Free The Wildings by Nilanjana Roy Page B

ants out of his light brown fur, which had chocolate stripes running through it. “Where were you off to anyway? Shouldn’t you have been learning paw-washing and whisker-cleaning with Miao today?”
    “Miao was busy,” said Southpaw, reflecting that this was the truth. The Siamese had been very busy looking all over the park for him after he’d run away from the day’s lessons—it wasn’t his fault, whisker-cleaning was for the little four-weekers, not for a nearly adult kitten at the ripe old age of two months. “And I wanted to see the Shuttered House. Ow! Katar, that hurts! Ow! Ow! Stoppit! Put me down!”
    Katar was growling slightly as he shook the kitten back and forth, holding Southpaw by the loose folds of skin around hisneck. “The Shuttered House! Haven’t we told you it’s forbidden? Didn’t Miao and I tell you time and time again not to go there? And if you were fool enough to explore forbidden territory, why were you heading off on your own?”
    “Because,” said the kitten, “you said it was forbidden, so I didn’t think it was safe to take any of the other kittens with me.”
    Katar’s tail was lashing back and forth, but hearing this, he dropped the kitten back onto the ground. “You were on your own because you didn’t think it was safe to take any of the other kittens with you,” he said slowly.
    “Yes, Katar,” said Southpaw meekly.
    “It didn’t occur to you that if it was unsafe to take any of the other kittens with you, it might be unsafe for you to go to the Shuttered House because—you’re still a kitten yourself, you fluff-brained idiot!”
    “Yes, Katar,” said Southpaw. “Um—no, Katar. Um—yes, Katar. Anything you say, Katar.”
    Katar stared at the young cat suspiciously. “I mean that, Southpaw. The Shuttered House is out of bounds for very, very good reason.”
    “Yes, Katar,” said Southpaw. “Umm … what are the reasons?”
    Katar exhaled—a short, exasperated sound not unlike a dog’s wuff, at the other end of the spectrum from the cat snuffle used to indicate pleasure. “It’s a fair question, Katar,” said a voice from behind his ear. “I told you he’d be the first in this year’s batch to start getting curious.”
    “Well, maybe you’d like to explain, Miao,” said Katar. He’d never gotten used to the venerable Siamese cat’s ability to sneakup silently behind him, and harboured an uneasy suspicion that she did it just to keep him from getting too big for his paws. Miao left almost no scent trails behind her, unlike the other cats—it was a gift of her Siamese blood.
    Miao’s eyes looked deep into Southpaw’s. “Perhaps we should show rather than tell,” said the Siamese, curling her tail out gracefully. “Follow me, Southpaw, and if Katar and I tell you to do something, do it, don’t argue with us, is that understood? Have you got all the ants out of your fur? Are your paws back to normal or are they still stinging? Can you move fast? Have you done a whisker check for dogs, or other predators? Right, then, come along.”
    Southpaw’s head was buzzing with the barrage of instructions. “Where are we going?” he said, confused.
    “To the Shuttered House,” said Miao. Katar and she touched muzzles, and then the cream-coloured Siamese and the tom led the way through the lantana bushes, as the kitten scrambled behind them as fast as he could.
    THE ROOTS OF THE BANYAN TREE had grown in thick tangles, and getting through them was a fight, even for the cats. Southpaw watched in admiration as Miao flattened herself, seeming to flow past the thick creepers; Katar hacked his way through, using his shoulders to push, his tail flicking back and forth in unease.
    It seemed to the kitten that they had left Nizamuddin behind. The banyan towered above this abandoned plot of land. The ground was dark, cool and clammy under his paws. He felt hisclaws come out involuntarily, and had to retract them so that they wouldn’t catch on stray roots.