Anton and Cecil (15 page)

“Definitely,” agreed Gretchen, nodding. “The shape
is
a cat's eye, just like the dog said.”

Cecil thought again about the warm glow he'd felt on the clipper.

“But what's the other eye?” she asked. “That's the question.”

“Could it be
my
eye?” he wondered, touching his paw to the side of his face. “Or the eye of any creature who's in trouble?”

Gretchen frowned. “I don't think so. When I saw it, nothing in particular happened to me. I wasn't ‘found.' And the dog said he saw it, their eyes met, but he didn't say that anything happened to him, either.”

“Hmmm,” said Cecil, scratching behind his left ear thoughtfully. “So what is . . . the second eye?”

At that moment they both felt a subtle but unmistakable lift and fall of the ship, which was odd after so many days of stillness. The two cats emerged from under the tarp and hopped up on a barrel near the stern to survey the situation, which was strange indeed. The sky was the color of swirling smoke and the sea was a dark gray-green, with small ripples beginning to appear on the surface. Peering over the railing, they saw little fish moving in fast schools under the ship, and birds flying singly in all directions just above the water. “Birds usually mean there's land nearby,” Gretchen said, “but there's nothing to see from here.”

The crew behaved as if they were suspicious of the weather, scowling at the sky and sea. The wind whipped unpredictably, snapping the sails taut and plunging the ship in one direction, then dying just as suddenly, then changing direction. Sheets of rain passed over them like waves with brief periods of calm in between.

“What's going on? Where are we?” asked Cecil, trying to take everything in at once.

“Don't know,” replied Gretchen. “Never seen anything like this before. I don't like the looks of it, though.”

In silent agreement, the cats remained on deck despite the intermittent soakings, huddled together for warmth and protection. They both felt that what happened next might be important somehow. The night passed slowly, as the strange weather neither worsened nor abated, yet seemed to be pulling the ship intentionally off course. The cats dozed, waking in the darkness to the sound of the wind blustering against the sails. Finally Cecil thought he detected through the gloom the barest brightening of the sky on the horizon.
Dawn must be coming at last,
he thought. He had just noticed a bird flying by both backward and upside down when a pirate shouted from high in the crow's nest. All eyes looked up at him, and then to where he was pointing.

Gretchen got to her feet. “Land,” she said.

Cecil stood as well and squinted into the dim light. Directly off the bow, though still a good distance off, was a tall green island. Almost pointed at the top, with steeply sloping sides, the land appeared to be covered with lush vegetation and small trees, but no ships, houses, or other signs of people that Cecil could see.

“That's odd, isn't it?” he asked. “The way it just . . . showed up?” He glanced at Gretchen.

“It wasn't there last night.” She sounded faintly alarmed.

In the dawn haze as the sunlight played on vapors rising from the ground, the island glowed majestically. The thinning mist made it appear to be advancing rapidly toward them. The crew of the pirate ship now just stood and stared. Finally the captain, his large feathered hat set aside because of the unpredictable gusts of wind, gripped the railing to steady himself.

“Pull yourselves together, lads!” he shouted. “It's land we've been waiting for, is it not? And here we have it!” He gestured widely at the island. “Drop anchor and make ready a landing party to fetch water and whatever stores are to be had. On the double!”

As the crew broke out of their stupor and hurried to their tasks, the first mate, a short man with silver spectacles and a blue brocade vest, stood next to the captain looking out at the ocean, his spyglass held slack by his side.

“Cap'n, sir,” he said in a low voice.

“What is it?” The captain whirled to him.

“The currents, do ye see?” He pointed. “An' the wind, too. We're bein' pushed.”

“Well, of course we are, you fool!” the captain growled. “That's how we
sail
—currents and wind—is it not?” He picked up his feathered hat and swatted the first mate's head with it.

“I only mean, sir,” said the first mate, flinching, “this time it seems we're being drawn in, like a magnet's pulling at us, in a manner of speakin'.”

The captain stared. Indeed, the ship felt like it was moving on its own, turning to starboard, then to port, as puffs of wind and surges of waves drew it along a path into the island, while no man's hand touched the wheel. When the ship closed to within a few hundred yards of the shoreline, the wind died and the waves became calm. The ship slowed to a halt, turning lazily in place.

The captain glanced sharply around. “What's this now?”

Pointing this way and that with his long cutlass, he ordered the sails trimmed to bring the ship around, but there was no breeze to catch no matter what the crew tried. Finally he stomped his boot on the deck, chose six crewmen with a whip of his sword and ordered them into the dinghy.

Cecil turned to watch the sailors. “Now what are they doing?” he asked Gretchen.

“They're going to try to send a small boat out to it,” she replied, glancing at the preparations. “It's weird. I think the crew is scared.”

The cats turned toward the bow again and Gretchen gasped sharply.

“Cecil!” she called. “There it is!”

It was the Eye.

Suspended low in the thin gray clouds directly above the island, it glowed faintly but steadily. Cecil stood frozen, captured by the sight.

“It does look like a cat's eye, doesn't it?” he said admiringly. “But why do you suppose it's over
there
?” The crew seemed not to have noticed it.

Gretchen suddenly had a thought, blazing like a flame in her mind. She shoved Cecil with both front paws. “You've got to go there. Get on that little boat right now.” She was practically bulldozing him with her head. “I don't know why the Eye is there and I don't know why we seem to be heading in that direction or why the men are acting strange, but it must mean something, and you need to get closer.”

Cecil nodded energetically. “Sounds like an adventure to me.”

“Just go,” Gretchen insisted.

They scrambled toward the gap in the railing where the small boat was being lowered into the water, but the men standing on deck brushed them back with their boots.

“I'll distract them,” called Gretchen. “Jump!” She immediately fell flat on her back and began such a horrific yowling that Cecil thought she had actually been hurt. The pirates looked over at the writhing cat for a moment.

Oh!
thought Cecil.
Got it,
and he wove between the legs of the men until he reached the gap. It was a long way down, and the boat was already full with the six men.
I'll break all my bones jumping in there,
he thought, but he was out of time as they were taking up the oars to row. He did the next best thing he could think of. He missed.

And for the second time in his life, he was rescued from the waves by a human. The first mate with the spectacles and the blue vest fished Cecil out of the ocean and dropped him into the boat under the tip of the prow, where he curled into a miserable, wet, salty ball of cat.

“Shoulda let it drown, I say,” grumbled one of the pirates, glaring at the bedraggled cat.

“Ah, you never know,” returned the spectacled man mildly. “He may find somethin' interestin', he may. Besides, black's a lucky color, ay?” He pointed to Cecil's soaked fur and smiled.

After rowing halfway to the island in the choppy sea, the men in the dinghy were aghast to see it begin to split apart. They dropped their oars and stared, until they realized that it was not one island, but two; the larger one was closer and another smaller one was just behind the first. The wind and waves had risen again and were nudging the small boat to the west bit by bit, so they could not seem to reach the first island. When the second came into view it gave the impression that the two were drifting apart.

“What the devil is this nonsense?” cried one of the men.

Cecil was watching as well, holding on to the prow of the boat with his paws. He felt a strange tingle at the tip of his tail and inside his ears. He had no idea what the pirates would do now, but he could still see the Eye, steadily glowing above the islands.

Like the pages of a great book falling slowly open, the parting islands separated, and in the channel between them, on water as placid as blue glass, an unexpected sight was revealed.

It was a ship.

CHAPTER 13

Adrift

T
he morning light streamed through the skylight of the captain's cabin as Anton woke from a deep sleep in the snug crate the captain's wife had prepared for his bed. When he stepped out, he noticed the cabin door standing open, the baby's toys scattered across the floor, but no sound of voices from the deck or footsteps in the gangway, no sound at all. The breakfast dishes lay half empty on the table, and the teapot stood ready on the sideboard.

Anton hurried up the steps to the deck. Only a few sails were set and no sailors were climbing in the rigging or working on the deck. Were they all in the fo'c'sle? He sprinted the length of the ship and down into the galley. The stove was warm, the air smelled of coffee, the tin pans were stacked in the rack near the long table where the sailors took their meals, but there was not a soul in the place, not in the galley or in the bunks that lined the walls. Where was everybody? Were they hiding?

Hieronymus appeared at the galley door. “They're gone,” he said.

“Is it some kind of joke?” Anton exclaimed. “Where could they go?”

“I don't know,” the mouse replied. “I've been searching all morning.”

Anton pushed past the mouse back to the deck. “Is there land nearby? Maybe they went ashore?”

“I don't see any land. But you take a look. Your eyes are better than mine.”

Anton leaped up to a spar and climbed until he had a good view in all directions. Nothing but sea, sea, sea. No boat, large or small, in sight. The wind picked up, filling the few sails that were before it and the ship plunged through the waves, but it wavered without a helmsman and the sails drooped and then filled again. They were adrift, a cat and a mouse, in an abandoned ship.

“What do we do now?” Anton said to Hieronymus when he came down from the ropes.

“Find something to eat and drink,” said the mouse.

“That's easy,” Anton replied. “They left breakfast on the table. It's that oatmeal stuff you like so much.”

“That's good news,” the mouse allowed. “But what do we do after that?”

After that they searched the ship from one end to the other and found that every morsel of food and drop of water was stored away in barrels or cans or jars or metal boxes. They tried knocking the jars off shelves. Anton pried at tin lids with his claws. They spent several hours trying to break into one of the tins Anton knew contained the delicious bony little fish he had sometimes sampled. “It's just too frustrating,” he said, flipping the can against the stove. “I know those fish are in there.”

Hieronymus nodded, looking serious. “What we need most is water,” he said. “I had an uncle who died of thirst in a larder full of flour.”

“I'm thirsty right now,” Anton agreed.

The water barrel was in the galley, sealed by a heavy lid with wire latches on two sides. Anton stood on the top pulling at the latches, but to no avail. Hieronymus ran all around the edges, then leaped to the floor. He stood on his hind legs and felt his way around the base with his forepaws.

“What are you looking for?” Anton said, jumping down beside him.

“A bowl,” he said. “And I think I've found it.”

It was really a slightly depressed area in the floorboard, no doubt worn by the cook's boots over the years, as he stood there lowering his big ladle into the bucket.

Anton poked his nose against the wood. “It's dry as a bone,” he said. “What good will it do us?”

Hieronymus placed his front feet against the barrel just above the low spot in the floor. “I'm going to gnaw my way through right here.” He sat back and bared his sharp little teeth. “I hope these hold up. How do they look?”

“Too small, is how they look,” Anton replied. “It's impossible.”

“Never say that,” Hieronymus said fiercely. “What is a mouse designed for? I'll tell you. Getting into very small places and gnawing. Great-Granduncle Portymus gnawed his way out of a sealed coffin.”

“This wood looks pretty hard to me,” Anton observed.

Hieronymus sat up on his hind legs and pressed his cheek against the rough wood of the barrel. He closed his eyes and said solemnly, “I, Hieronymus, will gnaw a hole in this barrel. I swear by all that is sacred to the mouse I will not fail.”

And then, without another word to Anton, the mouse bared his teeth again and began to gnaw at the wood. There was nothing to do but stand by and cheer him on. Hieronymus gnawed and gnawed, pausing repeatedly to spit out the bits of wood pulp he dislodged. He gnawed until the sun was high in the sky, but there was only a slight dent in the wood. He plopped down on his side. “I'll just rest a minute,” he said.

Anton examined the barrel. “Maybe I can pull out these little slivers with my claws,” he said, and he tried, but with little success. Hieronymus got to his feet and was back at it, gnaw, gnaw, gnaw. The dent widened and deepened and the mouse's nose disappeared inside it. When he stopped again, the dent was a real hole. “You're making progress,” Anton said.

Hieronymus leaned against the barrel, picking little bits of wood from his teeth with the tiny claws of his forepaw. “My jaws hurt,” he said, but more as an observation than a complaint.

“If only you could have something to drink,” Anton said.

“Well,” replied the mouse. “That's just the point, isn't it?” He returned to his labor.

The sun was sinking into the horizon, and Hieronymus was up to his neck in the barrel, when he braced his back legs against the side and carefully pulled himself free of the hole. He landed on his back on the floor, feet in the air, mouth open, eyes glazed. His mouth, nose, and chin were covered in blood.

Anton was horrified. “You've got to give up. You can't go on. You're bleeding. You need to rest.”

Hieronymus looked up at him. “I don't have to go on,” he said weakly. “Look at the barrel.”

Anton bent down and put his face close to the tiny hole. The inside of it was pink with the mouse's blood.
Pink?
Anton thought. Then the pink turned pale and translucent. A drop of moisture formed at the edge of the opening and in the next moment, it ran down the side of the barrel to the floor. “You did it!” Anton exclaimed. “You gnawed all the way through the barrel!”

Mouse and cat sat watching a small pool of water gather in the shallow depression at the base of the barrel. Anton insisted Hieronymus have the first drink and he agreed, lapping at the thin film of moisture with his small, bloody tongue. He was content to rest while they waited for enough water to collect for Anton to have even a swallow. Licking water off a floor wasn't the best way to quench a thirst, but the slow drip from the bottom of the barrel guaranteed that they would be able to drink enough water to stay alive.

Furred animals, Hieronymus reminded Anton, could go without food much longer than they could without water, but after three days with not a bite to eat, Anton had begun to think otherwise. He had given up trying to open tins and jars and even the champion gnawer Hieronymus admitted defeat. “They put the food in these things to thwart creatures like me,” he said, pushing a tin of hardtack across the floor. “It's diabolical.”

Anton settled on deck in the hopes that a flying fish might pass over, or that a bird would perch in the rigging low enough to be swatted down. “There's nourishment to be had in chewing rope,” Hieronymus suggested. “My mother told me that.” But though rope might keep a mouse alive, Anton found he couldn't chew it properly.

“It just makes me thirstier,” he said. Every few hours he went down to the larder to lap at the water trough. Each time he came up the steps, he felt a little weaker.

More days passed, with the ship ambling through the waves, listing this way and that, the sails occasionally filling for a goodish spell, but no land or other ship was ever in sight. The days got warmer, and the sun got bigger, until the two furred animals were forced to seek out shade on the deck. The sea changed from brown to blue, and the waves thinned out until the surface of the water was as smooth as glass. The ship floated upon it, the sails hanging limply from the spars, as still as if it were at anchor. Anton and Hieronymus slept all day and passed the night dozing fitfully, scanning the skies for some sign of life. Anton could barely raise himself to look over the prow, and he feared that if the longed-for fish or bird did appear, he would be too weak to catch it. “I feel muddled,” he told Hieronymus. “I can't think straight.”

One night Anton woke to the sound of human voices singing and a full moon bathing the still waters with pearly light. He lifted his head and sniffed the air. “What beautiful music,” he said. Hieronymus, snoring mousily at the bottom of the coiled rope, didn't stir. Anton stretched his back legs, then arched his back, rousing himself, and made his way to the rail. What he saw made his jaw drop. The ship was surrounded by waves of glowing green grasses, swaying softly in the slight current of the water. It looked like electric seaweed! The voices seemed to come from out of the air, high and clear, singing a dreamy melody that made Anton feel, deep in his chest, something he hadn't felt in a long time: the first stirring of a purr.

“Oh, what is it?” he said. Then, toward the stern, he saw a pale hand moving among the glowing weeds, pulling something back and forth. Another hand appeared closer to the ship, and another farther to the prow, slowly, carefully pulling something through the waving grasses. It reminded Anton of the captain's wife, sitting at her dressing table at night, sometimes humming to herself.

“It's a comb
,
” he said. “They're combing their hair?” And now, here and there among the waving green islets, pale faces appeared, human children's faces, all with the same sea-green eyes and pink rose petal lips, singing blissfully in the warm night air, combing their sparkling tresses, which flashed streaks of phosphorescent light across the water's still surface. Anton stood gazing in fascination at the pretty, joyful creatures. One of the children near the ship looked at Anton, smiled, and waved his hand, as if to say fare-thee-well. Then, raising his arms over his head, he dived down into the water.

Anton waved his paw back, leaning out over the rail to get a closer look. As the beautiful child slipped beneath the surface of the translucent sea, a big silvery fish tail flipped up behind him. One by one the strange night visitors turned from the ship and dived back into the sea, their voices falling away, their dreamy human faces disappearing, followed by a cacophony of slapping sounds as their flashing silver tails propelled them down into the depths. Scarcely a minute later they were gone.

“This world is full of wonders,” Anton said. He stepped back from the rail, savoring the sensation of amazement, which, while it lasted, took his mind off his hunger.

“It is indeed,” said Hieronymus, who had come up behind him, rubbing his sleepy eyes with both his paws.

Anton took a step toward the hatch, but his back legs went out from under him and he fell on his side. “That marvelous singing,” he said. “Those pretty children, with their fish tails. What a magical night.”

“What children?” Hieronymus asked, eyeing his friend anxiously. “What singing? I didn't hear anything.”

Anton groggily got to his feet, then sat down, hanging his head. “I don't feel up to staying out tonight,” he said. “I think I'll just go sleep in my bed.”

Hieronymus burst into tears. “Oh, you're so thin and weak,” he sobbed. “Now you're hallucinating. I'm afraid if you don't eat something soon . . .”

Anton looked up. “Eat what?” he said. “The rope's not doing much for you, my friend. You're all skin and bones.”

“It's true,” the mouse wailed. “We're wasting away.”

“Well, you'll make yourself worse, crying about it.”

Hieronymus nodded, wiping his tears on his forepaws, then followed Anton's weaving trail down the gangway and into the captain's quarters. Anton settled himself on the pillow in the crate. “I'm so tired,” he said. “I think I may just go to sleep forever.”

Hieronymus sat down in front of him. “I've been thinking,” he said. “Clearly you can't go on much longer, nor can I. So the time has come for nature to take its natural course between us. I won't resist. I ask you, as a friend—for truly you've become that to me, though I never would have believed such a thing could happen—I ask you to make it swift.”

Anton contemplated the mouse dreamily. “Make what swift?” he asked.

“I'm offering myself to you. As a meal.”

Anton chuckled. “You must be joking.”

“I was never more serious,” said Hieronymus, sitting up on his hind legs to achieve maximum height. “Why should we both die, if one might live?”

“Eating you isn't going to keep me alive,” said Anton. “It would probably only make me throw up and waste more of my strength.”