Children of Bast (4 page)

Eying me and smiling, she came closer. My bax itched. I looked into her eyes as they caressed me. Oh, Chubby, I loved her green eyes.

She nuzzled my cheek. “Well, let me have the pleasure of showing you how. You’re wet behind the ears, but we won’t hold that against you. You’ll muck up soon enough. Hungry?”

“I could do with some food,” I said. Wow, did she smell good; I think I got dizzy.

She led me to one of the huge dumpsters where a lot of amai were clustered. “This one belongs to Smokey’s Steak House. Always something good and lots of meat. Come on.”

She hit the edge exactly in one leap. I followed but landed like an awkward kith. I was so embarrassed.

“Not used to this,” I said when I got my balance. “What are we on?”

A burly disheveled amait pushed between us, and stared in my face. I came close to puking from his breath.

“Hey, Adele, who’s the rookie?”

It was Thain, I found out later. Raeed wasn’t around.

“Get lost, Thain.” Adele hissed.

His body was scraggy and was smeared with slop so that he really didn’t look like an amait at all. He resembled the garbage we were rooting through, stink and all.

“And who’s gonna make me get lost? Twinkle eyes here?”

Adele turned on him and glared straight into his ugly face. “Me, you piece of khara. You know I can whip your ass two times a day and three times if I want. Give me a reason, Barf Face, please, please give me a reason.”

She arched her back and blew up like a giant dandelion puff; her eyes narrowed and flashed; her mouth opened, teeth bared and tongue curled. Her tail whipped like an angry snake.

Thain backed off. I mean I’ve never seen an amait turn white, but Thain’s face looked like snow. Then he gave a half-hearted grin and backed further away.

“You ain’t worth it, Gutter Queen.” He looked at me. “We’ll meet again, Black Tom. Enjoy life while you have it, and Adele.”

“You’re scum,” Adele yelled at him, and when he jumped down and ran off, laughing, she screamed after him, “Kuss ummak!”

I asked, “What does that mean?”

“What does what mean?” she snapped at me, still staring in Thain’s direction.

“What you said. Kuss? I don’t remember the rest.”

Without looking at me, she said, “Kuss ummak? You don’t wanna know. It’s the worst thing anyone can say to another. You’ll learn soon enough. It’s an insult to his mother.” She snorted, and then looked at me. “His buddy, Raeed, is even worse. Stay clear of them until you get more experience, and even then be very careful. They’re dirty fighters and they’ll gang up on you.” She smiled and nuzzled my chin. “Don’t wanna lose someone as beautiful as you.” She rubbed my face with hers, and you guessed it, I let loose another shower.

“Will you quit that?” She wrinkled her nose and backed away.

“Sorry, but you do something to me.”

“Okay, I’ll stop.” She grinned.

“Please don’t. I’ll get a hold of myself.”

“See that you do.” She looked at the dumpster. “Okay, you had a question: What is this thing we’re sitting on? It’s called a dumpster. Bašar use them to throw out stuff they don’t want. They’re so pathetic. They throw the best stuff out. None of us can figure why they’d want to part with all this wonderful food, but, hey, ours is to benefit, theirs to weep.”

“Of course, I know what dumpsters are now, Chubby, but then I was astounded by their size. Big as houses! And stink. I’d never smelled anything so bad, but Adele was right at home

“I’ve never heard them called bašar before. I love it,” I said as we sat on the edge and looked around at all the stuff below us.

“It comes from our oldest language,” Adele said. “You do know our language, don’t you?”

“Sure. I’m talking to you, right? Our maama taught us, but she wasn’t with it all the time.”

“Not with it? What’s that mean?”

“Our maama drank a lot. Nibiit.”

“Two questions: what’s with our maama and why’d she drink nibiit? Bašar drink nibiit, not amai.”

“I have a sister. It’s a long story, but Maama found nibiit at the seminary and got hooked. So, she wasn’t awake enough to teach us much of anything. Besides, as house amai we forgot a lot because we didn’t have to talk a lot. Our captors gave us everything we needed, so talking to Maama wasn’t all that necessary.”

“Yeah, I know a lot about that. I noticed your talk was broken; now I know why. Looks like I’ll have to be your maama now.” She smiled.

“Uh, no. That isn’t a good idea. Know what I mean?”

“Without question.” She smiled and nuzzled me again.

“And why bašar?”

“I really don’t know. I just know it’s from the old language. We call them bašar sometimes, but that’s more like showing something that belongs to them. Like food. We could say bašar food. It’d mean it’s their food. Kilaab food would be for kalb, and so forth. See?”

“Yeah. Gee you’re smart.”

“I know,” she said, and I caught that she was serious.

I looked into the dumpster and found myself transfixed by what I saw. Mounds of bags filled with things I couldn’t identify. Boxes filled with garbage. Loose gobs of vegetables; meat and fish that had gone to the dark side, and what I called sludge covered the whole thing like a sauce.

“Follow me,” Adele hollered. She hopped down into a mound of something green and limp. It was lettuce. I’d watched Harriett fix it, tasted it once and threw up. I dropped down beside her.

“You know I don’t know your name,” I said.

“Adele. That’s the name I gave myself. Oh, look.” She jumped to the right and landed on something white.

“What is that?”

“A kilaab bag.”

“A what?”

“A kilaab bag. It’s what bašar take food home in from restaurants. If they have too much, which I cannot imagine, they stuff it in one of these and take it home to feed their kilaab. Sometimes they forget to take them and the restaurant guys throw them away.” Her husky voice enchanted me.

“Okay,” I said and jumped beside her.

‘Course, I didn’t know what the hell she was talking about. Kilaab bags, restaurants and restaurant guys—I was confused.

“It’s a guess as to what’s inside,” she said, “but usually it’s food that’s okay. Let’s take a peek.”

With that she shot out her front claws, grabbed the edge of the bag and ripped it open.

“Fish,” she yelled. “Fish, and lots of it. Let’s go, Sydney.” She grabbed the bag in her mouth and ran.

I followed her up over the edge of the dumpster and onto the street. She darted to the rear of the alley and scampered into an opening in the bricks just big enough for her and the bag. I scrunched in behind. She looked around before dropping the bag.

“Sorry it’s a mess,” she said. “I wasn’t expecting company. Well, not this early, anyway.” She smiled and dropped to the floor next to her stash. “Don’t stand there, Sydney. Let’s eat.”

She nuzzled the bag open and dropped a piece of fish in front of me. I took a bite of the strange stuff. Not soft and mushy like my captors gave us, but crispy brown on the outside, white on the inside and moist. The brown outside was definitely too salty, but the white was very tasty, and I was hungry.

~ ~ ~ ~

“Yup, that’s Smokey’s fish, all right. Crisp and moist and savory.” Chubby smiled and looked at me. “I do love Smokey’s fish. I like Smokey, too. Sometimes he comes out in the alley and gives us all kinds of scraps—bits of meat, chicken bones with meat still on ‘em, and that fish. Life is good at Smokey’s.”

“You got that right, Chubby. Let’s see, where was I?”

“Oh, by the way, that business with Thain: she could have ripped his guts out, you know. I saw her fight. She was scary. Slapped Raeed around a couple of times, and he walked very carefully around her. Adele was a terror when she let go.”

“How well I know, Chubby. She convinced me that day, and I vowed never to cross her.”

“Smart vow.”

Tuyuur Song was well on its way, and as the light increased I could see Chubby clearly. Old guy looked like he was snoozing, but I knew better. He was listening to every word I said, so I continued.

~ ~ ~ ~

“Say, can I call you something besides Sydney,” Adele asked, looking at me while she washed her face.

“Why? That’s my name.” I lied.

“Oh, I dunno. You don’t look like a Sydney.”

“What’s a Sydney look like?”

“Well, Sydney sounds sort of snooty to me, like a Sydney wouldn’t choose the street over a warm house and plenty to eat. Know what I mean?”

“No. What’s a name got to do with what an amait is? I don’t understand.”

“Yeah, well, maybe I should drop it. It’s just stupid me trying to be stupider.”

“No, go ahead, please. I’d like to know what’s on your mind.”

“Okay, it’s not an amait name. You do know that every amait has a name known only to the amait? Bašar name us, but that’s not our real names.

“My real name, given to me by my maama, is Zahra. What it means she didn’t remember, but it was her maama’s name, so I’m named after my giddaat.” I shot her a puzzled look and sat, curling my tail around my feet. “Did your maama ever call you by another name?”

“No.” But then recalled once when Maama told us a little bit about our life a long time ago. “Actually,” I she called me Nebibi a few times and said I was named after some big, black amait that roamed the woods. I never knew what she meant.”

“Okay, that’s probably your real name, given to you by your maama. Sydney is what your bašar called you because they didn’t know any better.

“You see bašar don’t know about us or our language. We know about them and their language because we have to, because they own us, or think they do. It’s better that they think they do because it’s to our advantage; they take care of us, feed us and give us warm places to live.”

“But that’s what I escaped from.”

“Well, there are those among us that need to be free. Guess you’re one of them. But don’t bad mouth amai that remain captives, as you call them. They’re living a pampered life by choice.”

“So, why are you on the street?” I asked. “I think you were a house amait once.”

“Later, Sydney, when I know you better.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I was a little pissed at her for not being open with me. She ignored me, of course.

“Okay, your real name is Nebibi. Want to be called that?”

“Not really. Sounds weird, like something is dripping.”

Adele laughed and nuzzled my face. “Well, we gotta do something about Sydney because it is not for a tom.”

“I’m very confused. I never thought much about names. Harriet and Ned called our maama Posey and my sister June. They were just names to me.”

Adele continued. “See, Sydney could be either a tom or a mollie. It sounds like both, at least to me. I don’t like Sydney, and I don’t think you do either.” She looked straight at me with no expression on her face.

“Why do you say that?’

“Because I don’t think it’s your name.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. I called to you in the dumpster twice and you didn’t answer.”

“I didn’t hear you?”

“Tiraan khara! Your shoulder was touching mine. Your name’s not Sydney.” She fixed me with an angry scowl.

I sighed and laid down, looking toward the chink opening. “All right, I did lie to you. My bašar name is Gaylord.”

“What?” She moved a step closer. “I didn’t hear you. You muffled your voice.”

“Gaylord. Gaylord! Loud enough?”

“Hey, don’t get hostile, although I should because you lied.”

“Well, what does it matter? I don’t know you. I don’t owe you anything, Adele, or Zahra, except maybe a few scraps of fish. What’s the harm if I told you a false name?”

“Out here, we have rules. One rule is to tell the truth because a lie could get us caught or killed. We share food, we share hiding places and we sound the alarm when bašar come to round us up.”

“What do you mean, round us up.”

“Every so often, bašar launch raids because they think we’re pains in their tails. We sense when they’re in that mood. For the most part we escape, but without the clowder raising a loud scream to warn us, most of us would get caught. We’re close out here, like family. Yeah, some of us fight, might even kill each other, but we survive because we cooperate. Understand?”

“Okay, but…”

“No buts. If you’re going to stay out here, you have to play the game, or else we’ll kill you. Okay, Gaylord?

“Okay.”

She scared me. Somehow I knew that because she was an alley amait, she could very well kill me. If not her, then someone else.”

“Actually, I kind of like Gaylord,” she said as she purred and rubbed my face. “It sounds like a raeed, a take-charge amait that we would follow, and sexy. But, it’s not your real name, remember; it’s what your captors called you. Understand?”

“Yeah.”

“Of course, you know now that telling the truth is right thing to do,” Chubby said. “But she was also right to let you know.”