My stomach turns, but still we climb, down and down and down. Water runs over our backs, but there’s less of it underground, and the wind disappears completely. “Are you sure this is a good idea, Raffie?” Oggie squeaks. “Dad would not like this.”
I press closer to my brother. “If the wind carries you away above, I could lose you again,” I say softly. “At least down here, we’ll be together.” I look over at Oggie. His ears are drooping and his whiskers are quivering. He looks like he’s fighting back a sob. “Just think, Oggie.” I force the tremor of fear out of my own voice. “This can be a Raffie the Unstoppable story!”
Oggie’s whiskers perk up. “And I get to be in it?”
“You’ll be a main character,” I tell him. Oggie’s ears lift. His I ♥ NY sticker winks in the dim light.
“Oggie the Unstoppable!” Oggie cheers as we finally reach ground. I look around. We’re inside a tunnel. Thin beams of light stream down from the sewer cover above, lighting up the pool of muddy brown water at our paws. A brick wall curves above and the whole place smells rotten and festering. The smell grows stronger up ahead as the tunnel twists into total darkness.
“When you’ve reached total darkness,” I whisper, “when all you can smell is sewage, you’ll know you’re in the right place.” It’s what Truella told me right before I insisted I would never, ever set paw in the Roadway. At the time, the thought had sent a chill straight down my spine. But now that I’m actually here, it’s nothing like I imagined. It’s kind of … calm and quiet. “This really isn’t so bad,” I murmur.
Oggie winds his tail through mine. “It isn’t?” he squeaks.
I inch forward into the darkness, using my whiskers to guide me. Oggie sticks close, our tails still entwined. I can hear the storm raging above, but down here there’s no wind, and no rain. I take a long sniff. I don’t smell anyone else down here. We’ve got the tunnel to ourselves. “It’s kind of peaceful,” I say. “It’s almost like being at home. Except without all the trains and the humans.”
“And no awful Ace!” Oggie jumps in.
I laugh. “Even better.” I take another step and my paw makes a splash. I lower my snout and feel around with my whiskers. The water is deeper here. It gushes forward, flowing through the tunnel. It reminds me of something Truella said. In the Roadway, water always streams toward Brooklyn. “Oggie,” I say slowly. “I think I have a plan.”
I can’t see Oggie very clearly, but I feel him turn toward me. “To get home?” he asks.
“Exactly. Remember that rat I told you about from Animal Control?” I say.
“Truella!” Oggie exclaims. “She sounded scary.”
“She was a Roadway rat. And she told me that if you follow the water in the Roadway, it leads to Brooklyn.” I pause, listening to the storm above. Wind howls, punctuated by a clap of thunder. “We’re stuck down here until the storm lets up anyway. We might as well get closer to home while we wait, right?”
Oggie leans against me. “But Dad says—”
“I know,” I cut in. “But think about it: when was the last time Dad was in the Roadway? It’s clearly different down here now.” I splash my paws in the cool, muddy water. The sound echoes through the empty tunnel. “I’ve seen a lot of scary places since I left home, and this is not one of them.” I give Oggie’s tail a comforting squeeze. “As soon as the storm stops, we can go back aboveground. And we’ll already be closer to home.”
I feel Oggie’s whiskers twitch next to me. “Home,” he says happily.
“We just have to follow the water,” I say. We splash forward, moving with the current. The water leads us around a bend, to a wide metal pipe. I can’t see much, but I can feel the water rushing through the pipe. I pause at its entrance. “You ready?” I ask Oggie.
Oggie nods. We climb in together. Immediately, the water sweeps us forward. It’s moving fast—faster than I realized. I reach for Oggie’s tail, but before we can connect, a huge surge of water hits me. I paddle my paws, but I can’t stay afloat. I sink under.
Water blurs my vision. My paws flail left and right. I can’t hear anything but my own heart, pounding in my ears. My chest aches for air. I catch a glimpse of Oggie’s gray fur, but then the water tosses me around again, and it’s gone.
I have to get back to my brother. I paddle harder. Faster. My snout breaks through the water. I come up gasping for air. I spit out a mouthful of water. “Oggie?” I croak. “Are you okay?”
There’s no answer. Oggie isn’t here.
“OGGIE!” I scream. “Where are you?”
“Up here!” A tiny voice floats back to me from up ahead.
I swim harder than I ever have in my life. My paws feel heavier than bricks but I keep going. Finally Oggie comes into sight. He’s just around a bend, being carried along on the current. “I can’t turn around!” he yells. “The water’s too strong.”
“I’m coming!” I tell him. A cramp works its way up my paw, but I swim through it. Slowly, I close the space between us. I stretch out my tail. Oggie stretches out his. We hook them together. “Got you,” I pant in relief.
We float together until the pipe spits us out onto cold steel. I stretch out my paws. They wobble, tired from my battle with the water. “Are you okay?” Oggie asks. “You look like a drowned rat!” He looks proud of himself for remembering a phrase I taught him.
“It was a little more water than I expected,” I say. “That’s all.” I cough, and a few more drops come out. “But everything’s fine now.” I glance around. “And look, there are train tracks here! It really is like home.”
The tracks are old and rusted and covered in a thin river of water. Back home on our subway tracks, there’s a constant buzz of noise. But it’s dead silent here. There’s no roaring or screeching of trains. There’s no pounding of feet or echoing of voices. There’s no vibrations as the trains rattle the tracks. I sniff. I smell only mold and rot and water and fur. A human hasn’t been down here in a long, long time.
“We must be in an abandoned subway tunnel,” I say. “I’ve heard there are lots of them in the Roadway.”
Oggie looks around in wonder. “Wow,” he breathes.
Behind us, I spot a grate on the ceiling. Lightning flashes above it and for a split second the tracks light up, bright as day. Then the lightning passes, and darkness returns. “The storm hasn’t slowed,” I murmur. “Let’s keep going.”
We scurry along the tracks. They’re damp and slippery and I step carefully, hugging the first rail. We walk for a long time. The only sounds are our pawsteps as we splash through the water. I take a sniff every few steps, but I don’t smell any other animals. Just brick and steel and must and mold and murk and—
I stop short.
A new smell wafts over. It’s so delicious, it makes my stomach grumble wildly. It smells like everything good, all wrapped into one: aged pizza and fizzless soda and moldy cheese and crusty noodles and sour fruit and melty chocolate. I creep closer. Through the darkness, I can just make out the tiny round nuggets, sprinkled over the tracks.
“Yum yum yum,” Oggie says. “Snack time.” He reaches for a nugget.
Something clicks in my mind. Those nuggets smell really good. Amazingly good.
Too good to be true.
“NO!” I ram into Oggie, shoving him away from the nuggets. He falls onto his side and goes skidding across the tracks.
“Hey!” he says angrily as he scrambles back to his paws. “What was that?”
I lift a nugget in my paws and break it open. I gape wordlessly down at it. I was right. If Oggie had gotten even one bite … My paws shake unsteadily.
Oggie hurries back over to me. “What is it?”
I take a deep breath. When I finally speak, my voice shakes as badly as my legs. “Rat poison,” I whisper.
Oggie collapses against me. “Rat … what?” he squeaks. I feel a shudder run through him.
“But you didn’t eat it,” I say. “You’re okay.” I say it again, just to hear it
out loud. “You’re okay, Oggie.” I’m still shaky, though, as we skirt around the poison. I can hear Oggie’s incisors chattering next to me.
“I want to go back to the street,” Oggie whimpers.
“We will. As soon as the storm is over and that awful wind is gone. But think about it, Oggie.” I rub his back with my tail. “Now we know what to avoid down here. So this will only get easier! Our plan still works.”
“Okay…” Oggie says, but he doesn’t sound convinced.
“Guess what,” I say, trying to distract him. “I learned some new phrases while I was looking for you. Like ‘every dog has its day.’ Isn’t that a good one?”
Oggie nods, but his incisors are still chattering. “Don’t forget,” I add. “When all this is over, we’ll have the best story ever to tell.” This time, Oggie’s ears cock with interest. I keep going. “Mom, Dad, and Lulu aren’t going to believe it when they hear how brave you were. I bet Mom will make your favorite slop. And I bet we get out of sorting duty for weeks! And Lulu will probably make you a hundred new accessories…”
I pause. Next to me, Oggie has slowed to a stop. “What are you doing?” I ask.
“I thought I heard something,” Oggie says.
“Of course you did. I was talking about home.”
“No.” I can hear Oggie’s whiskers flickering nervously. “Something else.”
I cock my ears. At first I hear nothing. I’m just about to assure Oggie when I catch it. A slight scuffling. I stiffen. “Where did that come from…?”
I trail off. Up ahead, a pair of eyes flash red in the darkness.
“Hurry,” I whisper to Oggie. We turn around and scurry down the tracks, back to where we came from.
We don’t make it far before a noise rings out ahead of us. The shrill sound of claws against steel. I stumble to a stop. Oggie bumps into me from behind. In front of us more eyes appear, glowing in the darkness. I can barely breathe as I spin in a circle. I see more and more eyes. They glow on every side.
We’re surrounded.
CHAPTER
40
Ratted Out
Oggie quivers against me. I try to tell him it’s going to be okay, but all that comes out is a squeak. Several animals step into view. They’re so dirty, it takes me a second to realize they’re rats. Their fur is caked in mud and slop and blood; some parts are tangled and matted, other parts rubbed bare.
“Who dares set paw in our den?” one of them says. His voice is raspy, barely a whisper.
“Come take a look, King,” another one growls.
Slowly, a group of six rats steps into view. They move in a tightly knit circle, and I gasp when I see why. Their tails are mangled together, knotted and twisted until you can’t tell where one begins and the other ends. “A rat king,” I whisper.
“That’s right.” The six heads of the rat king talk as one. They move together too, their claws scraping against the steel tracks. The noise sets my bones on edge. Next to me, Oggie trembles.
The linked rats stop in front of us. They smell of rot and blood and something half-dead. Drool runs down their matted, torn snouts. I search my mind for a solution—an escape—but the smell is clogging my brain. It smells worse than flowers, worse than soap.
“I’m scared,” Oggie whimpers. He buries his snout in my fur.
“Please,” I croak. My voice quakes. “Let us pass. We need to get home.”
The rats throw back their snouts. Their laughter is rough and grating. It hurts to listen to it. “Once you enter our den, you never leave it,” they say in unison.
The other rats join the king until we’re enclosed in a tight circle. “What do you think, King?” one wheezes. He has a gap where his left ear should be. “New recruits, or a fresh meal?”
“M-meal?” I stammer. My heart pounds so loudly, I’m sure they can hear it.
“They are still whole,” another says grudgingly. A chunk is missing from his back. “She would want us to recruit them.”
“Well, she’s gone,” the linked rats say. “We’re in charge now, and we’re hungry.”
The rat king moves closer. All six snouts snap. Sharp, gleaming incisors flash in the darkness. Oggie cries out. I jump in front of him, hiding him with my body. “At least let my brother go,” I beg. “Please!”
“Hello, boys.”
It’s a new voice, shrill and high. It’s coming from the other side of the tracks.
The rat king freezes. All six snouts turn at once toward the voice. A murmur runs through them. One by one, they shake out their fur. They stand up taller. “Is that really you?” they ask in unison.
“I’m home,” the voice replies.
I cock my head. I’ve heard that voice before.
A rat crosses the tracks. She’s long and lean, with several patches of fur missing. She has a fresh gash under her ear, but otherwise she looks exactly the same. “Truella,” I gasp.
Truella’s eyes widen. She turns to the rat king. “What are you doing?” she demands.
The six rats all smack their snouts. “It’s meal time.”
“You know my rule,” Truella says sharply. “Whole rats are recruited, not eaten.”
“But you were gone,” the rats reply.
Truella lifts onto her hind legs and bares her incisors. “Well, I’m back now, and this is my den.” She fixes her glowing eyes on the rat king. “Isn’t it?”
“Yes,” all six rats whisper together.
“Then let me deal with them,” Truella commands. She skulks over to us. “So you really did it, Raffie,” she says. “You saved your brother.” She studies Oggie. “We don’t usually take babies, but for the rat who saved my life…” She flicks her whiskers. I notice that several have recently been singed off. “I can make an exception.”
“T-take?” Oggie stammers.
Truella fixes her glowing eyes on me. “I’m glad you changed your mind, Raffie. Our pack could use someone with your smarts.”
“Raffie?” Oggie squeaks.
I step closer to my brother. My tail twitches nervously. “I—uh—I think there’s been a misunderstanding,” I say shakily.
Truella cocks her head. “Come with me,” she says. She stalks down the tracks, away from her den, and lowers her voice. “So you’re not here to accept my offer?”
I shake my snout. “We were just tying to get home, but then the rat king stopped us and—” My voice breaks. “We have our own pack to get back to, Truella.” I meet her eyes. “Please, just let us go.”
Truella pauses. She stares at me for several long seconds. “After this, we’re even,” she hisses. She turns and scurries back to her den. “Let these two pass,” she growls loudly. “They’re too small to be of use to us.”
A three-pawed rat hobbles over. “Pass?” he spits out. “But we never—”
“I SAID, LET THEM PASS!” Truella yells. She gnashes her incisors at the three-pawed rat. A fresh cut sprouts up on his back. “Does anyone else want to question me?”
The den is silent.
“Then step aside,” Truella demands. “NOW.”
Slowly, the rats all move out of our way.
I look back at Truella. Her eyes look almost sad. I think of what she said to me outside of Animal Control. A rat is a rat is a rat. You can’t change who you are.
“You were wrong, you know,” I tell her. “About what you said.” My voice creaks with fear. Oggie trembles next to me. “You might not be able to change who you are, but you can choose who you want to be.”
Truella’s whiskers twitch. She gives me the slightest of nods. “Go,” she says.
“Thank you,” I whisper. Then Oggie and I bolt.
CHAPTER
41
Don’t Let the Cat out of the Bag
My paws have never moved so fast. All I can think about is getting away: from that awful smell and those awful rats and that mangled knot of tails. My stomach turns, and I run harder, faster. Oggie falls behind, and I loop back and nudge him along. We don�
��t slow down until the stench of the rat den is far, far behind us.
“Need … to … catch … breath…” Oggie pants. He collapses against me, gasping for air.
“You ok?” I wheeze. My stomach heaves in and out with each word.
Oggie nods, but his eyes are still wide with fear. When he can finally breathe again, he looks up at me. “Was that really the Truella?” he squeaks.
“It was.” I look down at my paws. “I can’t believe she saved us.”
“If she hadn’t … that rat king…” Oggie’s voice breaks. He huddles against me. “I want to go, Raffie. Dad was right about this place.” I stroke Oggie’s back with my tail. I don’t want to tell him I was thinking the very same thing.
I look up, searching for an exit. But it’s pitch-dark in here. There are no slivers of light streaming down from an opening above. I cock an ear, but I can’t hear anything aboveground. The storm could still be raging, but we’re too deep in the Roadway to hear it. I swallow hard. There’s no exit here. We’re stuck.
“We’re going to have to keep following the water, until we find an exit,” I tell Oggie. I try to make my voice sound cheerful, but it comes out all crackly.
“What water?” Oggie pants.
I take a few steps along the darkened tracks. My paws don’t splash, and they don’t splish. I quickly feel around with my whiskers. The ground is dry. Oggie’s right. There’s no water here. There’s no way to know which direction is home.
I don’t say anything as I blindly lead Oggie onward. My head is spinning so fast it hurts. “We’ll just keep moving until we find more water or an exit,” I say shakily. “Whatever comes first.”
We feel our way through the darkness with our whiskers. I think of Mom and Dad and Lulu, back at home. What are they doing now? I’ve lost all track of time down here. Are they foraging? Eating slop? Are they worried about us? My breath hitches. It takes all of my energy to choke back a sob.
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