Chapter Ten
Mr. Nile’s den was small and clean and very warm.
“The human above me does lots of baking.” Torus and the others responded with blank looks. “That’s making bread or cake or cookies in an oven,” he explained. “An oven is hot like the furnace, but it’s small and humans use it to make food. They mix things together and put them in the oven and they come out food.”
“Doesn’t food come from stores and restaurants?” asked Chello. “That’s what my dad says.”
“Well, yes, of course it does, but many humans also make their own food in their homes. That’s what kitchens are for. Not just where they store their food, but where they make different kinds of food.”
“Oh,” said Nevi. “I guess I never thought about it.”
“And the oven is hot, so it makes my home warm. Pleasant.”
“Do you have to forage, or is there enough food in your human’s kitchen?”
“It’s not ‘my’ human, it’s just the human that lives over my home. And yes, I forage, but mostly from the human’s kitchen. It’s convenient and warm and don’t think my human – the human here, I mean, I don’t think it minds. I’m pretty sure it’s seen me, but I never find poison or traps, and it hasn’t gotten a cat or a dog. It’s been the same human as long as I’ve been here, ever since I came of age. I think we’re used to one another after so many moons.”
“So why is it so warm right now?” asked Chello. “Is your human breaking something in the ovum right now? Can we get some to eat?”
“No, Chello, she might be baking something in the oven, but we can’t have any. We just enjoy the warmth while we talk.”
“How do you know it’s a ‘she’?” asked Nevi. “Humans are so many different shapes, how can you tell?”
“Just practice, really. Careful observation. You’ll get the hang of it, if you’re interested enough to keep watching humans. And other creatures, too. There’s a lot to learn from all the creatures that live around us.”
“Even pigeons?” asked Chello, suspiciously. “Is that what you brought us here for? To tell us that the pigbirds are really our friends and we should learn from them? Forget it!”
“No, no, Chello,” Mr. Nile said soothingly. “There is much we can learn from the birds, but that doesn’t mean they are our friends. In fact, one must watch one’s enemies even more closely than one’s friends. The things you learn then might save your life.” His expression was suddenly grim, and Torus, Nevi, and Chello watched him silently and waited for him to continue.
When he finally spoke again, his voice was low and intense.
“I don’t fully understand what is happening with the Clan,” he said. “I haven’t been involved in the meetings. I have, in fact, been actively excluded from them, or conveniently neglected when the meetings are called. The meeting you saw, Nevi, was held while I was on the roof marking the moon. The Chief and his advisors knew very well I would be occupied, and yet they chose this time to invite the pigeons into our home. Most unsettling.”
He sat for some moments in silence, and seemed lost in his thoughts. Finally, Nevi spoke up.
“So what should we do?”
“Do?” Mr. Nile looked up and seemed suddenly amused. “Well, in the broadest sense I suppose we’ll do what we’ve always done. We will go on scavenging food from the humans and living in the gaps between their homes, you three will come of age and begin scavenging for yourselves and your families, I will go on watching the moon and gathering interesting things until I finally go into the darkness. Eventually your parents will go into darkness as well, and so will you, and your children’s children. And the pigeons, too, and all the cats and dogs and the humans and their children’s children as well, with more and more behind to take their places. I don’t see any reason it won’t go on like that forever.”
“No doubt you’re right,” said Nevi patiently, “but I was thinking about the near future, and about right now, not about the cosmic scope of space and time.”
Mr. Nile laughed aloud.
“Ha! You are a credit to your father, Miss Nevi, and you deserve a real answer.” Nevi looked strangely uncomfortable. “And the real answer,” he continued, “is ‘I don’t know.’”
“Then why are we here?” asked Chello impatiently. “Why did you bring us up here, where we’re risking all kinds of trouble, if you didn’t have anything real to tell us?”
Mr. Nile answered slowly, choosing his words carefully.
“I don’t know exactly what’s happening with the clan, as I said. Neither do any of you, nor your families. I doubt even the Chief and his advisors have a complete picture. The clan has a long history, and the way the clan is governed has changed over time, but the way things are happening now is all wrong. The leaders have never been so secretive, or so rash, and the clan as a whole seems unusually disinterested. When I was a pup, clan gatherings could last for days, with every rat having a say and arguing with his friends over the fine details of different plans, and at the end of it the clan would be united behind a single plan that everyone understood, even if he didn’t agree with it in every detail. It was messy and slow, but it worked. Now, though, the Chief and his council meet quietly with known enemies and then announce new plans without the clan as a whole having any say at all. Why is the clan changing in this way? I can’t find the answer.” He paused again and looked at each of them in turn.
“There is too much going on and I’m moving more and more slowly. I can’t be everywhere I want to be to learn what is happening. I would like…that is, I was hoping you three would be able to…you see…” He trailed off, apparently unable to find the right words.
“You want us to spy for you,” said Chello. He clearly found the idea distasteful.
“Oh, no. No, no, no, certainly not,” said Mr. Nile quickly. “Spying! Goodness no, I’d certainly not ask you to do anything like that.” Chello seemed slightly mollified, but Torus thought he caught Mr. Nile winking slyly at Nevi.
“No,” he continued, “I’m not asking you to do anything different than you normally do. Go about your business, come of age, choose a profession and go about that as well. Just pay attention to what goes on around you, what other rats are saying, how they feel about things. Then just come and visit me from time to time and we’ll talk about it. That’s all. Just talking.”
“Or maybe gossiping?” said Chello. “How will that help?”
“I’m not sure it will,” said Mr. Nile. “But it’s better than nothing. It’s been twenty moons since I went on patrol, and I wind up foraging on my own as often as not. So I don’t hear much that goes on anymore. And you youngsters strike me as being different than most of your peers. More interested in what’s going on around you, more interested in doing what’s right than in simply staying out of trouble. You’re inquisitive and resourceful and a little bit reckless, all admirable qualities.”
Torus watched his friends. Chello was gazing steadily and skeptically at Mr. Nile and Nevi was suddenly very interested in the claws on her left front paw.
“Well,” said Mr. Nile finally, “nothing has to be decided tonight. Go on home and think about what we’ve discussed. And if nothing else, if you’re ever hungry, stop by for a snack. I can usually find something in the kitchen. Feel free to bring me chocolate any time, though. She never leaves any behind for me…”
And with that he motioned them to the entrance and out into the tunnel, then turned and went back into his home without another word.
“That,” said Chello decisively, “is one weird old rat.” Then he turned and started for home, with the others following.
“I think he’s okay,” said Nevi. “He wants what’s good for the clan and he wants us to help. He’s just got a funny way of expressing things.”
“How can you tell?” retorted Chello. “He doesn’t say anything that makes sense, he never comes to the poin
t, he just talks around in circles and changes the subject and tries to manipulate rats into doing stuff when they don’t even know what he’s asking them to do!” He huffed along angrily in silence while Torus struggled to keep up without actually breaking into a trot.
“Well, you have to admit things are pretty strange around here lately,” he panted.
“I don’t know what to think,” Chello snapped. “Between my mom complaining about my dad and Dumpish cornering me every time he sees me and pigbirds flying in and out of our building and now Mr. Crazy I don’t have time to think any of my own thoughts at all.” There was a tinge of desperation in his voice and Nevi reached out and touched his shoulder.
“Hey,” she said, “slow down.”
He flinched at her touch, but then turned to look at her and slowed his pace.
“It’s okay,” she said. “Things are crazy now, but that’s just what Mr. Nile is talking about. Something is wrong with the Clan. No one knows what’s going on or why, and everyone’s too worried to do anything about it. He wants us to help him figure it out, and then maybe we can fix it. We can make things better.”
They slowed to a stroll and then finally stopped, Chello staring at the floor between his paws.
“I don’t want to fix it.” His voice was flat. “I don’t care about the Clan anymore. They let my father get torn apart by pigeons and then they let those same birds in here…I can’t do that. I just need to take care of myself, come of age and then get out of my house, get out of the building…” He looked up at Nevi. “There’s other buildings on the block, there’s even the Park. I might go there…I don’t know…I just don’t think I can stay here with all this going on.”
Torus was suddenly alarmed at the thought of losing his friend.
“But what about what Nevi and Mr. Nile said? What if we can fix it?”
“Pff!” tossed his head bitterly. “Fix it? Fix what? Something we don’t know what it is or what’s wrong with it? Look at us! We’re just three pups from broken families in a broken clan. There’s nothing left to fix!”
“Chello…” Nevi reached out to him and he pulled away.
“No, look,” he said. “I’m coming of age at the next Moon, then I’m learning the forage routes and then I’m gone. I’m already gone!”
He turned and sprinted down the tunnel. Nevi called his name again, but he had already disappeared by the time the echo of her voice faded in the darkness.
* * *