Free Children of Bast by Frederick Fuller Page B

without all that tiraan khara about finding yourself. Find yourself here.”
    “Sorry, Adele, but I have to try.”
    She looked at me for a long time, and then meowed.
    “What’s that supposed to mean?”
    “It means you’re a stranger to me and I can’t see an amait in you any more. So, I greet you as we do them.”
    I was pissed. “Maybe I’ll be more amait than you are.” I hissed at her.
    “I see a loser.” She flatted her ears, dropped to a crouch and hissed back. “Don’t ever threaten me, Gaylord, or I’ll shred you alive.”
    “Go to hell.” I screamed at her and ran away.
    I didn’t know where to go, but I wanted to get away from her and her insulting meowing. I headed for the street. If I was going to do it, I had to take the first step. I didn’t need Adele or you, Chubby; I’d take my lumps on my own.
     

Chapter 8
    The city of cats and the city of men exist one inside the other, but they are not the same city . Italo Calvino

    I ran south until I got to a bunch of apartment buildings. Adele took me there one Time of Owls to look at the lake but told me to stay away from the alleys behind the apartments because some tough amai roamed there. Of course, that’s exactly where I needed to be.
    Stepping into the alley caused me to bristle like something crazed. It was the first time I’d been totally alone since escaping, and I was terrified. The alley reminded me of the hallway at Ned and Harriet’s apartment except there was no ceiling, just a deep black sky without stars. Both sides were lined with apartment buildings that seemed to go up forever. I’d never seen such tall buildings.
    Yellow light beamed from street lamps dotting the edges of the alley and gave off shadows that made it look like chunks had been cut from the sides of the buildings, some looking like they’d been chopped in two.
    Bašar voices blasted my ears. Some were just talking and laughing. Others were angry shouts and screams, like when Ned and Harriet argued. It always seemed odd to me how they tangled together in bed like well-fed kiths but later screamed and yelled at each other. But, I guess we do that, too, don’t we?
    As I trotted down the alley I heard kids crying and kalb barking and the sound of glass smashing. I looked up and saw black staircases like skeletons crawling up the sides of the buildings and heads of amai looking down on me. I wondered if they were wild or housies. Suddenly, a car roared down the alley and missed me by a whisker. What is it about me and cars, Chubby?
    Opening my mouth slightly, I tasted smells from all kinds of things: bašar, kilaab, hot asphalt, grass, and, surprise-surprise, garbage. But it smelled better than Adele’s alley, and when I hopped on a dumpster, I saw the lid was closed. Scratch that, I thought. I jumped down and continued walking.
    I kept to the shadows and stayed low to the bases of buildings. Despite the loud sounds coming all around me, I picked up scratching and squeaking from cracks here and there where the buildings met the street, openings just big enough for an amait to squeeze through. I sniffed into one. Adele’s description of old metal attacked my nose.
    When I pushed my head in, I saw the outline of a huge amait come down on a rat almost his size. In an instant, the rat’s head disappeared in the amait’s mouth and stopped moving. I couldn’t tell if it was a tom or a mollie, but it looked at me, flattened its ears and growled a warning. Blood oozed from its mouth. I pulled my head out, raced to the nearest dumpster, jumped on top, flattened, moved slowly to the rim and watched as the big amait crawled out of the crack and strolled to the center of the alley, the rat dangling from his mouth.
    In the low yellow streetlight I could see it was a huge, gray tom. He dropped the rat and crouched over it. Holding it with one paw, he ripped its belly open with a snip of his teeth and a quick tear with his claws. I saw the guts roll out and watched him lap