“How much further do we have to go?” complained Tugger. “My feet hurt. I’m cold. And hungry. And tired.”
“Quit whining,” Victoria told him, stopping at the end of the sidewalk to glance from left to right. “You slept just fine last night surrounded by your adoring fans; Misto and I watched you eat a mouse this morning which you would not share; and we’re all cold. It must be thirty below out here.”
“Actually, it’s 17 degrees Fahrenheit,” Mistoffelees said with an amiable grin. His remark was greeted by curious glances from his companions.
“Which way is the warehouse from here?” Victoria muttered.
“Hey, why don’t you let me lead for a while?” Tugger asked. “I’ll get us there before you can say...”
“Pollicle!” Misto interrupted, making a mad dash up the nearest tree.
“What’s he talking about? There’s no...” Victoria didn’t finish her sentence, for at that moment a huge black dog came tearing around the corner, snarling and slobbering and barking madly. She screeched and followed Misto up the tree. “Tugger!” she yelled. “You idiot, don’t just stand there, do you want to be eaten alive?”
Tugger was rooted to the spot. He hissed at the dog, who jumped back a pace or two, then advanced again with malice in his glittering black eyes. A spark of flame ignited his tail, and when he turned around to see what had happened to his appendage, Tugger saw his chance to escape and darted up the trunk of the same tree.
“Make him go away!” Victoria yelled at Misto, pulling his tail.
“I can’t, I don’t know how! Stop it, you’ll make me fall,” he responded, digging his claws into the branch to steady himself. He looked down at what was probably a twelve foot drop and became queasy.
“Don’t be ridiculous. You’re a cat, you’ll land on your feet. And what do you mean, you don’t know how? You just fried his tail, didn’t you?” She looked impatiently at the dog, who was circling the tree and barking madly up at them.
Misto frowned at her. “I can’t remember what I did,” he muttered, squeezing his eyes shut to block out the sight of the ground which was so far below.
“For the love of mice, Misto!” Victoria said, pushing him hard in the back with her paws. She gasped when she realized what she’d done and frantically tried to grab hold of him as he swayed to and fro on the branch, but after what seemed like an eternity of wobbling he toppled out of the tree and landed on the Pollicle’s back. The dog began to run around in small circles, trying to chase his aggressor but unable to see him.
“Go for his ears, kid!” Tugger yelled. “That’s the way! Claw his eyes out! Don’t let go of ‘im, Misto, he’ll throw ya!” The tom was obviously having fun watching Misto ride the dog like a cowboy rides a bull, but Misto, however, did not share the sentiment.
“I want off! I’m getting sick! I’m losing my grip!” he shrieked, digging his claws into the back of the baying mutt. Suddenly the ground around the dog turned red with heat and the Pollicle gave a shriek himself. Misto was flung into the base of the tree, but the dog ran off, whimpering and casting nervous glances over his shoulder.
“Stupid mutt,” Misto muttered, sitting up and dusting himself off. His back was sore from where he had hit the tree (or perhaps from Victoria’s push), but he made no remark concerning pain to the others. Instead he shook his paw at the retreating Pollicle. “What a coward!”
“Good job, kid,” Tugger grinned and whacked the cat on his back. Misto doubled over in pain but managed to cast Tugger an appreciative glance. “Are you coming, Vickster?” Tugger called, shielding his eyes with his paw and gazing into the tree.
“Don’t call me that,” came the indignant reply. “Um... no. You go ahead, I’ll catch up.”
Misto sighed, realizing what was the matter. “Jump, Vicki. I’ll catch you.”
She leaned forward on the tree branch so that her face could be seen. “What if you miss?” she said.
“Don’t be ridiculous. You’re a cat, you’ll land on your feet,” Misto mumbled. “I won’t miss,” he insisted.
“What did you say? Before that, I mean. Was it about me?”
“Just jump, Vicki! We’ll never get to the Rumpus Cat if you’re stuck in a tree!” He spread out his arms to show her he was ready to catch her. She arched an eyebrow at him, but stepped off the branch and made a graceful descent. She landed on top of Misto, knocking him over and into Tugger. “Told you I wouldn’t miss,” he groaned, pushing her off of himself.
“All right. Which way to the warehouse?” Victoria asked, heading towards the end of the sidewalk. She started to step off the curb but Tugger yanked her back by the tail as a speeding car zoomed by, leaving tire marks and a cloud of smoke in its wake.
“Gotta watch out for those, hon,” he said. He was visibly shaken by the encounter. Misto felt sure that, despite Tugger’s cool exterior, he would have been crushed if anything had happened to Vicki. Tugger was funny that way.
“Yes. Well,” Vicki was shaken too, but she was able to mask it behind an air of importance. “I think we’re supposed to go...”
“This way,” Misto interrupted, tired of the whole debate. He passed Victoria and began walking self- assuredly down the street to the right.
“Are you sure?” Vicki asked. “I think it’s this way.” “No. It’s definitely this way,” Misto said. He stopped and looked over his shoulder at her with one eyebrow cocked.
“You go that way, then, and I’ll go this way,” she responded, giving him a cold stare.
“No, no, no, you’re not going to do that to me! I have to keep up with both of you. I can’t just split in half, you know.” Tugger looked desperate. Misto felt sorry for him.
“Vicki, I’m telling you, it’s this way,” Misto insisted, taking her by the arm and dragging her down the road. She did not resist, but she didn’t cooperate either, dragging her feet along the road and making it hard for the small black cat to pull her. “See?” he said, pointing towards the warehouse that was steadily becoming visible over the horizon.
The warehouse was a huge, abandoned gray building that was in horrible disrepair. The outer walls of the building were crumbling and covered in large patches of mold and mildew. The place itself stank of dampness and stagnancy, and water dripped from the roof onto the cold concrete floor inside. Tugger shivered upon entering. “It’s colder in here than it is outside,” he complained, his breath a white cloud in the frigid air.
“The place is empty!” Vicki exclaimed. It was the truth. There was nothing in the huge building but a few cardboard boxes that lay in a haphazard fashion in the corner and a large, dark oil stain in the middle of the floor.
“No, it’s not. Are youse dem cats who want to help the cat what let me go?” a voice asked. Misto turned around to see a small gray mouse sitting placidly on its haunches and looking up at him inquisitively. “I’m Metisaldo. That cat saved me wife from bein’ a widder and me kids from bein’ orphans. Any friend o’ his is a friend o’ mine. Right this way, gentleman. And lady,” he added, winking jovially at Victoria. He turned and waddled into a hole in the wall, for he was a very fat little mouse. Misto wrinkled his nose in amusement; he had never known a mouse before, but if they were all as blithe as this little fellow he hoped to meet more.
“We can’t fit in there,” Victoria called after him, lowering her head and peering into the hole.
“Of course not,” Metisaldo replied, returning with a sheepish grin. “Ol’ Aldo, he sometimes forgets things, you know. Call me Aldo, by the way. All me friends do.”
Tugger licked his lips and watched the mouse intently, the tip of his tail twitching menacingly. Misto frowned at the tom. “We really can’t stay long,” he explained to the mouse. “We just need to know where to find Rumpus Cat so we can rescue him.”
“Oh, aye,” Aldo said. “The family’s out for the afternoon anyway or I’d introduce ya. But let me tell ya, we’re all very grateful to you for saving him. The cat what let me go, I mean. We’re even more grateful to him.” He settled down on his haunches again and beamed at the cats. “Little Natacia, she’s not been well lately, and what with workin’ two jobs and all...” he sighed. “I don’t know what we’d all do without each other. We’re a very close-knit family. All we mice are like that.”
Tugger suddenly looked heartsick. “None of your family went to the junkyard in the city this morning, did they?” he asked.
“Nah, too far away. We always stay within callin’ distance of each other.” Tugger breathed a sigh of relief and secretly vowed to cut down to one mouse a week. “Well, I know you’re all in somewhat of a hurry, so perhaps I’d better just tell you now. Y’see, I was goin’ to the vet’rinarian’s yestiddy mornin’ to see if I could filch some more of Natacia’s vitamins. Well, as I was leavin’ by way of the room in back with all the cages in it, somethin’ pinned my tail down from behind. I whirled around and there was this big cat, bigger than any I’d ever seen!” He peered at Misto, whose eyes had grown round. “Anyways, he says to me, ‘hey mouse!’ He says ‘hey mouse! I’ll let you go on one condition.’ Well, of course I asked him what it was, because I do have quite a large family after all. ‘You have to give me your word,’ he says, so I says ‘I promise,’ and he says to go the junkyard inside the city and ask for Munkustrap. He says not to worry about getting eaten, and then he gives me this secret password, only I can’t tell ya what it is because I promised him I wouldn’t tell nobody but Munkustrap. So then he lets me go, and the first thing I did after takin’ Natacia her vitamins was to run to the junkyard and tell the first can I seen. Luckily it was Munkustrap.” He grinned proudly.
“So Rumpus Cat is at the vet’s!” Victoria exclaimed. “Well, this will turn out to be easier than we thought. My family used to take me there once a month; it’s not far from here, and I know the place like the back of my paw.”
“Just a minute, miss,” Aldo said, shaking his head. “As I was leavin’, I sees a man in a white coat take the cat and put him in a box. They carried him outside and put him in a truck.”
The cats looked disheartened at the news, but managed to keep up a cheerful demeanor. “Well,” Victoria said, shaking the mouse’s tiny paw, “you’ve been very helpful. Perhaps we’ll meet again.”
“See ya around, mouse,” Tugger said with a grin, leading the way out the door. Misto just smiled shyly and followed without speaking.
“Hope you find him all right!” Aldo called after them, waving frantically with his paw.
“You know what Munkustrap said, that stuff about our duty to our fellow cat and all. And besides, if we go home now we’ll never find out if Rumpus Cat really exists.” Victoria put up a pretty good argument, and Misto gazed at her admiringly. He felt heat rising to his face and looked away. “Besides, Tugger,” she said with an air of insolence, “where’s your sense of adventure?”
“Hey, I’m adventurous enough!” he protested. Misto rolled his eyes.
“Does anyone else want to lead for a while? I don’t have the slightest idea where to go next, and the wind is really hitting me up front,” Victoria sighed. She looked very pretty with her white fur blowing in the wind, and Misto was careful not to blush as he took her place at the head of the expedition.
“I have an idea about where he is,” Tugger piped up from behind. “But you’re not going to like it.”
“Where?” Victoria asked eagerly.
“Where do most animals go when they get captured?”
“You don’t mean...”
“The pound.” The situation was too grave for them to realize that their conversation was starting to sound like the dialogue in a poorly written adventure story. Misto’s eyes had grown large and turned a paler shade of blue. His face, too, seemed paler beneath the white fur of his face.
“I’m not going there,” he moaned softly, backing away from them. He stumbled over a bump in the concrete of the sidewalk and fell, landing on his back, but he didn’t make a noise or bother to get up. He just laid there as if frozen, staring up at them with his panicked eyes, his mouth ajar.
Victoria went to him and took his paws in hers. “Nothing will happen to you, Misto. I promise,” she said soothingly. Tugger watched, confused and alarmed at the black cat’s cataleptic state. Misto shook his head and seemed to snap out of it. He looked at Vicki skeptically, but allowed himself to be pulled to his feet.
“Well,” Tugger said, “we’d better, um, start on our way, ‘cause it’s kinda far, ya know, and...” He glanced apprehensively at the sun, which was quickly receding over the horizon, leaving a trail of dusk behind it. Victoria took the hint.
“All right. Lead the way, Tugger,” she ordered. He responded with a sarcastic bow and began his usual self-righteous swagger down the pavement. She sighed and followed, keeping close to Misto. The black cat walked slowly and looked as though he were forcing himself to walk forwards. She could see the fear glittering in his eyes, but he said nothing about it and instead stared resolutely forward.
“One of us will have to act like we’re hurt and make a big racket. Then when the man in the white coat comes outside to see what’s going on, the other two can sneak in,” Tugger said.
“Great idea, Tugger! Start acting.”
He looked at her with one eyebrow cocked and his lip curled in a sneer. “Oh, yeah right!” he hissed. “It was my idea!”
“That’s why you should do it. Now go on!” she shoved him out from behind the bush and sent him rolling to a stop in front of the metal door. He glanced back at her uncertainly, and at her nod began to yowl unmercifully loud. He screeched and caterwauled and made so much noise that Misto squinched his eyes shut. “Come on, Misto, get ready,” Vicki told him, taking firm hold of his paw. He smiled and squeezed her paw reassuringly, for he could sense the tension in her voice.
“Now!” she hissed when the metal door opened. They darted behind the man’s legs and into the building without being noticed while the man stooped to tend to the screaming tom.
“What’s the matter, boy?” the man asked Tugger. “Are you hurt?” Tugger continued to meow, curling up so that the man could not inspect him.
“Which cage, which cage?” Misto muttered inside the pound. All along the walls there were empty cages; a few had Pollicles in them, but a small tag at the bottom of the cage had someone’s name on it, signifying that the dogs had been claimed. They barked at the cat, who hissed back at them.
“Down here!” Vicki called, her voice thick with awe. Misto ran down the hall of cages and stared with wonder at her discovery.
The Rumpus Cat was not a cat at all, but a direct descendent of the great Panther Qu. Panther Qu was the greatest panther in all the jungle of Peru, which was a fact obviously distinguishable by looking at the Rumpus Cat. His fur was glossy black, accented with streaks of glorious silver; his body was long and muscular; his head was shaped like that of a jungle cat, with rounded ears that sat close together; his eyes glowed bright and yellow.
“You have come,” he purred in a voice as deep and mysterious as the jungle itself. “Good. I am glad Munkustrap has followers like yourselves. Tell him I am obliged to him and will repay this kindness.” His huge body was cramped in the tiny cage, and Misto wondered who in their right mind would try to capture such a magnificent beast.
Misto smiled at the Rumpus Cat and rubbed his paws together. “Hold on, I’ll have you out before you can say...”
“Look out!” Tugger yelled, careening around the corner. He was followed by the man in the white coat, who was cursing loudly and sporting a bright red scratch down the side of his face. The man skidded past the cats, trying to stop but not able to in time.
“Where did you come from? Never mind, just stay put and I’ll deal with you later!” the man yelled at them over his shoulder, resuming the chase after Tugger.
“Stay put? Yeah right! Hurry, Misto!” Vicki urged.
Mistoffelees raised his paws above his head and muttered a quick prayer. “Hope this works,” he said to Victoria. A bright light enveloped the cage, and when it dissipated the Rumpus Cat was sitting outside rather than inside his cramped cell. When he had room to stretch, he was even larger than Misto had first thought.
“Thank you,” he said. “When your friend comes back around, I’ll let you out.”
They didn’t have to wait long. The sound of Tugger’s yowling came around the corner like the sound of a fast-approaching freight train, and he galloped into view and headfirst into Misto. The guard followed close behind but stopped when he saw Rumpus Cat.
“Hey!” he exclaimed. “How’d you get out?”
Rumpus Cat flattened his ears against his head and growled menacingly. The man backed up slowly, bumping into a desk that stood in the front of the hallway. “Nice kitty,” he whispered. “Good kitty.” The pantherlike beast moved around the desk and to the door, still growling. The other cats joined in by hissing and followed the Rumpus Cat to the door. The Pollicles began to bark in their cages, and the man leapt onto the desk and stood there, afraid to get down. Chuckling, Rumpus Cat pushed open the door and exited along with his new friends.
“Gee, thanks, cat, you really saved... my... tail...” Tugger trailed off and then looked around, confused. “Where’d he go?”
“Home, I guess. Wherever that is for him. We should do the same now,” Victoria said with a yawn. “Mission accomplished. Good job, guys.”
“But we don’t have any proof that we found him! No one’ll ever believe us!” Tugger protested.
“Come on, Tugger. Give it a rest. Let’s get as far away from here as possible,” Misto said.
“By the way, Tugger, what happened to that guy’s face?” Victoria asked curiously.
“He had cold hands,” Tugger remarked with a scowl. Misto covered his mouth with both paws to keep from laughing.
“Well, that was some adventure,” he said. “Where to next?”
“Paris!” Vicki exclaimed.
“Venice!” Misto laughed.
“Home!” Tugger groaned, and the sound of their laughter reached the junkyard long before they did, carried by the wind.
Victoria swelled with pride. “Well,” she said. “Any time you need us, we’ll be around.”
“Come on, Vickie,” Misto said, yawning and leaning on her shoulder wearily. “It’s late. I’m tired.”
Victoria said good night to Munkustrap and helped Misto to the cardboard box. He stretched out immediately on its floor, and she curled up next to him. “Vickie,” he said after a while.
“Hmmm?”
“Do you think Rumpus Cat made it home all right?” “Mmm hmm.”
“Where do you think he lives?” She said nothing. “Vickie?” She exhaled a purr into his ear and went limp against his body. He sighed. “Good night, Vickie.”
The Rumpus Cat stalked along the grass to the base of the big tree in the park. He leaped gracefully up its trunk and into its branches, where he stretched out placidly and watched the twinkling of the stars in the black sky. His thoughts were of the jungle which was alien to him but which coursed through his veins and his soul, his very lifeblood. He began to purr contentedly, and found sleep among the stars above the city.
