a plastic pool had been filled with cool, clean water pilfered from the People's homes. He lounged in the water or on the sand scattered around the pool, which had also been hauled from some distant beach by his loyal minions.

No one knew how old the boss was or how long he had been the boss at all. In fact, no one knew much about him except that he was a turtle and that he'd made his first fortune fixing bird fights and rigging the bets. Some said he had escaped from a pet store as a baby, others said he'd been born in the sewers, and a few said he'd come from the sunny country down south and arrived in the city before the People's buildings had cut the sky to slivers.

On a few things all the stories about the boss agreed: He was old, he was tough as his shell, and he was ruthless. He had enemies, but he never had them for long.

“So don't bother begging for mercy,” Shane told Kit, shoving him toward the curtain. “You won't get any.”

Two bright green parakeets fluttered their wings and drew the curtain apart so Kit could pass through. He stood in the soft sand outside the pink plastic pool and saw Uncle Rik in a metal birdcage.

“Don't hurt the boy!” his uncle cried out when he saw Kit. “He's innocent in all this!”

“Innocent?” Flynn Blacktail cried. “He lost a bet, and instead of paying up, he tossed us on the train tracks!”

“You cheated him, so he cheated you,” Uncle Rik replied. “It's the way of the wild.”

“Not . . . our . . . way,” a creaky old voice spoke slowly from the water. The wrinkled head of a turtle popped above the edge of the pool and peered at Kit. Its pale green face sagged, and its eyes were hooded with heavy lids. The turtle looked sleepy and not particularly menacing.

“That's right,” said Shane. “
We
cheat.”

And Flynn added, “We don't
get
cheated.”

“The boy hassss to learn,” Basil said.

“Yes . . . ,” the turtle agreed. “He will learn . . . a . . . lesson.”

“No,” said Uncle Rik. “Not a lesson.”

“Yes.” The turtle nodded. “Time to call . . . the teacher.”

Eeni gasped. “You can't. That's not—”

Basil squeezed her tighter, so no sound came out even as her mouth formed a scream.

“Wait? What?” Kit looked up at the turtle. “Who's the teacher?”

“Why, my boy, I am the teacher,” a little porcupine in a bow tie announced as he came rolling out of the glove compartment. He carried a small satchel on his back,
which he carefully removed and set on the ground before him. “Delighted to meet you, Kit.”

The porcupine stuck out his paw for a shake, and Flynn jabbed Kit in the back with the fork to prod him forward. Kit shook hands with the porcupine.

“You're a teacher?” Kit wondered, looking back at Eeni squirming helplessly in the snake's grip. His uncle had crumpled into a ball in the cage, sobbing quietly. Martyn stood defiantly with his paws folded across his chest, but the little mouse's eyes darted nervously. Why was everyone so afraid of a teacher?

“I am not
a
teacher,” the porcupine corrected Kit. “I am
the
teacher. You see, when someone needs to learn a lesson, I teach it to them.” He smiled politely, then puffed up so his sharp quills flared out around him. “I fear it will be a long lesson for you, Kit, and you will not enjoy it. Shall we begin?”

Shane grabbed Kit from behind and held his arms tightly behind his back. The porcupine pulled one of his own quills from his side and tested its sharpness, then stepped up to Kit, tapping his snout with the glistening point of the quill. “Shall I pierce his ears or his nose first?”

“I would never . . . tell you how . . . to do . . . your work,” the turtle said. “I ask only . . . that his screams . . .
echo. The lesson is for all . . . of Ankle Snap Alley . . . to hear and . . . to fear.”

Kit looked around for help, but saw only the merciless stares of the Rabid Rascals gang. There were cruel Basil and the angry Blacktail brothers. The creepy frog who'd tried to sell Kit weapons was there, and so was the stoat who'd urged him to place his unfortunate bet on the shell-and-nut game. There was the skinny pigeon from Ansel's bakery, Blue Neck Ned, pecking at a plate of grubs. While he ate, he watched Kit with his side eye. The turtle climbed lazily from his pool, to stretch out on the sand while Kit got tortured. Kit's uncle was in a cage; Martyn was on the wrong side of two dogs' snarling snouts, and Eeni couldn't move in the merciless hug of the python.

No one but Kit could save Kit.

He felt the sharp point of the porcupine quill rise against his snout. “We'll start with the nose,” said the teacher.

“Wait,” Kit cried. “I know the Flealess are coming to kick you all out of the alley, but I can stop them. I can find the Bone of Contention.”

The animals fell silent. The boss cocked his head, and then burst out laughing. The other Rabid Rascals laughed with him.

“It's true!” Kit shouted over the laughter. “I saw the Rat King.”

“The Rat King . . . is a lunatic,” the boss said.

“That Rat King has . . . uh . . .” Kit searched for the word. “Perspective. The Rat King sees more and remembers more than anyone could!”

“You want some free advice, lad?” the turtle asked him, but gave the advice without waiting for Kit's answer. “Never trust a nest of rats. If a hundred rats agree on something, you can be sure they've lost their minds. Ain't nothing in this wide world true for the same hundred. We're meant to be individuals, Kit, who do what we want and think what we want and get what we can get before some other guy gets it from us.”

“But if you don't let me find the Bone of Contention, all the wild animals who live here will suffer.”

The turtle stretched his long turtle neck from his shell. “Well, it looks like you'll be the first then.” He nodded toward the porcupine to begin Kit's torture.

“So you're a leash lover?” Kit yelled out.

This time, the crowd of animals didn't laugh. The room fell so quiet you could have heard a mole cough on the other side of the world.

“Did you call me a leash lover?” the turtle snapped.

“Oh, you've done it now, lad,” the teacher muttered and straightened his bow tie.

“You
are
a leash lover,” Kit yelled again. “I could help you prove that this land belongs to the Wild Ones,
but instead of listening, you do the Flealess's dirty work? You're worse than a house pet. You're a dumb old sewer-stinking leash lover!”

All eyes shifted from Kit to the turtle, whose pale green face looked paler and greener than ever. After a pause that felt as long as winter and twice as cold, the turtle spoke.

“Brave words for such a young lad,” he said, suddenly speaking as fast as anyone. His whole slow-talking thing was just an act that fell away when he got mad. “I'll need some proof you can do what you say.”

“I told you what the Rat King said,” Kit explained.

“Words ain't much good as proof,” said the turtle. “Words are cheap as dirt and twice as useless. Anyone can use words to say anything they want. But deeds, Kit. Deeds are a rare thing. A deed doesn't lie. A deed, when done, stands against a lie. Let the mice have words. It was deeds that made the world.” The boss cleared his throat. “I propose another bet. If you win, you can go free with your friends. If you lose, I kill you all.”

“But we can kill 'em all anyway, Boss,” Shane objected. “We don't need no bet!”

“Shut your snout,” the turtle snapped at him. “I'm talking to the young fella here. What do you say, Kit?”

“What's the bet? I can't agree before I know what it is.”

“Simple,” the turtle told him. “You go into the sewers and bring me back the Bone of Contention before sunup.
If you succeed, I'll let your friends go free. If you lose, well . . . school's in session.”

The porcupine tapped his quill on Kit's snout and smirked.

The turtle waited for Kit's answer. Everyone waited.

“Is there really a beast down there?” Kit wondered.

“Of course not.” The turtle laughed. “It's just Gayle.” Kit exhaled with relief. “Although Gayle
is
an alligator,” he added. “The biggest alligator ever to live in the sewers beneath the Slivered Sky.”

“An alligator?” Kit gulped.

“And she's a mean one,” the turtle said. “Best get going, Kit . . . The rooster will be crowing bedtime before you know it.”