“And proud of it!” Chamcha added. “Unlike this overdressed chicken.” He laughed as he pointed at the peacock, who fluffed his feathers and looked down his beak at them all.
“Kit,” said Preston. “I agreed to help you free your friends and family from this zoo. I did not agree to help cause a general outbreak and disruption to the entire place. That I cannot abide.”
“You cannot abide?” Kit couldn’t believe his ears.
“Abide means to accept or act in accordance with,” Eeni explain.
“I know what it means,” Kit said. “I just can’t believe he’s saying it!” Kit whirled on the peacock. “So you can abide that the People lock animals up in zoos, just not that they lock up animals you don’t like. You can abide that some animals are stuck here who don’t want to be?”
“We live a good life here in the zoo,” Preston replied. “All of us are fed and protected and cared for. It is a wonderful place and the People are generous and kind to us.”
“But you’re not free!” Kit said.
“We are safe!” Preston replied. “We are happy!”
“Speak for yourself, you flightless feather face,” said Chamcha. “It’s too bad your brain works as well as your wings.”
“At least one of them’s pretty,” said Baas.
“Enough!” Kit put himself between the mongooses and the peacock before they started fighting with more than just sharp words. “We don’t have to fight. No matter our different shapes and sizes, whether we sleep in beds or burrows, houses or holes, we’re still All of One Paw, aren’t we? No matter who we are or where we live, we can help one another out because it’s the right thing to do. Or is it really an every-claw-for-itself kind of a world?”
The peacock looked down in thought, then finally looked up at Kit again. “I am sorry,” he said. “I am a solitary bird and I am not used to cooperation. But you are right, I will help you.”
“Thank you,” said Kit.
“He changed his mind really fast,” said Eeni, with doubt in her voice.
“Your friend makes a compelling argument, don’t you think?” said Preston to her.
“I do . . . ,” Eeni agreed, but her sentence trailed off. She looked doubtful, but Kit didn’t want to offend the only help they had who knew his way around the zoo, so he gave Eeni a look that asked her to hold her tongue.
“Do you know where the monkey cage is?” Kit said. “I need to get the help of the baboons and their thumbs.”
“Of course,” said Preston. “Very good idea. I’ll take you. It’s just this way.” But then, before moving, he stopped. “I will not, however, escort the mongooses. They have been very unkind to me and I would prefer not to spend a moment longer in their rude company.”
“You want to see rude?” Baas started:
Gimme a beat.
You don’t like a mongoose?
So what? We don’t like your birdbrain or your
bird strut.
Say another word, and we’ll kick you in the
bird b—
“Stop it!” Kit cut him off. “Baas, Chamcha, it’ll be fine. If you guys just follow the path to that next lamppost, you’ll find my rabbit friend Hazel. She’ll start you on your way out. Just keep following my friends and they’ll get you past the fence, okay? I can take care of the rest here. Preston’s not always nice, but he’s on our side, right, Preston?”
The bird frowned. “I will not dignify their insults by being offended,” he said.
“Okay, good,” said Kit. “Then, let’s go. Show Eeni and me to the Monkey House.”
“Right this way.” Preston gestured with a colorful wing, and Kit and Eeni made their way along with him. The mongooses watched them go for a moment, then turned in the opposite direction toward the first member of the Moonlight Brigade. Kit felt good that he’d helped three animals escape the zoo, but they were not yet the three he’d come for.
However, with the help of the baboons, he’d be able to get everyone else out too. The sky was still a deep night black and the stars twinkled above, but hints of purple were creeping up at the horizon and soon they would turn pink with sunrise and then the blazing day would come. He couldn’t waste any time.
They reach another squat brick building that looked a lot like the one his mother and Uncle Rik were being held in. There were drawings of frogs and lizards all over the front of it and Kit looked questioningly at Preston.
“The lizards are the People’s idea of showing where the baboons live,” Preston scoffed. “You know how People are. They rarely make sense.”
That much Kit knew to be true.
Preston showed them yet another heating vent, although this one was sealed much better than the previous one, and Eeni had to squeeze first and help Kit get it open from the other side. It took a lot of shimmying and prying, and Kit could feel the time passing with every breath. He began to worry that he’d risked the chance of freeing his mother by agreeing to free the other animals too. If he didn’t get the Urban Wild out tonight, he might not get another chance. When the People saw that the mongooses had escaped, would they lock down the rest of the zoo more carefully?
He had to hurry. By agreeing to do the right thing, he’d made his whole plan a lot harder.
They finally got the heating vent open, and Preston wished them luck. He did not intend to wait around for them.
“Do whatever you want,” Eeni grumbled, and let the vent fall back into place between them. She and Kit then made their way inside.
“He can’t help his attitude,” Kit said of Preston. “He only knows how to be a peacock. He’s not worldly like we are. He’s probably never actually met real wild animals before.”
“I don’t trust him,” Eeni said. “And also, why is it so hot in here?”
“These vents are supposed to be hot,” Kit said, but this one felt even hotter than the one in the other building. By the time he plopped out of the heating vent into the dark corridors of the building, Kit was parched. Luckily, the People had left a big yellow bucket in the corner filled with water.
He plodded over to it and took a sip, which he quickly had to spit out. It tasted like soap and mud. The mud flavor would have been nice on its own, but the People had gone and ruined it with soap. He made his way back to Eeni, disappointed and thirsty.
They looked around together and immediately saw that something was wrong.
There were no baboons. No monkeys of any kind.
The room was like an indoor courtyard with glass display cases all around the walls. The cases themselves looked empty. The floor below Kit and Eeni’s claws was decorated with shadowy pictures of alligators and iguanas and snakes: all reptiles, just like on the outside of the building.
“This isn’t the Monkey House,” Kit said.
“I told you I didn’t trust that peacock,” said Eeni. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Yeah,” Kit agreed. He didn’t have any time to waste in the wrong building. If the reptiles wanted to be free, he’d have to come back to let them out after he got the baboons to help.
As Kit and Eeni turned to go, a familiar voice spoke from one of the glass cases.
“Don’t leave ssso sssoon,” it said.
Its sibilant hiss was muffled slightly by the glass of its cage. Kit and Eeni turned together to see a yellow-and-brown python coiled calmly on a big fake branch that jutted across the middle of his cage. The python stretched his long body down so his head almost touched the glass and his eyes narrowed. “Ssso niccce to sssee you again, little Kit.”
“Basil,” said Kit. “They caught you.”
Basil grinned. “They sssaved me,” the python said.
Basil had been the enforcer for the Rabid Rascals, the gang that had ruled Ankle Snap Alley before Kit came along. He was the only reason folks had been afraid to cross the Rascals, but he’d betrayed
his own gang to the Flealess, and when his plan backfired, he’d fled the alley all alone.
“I wasss ssstuck in a sssewer pipe when People pried me out,” Basil explained. “At firssst, I fought them, but they left me in here and did me no harm. Every few days they brought me”—he winked at Eeni—“fresh meat.”
Eeni shuddered.
“So you’ve turned into their pet?” Kit said. “Just like you always wanted.”
“I live in luxxxury,” Basil said. “I eat and sssleep and never know cold or danger. I don’t even need to work! I am the king of all I sssurvey!”
Kit and Eeni looked around the dark room. There really wasn’t much to survey and Basil was stuck in his cage. He was a prisoner who imagined himself a king.
“I know what you are up to here, Kit,” Basil said. “I know they have your mother.”
“Yeah,” said Kit. “And what does it matter to you? I’m not going to break you out.”
“You are not going to break anyone out, Kit,” Basil hissed. “I won’t let you ruin the good thing I have here. I’m happy. A lot of of usss are happy here. Do yourssself a favor and leave before you caussse more trouble than you can count on all your clawsss combined.”
“Is this a warning or a threat, Basil?” Kit said.
“Maybe it’sss both,” the snake replied.
“I’m not going to stop trying to help just because you like life in your cage.”
“Ssssss.” Basil sighed. His body began to uncurl from its branch, coil after coil, length after length, vanishing up into parts of the cage Kit couldn’t even see. “You know, Kit,” Basil said. “The People don’t make their cagesss quite so sssecure as they think they do.”
With a ripple of muscle, the snake lifted himself completely out of sight inside his cage. Kit rushed up to the glass and tried to see where the python had gone, but he couldn’t tell. There was a water dish, and a fake rock below the fake branch. There were bits of old skin the snake had shed, and there was a fake painted sky along the back wall. All the way at the top, there was a metal grate that the people could open and close to drop in the victims of Basil’s appetite. And Kit saw the last flash of Basil’s tail sliding out of it past the broken latch.
“Um, Eeni,” Kit said. “We’ve got to run! Basil’s loose!”
Before their claws could clatter back across the floor to the vent they’d come in through, Basil dropped his big scaly body from the ceiling and landed in front of them.
“You should not have come here, Kit,” said Basil. “Although I am glad you did. Revenge isss, after all, a dish bessst ssserved cold- . . . blooded!”
Chapter Fourteen
WARM-BLOODED
“HEY, we’ve got no problem with you.” Kit held up his paws to show he didn’t have a weapon. Eeni stood beside him, scowling to look so tough she didn’t need a weapon. “You can stay at the zoo if you like. We’ll just be on our way to the other animals. We don’t want any trouble.”
“But you’ve got trouble,” said Basil. “All kindsss of trouble.”
With that, Basil whistled, and beside him, dropping from the ceiling all around the room, came three other serpents.
“Welcome to the Hall of Reptilesss,” Basil hissed. “We’re glad to have you for dinner!”
“I didn’t know snakes could whistle,” Eeni whispered to Kit.
“Meet my new friendsss,” Basil said. “Atrox, Naja, and Thom.”
There was a diamondback rattlesnake with a cruel grin, a black-necked spitting cobra with a deep frown, and a garter snake whose eyes bulged from his head.
“Hi,” said the big-eyed garter snake. “I’m Thom. I’m really looking forward to eating you.”
Kit had gone cold with fright, but not because of the snakes. Sure, they were scary, but he had a deeper fear. All the snakes had slipped from their cages. The fact that they all could have escaped whenever they wanted, but hadn’t done so, was what really scared Kit. They had chosen to stay in the zoo. The mongooses wanted freedom, but what if other animals had learned to love being held here in the zoo just like the snakes? What if they didn’t all want to get rescued? What if his mother didn’t want to get rescued?
Like the Rat King had said, There are as many truths as teeth and it is the ones you do not see that bite. Beware.
What if this was what the warning meant? What if the Rat King had meant that Kit, by trying to help animals who didn’t want his help, was dooming himself? What if freedom was, to some of the animals in the zoo, like a poison berry?
“Ssso,” said Basil, grinning all the way to his ear holes. “Which to eat firssst, the big one or the little one?”
“Let’sss do both at once,” said Naja the black-necked spitting cobra, as she reared up high over them and flattened her neck into a crown of shining black scales.
Threats to life and limb made all Kit’s deep questions about freedom run right out of his head and his survival instincts took over just in time.
Naja spat a burst of venom. Kit and Eeni dove to the side in opposite directions, and it splashed across the floor. Basil snapped for them, but his jaws slammed shut on air.
His tail, however, whipped around to encircle Eeni. Like all bullies, the python went for the smallest victim he could find. His mistake, of course, was assuming that because Eeni was small, she was weak.
She was not weak at all.
As the snake’s body wrapped around her, squeezing tight to make her pass out before he ate her, she pulled out a satchel she carried. It was filled with rosebush thorns, and the moment Basil squeezed too tight, they dug into him.
“Yowee!” he cried, and Eeni crawled straight out of his choke hold, running down the length of his body toward Kit.
“Well, don’t hang around all day!” she said. “Run!”
Together, they ran for the front door, but it was locked tight and Eeni couldn’t even squeeze through the space underneath it. Basil and his three friends slithered after them.
“To the vents!” Kit shouted, and they rushed back the way they’d come in.
Basil and his nest of snakes gave chase. They could slither faster than Kit and Eeni could run, and the air vents turned and twisted in a maze of clanging metal hallways that the snakes’ long bodies navigated with ease.
“We’re not going to outrun them in here, Kit!” Eeni called over her shoulder to him as she ran.
“Just keep going,” he told her. “Trust me! I’m right behind you.”
Rats were, typically, good at mazes, and Kit trusted Eeni to lead them far more than he trusted himself. She ran with her side pressed against one hot wall of the air vent, and turned left and left and left again.
“They went thisss way!” Naja’s voice echoed through the shining corridors, and the snakes slithered around a turn behind them. Atrox the diamondback rattled after them, but her rattle sounded faint. Kit dared to look back and saw the snakes falling farther and farther behind.
“The vicious vipers can’t keep up with me!” Eeni marveled. “I must be the fastest rat in the world!”
Kit was panting and even more thirsty than before, but he kept running and the snakes kept falling farther behind them. Eeni turned a corner, then doubled back in the other direction and Kit stumbled, following. They slipped down a side branch of the vent system and stopped to catch their breath.
“Which way . . . did they go . . . now?” Naja’s voice wheezed around them in echoes.
“I want . . . to eat . . . them!” Thom whined. “Basssil, you promised . . . I’d be the first . . . garter snake . . . in history . . . to eat . . . raccoon!”
“And you will be,” Basil said. “But firssst . . . let’sss ressst . . . here . . . jussst for a moment . . .”
The python’s voice was far away indeed. None of the other snakes said a word and the rattler’s rattle had gone silent too. Then they heard the echo
of all four snakes snoring.
“Are they asleep?” Eeni scratched her head with her tail. “Who goes to sleep in the middle of a chase?”
“Folks who get tired when it gets too hot,” said Kit. “Folks who are cold-blooded.” Kit grinned.
Eeni thought a moment, then burst out laughing and gave Kit a hug. “Oh, you clever trickster, you!” she said.
Kit knew that snakes didn’t make their own body warmth like warm-blooded rats and raccoons. Cold-blooded reptiles took on the temperature around them. When they got too cold or too hot, their bodies slowed down to conserve energy. Kit had known they’d never be able to keep up in the hot air vents. They’d slithered themselves right into a long nap.
“Let’s go clobber them while they’re snoozing!” Eeni said, balling up her tiny fists. She had no fondness for animals who ate mice and rats by the score.
“No.” Kit stopped her. “They won’t wake up for hours. We’re safe. We don’t need to hurt them.”
“But they’d swallow us whole if we were in their position!” Eeni complained. “It’s only fair.”
“Just ’cause it’s fair doesn’t mean it’s right,” said Kit. “We can’t go clobbering all our enemies when they can’t fight back. That’d make us no better than the snakes.”
Eeni frowned. “Your heart’s as mushy as mold on a mushroom,” she said. “But I guess you’re right. Just don’t tell anyone I let ’em go unclobbered. Between the snakes and that hawk, folks are gonna start to think I want to get eaten.”
“No,” said Kit. “Folks will know you’re merciful. Maybe they’ll sing songs about you one day: Eeni the Merciful, who looked death in the eye and baked it a pie.”
Eeni rolled her eyes. “I don’t bake and you really aren’t great at making up sayings, Kit.”
“I guess not,” he said.
Eeni led him back outside again, and Kit looked at the sky. The blue-black night was definitely getting lighter. Night was slipping by with every heartbeat and he still didn’t know his way to the Monkey House, where the baboons lived. And now he didn’t have the peacock to guide him.
The Wild Ones--Great Escape Page 8