“What’s Sting want a book for?” asked one of the cats.
“There’s a jillion books here. Why doesn’t he just take one?” asked another.
Marco sat sullenly on top of a card catalogue. Cats could listen to the same story over and over again and never tire of it, but he was growing impatient. This was getting them no closer to rescuing Polo or protecting the Book. He washed his face and listened. The Dead Cats’ conversation revealed one important point, and that was how little they really knew about anything.
He had his own set of questions. How could Cicero believe he'd betrayed him? How did Sting know about the Book? And how much did Bait really know?
There was movement outside and a head appeared in the window. The raccoon looked nervously around the room. “Which one of you’s Marco?” he demanded.
Marco stood up in surprise.
“This message is for you.” The raccoon cleared his throat and spoke like he was repeating the words from memory. “Deliver the magic book to me, I mean Sting, in one hour.” His head disappeared and popped back up. “Bring it to him at his headquarters.”
He disappeared again. Tweezer was rushing over to look out the window when the raccoon popped up for the third time. “If you don’t show, your little buddy’s dead meat.”
Now all of the cats ran over to the window, crowding each other for a view of the raccoon as he clumsily clawed his way down the tree.
They all began talking at once, but everyone was pretty much saying the same thing.
“Magic book? What magic book?”
Marco slipped out unnoticed.
Chapter 40: Neither cat nor human
Marco had no problem locating Sting’s headquarters. It wouldn’t have taken his exceptional sense of smell to detect raccoon odor radiating from the brown truck. Besides, there was Polo, tied to the bumper. Even asleep he looked forlorn.
He must have sensed Marco’s presence because he woke up, squealing with delight, and began running towards him. But the leash caught him short.
Sting came out of the camper to see what the commotion was about. “Knock it off!” he yelled and yanked on the leash, choking Polo as he pulled him back. Then he noticed Marco. “Hey, Rat! Look who’s here! It’s your big buddy.”
“Let him go!” demanded Marco.
“Sure, Marco. No problem. But I don’t see no book. You didn’t come all the way out here without it, did you?”
“It’s not mine to give you, Sting.”
“I don’t care whose it is. Steal it!”
“What are you going to do with a book? You can’t even read.”
“I hear this one’s special. Maybe I won’t have to read it. Maybe it will read itself to me.”
If Marco had any doubts about a traitor in his midst, they were dispelled now. Even if he didn’t have his facts straight, there was no way Sting would know about The Book of Motion by himself. His head hung down, weighted by a muddle of problems. How had his life gotten so complicated?
“What a moron. I don’t know why I’m bothering with the likes of you. Here I thought you'd do anything to get your friend back," said Sting. “Time to proceed with Plan B.” Sting yelled back inside the camper, “You boys know what to do. Now go!”
Tank squeezed through the door, Sting not bothering to move to let him out.
“I’m calling in backup,” he told Marco. “Friends who are itchin' for a good fight.”
“I’m not afraid,” Marco countered. “Cats love a good fight.”
“You’ll be sorry you didn’t make this nice and simple, Marco. Be prepared for things to get rough." Sting looked at Polo, "Right, little buddy?”
Polo was shivering, his eyes pleading for mercy.
Marco needed some leverage. Something besides another attack. He’d already been in too many fights with Sting. He would have to go about this differently, and he’d already given some thought to it. A guardian was allowed to use the power of the Book if it was a matter of life and death. Surely, this was one of those times.
He had memorized the magical words. Cicero said he wasn’t ready to receive the spell, but their haunting sound had stayed with him. So he spoke the words, hoping to transform into a human like Cicero had done. Nothing happened at first. Marco repeated the spell. Again nothing. What was he doing wrong? He tried a third time and was suddenly catapulted into a new form. He was the same size as before and still on all fours, but he had the arms and legs of a human. They were covered in fur, but his face felt naked and his ears were gone.
He was neither cat nor human, but a frightful hodgepodge of both. Sting and Polo were both gaping at him. When Sting started laughing, Marco, mortified at his condition, ran for cover, tripping and falling, forced to use legs that didn’t fit his body.
Chapter 41: Caffeina
Marco returned to the library in a strange mood, smelling of human and raccoon, warning the Dead Cats of impending danger. When someone asked him what was wrong, he snapped at them. But he’d taken charge and was giving orders. They needed lookouts because the raccoons were bringing in recruits for a fight. Marco said they needed their own recruits, that they needed to round up some strays.
The air was charged with electricity and Caffeina chose to join the round up rather than sit around waiting. It turned out that only she and Tweezer had volunteered.
“How much farther?” whined Caffeina, after they had been walking forever. She thought it might be fun going on an adventure, but she should have known better. How could anything be fun with Tweezer?
Now she wished she’d stayed behind, because her toe pads hurt.
“Tweezer! You never told me it would be this far. For that matter, you never even told me where we’re going."
Tweezer did not slow his pace or miss a beat.
“We’ve no time to waste, Caffeina.”
“I know. It’s just that I figured stray cats would be… well, like, closer to town.”
“You don’t get out much, do you?”
“You are such a pain, Tweezer! Why are you so mean?”
“I’m not mean. I just don’t have time to explain things.”
After a few blocks he slowed his pace. “We’re almost there.” They turned the corner and Tweezer crossed the street in front of a dilapidated old house. The yard was surrounded by a chain link fence, and the house was wrapped with a wide porch supported by thick pillars covered in dry paint curls.
It looked abandoned, but there were cats dozing on chairs and in laundry baskets. Kittens scrambled around the dirt yard, playing with broken twigs. Aluminum pie tins of dry food lined the porch.
For once, Caffeina was speechless. She had no idea so many cats could live in one place. Tweezer climbed up the trunk of a tree and leaped off inside the fenced yard. He marched up to the porch like he belonged.
“Welcome home, Tweez. How’s it going?”
This was where Tweezer lived? Caffeina never thought about where the other cats went when they weren’t together. She’d always been a little ashamed because she lied about living at the Sleep N’Go. She picked her way around mud puddles and tried not to breathe too deeply. This was so much worse than the motel.
She joined Tweezer so she wouldn’t get stuck out in the yard having to talk with some awful-looking stray.
“Tweezer! Where you been? Hanging out with bookworms?" yelled one dirty white cat.
"They’re dead cats, supposedly,” said another.
“Aren’t we good enough for you anymore?”
“Maybe we’re not dead enough,” joked one.
To Caffeina’s surprise, Tweezer didn’t get uptight with these cats like he did with her. He greeted each one like they were long lost brothers and sisters, all of them teasing each other good-naturedly.
“Look what he brought with him! Hey, gorgeous. What’s your name?”
“Wow, Tweezer. How’d you ever get a girl like that? You being so ugly and all.”