Moonlight Brigade Read online

  “Seven . . . eight . . .”

  Kit ran to the edge of the building. He peered down.

  A dizzying drop, the slick glass-and-metal walls offering little to catch on to if he fell. Down below, cruising across the thin ribbons of pavement, Rumblers rolled, white lights shining in front of them, red lights glowing behind. It was hypnotic to watch.

  “Nine . . .”

  Kit threw himself over the edge, hanging by his front paws, dangling over the side of the building. He wasn’t the only one who’d had the idea to dangle. A squirrel named Dax hung right beside him, gripping the roof by a single paw. The other was extended to Kit.

  “Hey, how you doing?” the squirrel asked, cool and casual. Squirrels had absolutely no fear of heights.

  Kit kept both his front paws on the ledge.

  “I’m good,” he answered, wishing his voice hadn’t come out squeaking like a starling’s.

  “You look nervous,” Dax said. “You nervous?”

  Kit nodded.

  The squirrel twisted his body around, still dangling by just one paw. “Don’t be nervous. Not like there’s a wind.” Just then, a freezing gust of wind ruffled their fur. “Well, be a little nervous—”

  “TEN!” Mr. Timinson announced from above. “Now I’m coming to find you. It’s a Hide ’n’ Hunt. Whoever I find answers a question.”

  They heard the fox’s claws crunch on the gravel of the roof.

  “You all saw our seal when you arrived. This is the symbol of our school, and it is the symbol of the Moonlight Brigade, as it has been since the moon was new and the stars grew on trees.”

  They heard a yelp and a whoosh as the fox pulled the ferret from his hiding spot in the pipe.

  “What does it mean?” Mr. Timinson asked.

  “It means All of One Paw,” the ferret said.

  “Yes!” the fox told him. “Very good. And what does that mean? You!” There was a yelp as he hoisted a church mouse named Matteo from his hiding place. “All of One Paw?”

  Kit peeked up from his hiding spot to watch. As the little mouse stood next to the ferret, the fox kept searching, putting the frog, the Liney sisters, and two more church mice in line beside him.

  “It means we’re all the same,” the mouse answered. “No matter how big or small, how furry or, uh”—he glanced at the frog—“not furry . . . we’re the same.”

  “The same? No matter how small?” The fox smiled. “A very mouse-like answer, thank you.” Then he spoke so loud that his breath knocked the hoods off all the church mice. “But you could not be more wrong!”

  He turned and looked right at Kit, who dropped down again as fast as he could.

  “Nice going, Kit,” Dax the squirrel said. “He saw us for sure.”

  Kit listened, his keen ears hearing the fox make his slow way to the edge. Closer and closer he drew to Kit’s hiding place over the side, when suddenly, there was a sneeze. A rat-sized sneeze.

  The fox stopped. His paws crunched the other way.

  Kit peered up again just in time to see Eeni slide herself off the spinning metal fan to emerge, staggering and dizzy from the mist. “I had just about enough of hiding,” she announced, and Kit swore she winked at him. “Anyway, I know the answer,” she added.

  “Very well,” Mr. Timinson sat in front of her. “What does ‘All of One Paw’ mean?”

  “That’s the symbol on the roof,” she said.

  The teacher nodded.

  “And on your pin?” Eeni added.

  The fox nodded again. Eeni seemed like she was stalling for time.

  “You want me to explain the symbol on your pin to you?”

  “Yes, I do,” said the fox.

  Eeni sighed right into the teacher’s face, then picked something out of her teeth with her tail. She was . . . what was that word? In-soo-si-ant. Insouciant. Eeni was, like always, unflappably insouciant.

  “Can I look closer at it?”

  The fox reached up to remove the pin from his coat, only to find it wasn’t there anymore. He looked down at his jacket, and when he looked up again, Eeni was twirling the pin, perfectly balanced on the tip of her claw. The metal hummed as it spun.

  The students in line gasped. No one had seen her paws move near Mr. Timinson’s coat, but she’d swiped it right off him. She was the best pickpocket in Ankle Snap Alley, but Kit never imagined she would have the nerve to steal from their teacher.

  “Never mind, I got it,” she said. She made a great show of looking the pin over, while her teacher stared at her.

  “All of One Paw means,” Eeni said, “that our differences, like all the different paws in that pretty little pin, are what make us special. All our differences make the world what it is. We’re not supposed to be the same. We’re supposed to be the best version of ourselves we can be. For example, I’m supposed to be the sneakiest.” She flipped the pin around in her paw, making it vanish and reappear again in the other paw. Then she flicked it in the air back to Mr. Timinson.

  Everyone waited to see what the fox would do. Kit was surprised that instead of getting angry, the fox smiled. He wasn’t like any creature Kit had ever met before. What should have made him mad made him smile.

  “I was told you were a quick one, and I see I was told correctly,” the fox said. “But you are not entirely correct either.” Eeni frowned as the fox turned back toward where Kit and Dax were hiding as he fastened the pin back on. “You two can come out now! You’ve been found.”

  “Drat,” Dax said, and bounded up to the roof with a single jump. Kit had to strain and scrambled his claws against the side until he threw himself onto the roof flat on his belly. No one ever said raccoons were graceful.

  “Dax?” the teacher asked. “What are the black vines that run between the People’s buildings?”

  “They’re . . . uh . . .” The squirrel clearly had no idea.

  “You squirrels run across them every day, and you don’t know?” Mr. Timinson shook his head. “They carry messages for the People. Signals and sounds and barks. They carry electric flame. What happens when you chew through them?”

  “Uh . . .”

  “I am amazed you have lived this long.” The fox shook his head again and pointed Dax to join the line of students. “We have a lot to learn if you’re to be all the squirrel you can be. Now, Kit?”

  Kit stepped forward.

  “Recite for me the five qualities of Azban, the First Raccoon,” he asked Kit.

  “Quick of Paw, Slick of Tongue, Brave of Heart, Afraid of None, and . . . uh . . .”

  The fox cocked his head, waiting patiently. Kit’s mind went blank. He searched his memory. What was the fifth quality of Azban? He couldn’t remember! He could feel his teacher’s patience running out. He was failing. How could he ever live up to the stories of the Moonlight Brigade if he couldn’t even answer a simple question about his own ancestor? His lip started to quiver; shame boiled any thoughts he had left in his brain.

  And then he saw Eeni. Her tail was bent around her head pointing down at herself. What was she trying to tell him? Why would his friend be pointing at herself while he was trying to answer his teacher’s question?

  His friend. That was it! She was giving him a hint!

  “A Friend to All in Need of One!” Kit declared. “That’s the fifth quality of Azban. Quick of Paw and Slick of Tongue, Brave of Heart, Afraid of None, and A Friend to All in Need of One.”

  “Very good,” said Mr. Timinson. “Even if you had some help.” He glanced at Eeni with a smirk, then spoke to the entire line of students. “None of you, it seems, yet understand what All of One Paw actually means. It is not just our school’s motto; it was the motto of the Moonlight Brigade itself. It was their highest ideal!

  “Therefore, your first assignment to complete by tomorrow night is this: You must speak to a kind of creature
you never have before and tell the class one thing you’ve learned about them. Be bold. I am not interested in hearing what your grandfather mole has to say about the old days. I want you to expand your world. If it’s easy, you’re doing it wrong. Extra credit if it’s a hunting creature with whom you speak. Of course, try not to get eaten in the process. It looks bad if too many of my students get eaten during the first assignment, understood?”

  “Yes, Mr. Timinson,” the class responded.

  “Good,” he said. “Now, I believe your bats are arriving to take you home. I hope you all enjoy the First Frost Festival.”

  “Thank you, sir,” the Liney sisters responded sweetly.

  The fox nodded and trotted off toward the empty metal tower where they had been hiding.

  “Wait!” Kit called out. “That’s it? That’s all school is? Just asking a bunch of questions and not telling us the answers?”

  “Shh,” Eeni groaned. “Don’t make it longer. I thought it would never end. All those questions! Who cares about cans of food and Flealess history? Live in the now! That’s what I say.”

  “But we were barely here at all,” Kit said. “And we still don’t know what All of One Paw means!”

  The fox trotted back over to Kit. “What did you think school would be, Kit?” he asked. “Sitting around listening to the mice read aloud while I correct their spelling?”

  “No,” Kit said, realizing he had no idea what school was actually supposed to be like.

  “Learning is what you do out in the wild world,” Mr. Timinson said. “It is my job to give you the tools to do it. That won’t happen up here on a rooftop. Enjoy your festival, do your assignment, and I’ll see you tomorrow night. Maybe by then you will have figured out what All of One Paw means on your own.”

  The fox strolled away again, and Eeni crossed her paws, staring at Kit. “You!” she said. “You almost got us more school!”

  “I just thought we’d get a chance to show Mr. Timinson how clever we are or—”

  “I swear, Kit, you are the strangest raccoon I’ve ever known.” Eeni shook her head. “If you weren’t my best friend I’d think you were crazier than a groundhog in a sandbox.”

  “Is that a saying? A groundhog in a sandbox?”

  “It is now,” said Eeni. “I just said it.”

  Kit laughed. He liked the sayings Eeni made up, even when they made no sense.

  “Why do you want to impress the teacher so badly?” she asked.

  “Did you hear all that stuff he said about the Moonlight Brigade?” Kit said. “It sounds awesome, don’t you think? The Claw Within the Paw! I want to live up to that! I want to be that!”

  “You want to be in an imaginary ancient brigade that drove the Flealess and their People crazy?” Eeni asked.

  Kit nodded eagerly. He really, really, really did.

  Eeni chuckled and gave him a friendly flick of her tail. “Let’s get to the First Frost Festival. Even the Moonlight Brigade enjoyed some fried grubs and a show, I bet.”

  “You think I have what it takes?” Kit asked. “You think I’m clever enough to be like they were?”

  “Well, you’re the cleverest raccoon friend I’ve got,” Eeni said, sticking her paws in the air for the bats.

  “But I’m the only raccoon friend you’ve got,” Kit replied, putting up his own paws.

  Eeni winked at him as the bats swept in and hoisted them away.

  Kit had no idea what to expect from the First Frost Festival, but thanks to Coyote and his gang it would be a show that no one in Ankle Snap Alley would soon forget.

  Chapter Eight

  DINGBATS

  THE First Frost Festival was one of the oldest and most important events in all of Ankle Snap Alley. Every animal who called that rusted, rutted, crooked, and cratered alleyway their home came out on this one night, just as the winter’s first frost began to settle.

  The Dancing Squirrels performed their tail-waggle jig, the NightFlight bats performed their comedy act, and guest bands came on and off for musical entertainment.

  None of the performances, however, was the reason all the animals came to the festival. Ankle Snap Alley was not known for its love of the arts.

  The animals came because the First Frost Festival was the night when the alley made sure it would survive the long, cold winter to come.

  “You see, Kit,” Uncle Rik explained as they took their place in the crowd, facing the makeshift stage the moles had built. “The show is just to give folks something to do to keep them from brawling while the real business goes on at the Festival. The bankers’ business.”

  Kit glanced to the side of the stage at the Reptile Bank and Trust. It was an unassuming entrance, just a broken block of heavy white stone veined with thin blue lines into which the reptiles had carved their sign: a picture of a snake coiled around an acorn. Below the large stone sat the bankers’ vault. It was kept under the guard of a brightly colored frog rumored to be so poisonous that his own children couldn’t hug him without risking certain death. He sat on an upturned spool beside the narrow entrance, his big eyes twisting this way and that, watching every movement of the assembling crowd.

  “The real business,” Uncle Rik continued, “is the genius of the festival. In the old times, after Azban, the First Raccoon, passed into the endless moonlight, and the Moonlight Brigade vanished with him, there was chaos in the alley. When the cold season came, the hoarders hoarded and the hunters hunted, and every creature plotted the downfall of every other. The animals spent all winter trying to rob and cheat one another out of their stored seeds and nuts. Hibernating was out of the question, lest someone else rob you as you slept and left you to starve. Being awake didn’t help much either. The strong preyed on the weak, and the weak tried to outwit the strong. Paw versus Claw. Our society was in disarray. Winter became such a dangerous time that most folks packed up and left. Ankle Snap Alley would hardly have survived, but for the bankers and their plan. They decided that on the first frost all the creatures in the alley would deposit their winter stores in the bank—all their seeds and all their nuts and anything else of any value.

  “It would all be carefully cataloged and controlled by the reptiles, who have a perfect reputation for cold-blooded security. Even the Rabid Rascals gang put their wealth into the bank for winter, and said that anyone who didn’t do likewise would get a claw in the eye.”

  Kit shuddered. He didn’t like the Rabid Rascals one bit. Everyone in Ankle Snap Alley was a bit of a crook, but the Rabid Rascals were the worst of them. They’d been as cruel to Kit as the Flealess had, but he still had to live alongside the Rascals. They were in charge of the alley, after all. And they were his neighbors.

  “Oh, they’re not all bad,” said Uncle Rik. “They’re the ones who decided to make this into a party.”

  “Folks around Ankle Snap Alley will put up with a lot of crooks as long as they throw a good party,” added Eeni.

  “When the air begins to bite and the white frost falls upon us,” Uncle Rik continued, “we gather with our neighbor—gangsters and church mice alike—and we celebrate the season gone by, while we store our seeds for safekeeping. Thanks to this festival, we can withdraw them from the bank all through the snowy winter months, without a care for scrounging and scurrying about in the snow. This way, we all survive.”

  “But isn’t it dangerous?” Kit wondered, glancing around at all his neighbors. They all had sacks and satchels, bags and boxes stuffed with all their worldly wealth. “There are more thieves here than there are leaves left on the trees. What if someone gets an idea to, I don’t know”—he glanced at Eeni—“pick a pocket?”

  Uncle Rik patted him on the back and laughed. “Fear not, my nephew! The Rabid Rascals provide security. Anyone caught stealing at the First Frost Festival is dealt with . . . severely.”

  Kit saw the gang members weaving through the cr
owd. Stray dogs and grumpy pigeons, mean-eyed ferrets, and even a feral cat or two. The Old Boss Turtle, ruler of the Rabid Rascals, watched over them from the roof of his van. Beside him, the gecko who was in charge of the bank sat with his long ledgers and read over the deposits. It was quite a sight, the gangster and the banker together, all the reptilian power in Ankle Snap Alley in one place.

  Meanwhile, in the crowd, the whole neighborhood was abuzz with activity. Possum Ansel and Otis the badger had their winter supplies in two large crates. They were entertaining a traveling woodchuck from a northern forest who had a large quantity of sweet tree sap to sell. Ansel couldn’t wait to bake it into a sap-and-smoked-sardine pudding.

  A newt in a blue suit stood nearby, ready to document the deal.

  Glass bottles filled with lightning bugs lit the performers onstage, although no one was paying them much attention. The chickens were gossiping, the gangsters were prowling, and the news finches were arguing with one another about the night’s news. Declan, the NightFlight bat, hung upside down on a rolling perch below a circle of lightning bugs in the center of the stage. A sign in front of him said

  Dingbat Revue: The Upside-Down Comedy of Declan!

  “Here he goes!” Eeni said, passing Kit a small bag filled with deep-fried grubs soaked in zucchini butter. They were crunchy and salty and still warm. He wondered whether she’d bought them from the refreshment gopher or swiped them when he wasn’t looking.

  He decided not to ask.

  Declan told his jokes as loudly as he could over the sound of talking and arguing in the audience.

  “What do you call a bat with no sonar?” Declan shouted, paused for dramatic effect, then answered his own question. “Lost!”

  The bat slapped his tiny thighs.

  No one laughed.

  He didn’t give up.

  “I once met a bat with no sonar. He was flying in circles, and I said, hey, friend, where do you want to go? And he told me, I want to go to the bathroom. I said, but you’ve got no sonar, how are you guano get there?”