“Talking about us, pipsqueak?”
Alfie froze midsentence as a dozen pairs of glowing red eyes peeked out from the sewers. All at once, twelve rats emerged, their tails swishing across the floor as they circled the animals. Smalls tensed, his claws extending automatically. Next to him, Bertie gulped loudly. His eyes darted wildly from one rat to the next as he scooped Wombat up in his arms. Smalls moved protectively in front of them.
“Well, well, well,” the largest rat said in a gruff, crackling voice. He snapped his jaw, sending a line of drool trailing down his dark, matted fur. His eyes were trained on Alfie, as if Smalls and the others didn’t exist. “Look who’s returned at last.”
“Hello, Grubs,” Alfie said smoothly. “You’re looking as, well”—he eyed a chewed-up hard candy stuck to one of the rat’s ears—“grubby as ever.”
“And you’re looking as puny as ever,” Grubs replied.
“What I lack in size, I make up for in swordsmanship,” Alfie shot back.
“And friends,” Smalls growled. He took a menacing step toward Grubs. He didn’t like how that rat was eying Alfie—as if he planned on making him his next meal. There was no way Smalls was letting that happen. Grubs might be twice Alfie’s size, but he was barely as large as one of Smalls’s paws. “Well-endowed friends,” Smalls added, flashing his claws at the rat. Immediately the other rats closed in around Grubs, jagged teeth flashing and red eyes glowing as they formed a rat barricade. Undeterred, Smalls took another step toward them. But Alfie waved him off.
“It’s okay. This is my fight, Smalls.” He brandished his sword, facing the line of rats. “I have come to battle you once and for all, Grubs.”
“You have?” Smalls and Wombat both exclaimed. Smalls froze in place, looking from Alfie to the rats and back again.
Alfie shook out his spiky quills. “I have. This is it, comrades. This is my quest. Now.” He spun to face the wall of rats, sword pointed forward. “Come and face me like a real rat, Grubs. One on one.”
Grubs laughed, a deep, savage laugh. Pushing his way through his bodyguards, he smirked down at Alfie. “I think you’re forgetting what happened the last time we fought one on one, squirt.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” Alfie replied. “I remember it every single day. You stole my gem from me that day, Grubs, and now I’m here for a rematch.”
“His gem,” Smalls said softly. Of course. That’s how Alfie knew of this place. It was where he’d lost his gem.
Grubs bared his long, sharp teeth. “You must be a glutton for punishment, half-pint. You can have your rematch if you want, but I should warn you that I’ll beat you in ten seconds flat, just like I did two years ago.” Behind him, the other rats tittered gleefully.
Alfie slashed his sword through the air in a series of complicated loops. “Two years ago, I did not have a sword. Two years ago I had not trained with the sensei of hedgehogs. Two years ago, I lost what was most important to me in the world. But now I’m here to change that.” Alfie took a step toward Grubs. Fury flashed in his eyes as he pressed the tip of his sword against the rat’s chest. “Prepare yourself, Grubs, for the fight of your life.”
“This is gonna be goo-ood,” one of the spectator rats hissed.
“Grab some snacks, Sludge,” another one chimed in. “Looks like we got ourselves a show.”
“Gotta love a good smackdown,” Sludge said gleefully. He darted into one of the dumpsters and dug out a rotten, slimy apple. Ignoring the flies swarming it, he tossed it down to the rats. Then he dove back in, emerging this time with a moldy roll, half a fish tail, and what had once been a head of cabbage, but was now so hardened and blackened it looked more like a chunk of coal.
“Score,” one of the rats cheered, catching the blackened cabbage in his paws. As Sludge clawed his way down from the dumpster, the rats all settled themselves on the ground. “Team Grubs!” one of them called out.
Smalls crouched down as he watched Alfie, ready to pounce at any moment. But Alfie seemed unusually calm as he closed his eyes and lifted his sword to the sky. “I, Hedgehog Alfred the Third, give myself to the battle,” he chanted. “I will allow the power of the fight to flow through me, to become one with me, to channel my inner soul. Only then will I stand victorious.”
“Only then will he stand a loser,” one of the rats snickered. “In every sense of the word.”
“Nice one, Fester,” Grubs said approvingly. “Now, if you’re done reciting your poetry, Alfred, how about we attempt some fighting—”
He didn’t get a chance to finish. Because suddenly Alfie leapt into the air, kicking a paw out as he did two full rotations. He landed smoothly in front of Grubs, his paw colliding with his chest. Grubs let out a squeal as he went stumbling backward, landing in a heap on top of Fester and Sludge.
Smalls took a quick glance over his shoulder at Bertie. The boy had his back pressed up against one of the dumpsters, an astounded look on his face. His arms were wrapped protectively around Wombat, whose round eyes were bulging. Satisfied they were safely out of harm’s way, Smalls turned his attention back to the fight.
“Well, well, well,” Grubs sneered. He pulled himself back up, brushing flakes of cabbage off his fur. “Look who thinks he’s the karate king. Two can play at that game.” Baring his teeth, he lunged at Alfie.
Behind Smalls, Wombat let out a cry of outrage. “Stop!” he yelled. “This is barbaric! This is senseless! This is—go, Alfie!” Wombat snorted excitedly as Alfie quickly yanked his paws and head into his quills, so Grubs’s teeth were met with nothing but sharp tips.
“Owwww!” Grubs howled. His paws flew to his face as pinpricks of blood sprang up on his pointy nose.
Alfie seized the opportunity. He leapt to his feet, sword in hand. Instantly he began to advance, jabbing his sword at Grubs. Grubs dropped his paws and lunged at him, but Alfie just twisted away, evading him. With a single flying leap, he was back in front of Grubs. “Ya! Ya! Ya!” he yelled, jabbing mercilessly at Grubs with his sword. “This is called a remise,” he announced, continuing to jab without withdrawing his arm. Grubs tried to claw at him, but Alfie ducked his attack. “And this,” he continued, “is called a feint.”
He pretended to slash his sword at Grubs in an undercut. But as soon as Grubs began to block him, he drew his sword back and did a flip through the air, landing behind Grubs. Before the rat knew what was happening, Alfie was reaching for his back paws. In two swift moves, Alfie flipped him over and pinned him to the ground on his back. Jumping on top of him, he pressed his sword against the rat’s heart. “Cunning move, isn’t it?” he asked cheerfully.
“You really did train with a sensei,” Wombat said in amazement.
“Of course I did,” Alfie said. “Did you think I was joking this whole time?”
Smalls looked over his shoulder, exchanging a sheepish look with Wombat. “Maybe a little,” he admitted.
“Dueling is no joke.” Alfie pressed harder on his sword, eliciting a high-pitched squeal from Grubs.
“Help me!” Grubs wheezed.
Instantly, the eleven other rats were on their feet. Alfie gave them a withering stare as they approached. “Do you really think it’s wise to fight me?” he asked coolly. “I know many more moves than the feint. There’s the parry and the fleche and the ballestra and the flunge . . .
One by one, the rats backed away.
“Sludge!” Grubs begged. “Fester! Grimy! Germ!” But the rats hung their heads, refusing to meet his eyes.
Alfie nodded in satisfaction. “That’s what I thought. Now”—he looked down at Grubs—“admit defeat once and for all.”
“Never,” Grubs choked out.
Alfie traced his sword up to the rat’s neck. “I’ll say it once more. Admit. Defeat.” He applied pressure to his sword, making Grubs writhe on the ground.
“Okay!” Grubs gave in. His voice was strangled. “You win.” He coughed, gasping for air. “I lose! Happy now?”
“I am.”
<
br /> At the sound of a wispy female voice, Alfie leapt down from Grubs, his quills trembling. A tiny hedgehog walked out from underneath a dumpster. She had wide black eyes and long quills that glistened in the moonlight. “Hello, Alfred,” she said.
For a long minute, Alfie just stared at the pretty hedgehog. When he finally spoke, his voice was trembling. “Hello, Gem.”
742 Days
Gem walked toward Alfie, her quills gleaming with every step. “It’s been a long time, Alfred.” Her voice was as wispy as Alfie’s, but more musical, like a bell chiming the hour.
“Seven hundred and forty-two days,” Alfie replied immediately.
“You remember,” Gem said, sounding surprised.
“Of course I do.” Alfie tapped his sword against the ground, filling the alley with a soft patter. Behind him, Grubs struggled to his feet, his wide, frightened eyes following the tapping sword as it moved up and down, up and down. “A sensei-in-training forgets nothing.” He moved closer to Gem, until they were standing almost nose to nose. “I’ve spent over two years training, Gem, so I could come back and fight for you. So I could win you back.”
Gem shook her head sadly. “That’s what you never understood, Alfred. I can’t be won. Just like I can’t be lost. I choose where I want to be.”
“But I lost you when Grubs defeated me,” Alfie said softly, “742 days ago.”
“No.” Gem met Alfie’s eyes. “You lost me when you walked away—742 days ago.”
Alfie scrunched up his tiny face, looking confused. “So I never had to defeat Grubs?” He was tapping his sword even faster now, a nervous, frantic tapping, and Gem reached out, removing it gently from his grip.
“You never had to defeat anyone, Alfred,” she said, sounding exasperated. “When will you learn that, you stubborn hog? All you had to do was ask.”
Alfie was silent for a moment, staring at his sword gripped between Gem’s delicate paws. “I see,” he murmured finally. “Okay, then.” With a determined nod, he straightened up to his full three and a quarter inches. He shook out his quills and took a slow, deep breath. When at last he spoke, his voice was soft, but sure. “Gem, would you do me the honor of returning to Maplehedge Woods by my side?”
“Finally.” Gem rolled her eyes. “I’ve only been waiting 742 days for you to ask.”
Alfie’s quills shivered with excitement. “Can I take that as a yes?”
Gem slid her paw into his. “You can take that as a definitely.”
As Smalls watched the two hedgehogs reunite, a dull ache began to spread through him. Alfie and Gem looked so whole together. He wanted that too—for things to feel whole again, no pieces missing. He looked around him, at the matted clump of rats and the moldy bits of garbage scattered everywhere. Bertie and Wombat were huddled together against the dumpster, Bertie pinching his nose to ward off the smell. One thing was for sure; he wasn’t going to find that feeling here.
He straightened up. The night sky was black, and the menacing voices were gone. The mob of men had passed; there was no longer a reason to hide. “I think it’s time we get back on the road,” he said to Wombat.
“My thoughts precisely,” Wombat replied. He wiggled a little in Bertie’s arms, and Bertie placed him gently on the ground.
“I guess this is goodbye then,” Alfie said. Gem’s paw was still in his as he bowed to the animals. “It’s been an honor, comrades.”
“Good luck, Alfie,” Smalls said softly. It hit him that he would miss the little sword-wielding hedgehog. But judging by the dreamy look on Alfie’s face, he was pretty sure the feeling wouldn’t be a shared one.
“Thank you.” Alfie pulled Gem close to him. “But as the great sensei of hedgehogs would say, there is no such thing as luck. There is only perseverance.”
Smalls blinked, his paw going automatically to the worn and wilted four-leaf clover tucked behind his ear. For most of his life, luck had just come to him, found him, like a magnet zooming toward its other half. Lately, he’d found himself wishing on every lucky sign, hoping to draw that luck back to him, will it to return. But maybe he’d been going about it all wrong. Maybe what he needed was to persevere—to make his own luck.
“I’d hug you,” Alfie went on. “But”—he shook out his quills—“it wouldn’t be very enjoyable.” So instead he waved, and Gem waved, and then they were gone, slipping under the dumpsters and into the darkness.
It wasn’t until after, the alleyway eerily quiet in their wake, that Smalls noticed a small, sharp quill lying abandoned on the ground. Alfie’s sword. He smiled to himself. It looked like he wouldn’t be needing it anymore. Taking a deep breath, Smalls turned to Wombat. “Time for us to persevere.”
A Ghost in the Night
Susan closed her eyes, unable to trust her own vision. But when she opened them again, it was all still there, shining in the moonlight. The small thatched cottage. The red spider lilies spilling through the grass like paint. And the ocean, roaring and crashing, so close she could feel the salty air grazing her fingertips. Rigby barked at her feet. She reached down absently to pet him, unable to draw her eyes away from the house. It was tiny—a dollhouse, her mom used to joke—but it was home. She was home.
Her eyes flitted between the house’s two front windows. They were both dark, not a single light burning inside. Susan scrunched up her forehead. Her parents’ days had always run like clockwork, every hour designated and accounted for. She wasn’t sure exactly what time it was, but judging by when the sun had set, it seemed too early for her parents to be sleeping—but also too late for them to be out. So why was the house so dark?
She made her way up the front stoop, feeling like a ghost in the night, a shadow of her old self. Stop it, she chided herself. She’d only been gone six months. She was still her. She would knock on the door and her mom would come running out and gather Susan up in her arms. Rigby padded up the stairs beside Susan. It made her glad that she wasn’t there alone. Taking a deep breath, she lifted a callused, blistered hand and knocked on the door.
Nothing.
Inside, no one stirred, no lights turned on, no voices murmured.
She tried again, louder this time, and longer.
But still the door remained shut. The house remained quiet. Rigby sniffed the air, then whined loudly. If there was someone inside, they couldn’t miss that sound. But still nothing happened. Susan pulled at the front door. It didn’t budge. “Locked,” she affirmed. “Looks like we’re going to have to break in. You wait here.” Gesturing for Rigby to stay, she jogged to the back of the house, to the kitchen’s low window. Behind her the ocean swelled and surged, the sound wrapping around her like an old, familiar lullaby.
For as long as Susan could remember, the lock on the kitchen window had been broken. She yanked at the window, and with a groan, it cracked open. At least one thing hadn’t changed while she was gone. She pushed the window up the rest of the way and used the strength she’d gained at the circus to hoist herself up.
She landed lightly inside, the kitchen’s cracked blue tiles hard beneath her feet. She reached for the light switch, her fingers finding it automatically. The overhead bulb flickered on slowly, sending a thin beam of light stretching across the kitchen. It was exactly how she remembered it: the shiny red counter, the old wooden table with her initials carved in the corner, the three mismatched chairs tucked into the table in order of size. Her mom’s yellow mug sat next to the sink, that morning’s teabag still in it.
“Mom?” she called out. “Dad?” There was no answer as she crossed through the house, turning lights on as she went. Her dad’s favorite blanket was strewn messily across the couch, and her mom’s slippers were discarded by the bookshelf—strangely untidy for them, as if they’d only popped into the kitchen to make some tea. “Mom?” she called again. “Dad?” Still nothing.
She opened the front door and Rigby came bounding inside. He followed at Susan’s heels as she ran up the stairs, taking them two at a time. “Mom? Dad?” She fl
ung open their bedroom door.
Total darkness.
Frowning, she turned on the lamp. Her parents’ bed was made up like always, and a book lay open on the night table, one of the mysteries her mom loved to read. Everything looked as it should. Except that her parents weren’t there.
Susan bit back tears. There were only two more rooms in the house: the tiny bathroom, which she found empty, and her bedroom. She turned the lamp on in her room, blinking in the soft light. A tarp had been draped over her bed and dresser, and it didn’t take her long to see why. “The walls,” she breathed. They’d been painted a deep, shimmering blue, the color of the ocean in the early evening, when the sunlight was beginning to wane.
She spun around, letting the walls envelop her, like she was far out in the ocean, an island unto herself. It was what she’d wanted for her birthday: to bring the outside in, to be able to reach out from her bed and touch the waves. Her eyes fell on the wall behind her bed. Someone had used white paint to create the crest of a crashing wave. She tried to think back, to remember what day it was exactly. In the circus it was easy to lose track, one awful day bleeding into the next. But as she counted backward, it hit her suddenly that it was Friday, September 20, which meant her birthday was in less than a week.
“This is their gift,” she realized. She walked over to the wall, touching her finger to the wave. It squished a little to the touch. She pulled her finger away. A smudge of paint was on its tip. For the first time, she noticed the bucket of paint in the corner. Two paintbrushes stuck out of it. Rigby tentatively dipped a paw inside, barking excitedly when the shimmery blue paint clung to his fur. Her parents had been here, painting, recently. She listened hard, but the house remained still and silent, not even a floorboard creaking.
So where were they now?
Toddle’s Toy Emporium
In the city of Hoolyloo, a boy, a bear, and a wombat stood in front of a tall stone wall. The wall stretched to their right and their left before looping forward in an enormous, perfect circle. In the distance, a green building rose behind it, its white shingled roof giving it a snowcapped look.
A Valiant Quest for the Misfit Menagerie Page 9
