The Wild Ones--Great Escape Read online

  At the sound, the young heroes of the Moonlight Brigade popped from behind trash cans and from on top of roofs, and even burst from burrow holes in the ground below. Eeni held a rusted fork as a spear, and Matteo the mouse aimed a flaming matchstick arrow from his rubber-band bow. Hazel the rabbit twirled a paper-clip chain and even Guster and Guster Two scowled fearsomely, or at least as fearsomely as moles could scowl.

  Kit crossed his paws and tapped his foot, waiting for Titus to reconsider his attack.

  The dog sat back. “Fine,” he grumbled, seeing himself surrounded.

  He should have known better than to chase Kit outside into the alley, which was Wild Ones turf. The dog had let his anger get the better of him. Dogs never could control their tempers, and that was why raccoons would always outsmart them. Kit knew that a thinking fellow would always beat a barking one.

  “You know more about People than I do,” Kit told him. The dog didn’t disagree. “Tell me, what do you know about the zoo?”

  Titus flinched. “The zoo? I don’t know anything about the zoo! Why should I? The Flealess have been house pets for generations! My mother’s mother’s mother’s mother was a house pet. And so was hers! We don’t go anywhere near the zoo and we don’t want to. It is not a place for our kind. We would never allow ourselves to be locked up for the People’s amusement like that.”

  “But you’re locked up for the People’s amusement now!” Eeni observed.

  “You know nothing of the Flealess!” Titus said. “The People live to serve us! They entertain us and do as we ask. When I want a treat, I tell them and they give it! I eat right from their hands and lick the smells right from their fingers when I want to. When I want a nap, I push them from their beds and I take a nap! They even pick up my poop for me and accompany me on my patrols of the neighborhood.”

  “On a leash,” Eeni scoffed.

  “Yes,” said Titus. “That is so they go where I want them to.”

  “But they put the leash on you,” Kit said.

  “I allow them to put it on me,” said Titus. “They seem to enjoy it so. And I am a generous dog.”

  “But they lock you up when they want to,” Kit told him. “How is that any different from the zoo?”

  “Because it is!” Titus barked. “Because I live in a real house with real things, not some painted cage like the zoo animals!”

  “There’s no such thing as a zoo animal,” Eeni objected. “That’s a misnomer.”

  “A miss-what?” Titus wrinkled his brow. Kit smirked. Eeni loved using her big words, and Kit loved it when someone else asked what they meant so he didn’t have to.

  “A misnomer,” Eeni explained. “It means a wrong name. Like how fireflies aren’t really flies, but beetles, though we call them fireflies anyway. And calling someone a zoo animal just because they live in a zoo is like calling you a leash lover just because you walk on a leash. It’s insulting, right? There’s more to you than leashes, right? Like, you’re a tick-brained shampoo-stinking brat too, but you wouldn’t want us to call you that to your face either.”

  Titus growled. Eeni could never let a chance to insult the dog pass her by, but Kit admired how well she explained things. No one wanted to be labeled by just one part of their life, especially when they had no control over that part. His mother wasn’t a zoo animal. She was an animal who’d been trapped and put in a zoo. The zoo was what had happened to her, not who she was. And as soon as he broke her out, she’d never be called a zoo animal again.

  “You lured me outside at this undogly hour of night to argue about words with me?” Titus said. “You are a very strange rat.”

  “Words make the world,” Eeni replied. “And I thank you for your compliment. I’d rather be a strange rat than a mollycoddled dog.”

  “Mollycoddled?” Titus growled again. “I don’t even want to know what that means. I’d rather sink my teeth into your neck than hear another one of your ridiculous words.”

  “Hey, enough of that.” Kit pleaded for calm. “You don’t need to get all defensive, Titus. I just need you to help me figure out what kind of lock they have on the animal cages at the zoo so I can pick one open.”

  “I couldn’t possibly help you. I know nothing of locks,” Titus said. “And I wouldn’t help you even if I could. I have no interest in freeing a bunch of”—he looked at Eeni and grinned—“zoo animals.”

  Eeni clenched her teeth, fighting the urge to spear Titus in the snout with her fork.

  “I just need to know what this is,” Kit said, and he used his claws to draw a picture in the dirt, the little box with the buttons on it that was next to the door to his mother’s cage.

  Titus cocked his head. “That?” he scoffed. “How could that help you? That looks like the buttons on a telephone. People push the buttons in a certain order to talk to one another.”

  “So it’s like a riddle,” Kit said. “Pushing the buttons in the right order makes something happen?”

  Titus grunted. He either didn’t know or wasn’t going to answer.

  But he’d told Kit everything he needed to know.

  Kit closed his eyes in thought, imagined how he might solve the riddle of the buttons to open the cage . . . He was starting to get an idea. “You lick their fingers, huh?” he said, grinning.

  Titus was puzzled. “What’s he talking about?”

  Eeni shrugged. She didn’t know either. “Kit?” she asked him. “You look cagier than a cowbird in a canary nest. You’re up to something, huh?”

  “I am,” Kit said, then he turned to Titus. “Thanks for the help, old friend.”

  “We aren’t friends!” Titus whined. “And I didn’t help you at all!”

  It was Kit’s turn to shrug. “Let’s go, Moonlight Brigade! Stand down!” Kit started to walk away, then stopped and turned back to the Flealess dog. “And Titus, watch your step. Wouldn’t want you to get hurt out here in Ankle Snap Alley. It’s no place for an old dog like yourself.”

  At that, Kit’s friends lowered their weapons, and Kit turned his back on his enemy. Titus seized the opportunity . . . just like Kit knew he would.

  Titus sprang at Kit’s back, teeth bared and claws thrashing.

  “Watch out!” Eeni shouted, but Kit didn’t even flinch. He closed his eyes and listened for the loud SNAP! And then the yelp that followed.

  Titus had sprung one of the People’s mousetraps that all the wild animals knew better than to step on.

  “Owee owee owee!” Titus whimpered and rolled on the ground. He’d caught the trap on his back toes. It wouldn’t hurt the dog forever, but his paw would be sore for quite a while.

  “I warned you,” Kit said, and he and his brigade left the dog to crawl back to his door, whining for his People to let him back in.

  The sun was just beginning to rise when they returned to the empty apartment in the big oak tree, and Kit yawned, but started pulling Uncle Rik’s books from the shelves to help with the plan forming in his head. Kit liked the quiet magic of reading that could put a raccoon in a rabbit’s shoes, or send him to the moon on a meadowlark’s wings, or simply let him sit by the glow of a lightning bug and learn from his ancestors, who’d written their wisdom long before Kit was even a scent on the breeze.

  “It’s going to be a long night tonight,” Eeni said, resting a paw across the first book Kit had pulled down: Smellopedia: A Collection of Human Scents. He wanted to study as many different people smells as he could before he returned to the zoo. “What we need to do is get some sleep.”

  “Sleep?” Kit couldn’t believe his ears. “How can you want to sleep at a time like this?”

  “I can want to sleep anytime,” Eeni said. “A good thief knows that sleep’s the only thing in the world you can’t steal from. Sooner or later, it’ll take back what it wants.”

  “But we need to get ready for the zoo break!” Kit argued.
<
br />   “Sleeping is part of getting ready,” Eeni replied. “You ever hear the story about Azban, the First Raccoon, and the Great Goose Heist?”

  “No,” Kit said. “I haven’t heard that one.”

  “Because it never happened,” said Eeni. “Azban planned all night, and was so tired that he slept right through the goose feast and never got to steal it. You won’t be a lot of good to anyone if you stay up all day reading and fall asleep in the middle of the breakout tomorrow night.”

  Kit frowned at his friend, but she was right.

  And she was also curled up on a mossy pillow, snoring quietly, by the time he put the book back on the shelf. He chuckled to himself and curled up on the leafy sofa, thinking about reuniting with his mother, and saving his uncle, and bringing all his friends home again, a hero. He was feeling impatient and wanted to pop up and run to the zoo and tear open the cages right away. He didn’t like waiting. He didn’t like how the quiet settled over him like a thick blanket or how the golden morning light made the window shade glow or how the giant raccoon in front of him seemed to float above the floor . . .

  That was when Kit realized he’d already fallen asleep and was having a most peculiar dream.

  Chapter Ten

  THE ONCE AND FUTURE RACCOON

  THE giant raccoon in his dream blinked and suddenly he and Kit were standing outside and it was night. The raccoon glowed like the sunlight coming through a window shade, and a twinkle like starlight lit his eyes. His eyes were, in fact, filled with shining stars.

  The raccoon held up its front paws, touching the tips of its claws together to form the raccoon salute, an A, which was the symbol of Azban, the First Raccoon. Kit returned the salute and the raccoon—who Kit was pretty sure was Azban himself—beckoned for him to follow.

  Kit—never one to argue with a mystical dream ancestor—stood and followed, glancing back once to the apartment where he was actually still sleeping across from Eeni. She was snoring slightly and muttering about pizza.

  “Where are we going?” Kit asked, as he scurried to catch up to Azban. The dream raccoon drifted above the ground rather than walking on it.

  Apparently, this was one of those dreams where Azban didn’t speak, because he just pointed and Kit saw that they were still in Ankle Snap Alley, but it was Ankle Snap Alley from a long, long time ago, back when it was just fields and meadows, with a few ramshackle houses for People.

  He and Azban stood outside one of those houses and they saw a raccoon on the porch, wearing a fine jacket and puffing on a long corncob pipe, sitting beside a Person, who was also puffing on a long corncob pipe.

  “Is that you?” Kit asked.

  Azban nodded beside him.

  Azban on the porch spoke to the Person and, much to Kit’s surprise, the Person spoke back.

  Dreams are weird, Kit thought.

  “Listen here, Cousin Farmer,” Azban on the porch said between puffs of his pipe. “I think I’d like to set your dogs free. It’s not right keeping folks as pets.”

  “My dogs like being pets,” said the farmer. “And I like having ’em.”

  “The Person understands him?” Kit asked with surprise.

  Dream Azban, floating beside him, touched a paw to his lips, telling Kit to hush, and Kit kept watching the farmer and the First Raccoon. This was a long time ago indeed, back when People and animals still talked to each other.

  “Well, how about this,” suggested Azban. “I’ll bet you their freedom, against all the fur on my hide, from snout to tail, that I can pluck a star down from the sky and eat it.”

  “Oh no, Cousin Azban,” the farmer said. “You’ve tricked me too many times. I won’t make any more bets with you!”

  “You can even pick which star,” Azban said.

  The farmer looked up at the sky, but inside the farmer’s house a hunting dog growled.

  Kit noticed Azban’s back paw was curled, like he was hiding something from the farmer. The paw glowed, but the farmer didn’t see it. He was looking at Azban’s fur and thinking of making it into a hat.

  “Don’t take the bet,” the dog shouted. “I like being a pet!”

  The farmer ignored his dog’s advice. “I’ll take that bet,” the farmer said, his greed getting the better of his good sense. “I want you to pluck that star there!”

  The farmer had pointed to a bright star shining at the edge of the horizon. Azban smiled and stuck out his empty paw. “Shake on that,” he said, and the farmer shook his paw.

  Then Azban bent down to set his pipe on the ground, “So it won’t spill,” he said. Kit saw him snatch the glowing thing from his back paw with the front paw the farmer had just shaken, but the farmer hadn’t noticed.

  “Fireflies!” Kit exclaimed. “He’s got a firefly in his paw!”

  Azban in his dream hushed him again. He watched as the raccoon on the porch stretched up on his back paws and reached high into the sky. With some sleight of paw, he slipped the firefly from his clenched fist to the tip of his claw.

  “Look closely now,” said Azban to the farmer. “I don’t want you to think I cheated.”

  The farmer stared at the star he’d chosen.

  With a little squeeze, the annoyed bug at the tip of Azban’s black paw lit up brighter than the stars. Azban kept the firefly lit as he plucked it like a berry and popped it into his mouth. His cheeks glowed bright while the farmer watched, drop-jawed.

  The farmer looked from Azban to the spot in the sky where the star had been. The problem was, he’d stared so hard at the glowing firefly, he had a blind spot in his eyes, as any folk who’d stared too long at the sun would know. Azban certainly knew that staring at bright light in the dark would blind a Person for a little while. The farmer couldn’t see his star anymore, and had no idea that he’d had his eyes tricked.

  “But . . . how did you—but?” The farmer was flabbergasted.

  “You saw my paw was empty,” Azban said. “You shook it. And then I took the star down and ate it, like I said I would. A bet’s a bet. Gimme your dog.”

  “A bet’s a bet,” the farmer agreed, and stood, opening the door to his house.

  In the doorway, the dog stood motionless, his tail tucked between his legs. He was, to use one of Eeni’s favorite words, nonplussed . . . He was so shocked he couldn’t speak!

  “Go on, Duke,” said the farmer. “You’re free now to do as you please.” Then Kit saw the farmer wink at his dog.

  That brought the dog back to his senses. The fur on his back bristled and his eyes narrowed. And then he sprang at Azban, teeth bared to bite.

  The dog barked curses at Azban and chased him from the porch. He ran as fast as he could up a tree, while the dog barked at him below.

  “What are you doing?” Azban called down from the high branch. “I set you free!”

  “I am free,” the dog barked up at him. “I am free to eat you!”

  The Person stood on his porch laughing and laughing. “I may get my raccoon-skin hat yet!”

  “But . . . but . . .” It was Azban’s turn to be nonplussed. The fast-talking raccoon couldn’t find the words. Dream Azban standing beside Kit shook his head, embarrassed by himself.

  “You can’t give a dog freedom and expect him to run off on his home,” the farmer said. “I give my dog food and a warm fire. What can you give him, Azban? What does the wild offer that’s better than a dog’s life at home?”

  “Freedom!” Azban shouted down from the tree. “It offers freedom!”

  “Your freedom’s got you hiding up a tree.” The dog laughed at Azban. “I’ll take my spot by the fire any day.” With that, the dog turned and trotted back up to the porch of his home. “Now leave us be, or I won’t go so gentle on you next time.”

  The farmer and the dog glared once more at the raccoon in the tree, then slammed the door and left him outside, still high up in his t
ree.

  “You won the bet, but still lost,” said Kit. “The dog didn’t want to be set free.”

  Azban nodded.

  “You probably shouldn’t have tried to bet for something the dog didn’t want,” Kit said.

  Azban nodded again.

  “Why are you showing me this?” Kit asked.

  Azban turned and placed a paw on his shoulder. He looked squarely at Kit and the stars in his eyes glowed like fireflies. Kit’s heart raced, eager for the wisdom that the First Raccoon would share with him. “Wake up,” he said at last. “Wake up, you flea-bitten fur-brain!”

  “What?” Kit gasped.

  Azban jabbed a finger at Kit’s nose. “Wake up!”

  Kit opened his eyes and saw Eeni standing on his chest and poking him in the nose. “Wake up!” she repeated.

  Kit yawned and looked around. He was on the leafy sofa in the apartment and the light through the shade had dimmed to nearly nothing. The sun had set and night was come and it was time for him to wake up. It was time for him to set his friends and family free. Whatever his dream had meant wasn’t quite clear to him. The animals he was about to break out weren’t house pets and they certainly wouldn’t choose to be trapped in the zoo. Why had Azban shown him that story?

  “I saw Azban,” Kit said. “I saw Azban steal a star and free a dog and get chased up a tree as his thanks.”

  “I once had a dream where I lived inside a cabbage and was married to a talking nut,” said Eeni. “If nuts could talk, how would we ever eat them?”

  “Uh . . .” Kit didn’t have an answer to that.

  “Sometimes a talking nut is just a talking nut, and it doesn’t really mean anything,” Eeni explained. “Point is, we’ve got some animals to rescue and no more time for dreaming.”

  “Let’s get the Moonlight Brigade together,” Kit agreed. “And let’s get to the zoo.”

  Chapter Eleven

  FALLING FOR FREEDOM

  THE zoo was locked up tight for the night, which didn’t mean much to a raccoon like Kit. With some quick climbing and a scurry or two, he found his way in over the fence. Eeni slipped in underneath it, and the rest of the brigade followed her.