“Follow my tail,” Sensibella said.
She was leading him up the tiny stream, quickly becoming a torrent in the downpour. The water would carry away their scents. His cousin had suddenly changed from a sacrificial victim to a determined survivor. He had to hand it to her. She really knew how to disappear.
The terrain ascended suddenly and he was in a cool, dark forest with cold stream water racing around his legs. He felt the exhilaration of escape, and he was alone for the first time with Sensibel, and they were having an adventure. What could this lead to? Never mind. It was fun just being around her with her elegant hind feet kicking spray in his eyes. The night was creepy, the weather had gone crazy, and they were the only raccoons at the party who were having fun. Behind them, the Betrothal Ceremony lay in ruins.
They emerged from the woods onto an open lawn. The stream now became an ornamental feature in a setting for a large modern house and a garage with three doors. Bandit paused to analyse the scents. Fresh-cut grass, a pebbled driveway, a sandbox for children, fresh baked bread, a big family of Primates. It occurred to him that this property was the counterpart to the security Aunt Pawsense wanted, and it was fitting that she’d made her home nearby. There were no obvious dangers. “No pets, no threats” – to quote one of his mother’s sayings. The rain stung his ears. Where was Sensibel taking him? Please, somewhere warm and dry.
“We are going to our sisters’ hideout where we gossip and tell silly stories,” she said, as if reading his mind.
A secret den kept by cubs! He’d never heard of such a thing. “Won’t they tell your Ma we’re there?”
“Goody Two Paws won’t, because she hasn’t a clue where it is and doesn’t want to know. Nim won’t, if she values her ears and her tail. I’m not sure about Frisk. No one is ever sure about Frisk. She’ll probably find us – she loves intrigues.”
Intrigues, she calls it. This isn’t an intrigue. It’s a family mutiny. What’s the punishment for disobeying one’s parents? For surely they would be caught once the bodyguard was organized into hunting parties. The searchers would pick up their trails where they left the stream.
Overhead, a half Moon broke through scudding clouds. The lawn danced with half-crazed shadows.
But they weren’t leaving the stream. Sensibel was tiptoeing through the water to where the stream widened near the house to form a decorative pool. She lifted her nose in the air, looked left and right, then lolloped across a stone patio that formed the outside of the pool. She headed towards an eavestrough downspout gurgling on the side of the house. Brilliant! The downpour would wash away their scents.
Bandit began to regard his first cousin with awe.
Up the spout then. And onto the roof. Was she really going to leap into that chestnut tree? She glanced back, grinned wickedly, and flung herself into space. The tree caught her, and she disappeared at once into its foliage.
That looks easy. But his cousins were such athletes. He’d never made a jump like this before.
Bandit felt the leafy branch rock under him as he landed with his eyes closed. Soon he was curled up beside Bella in a hole in the tree. Outside, the sky was preparing another squall; inside, it was snug. He’d never been this close to her, not since they’d wrestled together as cubs.
“We’ll rest here until dawn,” Sensibel said. “Then we’ll run forever.”
“Where?”
“As far away from this boring existence as my tiny feet can carry me.”
“I don’t know, Bel …”
“What don’t you know? Please take your nose off my tail.”
“I don’t know that it’s a good idea.”
Bandit heard the beginning of a growl.
“Let me explain,” he said. “You’ve been living in a nice, soft place. Good hunting ground. All the clams you can eat and a cornfield nearby. Security provided by your Dad. I don’t think you know what it’s really like out there.”
“What’s it really like out there?”
“It’s like … I don’t know, it’s like climbing a tree and every second branch is designed to break under your paw. Like eating food that doesn’t taste what it smells like. Like meeting a friend and they suddenly bite you for no reason. As soon as you go out the door of your den, you’re in a world of trickery and deceit.”
“I love trickery and deceit.”
Should he go on and describe the world in more detail to her? Describing it felt good – like he was a street-smart protector. She had nowhere to go, no safe place in the world to sleep. He would provide her with security. But he had no idea where to look for it. In fact, he wasn’t able to think outside of the comfort of a den himself. He never intended to go to the Back of the North Wind; he planned to come straight to Sensibel in her paradise of bulrushes. Talk about deceit in the world! Without even venturing into that distrustful realm, he had deceived himself.
“We could swim downriver and seek out a life in the city,” he said.
“Let’s snuggle, then talk about it later.” Saying this, Sensibel immediately fell asleep.
Unable to sleep, Bandit listened for a quaver in the flow of the outside news that would justify alarming her. Only the north wind whistling through the chestnut leaves. He began to feel dozy.
A crash! Someone had fallen out of the sky! Sensibel shot to her feet. Scrambling, then …
“I knew you’d be here!” Frisk squeezed in through the hole and touched noses with her sister. “Isn’t this exciting? They’re searching for you in the bulrushes and even down where the pond drains into the Crosstown Stream. And all the time you’re up here in our hideout – with your First Cousin, no less. Hi, Bandit! I knew you two were planning to elope.”
“We are not planning to elope. I intend to go out and make a world for myself.”
Frisk checked Bandit’s face for affirmation of this bizarre desire. No expression behind his implacable mask.
“I think you should go to the city,” Frisk said. “It’s a free community and you meet people easily. You can live alone and not be regarded as an Old Maid and you don’t have to mate. People respect you as an individual, or so I’m told.”
“Come with me, Frisk. We can live together and go out on dates and talk about them afterward.”
Bandit felt his heart sink. Being with Sensibel certainly was an experience. It was like walking along one of those heavy wires that buzz under your feet. Such a high! Any second, you’d miss your footing, and you’d be traversing the wire upside down, all your weight pulling at your shoulder muscles.
“I can’t go to the city,” Frisk said. “Not right away. Maybe I can join you later. If Mama loses two of her children, she’ll turn the world upside-down and shake it till we tumble out. One lost child is okay because she can think of someone else to blame for it besides herself.”
“She has no one to blame but herself,” Sensibel said.
Bandit had no trouble identifying who the blameworthy party was in Aunt Pawsense’s mind. It was him. He wondered if he felt guilty about abducting her daughter. No – she had abducted herself. “I think it might be a good idea to go back to your mother in the morning and explain your feelings to her. You might appear at least to be an unreliable bride. That would get the burden of marrying the Tosh off your back.”
Sensibella was examining him in the dark. He felt her withering contempt.
“Because, if you go to the city,” he said quickly, “your Mother will decide that you have left her family for good. You’ll be the most desolate thing in the world. A raccoon without a clan.”
“You don’t seem all that desolate,” she said.
He looked to Frisk for support. The energy had drained away in Sensibella before his eyes. He had called her dream into doubt and substituted tactical deceit in its place. The romance adventure was over. He had just ended it by being realistic. He was only trying to be practical for her sake, but he had questioned her outlook, her romantic dream of escape. Her dream was gone. Maybe not gone, but retracted into her interior. And with her sense of enchantment in doubt, she had no means of imagining her own freedom. Bandit felt a sourness in his mouth. It was in his gut. It was coming out on his breath. He had betrayed Sensibel. Betrayed the wild hope to which all her beauty was tied.
“I shall sleep on it,” Sensibel mumbled.
Frisk touched noses with her sister, then squeezed out the hole without speaking. Everyone understood the situation. He tried to put it in its best light. He had done some good. He had saved Sensibel from headlong flight. Maybe a crisis had been averted, or at least postponed. It had been a long day. They could discuss things in the morning.
Bandit listened in his sleep to the pattering of rain on the chestnut leaves.
Dawn brought a clear, purposeful day. He stretched out, feeling for Sensibel’s body beside him. Nothing. He felt suddenly, starkly alone.
Sensibel had gone.