Oscar went to work on the clay wall. Clumps of muck and pebbles and shredded tree roots went sailing.
“Oof,” he heard Molly exclaim behind him when a chunk of something must’ve hit her. “Ouch!”
“Sorry,” he said.
“Don’t be sorry! Just dig us out of here. I’m too young, talented, and beautiful to be dinner for a weaselboar!”
Finally, Oscar saw a pinprick of sunlight. A few more paw loads of dirt and sunlight was streaming into the underground burrow.
“Just… need… to… make… the… hole… a… little… wider,” Oscar murmured as he kept digging as hard and fast as he could.
“That hole’s big enough for me to squeeze through!” said Molly.
“We both have to climb out,” said Oscar.
“Then keep digging!”
Finally, Oscar scooped out a hole wide enough for him to climb out of, too. “I’ll go first. If there’s a guard, I’ll growl and snarl at him. You climb up after me and jump on my back. We’re going to need to run another marathon.”
“Got it,” said Molly. “And Oscar?”
“Yeah, Molly?”
“Kind of, sort of thanks.”
“You’re welcome. Kind of, sort of. You ready?”
“Ready!”
“On three. One, two…”
“Do we go on three or after three?”
“After three would be four.”
“So, we go on three?”
“I do. You follow right after me.”
“So, I’m actually going on four, correct?”
“Fine,” said Oscar. “I’m not good at math. One, two… three!”
Oscar scurried out of the hole. He spun around.
There was only one weaselboar standing guard at the entrance to the den. And he was lying on the rock, taking a nap.
“Hee-yah!” shouted Molly, shooting out of the tunnel like a furry cannonball. She used Oscar’s head like a gymnast would a pommel horse, did a flip, a midair sideways twist, landed on his back, and, saddled behind his shoulders, was ready to ride Oscar to freedom. “Giddyup!”
Unfortunately, all her excited shouting woke up the snoozing weaselboar.
“Hang on!” shouted Oscar. He started running through the forest.
The startled weaselboar guard quickly realized what was going on: the king’s feast was escaping.
Snorting wildly, it took off after Oscar and Molly, who kept looking over her shoulder, giving a play-by-play commentary.
“The weaselboar is in hot pursuit. He stumbled over our exit hole. That’s good. Uh-oh. He looks really, really mad. That’s bad…”
The trees thinned out. Oscar saw a cliff up ahead. A rocky precipice. And there was nothing on the other side but sky and clouds.
Chapter 35
Molly felt the dogg slam on his brakes as they raced dangerously close to the edge of the cliff.
“We’re trapped!” she cried out, dramatically. “Again.”
The ground shook. She could hear the rampaging weaselboar’s heavy hooves pounding into the dirt as it chased after them.
Molly climbed off the dogg’s back.
“Stay behind me,” said Oscar, shielding her body with his. The dumb dogg started inching backward, moving them closer to the cliff. “I want to be right on the edge.”
“What? Why?”
“Just let me know when we get there. I can’t turn around. I have to keep my eyes on the weaselboar.”
“Oscar? Why would anybody want to stand on the edge of a cliff? It’s a sheer drop.”
“How far?”
Molly held her breath and dared to peek down into the ravine. “Three hundred feet. At least.”
“Perfect,” said the dogg. “Hang on. Here it comes.”
“Are you demented? It’s going to knock us off the bluff.”
“No, it’s not!”
Oscar crouched into a defensive stance, protecting Molly, who peeked between his legs and saw the weaselboar lower its head. With its head down and curled tusks pointed straight at Oscar, the ferocious beast charged forward.
Oscar just stood there, defending Molly.
When the beast was maybe six inches away and Molly could smell the hot breath streaming out of its flared snout, Oscar finally leaned sharply to his right.
Molly leaned with him.
The giant weaselboar became a blur.
Molly heard something sharp slice across Oscar’s fur.
But he didn’t wince in pain. Instead, he wagged his tail. Because he was happily watching the weaselboar’s momentum carry it over the cliff.
The thud came ten seconds later. It was a very, very long drop.
“You saved us!” shouted Molly. “Woo-hoo! You are the bravest dogg I’ve ever met.”
“Thanks,” wheezed Oscar.
Then Molly saw a bright-red gash sliced across his side. It was oozing blood. The charging weaselboar’s razor-sharp tusk had slashed him!
“You’re hurt!” said Molly.
“Nah. It’s just a scratch.”
“That thing was going to gore you! To stab you with its tusk.”
“True. But I’m nimble. It missed. Whoo…”
Oscar stumbled slightly.
Molly pushed him away from the edge of the cliff.
“Is it hot out here or is it me?” said the dogg, sounding all sorts of woozy. “Why are all the trees spinning like that? And how come the ground feels wobbly and spongy, like it’s a trampoline?”
“Take it easy,” said Molly. “You’re bleeding really badly.”
Oscar limped forward. “I told you. It’s just a scraaa—” His knees buckled. He collapsed and toppled to the ground.
“Oscar?” said Molly. “Are you okay? Oscar?”
He didn’t answer. He just lay there in the dirt, bleeding.
Molly knew what she had to do. She had to run.
Fast!
Chapter 36
Oscar shivered even though he was burning up with fever.
He wished he could take off his fur coat but he was a dogg. The heavy coat was permanently attached.
He felt dizzy. If he weren’t already lying on the ground, he’d probably collapse again.
There was a throbbing pain in the side of his chest—right where the weaselboar had nicked him with its tusk. The bloody line had turned into a scabby scar coated with little flakes of leaves. Not exactly a sterile dressing but rolling over and letting Mother Nature cake the wound had actually stopped the bleeding.
“Molly?” he cried weakly. “Molly?”
The katt didn’t answer.
Oscar raised his head slightly and looked around.
The katt was gone. She’d probably taken off two seconds after Oscar hit the ground.
“I saved her,” he muttered. “She abandoned me. Typical katt. All they care about is themselves.”
His head fell back to the ground with a heavy thud.
“Ooof!”
Now Oscar had a splitting headache to go with his throbbing chest ache and his raging fever.
And he was alone. In the wilderness. At night.
He could hear mountain lions off in the distance. Howling wolves and coyotes, too.
Flat on his back, Oscar looked up at the stars and realized: This was going to be his last night on earth. He was going to die in the middle of nowhere with nobody around.
“Good-bye, Mom,” he whimpered. “I’m sorry I ran off like that. It wasn’t because of your picnic food. I’m just a runner, I guess. Good-bye, Dad. I hope you never find out that I spent the last few days of my life with a katt. I know how mad that would make you. I thought she was different, you know? Turns out she was just like all the other katts. When the going got tough, she ran off and left me. Good-bye, Fifi. You can have all my toys. Try not to break all the squeakers at once.”
He wheezed.
It felt like a Saint Bernard was sitting on his chest.
“You can have my stash of jerky strips, too. Look under
the pillow in my dogg bed…”
He had to stop talking to himself.
Breathing was getting harder and harder. The walls of his chest felt like they were on fire.
Oscar closed his eyes and breathed a heavy sigh.
There was nothing to do now except—
He heard something approaching.
He knew he was a goner. An easy target, sprawled out in the clearing, spotlighted by the moon.
Who was sneaking up to eat him? The dead weaselboar’s angry cousins or that mountain lion? Maybe it’d be somebody new, like a crazy coyote.
He worked open one weakened eye to see who his attacker was going to be. And saw a katt with white fur and brilliant blue eyes staring straight down at him.
“Molly?” he murmured.
“Shhh!” she said. “Don’t talk.”
“Did you miss me?”
“No, not exactly. Maybe a little…”
Oscar grinned as best he could. “Kind of, sort of thank you,” he said.
“You’re kind of, sort of welcome. Now be quiet and stay still. You’re a mess. I have major work to do.”
Chapter 37
Unfortunately, Molly did what she knew she had to do first.
She licked the dogg’s totally gross wound with her sandpaper tongue.
“That tickles,” giggled Oscar.
“Be still, dogg,” said Molly, trying to act like a trained nurse would because her mother was a nurse (and Molly secretly hoped to play a nurse on a TV series about the emergency room in a hospital one day).
“Why are you licking me?” Oscar asked, trying hard not to giggle again. He was very ticklish.
“Because,” Molly explained, “saliva contains a tissue factor that helps promote the blood clotting mechanism.”
“Really?”
“Really. My mom’s a nurse. Licking a wound is our way of applying disinfectant.”
“So why does your tongue feel like sandpaper?”
“It’s specially equipped with tiny backward hooks that turn our tongues into excellent grooming brushes. It’s why we always look so much better than you guys.”
“So, why’d you run away?”
“Who says I ran away?”
“Me. You weren’t here when I woke up after I passed out, which, by the way, happened right after I saved your life.”
“I left because I had to go find medicinal herbs. My mother taught me all about them. For instance, honey. It’s a great way to speed up wound healing. I also found some calendula, marshmallow root, and lavender.”
“I like the way the lavender smells…”
“It’s not for your nose, Oscar. It’s for your wounds. It can also help fight against infection and reduce the pain.”
Molly applied all the medicinal herbs she’d been able to track down in the forest.
“I wish I had some peppermint,” she mumbled. “It can help with your aches and pains.”
Oscar didn’t say anything. Feeling better but still weak, he was drifting off to sleep.
“Peppermint could also help cure your dogg breath.” Molly waved her paw under her nose. “It smells like a cow died in your mouth.”
“Sorry,” mumbled Oscar. Soon, he was snoring. Then his legs started kicking like he was chasing squirrels in his dreams.
Or maybe it was a nightmare and he was running away from weaselboars with Molly riding on his back.
“Did you know that katts have always been worshipped as gods?” she asked.
Oscar didn’t answer.
“Did you know katts spend seventy percent of our day sleeping and fifteen percent grooming, which only leaves fifteen percent for everything else—like taking care of a dogg who risked his life to save mine?”
Oscar didn’t say a word. He was out like a light.
Molly bent down close to his ear.
“Did you also know that you’re very brave? Because you are, Oscar. You are.”
Chapter 38
Meanwhile, back home in civilization, Oscar and Molly’s stories were splashed all over cable TV.
The media had turned the story of the missing children into a nonstop, action-adventure tale, complete with animations of “what might be going on.” Molly and Oscar were heroes in their hometowns.
Molly’s picture appeared on milk and cream cartons throughout Kattsburgh.
In Doggsylvania, Oscar’s photo was featured on billboards and the back of kibble bags.
The ferret reporter at the Weasel Broadcasting Network had taken her idea about the sworn enemies lost together in the wilderness and turned it into TV’s top-rated tabloid TV show.
“Still no sign of Oscar and Molly,” she said to her nightly audience. “If they’re both still alive, one has to wonder: Have the two sworn enemies met each other out there in the unforgiving wilderness? And, if so, have they killed each other? Stay tuned!”
There was an ominous dun-dun-dun sound effect as the image on the screen cut to Molly’s father, Boomer Hissleton the Third, Esquire, at home in his stuffy study.
“Doggs are dirty, disgusting, and dangerous,” he said.
“And dumb,” added his son, Blade. “They’re, like, total dumbskulls.”
“He means numbskulls,” said the father.
“Whatever,” said the son.
“We’ll hear from the dogg’s parents,” said the ferret, “right after this word from our sponsor, Clumpy Lumpy’s Kitty Litter. Remember: only doggs pee on trees.”
After the commercial, the ferret was sitting with Oscar’s family in their rumpus room. Squeak toys, bouncy balls, and half-chewed rawhide bones littered the floor.
“What do you think your son will do if he encounters a katt out in the wilds of the Western Frontier Park?” the ferret asked Oscar’s father.
“What any self-respecting dogg would do,” he told her. “Chase that filthy feline up a tree.”
“My little brother is good at chasing things,” added his teenage sister. “Like his tail. I once saw him chase his tail for fifteen whole minutes.”
After the interview, the ferret showed footage of all the dogg neighbors dropping by the house with casserole dishes of kibble mush and heaping platters of sliced meats.
“Look at all this roast beef and corned beef and the all-beef frankfurters!” said Oscar’s father, licking his chops. “Maybe my son should get lost in the wilderness more often!”
Oscar’s mom slugged him in the shoulder.
“I was just making a joke, Lola!”
“This is no time for jokes, Duke.”
“You’re right, Lola. It’s time to eat!”
“Things aren’t quite as rambunctious back at the katt house,” the ferret told her audience.
The scene shifted again.
The Hissleton family was sitting in a circle with a dozen other katts.
“We call it a clowder,” explained Molly’s mother, Fluffy. “That’s a cluster of katts. It’s our support group. I find it very comforting to have our friends and neighbors dropping by like this on a daily basis to practice active listening and positive enablement.”
“I just wish they’d bring food,” added her son, Blade.
Chapter 39
Back in the wilderness, in the thick forest ringing the base of Crooked Nose Mountain, Oscar managed to walk with the help of a crutch he’d fashioned out of a tree branch.
“You sure you want to keep on hiking?” Molly asked him.
“Yeah. No problem. I’m fine.”
Maybe if Oscar hadn’t winced with excruciating pain every time he said one of those words, Molly might’ve believed him.
“You’re wounded, Oscar,” said Molly. “The weaselboar really got you.”
“I know. I was there when it happened, remember?”
“Maybe we should rest. I could put some more honey on your wound.”
“No. We should just climb over that snow-capped mountain and head down to the Western Frontier base camp on the other side.”
“You’re
definitely tough, dogg.”
“Thank you.”
“And brave.”
“You, too. I used to think all katts were scaredy katts. My father says you guys are so skittish you jump at the slightest noise. You hear something—boom!—you screech, your fur shoots up, you go flying.”
“Our fur shoots up to make us look bigger,” explained Molly.
“Really?”
“It’s a defense mechanism. If we look bigger, a predator might leave us alone.”
“Huh. I didn’t know that. I thought you katts just did that puffy fur thing because you enjoy looking like you just stuck your paw in a wall socket.”
“Well,” said Molly, “my father says you doggs like to scoot on your tails and drag your butts across the carpet.”
“Nope. He’s wrong. We only do that when we have to.”
“And when do you have to do it?”
“About once or twice a week.”
Limping along for hours, Oscar and Molly finally arrived at the foot of the funny-looking mountain. There was a rutted dirt road winding its way up to the snowy peak.
“If there’s a road,” said Oscar, his tail starting to wag, “there have to be some vehicles. Why else would anybody build a road except to drive on it?”
“We could hitch a ride!” exclaimed Molly. “I’ll bet this road leads to the Western Frontier Park. We’re going home, Oscar. Civilization, here we come!”
“Woo-hoo!”
Their luck got even better.
They heard a rumbling engine and the crunch of tires off in the distance.
“Stick out your paw, Molly, and poke up a claw!” said Oscar. “Here comes our ride!”
Molly, who was shorter than Oscar, stepped in front of him and stuck out her paw. Smiling, glad that his ordeal was almost over, Oscar stuck out his paw, too.
A trundling truck rounded a bend, stirring up a cloud of dust.
Suddenly, Molly’s fur poofed straight out. She looked twice her size.
Oscar tapped her on the shoulder. “Um, why are you activating your defense mechanism, Molly?”
Katt vs. Dogg Page 7
