by Lisa Martin
The two men near the cabin moved away, and Anton could see into the open doorway. It would be dry in there; perhaps he would find something to eat. He studied the space in between—a good dash and he’d be inside before any of the sailors could catch him. Gathering his strength, he eased down the side of the coil and then ran full out, his paws scarcely touching the planks of the deck, ignoring the shout from one sailor and the raucous laughter of another, until he was in the cabin. At once he spotted another open door and made for it. Here, to his surprise, was a narrow hall with doors on each side. Hide, hide, he thought. There must be a place. The last door opened into a small room crammed with canvas bags, the rafters strung with long white planks that smelled like fish.
Anton spied a space between two bags and squeezed into it. On either side, other bags leaned together, making a dome over an oblong bit of floor. It was just big enough for a cat. He curled himself in a ball and rested his head on his paws. There were many strange smells in the place. Some he had not encountered before, but there was an insistent, sour, greasy odor he recognized, and it made him wrinkle his nose with distaste. He had no doubt what it was. He was sharing lodgings with a rat.
Again Anton slept. He woke, hungry and thirsty and uncertain where he was. There was a noise and then another, a sailor’s voice and the scrape of something heavy being dragged into the passageway. He sat up and peered through an opening between the bags. Two sailors were talking and laughing. One was pointing out things in the room to the other. Before Anton could make a move, the bigger of the two men shifted a bag and Anton was exposed to their view.
“Well, you’re in the right place, lad,” the big sailor said.
“Though he won’t find much to his taste in the larder,” observed the other.
Anton looked from one to the other as they spoke, though he had no idea what they were saying.
“He’s a bit of a scrawny fellow, idn’t he?” said the first.
“There’s not much meat upon him,” his companion agreed.
The big sailor leaned forward and crooked his finger at Anton. “Come along, mate, and we’ll introduce you to Pritchert. He’s the cook. He’ll be your benefactor.”
Why were they talking to him in this pointless way? Anton wondered. And what was the meaning of the crooked finger? Now the other sailor joined in, motioning toward the doorway with his palm. “Come along, then,” he said. They backed out into the hall, urging Anton with their gestures. They didn’t seem threatening, and if he was to get anything to eat he knew it would have to come from them. He thought of the sailors who stuffed Cecil with fish because they thought he was lucky. Anton stood up, stretched from head to tail, ran a quick paw over his face, and followed the men into a room with a long table, where a third sailor stood over a barrel, dipping a tin can on a string into an opening in the lid.
Water was in that barrel. Anton could smell it, and he was so thirsty he forgot his sense of ordinary caution and leaped onto the lid, thrusting his face close to the opening, which caused the sailors to laugh.
“Water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink, eh, mate?” said the sailor pulling up the can. He was a tall, thin, white-haired fellow with a beard that stood out from his face like a cloud passing by. “Hand me that pie pan,” he added to the sailor nearest him, who took down a tin plate from a stack over the stove. The cloudy man had pulled up the can and proceeded to pour the contents into the plate. Anton lapped at the cool water, oblivious to danger. When his tongue had chased out every last drop, he sat up, licking his whiskers. The three men stood looking at him, their eyes bright with amusement.
“What name shall we give our feline friend?” said one.
“Thirsty,” suggested the other.
Sailors, Anton thought. They all looked alike, but it might be a good idea to tell them apart. The fur was the thing; some had a lot and some had hardly any. He would have to be observant and figure out which was which. He’d call the white-bearded one “Cloudy,” and the thin fellow, who had no fur on his chin but a great mop of black fur falling over his eyes, he would call “Black Top.”
“He’s not got a spot of color on him. Let’s call him Mr. Gray,” the first sailor said. And so they did.
Two more days passed and Anton tried to make some sort of life below decks, avoiding the chilly spray and endlessly pitching deck at all costs. The noxious smell of the rat irritated him, but he had not spied the creature yet. Anton slept in the galley, because it was quiet there, and crept about, waiting until Cloudy was alone to present himself for a daily pan of water. When the men had their dinner, they were rowdy and Anton stayed outside the door, sniffing the air. The food they ate had no appeal for him. It was some sort of biscuit and potatoes and nasty-smelling soup. The sailors were hungry and cleaned their plates, not thinking to offer Anton a taste. When Cloudy was clearing up, he scraped the pots into a plate and offered it to Anton. It was all he could do to choke down a bite or two.
“You’ll get used to it, lad,” Cloudy said, but Anton was thinking, How am I going to survive?
Then, early one morning, when the sailors were still snoring in their bunks and the night watchman was taking a last turn around the deck, Cloudy went into the larder to fill a big tin box with flour from a bag, and Anton followed. Cat and man heard a rustle and pricked up their ears. Anton knew immediately what it was, but Cloudy evidently did not. In the next moment a large brown rat stepped out from behind a barrel. Cloudy gave a shout and dropped his tin, backing clumsily into the hall, his beard aquiver and his eyes staring wildly.
“Be gone, you devilish creature!” he cried.
The rat turned calmly away and slipped back into its hiding place, its long tail disappearing bit by bit. It paused to wheeze, looking back over its shoulder. “This is my ship, you lousy cat,” it said. “You’d best make yourself scarce.”
Anton shuddered. It was one thing to smell the creature, but to see the ugly snout and beady eyes, the sharp claws and slithering tail, turned his stomach. No cat, not even Cecil, relished the prospect of a battle with a large rat.
Cloudy charged back into the room, taking up his tin, and to Anton’s surprise, shook it at him, shouting in outrage, “What are you up to, you lazy, worthless fellow? It’s your job to clear the ship of vermin!” Anton had no idea why the man was upset, but clearly he was angry, and clearly he was angry at Anton. He filled the tin with flour and huffed off to the galley, leaving Anton in a miserable state of mind.
Anton slipped into the galley after the sailors finished their morning gruel, thinking he might be able to get a bite of something, but Cloudy spotted him and waved him out of the room, berating him, as he had before. The sailors listened, frowned, muttered, and turned unfriendly faces on Anton.
“Get on with you then,” Black Top hissed, pointing to the storeroom with a gnarled finger. “Do your duty like the rest of us.”
Anton was hungry; he’d been hungry for days. Was Cloudy now going to deny him even the tasteless stuff he’d been living on thus far? He was indeed. At lunch and then at dinner, the sailors treated Anton coldly. When Cloudy scraped the pans at the end of the meal, he stepped out onto the deck and threw the contents of the tin plate over the side. Anton had followed him and his stomach twisted and groaned as he watched the gray mess fly over the rail. What was he going to do?
CHAPTER 6
Racing the Storm
For several long minutes, Sonya sat looking out through a slit in the lighthouse wall. She shook her head and slowly turned back to Cecil. Her elegant face was pained and drawn, though her eyes were bright in the dim light.
“You’ve got to go find him and bring him home,” she said softly.
Cecil gulped. He was terrified for his brother, but here was Cecil’s chance to sail the open seas. “Will you come with me?” he asked.
“I have new kittens to take care of; I can’t leave them alone. You must go.”
Cecil hung his head. “Ma, I’m so sorry, it’s my fault . . .�
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Sonya waved a paw and began to pace, speaking more quickly. “Did you talk to Billy? What did he say?” she asked.
Cecil straightened up. He had at least thought to do this. “He said that since the ship was so big, with so much cargo aboard”—Cecil fought the panic in his voice—“she probably wasn’t coming back, not for a long while at least.”
Sonya squeezed her eyes shut for a moment. “That sounds right. He’s seen these things.” She pulled herself up and took a breath, stepping quickly over to Cecil and looking directly into his eyes. “Listen, now, you must be strong. Get Billy’s help. Choose a ship, and follow as best you can.” She touched his nose briefly with her own.
Cecil looked down and fidgeted with a loose stone, thinking of his brother. “He doesn’t even like sailing.”
“I know.” Sonya sighed.
“He’s not very brave, either.”
“He may surprise you.”
For three agonizing days, Cecil watched every ship entering the harbor, waiting for one different from the smaller fishing schooners he knew did not travel far. At first he thought he’d wait for another just like Anton’s, but Billy advised against it.
“Not many like that one, an original she was,” Billy said, rubbing a paw thoughtfully under his chin. “Your best bet is to look for something big, plain and simple.”
On the evening of the third day after Anton was impressed, a tall square-rigged clipper sped into the harbor and pivoted to dock with a flourish. She was sleek and long, flying flags of red and green and displaying a figurehead of a bull with sharp curved horns and a ring through its nose. The crew had tanned skin and dark eyes. The captain’s shirt was trimmed with ruffled fabric at the wrists and chest, and golden threads glittered in his headscarf. The sailors unloaded their cargo briskly and moved out to the saloon, leaving a few of the younger men behind to load crate after crate of salted fish up to the deck. No one noticed a black creature, blending with the deepening night sky, as it crept silently up the plank, slipped between the weathered barrels, and disappeared.
Cecil waited out the night in his hiding place in the storage area below decks, wedged in a dark and smelly corner behind three heavy barrels. No sooner did he begin to hear activity on the deck above him than the ship shivered as it was unmoored. The clipper cast off as it had come in, arcing theatrically away from the piers and bursting through the mists of the gray dawn out to the harbor and the waiting sea. Cecil guessed that they were probably going quite a bit faster than the old schooners, but his growing hunger quickly pushed these thoughts aside. He realized he had not eaten much since he last saw Anton—oh! the thought of poor Anton made his head throb with worry—and his stomach was snarling.
Hours passed as the day wore on, and when he could stand neither the suspense nor the confines any longer, he considered trying to slip out of the storage area to see what was going on. Most likely the men would be happy about a cat on board, but there was always the risk they would simply throw him over the side as a nuisance. Cecil squirmed in his hiding place. It wouldn’t do Anton any good if his rescuer starved to death, he reasoned. Listening intently for any movement nearby, Cecil clawed up and over the top of the wall of barrels and looked around in the gloom, his nose working furiously.
The small room was completely stuffed with barrels, most of which smelled of fish. Another strong scent Cecil couldn’t place floated on top of that. He launched himself forward, thumping across the barrelheads from one to the next, closing in on a particular fishiness. Finally he squeezed his girth down between barrels to the grimy floor, where he found one cracked slat that revealed the barrel’s contents. Fish! Eagerly he clawed at a bit of exposed pale meat until a fat, stiff chunk fell out in front of him, and he gobbled it ravenously.
Just as he swallowed the last bit he realized that the strong odor he had noticed was not coming from something separate in the hold but was actually part of the fish, and he began to gag. What kind of fish is this? he thought with disgust. It tastes like pure salt. He pawed at his tongue to get the horrid stuff off, then felt his throat seize up, and he sank to the floor. Splayed out between barrels, lips puckering, tongue lolling, eyes watering, Cecil had just one thought: Water!
The door creaked open, spilling in gray light and wet spray. Cecil pressed his bulk weakly against a barrel bottom, trying not to be seen. No one came in, however, and the spray continued. He blinked up into the dull sky and dimly perceived that it must be raining, though it wasn’t doing him any good where he was. He resolved to drag himself to the top of the barrel to get a better view. Once on top, though, his stomach revolted over its contents and he collapsed in a sick heap just as he heard voices from men entering the room.
“Look there, it’s a cat,” one shouted, then snorted. “A black cat, eh? That’s something.”
In a haze Cecil was roughly snatched up and carried at arm’s length, hanging limp, up to the deck where he was waved around in the air.
“It’s dead, no?” asked a deep voice, and the man holding Cecil grunted in agreement. Cecil cracked open one swollen eye to see a tall man with a glittering red headscarf glaring at him distrustfully.
“Get rid of it!” he commanded, pointing over the side of the ship.
Now hold on just a minute, thought Cecil. Why is he pointing out there while apparently discussing me?
As the man holding him strode to the railing, Cecil desperately summoned his voice and let out a strangled yowl, whereupon the man dropped him straightaway to the wet deck with a splat, while the other crewmen hooted in surprise. A low spot in the boards nearby had collected a puddle of rainwater and Cecil rolled onto his paws and dragged himself over to it, lapping up the cool drink. It soothed his throat and his twisted insides. As he crouched on the deck he peered warily at the commanding man, who still scowled with his hands on his hips.
“Capitano!” shouted a sailor hanging from the mast high above. “Storm coming, out of the north!” and all looked in the direction he pointed. Cecil rose up on his haunches to look, too, but saw neither another ship nor land on the horizon as he expected, only a mass of heavy dark clouds. In an instant the mood of the men turned grim. The captain began striding up and down the deck, calling out short bursts of orders punctuated by finger-jabbing in all directions. Sailors scattered to trim the sails, secure the ropes, and stow loose barrels and crates below. The light rain had turned to a steady shower, and the waves kicking up were not helping Cecil’s stomach, but he was grateful to have been forgotten in the commotion.
Cecil crept along the planks, careful to stay out of the way, slurping up any water he found. A stream of blueberries dribbled out of the broken corner of a crate wedged under the deck rail on the port side. A crewman grabbed the crate and stomped away, leaving Cecil to chase the rolling blueberries across the deck as the ship tilted in the waves. He managed to capture most of them and began to feel a little better, only to realize that he’d better find a way back below to avoid the rain while he still had the chance. Too late—the hatch was shut, and the men had closed the doors to their quarters as well. Cecil’s fur was soaked, though he didn’t mind that as much as the bite of the wind, which had picked up to a low howl. He skittered around the ship looking for shelter and finally tucked himself among some tangled rope under a bundle of canvas tarp. It was not entirely dry and the tarp flapped loudly in the wind, but at least he was mostly out of the rain.
The crew barked at one another as they hurried about their tasks. Cecil watched them scurrying. He had been in a few small squalls on the fishing schooner, but nothing compared to the rapidly blackening sky and intense wind here. The waves were cresting high enough to be seen over the top of the railing, rolling the ship along their deep curves.
“Faster!” the captain roared. Two men strained to set the spanker sail as two more hauled on the mainsail ropes to lock it in place. They all struggled to hold the rigging steady as the wind blasted the sail open wide. Cecil felt the ship rush forward, driven ov
er the ragged waves by the stormy gale. The group of sailors moved aft, shortening the gallant sails to prevent the storm from snapping the mast. They’re trying to outrun it, Cecil thought, and peeked out farther from his tarp. Fur soaked, wind whistling through his whiskers, he had never in his life moved so fast and his heart thumped with the thrill.
Rain swept over the deck in sheets. Off the starboard side, through the veil of clouded air, Cecil noticed an oddly shaped wave curl past. He swiped a paw past his eyes and looked again. Two waves side by side popped up and disappeared, but these were moving smoothly toward the front of the ship, unlike the rest, which splashed up and fell back. Cecil was sure they were darker and more pointed than usual . . . like fins. He started, then crouched down again, torn between curiosity and a desire to stay out of the lashing rain. He hesitated. But he had to find out!
Cecil clambered across the slippery planks to the rail. Clutching a coil of rope with his claws, he stretched his neck until he could see out into the violently churning sea. A muted warbling, coming from under the water, vibrated in his swiveling ears. As he peered over the side of the swaying ship, two large figures burst from the waves. Cecil flattened himself against the ropes and stared as what looked like miniature whales soared past his eyes in a slow-motion arc and then sliced through the sea with powerful strokes, surging and leaping again. Wow! he thought. What a ride that would be.
As long as ten cats set nose to tail, with smooth blue-gray skin and covered with speckles, the creatures had curved fins on their backs and smaller flippers on each side. Strong tails propelled them through the water, and a round opening on top of their heads spouted misty air, just as the whale had. Cecil remembered Sonya telling him about dolphins, lightning-fast swimmers who loved to dance in the waves, reputed to be wise and worldly, though nobody he knew had ever seen one up close as none came into the ports. The creatures were keeping pace with the ship, pulling ahead or diving and resurfacing with renewed vigor. They snorted and bobbed their heads, and Cecil had the feeling they were enjoying themselves. With a lurch of the ship the figure nearest to him turned its shiny eyes, black flecked with silver, on the wet cat.