“These, unfortunately, are the missing children’s fathers,” said the hawkowl with intense scorn.
“Yo!” barked Oscar’s dad, Duke. “Was that intense scorn I just heard in your voice, birdbrain?”
“I heard it, too,” added Boomer.
“Yeah, well, I heard it first!”
Boomer shrugged. “You also eat socks!”
“So? You’re afraid of water.” Duke put on his snooty katt voice again. “Oh, look. A water bowl. I’m sooooo afraid!”
“At least I don’t drink out of a toilet!”
Molly and Oscar’s mothers and siblings leapt into the fray with hisses, howls, and spit. The news crews swung their microphones and cameras back and forth, trying to capture the frantic action.
“Ssssstupid doggssssss,” said Blade, spewing Fifi with spittle. “Can’t even keep their tonguesssss in their mouthssss.”
“Say it, don’t spray it,” snapped Fifi.
“Enough!” cried the majestic hawkowl.
Her voice was commanding enough to silence all the doggs and all the katts.
“Regretfully,” she declared, “I must hereby order both katt and dogg families to vacate this park, immediately.”
“What?” said Oscar’s mother.
“I beg your pardon?” said Molly’s mom.
“Go. Home. Now!” said the hawkowl. “You are of absolutely no help to us. In fact, your open hostility is making our rescue mission more difficult than it need be! Leave. If and when we find your children, we will return them to you so you can continue warping their young minds with ignorant hatred. The same thing you incorrigible creatures have done for centuries!”
The doggs and katts were stunned into silence.
The two moms started sobbing first. Blade and Fifi were next. They wailed and howled as only teenagers can. Finally, the two fathers wept manly dad tears.
“I can tell you love your missing kids,” said the wise hawkowl, shaking her head. “But you katts and doggs are simply hopeless.”
Chapter 19
Oscar couldn’t believe he was hiking through the forest with a katt.
But, he figured he didn’t have a choice. At least not until he was safely home, then he’d have all sorts of choices.
“This truce only lasts until we get back to base camp, right?” he said. “After that, I don’t know you and you don’t know me.”
“Whatever,” said Molly. “Let’s head west.”
Oscar grinned. He’d heard that katts could be tricky. Sneaky, too. So, he’d do the exact opposite of whatever Molly suggested.
“Nope,” he said. “We’re going east.”
“East? I’ve already been east. It’s a waste of time. There’s nothing there but a big cliff. I’ve seen it. Six different times!”
The katt knelt down on the trail and started scratching the dirt with her pointy claws. She gestured at Oscar’s tattered uniform. “You’re supposed to be a Dogg Scout, right?”
“Yes,” Oscar said proudly. “I have fourteen merit badges. Most of them for chewing different things. Rope. Sticks. Squeak toys. Rawhide…”
“Well, let me draw you a map, Dogg Scout. East is the cliff. South, that’s behind us, that’s where the mountain lion likes to hang out.”
Oscar nodded. He hated to admit it, but the katt was making sense.
“Okay, I’ve changed my mind,” he announced. “We should go north or west.”
“I choose west,” said Molly.
“Sorry,” said Oscar. “I don’t really trust your sense of direction. I, on the other hand, was a Dogg Scout. Obviously, I know more about what I’m doing than you do.”
“Fine. Don’t give yourself heartworms. We’ll go north.”
“Nope. West.”
“West? That’s what I said two minutes ago!”
“But I said it most recently. So, it’s my idea.”
Molly heaved a humongous sigh. “Fine. Whatever. Lead on.”
Oscar trotted along the path, sniffing the breeze. No familiar scents tickled his nostrils.
After silently trudging through the wilderness, seeing nothing but trees and more trees, the two hikers finally came to a hilltop clearing.
“There!” Oscar panted. “That mountain! Way off in the distance! Do you see it?”
“Uh, yeah, Oscar,” said Molly. “It’s a mountain. Mountains are very hard not to see.”
“I know that mountain!” said Oscar. “See how it looks like a huge hooked nose with a droopy wart on one side?”
“Yes,” said Molly. “Sort of like your muzzle.”
“That’s not a wart on my muzzle,” said Oscar, swiping his paw across his nose. “That’s a booger. Anyway, I could see that exact same mountain from our campsite! It’s what they call a landmark. Landmarks are good when you’re lost. They mark the land for you!”
“Good work!” said Molly. “You’re not as dumb as you look.”
“Dumb? Hey, if I’m so dumb, how come I know that katts have more than twenty muscles to control their ears? Too bad you don’t have one to control your mouth!”
“Who studies katt muscles?” snarled the katt.
“A Dogg Scout working on his kattology merit badge, that’s who!”
“Why would a dogg want to know so much about katts?”
Oscar didn’t answer. His body went stiff. His eyes bugged out.
He raised one paw and pointed.
“Groundhog!”
And he took off running after it.
Chapter 20
Molly chased after the dogg who was chasing after a groundhog.
A naked groundhog. That meant it was one of the wild things living away from civilization.
“Did you get your rabies shot this year?” Molly hollered after Oscar. “Because if you didn’t, that wild groundhog is going to give you one when it bites you in the butt! It’s a wild creature, Oscar! Leave it alone.”
“Can’t,” shouted Oscar. “It’s a groundhog. I’m a dogg. This is what they call instinct! A dogg’s gotta do what a dogg’s gotta do!”
“You’re going to get us lost, again!” said Molly, trying to keep up with the dogg, who, she had to admit, was extremely athletic and could run very, very fast. “We’re supposed to be hiking to the mountain. The one that’s in the opposite direction of where you’re chasing that groundhog!”
Just then, a flying squirrel flitted through the tree branches overhead.
“Squirrel!” shouted Oscar.
He dug in his paws, skidded to a stop, abandoned his wild groundhog chase, and took off after the flying squirrel.
“You are so like my brother!” cried Molly. “Blade would chase a reflection up a wall until he saw something shinier, and then he’d chase after that!”
“I have to chase squirrels!” shouted Oscar. “Just like you have to spend your day unrolling toilet paper and climbing into cardboard boxes.”
“I don’t do that kitten stuff,” said Molly defensively. “Because I am no ordinary katt. I’m studying to be an actress!”
“Great,” said Oscar, still running. “Give me a few lessons and I’ll act like I’m interested.”
He slammed on his brakes again.
“Oooh! Rabbit!”
He sped off in another completely random direction.
“Oscar?” pleaded Molly. “Forget the bunny rabbit. We need to hike to the mountain that looks like a hooked nose!”
“It’ll still be there tomorrow. Mountains never move. But rabbits move fast! Very, very fast. This is excellent training for me. Coach will be so proud!”
“Please, Oscar! That mountain’s five or ten miles away. We need to start walking to it immediately. We need to go back to the park. We need to find our families.”
“Okay, okay,” panted Oscar. “Rabbit’s gone. No more distractions. Here I come.”
Molly watched Oscar trot back to the hilltop.
“Sorry about that,” said the dogg. “Instinct is a powerful thing, especially for athletic indiv
iduals such as myself. It kicks in, and boom!—It’s like you’re not in control of you anymore.”
“If you say so,” said Molly. “As an actress, I am much more in control of my emotions as well as my reactions.”
That’s when a butterfly flitted out of a patch of wildflowers.
Molly’s tail sprang up. Her eyes bugged out.
“Butterfly!” she shouted.
“Whoa!” shouted Oscar. “Come back here! We’re on a hike, remember?”
Molly ignored him and chased after the fluttering black and orange wings. She followed them into the forest and up a tree. Digging her claws into the bark she laddered up the towering evergreen effortlessly.
But then the butterfly drifted off into the open sky.
And Molly was stuck high up in the tree.
Katts are very good at climbing up trees. Climbing down from this height? Not so much.
Chapter 21
The ferret reporter scurried back to her news network’s broadcasting center.
She knew this missing dogg and katt story was bigger than it seemed. Or that it could be bigger.
She barged into her boss’s office.
“Chief!” she said. “Get ready to whip out your checkbook because you’re going to double my salary after you hear my pitch.”
“Go on,” said the news director, a weasel, as he slumped back in his big chair, making a thoughtful steeple out of his front paws underneath his nose. The ferret paced back and forth, painting the scene for her dramatic story.
“We open on darkness!” said the ferret. “The cold shivering darkness of night.”
“You mean a black screen?”
“Exactly.”
“Love it,” said the weasel. “Black screens are easy to shoot. And cheap, too. Go on.”
“We fade in on a cute puppy, lost in the woods. Cross-dissolve to a terrified kitten, shivering in a tree, barely able to meow. Poor little creatures. They’re both lost in the wilderness on the far edge of civilization.”
“Puppies. Kittens. Good eye candy. Nice.”
“Oh, sure—they’re cuddly and fluffy and sweet,” said the reporter. “On their own. Fenced off from each other. But put them together on the far edges of civilization with nothing to eat but berries and twigs and you’ve got nonstop action, adventure, and, most importantly, sir, CONFLICT! Remember, chief: That puppy, deep down he’s a dogg. And that kitten? She’s a purebred katt. Together, they are…” She framed the air with her paws. “Lost Together: Sworn Enemies for Life!”
“Is that the title of your piece?”
“You like it?”
“Like it? I love it!”
“Then, sir, that’s the title. It’s like that show we did last summer. About the polar bears and walruses stranded in the refrigerator of a fast food restaurant.”
The weasel nodded. “‘Survivor: Sworn Enemies.’ Highest ratings we ever saw. Especially when that one walrus with the big tusks and blubbery belly got voted out of the deep freeze…”
“But this show isn’t staged, boss,” said the ferret. “This is real reality TV. A young dogg and a young katt, separated from their loved ones, lost in the wilderness, fighting against the elements while they fight against each other. Everybody knows that katts and doggs have been enemies since the beginning of time. Who can forget the Katt and Dogg War of 1812? Will these two foes find each other before the rescuers find them? If so, will the fur fly? Add in: the worried parents, banished from the search; the troubled teenage brother and sister, jealous that their siblings are the center of attention; the befuddled park rangers; the frustrated rescuers. Sir, we’re talking ratings that’ll go through the roof faster than a startled giraffe in a pup tent.”
“What do you need to make it happen?” asked the weasel, springing out of his chair with his tail.
“Not much, sir. Just a hoot owl, some night vision goggles, a camera and…”
“And what?”
The ferret grinned. “That pay raise we were talking about, sir.”
“Done and done!”
Chapter 22
Oscar perked up his ears.
Somewhere in the forest, a scaredy katt was yowling. Somewhere way up high.
He sniffed the wind.
Oh, yeah, he thought. That’s Molly. He’d been smelling her all day. Her scent was permanently captured on his brain’s internal memory chips.
Her yowls didn’t sound so good. Oscar trotted along, underneath the trees, following her scent.
He came to the trunk of a tall pine and snorted along the bark.
This was the one. This was Molly’s tree.
He tilted his head and looked up and up and up until he saw a lumpy shadow curled in a ball on one of the branches fifty feet above the forest floor.
“Molly?” he called out. “Is that you? It smells like you…”
“Yes, Oscar,” came a faint reply. “It’s me. I’m up a tree. Go ahead. Laugh.”
“Okay. Ha, ha, ha.” He paused. “Um, Molly?”
“What?” she shouted.
“What, exactly, am I laughing about?”
“Me! I’m stuck up a tree. Typical katt, right?”
“Yeah. It’s because of your claws.”
“What?”
“Katts can’t climb down trees headfirst because all the claws in your paws point toward your tail.”
“Is that so?”
“Yeah. I told you: I’m working on my kattology merit badge. I know all sorts of katt stuff. For instance, katts walk like camels and giraffes: You move both of your right feet first, then you move both of your left feet.”
“So, tell me something, brainiac: how do we katts climb out of a tree?”
“Very, very carefully,” joked Oscar.
“Oscar?” Molly was sounding a little hissy. “You’re not being very helpful.”
“Sorry,” said Oscar. “But climbing down is actually simple. Since your claws don’t point the right way for a forward descent, all you have to do is back down the tree. At least that’s what it said in the Dogg Scout Manual.”
“You want me to back down the tree? Tail first?”
“Yup. Unless you want to stay up there and admire the view a little longer.”
“No, thank you!”
“Then stick it in reverse!”
Oscar watched as Molly attempted to make her way, backward, down the tree.
Molly scuttled down ten feet, then stopped for a hiss break.
“Come on, katt!” urged Oscar. “You can do it!”
Molly inched down another two feet. A pair of birds on one of the branches was chirping at her.
“They’re mocking me!” said Molly.
“They’re mockingbirds,” said Oscar. “It’s what they do. Plus, once upon a time, somebody in your family probably ate one of their cousins. Come on. Quit having a hissy fit. Keep backing up.”
Molly made it another five feet down the trunk.
“I can’t do this!” she said, clinging onto the bark. “I tried, but I can’t!”
“Fine,” said Oscar. “Jump!”
“Jump?”
“It’s only twenty more feet.”
“Twenty feet?”
“Don’t worry. I’ll catch you.”
“Promise?”
Oscar crossed his webbed toes behind his back. “Promise.”
“All right. Here I come!”
Molly leapt from her perch.
Oscar backed away from the tree.
Molly shrieked, spun around, shot out her legs, and crash-landed on all fours.
“That was awesome!” shouted Oscar, who found the frazzled look on Molly’s frightened face to be funnier than anything he’d ever seen. “And hilarious!”
“Hilarious?” screeched Molly, narrowing her blue eyes. “I, for one, was not amused!”
“Oh, I knew you’d be okay,” said Oscar. “You katts can spread out your legs like a parachute and land safely, even from way up high. For your information, there are katt
s who’ve survived falls from more than five hundred feet.”
“And, for your information,” hissed the katt, “there are many more who have suffered broken legs and worse falling out of a window or off a ladder!”
Oscar was dumbfounded. “Really?”
“Really!”
“Well, uh, they didn’t mention that last bit in the Dogg Scout Manual…”
“Of course they didn’t. A dogg wrote it! A dumb, ignorant, katt-hating dogg—just like you!”
Chapter 23
Molly was miffed.
Just because a few katts can sometimes fall successfully from high places doesn’t mean any of them like doing it.
Also, katts have eyes built for hunting. They give up a little in depth perception so they can concentrate on motion detection. You need depth perception when you’re falling.
“Are you okay?” the dogg asked, sheepishly.
Molly didn’t answer. She wasn’t hurt. But her pride sure was.
She pointed dramatically (which, as a future actress, is how she did almost everything) at the mountain peak in the distance.
“You’re right,” said the dogg, wagging his tail, forgetting all about the horrible trick he’d just played on Molly. “We should hike to the mountain. It’s a great day for a hike or a nature walk, which is basically the same thing as a hike, wouldn’t you agree?”
Molly ignored Oscar and started walking. Fast. The dogg trotted after her.
“Oh, I see. You’re not speaking to me. That’s okay. I’m not speaking to you, either. I mean, why should I? You’re a katt, I’m a dogg. We have nothing in common so what do we have to talk about? Bones? Nope. You’d rather scratch up furniture. Rawhide chews? Forget about it. You’d rather wrestle a toy stuffed with kattnip. Hey, what is kattnip, anyhow? Is there katt in it? If so, that’s kind of weird, don’t you think? A katt treat made out of katts…”
Molly picked up her pace. For someone not speaking to her, the dogg sure did like to yap. He was probably part lapdogg. Molly’s father told her that teeny-tiny lapdoggs yip and yap all the time. And then they put bows in their hair. Ridiculous creatures!
Katt vs. Dogg Page 4
