Anton and Cecil Cats at Sea Part 4

This advice did little to comfort the distraught sailors. Two old fellows had straddled the ship's rail, as if to throw themselves into the sea to escape the invisible horrors, when the entire scene silently began to reverse course. The figures slowly faded from Cecil's view, the fingers of mist retreating back into the surrounding cloud. The men regained their footing and lurched together in a clump on the deck, clutching each other and glancing up and down warily. All was still, the haze settling in a ring over the waves surrounding the ship.

In the quiet, Cecil had an odd, p.r.i.c.kly sensation in his whiskers. Something cast a faint glow of light over the spot where he stood, and he looked up. The foggy cloud was still thick over the tops of the masts, but directly above him Cecil saw a brighter patch forming, oblong, with a darker swath in the center. Must be the sun, he thought, burning through the mist. The pale light brightened further and he felt warmed by it, held in it somehow. A long moment pa.s.sed, and then the light faded rapidly. Cecil felt chilled in its absence, and a little lonely. He looked back at the crew, but none of them were looking up where the light had been. Strange, he thought.

Over the hissing of the haze came another sound of heavy, churning water. Cecil pressed himself against the mast and p.r.i.c.ked up his ears. Now what? he wondered, trying to disguise his substantial girth as a bundle of sailcloth. The fog off the bow of the ship was changing, thinning and darkening. Turning toward this new unknown, the men as a group took a step back in hushed fear. The wall of mist continued to dissolve bit by bit, and the churning grew louder and more powerful, until at last the mist dropped away entirely to reveal an astounding sight.

Looming above them, only yards away, was a vast brigantine under full sail.

Cecil's knees collapsed under him and the crew gasped in one giant intake. Blood-red flags flew on every mast, and leaning against the brig's railing was a cohort of grinning buccaneers. They were remarkably ugly, with missing teeth and gashed faces. Cecil might have laughed at their comical enthusiasm as they strained to get close enough to jump the gap and board the clipper, were it not for the impressive object each pirate held menacingly above his head-a long and glinting sword.

The cormorant's words flashed in Cecil's mind: "Get off the ship." And here's an opportunity! Suddenly energized, Cecil quickly surveyed the brigantine. She looked strong and trim, with all her rigging intact, unlike his own ship. The leering crew was well-fed, judging from the size of their overhanging bellies, and Cecil caught the scent of smoked meats wafting over on the breeze. A pirate's life for me is what I always say, no? Cecil ducked out of sight and waited for his chance. The pirate crew now began climbing the ratlines up the mast poles to the overhanging spars, where long ropes were fastened and coiled. With wild abandon and whooping war cries, they gripped the rope ends, leaped off the spars, and swung in long semicircles over to Cecil's ship, landing more or less on their feet with swords brandished. They've done this before, thought Cecil with admiration.

This new development shocked the clipper crew out of their stupor, and having no swords themselves, they grabbed whatever was at hand to mount a defense. Working efficiently, the pirates overwhelmed and pinned the sailors to the deck, quickly searching their pockets for anything of value. Cecil saw a swordsman neatly slice away a leather pouch of coins stashed inside the shirt of a pa.s.sing sailor and held around his neck by a cordon, leaving the sailor lying dazed and gasping for breath. No time like the present, thought Cecil, and headed for the ratlines, stopping briefly by the coil of rope to retrieve the small red bag hidden there.

The ropes leading up were tied in a lattice pattern to form a kind of ladder stretching from the deck up to the spars that held the sails above. Cecil balanced along the lines, trying to move speedily but carefully, clambering up to the nearest long spar and then out to its farthest tip in the direction of the pirate ship. Too far to jump, he figured, and looked around hurriedly for another way. The captain emerged from the below-decks doorway, cursing with rage, his black eyes finding Cecil, the red pouch dangling from his mouth, up on the spar.

"Blast you, you thieving blackguard!" he roared. "Give me back my pearl!" The captain began shoving crewmen out of his way, advancing toward the lines. A seemingly endless stream of pirates continued to swing across the breach between the ships.

Here we go! Cecil thought merrily as a howling pirate soared through the air toward him. The pirate let go and landed on the deck, and as the rope swung on past, Cecil held his breath and jumped. He dug all four sets of claws into the rope and clung fiercely as he swung back toward the pirate ship, still holding the red bag between his clenched teeth. The sickening drop carried him over his own deck, past the ocean between the two ships, and up over the deck of the brigantine.

Dropping in! What's for supper? He sheathed all his claws quickly. Sliding partway down the rope and free-falling through the air, Cecil crash-landed awkwardly on top of the captain's map room, then rolled off the roof and down to the deck with a thud. Ooof! He opened his eyes and looked for a place to hide the red bag, though his head was reeling from the fall. A knothole in one of the deck boards behind a post would have to do for a hiding spot. He pushed the bag down into the hole with his nose, then looked around to get his bearings.

As Cecil began walking unsteadily across the deck, he heard a soft voice, barely a whisper, coming from a nearby doorway: "Hey! In here." Cecil stumbled over to the door and slipped inside. In the dim light of the room he peered at the owner of the voice, hoping it wasn't another strange, insubstantial figure, and it was not. It was a small white cat, a real one, with a band of black fur across her eyes.

"Gretchen?" Cecil asked, astonished.

CHAPTER 9.

Marooned Anton missed his brother and he missed his home, but it was in his nature to make the best of what he had, and he found much of interest in his new life. For days fair weather and light breezes spurred the Mary Anne upon her way. The air was fresh and the sailors in good humor. Anton found the deck a pleasant place for an evening stroll, and when the sailors gathered at the base of the mainmast and the accordion player ran through the scales on his instrument, the small gray cat was always nearby. One afternoon, as he stepped out from the galley door, he saw a marvelous sight-winged silver fish flying over the deck. One, two, three ran afoul of the masts or the sails and flopped onto the deck where the sailors caught them with glee. That night, at dinner, Anton found two tasty heads in his dish.

What amazed him was the expanse of sea that stretched out forever in every direction. He looked out from the prow, from the stern, from atop the cabin, nothing but sea, sea, sea. On some days it was deep blue with little whitecaps. On others it was sparkling with light. One morning he noticed the sailors scampering up the masts and gathering in the sails. He climbed up on the bridge and looked out at the churning water. The sky was dark and the water was the color of lead. Then he felt the first drops of the coming downpour. Cloudy stood in the open doorway, looking up at the sky with a deep frown. Anton hustled past him to his favorite napping place under the sink.

And there Anton stayed while the ship was tossed about like a bauble, rain poured in through the hatches, the wind roared so fiercely the sailors could hardly hear each other, and no food stayed in a pan. No one, including Anton, got anything to eat but hard bread and tinned meat for two days. Then, as suddenly as it had come, the storm ceased, the sky turned bright blue, and the clouds disappeared. The sailors climbed the masts and dropped down great sheets of sail, which were filled out by a fair breeze. Anton came out of the galley and climbed atop the cabin, where he saw a beautiful sight. Dead ahead was the pale outline of an island with trees at the sh.o.r.eline and mists at the high peaks. It was small, but it was growing larger every minute. A wide beach came into view, a place no doubt rich with crabs. Anton watched attentively as the captain yelled orders and the sailors shifted the booms. The island was their destination.

There was no harbor, so they lowered anchor offsh.o.r.e and commenced dropping small boats into the shallows. The sailors were going ash.o.r.e and leaving Anton behind. He wanted to run on that beach. As the last boat was being lowered from the side, Anton caught the rope between his front paws and swung down until he was close enough to let go and land in Black Top's lap. A cheerful shout went up among the sailors, and Anton was pa.s.sed from hand to hand until he was wedged into a seat at the stern, safe from the surging movement of the oars. When the boat's prow rammed into the sand, the sailors clambered out and pulled it onto the sh.o.r.e. Anton leaped out.

He had never really been on a beach. There was a little sand among the big rocks near the lighthouse at home and another bit at the end of the wharf, but this was a meadow of sand. It was surprisingly hot, and his paws sunk into it. He couldn't get any traction, but after a few tries he discovered he could leap by pushing off hard from both back paws. There was a grove of odd trees with bark like shingles and fronds like enormous dark green spiders about fifty leaps away, and Anton set off in their direction. The sailors wading in from the shallows shouted to him, "Mr. Gray, Mr. Gray," but he paid no heed. It took all his energy and concentration to make his leaping progress out of that miserable sand.

At last he arrived in the pleasant grove. The soil was sandy but hard, and a soft breeze rustled the trees. Anton walked around a tree, enjoying ground that didn't shift under his paws. How wonderful to be on land. He sat down on a smooth rock that seemed designed for a cat's comfort, and, slowly turning his head, he took in the scene. There was a thin stream running toward the sea in easy reach, lined by tall gra.s.ses that nearly hid it from view. In those gra.s.ses, Anton thought, he would find something crunchy, and in the stream perhaps little minnows to scoop up and swallow whole. So this was where the great ships went, and no wonder. It was warm, and there was water and fresh, delicious food. If you stayed off the beach, it was paradise.

Suddenly, Anton heard a noise that made his fur stand on end. It came from above, a screech such as a mouse might emit on capture, but a thousand times as loud. Anton sat up and followed the sound with his eyes. There, awkwardly balanced on one of the tree fronds, was the biggest and strangest bird he'd ever seen. Its neck was long, like a dull gray snake. Its plumage was black. Its head looked like it was made of pink rubber, with swollen raisins for eyes and a brown beak thick as a horse's hoof and curved to a sharp point. Its claws were as big as Anton's paws. It was a monster of a bird. As Anton watched, it opened and closed its pincerlike beak. It let out another screech. "Dinner is served," it croaked. Then it dived right at Anton.

Maybe not paradise.

Anton made a dash for the gra.s.s as the bird strafed him from above. It let out another scream in pursuit, but couldn't pull itself out of the dive and crashed into a bramble bush, croaking and thrashing hysterically. What a poorly designed bird, Anton thought as he crept toward the water, keeping his head down. His instinct proved a sound one, for there were flat rocks in the burbling water of the stream, which made it easy to scamper to the other side, where a grove of real trees with limbs promised both shade and shelter. The bird had evidently given up for now.

Anton stopped and had a long drink of the cool water, then sauntered into the trees. In the distance he could hear the sailors calling to one another on the sh.o.r.e, busy with some collecting enterprise. There was a comfortable seat of mossy roots at the base of a tree, and he settled there thinking a nap might be in order before heading back to the beach. Almost at once sleep came over him. He dreamed he was with Sonya and Cecil, curled up by the lighthouse while the water lapped at the rocks. Then there was rustling nearby, something drawing close to them in the dark, and he thought it was a rat.

Anton opened his eyes as a shudder ran up his spine. There was a rustling sound, and it was coming from all around him. He sat up and slowly turned his head from one side to the other. He was surrounded by the huge, ungainly birds. They were closing in on him, clacking their beaks and rustling their wings as they approached.

"Hungry, hungry, hungry," they chanted in their eerie, humanlike voices. Without a thought, Anton took the nearest exit-straight up the tree. The birds paced around the trunk, gazing up at him and screeching. One, then another, tried to fly up, but they were awkward and clumsy, like turkeys. Anton had wedged himself in the crook of a limb where they couldn't quite get at him. One made it to the end of the limb and sat there eyeing him, but not moving. "Oh hungry," he said. "Dinner, dinner." Anton swatted the bird with all his strength and every claw out, and the bird, dodging the blow, lost his grip and tumbled down the tree to join his friends below. He could keep them at bay, one by one, Anton thought, but how was he going to get down from the tree?

Hours pa.s.sed. The ugly birds had staked him out at the bottom of the tree and they seemed indifferent to time. Sometimes a few new ones arrived and a few went away. At one point three of them flew up over the tree and circled in the air lazily. Anton couldn't see the beach from his perch, but he could hear the sailors moving about, shouting to one another. As the sun began to set, he heard a sound that frightened him; it was Cloudy, walking along the sh.o.r.e calling, "Mr. Gray, Mr. Gray."

Anton cried out, "Here, I'm here," but the breeze was against him and carried his voice away. Shadows began to creep across the floor of the woods, and the birds grew quiet. Anton stayed in his treetop perch, battling sleep all through the long night. He could hear them moving about, cackling at one another. They had one subject: hunger. Toward dawn the world grew quiet, and the only sound was the distant water combing and combing the sh.o.r.e. At last a pale green light flushed up from the forest floor, and Anton looked down to see that the birds were gone.

He was down the tree in a moment and on the run to the beach. He bounded through the marsh gra.s.s at the edge of the stream, thinking about nothing but getting back on the boat. But when he came at last to the water's edge, he saw that not only the small boat but the Mary Anne herself was gone. He was marooned.

All that day and the next Anton fended for himself, ever on the alert for the birds. He hid in the gra.s.ses by the stream and caught various tiny fish and sh.e.l.lfish, which were actually tasty, and the water was fresh, so he had plenty to drink. At night he crouched under a large piece of driftwood near the beach. It was damp and very cold, but he was safe there-the birds didn't like the beach any better than he did-so there he stayed. On the third day he found a picked-over skeleton of some animal near the stream. It looked like a very large gopher, with a flat leathery tail-the only piece the monster birds hadn't stripped away from the bones.

Anton went back to his driftwood lair. Just before dark he came out again. As he was poking about in the shallows of the stream, he glanced up to see a circlet of black feathers, rising above a ma.s.s of fern at the edge of the forest. The monster birds.

Anton froze, one paw in the air, his head lowered, bringing his haunches down low so that he could bolt in any direction. He turned his ears forward and listened with all his attention, but the sound he heard didn't make sense. It wasn't a noise the birds made, but rather a faint th-th-th-th-th and then grmmp, like water running down a clogged drain. The feathers rustled in the faint breeze, moved forward, then stopped. "Th-th-th-th-th-th. Grmmp." Anton was perfectly motionless, in a state of pure alertness that could outlast anything alive. "Th-th-th-th-th. Grmmp. Ugh." The ferns parted, and the strangest animal he'd ever seen stepped out into the open.

Anton did recall a much smaller, featherless version of this creature. When he and Cecil were kittens, Cecil had caught and eaten a few as they dashed among the stones at the base of the lighthouse, but even Cecil found them indigestible. Lizards they were called, but those were skittery brownish things, no longer than a claw, with tiny heads and detachable tails. This one was as big as a dog. Its skin was wrinkly and greenish blue. The protruding black eyes operated independently, the mouth stretched halfway round the oblong head, and the tongue was a blood-red whip, which flicked out distractedly. It was the flicking tongue that made the th-th-th sound. Strangest of all, the creature's cheeks, neck, and shoulders were studded with black feathers. The lizard took another step, one eye coming to rest on Anton while the other focused on its own fearsomely clawed front foot. "Good grief. What are you?" the lizard said. "Some kind of weasel?"

Anton put his paw down and lifted his head. "I'm a cat," he said.

The lizard opened its mouth, showing the red roof of its palate, then closed it again and flicked the tongue out and in. "Never heard of that," it said.

"I was on a ship and I got stranded here."

"That explains it. No telling what comes off those things. A creature that called himself a weasel got left here once. He had fur like you. He didn't last long."

"He died?"

"He did. And then the clackers got him." The lizard's eyes spun up and around, scanning the sky and the brush. "What's your name?" it asked.

"Anton."

"I'm Dave," said the lizard.

"Why do you have feathers? Are you part-what do you call them?"

"I don't know their real name," Dave admitted. "I just call them the clackers because they never shut up." He opened and closed his mouth again. Anton couldn't tell if it was purposeful or just a tic. "And no, I'm no bird," Dave concluded. "It's just that I like to eat clacker eggs. They're really good. Have you tried them?"

"I've just been trying not to wind up like the weasel."

"Right. Well, I'm a lot bigger than you. And the truth is the stupid clackers make a lot of threats, but they never kill anything. They just chase you and circle around you and try to scare you to death, and then they pick your bones. That's what they did to the weasel. I don't pay any attention to them; I just want the eggs, so they get all excited and I have to fight them off, and their feathers are really sticky. If I get a few in my mouth it takes all day to pull them out, and it hurts."

"But the eggs are worth it."

"Well, there's not a lot of variety on this island."

Anton considered this. "And if you eat the eggs, there are fewer clackers."

"Right. Say, you've got nice-looking little paws. Have you got good claws in those?"

Anton raised his forepaw and popped out his claws.

"Wow," said Dave. "Retractable."

"Useful," Anton agreed.

"Do you think you could pull some of these feathers off my shoulders? I can't reach them, they stick me when I move, and I'm really sick of looking like a bird."

Cautiously, Anton approached the lizard and stood looking up at the feathers, which hung at odd angles from the leathery hide. "Put your head down so I can reach them," he said, and Dave obeyed, dropping down on his haunches and resting his lower jaw on the ground. Anton eased a paw around a big feather and pulled it as best he could, but his pads slipped off. He tried again, pinching the feather between his claw and pad. With a tug it came loose.

"Great," Dave said. "Do a few more."

Anton pulled feathers from Dave's shoulders while Dave asked him questions. "So," he said. "You come from the land of cats."

"Well," Anton replied. "Not just cats. But there are a lot of us."

"And you all know each other."

"I don't know all cats, but I know all the ones who live on the docks. Do you know the other lizards here?"

"There aren't many of us, so I pretty much know everyone. But we don't spend time together."

"Don't you get lonely?"

"Not really. We're cold-blooded, you know."

"Oh," said Anton, though he didn't quite understand.

"Are you lonely? Do you miss other cats?"

"I miss my brother. Do you have a brother?"

"Not so you could call it that. We come from eggs."

"Oh, I'm sorry," said Anton, confused. "I had no idea."

"It's okay. It's natural. So what's your brother like?"

"He's a lot bigger than me, he's mostly black, and he's very brave, but he's foolhardy. There, now you don't look like a bird."

Dave got to his feet and stood, turning his head from side to side. "That's great," he said. His eyes rolled about on their separate quests, and he opened and closed his mouth again. "Will you look at that sky," he said. "Something weird is going on." Anton followed Dave's roving left eye. The sun had set, the sky had darkened, and a thick blanket of pale clouds unrolled toward the land from the horizon. As Anton and one of Dave's eyes watched, the clouds parted overhead, and a bright stream of moonlight, like a moving white finger, pointed at the beach just beyond where he and the lizard stood. Then Anton saw the spooky phenomenon he had glimpsed once before: an eye, a cat's eye, gazing down at him from the clouds.

Dave studied the heavenly cat's eye with one of his eyes and the real cat with the other. "To me, that eye looks a lot like your eye."

"Do you think?" said Anton.

"You know what they say about the eye," said Dave.

"No," said Anton, though he did remember something. "What do they say?"

The lizard sat back on his haunches and managed to get both eyes focused straight ahead, reciting in a deep, sonorous voice, "Where the eye sees the eye, the lost shall be found."

"And who are they?"

Dave relaxed, doing his open-and-close-mouth routine. "Who are who?"

"The ones who say that?"

"That's a really good question. I never thought about it, because I never lost anything."

"Right," said Anton. Lizard and cat gazed seaward, following the bright beam as it moved beyond the beach and over the water.

"Holy chameleon," Dave said. "Do you see what I see?"

Anton did see, but he could hardly believe his eyes. He closed them tight, then opened them again. It was a beautiful silvery ship, outlined in white like a drawing on dark paper, anch.o.r.ed before the horizon, its sails furled and its flag fluttering in the thin sh.o.r.e breeze.

A ship! Anton let out a cry.

"That must be your ride," Dave said.

Anton frowned, gazing out at the ship. It had only two masts, so it wasn't the Mary Anne. Dave might be right-it could be a way off the island, but how was he going to get to it?

"This is big," Dave continued, gazing up again. "I've never seen anything like this before."

Anton nodded, looking up as well, but the streaming finger of light had disappeared, and the cat's eye was gone. Then, as they looked back to the sh.o.r.e, a more amazing sight met their eyes. Three black rocks rose up in the shallows, like magical stepping-stones. A breeze, or was it a shiver, seemed to draw Anton along and he stepped out onto the sand. At once from the forest, he heard a less mysterious sound, the screams of the clackers gathering into a vicious cloud. They had spotted him.

Dave started talking fast, his eyes moving around in opposite directions, taking in everything, the ship, the stones, the clackers. "Okay," he said. "I think I get it. You don't have much time. Make a run for those rocks and don't look back. The clackers will chase you but they can't land in the sand-they fall over-and they won't go far from sh.o.r.e, so you should be able to make it, but you need to go fast and you need to go now."

The enormous birds were rising over the treetops. "Dinner," screamed one.

Another shrieked, "Dead meat."

"You're right," Anton said. "Wish me luck."

"Good luck," said Dave. "Nice to meet you. Give my regards to the land of cats."

"Thanks," Anton said. "I will." And then he sprinted for the water, not looking back. He could hear the rush of wings behind him and the screaming avian mob descending from above. One dived and crashed in front of Anton, falling on its side in the sand, its claws battling the air. Anton tore past the sputtering bird. Another tried for an eaglelike swoop from behind and caught Anton's tail in its talons. Anton yelped and turned on the bird, digging his claws into one of the wings, which served to make the clacker open its beak, but still the bird held on with its talons. Anton sunk his teeth into the wing, pulling away with a mouthful of feathers. Then he leaped forward, nearing the water's edge. The clacker took a bit of cat flesh as it bounced off, stumbling in the sand like a drunken sailor.

At last Anton was at the sh.o.r.eline and leaping for the first rock. He landed, gripping with his claws, expecting a slippery surface that would give him no purchase, but to his surprise the rock had a leathery quality that allowed him to pull himself easily upon it. He sprang from the first rock to the second, and then to the third, which was wider and well above the water. The clackers had pulled up, a ma.s.s of shrieking feathers, but the higher they went, the more graceful they became, until in a loose, swirling squadron, they circled overhead and turned back toward their island.

That was when Anton felt the rock shift beneath his paws. It was rising, shedding water from all sides. The smaller pieces behind him sank, disappearing in the shallows. The rock was moving out away from the sh.o.r.e, slowly at first, but then picking up speed. Anton dug in all his claws and stared into the darkness. Ahead he could make out the ship, its running lanterns glittering and reflected in the water like a double line of fallen stars. More and more of the leathery rock was exposed until a round black hole, spewing seawater like a fountain, broke through the surface of the water. "Great cats in heaven," Anton whispered. "I'm on a whale."

And then it was full whale speed ahead, so fast that Anton's fur was flattened in the draft and the salt spray flew up and stung his eyes. The ship grew bigger and bigger, until he could see two sailors on the deck, and another descending from the rigging. A tremor ran along his arched spine-were they going to ram into the ship? The whale slowed and Anton had a moment to take in the ship, rocking softly in the calm sea, the anchor line taut off the stern. The whale veered sharply toward that rope, bringing his pa.s.senger within an easy leap, then gradually submerging until Anton really had no choice but to jump. He scrambled up the rope and threw himself over the stern with an umph of relief. What a ride!