No. Thirty.

Before the incident in the pond, Cody had been feeling more invincible than the average cat.

He had journeyed the farthest from home he ever had and found shelter—with some help. He had made friends across species and learned to forage when food was scarce—with some help. He had defeated a powerful, fearsome foe—with some help. And he had escaped drowning in a muddy pool—with some help.

As fiercely independent as he liked to think he was, every element of his journey to confront and defeat the owl—and its epilogue—were all only possible because of assistance from others. Even the food he had learned to forage from the trash was there because of others. He and his raccoon friends were just doing their part to help keep more from going into landfills.

Cody had truly come to enjoy it in this wooded eden, but as a cat that couldn’t swim or do much else entirely on his own, and he could not distract himself from it. He came to recognize his utter dependence on others for even the simplest of things it seemed, and this notion bored into his brain as he slinked back from the site of his near-drowning, fur still soaked and muddied. As he stopped to again shake himself, recognition of the fact that he would never be completely cleansed from this baptism in the woods sank in. He knew that he needed to go back home. He knew he would have to leave soon. He didn’t know how many of his nine lives he had left.

Cody also did not know how long he had been gone. It was long enough to have been trapped by snow and have it melt, making the earth again warm and wet and viridescent. Dozens of sunrises and sunsets were entirely plausible, and he found himself nervous of if his person would even accept him back into the home. And then what? Back to waiting for food, he guessed. Sure, it could grow irksome if he had played particularly hard that morning or evening, but at least the presence of food was reliable.

And maybe he would still get to venture outside every now and again. Perhaps take a day trip with Fenswick someplace?

The possibilities seemed very likely and very real, so he set it in his mind he would leave at the next sunrise. One last evening with the raccoons and Fenswick before departing home.

At last, he was at the park, and found the raccoons having their picnic from the remains of the birthday picnic that had been held there a few hours earlier. Ralph and Roderick were on the ground, gorging themselves on cantelope while Reginald, and Regina were both buried in the trashcan up to their haunches, legs hooked around the rim for support. While the other two munched, they continued to dig out more than half of a birthday cake and a seemingly endless quantity of torn hamburger and hotdog buns.

“Yes, my fellow veiled varmints—I have it!” Reginald exclaimed, emerging with a broken sphere covered in colorful crêpe. “I give you: The piñata!”

Regina brought herself up out of the trashcan, huffing excitedly, “Oh, you have it, do you? All by yourself, then?”

“Well, Regina,” Reginald began, pausing to choose his words carefully, “you see, it’s—oh, good heavens, what happened to you?”

He dropped the piñata back into the trash and hopped down, scampering across the ground to Cody.

“Dear Cody, what on earth happened?” Reginald was shocked and concerned to see that cat covered in drying mud, matted and sticky in various patches on its body.

“I’m fine, Reg,” Cody said, stopping to vainly lick the bits of fur he could reach. “I just lost my balance and fell into a pool between two boulders.”

“I told you going into that part of the woods was not a good idea,” Roderick said, shaking a small piece of cantelope at the cat.

“You did?” the other three raccoons inquired at the same moment.

“Well, not in those exact words,” replied Roderick, “but I did say he should stick with us.”

“That you did, Roderick,” said Cody. “That you did. And I’m afraid I have some more bad news,” he began.

“Wait, where’s Fenswick?” asked Reginald, again alert and looking about in worry. “He didn’t fall in with you, did he?”

“No, no,” Cody said, calming Reginald. “He’s still napping in the persimmon tree near the pond. I think he’s come to claim that as his own after we evicted that owl.”

“There was no ‘we,’ Cody,” said Ralph. “You did that all on your own.”

“No, no…” said Cody trailing off with his words.

“But you did,” Regina said, reassuringly. “We were all there.”

“No,” Cody said, more firmly this time. “That’s just it: You were all there. You, Fenswick, Whale—”

“Whale?” inquired all four raccoons in unison.

“There’s a whale living in our woods?” Roderick asked, peering around Cody, almost expecting to see a hundred ton whale hiding behind a tree.

Cody chuckled, “No, not a whale. Whale was the name I gave the turtle that saved me from drowning earlier today.”

“Ohhhh,” the raccoon quartet said, understanding Cody.

“It just made me realize that I’m unable to really do anything on my own, and I think it best that I head back to my person,” continued Cody. “And my person’s home. I just hope to still have a home there.” He sounded said.

“Well, dear Cody,” began Reginald, sniffling a bit, “you’ll always have a home here with us.

“Here, here!” piped up Roderick and Regina.

“Fine,” muttered Ralph. “Here, here.”

Roderick brought them all back to focus: “Then let’s get that piñata out from the confines of the trashcan and have ourselves one grand celebration!”

“Hurrah!” they all shouted.

“Hurrah!” said Fenswick. “What happened to you, Cody? And what are we celebrating?”

“Fenswick, my friend,” said Cody, “I had a bit of a spill and subsequent epiphany. Come, let me tell you all about it over whatever this is that Reginald and Regina have just pulled out of the trash.”

As the sun set, the animals continued to feast, including Fenswick, safe in the company of his friends, comfortable in the knowledge than an owl would not be swooping down to clutch him away from all that he loved.

---

The morning sun spread its brilliance across Cody’s face through the shudders. The warmth of the sunlight—muted through special film the humans had put on the windows somewhat recently—was still pleasing and reminded him of his months spent in the wilderness with a squirrel and four raccoons. And a whale of a turtle, too.

His roommates didn’t believe a word of his story—how he had not only learned to speak squirrel but had also made friends with one and journeyed far from their home to live among raccoons, surviving a snowstorm, and fight an owl only to later almost drown and be saved by a turtle—preferring to tease that Cody had been picked up by animal control. They further teased that the person of the house had been oblivious to his absence, but Cody knew that wasn’t true. He had seen the paper rectangles with his picture and words and numbers plastered all around the neighborhood when he and Fenswick had entered, as well as in the house. Dozens of extra copies were still in the room with all the books, ready to be sent to the far reaches of the suburbs, all in the hopes of finding a single cat.

All of this brought Cody happiness in the ensuing days when he thought of adventures to be had out of doors and sadness poked its head about. But the best happiness came the following evening, which was remarkable cool for so late in the spring. Cody was in a windowsill, watching shadows grow and cover the back yard just as the snow had covered the wooded area in the wake of the disappearance of his bunny, of the finding of the feather and half-a-doughnut, of the befriending of a squirrel, when a flash of contrasting brown against the khaki of the fenceposts caught his eye and riveted his attention: A bunny.

It wasn’t the same bunny as before—Cody knew that. But it was a bunny, and it was his to watch and love and enjoy. He knew that, too.

No. Twenty-nine.

The snow stuck around for far longer than the animals—or the humans, for that matter—could have imagined. A day turned into another day and then another and so on until an entire week had passed. Seven full days and nights with almost no sun and not one but two periods of rapidly falling snow covering the frozen woods.

Eventually, though, the snow did melt away, just as the owl had seemed to do as it was absorbed by the clouds as it flew out of sight. In the time thereafter, Cody, Fenswick, and the nursery of raccoons were all but inseparable, caring for one another either by finding food or drink or working to expand the shelter beneath the rocks.

As the sun returned, Cody chose not to go back to his home just yet. He was enjoying himself in the wild, joining the raccoons as they rummaged through trashcans and discovering he really enjoyed gnawing on plastic grocery bags. It felt nice on his teeth and gums while also allowing him to relish the flavors absorbed by the bags, although he did soon learn to avoid those smelling of peppers; they were a touch too spicy for his liking, especially when water was as far away as the pond.

Despite the owl having taken leave from the area, Cody and his brood seldom went to the pond save to saturate their respective thirsts when other water sources were not to be found—or to ensure the owl was keeping up with his end of the bargain.

It was on one of these ventures to the pond that Cody inquired of the raccoons what was beyond the pond, past the persimmon tree where the owl had nested.

“Why would you want to know that, old chap?” inquired Reginald in between gulps of water from the pond’s edge. “No one liked to look at the tree let alone past it.”

“No one but us, you mean? Right, then, Reg?” butted in Roderick. “But as I understand it,” he began speaking in a lower, more hushed tone to get Cody’s attention, “it’s naught but loose rocks leading to a massive stony surface where the foul creatures lurk: Snakes and the like. Some say the owl was the guardian and gatekeeper of that place. Bugger of a bird as it was, it kept the truly bad things out.”

Silence hung in the air, heavier than the humidity, recently returned after its winter sabatical.

“Thbbft!”

Everyone turned to look at Ralph, propped up on his hind legs, his tongue still hanging out of his mouth following its rude eruption.

“You can’t honestly believe that spooky nonsense Roderick is trying to get you to believe, can you?” Ralph asked. “I mean, come on. We live in the wild, for crying out loud.”

“Ralph, you’re letting him get you all riled up again,” said Regina, shaking her head in disbelief. “Come on, we should start heading towards the park. The birthday party we heard earlier should be wrapped up, and those trash cans will be brimming with refuse.”

“Pip-pip! Off we go then,” Roderick said, ushering a giggling Reginald along with him.

“You go explore wherever you want, Cody,” said Ralph. “We know you’re the bravest thing to come into these woods in a very long time. But don’t dally too long. You know how the rest of the nursery is about saving the good bits of trash for latecomers.” And he turned to walk off, following his friends to the park.

Cody ventured up to and then beyond the persimmon tree, casting a glance upwards to see Fenswick fast asleep in a nook. The wounds the owl had given him had healed up nicely, now appearing only as a series of dark dots on his fur, spaced precisely to match owl talons. Fortunately, nothing internal was wounded.

From the shade of the trees, Cody found himself in a broad, rocky area. There was loose shale stones compacted title in a path where the creek had forced such closeness. Higher up was a seeming sea of stone, vast and warm, flowing as though with ripples, fashioned by centuries of periodic running water followed by baking in the near-constant sun. Pocks here and there caught the cat’s attention, and tried to investigate each, but they simply were too many.

Curiosity of the holes in the stony surface on which he walked momentarily satisfied, Cody carried on to the west, following the sun, still high in the sky. He found himself higher up and was about to attempt a leap to another high bit of land across a chasm of a few feet. But just as he tightened his muscles to spring, the dirt and bits beneath his forepaws gave way and he fell eight to ten feet down into water.

Landing with a splash, Cody hissed and attempted to cry out but was unable: He had sunk beneath the surface of the water collected there.

A small pool of water—remnants from the last flash flood through the area a fortnight or so ago—proved to be large enough, deep enough to swallow a cat whole. The mud from the rocks holding the water clouded the water so that only ripples were visible of the struggle taking place within the confines of the water. Not even the turtle making its way across the pond was perceivable, neither from above nor from within the pool.

Counterintuitively, the turtle swam towards the source of the disturbance and somehow positioned himself as something to help stabilize the thrashing limbs of the cat, eventually buoying it back to the surface and then to the edge of the pool. Cody had clutched onto the edges of the turtle’s slick shell, with only one paw attached to something that did not feel natural but was secured firmly to the turtle’s shell, just above where his head poked out.

“Oh, hi, there,” said the turtle as it crawled over a narrow bridge of water where the pool that had swallowed Cody joined with another. “Golly, I didn’t expect to find a cat in my pool here.”

Cody said nothing, nor did he move, petrified as he was at having so narrowly escaped drowning.

“Say,” continued the turtle, swimming at the surface of the next, smaller pool, his head and shell still above water, “I don’t suppose you’re that cat the killed that owl are you?”

“No,” began Cody, slowly finding his voice. “I mean, no, I didn’t kill the owl. I just attacked and threatened it because it was trying to eat one of my friends.”

“Oh,” replied the turtle. “Well, I suppose that makes for a pretty good story, too.”

“My name is Cody,” said the cat. “What’s your name?”

“Name?” asked the turtle. “Not sure if I have one, kind of like that squirrel I hear you run around with.”

“I need to call you something because I need to know whom to thank for saving my life,” said Cody, more humbly than he’d ever spoken to anyone, including Fenswick.

“So give me a name, then, cat,” said the turtle. He had reached the opposite edge of the pool, where he crawled onto muddy land to deposit his passenger. “What do you want to call me?”

“I…I don’t know,” said Cody, “but you saved me, just like the story of a whale and some guy who had fallen in the ocean. My person had read that one aloud quite a bit.”

“Whale, huh,” chuckled the turtle. “I suppose that’s good enough, then. I like the sound of Whale better than turtle, anyway. Sounds far more majestic, you know?”

“Yes, sure. ‘Whale,’ then,” said Cody. “Thank you, Whale of the Deep Pool.”

“Hehehe,” Whale the turtle laughed. “Well, thank you, cat. Say, you know it’s safe enough to step off my shell, don’t you?”

“Yes,” said Cody, rather sheepishly. The turtle’s shell was surprisingly comfortable, but he know he had to be on his way to the park. Raccoons seldom saved even the third best pieces of trash for anyone, even if they did defeat the nemesis of small furry creatures everywhere.

Cody began to step off, his forepaw on the unnatural feeling bit of shell near the turtle’s neck. A package of chewing gum had somehow been firmly attached to the shell, providing Cody a safe spot for traction and grip. He strained hard to see what it was, seeing seven letters, bold and thick in their appearance, despite being faded from alternating exposure to sun and water:

T-R-I-D-E-N-T

Huh, thought Cody. I wonder what that says.

Whale said another goodbye and disappeared beneath the surface of another muddy pool. Cody was left alone to pick his way back to the pond, being cautious to avoid any other risks of falling into too-deep of water.

No. Twenty-eight.

The world outside the raccoon’s hovel was vast and white. Only trees and the tallest weeds perforated the deep drifts of snow, deeper than this area had seen in any living creature’s lifetime. Fenswick hopped over to join his friends who had sunk down into the soft-packed snow but had worked to clear an area that was wide enough and seemingly safe enough for the party to gather.

“I’m hungry,” said Cody to no one in particular.

“Well, cat” began Reginald, “I’ve no idea how we’ll find a trash can in all this confection. Besides, my paws are freezing.”

“As are mine,” agreed Roderick. The two were back to being sounding boards of one another’s arrogant statements, each not only reinforcing but also trying to subtly outdo the other.

“Perhaps we could find some nuts or berries or something,” suggested Ralph. “The movement would keep blood circulating to our paws and through our core, helping us to stay warm.”

Fenswick perked up at the suggestion of nuts and berries. As the smallest, the lightest of the group—and the one least dependent on the refuse of others—he again found himself in a unique spot to help his friends.

Scampering across the snow to the nearest fruit-bearing tree—a fig tree with roots near the top of a hill, placing it higher than trees in the lower places—and began collecting the small, edible bits to which the tree had continued to cling since spring and summer to ferry back to his friends. This he did repeatedly, neatly dropping them in the bowled area the raccoons had fashioned for their picnic in the snow. Cody, however, was uninterested in the fig bits, instead finding a dark speck in the snow and digging it out—a small mouse, caught in the snow drifts, finding death in snow and ice before it could find shelter from the same. Cody gnawed on the frozen mass of fur until the heat from his breath and saliva had sufficiently thawed the poor creature for him to pick it apart, eating it greedily but slowly enough so as to not upset his tummy. One of the other cats at his person’s house often ate so ravenously it would soon throw up what it had just consumed. With food so scarce out here in the wild and further so in the snow and ice that had enveloped them all, Cody did not want to take any chances with his meal. He paused, mid-munch to glance back at the group and found them staring at him.

“Mwhat?” Cody asked as the remains of the mouse fell from his mouth and plopped into the snow.

There was no response from any of them, save Regina who uttered the single word “disgusting” before returning to her meager meal of figs and whatever else Fenswick had brought them. The squirrel was off a bit from the others, forming a third point of the triangle of animals eating their respective meals. Unlike the raccoons, the squirrel still preferred to munch on his meals alone. They soon found out how not alone the group was out in the open, though.

With a flash of brown from above and a shriek from ground level, the raccoons soon saw Fenswick began to be lifted from the ground as though he had sprouted enormous wings just like those of an—

“OWL!” Roderick cried out as they all instinctively ducked.

But across from the bowl where they had only moments ago been enjoying brunch, a streak of orange flashed across the snow at a sharp angle and broke the owl and the squirrel apart from one another. Fenswick dropped to the snow, a mass of brown fur marred by pinpricks of blood where the owl’s claws had dug into his sides to lift him into the air.

The owl lay a few feet away, attempting to flap its wings but failing to gain purchase of air but catching nothing but wet powder. Circling the lump of a body and flailing wings and legs was—in contrast to the brilliance of the perfectly white snow—was a concentration of orange fire, tail twitching, fore- and hind legs slowly emerging before re-centering to the mass in the middle as though flickers of flame.

“How DARE you!” growled Cody, his eyes locked on the owl as it tried to regain its composure, reassert its position as the top predator, the top force in this realm.

The eyes of the raccoons were wide in observance in the scene before them, their bodies as frozen as the landscape about them. Finally, Reginald nudged Roderick and the two of them hurried to Fenswick. Reginald tucked the squirrel under his mass of fur and made for the hole in the snow, wherever it was; they had lost it in the mass of white.

“Over here, Reg!” cried out Roderick. He had located the hole, partially collapsed where the still hidden but still warm sun had melted the outermost snow.

“Come on, then. There’s a good chap,” Reginald said in efforts to soothe and comfort the wounded squirrel. “Let’s get you back down where it’s safer and warmer. I think that cat of yours has things up top under control.”

Reginald and Roderick disappeared down the hole, ushering Fenswick to safety. Moments later, they were both back on the surface to see what had happened.

The owl had managed to get itself somewhat upright, but its wings had gathered too much snow, causing the feathers to stick together, keeping it from taking flight. Its comically long legs had sunk deep into the soft snow and its endeavors to paddle itself back up were in utter vain. The panicked motion had caused it to sink further down into the snow and in its position as intimidating predator.

“Hoo,” it said.

“Cody,” replied the cat, misunderstanding the pathetic sound coming from the defeated owl.

“Bested by an idiot of a cat,” muttered the owl, finally ceasing motion.

“Idiot,” repeated Cody. “Who’s the one with his skinny long legs sunk down in the snow, unable to take flight?”

“My unfortunate situation does not denote my intelligence, cat,” said the owl, moving its head an impossibly long way one way and another.

The owl’s head rotation disturbed the raccoons but intrigued the cat. He playfully reached out to touch a tuft of the feathers that served as one of the great horned owl’s “horns.”

“Stop that!” shouted the owl.

“Huh,” said Cody. Ignoring the owl’s demand, he touched the tufts again and again. “Guys, they’re not really horns! They’re just feathers. It’s like this thing’s a flying pillow or something.” He squinted his eyes as a grin for a moment before the mass of the owl’s feathered wing smacked Cody across the face, knocking him down into the snow.

The owl had managed to take to the air and flapped its way to the top of a pecan tree.

“Insufferable, idiotic feline,” grumbled the owl. Its eyes were enormous plates of green, pricks of black in the center bearing down hard on the orange lump of fur that was Cody. “You were fortunate for a moment, cat, but I am the top predator around here, and you are but an intruder in my—”

For the second time today, the owl had been caught off guard. Daytime was certainly not its thing.

The owl flapped its wings to try and gain flight but the high snowdrifts made the ground too close for the wings to do as intended. As it fell into the snow, it managed to see what had it its second bout of humiliation.

Fenswick clung to the thin bits of tree with his claws, his heart racing faster than ever before as the main branch swayed in the wind. He flicked his tail to help maintain his balance.

Before the owl could bring itself upright, it felt a singular point of pressure then another, followed by a larger, heavier mass weighting him down. The cat’s tail curled around its sitting body as it slowly extended its claws into the owl’s chest.

“Hi, again,” said Cody. “You were saying something about being top critter around here?”

The owl just stared at the cat. How did he managed to get bested twice—or was it three times?—in just a few minutes? Had he lost his touch?

“Oh, you were finished? Great. Then let me provide a counterargument to what you’ve had to say: Your days of picking on squirrels and…and…BUNNIES are over!” He paused a moment to reflect on whether or not he had been too overly emotional. “You’re going to use this opportunity to use those big wings of yours to lift your feathery butt up into the air and out of here. Forever.”

The raccoons came and peered down around the ring of snow, grinning at the owl.

“Hello, feathery sir. You remember us, right?” asked Roderick.

“You see,” Reginald continued for his friend, “you’ll remember that we remember where it is you live. And, while we’re not as quick in the night as our feline friend here, we are more adept in the daylight hours when you like to sleep. When you’re particularly vulnerable. Like now.”

All four raccoons bared their teeth in a grin.

“So,” Cody said, “what do you say, owl?”

“I…I suppose I can find another place to hunt,” stammered the owl at last. “Someplace far from here.”

“Yes,” said Cody, “far from here. And no matter where that is, you’ll never touch another bunny again. Ever. Because you know word will reach me, and you know that I know how to find you. Because my friends and I are—” he paused and took his off the owl, looking at each of the raccoons and then Fenswick, still clinging safely to the pecan tree—”resourceful.”

“Agreed,” said the owl. “Agreed. I yield my claim to these woods and will depart at once. Or once you take your claws out of my feathers.”

Slowly, Cody retracted his claws and hopped off the owl’s body and out onto the snow. It was softening, and the wet slush saturated his fur. He found some rock in the melt and perched above it, waiting for the owl to emerge. At last it did, taking flight in a wide circle before disappearing into the retreating clouds.

No. Twenty-seven.

Daybreak came later than usual. Heavy clouds amassed overhead, simulating the scene below; snow had piled upon the land below then piled upon itself until all was covered in white.

“I’m not touching the stuff any longer; my paws are freezing.”

Reginald was in a bit of a mood as he made his way to the back of his home.

Regina took a turn at trying to dig their way out, but everywhere outside of the entrance was wet, white powder. She couldn’t even tell which way to dig or how far. Sighing, she, too, made her way back into the hovel.

One by one, the raccoons had tried to dig their way out of the hovel, but to no avail. Their digging proved fruitless at doing nothing more than shoveling snow into their home. The weight of the snow above collapsed the meager tunnel that had been attempted by each of them. Even Ralph, the seeming expert at anything having to do with the survival and well-being of the nursery, was unable to dig more than a few minutes and make no progress.

As the four raccoons spoke in hushed tones from the back of the hovel about what their next move should be, Cody curled back up to take a nap. During the course of the night, as they warmed one another and attempted to fall asleep, Cody learned more about the owl that had taken to using the pond and its surrounding area as its home and hunting grounds.

The owl had first appeared last winter. The raccoons were uncertain of which direction it had flown in from, but it certainly was quick to craft a nest of sorts, making itself at home.

It preferred to nest in a persimmon tree on the northern end of the shore. Three of the four raccoons found this an odd choice, as the persimmon was far from being the mightiest tree in the forest—something befitting so magnificent a creature as a great horned owl. Only Ralph, in his practicality, recognized why the owl would chose the persimmon.

“The mice like the fruit of the persimmon tree,” he explained. “The pecan tree will only attract a squirrel or two at a time because those guys are super territorial—back me up on this one, Fenswick.”

Fenswick nodded in agreement, really wishing he could sink his teeth into a pecan or even persimmons, dry as they had seemed to him on the rare occasion he had partaken.

“But the mice will keep coming to the persimmon tree,” Ralph went on. “Other rodents and some birds, too. The persimmon tree seemed to have done a good job of hiding this particular owl, because he’s never been run off, and he comes back to that tree every single morning. Heh,” he laughed, “we both seemed to end our evenings around the same time, and at the same place—down at the watering hole.”

While Ralph went on chuckling at his effort at humor, Regina continued on, telling Cody about the owl’s flight and hunting patterns, as well as his other habits. Going off of Ralph’s comment about ending each evening’s hunt for food at the pond, she noted how the owl would both see and acknowledge the presence of the raccoons, almost in either reverence or annoyance at their size at being too big for him to hunt.

“But tonight,” she said, “the owl didn’t do that. I know it saw us—OK, I’m pretty sure it saw us—but it’s like it was intentionally ignoring us. Like we weren’t there. Like it just knew something because…because…oh, heck, I have no idea what goes through the mind of an owl. But it did seem almost mad or disappointed or something at us tonight. Like I said, it knows. It knows something.”

“Of course it does,” chimed in Ralph. “Owls have long been associated with wisdom and knowledge and—”

“And death,” finished Roderick. “We all know what that owl means to the creatures around here. Even us, if we weren’t at our prime, and let’s face it: We are not at our prime just now. We can’t even get out of our home.”

Roderick had barely finished his sentence when a ray of cloud-dulled light broke into the hovel from the front of their home. The four raccoons looked around in surprise and alarm before Cody noticed one of them was missing.

“Ta-da!” exclaimed Fenswick, poking his head into the hovel through hole he had dug. He was greeted with stunned silence.

“How?” asked Reginald. He fumed on, almost in a rage. “How did something so small and and gangly and…and…squirrelly as a…as a squirrel manage to accomplish what I and the rest of this nursery of the most excellent raccoons ever assembled could not?” He paused as Regina put her paw on his neck. Ralph crawled low to the front to investigate what the squirrel had done as he hopped back inside and shook himself, wet with snow. Cody began to lick Fenswick’s fur to warm the rodent, as well as get himself from moisture.

“Because he is so small, Reginald,” Ralph said, poking his head through the small hole. “His anatomy, so different from ours, allowed him to stretch out so long while still digging. His body and constantly twitching tail allowed him to bore this pilot hole through the snow. And now…”

His voice trailed as he poked first his head then then the rest of his body up through the rift in the snowbank that had settled around the rocks serving as the raccoons home. In another minute, he was back inside, again nose first.

“Yes, that does it. I made it to the surface and had a look around.” He as panting, excited rather than exhausted from the bit of exertion. “The rest of you should come up, too.”

“Fenswick?” Reginald said, poking his head first through the snow and then back into the hovel.

“Uh-huh?” said the squirrel, now dried from the care of the cat. Of the four raccoons, Reginald made him the most nervous.

“Thank you. You did what we could not and have improved my opinion of squirrels most certainly,” he finished and then disappeared into the packed snow.

Roderick patted Fenswick’s head before following his best friend up the hold and into the world outside. Ralph gave a sort of “thumbs up” and crawled on up, while Regina just made her way through, figuring her fellow raccoons had said and done enough.

“So, big guy,” Cody said, looking down at the squirrel. “It seems you’re making friends everywhere you go. Good job, Fenswick. Good job.”

Cody looked cautiously at the hole, now greatly enlarged and further compacted by the shuffling of the four raccoons who had blundered their way to the surface, and licked some of the snow. He was horribly thirsty and could not wait to get outside and find some water in liquid form.

Squirrel has done good, the squirrel thought to himself. Wait, no. Not ‘squirrel.’ He stood himself upright and looked around and nodded to himself.

“Fenswick,” he said aloud. His tone was firm and brave. “I, Fenswick the squirrel, has thought of and helped others. I am a good friend.”

Smiling at what he had accomplished over the past few weeks, he clambered up the hole after the raccoons and cat and into what he was certain would be a warm welcome in a cold world.

No. Twenty-six.

Fenswick hardly slept at all.

Ordinarily, this would not be terribly unusual for a squirrel, but this particular night was unusual for him.

For starters, there was the whole him thing. Prior to being named and identified by Cody the Cat as a he, Fenswick had merely been a squirrel, an it. He had never known identity as an individual, let alone a gender, and it was blowing his tiny, little, squirrel mind, keeping him from sleep.

Beyond that, there was the unusually cold weather and the fact that he was sleeping mere inches away from a cat, one of many predators he had come to know and fear over the years. But, over the weeks, he had grown fond of Cody, recognizing him as a kind and caring and inquisitive fellow creature—drastically different from the owl. The owl was just an asshole, killing creatures for food and but mostly for sport.

He woke up shivering in his proximity to the entrance of the hovel. Cody lay a few more inches back, making all the apparent difference in the world. But there was something more than the chill in the air and the howling of the wind. Fenswick thought he heard voices—not human, not owl, not anything that would normally prey on him, but…

Oh, no, he thought, recognizing now exactly what he had first suspected them to be.

“Chirp-chirp-chirp!” Fenswick whisper-shouted to Cody.

“Hmm? What? I’m up,” Cody said, he eyes still squinted shut, sleep and grogginess muddling his voice.

“Chirp-chirp!” Fenswick said with emphasis.

“Yeah, of course I’m being quiet,” went on Cody, oblivious to the need for stealth.

“Well, well, well—what ‘ave we here?” Roderick bellowed as he peeked his head into the hovel. “It appears we ‘ave a couple of interlopers, yes we do. Uninvited guests, you might say?”

“Well, well, well,” chimed in Reginald, his masked visage mirroring Roderick’s as he peered in.

Fenswick’s hear rocketed to catastrophic ranges, while Cody arched his back in a seated position, causing his fur to spike out, seemingly increasing his size. He hissed at the raccoons who merely laughed at the cat’s actions.

“What’s that he’s doing there, my good sir?” inquired Reginald.

“I do believe, my dear Reginald, he is trying to frighten us by puffing out his fur,” replied Roderick, stoicly so as to insult Cody with not only his inaction at Cody’s action but also with the words he was able to articulate while Cody could emit not a single coherent syllable.

The two raccoons began to laugh with one another and at Cody. Outside of their home, Regina began to shiver from the still-dropping temperatures. The very dirt seemed like ice to her padded feet.

Finally, Fenswick gathered his bravery and leapt in between Cody—puffed as a balloon about to burst—and spoke.

“Raccoons of the riverbed!” he shouted.

Almost as immediately as his leaping, Fenswick clasped his hands to his mouth. Never before had he spoken out in the common speech so that others might more naturally understand him. Before, all of his—and other squirrels, too, for that matter—speech had just amounted to a series of chirps that squirrels could follow along pretty easily; they had a pretty much two-track mind: Collecting as much food as they possibly could and avoiding predators. It was the latter that had finally made something in Fenswick decide to break from squirrel kind and start out on this insane quest that now put him standing in between a cat on the defensive and a nursery of raccoons in the middle of the night in the close hunting grounds of a squirrel’s most frightening adversary, a great horned owl. He had become not only a squirrel with a name but also—and especially—a squirrel with a purpose.

“Good heavens, Reginald, it speaks!” Roderick turned as though stunned to the raccoon at his right.

Roderick, after a brief pause to collect his own senses, replied back, “The squirrel, yes, but that cat. The cat is still what puzzles me.”

“And what they’re doing in our home, of course?” Regina’s irritation had reached a critical point. She wanted to be out of the open. Though the owl was not of great concern to her—raccoons were just a touch too large for the owl near the pond to see as prey—the occasional coyote did give her cause for concern. Plus, she was just plain cold and tired. She wanted sleep and she wanted sleep now and in her own home.

“Oh, yes, of course, of course,” muttered Roderick.

Silent for as long as he’d ever been around these three raccoons, Ralph finally walked up to the two at the hovel’s entrance to speak.

“What they’re doing is seeking shelter from the coming snowstorm, you idiots,” Ralph said, as though it was the most obvious thing in the world. That Reginald and Roderick were unable to “read the room” as it were baffled him; Regina at least recognized that the air and even the ground on which they stood and walked had grown uncomfortably cold. It would be best to sleep it off, despite their low stores of fat; the collective warm bodies of their small nursery should be enough to keep them warm.

“Snowstorm? Good heavens, no,” Reginald said to Ralph, as well as to himself. He had heard of snow from the occasional migratory bird on its way to or from someplace else, but snow—and certainly snowstorms—just didn’t seem plausible for this place they called home. “What say you, Roderick? Have you ever heard of such ludicrous locution from anyone?”

“Ah,” began Roderick. He wasn’t sure where to go from that utterance. “Well,” he tried to begin again, fumbling through what to say, one syllable at a time. “It. Um. You. Hoo. Yes.”

That last syllable visibly knocked Reginald back a bit. In all their time together, Roderick had never known Reginald to be but in total agreement with him, be it in thoughts over what trash can to pilfer or what to say and to whom. They were practically the same raccoon with the same mind. Whether it was the unexpected find of a cat and a squirrel—and a talking squirrel at that—or that there was actual snow falling from the sky now had just been something to upset the otherwise natural order of things.

“Guys, it’s snowing,” Regina said, her eyes wide.

“Told you so,” Ralph said, for at least the second time tonight.

Regina’s statement of the snow falling from the sky, brought the four raccoons together, in a line, watching the foreign flakes of ice crystals falling from the sky, more and more quickly. With the entrance clear and the need for heightened senses abdicated, Fenswick ventured out to witness this meteorological miracle. He walked up, cautiously, to the four raccoons and spoke, breaking the silence that hung in the air, snowflakes flurrying all about it, about them.

“Raccoons of the riverbed,” Fenswick continued. “I am Fenswick of the northern neighborhoods where humans dwell. My feline friend and I seek shelter from this storm until he can dispatch the owl that has been killing off my family, our friends.”

“Owls never bother me,” Reginald muttered.

“Nor me,” agreed Roderick. “However,” he continued, “it cannot be discounted the vulnerability of raccoon young when the time comes. Owls are not known for subscribing to the same ethics as we for leaving the young alone.”

Regina clicked her tongue in her mouth, thinking deeply. “Can a cat actually kill an owl, though? He’s no bigger than we are, and I wouldn’t dare challenge an owl—even if I thought my life was on the line.”

“One cannot discount that the critter did appear prepared to take the four of us on,” Roderick said.

“True,” Reginald said, “though he would lost such a battle magnificently.”

At the sound of hearing others speaking about him, Cody peeked his head out into the icy air. Everywhere around him had been blanketed in the soft, white powder of snow, its size and thickness continuing to amass.

“Guys—and Regina,” Ralph said, “this has been a really strange night, and now there’s all of this snow. Two more warm bodies in our home will help keep us warm until the snow stops falling.”

“He does have a point, Reg,” Roderick said to his friend. “We’ll need more than the four of us to stay warm in this. I, for one, am simply chilled through!” He let a little chuckle and rubbed his forepaws together. “Besides,” Roderick continued, “a common-looking house cat like this one will make for such excellent sport, taking on that enormous owl down by the pond, will it not?”

“Yes, yes, I suppose it would,” Reginald said at last. He didn’t feel it beneficial to continue the argument, especially since he was experiencing difficulty in feeling his hind paws. They had grown numb in the cold, but he wasn’t about to tell any of them that.

“So, little guy,” Ralph said to Fenswick. “Whad did you say your name was? And the cat’s?” He was unaware that Cody was right behind them all, perched atop the rock marking the entrance to the raccoons’ nest until he spoke.

“He said his name was Fenswick,” Cody said. The four raccoons all jumped at the sudden sound of another speaking. “And my name is Cody. If you don’t mind, I’d like to go back inside and get warmed up. And I’d also like for you to tell me everything you can about this owl.”

Mumbling in agreement that the idea to go inside was the best they’d ever heard, the six critters made for the hovel’s entrance, now just a sliver in the piling snow. Regina and Reginald began to dig a larger opening for them, with Ralph and Fenswick helping, as well. Cody sauntered over and sat next to Roderick, witnessing the show.

“I do like a good show,” Roderick said. “But you against an owl will lead to nothing but your utter disintegration. That’s not exactly sport in my reckoning.”

“Thank you for that vote of confidence, raccoon,” Cody replied. “And thank you for having us in your home. Now, tell me more about this owl thing so I can avoid my ‘utter disintegration,’ as you put it, and, perhaps, give you a bit more of a show.”

“Hmm, I think I like you, cat,” Roderick said. “Saucy, just like my chap Reginald down there. Come, then, let’s adjourn to our humble abode, warm up, and tell some stories.

And with that, the six animals disappeared into the hovel as the hovel itself disappeared from sight, covered entirely in snow, just as all the woods around it, just as in Cody’s dream.

No. Twenty-five.

Absent the howling wind and shuffling leaves, human ears would have heard little more than hisses and high-pitched growls that was what passed for conversation between raccoons.

“My goodness, it is most certainly grown cold this evening, has it not?” asked the first.

“It most certainly has grown quite nippy out, my good Roderick,” replied the second. “Regina, what say you?”

“Who am I to disagree with the weather, dear Reginald,” said the third raccoon to the second with a natural air of superiority over her three male companions. She trudged along just behind the first two and quite far head of the fourth raccoon of their small nursery.

“I don’t like it,” he muttered from the far rear.

“What’s Ralph badgering on about?” inquired Reginald, loudly enough to reach Ralph’s ears. But Reginald didn’t care; he and Roderick and Regina didn’t care much for Ralph and his practicality at keeping them all safe from predators and other threats the nursery faced, but she was glad he was around during the times they really needed him. Right now, though, was not one of those times.

“He says he doesn’t like something,” said Regina. “Big surprise there.”

“Correct,” carried on Ralph, oblivious to the sarcasm in Regina’s voice, “I don’t like it one bit. You all saw that owl, didn’t you? It was watching us while we were there at the water’s edge. And now this wind, this cold?”

“What of it, good sir?” asked Reginald. It’s a bit nippy to remind us that galavanting all night without profit from poaching a trashcan or two will cause us to grow even colder inside!” He paused to stand upright, glancing around at his fellow raccoons.

“Good show, good sir,” Roderick said.”Good show, indeed.” Roderick, too, stopped and stood up on his hind legs in a show of solidarity with Reginald.

Regina stopped and put her forepaws to her forehead. “Oh, for fur’s sake.”

“Reginald,” began Ralph, “that is the dumbest thing I’ve heard from you in a very long time.”

Regina glanced back, unsure she had just heard Ralph express her exact thoughts aloud. She opened her mouth to speak but closed it promptly.

“Thank you, Reginald. I think,” said Ralph. By now, all four raccoons had stopped moving and were facing one another in a haphazard circle, all four of them appearing to sit upright. “Look, guys—and Regina—all I’m saying is that things just don’t seem right. It’s like something ominous is blowing in with this wind, and the owl was the cherry on top.”

“On top of what, Ralph?” asked Roderick.

“On top of all of this, Roderick,” Ralph stated, waving his forepaws about him. “There’s just something about all of this I don’t like. Especially that owl, the way it looked at us.”

“You mean the way it looked at you, Ralphie, old boy,” chortled Reginald. “You should know we all look at you that way when you’re not looking. And I say that as your friend.”

A silence widened the spacing between them before they all started laughing, falling down from their haunches. All of them except Ralph, that is. He still stood there, wavering only with the roaring of the wind whipping through the wooded area with a ferocity that would have made the big bad wolf take note.

“Fine,” said Ralph. “But don’t say I didn’t tell you so when things start to get sickeningly strange, like we find ourselves homeless or something.”

“Fine, old boy. As you say, fine,” laughed Roderick. “Now, which way is it to home? This night air is making even me want for a coat. Got one I can borrow, do you?” And he erupted into laughter again, Reginald guffawing alongside him. Even Regina tittered a bit, as though tipsy but still in control of most of her faculties. At times she felt sorry for Ralph in all of his seriousness, but gads, he could take the fun out discovering a stash of overturned trashcans outside of that buffet place they built up by the roadway where the cars drove extra fast.

Cripes, she thought to herself. Am I really starting to think like Ralph, seeing the practicality and the danger in things? I guess as long as I don’t start acting like him…

“Home is this way, guys—and Regina,” Ralph replied.

She hated being singled out like that, the only female member of their nursery quartet. Still it made her feel noticed, like Ralph wasn’t just another pompous raccoon acting like he was the ultimate gift to this little neck of the woods they called home.

Ralph had already begun walking again, this time with the three others in tow. It usually wound up this way: Ralph bringing up the rear at first before finding himself in the lead just as they reached home.

Huh, he pondered. Why is that? Are they using me as…bait?

But tonight he really didn’t care. The temperature had dropped drastically since the sun set hours ago, and the wind continued, unrelentingly. He exhaled with relief at having reached the entrance to their home, a hovel of rocks piled atop one another, with a passage leading deeper into the ground—deeper into the ground where it would still stay warm even if it got so cold it froze above ground. As he did so, he sat back up on his haunches, noticing he could see his breath, a puff of gray in the darkened sky of the woods. The others didn’t seem to notice, as they rumbled along, breaking apart just a few yards before the entrance to find varying places to relieve themselves before retiring early for the night.

As they all went about their business, including Ralph at a tree near hovel’s entrance, he noticed additional puffs of gray, these coming inside their home.

“Fellow raccoons,” Ralph began.

“Thundering trash heaps, Ralph,” Regina said, exasperation and exhaustion heavy in her voice, “what is it? We’re all tired and just want to go to bed.”

“Well,” he continued, “it seems there are other air-breathing creatures in our home. Look, their breaths can be seen coming out here into the cold air.”

“Ralph,” Roderick said. “Ralph, under most circumstances I would be willing to listen to whatever ramblings you had to spew forth—and you do spew forth a lot of ramblings—”

“Here-here,” Reginald agreed.

It was at that moment that Cody let out one of his deep sleep noises. Humans would have found it cute, but the unfamiliarity to sleeping cat sounds caught the nursery of raccoons off guard, and they scampered back a dozen or more yards, huddling between a large rock and a group of young trees.

When the silence resumed, save that of a low murmur of wind, Roderick, Reginald, and Regina exchanged glances before looking to Ralph, his head hung low.

“I told you so,” was all he had to say.

No. Twenty-four.

The journey south to the wooded area of the pond and owl was relatively short. By automobile, it was a mile and change. As the crow flies, less. But, for a house cat and squirrel, the journey was considerably, both in distance and time. Under the advice of the squirrel, they took a far greater tack, climbing trees and leaping onto roofs and back onto trees and so on. Through their efforts, no human eyes noticed them for more than what seemed a cat chasing a squirrel; other squirrels and area birds that had lived under the terror of the owl for the past several weeks saw salvation in that sleek orange-patterned body as it—first inexpertly, then effortlessly—moved from here to there. Some even chirped or cheeped words of thanks and praise.

When they reached the park, both travelers needed to rest. They found water near the public drinking fountain, though food was a touch more complicated. The squirrel found food immediately from the bounty of the pecan trees. Cody had to resort to foraging.

The trash cans of the park were typically not emptied but once or twice a week, depending on traffic flow to the park. As Cody’s luck would have it, traffic flow to the park had been heavy that day, but the trash cans had not been emptied.

Following his nose, Cody found food. Dragging out white plastic bags, tied loosely and practically brimming with enough food to satisfy a house cat on his first night away from home, Cody managed to eat well. Even though the seasonings were a shock compared to what he was used to, even though there was crispy breading, Cody enjoyed the adventure of eating out of doors without having to wait for his food to be brought to him; he hunted, he gathered, he ate.

Over the course of the meal, though, the sky grew darker. The sun was still high enough in the sky, but clouds of increasing pitch seemed to fly in from nowhere and covered the sun’s brilliance, casting a sense of gloom over the day. The gusts of wind grew cooler, too, until it was no longer getting chilly but was, in fact, getting downright cold.

All burrows in the park were spoken for and would not allow for outsiders—especially since one was a cat—so the companions dashed down the ravine into the safety of the woods where there were more trees and rocky areas offering shelter to any small and flexible enough to fit. Cody and his squirrel companion met those requirements easily enough for the pile of rocks forming a crude but functional hovel. It would keep them safe, keep them warm until the spontaneous storm had passed.

The squirrel shivered near the entrance to their home for the night. Cody yawned and squinted his eyes.

“Chirp-chirp!” This cold is unusual. Owl must be using magic to make journey tougher for

Eyes still closed, Cody responded to the squirrel. “What is it with you, squirrel, that you always talk about yourself in the third person? I’ve never heard you use your name nor a pronoun.”

“Chirp-chirp-chirp-chirp-chirp!” exclaimed the squirrel.

“Huh. Didn’t realize it would offend you so much. It just makes it tough to know what to call you, especially like back at the park when there were so many squirrels around. How would you know I was talking to or about you?” Cody was genuinely curious.

The squirrel looked back at Cody and took a few cautious steps in.

“Chirp-chirp-chirp!” it said.

“That makes no sense. You don’t know if you’re a boy or a girl? I mean, I’m fixed, and I know I’m still a boy cat. At least that’s what I hear from my person, so…” Cody trailed off pondering that, with his gender stolen from him when he was still a kitten, did that still make him a “he”? Or was he just going along with what his person called him? Was he expected to base his identity on the thoughts or words of others?

He shook his head to clear his mind.

“Look, I just think it would be better if there was a name I could call you. Something other than ‘squirrel'” Cody said at last.

The squirrel sighed.

“Chirp-chirp-chirp-chirp-chirp,” replied the squirrel in an almost acknowledgement of defeat. Squirrels are so plentiful and have such short lives, names never given to squirrels. Squirrels just squirrels. As for gender? Squirrels know ‘mom’ and ‘dad.’ All else gets messy.

“OK, then,” Cody said. “So are you mom squirrel or a dad squirrel?”

“Chirp-chirp-chirp,” said the squirrel, sounding even sadder than previously. Neither. Squirrel not have other squirrel to make more squirrels.

“Oh.” Cody was not going to let the squirrel’s singular status derail this. “Then, if you were to find another squirrel, what kind would you find—a mom squirrel or a dad squirrel?”

“Chirp-chirp,” said the squirrel.

“Of course it would be a squirrel that would make you happy,” Cody exasperatingly replied. “But, which would you want?”

“Chirp.” Squirrel has never given it much thought. “Chirp-chirp,” it said at last.

“A mom squirrel? So that makes you a boy squirrel?” Cody’s curiosity increased again as he opened his eyes and really looked at the squirrel. “OK, yeah, I see ’em now. You’re a boy squirrel. So that means I can use words like he and his and him when I’m talking about you. But you still need a name.”

“Chirp?” asked the squirrel.

“Yes,” answered Cody, “a name. Like my name is Cody, so your name would be…” and he again broke off.

“Chirp-chirp-chirp!” said the squirrel.

“Look, I’m sure you wouldn’t be the first squirrel ever to have a name, so let’s just give you one. How about…Fenswick?”

“Chirp!” replied the squirrel. Cody had never seen a more excited looking squirrel in all of his days, including the ones on Cat TV.

“OK, then. Fenswick it is. Fenswick the Squirrel,” Cody was pleased with himself and his naming ability, having no clear idea where the name Fenswick had come from, but the squirrel seemed happy and that was good enough for Cody right now. Further, the naming gave him a sense of control over the situation at hand, a situation that was growing darker and more dire as evening had indeed set in, and the temperature continued to drop.

Cody tucked his paws up underneath him and his tail around him. Turning his head, he could see Fenswick curled into a ball at a range close enough they could help warm each other.

Outside, in the darkening woods, the owl had begun an early flight through the torrents of wind, searching for food. What his eyes found first was too large even for him.

A quartet of raccoons had just left the fringes of the pond and were making their way back to their home, unaware of the cat and squirrel already huddled there.

No. Twenty-three.

The soft pat of socked feet on cold tile resonating through the leg of the chair on which he slept roused Cody from a deep slumber. He had dreamt of feathers floating in the air, followed by something else seemingly suspended in flight. Tiny dots like those in the ink-black sky, only so close he could touch them with his nose and his tongue, fluttered about him, drawn towards the ground as every object on this planet inevitably seems to be—even birds, whose very existence defies the laws of nature. And all of those dots en masse made everything about him white. It was a most unusual dream, which said a lot considering he had once dreamt of riding a humpback whale while he carried a trident.

When he had yawned and stretched and came fully to life, Cody hopped down and made for the back door, meowing and purring so loudly he resembled a motorcycle more than a cat.

But it was to no avail, as the person of the house went about the business of the house, ignoring the cats, save ensuring food and water bowls were filled; Cody had no appetite. He was too eager to explore outdoors and inquire about the noises from the night before. But he would have to wait.

Finally, the door opened, but Cody was blocked by his person’s foot and leg.

“Whoah, there, Cody. No outside time for you this morning; I have an errand to run in a bit.You just stay put,” said the human.

Stunned, Cody sat down, too astonished even to lick his fur and pass off as being impassive to what just happened.

But the door soon swung wide open again and the person re-entered, every bit as quick and shoo-ing Cody aside. Within a few minutes, though, the other “I’m going out” sounds came from the foyer of the house. Cody trotted over to investigate but was ignored this time.

He must think I’m still by the back door, Cody thought. Should I try my luck with the front?

Tucked behind the umbrella stand by the front door, Cody lay in silence, in wait. His person fumbled for keys and the plastic rectangle he took everywhere before heading out the door. With the big door swung open to the inside and the storm door swung open to the out, Cody saw his chance as the person dashed back inside for something presumably forgotten. Both doors were left wide open.

Slinking out through a berth wide enough for a refrigerator, Cody found himself in the front yard. Hidden by the obligatory shrubbery found in each of Eulakatza Farm’s front yards, Cody watched his person get into vehicle Cody only saw during trips to the vet and drive away. He took a cautious step into the soft morning grass and was immediately caught by surprise.

“Chirp-chirp-chirp!”

“Oh. You. I might have suspected,” said Cody to the squirrel hanging off one of the yard’s trees.

“Chirp-chirp!” the squirrel said in a tone that was one part excitement, one part sadness. It hopped down from the tree and looked back to Cody, waiting for him to follow. There is something cat needs to see, said the look.

Cody walked alongside the squirrel, imagining themselves quite the odd-looking pair, venturing along the sidewalk, just the most normal looking thing in the world. But, compared to what Cody was about to see, they were, in fact, far more normal looking.

The squirrel slowed before Cody did. When he stopped and looked around him, he saw feathers spread out in a seeming uniform pattern in the grass, just beneath a streetlight. Cody sat and moved his head all about him. The squirrel was positioned just beyond the perimeter of feathers.

“What is this, street art?” asked Cody, laughing nervously.

“Chirp-chirp-chirp-chirp!” replied the squirrel. Cat remember pigeon cat fought with yesterday?

“Yeah, I—” Cody stopped, cold.

“Chirp,” said the squirrel. And sighed deeply. “Chirp-chirp.” Yes. Even though pigeon try to steal squirrel’s doughnut, squirrel is sad at pigeon’s death.

“But what on earth could have done this?” began Cody, still perplexed at the circular explosion of feathers. He looked all about him and then at the squirrel, its tail twitching as it rubbed its paws together.

“Chirp,” said the squirrel. Owl.

Cody’s eyes went wide. Even he was shocked. Never before had he seen such destruction where only feathers remained. Sure, yesterday’s tussle left random feathers here and there in the yard, but nothing like this. It was like the pigeon had been thrown down hard from way up and just obliterated itself on impact. It was the most disturbing thing Cody had ever witnessed.

“Owl, huh?” Cody tried to play it cool, but he wasn’t convincing even himself let alone the squirrel.

“Chirp-chirp-chirp,” said the squirrel in response. Yes, owl. More pigeons, more bunnies, more squirrels will die like this—or worse. Unless cat can do something to help.

“Unless cat?” asked Cody. He suddenly realized who the squirrel meant. “ME? You expect ME to take on this owl thing for you?”

“Chirp!” exclaimed the squirrel. Yes! Cat will take on owl!

“Wait, wait, wait,” interrupted Cody, attempting to collect his thoughts. He was wishing he had not skipped breakfast.

“Chirp-chirp-chirp!” said the squirrel. Squirrel can help cat find owl and cat will fight owl and cat will win and owl’s reign of terror over squirrel and squirrel’s friends will be over!

“WAIT!” Cody was shouting now. The neighborhood responded with silence. The squirrel gave only a blank, hurt look.

“Look, I don’t know if I can do this. I mean, I barely got out of the house today, and I don’t know anything about hunting owls, let alone killing one of these things, and have you even seen how ridiculously huge even ONE of their feathers is?” Cody was ranting, more to himself than the squirrel, but the squirrel listened patiently, waiting for its turn to speak.

“Chirp-chirp-chirp-chirp!” said the squirrel, beginning its tale of venturing to the pond where the owl lived and retrieving one of its feathers before depositing it in Cody’s lawn. He then went on about the adventure to obtain the half doughnut and how the resulting melee proved beyond doubt that Cody was the one that could challenge the owl—and win.

“How long will I be gone?” asked Cody. He was already looking back down the street towards his person’s home, missing the company of his idiotic roommates and his person who fed him every morning and evening. He was pretty certain there were no regular feeding times or food waiting in dishes out here.

“Chirp-chirp-chirp!” said the squirrel. Cat needn’t worry about that! Cat will have grand adventure! Songs will be sung of cat’s bravery and triumph over owl!

Cody listened, recognizing his question had’t been answered. But the squirrel made a pretty good argument: Cody liked the idea of songs and attention and reverence paid to him.

“OK, fine,” replied Cody. “Let’s go find this owl.”

“Chirp-chirp!” cried the squirrel in a fit of emotional frenzy. It ran circles around the cat and twitched its tail repeatedly. Cat will help squirrel!

“Yes, I’ll help. But don’t think this makes us friends,” Cody muttered half to himself, half to the squirrel as they began their journey south to the woods, to the pond, to the owl.

No. Twenty-two.

Cody stirred in his slumber.

The adventures of the late afternoon involving that squirrel what wouldn’t leave him alone and now pigeons was exhausting for a simple house cat such as himself. He just wanted to keep enjoying the good life of Cat TV, getting fed anytime he gave a certain look or made a certain noise, and napping wherever and whenever he pleased. And right now it pleased him to nap right here, right now. His fellow house cats, however, had other ideas.

Because they had not bravely engaged in combat with a large pigeon, they were not nearly as exhausted and chose to play with a plastic ball with a bell inside of it. They kept rolling it along the home’s tiled floor, the cheap sound of plastic rolling across tile, clacking as it hit the grout every twelve or so inches, accented by the high-pitched tingling of a cheap, tin bell rumbling with its innards. The scamper of cat paws around (and the occasional whoosh of cat body over) him informed him of the goings on in the living room; he didn’t even need to open his eyes.

As he drifted in and out of sleep, he found himself wondering more about these owls. Sure, they were birds, but so was that pigeon. The feather he had found a few days prior, though, was huge. The feathers found from the pigeon after it had taken flight away from the danger that was Cody were a fraction of the size. Just how big were these owl things? And were they as easily distracted by doughnuts as pigeons were? And where did doughnuts come from and how did that insane squirrel manage to get one?

Cody yawned and squinted his eyes as a bundle of fur went flying past him. He stood and arched his back, squeezing his shoulders into his neck as he stretched out his long limbs, straining to release the lactic acid his muscles had accumulated after so much physical exertion earlier that day. Lying back down, he curled himself into a ball and rested his chin on his paws. Even with the commotion about him with the other cats and the ball, Cody was disinclined to the time or energy to move off the floor onto the furniture. Here, he was something to avoid; up there, he was something to investigate. Cats and their blasted curiosity.

Right now, though, Cody was only curious about just how much sleep he would be able to get if he just let himself. But then he heard it—soft at first and then clearly, like a bell that had been lightly tapped once before being struck with such precise, intended force that it resonated through your very being, letting you know it was still there even though its voice had long left, a ghost in the night.

“Hoot-hoot-hoo.”

Cody’s eyes sprung open.

That’s the sound I heard the last night I saw my bunny! Cody thought to himself. He had sprung up and was attempting to find a window that did not have the heavy wooden shutters closed, but it was no use. The house was secured against anyone from looking in and any cat from looking out. It was like all sight outside of the safe blandness of the house had been voided out to keep the inhabitants from getting any ideas and venturing out.

But Cody had been outside and experienced it. Sure, it was nice, but not near as nice as having a secure structure around you, climate controlled comfort, and Cat TV, and—

Cody snapped himself back to the task at hand: Finding the source of that noise. But by now, the noise had stopped. Cody strained and turned his ears in every direction, changed rooms and tried the same, but he could hear nothing.

What was that? he wondered. What maddening demonic creature on this planet sounds like that? But he knew. Cody knew it was the sound of an owl, a demon in its own right, silently stalking its prey from the air, whooshing down unannounced with outstretched claws to snatch whatever living creature was unfortunate enough to be at the other end of those talons.

A rattling of coows from the roof told him that something had startled the pigeons nesting under his people’s solar panels; there was action up above. Above the edges of the shutters, Cody could make out that the sky had lightened though not quite to daybreak, but he still couldn’t see outside. Unlike the earlier goings on with the other cats and the ball, Cody was completely clueless as to what was happening outside and it made him uneasy.

This was what happened to my bunny Cody convinced himself. At the time, he hadn’t cared enough or been enough aware to know what that hoo in triplicate meant. But now he did. Or thought he did. He knew it must mean owl and that owls mean death for anything smaller than them. Considering the size of the feather he had found all those weeks ago, too, Cody, too, would be counted among critters smaller than this owl.

Shaking his head, he made his way to the water dish to take in some cool, wet nourishment. But then he hear it: The horrifying shriek of a pigeon. He had heard it earlier that day, when he had first begun his attack on the pigeons. Though he had not intended to kill the pigeons, they certainly didn’t know that and had reacted as though the sounds they made would be their last. The pigeon emitting that sound just a moment ago indeed was making its last sound, of that Cody was certain.

He finished taking his drink and then hopped up on the table just beneath the windowsill to listen, to sleep. He would learn more about the sound and the fate of what made it once his person was up and had opened all of the shutters and other window coverings in the house. He just wanted to ensure he was there as soon as possible, just in case his person was there to throw open the shutters so very, very soon.

After not long of waiting, though, Cody reflexively curled himself into a ball and fell fast asleep, this time with his dreams haunted by the sinister bird screams, punctuated by soft hoots from a great horned owl that was not soft in its demeanor, something its prey knew too well, too late.

No. Twenty-one.

Eulekatze Farm had a lot of trees, but most would do well to hit more than a couple of dozen feet in height with branches that didn’t branch out terribly far. To say they provided shade was only half correct: They provided shade to the lawns beneath them but not to the houses on the lots where each courtesy trio of trees were planted. Consequently, the roofs of each house baked in the near-year-round sunshine, which also made them prime real estate for solar panels—and a lot of homes here had solar panels installed. Unfortunately, one side effect of solar panels were mass assemblages of pigeons which housed beneath the solar panels year-round. Only a few homes had the special netting installed around the solar panels to keep this scourge of the sky out, and the homes around Cody’s people’s house were not included in the handful of pigeon-keeper-outer netting. Which is why Cody and his squirrel friend suddenly found themselves besieged by some either incredibly brave or incredibly stupid pigeons that were after the half-doughnut Cody had shunned.

“CHIRP-CHIRP-CHIRP!” screamed the squirrel as it hopped off the ground to the relative safety of nearby tree trunk. Get off squirrel’s doughnut!

Cody was far less diplomatic, letting loose eons of evolution: His face tightened into a hiss-cum-growl, while his back arched and the hair stood out, claws already extended as he pounced onto the plumpest of the pigeons attempting to grip the hunk of doughnut in its stub of a beak.

The pigeon didn’t seem to know what hit it—indeed, as a suburban pigeon in a city which had a pretty strict “no outdoor cats” rule, the pigeon had never encountered a cat, especially one with as sharp of instincts or claws as Cody—as it found itself swiped and smacked hard against the wooden plank fence separating one postage stamp of a yard from another.

Stunned, the pigeon remembered it could fly and attempted to do so, but Cody was too quick: He tackled and rolled with the bird, hissing and growling noises that surprised and scared him almost as much as it did the pigeon caught in the grip of his claws.

The doughnut has fallen back to the ground, where the smaller pigeon of the duo that had the audacity to come between a cat and squirrel engaged in civil discourse in order to attempt to abscond half of a doughnut. It almost couldn’t believe its luck, making for the hunk of pastry when its line of sight to the doughnut was disturbed by the most crazed looking of squirrels the pigeon had ever beheld—or heard.

“CHIRP-CHIRP!” shouted the squirrel, its eyes locked on the pigeon, ready to pounce.

(And then what, it didn’t know. The squirrel just knew that some ridiculous and annoying excuse for a bird was not getting away from the half-doughnut it had traveled so far and worked so hard to bring back to the cat. The cat’s refusal and seeming indifference to the doughnut was irrelevant; it was the principle of the matter.)

The pigeon took the hint and took flight, leaving its plumper companion behind to tussle with the cat. But the noise the cat was making caused an abrupt ending to the skirmish, as Cody’s person came running out of the house, waving a broom.

“Go on—shoo!” the person bellowed, swinging the broom down hard.

The larger pigeon was knocked free from the grip and hold Cody had on it and immediately took to the air, seeking sanctuary from the crazed inhabitants of the yard. It had managed only a crumb of the doughnut; the rest lay on the grass, not far from where it was originally when all of the brouhaha had begun.

The squirrel had hopped onto the fence and into the safety of a nearby tree where it could watch the decline of things, including its own hopes that it was going to get to enjoy the half of the half of the doughnut, regifted to the squirrel from the cat that had eschewed it from the squirrel.

“What on earth was all of that about, Cody?” inquired the person, panting for breath. Apparently, breaking up melees between cats and birds was exhausting work. “Really, you have been acting mighty strange the past few days. I wish I knew what’s gotten into you. Huh, what’s this?” The person had seen the doughnut.

Cody’s eyes went large, his composure regained almost as quickly as he had lost it when the pigeons had landed in a fit of feather and cooing. He scampered up to the person as he leaned down with arm outstretched towards the doughnut and rubbed against it, as though in desperate plea for affection.

“Oh, I see. Not so tough, are you? You big-ole softy,” said the human, scooping Cody up and onto one shoulder, the broom snugged onto the other. “Let’s go get you a treat, you brave hunter cat.”

With that, Cody was carted back inside, but not before he managed to spot the squirrel on a tree branch. He squinted his eyes in mild annoyance.

Enjoy your doughnut, squirrel.

After the sound of the shutting door and its lock engaging, the squirrel quickly hopped down from the safety of its branch and scattered over to the doughnut hunk. Sure, a nibble had been taken out of it, but there was still quite a good amount of doughnut left. The squirrel scampered up the nearby tree with this remains and munched on it, reflecting on everything that had happened to get to this point, to this enjoyment of something so sweet, so tasty.

Doughnut tastes like victory! Like victory that will come when cat defeats owl, just like cat defeated other bird just now! Cat will help squirrel and squirrel’s friends! Cat is squirrel’s friend! Though cat does not like doughnuts, cat still fought fiercely, fought bravely! This is a good plan! Mmm…and this is a good doughnut, too!

Its belly full of plain cake doughnut and its muscles and mind exhausted from the events of the day, the squirrel made its way back to its home in the pecan tree at the center of the neighborhood. The sun was beginning to sink lower in the sky, so the squirrel decided to retire early, which was as wise a decision as a squirrel could make as the days grew shorter and the hunting time for owls came earlier each evening.