“Just like the hawkowl,” said Molly.
“Who?” said Granny.
“She’s the head ranger down at the Western Frontier Park,” explained Oscar. “She’s weird, too. Just like you.”
Granny smiled. “I like you, Oscar. You say what’s on your mind without giving it a second thought.”
“He’s a dogg,” said Molly. “They’re not big on thoughts—first or second ones.”
“If you ask me,” said Oscar, “you combo critters are super cool. Hawkowls. Doggkatts. I bet you can run great distances and be sneaky at the same time!”
Granny chuckled. “Yes, I could. When I was younger, anyways…”
“It’s like you have superpowers just like super heroes in comic books!”
The wise old doggkatt shook her head. “Not all of us, Oscar. Some ‘combo critters’—as you call them—some are super evil super villains.”
Oscar gulped again. “Which ones?”
“Beware of the weaselboars.”
Chapter 29
Molly was hanging on to the wise old woman’s every word.
“The weaselboars, as you might’ve reckoned,” she said, “are half weasel and half boar.”
“They’re boring?” asked Oscar.
“A boar,” explained Molly, “is a wild pig with curling tusks! Very ferocious.”
“And these weaselboars?” said Granny. “Even though they’re combo critters, they stayed wild. They’re the most dangerous beasts in the park. You know, living out here in the woods like I do, I’m a big fan of animals getting along, helping each other. Becoming something more together than they could apart. Your hawkowl. Your moosehorse. In most cases, they’re better together. But the weaselboar? They’re worse.”
“How come?” asked Oscar.
“What do you children know about weasels?”
“They run a very popular TV network,” said Molly.
“That’s in your civilized world,” said Granny. “Out here? Weasels are nonstop killing machines. They’re cunning predators who’ll hunt all day and all night. They can climb, swim, and run. And since their bodies are so long and skinny, they can raid underground burrows, follow rodents into small hidey-holes, or wrap themselves around larger prey to hold ’em still while they bite. Weasels kill more than they can eat. They hang on to the extra, storing it like leftovers, just in case they get hungry for a between-meal snack.”
Now Molly gulped the way Oscar had been gulping.
“And the wild boars?” Granny clucked her tongue. “They’re mean, nasty, and big. The king of pests. When they attack, they don’t stop until their target is plum dead. Put the two together and what’ve you got?”
“A nightmare!” said Molly.
Granny nodded. “Also available in broad daylight.”
Molly and Oscar pushed away their fish stew bowls. Neither one of them was in the mood for seconds.
“I reckon you two must be exhausted,” said Granny, creaking up from the table. “You can bunk down up in the loft. I’ll pack you some food in the mornin’ and you can be on your merry way. Sweet dreams.”
Yeah, right, thought Molly. As if that would even be possible with visions of weaselboars dancing in our heads.
But the ancient doggkatt was correct. Molly and Oscar were pooped. Warm food in their bellies had made them both even drowsier. They climbed up a ladder into the sleeping loft.
“Tomorrow,” said Oscar, “I’ll help you climb back down. And this time, I promise I’ll catch you. Or you can ride down on my back.”
“Thanks, Oscar. I appreciate that. Good night.”
“Good night, Molly. Sleep tight. Don’t let the weaselboars bite!”
Chapter 30
Oscar was awake at dawn.
Molly slept for five extra hours.
Typical katt. But Oscar waited for her. And then he helped her climb backward down the ladder.
“You can do it,” he coached. “Just put one paw behind the other.”
After Molly very slowly climbed down three rungs, she jumped. This time, Oscar caught her.
Granny fed them both a hearty breakfast of kibble mush. While they gobbled it down, she put packets of food and biscuits into a bright red bandana lying flat on the kitchen table. “You’re still a long way away from Crooked Nose Mountain. Are you two sure you don’t want to stay here where it’s safe a little spell longer?”
“Thank you for the offer, Granny,” said Oscar, “but I miss my family. When doggs worry, we whimper. I don’t want my mother to whimper.”
“When katts worry, they lose fur,” said Molly. “I don’t want my mother to go bald.”
“Very well, then,” said Granny, tying the bandana up into a bundle and knotting it onto a long broom handle. “Be safe, and always remember: no matter what your math teacher may say, one plus one sometimes equals more than two. We’re always stronger when we work together.”
Granny took Oscar and Molly’s paws into hers, bowed her head, and prayed.
Oscar prayed, too. Mostly he prayed that all the weaselboars had taken the week off.
Refreshed, with their stomachs full, Oscar and Molly thanked Granny and set off for Crooked Nose Mountain, and hopefully, the Western Frontier Park, where they would be reunited with their families.
About an hour after they’d left Granny’s farm and were, once again, deep in the forest—swatting gnats and flies and mosquitos with their tails—Oscar had a thought.
“Hey, Molly?”
“Yeah, Oscar?”
“Do you think that, if we worked together, we might turn into some kind of incredibly awesome creature with superpowers?”
“Maybe. But I don’t want a dogg head. I need my blue eyes for all the movies I’m going to act in.”
“Yeah, and I wouldn’t want a katt butt. It’d smell funny.”
They kept hiking in silence—each one thinking about what the wise old doggkatt had said about sticking together.
But that silence was soon interrupted by the roar of raging rapids.
There was a fast river between them and the mountain.
“We need to turn back!” cried Molly, because katts are terrified of water.
“But the park is near the mountain.”
“I can’t swim!” said Molly.
“I can,” said Oscar. “I can doggy paddle.”
“Oh, great. You’re going to abandon me?”
“I didn’t say that.” He handed her the pole with the food bundle. “You carry this. I’ll carry you.”
“What?”
“You can climb on my back again and I’ll swim us both safely to the other side.”
Molly grinned. “Still trying to get your back scratched, huh?”
Oscar laughed. “Yeah. And behind my ears, too. Come on, katt. We need to swim together or we’ll probably drown alone.”
Molly clambered up on Oscar’s back.
Oscar waded into the rippling stream.
“Ready?” he said.
“Yeah. But try not to splash too much!”
They both took a long deep breath.
The current was swift. Oscar had to paddle extra hard to avoid being washed downstream with all the tree branches rushing by, swept along by whitewater rapids.
Finally, with Oscar fighting the fatigue in his leg muscles, they made it to the far shore. Oscar lumbered up the slippery rocks to safety. Then, panting hard, he collapsed in an exhausted heap.
“Look what I grabbed us for supper!” said Molly. “Another kattfish!”
“Yum,” said Oscar, standing up and shaking his body to dry off. He accidentally spritzed Molly with a shower of sprinkles. “Oops, sorry! My bad.”
“Ah, that’s okay. We made it across the river.”
“And you caught us fresh fish for dinner! We are better together. Oh, yes we are!”
They both laughed and high-fived each other’s paws in triumph.
They were so happy, so caught up in their new team’s first victory, they didn�
��t see the creature slinking through the trees toward them.
Chapter 31
I’ll gather some wood to make a cooking fire!” said Oscar. “Doggs are great at hauling branches and twigs. I have a friend, he’s a Labrador, and he drags half a tree around with him wherever he goes.”
“I have friends who do the same thing with mice,” said Molly. “You build the fire, I’ll clean the kattfish. Together, we’ll feast!”
Oscar wagged his tail. “We make an awesome team, don’t we, katt?”
“We have our moments,” said Molly.
Oscar scampered off to the nearest tree. He was nosing around, looking for the perfect pieces of wood for his campfire when he smelled something absolutely disgusting. Like poop mixed with wet fur mixed with rancid oil.
His ears stood up when he heard a low, throaty rumble. The hackles on his back shot out. He backed two paces away from the tree.
“What’s wrong?” asked Molly.
“I’m not sure,” said Oscar. “But I’ve never smelled anything so foul, disgusting, revolting, or gross.”
“Well, that’s not a very polite thing to say,” said a deep, grumbling voice.
Something stepped out of the thick underbrush near the tree.
A weaselboar!
“Gathering firewood?” it asked. Gristly slobber hung off its tusks like double strands of snot. “Were you two getting ready to eat?”
Oscar backed up quickly and huddled with Molly.
“Speaking of eating things,” wheezed a second weaselboar as it slipped out of the shrubbery. “What’s for dinner tonight?”
“I think it’s those two,” said a third.
“With an appetizer of kattfish,” said a fourth, popping out of the shadows on their right. “And whatever’s tied up in that red bandana.”
Molly and Oscar were completely surrounded.
“What’s in the food bundle?” asked the first weaselboar, licking its slimy tusks with a slippery tongue.
“Nothing,” said Oscar, trying his best to protect the food Granny had given them for their trek.
“It’s food!” said Molly. “Delicious, homemade food. You can have it.”
“Psst,” whispered Oscar out of the side of his snout. “We need that, Molly. For our hike up the mountain.”
“We also need to be alive!” Molly whispered back.
“True,” said Oscar. “Good point.” Oscar turned to the leader of the weaselboar pack. “Enjoy, fellas. Our food is your food.”
“We know,” said the leader of the pack.
All four snarling beasts pounced on the fish and plump bandana.
When they were finished, there was nothing left but a few tattered shreds of checkered red cloth and a couple snapped-in-half fish bones.
The weaselboars belched.
“Not bad for fish,” said the leader. “But we prefer red meat. The kind you find inside katts and doggs!”
Chapter 32
Oscar looked at Molly.
Molly looked at Oscar.
“Run!” they both shouted.
They took off like a double bolt of terrified lightning.
Oscar saw Molly zigzagging to the left. He sprinted to the right, bobbing and weaving, juking and jiving. His coach would’ve been proud.
The weaselboars formed a pack and took off after Molly.
They undoubtedly knew she couldn’t run as fast as Oscar over long distances. But, since they weren’t chasing after Oscar, he could escape. He had a clear path to freedom!
Molly would probably die but Oscar would definitely live.
Wow, thought Oscar as he bounded away. Who’d ever of thought that a katt would die for me?
Of course, it wasn’t exactly a choice Molly was making, but still, it was very noble of her.
Then Oscar thought about how she’d caught them a kattfish.
And how she’d scratched behind his ears while they crossed the raging rapids.
And how she didn’t mind when he shook off all that water and splashed her even though katts hate water.
Finally he remembered what the wise old doggkatt had told them. Sometimes one plus one equals more than two.
Oscar had to admit… he and Molly made a great team. Even though she was a katt.
“Two can play at this game!” he said aloud. “I can be noble, too!”
He slammed on the brakes, did a one-eighty around a tree, and ran after the four weaselboars who were chasing after Molly like a sixteen-legged bulldozer.
“Out of my way, fatsos!” he shouted. Then he sprang up and over the quivering wall of stinky weaselboar butts because he was part springer spaniel on his father’s side.
He landed six inches in front of a tusk and kicked his motor into high gear.
He could see Molly up ahead. She was still zigging and zagging but she was also slowing down and breathing hard.
Good at sprints, thought Oscar. Long distances? Not so much.
He dug down deep, found a little extra oomph, and picked up his pace.
In a flash, he was running alongside Molly.
“Hop on!” he shouted.
This time, she didn’t hesitate. She leapt onto his back.
“Thanks,” she gasped as she clasped his collar with her claws.
“I think I can outrun those four bozos,” said Oscar. “They’re fast, but they’re also kind of fat and out of shape. I’ll just lead them on a merry—”
Oscar didn’t get to finish that thought.
Because, all of a sudden, he and Molly caught in a tangle of ropes that was whooshing them up… up… up into the crown of a leafy tree.
“It’s a trap!” said Molly.
“But they’re wild animals!” whined Oscar as he and Molly bobbed up and down. “How’d they weave a net?”
“We studied with some very clever spiders,” said the leader of the weaselboars, looking up at the trapped katt and dogg while licking its chops.
“It’s one of our special skills,” said the nastiest looking weaselboar in the bunch. “We use our tusks like knitting needles.”
Combo critters, thought Oscar, remembering what Granny had told them about the hybrid creatures with the amazing abilities. Some are super evil super villains.
And some were about to eat Oscar and Molly for din-din.
Chapter 33
Molly was expecting the dirty and disgusting weaselboars to gobble them down right away.
But they didn’t.
“It’s not every day that we trap meat as sweet and tender as you two,” said the leader as the beasts dragged the net back to their den. “The king will wish to join us for this particular feast.”
The other weaselboars snorted in agreement.
Molly was doing her best to act like she wasn’t afraid. She was channeling every heroine from every movie she’d ever seen. She shot the weaselboars a bold and angry look of defiance. Of course, she was being dragged along a bumpy trail on her butt so she wasn’t sure she was totally selling the whole “you don’t scare me” thing.
“Put them in the den!” shouted the leader of the pack when they came to a muddy clearing under some twisted and knotty trees. Two weaselboars slashed open the rope net with their tusks. Two others nudged Molly and Oscar into a burrow beneath the shallow roots of a tree.
“It’s nice and cool down in the hole,” chortled the leader. “Just like a refrigerator. It’ll keep you chilled and fresh until the king arrives.”
Molly and Oscar tumbled underground into the cold and damp hole. The weaselboars shoved a boulder across the entrance of the den to seal off the only exit.
Molly and Oscar were trapped. In the dark.
“I guess we’re prisoners now,” said Oscar.
“No,” said Molly. “I think we’re still dinner.”
“I’m sorry I ran right into their trap,” said Oscar.
“You ran back to rescue me,” said Molly. “It was like something a brother would do. If, you know, my brother wasn’t so easily distract
ed by bright, shiny objects. So, do you have any sibs?”
“Just one. A sister. Her name is Fifi. She’s kind of a pampered pooch. I wonder if she even misses me. She probably already stole all the toys out of my room…”
“My brother, Blade, has the attention span of a flea,” said Molly. “His favorite hobby is to chase reflections on the wall. Or the floor. Sometimes, I drive him crazy with my fanciest collar.”
“How?”
“It has rhinestones on it. So, I sit in the sun and bounce little light sparkles all over the place. He can never decide which one to chase first. Drives him bananas.”
“I like to bury my sister’s hair bows in the backyard. That makes her nutso.”
Molly sighed.
Then Oscar sighed.
“I miss Blade,” said Molly.
“Yeah,” said Oscar. “I miss Fifi, too.”
“Too bad we’ll never see them again.”
The dogg sprang up, fully alert. Even in the darkness of the den, Molly could see a determined glint in his eyes.
“Unless…” he said.
“Unless what?”
“Thinking about burying my sister’s hair bows reminded me of something.”
“What?”
Oscar wagged his tail, proudly. “Not to brag, but I’m a very, very, very good digger!”
Chapter 34
Oscar sniffed the walls of the underground den.
“Dirt,” he muttered.
He moved his nose to the left. Took in a deep snort through his nostrils.
“More dirt.”
He shifted his nose thirty degrees to the right. “Dirt.” Forty degrees. “Dirt.”
He sniffed harder.
“And… weeds! More specifically, dandelions. Judging by the lag time between the dirt scent and the first hint of something wet, mustardy, and green, this wall is only six inches thick! I can dig through that in a heartbeat! Stand back, katt. The mud clods are about to fly.”
Katt vs. Dogg Page 6