Catland - a humorous fantasy

Chapter Nine: Greg Survives, or Is Killed and Eaten (I Won't Spoil the Surprise)

Up ahead of him, Leopold cursed savagely.  But the white cat didn't stop running—so Greg didn't stop running either.

Leopold jerked his head back over his shoulder and barked out a few harsh words.  "Toothpick!" he rasped.  "Do as I do!"

As instructions went, these were not exactly lucid, but Greg understood that Leopold was dealing with a lot of stress just at the moment, what with the savage pack of hounds descending on them from behind, and the other savage pack of hounds approaching rapidly from in front, and the fact that the most fearsome weapon at their disposal was apparently the toothpick.  This was quite a lot for any person to take on all at once, and indeed, under the circumstances, Greg felt rather grateful that Leopold had found the time to speak to him at all.  Toothpick.  Do as Leopold did.  That would have to do for the moment.  After all, it was better than Greg's own leading idea, which was to void his bowels and then be summarily devoured.

Up ahead the tunnel curved sharply to the right, and as they neared the bend, the baying of the dogs in front of them grew to a nightmarish, mind-swallowing volume.  They were only two dozen paces from the curve when the first of the dogs burst into view around the corner, all noise and rage and gnashing teeth, and Leopold raised his toothpick high above his head.

Barely slowing his pace, Leopold thrust the toothpick savagely into the floor of the tunnel ahead of him.  A blinding shower of sparks lit up the dim tunnel, and the toothpick surged forward, trailing a jet of flame behind it, while Leopold clung to the little wooden stick as if his life depended on it, which it definitely did.  The dogs parted to either side as the blazing meteor shot through their midst—and then Leopold was out of sight around the curve of the tunnel, and Greg realized that it was now his turn to do this insane, impossible thing.

Without pausing to think—there wasn't time for it, anyway—Greg plunged his toothpick into the floor of the tunnel ahead.  A shower of sparks resulted, just as he had hoped, but the angle of Greg's thrust was a little off (it was his first time doing this, after all), and instead of rocketing down the tunnel through a horde of singed and disappointed canines, Greg slammed into the ceiling above him, plummeted to the tunnel floor, and lay face-down in the stagnant water, the toothpick sparking and fizzing merrily in his hand.

Greg didn't have time to feel afraid, or sad, or annoyed with himself for his lack of motor coordination, but he did have time for the calm, cold certainty that he was about to die.  He felt hot breath on his neck, and a sharp pain in his right calf as a set of jaws closed over it—and then there was a wrenching jerk as Greg's body accelerated from zero (and probably dead) to sixty (and improbably alive) in about 0.7 seconds.  Hot sparks rained down around him, and his stomach lurched as he made an abrupt right turn; then he could hear the yowling of the dogs diminish swiftly behind him, and feel the air in the tunnel grow cooler as he raced for the exit, and he knew that he had been saved.

Greg and Millicent—for of course it was she who had done the saving—tumbled out of the far side of the tunnel and landed in the muck, their toothpick spent.  Leopold was standing only a few feet from where they lay, and Greg looked up just in time to see the white cat raise another toothpick over his head and fling it, javelin-style, at the tunnel entrance.  The projectile struck just above the tunnel's iron roof, and its fiery impact caused a landslide that thoroughly blocked the circular opening.  A few seconds later, the dogs reached the end of the tunnel, and, seeing their way forward obstructed by fallen rock and dirt, they set up a fearful howling that made Greg's hair stand on end.

Leopold turned his head and looked down at Greg with infinite smugness.  "Well," he said, "what do you think of my toothpicks now, Gregory Tilson?"