Chapter Seventeen
The next day work was cancelled for an emergency gathering. The food shortage was becoming dangerous, said the advisors. Many members of the Clan were at risk of hunger, or even starvation. Extra work would be required to ensure the Clan stockpiles were sufficient to the need.
“Henceforth,” said Nogolo, “all forage exemptions are suspended until further notice.” There was some scattered grumbling at this remark, but the look on some other rats’ faces suggested they thought the idea had come none too soon.
“And also,” he continued, “to maximize the efficiency of the forage teams, all remaining sledges will be donated to the Clan for the Greater Good.”
“You see,” Nolki whispered to Torus. “The Greater Good strikes again!”
“It doesn’t look like the Chief or any of his circle are in any danger of starvation,” Torus replied, and his father suppressed a smile.
“Finally,” Nogolo continued, “All families are now expected to contribute a fair portion of that which they forage on their own time.” This statement provoked a more widespread and general outcry.
“Our personal foraging time?” called out a rat Torus didn’t know. “That’s never been done!”
“Difficult times require firm action,” replied Nogolo. “The clan as a whole supports its less fortunate members with the Stockpile. Surely you wouldn’t begrudge your neighbors the food they need to survive this winter?”
The rat didn’t answer, but before Nogolo could continue, another voice shouted “I thought things were supposed to be better since we started working with those birds.”
“Things are indeed better than they might be,” said Nogolo. “Our analysis indicates that there would be far less food in the dumpster now if the pigeons weren’t patrolling it for our mutual benefit during the day. Don’t you see, friends? It is only through this kind of cooperation that we can hope to survive these hard times, and then thrive when things get better. And things will get better, I assure you. The rats of the Acme Apartment Hotel have come through any number of challenging situations, and this is no different. These measures we take now will ensure our success in the future.”
The Chief, who, up to this point had simply been standing beside Nogolo and nodding authoritatively, said, “Hear hear!” Nogolo stepped respectfully aside and gestured for the Chief to continue.
“Absolutely,” he said. “Success in the future! Cooperation! Those less fortunate. Exactly.” He stopped, and gazed pleasantly out into the crowd.
Before the pause could become too awkward, Nogolo stepped forward and said, “Thank you for that endorsement, your Honor. I know the Clan will benefit from your wisdom.” Then, addressing the crowd again, he continued, “If we will agree to shoulder these difficulties together now, we will emerge stronger in the spring. The small sacrifice we ask now may mean the difference between life and death for some of us.” There was a murmur of grudging agreement as the assembled rats, sensing that the gathering was at an end, began stirring from their places.
“Thank you, friends, thank you,” said Nogolo, over the rising noise. “I know it’s difficult. And, to make things easier, we will be sending the Patrol around periodically with the sledges to gather your donations. There will be no need to carry anything yourselves to the stockpile.”
“Stockpile,” called the Chief. “Thank you!”
Torus had only paid half attention to the gathering. His mind was occupied with the idea of flying. The day before he had been almost wildly excited about the possibility. Now, although he still felt a little surge of excitement at the thought, his mind had turned to the familiar methodical planning that accompanied his building projects. He thought of the different types of cardboard he could come by, imagined different ways of fastening it to his arms, speculated about what shapes might be most effective at pushing against the air. He was still lost in thought, waiting to shuffle out with the rest of the crowd when Nevi came up beside him.
“Hey, Torus,” she said, a little more loudly than normal. “A bunch of us are going to go hang out. You should come hang out with us.” And she looked at him expectantly.
“Hi, Nevi,” he replied uncertainly. “I, uh, I don’t know, I have some things to work on and…”
Nevi laughed artificially.
“Ha ha ha, you’re so funny, working so hard all the time. You need to have some fun. We’re just hanging out. You should come hang out with us. It’ll be fun.” She looked at him pointedly and said the word “fun” like it was the most important thing they would do all day.
Torus suddenly understood.
“Oh! Okay. Yeah, fun! Let’s go hang out!” He looked around to make sure no one was paying any attention. “Where are we going?”
“Oh, nowhere, just hanging out. You know…” Nevi gave up and whispered “Follow me,” and cut through the crowd. Torus followed her out of the room and into a side tunnel with just a few other rats making their ways home.
“Cheese, that was awkward,” Nevi said. “We need a secret code word or something when we get the team together.”
“Yeah, you were about as subtle as – wait a second… Team? What team?”
“The Pigeon-Attacking, Clan-Liberating, Dumpster-Raiding, Flying Rat Team, that’s what. What did you think?”
“I dunno, I just thought you had some food or something…”
He followed Nevi to her “place,” the vacant apartment where they had first seen Nogolo talking to the pigeons outside. Arkon was already there, along with Juke and Flinka. Torus was still greeting everyone when Chello came in, followed by his older brother Pryus. He was older than Chello by a few moons, a little taller and quite a bit broader. Where Chello was light a quick, Pryus seemed solid and forceful, an appearance which belied his reputation for mischief and getting into trouble.
“Oh, hi Pryus,” said Nevi, seeming a little flustered. “I…I didn’t know you were coming.”
“Yeah, the kid here tried to keep me away, but once I learned you were here I knew I had to come to keep him out of trouble.”
He and Chello both laughed and Nevi’s ears turned pink.
“I told him he could come along if he keeps it a secret,” said Chello. “He hates pigbirds even more than I do.”
“Okay, great,” said Nevi, without much conviction. “We really need to be careful about who we tell, though, okay?”
“Oh, yeah, sure,” said Chello carelessly. “So what’s the plan? Attack at sundown? I’ve got Sticker!” He held up his sharpened knitting needle and shook it menacingly at the crowd in general.
“Whatever, kid,” said Pryus. “What you really need is a good big hitting stick.”
“I have a stick,” said Juke, suddenly. “A big one.”
“I’ll bet you do,” said Pryus without a trace of sarcasm on his face.
“Listen,” said Nevi, “I know you’re all mighty fighters, and we can sit here and talk about the relative merits of poking and hitting all day, but what we really need is a plan. Does anyone have any real ideas?”
Chello spoke up.
“I’ve been thinking about what happened with Torus the other day at the dumpster, and I think I have an idea.”
He went on to describe his plan. The team would go to the dumpster at dusk and act like a normal foraging team, but with their weapons hidden. They would split off individually and wait for one of them to be attacked by the birds from the wall, just as Torus had. This time, though, the rest of the team would be ready, and would rush into the fight and chase the pigeons off.
“First they ambush us, right? And then we ambush them. That works, right?”
“How do you know they’ll attack us?” said Arkon, nervously.
“They attacked Torus, right?” said Chello. “Just like they attacked my dad. They’ll do it.”
Pryus disagreed with his brother’s strategy, and said they should just go to the al
ley right away and pull all the feathers off the first pigeon they saw, but Juke said, “I think Chello’s a good plan. I’ll bring my stick.”
“So, Nevi and Flinka, you have to come, because if the birds see females on the team they’ll think it’s just a normal foraging team and they won’t be suspicious,” Chello continued. “But don’t worry, you won’t have to fight.”
“I guess not,” said Flinka, definitely. “I don’t even fight with my brothers.”
“I can fight if I need to,” said Nevi, her ears a different shade of pink.
Torus suddenly thought back to the pigeons attack on him, remembering their cold eyes and the force of their wings, and the strange blackness that swallowed his mind.
“I don’t know,” he said to Chello. “Are you sure this is a good idea? I mean, we could get hurt, or get in trouble with the Clan…”
Chello looked at him and stepped slowly in his direction.
“We agreed to this. We’re all here for the same reason. Don’t be weak now. Remember we’re doing this for the Clan, whether they would want us to or not. Your fat cat friend told us what was going on. The birds are trying to take over our dumpster! Food is already scarce and winter has hardly started. The Patrol won’t stop them, the Chief’s circle won’t stop them. We have to stop them.”
He was nose to nose with Torus now, more serious than Torus could ever remember him.
“Don’t back out now. The only way out is forward.”
Torus paused.
“Okay,” he said. He was still very uncomfortable with the idea, but he had to support his friend. “Okay, let’s do it.”
“Good,” said Chello, turning away. “Let’s do it tonight.”
“No, there’s too many real foragers out tonight. We need to wait for the next rest day,” said Arkon. “That’s three days.”
Torus felt a little wave of relief and relaxed.
“Well, that gives us plenty of time to plan,” he said. “Plus maybe we can go visit the hawk in the meantime.”
“Visit the what?” cried Pryus incredulously. He turned to Chello. “You didn’t say anything about visiting the hawk.”
“No, we’re not visiting the hawk,” said Chello hastily. “That’s just some crazy idea crazy old Nile put into his head.”
“Good thing,” said Pryus. “It’s one thing to jump a bird that eats garbage, but to ‘visit’ a bird that eats rats? On purpose? Crazy!”
“No, we’re really going,” Torus interrupted. “At least I am.” Until that moment he had been questioning whether to go through with it, but something about Pryus’s tone made him make up his mind. “I think we can figure it out, and I think the hawk can help us. And if we can, it might be just the advantage we need to turn things around.”
“Figure what out?” said Pryus. “What advantage?”
“Nothing,” said Chello hastily trying to change the subject.
But Arkon said brightly, “Torus is going to figure out how to fly!”
There was a strained silence as Pryus tried to decide whether to laugh or not. Finally he said, “Good. Good plan.” He looked at Chello and then turned to leave.
“Let me know how that goes for you. I’ll be down in the alley learning to drive a car…”
“No,” said Torus, frustrated. “I’m not going to fly, we’re going to build a machine that will fly. Like the sledges and all the other things we build. Look!”
He picked up a scrap of cardboard from the floor and tossed it with a flick of his wrist. It sailed through the air over Pryus’s head and landed halfway across the room.
“How hard can it be if pigeons can do it? We just have the build the right kind of thing and then we can meet them in their own space. We take their advantage away and there’s no way they can push us around anymore.”
“Cool!” said Arkon.
“Crazy,” said Pryus, after a pause. “But I’ll come along to help pick up the pieces.”
“Great,” said Torus, becoming excited again. “So first we go see the hawk, and then I’ll start building – ”
“Now, wait,” said Chello. “I don’t understand why we need to go mess with the hawk.”
“Have you ever seen him fly?” asked Arkon excitedly. “He’s amazing! He catches pigeons in mid-air!”
“Exacly,” said Torus. “If anyone can teach us to fly better than the pigeons it’s him.”
Chello was unconvinced.
“Why would he help us? He eats rats!”
“Well, he’s Nile’s friend, maybe he’ll leave us alone and just answer our questions,” said Torus uncertainly.
“Are you sure Nile’s his friend?” said Pryus. “How is that even possible? Why would Nile make friends with someone that eats his neighbors?”
Torus didn’t have an answer for that. Mr. Nile hadn’t explained very much before they had to leave last time they talked.
“He goes on the roof all the time,” said Torus. “Mr. Nile does, I mean, to mark the moon. I never thought about it before, but he must talk to the hawk then…”
“And he’s got friends in all kinds of places we don’t expect,” Nevi added. “I mean, who would have expected he’d be friends with a cat and that the cat would actually help him get supplies he needed? Maybe Mr. Nile brings the hawk something he wants or needs, so he doesn’t bother him.”
“And Mr. Nile goes up at night, or at least at dusk and dawn. I think the hawk is mostly active in the light, right? So in the dark maybe it’s not such a problem?” Arkon offered uncertainly.
“But he eats rats,” said Chello, pointedly. “Rats like us. You’re a rat, remember?” He faced Torus. “To the hawk you’re just dinner!”
“I want to fly,” said Torus. “I want to figure it out. The hawk flies ten times better than the pigeons and Mr. Nile says he can help me.” He paused and gazed steadily at his friend. “So I’m going up.”
Chello looked skeptically at Torus.
“I still think it sounds crazy,” he said. “But if you’re willing to help us jump them at the dumpster then I guess I’m willing to go up to the roof with you.”
“Great!” said Torus. “I think if a bunch of us go and take some weapons maybe he won’t jump at us before we get a chance to explain who we are and what we want. Arkon? Juke? Pryus? Does that sound okay?”
Arkon’s enthusiasm seemed to wane and his ears drooped a little, but he said, “Sure, I’ll come along. I can probably find a stick or something…”
“Yeah, I’ll come,” said Pryus, casually. “I mean, he can’t eat us all at once, right?”
Flinka rolled her eyes.
“I think this whole thing is crazy. If the Clan finds out, or even if our parents find out, we’re all going to wind up in big trouble!”
Nevi eyed her narrowly.
“Then I guess it would be best if the Clan didn’t hear anything about it, wouldn’t it.”
“Yeah,” Flinka said, edging nervously toward Juke. “That’s…that’s what I meant…”
“I think it’s a good plan,” said Juke, apparently unaware of Flinka clinging to his arm. “I’ll bring my stick.”
* * *