by Ged Gillmore
Actually, she didn’t say that at all. What, did you think you were still watching a film? Only in bad films do people really speak like that, and this book might be bad, but it’s still not a film. Oh dicey dialogue, no. In reality, Ginger said, ‘Never heard of her.’
And Sue said, ‘She’s the world champion professional street fighter.’
And Ginger said, ‘Oh right, thanks.’
At first Ginger didn’t think much about the conversation, after all she too had been a champ in her own time. But later that evening, as she and Ivana were walking along the wharves watching the sunset reflect on the dirty river water, the stumpy brown-and-orange cat put a paw on Ginger’s shoulder.
‘Listen, Ginge, I know we didn’t get along well when we first met.’
‘You kicked me in the ribs,’ said Ginger. ‘Over there.’
‘Yeah, well, I didn’t know you then. But now I do. You’ve worked hard for this fight and you’re one of us. But let’s be honest, you’re past your best, Ginge. Kim DM’s going to tear you to pieces. You’ve worked hard, but how many lives have you got left? Two, three? Maybe you should clear out while you can. Run away, you know?’
Ginger thought about it for a minute or two. It was a tempting offer. Ivana was right, she wasn’t the cat she had once been. But to run away from a fight? She knew the rules of the street. If the Fur Girls failed to put a fighter forward, they would lose all of their territory, not just some of it. Which meant none of them would make it through the winter. She couldn’t bring herself to leave them to starve.
‘No way,’ she said. ‘Like you say, I’ve worked hard and now this fight is mine. I’d rather give it my best shot and lose than not try at all. Whoever this Kim DM is, let’s see how good she is.’
Well, Ginger didn’t have to wait long to find out. On their training run the next day, she and the Gertrude Street Fur Girls ran to the no cat’s land which sat between their territory and the territory of the Citrus Street Sourpusses. It was an overgrown wasteland where weeds grew amongst empty oil barrels and discarded milk crates and the snow lay brown and slushy. The Fur Girls had planned on practising with their num-numchucks, but when they arrived they found they were not alone. The Sourpusses were also there—all of them—over on their side of the wasteland, but still clearly visible. There was a Siamese called Sarong Sorite; a brown cat called Jean Poole and her ginger-mix cousin, Julie Noted. There was an old cat, more yellow with age than white, whom Ginger recognised as Citronella Tealights. She was talking with the leader of the gang, wizened old Anna Fellactic. And, of course, Kimberley Diamond-Mine was there too. It was obvious which one was her. Even from the very first glance, Ginger could see the huge white cat was the fittest, fiercest and most ferociously frightening feline fighter she’d ever seen.
‘Gulp,’ she thought.
And then she saw something that made her feel even worse. It was an old dried-up rat dropping. It reminded her of the Riff Raffs and what they’d done, and why she was so far from home in the first place. Never in her life had she felt so lost.
WHAT A HOOT!
The blizzard never made it as far as the city, but in the Great Dark Forest it raged half the night. Only when the first weak signs of daybreak were appearing in the eastern sky, did the wind stop howling and the air clear of snow. Despite being cold and more than a little damp, Tuck managed to sleep. But when he awoke he saw Bunk hadn’t rested at all. The American had been busy all night digging a tunnel through the snow that had piled up around the rock.
‘That’s brill!’ said Tuck. ‘Aren’t you tired?’
‘Negative,’ said Bunk. ‘Are you rested?’
‘I am! Do you want me to go and hunt for some breakfast?’
‘Can you hunt for chocolate?’
‘Er …’ Tuck wasn’t sure. ‘No?’
‘Then, negative. Besides, we have no time to lose, for I fear it will take us a long time to find where we need to go. And there is no time to lose if we are to stop the Pongs before they develop the poison and start distributing it.’
The forest they found outside the rock had been completely transformed. Whereas the night before it had been shaken by a storm, swirling snow and swaying shadows, now it lay—even in the weak light of pre-dawn—in a million shades of white. Every branch was heavy with snow, and the sides of the trunks which had faced into the blizzard were covered in a thick layer of it.
‘Ooh,’ said Tuck. ‘The forest doesn’t look great and dark at all now.’
‘And yet it is,’ said Bunk. ‘More so than ever. Let us proceed with caution.’
And so they walked. As they did so, Tuck noticed how eerily quiet the dim landscape around them was. He wanted to ask where they were going, but was scared even his quietest whisper would sound loud amongst the silent trees. His deep paw prints seemed to crunch loudly beneath him. Looking back, he saw he and Bunk had left a very clear trail behind them and he hoped there were no foxes or wolves or dragons out on a pre-dawn hunt. He pressed closer than ever to Bunk’s side, and they walked slowly forward, like a two-headed, eight-legged, two-tailed black cat. They continued in this way, neither of them saying a word, until Tuck heard a rapid scuttling noise in a tree to their right. Beside him Bunk flinched and then changed position very quickly. Tuck desperately wanted to scream, but found he couldn’t, because Bunk had put a paw over his mouth. He also found he couldn’t move as Bunk had him locked in a surprisingly strong shoulder-lock for such a small cat.
‘Mmf!’ said Tuck. ‘Mmfy, mmf mmf!’
Bunk ignored him and called out into the trees, his soft American accent clear across the snow.
‘Hullo? I know you’re in there. We wish you no harm. We are looking for information and can pay for it in nuts.’
‘Mmf,’ said Tuck again, but this only resulted in Bunk tightening the paw over his mouth.
Then, as Tuck watched in horror, a large furry red snake appeared above the branch of the nearest tree. It wiggled and waggled and wobbled and Tuck thought he was going to wet himself in fear. He wanted to scream and run away, but, of course, he couldn’t do either of these things. Then the furry red snake was followed by a furry red bottom and then a furry back and then a square red head with a pair of furry ears, a sniffy little nose and, last of all, a squinty pair of eyes. It hadn’t been a fluffy red snake at all! It was the fluffy tail of a red squirrel who was backing himself out of a hole in the tree.
‘Nuts?’ squeaked the squinty square-headed squirrel, squatting on the branch. ‘What kind of nuts?’
‘The question you should be asking,’ said Bunk softly, ‘is what kind of information?’
The squirrel put his square head on one side.
‘What are we talking? Chestnuts or groundnuts?’
‘For the right information I will pay you in brazil nuts and cashews, walnuts and almonds,’ said Bunk slowly. ‘A whole bushel; your choice.’
The squirrel put his head on the other side and rubbed his little front paws together.
‘What’s wrong with your friend?’ he squeaked.
Tuck realised the squirrel was referring to him. Then he felt Bunk let him go, and he stood up quickly.
‘I’m not scared of squirrels, you know,’ he said rather crossly. But then he saw the look on Bunk’s face and remembered that sometimes, in special fluffy-red-snake-like circumstances, he was. To cover his embarrassment, he looked up at the squirrel instead.
‘Hello, Mr Squirrel!’ he said, waving politely.
‘Mr Squirrel!’ squeaked the squinty squirrel. ‘I don’t assume you are all called Mr Cat, do I? For goodness sake, the name’s Asquith.’
‘Mr Asquith,’ Bunk said gently. ‘We need to find the Wise Old Owl.’
The squinty squatting squirrel squirmed squiffily.
‘The … the Wise …’
‘Yes.’
‘… Old …’
‘Yes.’
‘Owl!’ said Tuck.
Asquith the squirrel looked from Bunk to Tuck
and Tuck to Bunk and back again.
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Do you have a referral?’
‘Well,’ said Bunk. ‘The thing is …’
‘Sheryl the scarecrow said he could help,’ Tuck shouted out excitedly.
Well, that stopped the squatting squirrel squirming and squinting and made him square up his shoulders instead.
‘That Sheryl!’ he said, fluffing up his tail. ‘She refers half her work to this branch. It’s ever since she went part-time. “Part-time is fine,” I said when it happened, “but who does the other part, that’s what I want to know.”’
Naturally, Tuck, who hated questions, didn’t have an answer for this one, and neither, it seemed, did Bunk. Instead, an awkward silence descended, broken only by Tuck’s tummy rumbling.
‘Well,’ said Mr Asquith at last, ‘you better come with me. I’m presuming it’s too much to hope for that Sheryl gave you a reference number? No, of course she didn’t. Well, come on then, this way.’
And with that the squirrel hopped onto the next tree, and then the next, and then the next after that, the cats running after him along the snowy ground, deeper and deeper into the forest.
The sun had fully risen by the time Asquith finally stopped hopping from tree to tree. He had led the cats to a clearing where six great oaks stood in a circle.
‘Mr Asquith,’ said Bunk, as he and Tuck trotted up, ‘I insist on payment as promised. Will you give me your details so I can ensure a bushel of the best quality nuts is sent to you?’
‘Don’t be squalid!’ squeaked the squinty squirrel squeamishly, looking around in case someone had overheard. ‘I can’t accept gifts for forest services, not unless I document them on the gift register, and then, oh, the tax implications are enough to make me squiffy! Please, don’t mention it again. Oh Gerald, here you are!’
This last sentence was directed to a large rabbit who had appeared on the ground from behind one of the oaks.
‘Oh hello, how do you dooo?’ said the rabbit to Tuck. ‘You must be the larger of the two black cats who are looking to consult the woo.’
‘Incredible!’ said Asquith on his branch, who clearly knew how fast news travels in the forest. ‘Whatever gave it away? Was it is his largeness, his blackness or his catness?’
The rabbit pretended not to have heard the squirrel above him and gave Tuck and Bunk a tight smile.
‘Do you have a ticket?’
‘Of course they don’t,’ said Asquith. ‘Sheryl sent them. She keeps the tickets for herself, she’s saving up for a pair of legs. And don’t bother asking for a reference number, either. I honestly don’t know why she always gets those “Outstanding In Her Field” awards.’
Again the rabbit ignored him.
‘Ticket?’ he said to Tuck.
‘I want to see the Wise Old Owl,’ said Tuck. ‘I need some advice.’
‘You’ll need a ticket,’ said the rabbit.
‘Oh, for goodness sake, Gerald,’ squeaked Asquith the squirrel. ‘Go and get the woo. It’s not like there’s a queue is there?’
Now, at last, the rabbit looked up into the oak. He stared at Asquith, and Asquith stared at him, each seeming to dare the other to look away first, until Tuck said, ‘Oh please, let me see him. And maybe ask the woo to find the Wise Old Owl?’
‘The woo is the Wise Old Owl’ said the rabbit, turning back from the squirrel. ‘It’s an acronym.’
‘A what?’
‘An acronym,’ said Bunk quietly. ‘A series of initials made into a word. ‘Woo’ means Wise Old Owl, just like ‘radar’ means RAdio Detecting And Ranging and ‘sonar’ means SOund Navigation And Ranging and ‘laser’ means Light Amplification by the Stimulated Emission of Radiation.’
The rabbit looked impressed by Bunk’s education (and, indeed, you might want to learn the paragraph above off by heart so that one day a rabbit will be impressed by you too) and he relaxed visibly.
‘Well, can’t the acronym ask the woo to bring the owl with him?’ said Tuck.
Asquith the squirrel squeaked a little laugh at this, but the rabbit breathed a frustrated sigh and hopped stompily off to the oak on the other side of the clearing.
‘Oh, Wise One!’ he shouted to a hole halfway up the tree.
Immediately, a wrinkled old owl wearing a gold crown popped his head out of the hole.
‘Hoo, Gerald,’ hooted the owl. ‘I thought you were never going to get around to it. I’m nearly ready; just fixing my cloak.’
And with that he disappeared into the hole again. The rabbit turned and hopped back to Tuck and Bunk.
‘You may enter the inner sanctum,’ he said.
The two black cats followed the rabbit into the clearing surrounded by the six great oak trees.
‘Terwit, terwoo, you’re consulting the woo. Who seeks my advice?’ came the voice of the owl from the hole in the tree above them.
‘Bunk and me!’ said Tuck, before Bunk could stop him, let alone point out his grammatical error.
‘And who is “me”?’
‘Er … you are,’ said Tuck.
There was an embarrassed silence on the forest floor until Bunk whispered, ‘What’s your name?’
‘Tuck,’ Tuck whispered back. ‘Surely you know that by now?’
Well, this went on for quite a while until, eventually, Bunk gave up and shouted Tuck’s name up to the hole in the tree. Only then did the owl appear in all his finery. The gold crown on his head was offset by a beautiful cloak of brown feathers, which blended so seamlessly with his own that the Wise Old Owl appeared to be twice his actual size.
‘I am the Wise Old Owl,’ he said.
‘Hiya!!’ said Tuck.
‘Hang on, I haven’t finished. I am the Wise Old Owl of the Great Dark Forest; the woo of the GDF. The king of the night and the chief of all birds. I am the brownest of brown owls, I am—’
‘Oh, do get on with it,’ squeaked Asquith from the oak tree opposite. ‘It’s already light, you know. I think they’re lost.’
‘Oh, is that all?’ said the owl with a frown. ‘What a let-down. I feel a right clown after I went to town with the crown and this long brown gown. Where are you trying to get to?’
‘We need to know the current location of CIA HQ,’ said Bunk.
‘Oh marvellous!’ said the owl, perking up again. ‘Well, you’ve come to the right place. Terwit, terwoo, I’ll tell you what to do. At least, I will if you can give me the password. If not, you will never get the secret from me. Never! So … what is the password?’
‘The password is “Password”,’ said Bunk, in a strange voice that didn’t seem like his own.
‘Oh yes, yes, it is,’ said the owl disappointedly. ‘Bother. CIA HQ is currently in Old Bodgkins Car Yard.’
‘I don’t suppose you have the GPS co-ordinates?’ said Bunk. ‘Or know where that is?’
‘I know where that is!’ called out Asquith. ‘It’s in the pale vale beyond the Dell of Hell.’
‘Do you mind!’ said the rabbit. ‘You’re not in the inner sanctum, you can’t give advice.’
‘To find the yard is not so hard,’ said the owl knowingly. ‘But first you must pass the Dell of Hell. The Dell of Hell … the Dell of Hell …’
And as he said this, each time more quietly, he withdrew into the hole in the oak, tugging on his cloak until at last it too disappeared.
‘Session over,’ said the rabbit sniffily. ‘Cash or credit?’
WHAT A CUTIE!
Yes, yes, I know you want a bit more Minnie. She’s always telling me that anyone reading this book will only care about the chapters with her in them. But fear not, there is more than enough Minnie to go around.
As you’ll remember, when we last left her Minnie was facing a terrible choice. Mr Soffalot had offered her a contract, but she could only fulfil it if she gave up her audition for Kitten’s Got Talent. What would you do in Minnie’s shoes? I suspect you’d probably squeal, ‘Eek! These shoes are WAY too small for me!’ Unless,
of course, you have unfeasibly small feet. Or you’re a cat. But I didn’t actually mean that. I meant, what would you do if you were faced with the choice facing Minnie?
Would you sign a twelve-month contract in a small country milk bar and forfeit your chance of a national audition? Or would you give up a rock-solid offer for a very slim chance of television success? Is a bird in the hand worth two in the bush even if you don’t have hands and you live in the bush? No matter how much you like birds? Oh, what a dilemma. Minnie thought about it for a whole ten seconds.
‘Deal!’ she squealed, quicker than a seal on a banana peel. ‘Where do I sign? When do I start? What will I wear?!!’
Well, the answers were: 1) with a big fat paw print on the bottom of the contract Mr Soffalot produced with a flourish from behind the bar; 2) that very night; and 3) mostly her own fabulous fur, but also a folly of fully frilly frou-frous which she ran up on a sewing machine.
Oh yes, folks, Ginger wasn’t the only one slogging her guts out over the following days. Minnie was working it too. Every night she’d put her everything into every song for everyone who saw her. She shimmied and sparkled, strutted and purred, sang and scratched and shook her shoulders in a way the audience couldn’t resist. And that was just during the evenings. During the days she worked hard too, not only sewing, but writing songs, practising routines and—most importantly of all—trying to hire an assistant.
‘Ah dunt understand it, Mr Soffalot,’ she said one day in her dressing room (aka the cleaning cupboard), as she painted her nails. ‘I’d of thought there was millions of gals entranced by the glamour of working for me.’
‘Why does it have to be a girl?’ asked Mr Soffalot, who detested gender-stereotyping in any form. ‘And, please, call me by my first name.’
‘What is it? Pop? Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah.’
Oh, it was good for Minnie to hear herself laughing again, and for a minute she forgot the difficulties of recruitment.
‘My name is Lancelot,’ said the ocelot. ‘I’m from Trinidad. It’s …’
