“… and I am honoured to introduce his Guest, Sensibel of the River Clan Family at the Pond …”

  Scattered applause from several spectators signified by the rubbing together of paws. A High Guard soldier gives a wolf whistle: jocular unanimity in the audience. Sensibel curtseys and appears to blush.

  “And now a third person, who is not a guest because she is a leading Administrator of our city …” the Judge paused to find the right words to say next, then finished abruptly. “… about whom I have nothing more to say. At this time.”

  The Protector nods his head with approval. The Judge has said the right things. The Judge is obviously Meatbreath’s personal wimp.

  The High Guard snapped to attention. They stood like a row of saplings while the official party left the platform. Then everyone relaxed. Conversation broke out. The Honour Guard, sons and daughters of the leading City Families, rushed over to talk to their parents. The two cavaliers in the High Guard unit recognized him and winked.

  He had no one to talk to. Except Sensibel. But she was being led away by Meatbreath. Where was he taking her? His father! Would she ever again confide in him? He could keep a secret forever.

  Attention! The powerful small Administrator takes centre stage. Two High Guard officers stand behind her and they are high level territorial heads commanding several family hunting grounds. The sons and daughters leave their parents and quickly re-group their line. He hopes the Honour Guard for City Ceremonies and Occasions, as it is formally titled, isn’t going to be ordered to take a side in the city’s political struggle, because he quite likes his fellow cadets. They are spontaneous, free-spirited, and actually quite ordinary youth, without the social superiority that makes Aunt Pawsense a pain in the tail. Athletes, not fighters. The mystery woman clears her throat.

  “Alright, you lot. Stand easy and listen. The City’s about to undergo a transition of leadership, and your role is to ease that transition. You know what I’m talking about. We don’t want fighting, do we?”

  He kept his eyes straight ahead.

  “No, we don’t. Accordingly, you need to be very clear about where you stand in the transition. Right now, you serve the City Fathers. After the Declaration of the Protectorship, you will serve The Protector. He wants to work with the City’s youth to build a better world. Got it?”

  His neighbour’s body is no longer pushing against his flank.

  “As you know, I serve the City Elders. After tonight, I will serve The Protector as his Director of Security. So think of me as a wire between the two authorities, a very thin wire.”

  Got it! Tread carefully. No messing with her.

  “Consider me the one reliable principle in the change of power. I am the Transition. You will serve me and no one else. Questions …?”

  Funny. No one had a question. Yet he sensed uncertainty and discomfort among his comrades.

  “Surely someone has a question.”

  She is as taut as a hydro pole cable. If someone doesn’t come up with a question soon, she’ll …

  “I have a question.”

  Bandit looked left and right for the simpleton idiot who had a question. Then he realized it was himself.

  “Yes. You in front.” The Security Director seemed relieved that someone had broken the tension.

  “My question is … are you telling us that we’re serving you right now?”

  Titters throughout the ranks. The two senior High Guard officers look at each other and make loopy gestures around their heads.

  “What’s your name, cadet?”

  “Bandit, ma’am.”

  “You’re not City, are you? Where you from, Bandit?”

  “East Bank, ma’am.”

  She was looking him in the eyes now. It felt like she was looking through his eyes into whatever grey matter had somehow accidentally lodged in his skull. And through that feeble excuse for a brain to the top of his spine where a lizard was curled up and its name was Cunning. And she was sniffing him imperceptibly. She reached out and fondled his ear.

  “How did you get into the Honour Guard?”

  The two High Guard commanders moved in, sensing a traitor. Their eyes squinted like the headlights of the Primate automobile that pasted Uncle Wily.

  “Ma’am. I was personal bodyguard to The Protector’s designated escort, until he … took her over. They had nothing for me to do, so she asked him to put me in the Honour Guard.”

  “Okay. Honour Guard dismissed. Assemble here at nightfall. You. Remain here.”

  “Me, ma’am?”

  “Yes, you.” Her voice seemed relaxed now. Even gentle. He kept his eyes looking over her shoulder.

  “Can I trust you with a mission?”

  “Yes, ma’am. But begging your pardon, if it concerns the business of the City, maybe you should give it to one of the cadets.”

  “I am the City.”

  “Whatever you say, ma’am.”

  “There is a small gap right now between the City Elders and the Protector. You’re going to squeeze through it. The others can’t be asked to. Instead, they’ll be assigned to lead units of the Peoples Corps.”

  “Thank you, ma’am.”

  “These so-called Citizens Brigades did not spring up spontaneously like mushrooms. They’re being organized by a Resistance cell. They know how to exploit the media. Your mission is to find out where that cell is and report it to me. Clear?”

  “Very clear, ma’am.”

  “You know how to talk to people who live in chimneys. Honour Guard brats can’t do this. You know how to talk to drunkards and burnouts. They have a nose for criminal behaviour; they’ll tell you where the cell is. Then you go there undercover and penetrate it and obtain the names of the leaders.”

  “You’d like me to identify the leaders. What if they think I’m a spy?”

  The Director looked at him sweetly. It was as if she loved him for his innocence. “The one thing we know about them is that they are the authors of all the statuettes of The Protector. They call themselves the Makers.”

  “Makers,” Bandit said. He hoped he really did sound as if he didn’t know what the word meant. He was a raccoon without guile. “Can I ask something, ma’am?”

  “Of course.”

  “I understand that I’m acting under your authority. Is that because The Protector will be out of town?”

  “He may be temporarily … indisposed. As City Director of Security I’m assuming his authority until the Protectorship is declared official.”

  “When should I complete the mission?”

  “Before the sun is down. Off you go.” The Director wheeled around with a surprising agility and walked stiff-legged to join the two officers. He watched them disappear around the restaurant.

  Deep breath. Smells like an autumn day. Now, where to get started? The traffic bridge, of course.

  “Here you are!”

  Bandit jumped. He knew that voice. It was …

  Friskywits looking up at him with her kid sister eyes.

  “I knew I’d find you. But I never thought you’d turn up in an Honour Guard. Isn’t the city glorious? I told you you’d find freedom here. Nobody cares where you’re from or how you look …”

  “Sssh, Frisk. Not now.”

  “Well, maybe they don’t care deeply. They aren’t sensitive to kinship relations. But they are marvellously open to strangers. I’ve made five friends already. That’s how I found out about the rehearsal. How did you get to be a cadet?”

  “Can we talk somewhere else? I’m working undercover.”

  “Oooh! That’s a slack wire to be out on. Are you guarding Bells?”

  “Sssh! Walk with me.”

  They ambled north through the park towards the traffic bridge. Beside them came the hum of the refrigerated trucks – food for tonight’s feast.

  “Bandy – you mustn’t worry about Bells. She’s is a professional romantic, but that doesn’t mean she’s dumb.”

  “I don’t want to talk about her – okay?”

  “Sure. We’ll talk about someone else. Do you want to know why I’m here?”

  “Sorry, Frisk. I’m having a bad day.”

  “I came to warn you that Father sent out scouting parties from the Heights to search for you. Well, not you exactly, but Sensibel. They mean to drag her home.”

  “Good luck.”

  “My sentiments exactly. Still, both of you should hide. Maybe swim over to Aunt Slypaws’s home.”

  “If Mom finds out Sensibel’s with Meatbreath, she’ll take this city and shake it until Sensibella drops out. Then she’ll take her to her chimney and home school her till she can recite the gender positions of every tree in the forest.”

  “She already knows that stuff. Never underestimate the sexual imagination of four sisters.”

  “Where are they keeping her?”

  “In an unknown place. Everyone can tell it’s unknown because it’s guarded by loads of soldiers. Up on the hill beyond the Strip. She’s in the steeple of an empty building where Primates go to sing to their Ancestor. Oh, please Bandy, not under this smelly bridge. It’s where Ne’er-do-wells hang out. There’s so many fleas here that your fleas will leave you to join their mates and party. Take me to the Strip – this is my first time in the city.”

  “There’s nothing doing in the Strip now. It’s almost morning. Don’t you ever sleep?”

  “No.”

  “The bridge is the only place Sensibel knows where to find me. But she probably can’t go out without an escort.”

  “Well, we’ll just go to where she is? I’ll tell the guards I’m her sister and I have an important message to give her personally.”

  “What will I do?”

  “You come too. You’re a cadet in the Honour Guard. I thought you looked handsome up there on the stage. I’ll say you’re my escort. They’ll let us in to see her. Besides you look like one of Meatbreath’s sons.”

  36

  “I’m sorry, but I need to wake you up.”

  Touchwit heard his voice as if it was calling down to her from the top of a chimney. She was stuck in a crazy dream involving her mother floating by the island in the night, talking. Immediately, smells drifted in. Leafy decay. Dank water. Endless forests of pine. Pollen from goldenrod. Then came the sounds. Early morning traffic on the automobile bridge. A seagull calling overhead. Sights: Mindwalker, wide awake, concerned and wet. After the crisis meeting, they’d swum over here to Halfway Island and spent what was left of the day sleeping. Long ago, a homeless Primate had cleared a space in the saplings for a tent and a campfire. That was where she collapsed from fatigue. She must have gone on sleeping right through the night. “It looks like I’m caught in a diurnal sleep cycle,” she said. “Where’d you go?”

  “I swam across to get the morning news.”

  “What’s happening?”

  “Serious scat! First, there’s gossip that No Name is going to make a Declaration tonight. Then there’s a news release from the City Elders saying the Occasion has been delayed: watch for it the night after tomorrow. But immediately counter-messaging starts up and says it’ll to be tonight. Of course. That counter-messaging is ours.”

  She sneezed the pollen out of her nose. Her fingers hurt. For most of yesterday morning in the Root Cellar with other Makers, she’d fashioned identical images of Meatbreath until her fingers started to cramp. She ought to invent a technique for replicating likenesses so that a Raccoon doesn’t have to strain her paws. Multiplying the same image in countless Makings felt wrong. She got the idea from Meatbreath, so it must be wrong. There was something mindless about repeating the same Making. The activity was obsessive. But this was a crisis. She was taking the Protector’s thinking and using it back on him.

  “No Name was sighted for the first time in the city. An hour ago. It’s uncanny how someone who likes to be in your face all the time can be so invisible.”

  I saw him.

  “He was at a dress rehearsal for the Declaration. So now we know the shape of the event, we just don’t know when it’s going to happen.”

  “I’m awake. Let’s swim over and check the networks.”

  “Funny, No Name’s two-sided like you. He’s diurnal-nocturnal. They say he never sleeps.”

  I slept.

  “We’ll have to move around quickly. Apparently, there’s a spy trying to track us.”

  ***

  They made their way south from the café boat dock picking up news.

  Help Make History – Join a Brigade. It’s Illegal to Join. Who sez? Don’t know. But it’s Against Custom. The Protractor’s Left Town. Untrue, Untrue. The City’s Unprotected? Bollocks! Have you seen the Peoples Corps? Bunch of Losers. Lost outside Uptown Tavern: Tail Ring with Elegant Stitches. P.C.s = Protecting City. Wrong! P.C.s = Politically Correct. Who’s the Protector’s Playmate? Don’t know. I’d follow her anywhere!!! Muster to Destroy Tonight’s Declaration. Watch for Time and Place. Moist-touch, please find me – I’m at our Favourite Tree. Alert! P.C.’s trying to shut down the Harbour Area. Moist got arrested, Sister – Very Sorry. Whoever’s destroying Protector statues, Please Stop. I’ve got your Tail Ring. Look for me at the Declaration, near the water.

  “I don’t know if I like the sound of this Peoples Corps,” Touchwit said.

  “The well-fed find a way to protect their place at the top of the food chain. They create a disgruntled, hungry population, then exploit their anger by recruiting them to fight imaginary threats from the sides, not the top.”

  “Let’s go down to the harbour and see for ourselves.”

  “I wouldn’t risk it. Anyway, what we need to find out isn’t there.”

  “Which is …?”

  “What No Name’s plans really are. Why are his High Guard slipping out of the city in ones and twos? Is there trouble over at the Creek? On the Southern Frontier?”

  “That would explain why there’s a delay with the Declaration.”

  “It smells like war,” Mindwalker said. “It’s the kind of confusion you get before conflict: unexplained delays, sudden reversals of intention, waiting and not knowing. It makes it hard to plan a resistance. I wish we could find out what’s going on.”

  “But we can!” Touchwit said. “Excuse me for a minute.” She left the pathway with its double row of young trees. Those long-stemmed weeds by the riverbank would do. Quickly, she wove a handful of them into a wreath. Then she waded out into the river and waved until the Seagull sighted her.

  37

  Clutch’s ragtag militia didn’t look very formidable frolicking in the lake, laughing and splashing water on each other in the early morning light. They’d never killed anything bigger than a vole. How could they defend Creek Town from the Protector’s alpha males? Yet they possessed two advantages: numerical superiority and the power of the Clan Mothers. The second factor was not to be taken lightly. Led by the Mothers, his war bands had mastered the art of taunting during last night’s practices. They could make a pack of Droolers turn tail. Raccoons, like most mammals with the notable exception of humans, rarely fight to the death. Territorial skirmishes are won by displays of aggression: hackles raised, teeth bared, ears flat against the skull, and blood-curdling guttural growls and hissing spits. To picture them in battle is to imagine an aggression that is everything short of actual physical conflict – a display combining elements of a Chinese riot, a Climate Strike, and the Maori haka performed at the beginning of New Zealand All Blacks rugger games. Irish oral tradition remembers that prior to a battle the contesting armies sent out their satirists. On one occasion, the verses of a satirist were so virulent that the opposing king’s face broke out in blotches, causing his army to desert him. I am told that a legend in the Burmese Glass Palace Chronicles says that in early Buddhist times, when two armies met, they would build rival stupas, the shrines in the shape of domes that contain religious relics and statues of the Buddha. When the erections were complete, the armies would compare them and the army that saw the other’s was more beautiful would run away. This is what I mean by raccoon conflict. At the sound of a Clan Mother protecting her territory, an alpha male would have a bowel movement on the spot. Bandit was right: the politics of combat was decided early on by who could break the other’s spirit, who would fight and who would flee.

  What was that Seagull doing? It was strutting back and forth holding a doughnut in its beak, trying to get his attention. A third guide presuming to give him advice? First, there had been a mouse, then a fox, now this gull. Curious how these councillors appeared at dawn.

  The seagull dropped the object at his feet. It wasn’t a doughnut; it was a circular Making woven out of ironweed and loosestrife. The gull indicated he was supposed to sniff it. He didn’t need to.

  “Is Touchwit safe?”

  “Greetings, colleague. You are standing alone in thought like a Gull, so I take you to be a wise leader.”

  “A wise leader follows the people.”

  “A Raccoon Saying, doubtless.”

  “From the lips of Procyonides the Sage.”

  “Was Procyonides born in a chimney?”

  “No. He was born in a distant land where Seagulls aren’t rude.”

  “Perhaps it is such a wise place that the Raccoons there don’t eat the eggs of Gulls. Show me that paradise and I’ll fly there and live happily ever after. In these uncertain times, Raccoons and Seagulls should live in harmony. We both prize clams and live off the avails of Primates. Most of all, we are survivors. You are having a territorial dispute.”

  “Tell me your message and begone.”

  “Of course. Your sister sends her compliments. She asks: would you create a diversion to draw off Meatbreath and a portion of his forces? She wants you to pin them down for one night, tonight to be precise, so that her colleagues will have time to organize to defend the city.”