The Wild Ones by C. Alexander London

Eeni, “I think a group of gangsters is called a trouble. A trouble of gangsters.”
    â€œNot a pack?” Kit wondered.
    â€œA pack’s just for dogs,” she said.
    â€œHow do you know all this?” Kit asked her.
    â€œI guess school wasn’t totally useless.”
    Martyn tapped her on the shoulder and pointed to a hole in the fence that cut off Ankle Snap Alley from one of the People’s streets. “This way!”
    â€œThe Rat King doesn’t live here in the alley?” Kit asked.
    â€œThe city beneath the Slivered Sky is much larger than one alley, young Kit,” the mouse explained. “And the Rat King has lived in every corner of it.”

Chapter Sixt
een
    GIVE A HOOT
    BEYOND the edge of the alley, Kit and Eeni had to scurry across the big pavement river following Martyn, whose white robes glowed as he passed through the pools of electric light. They scampered along the edge of a square brick building where the People worked all day, past giant metal doors, and beneath a big brown truck.
    The mouse stopped at the edge of a rotted pier that jutted out over black water. Kit was shocked to smell the sea salt air. He hadn’t known they were so close to an ocean. The pier was cut off from the concrete by a razor-wire fence, but there was a burrow hole dug under it, big enoughfor a dozen mice or one young raccoon to squeeze through. Martyn gestured for Kit to climb under first, but just as he touched his snout to the ground, an owl hooted from above.
    â€œWhooo goes below?” the owl demanded. Kit looked up and saw a big brown owl perched atop the fence. Its mighty talons wrapped around the razor wire as if it were the harmless branch of a tree. Like Eeni had said, Wild Ones adapt. The owl wore a crisp black suit and blinked his wide yellow eyes behind dark glasses. “Whooo are yooou?”
    Eeni froze in place. It was a well-known fact that rats did not like owls on account of owls having rats for dinner on a regular basis.
    â€œUh . . . uh . . . ,” Eeni stammered.
    She glanced around. Martyn the mouse had vanished. Brave as they might appear, mice were also terrified of owls. They usually ended up as breakfast.
    Kit, however, was far too big for an owl to eat for any meal, and besides, he knew owls from back home, so he stood up on his hind feet, pressed the tips of his front paws together in greeting, and turned the question right back on the bird who was asking it. “Who are
you
?”
    The owl swiveled his head to peer down at Kit. He blinked once.
    â€œI am the bouncer, you impudent masked scoundrel!”the owl cried out. Kit noticed that the owl used the word
impudent
when he could have just said
rude.
Owls back under the Big Sky were like that too . . . always using big words when little ones would’ve done just fine. As if being impossible to understand made them wise. Real wisdom, Kit’s father always told him, didn’t need to hide behind big words.
    Kit figured owls in the city under the Slivered Sky were the same as owls out in the trees of the Big Sky. If you made them feel smart, they’d let you do anything.
    â€œI didn’t mean to be rude, sir,” Kit replied. “And I don’t understand them big words you use. I never meant to be
in pudding
 . . .”
    â€œâ€˜Impudent,’” the owl corrected him, just as Kit knew he would. “‘In pudding’? Ha! Unlikely.”
    â€œYes, sir,
impudent,
I meant to say.” Kit looked down at his feet. “Could you forgive a poor raccoon for not knowing such smart words? I never had much schooling, sir.”
    â€œSir, indeed!” The owl puffed out his chest.
    â€œI apologize for troubling you,” Kit said. “You must have more important things to do than talk to a young raccoon and his friend.”
    The owl swiveled his head around in a circle. “I do indeed! My college of owls is