by Lisa Fiedler
As she sprinted away, her familiar battle call ringing in her wake, I called out to her a message:
“Go look into the face of an old friend, for it is there that your instructions await.”
I can only hope she heard my words and made the connection.
Pinkie stands before me now, for the first time since our return to the village.
“Why do you wear that tattered cloak?” she demands to know. “If you are supposed to be so great and wondrous, why don’t you wear a shimmering cape of gold like I do?”
“I wear this cloak to maintain my anonymity,” I reply. “I work in service of the common rodent, I seek to be of solace to the lost and lowly ones, and to provide guidance to those who cannot choose the right road on their own. One does not need cloth of gold for that.”
Pinkie rolls her eyes. “I think I might puke.”
“I’m sorry if my mission offends you.”
She reaches down to tug at the torn hem of my blue felt cloak. “It’s ripped. I guess that explains the scrap I found in the smokestack.”
“I found this cloth after the Atlantian exodus. I believe it was once a cherished human artifact, but it was misplaced and trampled when the rodents fled the city. I found it in the dirt and used what was left of it to make myself a hooded robe.”
“There is writing on it,” she observes. “ ‘Brooklyn. 1955.’ Will you interpret these words and use them as part of your teachings? Will you add them to your Sacred Book in a way that suits your purpose?”
“Will you allow me to?”
“Not on your life.”
“Then I suppose I will not.”
Pinkie paces half the length of the engine-room floor; her claws clack against it, the embroidered edge of her pink-trimmed gown makes a sound like whispered secrets.
“Here is what I want you to do,” she says. “I have already gathered paper from the tunnel. You and I both know it is just more human garbage, but once you scrawl something on it, it will become revered as the newest prophecy from the wise and beloved La Rocha.”
“What do you desire me to write upon these pages?”
“You will write that the Mūs are to follow me as their leader. What I say goes. No one is to challenge me, ever. Pinkie is the one true leader of this clan, and under my rule we will never again band with any scruffy outsiders for purposes of war or peace. Then I will enjoy complete and absolute authority.”
“And what will you do with it? Commission more golden attire?”
“I will be in charge.”
“Yes, but to what end?”
She gives me a scathing look. “Have you ever been powerless?” Her eyes flash with dark humor. “Other than right now, I mean.”
“I have been at the mercy of forces stronger than myself, yes.”
“It’s not fun, is it? In fact, it’s miserable, being without power. Waiting in a pile of aspen shavings, wondering which of your loved ones might be snatched away by some fat human fist, or worse . . .”
She trails off.
“Worse?” I venture quietly, although I know exactly what she is thinking. “What is worse than a loved one being stolen?”
“A loved one creeping off at dawn, taking his warmth, taking his protection, and leaving you with nothing, that’s what. I was new and frightened. I begged him, ‘Papa, please don’t go,’ but he said he had a job to do. He promised there would be great things ahead for Pup and Hopper and me when we came to live among the Mūs. But I guess he didn’t plan on being part of that promise.”
The hurt she feels seems to emanate from her, like the burning rays of an angry upland sun.
I hesitate before I pose my next question. “What if I refuse to write you this new prophecy you demand of me? What then?”
She glares. “If you do not make this revelation, I will destroy you.”
As she makes this threat, her voice is calm, but there is something in her bearing that betrays her. A jerk of her tail, a quiver in her paws. So she is not yet the ruthless tyrant she aspires to be. She is not lost to us entirely; she only plays at brutality.
There is decency in Pinkie still. It is buried deep beneath the anger and distrust, but it is in there. She is still her father’s daughter, her brother’s sister. She is afraid, but she has goodness in her broken mouse heart.
And I know that there is only one way to draw it out.
If it is a revelation she wants, it is a revelation she shall have.
I reach for my hood.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
IT WASN’T LONG BEFORE Julius, Kidd, Dawkins, and the others returned, each toting a jangling ring of lost keys. Firren set about teaching them to hone the tips of these otherwise harmless metal objects into lethal points simply by grinding them against stones.
“How do we get into these subway tunnels?” Valky asked.
“Just like the humans do,” said Hopper. “We go to the station and make our way downward.”
Ace pointed out that the closest station to Brooklyn Bridge Park would be Clark Street, but Hopper decided they should travel the extra distance to Atlantic Avenue, since he knew for certain there was an easy way into the tunnels through the hole in the wall.
Easy if you didn’t mind falling a zillion miles and landing hard in the dirt.
For hours the ringing of stones pounding metal filled the air. As the daylight began to fade from the sky, Valky found a book of matches and lit a small campfire. In the glow of its flickering flames Firren taught her new, upland band of rebels the basics of swordsmanship. No one was surprised when the basketball rats proved to be as gifted with blades as they were with a ball. They even taught Firren a very useful strategy called the full-court press.
At twilight the lights began to come on in the windows of the tremendous buildings across the river—a place Ace identified as Manhattan—and Hopper began to notice a change in the atmosphere. The temperature was dropping quickly, and the world took on a wintry smell, a scent that Hopper did not recognize. It made the air damp and heavy.
“Snow,” said Valky. “Coming soon. Gonna be a big one.”
“A big what?” asked Hopper.
“Storm,” Valky clarified, his fur bristling. “The sooner we get to that subway station, the better.”
Hopper looked around at the eager, determined animals who had united on his behalf. He saw their arsenal of key swords glinting in the firelight; he saw Ace’s sleek black coat, which made him nearly invisible in the dusky light. And he wondered:
Would they really be able to find Pup, and possibly even defeat a vicious enemy?
He desperately wanted it to be so, but he really couldn’t say for sure.
All he could do was hope.
Evening came in earnest and with it a bitter wind. Under the frosty canopy of sky Hopper sat quietly beside Ace and looked out at the East River.
More lights bloomed in the windows of the tall buildings across the water and shimmered on its cold surface.
“Promise me something, Hopper,” said the cat, absently flexing his claws. “If we do get the opportunity to take down the feral queen, you’ll allow me the privilege of removing that collar from around her neck.”
Hopper eyed his friend curiously. “Sure,” he said. “But why?”
“I have my reasons,” Ace replied in an icy tone.
Behind them Firren was busy familiarizing Valky and the basketball rats with the lay of the land down below. She’d scratched a crude map into the frozen dirt and was pointing out the area where she believed Felina’s lair was located and all the possible routes a determined Pup might employ to discover it. She also showed them the spot where Atlantia had once stood and, with any luck, would stand again, and marked off many of the Rangers’ favorite hiding places. Hopper knew, although Firren hadn’t said so directly, that she was worried for her rebel band’s safety and that she hoped no harm would come to them before she returned.
Hopper’s gaze was drawn upward from the river by a hazy smudge of br
illiance in the sky; it seemed to be caught in the metal web of the Brooklyn Bridge. There was something awesome and ethereal about it, this round white glow, floating there in space.
“What’s that?” he asked, pointing.
“That’s the moon,” said Ace. “It’s usually much brighter. The snow clouds are hiding it tonight.”
Hopper had never seen the moon when he’d lived in the pet shop, and he found himself wishing he’d paid more attention to things like that. “How do you get there?” he asked. “To the moon, I mean.”
Ace shrugged. “I don’t know. By taxi maybe.”
Now something else caught Hopper’s eye—a white fleck, swirling downward through the dark sky. It spun and hovered and dipped and rose, weightlessly graceful, aimless and lovely, drifting and twirling. Another fleck of white followed it. Then another.
For a moment Hopper wondered if the moon was breaking into tiny pieces and sprinkling itself over Brooklyn Bridge Park. But when one of the delicate flakes landed on his nose and sent a pleasant chill through him, he knew that these icy specks were not shards of broken moon.
He reached out and caught a glistening flake. It was pure white, crystalline and cold. Lying flat, it was as big as his paw, all lacy angles and intersecting zigzags. It was stunning to look at, and although Hopper knew he should fear it, at the moment he was too awed by its beauty.
“Snow,” he whispered.
The jewel-like flake melted away with the word, but when he looked down at the grass, he saw that several of them had already created a thin, sparkling white coating on the ground around his paws. So this was how snow worked—small, singular elements coming together to create a larger, powerful force.
“Look, Ace,” Hopper cried delightedly, catching a second flake and holding it out to show him. “It’s snowing!”
But when he looked up into his friend’s green eyes, he realized that Ace was not delighted by the pretty flake.
Not delighted at all.
Hopper wasn’t the only one who’d seen the snowflakes. Valky had noticed too and was hustling to get the basketball rodents moving.
“We’ve got to get ahead of it,” the chipmunk advised. “We can’t be traveling at the height of the storm.”
“Wait,” said Hopper. “I want to say good-bye to Carroll.”
“There’s no time,” said Ace. “Snow is a formidable enemy. The sooner we get to Atlantic Avenue station, the better off we will be.”
Looking down at the grass, Hopper saw that Ace was right; the gentle dusting was quickly becoming a heavy blanket around his paws. The sky was now filled with swirling flakes, and the wind had grown stronger.
He put his paw in Firren’s and joined the small procession—Ace, Valky, and the nine Barclays rats—as they trotted down Furman Street to the intersection of Atlantic. The snow was falling faster and harder with every passing second.
“At this rate,” said Ace, shouting to be heard above the howling of the wind, “I don’t think we’ll make it to the station before the worst of the storm hits.”
“We’re going to need to find shelter,” Valky agreed. “Any ideas?”
“Can’t go to the deli. The Bellissimo brothers wouldn’t appreciate ten rats, a mouse, and a chipmunk hunkered down in their back room. Besides, they lock up at night. There’s no way in.”
Hopper turned to Firren, whose teeth had begun to chatter; her delicate whiskers were already coated with ice. He realized with a pang of terror that if they didn’t find some place to wait out the storm, they would all freeze to death. His heart began to race, like it had so many times before, beginning on the day he and his family escaped their cozy cage.
The cage . . .
“I know where we can go!” he cried, galloping up to the front of the line. “Everybody follow me.”
Without so much as a moment’s hesitation, they did.
They didn’t stop running until they reached Keep’s shop. The red-and-gold letters on the window were nearly obscured by the snow, but Hopper recognized the place instantly. “We’re here!” he announced.
Valky looked up at the tall glass door with a forlorn look. “How will we get in?” she asked.
Hopper went to the place in the wall where he remembered seeing the crumbling mortar. It was only partially blocked by the snow that had fallen, but with so many paws digging together it wasn’t long before the gap between the bricks was visible.
“Who says you can’t go home again?” Hopper quipped.
Shivering, the rats began to squeeze one by one through the tiny opening.
“Uh-oh,” said Hopper, looking up at Ace. “I think we have a problem.”
Ace laughed. “I was wondering when you were going to figure that out.”
“What are you going to do?” asked Hopper, panic rising in him like the growing drifts of snow sweeping up against the outer walls of the shop.
“Don’t worry about me,” Ace assured him. “I’m a Brooklyn cat. I’ll find someplace warm for the night and I’ll meet you at the station in the morning.”
“Be careful,” said Hopper. His voice cracked when he added, “And say good-bye to Capone for me.”
“How about I just tell him you’ll see him next time you come upland for a visit?”
Hopper gulped and smiled. “Yes. Tell him that.”
“I’ll see if I can gather some provisions from the deli when they open at sunrise,” said Ace with a grin. “Think you can fight with a belly full of eggplant?”
“I think I can win with a belly full of eggplant!”
Ace gave him a wink, then ducked his pointy ears into the wind and took off, his black coat a shining shadow against the growing expanse of white.
Hopper watched until his friend disappeared around the corner, then took a deep breath and crawled through the gap in the mortar.
Into the pet shop.
Into his past.
Even empty, the place was filled with the lingering scents of birds, reptiles, and rodents. Hopper breathed deeply, his mind swimming with the earliest recollections of his life.
“What is this place?” Julius asked.
“I lived here once,” Hopper explained. “With my mother, my brother, and my sister.” He closed his eyes to conjure a memory of a furry white circle and a softly thrumming heartbeat. “And my father,” he added in a whisper.
A few half-crushed boxes littered the space; a forgotten housebreaking pad, a squeaky toy, and an electrical extension cord. For all Hopper knew, it was the same one he and Pinkie had skittered down on their flight from Keep’s counter the night they escaped.
Chilled and exhausted, Valky quickly found a spot away from the draft coming through the gap in the wall and snuggled into a little tan-and-black ball. The rats settled themselves into nooks and corners, and soon the shop fell silent but for the sound of the rodents snoring softly.
“I’m going to turn in too,” said Firren. “Big day tomorrow.”
“Yes. Big day.” Hopper was about to curl up himself when he spied a plaid scrap of material on the floor. He moved toward it and his nose twitched. He could smell Keep’s human scent on it; it was the pocket that had gotten torn off his shirt the day Hopper and his cagemates climbed out of their cage using the shopkeeper’s pudgy arm.
He picked up the fraying square of material and tucked it into his own pocket. Of all the scraps he’d collected so far, he knew that this one, above all, was the most meaningful. Because this scrap represented the first time that Hopper had dared to believe in himself. Even if he hadn’t understood it at the time, that rainy morning when he and Pinkie toppled their cardboard prison was the day a great change had begun.
The day his tiny mouse heart had felt the very first stirrings of courage.
Hopper crossed the cement floor, the scraping of his claws echoing into the emptiness. As he snuggled beside Firren, he knew that there would be no sound of coins in the money machine to break the silence tonight, though Keep’s voice still seemed to whisper thr
ough the gloom.
Birds . . . check. Felines . . . check.
Tonight Hopper would not drift off to the soft tweeting of the canaries in their cages.
Reptiles and amphibians . . . check, check.
Nor would he be lulled by the soothing rhythm of bubbling aquariums. Tonight he would simply be pressed into a deep, dreamless sleep by an exhaustion that threatened to overwhelm him.
Outside the wind howled and hollered and the snow pattered against the window. Hopper closed his eyes and felt his own history enfold him. Moments, good and bad, came out of the past to welcome him home, and to wish him luck on his journey; to remind him of where he had come from and to urge him onward to wherever his heart would take him.
It was a bittersweet peace that settled over Brooklyn Small Pet Supply as the Chosen One yawned and sighed.
Seconds later he was fast asleep.
Rodents . . .
Check.
Hopper awoke to a loud, metallic scraping sound. At first he imagined it was the scream of metal subway wheels braking on the track. But when he opened his eyes and saw the sunlight filtering through the big window, he remembered where he was.
“Look how deep it is!” cried Dawkins, who’d climbed onto Keep’s counter and was pressing his nose against the window glass.
The others joined Dawkins on the countertop to see the snow for themselves. Hopper’s eyes went round at the sight of so much dazzling, frosty white. Last night the surface of the snow had been powdery, but this morning there appeared to be a crisp glaze of thin ice everywhere. It glistened under an endless sky of pristine blue. He was sure Brooklyn had never looked more elegant. Looking down, he saw that the snow had drifted as high as the mail slot in Keep’s front door; it sloped in a steep curve from the bottom edge of the brass flap all the way to the far side of the sidewalk.
“How are we going to get out of here?” asked Kidd. “We can’t go out the way we came in. The snow’s all piled up against the wall, and it’s blocking the broken place.”
“Could we tunnel through?” Valky suggested.
