Free Highway Cats by Janet Taylor Lisle Page A

wood. Some ancient force of nature was drawing them back, though its lines of power were invisible and mysterious. A telepathic signal was being sent and received. They are gone! You are safe! Come home. Come home.
    Uphill in the graveyard, the highway cats heard it too. They sat alert along the stone walls watching and listening as the forest filled once more with familiar sounds. Out on the highway, the roar of traffic was as loud as ever, but to the cats it seemed distant. Here, inside the wood, more important projects were under way. The business of living was taking charge again. Nests were being built. Berries were being stockpiled. Babies were being born. The wild cry of the hawk echoed in triumph through the air.
    Though only a few days had passed since the road crew’s bulldozer had cut its first path across the forest floor, already tiny grass shoots and vines were plotting to reclaim their old places. Trees and bushes were thickening with leaves. Flowers thrust up through the trampled ground and bloomed. Nature was on the rise, taking back what was hers. “Come home,” earth was calling. “We’ll win in the end.”
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    O N THE STONE WALL , listening with the other highway cats, Khalia Koo’s Siamese eyes shone bright in her ravaged face.
    â€œSomething’s happening,” she told Shredder in a low voice. “I can’t tell exactly what, but there’s been a change.”
    â€œI feel it too,” he answered. “A new smell is in the air. Do you think it’s possible…?” He stopped, afraid of putting his hope into words.
    Khalia wasn’t so careful. “Why not?” she asked. “We’ve come this far. I’ve been thinking I’d like to start a new business. I had a vision just now of going into catnip: catnip tea, catnip cake, catnip air scent and soap. Catnip,” she went on “is quite easily grown, far more manageable than rats in terms of packaging and transport.”
    Shredder twitched his tail. “I’m not sure canned rat would have sold anyway. Fresh ones are so available on every street corner these days.”
    â€œWhat would you do with a little more time here?” Khalia asked him.
    Shredder shook his old head. He glanced down at the kits, still happily asleep in their mound. “I suppose I might go into rescue work,” he answered finally.
    â€œRescuing what?”
    â€œWell, anything, everything, from the highway out there. The fact is, any one of these highway drop-offs might grow up to be something special.”
    â€œA sure way to get killed,” Khalia grumbled, but she glanced at him in admiration.
    These were not the only hopes circulating in the graveyard that morning. All the cats were heartened by the hustle and bustle of returning life around them. Perhaps they weren’t ready to believe it would last, however, for they continued to keep watch over the kits, as if they held the magic key to it all. This was why, when the little ones finally awoke from their night’s sleep on that sparkling morning after the storm, the highway cats were alarmed to see them acting so strangely.
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    S HREDDER NOTICED IT FIRST . “I don’t know what’s wrong. They’re limp,” he said.
    â€œThey’re just tired,” snapped Khalia, who had more pressing matters on her mind. “We’re all tired. Yesterday was a tremendous victory. Look, there’s no sign of the road crew this morning! We must not make the mistake of resting on our laurels. It’s all very well to sit around and hope, but there’s nothing like action for clinching the deal.”
    Shredder was too worried to think of action or deals.
    â€œThey have no bounce, no jump, no spirit,” he went on. “It’s totally unlike them. And their color is bad. They’ve turned mouse gray.”
    â€œI’m sure they’ll be better after a good solid meal,” Khalia said.