Red Raiders

by KH Gordon

  Chapter Eleven

  Torus came home to find his father trying to work his way into the harness of the sledge they had built earlier.

  “Oh, there you are,” he said. “Come here and give me a paw with this.”

  Torus helped get the straps arranged on his father’s shoulders and made sure they were securely fastened to the frame of the sledge.

  “You’re getting home a little late aren’t you?” asked his father once the straps were all in place.

  “Yeah,” Torus muttered. “The, uh, gathering went a little long, and…” He trailed off.

  “Well, at least you got here before I left,” said his father. “The pups have eaten, but they’ll be hungry again soon enough, so go ahead and pull something out later. Have you eaten?”

  Torus was shocked at his father’s casual attitude. He shook his head No.

  “Well, get yourself something, too, then. Make some room in the nook for all the food I’m going to bring back tonight!” He was clearly excited about using his new contraption.

  “Do you think it’ll work okay?” asked Torus, pointing at the sledge.

  “It should,” said his father. “It’s pretty sturdy, really. At least it held up to pulling the pups around the house.”

  “Okay, well, good luck tonight, then,” said Torus.

  “Thanks, son. I don’t know how long it’ll take me to fill it up. Put the little ones to bed and then you can go to sleep, too, if you want.”

  “No, I’ll stay up. I want to hear about how it works.”

  “Okay, then. Save some cookies for me and we’ll talk when I get back.”

  With that his father turned and pulled the sledge out of the den. He struggled a little getting it through the entrance, but once he was in the main tunnel he headed off at a brisk pace and was soon out of sight.

  Torus spent the rest of the evening trying to keep the pups occupied and out of trouble. Once he got them fed and into bed, and then fed again and back into bed again he felt exhausted, but his mind was racing too fast to sleep. He found a piece of string and some small sticks left over from the sledge and started building little structures and then taking them apart aimlessly. He built a little three-legged object with a fourth stick that stood up straight into the air, then he made a star-shape that hung from the end of the string. He was working on tying all the sticks together into one long stick when he heard the sound of a heavy object being dragged outside the entrance to the den.

  He went out and found his father straining to pull the sledge. He was out of breath, but managed to greet Torus.

  “Hi there. Get behind and push, would you?”

  Torus nodded and went to the rear of the sledge to help get it into the den. It was only about two thirds full, but he noticed one of the runners was bent and partly broken, which made it hard to maneuver. When they got inside, he helped his father out of the straps and asked, “How did it work?”

  “Except for breaking halfway home? It worked great. We need to find a way to fix that runner, and then we’ll have no problem getting enough food into the house.”

  Torus went to the sledge and pulled off the damp paper towel his father had used to cover the load.

  “Wow, this is great,” he said. “This is like a week’s worth of food here!”

  “Yes, I guess it’s about that. It would have taken me three or four trips with my old bag. Hand me that baggie there.”

  Torus handed him a plastic baggie filled with the un-eaten crusts of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and his father opened it and divided the crusts between them.

  “So,” he said, as they settled back to eat. “Tell me about your gathering.”

  “Oh, it was okay, I guess. It was all about coming of age and stuff.”

  “Oh really? I guess that is coming up sometime.”

  “Yeah, Councilor Nogolo said it’s at the next moon. When is that?”

  “Hmm…” said his father thoughtfully. “Five days. Five or six. I’m not sure. I’ll ask Nile the next time I see him.”

  “Wow, that’s pretty soon,” said Torus.

  “Well, don’t get too excited yet. A lot can happen in five days.” His father yawned hugely. “Five or six days…I’m exhausted. Let’s leave this until tomorrow and go to sleep.”

  He got up and shuffled toward the bed where the pups lay in a furry pile. He lay down and stretched and then fell asleep in the middle of a yawn.

  Torus followed him to the bed, but he wasn’t able to quiet his thoughts enough to drift off. He lay awake a long time listening to the mixed breathing of his family and thinking about ways to fix the broken runner on the sledge.

  The next morning he was awakened by the sound of struggling and looked over from the bed to see his father trying to hold Moki down for his morning grooming.

  “Stop it! Stop it! Lemme alone, I can groom myself!” Moki squealed.

  “You stop it!” said his father sharply. “You’re just making it worse!”

  Torus slid off the bed and called out to them.

  “Do you need some help?”

  “Yes!” said his father.

  “No, me!” said Moki. “I need help!” He wriggled free of his father’s grasp and scampered across the room, his fur sticking every which way.

  “Fine then,” said his father. “Groom yourself, then. Good luck with it.” He scowled and turned away rubbing his shoulder and rotating his arm gingerly.

  “Is your arm okay?” asked Torus.

  “What? Oh, yeah, it’s just a little sore from last night I guess.”

  “I have an idea how to fix the runner,” said Torus. “We can take some string and tie on a new runner on the struts and –”

  His father cut him off.

  “Let’s think about that later, okay?” He winced as he walked over to the food nook. “I don’t feel like working on it right now. Later.”

  Torus was confused by his father’s mood.

  “Okay, sure. Do you want me to put this food away now?”

  His father looked up and blinked as if he had been thinking about something else.

  “What? Oh, sure, that would be great. Thanks.” He took a piece of stale pastry out of the food nook and took it over to where Shona and Nosha were waiting on the bed. He divided it between them and they nibbled at it carefully while he groomed them. Shona sat still and quiet, but Nosha giggled when he checked between their toes.

  “Stop it,” he said, scowling. Then she sat holding her breath with her eyes squinched shut tight.

  Torus set to work emptying the sledge. The pile of food didn’t look as big as it had the night before, but it was still enough to almost fill the newly enlarged food nook. It was the usual mix of leftover scraps of human food, and Torus guessed his father had spent most of his efforts at the dumpster in the park.

  “Hey dad,” he called. “How does it work, exactly? After I come of age do I come with you foraging or what?”

  His father released Nosha from his grasp and sat on the bed thoughtfully.

  “Well, that depends,” he said.

  Torus waited as long as he could, and then said, “Depends on what?”

  “A lot of things,” his father replied. “Your family’s needs, for example. Maybe a family already has enough foragers so a young rat might do something else instead. Or it can depend on what your profession is. It might be more important to the clan that you patrol or scout or something and so you would do that and other rats would forage in your place.”

  “How do you get a profession?”

  His father lifted himself off the bed and shuffled across the floor toward the food nook, still limping a little on one front paw.

  “You pick one at the coming of age ceremony.”

  “How does that work?”

  “Why? Do you know what you want to pick?”

  Torus paused and looked at the empty hot-dog wrapper in his paws
.

  “Not really…”

  His father suddenly seemed impatient.

  “Well, you’d probably better think about it,” he said. “If you don’t have one picked out then they pick one for you and you wind up being a forage porter or you get stuck cleaning tunnels or running messages for the leaders.”

  “Is that bad?” Torus asked.

  “Well it’s not great,” replied his father. “You can do a lot better for your family than spend all day telling the Scouts what the Chief wants for breakfast…” He scowled darkly.

  Torus was silent for a moment, and then spoke again.

  “So how does it work, then? How do you choose something?”

  “Well, you go up when they call you, and they have you state your name and family, and you pledge your loyalty to the clan and then they ask you what you choose to do in the clan’s service. Didn’t they go over all this at your gathering?”

  Torus looked at the ground and mumbled.

  “I dunno. I guess so, maybe. It was hard to pay attention…”

  “You’d better work on paying attention if you want to get anywhere, son,” said his father sharply. It won’t do you any good to get up there and say ‘I dunno,’ when they ask for your Clan loyalty, and ‘I dunno,’ for your profession.” His voice became a mocking slur. “‘I dunno if I’m loyal to the clan, I dunno what I wanna do, I guess I’ll just end up wandering around cleaning up after other rats and sweeping scat out of the gathering place.’” His ears stood up straight and his whiskers began to tremble.

  “You’d better pull you tail out of the trap, Torus! You’ve got to have something better than that when the ceremony comes.”

  He paused and stared at Torus, breathing heavily. Torus stood uncomfortably next to the empty sledge, staring at his paws. His ears were hot. Finally his father relaxed his gaze and turned away.

  “I don’t know,” he said. He sounded tired and disappointed. “Maybe you’re not ready.”

  “What?!” Torus’s shame was lost in a flood of shocked anger.

  “Maybe we should wait until the next moon, to – ”

  “But – ” Torus tried to interrupt, but his father raised his voice and shouted him down.

  “ – to give you time to figure things out.”

  “But that’s not fair!” yelled Torus.

  “It’s not about fair,” said his father. “It’s about survival. Young rats that go out into the world before they’re ready get killed, Torus.”

  There was a note of desperation in his father’s voice, but Torus was too overwhelmed by his own anger to notice.

  “That stinks!” he cried. “That stinks like scat!”

  “Hey! You watch your tongue, mister!”

  Torus turned and bolted out of the den, ignoring his father’s shouts, and ran down the tunnel away from his home as fast and as far as his legs could carry him until he collapsed in a heap in a dark corner far away from his normal haunts. He sat panting raggedly, staring fiercely into the darkness until his eyes finally welled over and he buried his face in his paws.

  After what seemed like an hour he felt drained and hollow. He dragged himself up and went looking for Nevi. She wasn’t at home, but he found her nearby, walking toward the back of the building. She seemed surprised to see him.

  “Oh, hi,” she said.

  He mumbled noncommittally.

  She looked at him closely.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Oh, yeah, just great,” he said. He looked around for something to say. “Where’re you going?” he asked finally.

  “Nowhere,” she smiled wryly. “Do you want to come?”

  Torus shrugged, but when she started off again he joined her, walking beside her as she turned this way and that, working her way through the little-used passages she seemed to know so well.

  Torus finally started talking awkwardly.

  “So, have you seen Chello?”

  Nevi shook her head but didn’t say anything.

  “Do you think he’ll really leave the clan? You know, after the…the coming…” he couldn’t make himself complete the phrase and trailed off into silence.

  Nevi stared straight ahead.

  “After the coming of age ceremony? I don’t know. Some rats do leave,” she said darkly.

  They went on for a while in silence, but Torus’s head was swimming with confused thoughts, so he finally spoke again.

  “So, what…what profession do you think you’ll choose at the…thing?”

  Nevi glanced at him sharply and then looked ahead again.

  “Who cares?” she said, picking up the pace. They walked on for a short time, Torus trotting for a few steps to keep up. Then Nevi spoke again.

  “Who cares about any of it? Coming of age is a joke for females, anyway. Nothing changes for us. We just wind up foraging and cleaning until it’s time for us to have pups. We can’t do anything real!”

  “Why not?” asked Torus.

  “Because we just don’t,” she snapped. “How many female Scouts are there? How many on Patrol? How many in the chief’s circle? None! Exactly zero! It doesn’t matter how much you know about the tunnels or how well you can fight. If you’re a girl you just get to keep cleaning the dens until it’s time to clean your own den for the rest of your life.”

  Torus was surprised to discover he had never thought about it.

  “That doesn’t seem fair,” he said, half to himself.

  Nevi rolled her eyes.

  “Fair!” she said bitterly. “It’s got nothing to do with Fair! It’s just ‘the way things are.’ It stinks! The whole thing stinks and I wish it wasn’t even happening.”

  “Yeah, tell me about it,” he muttered. They walked the rest of the way to the alley in silence and spent the afternoon poking around aimlessly in the trash that littered the broken pavement.

  Torus spent the next few days trying not to think about it, but unable to think about anything else. He helped take care of the pups and with cleaning the den. He helped his father fix the broken sledge and helped store the food he brought home on it. Through it all, the one thought in his mind was whether he would be allowed to participate in the approaching ceremony.

  He avoided asking his father about it, but whatever he did say, he felt the question was lurking behind his words. And no matter what his father said to him, he could feel the answer underneath, and the answer was always the same.

  Late one evening, when his father returned from foraging with a full load on the sledge, Torus asked him how the sledge was working now with the new runner.

  “Great,” his father said. “With this I can get us plenty of food with no problem, and even give some extra to the Clan stores.”

  But what Torus heard was, “Great, with this sledge I can do all the foraging myself and we don’t need you to come of age so you can help. You stay home and take care of the pups forever!”

  He saw Chello only once, briefly, during all the days leading up to the ceremony. He was walking through the tunnels, thinking about going to the dumpsters when Chello came around the corner and walked toward him.

  “Hey, Chello,” said Torus happily. “Where’ve you been? You going somewhere?”

  Chello looked at him and shook his head awkwardly.

  “Yeah, I’m kinda going somewhere. I’ve been busy with stuff…you know…”

  “What kind of stuff? Getting ready for the…the thing? Have you decided on a profession?”

  “No, not really. I’m not sure I’m going through with it, you know? I’m just busy with other stuff going on. No big deal. I’ve got to go, though. See you later, okay?”

  Then he hurried off down the tunnel and disappeared.

  “Okay, sure,” said Torus. He didn’t know what to think about his friend. He thought about going to find Nevi and see what she thought, but she was spending all her time in her secret “places” tearing pape
r into tiny pieces and complaining about all the good professions being taken.

  Finally, on the day before the ceremony he decided to go talk to Mr. Nile about it. He took a small piece of chocolate candy and went to the cozy den on the second floor. Mr. Nile wasn’t home, however, so Torus decided to wait. He waited long enough to decide to eat the chocolate himself, and Mr. Nile came up the tunnel just as Torus was cleaning his whiskers.

  “Well, hello, Torus,” said the old rat. “Would you like to come in for a snack?”

  “Uh, no, thanks,” said Torus. “I just came to…because, there’s the…how do…”

  “Come inside before you hurt yourself,” said Mr. Nile gently. He guided Torus into the den, sat him down on a small cushion and handed him a pretzel. “Now,” he said, “what are you trying to say?”

  Something about the old rat’s tone of voice unleashed all the tangled thoughts in Torus’s mind.

  “What do I do about the coming of age ceremony? My dad thinks I’m not old enough and wants me to wait for the next moon, but that’s not fair because I’m old enough to come of age now. And Chello isn’t around anywhere and I don’t know what he’s going to do or what profession I should choose, and my dad’s all goofy about that, too, like he doesn’t want me to just be a forager or whatever. Or whatever. And Nevi’s just hiding out in her own world and doesn’t talk to anyone, and the whole thing with the pigeons has everyone tense, but no one’s talking about it and I don’t even see anybody anymore.”

  Mr. Nile took a thoughtful bite of his own pretzel and chewed slowly.

  “What do you enjoy doing?” he asked finally.

  “What? What do you mean?”

  “You should choose a profession based on what you enjoy doing.”

  “I don’t know…I…” Torus stammered to a halt.

  “Even at a very simple level, tell me what you like. Do you like to run fast? Do you like to sleep? Do you like wrestling? Eating cookies? You can’t know what you want to do until you know who you are, and what you enjoy is a huge part of that.”

  “Well…I like pickles, I guess, and playing with my brother and sisters…”

  “Then find a profession that helps you do those things. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go up and mark the moon. Tomorrow is the new moon, but I always have to double check just to be sure.”

  He gave Torus another pretzel and escorted him out of the den and back to the main tunnel. Then Torus headed for home and Mr. Nile turned toward the network of tunnels that led ultimately to the roof of the building, more than twice as high as Torus had ever ventured.

  When he got home he broke the pretzel into pieces and gave some to the pups.

  “Yay!” said Moki. “Salty crunchy!”

  His father was still there, too, puttering with the sledge.

  “Do you want a piece of pretzel before you head out?” Torus asked him.

  “No, no thanks. You and the pups have it. I don’t think I’m going out tonight anyway. We have plenty of food and I’d like to work on the sledge a little bit.”

  “Oh, okay. Can I help?”

  “Sure,” said his father. “I guess you didn’t cause too many problems last time, so why not?”

  Torus tried to smile, but he wasn’t in the mood for his father’s teasing. He wanted to ask about the ceremony but he didn’t know how to bring it up, so instead he said, “Okay, do we need any supplies? I could run down to the alley for stuff if you want.”

  “No, I think we have everything we need here. Except maybe a sense of humor.”

  Torus rolled his eyes and went over to the sledge. His father was working on the harness system, adjusting the straps and trying to get them to fit better.

  “I have to pull too hard when it’s full and the straps cut into my shoulders,” he explained.

  “Why don’t you put some padding on them?” asked Torus. “You could wrap pieces of soft cloth or cotton balls around the straps and then they wouldn’t be so skinny.”

  His father looked surprised at the idea.

  “That’s a pretty good idea,” he said. “How would we get them to stay in place?”

  “I don’t know, maybe some tape? Or tie them on with string somehow?” Torus looked down at the runners. “Hey, look!” he exclaimed. “The front of the runners are square. So when the sledge is full they dig into the ground. I’ll bet if we curved them up it would work better.”

  “What do you mean? I don’t understand.”

  “I can do it,” Torus said. “Here, help me flip it over so I can work on them.” He picked up one side of the sledge and lifted it up. His father started to pick up the other side. “No, no, this side,” said Torus. “I want it upside down for a minute.”

  “Oh, I see,” said his father uncertainly. He came around the sledge and joined Torus in lifting the sledge and turning it onto its top.

  “Careful!” he said. “Careful, careful! It’ll get crunched!”

  “No,” said Torus. “It won’t crunch, we reinforced the sides, remember?”

  “Okay,” said his father. “If you say so.”

  Torus didn’t respond. Using his sharp teeth he started rounding the square corners on the front end of the runners. After a few minutes his father said, “What are you doing?”

  Torus stopped to pull a splinter of wood from between his teeth.

  “You’ll see when I’m done. Why don’t you work on the pads for the straps? I think there’s some squishy cloth you could take out of the bed if the pups don’t see you.”

  His father nodded uneasily and turned away. Torus continued nibbling on the runners until the front ends tapered in smooth curves. Then he carefully rounded the square edges along the lengths of the runners and smoothed any uneven spots. His father was working on the straps again and looked up occasionally to see Torus’s progress. Each time he looked away again with the same puzzled expression.

  Finally, Torus felt the runners were ready.

  “Okay, we can turn it back over again,” he said. Once the sledge was righted he pulled on the straps of the harness to test the runners. They slid easily across the rough floor of the den.

  “Oh!” exclaimed his father. “Now I see what you mean. That’s great!”

  Torus pulled the straps to one side and the sledge pivoted easily. “See, it’ll turn easier now, too.”

  “Let me try!” His father slipped the harness over his shoulders and gave a pull. “Wow!” he said. “This is incredible! How did you think of that thing with the runners?”

  “I don’t know,” Torus shrugged. “It just seemed to make sense…”

  “Well, all right,” said his father, happily pulling the sledge this way and that. “Hey kids! Pups! Come and help us test the new and improved sledge!” The pups came running out of the back room and jumped onto the box that sat on the runners. His father strained a little to start out, but once he was moving it slid easily over the floor.

  “This is really good, Torus,” he said. “This will be much easier. Thanks for your help.”

  “No problem,” said Torus. “Hey, Dad?”

  “Watch out!” His father crashed past at a trot with the pups teetering and laughing in the box behind him. “Coming through!”

  “So, Dad, you know the coming of age ceremony is tomorrow, right?”

  “Yes? And?”

  “So…can I go?” Torus’s stomach was in a knot and he held his breath, waiting for his father to lash out at him.

  But instead he simply turned the sledge around and came barreling back.

  “Of course you can. We’re all going. Watch out!”

  Torus dodged to the side and stared perplexed at his father.

  “Oh…okay. Because I thought…from the other night…”

  His father came to a stop and collapsed.

  “Oh, that? No, that was just me in a bad mood. There’s no problem with going to the ceremony.
You come of age when you come of age, after all, whether you’re ready or not. If you not ready, I guess you’ll get ready in a hurry like everyone else.”

  “More ride!” shouted the pups. “Pull us more!”

  “Oh, I’m ready, I guess,” said Torus. He didn’t know whether to be relieved or nervous or angry with his father for the past five days of anxiety.

  “Sure you are,” said his father. He didn’t sound like he was teasing, but Torus was never sure.

  “More ride! More ride!” the pups continued.

  “No, I can’t,” said his father. “I’m beat.”

  “I could pull them a little,” offered Torus. “Do you think the straps will fit me?”

  “Yaaarrrgh!” His father stretched and yawned hugely. “Be my guest,” he said, shrugging off the straps. “Don’t wreck it.”

  “I won’t,” said Torus.

  “Yay, Torus!” shouted the pups.

  After another half hour of racing back and forth across the den the sledge only needed minor repairs before everyone shared a half an orange and collapsed in a pile on the bed.

  * * *