“Sorry,” I whisper again. My brain is blank except for that word. It loops round and round and round. Sorrysorrysorrysorry.
“This can’t be it,” Kaz murmurs. I hear him pacing in his cage, his feathers ruffling uneasily. “We made it through a limo ride! Past a doorman! Away from a huge dog and a baseball bat! Through a killer pipe! And after everything, this is where we give up? This terrible, tiny cage?” I can hear him ramming his beak angrily against the bars, but still I don’t look up.
I’m stuck on something he said. This is where we give up?
Suddenly I see Oggie so clearly: scurrying across the subway platform, his tiny tail whipping as he darts through throngs of feet, shouting, Never give up! Just like Raffie!
Those words fizz through my brain. They drown out the sorrys. They fill up the blankness.
Never give up!
Just like Raffie!
This is where we give up?
I jump to my paws. “No,” I blurt out.
Across the room, Jimmy gives a start. “That’s one squeaky rat,” he murmurs, before returning to his sandwich.
“No, what?” Kaz asks.
“We’re not giving up,” I say.
Kaz pauses. “We’re not?”
“Raffie the Unstoppable wouldn’t give up, would he?” I ask.
Kaz is silent for a moment. I hear his beak slamming against the bars of his cage, again and again. “From what I know of him, Raffie the Unstoppable would never give up,” he says finally.
“Exactly.” I pace in my cage, thinking. “We need a plan.”
Kaz snaps his beak thoughtfully. “No. What we need is one of your stories.”
“Uh, I hate to break up this little fantasy party,” Rory snaps. “But what we need is a miracle, not some story.”
I keep pacing. It was Raffie the Unstoppable who first gave Oggie the courage to forage on his own. It was Raffie the Unstoppable who kept Oggie from being scared of bedtime. It was Raffie the Unstoppable who convinced Oggie to make that ill-fated run for the slice of pizza. My stories are a lot of things, but they’re never just stories.
Ever since I met Kaz, I’ve been trying to convince him that words matter. But maybe he’s had it right all along. It’s not just my words that have power; it’s my stories, too. “Kaz is right,” I say slowly. “A story can change your life.”
“Unless it can save my life, then I don’t care,” Rory grunts.
“Maybe it can.” I pace faster. My eyes fall on the key next to Jimmy. “What does that unlock?” I ask.
“Our cages.” Slink lets out a low laugh that sets my fur on edge. “But unless your story is magic, there’s no way you’re getting it.”
“Sorry, kid, but ’fraid he’s right.” Pierre sighs. “Bigger animals than you have tried and failed.”
“Don’t give him a hard time, y’all,” Sabrina scolds. “Can’t you see he’s as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs?”
At another time, I would have stored a great phrase like that away for later. But my brain is too busy churning.
“In the Roadway, we don’t get nervous,” Truella says. “We fight back.”
“Well, we’re not in the Roadway, Truella,” Slink growls. “If we were, I would have eaten you a long time ago.”
I ignore them both. My eyes are locked on Jimmy’s keys. “What would Raffie the Unstoppable do?” I whisper.
“Yeah,” Kaz says. “WWRTUD?”
I squeeze my eyes shut. I imagine myself in my shoe box with Oggie curled up next to me. “What happens next?” Oggie would ask excitedly. “What does Raffie the Unstoppable do now?” And suddenly it’s like I can see the story in my mind: just a tiny seed at first, then growing and growing until it’s as big as a jungle, wild and alive.
My eyes fly open. “I know exactly what we have to do.”
CHAPTER
29
Pull a Rabbit out of a Hat
I look at Jimmy. He’s busy eating his sandwich. His soda is still half-full.
“Kaz, do you still have that magic bean?” I ask.
“You mean the sleeping pill?” I hear Kaz shake out his feathers. “Sure, got it right here.”
“Good. Then here’s what we’re going to do.” I quickly explain my idea to the room.
“Now that’s how a rat does it,” Truella brags.
Over at the table, Jimmy picks up his soda. “It’s time!” I shout. “Commence distraction!”
On the other side of the room, the animals all start making noise at once. Slink meows and Sabrina squeals and Pierre growls and Rory hisses and Truella squeaks.
Jimmy’s soda freezes halfway to his lips. He looks over at the animals in alarm. “Wha— What’s happening?” he stammers.
“Now, Kaz!” I say.
I hear Kaz adjusting his position in his cage. He only has one chance to get this right.
There’s a grunt, and then the little white pill is winging through the air. “Come on,” Kaz whispers. The pill shoots across the room—and lands in Jimmy’s soda with a tiny splash. “Score!” Kaz cheers.
That’s the signal. All at once, the animals fall silent. Sabrina contentedly licks her paws. Pierre closes his eyes. Rory paws lazily at the bars of his cage. Jimmy shakes his head. “Either I’m going crazy, or it’s time for a new job,” he mutters. He lifts his soda to his lips and takes a big drink. “For a second there, I could swear the animals knew what was coming.” He takes a bite of sandwich, then guzzles down the rest of his soda. “Like they knew exactly what I was about to do…” He shakes his head. “Ridiculous. Animals are not that smart. And they definitely do not understand English. And of course…” His voice trails off. His eyes flutter. “I feel a little—”
He slumps forward in his chair. His head lands on the table. Within seconds, he’s snoring.
I stare at the key. It’s lying on the corner of the table, next to Jimmy’s head. There’s only one cage close to it. It belongs to Truella the rat. “Can you do this, Truella?”
She flexes her patchy tail. I notice that its whole tip is gone—sliced right off. “I’ve survived a whole meal of rat poison before. This is nothing.” Truella slides her tail through the bars of her cage. I hold my breath as her tail stretches out … and reaches the table … and stops just short of the key.
Truella wiggles her tail. She waggles her tail. It still doesn’t touch the key. “I can’t reach,” she cries.
My breath comes out in a horrified rush.
Kaz bangs his head against his cage. “It’s over. It’s all over.”
“Not so fast.” I look at Rory. His cage is on top of Truella’s. “If you could pull her cage forward, Rory, just a little…” I say.
“Move her cage?” Rory scoffs. “Never going to happen.”
“Please,” I beg. I lock eyes with the raccoon. For the first time, I notice how sad he looks. “This is our only chance. Don’t you have a family you want to get home to?”
“Rosa,” Rory whispers. He looks away. “She probably doesn’t even remember me anymore.”
“Family never forgets.” I look around the room. Sabrina is swishing her tail. Pierre is pawing at his cage. Even Slink’s tail is drooping. They all look exactly how I feel.
“Please, Rory,” Sabrina begs. “I came all the way to New York City to find my daughter. And then I ended up in here instead. If we get out…” She trails off, too choked up to finish.
“If we get out, I could find my wife,” Pierre says softly.
“I could lick my sister again,” Slink adds.
“I could get back home to the Roadway,” Truella sighs.
“I could finally make it to Central Park,” Kaz joins in.
“Okay, okay,” Rory grumbles. “I’ll see what I can do. Just give me some peace and quiet already.”
Rory’s cage, like all of ours, is made completely out of steel bars. He extends his claws through the bottom and latches on to Truella’s cage. “Here we go,” he mutters. He hurls h
imself forward, still clutching Truella’s cage with his claws. His head slams against the bars. Nothing happens.
“Try again,” I say.
“Sure, just let the raccoon beat himself up,” he snips. But he throws himself forward once again. His head bounces off the bars. Truella’s cage groans, but it doesn’t budge.
“One more time, sugar pie,” Sabrina says.
With a grumble, Rory launches himself forward. Truella’s cage rattles. It wobbles. It inches forward the slightest bit.
“Well, bless his heart,” Sabrina gasps. “He actually did it!”
Truella reaches out her tail. This time, it hooks on to the key. She yanks it up. “I told you I could do it,” she says smugly.
“Yeah,” Rory grumbles. “It was all you.”
“Now for the tricky part.” Truella wraps her tail tightly around the key, then reaches for the lock.
“A little to the left,” I call out as she feels around for the lock. “A little more…”
Click.
The key slides into the lock. The door springs open.
Truella scampers out of her cage. Her tail whips in happy circles as she scurries through the room. “I haven’t stretched my legs in months!”
“Aren’t you forgetting something?” Rory snaps. “Like maybe the raccoon who saved the day?”
“Oh. Right.” Truella scurries back to her cage and takes the key in her teeth. She unlocks Rory’s cage, then Pierre’s, Sabrina’s, and Slink’s.
Slink arches his back, making me tense. “Now that’s better,” he says.
Sabrina leaps on top of the table. “I’ve been wanting to do this forever.” She lifts her tail. A yellow spray hits the sleeping Jimmy right in the head. The room is suddenly filled with a very strong smell. “Ahhh,” Sabrina breathes. “Just as good as I imagined.”
“Disgusting, Sabrina!” Pierre groans.
“You couldn’t have waited until the rest of us got out of here?” Rory grumbles.
I take a big whiff. “What’s the big deal?” I ask. “It smells fine.”
Pierre shakes his head. “Rats,” he says.
Truella frees Kaz next. Finally, she reaches my cage. She slides the key into the lock, and the door opens. I scurry down—and bump right into Slink. His tail flicks as his eyes run along my body. I swear I can see a drop of drool forming in the corner of his mouth. I let my snout curl back, revealing my fangs.
“Relax,” Slink growls. “You saved my life. I won’t eat you. This time.” Still, my heart is pounding a little as I back away toward Kaz. He, at least, looks completely unbothered as he flaps his wings around. “If I never see a small space again, that will be too soon,” he declares.
“This time, I agree,” I say. “Now we just have to figure out a new way to get to Central Park West.”
Sabrina jumps off the table and trots over to us. The smell of spray gets stronger. “Did you say Central Park, honey?”
I nod. “We have to get to my little brother.”
“Well, aren’t you in luck? Central Park is where I was caught. From what I remember, it’s just down the road.”
CHAPTER
30
Like a Moth to a Flame
There’s a window in the back of the room. “That’s our way out of this prison,” Rory growls.
I scurry up to the windowsill and twist open the lock with my paws. The other animals all gather at the bottom of the window. “On three,” Kaz says.
Over at the table, Jimmy stirs. “How about on two?” I suggest.
“One,” Kaz says. “Two!” Everyone pushes at once until the window flies open. Warm air rushes in. It smells like concrete and leaves. “I’m out of here,” Kaz says. He spreads his wings and flies crookedly through the window. I scurry out after him. The street is crowded, humans everywhere. I dash behind a plant, out of sight. The sidewalk is hot on my paws and the morning sun warms my back, reminding me that I’ve lost one more day in my search for Oggie. I flatten myself against the plant, careful to stay out of sight. I can’t get caught again. I don’t want to lose any more time.
As the other animals file out through the window, an all-too-familiar buzz runs through the crowd.
“Do you see—?”
“What the—?”
“Is that—?”
“Oh my—”
Humans stop short, bumping into one another. Mouths open. Fingers point. Phones flash. “Is this some kind of zoo flash mob?” someone squeals.
“We better disperse,” I hear Pierre say with a yawn. A phone flashes in his face. “And quick.” He lumbers over to where I’m hiding and puts an old, whitened paw on my back. “Thanks for masterminding this, kid.” He slips behind a building and is gone.
With a grunt goodbye, Rory leaves too, with Slink close behind. I look around for Kaz and Sabrina, but I don’t see them anywhere. Instead, I spot Truella. She skulks over to hide with me behind the plant.
“I have a proposal for you.” Her snout curls up as she talks, and I’m treated to a front-row view of her incisors. They’re long and yellowed and the kind of razor sharp that only comes with constant use. “You should come with me.”
“To the Roadway?” I balk. Even the word tastes gross in my mouth, like the time I thought I was sinking my incisors into an old, discarded apple only to find out it was made of waxy plastic. “Why would I do that?”
Truella peers out at the crowd of humans still gathered on the sidewalk. “Down in the Roadway, there are no humans. There’s only shadows and survival. I can teach you, Raffie. Come to the darkness with me. I can show you what it means to truly be a rat.”
I think of my dad, drilling the third rule of rathood into us. Never set paw in the Roadway. “I don’t want darkness,” I say quietly. “I just want my family.”
Truella snaps her snout in disapproval. “One day, you’re going to realize your mistake. I did. I came aboveground to forage one time and look what happened to me. When you come to your senses, climb through the closest sewer. Go down, down, down, until there’s no more sunlight and no more street light and no more fresh air. When you’ve reached total darkness, when all you can smell is sewage, you’ll know you’re in the right place. Follow the water downtown until you reach me. Remember: in the Roadway, water always streams toward Brooklyn.” Truella sidles closer, until we’re snout to snout. I can’t help but stare at an old gash under her eye.
“I won’t change my mind,” I say shakily.
Truella lets out a shrill laugh. “Eventually, we all learn the truth, Raffie. A rat is a rat is a rat. You can’t change who you are.” She gives me a parting flash of her incisors. Then she dashes to the nearest sewer and disappears through a hole.
She’s only been gone a few seconds when Kaz flaps over, followed by Sabrina. “Sorry,” Kaz pants. “We got stuck hiding in a bush until the crowd split up.”
“Kaz here was a real sugar pie and helped hide me from sight,” Sabrina says. “A pigeon in a crowd is one thing, but a skunk…” Sabrina’s tail bristles. “I refuse to go back to that prison, not after you two freed us.”
“Ew!” A human voice floats over to us. “Is that a skunk over there?”
Sabrina sighs. “That’s my cue.”
“Wait,” I say quickly. “We need directions.”
“I see it,” Kaz says suddenly. “I see the park!”
I look up. Kaz is flapping above us, a distant look in his eyes.
“He’s right,” Sabrina says. “That’s Central Park right across the street.”
“This must be the east side of the park,” Kaz says. “To get to Central Park West, we’ll have to…” He cocks his head and closes his eyes. “Yes. We’ll have to cross the park.”
I suck in a breath. We’re so close to Oggie. Sabrina pats my back with her tail. “Take care of yourself,” she says. “I sure do hope you find that brother of yours.” She gives me a quick lick on my snout, then turns tail and swishes down an alleyway.
I look back up at Kaz.
He’s flapping in the air, inching closer to the park. “Got to get there…” he murmurs. He starts flying crookedly across the street.
“Hey, wait for me!” I dart from plant to tree to avoid being seen. There’s a look in Kaz’s eyes I’ve never seen before. It’s like he’s only half here with me. He flies ahead and I have to sprint to keep up with him. I dive behind a tree, barely missing collision with a bicycle. “What’s gotten into you, Kaz? You’re going to get me killed!”
“Sorry,” Kaz says absently. He turns back and flies in a lopsided circle above me. “My brain compass is going all kinds of crazy. It’s like there are all these arrows in front of me, and they’re huge and bright and flashing, and they’re pointing me to exactly where I’ve got to be.”
“To Oggie?” I ask excitedly.
Kaz doesn’t answer. I look up. He’s still circling above, but his eyes are locked somewhere far in the distance. “Kaz?” I say.
Finally, Kaz looks down. “I’m sorry, Raffie, but I can’t keep my wings down any longer. There’s something tugging at me, deep inside. I have to fly … I have to…” He spreads his wings and soars away.
“Kaz!” I shout after him.
Kaz doesn’t stop. He doesn’t even turn around. He flies through a thick line of trees and is gone.
DAILY SCOOP NY
WILD GOOSE CHASE: SEVERAL SPECIES ESCAPE ANIMAL CONTROL ON MANHATTAN’S UPPER EAST SIDE
EARLIER TODAY, crowds of Upper East Siders stopped in their tracks as an incredible sight met their eyes: a group of animals, ranging from a tiny rat to a large possum, climbed out of a building window and onto a city street.
The window they exited through belonged to Manhattan’s Animal Control. It is still unclear how the animals managed to both escape their locked cages and open the window in order to engineer this showstopping endeavor. Only one thing is clear: it all happened in a New York minute.
“I thought it was some kind of street performance,” said Marvin White, a longtime resident of the neighborhood.
Raffie on the Run Page 11