The Circle of the Paw

Chapter 14

     It took Akhi longer than he thought it would to locate Baldwin. He had climbed up the pipes and narrow corridors of the building's wall before finding the second level. Upon entering the building's ventilation ducts, he followed the series of circular incisions, marking the path that Baldwin's team had cut. Akhi stopped at each grate to peek into the apartments and see if his rodent colleagues had been there. Each time he pressed his face to the grate, the horizontal slats and too-small-to-stand passageway made Akhi feel like a prisoner within the narrow confines of the duct. How does Baldwin do this all the time? He's almost as big as I am. He shook his head and moved further along the duct until he found a grate that had been pried open.

He placed a cautious paw onto the cream colored carpet of the human apartment. Thanks to the fluffy material, he barely made a sound as his body stepped fully into the dwelling. It was dark. With his nightvision, Akhi could see that a gray sofa, too big for the space, sat in the middle of the living room facing a flat screen television balanced dangerously on a thin table. Sitting on the sofa was a small purple backpack and green notebooks covered in scribbles.

As Akhi explored the home, he realized the front door to the apartment was directly adjacent to the air vent he had come from. There was a long, murky, hallway off to one side. His ears perked up. At the end of the hall was a closed door with a light flickering behind it. He stopped and listened, but no sounds seemed to come from the doorway. Are the humans asleep or did they just leave the light on? he wondered.

He suddenly heard the sound of small, light, pellets roll across a hard floor behind one of the living room's other walls. The sound was followed by the pitter patter of tiny paws. He tip-toed over and carefully peeked his head around the far wall.

Looking into the apartment's narrow kitchen, he spotted Baldwin and his team of rodents tearing into drawers and pulling out food items. Boxes of cereals and crinkled cracker bags littered the floor. Fresh apples lay splattered on the ground along with banana peels, raisins, and what Akhi could only assume was spilled milk. He felt sorrow for whomever was going to have to clean up the mess in front of him. Somehow none of the rats had spotted Akhi's black head peeking around the corner.

"Pssst... Baldwin!" Akhi whispered from the edge of the linoleum kitchen floor.

The large gray rat hopped down from one of the open pantry shelves and cautiously crept over to the edge of the kitchen. Baldwin was squinting and Akhi noticed he was gripping his spear tightly. He can't see me in the dark. Akhi realized.

"It's me, Cagney." After having used his pseudonym for the past three moon cycles, Akhi barely gave it a second thought. Barely.

"Cagney! You almost got a spear point in the eye," the rat lowered his weapon and patted Akhi on the shoulder. "What are you doing here?"

"Something's up. We spotted a rabid raccoon enter the tunnel outside. We think it's somewhere in the building."

Baldwin scratched the top of his head while he thought. Several of the other rats stopped stuffing food into their satchels to listen to their conversation.