by Bobbie Pyron
He looked closer at the wild tangle of honeysuckle, blackberry canes, and ivy forming a kind of hedgerow running all the way down to the lake. And there, just feet away, was an opening. A coyote-size opening. He pulled his hat down on his head and gripped the catch pole.
Had the fox not been carrying an egg up from the cove . . .
and had Rosebud not been sleeping in the black boot . . .
and the owl resting in the sweet gum tree . . .
Had Minette not been on a leash . . .
and Amelia held by the hand . . .
and had Mischief not been watching with excitement as the fresh-produce truck pulled right into Central Park . . .
Had the wind not been blowing Vetch’s smell away from Trouble . . .
things might have turned out differently.
32
A Lot Less Trouble
Too late, Trouble saw a dark shadow fall across the opening of the den. Too late, he smelled the moldy-cheese-rotten-potato smell that was Officer Vetch.
Vetch dropped to his knees and thrust the catch pole into the den, followed closely by his predatory eyes.
Trouble yipped in horror. He leaped from one side of the den to the other trying to dodge the noose on the end of the pole.
Rosebud crawled from her bed inside the boot and blinked in confusion.
The noose dropped over the coyote’s head.
“Got you!” Vetch cried.
“No!” Rosebud screamed.
Trouble shrieked in panic and wrenched away from the officer. The noose tightened around his neck.
The pup pinned his sizable ears back and crouched low to the ground. His amber eyes darted from one side to the other, looking for a way to escape.
Officer Vetch pulled. Trouble dug his paws into the wet ground and worked his head side to side. With a grunt, the officer pulled the coyote free of his den and out into the meadow.
The coyote shot straight up in the air. He jerked and he twisted and he rolled. But there was a good reason Officer Vetch was known far and wide as the Master of the Catch Pole: once he had an animal in its noose, it never, ever got away.
Trouble snapped and barked and yowled. Never had he been so frightened.
“You’re not going to make this easy, are you?” Vetch said. The officer had been prepared for this. After all, a coyote was hardly a stray dog. And Officer Vetch had learned at a young age always to be prepared.
Holding tight to the pole, he reached into his coat pocket and withdrew a small object. He pointed it at the coyote’s shoulder. “Nighty-night.”
Just as Vetch squeezed the trigger of the tranquilizer gun, he heard a bloodcurdling scream from above. He looked up to see an enormous owl hurtling down on him, talons outstretched.
Trouble felt a sharp sting. His shoulder began to burn. He wondered if he’d just been stung by a hornet. He let out one last, mournful howl.
Awhooooooooooooooooooooo . . . wooooo . . .
Trouble’s legs wobbled. His amber eyes drooped. His mind grew as dark and still as a moonless night.
Vetch scrambled to his feet. He searched the sky for the owl. With trembling hands, he picked up his hat off the ground and pulled it down on his head.
“Gotta get out of here before that crazy thing comes back,” he said, panting.
Trouble felt the strong arms of Officer Vetch lifting him. He gagged at the closeness of his fetid smell.
“Oh no, no, no, no, no!” Rosebud cried in desperation.
For the first time in her life, the opossum forgot she was small and not a bit brave. She hurled herself at the officer’s leg and bit down. Hard.
“Ow!” Officer Vetch looked down to see a small opossum attached, rather fiercely by fifty pointy teeth, to his pant leg.
He kicked at Rosebud with the other leg. She bit down harder. “Blast you, you varmint!” he roared, and kicked again. This time, he managed to dislodge the opossum.
Vetch shook his head and straightened his official hat. “Crazy animal,” he muttered. He shifted Trouble from one side of his arms to the other.
Then, he heard the bone-chilling hunter’s cry of the owl.
The Professor folded his wings and dived mercilessly for the officer’s head.
Vetch dashed for the cover of the deep forest. He watched, heart hammering in his chest, as the owl veered off and screamed in frustration.
“This place is crazy,” Officer Vetch panted. “Give me bats in brownstones and raccoons in chimneys any day.”
At the faraway sound of Vetch’s oily voice, Trouble squirmed.
Vetch tightened his hold on the young coyote. “The sooner I get you to my truck, the better. You’ll be a lot less trouble when you’re dead.”
33
Vetch’s Plan
Rosebud limped slowly, painfully back to the den. A rib was most likely cracked but her heart utterly broken.
The fox rushed up the hill to meet her.
“What happened?” the fox cried.
“I tried to stop that human from taking Trouble,” Rosebud whimpered. “Really, I did.”
The fox’s whiskers quivered. “You were so brave,” she said.
The opossum slumped down in the grass and wrapped her hairless tail around her bruised body. “Yes, but what good did it do?”
Just then, a black form sliced across the blue sky.
Caw! Caw!
Mischief circled once, twice, then landed with a flutter of wings on the grass.
“You’re not going to believe this,” he crowed. “The truck is right here in the park! It means a change in plans but still, what luck!”
Mischief waited for cheers and hurrahs. None came.
He stiffened. “What’s happened?” he asked. “Where’s Trouble?”
With growing horror, Mischief listened as Rosebud told the story of Officer Vetch and Trouble.
“No,” Mischief moaned. “No, no.”
“What do you think he’ll do to Trouble?” The fox asked.
In a swirl of feathers and air, the Professor landed on the hedgerow.
Rosebud and Mischief exchanged a look. “He’ll take Trouble to the zoo, won’t he?” Rosebud asked.
“No!” the fox gasped.
“That’s always been his plan,” Mischief said.
“The plan has changed,” the owl said, his voice filled with grief, his ear tufts flat against his head.
“I heard the human say Trouble will be a lot less . . . well, trouble once he’s dead.”
For once even the crow was speechless.
“No.” All eyes turned to Rosebud.
“We cannot, we will not let that happen.” Her eyes glowed with fierce determination. “Trouble saved my life. Now we have to save his.”
She turned to the owl and the crow. “You two go and track down that human. He’s carrying Trouble, so he can’t be moving too fast.”
She turned to the fox. “Do you think you can carry me?”
The fox stood tall on her toes. “Certainly,” she said. “But what will we do when we find him?”
Rosebud climbed onto the fox’s back. “We’ll figure something out.”
She clutched a paw full of the fox’s fur and prayed to the patron saint of opossums for help.
34
The Patron Saint of Opossums
Minette froze in her tracks. Her nose quivered as a familiar scent filled her heart. The scent of wild and longing and bone and blood and boundless curiosity.
“Trouble!” she yipped. She lunged on the end of her leash.
“Mon Dieu!” Madame cried as the leash pulled free of her hand. “This is most unusual!”
“I’ll get her.” Before her mother could protest, and before she herself could wonder why she was putting stock in the antics of a poodle, Amelia bolted after the dog.
The girl ran in the direction the poodle’s nose had pointed. At first she didn’t see anything. Then she saw, emerging from the far end of The Ramble, almost hidden in shadows and trees, a larg
e man in an official-looking uniform carrying a tawny bundle in his arms. A tawny bundle with big ears and a bushy tail.
“The coyote,” Amelia gasped.
“Trouble!” Minette barked.
The sound of Minette’s voice pierced the drugged consciousness of the young coyote. He struggled to lift his head. Fear clawed at his spine as he looked into the eyes of his nightmares, the eyes of his future.
He heard the voice of Minette coming closer. With all the strength he possessed, Trouble twisted in the Maker’s arms.
“Oh no, you don’t.” Vetch jerked the catch pole noose tighter around the coyote’s neck. Trouble gasped for air.
Screeeeeeeeeeee!
Officer Vetch looked up just as the Professor slammed into his shoulder, knocking him to the ground. Vetch groaned. Blood stained his torn shirt.
Trouble rolled from his arms. Desperately, he shook his head. Still the noose would not let him breathe.
“Be still, Trouble.” He felt the tiny paws of Rosebud pulling at the noose.
“Hurry!” the fox hissed. “The human is getting up!”
“It. Won’t. Budge,” Rosebud said, pulling with all her might.
Trouble’s legs buckled. Tiny lights like the galaxies of fireflies in the meadow danced before him.
Amelia and Minette rounded the corner. Amelia stopped in her tracks, her mind trying to make sense of an opossum standing on the back of a fox.
But Minette did not stop. She did not hesitate. She shed generations of civility and training. In two bounds she closed the distance between her and Officer Vetch. Just as he stepped toward the strangling coyote, she leaped.
Officer Vetch screamed. In that instant, Amelia understood: the poodle was not saving the man from the coyote; she was saving the coyote from the man.
Caw! Caw!
A large crow circled round and round the prostrate coyote. It was then that Amelia saw the catch pole and noose.
“Oh no!”
Amelia ran to the coyote’s side. The fox growled, the red fur rising on her back. The opossum hissed and bared its teeth.
“It’s okay,” Amelia said gently. “I won’t hurt him.”
Mischief landed with a flutter and a hop next to the fox. “Let her try,” he said.
The fox stepped back warily. Rosebud moved aside.
Amelia ran one hand reverently along the length of the coyote as she worked her other hand under the noose. “I’m sorry I made so much trouble for you,” she whispered. She grabbed and pulled.
Ack, gack! Trouble gasped.
Amelia pulled the noose over Trouble’s head and hurled the whole, terrible contraption far into the bushes.
Minette nudged Trouble with her snout. “Get up, Trouble. Oh please, get up!”
Trouble staggered to his feet. He swayed as he looked into the faces of Minette, Rosebud, the fox, and Amelia.
“Run,” Rosebud said as the voices of humans grew closer. “It’s your only chance.”
Trouble tried desperately to clear the fog in his head. “I don’t think I can make it to the subway train,” he said.
“You don’t have to,” Mischief said. “The truck is here.”
“Here?”
“Here,” Mischief cawed. “But we must hurry!”
“You!” Officer Vetch roared. He stood, fists clenched, shirt torn, official hat gone. His eyes were black with rage. “You,” he said, jabbing his finger in the air at Trouble, “are nothing but trouble!”
He looked around wildly for his catch pole. With surprising speed, he grabbed it from the bushes and charged the coyote, swinging the pole above his head.
“Stop!” Amelia jumped in front of the coyote, the fox, the opossum, and the poodle.
Officer Vetch looked from the girl to the unlikely collection of rescuers behind her and back again.
“It was all my fault,” she tried to explain, all in a rush. “The coyote didn’t bite me down by the lake. I was trying to feed him.”
Vetch frowned. “Feeding wildlife is against the law.”
“I know, I know.” Amelia felt the animals behind her slowly shift away from her. She knew what they were doing. She needed to buy them time.
She took a step closer to the officer. “I’m a lifetime member of the Junior Explorers Club, so if anyone should know the dangers of feeding wildlife, I should.”
Vetch leaned to one side, peering around her. Amelia thrust her arms toward the officer. “Here,” she said, trying to draw his attention away from the coyote. “Arrest me. I deserve to be locked up, not him.”
Amelia knew the second the word “him” escaped her lips, it was a mistake.
Vetch’s face darkened with fury and purpose. “Move,” he growled.
“Go!” Amelia cried.
“Follow the Professor!” Mischief cawed.
Trouble locked eyes with the girl for the briefest moment, then wheeled and followed the Professor and Minette away from The Ramble and north toward the Great Lawn, the opossum once again riding on the fox.
Vetch let loose a string of words no ten-year-old should hear. “You stupid girl,” he sputtered. “Do you realize what you’ve done?”
“Yes,” Amelia whispered.
Officer Vetch grabbed his now not-so-official-looking hat off the ground and jammed it on his head.
He sprinted across the boulevard to his waiting truck, a large crow following above.
35
Bon Voyage
The friends huddled in a cover of low bushes and trees. The owl watched from a sweetgum tree.
“The produce truck is just over there,” the Professor said, pointing with his hooked beak. “Not far, really, but between us and it is a plethora of humans.”
Trouble still felt sleepy from the tranquilizer dart. He swayed from side to side. “Can’t I just curl up here and take a quick nap?”
“No,” Rosebud snapped. “You cannot.”
“How will he ever get past all those people?” the fox worried.
“I’ll take care of it,” Minette said. “But we have to move now.”
Rosebud slid from the fox’s back and looked up at her friend. “It’s time to say good-bye, Trouble.”
Trouble felt like a fishbone was caught in his throat. His boundless coyote heart broke.
“How can I leave my friends?” he asked as he looked from one dear face to the other. “You have become my family.”
Rosebud’s ears drooped, but she stood firm. “You must go, Trouble.”
Trouble looked up into the sweetgum tree. “Professor? Must I go now?”
The owl nodded. “It is advisable to make haste,” he confirmed.
Trouble sighed. He touched noses with each of them in turn. “I’ll miss you,” he said.
The fox blinked back tears in her golden eyes. “I’ll never forget you, poppet.”
Trouble leaned down and touched his long, pointy snout to Rosebud’s. “I don’t know how to ever thank you,” he whispered. “You loved me no matter what.”
The little opossum stood tall on her hind legs, reached up, and hugged the coyote around the nose.
“You taught me so much,” she said. “You showed me I can be brave.”
Minette bumped Trouble with her shoulder. “We have to go.”
With one last look, Trouble followed the poodle and the owl away from his friends.
Minette stopped at the edge of the Great Lawn. Humans and music and food filled the field. “How am I ever going to sneak a coyote through all those people?” she wondered under her breath.
She looked up at the owl. “How far to the truck?”
The Professor quickly calculated the distance with his keen sight. “Fifty-six point one seconds at a steady trot.”
Then it struck her: humans only see what they expect to see. These humans were preoccupied, as always, with their particular world.
She turned to Trouble. “I need you to be a dog,” she said.
“You’re going to stay next to my side and do e
verything I do,” she continued. “Since I’m taller than you,” she explained. “I’ll try and angle my body so most of the people won’t see you. But those who do must assume we’re two loose dogs looking for our owner.”
“Ingenious,” the owl said with admiration. “And I’ll lead you to the truck.”
“Let’s go,” Minette said, “and no howling or yipping or skulking.”
And so it was that a poodle and a coyote wove their way around and past hundreds of unsuspecting humans tanning, picnicking, playing Frisbee, and strolling arm in arm on a bright July afternoon.
And had they noticed, had their curiosity been attuned, they would have wondered at the sight of a large owl winging across the sky. In the daylight.
The Professor fluttered down to the top of the fresh-produce truck. At the front of the truck, the human busied himself boxing up corn and tomatoes for a customer.
“All clear,” he whistled.
With one long leap, Trouble and Minette jumped through the open door into the back of the truck.
“Please,” Trouble said for the millionth time. “Please come with me.”
Minette nipped the coyote gently on his ear. “No, my friend, I cannot come. Just as you are Wildborn, I am Cityborn.”
“But I will be so lonely without you.”
“You have your family and your home in the wild woods. I have Madame Reveuse,” she said. “I am her muse, and she is my home. And she must be very worried about me now.”
She nuzzled the coyote’s sad, sagging ears. “Bon voyage,” she whispered. “Bon voyage. I shall always remember you.”
With that the poodle jumped gracefully from the truck and disappeared into the crowds, leaving a heartbroken coyote behind.
Before Trouble could follow, the owl dropped down to the bed of the truck and spread his great wings wide. “No,” he simply said, with a menacing click of his beak.
With a sigh, Trouble took one last, long look at the New York City skyline and the Makers, more Makers than he ever could have imagined, running, walking, laughing, singing, always on their way to somewhere. Then he turned and went to the back of the truck.