The Wild Ones by C. Alexander London Read Free Book Online

marks as words:
    CLOSED BY THE FLEALESS
    On the floor, behind the broken counter, Kit saw the base of a trap, a big metal contraption with a flat pressureplate and spring that snapped a bar shut when someone stepped on it.
    â€œHelp! Help!” the creature in the trap cried out.
    Kit came around the counter and saw that the trap had snapped shut on the tail of the white rat, who was still holding Kit’s seed pouch and crying out in pain. The rat was young, about his age, and she had on an oily brown vest with some kind of insignia on it. The insignia was so threadbare and faded that it blended into the vest almost completely. The vest itself looked like it had never been clean.
    â€œOuch! This really hurts! Somebody help!” the rat shouted as she squirmed in the trap.
    When she saw Kit, she stopped howling and looked up at him, her tone changing instantly. She stopped shouting.
    â€œOh, good, it’s you,” she said. “Get me out of this thing. It smarts like you wouldn’t believe.”

Chapter Eight
    HOWL TO SNAP
    YOU picked my pocket!” Kit yelled at the trapped rat. “You stole all my money!”
    â€œIt was for your own good,” she said. She tried to wiggle a little, but Kit saw her wince in pain. She tried to hide the grimace on her face, but she was hurting.
    â€œHold on.” Kit sighed. “Stop wiggling.”
    He bent down beside the spring on the trap and studied it. The black mask of fur around his eyes crinkled as he thought. He looked it over for weak spots and then, using both his hands, he bent back one piece and unwound another part. While he did that, he stretched out one foot and used his claw to pick up a bit of dirt. He stuffed thedirt into the works of the spring, which pushed the coils apart, just enough to let the rat slide her tail out.
    In a flash, she was free and standing back on her rear legs, eyeing Kit warily.
    â€œWhy’d you go and do that?” she demanded.
    â€œDo what?” he asked.
    â€œGet me out of that trap so quick?”
    â€œYou said you needed help.” Kit shrugged. “So I helped.”
    â€œBut you didn’t get your pouch back first.” She held up Kit’s seed pouch. “You had me caught but good, and you let me go before getting what you was after.”
    â€œSo?” said Kit. “I still want my pouch back. You stole it.”
    â€œI know I stole it, tick-brain!” The rat shook her head. “Point was you could’ve gotten it back from me while I was stuck!”
    â€œThat wouldn’t have been right,” Kit told her. “Just ’cause you’re a two-bit crook and a cheat doesn’t mean I have to be.”
    The rat sighed and shook her head. “You won’t last long here in Ankle Snap with that attitude.” She weighed the pouch in her hand. “Heavy. What you got in here?”
    â€œThat’s my own business,” said Kit.
    â€œSeems to me that your business is in the palm of my paw.” She tossed the little bag up and down. Kit imagined the Footprint of Azban jostling inside, cracking. His facetightened. “Oh, lighten up, big guy. You’ll give your fleas a heart attack.”
    She tossed him the bag and rolled her eyes, watching as he stuffed it into the front pocket of his jacket. “Put it inside your jacket,” she said. “Harder to snatch.”
    â€œThat’s where it was,” he said.
    â€œHarder for anyone but
me
to snatch,” she clarified.
    Kit scowled, but did like she suggested.
    â€œI’m no crook, by the way,” the rat called out. “My name’s Eeni. And you are?”
    â€œI’m Kit.” He stopped and turned back around to face her. “And where I come from, if you pick somebody’s pocket, that makes you a crook.”
    â€œI was always gonna give it back to you. I told you I stole it for your own good.”
    â€œMy own good? How’s