The Wild Ones

by C. Alexander London

  “An historian,” Eeni corrected him. “And that’s even worse. History’s a dangerous business around these parts.” She pointed up at the scratched sign to the old Paw & Pawn. “The hedgehog who ran this place had an interest in history. He sold all kinds of historical artifacts to all kinds of folks and then he refused to pay the Rabid Rascals for protection. Said history gave him a right to be here and he wasn’t gonna pay ’em for a right that was his by birth. Without the Rascals protecting him, the Flealess shut him down, kidnapped his woodpecker assistant too. Better your uncle were a paper tickler than an historian. They live longer.”

  “What is a paper tickler?”

  “Don’t you learn anything out in the Big Sky? Paper tickler’s a card cheat. They tickle the paper cards to make ’em jump.”

  “Oh . . . right.” Kit thought about his uncle. If he was also in danger, then Kit had better find him fast. He couldn’t stand here in an abandoned shop learning new lingo all night. “So, where do we look for him?”

  “Normally, I’d say we just ask the Blacktail brothers, because they don’t miss a trick around here, but we can’t go back to them. My guess is they’re still snarling mad and best avoided.”

  “Why should they be mad? They’re the ones who cheated me.”

  “But you’re the one who let himself get cheated,” Eeni said. “Better be more careful in the future.”

  “Isn’t anybody down here honest?” Kit wondered.

  “Sure.” Eeni patted Kit on the back. “You are!”

  Kit frowned.

  “Listen, Kit,” she told him. “Honest fellas around here learn quick to keep quiet. Many an honest fella has disappeared into the sewers for talking too much. Everybody who comes here’s got a secret. They’re either running from someplace or running to someplace or stuck right in this alley with no place else to go. This is home for folks who ain’t got a home anyplace else. The Flealess in those buildings all around, they want to get rid of all of us and take the alley for themselves. They terrorize us every chance they get. So the Rabid Rascals help out . . . for a price. Most of them are runaway house pets themselves, and the ones that ain’t—the Blacktail brothers and the like—well, they’re clever and mean and dangerous too. Folks pay the Rascals for protection, and the Rascals keep the Flealess away. Folks who don’t pay, or who make the Rascals mad, well . . .” She gestured at the torn-up shop around them. “Bad things happen to ’em.”

  “Why are you telling me all this?”

  Eeni picked at the frayed seal on her vest. “Just to tell you that folks here ain’t all liars; they’re just . . . circumspect.”

  “Circum-what?”

  “Spect. Circumspect,” Eeni told him. “Means that they don’t take risks when they don’t have to.”

  “So you aren’t like other folks down here, then?” said Kit. “Taking a risk to help me out. You aren’t so circumspect at all.”

  “Me?” Eeni shrugged. “I’m just a sucker for an honest fella. Howl to snap.”

  “Howl to snap,” Kit repeated, but he felt, of a sudden, circumspect himself, even as he followed Eeni up into the moonlight. “If we can’t ask the Blacktail brothers about Uncle Rik, who are we going to ask?”

  Eeni called back over her shoulder as she made her way from the small shop. “Why, we’re going to ask the Brood, of course!”

  Chapter Nine

  THE BROOD

  KIT and Eeni popped from beneath a shed just down the narrow lane from where the Blacktail brothers were still at their work, luring in whatever gapers they could find. Their voices carried through the night.

  Quick of eye and quick of paw,

  bet some seeds and win ’em all . . .

  Kit glanced nervously in their direction, but Eeni beckoned him with her little hand. “Don’t mind about them for now.” She led Kit behind the chicken coop, where a brood of chickens were clucking their nightly gossip.

  “I hear that church mouse minister takes a thimbleful of cheese ale daily,” one of the chickens clucked.

  “I hear it’s more like two thimbles!” another squawked.

  The largest of all the chickens, a big lady sitting on a hearty number of eggs, sang a little tune to the others. “A thimble of ale, be it cheddar or Swiss, has lured many a mouse down to Gayle’s Abyss.” The others clucked wildly as the big lady continued. “A rooster I knew who took his ale blue. The cheese was quite stinky, his breath was quite too.”

  “Another! Another!” the other chickens cried.

  “What are we doing here?” Kit wondered.

  Eeni rolled her eyes. “Everyone knows that if you want to know something, you ask the birds. You just got to be careful, because birds love to gossip, and they don’t mind so much if what they say is true or not. Come on.”

  As they approached, the big hen hushed her friends and peered down her spectacles at Eeni and Kit.

  “Now, now, young’uns,” she called out. “What brings you to my fine roost on a night such as this?”

  “We’re looking for someone, Miss Costlecrunk,” Eeni replied.

  “Oh, crack my shell, it’s ‘Miss’ now is it?!” The big chicken laughed. “I haven’t been Miss Costlecrunk since before the Cat Wars. It’s ‘Missus’ to you, dear.”

  “Yes, Missus,” said Eeni.

  “Now who’s your friend?” Her head turned to the side, her neck bobbing back and forth with a jiggle. The side eye took in Kit from paw to claw. “Handsome lad.”

  Kit felt a blush on his snout.

  “Oh! Oh,” Mrs. Costlecrunk cried. “I’d no notion a raccoon could blush so!”

  “Must be from the Big Sky,” another chicken chimed in. “Won’t find a Blacktail brother blushing.”

  “A blush is a sign of manners, I’d say,” Mrs. Costlecrunk replied. “We could use more blushing and less brazenness here in the Ankle Snap.” She addressed Kit directly. “You are most welcome here—?”

  “Kit,” he told her.

  “Kit. Most welcome.” A chorus of clucks echoed her. “But do watch yourself. This is no place to share your blushes with the moonlight. Add some swagger to your step, and you’ll be all right.”

  “I’ll try to . . . uh . . . swagger,” said Kit.

  “We’re looking for his uncle,” Eeni explained. “Goes by the name Rik.” Eeni dropped her voice to a whisper. “He’s an historian.”

  “Oh, a nephew of Rik’s, is it?” Mrs. Costlecrunk eyed Kit again, more circumspect this time. “Well.” The big hen sighed. “In that case . . .”

  She held out a foot, stretching her leg down from her perch to hang in front of Kit’s face. He cocked his head at the taloned bird foot. She snapped her chicken toes and held her foot flat right in front of him. Kit didn’t know what to do, so he slapped her claw with his black paw, trying to be friendly.

  “What are you doing?!” Eeni marveled.

  “I . . . uh . . . was giving her five?”

  Eeni shook her head and whispered in his ear, “She wants a bribe.”

  “What happened to helping people out who need help?” he whispered back.

  “You’re in Ankle Snap Alley,” she said. “No one does anything for free.”

  Kit considered his options, then reached into his pocket and pulled a few seeds from his pouch without letting anyone see the stone inside. He dropped the seeds into Mrs. Costlecrunk’s open foot. She clenched her toes around the seeds and withdrew them underneath her body once more, ruffling her feathers and preening a moment to regain her composure after the surprising and unwelcome “low five” from the young raccoon.

  “Well,” she said at last. “You can find your uncle Rik—Riky Two Rings they call him—at the base of the Gnarly Oak Apartments . . . but I don’t think you should.”

  “Why not?” Kit asked. “I mean, Why not, Mrs. Costlecrunk, ma’am?”

  The
hen clucked. “He doesn’t take well to visitors. Just two nights ago he chased off a flock of young news finches looking for a story on the woodpecker, and everyone knows he’s littered his garden with traps. A church mouse nearly lost his tail trying to shove a pamphlet in the door just this evening.”

  “He’ll want to see me,” said Kit.

  “Oh, I’ve no doubt.” Mrs. Costlecrunk smirked. “But mind your tail all the same, boy. I’d hate to see a redder blush flood that fine fur of yours.”

  “Thank you for your help, ladies.” Eeni curtsied to the hens. Kit wasn’t sure of the right thing to do, so he curtsied too, which brought out a whole new round of laughter from the brood. Kit tried not to share his blushing with the moonlight again, but he felt his snout redden anyway.

  “Now listen here, Kit.” The big hen adjusted her glasses on her beak. “Mind your step in the alley, lad. Not all traps are made of metal. Sometimes words can be the most dangerous snares of all.”

  “Uh . . . okay . . . I’ll remember that.” Kit wasn’t sure he had any idea what the chicken was on about. Everyone in Ankle Snap Alley had such a funny way of talking. Words were another game to play, like shells-and-nuts, and wherever you thought the meaning was hid, they’d hid it somewhere else altogether. You couldn’t win, but you had to play. Kit wondered if he’d ever learn to talk like them, and he wondered if this place would ever feel like home.

  Chapter Ten

  RIKY TWO RINGS

  WHATEVER you’re selling, I’m not buying,” a deep voice boomed through the wooden door at the base of the Gnarly Oak Apartments. “Go away.”

  Uncle Rik’s apartment was tucked among the tangled roots of a massive oak tree that filled the north end of Ankle Snap Alley. The tree’s canopy was taller than the People’s buildings, stretching from rooftop to rooftop. The upper branches were filled with birds’ nests and squirrel holes and the mixed and matched apartments of a hundred other creatures. Their laundry rustled in the breeze between the leaves, drying slowly in the moonlight. The tree’s base was a warren of cramped holes where rat, woodpecker, squirrel, and raccoon rented their turf from the birds above, payment in full at the start of each season.

  There was trash strewn all around the base of the tree, garbage that People had tossed into the alley without a thought for the furred and feathered citizens living there. A giant truck tire rested in the dirt beside the door to Uncle Rik’s apartment.

  Uncle Rik’s door was a round barrel top wedged into an arched root that rose up taller than Kit could stand. There was a sliding metal bar that opened just wide enough for the raccoon inside to peer out. His asphalt-black eyes raked over Kit and Eeni.

  “I said go away!” he shouted through the door.

  “But, Uncle Rik,” Kit pleaded, “it’s your nephew, Kit! Your sister’s son. I’m not selling anything. I’m family.”

  “I’ve got no family,” Uncle Rik snapped, then he slid the metal bar shut with a thud.

  “He doesn’t want to see you, I guess,” Eeni said sadly.

  Kit sucked in air through his pointy teeth. He had come a long way from the big skies of home. He’d nearly been robbed and rabbit-rolled by hoodlums. He’d met sketchy frogs and gossiping chickens and a strange mouse squeaking at him about a bone that could bring peace.

  He was not going to be turned away by his own uncle.

  Kit clenched his little black fists and pounded on the door until the slot opened again.

  “You do too have a family,” Kit shouted. “I’m your family, and I’ve come all this way to find you, and I’m not going away until you let me in.”

  “Go home, Kit,” the deep voice boomed. “Go back to your mom and dad under the Big Sky. The city is no place for the likes of you.”

  “I can’t go home,” Kit said, and now he felt the pressure of tears, his eyes like a beaver dam about to burst. “My home got destroyed. My mom and dad are dead.”

  Eeni froze beside him, shocked. The eyes behind the slit of door widened and then dropped. A sad sigh slid through the crack. The door creaked as it swung open.

  “Dead?” Uncle Rik, a gray-and-black raccoon, wearing a tattered plaid robe, stood upright in the doorway. He had a stubby snout, long whiskers, and big black-cherry eyes, suddenly filled with sad surprise. At his feet lay a book he must have dropped. Its cover was splayed open like the wings of a bat.

  A History of the Turf Wars, Volume Seven

  By Rev. H. Mus Musculus III

  His uncle paid the fallen book no attention. “Both of them?”

  Kit nodded. Now that he’d said the words out loud for the first time, it felt real, too real. He had pressed the thoughts to the back of his mind for the entire journey, but now he couldn’t keep the memories away any longer. They swarmed him like fleas. They bit.

  His parents were dead.

  He burst into tears. The black fur around his eyes glistened as if it were studded with diamonds. The diamonds fell into the dirt, splattered, and his uncle, glancing up and down the alley, beckoned Kit and Eeni quickly inside.

  “Watch the tire,” he said as they slipped past it. “Filled with traps.”

  When they were inside, Uncle Rik triple-locked the door behind them. They came into a messy living room with a threadbare couch patched with the same fabric as Uncle Rik’s robe. There were notes and books covering the broken chairs, strange artifacts and packs of mismatched playing cards on the shelves, several lamps burning on a low table, and countless half-empty mugs of bitter black acorn brew.

  Uncle Rik moved some papers and bits of bark off a chair and helped Kit to sit down. He didn’t pay any attention to Eeni, but she didn’t mind. She wasn’t paying any attention to herself either. She was staring at Kit, who had been carrying around his tragedy without a word all these hours.

  “My sister?” Uncle Rik’s voice creaked. His face sagged like a plastic bag caught in the branches of a tree. “And your dad?”

  “Uh-huh.” Kit sniffled. “They sent me here . . . my ma . . . she said you could help . . . there’s no one else . . .”

  “What happened?” Uncle Rik asked. “I mean . . . uh . . . if you want to talk about it.”

  Kit tried to pull himself together.

  “I’ll get you some . . . uh . . .” Uncle Rik didn’t know what to offer. “I only have acorn brew or cheese ale?”

  “We’re too young for cheese ale,” Eeni told him.

  “Right . . . acorn brew, then.”

  “We’re too young for that too,” she said.

  “I’ll bring some water.” He scurried from the room, half dazed.

  “I’m so sorry, Kit,” Eeni said when they were alone. “I had no idea . . .”

  Kit shook his head. “I didn’t want to tell you. I didn’t want to say it. I thought if I didn’t say it out loud, it wouldn’t be real. Like it was all a dream, this house, this alley. Even you.”

  “I’m not a dream, Kit,” she said. “I’m your friend now, howl to snap.”

  Kit wiped his nose with his paw. “Howl to snap.”

  “Here’s some water.” Uncle Rik handed him a big cup of water, so big he had to hold it with both hands. It was pink and People-made. Kit had never drunk from a People’s cup before, but he lifted it to his mouth and gulped. He hadn’t even realized how thirsty he was.

  While he drank, Eeni stood by his side, and his uncle dropped himself down onto the couch, sweeping his bathrobe out underneath him. He looked at Kit, his face folded in a frown. “Do you want to talk about it?” he asked.

  Kit nodded. He didn’t really want to talk about it, but he knew that Uncle Rik had lost his sister, and he had a right to know what had happened. He needed to know what had happened, if Kit was ever going to understand why it had happened.

  Kit had learned something during his few hours in Ankle Snap Alley. Nobody did anything for free in this place. Every
thing cost something, and the price of Kit finding answers would be this: He would have to tell the story of what happened that day, he would have to say it out loud, and by saying it, he knew he would have to live it again in his mind.

  Sometimes telling a story hurt worse than living it, but sometimes telling the stories that hurt the most was the only way to survive.

  “I couldn’t save them,” Kit began. “I tried, but I couldn’t save them.”

  Chapter Eleven

  A DEBT IS DUE

  THE dogs pounced on her because that six-clawed cat made them. And that’s why I came here.” Kit finished his story, leaving out nothing. The fur on his cheeks was damp, and he wiped his eyes with his tail.

  Eeni and Uncle Rik looked at him quietly, pity scratched across both their faces. But Kit didn’t want pity. He wanted to keep his promise to his mother, to grow up brave and quick of paw and to help Uncle Rik finish the work his parents had begun, just like she had told him to.

  Uncle Rik appeared to understand. “Did you bring the Footprint?” he asked.

  Kit pulled out his seed pouch and removed the stone with the small footprint on it. He passed it to Uncle Rik, whose eyes lit with awe.

  “Well, shave my tail, they really found it!” Uncle Rik exclaimed. “A real Footprint of Azban.”

  “Like, Azban, the First Raccoon?” Eeni asked, leaning forward to sniff at the stone with her tiny pink nose.

  Uncle Rik nodded.

  “You mean . . . when I stole the pouch . . . I stole . . . ?” Her whiskers sagged as her jaw hung open.

  Kit nodded at her. “See why I chased you down?”

  “That must be worth a fortune,” Eeni said. “There are collectors who’d pay anything you asked for a real footprint of one of the First Animals.”

  “Oh, certainly there are,” said Uncle Rik.

  “Is that why they killed my parents? Just to get rich?” Kit was disgusted.

  “Oh no,” said Uncle Rik. “The dogs who attacked your home did not want the footprint to sell it. They wanted the footprint to destroy it.”