by Jon Evans
They met and spoke to other squirrels, some of them clan-brothers, most of other clans. Like Wriggler and his friends they lived in small groups of neighbours and came together in larger numbers only for mating season. Dogs barked at them frequently from windows and highways. They saw several cats from a distance, but Zelina was not eager to make contact with any of her subjects. She explained that since she had been betrayed, deposed, and exiled, she was disinclined to allow news of her return to spread before the opportune moment. Once, late at night, as they looked for a temporary drey large enough for them all, they passed very near several raccoons, and all of them froze with fear, but the raccoons merely leered at them and passed on without speaking.
As for birds, aside from the usual masses of pigeons, they saw amazing numbers of crows, in groups large enough that when they roosted on a tree there were often more birds than branches. Wriggler, Quicknose and Backflip were as surprised as Patch and Zelina; apparently such congregations of crows were unheard of. Patch tried talking to several of them, but the crows were curt, hard-eyed, and unfriendly. Usually they simply flew away without a word; and if they did speak, it was never more than "Be silent, groundling. Be away and stop pestering me."
The more they travelled, the less any route across the river became apparent. No boats travelled from one side to the other; even had there been any, Patch's previous boat experience had been so awful and nearly fatal that he would have rejected that option. The river was wide, dark, and cold, it exuded a foul and oily odor, and it was clear from watching its flotsam that its currents were strong and treacherous. As for the bridges, there were several, but all were concrete monstrosities that extended for a very great distance, and were packed with automobiles and humans at all hours of day and night. Only one bridge, the farthest south and most magnificent, had a concrete trail devoid of automobiles. This trail was always busy with humans, and sometimes they had dogs, but they might have risked it all the same - if not for the fact that this was the same bridge on which several families of falcons nested.
In sum, after three days of close investigation the river seemed impassable and the Center Kingdom unreachable. Until Zelina conceived an extraordinary alternative.
8. Passengers
"Have you gone mad?" Patch spluttered.
"I think it is a perfectly elegant solution to our problem," Zelina said. "Look. There is the river we need to cross. There is the bridge we dare not run across. And there is the big automobile that will carry us."
"You have gone mad. You want to get into an automobile, like a human, and -"
"Not in," Zelina said. "On. We shall ride on the roof."
"How we will get to the roof?"
"From time to time the big automobiles stop right here."
They perched on a thick sky-road wire near one of the many places where two highways met in a forest of metal branches and hanging lights. It was true that the big automobiles, the ones that looked like long metal boxes, or solid-walled cages, did stop directly beneath this wire. But -
"I am not jumping onto and riding an automobile," Patch said flatly.
"They have flat roofs. They're as large as some of the buildings we've crossed."
"Buildings don't move!"
"The whole appeal of automobiles is that they do move. They will carry us across the bridge and the river. One might carry us all the way to the Great Avenue for all we know."
"And how would we get off? The sky-road is too high above us to jump up to."
"I don't know," Zelina admitted. "But when we face that problem, we will be on the other side of the river, and so we will have successfully mastered the current problem. I believe in dealing with one obstacle at a time."
"But… what if… "
Patch fell silent. He couldn't find the right way to argue. The problem with her plan was not that it didn't make sense. The problem was that it was insane. The last time Patch had tried to ride a human vehicle, first he had been nearly eaten by a dog, and then he had nearly drowned. And the idea of jumping onto a death machine and riding it along a strip of wasteland was even crazier than that of hiding in a boat. He looked back down the sky-road to Wriggler, Quicknose and Backflip, but they were distracted some distance back by their own conversation.
A big death machine came to rest beneath them, wheezing and hissing so loudly that Patch could hardly hear anything else, emitting plumes of air that stank of oil and chemicals. It was so obviously something that should be avoided, rather than adopted, that Patch cried out with horror when Zelina leapt on top of it.
"Come on, Patch!" she shouted. "Now is the time!"
No, Patch thought. Absolutely not. Under no circumstances would he follow the mad Queen of All Cats onto this stinking, eruptive death machine.
But then it began to pull away, and his legs crouched and leapt almost as if commanded by someone else, and he skidded across the metal roof of the big automobile, dangerously close to its edge, before he regained his balance and scampered next to Zelina - skated, really, his claws clicking against the cold and slippery roof.
The big automobile rumbled and hissed and shook beneath them. Patch could barely believe what he had just done. He turned to look towards Wriggler and Quicknose and Backflip, and saw them growing smaller. For a moment Patch felt motion in his gut; then, for a brief period, the big automobile seemed stationary, and it seemed like the world around them that was moving; and then the big automobile came to a sudden, shuddering halt, and both Patch and Zelina lost their balance and went skidding forward across its roof, and then it started up again, and they went skidding backwards. If not for the shallow corrugations that gave their claws something to hook onto, they would both have fallen and died.
"You crazy idiot!" Patch shouted furiously at Zelina.
Zelina did not dispute his words. She smelled of and trembled with terror. The big automobile rocked, banged, and rattled as its navigated its stop-start way along the clogged highway, and on its roof Patch and Zelina staggered and slid erratically about, keeping desperately away from the roof's unwalled edges. Their battle for life and balance was so fraught and demanding that Patch did not realize they were on the bridge until they were more than halfway across it. By then he was too frightened of falling to be worried about falcons.
The big automobile stopped for a relatively long period about three-quarters of the way across the bridge, and Patch and Zelina managed to catch their breath. Patch felt sick and dizzy from having been thrown about. The air was laced with the acrid fumes of automobiles, but the breeze from the great waters to the south kept it breathable. Loud honking noises and human shouts rose and reverberated all around them as they tried to cling to the middle of the automobile's roof.
"This is the worst idea any animal has ever had!" Patch shouted.
"I didn't make you jump," Zelina pointed out. "And we're almost there."
The bus lurched forward again, and they went sprawling - but they had learned something from the first nightmarish maelstrom of motion, and by lying on their bellies and reaching out with the claws of all four limbs, they managed to limit how far they slid, and then crawled back to the center of the roof. The view beneath them from either side slipped suddenly from water to concrete. They had crossed the river. Patch tried to open his memory book and calculate how far he was from the Center Kingdom proper, but his mind was whirling with too much fear and excitement to concentrate.
"Look for a place to jump off," Zelina said.
Patch looked. He realized with growing horror that there was no sky-road at all around them, no system of posts and wires along which they could climb, and no trees. There was only concrete and metal; staggeringly high mountains that blotted out the very sun, concrete highways and walkways, metal posts and automobiles.
"I don't see anywhere," Patch said.
"Neither do I."
The big automobile roared and wheezed forward. When it turned corners, which it did several times, Patch and Zelina slid away from the tur
n and nearly off the side of the automobile. After the first such near-death experience they learned to move to the opposite side whenever they felt a turn beginning. Patch still had to focus entirely on remaining perched on the automobile rather than falling and being crushed between its wheeled rubber feet and the concrete. Cats, however, have far better balance than squirrels, which is why Zelina was able to devote enough attention to the world around them to notice their salvation.
"Trees!" she cried. "Look, Patch, trees!"
They were few in number, they were scrawny and bedraggled and seemed to be growing straight out of concrete, but there were indeed trees lining this latest highway onto which they had turned; and when the big automobile stopped next, there was a tree immediately next to it. Patch and Zelina did not hesitate to leap onto its branches. Shortly afterwards the big automobile pulled away and disappeared down the highway, leaving Patch and Zelina in the safety of a tree, on the island of the Center Kingdom, temporarily triumphant.
Chapter 5
The Island of the Center Kingdom
1. Dogs
At long last, after many days of dangerous travel, Patch had returned to the island of his birth. But the longer he stood atop the tree onto which they had dismounted, and tried to figure out how to travel through the mountains to the Center Kingdom, the more he realized that his problems had not diminished. If anything they had proliferated. He didn't know where on the island he was, but he knew he was still a very long way from home. There was no sky-road at all, and the island's highways and walkways were busier, louder, and more dangerously crowded than any Patch had ever seen before. The one small consolation was that there were very few dogs; but the smell of Rat was pervasive.
They stayed on the tree for a long time. Zelina was reluctant to downclimb at all, for the tree's lowest branches were high above the earth, and Patch was reluctant to venture into the walkway teeming with humans from which the tree sprouted. It was not until the sun was long hidden behind the mountains to the west, and the flood of humans had diminished to a trickle, that Patch ran down the slender tree trunk onto the walkway. Zelina tried to follow, and promptly fell - but landed gracefully on her feet, unhurt.
They immediately ran to the edge of the nearest mountain. The rat-smells were stronger there, but humans kept a little distance from the mountains. Some of humans they passed stopped, turned to look at them, and spoke to one another. Patch and Zelina ignored them. He led her north; he knew, at least, that home was that way. When they reached the intersection of two highways, the larger one they followed and a smaller one that intersected it, he crouched in the shadow of the corner mountain, and tried to measure the timing of the lights above him.
"Wait," Zelina said.
Patch looked at her. He was quivering with tension; running around on human walkways, surrounded by death machines on highways, still felt profoundly unnatural; and the still-frequent passing humans, some who stepped unseeingly within a tail-length of Patch, were even more disturbing. But Zelina seemed considerably more relaxed. "What?"
"We should wait and travel by night."
"We can't travel by night. There are owls -"
"There may be owls flying above the Center Kingdom, and the river, and perhaps even across the river," Zelina said, "but the sky above us now, you will notice, is almost entirely occupied by mountains, leaving very little room for owls. The daytime is too busy, there are too many dangers, something will crush us. But the city night is quiet."
"How do you know?"
"I used to watch the Great Avenue from the metal stairs outside my palace. Believe me, Patch. We can't run along these highways to your home while the sun is high. You'll never reach home alive. You must trust in the moon."
"So what are you saying?"
"Let's go down the smaller highway, find a tree or a rooftop, sleep for a little, then travel by night."
Patch considered. Travel by night was unnatural and unnerving. But so was virtually everything else he had done to get home. "All right."
As they proceeded down the smaller and less-trafficked highway, they passed, across the highway, a large dog with patchy fur, leashed very closely to one of the withered alder trees that grew amidst the mountains. Patch kept a very careful eye, in case the leash was weak; but even though they were upwind of the dog, it did not howl for their deaths.
"Hurts bad!" it whined piteously instead. "Oh, hurts bad, hurts bad, hurts so bad!"
Patch, surprised, looked more closely. The dog must have somehow circled repeatedly around the tree to which its leash was tied, because its entire leash was wound around the tree trunk so tightly that the dog's side was rubbing painfully against rough bark. The dog badly wanted to get away, but dogs were not known for their thinking, and this one was unable to understand that it should go backwards. Instead it kept trying to leap forwards and break free of the leash, but each time it succeeded only in choking itself and further chafing its now-bloody side against the bark.
"Dogs are so stupid," Zelina said contemptuously, as it launched itself forwards again, was dragged back by its own collar, and nearly fell.
"Hurts," it gasped, panting raggedly. "Hurts bad, can't escape, oh, help me, help me, help me!"
Zelina started walking again. Patch did not. He remembered when he had been caught in the wire snare, and how his paw had burned with pain, and the awful despair he had felt, knowing that no one would come to help, feeling that he might dangle there forever. Looking at the trapped dog, he felt this a little bit again, just a twinge of half-remembered feeling, like the shadow of a real object. He hated and feared dogs, but he wished this dog wasn't trapped. Its patchy fur reminded Patch of the pale mark on his own forehead from which he had taken his name.
"Hurts," the dog groaned, "hurts so bad, so bad." It threw itself forward again and made violent choking noises until it had to let itself fall back and breathe again.
"Stop it!" Patch shouted to the dog. "Just go around the tree the other way!"
The dog ignored him. "Hurts bad, hurts bad, so bad!"
Patch looked up and down the highway. No automobiles were coming. He sighed and raced across.
"Patch, what are you doing?" Zelina asked from behind him, astounded.
"Look," Patch said to the dog, "just go around the tree the other -"
"Kill you! Kill you!" the dog howled, leaping to its feet and choking itself again in an attempt to leap at Patch. "K-k-k… oh," and it fell back to the ground, "oh, hurts so bad, so bad."
Patch considered a moment. Then he moved around the dog, behind the tree, and shouted, "This way!"
The dog leapt at him again. Patch began to run around the tree. As the dog pursued him, slavering with hate and rage, its leash unwound, until it finally reopened all the way to the knot that held it to the tree trunk, and the dog had regained enough freedom that Patch had to stay a considerable distance away from the tree.
"Kill you and eat you! Kill you and eat you!" the dog cried excitedly, straining to reach Patch with its slavering fangs, its previous pain and captivity apparently forgotten.
"How stupid," Patch said, disgusted. "I should never have helped you."
He turned to walk away.
The dog said, confused, "Help me?"
"Yes," Patch said, turning back, "And 'kill you and eat you' is the thanks I get."
"You help me," the dog said, its eyes finally lighting with comprehension. "You help me. I don't hurt now. You help me."
"Yes."
"Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you! I don't hurt! I don't hurt! Oh, thank you, little squirrel! You help me! I will never kill you and eat you!"
"You're welcome," Patch said, a little mollified.
"What is your name, little squirrel?"
Patch said reflexively, "I am Patch son of Silver, of the Seeker clan, of the Treetops tribe, of the Center Kingdom. Who are you that asks?"
"I am Beeflover. Oh, thank you, thank you!"
"You're welcome," Patch said. "Goodbye."
The dog barked endless thanks as Patch waited for a gap in a stream of death machines and then scampered casually across the highway; such crossings were by now becoming almost routine. The sun had almost entirely set and he and Zelina needed to find a tree - but she was nowhere to be seen. Patch followed her scent, thinking that she had left him, disgusted that he was aiding a dog, and gone ahead to find a tree.
Then, in the distance, he heard Zelina's scream of pain and rage, and he began to run.
2. Cats
Zelina stood on the walkway between a mountain and a tree, surrounded by four much larger male cats. She was bleeding from her face and her left flank. She whirled in quick circles, slashing at the air, trying to fend off all her assailants at once, but the other four cats were closing in on her. They smelled feral and angry.
"Stop it!" Patch cried out.
The intercession of a squirrel was so unusual that the four large cats actually did stop and turn to look at Patch.
"This is none of your concern, squirrel," one of them said. "Go back to your tree. This is our territory, well-marked. She sent no emissaries. She sought no permission."
Zelina huddled in terrified silence.
"Permission?" Patch asked, outraged. "She needs no permission! She is the Queen of All Cats!"
For a moment the four cats were silent, taken aback.
"Don't speak nonsense," one of them objected uncertainly.
"Tell us any more lies like that, squirrel, and we'll rip your guts from your belly too," another warned.
"It's no lie," Patch said. "I've travelled with her for days. All the way from the Ocean Kingdom. She is the Queen of All Cats."
"The Queen of All Cats is a myth," said the largest male cat, who was pale, very strong, and covered in scars. He sounded angry - but also not quite convinced of his own words.