Chapter Twenty Nine
Late that night, Torus, Chello and Nevi snuck out of the hole in the alley wall and crouched carefully on the ground in the shadow of the building. Across the alley, the featureless wall of the next building was a blacker shape in the darkness, and above them the sky was hazy and starless, tinged a dirty orange by the lights of the city. At the mouth of the alley, light poured in from a nearby streetlamp, and the sidewalk and street shone darkly, still wet from the recent rain. At the very edge of the alley, where the corner of the building met the sidewalk, Torus could see the silhouette of the trash can with the curved handle of the umbrella still sticking out. The street was still and silent. They could see the end of a car parked at the curb, but no cars passed on the street, and no humans passed as they crept carefully through the shadows.
When they got to the can they stopped and gazed up the smooth metal sides.
“I’m starving,” said Chello. “Do you think there’s any food in there?”
“Sometimes,” said Nevi. “It’s not part of the regular forage route, but it usually gets checked out anyway.”
“How do you get in?” asked Chello, reaching up and feeling the side of the can.
“It depends,” said Nevi. “The humans keep moving it around.” She looked at the brick wall of the building beside the can. “The wall’s pretty rough, and it’s close to the can. Maybe we can climb up that way…”
Chello grunted and went over to the wall, reaching up to find a purchase. With just a little difficulty he was able to grip the cracks between the bricks with his claws and scramble up the wall to near the top of the can. With a short jump he was able to reach the edge, and he clung there for a moment before disappearing. The others were about to follow him when the sound of human footsteps on the sidewalk made them freeze. They crouched behind the can, looking out into the street and saw a shortish, roundish human shuffle past, bundled up in a huge coat and hunched over against the chill. They held their breaths as it walked slowly by, giving the alley a nervous glance as it passed.
When it was gone, they scrambled up the wall after Chello and soon had plopped down into the can beside him.
“What was that?” he asked.
“A human,” said Nevi.
“It looked familiar,” said Torus. “Was it Mumsy?”
“I don’t think so,” said Nevi. “Mumsy has different feet, I think…”
“Whatever,” said Chello dismissively. “There’s no food in here, anyway. Just soda cans and newspapers and stuff.” He poked distractedly at the trash with his knitting needle. “I guess if there was any food someone else got it first.
“We’re not even here for food,” said Torus, clambering over the top of the trash to the broken umbrella. “We’re here for this.”
He started examining the umbrella closely, fingering the loose folds of thin fabric and the stiff wire spines.
“Perfect,” he muttered to himself. “This is perfect…”
“Okay, so what do we do now?” said Nevi.
“We get it out and take it home,” said Torus without taking his attention off the umbrella.
“But it’s huge!” said Chello. “What are you thinking?”
Torus turned to him with a puzzled expression.
“I don’t know,” he said. “Let’s get it out of here and lay it out on the ground so I can take a look at it.”
The other two joined him and together they tried to lift it out over the edge of the can, but it was too big and awkward, and every time they almost had it free, it twisted and fell back down. They were concentrating so hard on the task that at one point they didn’t hear a human’s footsteps until it was almost too late. They slipped down deep into the can and crouched under their cloaks as a tired-looking human in a blue uniform stopped at the mouth of the alley. It grumbled to itself and shined a light in its hand around the shadows. Finally, it grumbled again and stumped away and the rats began to breathe again.
“That was too close,” said Chello. “Let’s come back another time.”
“No, we need to get it now,” said Torus. “They might come and take it away, and I don’t know when I’d find another one.”
“Rrrrrat?”
“Oh, no,” said Nevi. “What’s he doing here?”
Chello stretched up and peeked over the edge of the can.
“Hey, it’s Sandwich Dog! Hi, Stupid,” he said cheerfully.
“Rrrrrr…” the dog growled ominously.
“Chello, don’t,” said Nevi, as she and Torus looked over the edge as well. “Go away, please,” she said to the dog. “You’ll get us in trouble!”
“No, wait,” said Torus. “Maybe he can help us.”
The dog looked up at them suspiciously. It was scrawnier and dirtier than the last time they had seen it, and it shivered slightly in its damp fur.
“Listen,” said Torus. “Can you help us get something? You see this thing here?” He patted the curved handle of the umbrella sticking out of the mouth of the can.
“Stick,” said the dog.
“Yeah, the stick,” said Torus enthusiastically. “We need to get it out but it’s too big. Can you get it?”
The dog sat down and gazed at them.
“Why get?” it asked finally.
“Because we need it,” said Chello, impatiently. “Isn’t that enough?”
“No,” said the dog. “Blue man come. Not get.”
“Oh, please?” begged Nevi. “It won’t be hard, and maybe there’s something in here you can eat after you get it out.” She looked at him imploringly. “We could help you find something to eat, right Torus? Chello?”
“Oh, yeah, sure,” said Chello. “There’s probably tons of food just under the news here!”
The dog stood up and stepped toward the can. It leaned up and put its front paws on the rim of the can and sniffed discerningly.
“No food,” it said, looking at Chello. “Rat lie.”
“Hey!” said Chello, indignantly. “I don’t lie! There might be food here down inside, maybe, where you can’t smell it.”
“Chello, if there was any food in here he could smell it,” Nevi said quietly. “He smells better than you do.”
“You can say that again,” said Torus.
“Hey!” said Chello.
“No, I mean –” Nevi stammered.
“Rats quiet,” said the dog suddenly. “Blue man come. Get stick, rats go, dog sleep.”
“Okay,” said Torus. “We’ll go as soon as you can get this out for us.”
The dog stretched its muzzle up and gripped the handle with its teeth. It started to pull on it, trying to work it loose, and the rats tried to help from below, but the lower part of the umbrella was wedged among the other trash in the can, and they couldn’t get it unstuck. The dog became increasingly frustrated, shifting its feet to improve its grip and growling to itself.
Finally, it lurched backward, wrenching the umbrella free and capsizing the trash can. The dog fell over, dragging the umbrella with it, while the can rolled aside with a rattling crash, spilling the rats and half the collected trash onto the floor of the alley. The sounds of the crash had hardly died away when they heard the heavy, rapid footsteps of a human approaching at a sluggish run. The rats darted into the shadows and turned to see the human in the blue uniform come puffing up to the mouth of the alley. It turned on the light in its hand and shined the beam into the darkness. The dog had scampered back into a corner and the human quickly found him with its light. The human howled triumphantly and angrily and advanced toward the dog.
“No!” said the frightened dog. “No, Blue Man. Good dog!”
The human continued howling and stopped halfway down the alley, blocking the dog’s escape. It took a small object from its pocket, pushed some buttons and began mumbling wordless sounds into it. The dog cowered, shivering, turning its head away from the piercing beam of the light in the hu
man’s hand.
“Oh, no!” said Nevi, desperately. “We have to help it!”
“What can we do?” said Torus. “I don’t know anything about this. What’s going on?”
“It’s talking to another human with that thing in its hand,” she said. “They’re going to come take the dog away like they did to Sandwich Man.”
“Well, I don’t think we can do anything about that,” said Torus. “I mean – hey! Where’s Chello?”
He looked out and saw a small dark shape creeping toward the human, who was still howling into its hand. It was Chello, sneaking up behind the human. The dog saw him, too, and cocked his head.
“Rat?”
“Shhhhh…” said Chello, inaudibly. The human was still oblivious to his presence, and he crept up right behind the human’s thick right calf. Rearing up on his hind legs, he thrust forward hard with his knitting needle, jabbing the point through the dark fabric of the human’s covering and into the tender skin of its leg. The human yelped and jumped aside as Chello yanked his needle back and dashed toward the shadows. The human dropped its light and the talking box, both of which broke into pieces on the ground. In the confusion, the dog leapt to its feet and scrambled around the flailing limbs of the human, which was still howling and gibbering, trying to see what had happened.
“Good dog!” the dog barked happily, running out of the alley. “Good rat!”
The human turned and followed the dog out onto the sidewalk, howling and limping as it went.
Torus and Nevi watched the whole thing in astonishment, and then turned to find Chello lying on his side, gasping for air.
“Oh, no!” said Nevi. “Chello! Are you alright?”
They rushed over to him and then discovered he was laughing so hard he couldn’t speak. She punched him in the shoulder in disgust.
“You drive me crazy!” she said.
Chello caught his breath and rolled onto his feet.
“This,” he said, “is the absolute best night of my life!”
Once Chello had recovered sufficiently and Nevi had stopped glaring at him they went over to examine the umbrella. It was lying on the ground near the upset garbage can surrounded by a hodge-podge of scattered trash. It was still turned inside-out from when the first human had thrown it away, and the metal spines were bent and twisted.
“What do you think?” asked Nevi, dubiously.
“It’s a mess!” said Chello. He turned away and started poking through the trash on the ground, looking for something interesting.
“It’ll work,” said Torus, looking at it critically. “As a bumbler it’s useless, but the fabric’s not torn, and I can straighten out these metal parts.”
“Umbrella,” said Nevi.
“Yeah…” he replied, carefully flexing a twisted metal rib back into shape.
She watched him for a moment, and then joined Chello looking through the trash.
“How do we get it home?” Torus called to them. “It’s pretty big.”
“I dunno,” said Chello without looking up from the pile. “Drag it?”
“Maybe,” said Torus. “It’s pretty long…” He looked at it thoughtfully. “You know, I really only need the fabric and these metal things. I don’t need this big stick. Maybe we can take it apart and leave the stick here.”
“Sure,” said Nevi from deep inside the toppled trash can.
“What is it, wood?” asked Chello. “Just chew through it.”
“I think it’s plastic,” said Torus. “I’d rather cut it.” He retrieved his knife from the hole in the wall and started chipping away at the top of the stick where it met the top of the umbrella. Soon, the sharp blade had cut through the stick and the top fell free.
“Got it!” said Torus. “Let’s go!”
“Hey!” said Nevi. “There’s some pizza crusts in here! Should we take them with us or eat them here?”
“Leave them for the dog,” said Chello.
“Really?” said Nevi and Torus in unison.
“Well, yeah, we promised, right?” said Chello defensively.
“Yes, we did,” said Nevi, “but I just thought you were…you know…”
“Yeah, I know,” said Chello, good-naturedly. “But who knows, maybe we’ll need that dog to be on our side again sometime.” He walked over and picked up one end of the umbrella top while Torus picked up the other. “But just so you don’t think too highly of me, let’s go past the Stockpile on the way home and I’ll use my special position on the Patrol to score us a midnight snack!”
“I will definitely try not to think too highly of you,” said Nevi smiling. She picked up Chello’s needle and Torus’s knife and followed them toward the hole in the wall that led back into the building.
Two nights later, Torus was making adjustments to a new flyer while the rest of the group sat around eating pretzels and pretending to plan and practice for their next raid. He had stashed the umbrella and his tools in the small room behind the meeting place that had been Nevi’s spying place when the pigeons had first come in all those moons ago. But that space was too small and dark to work, so they had moved into the big gathering place. As Chello had pointed out, there wasn’t much risk since there hadn’t been a gathering for weeks, and the leaders never came down from the fourth floor any more.
“They just stay up there ‘planning’ and waiting for the food to come up,” he said. “And once in a while they send down a message that there are too many forage shirkers or that something else needs to be donated to the greater good, or to warn us about the thread of rival clans.”
Torus had worked the ribs of the umbrella off the stump of the handle and carefully cut through the fabric so that he had a wide triangle with three metal ribs still attached at the point. He wired a light frame underneath that would hold the sides open like wings, and would also support straps that would allow him to carry the contraption on his back while running, and, hopefully, hang below it while flying. At the moment, the flyer was strapped onto Moki while Torus worked out the balance.
“This is boring!” complained the younger rat. “I want a pretzel.”
“Where does Mr. Nile keep getting these?” asked Torus over his shoulder to Arkon, who was trying to make a weapon out of an old toothbrush.
“I don’t know,” he replied. “Every time he runs out another bag shows up. Full and unopened, too.” He squinted to look at the point he was trying to shape on the end of the handle. “It’s weird…”
Davin came over from where she and Vinda had been talking with Pryus, or rather, listening to Pryus talk, and said, “I heard he gets them from the human there. That it gives them to him.”
“No way!” said Arkon. “Mr. Nile would never endanger the Clan by showing himself to a human at all, much less accept food from one!”
“That’s just what I heard,” said Davin. “Don’t get your tail in a knot about it.”
“He probably just knows where they’re stored somewhere and sneaks them out,” said Arkon sullenly.
“It doesn’t matter,” said Torus. “Okay, Moki, I think it’s ready. Try it out for me, okay?”
“What do you mean ‘try it out,’” whined Moki.
“Like I showed you, remember? Pull on that thing there to open the wings, and then hop up a little so I can see how they balance when they catch the air.”
“What thing? What do I pull?”
“Oh, never mind!” Torus snapped. “I’ll do it. Get out of it…”
“Yay!” said Moki, shrugging out of the straps eagerly and nearly knocking Davin over on his way to the pretzels.
Torus started working his way into the straps and suddenly noticed Chello apart from the rest of the group, over by the wall behind the podium. He had the tube of red paint he had taken from the artist’s apartment and was working carefully making red marks on the wall. He held the tube in one hand and used his other to dab and smear the sticky color on the dull surface
.
“What are you doing?” asked Torus.
Chello stepped back and examined his work. “Can’t you tell?” he asked.
Torus squinted at the jumble of marks on the wall. “It’s a rat, right?” he said finally.
“It’s the Red Raider,” said Chello, grinning.
“Where are its ears?” asked Nevi.
“I’m getting to that,” said Chello. “What do you think?”
“I think it’s awesome!” said Moki around a mouthful of pretzel.
“Are its teeth supposed to be that big?” said Arkon, skeptically.
“Big teeth are scary,” said Chello. “Let me finish.” He turned back to his work. The others wandered away back to whatever they were doing, but Nevi moved up beside him and gazed at the picture.
“How did you do this?” she asked.
“Practice,” said Chello. “Like Nile said.”
“Why?”
“I like red,”
Torus finished getting into the straps of his invention and worked the lever that controlled the wings. They spread wide and folded back together perfectly. He spread them out again and took a couple of tentative hops into the air. He could feel the wings catch in the air and glide forward as he came down, and he began to get excited.
“I need someplace higher to test it from,” he said to no one in particular.
“How about up on those shelves,” said Moki, looking skeptically at him. “They’re not too high, and when you fall down you won’t break anything.”
Torus chose to ignore his brother’s lack of faith, and only said, “No, they’re too full of stuff. There’s not enough room for me with this strapped on.”
“The pigeons come in from the window,” said Arkon, looking at his sharpened toothbrush somewhat doubtfully. “Why don’t you try that?”
Torus nodded and began looking for a way to climb up. The wings were awkward on his back. He could move across the floor alright with them, but they upset his balance while climbing and he wound up having to take them off and pull them behind him from the point at the front.
Once at the top he slipped easily back into the straps and gave the wings one last practice stretch. He looked down on the room and at the small group of his friends gathered in the middle of the huge empty space. Chello had finished his picture and moved over to join the group, leaving a trail of red paw prints on the way. They looked up at him, silently, expectantly, and then Chello called up.
“Any last words?”
“It’s just a test,” said Torus. “Don’t make a big deal out of it.” He stretched out the wings, tried to remember how it had felt to be gliding through the sky with the hawk, and launched himself off the windowsill with a determined kick.
At first, nothing seemed to happen, and he felt a brief wave of anxiety as he imagined falling straight down to the concrete floor. But then the wings caught the air and he sailed forward smoothly. He felt the same strange change in his vision he had felt with the hawk. Everything seemed brighter and clearer, and time seemed to slow down. He shifted his weight in the harness and the flyer banked into a wide turn and he swooped gracefully across the room. He shifted his weight the other way and turned in the other direction. Then he narrowed the wings slightly and nosed down into the shallow dive before spreading the wings again and pulling up level with the floor again. Finally, he banked into a wide turn and spiraled gradually down to the floor. The others had remained silent and wide-eyed during his flight, but as he glided down and trotted to a stop beside them they erupted into a chorus of excited wonder and disbelief.
“That was incredible!” said Nevi.
“I want to do it!” said Moki.
“No, me next!” said Chello, hopping up and down like a pup. “Me, me, me!”
“Calm down!” said Torus, trying to collect himself. His heart was racing even more than it had after his flight with the hawk. He hadn’t realized until that moment that he had only half expected the flyer to work at all, let alone as well as it had.
“Everyone can try it, if they want,” he said, trying to be heard over the clamor. “And we can make more, too, like I said. A whole flock!”
The rest of the night was taken up with flight after flight. Torus let Moki take the next turn, much to Chello’s dismay. Moki was clumsy at first, but quickly worked out how to manage the flyer, and was soon landing as gracefully as Torus.
The first time Moki swooped overhead, Torus felt just a slight twinge of Panic. The dark triangular shape moving in the air triggered a thrill deep inside him, and he shivered excitedly. He hoped the pigeons would be even more panicked by the sight of real flying rats coming down at them from the sky.
Nevi couldn’t stop giggling after her first flight. Davin and Vinda both tried it, and flew well enough, but they agreed that it made them dizzy and they didn’t like it. Arkon made one shaky flight and quickly turned back to work on his weapon. Flinka flatly refused to even try it.
“I’m a ground rat,” she said firmly. “Someone has to stay down here and clean up, after all.”
Juke and Pryus were both too large for the harness, and Torus thought they were probably too heavy as well. “Don’t worry, though,” he said. “We’ll make you some when we find a bigger bumbler.”
After a while, Torus and Chello were the only ones still interested, and they took turns trying to outdo each other while the rest sat around chatting. Chello became quite good at swooping and diving, but Torus excelled by far at staying aloft the longest.
Finally, exhausted and happy, they rejoined the rest in the middle of the floor, with the night nearly over.
“Okay,” said Pryus, with Davin and Vinda snoozing on either side of him. “What now?”
“Well, we can make some more flyers,” said Torus. “They’ll be easy now that I know how. Let’s see, I used three of the ribs for this one. How many are left?”
“Nine,” said Juke, yawning.
“So you can make three more,” said Chello. “That’s math.”
“Four then,” said Torus. “We’ll have four rats with flyers in the tree, and the rest on the ground with cloaks and weapons.’
“I’m flying!” said Chello definitely. “And you,” he added, pointing at Torus. “Who else?”
“How will you fly with that crazy hat on?” Pryus asked.
Chello snorted.
“You sound like Dad.”
“That hat drives him crazy,” Pryus grinned. “He says you look ridiculous.”
“Yeah, well, he can say that all he wants, ‘cause I’m staying away from the hole as much as I can. Who else is flying?” he asked the crowd again.
“I will,” said Nevi. “I don’t want to fight on the ground if I don’t have to.”
“Okay, but you can’t giggle too much, or they won’t take us seriously when we strike fear into their hearts,” said Chello.
“So there’s one more,” said Torus. “Who wants it?” He looked around at the group. “I guess it’s between Moki and Arkon, right?”
“I can, I guess,” said Moki. “But I was kind of looking forward to the fighting part.
“I’m not sure Dad will let you come, anyway,” said Torus. “Until you come of age, you know.”
“I should have come of age more than a moon ago!” said Moki. “Of course I’m coming!”
“Well, we don’t have to decide right now, anyway,” said Chello. “We need good rats on the ground, as well as in the tree. And Arkon’s toothbrush of doom there will be a fearsome weapon either way.”
Arkon looked doubtfully at his mutilated toothbrush and said, “I guess I’m more useful in the air. I’ll need a lot of practice, though. It kind of makes me feel funny.”
“Sure,” said Torus. “We’ve got time. It’ll take a couple of days to make the other flyers, anyway.”
“So when do we do it?” said Chello.
“I don’t know,” said Torus, ponderi
ng. “I guess we just get ready and wait for the right time.”
“Okay,” said Chello, “but let’s not wait too long. Springtime makes me hungry! And you,” he said turning to Pryus, “better plan on joining us this time instead of chasing females all over the building.”
Pryus grinned and put an arm around each of the sleeping twins.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said.
* * *