Read Online Teddycats by Mike Storey - Free Book Online

speak more freely with him, abandon all the filters he tried to run his thoughts through when talking with other Teddycats. Of course, those filters never really helped. Bill was forever jamming his paw in his mouth and then trying to kick up enough dust to cover his own tracks. But talking with Felix made him feel thathe had greater access to his own thoughts, the way he used to feel with Maia before things got so complicated.
    â€œHonestly?” Bill said. “I feel like I have only two options.”
    â€œLet’s hear ’em,” said Felix.
    Bill cleared his throat. The smell of the human still burned in his snout. “Okay,” he said. “Here goes. One: self-banishment.”
    â€œOuch,” Felix said. “And how does that sound to you?”
    â€œIt depends,” Bill said. “Sometimes terrifying, sometimes great, like I could just retire to my fort or head out someplace completely new and different.”
    â€œBut that’s life as a Teddycat,” Felix said. “You’ll always attract attention. You’re new and rare and extraordinary.”
    Bill followed the fantasy for a moment. “But what if I headed someplace quiet, and posed as a meerkat or something, and kept my claw hidden?”
    Felix laughed. “Well, if that’s your dream, I won’t try to persuade you otherwise. But you do know that by doing that, you’d be following a long and frankly self-sabotaging Teddycat tradition, right?”
    â€œAnd what’s that?”
    â€œMistaking flight and hiding as anything other than a temporary solution. But never mind that for now. What’s option number two?”
    â€œWell, I actually don’t even know,” said Bill,overwhelmed all over again. “Another rescue mission, I guess.”
    â€œGo on,” said Felix, one brow raised encouragingly.
    â€œBut a rescue mission would mean overturning the lockdown and challenging the Elders, and right now I don’t have a whole lot of Cloud Kingdom support. I’m guessing most Teddycats would vote for option one.”
    â€œMeaning banishment.”
    â€œIf things keep getting worse like this and I stick around, there’s a good chance I could wake up in a stone-filled sack, sliding off the waterfall.”
    Felix considered this for a moment. “I don’t think they’ll wish you away, Bill, let alone help you pack your bags. You’re an important and valuable member of Cloud Kingdom.”
    Bill scoffed.
    â€œWhat? It’s true,” Felix said. “You have friends and persuasive ideas and charisma, not to mention respected parents. And try as they might to deny or ignore it, the Elders need you. Successful societies
need
rabble-rousers and troublemakers, my friend. Otherwise there’d be no progress or evolution. If old farts like me and the Elders ran the jungle, the whole place would shut down an hour before sunset so we could soak our joints and complain about the weather. Not to mention, I don’t think you’d last five minutes posing as a plain old meerkat, Bill. No matter where you go.”
    â€œYou’re probably right,” said Bill, feeling a bit dizzy.
    â€œAlways happy to hash it out with you, Bill,”said Felix. He stretched and smiled as sunlight—the full brunt of which was still relatively new to him as a jungle-floor dweller—spilled through the cracks of his den. “But I’m not here to steer you either way. You’re free to do whatever you think is right. In my experience, disasters like these sometimes make a creature feel like the world is shrinking, when actually it’s finally opening up. What I’m saying is, you definitely have more than two options.”
    â€œReally?” Bill said. “Phew.”
    â€œThat said, I will give you a little bit of advice, because that’s what old guys like me do.”
    â€œI could use all of the advice I can get.”
    â€œThe