The Outlaw Varjak Paw

by S. F. Said

  She looked up at him, met his gaze, looked deep into his eyes. It felt like she was seeing inside him with her ice-blue eye, seeing his secrets, laying him bare – just as Sally Bones had done. But this was Holly, his friend. And this time, he felt no fear, no darkness, no despair. He just felt the loveliest warmth, flowing between them once again.

  She nodded. ‘So you did it, Varjak Paw,’ she said softly. ‘You actually climbed a mountain.’

  He smiled. There was so much to tell her, so much to share. ‘And guess what else? We found where all the mice go in winter! It’s the best hunting ever! And wait till you meet Cludge’s family, and—’

  ‘Cludge’s family?’

  ‘Yes! And I wouldn’t have made it without them, either – or the Scratch Sisters – or Razor—’

  ‘Come on,’ said Holly. ‘Let’s go. There’s not much more I can do about these wounds. There’ll be scars everywhere – but you’ll live.’

  They limped down the stairs together, very slowly, a step at a time. It was a long way down. Varjak was so tired, and every muscle, every bone, every strand of fur ached.

  But as they made it down the final steps, out of the tower, he felt lifted once again. For there were his friends, waiting for him and Holly in the graveyard. They were going wild, cheering and whooping into the dawn. Cludge and his brothers were yelping with joy. The Orrible Twins were dancing on the tombstones. Razor and the Scratch Sisters were dancing with them.

  ‘I knew you’d do it!’ bubbled Tam. ‘I knew it, I knew it, I knew it!’

  ‘Grandma always said he would!’ purred Jess.

  Sally Bones’s cats were in total disarray. Her captains approached Varjak, very cautiously. They were still rubbing their eyes.

  ‘Did he really beat the Boss?’ said Luger. ‘How? Nobody can beat her – she’s the greatest fighter who ever lived!’

  ‘Not any more,’ said Holly. ‘Varjak won. That makes him the greatest.’

  ‘Varjak Paw!’ his friends hailed him. ‘Varjak Paw! Varjak Paw!’

  Was he hearing right? Could he really be the greatest, after all? It wasn’t possible.

  But the greatest friends, the greatest pack, the greatest gang in the world? Yes. Oh, yes! No doubt about that!

  A slow smile spread across his face, and he looked up at the sky. The sun was rising high. It was a beautiful morning.

  ‘There’s been enough fighting in this city,’ Varjak said to Sally Bones’s captains. ‘There’ll be no more. We’re going back to the centre, and we’re going in peace. The centre is our territory. You can’t come and tell us what to do any more. Our law runs there now, the law of freedom. It’s a free city, for Free Cats. And nothing you do can ever change that.’

  Sally Bones’s captains looked at each other, still dazed – and then, one by one, they stood aside. Silent, heads bowed, tails between their legs, they parted to let him and his friends go through.

  Varjak and Holly led the way, with Tam and Jess beside them. Razor, the Scratch Sisters and the Orrible Twins flanked them. Cludge, Buster and Bomballooloo brought up the rear, barking happily into the dawn.

  Together, they made their way out of the graveyard, back across the river, through the streets and alleys, to the centre of their city.

  Everyone was talking about how Varjak Paw beat Sally Bones. The tale would be told again and again in the times to come. It would be remembered on long winter nights. In their darkest hours, it would give them hope. For all the Free Cats, life in the city began again that morning.

  As they went back to their homes, their alleys, their harbour, the sun rose higher and higher in the sky. The sky was clear and blue, and the sun shone amber in the blue. Its rays reflected on great glass towers and tall brown buildings alike. Everything gleamed in the bright, silent sunlight. The whole city sparkled and shone.

  The sun began to melt the winter snow. Soon it would become a stream: a warm, clear stream of water that would wash the streets clean, then flow out through the river, to make its way in wide, strong currents, out towards the sea.

  Winter was over. Spring would soon begin.

  Read on for the first chapter of PHOENIX

  by S F Said and Dave McKean

  Lucky dreamed of the stars again that night. He loved the stars, and dreamed about them most nights. A million points of silver light, shining in the black.

  But this dream was different. This time, the stars were calling him. They were trying to tell him something. They were making a small, soft, silvery sound, like the chime of a faraway bell.

  The sound grew. It surged and swelled, rising up into the sky. Lucky’s blood surged with it. His feet lifted off from the floor.

  And in his dream, Lucky flew. He rose up and soared through space, into the stars and constellations.

  It didn’t feel like a dream. It seemed so real.

  He rose higher and higher, until the sound wasn’t distant any more. It was all around him now, surrounding him with waves of overwhelming power, though he still couldn’t grasp its meaning. If he could just get a little nearer . . .

  He flew so close, he could taste the stars, sparkling on his tongue. He felt their heat on his face.

  They weren’t little points of silver any more. They were suns: each one a giant blazing sun. Inside them burned impossible energies, stronger than the fires in a nuclear furnace, bigger than the blast of a billion atom bombs.

  He reached out his hands to touch them –

  – and woke up with a violent start.

  He was in his bedroom, in his mother’s apartment, back on Phoenix. It was just before dawn. The air-conditioning was on full blast, but he was drenched in sweat and fever hot. A headache throbbed behind his eyes.

  He fumbled for the lights – and then he saw his sheets.

  The top sheet on his bed was burned. There was a massive hole through the middle of it. All around the hole, the white linen had gone black, and crumbled into ash.

  Lucky checked the bottom sheet. Normal. He looked back at the top one, and there it was again: a gaping hole. Smoke was still rising. His bedroom stank of it; he could taste it in his mouth.

  Panic rose inside him, tightening in his chest. What’s going on?! he thought, coughing on the smoke. Am I burned?

  He stood up. Black ash fluttered all around him. He waved it away with shaking hands, and examined his skin. No burn marks. He felt exhausted and his head ached, but his body didn’t seem to be hurt. It was the same puny, clumsy body as always.

  Everything else in his room looked normal. The school uniform strewn on the floor. The school bag by his desk. His bedroom walls flickering with starmaps, showing every system this side of the Spacewall. And flying among them, his collection of model starships.

  Everything was in its place, undamaged. Yet his bedsheet was burned, his room stank of smoke, and there were ashes crumbling under his fingers, smearing on his hands. Did I do this? he wondered. No way – it’s impossible! I wasn’t even awake . . .

  The memory of a dream flickered at the edge of his mind . . . and then slipped away.

  He powered down the security matrix and opened his window, gulping in fresh air, trying to cool himself. It was still dark outside. But high above the suburban apartment blocks, the stars were shining. The sight calmed him just a little. He’d lived on this moon at the edge of the Aries system all his life, yet he never tired of gazing at the stars. They seemed so free, up there in the sky. Nothing could ever harm them.

  He could hear the distant roar of starships, taking off from the spaceport. Soon it would be morning, and his mother would wake up. She would see the ruined sheet. When he couldn’t explain it, she’d get worried. She’d been asking him weird questions lately, wanting to know if any unusual changes were happening to his body. He didn’t know what these questions meant, but from the anxious way she asked, he knew it was trouble.

  And now this. Trouble for sure . . .

  No, he thought. She mustn’t see the sheet. I have to get rid of
it. Replace it, and never say a word.

  He pulled on some clothes, and tiptoed out of his bedroom. It was so peaceful in the corridor, he could feel the security matrix’s subsonic hum in the soles of his feet. Everything was neat and ordered, as his mother liked it. Everything in its place. Shipshape, she called it.

  There was a faint light under the kitchen door, and the scent of chocolate brownies. She must be in there, baking. Of course. On days when she went to work before he was awake, she’d always get up early to make him a treat: the food that had always been his favourite, back from when he was a little child.

  He crept silently past to the storeroom, and opened up the door. It was crammed with boring household stuff. He never looked in here normally, and wasn’t sure where to find sheets. He hunted through stacks of tinned food and toiletries, packs of cotton wool and bandages. Even a full battlefield Medikit! How ridiculous! Why would they ever need a thing like that in a place like Phoenix, so far away from the War?

  ‘Lucky?’ His mother’s voice, behind him. He turned, and there she was: her apron on, her long red hair tied back. He hadn’t heard her coming at all. ‘Sweetheart?’ she called. ‘What are you doing in there?’

  ‘Oh – nothing,’ he said guiltily.

  ‘Why are you awake so early?’ She sniffed the air. Her blue eyes narrowed. ‘What’s that smoky smell?’ She took off the apron, and strode towards his bedroom.

  ‘Don’t go in there!’ He tried to get in her way, but he was too slow. Before he could stop her, she was entering his room. He followed her in, cheeks flushed with shame –

  – and there it was. The evidence. The ruined sheet, with a hole burned right through the middle.

  He felt dizzy, seeing it again. It hit him with fresh force: just what a strange thing it was.

  His mother breathed in sharply at the sight. Fear flashed through her eyes as she took in the smoke and ashes. But in her voice, there was not the slightest trace of surprise. ‘Please, no,’ she whispered. ‘Not so soon . . .’

  ‘What is it, Mum?’ he said, skin beginning to crawl. ‘What’s happening?’

  She didn’t answer. She went over to the window, and stared up at the sky. Lucky followed her and looked up too. There they were, as always: a million points of silver light. Whatever happened, the stars would always be there.

  No.

  Wait.

  There was something strange in the sky. A tiny black crack. A crack in the sky, shaped like a V, where a moment ago, a star had been.

  His mother slammed the security matrix on. She shut the window and backed away from it, face full of horror.

  ‘What – what was that thing in the sky?’ he managed to say.

  She covered her face with her hands, and breathed in deep. Then again, and again, until she’d brought her breathing under tight control. Only then did she take her hands away.

  Her face showed nothing but determination now. Her voice was scarily calm.

  ‘We have to get out of here,’ she said.

  About the Author

  SF Said’s first book, Varjak Paw (2003), won the Nestlé Smarties Prize for Children’s Literature. The sequel, The Outlaw Varjak Paw (2005), won the BBC Blue Peter Book of The Year. Phoenix is his third book. He has written widely about literature, films and the arts for the Guardian and the Daily Telegraph; and works regularly with the CLPE, promoting reading and literacy in schools.

  Find out more at: www.sfsaid.com

  Dave McKean has illustrated and designed many ground-breaking books and graphic novels including Varjak Paw (SF Said), The Magic of Reality (Richard Dawkins), The Savage (David Almond) and The Graveyard Book (Neil Gaiman). He wrote and illustrated Pictures That Tick and the multi-award winning Cages. He has created hundreds of CD and comic covers and directed five short and three feature films.

  Find out more at: www.davemckean.com

  ‘It’s refreshing to enter a world of cats. And not just any old cats, but the rich collection of heroes and villains in the world of Varjak Paw . . . The Outlaw Varjak Paw is another swift, compelling tale. And Varjak is an appealing and believable hero’ New York Times

  ‘Varjak Paw is the perfect emblem of the joys and dangers of freedom. Beautifully illustrated by Dave McKean and written in spine-tingling prose, the novels have a suspenseful edginess that children instantly respond to’ The Times

  ‘Dave McKean’s edgy illustrations provide the perfect foil for this elegant and imaginative read’ Publishing News

  ‘A wonderfully original creation: a fearless feline with a gift for whizzy martial arts . . . Grippingly vivid’ Evening Standard

  ‘Dark and wonderful . . . Like Harry Potter or His Dark Materials, this is a book with true crossover appeal’ Zero Magazine

  ‘Cats, martial arts, Gothic urban landscapes, bravery, power struggles, creepy towers, juicy fish and some very loyal dogs . . . this book has it all’ Delirium’s Library

  ‘Great new characters and some cracking fight scenes . . . All loose ends are tied up by the end. But you will want to know what happens next!’ CBBC Newsround

  ‘It’s a rare sequel that so surpasses its predecessor; one hopes the neatly resolved plotlines don’t preclude further installments’ Kirkus

  www.randomhousechildrens.co.uk

  THE OUTLAW VARJAK PAW

  AN RHCP DIGITAL EBOOK 9781448158539

  Published in Great Britain by RHCP Digital,

  an imprint of Random House Children’s Publishers UK

  A Random House Group Company

  This ebook edition published 2013

  Text copyright © S F Said, 2005

  Illustrations copyright © Dave McKean, 2005

  First Published in Great Britain by David Fickling Books,

  (when an imprint of Random House Children’s Publishers UK

  A Random House Company)

  The right of S F Said and Dave McKeanto be identified as the author and illustrator of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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