The Plucker: A Beastly Crimes Book

by Anna Starobinets

  “And how does this information help us?” asked Badgercat. “So Arctic likes berry ice cream and regularly orders it. Where’s the badger logic?”

  “Forget about logic.” Ratty gave an annoyed wave of his hairless tail. “Think of advantages, Son.”

  Badgercat felt a light pang of longing, as if he’d been gently poked in the heart with a dried pine needle. It wasn’t so long ago that Chief Badger had called him “Son.”

  “Badger logic!” he used to love repeating. Chief Badger had taught him that stealing was bad and that you couldn’t trust a thief. That an animal should be generous, just, and honest. But what now? Where was justice? Where was generosity? Where was Chief Badger with his code of conduct? Was he by his side? No, he wasn’t. Instead, there was a rat—thieving, sleazy, cold, and opportunistic. But a rat who’d turned out to be a faithful friend during his misfortune.

  “And how does this information give us an advantage?” asked Badgercat obediently.

  “Now that we know about the ice cream, we can put some rat poison in it. Well, not us, but my friends can do it. Then Barbara will deliver the ice cream to the tree hollow, per usual. Arctic will eat it and fall into a very deep sleep, and we’ll bring him here, to the Black House. He’ll be defenseless and completely under your control, giving you the upper paw.”

  “Incredible,” whispered Badgercat in awe. “Ratty, you’re very smart and talented. You’d make a great police badger.”

  “No, thank you. Police work isn’t for me. I don’t like obeying laws.”

  “I understand. But theoretically, you’d be quite useful. I’m sure that once Arctic wakes up and we begin to question him, you’ll . . .”

  “We are not going to question Arctic.”

  “We aren’t? Chief Badger and I would always . . .”

  “I am not Chief Badger,” said Ratty dismissively. “I don’t do anything for show. I prefer to be a gray shadow—invisible but effective. Sorry, but you’ll be speaking with Arctic alone. I’d rather hide somewhere and quietly listen in.”

  * * *

  The sack on the floor began moving and moaning.

  “Don’t move, Arctic,” ordered Badgercat. “Your front and back paws are tied. I’ve got the upper paw. So no funny business.”

  Badgercat let out his claws and ripped open the sack. Arctic cringed, squeezed his eyes shut, and began whining. Badgercat didn’t like this. He was expecting to be met with a dangerous, aggressive maniac, with an enemy equal to him in strength or maybe even stronger—not some rumpled, sorry little fox. Then again, even a real maniac wouldn’t look especially dangerous after they had been sedated and bound, gagged with a burdock leaf, and stuffed in a sack. Or maybe Arctic was just putting on an act? Badgercat didn’t know exactly where his partner Ratty was hiding but felt him nearby. He tried to imagine what his wise and cold-hearted friend would say in this situation. Probably this: “Forget about a fair fight, Son. Think of advantages. If you’re stronger than your enemy, this is an advantage. Get to work.”

  “I’m going to take out the gag and we’re going to have a little chat.”

  Badgercat removed the crumpled, wet burdock leaf from Arctic’s mouth and tossed it aside. Arctic nervously licked his lips and wrinkled his nose.

  “Don’t even think of screaming or calling for help,” said Badgercat coldly. “No one will hear you anyway. And if they do, it’ll only turn out worse for you.”

  “What am I doing here, Cat?” whispered Arctic.

  “I’m not a cat. I’m Assistant . . . I mean, I am an independent badgercat heading a special investigation.”

  “You’re a dirty, rogue cat,” repeated Arctic. “What do you want from me?”

  “Insulting me isn’t a good idea,” said Badgercat. “But getting straight to the point is. To the question at hand: what do I want from you? I want you to tell the whole Far Woods the truth.”

  “What truth?” Arctic frowned. “How you tied me up, gagged me, and dragged me to this disgusting, foul place? Don’t doubt it for a second. I’ll tell everyone. By the way, I can’t feel my paws. Do you mind untying me?”

  “I want you to tell them the truth about you!” Badgercat felt like he was about to lose his cool from Arctic’s audacity, even though he’d promised himself to never do that again and always remain coolheaded, like Ratty. “Bear in mind, Arctic, I know everything.”

  “What do you know?” asked Arctic rudely.

  “Everything!” yowled Badgercat, letting out his claws and swatting furiously at his Plucker Shrine. The snow-white clump of fox fur fell off the wall and floated down on to the floor, like an injured moth.

  “Is that my fur?” Arctic asked. “You ripped out my fur? Are you completely insa— Holy claw! What is that on the wall?” Arctic looked alarmingly at the Plucker Shrine. “Whose feathers are those? What are all those strange symbols and arrows? And what’s that?” He nodded at the pile of charred ruins. “Are you really a maniac? I honestly didn’t believe you were the Plucker. I thought someone had set you up! Now what? Are you going to pluck me too? Then burn my fur? And what’s with your tail? Does it always do that before you start plucking?”

  “Are you serious?” Badgercat was so infuriated, his tail was twitching wildly. “You’re the one who set me up! At first, I had another theory: that the Plucker was barber Warbler. But I quickly threw it out. It’s you! You’re the Plucker!”

  “I’m not the Plucker. You’ve completely lost your mind, Cat.”

  “I’m not a cat!” yelped Badgercat. “You’ve completely lost your mind, Plucker!” He inhaled deeply, trying to calm himself. He didn’t want the coolheaded Ratty to scoff at his hysterical interrogation style. “I know what you did with the bird’s milk, which the Far Woods Police confiscated from the criminal Sneaky Sal and which I, naively—”

  “Stole from the police evidence locker,” finished Arctic rudely.

  “Which I naively gave to you in exchange for some cheap cologne called Potent Marking.”

  “It’s not cheap!” protested Arctic. “Potent Marking is a very high quality, exquisite stench. I use it quite often—”

  “Don’t change the subject, Arctic. The bird’s milk is much more valuable than your Potent Marking, now isn’t it?”

  “I have no idea,” said Arctic indifferently.

  “Yes, you do. Because you went to see Sneaky Sal to ask him all about the milk.”

  “Who told you that? Sal? Don’t believe him. He’s a thief and a liar. You can’t trust the likes of him . . . Oh, fine, I admit it. I went to see him. But he ran away from me. He left behind a gross, wriggling tail and ran off. So seeing him produced zero results.” Arctic tried to draw a big zero in the air with his paw, demonstrating how little use Sal was, but then remembered he was tied up.

  “Then you took the milk to be independently examined by Tarantula!” Badgercat unconsciously looked over his shoulder, proud of himself. Wherever Ratty was hiding, let him see how skillfully he was conducting this interrogation.

  “And who told you that?”

  “In every corner of the Far Woods, I have a vast web of informants . So I know that you saw Tarantula. I know that he confirmed that the milk was from a bird. Totally unique. Very valuable.”

  “Fine, Cat. I admit it. I saw Tarantula. And after examining the substance, he confirmed that it was bird’s milk. And that it was worth a fortune. Lawfully speaking, I probably should’ve returned the milk to the Far Woods Police—”

  “Probably?”

  “Okay, definitely. But as you very well know, we are all animals and we each have our weaknesses. Sometimes we sidestep the law. You did the same when you stole the milk from the evidence locker at the station . . .”

  “I did that for love!”

  “Me too. For the love of fine art. I thought I could sell the milk for a good profit and use the cones to buy a whole collection of Oakpressionist paintings.”

  “But you didn’t sell the bird’s milk.”

  “N
o—”

  “Because you drank it!”

  “What? Drank it? What beastly nonsense! Why would I drink something that is worth as much as a whole collection of Oakpressionist paintings?”

  “Because you love yourself even more than you love fine art. You wanted to rejuvenate yourself. You wanted sparkling fur that never requires a barber Warbler, acute eyesight, agility, quickness, and a spring in your step like you had in your youth.”

  “How does the bird’s milk factor in?”

  “Because according to legend, bird’s milk has rejuvenating properties. Look over there. I’ve listed all the milk’s effects,” Badgercat feverishly waved his paw in the direction of his Plucker Shrine.

  “Listen to me, Cat.” Arctic angrily glanced at the scrawled diagram on the wall and cracked the knuckles of his tied-up paws. “I don’t know any legends about bird’s milk. I don’t understand any of your scratches, nor do I want to. And I can’t stand milk. I’m aller—”

  “Lies!” interrupted Badgercat. “Everything adds up! You verified that it was bird’s milk. You wanted to rejuvenate yourself. And then you acted like the hamster . . .”

  “The hamster?”

  “Yes, the hamster from ‘The Ballad of the Mad Hamster.’ ”

  “What ballad?”

  “‘The Ballad of the Mad Hamster’ ” by Robert Forest, based on oral beastly folklore.”

  “I don’t like Forest,” replied Arctic, frowning. “He’s boring and outdated.”

  “Boring? What are you talking about? How can you not like the famous woodland poet Forest? He’s our everything! Just listen about the hamster.” Badgercat grabbed a half-burnt copy of Forest’s collected works from a pile of coal. It was stuffed with oak-leaf bookmarks. He opened it to the correct page. “This part is about you,” he said.

  The hamster doe said to the buck,

  “You must be completely nuts!

  Look at you: you’re old and weak

  with a humpback and sagging cheeks!

  While I’m a beautiful work of art—

  I won’t wed an old fart!”

  “I may be elderly

  but I love you tenderly.

  Be mine—

  in elation, frustration, hibernation—

  oh, hamster divine!

  Don’t give up on me,

  I’m rich with cones, you see!”

  “Well then, wealthy buck,

  why don’t we try our luck.

  Since I’m the one you adore,

  give me your word

  that you’ll find the mystical bird

  whose milk will make you young once more.”

  “That’s not about me,” said Arctic, insulted. “I don’t have a humpback, I’m not old, and I’m not in love with a hamster doe.”

  “Those are just small details,” mumbled Badgercat. “Okay, the next few pages are burned, but it doesn’t matter. The most important part is intact—the part the hamster didn’t think through. And you didn’t think through either. The milk’s side effects:

  Once the buck drank the milk up

  in the air he did leap up,

  flipped three times and turned into

  a rabid monster through and through.

  Growling, with an evil grin

  into the woods he ran.

  He brandished his claws,

  gnawed on tree trunks with his jaws,

  he’d grown strong—was back in his prime,

  but the hamster had lost his mind.

  And in a mad, cackling fit

  he tore Owl and Cuckoo to bits.

  “Get it?” asked Badgercat, slamming the book shut. “The milk makes you go insane! And turn into a maniac. Into a plucker! The hamster became a plucker. And you became a plucker. Everything adds up! You even plucked the exact same birds: Owl and Cuckoo! The next pages are burned, too, but in the end you’re going to—”

  “Am I understanding you correctly,” interrupted Arctic. “You’ve built your entire case on some beastly folklore as retold by Robert Forest?”

  “It’s not folklore. It’s century-old beastly wisdom,” grumbled Badgercat.

  “Well, with all due respect to the old hamster and his evil grin, I must admit that I did not repeat his feat. I did not drink the bird’s milk.”

  “Then what happened to it?” scoffed Badgercat. “I’m quite interested to hear how you’re going to weasel your way out of this one.”

  “I was robbed,” said Arctic. “The milk was stolen, and I was almost killed.”

  “A blatant lie.”

  “The absolute truth.”

  “Who robbed you?”

  “I don’t know. Some animal. It was dark. He was wearing a mask. He was quick and agile. He spoke in a whisper.”

  “Scent?” quickly asked Badgercat.

  “He smelled foul.” Arctic thoughtfully sniffed the air. “Just like you do.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He said not to scream. He said he had the upper paw. So, basically, he said the same thing you did when you cut open the sack. Then he demanded I hand over the milk. And I did. In the end, my life is worth more than a collection of Oakpressionist paintings. Then he tied me up and put me in a sack. Identical to this one.”

  “What are you suggesting, Arctic?” hissed Badgercat. “That I was the one who robbed you?”

  “I’m not suggesting anything,” said Arctic. “I’m just answering your questions. But since you’re interested in my opinion: theoretically speaking, a maniac might do something in a fit of insanity that he later won’t remember. Isn’t that so? For instance, having read Forest’s ballad, he goes and robs an innocent animal of his bird’s milk, then drinks it and starts acting out the plot of the ballad, plucking the birds mentioned therein. More simply put, all this is done by his evil side while his good side is none the wiser.”

  “I don’t have an evil side.” Badgercat felt uneasy.

  A barely audible rustling came from the basement. So that’s where Ratty was hiding. Badgercat’s ear jerked, and he glanced at Arctic. He hadn’t noticed anything. The wise Ratty knew that Badgercat had exceptional hearing and was sending him a signal, a signal of encouragement meant only for him.

  “And I remember everything I do,” Badgercat added confidently.

  “Great. Happy to hear that. Well, since you remember everything and you don’t have an evil side, maybe you’ll untie me? My paws are numb. The animal who stole the milk left me all tied up. But you wouldn’t do that. Would you?”

  “But what if you’ve been lying this whole time?” Badgercat didn’t know what to do. On one hand, he didn’t want to act like his evil side and leave an innocent animal tied up. On the other hand, he didn’t want to let himself be fooled.

  “I’m telling the truth,” said Arctic, sounding tired. “And I can pass a Hedgy-graph test. Yes, I’m willing to sit on a hedgehog and repeat that same story, word for word. And another thing: I’m extremely allergic to milk. Doc Hawk can confirm this. I would never drink milk, even bird’s milk. It makes me swell up and itch all over.”

  CHAPTER 5: IN WHICH BADGER HAS NO SELF-RESPECT

  Chief Badger closed his eyes. He had a splitting headache. Super Bat was darting wildly between the oak and the slaughterhouse, wordlessly opening her triangular mouth. Over and over again she would rocket upward, then nose-dive, then whoosh to the side in an uneven, unpredictable zigzag, surely about to slam into either the slaughterhouse or the oak. But then, at the last second, she would rebound and rocket upward again. The dogs followed her movements with their eyes, swaying from side to side, whining dully. They weren’t feeling good either.

  Doc Hawk checked sparrow Ro’s pulse once more and took his temperature. His heart was barely beating: his temperature was lower than normal—not surprising as Ro was plucked completely bald. Hawk glanced at the pile of burnt sparrow feathers inside the tree hollow and wrapped Ro up tighter in the wool blanket, gingerly stroking him with his wing. Ro was unconscious, but Hawk
firmly believed that a caring touch was beneficial to any animal, in any condition.

  “Have your chills subsided?” he asked Barbara in a whisper, as if not wanting to wake the sparrow.

  “Yes, they have, but that bat is making my head spin.” Barbara, also wrapped in a wool blanket, was sitting under the oak, sipping hot pine-needle tea from a disposable birch cup. “I wonder what she’s saying?”

  “Lazy idiots,” responded Chief Badger without opening his eyes. “Overweight imbeciles. Flea-infested morons. That’s what she’s saying.”

  “You can hear such high frequencies?” Barbara was impressed.

  “No.”

  “Then how—”

  “Experience. And badger logic.”

  Chief Badger opened his eyes, trying not to look at the motionless bird body carefully swaddled by Hawk. This was his blunder. Ro wasn’t just a victim of the maniac; he was a victim of Badger’s excess fat. Because if he, Chief Badger, ate less and ran faster, he could have prevented the attack. Hawk and Vulture both agreed that he was plucked no more than two hours ago.

  Chief Badger frowned and tried to focus on Super Bat, who was currently zooming at top speed straight toward the slaughterhouse wall. She should crash, thought Chief Badger sullenly, but surely she won’t. When she was less than an inch from the wall, Super Bat hung in the air for a second, then shot upward at a right angle.

  “We can’t hear you, special agent Super Bat,” said Badger bleakly.

  “You are all lazy idiots!” squealed Super Bat. “Overweight imbeciles! Flea-infested morons! Incapable fools! I’ve fought against the likes of you all my life, and now you are in my charge! Holy claw! I’d rather be in charge of a bunch of snails! We have another victim, and yet again you missed him. Badgercat! The Plucker! He slipped away right under your noses! He’s always a step ahead. WHY?”

  “Because he’s smart and fast?” suggested Badger.

  “Because you’re stupid and slow!” squealed Super Bat. “You”—she zoomed at the dogs, who flattened their ears against their heads in fear—“were supposed to guard the slaughterhouse! This is a high-security location! First, you missed Arctic Fox, who was living here as if it was his personal hotel! Then, you missed Badgercat, who kidnapped Arctic and plucked the sparrow!”