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The Tale of a No-Name Squirrel
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Contents
Prologue: A Game of Hangman
1. A Catty Society
2. The Old and the New
3. A Sip of Mischief
4. Foes and Friends
5. A Starting Point
6. A Fresh Set of Eyes
7. The Verzas and the Visitors
8. The Pedipurr Revisited
9. Into the Den
10. The Walled City
11. It’s All in the Family
12. A Dance and a Drink
13. A Great Theft
14. Hills of Heart
15. Sometimes Warm, Sometimes Cold
16. Let There Be Light
17. The Ferry
18. A Desert and a Deer
19. A Tricky City
20. Desolate and Desperate!
21. Making Family
22. Dipping and Sipping
23. The Truth about Ms. Corvidius
24. A Place to Rest
25. Twilight at Cobblestone Yard
26. A Send-off
27. In the Nook
28. Into the World of Dreams
29. To Tell or Not
30. The PetPost Slave’s Last Journey
Epilogue: Starting Over
About Radhika R. Dhariwal
For
Rashmi, the realist,
and Ravi, for dreaming,
For Humbir, the believer,
and Rakshay, for screaming,
And a very real squirrel,
two dogs, and a crow,
Without whom this story
would never have been
Told
Prologue
A Game of Hangman
It was his first murder; yet the tall, cloaked cat knew exactly what to do. He circled his victim slowly, watching the old, furry body twitch like a fish out of water. The smell of fresh fear tickled his nose. He smiled. It was time.
The cloaked cat pinned his victim’s feeble paws to a branch and hissed four little words.
“I . . . found . . . the . . . map!” As he spoke, he twisted a twine around his victim’s neck. One, two, three, four loops. “I found the Map of Brittle.”
His victim—an old, withered, white cat—began to choke. “How d’you know abou—about the Map of Brittle? Wh-what d’you want?”
“Patience, my friend,” said the cloaked cat. “Haven’t you heard the cat-phrase ‘A whisker of patience is better than a fur ball of words’?”
His victim went as still as ice; his cheeks melted into his skull. “Wh-who are you?”
“I was wondering when you’d figure it out, old friend,” said the cloaked cat, peeling the bat-skin mask off his face. He looked up, right into his victim’s blue eyes, and smiled. “Recognize me now, Mr. Falguny?”
The cloaked cat waited for a long moment as old Mr. Falguny stared at him. Then, without warning, Mr. Falguny began to kick, and choke, and twist, and spit. “Lemme go! You’d never . . . I taught you when you were a kitten!”
“Taught me, yes. But you taught me lies. You said the map was long gone, but you knew better, didn’t you, Mr. Falguny? You didn’t want anyone to know the truth about your precious map. But now I’ve found it. I’ve found the map.”
Mr. Falguny stopped moving. His breath smelled bitter. Of shock. Of sweat. Of blood. “Why d’you want the Map of Brittle? Who’ve you become?”
“What I should have always been. I was so stupid when I was young. I lapped up everything you said like a lost little kitten. All your ‘purr-fections’ and morality—equality, freedom, and all that horse-spit. But I’ve changed. I’m a smarter cat now. I call myself Colonel these days, and I’ve got a plan. I’m going to use the map to undo all the damage you did. I’ll enslave all the weak, filthy creatures you tried to protect, Mr. Falguny.” The cloaked Colonel’s throat was raw with tension. “I’ll take us back to the older way of life, the better way of life. I’m taking back what should have always been mine.”
“But . . . how can you? It’s wrong. It’s against everything fair, everything good,” said the old cat, his voice splintering with wet hiccups. “It’s evil.”
The Colonel leaned so close to Mr. Falguny he could almost taste the streaks of salt on the old cheeks. “Don’t you dare tell me what is evil, Mr. Falguny,” he whispered. “You still think I don’t know? You still think I don’t know what you did? Who I lost because of you? Just because you were trying to save those . . . those flea-filled vermin! Those disgusting slaves!”
The Colonel stepped back. He watched the weight of his words fall on Mr. Falguny.
Understanding flickered in the old eyes; then they went blank, as though they were dead already. “I had to . . . It was for the good of everybody.” Mr. Falguny looked down. “I didn’t deliberately kill her. But, sometimes, sacrifices must be made for the greater good. For equality. You’ll never understand how hard it was . . . You can’t . . .”
“I. Don’t. Care! Your decision killed her,” the Colonel hissed, his teeth clenched. He took a breath of the cool night air, pushing his dead fiancée’s pretty face out of his mind. He would get his revenge. But he needed something first. “I’ll make you pay for what you did, Mr. Falguny. But, first, you will tell me something only you know.” He paused. “I can’t read the map. Tell me how to read the Map of Brittle.”
Mr. Falguny’s cheeks began to pound. He said nothing.
“Don’t waste my time, Falguny!” growled the Colonel, digging his claws into Mr. Falguny and scratching down his side. Warm blood oozed down Mr. Falguny’s back and dripped onto the cobblestones. The Colonel’s fur tingled. “Tell me what I need to know.”
“I . . . will . . . not,” said Mr. Falguny, clamping his jaw shut.
“But you will tell me how to read the map, old friend. Just like you told me all about the lost Map of Brittle when we were playing hangman a long time ago. How ironic,” said the Colonel, watching Mr. Falguny dangle from the tree in the cobblestone courtyard.
Mr. Falguny tugged on the twine around his neck. He wrung his body till he looked like a twisted towel pegged to a clothesline. “You will not make slaves out of innocent creatures. That won’t happen again. I won’t let you do it.” Beads of bloody spit flew from his mouth and splattered the Colonel’s face. “You will never read the Map of Brittle.”
“You have no choice, Mr. Falguny. You will tell me. You will help me become the next Master of Bimmau,” said the Colonel, wiping his face. “And you will die tonight. But if you don’t tell me how to read the map, I will destroy you—even in death.”
“You cannot destroy those who are clean of heart,” said Mr. Falguny.
The Colonel felt a smile twist his face. “Clean of heart? Don’t fool yourself, Mr. Falguny. I’ve found proof of what you did that night. Of everybody you hurt. If this got out, it would destroy your spotless reputation.”
As he spoke, the Colonel reached into his cloak and removed a dead dried butterfly with scribbles all over its wings. He fanned the wings under Mr. Falguny’s nose. “What will the world say when they see this? What will they say when they find out what you did? What you did to me, what you did to the others . . .”
“You don’t understand. It was my job. My responsibility. I had to make a choice . . .”
The old cat gulped—a loud, painful gulp as though he were swallowing a clump of thorns. “If I help you, you promise to destroy that?”
“My friend, you’re in no position to make demands,” said the Colonel, filing his claws. “But fine, I promise. For old times’ sake. Now quick, how do I read the map?”
“To read the map . . .” Mr. Falguny hiccupped. “You need a key.”
“What key? Hurry up, Falguny. Or I’ll send this dead butterfly to every feline home. Now tell me. What key?” The Colonel squeezed Mr. Falguny’s neck as if it were a tube of toothpaste.
Mr. Falguny groaned; it was a groan stiff with defeat. “The key is hidden. Only . . . only . . . one person can find it.” Slowly he drew his white tail into his pocket and removed something. He shivered, and dropped a heavy brass button into the Colonel’s paw.
“What is this?” growled the Colonel.
“A clue to . . . find the . . . one . . . with the key,” choked Mr. Falguny, his forehead scrunching up like old garbage.
“Oh!”
To the Colonel, the brass button suddenly looked prettier than a thousand gold nuggets. He looked closer. A symbol was sketched on the back of the button.
“Is that . . . is that the PetPost emblem?” he whispered.
Defeat swirled in Mr. Falguny’s eyes. His neck sagged. His tail went limp like overcooked spaghetti.
The Colonel grinned. It was the PetPost crest indeed. “Thanks, old friend. As always, it’s been fun learning something from you.”
As he strode out of the courtyard, clutching his clue, the Colonel heard a final shudder.
“You . . . have . . . let . . . maggots . . . into . . . your . . . heart . . .”
“And it’s your fault,” said the Colonel, not looking back as his childhood mentor went still, leaving a puddle of crimson life on the cobblestones.
A Catty Society
Mrs. Sox should have kept her big mouth shut. But, alas, she had not.
Perhaps this is why the fat Persian cat had her face stuck to the window, her yellow eyes darting from the sky to the steps below. Her tail twitched. He was late.
Mrs. Sox snarled. A Pedipurr cat should never have to wait. Especially not for the PetPost slave.
Yet, Mrs. Sox did wait. The fat gray cat did not budge from the window, even though the room was getting crowded and sweaty. With her sausage of a tail she whacked two kittens—who were trying to claw in on her spot—out of the way. Her claws itched, and a splinter of worry pulsed on her flat forehead.
“If that lazy lump of a Squirrel has run off with Smitten’s wedding invitations, I’ll catch him, stick him on a skewer, and eat him for dinner,” she muttered to herself.
The problem was that Mrs. Sox was scared. She knew that the PetPost Squirrel was delivering Smitten’s wedding invitations today, and she had the teeniest fear that she would not be invited.
Indeed, when Mrs. Sox had first heard that the bachelor Smitten, a wealthy Pedipurr cat, had chosen to marry the female dog Cheska, she had bad-mouthed Smitten’s choice of bride to every cat she could find. Now, as she waited for the wedding invitations, Mrs. Sox wondered if she had said too much.
But no. The fat gray cat jiggled her head, knocking the shards of regret straight out of her brain. “How can Smitten marry a dog, let alone that smutty, penniless Cheska?” she said to herself loudly. “And if for some doggone reason, dogs really do tickle his tail, he should have chosen a lady from the Pawshine Club, not a tramp from the Wagamutt! At least the Pawshine pups try to be like us at the Pedipurr. The Wagamutt, though! Those dogs are just plain uncivilized.”
Mrs. Sox paused just long enough to snarl. “I, for one, won’t talk to any of those disgusting mutts at the wedding.” Her eyes darkened to the color of cheddar cheese. “I can’t associate with those raggedy dogs. I’ll catch fleas or worse . . .”
Right then, a sudden movement on the steps below grabbed her attention. Through the window she saw a stuffed, lumpy sack stagger up the stone stairs of the Pedipurr mansion. When the sack reached the landing, Mrs. Sox saw a bushy red tail flail under the bag’s weight.
Her wait was over. The PetPost Squirrel had finally arrived.
“Just . . . one . . . more . . . step,” wheezed Squirrel, the PetPost slave, as he heaved the sack up the last stair. For a moment, he just stood on top of the steps, swaying. He dumped the bag on the ground and crumpled to his knees like a floppy puppet. He could have lain on the cool stone landing forever, but a flicker of cheddar yellow in the window upstairs jerked him to his senses.
Get a grip, Squirrel scolded himself. As it is, he was late today—for the very first time. On top of that, if the hoity-toity Pedipurr cats caught him panting like an old toad on a ventilator after carrying just one bag up a flight of stairs, they would mock him till morning. So Squirrel pulled himself up, breathed deeply, swung his sack onto his narrow shoulders, and scurried toward the Pedipurr Society.
The Pedipurr was unlike any country club young Squirrel had ever seen. It stood on the only finger of coastline that strayed into the ocean, so that the gray rock building seemed to swell up from the middle of the sea. The mansion stretched sideways and arched upward; and, as beams of twilight filtered into the belly of the building, the gray rock glistened like quicksilver.
Squirrel had always thought the building looked smooth and graceful and alive—almost like a giant, jumping dolphin. But today he had barely any time to admire the Pedipurr, or its tall, ribbed towers, or the bone filigree on its “Members Only” door. He ran straight toward his destination—a half-hidden doorway tucked into the corner of the building.
He was so worried about being late that he did not notice a big black bird crouched in the shadows of the east tower, watching his every step.
The “Outsiders’ Entrance” of the Pedipurr was always manned by Olfisse, a grumpy old security cat. Today, however, Olfisse was nowhere in sight.
Squirrel was surprised. Since he was five, he had delivered the mail in Bimmau. And, in those eight seasons, he had never found the Pedipurr unguarded. Not sure what to do, he signed his name on the leaf register, glanced at the sky, and read the time from the streaks of pink in the clouds. Squirrel bit his lip. He was really late.
He was just about to rush into the Pedipurr’s Grand Hall when he caught sight of the mica mirror. “I’m late. At least I better make sure I look all right,” Squirrel mumbled, giving himself a quick once-over.
He frowned. He was a head shorter than he would have liked to have been at the age of thirteen. His red fur was groomed neatly enough, but it was not glossy like the fur of the Pedipurr cats. He hated his shoulders, which curled slightly inward, and he thought his head was shaped a bit too much like a squashed acorn.
Squirrel knew that he could not really complain about his features. He had nice eyebrows, dimples, and a pleasant buttonlike nose. He had a strong jaw that had luckily escaped the Curse of Buckteeth, and his eyes were a clear, crystal turquoise—a playful blue that twinkled in any light.
As he looked at himself, Squirrel rearranged his burnt-red hair to cover the shape of his head and adjusted his faded PetPost uniform to hide the awful S branded into his forearm. The S was not for “Squirrel.” The S was for “Slave.”
“Well, this is as good as I’m going to look,” he said, and with a sigh the slave Squirrel let himself into the Grand Hall of the Pedipurr Society.
Shock was the first thing that hit Squirrel’s pupils.
The Grand Hall was destroyed. Slaughtered cushions and torn yarn were stuck to the checkered marble floor, the busts of the Founding Cats were splattered with brown gunk, teak chairs balanced on hinges like seesaws, and the grandfather clock hung sideways, refusing to tick. Instead time was kept by dr
oplets of milk dripping onto the keys of the piano from a shelf of toppled milk bottles.
“What’s going on?” whispered Squirrel, turning right, then left, then right again, spinning on his heel like a malfunctioning robot. “What’s happen—OUCH!”
Pain shot from his foot to his brain. A whopping crack echoed through the hall. Squirrel looked down. He had just stepped on, and shattered, a fish-bone saucer.
Not sure what to do, Squirrel dashed toward the door. But he was too late.
The door at the end of the hall swung open; something came pelting toward him—and before Squirrel could make out face or form, he was pinned to the floor by something really heavy, something really orange, something really tickly.
Squirrel looked up. The orange face of a cat called Brosher hung above him like a burned, furry sun.
“Sorry about that, Squirrel—I got a little carried away,” said the orange cat, pulling Squirrel up.
“Sir, what’s going on?” asked Squirrel, rubbing his shoulder. “What happened to this place?”
“Don’t worry about this. We were so antsy waiting for you to bring the invitations that a few cat-fights broke out—that’s all. All sorted now. But tell me, you have the invitations, don’t ya?”
“What invitations?” asked Squirrel, who was as confused as a bumper car.
“The invitations to Smitten’s wedding, of course, Squirrel. They’re supposed to arrive today! We’ve been pulling the fur out of our hides waiting for you. But enough yakking. Everyone’s waiting in the Tiger’s Tooth. Let’s go,” said Brosher, grabbing Squirrel and jostling him and his sack toward the bar on the far end of the hall.
No place had been more aptly named than the Tiger’s Tooth. The walls rumbled with purrs and meows. Darkness and dampness filled the room, with sweaty cats crushed against every inch of the window. A single sliver of light cracked the blackness.
Groping his way toward the bar counter in the center of the room, Squirrel felt hundreds of eyes on him. The beat of the ocean against the Pedipurr’s walls made his pulse quicken. Everyone was watching him. Waiting for him.
The Tale of a No-Name Squirrel