Kit did his best to repeat what Titus had said. “I vow before this audience of Flealess that I will respect the results of this duel. When I win—” At this, his oath was interrupted by a roar of laughter from the crowd. “When I win,” Kit repeated more loudly, “I will shave Titus’s fur and set him free only if he promises me every can of Flealess food that I can carry.”
“The oaths are made!” Mr. Peebles declared. “Duelists, take the rope!”
Titus bent his head and took his end of the rope in his jaws. Kit picked it up with his paws. He braced his back claws in the dirt and prepared himself to pull with every ounce of strength he had.
He’d studied the rules for hours and hours but studying a thing and doing a thing were quite different, and he sure hoped all his dreaming and scheming wouldn’t end in a stinking puddle of painful sludge.
The Skunk Puddle shined in the moonlight.
From the other side of the fence, the last owl sister watched the scene. If Kit lost, she’d fly to Coyote to tell him right away that Kit had failed to rob the Flealess, and Uncle Rik’s life wouldn’t be worth the dirt in a mole’s nose. Kit would never see his uncle again, and he would never see Ankle Snap Alley again either.
Also, he’d have all his fur shaved off just as the winter winds blew in.
He shivered.
If he lost, he’d have lost everything and everyone and he was pretty sure that was a loss he’d never bounce back from. There was only so much losing a fella could do before he lost himself too. Maybe he’d end up like Coyote and start robbing from those who were weaker than he or maybe he’d end up like Titus and try to destroy any folk who were different from him.
He didn’t like any of those visions of his future, so he figured he better not lose.
“Duelists!” the hamster shouted, snapping Kit’s attention back to the present moment. “Duel!”
Titus tugged, and Kit felt like his arms were being ripped out of his shoulders. He lurched forward, stumbling and nearly falling on his face. The rope slipped. He almost dropped it.
Another dog in the crowd cheered. “Go, Titus! Make that raccoon regret he ever tangled with the Flealess!”
Kit tried to pull, but his claws were slipping. The rope dragged him forward, closer and closer to the puddle. He could smell the bitter skunk stench and the hot chili burn looming ahead.
He heaved backward, slowing his slide, but not stopping it. The dog was stronger than he was. There was no way he could out-dog Titus. Dogs trained their whole lives at tugging.
Kit’s paws scrambled helplessly. He pulled harder, but the rope kept moving the other way. His muscles burned, his bones ached. The unfriendly faces of the animals around him cheered his slow slide toward doom.
He slipped another step, stumbled on a stone, his grip loosed, and it took all his strength to hold the rope. Titus snarled. His lips quivered. He jerked his head this way and that, shaking Kit from side to side.
He would not lose by forfeit. He would not drop the rope, no matter the agony.
“Quick of Paw and Slick of Tongue, Brave of Heart, Afraid of None, a Friend to All in Need of One.” He said the words of Azban, the First Raccoon, through gritted teeth. He looked around the crowd, and saw not a friendly face among them.
He was the one who needed a friend right now, but he was all alone.
Why hadn’t he let Eeni come with him? Why had he insisted on being a lone hero? He’d told her it was to keep her safe, but she never wanted safety. She wanted respect. She wanted to be treated like a friend. She wanted to help.
And that was what All of One Paw meant. Eeni hadn’t gotten it right when she said it was about every creature being the best version of themselves. That was only part of it. All of One Paw really meant that every creature was stronger with others than he was on his own. A little paw couldn’t do much by itself, but a hundred paws together, all with different shapes and sizes . . . they could do anything. The Moonlight Brigade wasn’t just one hero. It was a community, all different folk, all together.
Kit was so close to the puddle that its fumes burned his nostrils.
He slid another stride. He could see his reflection in the rippling surface of the gruesome goo. Two more tugs from Titus, and he’d fall in. Kit’s own face stared up at him, tears on his cheeks. And behind him, high above, the glimmer of the moon. His moon. The raccoon moon.
This was a Dog’s Duel, but a raccoon’s night. He couldn’t win against a dog’s strength. He could only win with a raccoon’s wits.
And he knew what to do.
He had a new plan.
“You’re going in,” Titus growled through his teeth around the rope, and braced his paws for another pull. Kit cocked his head to the side and gave Titus one little insouciant wink.
As he winked, he also relaxed, let himself be pulled forward. The sudden slack in the rope made Titus stumble backward as he tugged. The dog fell, and as he fell, he lost his grip on the rope.
“Forfeit!” Mr. Peebles cried. “Titus has released the rope!”
Kit exhaled with relief, panting in place over the puddle, stilling holding the rope with raw and burning paws.
“No!” Titus yelled. “I . . . I didn’t . . . He . . . he cheated!” Titus turned, facing the audience. “He stopped tugging.”
“There’s no rule he has to tug,” Mr. Peebles explained. “Only that he hold the rope . . . and as you see, he still is.”
Titus shook. His whole body quivered. The other Flealess closed in on him. The parrot, Byron, seized Titus’s collar. The Siamese cats flanked him. The other dogs bared their teeth at their former friend.
“It is our way,” said Mr. Peebles. “You accepted the duel and lost it. You go in the puddle at Kit’s command. He is the winner.”
At the announcement, the last of the keen-eared owls flew off to tell the good news to Coyote. Kit had won all the Flealess food he could carry.
Kit stepped back from the disgusting puddle. A French bulldog with a bow on her head dropped a sharp shard of glass at Kit’s feet.
“For the shaving,” she said. “If you choose to set him free.”
Kit dropped the rope and picked up the gleaming glass shard, sharp enough to slice the whiskers from a weasel.
“No!” Titus whimpered. “No! No! No! You can’t do this to me! You can’t throw me in there! I am Titus! I am your leader! He is bug-breathed alley trash! No!”
His paws left the ground as the other pets dragged him to the puddle’s edge. His tail tucked between his legs, and his little gray snout whipped around, his eyes searching the crowd for a friendly face, just as Kit’s had moments before.
He whimpered.
Kit dropped the shard of glass and held a paw in the air to stop them from tossing Titus into the puddle.
“A Friend to All in Need of One,” he said to the terrified dog. “As the winner of this duel, I give Titus a chance to avoid his punishment!”
The crowd gasped.
“But that’s not how a Dog’s Duel works!” the French bulldog said.
“I am not a dog,” Kit told her. “And by the law of Azban, the First Raccoon, I’m a friend to all in need of one.” He looked Titus up and down. “Even if he doesn’t deserve it.”
“Young Kit”—Mr. Peebles stood on tiptoes to whisper in Kit’s ear—“he would never do the same for you.”
“Mercy’s a gift I can give,” said Kit. “So I’m giving it.”
The pets let go of Titus, who slumped, sad-eyed, to the ground.
“You’ve defeated me,” Titus said. “Take your prized food and go. Please, leave me to face my shame alone.”
“You can have your shame,” Kit said. “But I’m not taking your food.”
“What?”
“You must!” said Mr. Peebles. “If you don’t take any prize from the duel at all, then we’ll have
to toss him into the puddle ourselves, simply to preserve the rules. These rules have served us since the Duke of Dogs ruled all the Flealess. We cannot let our traditions be mocked by an outsider! A Wild One at that!”
“Oh, I’ll take a prize,” Kit reassured the gathered pets. “I just can’t carry very many cans full of food by myself, not as many as I need anyway.”
“So what do you want?” Titus pleaded. His eyes darted back to the terrible puddle.
“I want your garbage,” Kit said. “I want all your best garbage. The cleanest cans and the best bags. Cat food, dog food, bird food too. Any empty thing you’ve got.”
“But our empty trash is worthless,” said Titus. “Even to a Wild One like you.”
“We’re telling Coyote the end of a story tonight, Titus,” Kit told him. “And a good story needs details. In fact, I need you to get to work on my details now.”
“To work?” Titus looked terribly confused.
“Yep,” said Kit. “You’re going to lick every old can so clean it shines like new.” Titus looked doubtful. “Of course,” Kit added, “you could always get tossed in the Skunk Puddle, and I can clean the cans myself.”
“No, no, no!” Titus whined. “I’ll clean them! I’ll clean them! But I will remember how you’ve shamed me, Kit. I will always remember.”
“Good,” said Kit. “Then maybe you’ll think twice about causing me trouble.”
The dog grunted, but agreed to do as he was told. “Bring me the cans!” he ordered the other Flealess as they released him. He glared at Kit. “It seems I have a lot of licking to do.”
Kit nodded.
“And I’ve got to go,” he said. “I just figured out that my story needs a few more characters.”
Part III
THE BLOWOFF
Chapter Twenty-Two
THE POETRY OF FOXES
MR. Timinson taught the night’s lesson as if everything were normal. He showed the students paintings of different kinds of Rumblers, some with two wheels, some with four, and some that even had eight wheels, and he explained how dangerous they were for animal folk—“as our absent friend Kit nearly showed us last night.” Then he explained how best to avoid getting squashed by these cars.
“Wouldn’t this lesson have been more useful before we ran across the road last night?” Eeni asked their teacher.
“Of course not,” said Mr. Timinson. “Then how would you have figured it out for yourselves?”
Other than that one mention of Kit, Mr. Timinson acted like he didn’t know what was happening back in Ankle Snap Alley, or like he knew and didn’t care.
But he had also acted like he couldn’t hear the students’ grumbling tummies back at the Crows’ Carnival until he bought them all Worms ’n’ Nuts to eat. He wasn’t the sort of teacher who talked about helping; he just helped.
Eeni wondered whether he was going to help now. Would Kit even let the teacher help? He’d turned down Eeni, his best friend. She was still bristling mad at Kit about that.
How could he go off on his own like he did? Why did he always think he had to be the hero, like he was the center of every story? It was exactly like a raccoon to think they were sooooo clever all on their own, like they could hold the whole world in their clever little paws.
But Kit would’ve been worm meat ages ago if it weren’t for Eeni. He was treating her like she needed to be protected, when it was she who protected him!
She ground her tiny teeth together so hard it’d take days for them to get sharp again. Why did it bother her so much? Friends, Eeni figured, are more of a nuisance than fleas in your fur.
The lesson continued around Eeni while she silently seethed.
“Why do People make so many things that can squish us?” Matteo the mouse asked, his tiny hummingbird-feather pen quivering in his paw, poised to take notes.
“The People make things they find useful for themselves. We are not part of their plans,” Mr. Timinson answered. “They have forgotten the old stories. They build houses they think we cannot invade, and they build cages they think we cannot escape. They string wires from building to building, forgetting we can chew through them. They build and they build, but we adapt. We make highways of their wires and burrows of their gardens. Whatever they make, we can unmake.”
“But . . . why do we want to unmake it?” one of the Liney sisters asked.
Eeni rolled her eyes. “Because it’s there,” she grumbled. “Because that’s what we do!”
“Not quite,” said Mr. Timinson. “The People don’t like to think about the wilds, the world that they cannot control. It scares them. As you grow up, you must remember that. They seek to destroy the wild because they fear you. Their entire civilization is based on the fear of you.” He pointed at Matteo, whose chest puffed out at the idea that the giant hairless People could fear such a fellow as him. “And they fear you! And you! And you!” Mr. Timinson pointed at Fergus the frog, and at a possum girl, at the Liney sisters, and at Dax, and then at Eeni herself. He held eye contact with her. “We go to school so we may learn never, ever to fear them. That is what the Moonlight Brigade did in the time when the moon was new, and that is why we study now. We are not afraid.”
“We!” Eeni grunted at last. “Ha! We don’t do anything. It’s every rat for herself out in the wilds.”
“Excuse me?” Mr. Timinson said.
“You think Coyote cares about any of that nonsense?” Eeni sneered. “He takes what he wants because he knows we come into the world howling and alone and we go out just as alone. We gotta get what we can while we’re alive. People want to starve us and so do the other Wild Ones. Look at Shane and Flynn Blacktail. They betrayed us the first chance they got. And even Kit, our hero, ran off on his own simply to impress you, Mr. Timinson.” She crossed her paws in front of her and frowned. “We’re not all of one paw. We’re all just one paw, and one paw alone. Our own.”
“Eeni’s crying,” one the Liney sisters pointed out.
“I am not!” Eeni answered, wiping a tear out of her eye with her tail. “My fur’s still dry. If your fur’s still dry, then it’s not a real cry.”
“Eeni, are you okay?” Mr. Timinson asked.
“She’s worried about her raccoon,” another Liney sister mocked her.
“He is not my raccoon,” said Eeni. “And I am not worried about him. He’ll do what he wants. Just like me.” She stood up. “I’m out of here. School’s not for me. I’m a loner, and I was crazy to think I’d fit in with all you tick brains.”
“Don’t leave yet!” a voice called out from thin air.
Everyone looked around, but couldn’t see where the voice was coming from. Then a single black paw appeared over the side of the rooftop. Then another. Then a third. Suddenly, Kit’s gleaming black eyes popped up above the roof’s edge. He hauled himself up and landed with a flop on his belly in front of the class, out of breath.
“Kit,” Eeni said. “What are you doing here? Don’t you have some heroics to go do?”
“I just climbed this whole metal building to find you,” Kit said, panting. “I really don’t want to have to climb down again on my own. Just hear me out.”
“Lovely to see you, Kit,” Mr. Timinson said, as if it were perfectly normal for a raccoon to arrive on the rooftop in the middle of class.
“I get it now,” said Kit. “I almost fell into a Skunk Puddle to learn it, but I get what All of One Paw really means, why the paws are together in the circle. It’s not that we’re all the same beneath our fur and our feathers.”
Fergus croaked.
“Sorry, and our scales,” Kit added. “And it’s not just that we’re all supposed to be the best versions of ourselves. We’re nothing if we’re only for ourselves. We’re all different, but we’re all part of the same thing. Like in music, how you don’t want every note to be the same, but when all the different notes
work together, you’ve got a song. We’re the song of the wilds, and we only sing—we only survive—by being together.”
Mr. Timinson smiled.
“So I do need your help,” Kit said to Eeni. “I need all your help,” he added, looking around at the class. “I can’t do my plan on my own. I’m not a hero, but we can be.”
Kit looked up and saw the bats swirling down from the sky, heading toward the school. The animals started to pack up their things to go home.
“Please,” said Kit. “I’ve got a really good plan, but it won’t work without you.”
“I’ll help you, Kit,” said Mr. Timinson. “I was hoping you would learn when to ask for help.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Kit. “But I don’t need your help. You’re too big.” He looked at the kids in his class. “I need some little heroes,” he said. “The little ones are the only ones who can do this. It’ll be dangerous, but who said the wild world was safe, right?” He stood on his hind legs, trying to look tall and inspiring. “So, who’s with me? All of One Paw!”
No one moved.
Kit shifted from paw to paw. He looked from classmate to classmate. He looked Eeni in the eyes. Her paws were crossed, and her head was cocked.
Please, Kit mouthed.
She was still mad at him.
But, she figured, friends really were like fleas in your fur. They bothered you sometimes, but it sure was lonely without them.
“It’ll be really dangerous?” she asked.
Kit nodded.
Eeni smirked. “I chew the toes off danger!” She stepped forward and stood by Kit’s side. “I’m with you from howl to snap.”
“From howl to snap,” said Kit. “Sorry I was a tick-brain.”
“You were just acting like a tick,” she told him. “You’re definitely more of a flea, though.”
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