Part 5 (1/2)

Unbeknownst to Anton, he wore across his shoulders an honorary mantle of black feathers. He stood on his hind legs, his front paws pressed to the rail, and looked down to see his silent rescuer. In the swinging light over the stern he could just make out the enormous creature, rolling smoothly onto his side so that his great barnacled eye came into view. Anton, with a s.h.i.+ver, saw that the immense beast was looking up at the very small, wet, grateful cat.

He heard the shouts of the approaching sailors, who had at last spotted the whale. ”Thank you, thank you, Mr. Whale,” Anton called, as his rescuer dived back to his watery home below the surface and sped away.

CHAPTER 10.

Gretchen's Tale As the pirate raid of the clipper s.h.i.+p carried on raucously outside the small room, Gretchen and Cecil faced each other in astonishment.

”I can't believe it!” Cecil purred, swis.h.i.+ng his tail back and forth. ”Aren't you Gretchen from back home? It's me, Cecil! You remember me from around the docks, right?” Cecil bobbed his head as the white cat stared at him with wide gray eyes. She said not a word. Had she forgotten her home village already?

”You were taken, weren't you?” Cecil asked in a lower voice. ”That's what we heard. Awful story!” He looked closely into her face. Was she embarra.s.sed? Did she not remember him at all? ”My brother, Anton, was impressed, too, right off the dock in broad daylight if you can believe it.” Cecil waited for her to speak.

”I'm Gretchen,” she said finally, her voice low and cold. She paused, looking away. ”But no one calls me that here.”

Cecil leaned back, casting his eyes around in the dim light. ”Here, eh?” He chuckled. ”So where is here?” he asked. ”What happened to you?”

”Long story,” she said shortly. She turned back to Cecil and sighed. ”I never expected to see anyone from back there again.”

”Back there? Home, you mean?” Cecil asked, surprised. ”Well, I don't know about you but I'm sure glad to see a familiar face.”

”I just never expected it,” Gretchen repeated. She paused and looked toward the door. ”I could show you around the s.h.i.+p. Are you hungry?”

Cecil nodded. ”My favorite question.” He thought about showing her the stone he had hidden, but her manner made him hesitate. She was strange, distant in a way. She didn't seem happy to see him.

”Come on then,” Gretchen said. They walked to the doorway and stepped out into the late afternoon haze.

The starboard side of the vessel was away from the mayhem of the raid, and the two cats sniffed through boxes on the deck in search of food. Cecil hadn't eaten well for quite some time, and smells of spices, cheeses, and tangy meats were all around. After they found a suitable cache of cheese and fish to snack on, Gretchen began to tell her story.

”Getting impressed in the first place was really stupid. I never thought it would happen to me,” she said briskly. ”I always liked fis.h.i.+ng at night.”

Cecil swallowed a chunk of fish. ”Didn't Billy ever tell you-”

”About the danger?” Gretchen snorted. ”Of course. Everyone told me, but I thought I was too smart to be captured, too quick anyway.” She looked up, as if remembering. ”But there I was, stuck in a dark hold, my head pounding, and the next time I saw daylight the s.h.i.+p was surrounded by water. That was it.” She shook her head bitterly.

Cecil noticed a long scar running across her neck and shoulder. ”Rough times, were they?” he asked.

She picked at a slab of cheese and shrugged. ”On that s.h.i.+p, the crew were mean and mad all the time. The captain spent most of the days sleeping and the men were always fighting each other. They thought to kick me if they saw me, but n.o.body thought to feed me. It was almost a relief when the buccaneers attacked us and took me along with the loot. That's how I got to be here. Much more interesting.” Cecil saw a glint of amus.e.m.e.nt in her eyes. She looked up at him quickly, returning to the present. ”Were you taken, too, then?” she asked.

”No,” replied Cecil, and the weight of his mission slid back over him like an anvil. ”I have to find Anton, so I stowed away to follow him. Though, actually, I don't know if I'm following, or just lost . . . It's bigger out here than I imagined.” He gestured widely with his paw.

Gretchen's mouth dropped open. ”You're telling me you got on a s.h.i.+p voluntarily, and you're searching the whole ocean for your brother?” she asked, her voice rising. ”That's . . . crazy.”

”Yeah, tell me about it,” said Cecil, leaning back to gaze at the intricate rigging and billowing red flags high above their heads. ”Kind of fun, though, I have to say.”

”And brave,” Gretchen added softly, dropping her eyes back to the cheese.

”What is all this stuff, anyway?” Cecil asked as they made their way through a maze of boxes and barrels, heading toward the stern of the s.h.i.+p. The men moved among the piles, stacking crates on top of other crates and dragging stuffed seabags to stand leaning against one another. Often they stopped their work to root through the contents, snarling or snorting depending on what they discovered of worth.

”This is all the stuff that we've taken on from other s.h.i.+ps,” explained Gretchen, sniffing curiously at the new cargo.

”We,” Cecil repeated. ”Interesting. You think of yourself as part of the crew, do you?”

Gretchen sent him a tepid look. ”Some things you just get used to,” she said, as she turned to walk ahead.

Eager to show off his s.h.i.+pboard savvy, Cecil crouched to spring up to a nearby barrelhead. ”I usually like the view from on top of one of these to get my bearings.”

”Wouldn't do that,” she said, not looking back.

Cecil leaped, but the barrel was open and full of rice. His paws sank down and he flailed for a few seconds, slos.h.i.+ng grains onto the deck, until he finally scrambled out, shaking his fur from head to tail. A pirate grabbed the handle of his cutla.s.s and swung it at Cecil, narrowly missing his ears. Cecil dived between two barrels and caught up with Gretchen.

”Whoa!” he exclaimed, his eyes wide. ”That was close.”

Gretchen was unfazed. ”It's no big deal,” she said coolly, leading them up to a ledge by the rail where they could look out over the water. ”That's just the way they are.”

Cecil watched her face. ”So your life hasn't been easier here,” he said.

Gretchen surveyed him for a moment, as if considering what to say. ”When I first came aboard, there was already a cat here-a fat, lazy, ginger-colored cat. I learned to do her job better than she did. She didn't care for that and began attacking me while I slept.” She stopped and licked her shoulder a few times, where the long scar ran from her jawline. ”It took a while, but I figured out how to defend myself-I fought the ginger cat and won-and afterward she was terrified of me and worthless to the crew. The captain finally dumped her onto a packet s.h.i.+p we raided. That was a good day.” A smile of satisfaction briefly lit her hard face. She turned back to him. ”So now it's my s.h.i.+p,” she finished simply.

Cecil sat looking at her, wide-eyed. ”Wow, that must have been tough.” He c.o.c.ked his head. ”Nice scar, though,” he said with a small smile. ”It makes you look worldly, like you can take care of yourself. But you're too thin. You need to eat more.”

Gretchen gave him a smirk. ”Well, you look like you've been eating well enough. In fact, a diet might be a good idea.” As Cecil surveyed his own bulk-he thought he'd lost weight-she resumed her role as tour guide, turning to the crew at their work. ”The men here obey the captain, which makes life easier,” she said. ”I know how to stay on his good side. He gave me a name; Pearl, he calls me. They all do. Sometimes they laugh at me and hold their fingers around their eyes, making fun of my black mask, I guess, but none of them has the courage to hurt me.”

Cecil was startled by a strange thought. ”Have you seen your black mask?” he asked slowly.

Gretchen closed her eyes, as though considering something. When she opened them again, she said, ”Follow me. I'll show you,” and she hopped down from the ledge and moved off between the barrels without looking back.

Cecil sat for a moment longer, inhaling the briny ocean breeze. Gretchen was quite an adventurer, all right-a pirate cat through and through. The question was, did she want a friend, or did she want to be left alone? A gray-bearded crewman stomped toward Cecil and he decided it was time to move along.

They had to pa.s.s through the port side of the s.h.i.+p, which was where the action was. They crouched under a box on its side to avoid getting hit by falling items, and watched the scene. The men were still swinging on the long ropes attached to the crossbars, sailing across to Cecil's old clipper with wild abandon, laughing loudly and singing s.n.a.t.c.hes of bawdy songs. They seemed to be having a delightful time, although Cecil thought there really couldn't have been that much to plunder on the other s.h.i.+p.

Sometimes one of the pirates lost his grip on the rope and sprawled across one or the other decks, or dropped into the sea between the s.h.i.+ps and had to be fished out by men with ropes hanging over the sides. Undaunted, smiling, the dunked sailor jumped back and s.h.i.+mmied up the ratlines again. If a crewman successfully swung back to the pirate s.h.i.+p and got his feet planted on the spars once more, he dropped whatever loot he had onto the deck before taking off again.

Cecil craned his neck to look up at the men on the crossbars. They seemed to be slowing down, taking fewer trips across. ”Do they always swing over like this? Doesn't a lot of good stuff get broken this way?” he asked as a small chest crashed on the deck and burst open.

Gretchen chuckled softly. ”They do love to swing, it's true. Let's have a look at what's coming in.”

Gretchen carefully picked her way through the piles and the wreckage spread across the deck planks. Her eyes searched back and forth over the booty. Cecil followed, watching her keenly till he caught a whiff of roasted meat and turned aside to hunt for it. He spotted a large bone with a bit of meat still clinging to it. Ham! I love ham, he thought happily.

”Ah, here we go,” said Gretchen quietly. Cecil turned back to see her grasping a thin piece of cord with her teeth and tensing her back legs to pull it out from underneath a heap of coats.

”What's special about string?” he asked, dropping his ham bone. Gretchen didn't answer, but continued to tug on the cord until it slid free from the pile. It was attached to a small canvas pouch, similar to the one Cecil had brought over. She laid the pouch flat on its side on the deck and, beginning at the bottom, began stepping quickly with her paws on the canvas, like she was dancing a little jig, working her way up to the top. At the cinched-up mouth of the pouch she pushed swiftly down with both paws, and out rolled a round blue stone of l.u.s.trous beauty.

Cecil caught only a glimpse of the stone, how it was carved with many tiny flat sides, how it reminded him of the dark sea at night lit with cool sparkles of moonlight, before Gretchen scooped it into her mouth and moved off at a fast trot.

”Be ri' b'k,” she murmured, her words m.u.f.fled.

Cecil leaped aside in time to avoid a stuffed seabag dropped by the swinging pirates, and trailed after Gretchen, reluctantly leaving his bone behind. He turned a corner and saw her approach a large man who, from the looks of him, had to be the captain. The man wore a long green coat and a black hat with a feather sticking out from one side and tall boots up to his thighs. He dropped down on one knee to greet Gretchen, stroking her head and speaking to her quietly as she placed the blue stone carefully into his other open palm. Cecil trotted toward them to make his introduction, but the captain stood quickly, slipping the stone into his pocket.