“They look surprised,” said one rat voice. “Are they surprised?”
“You’d be surprised too, wouldn’t you?” said another.
“Be quiet!” said a third. “You’re ruining the moment!”
“We are glad, Eeni, that you did not join us,” the Rat King said. “We are glad to see what a brave young rat you’ve become on your own.”
“Yeah, well . . .” Eeni didn’t have a snappy reply. She was staring at the shadow, looking for her mother among the tangle.
“You will need more of that bravery now,” the Rat King added.
“Okay, can we please not speak in riddles?” said Kit. “I’ve had kind of a long night, you know. Tricking the Flealess, rebuilding the Moonlight Brigade, and saving the alley from Coyote and his gang? I kinda want to go to bed.”
“Maybe this will wake you up?” Cawfrey said. With a flash of his claw, he flicked a small wooden disk through the air. Kit caught it and saw the symbol of the paws within paws carved into the pale tulipwood token. His mother’s token.
Kit had never expected to see it again.
“We figured you’ll need that more than we will,” Cawfrey said.
“Thank you,” Kit told him.
“Don’t thank us!” Cawfrey squawked. “It’s not for you to keep! It doesn’t belong to you either.”
“I don’t understand,” Kit said. “This was my mother’s.”
“Is,” said Mr. Timinson. He rested a paw on Kit’s shoulder and another on Uncle Rik’s. “It is your mother’s. How would you like to give it back to her?”
“I . . . what?” said Kit, stunned.
“Wait . . . what?” said Uncle Rik, stunned.
“Your mother is alive, Kit,” Mr. Timinson repeated. “She’s alive, and she’s a prisoner in a place the People call a zoo. What do you think about the Moonlight Brigade, for its first mission in our wild world, coming to her rescue?”
Kit hadn’t even noticed that he’d squeezed Eeni’s little paw in his own, and both of them were already nodding yes together.
They didn’t know what a zoo was or where or how they would break his mother out of one, but they didn’t need to know that yet. They knew that they’d do it together and that together, they could do anything.
“All of One Paw,” said the fox.
“All of One Paw,” repeated the young leaders of the Moonlight Brigade.
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Moonlight Brigade Page 15
