Great Escape

by Bill Wallace

“Why did you start laughing at me and let go of the gate, anyway?”

  Willy’s enormous shoulders gave a little shrug.

  “The way you were describing cows, I couldn’t help but get tickled. I didn’t mean to move and let the gate bang you in the head, though.”

  I frowned. “What’s cows?”

  Willy fought to keep the smile off his face. “They’re those big, hairy, frightening monsters, with teeth growing out of their heads.”

  I slurped more water from my fur and glared at him.

  “It’s not funny,” I scolded. “They are big. They’re huge! And they do have teeth growing out of their heads. I’ve seen them.”

  “Those aren’t teeth.” Willy shook his head. “They’re horns.”

  “What are horns.”

  “The things sticking out of the tops of their heads.”

  “But what are those things?”

  “Horns.”

  “I know that, but what are horns?”

  “They’re the things that stick out of the tops of cows’ heads.”

  My eyes rolled. Trying to talk with a Rotten Willy was like trying to talk with a . . . with a . . . dog. The whole conservation was just going round and round in circles.

  “They’re really gentle,” Willy insisted. “They won’t eat you. All they eat is grass. They even run from you if you bark at them. Come on. I’ll show you.”

  I followed him toward the gate. I could just see me—a cat—barking at those big, woolly monsters. What was that dumb dog thinking? When Willy got to the gate, he leaned to stick his nose in the crack. Quickly I darted in front of him.

  “Hold it. Let me go first, okay?”

  Willy gave one of his sheepish smiles.

  “Oh, yeah. Sure. Good idea.”

  • • •

  Willy was probably one of the greatest cow chasers in the world. Like he said, the beasts were gentle and did nothing but munch grass. But when he barked and ran toward them, their heads shot straight in the air on one end and their tails shot straight in the air on the other. They screamed “MOO” and took off. Their ropelike tails had little tufts of hair on the end. They looked like flags as they lifted them in the air and raced away. They were so big and heavy, their feet shook the ground as they ran. Willy was hot on their heels.

  But chasing cows was something we simply couldn’t do, together. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that as big as they were—even if they were gentle—one false move and I would end up squashed like a bug. I watched from a tree until Willy came to join me. He didn’t chase them for very long. That was because he said the people animals got all bent out of shape if they saw dogs chasing their cow animals.

  Next we tried the mice.

  I was probably one of the greatest mousers in the world. Willy wasn’t too hot. He could smell where they had been and managed to chase one into a hole. I showed him how to pounce. Only when he tried it, there was no mouse left to play with. The thing was smushed flat. It’s no fun to chase mice if you can’t play with them after you catch them. Chasing cows was something we simply couldn’t do together. So was chasing mice.

  The sun was hanging low in the blue sky. It was almost time for Willy’s people to get home from their work place. It wouldn’t do for them to see how we got in and out of Willy’s yard. People animals are not very understanding. If they knew we were out running around and having a good time, they’d fix the gate so we couldn’t leave.

  Willy trotted ahead of me. He looked back, over his big shoulder.

  “What say we go to Luigi’s tomorrow? We could get there around noon, eat, then go check out that busy street.”

  “I don’t like the busy street,” I told him. “It’s scary and dangerous.”

  “Not if you know how to work the light.” He grinned over his shoulder. “My David taught me how to cross big streets. We’ll have to check it out and see if it has one of those talkie-lights. If it does, I’ll teach you how to get across.”

  “What’s a talkie-light?”

  “Well, it’s this light on a pole. It has boxes underneath that talk. If you watch them . . .”

  I stopped listening to him. That was because, just ahead of us, I saw a black-and-white kitty cat. I’d seen it once before, but I hadn’t tried to make friends. That was because, although it looked like a kitty cat, it had a bushy tail and it smelled kind of funny. Willy was looking over his shoulder, talking to me and not paying any attention to where he was going.

  “Hey, watch where you’re walking. You’re gonna run into that black kitty cat with the white stripe.”

  Willy’s eyes flashed. He yanked his head around.

  “That’s no kitty cat,” he yelped. “That’s a . . .”

  CHAPTER 12

  Skunk?”

  “Skunk!”

  When Willy answered and nodded his head, white foam slobbers flew everywhere. Again, he dropped on the ground to roll. He rolled and rubbed against the grass. He pushed the side of his face into the dirt and scraped and scrubbed.

  Even standing upwind, the smell was horrible. It made my eyes hurt. Willy coughed and blinked. He sputtered and gagged. He used a big paw to rub at his swollen eyes.

  “Why didn’t you warn me sooner?” He sneezed.

  “I didn’t see him. You are kind of big. It’s hard to see around you. As soon as I spotted him I told you.”

  He stood and shook himself. Then reeling and pitching, he flopped back on the ground—still trying to rub the horrible stuff off.

  The smell was totally yucky. The little black kitty with the white stripe didn’t give us any warning. He just turned around, lifted his tail and WHAM!

  The spray hit Willy right square in the face. A fine mist filled the air. The little droplets left their foul stench on everything they touched. When I licked my fur, it put a nasty taste in my mouth. How we made it home, I’m still not sure. Willy couldn’t see. I walked ahead of him, meowing every step of the way so he could follow the sound of my voice. He squeezed through the gate just as we heard the sound of the Mama’s car drive up in front of the house. Once Willy was safely in his yard, I headed home. But even from my back porch, I could hear the Mama’s squeal when she opened the door to feed him. When the Daddy got home, I could hear both of them complaining about the way Willy smelled. They spent a long time checking the fence for a hole or something where the skunk might have gotten into their yard.

  At my house the reaction was pretty much the same. When the Mama opened the door to let me in, she gagged and held her nose with her paw. Then she kicked me out! She didn’t even pick me up—she just shoved me with her foot until I went. She set my food bowl on the back porch and slammed the door in my face.

  The next day even Luigi treated us like outcasts. He didn’t come to the door when I jumped on the screen to tell him we were there. I could hear pots and pans clattering around, then suddenly everything got quiet.

  “Dennis,” Luigi’s voice called. “There’s a skunk outside. Close a the door! Quick! Close a the door before all our customers run away.”

  “We’re not skunks,” I meowed. “It’s us. Chuck and Willy.”

  The young man in the white apron didn’t listen. He just sneered down his snout at us and slammed the door.

  • • •

  After three days I didn’t think I smelled so bad. But the Mama wouldn’t let me in the house for a whole week. Willy got hit with more of the spray than I did. It was almost two weeks before I could stand to go in his doghouse. Every morning Willy came out and rubbed himself in the grass. Then he’d trot over to where I was and ask if the smell was gone. Horrible as the stench was, I guess a fella gets used to it. One day I sniffed and smiled. “Let’s go eat.” Only when we got to Luigi’s, the Dennis boy came to the back door. He sniffed, frowned at us, and slammed the door again. Three weeks was a long time to go without spaghetti and meatballs.

  “Hey, how’s a my boys dis morning. Long time, no see.” Luigi smiled, then sniffed the air. “You two n
o chasea da skunks no more. Good. You hungry for Luigi’s good spaghetti and meatballs?”

  “You bet!” Willy wagged his tail. I hopped down from the screen before Luigi flung it opened and mangled my whiskers.

  “We weren’t chasing the skunk,” I explained. “We just sort of stumbled onto him and . . .”

  Like always, Luigi didn’t listen. He scurried inside his restaurant and brought back a big bowl for Willy and a smaller one for me. When he put them down, he wiped the meat sauce on his apron. Willy practically leaped for his bowl. It’s a wonder he didn’t get Luigi’s fingers.

  “Remember,” I told him. “You got to eat Italian slow. Savor every bite.”

  Willy just couldn’t help himself. He gobbled spaghetti and meatballs as fast as he could. Luigi only laughed. He laced his thumbs in the straps of his apron and rocked back on his heels. His loud, rumbling laugh made me feel good.

  “Gots lots of peoples inside today.” He chuckled. “Gots to go feed them. You boys be good. Not chase no more skunks—okay?” He left us to finish our meal.

  • • •

  After we ate, Willy wanted to go to the busy street. I didn’t. No matter how much I wanted to explore on the other side of the road, or how much confidence I had that Willy really did know how to get across—I simply didn’t want to go. Every time I looked at the busy street, or so much as thought about it, the vision of Louie crept into my head. I could still see him, lying still and cold in the road.

  “Let’s go back to your house,” I suggested. “We could chase mice in the field. You need to practice your pouncing. Maybe I could teach you how to land on their tails, instead of flattening them and—”

  “Come on, Chuck,” he called over his shoulder. “We don’t have to cross if you don’t want to. Let’s just go check it out.”

  Car things zoomed and whizzed and roared past. There were so many of them and they were so thick, I couldn’t even see the other side of the street.

  At the comer Willy sat on his stub tail and smiled at me.

  “It’s a talkie-light, all right. See?”

  He pointed with his nose. There were three lights on top of the pole. When the green light was on, car things rushed beside us. When the yellow light came on, they rushed faster. But when the red light came on, they stopped and the cars in front of us rushed past. I watched it a long time. Still . . .

  “I didn’t hear it say anything,” I admitted finally.

  Willy sighed. “Don’t look at the round lights. Look at the square lights underneath.”

  I frowned. Squinted my sharp eyes.

  In a square box under the round lights were some red marks:

  D - O - N - ’ - T

  W - A - L - K

  I watched for a long time, only they didn’t do anything.

  “It’s still not talking,” I told him.

  “Yeah, it is,” Willy said. “It’s people talk. But the white letters don’t come on. I must be forgetting something. But it’s a talkie-light.”

  I cocked my head and looked at him out of one eye.

  “Okay. If it’s a talkie-light, what does it say?”

  Willy smiled. “See those red marks?”

  “Yeah.”

  “The ones that look like

  D - O - N - ’ - T

  W - A - L - K

  “They say, ‘Stay, Willy. Stay!” Only, there’s a white light with marks underneath it. W - A - L - K says, ‘Come on, Willy. Let’s go.’ ”

  “I don’t see the white marks.”

  Willy nodded. “My David used to do something to make the white marks come on. Only I can’t remember . . . Oh, yeah! We got to push the button.”

  CHAPTER 13

  Loretta? Did you see that?” An old man people yelled from inside one of the car things.

  “See what?” a woman people asked.

  “That cat! He was standing on that big dog’s head and pushing the button for the crosswalk.”

  “Oh, you crazy old coot,” her voice squawked. “You’re blind as a bat. You must be losing your mind. A cat standing on a dog’s head. That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever . . .”

  I couldn’t hear the rest of what they said. As their car thing moved away, their voices were flooded out by all the other rushing car things. I hopped down from Willy’s head and stood beside him.

  In a moment all the car things stopped.

  “See?” Willy’s smile stretched from ear to ear. “It’s just like My David said: W - A - L - K says, ‘Come on, Willy. Let’s go.’ ”

  “You’re right,” I agreed. “It’s worked the same way every time.”

  “So, are you ready to cross?”

  “I’m ready.”

  Willy’s paw was too big to fit inside the metal thing on the pole. He stood with his nose against it. I hopped on his back. Quickly I walked to the top of his head and stuck my paw on the button. The car things zoomed and whizzed. Then the ‘Let’s go, Willy’ light came on and they stopped.

  We trotted across the street, while all the car things waited for us.

  “You can read, Willy.”

  Confused, he looked at me a moment. Then a gentle smile came. “You know, I never thought of it that way. You’re right, Chuck. I can read!” His little stub tail wagged his whole rear end.

  Willy didn’t want to go to the mall. He said that there were too many cars and they came flying from all different directions. So we went where the houses were. There were all sorts of smells. In one of the houses someone was cooking bread. In another, peoples were laughing and talking. A dog rushed to a fence and barked at us as we passed. Willy sniffed. He told me that the bird dog was nice. He was only barking because he didn’t know us and was protecting his property. In the middle of the block a cat saw us coming. He scurried up a tree before I could even say hello.

  The cat stopped on a lower branch. Willy waited on the sidewalk while I went over and put my paws on the tree trunk.

  “Hi. My name’s Chuck,” I purred at the cat. “We live on the other side of the busy street. My friend and I are exploring. We’re trying to find new friends. Would you like to be . . .”

  I never got to finish asking if he wanted to be our friend. Right in the middle of what I was saying, a dog came tearing from the front porch of a house. His bark was a high-pitched yap. It hurt my ears and made me blink.

  “Get out of my yard!” he snarled. “I’m gonna eat you up. I’m gonna get you!”

  My tail fuzzed. He wasn’t a big dog. He wasn’t little, either. He was a black-and-white Collie, only smaller than most Collies I had seen. I guess he was what was called a Miniature Collie—and he was as hyper as could be. He came tearing right for me. It took me so much by surprise that my feet wouldn’t move. My claws wouldn’t come out to climb the tree. I just stood there, frozen like an idiot.

  Suddenly Willy was beside me. He looked at the Collie and bared his teeth.

  “Stop!” he ordered. “Don’t hurt my friend.”

  “I’m gonna get that cat. I’m gonna chew him up and . . .”

  The Collie stopped dead in his tracks. He looked Willy up and down. His mouth kind of flopped open when he saw how big Willy was. Then . . .

  He let out a squeal, like Willy had taken a bite out of him or something. He wheeled around. He ran. Not in a straight line, like most dogs. He spun round and round in circles as he raced back to his house. He never stopped whining, squealing, and spinning all the way to his porch.

  A woman flung the door open. She reached down and picked up the dog and hugged him.

  “Oh, poor baby,” she cooed. “Did the big, bad dog hurt my little BooBoo?” Still clutching the noisy mutt to her and whispering goo-goo, baby-stuff in his ear, she glared at Willy. “Bad dog! Bad dog! You leave my BooBoo alone. Get out of here!”

  Willy smiled and wagged his tail.

  “I didn’t touch him!” Willy whimpered. “Honest. I just told him not to hurt my friend. . . .”

  “You evil, terrible mons
ter. You get out of here, right this minute!”

  “Help me! Help me!” the cat began to cry from up in the tree. “That big, black beast is going to eat me. Somebody help me!”

  “He’s not a beast,” I hissed. “He’s a Rotten . . . I mean a Rottweiler. His name is Willy. He’s my friend. He’s really nice and sweet and—”

  “Help me! Don’t let the monster eat me! Help! Help! Help!”

  No matter how I tried to explain, the cat wouldn’t shut up. He just kept yelling. A woman came to the porch of the house next door. “I’ll call the pound!” she shouted. The woman hugging Boo-Boo yelled back to her: “Hurry.”

  “What’s the pound?” I asked.

  “Don’t know,” Willy answered. “Whatever it is, she’s gonna call it.”

  It didn’t take a genius to tell we weren’t wanted. Willy and I trotted down the street. We could find other cats and dogs who were nicer. We could find someone who wanted to be our friends.

  In the middle of the next block Willy started sniffing the air. He trotted down an alley and put his front paws on a trash can.

  “Man, something in here smells really yummy.”

  “I can’t believe you’re hungry,” I said. “I’m still so full from Luigi’s, I’m about to bust. After all we had for lunch, surely you’re not going to—”

  The roar of a car thing cut my question short. I looked up. A white car thing whizzed toward us. It had a box on the back and a blue light on top. It was coming really fast. Quickly I darted under the trash holder. Willy let go of the trash can and leaned against the fence so it could pass.

  Only it didn’t go past us. It stopped. A man people in a brown uniform, with a little, shiny star pinned to his shirt, hopped out. From the side of the car thing, he took a long pole. It had a loop of wire or rope on the end of it. He started toward Willy.

  “Here, puppy. Come here, boy,” he coaxed. He held his hand out like he was offering Willy some food or something. But his hand was empty. Then glancing down, he spotted me. His big paw reached out. It barely touched my ear before I scrunched farther under the trash can holder. “Stinkin’ cat,” he mumbled to himself. “I’ll get you later.” He turned back to Willy. “Nice puppy. Come on.”