Raffie on the Run

by Jacqueline Resnick

  “Oggie,” I sob.

  He’s gone.

  My little brother is gone.

  And it’s all my fault.

  I think of him saying, “Oggie the Unstoppable! Just like Raffie!” If I hadn’t told him all those stories … made him believe I was unstoppable … when really …

  My throat closes up and I gasp for air.

  I slump to the ground and bury my snout in my paws. I hear the vague sounds of battle cries in the distance, but I don’t care. Let them battle me. Let them chase me. Oggie’s gone. Nothing matters anymore.

  A train rumbles into the station on the other side of the tracks. The air is a tunnel of noise as the doors open and the conductor shouts and people shove on and off. I steal a glance at the wall that leads to home. Behind that wall, Mom, Dad, and Lulu are sleeping peacefully, unaware that with every passing second, Oggie is getting farther and farther away.

  A sob racks through me. How am I ever going to tell them?

  I look away, and something catches my eye next to the treasure chest. A backpack.

  My chest squeezes.

  It’s Tyler’s backpack. The boy who took Oggie.

  I leap to my paws. Maybe there’s something in there that can help me find my brother! I gallop toward the backpack, dodging shoes left and right. Blood pounds in my ears. All I can hear is Oggie’s voice, stuck on repeat in my head. Just like Raffie. Just like Raffie.

  The backpack is crumpled in a heap on the floor. The zipper is partially open. I slip through the opening and crawl inside. Immediately I smell food. I take a quick sniff. An apple, a juice, and an oatmeal-raisin cookie. I push past the food, uninterested. For the first time in my life, I’m not hungry.

  I nose my way past two books, three coins, a white ball, four clumps of lint, a dust bunny, six empty candy wrappers, and one of those sharp, inky weapons humans use to write. I’m panting when I stop in front of a small notebook. I climb on top of it. Underneath my paws is a string of letters.

  I’m not the best reader, but I squint, concentrating hard. “Centaur—center—no, Central,” I whisper. “Parl—no, Park—”

  A sudden jolt sends me reeling backward. The backpack is being lifted in the air. I’m slammed into the side, the breath knocked out of me.

  “Looks like some kid lost a backpack,” I hear a muffled voice say. The bag swings through the air, sending me tumbling toward the gap in zipper.

  “No,” I gasp. I sink my teeth into the fabric just in time. Only my tail flies out of the bag. I yank it back inside, breathing hard.

  “I’m going to bring it to the ticket booth,” I hear the voice say.

  “If you see something, say something,” another voice replies jokingly.

  The contents of the bag toss wildly around. I duck out of the way of the ball and claw back to the notebook. A coin slams into my back, sending pain shooting down my paws. Beneath me, letters swim in front of my eyes.

  Focus, I order myself.

  Slowly, words begin to take shape.

  Central Park Day School

  220 Central Park West, Class 5B

  The bag swings again, sending the ball smacking into me. I yelp in pain. Through the opening in the zipper, I catch a glimpse of the turnstiles. After the turnstiles comes the ticket booth and Marcus the teller. Marcus who has “no patience for rats, I tellya!” I’ve heard him say it many, many times.

  There’s a whoosh of air from behind as a train nears the station. I think of what Tyler said. He’s bringing Oggie to school like some kind of pet.

  Pieces click together in my mind, one after another.

  Central Park Day School

  220 Central Park West, Class 5B

  It’s the location of the school where Tyler is bringing Oggie! It has to be.

  I need to get out of this bag. The backpack bumps against the metal turnstiles, sending me somersaulting backward. I scramble to my paws. Outside, I see the turnstile swinging past. I only have a second before we reach the ticket booth.

  I squeeze through the gap in the zipper and leap onto one of the turnstiles. “Oh my goodness!” someone shouts. “Did a rat just come out of that bag?”

  I don’t wait to hear the response. I scurry down from the turnstile. My paws are shaking and my heart is pounding and all I can think is 220 Central Park West.

  A train screeches to a stop on the tracks. It’s the train that goes into the city. The same one that Tyler and Tess took with Oggie. “Next stop, Jay Street–MetroTech,” the conductor announces. “Stand clear of the closing doors, please.”

  I race under the turnstiles and across the platform. The train looms in front of me, jam-packed with humans. I’m shaking so hard I can barely feel my paws.

  220 Central Park West.

  I have to get there. I have to get to Oggie.

  I squeeze between a pair of legs and jump onto the train. The doors swish shut behind me.

  CHAPTER

  6

  A Fish out of Water

  Panic hits me instantly. There are feet and legs and arms and hands all around me. So many humans, packed together like noodles in a carton. I dodge a heel and crouch behind an ankle. My tail hits a sneaker and I quickly draw it back.

  My heart pounds. The enemy is everywhere.

  The train seems to spin around me: feet, wall, feet, wall, feet, cup, fee—

  Cup!

  It’s a paper cup, laying on its side on the train floor. It’s just big enough to fit a rat. I hold my breath and scurry toward it. No one look down, I beg silently.

  I leap into the cup. I’m trembling as I curl up in a ball. My head bumps against the stiff paper bottom, and something wet drops onto my whiskers. I know that smell. It’s the powerful potion humans use to get their morning jolt. I quickly lick it up. A fizzy feeling spreads through me. I suddenly feel like I could scurry around the subway station a hundred times. “I can do this,” I whisper to myself. I just need to get under one of the train’s benches to hide.

  “So much litter,” a man grumbles nearby. I hear a foot stomp next to me. I peek out the open end of the cup. A shiny black shoe lifts in the air. It swings. It knocks into my cup.

  I paw desperately, but there’s nothing I can do—my cup goes rolling across the floor.

  I spin round and round. My stomach roils. My vision blurs. The cup skids over something slippery and rolls even faster.

  “Mommy, that cup has a tail!”

  My heart seizes. I grab my tail and yank it back inside the cup.

  “Shhh, honey,” a woman says. “You’re disturbing the other passengers.”

  I roll faster. Up becomes down and down becomes up. My last meal of slop rises in my throat. I’m about to be sick when I suddenly crash to a stop.

  I peek shakily out of the cup. I see a glass bottle. A wad of napkins. A shiny silver wall. But no feet. Slowly, it hits me: I’ve rolled underneath a bench.

  My stomach settles down. I take a deep breath. I’m okay. No one can see me down here. I have time to come up with a plan.

  I close my eyes and think. How do I find Oggie?

  No answers come.

  I think harder.

  I could …

  Or maybe …

  What about …

  No, no, no.

  The tracks clatter beneath the train, sending vibrations through my paws. The conductor’s voice spills through the car: “This is Jay Street–MetroTech…”

  Footsteps shake like thunder. The conductor’s voice booms. “Next stop, York Street.”

  What was I thinking getting on this train? I have no clue how to get to 220 Central Park West. What if that’s not even where Tyler was taking Oggie? What if this train goes somewhere different? What if it goes to … the E word?

  A tremble runs through me. My parents won’t say such a bad word out loud, but I’ve heard it anyway. Exterminator.

  I shake harder. What if I just boarded a train to the exterminator?

  “Okay, don’t panic,” I whisper to myself.
I’m safe under this bench. I’ll just ride the train until I figure out what to do. There’s no reason to be scared.

  SCREECH!

  A horrible, piercing sound fills the air as the train jerks to a short stop. I’m tossed out of my cup. I extract my claws, but I’m not fast enough. I go sliding out from under the bench for everyone to see.

  I skid across the train on my belly. My tail whips against a pole. My whiskers brush a shoe. I slam to a stop against a high heel. A squeak of terror escapes me.

  “It’s—it’s—” a woman sputters. “RAT!”

  I’ve been spotted.

  Battle cries erupt on every side of me. Legs move frantically: pushing and running and jumping on top of benches. “Get it out of here!” someone screams.

  A can smashes into my tail. I cry out in pain.

  The train doors slide open. “This is York Street,” the conductor announces.

  A man leans toward me. He has a rolled-up newspaper in his hand. “Get away,” he growls. He swats me with the newspaper. Hard.

  I’m lifted into the air.

  “Ahhh!” I scream. My whiskers tangle. My ears flap. I tumble through the open train door.

  The train erupts with cheers as I crash down on the subway station platform.

  I drag myself to my paws. I wobble a little as I push through a crowd of feet. Shrieks fill the air. “It touched my foot!” someone yells. I have to get away.

  I scurry as fast as my wobbly legs will carry me. This station is enormous. I race around pillar after pillar. Past a booth with a man in it. Up two flights of stairs and down a long tunnel. Everytime I slow down, I hear another battle cry. I keep going. I have to get somewhere safe.

  I race up a stairwell. My paws feel as bendy as straws as I burst through a doorway. I collapse behind a round, black treasure chest. I want to think I’ve found a safe spot, but strange noises meet my ears. A honk. A zoom. A beep.

  Cars.

  My chest squeezes. Slowly, I peek around the treasure chest. A yellow car whizzes past. A biker pedals behind it. I look up. There’s no ceiling, no rafters. There’s just sky. It burns brightly, the color of an orange peel before it rots. A breeze blows past, carrying on it strangely fresh smells.

  My fur stands straight up.

  I’m not underground anymore.

  CHAPTER

  7

  Birds of a Feather Flock Together

  “220 Central Park West. 220 Central Park West.” I mutter the address to myself as I scurry down the street. New smells swirl around me. Asphalt and car fumes and leaves and dirt and food that’s all wrong: fresh instead of rotten, savory instead of stale, sweet instead of sour. The smells slide down my throat, turning my stomach.

  I hear a gasp from up above, and I dart behind a bush, out of sight. I’ve only been aboveground twice before. Both times I was with my dad, and we stayed near our station. Even still, my dad drove me crazy with safety questions for days beforehand.

  “What do you do if you run into a human?” my dad asked for the eight thousandth time.

  “The three Ds, Dad. I know!”

  “And the three Ds are?” my dad pressed.

  “Duck, dash, disappear. I got it. Let’s go already!”

  “Yeah, we got it!” Oggie agreed. He was racing in circles around us. “Let’s go go go!”

  “You aren’t going anywhere, Oggie,” my dad said. “You’re too young. You’ll have your sidewalk survival lesson when you’re Raffie’s age.”

  “No fair!” Oggie pouted, but my dad wouldn’t change his mind.

  “There’s a lot you don’t know about the world above,” my dad told us. “There are unimaginable dangers up there.”

  “Worse than thieves?” Oggie gasped.

  “Much,” my dad said gravely. “Aboveground is no place for a baby.”

  Those words echo in my head now as I crouch behind the bush. I have to get to Oggie.

  I dash into a shadow on the sidewalk. There’s no way I can get back on that train. I’ll have to find another way to Oggie. A sparrow hops past me. “Excuse me,” I call out. “Do you know how to get to 220 Central Park West?”

  “Park West!” the sparrow squeaks. “Southwest! I’m a compass!” She collapses in a fit of giggles. I scurry past her and chase after a squirrel.

  “Hello!” I call out. “Do you know how to get to 220 Central Park West?” The squirrel snatches something off the ground and scampers silently up a tree.

  I look around. Cars crawl down the packed street. People jostle along the sidewalks. Buildings stand tall overhead, one stacked next to another. I turn in a circle. I’d forgotten how much space there is aboveground. It stretches onward and outward and upward, on and on, for as far as my eyes can see. Down in the subway, wherever you scurry, you’ll eventually hit a wall. Up here, there are no walls.

  I look above me, and my breath catches in my throat. High up, in the middle of the sky, there’s a road filled with cars. It’s wide and it’s blue and it’s just floating in midair.

  Panic twists my stomach into knots. Where am I?

  “So many rats in this city.” A woman’s voice drifts down to me.

  “About two million,” a man replies. “Can you believe that?”

  My heart leaps into my throat. That woman saw me. I have to be more careful. “The three Ds,” I whisper to myself.

  I duck behind a street sign, then dash along the street, careful to disappear into shadows or behind trees.

  The sky is getting darker, streaked with black. Lights flicker in the windows. My panic is growing, spilling into my paws and my chest, until even my whiskers quiver with it. Night is falling, and Oggie is out there somewhere, trapped and alone.

  I scurry down one street and then another. I have no idea where I’m going, but I can’t just stand still. Birds flit through the sky above, touching down on branches and windows. I try to call out to them, but they’re never still for long. I spot an oily black bird perched on a bush. “Excuse me,” I call up. “Can you tell me where 220 Central Park—”

  The bird’s gone, swooping away before I can finish my question.

  “Hey! Little rat!”

  I spin around. The voice belongs to a curly-haired boy. He gallops toward me, holding half a sandwich. “Do you want the rest?” He waves the sandwich at me. “I don’t like it,” the boy continues. “Too much cheese! I don’t like cheese. It hurts my belly. But rats like cheese, right? Here!” He tosses the sandwich at my paws. I breathe in its scent. My stomach grumbles. Cheese smells good all the time, even when it’s fresh.

  My eyes dart up to the boy. He smiles at me. He’s missing a front tooth. I look back at the sandwich. My stomach grumbles more. It’s been a long time since my last meal of slop. “Eat it!” the boy says. “Then I won’t have to.”

  The smell of cheesy goodness draws me closer. Cheese oozes over the sides of the bread, all gooey and melty …

  No!

  I stop short. What am I thinking? I glance at the boy. He’s still smiling, watching me.

  It’s a trick. Or a trap. It has to be. Why else would the boy be smiling?

  “Kellan!” A woman runs over, her dark hair flying into her face. “What did I say about wandering away from me? What are you even doing over here…” The woman trails off. I feel the heat of her gaze as it lands on me. “Rat,” she whispers.

  A trap. I knew it.

  I abandon the sandwich and scurry away. “Wait!” the boy calls after me. “You forgot my sandwich!”

  I scurry faster. There’s an enormous green box at the end of the road. Rotten scents waft out of it. My whiskers twitch. It smells like home. I dive behind it to hide and bump snout-first into something soft and black.

  My first thought is cat. You never know where you’ll find one aboveground. I jump backward, my heart pounding. “Please don’t eat me—”

  I stop short. It’s not a cat. It’s a pigeon. And not just one. There have to be at least ten of them. They waddle in a tight group, their h
eads bobbing in and out, in and out. “Am I happy to see you guys,” I say. I make sure to talk slowly. There’s a pigeon named Peggy who hangs around the station sometimes. She’s not exactly known for her brains. “I’m looking for 220 Central Park West.” No one responds. I make my voice as slow and clear as possible. “Can … anyone … point … me … in … that … direction?”

  “I think the rat is slow or somethin’,” one of the pigeons snarls.

  “He’s gotta be to come into pigeon territory,” another one snorts.

  One pigeon breaks away from the group. He’s the largest one, with huge black wings and a proud white chest. “You should know better than to come here.” His voice is low and scratchy. He flaps his wings. They beat loudly as he rises into the air. “This dumpster is ours. No food for you here.”

  He looms above me, more than twice my size. “I just want to get to 220 Central Park West,” I say quickly. “Not to Dumpster Street, wherever that is.” The pigeons stare at me. I try talking louder. “220 CENTRAL PARK WEST! MY BROTHER WAS RAT-NAPPED AND I NEED TO FIND—”

  “Hey.” The large pigeon cuts me off. “We’re not deaf. And we’re not helping any rat. Get outta here.”

  “But—I—” My mouth hangs open. He must not understand. “I … need … directions.” I say it as slowly as I can.

  The pigeon sinks back to the ground, so close that I can smell sour tomato on his beak. He puffs out his snowy white chest. “You really are slow,” he jeers.

  The other pigeons waddle closer. Their wings brush my back and poke at my tail. “The rat don’t wanna leave,” one says.

  “It’s his death wish,” says another.

  I take a step back. “D-death wish?” I stammer. “No, no death wish here. Only a life wish! Never mind. I’ll just, uh, find someone else to ask.” I take another step back and bump into more pigeons. They stand wing to wing, glowering down at me.

  The large pigeon takes two big waddles, and suddenly he’s right in my snout. “I gave you a chance. Now you’re not going nowhere.” His round, beady eyes meet mine. “Have at ’em, boys,” he snarls.