Anton and Cecil Read online

  Anton sat on the brick apron of the lighthouse with his tail curled around and over his back feet and began to clean his face. He squeezed his eyes shut as he dragged his wet paw across them and then licked the paw again, enjoying the morning ritual as the sunshine warmed the bricks. Moving on to his ears, Anton glanced up at the passing gulls and over at a fishing schooner in the harbor. With one ear pinned flat against his forehead under his cleaning paw, he stopped and stared. There was a cat sitting on a barrel on the deck of the boat. Anton dropped his paw. The cat was huge and jet black . . . Anton stretched his neck forward. The cat on the boat turned his head to look at one of the fishermen. It was Cecil! Sailing away! Anton rushed to the edge of the rock wall. Oh no! Cecil had been captured and forced out to sea! Anton dashed back and forth along the wall, crying out in frustration. The ship was moving rapidly, leaving no way for him to call out or signal to Cecil. He mewed brokenly and stood still, watching the tall sails of the schooner billowing in the distance.

  Late in the afternoon, when Cecil, reeking of fish, strode smugly down the plank and onto the dock, Anton was furious.

  “Where have you been?” he howled at Cecil, who trotted past the mooring posts, examining the size of other ships’ catches for the day. “What were you thinking? You could have been drowned or stolen!” Anton insisted, running in little bursts to keep up with Cecil. “I’ve been worried to death!”

  Cecil turned for a last glance at “his” schooner, flicked his tail, and sat down to face Anton, who plowed directly into him. “I wasn’t stolen. I was invited aboard,” explained Cecil, placing his paw squarely against his brother’s nose to back him up a bit. “Don’t you even want to know how it was?” he asked.

  “No,” huffed Anton, circling around Cecil to check that he was intact, licking his slimed fur in a few places. He finally sat down and gave in. “Okay,” he said with a sigh. “How was it?”

  “Glad you asked!” said Cecil happily, and he began by explaining how the captain had rolled out the welcome mat for him.

  Old Billy, the harbormaster’s cat, relished his reputation at the docks as the one who knew all about ships, sailors, and the wide world. True, he had never gone to sea; he’d gone soft in the belly and was no longer a mouser of any distinction. But in his years of service to the harbormaster he had heard many tales of foreign lands and cats, some delightful, some dark and dreadful. One of his duties, he felt, was to pass on news of import to his fellow felines, and it was for this reason that he sat resolutely on the dock that evening and relayed again and again the story of what he had seen to any who stopped by. Anton was standing toward the back of the crowd.

  Billy had been awakened the night before from his bed in the master’s small house by a yowling outside, and had scrambled to the windowsill in time to see a dismaying scene. A sailor unknown to Billy was climbing a gangplank carrying a sack of gathered netting, and in the sack appeared to be (and here he paused meaningfully) a small cat. The assembled crowd groaned; this was not at all unheard of, but always distressing. Billy described in vivid terms how the cat bravely thrust its paw through the mesh to slash at the sailor, and how it was cruelly repaid.

  Anton shuddered. Even though his brother had gone willingly, even happily, on one of the daily fishing jaunts, Anton still felt a deep worry in his bones about these other disappearances. Sonya had called it being impressed into service, stolen right off the docks. Anton felt a little ill thinking of how it might happen to any cat, at any time.

  “Well for goodness’ sake, Bill, who was it, could you tell?” asked an older female anxiously.

  “I couldn’t see a face, I’m afraid.” Billy shook his head gravely.

  “What color was the fur?” shouted a small kit down front.

  “The leg I could see was white, all white, and slim, as I recall.” Billy wondered if he remembered clearly; it was so quick and dreamlike. The listening cats stirred and murmured to one another: who was it?

  “I bet it was Gretchen,” wailed the kit. “She’s mostly white like that, with black around her eyes.”

  Anton remembered. He knew her in passing, thought of her as spunky but naïve. She concentrated so intently while fishing that once he had stood right next to her without her noticing. When he cleared his throat, she startled so severely that she fell in the pool. Anton smiled briefly at the memory.

  “Anybody seen her today?” asked the older female, looking around fearfully. Anton recognized her now—her name was Mildred; she was Gretchen’s grandmother.

  No one had seen Gretchen. The gathering shifted, the older ones shaking their heads, the young ones chattering shrilly.

  Old Billy raised his thin voice above the commotion. “Remember, friends, you know what is said.” He spoke slowly and many in the crowd nodded gravely. “Where the eye sees the eye, the lost shall be found.”

  Anton sighed and turned away. He had indeed heard the saying before, but he had no idea what it meant.

  As he began to join the fishing crews more often, Cecil loved telling Anton his seafaring tales, exaggerating some and drawing them out in the recounting, and Anton grudgingly listened, outwardly skeptical though inwardly curious. Whether drenched and battered in a sudden storm, accidentally trapped in a bait barrel, or nipped painfully by a vicious lobster, Cecil told of his adventures with exuberance. But there was one story that Cecil kept to himself, in part because he thought it might frighten Anton, and in part because even he didn’t fully understand what had happened.

  Every now and again, when the boat was far from land and the sailors were whiling away the slow hours between duties, someone spotted a great whale swimming a long way off in the sea. The whales often breached the water’s surface, slowly rolling like huge logs or surging straight up and splashing thunderously back down. The men knew what kinds of whales they were and pointed and shouted their names: “Humpback!” or “Fin!” or, rarely, “Right one, there!” These whales were closer than any Cecil had seen from the lighthouse, and their enormity intrigued and terrified him.

  One sunny day as a thin breeze left the sails slack, Cecil sat on a crate near the starboard railing waiting for the catch to be hauled in. A shout from one of the men drew the others to look over the port side of the ship down at the trawl nets. A large school of cod had swum frantically into the nets from underneath, tugging on the boat with their effort, which was odd. Cecil sat watching, front paws folded under his chest, when out of the corner of his eye he saw a shadow darken the water far out on the starboard side, away from where the crewmen were grouped. He turned, looking for a passing cloud, but the sky was clear. The shadow disappeared, then reappeared much closer, and Cecil realized with a thud in his stomach that it was something dark in the water, something as big as the schooner.

  Cecil cautiously peered over the side and saw hundreds of small fish scattering in every direction, and then suddenly the shadow was right next to the boat and growing. As he watched, the sea began to spill away from a single spot, smooth and black, expanding down the length of the ship until Cecil understood he was looking at one whole side of a huge finback whale.

  The whale made no sound and smelled like the brine of ancient oceans. Its skin was blue-gray with crusty yellow patches, and an immense white jaw wrapped around its wide mouth. Cecil jumped up with his back arched and tail straight as a broom handle, but could not make himself run away. The whale floated gently and Cecil saw its eye, dark blue and big as the round lantern in the lighthouse, passing over the ship, up to the sails and down the tall mast, coming to rest on Cecil. A pattern of ivory barnacles curved above the eye like a long wizened eyebrow on an old man. The whale’s eye surveyed Cecil, as if curiously taking his measure. Cecil was transfixed, and as the eye opened a bit more he felt that the whale was going to tell him a secret, share a piece of wisdom. Cecil felt that he was falling into the depths of that eye and the knowledge that lay behind it, and he held his breath.

  “Finny on starboard!” bellowed the captain, almost
in Cecil’s ear. “All hands to starboard!” he shouted as every fisherman rushed across the deck, their combined weight causing the ship to pitch into the whale with an echoing thunk. The whale’s eye released Cecil and flickered toward the men. Its powerful tail pushed against the boat, and Cecil nearly tumbled overboard but managed to cling to the crate with his claws. The men were hysterical with fear that the whale would upend the ship. “Drive him off!” some of them screamed. There were no weapons to hand, and in their terror the men began throwing anything available: ropes, boxes, hooks, barrels. These thumped and smashed across the whale’s head and broad back. With a final glance at Cecil the whale arched its massive back and dived into the sea, rocking the ship violently in its wake.

  For some time afterward the men prayed to the heavens, thanked the stars, told and retold the story of their escape among themselves. They were sure the whale had been an omen, an evil spirit, a test that had been passed. Though the great finback was not seen again that day, every pair of eyes on the ship scanned the ocean for any sign of its return. Only one pair belonged to a creature who actually wished for it.

  CHAPTER 3

  Brother Cats

  The sailors who frequented the saloon had a favorite song, and it was Anton’s favorite as well. It had a refrain he waited for, his ears alert, his eyes unblinking, as he gazed through the smoke from his place behind the door. He recognized the words without knowing their meaning. He could run them through his head and pick them out sometimes in the speech of the men on the wharf: “Windy weather boys, stormy weather boys.” And then followed by “When the wind blows, we’re all together boys.” Anton, crouched in his corner, felt his fur lift along his spine.

  One chilly night, as the crowd took up this refrain, Anton was so enraptured that he peeked out from his hiding place. He wanted to be part of the music, and he looked at the people in the room for something that might explain to him why he was so drawn to it. How curious these faces were. Why were their noses the same color as their faces? Why was all the fur attached at either end of the head or, in some cases, only one end? Their movements were clumsy, and they made a lot of noise everywhere they went; they could be dangerous, as Sonya had warned, but this singing together brought out something that made Anton feel bold. Unthinking, he stuck his head out a little farther. He could see the singer and a man playing an instrument that whined like a tuneful wind.

  Just then the barman shoved the door aside, knocking Anton flat on his back, but only for a moment. Anton surged up, gathering his feet beneath him for a leap past the grumbling man to the top of a barrel. Worse luck, it was the barrel the barman was after and the sight of Anton balanced precariously upon it made him shout.

  “Out!” he commanded, waving his hand toward the bar. “Out with you, you sneaking creature.”

  Anton dived from the barrel, scrambling across the floor into the bar. Two men leaning against the high counter gave a shout of delight as he cleared the edge in one powerful jump. The wood was slippery and Anton skidded against the rail, but as the men made encouraging comments, he recovered his footing and leaped into the bustling room. The women laughed, the men taunted with what they thought were cat sounds. The barman came out and shouted something that made everyone laugh. Anton could see the door just ahead, but it was closed tight against the chill night. Boots were everywhere between him and his destination, and hands reached out to catch him, but he eluded them. The thought that he might be touched by these giant, rough, loud creatures made his throat feel tight. His eyes darted this way and that, and his ears rotated front to back, listening for a sound that would lead him to safety.

  And then he heard it, the thudding of boots approaching the door, the squeak of the hinges with a blast of icy air, as two new patrons came bustling inside, eager to get out of the cold. Anton recognized one of them, a young man wearing a bright bandana around his head, a singer with a voice like a summer breeze. Anton regretted that he couldn’t stay to listen as he made a dash for the four boots, spotted an opening between an unmatched pair, and shot out into the dark night.

  Anton kept running until he made the last turn to the lighthouse path. His brother was there, poking among the rocks near the shore, looking for something to eat. Cecil thrust his paws down between two jagged stones. Anton, wanting to appear casual and calm, slowed to a trot. He approached his brother’s tail, which was all he could see of him, waving gaily in the air. “Did you catch something?” he asked.

  Cecil’s head came up. A small bluish creature struggled between his powerful jaws. “Crab,” he said through the helplessly flailing claws.

  “Yum,” said Anton, who hadn’t eaten since morning.

  Cecil flung the crab across the rocks, where it landed at his brother’s front paws. “You can have him,” he said. “My sailors gave me so much fish today, I’m stuffed.”

  Anton pawed the crab and sunk his teeth into the still soft shell. My sailors? he thought. “Thanks,” he said.

  “Did you see the big ship that came in this morning? It has four masts. Billy called it a barque. You can hardly get across the dock for all the crates they took off it. All my sailors were gathered round it like it was a wonder of the world.”

  Anton pulled off a claw with his teeth and swallowed it whole. “Didn’t see it,” he mumbled. “I was sleeping.”

  “It’s no way to live the way you’re living, brother,” Cecil cautioned. “You’re in the pub all night and you sleep all day. You’re not eating. You’ll lose your edge and won’t be able to catch your dinner.”

  Anton finished off the crab and sat licking his whiskers clean. There was no point in arguing with Cecil when he was in his know-it-all mood, but Anton couldn’t resist. “A cat who is stuffed with fish all day by sailors can’t be called much more than a pet.”

  “What can I do?” Cecil replied. “I’m not going to turn down a nice piece of mackerel. That would be crazy.”

  Anton gazed out over the dark water. “Are there any more of these crabs?”

  “There’s a bunch of them. They’re having a party in the rocks.”

  Anton smiled at the idea of a crab party. “I think I’ll go spoil the fun,” he said. He stretched his legs and arched his back, limbering up for the sport.

  “I’m not a pet,” Cecil said.

  “They call you by a name,” Anton replied. “You’ll end up as fat as old Billy at the harbormaster’s office; they call him Fletcher. His stomach swings like a bag of clamshells.”

  “I’m not a pet, I’m a sailor.”

  “What do they call you?”

  “Blackie. Blackjack. Sometimes Lucky Black.”

  “What does it mean?”

  “I have no idea.”

  Anton raised a paw and extended his claws, then picked at a clot of something between his toes.

  “Don’t you want to come see the barque?” Cecil asked.

  “You know Mother has warned us about those ships. They don’t come sailing back every day like the schooners. They go out for months on end. Some never come back again. Promise me you won’t go hanging around and get impressed on one of those things.”

  “They won’t be taking cats tonight; they just got here.”

  “I’m still hungry,” Anton said.

  “I’ll wait for you. It’s bigger than a building. It has at least a thousand sails.”

  Anton chuckled. “A thousand sails,” he said.

  “Well, a hundred.”

  “If I go with you to see this ship, will you come listen to the shanties at the saloon? There’s a fine singer coming on later tonight. He’s there every week.”

  “It’s full of smoke in those places,” Cecil complained.

  “It’s cold on the dock,” Anton countered.

  “All right, all right,” Cecil said. “Eat your crabs and we’ll go out for a good time, like two brother sailors.”

  Anton rolled his shoulders back, did one last head-to-tail stretch. “Like two brother cats,” he said as he crept out
over the rocks.

  By the time Anton and Cecil got to the dock, the cargo had been largely cleared away. They discovered it was being loaded onto the ship rather than off. “It must have been empty,” Anton observed. “It must be a new ship.”

  Billy, the harbormaster’s cat, came shambling up from alongside the gangplank. “Brand-new, she is,” he said, “just out of the yard in Gloucester. She’s called the Mary Anne. You see that figurehead?”

  The brothers regarded the brightly painted figure just under the flying bridge. Two young girls in blue dresses with golden hair and golden shoes held hands and seemed to dance on the air. “That’s Mary and Anne, the owner’s daughters,” Billy said. “He’s a shipbuilder himself and this is the biggest vessel ever built on this side.”

  “This side of what?” Cecil asked.

  “The ocean,” said Billy pompously. “The great sea.”

  Cecil bowed his head and allowed the words to flow over him like a wave breaking over a ship’s prow. He thought of the whale, its wondrous eye rolling up from the receding waters to look at him, so wise, so at ease in his element, the sea.

  “The ocean,” Anton growled. “Even this great monster of a boat is no match for that.”

  “Cats have gone out; a few come back,” said Billy solemnly. “There’s other lands they say, all sorts of wonders.”

  “But you’ve never gone?” Cecil asked.

  “I never leave this harbor. Why would I? This is the best life a cat can find in all the wide world and across all the seas. Those as come back say it’s so.”

  “That’s what Mother says,” Anton agreed.

  “Well, she’s right,” said Billy. “Best be off home now. Dangerous out here this time of night, as you boys well know.” He cast them a sidelong look and waddled off, his belly rolling from side to side like a seaman’s hammock in a storm.

  Anton looked up at the soaring masts of the big ship, with its crossbars on all four, the square sails rolled up tight and the dark basket of the crow’s nest brooding atop the mizzenmast. Up and down the gangplank the sailors made their way, bandy-legged and crouched beneath the heavy crates and barrels, all bound, he thought, for where? A place like here? Or a land made entirely of sand? Or one where the humans had fur and swung from the trees? Too frightening even to imagine.