You can guess the rest.
In spite of the weather, Mom decreed I had to spend the next day outside on the patio. I shivered when I heard this news. Best case, I would be cold, hungry and anxious all day. Worst case? I would be tormented by black-hearted feline visitors.
Eighteen
Jake left for school early. Mutanski carried me—wriggling and woofing in protest—toward the sliding glass doors.
You don’t understand! Those cats are evil! The pigeons say they have no souls!
Mutanski held on tight. “Sorry, buddy.” She grabbed an extra blanket as if that would protect me from feline claws. “You know Mom can’t handle messes. Maybe Jake can get you a sweater with the next paycheck he gets from his life of crime. Awwww, wouldn’t you look cute in a teensy little sweater of your own?”
I don’t snarl at my own humans, but with that comment, Mutanski was pushing her luck.
Once the sliding doors had closed, I chased my tail to warm up. Then I made my usual circuit of my domain, took a drink of water and curled up on my cushion to wait. Anxious as I was, I must have dozed off. Humans who think dogs are lazy don’t realize the hard work we do in our dreams. That day I was running after a rabbit when all of a sudden it transformed itself into a cat as large and vicious as Capo.
In my dream I growled, and I guess I did in real life, too, because I startled myself awake. Then, from much too nearby, I heard an ugly sound: cat laughter.
The Pier 67 Gang was back! And Capo himself, I now saw, lay eye-to-eye with me, blowing his rank, rot-scented breath into my face.
“My dear dog,” he said in his low, creepy voice, “you must have done something very bad to be shut out on this cold day. Let me guess. Did you piddle on the rug?”
For courage, I thought of Chief. If he could take on bank robbers, I could take on cats—even soulless strays with hot, glowing eyes. “N-n-n-none of your beeswax,” I said.
My smart comment caused Pepito and Lamar to hiss. Then, from the hedge, came an echoing chorus: sssss.
How many cats had Capo brought this time, I wondered? I didn’t dare turn around to look. I had to keep my eye on the boss.
Capo swished his tail, and the hissing stopped. His gang was nothing if not obedient.
“I instructed Pepito to finish up that cheap dog food of yours,” the big cat continued. “You really must demand improvement, dear dog. Do it for your own self-respect.”
I should have kept quiet, but I was thinking of Jake and Anthony. If I wanted Jake to stand up to that bully, I should stand up to this one.
Summoning my last ounce of bravado, I said, “If your gang is hungry enough to eat dog food, I suppose I should be charitable. I was raised to be generous with those less fortunate.”
Capo’s eyes flashed red, but then he seemed to relent. “We eat your food because we can, not because we have to. It’s our way of reminding you who really runs the show around here. And this is another.” Capo unsheathed his claws and nodded at Lamar, who, quick as lightning, bit my behind!
Aieee!
The pain was awful, and my reflex was to fight back. I swung around to confront Lamar and found instead an overwhelming force—countless felines advancing toward me, brandishing their teeth and claws flashing, waving their tails in malicious, snake-like motion.
My heart jumped. This was it. They would shred me the way I shredded that garden hose. I closed my eyes to await the first painful piercing strike, but then—oh wonderful sound—came the scrape of Mrs. Rodino’s window.
“Pipe down, you dog, or else I’ll—oh!”
Looking down, she saw the nasty pack of marauding cats. Did she react with appropriate horror and disgust? No. She reacted like this: “Awww, poor kitty-kitties! Does ums need some wuv? I will be right down!”
Then with a crack the window closed.
I opened my eyes. The expression on Capo’s face was unfamiliar. Could it be fear? “She can’t get in here, can she?” he said.
“I don’t know.” I knew about the gate between our property and hers, but I had never seen anyone use it, and the hinges were rusty.
“If there’s one thing I can’t stand,” Capo muttered, “it’s a cat-loving lady. Now hear this.” His meow was like a siren. “We are advancing in a rearward direction! I want to see your tails, and I want to see them now! Go! Go! Go! Go! GO!”
Nineteen
Capo’s tail had just disappeared into the hedge when the rusty gate began to squeak and rattle. I backed away, expecting Mrs. Rodino to burst through at any second. But Mrs. Rodino did not. Apparently the gate was stuck.
Footsteps. Muttering. The scrape of metal against stone. Then the top of Mrs. Rodino’s head appeared. From the way it wobbled, I figured she was standing on a chair, and not a very steady chair, either.
“Hello, dog,” she said. “What happened to all those sweet, sweet kitties? Don’t tell me you scared them away.”
I wanted to laugh, but, still shaky after my encounter with the gang, I managed only a woof.
Of course Mrs. Rodino misunderstood. Cat lovers always do. “Don’t you pull that guard-dog stuff on me,” she said. “From now on, I’ll be looking out for those kitties. Love is all they need, that and a little cleaning up.”
After Mrs. Rodino’s head was gone, I finally got the peace and quiet I so desperately needed. First things first, I checked my food bowl. Perhaps a morsel or two had been left behind? But no. The cats had cleaned me out.
Mrs. Rodino had smelled like dust, hand lotion and bleach. With her gone and the cats, too, I detected a sharp, musky animal aroma that could only be one thing—a rat, probably the same one I had smelled some time before, but lurking closer now.
It seemed I was not alone.
Being a hound, I nosed around beneath the hedge for information. Soon I knew that this rat ate lots of different foods, including meat, that it had been hanging out here on the patio for a while, perhaps long enough to see the cats, that it was healthy and past middle age, that it did not have a mate or pups.
In other words, my company was an old bachelor rat. I had no sooner determined this than the rodent himself popped his head out of the leaves. It was gray and unevenly furred, with black beady eyes, scruffy faded-pink ears and nose, stiff whiskers and impressive yellow teeth.
“Hello, Strudel,” he said. “I thought it best to greet you before you nosed me out. Some dogs dislike rats.”
Some dogs included me. Rats reputedly resemble badgers—tough, grumpy and cunning. And, as you will remember, I was bred to hate badgers.
On the other hand, I had learned from my experience with Johanna to be wary of my own preconceptions. Also, it is usually worthwhile to be polite. So rather than biting his head off—literally—I said, “Hello, rat. You have the advantage of me. I do not know your name.”
“I am Oscar,” he said, “like the playwright, Oscar Wilde. I come from a long line of backstage rats. You’ve heard of Oscar Wilde, of course?”
“Oh yes,” I lied. “The playwright Oscar Wilde. And where do you come from, Oscar?”
“Originally or just now?” the rat asked.
“Just now,” I said.
“My country place. It’s quite nearby. I was closing it up for winter. And you needn’t worry that I have designs on your food the way the cats do. My tastes are more eclectic than theirs.”
“So you know about the cats?” I said. “About their, uh . . . visits?”
This was very embarrassing. It’s a sorry dog indeed that loses its food to cats. I hoped Oscar Wilde was not a blabbermouth like the pigeons.
“Those cats are a scourge,” Oscar said firmly. “There’s hardly a songbird or rodent left on the riverbank.”
I didn’t know what a scourge was, but the way the rat curled his lips implied it was bad. I felt reassured. And come to think of it, rats, like pigeons, are cats’ natural enemies.
“Is it possible you would be willing to help me vanquish the gang?” I asked. “It’s awful going hungry
in the afternoons. It’s awful being mauled.”
“Yes, that bite looks bad,” said Oscar. “But vanquish meaning just exactly what?”
I sighed and laid my head on my paws. “I’m not sure. I only know I want them out of my territory.”
Oscar wiggled his whiskers. “And what makes this your territory?”
“It just is,” I said. “I never thought about why, but I guess because the humans gave it to me.”
Oscar cocked his head. “And what made it theirs to give?”
I opened my mouth and closed it again. This rat was a philosopher. His questions were hard to answer.
“The truth is,” the rat went on, “we all of us share one big territory whether we want to or not. Are there ants here on the patio?”
“Oh yes.” My snout itched with the memory.
“And worms? And beetles? And butterflies, birds and bees?”
“Sometimes. They are in and out.”
“So who are you to say it’s yours, or your humans’ either? It belongs to all the creatures that use it. It has taken me most of my life to learn you can waste a lot of blood defending something that was never yours to begin with. Live and let live. We all of us have to learn to get along.”
I said, “Oh,” but what I meant was Oh dear. Philosophical or not, this added up to an excuse for refusing to help me deal with the cats.
But then Oscar uttered one word, an important one: “however.”
“However?” I repeated eagerly.
With his hind leg Oscar scratched his ear, and for the first time I noticed that the leg was crooked and the ear torn. “There are limits to what a body can put up with—limits that begin when someone, like a cat, refuses to play by the rules.”
Twenty
Oscar saw me look at his damaged leg and ear. “You’re wondering what happened to me, aren’t you?” he asked.
“Oh, no. Of course not. You look fine. Very handsome, in fact.” I hoped I hadn’t hurt his feelings.
Oscar chuckled, a deep chittering sound much nicer than the ugly screech of cats. “I know what I look like, Strudel. I am an old and battered rat. But old and battered is better than the alternative, wouldn’t you say?”
I wasn’t sure what he meant by that, but I agreed because I hoped he would tell his story.
“It was the Pier 67 Gang that did this to me,” Oscar went on. “Back in the day, my clan lived in a theater near the waterfront. When it closed, supplies ran short, and we made the decision to migrate to a warehouse. There was plenty of food at first, but all that changed when the cats arrived.”
“Where did they come from?” I asked.
“A human dumped a litter of kittens, which soon grew into cats. Seeing strays around, more humans dumped more kittens. Once they had gobbled up the easy prey, they went after tougher, more challenging fare—in other words, us rats.
“Cats are cowardly creatures,” Oscar said. “Only in desperation will they attack an animal that fights back. But eventually they got hungry enough to try it. Capo himself attacked me, and only with help from good fortune did I escape. Decimated, my clan broke up, and I’ve been on my own since then.”
Oscar’s story made me wonder whether it was only the losers who believed in sharing territory. The winners, after all, had what they wanted.
But then I thought again.
The winners still have to defend their gains against attack. If everyone agreed to share, there would be no winners and losers, and no need for bloody destruction either.
Oh my—the company of this rat was making me philosophical, too!
A familiar feathery smell intruded on my thoughts, and a moment later Johanna had landed on the patio in front of Oscar and me.
“Excuse me,” she said. “Pigeons never eavesdrop, but I couldn’t help overhearing, hearing what you were saying, you know. I believe you mentioned the Pier 67 Gang, that is, the gang of evil cats that lives at Pier 67?”
“Johanna, this is Oscar,” I said. “Oscar, meet Johanna.”
“I’ve seen you around, seen you many times, of course,” the pigeon said politely.
“And I’ve seen you as well, but ordinarily”—Oscar looked at me—“pigeons and rats don’t have a great deal to do with one another.”
“We’re up there, and they’re down here. No call for us to meet, no call at all,” Johanna explained. “But now and then we make common cause against an enemy, that is to say the cats.”
“Are you suggesting we join forces?” I asked hopefully.
“I am,” said Johanna, “that is, am I?”
“Yes!” I said.
“I’m not sure I’m up to it,” said Oscar. “These days, I am a meek, mild-mannered rat.”
“We’ll be right there with you,” said Johanna, “wherever there turns out to be.”
“Do you have a plan?” I asked her.
“A plan?” the pigeon repeated. “What part of ‘birdbrain’ don’t you understand? We pigeons are good scouts, good flyers and good eaters. But we are not much for planning, not planners, we pigeons, not much.”
Added to the strain of dealing with the Pier 67 Gang, the effort of talking to Johanna was exhausting. “Then how should we begin?” I asked.
“Oh, you’ll think of something,” cooed the pigeon, “think of something, I have faith. You see, I have personal reasons for hating the cats, hating the gang of strays, you know.
“I was a young mother with my first nest, living in an abandoned warehouse on Pier 67. Just as the cats attacked Oscar, they attacked the nest that my mate and I had constructed from twigs, attacked the nest and my mate, too, for he was guarding the eggs that day, two white and perfect eggs.
“They killed my mate and smashed the eggs, did this as I hovered above them, watching in horror, powerless to prevent the bloodshed. So many cats and claws and teeth, everywhere eggshell scattered, and the feathers of my love, his feathers and blood all mixed with the eggshell and twigs. It’s a sight I wish I could forget but can’t and never will.”
The pigeons on the wire above Johanna cooed in commiseration. Poor bird, I thought. Seeing her nest destroyed and her mate murdered—why, it must have been like an apocalypse for her. No wonder she hated the cats. But here she was, she had come through.
“We pigeons,” she said, “are optimists, natural born and raised. Somehow in the end we know we’ll prevail, we’ll triumph, we’ll win, we’ll fly.”
“Rats are optimists, too,” said Oscar. “We make the best of things and bounce back. It’s partly positive attitude and partly good digestion.”
By this time the sun was low in the sky. Mutanski would be home soon.
“Can we meet again tomorrow?” Johanna asked. “How ’bout if we meet tomorrow?”
“I can’t tell if I’ll be out here tomorrow,” I explained. “It depends on the weather and the humans.”
“We’ll watch for you,” said Oscar, “and for an opportunity to continue our conversation.”
Twenty-One
That afternoon, I greeted Mutanski with extra enthusiasm. Teaming up with Oscar and Johanna made me feel better. Even though my allies did not exactly belong to species you’d take to the dog park and introduce around, I liked them. And I thought their skills would come in handy . . . just as soon as I figured out how.
Once again Mutanski played veterinarian on my wound.
“That boxwood hedge is vicious,” she said. “This one almost looks like a bite.”
It is! It is! It is! I told her. But never mind that, come on, let’s play!
And that is what we did, chasing one way around the living room and back, until we heard Jake’s key in the lock.
“See ya later, Strudel.” Mutanski winked and headed to the kitchen to get herself a human treat. By now I understood she didn’t want Jake to know she and I were friends. I didn’t see why not.
Another human mystery to ponder.
Jake came in the door frowning, his head down, moving slowly.
Was
he sick?
He needed a solid dose of doggie affection. I ran around his feet, jumped up to lick his fingers, scooted between his legs—played the clown and then some.
It didn’t work.
“Not now, Strudel. Quit it, wouldja? Sheesh, you are a pain in the behind sometimes, you know that?”
I was stunned and hurt.
A few times my previous human had told me to “ratchet it down a notch” when I was an over-rambunctious puppy. But no one had ever called me a pain in the behind before. Not even Arnie.
Tail between my legs, I jumped up on the plaid chair in the living room, circled twice and laid myself down to wait out Jake’s bad mood. In the meantime I closed my eyes, hoping to dream up a plan for vanquishing stray cats.
Jake was quiet at dinner and hardly touched the food on his plate. Eating with us as usual, Arnie just had to make a comment. “That’s good spaghetti you’re wasting there, pal,” he said. “Don’t you know there’s plenty o’ kids’d be glad to see that on their plates?”
“I am not your pal,” said Jake.
Jake’s mom stepped in. “Jake’s tired, aren’t you, honey? I’m sure he didn’t mean—”
“I’m not that tired and I did, too, mean,” Jake said.
Arnie dropped his fork. Even from my spot in the living room, I heard it go clink against his plate. “You are a rude, ungrateful and generally worthless—”
The legs of Jake’s chair scraped the floor as he got up from the table in a hurry. “What are you even doing here?” Jake said. “You’re not part of our family!”
Mom said, “Calm down! Everybody, just calm down!”
Mutanski put in, “Who set the loonies free?”
At the same time, the stomp of Arnie’s big-booted feet told me he had stood up to go after Jake. “You get back here, you snot-nose!” he said. “I am an invited guest, and—”
Barking furiously, I was off the chair and on the floor in a heartbeat.
Dachsie to the rescue! Leave my human alone!
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