Copycat by Colin Dann Page B

if you wish. It’s dry enough.’
    Pinkie hesitated, her nose a-quiver. In the end her natural inquisitiveness got the better of her and she stepped inside. Her pupils dilated enormously. The place had some kind of lining – dead vegetation, flotsam left by the river’s penetration and now merely damp – which added to the den’s dank scent.
    ‘Not a particularly fragrant spot, is it?’ the cat commented.
    There came a hollow laugh. ‘I don’t worry about smells,’ the fox said. ‘It’s wondering about the taste of things that concerns me.’
    ‘Like rabbit?’
    ‘No. I know the taste of rabbit.’
    ‘So you have caught them?’
    ‘Of course. When I was young and nimble.’
    ‘You haven’t eaten well for a while, have you?’
    The fox gave no answer save for a deep sigh.
    ‘There must be some way to get at those creatures,’ Pinkie muttered. ‘If only Sammy were here. What a rabbit hunter he used to be!’
    The fox was silent. He was dreadfully weary and had fallen asleep. Pinkie left him, full of the idea of enlisting Sammy’s help. However, she wasn’t very confident of success. He had altered so much.
    ‘I’ll appeal to his hunting instincts,’ she told herself. ‘He can’t have lost all his old dash.’
    Outside the musky den Pinkie looked toward the open ground. ‘The copse is the only place for me,’ she decided. ‘I’ll have to sleep in a tree. There’s nothing over there except – what’s that?’ she suddenly hissed. There was movement in several places on the bare, broken ground. Rabbits! There were burrow entrances here which the fox didn’t know about. It hardly seemed possible, but rabbits were popping up and scampering towards the ditch on this side.
    Pinkie flattened herself. The rabbits were unaware of her presence. She crept forward on her belly. ‘The fox must be blind!’ she whispered. Another rabbit emerged, its back to Pinkie, but almost under her nose. She leapt forward and somehow managed to pin it to the ground, although it wasn’t much smaller than she. Pinkie held on desperately, using her teeth and claws until her prey was exhausted. Then she dragged it, bumping over the uneven ground, until she reached the fox’s den again.
    ‘Fox! Look! A banquet!’ Pinkie panted triumphantly.
    The fox was on his feet. ‘What did you . . .? Where did you . . .?’ he spluttered.
    ‘Never mind now. Eat.’
    The fox tore into the rabbit hide with his front claws; his few teeth were of no use here. ‘There’s more meat on this than I can eat,’ he asserted. ‘The spoils should go to the hunter.’
    ‘I’ll take my share later,’ said Pinkie. ‘Listen, there are more of these for the taking. On this side of the ditch. Didn’t you know that?’
    The fox was busy with his eating for some while. Eating was a long-winded business for him because it was so difficult to chew. At last he said, ‘My sight’s not so good. It’s failing, like the rest of me. I might see things without realizing it. But you can do well here.’
    ‘Not on my own,’ Pinkie replied. ‘I was lucky this time. It needs teamwork.’
    The fox gave a wheezy chuckle. ‘Teamwork? Then don’t think of me . What good would I be?’
    Pinkie kept quiet. She had been thinking again of begging Sammy to join her.
    After eating a few mouthfuls off the carcass, Pinkie spent the night in the copse, moving restlessly from tree to tree, from branch to branch. There was nowhere very suitable for a cat to sleep. The contrast between her wild existence and Sammy’s adopted one was now so marked that Pinkie was in two minds whether to attempt to approach her one-time mate.
    ‘I’ll try once more,’ she decided. ‘I’ll appeal to him, as the father of my kittens, not to abandon me altogether. Oh, kittens! Poor Fern, poor Moss. Little Sammy, where are you now? How things have changed. And how I wish we were all still together in that pleasant park.’

—12—
    A vain appeal
    Meanwhile Sammy’s progress