Chapter Twenty-Four
WASP WALLOP
I know you like music,” Kit told Coyote. “You taught me this tune!” He raised a paw and shouted: “Fire at will!”
Eeni struck the match in her bow against the can, sparking its tip alight. Then she fired the flaming match straight for Coyote’s face. From the open cans all around her, young rats and mice and moles rained fire down on Coyote and his gang.
The otters could hardly reach for their weapons before a lit match singed their fur. They ran for cover, shielding themselves behind trash-can lids and heaps of garbage.
“Return fire!” Coyote yelled at his gang.
Chuffing Chaz pulled out his slingshot and fired a rusty nail right for Eeni’s can.
Just before it struck, the bat above turned and deflected the shot off the side of the can.
Clang!
Other shots followed, all of them bouncing harmlessly off the metal cans. The alley echoed with the sounds.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
“The cans are protecting the little fellas, Boss!” Chuffing Chaz yelled. “Can’t hit so much as a whisker!”
“Then aim for the bats!” Coyote shouted back. “Drop them from the sky!”
“That’s our cue, boys!” Declan yelled. “Time to scatter! Good luck, Eeni!”
“Thanks, Declan!” Eeni shouted back, bracing herself inside her can.
“Let ’em roll!” Declan shouted. He dove toward Chuffing Chaz. The big otter raised his slingshot, but just as he was about to fire, Declan released Eeni’s can. It flew straight at the otter, knocking him over as it hit the ground, rolling. Other otters dove from its path. The rest of the bats rolled their cans to the ground the same way, bowling over otter after otter.
In the chaos of battle Coyote bounded for the spot where Shane and Flynn had left the seed sacks. He grabbed one in his jaws and lifted it up to haul back to the cart. No sooner had he set his paws on the piles of leaves in front of the sacks than a loud snap cracked the morning air.
“Ooowooooo!!” he howled in pain and dropped the sack of seeds again. A metal mousetrap had snapped shut on his paw. He tried to shake it off, hopping on three legs, when there was another SNAP!
“Owooo!” A second mousetrap snapped shut on another foot. Pretty soon he was hopping and dancing in pain.
SNAP! SNAP! SNAP!
The little metal mousetraps nipped and bit at him, and he howled in pain, rolling and dancing to get them off. It looked like his strange performance at the First Frost Festival.
“Sorry, Chief,” Flynn Blacktail said, laughing.
“Gotta mind where you put your paws around here.” Shane Blacktail chuckled.
“But you’re on my side!” Coyote howled.
“Now, wait a whisker’s width,” said Shane.
“Just because it stinks don’t mean it’s a skunk,” said Flynn.
“We’re Ankle Snappers from tail to teeth,” Shane said. “And when Kit made the sign of Azban at us the night you showed up, we knew we had to scheme up a way to keep you out of the fight.”
“Quick of Paw and Slick of Tongue, Brave of Heart, Afraid of None. A Friend to All in Need of One,” added Flynn.
“We’re all that and more,” said Shane. “We weren’t about to let anyone but us steal from our neighbors!”
“Raccoons have four paws,” said Flynn. “You shouldn’t watch only two.”
“So we set your bags down, and set some traps down too,” said Shane.
“Go get ’em, Kit!” Flynn shouted. “Our traps’ll keep Coyote busy for you!”
Meanwhile, Eeni’s can rolled to a stop against the Dumpster, and she crawled from it, dizzier than she thought she’d be. Suddenly, Chuffing Chaz loomed before her, covered in wasp stings.
“Oh, I see you opened our snout surprises,” Eeni said.
“I told you we otters don’t forget an insult,” Chuffing Chaz responded. “And I’ve got wasps too!”
He pulled out a papery wasps’ nest, the kind that could be purchased at any reliable thieves’ market, and smashed it on the ground in front of Eeni. The swarm of buzzing bugs shot out in a rage, searching for the source of the disturbance.
They fixed on Eeni and charged.
“Ahh!” she yelled, diving back toward her can. One shot from Chaz’s slingshot sent the can twirling away from her across the ground.
The swarm buzzed at her, stingers poised to strike.
“Come in here, Eeni!” Possum Ansel yelled, cracking open the door to his bakery and waving her frantically over with his paws.
Eeni started to run, but the wasps turned to cut her off. She’d never make it all the way in time.
Until Kit leaped to her side.
“You run for Ansel’s!” he told her. “I’ve got this.” He stopped running and picked up a broken paddle that the People used for some sort of tabletop ball game. “It’s like Beetle Bagging.”
“Only Beetles don’t sting like wasps!” Eeni said.
“Well, then this is a new sport,” Kit said, smirking at her. “A Wasp Wallop!”
Eeni stepped beside him and picked up a stick off the ground. “In that case,” she said, “I can’t let you have all the fun alone.”
“All of One Paw,” said Kit.
“All of One Paw,” said Eeni.
They stood shoulder to shoulder as the swarm flew at them.
“Don’t swing too early,” said Kit.
“I’m more worried about too late,” said Eeni.
The first wasps charged them, and Kit swung the paddle, just like at the Beetle Bagging booth, smacking two wasps away with one blow. Eeni caught one with her stick, and it careened sideways with such force its stinger stuck into a rotted wood board.
“Nice shot!”
“Only a hundred more to go!” Eeni swung again. Kit swung too. They whacked wasps sideways and back ways and up ways and down.
“You’re pretty good at this,” Kit said as he knocked a wasp from in front of his snout just before it stung him. “Why didn’t you offer to do it at the carnival?”
“Well . . . you see . . . ,” Eeni panted, then slapped another wasp away with her stick. She sent this one right at Chuffing Chaz, who yelled and ducked. Another otter tried to move around to sneak up from the side, but she whacked one more wasp in his direction and one more after that, all of them perfect shots that sent him scrambling for cover. “I kinda didn’t want you to win that leash and collar.”
“You WHAT?” Kit slapped two wasps straight for Chuffing Chaz, keeping the otter pinned behind a trash-can lid.
“I!” Eeni whacked another wasp. “Didn’t!” Whack! “Want you!” Whack! “To!” Whack! “Get!” Whack! “Hurt!” Whack!
“But!” Kit replied, whacking wasps as he spoke. “I!” Whack! “Knew!” Whack! “What I!” Whack! “Was doing!” Whack!
“But, Kit!” Whack! “You didn’t!” Whack! “Tell me!” Whack! “And I’m!” Whack! “Your best!” Whack! “Friend!” Whack!
“I’m sorry!” Kit said. Whack! “Next time I have a plan!” Whack! “I’ll let you in on it from the start!”
“You?” Whack! “Promise?” Whack!
“We’re a team!” said Kit. “Howl!” Whack! “To snap!”
Eeni smiled. “That’s the only promise I needed,” she said. Then she charged at the last of the swarm, waving her stick at the rest of the wasps, sending them for Chuffing Chaz’s hiding spot. Kit followed, whacking any that she missed.
“Rompers!” Chuffing Chaz yelled. “Forget this mess! Back to river! Retreat!”
He jumped from his hiding spot and ran straight out of Ankle Snap Alley, wasps stinging at his behind the whole way.
“We’re coming back to you, Musky Mo!” Chaz shouted. “Ow! Ow! Ow!”
The other otters chased afte
r him as fast as their otter paws could carry them. Their hides would be red and raw by the time they reached their river, but they’d learned their lesson: The city was no place for an otter. They’d stick to their own turf from that day forward.
“Get back here!” Coyote yelled, still trying to shake the mousetraps off himself. The Blacktail brothers stood over him, laughing.
The otters didn’t come back. Coyote was alone.
Uncle Rik stepped up the coyote. “What you win with fear, you can lose with fear just as easily,” he said.
Coyote growled, but covered as he was with mousetraps, it sounded more like a whimper.
Kit and Eeni stepped toward him. Their classmates climbed from their cans. One by one, the doors around Ankle Snap Alley opened, and the rest of the residents came out. The rooster and the badger and the possum. The stray dog named Rocks and the Rabid Rascal mutts. Brevort the skunk, wide-awake now, his tail shaking, ready to spray. Feral cats joined squirrels and a flock of disheveled pigeons. The news finches gathered above.
Coyote was outnumbered, and this time, Ankle Snap Alley had him surrounded.
“Now, wait a moment,” Coyote said, backing himself into a corner, his hackles up, his eyes darting. “You’ve tricked me, and I respect that. Pretty clever making me think these two raccoons were your enemies. But you’re no killer, Kit. You wouldn’t hurt a lone coyote who was just trying to get a meal, would you? Ain’t you never been hungry? I was only doing what I had to do with winter coming on. Same as any Wild One.”
“No,” said Kit. “Wild Ones know there’s enough for everyone out here. We may pilfer one another’s pockets and raid one another’s roosts, but we’d never let one another starve a winter out. Not even the Blacktail brothers. Everyone around here knows they’re crooked grub-grubbing cheats,” Kit explained, “but they’re our crooked grub-grubbing cheats.”
The crowd closed around Coyote. The barber’s sharp rooster talon flashed in the morning sun. “I could give him a close shave?” he suggested.
“We could tie him to the tracks!” the leader of church mice declared, his robed followers holding a long length of ragged rope between them.
“We could peck his brains out!” the news finches cheered. “Peck! Peck! Peck!”
“Let’s poison him!” one of the well-dressed banker geckos suggested, looking for his poison frog. Then he remembered his poison frog wasn’t really poisonous and frowned.
“No,” said Kit. “We aren’t killers. We’ll give him a chance to run away with his tail between his legs.”
“We will?” Eeni wondered.
“We will,” said Kit.
“I’ll never run,” Coyote told him.
“Oh, you’ll run,” said Kit. “Because there is one thing you definitely fear.”
Kit whistled, and all of a sudden, from all the houses around Ankle Snap Alley, came a cacophony of barks and howls and hoots and meows. Every Flealess house pet in every People’s house began such a ruckus that the People came rushing to their windows to see what the fuss was about.
And all of them saw Coyote.
“My guess is that the Bagman will be here soon,” said Kit. “You can stay if you like, but we know where to hide in this alley and we’ll do our best to hide one another. I don’t think you’ll find a friendly hole to hide in, though, do you?”
Coyote growled at Kit, poised to pounce, then looked to the windows, where the shapes of People pointed and stared.
“We could always tie you up and leave you here for the Bagman?” Kit suggested.
“Well played,” Coyote growled. “You’ve out-tricked a trickster. This time. But we will meet again!”
“You know where to find me.” Kit crossed his front paws, defiant.
“Us,” said Eeni, stepping up beside him in front of Coyote’s snarling mouth. “You know where to find us.”
“All of us,” said Uncle Rik, also stepping beside Kit.
“Together,” said Liney sisters, stepping forward beside Eeni, paw in paw. Fergus hopped up beside them and they held his paw too.
Soon the whole alley stood beside Kit, paws, claws, and even wings crossed.
“We’re ready for you,” said Kit. “From howl to snap.”
Coyote growled again, then turned tail and ran. He leaped the fence at the far end of the alley, yelped when he hit the ground on the other side, and limped off on his way to whatever dark wood he’d come from.
When he was gone, Uncle Rik cleared his throat. “We best all hide ourselves,” he suggested. “Before the Bagman comes.”
“Actually, we don’t have to worry about that,” said Eeni.
The other animals looked at her puzzled, then she pointed to the thick black wires that crisscrossed between all the People’s houses.
Except they weren’t crossed between the People’s houses; they hung limp and dead off the sides.
“Our teacher told us how the People use these wires to talk to one another. That’s how they call the Bagman,” she explained. “Except they can’t use them to call the Bagman because my friend Dax chewed through them all.”
From the top of the house, Dax the squirrel poked his head up, a devious grin on his face and crumbs of black in his teeth. He also had a bald spot on his head where a wire had singed off some of his fur. Not all of the People’s wires were safe to chew, after all.
“Well!” Uncle Rik puffed his chest out and looked around the alley at his neighbors, who were so rarely seen together in the sunlight. “It looks as if my nephew and his friends have saved our alley once again! The Moonlight Brigade is back!”
“Howl to snap,” they all replied together.
“I guess we should sort out those seeds?” Uncle Rik suggested, but before he could turn around, all the creatures of the alley had raced for the sacks, trying to get their paws on as many seeds and nuts as they could.
“Order! Order!” the gecko banker yelled over the crowd, who proceeded to knock him down in their frenzy.
“We took a clawful of seeds for ourselves, of course,” Shane told Kit.
“A nut here, a nut there,” added Flynn. “Everyone paid a little, no one paid too much.”
“Fair enough,” said Kit, watching the other animals grunt and grumble at one another as they tried to sort out whose pouch was whose and who owed what to whom. Dimitri the hedgehog had Blue Neck Ned in a headlock, while the porcupines chased one another around the alley with their quills, calling out shenanigans.
It was messy and loud, and there was more shouting and growling than would be considered polite by decent creatures, but this was Ankle Snap Alley. They didn’t do polite, and they were hardly decent, but one way or another, the Wild Ones kept themselves together.
“There’s no place like home.” Eeni smiled.
Chapter Twenty-Five
ALL OF ONE PAW
AS the animals scuffled in the morning light, Kit, Eeni, and Uncle Rik returned to the Gnarly Oak Apartments to get some well-earned rest. Possum Ansel promised to bring by some fresh acorn-and-sap-syrup cakes for breakfast when the sun went down, and the Old Boss Turtle declared that this First Frost would be forever remembered as the Frost of the Frightened Coyote.
No one paid him much attention. They all knew who the real protectors of Ankle Snap Alley were.
“The Moonlight Brigade is back!” Eeni ran circles around Kit in the hallway as she talked excitedly. “Those Rabid Rascals can’t scare folks anymore. We should tell them to take a hike! Or better yet, to do our chores! How great would it be to see the Blacktail brothers do our chores?”
“But, Eeni,” Kit said, “you don’t have any chores.”
“Well, hmm.” Eeni tapped her tail against the floor in thought. “I’ll have to invent some, then! Do leaves need polishing? Can you alphabetize hairballs?”
“What you both have to do,” said
Uncle Rik, “is get some sleep.”
Uncle Rik made up Kit’s bed for him, while Kit put the scattering of books he’d used to learn about the Dog’s Duel back on the shelves.
“You can read those anytime you want,” said Uncle Rik. “There are lifetimes of learning in those pages.”
“Thanks,” said Kit, less eager to read now that his life wasn’t hanging in the balance. He was really looking forward to curling up in his warm and cozy bed.
His head hadn’t even hit the mossy pillow when a knock on the door pulled him up again.
“Hello, yes?” He heard Uncle Rik answer the door. “What are you all doing here . . . um . . . I’m not sure now is the best time, but . . . well . . . might I offer you some rose petal tea?”
Kit poked his head out of his room to see who had arrived. Eeni poked hers out too.
There in the entrance hall stood his teacher, Mr. Timinson, hat in hand, as well as Cawfrey the crow from the carnival.
“We’re sorry to bother you after what must have been an exhausting ordeal,” said Mr. Timinson. “We need to speak to Kit and Eeni.”
“They’ve gone to bed,” said Uncle Rik. “In spite of all they’ve done, they are still children and need their sleep. Could this wait until sunset?”
“It cannot!” cried Cawfrey the crow.
“It’s okay, Uncle Rik,” said Kit, stepping into the hallway. “I’m awake.”
“Me too,” said Eeni, stepping beside him and rubbing her eyes.
Kit couldn’t see past the fox and the crow to the outside, but whatever stood in the doorway was large enough to block out the sun and cast a swarming shadow into the apartment.
“We’ll wait out here,” said a hundred voices speaking as one.
It was the Rat King come to pay a house call.
Eeni gasped.
“You have proven yourselves worthy above and beyond the measure of your youth. We are proud of you,” the Rat King said, its voice echoing down the narrow hallway. “Both of you.”
Moonlight Brigade Page 14
