He stared at Mudge.
“Hey, don’t be mad at me, mate. I didn’t slug ‘er.”
“She kept saying she could take care of herself.”
“I thought ‘er mouth was bigger than ‘er brain,” the
otter commented sourly. “Take care o’ ‘erself, wot? Not
by ‘alf.” He turned to the cop. “Wot ‘appened to ‘er,
then?”
“We relayed it in.” He glanced at his partner. “Do you
know what headquarters did with her afterwards?” The
other skunk shrugged and the first looked thoughtful. “Let
me think.”
“Hospital,” Jon-Tom suggested. “Did they send her to
a hospital?”
“Not that bad a bump, stranger. She was half-conscious
by the time we got her into the station. Kept moaning
about her mother or something. She didn’t have a scrap of
identification on her, I remember that. Also kept mum-
bling for someone named—” he fought to recall, “Pom-
pom?”
“Jon-Tom. That’s me.”
“She couldn’t tell us where you were… that sock on
the head rattled her pretty good, I’d think… and the name
meant nothing to us. Weird as it was, we thought she was
still off her nut. Mid-adolescent, you said?” He nodded.
“I thought she looked underage for a human. Now I
remember what happened to her. Social Services took her
in. Several groups put in a claim and the Friends of the
Street won.”
“Yeah, that’s right,” said his partner. “I saw that on the
report sheet.”
“Who are the Friends of the Street?” Jon-Tom asked,
“Kind of like an orphanage, stranger,” the cop explained.
150
Alan Dean Foster
He turned and pointed. “They’re up on Pulletgut Hill
there. Never been there myself. No reason. But that’s