by Lisa Fiedler
They walked on until they reached a playground, which Hopper recognized immediately because it was just like the one in Atlantia, only much, much bigger. Because of the nip in the air there were only a few children present.
“My favorite kind of humans,” said Carroll. “The little ones.”
“They won’t call for exterminators?” Hopper asked nervously.
Carroll laughed. “Hardly. Human pups are friendly. If you stand very still, one of them might even—”
“Even what?” asked Hopper, wide eyed at the sight of a chubby-cheeked little girl toddling toward them.
“Pet you,” Carroll whispered. “Now just be very still, keep quiet.”
Hopper looked up into the bright blue eyes of the child. A pink ribbon fluttered in her hair. She was the tiniest human he’d ever seen, but still enormous compared with him. He held his breath and made no attempt to move, just as Carroll had instructed.
The child smiled and burbled as her plump hands reached for him. Hopper muffled a scream as one little finger stretched out toward his back. But it was not a violent touch at all; it was just the slightest brush, light and gentle. The child giggled and began to stroke his fur. It was a gesture filled with love and wonder, and despite the chilly air Hopper’s whole little body flooded with warmth.
“I pet the mousey,” the child gurgled. “Nice mousey. I pet you.”
Pet. So that’s what the word meant. Hopper had heard it a million times in Keep’s store—it was a pet shop, after all—but he’d never dreamed it could have such wonderful implications. Hopper thought he would be happy just to sit here and let this angelic little child pet him forever.
A breeze came up and the ribbon slipped from her hair. Hopper tucked it in his pocket just as the child’s tiny finger touched his torn ear. Her bright eyes turned sad. “Boo-boo?”
“Uh-huh,” Hopper whispered.
“Poor mousey got a boo-boo.”
Hopper nodded, and gently pressed his back into the stroking of her plump little thumb. The comfort was all consuming, and for that moment the boo-boo—all of the boo-boos—somehow ceased to matter.
The child went on petting Hopper until her attention was caught by something moving in the grass. She laughed out loud and pointed across the park. “Kitties!” she cried. “Kitties!”
“Kitties?” Hopper turned to Carroll. “What’s that mean?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never heard it before.”
“Kitties,” the child repeated, clapping her hands in delight. And then she said a word that set Hopper’s fur on end:
“Kitties coming. Kitty cats!”
Six felines were making their way across the park.
Frantic, Hopper and Carroll bolted, running back across the grasslands as quickly as their legs could carry them. When they were close enough to see the faces of the enemy, Hopper immediately recognized the big cat whom Ace had challenged on Pilot’s behalf, and his two raggedy sidekicks. It was hard to tell if the other three cats were in cahoots with the trio, but in any case the six feline interlopers had a singular purpose: to feed. They stalked like the wild, untamed things they were—heads down, fangs bared, tails swatting out an ominous rhythm.
By the time Hopper and Carroll arrived, the scent of fear had risen above the sweet, greenish smell of grass and earth as the panicked rodents scattered and burrowed, screaming out for help.
Ace was fighting madly, trying to cover all sides. Valky struggled to direct the rodents to safety. Firren was engaged in a one-on-one battle with a straggly stray. Her sword sliced the air as she struck out at the hissing, spitting cat. But she was weakening. Hopper realized that Ace had been right—after her long journey to the daylight world Firren was truly and deeply exhausted.
Well, then Hopper would save her!
But when his paw went to the place where his blade should be, he remembered his sword had been stolen by that ungrateful rat.
Now the biggest of the cats—the leader of the pack, who’d terrorized Pilot on the street—noticed Firren’s fatigue and was bearing down on the warrior.
“Firren!” Hopper screamed. “Behind you! Run!”
But the fighting had taken what little strength she had left. She turned to Hopper, her face unreadable, as the cat skulked closer.
When the cat Firren was fighting saw the big, mean cat and his two sidekicks ambling toward his prey, he took off. Clearly, these three were the hooligan strays that even the other strays feared.
Hopper could see the big cat’s hot breath making frosty ghosts in the chilled air as the trio stalked across the grass. Sword or no sword, he had to do something. He ran straight for the panting Firren, reaching her at the same moment the cats did.
“Well, look who it is! Ace’s little buddy.”
“Start crawling away,” Hopper whispered to Firren. “I’m going to try to reason with them. Or at least distract them.”
“Reason with them? But, Chosen One—”
“There’s no need for both of us to die. Now go, Firren. Go!”
Hopper didn’t look to see whether she obeyed his order or not; he was too intent on keeping his eyes locked on the three enemies who hovered above him. He was outsized and outnumbered. He could bolt, but he’d never outrun them.
Hopper never saw the slap coming. The cat’s matted paw collided with him, a swift, thundering backhand that knocked him off his feet.
“I like to knock you mice around a bit before I eat you,” the cat snarled. “It tenderizes the meat.”
The paw smacked into Hopper again, somersaulting him sideways. Dazed, he managed to get back on his feet, but the earth seemed unstable beneath him.
So this was how the Chosen One was to die, then? On a grassy lawn, shrouded in a foul cloud of cat breath? Hopper felt his shoulders go slack, and he stared at the rocks and pebbles dotting the ground around his paws.
One of the sidekicks laughed. “My turn!”
Hopper felt the breeze of a paw swiping toward him. He tensed, waiting for the hit, but instead he heard the sidekick yipe, then howl in pain. Hopper snapped his head up to see that Firren had not followed the directive to retreat; the rebel had rallied, stabbing her sword into the cat’s paw!
The other sidekick bared his teeth; he went on his haunches, ready to spring, when Hopper felt another presence beside him. Carroll! And she was holding something out to him.
A rock?
“What are you doing here?” he breathed. “It’s dangerous. Go!”
“I’m helping you,” Carroll said, pressing the stone into his paws.
“What’s this for?”
“Hopper!” It was Ace’s voice that ripped across the park. “Three-pointer!”
Hopper heard the words but was too scared to make sense of them. He stared at Ace, who was defending a family of squirrels against one of the strays.
“Three-point shot, Hopper!” Ace cried.
Realization dawned. Strength surged through him as he prepared to shoot. . . .
Wrists and knees!
The stone flew as gracefully and powerfully as any basketball ever had, and with a sickly thwap it connected with the sidekick’s skull. He let out a shrill meow, staggered back, and crumpled into the frosty grass.
Carroll picked up a second stone; this one she hurled herself, landing it right on the cat’s sensitive nose. He howled in pain.
All that remained was the big cat, who let out a shriek of fury and reached for Hopper with claws like knives. But before the claws could connect, Hopper heard a sound he’d never experienced before. The cat heard it too and jerked his paw back in terror.
Barking!
Capone was barreling across the grass, growling and snarling. His muscular form was like a cannonball.
The big cat quit his attack and took off, leaving his wounded friends to fend for themselves. Blood spurted from the stabbed one’s paw and it streamed down the face of the one who’d taken Hopper’s rock to the head. Dazed and terrified, the sidekicks scampered
out of the park. The burly canine gave chase, his fierce bark echoing behind him.
Ace rushed to Hopper’s side, and Hopper flung himself against the silky fur of the cat’s leg. Then he turned a grateful grin to Carroll.
“Nice work,” he said. “Good aim.”
“Thanks. You too.”
As the rodents slowly ventured out of their nests and hiding places, Carroll, whose time in the medical lab had taught her a thing or two about surgery, went off to assist the ones who’d been injured in the fray.
Valky and the basketball rats hurried over to join Hopper, Firren, and Ace.
“Everybody okay?” Ace asked. He had a cut over his eye and one bent whisker.
“No,” Firren said curtly. “Everybody isn’t okay.” She brushed off her tunic and turned to the Chosen One. “It’s your brother, Hopper. It’s Pup. And he’s definitely not okay.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“WHAT IS IT?” HOPPER asked. “What’s the matter with Pup?” His stomach roiled at the very thought of his tiny sibling being hurt or in danger.
“He’s run away from the Mūs village,” Firren explained gravely. “Pinkie told La Rocha all about it as she marched us away from the mystic’s fortress. To be honest, I think the reason I was able to escape was that she was so preoccupied with her story.”
“Why did he run?” Hopper asked. “Did he go looking for me?” This possibility pleased Hopper a great deal, despite the fact that the thought of Pup traveling alone in the lawless tunnels made his blood run cold.
“No. He went looking for Felina.”
“What?!”
“According to Pinkie, Pup was getting a little full of himself. He didn’t like that everyone thought he had to be protected. He said he could be just as much a Chosen One as his brother and sister were, and if he had to slay Felina to prove it, he would.”
“What did Pinkie say to that?” Hopper asked.
“Nothing,” Firren reported. “He left it in a note. By the time she found it, he’s already fled.”
Fled. The word hit Hopper like a punch. She might as well have said “suicide.”
“That’s why I need you to come back with me.” Firren sighed and turned up her paws in a gesture of desperation. “I can’t save Pup alone, and even if I could, I doubt he’d listen to anything I had to say. You have to be the one to talk to him.”
That reality scared Hopper even more than returning to the tunnels did. Pup had been so cold the last time they spoke. The memory of his little brother’s contempt made Hopper shiver.
“Pup’s determined to face Felina,” Firren went on, “and if she gets word of it, you can bet she’ll be out for blood. I certainly won’t be able to keep her from going after Pup by myself, but I don’t know where any of the Rangers are, and I have no idea if any of the soldiers survived the exterminators.”
Last Hopper knew, Garfield, Polhemus, and Ketch were alive and tending to Beverley and Driggs. But he couldn’t say for sure that they hadn’t gone back into Atlantia, which was teeming with traps, after he was carried away in that infernal Windbreaker. And even if they hadn’t braved the minefield that was the city, the tunnels were now an even bigger threat than ever before. Who knew what terrible fate could have come to them as they wandered in the darkness?
“You see, Hopper,” Firren coaxed, “we really don’t have any choice but to head south.”
“South?” Valky looked at Ace with disbelief. “Did she just say she wants the mouse to go to New Jersey?”
“Not south to New Jersey,” Hopper said grimly. “South.” He pointed to the frozen earth beneath his paws. “Into the subway tunnels.”
To Hopper’s surprise, when Firren spoke again, her ordinarily brave voice trembled. “We’re the only ones who can save Pup. And we have to go back to the tunnels to do it.”
Hopper felt dizzy; he half imagined he could taste the dust and mildew of the tunnels on the back of his tongue. It made him queasy. What if he failed again? What if he went to save Pup and succeeded only in making things worse?
He told himself to ignore the grip of responsibility, to put the memories of being the Chosen One out of his mind forever and live happily in the warm, cozy stockroom behind Bellissimo’s Deli. But he loved his brother, and he was still the son of Dodger, who had fought to make the tunnels safe and had believed so strongly in freedom that he’d made an enormous personal sacrifice in pursuit of it.
Sacrifice. Hopper understood now that sacrifice was the name given to a monumentally unselfish deed. Oddly, it was also the word used to describe what Titus had done—the act of condemning the innocent to benefit those in power. It was a single word to define two completely opposite ideas.
Hopper was starting to see that the bigger the idea, the more likely it was to be double edged, like a rapier or long sword. Survival and justice, choice and destiny, power and responsibility—all weighty, complicated concepts, inextricable pairs in which each pivoted on the existence of the other. The result, he realized, was an intricate web of giving and taking, winning and losing, risk and reward. Nature was made up of an endless mesh of complex notions woven in and out of one another, like the strong, spidery cables that supported the majestic Brooklyn Bridge. Opposite but intertwined.
Like catch and release.
Above and below.
Hopper had never been so conflicted. His heart screamed out for Pup, but at the same time he couldn’t imagine himself returning to the site of his greatest loss. He wiped at a tear that had already turned cold in the white fur around his eye.
“I can’t do it,” he said softly. “I couldn’t bear going back to the place where Zucker died. I want to save Pup, but I don’t think I could stand it if he refused my help.” He looked to Firren, his whiskers quivering. “Besides, would we even stand a chance?” he asked warily. “Just the two of us?”
“It’s not just you two,” said Ace, a look of gritty determination in his peridot-colored eyes. “It’s me, too. I’m in.”
“So am I,” said Valky. “Hopper, you fought those cats to defend my home. I’d be honored to help you find your brother.”
“We’ll go too,” said Kidd. “You saved us from the mop. Consider us part of your team.”
Hopper looked from the athletes to the kindhearted feline to the warrior whom he trusted and adored as much as he loved Pup.
“But I failed,” he murmured. “I failed so utterly and completely. If I were to fail in saving Pup, I truly don’t think I could bear it.”
“If you don’t try,” Ace said wisely, “then you’ve done something worse than fail. You’ve quit.”
They were quiet for a long moment, with only the sound of the growing wind in the ice-crusted grass to interrupt the charged silence.
And suddenly he heard Zucker’s voice in his head. I believed you were my old friend’s kid. And that was all I needed to know in order to put my faith in you.
Zucker had believed in Hopper before Hopper had believed in himself. And now, once again, when he was suffering the pain of doubt and dread, he had others who would put their faith in him, in his mission—Ace and Valky and the basketball rats. Hopper had earned their faith by standing up to protect them, and now they were prepared to do the same for him.
Hopper still wasn’t absolutely sure he deserved such kindness, but he would accept it. For Pup.
“Okay,” he said. “We go back. We save Pup.”
“Excellent!” Firren crooked a grin at him. “And as long as we’re going back anyway . . .”
Hopper laughed. “As long as we’re going back anyway . . . we continue the fight against Felina. We do whatever we can, in the absence of Atlantia, to protect the rodents who are still at the mercy of Felina and her ferals.”
“Sounds like a plan,” said Ace. “Let’s give that white nightmare exactly what she has coming to her.”
“We’re going to need weapons,” said Firren. “Any ideas?”
Hopper remembered the flat metal objects Carroll had called
keys, and quickly explained. “If the tips were sharpened, say against a stone, they’d be terrific weapons.”
He quickly sent the basketball rats out into the grasslands on a quest for as many of these jagged human articles as they could find.
Hopper felt a spark of confidence igniting deep within himself. He was ready to fight for the tunnel world he missed so much. Because although he did not have a thundering battalion of soldiers to defend him, he had something much better.
He had friends. Brave ones. Loyal ones. Friends who would stand beside him, come what may. And no army could be mightier than that.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
LA ROCHA’S JOURNAL—FROM the Sacred Book of the Mūs:
Firren said, in the Samsonite fortress, that the rebel cause was back to where it had started. And now so am I . . . in many ways.
I have been Pinkie’s prisoner for days now, during which she has mostly ignored me. I am being held in the very locomotive where, not long past, I would come to seek refuge. But I have not been returned to my comfortable accommodations in the smokestack, the private haven where the Mūs once saw fit to house their mystical guide and spiritual leader. This time Pinkie the Chosen has chained me by my waist to the guts of the engine, with all its cranks and clockworks.
I am happy to say that I am her only captive.
On our trek from the fortress Firren the warrior ran true to form. Pinkie was distracted, telling the story of Pup’s defection, and Firren, ever the strategist, took advantage of our captor’s lapse in focus. She fought the members of Pinkie’s personal guard and escaped them, disappearing into the tunnels, where she will . . . well, I can only guess at what she will do from there. Perhaps she plans to find her band of mighty Rangers, assuming any have survived. Or maybe she will go single-handedly to find Felina’s lair and face the ferocious cat alone. I do know this: she will not merely hide in the darkness and do nothing. That is not in her nature. Nor is it her destiny. Firren was designed for braver things than that.
