“Who would have thought, Chamcha?” he said, snuffling in the direction of the new runs, where they hoped to connect the fifth hole with the part of the Golf Course commonly known as the peacock hole. “All of this for me.”
Chamcha made a somewhat pointed snuffling noise, and Moonch corrected himself. “Us,” he said, “of course, of course, what I meant was we have availed of all this for the sake of family only. From now on, no more hiding in drains, or living a dozen to one tiny little rat hole, no? Is the digging done?”
Poonch raised his snout and said, a little meekly, “Moonch, maybe we are going too far? Today the Bigfeet were yelling, shouting, all because their feet keep going into our burrows. And then the repair work; some of our teams are working night and day just to patch up the holes left by the Bigfeet. Shouldn’t we be more careful? Build only in the parts of the course where there are forests and fewer Bigfeet?”
Moonch squeaked in indignation, and Chamcha squeaked hastily.
“No wonder they call him Chhota Poonch, the Short-Tailed One,” he said to Chamcha. “He lost his brains when they bit off his tail. Poonch, what do you think the point of taking over the Golf Course was in the first place?”
Poonch blinked, his beady black eyes confused, his ears curving into two pink, defensive shells.
“But we only wanted more space for our families,” he said, “not the whole Golf Course, surely? I thought we just wanted to spread out a bit so that we weren’t so cramped, but then these other clans started coming in from all around Delhi. It worries me. In fact, Moonch, I was thinking…”
Moonch bit him, hard, on his stump of a tail, making Poonch squeak in terror.
“Who asked you to think? Did I ask you to think?”
“Did I ask you to think?” said Chamcha, emboldened.
“Shut up, Chamcha,” said Moonch, kicking at the ceiling of the burrow so that sand and dust dislodged itself from the roots of a tree and landed on the bandicoot. “Point is, Poonch, you can’t see the big picture. You are only seeing as far as the gutter; I am seeing much further. You’re worried about the Bigfeet? But what can they do against us?”
“They might…” began Poonch.
“Might what?” said Moonch. His snout jabbed aggressively at Poonch, making the other bandicoot step back. “Might threaten us, like those foolish cats? Very silly they looked, didn’t they, Mr. High-and-Mighty Mulligan, Mr. Since-When-Has-The-Golf-Course-Become-Your-Territory Mulligan, where is he now? Cowering for shelter with the peacocks! Stealing birds’ eggs because he and his fine furry friends are too scared to fight us. Your Bigfeet, I’ll tell you what will happen with your Bigfeet. We’ll dig up their precious course, and they’ll stop playing, that’s all that will happen. All the more room for us. Chamcha, remember after we’re done here, we’ll start digging up the clubhouse. Tell everyone to make that top priority.”
He stood in the centre of the bandicoot run, liking the way it had disrupted the peace and serenity of the greens. The chambers extended far beneath the ground; aunts, uncles and cousins chattered noisily at one another in the galleries.
Poonch said, “Moonch, but even if the Bigfeet aren’t as numerous as our clans, what if they bring more of their kind in? And what about the peacocks? Won’t they attack us? The cats—there aren’t so many of them, but I fear that brown tom. He slaughtered half a burrow of relatives, even if they were only distant cousins thrice removed. If the Bigfeet and the cats and the peacocks get together…”
Moonch snuffled along the burrows, searching for something. “Stand back,” he said to Chamcha and Poonch. “Don’t get too close, but see this and marvel at my brains.” He took them through a winding set of tunnels, going deeper and deeper into the earth. They stopped outside a wide chamber, buttressed by roots on three sides, the roof partly open. Sentries guarded the entrance and the roof, their whiskers on high alert. “See?” said Moonch. “I’ve made all the necessary arrangements. Good, no?”
Poonch grunted, his eyes dismayed. “But why would we need such elaborate hiding places and burrows? Our lives were going well, Moonch. All we needed was a little more space, maybe some more hunting grounds, but this is going too far. You’re preparing for war.”
Moonch turned away, his squeak dismissive. “You were always the timid one,” he said. “I was the one who had to plot and plan and think for us all. If we’d stayed with you, we would have remained in the gutter only. There are sentries posted all around this set of burrows, and it’s off limits to everyone but me. If the Bigfeet threaten us, then we’ll rest here until they go away again.”
Poonch quivered, but he stood his ground. “And the rest of the families? Those clans who came here because you invited them? This is very clever, this hiding place just for us, out here where only the oldest families of rats have their homes. But what about the rest? You brought them here; it’s because you asked them to come in that all of the digging and disruption started. If the Bigfeet attack, or the cats hunt us, it will be because of your marvellous plans, Moonch!”
Moonch flew at him, and Poonch squeaked in pain as the other bandicoot bit savagely at his tail and his back.
“So much jibber-jabber, chitter-chatter,” said Moonch, spitting out some of Poonch’s fur. “Now you listen, okay? Maybe you’re satisfied with crawling to the peacocks and the cats all the time—‘Yes, saheb! No, saheb! A few scraps from your beak will suffice, saheb!’—but you tell me, why shouldn’t the Golf Course belong to us?”
Poonch was backing away, his beady eyes on his escape route, but he paused. “Because it doesn’t belong to any of us, Moonch, it belongs to all the clans, and it always has—even you must see that! The peacocks and the snakes, the koels and the cats, us and the field mice—we have all been here for generations. More space for us, that I understand. But why can’t we share? The peacocks and the cats have been here as long as we have.”
“The cats!” said Moonch. He grunted, an unpleasant sound, and raised the short, bristly hackles on his back. “I would like to see those two toms suffer,” he said. “They carry their whiskers as though they belong here by right! Their fur oozes their dislike of us, their contempt for our kind; they detest the way our burrows take over everything, instead of seeing how beautiful it is, how right, how proper, that the bandicoots should inherit the earth. Grass! Flowers! What nonsense. All that space going to waste, instead of being packed shoulder to shoulder with bandicoots. Some day soon, Mr. Mulligan and Mr. Southpaw will scrabble in front of me. Just you wait.”
The three bandicoots left, Moonch signalling to the young bandicoot sentries that they could go off duty.
Deep in the bowels of the earth, there was a soft, scurrying sound, and the pitter-patter of feet even smaller than the bandicoot’s own delicate pink paws. If Moonch had gone further down the twisting passages and stepped into the chamber, he might have caught a familiar smell: the scent trails, ancient and robust, from the warrens of the rats who had lived underneath the Golf Course for many years, unseen, disturbing no one, their lives uninterrupted until now. The rats had shuffled closer as Moonch spoke, and though they were silent for a long while, once they were sure the bandicoots had gone, the passage filled with shuffles and low squeaks.
Tooth circled the canal, sailing down one bank and up the other. He saw a flash of movement and dived, his eyes never leaving his target. “Kill probability, 70 percent…80 percent…90 percent…mission accomplished!” The cheel swooped upwards, the limp body of a rat between his talons.
It would probably be the last kill of the night; though the full moon shone brightly enough, there had been little enough prey all day, and his senses told him there would be little more. His feathers did not ruffle with satisfaction: killing rats was too easy. Nor would the meat stretch far. It was not enough for him, or for Claw, or for Mach and Hatch, even if Mach and Claw did their own hunting. There had been no birds’ eggs this summer, no sizable prey, and Tooth refused to scavenge at the dumps that had kept so many in his squa
dron going. “That’s for the vultures,” he had said, his keeks angry and sharp.
He saw Katar, picking out the tomcat from between the canopied trees. Once, the trees were so thick around the area that all they could see from the skies was a tightly woven mat of green, hiding Nizamuddin’s rooftops from view; now all they could see were the bare discoloured scabs of the Bigfeet dwellings, the sullen black snakes that meant roads and traffic.
Katar looked up, and Tooth saw the tomcat pause, waiting for him. The cheel ate his snack on the wing, and swooped down, glad for the excuse to get away from his own dark thoughts.
The tomcat had an air of excitement about him, and his whiskers prickled with news. “Southpaw’s been found!” he said. “The Sender got through to us over the link. Her Bigfeet have moved to the Golf Course, and she says the Golf Course cats need us—something about an infestation of bandicoots. The clan’s leaving tonight. I’d hoped you and I would meet before we left, Tooth.”
The cheel flapped his wings, turning on the concrete pipe he was using as a perch. “That is good news for your clan,” he said, his keen eyes taking in the change in Katar. It seemed that the grey tom, and the other cats, had become that much thinner every time he touched his talons to the ground, as though Nizamuddin had become a home for shadows. But he felt something shift in his feathers and in his breast. He had made friends with the cats late in his career—as a young Group Captain, he would not have dreamed of stopping for a chat with a common mouser. He’d met Miao when he had already spent some seasons as Wing Commander, and now, he could not imagine the days going by without a word with someone or the other in the clan. Tooth had friends in the skies, but he would be lonely when he touched down once the clan left.
He groomed his feathers, pushing those thoughts out of his head. “The course is some distance, though,” he said. “How will you know the way?”
Katar raised his ears and leaned forwards, his tail up like a flag. “I was hoping you’d ask,” he said. “The Sender’s already arranged it, but perhaps you’d like to meet one of our helpers. He’s the chief helper in a way, and he’s doing quite a special job.”
Tooth raised his tail feathers inquiringly, wondering whether Katar wanted to introduce him to a new cat. The cheel would have made his excuses, not wanting to get his talons tangled in the cat clan’s business, but he hesitated. He would like to say his farewells, he thought.
Katar padded through the alleys that led to the dargah, but then he turned down a separate route, taking a twisting path that led to an abandoned baoli to the side of the dargah. “We’ll leave from here,” he said. “The Sender has made her own arrangements for when we get closer to the Golf Course, but we worked out what to do for the first leg. We won’t have to wait long—most of the clan is here, and our guide should arrive any moment.”
Some of the dargah cats were preparing to leave along with the Nizamuddin clan, the cheel realized; he could see Dastan with his family, Shayar and Jigar, among them.
Katar turned his whiskers upwards, towards the night sky. Tooth, perched in one of the niches, caught the beat of wings, and peered at the moon, wondering if the owls were out on one of their sorties.
A handsome young raptor streaked out from behind the moon’s bright, shining face. He closed the gap so rapidly that Tooth felt his wingtips quiver in grudging respect—even more so when the kite soared upwards and did a double roll, skimming through the electric lines dexterously, avoiding the hazards of the satellite dishes on the Bigfeet rooftops, hovering with absolute precision over Katar’s head. The stranger had a dashing tilt to his head, his plumes a trifle long at the back, but fashionably so, his talons burnished and his wings neatly groomed, despite all his fancy flying.
Tooth wondered why Katar and the clan had called in a stranger, presumably some flyboy from Defence Colony, and he felt irritation ruffle his feathers. He folded his wings grimly and waited for the stranger to present his respects.
The young raptor hovered above Katar’s ears, about to land. Then, as though he had heard the older cheel’s annoyed thoughts, the flyboy raised his wings, saluting Tooth. He threw his head back and let out a wild, triumphant keek, and he shot upwards again, taking off and spinning as soon as he’d gained some height. He looped one loop, a second—double roll—and went for the triple, swinging dangerously and dexterously between the electric wires.
Tooth felt the feathers in his chest suddenly tighten. He stared at the raptor, at the familiar clutch of the boy’s talons, the messy plumes at the back of his neck, and he shot into the air, calling out in terror. “Hatch!” he cried. “What in the name of thunder and lightning do you think you’re doing? Come down this moment!”
The raptor shrugged his wings, in a defiant gesture, ignored his father and took the triple. He slid between the cables with a feather’s length to spare, and together, the two cheels soared higher, until they were black shapes against the moon.
In the air, Tooth could speak freely, and he did, when he could get over his shock. “You could have died! You could have hurt yourself, sliced a wing!”
“Chill, Dad,” said Hatch, feathering the leaves on the branches of a tree with the skill of a much older pilot. “I thought you and Claw wanted me to get off the ground, so quit yelling at me.”
“I did! I’m so proud of you! How long has this been going on? Why didn’t I know? The cats chose you to be their wingman—do you know how that makes my heart and feathers swell with pride, my son? Why didn’t Mach tell me?”
“Whatever!” said Hatch, diving towards the ground. He gave Tooth a look that said with some clarity, parents!
“Wait!” called Tooth, diving behind him. “All right, son, I’m sorry. I was taken by surprise—your mother will be so proud—all right, all right, I’ll stop. But there’s just one thing: you have to tell me who taught you to fly like this!”
Hatch hovered, his wings spread out so that his father could catch up. The two cheels flew wingtip to wingtip, in absolute precision. “I learned from the best,” said Hatch. “There were lessons every single day, and I watched that cheel fly for hours until I was sure I knew his best moves. Then I met someone who told me I’d better get my wings in the air and off the ground, and so I did. Why do you want to know, anyway?”
“Because,” said Tooth grimly, “whoever that son of a twig is, and whatever else he may have taught you—superb hovering, great sense of space, beautiful take-off, by the way—I’m going to tear his head off with my claws for being irresponsible enough to teach you that triple roll. You could…you have no idea how dangerous it is, Hatch, Stoop died that way!”
“Yeah, Slash told you that the time you did the triple roll,” said Hatch, rolling his wing over as he prepared for landing. “I was watching, that time and all the rest of the times. You’re awesome in the air, Dad. Everything I know, I learned from you.”
And Hatch was on the ground, his talons wide, grabbing the soil in a perfect landing.
The clan had waited patiently for the two cheels to finish their conversation. Katar raised his head questioningly when Hatch landed.
“We should probably go, Katar,” said Hatch. “Nice of your Sender to ask me along for the ride. She’s the reason I took to the skies—I’ll tell you the full story some day. Dad?”
Tooth had his golden eyes fixed on his son, the cheel’s wings spread out, ready to lead a clan of cats on what promised to be an interesting journey.
“Yes, son?” he said, his voice wobbling slightly.
“Maybe you and Claw should come too,” he said. “I did a survey of the Golf Course yesterday. Plenty of room for all of us. The squadron’s doing fine under Slash, and Mach’s great as his second-in-command. She has her place with the squadron in Nizamuddin. But those dudes over there, they could use a few predators. Got a bandicoot problem, the Sender says.”
Tooth preened his wings, thinking. “We’ll come and visit soon,” he said. “Son, I’m sorry I pushed you so hard to fly when you didn’t want
to. Seems like you’re doing fine on your own.”
“I’m sorry I took so long, Dad,” said Hatch. “First, it was scary having you and Claw for parents—living up to the best pilots in Nizamuddin, like, no pressure, right? Then there was my name.”
Tooth’s eyes glowed golden. “Your name?” he said.
“Yeah, it’s like, ‘Hatch,’ like I just came out of the egg or something,” said Hatch, inspecting his talons.
“Ah,” said Tooth.
“Then I figured, like the Sender said, what keeps us stuck isn’t the fear of the sky or being cross because your parents gave you a lame name—Mach got the cool one, but whatever. It’s like she said—she’s a pretty cool cat, that Mara—we’re predators and we’ve got to be okay with that in our heads. So it didn’t matter what I was called. Even if it’s really lame.”
Tooth stepped forward and lightly touched his son’s shoulder with his wing.
“Off you go,” he said. “Lead them well, remember that their paws will go more slowly than your wings.”
“Yeah,” said Hatch. “Well, whatever, then.”
Tooth waited till the cats were ready to leave, and till his son was almost ready to rise into the skies.
“Hatch?” he said.
“Yeah, Dad?”
“It’s Hatch, short for Hatchet,” he said. “Machete, and Hatchet. That’s what we named you, because you two were the sharpest beaks in the nest.”
“Whatever!” said Hatch as he flapped his wings, but all of them, the cats and the cheel, heard his unmistakeable delight as he sounded a loud keek across the velvet sky.
—
THE MOON HAD TRAVELLED across half the sky, and the Bigfeet had long since gone to sleep when Mara broke off their absorbing game of Hunt-the-Lizard. The house lizards didn’t mind being stalked by the cats at all, once they had all agreed on the rules: neither Southpaw nor Mara could climb higher than the pelmets, or place a paw above curtain height. This allowed all of the concerned parties hours of fun; the lizards enjoyed the thrill of darting all the way down the wall, just to tease the pair, and it was good exercise for Mara and Southpaw. The Bigfeet had welcomed the brown cat fondly when Mara brought him back from the Golf Course, but though he enjoyed the titbits they offered him, he preferred romping around without them or the Chief Bigfoot watching their expeditions.
The Hundred Names of Darkness Page 30