by Lisa Fiedler
Fortunately for the mice, the human held fast and the case exited the mountain at its peak. The human rolled it smoothly out of the station and into the setting sunshine, where Pup and Hope jumped down to the sidewalk.
Hope, who had spent every moment of her young life in the dimness of the tunnels, was understandably dazzled by the fading sunlight.
“It’s beautiful,” she whispered, marveling at the pinkish late-day glow.
Pup would have told her he agreed unequivocally, except at the moment, he was too busy reaching out to grab her by the tail, jerking her out of the path of a different rolling contraption being pushed by a female human. The wheeled device had a smaller version of the human who piloted it strapped inside.
“That’s a neat way to transport one’s young,” Hope observed when she was safely out of harm’s way.
“It’s a neat way to get yourself flattened,” Pup chastised. “You’re going to have to be careful up here, Hope. There are dangers you can’t even begin to imagine.”
Hope nodded, her face solemn.
He took her paw and guided her toward a towering building. “Let’s keep to the edges,” he suggested. “We’ll be safer.”
“Okay. But where are we going?”
Good question, thought Pup. He had no idea. He said nothing and kept walking.
Because they were both so extraordinarily small, Pup and Hope were able to travel a great distance without garnering much notice. Once, a woman in pointy shoes with spiky heels caught sight of them and let out an ear-piercing shriek.
The two runaways stopped to rest in an alleyway. Hope spread out her remaining half of Hopper’s blanket so they could sit down.
“Where is the light going?” Hope asked.
Looking up into the darkening sky, Pup suddenly recalled (from having lived in the pet shop) that the term “daylight world” was only accurate part of the time. He’d seen with his own eyes through the big glass window that at the close of every day, the world willingly gave itself over to shadows, and remained thus for several long hours. He also knew the darkness would eventually step aside to allow the brilliance to once again claim the sky.
“What’s happening?” Hope asked.
“Nightfall,” said Pup. “At least, I think that’s what it’s called.”
“What do we do about it?” she asked, looking up into the rectangular sliver of deep blue visible high above the alley.
“We sleep,” said Pup with a big yawn. He hadn’t realized how tired he was until he’d felt the softness of the patchwork blanket beneath him. He dropped his head onto his front paws and closed his eyes. He sensed Hope doing the same.
And before the first star came out to twinkle overhead, the two weary tunnel rodents were fast asleep.
Pup awoke to find Hope sitting up beside him on the patchwork quilt. She smiled.
He smiled back. Frankly, he was a bit surprised to discover that they had both survived the night. Between stray felines and humans . . . well, anything could have happened.
“Good morning, Princess,” he said, rubbing his eyes.
“Good morning,” she said. “I was wondering, do you by any chance happen to have a plan?”
“Not exactly. I don’t know much about Brooklyn. I spent most of my life in a cage, after all.”
“Well, you certainly knew what to do yesterday to keep me from getting squished by that rolling thing.” She gave him a tentative smile. “You really aren’t as bad-natured as everyone’s been saying, are you?”
The sincerity in her words tugged at Pup’s heart. “I was,” he admitted. “For a little while. I didn’t like the way my brother and sister were treating me, so I ran away.”
“Wow.” Hope’s glittering eyes went round. “That’s exactly what I did!”
Pup smiled. “Well, then I guess we have that in common, then.”
“My siblings were awful to me. They called me a runt.”
“We have that in common too,” said Pup. “Unfortunately, what we also have in common is that we’re stuck here in the upland world, with absolutely no place to go and no one to help us.”
They were quiet, listening to the cacophony of sounds just beyond the entrance to the alley. The noises came together to form a kind of ongoing din. Pup remembered hearing occasional snatches of this same sound back in the pet store, every time the door opened. The rusty bell would jangle and then—whoosh—the door would swing inward and for a few seconds, the sounds and smells and the sensations of the changing weather would fill the shop, mingling with the stale air and animal scents.
How long ago that seemed . . . Pup and his family inside, Brooklyn outside.
Now he was outside, and outside was enormous. If only he had someone to help him find his way. His brother had been lucky. When he’d accidentally traveled to the daylight world, he’d made friends and found allies. Pup only knew this from eavesdropping on Hopper’s conversation with Hope, of course, since he and Hopper hadn’t spoken since their ugly showdown in the wingtip loafer.
If only Pup had some idea of who his brother’s friends were. Perhaps he could present himself to them and ask for help.
He shook himself out of his thoughts when he realized that Hope was no longer on the blanket.
“Hope!” he screamed. “Hope!”
“I’m right here,” she said, poking her face out from behind a huge metal receptacle. Pup saw that it was labeled with fading white letters: DUMPSTER. If only he knew how to read, perhaps he’d know what the giant container was for.
“What are you doing?”
“I was hungry,” she said. “I smelled something wonderful and thought it might be coming from in here.”
Pup sniffed. She was right. Something did smell good. In the tunnels the rodents of Atlantia and the Mūs village were lucky enough to dine on tasty crumbs and savory scraps gathered by upland scavengers who sold their haul to merchants, but this aroma was beyond tasty and savory. . . . This smell made him think that every crumb and scrap in the entire world had come together to produce the most scrumptious food smell ever.
“The smell’s not coming from the Dumpster, though,” she said, scampering back to the blanket.
“The what?”
Hope pointed to the letters painted on the side of the metal box. “That thing. Its name is Dumpster. At least, that’s what’s written on it.”
“You can read?”
Hope nodded. “Yes. Can’t you?”
Pup lowered his eyes, embarrassed. He remembered his attempt to change the great Chosen One prophecy in the Sacred Book with his pathetic scribbles and stick figures and felt ashamed . . . on several levels. “No,” he said softly. “I can’t.”
Hope didn’t laugh at him or even snicker. She just lifted her pink nose into the air, sniffing.
“I think it’s coming from just beyond this wall,” she said, following the scent to where the alley opened onto the sidewalk. A few yards down the block, a sign was propped beside a tall, glass door.
“There! The wonderful aroma is coming from right behind that door. And you know what else? I know where we are!”
Pup was confused. “How can you possibly know that?”
Hope smiled, flicking her tail at the white squiggles on the black surface of the sign. “Because I can read what that says.”
“What does it say?”
Hope beamed. “It says: ‘Today’s Special . . . Eggplant Parmigiana’!”
Hope straightened her tiara, then picked up her blanket, brushed off the dirt, and wrapped it around her waist. “Come on.”
“Come on where?”
“We’re going inside,” she said breezily.
That didn’t help Pup at all. “Inside where?”
“Bellissimo’s Deli,” Hope explained patiently. “That’s where Uncle Hopper had his first taste of eggplant parmigiana. It also happens to be where his pal Ace lives.”
“You could have opened with that information,” Pup muttered. But he was glad that at least on
e of them had a plan.
They walked to the edge of the alley and looked toward the door to Bellissimo’s. Entering through the front door seemed risky, with the steady flow of human foot traffic stomping in and out.
“Must be lunchtime,” Hope guessed. She reversed course and headed for the far end of the alley. “I hope Ace is home when we get there.”
“Ace . . . is he a mouse?”
Hope giggled. “Not exactly. And neither is Capone.”
Pup followed her as she wound her way through the piles of garbage and over shards of broken glass until the alley deposited them at the deli’s back door. He still had no idea what a deli was, but the delicious aromas emanating from it were so enticing, he found that he was more than willing to find out.
Hope put her nose against the glass and peered inside. “I don’t see Ace,” she said. “But we can go in and wait for him.”
With a little wriggling and a fair amount of grunting, the Mūs and the rat princess were able to squeeze themselves through the gap below the door and into the Bellissimo’s stockroom. Inside, a second door blocked their view of the front half of the deli, but still, Pup marveled at the scope of just this partial section, with its tall walls and vast floor. Again, he thought of his first home in Keep’s shop. But the smells here were not of bird and rodent and fish. The smells here made his mouth water.
Except for one.
It was a smell similar to the ones he remembered from the pet store, but slightly different. Heavier somehow. Not reptile, not feline, not anything he’d ever encountered before. The smell seemed to be concentrated mostly on an enormous pillow in the corner.
Pup didn’t have to wonder long about who—or what—that pillow belonged to, because in the next second a burly creature with a rippling chin and lolling tongue came waddling through the swinging door.
And this creature was most definitely not a mouse.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
IT WAS A DETERMINED AND solemn battalion of soldiers, palace workers, and civilians that set out from the palace. They were armed with everything from brooms and shovels to swords, dirks, and rapiers to sharp rocks and heavy clubs. In their minds, their quarry was the most dangerous to have ever roamed these tunnels.
Among the ranks were Firren’s Rangers, led by Leetch, godfather to Raz. Hopper knew the stalwart warrior and the chivalrous young rat were fast friends, and that Leetch had taken great pride in teaching his talented protégé the art of swordcraft. The twins, Bartel and Pritchard, were godfathers to Brighton and Fiske. Go-go claimed Pinkie as her godmother. And although it was only his own godchild who had gone missing, Hopper knew in his heart that every one of these brave and compassionate rodents was as distraught over Hope’s disappearance as he would have been if any of the other heirs had been taken. He could feel the connection of their shared grief and was thankful for it.
Also present and prepared for the search-and-rescue mission were Garfield, Polhemus, Ketchum, Dodger, and Fulton. In Hopper’s opinion, a more loyal and capable squadron had never been assembled.
As for the rest of the army, those who had never seen Pup had been given sketches of the suspected kidnapper. Hopper had been the one to remind the artist who’d drawn Pup’s “mug shot” that the once innocent, sweet-faced Mūs now had a sooty black marking encircling his left eye. The Pup depicted in the final drawing was thoroughly unfamiliar to Hopper. This was the Pup who had taken Hope; this Pup was a monster.
At the iron gate the group split into several smaller brigades, each led by an experienced soldier. They had employed this tactic in their search for Felina and it had brought them success. The more ground they could cover, the more likely they’d be to find Pup.
Raz had devised a method by which the different companies would be able to communicate, despite their widespread positions throughout the tunnels. While the searchers had prepared for their quest, the prince had hunkered down in the schoolroom and formulated a code, which was then taught with great urgency to a wise and willing group of crickets. It was ingeniously simple. Raz had assigned words to chirps.
Pinkie, upon learning that Hope had been abducted, had boarded the first appropriate subway train back to the Mūs stronghold. There she would rally her own troops to join in the search, and their instructions would be the same as those given to the Atlantians: no stone was to be left unturned; no crack in any wall or hole in the dirt should be ignored. Pup could be anywhere.
Anywhere.
But where?
Based on Dev’s intel, one of the battalions was sent off in search of a fedora hat; as the regiments went off in various directions, Hopper, Zucker, Dodger, and Firren paused at the entrance to Atlantia. Hopper was glad that he and his father, along with the emperor and empress, had unanimously elected to form their own small band of hunters. What they might lack in numbers they more than made up for in conviction and personal investment.
Hopper found a kind of poetic justice in the fact that the communications specialist (as Raz had coined his code chirpers) who would be joining them was the same cricket who had serenaded Hopper the day Zucker first rescued him from the speeding subway train.
“Are we ready?” Zucker asked.
Dodger nodded. “Yes, old friend. I am ready.”
“So am I,” said Hopper.
Firren said nothing. She was staring at something beside the wall. All eyes followed her gaze and immediately saw what she was seeing.
A heap of fabric, abandoned there in the shadows.
Dodger was the first to react. “That’s La Rocha’s disguise,” he said, rushing over just as Firren plucked the cape from the ground.
“Disguise?” said Zucker, studying the garment, which was a cloak of blue felt with patches of white lettering. White lettering that, Hopper knew, had once spelled out BROOKLYN DODGERS 1955 on a commemorative pennant; he knew this because a rat merchant in the Atlantian marketplace had once tried to sell it to him. Later he’d found a piece of it in the tunnels after the camps were liberated, and it had become part of his patchwork blanket.
“Father, how do you know this cape belongs to La Rocha? No one’s ever seen him.”
“Her,” Dodger said softly. “For now, at least.”
“I don’t understand,” said Zucker. “Dodge, what are you getting at?”
“I know what he’s getting at,” said Firren, her face filled with amazement. “Zucker, don’t you remember this cloak? It’s the one Dodger wore when he officiated at our wedding.”
The emperor’s eyes went wide, going from the cloak in Firren’s paws to his old friend’s unreadable expression.
But Hopper understood. He could see it so clearly in his memory—the mysterious figure on the palace steps, pronouncing the new emperor and the warrior rebel husband and wife! And then the stranger’s hood being thrown off, causing Zucker to go pale . . . Hopper’s mind whirled. Why had his presumed-dead father been wearing La Rocha’s cloak when he’d resurfaced on the steps of the palace all those months ago? Had Dodger been acquainted with the great mystic? Had he actually seen him? Met him?
Or, even more astoundingly . . .
Realization dawned on the three of them at precisely the same second. Hopper, Zucker, and Firren all spoke at once.
“You are La Rocha!”
“Yes,” said Dodger with a sheepish smile.
“I knew it!” cried Zucker.
“Well, I was, at any rate,” Dodger clarified. “I have since passed that honor and responsibility on to another.”
“A female,” said Firren.
“Yes.” Dodger nodded. “Quite a capable one, in fact. So capable, Firren, that you had no qualms whatsoever about leaving her in charge of your children today.”
“Marcy!” cried Hopper, pleased by this revelation. “Marcy is the new La Rocha!” That would certainly explain her extended absences from the palace of late. “But why would she leave her cloak out here?”
“I’m not sure,” Dodger admitted. “But secret identities
often require fast thinking. Perhaps she sensed there was an emergency brewing and wanted to get into the palace quickly without wasting precious time returning to my old fortress to stow the cape.”
Zucker looked equal parts stunned and impressed. “You have a fortress?”
Dodger blushed. “Well, it’s more of a suitcase, really, but the point is, I’m sure Marcy had good reason for leaving her cloak behind, out here by the wall.”
“Why didn’t she tell us she was La Rocha?” Hopper wondered. “Why didn’t you tell us you were?”
“It’s one of the rules,” Dodger explained. “It’s quite a long story, for which we do not have the time right now.”
Firren draped the cloak over her signature silver cape, as though it were a lucky charm, a magic talisman.
Hopper thought perhaps it just might be that.
“Dodger is right,” said the empress, fastening the cloak, then flipping it behind her so that her sword was accessible. “We must hurry.”
“But where do we start?” asked Hopper, still reeling a bit from so much staggering news.
“Close to the city,” Dodger suggested. “The others have set out for the farther reaches, and Pinkie will be covering the area near the Mūs village. I say we begin with a sweep of the area just outside the wall.”
“Agreed,” said Zucker.
They all fell silent and stepped aside for Dodger to lead the way.
With senses alert and weapons drawn, the royal couple, the Chosen One and the retired rebel-slash-prophet began their search.
“Over there!” cried Hopper, pointing across the tunnel to a place on the wall. They had not traveled very far into the Great Beyond; in fact, they had yet to even reach the rise in the tunnel floor from which Hopper had once caught his first glimpse of the city. But already he’d found a clue.
At least, he hoped it was a clue.
It was a message of some sort, scratched into the wall; it made Hopper think of the runes where he’d first seen a sketch of a face he’d mistakenly thought to be his own.