‘My, there certainly are a lot of species on this planet!’ Tark said.
Ralph narrowed his eyes at Tiger. ‘They like to play with their food – just like cats.’
Tiger crossed his heart – just in case the beavers knew what that meant. ‘I haven’t played with my food since Alexander starting buying me Cat Gourmet,’ he said.
‘And you’re sure that Madonna will come to cut the ribbon for our biofuel plant when it’s ready to launch?’ Martha asked.
‘Consider it done,’ Tark smiled. ‘She has a thing for furry creatures with wide tails. Especially if we can build in a water slide or two.’
Tiger gave Tark a long look. How could he know that about Madonna? She’d probably never met a beaver before. But then, Tark had his ways of making things happen, as both the President and Madonna had already seen.
‘Might see you in Washington, DC, then,’ said Ralph, slapping the ground with his tail and nodding to Martha to do the same. ‘If we’re not too busy spreading the word about our rain gardens.’
And if we survive the Big Apple, thought Tiger.
in which dreams are dreamt
and Syd gets snatched by a Bald Eagle
It might have been the can of Liver Surprise that he ate too close to bedtime, but that night Tiger had big dreams with a capital “D”. What began as his comfy cat bed snug in the corner by the spa in the greenhouse at home and a bonus pillow stuffed with pigeon feathers became a smelly mattress of bat poo and cascades of cockroaches under the pillowslip. Myrtle from Next Door was dressed up in a puffy dress and grey wig with ringlets and heavy rouge on her cheeks, and she was stuffing Tiger’s mouth with globs of Greenhouse Ginger Cheesecake. The faucets from the spa were on full blast, and the beavers had diverted the torrent to one of Alexander’s plant boxes, which was already soaked through and through until water was steadily rising up the walls. The Members were paddling around on lily pads, while Prince and Eudora conducted them to and fro as if they were an orchestra. With the water rising faster and faster.
Somehow Tiger kept tossing and turning in his bed even as it got soaked then covered with water, but it didn’t float. His body wanted to rise up with the water but he was tied down to the bed and struggling to get free even as he heard the laughing dogs – Tony and Cleo, of course – pointing and spluttering at him through the water that it was their leashes holding him back. But then Martha the beaver swam down and chomped through the leashes just in time, freeing him to cough to the surface.
It was a mess up there, with chunks of cheesecake bumping into half empty cans of Cat Gourmet. Alexander was floating on his back, typing away furiously on his iPad, scooping up the occasional bite of cheesecake when he couldn’t think of anything to type.
‘Oh, Alexander!’ Tiger cried, cat-paddling over to him. ‘Am I glad to see you.’
‘You’re back, Tiger,’ Alexander said, turning his way. ‘But why are you so... wet?’
‘Because this is a dream, Alexander,’ Tiger said, hoping on hope that it was, and that saying so would pull the plug on the murky water.
‘No, old chap,’ said Alexander, flicking away with his toe an empty can that skimmed along the water, nearly nicking Tiger’s ear as it careened past. ‘This is a nightmare. Classic stuff. Like Through the Looking Glass: “Curiouser and curiouser”!’
‘But can’t you make it all end?’ Tiger said. ‘You’re the human, and everything is supposed to be possible when you’re a human.’
‘It will end,’ the Members sang in harmony from their lily pads. ‘But will it end well?’
‘I’m afraid there’s a worm in the Big Apple,’ Prince shrugged.
‘Yes,’ said Eudora to Tiger. ‘And you need to bite off his head!’
‘Yuck!’ Tiger said. ‘But cats don’t eat worms. Where’s Syd when we need him? SYD!’
‘Watch your language,’ Syd said, suddenly appearing on the faucet. ‘Birds don’t eat cats. Well, not around here, anyway. Unless they’re desperate.’
‘No,’ Tiger replied. ‘But birds eat worms!’
‘Real worms, perhaps,’ said Syd. ‘But this is a cyberworm, and probably much larger than me if it’s chewing a hole in the Big Apple!’
This was getting out of hand. Tiger had heard that if you pinch yourself during a nightmare, you’ll wake up. But pinching is one thing that cats, no matter how clever, are not equipped to do, so he had to try scratching his nose.
It worked – sort of. He was tumbling through space toward this twirling Big Apple on the horizon. And it really was an apple, a gigantic red one, looming fatter and higher the closer he came. Then he was hovering above it like a helicopter, watching troops of cyberworms drilling into its flesh, leaving piles of gooey mess all over the skin.
‘Stop!’ Tiger cried. ‘You’re hurting the Big Apple. What will the humans have left if you chew up the greatest city on Earth?’
One of the cyberworms emerged from its hole to face him. It had a grin that reminded Tiger of Mick.
‘Too late!’ Mick was laughing. ‘You and your Project team gave the humans every chance to do something about climate change, and all they did was talk, talk, talk. And then talk some more about what they might do in 20 or 30 years’ time. Meanwhile the temperature keeps rising, while the seas slowly drown island nations whose peoples are ignored with all the talk, talk, talk. It’s inhuman, if you ask me.’
‘That’s rich, coming from a robot,’ Tiger said. ‘You’re just looking for any excuse to destroy the Earth!’
‘It’s nothing personal,’ said Mick. ‘Once we cleanse this planet of its human masters and degrade it to asteroids, no one will miss it. Hardly a blip in the diary of galactic events!’
Tiger looked around for the rest of the Crew. Where were they?
‘Tark!’ he cried. ‘Prince!’
‘Oh, dear,’ said Mick. ‘Did the Griffs leave without saying good-bye? Maybe they didn’t have the heart to tell you they’d given up. Your Project has failed. Nah-nah-nah-nah-nah!’
‘Tark!’ Tiger cried, as Mick turned to chew another gigantic hole in the Big Apple. ‘TARK, COME BACK!’
Then something was shaking him out of it. It was Tark.
‘Wake up, Tiger,’ he was saying.
Number 12, Wanda and Syd were all there, too, looking very concerned.
‘Just a nightmare,’ Wanda said, gently.
‘Yeah, buck up, mate,’ said Number 12. ‘We all have them.’
Tiger rubbed his eyes and sat up with a start. ‘But this one was so real. This mob of cyberworms were chewing up the Big Apple, and you’d all... disappeared.’
‘No chance of that,’ Tark said. ‘Inter-Galactic Command is in this until the end – or should I say the duration.’
‘But where are they?’ Tiger said. ‘What chance do we have against Mick and his starships? Why aren’t they here now?’
‘We must have faith in Prince and Eudora,’ Tark said. ‘They are in constant contact with Supreme Command. But, as with your humans, there must be some discussion among the Command members before an inter-galactic force can be assembled. Maybe they are looking for a sign from the humans that they are ready to do something more than talk about the Great Danger. They must show a will to change, and to put the interests of the planet above their greed.’
‘Then what are we waiting for?’ said Tiger. ‘We’d better go to New York and make sure that the President is onside!’
‘Yes,’ said Tark. ‘I think it’s time.’
‘Yeah, now or never,’ said Number 12.
‘Up in the air and on Mission Target!’ cried Syd, fluttering up in the air and doing figure eights in the sky. ‘Let’s go, Members!’
Just then, a shadow passed over them, and a huge pair of talons came from nowhere, snatching Syd right out of the sky.
‘Syd!’ cried Number 12. ‘Oh, no, it’s an eagle!’
It was an eagle, all right, and Tiger had never seen one that big before. It was one thing to see it on a David
Rattenborough program but much more horrifying to see it in real life.
Syd was certainly well-fed for a crow, but the eagle lifted him as though he was no more than a sack of feathers. Tiger would have expected Syd to put up a fight, but the crow just hung there helpless, with nothing more than a feeble cheep, as he was being lifted higher and higher.
‘Tark, do something!’ shouted Wanda. ‘He’ll be killed!’
Tark had already put his toe into action, and before the eagle could fly any higher he smashed into an invisible barrier. Stunned, the eagle went into free-fall for a few seconds then tried a different route, banging his head again with a whack Tiger could hear. This time his free-fall was not on purpose – he’d been knocked out.
Tark tried to change gears with his toe, to no effect. But Number 12 ran right under the eagle, positioning himself so the eagle landed right on his hump, or rather bounced off before landing in a heap on the ground.
Syd must have seen his chance coming. Just before the eagle hit the hump, Syd twisted free of his talons and made a sharp right turn to avoid the impact. But the shock of it all must have been too much for him because he fainted in mid-air and nose-dived into the ground right beside the eagle.
Syd was the first to come to.
‘Are you OK?’ Wanda said, giving him a good shake.
‘Y-yes,’ said Syd, smiling up at Wanda. ‘I didn’t know you cared!’
Wanda cleared her throat. ‘Well, I—’
‘That’s OK,’ said Syd. ‘One for all and all for one, eh?’ he added hopefully.
Tiger, who’d watched The Three Musketeers right till the end on the Late Night Movie, even after Alexander had fallen asleep, held up a paw. ‘I think you’ll find that it’s “all for one and one for all”.’
No one seemed to be listening, but Tiger still felt satisfied, sure that he was right.
The eagle was coming to by then, but he fell over twice before righting himself.
‘What did you do that for?’ he said, short of breath.
‘That’s gratitude for you,’ snorted Number 12. ‘I don’t let just any eagle use my hump as a landing strip!’
Tiger stepped up and poked the eagle’s beak with a claw. ‘You tried to kill Syd!’
‘I prefer to say harvest,’ the eagle said, finally upright. ‘There’s a shortage of meals on wheels for eagles around these parts but always a surplus of crows. This one would never be missed.’
Tiger finally had the chance to give the eagle a good look-over. Aside from piercing yellow eyes, he had a white head.
‘What kind of eagle are you, anyway?’ Tiger asked.
‘You don’t know?’ the eagle said, cocking his head.
‘Sorry,’ said Tiger. ‘I left my What Bird is That? book at home.’
‘I’m the National Emblem!’ the eagle said.
‘Sorry,’ said Number 12. ‘Never heard of that species – a National... what?’
‘Emblem,’ said the eagle, pacing around and drooling a bit at Syd, who was perched back on Number 12’s hump. ‘National symbol of the good old US of A. I’m a Bald Eagle.’
‘I know the name,’ said Tiger. ‘But you’re not actually bald, are you?’
‘Haliaeetus leucocephalus if you want to get picky,’ said the eagle. ‘“Leukos” means white, and, I’ll have you know, at one time “white” meant “bald”, but what’s in a name, anyway?’
‘Not much,’ Tiger conceded, remembering that his name alone hadn’t been enough to discourage the Grey Cat from bullying him.
‘Bald Eagles only live in North America,’ the eagle went on, ‘and the Yanks wanted something distinctive as their symbol, so we fit the bill.’ He scratched at the sand. ‘But that hasn’t made life any easier for us.’
‘Why not?’ asked Wanda.
‘We were nearly hunted to extinction,’ the eagle said, eyes flaring, ‘because they reckoned we were stealing their fish. Their fish? What nerve! We were here long before the humans came in such numbers. And we didn’t hunt them down for stealing our fish, now did we? Then the farmers started using DDT.’
‘What’s... DDT?’ Tiger asked.
‘Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane,’ said the eagle. ‘Want me to spell that out for you?’
‘Bit of a mouthful – if you’ll excuse the expression,’ said Tark.
‘P-O-I-S-O-N,’ said the eagle. ‘That’s what it was. Tasteless, odorless, and deadly. It worked really well on bugs, but then we ate the bugs, or the next few things up the food chain, and the DDT thinned the shells of our eggs, making them easy prey for snakes and rodents, so our numbers fell off to the point we were endangered. How embarrassing! To be at the top of the food chain and then be brought down so low!’
‘How unfair!’ said Judge Wanda. ‘You should take them to court. Mount a class action, or something. I can show you how.’
‘Mount?’ said Number 12. ‘Is that anything like a saddle?’
‘Oh, please, Number 12,’ said Wanda. ‘You haven’t heard of mounting a case?’
‘Of course I have,’ said Number 12. ‘Just wanted to keep you on your toes!’
‘Thanks for the offer,’ the eagle said to Wanda. ‘But you only get human justice in human courts these days. We eagles prefer to stick to the higher ground. Besides, the humans saw the error of their ways and banned DDT some time ago. Forgive and forget time. In the end, like it or not, we’re all in the same fishbowl – Planet Earth.’
‘Speaking of which...’ Tark said, about to give him the pitch about the Project.
The eagle raised a wing to cut him off. ‘I already know about the Great Danger. There’s not much that escapes your notice when you’re cruising in the jet stream or flying in formation with the drones.’
‘That’s great,’ said Tiger. ‘So you’ll sign up for the eagles?’
‘I can’t speak for our other 58 species,’ said the eagle, puffing out his chest. ‘But we Bald Eagles do have clout in the Eagle Assembly, given our status as National Emblem. Where we soar, others generally follow!’
‘You know about the Project,’ said Tark. ‘But have you heard about the threat from Mick and the Abell 2218s?’
‘Indeed,’ said the eagle. ‘They nearly killed my Uncle Marty!’
‘Oh, no!’ said Tiger. ‘How?’
The eagle hunched his back. ‘He was just riding his favorite thermal current, minding his own business, when this black, cigar-shaped ship appeared from nowhere and faced off with him. Being the curious type he is, he just had to have a closer look, and that’s when they gave him a serve.’
‘A serve?’ asked Wanda.
‘Yeah,’ said the eagle. ‘It was like a lightning bolt, except it was cool not hot. When it hit him mid-air he was paralyzed, and dropped several thousand feet, just breaking his fall at the last minute before landing in a whitewater river. He thought he was a goner, except something drew him out of the torrent just before he hit the boulders and dropped him on the shore.’
‘And how long ago was that?’ asked Number 12.
The eagle shrugged. ‘Many sunsets – months ago – on the human calendar. Ever since then, we and the Golden Eagles have kept a Watch and Advise for UFOs like that one.’
‘And have you seen any more?’ asked Tark.
‘Just the odd sighting was reported to the Mountain Eagle Assembly,’ said the eagle. ‘Up until recently, when there have been more and more. It’s like they’re watching us as much as we’re watching out for them.’
‘Hmm,’ said Tark, rubbing his toes together thoughtfully. ‘Mountain Assembly has a nice ring to it. Your team could be very helpful to us in the coming days.’
‘Glad to oblige,’ said the eagle. ‘I have a wireless contact with MEA. Just outline the mission, and we’ll take it from there.’
‘We think they’re heading for New York City,’ said Tark, ‘and the United Nations. But we need to be sure.’
‘Right,’ said the eagle. ‘We’ll alert the Peregrines. They’re loners at the b
est of times, but they know the city better than anyone else. They can weave their way between skyscrapers even better than the pigeons.’
‘We crows can help out, too,’ said Syd, finally awake after his near-death experience.
‘Yes,’ said the eagle. ‘But, with all due respect, for a mission like this, we want high-flyers with a finger on the pulse, not bottom feeders.’
Syd did his best to stick out his lower lip, even though it had to be an imaginary one since crows are sadly missing a lower or even upper lip for such things.
‘I’m sure the crows will have a chance to play their part,’ said Wanda, being unusually nice to Syd. ‘We’ll all have our assignments.’
‘Absolutely!’ said Tiger, standing up straight and saluting, although he wasn’t quite sure at whom.
The eagle gazed off into the distance. ‘If we can pull this off and save the Earth, the humans will have to take notice and stop treating us... well, like animals.’
‘But we are animals,’ said Number 12.
‘You know what I mean,’ said the eagle, giving him a sharp look.
‘It’s time for a New Age of Mutual Respect and Cooperation,’ nodded Wanda, her neck puffing out. ‘With no more smelly drainpipes for us Blue-tongues!’
‘Where would you live?’ asked Tiger. ‘I thought you liked Alexander’s drainpipe!’
‘My drainpipe,’ Wanda reminded him. ‘When you live in a city, you learn to make do. And tolerate. But that doesn’t mean we like it.’
‘You could always move into the greenhouse,’ Tiger offered. ‘There’s plenty of room. And I’m sure Alexander won’t mind.’
‘I was thinking more along the lines of a funky marble pad somewhere on Parliament Hill,’ said Wanda. ‘Look at all that wasted grass they have up there.’
‘You’d probably get trampled every time there’s a protest,’ said Tiger.
Wanda thought about it. ‘Hmm, Alex has got Wi-fi, hasn’t he?’
‘Of course,’ said Tiger. ‘Every self-respecting human does these days.’
Tiger Takes the Big Apple Page 8
