Highway Cats Read online

  Shredder mentioned it to Khalia Koo one day.

  “It’s puzzling. One never makes a move without the others.”

  “They’re probably still in their litter mentality,” Khalia said. “Sometimes it takes a while to come out on your own.”

  “But it’s time. Past time,” Shredder said. “I never saw kits that stuck to each other like this. And they don’t talk. Not a word.”

  Khalia had to admit this was odd. Most kits by their age couldn’t keep their mouths shut.

  “They’ve got trauma,” she decided. “From the highway, when they came across.”

  “Maybe,” Shredder said. “But we’ve all got that. I’ve noticed something else.”

  “What?”

  “They have a glow.”

  “A what?”

  “A shine. Real faint. You see it best at night.”

  “What does it mean?”

  “I don’t know. I never saw anything like it before.”

  That night, Khalia Koo spied on the kits in the dark of her kitchen as they slept in their usual mound. She saw that Shredder was right. A faint silvery blue sparkle surrounded them, drifting up off their coats like early-morning mist over a pond.

  Beneath the designer tissue box she was wearing that evening, her Siamese eyes narrowed in alarm. She was on the verge of calling for Jolly Roger to throw the whole bunch from her house—a job he would have relished!—when one of the girl kits woke up. As Khalia watched, she opened her tiny mouth in a wide, pink yawn, gave a sigh of contentment and fell back asleep against her brother and sister.

  Khalia’s call died on her lips. She tiptoed out of the room and crept away to bed with a softness in her heart she hadn’t felt in years.

  It didn’t last. How could it? Such memories were useless in a place like this. The sun was barely up before the businesslike shape of a manila envelope (with two eyeholes gnawed out) could be seen through her windows, bent over piles of account books and sales sheets.

  “It’s a good thing those kits improve my rat production. Anyone else with sparkle would be out my door in twenty-five seconds,” she snapped at Shredder when he came by. “I can’t afford to fool around with mystical stuff.”

  “Sure,” Shredder agreed. “You’ve got orders to fill.”

  “And a company to run.”

  “You have to look out for yourself.”

  “Exactly. I can’t be wasting time chasing after a bunch of kittens! I’ve half a mind to throw them out the door tonight.”

  “Tonight,” Shredder cried. “But they’ve nowhere else to go!”

  “Maybe it’s-ss time they did!” Khalia said, with such an alarming hiss that Shredder knew he must take immediate action. For better or worse, the moment had come to introduce his tiny friends to the dump.

  “You guys need to learn how to feed yourselves,” he explained to them that afternoon as they poked around the old cemetery.

  The kits were acting especially kittenish that day, hiding under vines and leaping out to chase butterflies between the graves. They’d discovered the remains of a house foundation jutting out of the ground and not far away a pile of giant timbers that might once have belonged to a barn. They practiced jumps from the timbers, making no improvement that Shredder could see.

  “Stop that and listen!” he ordered. “You’ve had an amazing run up to now: crossing the highway, getting moved indoors, eating high off the hog. It can’t go on. Nothing like that ever lasts.”

  The kits rubbed playfully against him, as if to protest this harsh view of the world, but for once Shredder pushed them away.

  “You’ve got to grow up! I won’t always be here to look after you.”

  That night, he took the kits out of Khalia’s house (while she pretended to look the other way) and marched them sternly through the woods to the shopping center to begin their instruction.

  THEY ARRIVED ABOUT MIDNIGHT, just as the restaurants were closing. Several loads of unusually fine garbage had been dumped during the day, and a fair number of highway cats were there rooting around inside the Dumpsters, seizing greasy morsels and dragging them up onto the high metal sides to devour them. Competition was fierce. Bad-tempered snarls and hisses came from all corners.

  The kits hung back from this threatening scene. Shredder prodded them forward.

  “Come on! You’ve got to show some grit if you want to eat around here.”

  He demonstrated how to climb up to the Dumpster’s metal rim and spy out for juicy tidbits inside. The kits followed him shakily. They were just beginning to get their balance and look around when an ugly head reared up from a carcass below.

  “So, id’s Shredder with his nursery school phonies,” Murray the Claw called out in his tough-guy twang. “Welcome, toddlers!” He lifted his one vicious paw in a sarcastic salute.

  “Ciao, Murray. What’s going down?” Shredder replied coldly. He’d picked up some foreign words during his travels across the country. Murray was not impressed.

  “Chow is what’s going down, dimwid. Beijing duck, to be precise. You dwerps planning any miracles tonight?” he sneered at the kits, who retreated unsteadily behind Shredder.

  The cats around them snickered.

  “Leave them alone,” Shredder warned. “They don’t know anything.”

  “Maybe,” purred Murray. “Or maybe not. I’ve been hearing about these freeloaders, how they’re in the house with Khalia Koo, eating her food. Now thad really is a miracle.”

  The highway cats snickered again. Several moved up closer. They smelled a fight brewing.

  “Lay off,” Shredder warned, but Murray went right on.

  “So, let’s get to the boddom of this,” he said. He leapt up on the Dumpster’s high edge and began walking around it, Egyptian style, to confront Shredder. “We’re all a liddle confused. We want to see what these miracle phonies are made of. Can they dance, for instance?”

  Murray’s sharp claw paw zipped out and smacked the kits behind Shredder so hard they hopped up in the air just as if they were dancing.

  The highway cats howled with laughter.

  “Hey!” yelled Shredder. “Quit that!” But Murray wouldn’t.

  “Can they sing?” he asked, reaching out and pricking their little ears.

  “Eee, eee, eee,” wailed the kits in unison.

  The highway cats laughed louder.

  “Stop it!” shouted Shredder. He tried to punch Murray, but the old bristle hair scooted out of reach.

  “And most of all, what I want to know is: CAN THEY FLY?” roared Murray, darting toward them again. He caught the kits with the tips of his claws and launched them, one after another, off the Dumpster’s metal edge and high into the air, where they surprised everyone by plummeting like stones, headfirst, toward the ground. Not only was there no miracle flight, they showed none of the airborne grace of even the most ordinary alley cat.

  At this, Shredder lunged at Murray and began to fight him. The other highway cats, who’d been spoiling for a brawl anyway, leapt on Shredder (“Fakes, fakes!” they howled) and then on each other. Soon the shopping center Dumpsters were boiling inside and out with furious clawing, biting cats and wild screeches, and bloodcurdling yowls went out in all directions.

  Across the parking lot, several automobiles came to a halt. A crowd of late-night diners gathered outside the restaurants. Never had they seen such a savage horde of cats.

  Soon sirens wailed and Animal Control pulled up in an armored, grill-windowed vehicle, followed by a fire engine and a police car. Within minutes, AnCon officers had rushed across the parking lot and were wading into the fray. They walloped the fighting cats with sticks and kicked them with their heavy boots while the firemen aimed fire hoses and blasted the Dumpsters with water.

  The highway cats were in such a maddened state by this time that at first nothing would stop them. Not until AnCon officers had succeeded in slipping bags over the heads of a few brawlers did the danger begin to sink in.

  “Run for it!
AnCon!” The cry went up at last. The cats were jolted back to their senses. Doused and bedraggled, they fled in a tangled, clawing mass toward the shelter of the woods. Shredder went with them, limping from a bite wound on his front leg. His pain was so great that he forgot about the kits. Only at the forest’s edge did he suddenly remember and turn back.

  It was too late. In the midst of the chaos he saw the little ones huddled desperately together, not far from where they had landed after their plunge from the Dumpster. As he watched, two AnCon officers bore down on them, bags in hand.

  “Look out!” Shredder shrieked. “Run! Run for your lives!”

  The kits didn’t hear. They cringed in terror, unable to move. It was just as it had been on the highway when Shredder and Murray had played their gruesome game. Now as then, Shredder closed his eyes and held his breath, though this time there was no bet to be won from their escape. When he looked again, the terrible deed was done. The kits were gone. The officers, clutching their wriggling bags, were marching off to look for other stragglers.

  A cold fist took hold of Shredder’s heart and squeezed.

  WHILE THE OTHER CATS FLED, Shredder stayed behind that night, crouched in tall grass on the edge of the parking lot. He couldn’t make himself run away.

  He saw the AnCon officers give up their chase, get into their grill-windowed vehicle and drive off. He watched the firemen and the police car depart and the crowd of spectators break up and head for home. Only when the last human had gone and the parking lot lay gleaming under its all-night lights did he step out, a tiny, limping shadow on the vast field of cement. He went across to the spot where the kits had been, sniffing here and there.

  “Where are you guys?” he whispered. “Now’s the time to show your stuff. If you’re here, come out. You can come out now.”

  A lone dog bayed in a nearby yard. A chilly wind blew across the parking lot, rattling the branches of the little forest. Through the trees, Shredder heard a truck horn’s mournful hoot out on the highway. From the kits, there was no answer.

  The old cat put his head down and limped away. As he went, a black despair spread through him, and the whole of his life seemed to rise before his eyes. He saw the careless streets of New Orleans and the treacherous river barges. He saw the door of a bus baggage compartment close on him with a slam. He felt the angry, beating sticks of AnCon’s officers and the fire hose’s blast, and it seemed to him that the world had no place for him, that he was doomed always to live hungry and alone, cast out along the highway like a useless piece of trash.

  Shredder began to run. Faster he went, faster and faster, until the hot glare of the parking lot was left behind and he was deep in the dark bushy arms of the forest.

  SCENE: Early the next morning (5 A.M.) at Mayor Blunt’s Potterberg home. His Honor is jolted awake in bed by a ringing telephone. He answers to find Chief of Staff Farley on the line.

  MAYOR BLUNT. Uff?

  FARLEY. Mayor? Mayor, is that you?

  MAYOR. Ump!

  FARLEY. Sorry to wake you, sir. There’s been an incident. I thought you might want to know so you’ll be ready for the television reporters this morn—

  MAYOR. (Still half asleep.) Oog grumph!

  FARLEY. Yes, sir, I know it’s early. There’s been an incident with a few cats. Well, a lot of cats, actually. Out in that shopping center by the highway. They came from the woods there. A big fight at the Dumpsters.

  MAYOR. Awk!

  FARLEY. Yes, people were frightened. We’ve had complaints. It’s all right now. Animal Control did its job. But we need to keep a handle on the press. They’ll be raising issues of rampant rabies, roving wildcats, town leadership asleep at the helm.

  MAYOR. Glickenclopencope!

  FARLEY. What’s that, Mayor? I didn’t quite catch…

  MAYOR. GLICKENCLOPENCOPE!

  FARLEY. Of course, sir. Understood. Your leadership never sleeps. You’re on top of everything 24/7, 7/52, and 12/1. What I was thinking was, this might be a good time to announce your new exit ramp plan. That woods demolition crew can be ready to go at the end of this week. You could kill two birds with one…

  MAYOR. (Yawning) Ugoocatskulldone.

  FARLEY. What? Oh…haw, haw, that’s a good one. Two cats with one stone. Right. Don’t worry, we’ll get rid of the little pests. They won’t know what hit ’em. I’ll give the order to proceed, let you get back to your rest. You want to be ready for the TV reporters in the morning. Not to mention the camera crew and the Potterberg Evening News and a conference call with the National Guard…

  (Farley jabbers on. The mayor’s eyelids flutter and close. He begins to snore, a low rumble that grows into a thunderous roar, as the scene fades.)

  CHAPTER FOUR

  As dawn broke in the little forest, a long roll of thunder echoed ominously through the air. The wild creatures who lived there glanced up in alarm. A storm was coming. A bad one! Though it seemed still some way off, the animals started to prepare.

  They sent warning calls to their neighbors, gathered their young, stockpiled food and began to burrow into thickets or the hollows of rotted logs. Above, in the trees, the birds also were on guard, crying to each other in shrill voices and making for shelter in the dense groves of pine.

  Only out on the highway were there no calls of alarm. The cats lying in wait for breakfast cared nothing for each other or the weather. The roar of wheels was in their ears. The wind from passing cars flattened the fur against their heads. Who could watch the sky when a bulging bag of sausage biscuits might land at any moment in the center lane? Everyone for himself, that was the rule out here, and those who forgot it would lose out to those who knew better.

  About mid-morning, as dark clouds moved closer, the lean, rectangular form of a cereal box slid out of the woods. It made its way toward the highway’s edge, halting at a place where a particularly ratty-looking tail could be seen sticking out of a clump of weeds.

  “Murray the Claw! Is that you?”

  “Yeah, it’s me. Whadya want, a Coco Pop in the nose? Ha, ha, ha.”

  Khalia Koo gazed at him with extreme dislike. Whatever sympathy she might have felt for Murray’s mutilated paws was always quickly erased by his sneering attitude.

  “I’m looking for my kittens-ss,” she told him. “They didn’t come home last night. Any sign of them here?”

  Murray turned his furry bulk around to face her. He gave another guffaw.

  “AnCon caught ’em,” he said. “At the Dumpsters. We all saw it. Those liddle miracles got the sack. I say good riddance to bad rubbish.”

  “They didn’t run,” added Jolly Roger, appearing from a nearby bush with a savage smile. He and Murray had formed an alliance of sorts. It was based on their mutual dislike of all kittens everywhere, especially highway drop-offs who pretended to be special.

  “Your kits sat blinking like morons in the path of certain destruction,” Jolly Roger went on. “What could anyone do?”

  “You could’ve tried to ss-save them,” Khalia Koo hissed, sounding more upset than one might expect of a cold-blooded business-cat. “Where’s Shredder?”

  “Holed up somewhere. Not speaking to no one.” Murray snickered again. “He lost his bet in the end, that’s for sure. Nobody’s likely to set eyes on those liddle twids again.”

  Khalia felt a sudden, powerful urge to sink her teeth into Murray’s back. She was a civilized cat, though, who believed in higher standards of behavior. Besides, she realized that Murray was right. Sad as it was, the kits were most likely history. Their small miraculous lives had come and gone like rays of sun on a rainy day. Under the cereal box, she allowed herself a small, damp sniff. Then she pulled herself together.

  “Why are you hanging around with this-ss one-clawed weas-ssel,” she hissed at Jolly Roger. “He’ll just get you into trouble. Come on back to the farm with me. We’ve got work to do.”

  “Not me. I quit,” the yellow cat snapped. “I’m eating better out here on the road and getting mor
e respect. You and your rat business can go to the moon for all I care!” He turned his back on her and refused to budge.

  Khalia Koo went home alone with a dark and friendless feeling. Even after the storm dwindled into light rain and the sun came out in a golden glow, she huddled inside her kitchen. It wasn’t only that Jolly Roger had turned against her. Without the kits running around, getting underfoot, the whole house seemed suddenly so cold and empty.

  KHALIA WASN’T THE ONLY one to notice the kittens’ absence. At the rat farm that afternoon, the cat workers were moody. They’d heard about the kits’ capture and kept glancing toward their old pen, as if they expected the little ones to show up anyway.

  All that day, they watched for them, and the next day and the next. When, after a week, it became clear that no further miracles were at hand and the kits were truly lost, the workers became sullen and bad-tempered. Their foul vocabularies returned. They scratched and fought among themselves. No one bothered to wash up anymore and rat-gobbling rose to heights of gluttony never seen before at the farm.

  As if this weren’t enough, even the rats went into a gray funk. They lay on the wiry bottoms of their cages, clamped their mouths shut and refused to eat. Within days they became so thin that pet food production was brought to a halt. There was no work to be done anymore. Khalia Koo was forced to let her cat crew go. One by one, the cats slunk away toward the highway or to the Dumpsters, followed shortly by droves of rats, which, in their new scrawniness, were able to slip through the wires of their cages and escape.

  So the once-thriving rat farm was deserted.

  Shredder, arriving at the farm one morning several days later, found Khalia Koo perched on the roof of one of her own rat cages, surveying her ruined business through the dusty mesh of an empty potato sack.

  “Where’ve you been?” she called to him. “Hiding out, I hear. A lot of help you are in the face of disaster!”

  She turned her back angrily on him.