The raccoons had a good chuckle over that. At least that was what Tiger guessed it was. He’d never heard a raccoon chuckle before, but the high pitch reminded him of a hyena laugh but a bit more friendly.
‘Please,’ said Tiger. ‘There are ladies present. Let’s keep it clean, OK?’
‘Who are you calling a lady?’ Judge Wanda sneered. ‘Art is in the eye of the beholder, but I do think there’s a difference between paint and sprayed wee, Number 12!’
It was the raccoons’ turn to applaud. They were really getting a kick out of this.
Tark narrowed his eyes. ‘So what you do with your spray paint is art, Marvin?’
‘Right,’ said Marvin. ‘Hey, if you’re from Outer Space, Froggie, how’d you know about art?’
Tark sighed. ‘Art is beauty, and beauty is art. Life is born out of art, so all life-forms owe their being to it.’
Tiger felt a bit dizzy with all this. Especially since he couldn’t remember a single painting or sculpture in all of Griffon when he’d visited there. But maybe they hid it in underground galleries.
Tark’s words reminded him of the time Alexander decided to read some poetry out loud in the greenhouse, sitting in the spa with the jets on low power and only floating candles for mood lighting. Tiger liked the sound of the poetry, especially with the feeling Alexander put into it, but it didn’t make much sense to him.
‘I never thought of it like that,’ said the painted man, scratching his head, which had to be getting quite itchy by now from the drying paint. ‘But, yeah. Maybe they’ll hang my... art in the Met one day!’
‘At the Vet’s?’ said Tiger, getting all twitchy.
‘No,’ said Marvin. ‘The Met’s an art gallery. World famous, like most things in the Big Apple.’
‘In the meantime,’ said Wanda, ‘you’d better get your message out in other ways.’
She gave him a pitch for Project Earth-mend in rap style.
The graffiti men tuned right in.
‘Hey, neat-o,’ said Marvin. ‘I love drawing Gaia. I did a whole wall once with her floating in space, balancing Earth lovingly in her hands. Is that what you’re after?’
‘Gaia?’ said Tark. ‘Is she anything like Madonna?’
Wanda narrowed her eyes. ‘I think Madonna would like to be seen as Gaia. A mother to all things on Earth, even the non-living ones.’
‘Ah,’ said Tark. ‘So she’s not a human. Just one of their supernatural beings they like to call gods?’
‘Close enough,’ said Wanda. ‘She’d be more than a match for Mick. First she’d lure him out of his spaceship with her perfume and then maybe drown him in the ocean!’
‘My kind of goddess,’ said Marvin, gazing dreamily up at the sky. ‘I’d give it all up for a dance with her!’
The painted man laughed. ‘As if she’d go out with one of us!’
‘Well,’ said Tark, ‘most of these stories are based on something real, so maybe Gaia will dance with you – if you help us out.’
‘You can’t fool me,’ said Marvin. ‘I know she’s not real!’ He sighed. ‘But maybe I’ll help you out anyway. My favorite color is green, so I can still dream about her!’
‘OK,’ said Tark, clearing the paint from the painted man with one sweep of his toe. ‘This is what you’ll have to do...’
After the graffiti men melted off into the night, Tark turned to the raccoons.
‘Well, it was nice meeting you,’ he said, ‘but we’ll be off now. Things to do, places to go.’
‘Wait a minute,’ said the first raccoon, who had introduced himself as Rocky. ‘Where do you think you’re going?’
‘To New York,’ said Tark.
‘You’re in New York,’ said another raccoon. ‘Welcome. My name is Clint.’
‘We knew that,’ said Tiger, quickly, meaning the bit about New York, not Clint’s name. It would never do to let a creature with a mask across his face think he had the drop on you.
‘It’s just... that I don’t see...’ said Tark, seeming more unsure of himself than Tiger could ever remember him being.
‘What?’ asked Rocky. ‘What?’
‘I was expecting there to be... more – skyscrapers and the like?’ said Tark.
‘Look up,’ said Clint. ‘Skyscrapers are all around us.’
‘Oh,’ said Tark. ‘Those are just tall buildings. I thought they’re supposed to scrape the sky.’
‘They do in a way,’ Tiger explained, very pleased that at last he knew something more than Tark. ‘They’re high enough to be off the ground, and once you’re above the trees, I suppose the rest is sky, something that skyscrapers could certainly scrape – if time allowed.’
‘They won’t last long if they get in the way of one of Mick’s starships,’ said Tark. ‘Then again, they won’t have that far to fall!’
‘Oh, dear!’ said Wanda. ‘You make it sound like Mick will be a bull in a china shop.’
Tark looked confused again, and Tiger wasn’t much better off.
‘I thought China was a country,’ said Tiger.
‘Lots of bulls there, too!’ said Syd, who’d been nodding off on Number 12’s hump until just then. ‘You can spot herds of them from the Great Wall!’
‘Have you been reading Wikipedia again?’ said Wanda. ‘I’ll bet the closest you’ve ever been to China is out the back of a Chinese restaurant, raiding the bin for scraps.’
‘Back to the old Wanda,’ Syd said. ‘I was getting nervous, with you being so nice to me!’
‘Well?’ Wanda demanded. ‘Have you been to China?’
‘Close,’ said Syd. ‘Google Maps is almost as good as being there!’
‘You use Google Maps?’ said Rocky. ‘So do we. It’s nice having a bird’s eye view – pardon the expression – of where you’re heading. I do wish they’d add outdoor bins as a point of interest, although the restaurant finder is a good leg up.’
‘Speaking of which,’ said Clint, ‘I’m starving. Let’s raid – I mean, visit one now!’
Tiger pricked up his ears at the thought of a midnight snack, although not just any bin would do. Even when his tummy was grumbling, he still had his standards.
‘These... bins,’ he said. ‘Where do you find them?’
Rocky chuckled. ‘You’ve got to be kidding! Bins are everywhere. But we only... visit the best ones in our territory. Strictly five-star. Gourmet restaurants, tapas bars, and the like.’
‘Slow down!’ said Tark. ‘First of all, what’s a bin?’
‘You guys are from out of town,’ said one of the other raccoons. ‘Some people call them trash cans, or rubbish cans.’ He paused to wrinkle his nose with disgust and the other raccoons quickly followed suit. ‘But trash and rubbish are strictly off the menu – we leave those to the rats and maggots.’
‘Yes,’ said Rocky, sniffing the air. ‘Bins, on the other hand, are like room service, without the room. We track only the very best of the very best dining establishments in Lower Manhattan, then, with the benefit of our infra-red scraps detectors, we know when dinner is ready for us.’
‘Ah,’ said Tark. ‘Infra-red technology is pretty... yesterday in galactic terms, but I suppose it puts you on par with humans.’
‘Excuse me?’ said Rocky. ‘Our species is among the First Adopters. We earn heaps of rewards from online surveys measuring our habits. Follow us!’
The raccoons led the way into a dark alley, up a short driveway to a metal roller door. Clint produced a remote control, pressed a button, and the door immediately lifted, revealing a stainless steel contraption with a big tub and a showerhead. An electric cord was plugged into a power point.
‘Voilá!’ cried Rocky.
‘Looks like a fancy doggie wash,’ sneered Tiger.
‘Yeah,’ laughed Number 12. ‘Bit small for a camel!’
With a nod from Rocky, Clint and another raccoon unplugged the cord. Clint hopped up onto the contraption into what must be a driver’s seat, waved down at them, pressed a few buttons,
and brought it to life with shimmering blue and green lights. But there wasn’t a sound – not as the contraption lifted slightly above the floor, nor as it glided down the driveway to the alley.
‘What on Earth—’ Wanda declared.
‘Meet our GCU!’ said Rocky.
The other raccoons spun around on their hind legs and pointed at it. ‘Yeah,’ they sang, ‘the Gourmet Cleansing Unit!’
With a lightning bound that impressed the raccoons, Tark was up on the lip of the tub section, peering up at the showerhead. ‘Hydro-powered?’ he said. ‘How very quaint!’
‘You making fun of us?’ one of the raccoons grunted, puffing out his chest.
‘Easy, Arnie,’ Rocky said to him, joining Tark on the lip. ‘The Old Ways sometimes are still the best. We raccoons have washed our food from Time Immemorial and have yet to record a single case of food poisoning.’
Tiger, who had experienced more than one episode of Funny Tummy from scraps that had somehow passed the sniff test after being left out just a bit too long in the sun, was impressed. ‘So you use this... GCU to wash everything?’
Wanda shook her head. ‘Forgive my mate Tiger,’ she said to the raccoons. ‘He can be a little slow just before meal time, even for an Introduced Species!’
Syd came in for a landing on the far side of the tub but lost his balance and plummeted down to the bottom, staring up at them. ‘Tons of space in here!’ he declared, struggling back up to the edge. ‘Why so much wasted real estate?’
Rocky narrowed his eyes. ‘It’s all very well for you crows, with your hit-and-run approach to feeding, but we raccoons like to linger over our food, especially the delicacies we farm from our client establishments.’
Clint nodded. ‘We’ve got it down to a fine art. First we rock up to the bin, then our martial art SWAT team gently relieves the bin of its contents before we whisk it off to a Top Secret place in the park for sorting, washing and of course eating.’
‘What about the stuff you can’t eat?’ asked Number 12, screwing up his nose. ‘There must be wrappers, tins, and fish heads.’
Rocky pointed to a red button on the GCU’s control panel, and Clint, who was closer, pushed it. The middle of the tub’s base parted, exposing three pipes, each color-coded.
‘The yellow one is for rat friendly edibles,’ Rocky explained with an air of distaste, ‘the green one is for recyclables like tin cans that we return to the… client’s recycling bin, and the brown one is for the stuff that hopefully can be converted into biomass fuel.’
‘If the humans ever get their act together,’ Arnie snorted.
‘Could we have a demo?’ Tiger asked, hoping that no one could hear his tummy grumbling. ‘Of the GCU, I mean?’
‘Of course,’ said Rocky. ‘As long as you promise not to tell the squirrels about it. They’re cyber-crooks – always trying to hack into our database!’
‘Our lips are sealed,’ Tiger said quickly. He wasn’t sure what a squirrel was, but they sounded rather nasty.
‘OK,’ said Rocky. ‘So where shall we dine tonight?’
‘These guys are from Down Under,’ said Clint, ‘so why don’t we visit the Australian NYC for a change? That should make their day, if you get my drift!’
He had a secret chuckle to himself.
‘Sounds great!’ said Tiger. ‘What’s on the menu – or should I say, what gets shoved in the bin?’
‘Please,’ said Rocky. ‘We prefer to say discarded. Shoved is so… Brooklyn!’
‘Kangaroo, I suppose,’ ventured Number 12.
‘Oh, yes,’ said Arnie. ‘Grilled, over chickpea, cucumber and cherry tomatoes.’
‘Yum!’ shouted Tiger, remembering the time that Alexander had served up a Woolies Select brand with kangaroo in it – before he’d realized his mistake. Tiger had no such qualms about munching on a National Symbol, but humans could be funny about things like that.
‘But you don’t like vegetables,’ Wanda reminded him. ‘Chickpeas, etc?’
‘You can have those,’ Tiger said, pretending that he knew exactly what a chickpea was.
‘My favorite is bangers and mash,’ said Clint, drooling ever so slightly. ‘Let’s do it!’
It took them a while to navigate through the back alleys to Midtown. It seemed as though there were curious, stray dogs waiting in the shadows at every turn and more than a few black cats, invisible except for the slits of their moon eyes, along the fence tops and over-hanging branches along the way. The dogs shrank back into the darkness when they saw the sharp claws and menacing teeth of the raccoons leading the way, and the cats were spooked by the flapping of Syd’s wings as he imitated a drone overhead.
‘At least there aren’t any snakes,’ Tiger said, remembering the first night on his way to the Sacred Pool.
‘Oh, there are, now and then,’ said Rocky. ‘But they mind their business, and we mind ours.’
There were still lights on at the back of the restaurant, and they could hear the scraping of plates.
Rocky tilted his head at the moon. ‘Just about closing time,’ he grinned.
They wheeled the GCU right up to the back door and waited.
‘Aren’t you going to empty the bins?’ Tiger asked, pointing at them.
‘Nah,’ said Clint. ‘Not when we have them so well trained!’
Sure enough, the back door swung open, and a chef’s helper came out with a big plastic bag. ‘Oh, you blokes,’ he said. ‘It’s been a while. Don’t you like Aussie food anymore?’
The chef’s helper looked back at the door as if he was afraid someone might spot him talking to raccoons, but no one else appeared.
‘Variety is the spice of life!’ said Rocky. ‘Not that you hear what I’m saying!’
Clearly, the young chap didn’t because he walked right past Rocky to the GCU, waited until the lid lifted and then dumped the scraps in, bag and all.
The raccoons were like a chorus line, clenching paws as they bowed at once in thanks for the donation.
‘Umm,’ said Tiger. ‘Smells yummy!’ And he attempted a bow of sorts himself.
Even Tark had to smile about the scene. ‘What a marvelous system!’ he declared. ‘There must be a way we can harness this for the Project.’
Number 12 shivered. ‘Pardon me,’ he said. ‘I just get a bit twitchy when others start going on about harnesses.’
‘Relax,’ said Wanda. ‘No camel races around here that I can see. But you’re right, Tark. Think of all the food scraps going to waste in New York City alone.’
‘Straight to landfill,’ groaned Syd.
Arnie emitted a low growl. ‘You’re not suggesting that we share with the less fortunate, like animals too stupid to come up with their own GCU?’
‘Well,’ said Tark. ‘The humans are your primary processors, eating their fill of what the chefs prepare, and then you guys are secondary processors of what they dump, right? But what happens to your left-overs?’
‘Do you bury them?’ asked Tiger.
‘Heavens no!’ said Rocky. ‘Only dogs would do such a thing, to be eaten months later. But they can manage it with their cast-iron stomachs, dissolving every bug on sight.’
‘Yeah,’ said Clint. ‘We raccoons have a more... delicate digestive system. Which is why we clean everything so thoroughly.’
‘But there must be left-overs,’ Syd insisted. ‘You can’t eat everything.’
‘We’ll show you,’ said Arnie. ‘Follow us.’
They paraded back to the park, circling around what must have been a favorite picnic table, which several of the raccoons quickly covered with broad leaves from the nearby trees. A pair of the raccoons tugged at the handle on a nearby tap until a steady flow of water began, not so much to flood the area, but just enough that the raccoons could quickly wash each morsel relayed paw to paw from the GCU.
Rocky must have heard Tiger’s stomach growling because he spoke gruffly to the first raccoons about to stuff their faces. ‘Manners,’ he said. ‘Our guests mus
t have their first choice!’
The raccoons winced but then offered Tiger and the others some choice scraps. Tiger wasn’t exactly sure what he was getting, but it smelled divine and vaguely of veal, and it had lashings of what must have been barbecue sauce on it – a treat he only licked rarely, after Alexander had grilled something and tossed him an end bit of steak for looking especially cute, not to mention hungry.
Wanda waited politely to be invited, and Number 12 turned his head away until a mound of salad greens, still crisp from the plate, were nosed over to him by a pair of raccoons who heard his teeth rattling with expectation.
Syd ducked in and weaved for a crumb of this and a morsel of that until he was stuffed. In his excitement, he let loose a loud burp, which was the loudest crow burp Tiger had ever heard. But then again he couldn’t recall ever hearing a crow burp before, which didn’t change a thing since it still was the loudest he’d ever heard.
When all was said and eaten, it was time for the cleanup. Clint and two other raccoons scurried up a tree and uncoiled a water hose that had been hidden on a branch above the picnic table. Tiger was impressed by how quickly the raccoons managed to connect the hose to the closest tap then pass it along to each other until it could be pawed up to Rocky, who was somewhat unsteadily balancing on the edge of the GCU.
Bracing himself, Rocky took aim then pressed a lever to send a stream of water splashing down the sides of the GCU. At the same time, Clint pulled out a big stopper from the side of the GCU, so what few scraps remained inside could be rinsed out and funneled into a drainage hole.
‘Very clever!’ Tark said, before whispering to Tiger, ‘Are you sure that humans are the most intelligent species on Earth?’
‘Quite sure,’ Tiger said, a bit worried that raccoons might want to edge out cats for the ranking of second most intelligent, after humans. I can climb trees just as fast as they can, he thought, and I suppose I could master a hose to spray – ugh – water, if I have to!
Once the GCU was looking all shiny in the moonlight, a quiet time followed as the raccoons carefully cleaned themselves – and each other, in those places where a raccoon couldn’t quite reach.
Then, just as Tiger was about to nod off for a little catnap, he caught a glimpse of a strange light overhead, shimmering just beyond the tallest trees. He squinted at it to be sure. It wasn’t a reflection of the moon or even the streetlights at the edge of the park.
Tiger Takes the Big Apple Page 10
