Tooth and Claw

by Stephen Moore

  And so, Bryna and Ki-ya did not die that day. When they stood up and calmly walked away from the dogs, who could tell who was the more amazed?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  The Gathering-in

  “There you are, Lugger. I told you so,” said Treacle excitedly, to the small brown rag-a-tat of a cat who sat at his side. And then he shouted, “Ki-ya, Bryna, over here.” He became so overexcited he fell off the stone he was balanced on and ducked himself in the river. A second brown cat, looking just as tatty as the first, but almost twice as big, calmly dipped his paw into the water and pulled him out again. Treacle didn’t seem to notice that he’d been in the water. “Ki-ya—” he called again.

  All afternoon, Treacle had been waiting patiently on the broken stonework of the bridge with his odd collection of cats. There were six of them, and they all looked and smelled very much the same. “They’ve been living in the sewers,” he explained. “That’s why they’re this odd colour, and the funny smell—” he stopped himself with an embarrassed laugh. “Sorry Lugger, didn’t mean to offend. Anyway, there’s lots more where they came from.”

  “Lots more where we came from, Captain,” echoed the small brown cat called Lugger, who hadn’t taken offence at all.

  Ki-ya sniffed the air disapprovingly, but said nothing.

  “They’ve been living on rats. There’s nothing but rats to eat down there. They’re great rat catchers.”

  “Great rat catchers, Captain,” said Lugger. All six cats nodded together.

  “They didn’t believe me at first; about the alliance with the dogs. Said you couldn’t do it.”

  “Said you couldn’t do it, Captain.”

  “Cats and dogs together, I told them.”

  “He told us, captain.”

  “But you have done it, haven’t you? I mean, they are going to help us, aren’t they?”

  “Well, er, well . . .” Bryna hesitated. She looked at Ki-ya, and his eyes smiled back at her. “Yes,” she said more definitely, “yes, they are going to help.”

  “Yes, they are going to help!” repeated Lugger, triumphantly, eyeing his companions as if he defied any cat among them to disagree. “Right then, Captain, call us when you’re wanting us.” He touched his nose with his paw. “You know where we are.” Each of the six cats lifted a paw and pointed solemnly to the ground.

  “Eh?” said Treacle. “Oh er, yes, yes of course.”

  With that the sewer cats collected themselves into a shambling single file, and with Lugger at the front marched themselves off down the riverbank towards an exposed sewer outfall. There was a heavy, broken iron grille leaning across the entrance. Exactly how they managed to move it is something of a mystery, but between them, and with a great deal of disorganised pulling and pushing, heaving and yanking, the iron grille inched aside. Then, one after another they disappeared into the dark hole.

  “I hope we haven’t lost them for good,” said Bryna.

  Ki-ya sniffed the air, smiled to himself, and said nothing.

  It was well into the next day before Dart reappeared in the wood. She came in the company of two cats: both big, heavily built toms, fighters no doubt, but house-cats for all that. One was a short-haired, creamy-white moggie and the other a grey tabby. Shelley and Tibs she called them; from a small lodge in Waverley Crescent. They’d both left their mates and kits behind, but had followed Dart more out of a sense of boredom than for any real belief in her idea.

  When Dart had settled them with something to eat she went to talk with the others.

  “It’s no good,” she said. “I’ve been on the streets all night. Of the few cats I could coax out of their hidey-holes, most of them think we’re completely mad. Only two cats, two out of the lot of them, would come with me.”

  “I . . . I brought six,” offered Treacle, self-consciously.

  “Sewer cats!” said Ki-ya, twisting his nose against their scent as if it still lingered on the air. “What would they know about fighting a Booga?”

  “What do any of us, come to that!” said Bryna. “We’ll just have to keep trying. We must make cats listen. What else can we do?”

  “If Kim has as much trouble convincing the dogs—”

  “We’ll fight with whatever strength we can muster.” Bryna’s tail flicked with agitation.

  “And if we end up dead, it will all be the same anyway,” said Dart.

  Somewhere out across the town a streak of lightning flashed through the sky, and the sound of thunder roared, broke their argument, settled it for good.

  Ki-ya, Dart, Treacle and Bryna took to travelling openly about the town, talking to any cat they happened upon. Often they went in the company of dogs sent by Kim to add weight to their message. (That they didn’t fall victim to the prowling Booga was no miracle; only their luck and another’s misfortune). Those cats who listened to them passed the message on in turn. Sometimes given seriously and worried over, sometimes whispered like so much tittle-tattle, often joked about. The story of the crazy cats and dogs who had made an alliance, and together were going to kill Dread Booga. To some, the message was a disease, the talk of which was cut short with the cuff of a paw, or worse, met with deaf ears. Yet for a few, and at first the few were a very few, there was an answer in this dangerous idea. Slowly cats began to collect around the deserted farmhouse at the fringes of the wood. Others boldly called out across the town, sending messages of support in the deep silences of the night. They would come, give them the day and the hour, they would come.

  And then, where there had been chatter, argument, secret discussions and tacit agreements, suddenly the streets of the town fell silent and still. Visiting stopped. There were no more new arrivals at the wood. Prowls for food ranged closer and closer to lodges. And there were no squeals of kits at play, no midnight romances, no jealous territorial fights.

  The gathering-in was done.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  The Great Council

  On a warm, cloudless afternoon Bryna and Ki-ya sat together on the riverbank, watching the gentle waters slowly trickling past. They had prowled there more for something to do than for any real need; beyond Bryna’s simple desire to sit quietly with Ki-ya as she had taken to doing.

  Bryna dangled a paw carelessly into the rippling waters. She was thinking about old Lodger, about Dexter and strange Fat Blossom, about Mrs Ida Tupps and days gone by. She tried to force a smile into her eyes. Ki-ya pressed his flanks closer to hers for comfort, and tried to smile with her.

  The sun began to drop in the evening sky, turning the colour of the river from a dazzling silver to a rusty orange. The broken stones of the bridge stood up black and disfiguring, like the cracked teeth of some ancient cat, yet solid and immoveable above the shimmering waters.

  But then the stones did move. Or at least, something moved across them creating that illusion. An animal, smaller than a man, larger than a cat.

  Bryna and Ki-ya sat up, stared with concentration, their noses searching for a scent. It was Yip-yap.

  The terrier walked purposefully towards them, his tail and head held high and proud. Without looking at them he sat down at their side.

  “Tomorrow,” he said. And that was all he said. It was such a simple message, and yet not one to be entrusted to another. It was the call to the Great Council, and yet there was so much more in that word. Tomorrow. Tomorrow was life or death. Tomorrow was success or failure. And either way, tomorrow was a world changed forever.

  The three allies sat on in silence. The sun disappeared behind the outlines of the buildings that made up their horizon. The edge of their town. The very edge of their world, their lives even. And beyond? . . . Beyond, like tomorrow, was another unknown.

  Yip-yap crept away as the growing darkness turned into a final starlit black.

  The Great Council was held out in the open, on the Town Moor. Five cats, five dogs sitting together in a circle. And if Dread Booga decided to join their circle? Well, no place was safe now.

  “And
how exactly do you suggest this killing is made, cat?” Kim asked. “After all, this adventure is of your making.” Bryna sat looking vacantly at Ki-ya. Beside her, Treacle fidgeted nervously. How was this killing to be made? Planning and campaign was not the way of the cat. Nor, for that matter, was it the way of the dog. There was instinct, there was survival, there was tooth and claw, and there was the hunt that filled their bellies. There was nothing else.

  Or . . . or was there?

  Bryna’s head began to ache, filling up with that dullness of thought that made the real cats and dogs around her seem like nothing more than faint shadows. And yet, inexplicably, at the same time her senses seemed to sharpen. For one brief moment she was certain Dexter and Beacon had joined their circle. “The town must have eyes,” Beacon seemed to be saying. “The town must have ears.”

  “Eyes and ears,” Bryna repeated vaguely, and the ghosts were gone.

  “What’s that, cat?” Yip-yap snapped.

  “Eh? Oh – we, we must give the town eyes . . . I mean, I mean . . .” And then she was suddenly sure of herself. She remembered Dexter’s Intelligence and Beacon’s beautiful, ever-watchful eyes. She stood up boldly and faced the gathering. “I mean, we must set watchers across the town, keen watchers to look out for the Booga. Whenever it appears, whenever there is sight or sound of it we must know at once. And then we must act upon it. Together, swiftly, decisively.”

  “Yes, oh yes, Bryna,” said Ki-ya, excitedly. “Our weight of numbers must see that it’s done.”

  “Hah! Brave words, cat,” said Kim. “But it’s a big town. Where are all these dogs and cats you speak of? It would take more than our entire number just to keep a guard at each street corner.” Yip-yap began to snitter.

  “And even if the Booga was found this way, how can a call be sent quickly enough to bring us all running together? Or perhaps you can give the town a voice to go with its eyes and ears?”

  Suddenly dogs and cats were laughing. Bryna looked at Ki-ya, uncertain now. Too many questions, too few answers! It was then that Treacle found the courage to call out. “I think there is a way!” he said. “Through the sewers.”

  “Through the sewers, Captain,” echoed Lugger, who’d been invited by Bryna (on Treacle’s insistence) to join the Great Council.

  “What?” asked Yip-yap.

  “Under the town – through the sewers. Wherever there’s a street there’s a sewer. It’s a-a sort of a big tunnel running underneath it.”

  “Tunnel running underneath, Captain.”

  Kim wasn’t laughing now. He remembered long ago, as a pup, watching rainwater running through the gutters, remembered it disappearing down through the iron grilles in the roads and wondering where it could all be going. But then he shook his head. “Yes, cat, but even you aren’t small enough to pass that way.”

  Treacle stood up triumphantly. “No, no I’m not. But my voice is. My voice is! That’s how I discovered Lugger in the first place. I heard him whispering from deep down in the sewers. His voice came right up at me through the drains. Nearly scared the life out of me.”

  “Scared the life out of him, Captain.”

  “Treacle, you’re a genius!” cried Bryna. “What quicker way is there of raising the alarm? And we’ve already got the cats to do the job.”

  Commander in charge of communications, that’s what Ki-ya nicknamed Treacle then. “M-Me!” He stuttered with absolute delight. And it was agreed by the Great Council, it would be Treacle’s job – with Lugger’s help of course – to raise the alarm.

  Kim wasn’t finished. “This is all very well and good; watchers and waiters, listeners and callers spread all over the town. But even using the sewers I still say our numbers would be spread too thinly to make a decisive attack. We must act as one body, a body large enough to bring down Dread Booga. It’s our only chance.”

  The excitement began to fade from Treacle’s face. Bryna felt lost, and suddenly out of her depth. “What are you suggesting?”

  “A trap,” said Kim, quietly. “A trap set wide enough to lure Dread Booga out into the open . . . tight enough to keep us together. The riverside streets would be best. The alarm could be raised easily from there. And there are plenty of dark alleyways for animals to hide in. Plenty of dead-ends to make escape impossible.”

  “Yes, but what kind of a trap?” asked Bryna, her tail gently licking the ground with worry.

  Kim looked at Yip-yap.

  “Boom, boom,” said the terrier, slowly and thoughtfully. “Boom, boom, boom. Let the Booga give itself away with the sound of its own thunder.”

  “Oh, yes,” Dart hissed. “What are you going to do, Kim? Ask some poor sucker of a cat to stand in the middle of the road and cry ‘Come and get me Booga’; to go and get themselves killed! That would be right. That would be the dogs’ way!” As she spat Kim began to growl threateningly.

  “Stop this.” Ki-ya sprang to his feet. “Stop this!”

  They froze. Angry. Shocked. And yet . . . and yet, when it came down to it, what other way was there? Some animal – cat or dog – would have to do just that. Set itself up as a target. Get itself killed—

  “I will do it,” said Bryna, softly, getting to her feet.

  “Me too,” said Yip-yap. He stood up at her side. “We will need others; as many as will do it. Volunteers. No animal can be ordered to its own death . . .” There he ran out of words, and the meeting fell into a deep brooding silence.

  Shadows fell across the town with the coming of night. The Great Council was done. Dogs and cats slunk warily away.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Live Bait

  Before the sun rose again cats and dogs were moving secretly about the town. Watchers were set to watch; dogs and cats by strict timetable. And Treacle had been dispatched with Lugger and his sewer cats down into their dirty tunnels.

  Bryna stood alone on the street. Out in the open, exposed and nervous. Live bait to hook Dread Booga. There was a cold wind in the air that stung her nose. It mixed up old and new scents, threw them at her, carried them away again. Above the rooftops of the town it hurled the clouds about in the same couldn’t-care-less manner. It would rain soon. She looked about her. What street was this? Beggars Lane, Kim had called it. There were houses and gardens; gates pushed open by the wind clanged shut again. Cars stood idle at the side of the road, their bodies rocking gently in the wind.

  Inside her head the shadows of ghosts were moving again, and somehow they seemed more real than all of this. The town streets were the illusion, the dream. This was such a very ordinary day. Such an ordinary street.

  For a moment she thought she caught a voice on the wind. Remembered the other dogs and cats standing on other streets, waiting like her to be victims. And she remembered the other paws somewhere down below her, at that very moment scampering through the sewers, their owners eager to catch any sound that might reach them from the outside world. Perhaps from the safety of some nearby doorway, or high rooftop, other eyes were watching her now? Would it be her death throes they would witness; a thunderclap that was her end that would reveal their quarry, seal the Booga’s fate as it sealed hers? She shuddered, pretending it was the wind, and backed away from her invisible enemy. She wanted to close her eyes, wanted desperately to hide away, but knew she must not. There was a big red car at the roadside behind her. She crouched down low in front of it, as if the weight of its presence could giver her some protection.

  When would the creature come? Get it over with. Finish it. She almost wished it was there now. But Dread Booga did not come. Not yet . . .

  Yip-yap sniffed at the nearest lamppost, like he always did, cocked his leg, like he always did. Stood his ground in the open. From Tullyhole Street the ground dropped steeply downhill. He could see the corner of Spittle Rows, and further to Monk Street, Beggars Lane and the riverside. And, if he

  Looked carefully, here and there he could see another cat, another dog waiting anxiously, just as he was. He lifted his nose to the air
and let his lungs fill up with the cold, early morning air. It told him nothing. Nothing yet . . .

  Treacle sat in his sewer beneath the ground and worried. Not worried over anything in particular, just worried. Everything was set. Every fifty or sixty paces one of Lugger’s cats sat listening. Maybe at a junction – a crossroads – of drainage pipes, maybe at the opening of an outlet pipe, maybe directly below a manhole, where the thin slits in the iron cover let them see all the way to the sky, and more importantly let them hear and smell the streets above them. It had come as a revelation to Treacle just how easily, and how far sound travelled through the sewers. He’d tested the system endlessly since returning from the Great Council. Lugger must have been more than a prowl’s length away when he’d called him back the last time; and it had been nothing more than a whisper. In fact, it had almost worked too well. The slight noises he’d made had passed out on to the streets at several points and almost caused a panic among the dogs and cats who heard them.

  After that Treacle had ordered an immediate silence in the sewers. No more messages were to be called out loud. No tom fooling, no kittish games, no sniggering, and positively, absolutely positively, no purring. (Not that there was a cat among them who had the heart to purr that morning.) There was to be only one more call: the raising of the alarm.

  Treacle knew almost to a cat and dog where every animal was; or at least knew where Bryna and Kim had planned them to be. Knew the bolt holes. Knew the hidden doorways where groups of animals lurked, eagerly awaiting the call to attack. Knew the garden hedge behind which proud Ki-ya stood with Shelley and Tibbs. He knew the darkened alleyway where Kim was waiting patiently with his pack. He even knew the rooftop perches where nameless cats sat, the riverside haunts where unknown dogs lay panting among long grass.