The Plucker: A Beastly Crimes Book

by Anna Starobinets

  “Let me get this straight, for the record. Am I understanding correctly that Badgercat accused you of being the Plucker?” asked Chief Badger.

  “Exactly! The insane Plucker accused me of being the Plucker! And now you’ve deliberately focused on that! But I’ll tell you the same thing I told that shameless Plucker: Yes, I can’t stand . . . tweet! Tweet tweet! . . .”

  “Breathe in, breathe out,” reminded Hawk.

  “. . . stand Lady Cuckoo. But I didn’t pluck her. Not to mention, I have an alibi! At the time she was plucked, I was grooming one of my regulars.”

  “Who?”

  “Arctic Fox! His fur was in a dreadful state!”

  “But how is that possible? I thought Arctic left the Far Woods and returned up North. Taking with him, I may add, the bird’s milk from our evidence locker.”

  “Your assistant, the Plucker, said the same thing, only much more rudely. ‘Stop lying, you filthy Warbler. . .’”

  “The Plucker isn’t my assistant,” interrupted Badger. “I don’t have an assistant anymore. You probably meant Badgercat.”

  “Stop mocking me!” Warbler was getting worked up. “You are a cop who won’t stop mocking a victim of plucking! I’m saying exactly what I mean! You sloppy copper can’t stop mocking! You mocking copper can’t stop slopping!”

  “You aren’t making any sense,” remarked Chief Badger.

  “Mocking a victim of plucking, plucking a victim of mocking!”

  “What’s happening?” Badger asked Doc Hawk.

  “Looks like he’s in shock,” answered Hawk. “He needs to see psychologist Mouse. I’ve already called for her. I think continuing questioning without a psychologist would be too beastly.”

  “Mocking! Plucking!”

  “We don’t have time to wait for the psychologist,” protested Badger. “Can’t you do something to snap him out of it?”

  “I’m sorry to say that I can’t. All the methods that I know of are too cruel.”

  “Like what?”

  “Pluck therapy.” Hawk lowered his voice. “This method was used in our great-grandfathers’ generation. If a bird was hysterical, they would pluck one of its feathers.”

  “And it would make the bird calm down?”

  “Apparently. But we’re civilized animals. We aren’t about to test the theory. Right?”

  “Why not? We could test it.”

  “Mock! Pluck! Stuck! Slop! Stop! Cop!”

  “If you do not calm down this instant and tell me about Arctic Fox, I will have no choice but to pluck one of your feathers,” said Chief Badger calmly to Warbler.

  “How could you?” gasped Hawk. “You’re a slop . . . I mean cop!”

  “Exactly. How could you?” said Warbler suddenly coming to his senses. “What beastly interrogation methods! How are you any better than your assistant, the Plucker? Maybe you’re a plucker too? Your assistant plucked a second feather from my tail so that I would tell him Arctic’s whereabouts.”

  “I understand his methodology. And where is Arctic?”

  “I’ll never tell! I don’t reveal personal information about my clients!”

  “And yet you revealed it to Badgercat.”

  “I did it under duress! Under threat of being plucked!”

  “What’s going on here?” Psychologist Mouse burst into the Warblershop, panting, her whiskers quivering. “Why is my client being interrogated without my presence?”

  “First off, please don’t squeak so loudly at me,” said Badger wrinkling his forehead. “Second off, I’m a bit confused about the clientele. Who grooms whom?”

  “I don’t groom anyone!” squeaked Mouse. “Warbler is one of my clients. He sees me regularly for mouse-therapy sessions.”

  “Why does Warbler need mouse-therapy? Is he sick? So these episodes of word jumbling have happened to him before?”

  “I don’t reveal personal information about—”

  “Here we go again,” interrupted Badger.

  “Scram, Mouse!” trilled Warbler. “He’ll pluck one of your whiskers! I’m warning you! He uses beastly interrogation methods!”

  Badger sighed. He would give anything to forget about all this and go to sleep right in the middle of summer. Just go into sweet hibernation, not wait until winter or until he got fired or until retirement. He was too tired—tired of accusations, of reprimands, of the unknown, of being lonely. He was tired of having no one to have a heart-to-heart with. He was tired of everyone saying he was sticking up for his former assistant. He was tired of his own thoughts concerning his former assistant: the suspicion that Badgercat really was the Plucker; worrying that Badgercat would be captured; and not being able to see Badgercat. He was very tired. Tired of Super Bat and her high frequencies and thick curtains. Tired of the Plucker, who was smarter, stronger, and faster than he was. He was tired of his own excess badger fat, tired of Warbler’s hysterical yelps, of Hawk’s lamenting, of Mouse’s squeaks. He was tired of all the beastly lies, the beastly stubbornness, and the beastly stupidity.

  “I don’t think you understand,” Chief Badger began with difficulty. “Both of you. You don’t understand the gravity of the situation. You’re acting like hatchlings. This is an investigation that concerns a dangerous maniac. You must answer my questions with utmost honesty. All your honorable principles, your professional confidentialities, are void for the sake of the investigation. Is that clear?”

  “You’re right, Chief Badger.” Mouse looked ashamed. “I will answer your questions. My client Warbler needs regular mouse-therapy sessions because he suffers from—”

  “So that’s how it’s going to go? I refuse to groom you, Mouse, if you tell! I won’t style your fur! Or dye your grays! You’ll be left with a sparse, gray, faded coat!”

  “Sparse? Faded?” gasped Mouse. “There you have it. I’m not ashamed of my fur’s natural appearance. I’m a stable animal. Unlike this bird here! Yes, this bird suffers from episodes of rage, accompanied by jumbled speech, jumbled thoughts, and memory loss. I offered this bird my unique method of mouse-therapy for self-reconciliation, but this bird—”

  “Very interesting,” interrupted Chief Badger. “Very interesting, indeed. Hypothetically speaking, would you say that during one of these episodes Warbler would be capable of plucking birds? And have no memory of it?”

  “Well”—Mouse seemed to be deep in thought—“hypothetically speaking, yes, it’s possible. Especially since Warbler has reoccurring nightmares and fantasies about hair, fur, and feathers. One of his reoccurring nightmares is about bald birds—for instance, hawks who’ve become completely featherless. And bald badgers. He dreams of them often.”

  “What?” asked Hawk and Badger in unison.

  “Nightmares about bald hawks and bald badgers,” repeated Mouse vindictively.

  “You dirty rodent!” squawked Warbler, snapping his beak in anger. “I shared my deepest secrets with you, and you—”

  “I’m afraid, barber Warbler, you are no longer a victim. You are now a suspect,” said Chief Badger. “You had a motive to pluck Lady Cuckoo. You are prone to manic episodes. You have nightmares about bald animals. So if you really do have an alibi, if you really were grooming Arctic while the Plucker was attacking your adoptive sister Lady Cuckoo and he is able to confirm it—don’t snap your beak at me!—then it behooves you to tell me where Arctic is hiding.”

  “Fine. But tell Arctic that I only revealed his whereabouts under duress. And that he has always been and remains my best client. That is, of course, if he’s still alive. Because Badgercat was heading straight to Arctic, and he looked like an evil fur ball with claws and he kept repeating, ‘I’ll kill that scoundrel!’”

  CHAPTER 4: IN WHICH THERE IS A SACK, A SHRINE, AND SOME POETRY

  Badgercat flexed his paw, let out a broken, dirty black claw, and ferociously scratched a crooked arrow on the wall. Then another. And another. His claw cracked and broke off at its base. Badgercat hissed in pain and frustration. He’d let his em
otions get the better of him again. He’d broken another claw. He had to take good care of them. They were his only weapons. He had only six claws left. Who knew when the broken ones would grow back? Breaking a claw in a fight or climbing up a drainage pipe was one thing. Breaking a claw in a fit of annoyance was another. It was unacceptable. Even if the whole world was against him—especially if the whole world was against him.

  He took a piece of charcoal from the burnt ruins and drew another arrow, pointing to a black circle in the middle of the wall. He traced over a few half-erased markings. Then he picked up his broken-off claw and used it to fasten a clump of snow-white fur in the center of the black circle. He took a few steps back and admired the up-to-date diagram. Badgercat called it his “Plucker Shrine.”

  The whole wall was scribbled with circles, squares, dotted lines, arrows, exclamation points, question marks, numbers, abbreviations only clear to him, and rough sketches of birds and their feathers. A few places featured real bird feathers (owl and warbler) crookedly affixed to the wall with sap. There also was a salamander’s tail and a piece of eggshell. The web of names was complex and tangled around the edges, but slowly consolidated as it came toward the center where numerous clawed-on and drawn-on arrows wrathfully pointed to the coal-black circle adorned with a clump of snow-white fur. It was labeled “ARCTIC FOX.”

  In the last few months, Badgercat had sought refuge in many different places, and in each one he’d made a Plucker Shrine. The Plucker Shrine was his wall of fury. His map of vengeance. The Plucker Shrine was his self-motivated, stand-alone investigation.

  His coat had become dull, overgrown, and matted with gray clumps. He itched from fleas. His formerly soft pink paw pads were covered in blisters. At first, he had continued to draw badger stripes on his snout, but then he gave up. Who cared what animal he looked like, if he was only seen by rats? If he only saw rats—well, more accurately, only saw one rat. If he traveled only through underground rat tunnels. He’d go from a deserted burrow to a half-flooded basement, to a sewage pipe, to a rotten stump, to an empty tree hollow, to an abandoned nest in the roots of a hundred-year-old oak, and then back to the sewers. Up until now, Badgercat had no idea that it was possible to move around the woods without ever seeing the light of day. His new friend, Ratty, had become his guiding star in the pitch-black underground labyrinth filled with countless offshoots, twists and turns, dead ends, and hidden trapdoors.

  Ratty warned him of any dangers and when it was time to find a new hiding place. His new friend was hideous, but as he now knew, appearances were misleading. A cat could be fluffy, delicate, and as white as a pile of Himalayan snow—and calmly betray an animal who was in love with her. Or a badger could be smart, portly, as kind and loving as a father—and be on the hunt for his former partner and adopted son. Or a rat could be nasty and toothy, with cloudy eyes, a hairless tail, and an ear ripped in a fight—and be a do-gooder, fight for justice, help with an investigation, and prevent misfortune.

  His new friend had brought him here, to the Black House. Badgercat had stayed in many places over the last few months, but this one suited him best. It was the charred ruins of a burrow that’d been burned to the ground and abandoned. It was the perfect place for an animal like him. Someone lonely, worn-down, and betrayed; who didn’t feel anything anymore; who didn’t love anyone anymore. These ashes were his hopes and dreams, the coal was his heart, and the charred remains were his ruined life.

  Instead of his love, Marquise, who was as clean and white as a blank piece of paper, he had darkness and the stink of sewage. Instead of his friend and mentor, Chief Badger, he had an ashy-gray rat. Instead of the best job in the world working for the Far Woods Police, he had a Plucker Shrine.

  Actually, no. Enough wallowing. He did have something. More accurately, someone. The one who was to blame for all this. The one who everyone was mistaking him for. The one they called the Plucker.

  In other words, he had Arctic Fox. He had a tied-up, defenseless, disarmed, sleeping Arctic, who would wake up any minute and be forced to answer his questions.

  Ratty had told him that Arctic would be asleep for two hours, no more. A small bit of rat poison worked like a sedative. Ratty had gotten the poison from the grain storage barn at Huntington Farm. (Nina Palna naively thought that she was poisoning rats, but rats are very smart animals. They know what poison looks and smells like, and only eat it if they’re suffering from insomnia and, even then, only a tiny bit.) Ratty had determined the proper dosage and had come up with how to get Arctic to eat it.

  Arctic had been hiding out at the abandoned slaughterhouse at Huntington Farm. One would think it would be difficult to pick a hideout that was any more obvious and unsafe. First, it’s close to the dogs. Second, it’s close to people. Third, every animal in the Far Woods knows that the slaughterhouse at Huntington Farm has been abandoned since Nina Palna became a vegetarian, making it the perfect place for someone to hide. In fact, it was the first place the police looked when they were searching for Badgercat.

  On the other hand, after thinking it over, Badgercat came to the conclusion that Arctic’s decision to use the slaughterhouse as a hideout wasn’t idiotic but rather calculated and bold, bordering on genius. Because, first, the dogs at Huntington Farm were always barking anyway: whether guarding their territory, arguing with one another, or simply seeing a cat. They’re probably also barking because they can sense Arctic. But who’s going to decipher the nuances of the barks of such motormouths? Second, humans would love to make a stole out of an arctic fox. But they couldn’t fathom that a wild animal would have the audacity to live right under their noses. And, third, Arctic had come to the slaughterhouse after it had been searched for Badgercat. Thus picking the only place in the area that definitely wouldn’t be searched again any time soon.

  * * *

  And yet here he was. The Plucker. That calculating, shameless animal who was so accustomed to living without consequences. Asleep in a dirty bag, his paws tied, and his mouth gagged. In a stranger’s burned-down burrow, now the Black House.

  How had Arctic ended up here? He was shameless, overindulgent, and vain. That’s what got him into this sticky Plucker mess. Oh, of course, he didn’t know this is how things would unfold. He wasn’t planning on being the Plucker. But once it happened, he still continued to be shameless, overindulgent, and vain. Instead of keeping a low profile, he summoned barber Warbler to the slaughterhouse to smooth out his fur and style his whiskers!

  The famous woodland poet Robert Forest (Badgercat had found a charred copy of Forest’s collected works and had read the whole thing out of loneliness) had described such vain animals best in the following lines:

  You may be agile and quick,

  but vain, with your whiskers slicked.

  I never trust such fancy looks—

  only beasts with matted fur aren’t crooks.

  Badgercat, too, didn’t trust smooth whiskers. He’d learned that from Marquise, that Persian cat-traitor. Arctic was as cunning a liar as she was. No wonder he had the same color fur—white as the season’s first snow. No wonder he was just as self-absorbed.

  Arctic’s vanity blinded him, and in the end, it was his downfall. He was sure that the frightened Warbler wouldn’t betray him. But he had miscalculated. Warbler was a chatterbox and a coward. Animals like that didn’t know how to keep secrets. Warbler had told Badgercat where to find Arctic, and Ratty had prevented him from doing anything rash.

  “It isn’t a good idea to go after Arctic at the slaughterhouse in broad daylight with your fur on end and your claws out,” Ratty had told him. “The only way to deal with such a cunning, vile creature is to be as vile as him. Otherwise, he’ll get away. And you’ll find yourself in the paws of the police.”

  “How can I be as vile as him?” Badgercat was at a loss.

  And the wise Ratty had suggested an incredibly vile plan. Being the shameless, overindulgent animal that he was, Arctic would order a daily delivery of berry ice cream fr
om the Tree Knot Tavern. Ratty knew about it from his rat friends who lived under the tavern and stole food from its kitchen.

  “Let’s not get into an ethical discussion of my friends’ actions. In this instance, it isn’t important,” he’d said. Ratty always impressed Badgercat with his ability to quickly and accurately determine what was and what was not important. “Right now we are only interested in the information that they’ve provided. And the information is as follows: a certain someone, who goes by the name Mr. A, regularly orders cloudberry ice cream to be delivered to the hollow of the oak that grows within feet from the slaughterhouse. The waitress, Barbara, delivers the ice cream to the hollow and then takes the cones that are inside—the cost of the ice cream plus a hefty tip. And now that we know Arctic has been living at the slaughterhouse, it isn’t difficult to put two and two together and determine that he is Mr. A. Especially when you take into consideration that arctic foxes, being from the North, love eating frozen cloudberries in the hot summer months.”

  “How do you know what arctic foxes like in the hot summer months?” asked Badgercat. He was expecting Ratty to answer as Chief Badger often had: I read it in the Beastly Encyclopedia and so on. But Ratty spoke of something else entirely.

  “Rats are the hardiest animals in the world. They live all over the globe. There isn’t a town, village, wood, field, or mountain where a rat doesn’t live. How are they able to survive anywhere?”

  “They’re fearless?” guessed Badgercat.

  “Hardly.” The left side of Ratty’s mouth twitched. This was his version of a smile. “There are plenty of cowardly rats.”

  “They can survive on very little?”

  “Wrong again. For the most part, rats are greedy and gluttonous.”

  “They take care of one another?”

  “No,” Ratty snickered. “Though you’re getting closer. All right, I’ll let you in on the secret. Rats are constantly sharing information with one another. About any dangers, or new types of poison, or the best restaurants, or the cultures and customs of the animals they live among. Pick any place on the planet. I have a vast web of informants there at my disposal. I find out everything about life from them, including the summer preferences of arctic foxes.”