The Hedgehog of Oz Read online

  The squirrel. Ingot wore Scamp’s shield like a helmet as he picked through the debris. His bandage was filthy and wet. His limp was worse than ever.

  They found a bit of tunnel under the rubble and followed it. It ended in a pocket of space where the movie screen tented up above them and the velvet curtain rolled beneath their feet. Ingot collapsed into the thick fabric and closed his eyes.

  Tuffy crawled over to a bright-green something and picked it up in his hands. He licked it. “I am liking this mess-hole! It’s delicious!”

  “What have you got there, Tuffy?” Marcel asked. He took the raccoon’s hand and opened his fingers.

  Inside Tuffy’s palm lay a lime Fruit Gem. Marcel closed the raccoon’s fingers around his prize. “Keep it.” He remembered then what Uncle Henrietta always said about the lime ones. “They taste like grass.”

  Ingot spoke up. “We’ll get some rest now. Head out when it’s dark. Tuffy’s parents won’t venture out till later anyway. We’ll have a look then.”

  The hours from afternoon until dark, however, were long and lonely. While Ingot slept, Tuffy scavenged every Fruit Gem, yogurt raisin, and Chocolate Button he could find scattered in the dust and glass. He managed to collect four Gems (all lime), twelve Chocolate Buttons, one yogurt raisin, two Coco-nutties, a caramel, and five Toffee Beans, pushing them into a pile and staring at them adoringly.

  A despairing Marcel watched Tuffy as he ran back and forth in search of goodies, commenting only when he chose anything that wasn’t, in fact, food. The raccoon kept getting mixed up with the pieces of emerald-green tile, thinking something so colorful must surely taste good. (It didn’t.)

  Toto, as ever, just wriggled.

  Marcel felt lost. Here he’d dragged his friends to the city, to what he thought would be a home for one, if not all of them, if need be. But his plans, just like the theater, lay in ruins. He would never again breathe in the scent of hot buttered popcorn or curl up in the balcony under his jumbo bucket. He’d never again scrounge a candy supper for himself and the hen sisters. An extra-large-size Blaster-Berry slush all his own was the thing of dreams now, and the giant screen had showed its last film. There’d be no more seven p.m. showings. No War of the Wombats. No Robots Take Mars. No Love on the Louisiana Turnpike.

  He’d never again watch his beloved Wizard of Oz.

  And without a theater, without Oz, why should Dorothy come to visit? His Dorothy.

  But that was silly. He’d given up the dream of her coming to the theater a long time ago.

  He worried now about Auntie Hen and Uncle Henrietta. Had they escaped? Were they able to get out before all this? And if they did, where had they gone?

  Auntie Hen had always been a little soft and Uncle Henrietta just a little too hard to make it on the streets, Marcel thought. Two red hens living—where? In a rat-infested alley? On a windy fire escape with a pot of begonias? Marcel imagined them hunting for scraps on the street. A Chinese noodle here, soggy bits of cereal thrown from fifty different strollers there, fighting the pigeons for a crust of bread.

  Marcel shuddered. What had become of his hens?

  And what would become of him?

  Was it like Ingot said? Had sheer bad luck done this? Would the same luck have him back on the streets again?

  It seemed there wasn’t a doubt.

  Why, oh why, was the world such a dark place?

  Marcel thought of losing Dorothy. He thought of Ingot and how very alone the squirrel was in the world. He thought of Tuffy, separated from his parents. And now Scamp was gone. Marcel was happy she’d found her place again in Mousekinland, but he felt the loss of her to their little group too.

  Marcel considered all this as he crept to the edge of the curtain and peered out at the stars igniting above him.

  The night sky peered back.

  Marcel fixed his gaze through his one acceptable lens, and he noticed something. It was this:

  That even in the darkness, there are a billion pinpricks of light.

  He shook his head. That sounded a little too hopeful, in his experience.

  Marcel crept back under their makeshift tent.

  Wrapped in the curtain and shivering a little, Ingot stirred. “It quiet enough out there yet?” he asked.

  “Almost,” said Marcel.

  Tuffy straightened his cape and pulled his candy stash closer. “Tuffy’s ready.”

  When it was sufficiently dark and the noises on the street had quieted to a whimper, the three friends tramped out. They stayed close to buildings and under anything they could, and alley by alley, they searched the city’s dumpsters—Tuffy’s eat-boxes. Quite a few were lorded over by rats, and one particular alley they avoided altogether at the earsplitting yowling of a dozen cats.

  Dumpster to dumpster they went, asking any friendly animal they passed if they’d seen any raccoons about, and did they know where the best eating was.

  They’d been at it for hours when Ingot collapsed. “I need to rest a few minutes,” he said in his scratchy growl. “My leg… It just needs a rest is all.”

  The others agreed, and they found a comfortable spot out of the wind, in a darkened bus stop with a good view.

  The streets were dressed for the holidays. Giant tinsel snowflakes, lit by tiny glowing lights, hung from the lampposts. Christmas trees and menorahs brightened many a frosty window. Somewhere, carols played over a speaker, and the world should have felt wondrous had they not been hurt, and homeless, and lost.

  They weren’t far from the theater now, having walked several blocks, then doubling back. In fact, from his spot in the bus stop vestibule, Marcel could see the hole it had left on the opposite side of the street farther down. The sight of it wrecked him.

  From around a corner, an old-fashioned pickup truck rumbled up to the curb in front of the theater and sat idling. There was a particular sound to the truck that Marcel thought he recognized.

  “You see that?” he asked, craning his neck for a better view.

  “See what?” said Ingot.

  “That truck there.” Marcel squinted through the scratched lens of his spectacles. “What’s it doing?”

  “How should I know?” said Ingot. He groaned as he unwrapped his grass bandage. He found a strip of newspaper and began to rewrap the leg again, tighter.

  The truck grumbled and waited.

  “Something’s… I—I need a better look,” said Marcel, and Tuffy followed.

  “I’ll catch up in a minute!” Ingot called after them.

  A long line of cars sat parked on the street, and Marcel and Tuffy dropped into the gutter.

  The truck’s headlights glowed a dull yellow, and a freshly cut pine tree with a sprinkling of snow poked out of the back at a slant. Exhaust puffed from the tailpipe and hung in the air like fog.

  The cab was dark and nebulous, but as Marcel and Tuffy neared, Marcel thought he felt a hint of recognition at the driver’s outline. They scuttled closer and hid behind the tire of a low sedan.

  They were about to move another car forward when the pickup’s door opened with a squawk. A foot planted itself in the snow, and then another. A man stepped out onto the sidewalk, hoisted the popcorn boxes into the back, and beheld the broken theater. He spoke.

  “We had a good run, didn’t we?”

  It was Gomer Dupree. Night janitor, office manager, popcorn popper, and owner of the Emerald City Theater. He had on a wool hat over his bald brown head and a scarf around his neck.

  He bent down and pushed a hand into the debris and pulled something out, perhaps a shard of green tile, a scrap of velvet, or a piece of gold-painted wood—some memento to remember the theater by. He shoved it into the pocket of his coat. “We sure had a good run, old girl. Yes, we did.”

  He turned back to the truck and opened the door. “Come on, now, you two. Scoot over.”

  Marcel stepped closer.

  “Let’s go home, ladies!” said Gomer Dupree. He started to climb into the driver’s seat but paused. “D
arned light. Must be a short in it or something.”

  There was the sound of a few thumps as Gomer Dupree banged against the overhead light. It flickered and blinked on. Marcel never expected to see what he saw next.

  There, on the dashboard of the pickup, sat two red hens.

  “Auntie Hen! Uncle Henrietta!” he called out in barely a whisper.

  Next to Marcel, Tuffy’s eyes went wide. “Those are Marcel’s hens?”

  “That’s them.” Marcel choked on the words.

  The janitor, satisfied, jumped into the driver’s seat and slammed the door. Marcel heard the shift of gears, and the truck started forward.

  “No!” Marcel shouted. But what could he do? He tore Scamp’s old sling-shooter from his pack and fumbled trying to place a pebble in the pocket. Next to him, Tuffy’s eyes narrowed.

  “Watch out for the honkers—honkers squash you up,” the raccoon mumbled to himself. He looked down at his mushroom medal. “But those are Marcel’s hens. And Tuffy has his cape….”

  The truck was advancing. Closer, closer. It was nearly upon them when all at once a look of sheer determination crossed Tuffy’s face.

  Tuffy’s cape fluttered out behind him with a heroic air as he bellowed, “Oh no, you’re not taking those hens! Tuffy is being a—a—”

  Tuffy bolted out into the street, and Marcel heard his cry as the truck barreled forward.

  “Tuffy is being a LION!” he yelled, and he planted himself there in the middle of the street in the direct path of a honker.

  CHAPTER 24 Surprises in the Night

  THE TRUCK ROARED DOWN.

  Marcel ran from his hiding place. “Tuffy, no!” he shouted.

  Somewhere in the distance, Ingot was shouting too.

  But Gomer Dupree’s pickup didn’t slow. In fact, it picked up speed.

  Tuffy—there wasn’t time to reach him.

  The instant before the truck bore down, Marcel turned back to avoid the tread of the tires. He could hear Ingot yelling, the groan of the engine, the slock and slush of the snow.

  And then the truck was beyond them.

  Marcel stood, his back to the street, shaking. He could not look.

  Ingot raced past him into the road, his face wild with fear. “What are you, crazy?” he cried.

  He was not speaking to Marcel.

  And only then did the hedgehog have the courage to turn.

  There Tuffy stood, shining under the light of a streetlamp. He was frozen in the middle of the lane, one foot planted in front of the other, one arm thrust forward, palm out, as if signaling for the truck to stop. The miniature cape floated out behind him in a daredevil way.

  A tiny daredevil way.

  The squirrel had taken Tuffy by the shoulders and was shaking him. “It went right over you!” Ingot turned to Marcel. “It went right over him! I don’t believe it!”

  Marcel, still in shock, stared open-mouthed at the two of them, but his eyes flicked back to where the pickup chugged into the night. The pine tree bumped along in the back, and he caught a last glance of the hen sisters’ wide feathered ends, before the truck spun down a side street and disappeared.

  Something deep inside told him he’d never lay eyes on his hens again. He’d certainly never help Auntie Hen out of her theater seat when it ate her up. He’d never need to save all his Toffee Beans for Uncle Henrietta. He’d never wake to the murmuring and soft clucks of two sleeping chickens and fall asleep to their arguing banter.

  A sad smile lingered on his face even still.

  Auntie Hen and Uncle Henrietta looked happy, Marcel thought to himself.

  Somewhere on the next street, the pickup truck backfired, a loud bang rippling over the buildings, like it agreed.

  Ingot was still shouting. “This raccoon’s crazy! Absolutely nuts!” And then the tired old squirrel began to laugh. A great, roaring laugh. “That was dumb, kid. Really dumb. But brave, too.” He patted the raccoon’s cheek proudly, and Tuffy’s resulting smile was as long and sweet as a Licorice Twist.

  “Like the lion,” Tuffy said. “Tuffy was wanting to be like the lion, even though he was scared. And like Scamp. Tuffy wants to be just like her—he wanted to save Marcel’s friends. But…” His face fell then as he looked over to where Marcel stood at the side of the road. “The honker didn’t stop.”

  Marcel smiled weakly. “That doesn’t make you any less brave, Tuffy.” He crept out into the street under the watchful light of the streetlamp. “You’re not a cowardly lion—you’re not even a brave one. You’re a raccoon. A good, brave raccoon and a friend. Being brave isn’t being something you’re not. Courage is knowing everything you are, fears and all, and stepping out anyway.” Marcel smiled wider now. “You didn’t let your fear be stronger than your fight, Tuffy. You tried, and that means very much to me. Thank you.”

  “Sometimes living, breathing, getting up and facing the day is all the brave you need to be,” Marcel heard Ingot say quietly.

  Somewhere, a little way down the street, something chittered in the night. The three of them—the raccoon, the squirrel, and the hedgehog—froze in the dim glare of the streetlamp.

  “Don’t move,” murmured Ingot.

  In the darkness something stirred. Two shapes bumbled over the curb and into the street a few yards away. They crept into the light of the next streetlamp and sat on their haunches, their black eyes looking straight at the three travelers.

  Gray fur. Fuzzy ears. Black noses and whiskers and dark masks around their eyes like a couple of bandits. Striped, bushy tails. Tiny hands wringing with worry.

  Tuffy took a hesitant step forward. “Mama? Papa?”

  “Tuffini?”

  “Tuffy, is that you?” The voice cracked.

  Tuffy began to trot, then run. The two raccoons did the same. “It’s me!” Tuffy shouted. “It’s your Tuffy!”

  When they reached one another, Tuffy flung himself into the furry arms of his parents, and there, in the frozen night, as the two older raccoons wept and laughed and peppered him with kisses, the cowardly-but-not-too-cowardly Tuffy’s journey out of the woods came to an end.

  Marcel and Ingot could only stand in amazement. First in shock, then with crazy grins on their faces. Ingot, though he tried to hide it, wiped away a few tears of his own.

  When he’d finally calmed down enough for words, Tuffy spoke through broken hiccups. “How”—hicc—“how did you find me?” Hiccup!

  His father looked down at him with glad eyes. “We were on the next street over, searching as we do—we’ve done—every night since you disappeared. We’d already made our way down this street and the one before, the one after, and were about to begin the next block when we heard shouting—”

  “Shouting,” cut in Tuffy’s mother. “And then the loud bang of a honker. We’ve always been so worried you’d be squashed up.”

  “We had to make sure it wasn’t you.”

  Tuffy squeezed the two tighter.

  “Our eat-box is twenty blocks away,” said Tuffy’s mother, her eyebrows furrowed, but her voice was tender. She lifted the little raccoon’s chin and searched his face. “How in the world did you get this far?”

  A car turned down the street toward them, and Ingot cleared his throat. “I think you’ll find he got a lot farther than that, but for now, we should find a safer place to chitchat. Over here.” He beckoned them over with a wave of his hand, and the group of animals followed the limping squirrel to a nearby newsstand barely big enough for one person to stand inside. It was dark and shuttered, but Ingot reached up, took Scamp’s walnut shell from his head, and rummaged around inside it.

  “Learned a thing or two about being prepared from that mouse.” He pulled out a metal pin he’d snatched from the factory workshop, climbed to the newsstand’s counter, jammed it in the sliding door’s lock, and jimmied it. The lock sprang open.

  Together, they lifted the overhanging door and wedged a rock in the crack just big enough for them to squeeze inside.

  With
luck, Marcel found a flashlight, and he flicked it on. Everyone sucked in their breath.

  On one side of the newsstand sat row upon row of newspapers and magazines, but on the other, floor to ceiling, was arranged every sort of candy you could dream of. It was like being in the theater again, only better. Chocolate Buttons, Cherry Dips, Marshmallow Kisses, Peppermint Sticks. Gumdrops, lemon drops, Licorice Twists, and Treacle Chews. There were toffees, taffies—every possible kind of sugary goo.

  “Hm,” said Ingot.

  “Check the garbage,” Marcel and Tuffy’s parents said in unison.

  Sure enough, there was plenty to go around. Tuffy selected a half-eaten box of taffy, and his parents each took Peppermint Sticks. Marcel chose three caramels and tore into them hungrily.

  Marcel looked over at Ingot, who was hunched in a corner. “You’re not eating?”

  “Not hungry. Mind your business,” the old squirrel snapped back.

  Even though he knew Ingot was in pain and probably exhausted, Marcel winced.

  With mouths stuffed with sweets, Marcel and Tuffy did their best to relay all of Tuffy’s exploits to his parents, who here and there gave startled squeaks. When the story was over, both raccoons looked pale.

  Tuffy’s father swallowed painfully. “Well,” he said. “That was quite the story. I—I don’t know what to say….”

  “Oh, my baby!” wailed Tuffy’s mother, clutching her young kit to her breast. “You could’ve been killed! You must have been so scared. And to think! We could have missed you! If we hadn’t heard that shouting, that honker—I can’t bear to think it. But still, after everything we taught you, why did you run out into the street?”

  All eyes turned to the little raccoon.

  Tuffy swallowed the mouthful of taffy he’d been gnawing on. He stood, Scamp’s old cape hung limply down his back.

  “Tuffy was scared,” he said, looking down at his feet. “Scared of the honkers, scared of mean-trees and scream-birds and snatchers. Scared of Whizzer and his fat-rats. Scared of everything.” Tuffy looked up, a blush rosying his cheeks. “Tuffy was scared… but he can be brave, too. Like Scamp, and Ingot, and Marcel. Tuffy was brave because he was seeing he can be brave. Brave like his friends.” He looked at Ingot and Marcel. “Brave for his friends.”