Anton and Cecil, Book 2 Read online

  Cecil straightened up. What now? Only a few crewmen were about, including the sneezy mate, clutching his dastardly broom and talking with the captain down by the ship’s wheel. There were lots of other places Anton could be hiding—under tarps or inside coils of rope, down in the fo’c’sle, up in the ratlines, but . . . Cecil’s nose began to twitch.

  What was that smell?

  He turned his head slowly toward the pier, his eyes narrowing and his nose working furiously. Among the people and carts and animals crowding the roadbed, Cecil detected the scents of roasted meats, freshly baked bread, simmering stews, and an ocean of fish, all close at hand, some of it in plain sight as humans behind counters held steaming packets out to others passing by. On their own, his paws began moving toward the gangplank.

  “Surely Anton would go this way,” Cecil murmured, breaking into a trot at the sound of the mate shrieking behind him. “Any cat worth his salt would.”

  He reached the docks and continued right on, his nose in the air and leading the way. Anton must be hungry, Cecil reasoned. He’s had no snack. So what would he . . . Cecil turned and sprang out of the path of a horse pulling a loaded wagon. That was close. He recovered his balance, then yowled as his tail was smashed under the boot of a little boy running past holding several steaming sticks above his head. Cecil bared his teeth to hiss at the boy, but noticed that he’d dropped one of the sticks, and it smelled like something with great potential. What luck! The stick ran straight through the middle of several chunks of fish. Cecil quickly clamped one end of the stick in his mouth and darted behind a tree on the far side of the roadbed.

  He had just figured out how to hold the stick down with both paws and pull the fish away with his teeth when he felt the close presence of another creature. Cecil lifted his eyes to see a small orange cat creeping toward him, low to the ground. It was just a kitten really, a male with a skinny tail and big ears, and he froze under Cecil’s glare. Cecil continued gobbling down the fish and the kitten advanced smoothly, like a little hunter. Finally Cecil stepped away and began cleaning his paws, leaving a fat chunk behind on the stick. The kitten dashed forward and leaped upon the fish, wrestling off little bites while gazing up at Cecil.

  “I haven’t seen you before,” said the kitten with his mouth full. “You just get here?”

  “That’s right.” Cecil nodded. “Passing through.”

  “Where you going?” asked the kitten.

  Cecil paused. “To rescue a friend, you could say.”

  The kitten nodded. “That’s nice of you.”

  “Maybe,” said Cecil, turning to the kitten. “Say, do you happen to know anything about landships?”

  The kitten sat up, his round eyes wide, his long pink tongue licking the fish from his lips. “Landships!” He thought for a moment, then shook his head. “Nope. What are they?”

  “They’re the way we need to get where we’re going,” said Cecil, suddenly remembering Anton.

  The kitten looked around. “Who’s we?”

  Cecil had opened his mouth to explain when a high whistle blew in the distance, followed by a deep, rasping chug, and then another, and another, slow and even. “My whiskers!” said Cecil, his ears cocked. “What is that?”

  The kitten gave a tiny sigh. “That,” he said, solemnly, “is something we call rolling death.”

  Cecil eyed the kitten closely. “What do you mean, rolling death? That sounds horrible!”

  “It does, because it is.” The kitten bobbed his little head up and down. “It’s a huge carriage that moves without anything pulling it, and it’s loud and ugly, and my mom says if you get too close it’ll roll right over you. She says that’s how Uncle George disappeared.”

  “A carriage that moves without anything pulling it,” said Cecil softly. “This I’ve got to see. And it’s over that way, you say?” he asked the kitten, pointing a paw.

  “Well, yes, but don’t go over there!” said the kitten, arching his back above his skinny legs. “Didn’t you hear the part about it squishing you, and Uncle George?”

  Cecil smiled at the kitten knowingly. “What do they call you?” he asked, appraising its orange fur. “Pumpkin?”

  “Herman.”

  “Well, Herman, I say don’t be a chicken, be a cat! Get out there and have an adventure!”

  Herman swiveled his ears at another blast from the whistle. He shook his head. “No thanks. Too dangerous.”

  “Fair enough,” said Cecil, turning to leave. “But if you see my brother Anton passing through, be sure to introduce yourself. You two have a lot in common.” He gave a side-to-side swish of his tail and disappeared into the crowd of legs on the roadbed.

  Anton was overpowered by the strange chuffing sound. He backed up cautiously, drawing his head in as if to avoid a blow. A shriek like a giant hawk tore through the air in front of him at the same time as a blast of wet, hot air struck him from behind. Without thinking, he whirled about, claws out, his jaws wide to issue a warning hiss of his own. He was facing two wet, black nostrils the size of his head. Before he could figure out what he was seeing, the nostrils flew up before him and he realized it was a horse, now stretching his big head skyward, his glassy eyeballs rolling down at Anton and his hairy lips quivering.

  “Whoa, whoa there,” said the horse. “Don’t put those claws in my nose, for neighing out loud.”

  Anton sheathed his claws and ran a paw over his mouth to smooth his whiskers. He’d seen horses on the docks at home, but he’d always tried to steer clear of them, as they were clearly dangerous. This was the biggest horse he’d ever seen, and the hairiest. Even his hooves were draped in a deep fringe of fur. Anton had never spoken to a horse before, but this one looked so upset he thought he’d best be polite.

  “Excuse me,” he said. “You took me by surprise.”

  “Well, that’s no reason to threaten somebody with claws in the nose.”

  “I’m afraid that’s not entirely in my control,” Anton explained.

  The horse worked his lips, as if thinking over this reply, gradually lowering his head. “You mean the claws just come out automatically?”

  “Sometimes,” Anton replied. “I can make them come out when I want to, but if I’m frightened, it’s not something I think about. I just know I may need them, I guess.”

  “When I’m frightened, I run as fast as I can,” the horse said. “And I guess I don’t really think about it.”

  “I’ll bet nobody gets in your way,” Anton observed.

  The horse seemed to find this amusing. “No,” he said. “I’m a big guy. No human’s going to catch me, running on those flimsy feet they have.”

  Anton took in the leather strips and wooden poles that strapped the horse to a wagon loaded with heavy-looking bags. “My name is Anton,” he said.

  “I’m Solitaire,” the horse said. “Or that’s what my mother called me. My master calls me Nutmeg. We work here, most days. Do you live around here?”

  “No,” Anton said. “I just got off that ship.” He lifted his chin to indicate the gangplank of the Sea Song, from which a steady stream of men and crates now issued. “I was with my brother, but we got separated and I can’t see anything in this crowd.”

  “What’s he look like?” Solitaire asked.

  “He’s bigger than me, black, white whiskers, long fur.”

  The horse looked out over the crowd, moving his head slowly from side to side. Anton noticed something he surely knew but had never thought about before, which was that a horse couldn’t look at what was in front of him because his eyes were on either side of his head. “I don’t see him,” Solitaire said, bringing his head down close to Anton.

  Anton tried looking between pairs of legs, around long skirts, and through the wheels of Solitaire’s wagon. “I don’t know how I’m going to find him.”

  “You want to get up on my back?” the horse suggested.

  Anton was surprised. He looked up at Solitaire’s wide back. The view from there would undoub
tedly be worth having, but even at a run, he wasn’t sure he could make the leap. “I don’t think I can jump that high,” he said.

  “Well if you can sheathe those claws, I’ll put my head down and you can walk up my neck. You can hold on to my mane if you need to—that won’t hurt me.”

  Anton studied the horse. It was definitely doable. “That would be very kind of you,” he said.

  Solitaire lifted his upper lip and forced out a startling blast of warm moist air from his nostrils. “You’re a polite little creature,” he said. “I like that.” Then he lowered his head until his mouth nearly touched the ground. “Jump on,” he said.

  Anton, conscious of his claws with every step, dashed up Solitaire’s neck, past his shoulders to his wide, flat back. There Anton sat, curling his tail around him. It was amazing, comfortable and roomy—there was space to stretch out and take a nap up there. The horse’s fur was smooth and had a pleasant scent, something Anton never would have expected. And he could see clear across the wharf. “Wow,” he said. “This is great. I can see everything.”

  Solitaire swerved his neck around so that he could see his new passenger. “It must be hard to be so small,” he said. “You never get a view.”

  Anton looked this way and that, trying to spot a black cat with a white paintbrush tail, but there was too much activity to focus on one spot for long. Nearby was a line of booths where people crowded, many carrying baskets laden with food. Anton thought that might be a likely spot to look for his brother.

  Solitaire followed his gaze. “That’s a good place; humans go there and get all kinds of stuff to eat. My master goes there most days and sometimes he gets me an apple. I really like those.”

  As Anton watched the milling crowd, he spotted a child standing next to a basket and behind a woman who was talking with one of the vendors in the stalls. The child was pointing at him and calling out something he couldn’t hear, but the mother did, and turned to see what was wrong. She glanced up at Anton—a cat on a horse, yes, that was amusing—and then resumed her conversation as the child continued to point and crow joyfully. Then . . . But no. It couldn’t be!

  Anton recognized the toddler: it was the baby from that ship, the one on which he’d met Hieronymus, and on which they had both nearly starved. The child’s mother was the kind woman who had made a bed for Anton. One strange morning, he and Hieronymus had awakened to find that mother and child—and all the other passengers on their ship—had disappeared, leaving Anton and Hieronymus alone and adrift until their miraculous rescue. But here they were, mother and child, safe and sound in a busy town, and the baby recognized him. This comforted Anton, but it reminded him of his own mission to get to Hieronymus.

  Anton shifted his paws and looked out in the other direction. In the distance he could see a long roofline and before it clouds of white smoke, but a small building in between blocked his view. Then he heard it again, that loud chugging sound, and after that—so unexpected and loud that he stood up on all fours, ready to leap to the ground—a shrill whistle tore the air.

  “What’s that?” Anton exclaimed.

  “Calm down,” the horse advised him. “It’s the horseless carts. That whistle means they’re about to start moving.”

  “Where do they go?”

  “I’m hobbled if I know. But the bigger question is how do they go. They just make a lot of noise and of course they have wheels—you’ve got to have wheels—but nothing pulls them as far as I can see. And they’re dangerous.”

  “Are they ships?”

  Solitaire raised a hoof and pulled his head forward so that the straps grew tight on his neck, making a snuffling sound with his nose. “Ships,” he said. “No, they’re not ships. Ships go on water. These go on land.”

  “Landships,” Anton concluded.

  “That’s good. You could call them that.”

  “It’s what the mice call them,” Anton said.

  “Mice!” Solitaire raised his head and cast a wild eye at Anton. “One thing I don’t like is mice. They scare the hooves off of me.”

  Anton smiled at the idea of an animal Solitaire’s size being afraid of a mouse, but he didn’t say anything, because he felt certain the horse had just set him on the track to find his brother.

  “Try talking to the mice,” Anton said. “Sometimes they understand.”

  He took another long look around, back toward the ship—he could see the sailors pulling in the plank—then across the wharf to the food stalls—the baby and mother had moved on, no cats were in sight—and then along the buildings that stood between the wharf and that thick column of white smoke. “Cecil will go to the landships. He may be there already.”

  “I take it you’re coming down,” said Solitaire.

  “I am,” he said. “I can’t thank you enough.”

  The horse lowered his head and Anton descended in two bounds. “I hope you find your brother,” the horse said.

  Anton nodded. “I’ll be a sad cat if I don’t.”

  The horse brought his big head down close and touched Anton’s back with his warm nose. “Good luck to you.”

  “Goodbye,” Anton said, and he dashed across the dirt road to the shelter of another wagon parked alongside a shed. When he looked back he saw the horse standing, one hoof cocked and his long neck relaxed, his eyes closed, waiting patiently for his master to come back. Anton wondered about Solitaire’s life. He seems content enough, though he can’t go anywhere without his cart. I hope his master buys him an apple. And then he heard another shriek from the landship and took off in the direction of the sound.

  CHAPTER 4

  The Owl and the Pussycats

  Though his brother probably would not willingly go see anything referred to as “rolling death,” Cecil was terribly curious. He told himself that he’d just take a peek, then he’d hightail it back to the wharf to find Anton and get on with the business of rescuing the mouse. Avoiding boots and cart wheels, he dashed from one safe spot to the next down a long block and around two corners. He followed the sounds of rib-rattling chugs and clanging bells that carried over the mixed-up din of human chatter. At last, at the end of a dusty street lined with buildings that stretched as high as the tallest ship’s mast he’d ever seen, Cecil stepped into a large town square and gazed at the commotion.

  Horses clopped across the square dragging open carriages, the drivers flicking long whips over their flanks as passengers talked and laughed inside. It seemed that everywhere Cecil looked, one or another man in a long coat and high hat hurried past, often accompanied by a lady wearing a flowered or feathered hat, trying to hold the hand of a mischievous child or two. Other men lugged boxes on their shoulders to and from carts, or leaned against lampposts holding newspapers in front of their faces. From a protected spot by the glass front of a shop, Cecil tried to see through the mass of legs and carriage wheels, but all he could make out of interest were several rows of straight, thick strips of metal embedded in the pavement of the square, extending out of sight in both directions. People crossed over them without looking down, as if they were of no consequence.

  “Kitty!” cried a little girl wearing a bright yellow dress, white gloves, and shiny black shoes. She held her hand out to Cecil, who sniffed obligingly. The girl smiled at him but was quickly pulled away by her mother and hustled down the street.

  A filthy brown dog brushed past at a trot. “Out of my way, feline.”

  “Hey!” called Cecil after him. “Which way to the . . . rolling death?”

  The dog’s floppy ears lifted and he stopped to look back at Cecil doubtfully. “The what?”

  “The . . . thing that’s making all that noise.” Cecil lifted his chin to the thunderous sound filling the air. It seemed to be coming from everywhere, echoing off the buildings and windows, accompanied by sharp smells that he couldn’t place.

  The dog let out a chuckling woof and rolled his eyes. “The growler, you mean. It’s right over there, you can’t miss it.” He jerked his head toward
the far end of the square and trotted away. Cecil could hear him muttering as he went. “Cats. Always their heads in the clouds.”

  Cecil hurried down the street, sticking close to the shop walls and ducking past doorways until he reached the end of the sidewalk. He crouched under a bench and looked out. There on the edge of the square was an enormous structure, as wide as four or five buildings set side by side and enclosed by a giant curved roof. Both ends of the structure were open so it resembled a broad tunnel, and arches composed of crisscrossed rods stretched along the ceiling like immense spiderwebs.

  But the thing that captured Cecil’s attention was the contraption that protruded halfway out of the near end of the structure. It stood, gleaming and muscular, chuffing like an impatient draft horse. It was long and rounded, as if the lighthouse at Lunenburg had been turned on its side and set upon huge cart wheels. Cecil was astonished that a thing that size—not nearly as big as a ship—could make that much noise. The shrill whistle made him squeeze his eyes shut, and he could feel the deep rumbling down to the pads of his paws. Thick gray clouds rose from the top of the “growler,” as the dog had called it, while men climbed up into the back and called down to others from open windows. The area farthest forward near the ground was pointed, like an upside-down prow of a ship.

  Oh, cat’s whiskers, Cecil thought, and sighed. I hate to leave, but I’d really better find Anton. He stood to make his way back to the docks. But just then, the growler began to move.

  Anton left the wharf behind, hardly noticing the bustle around him. He passed close to buildings that grew taller and taller, as if they had been stacked one on top of the other. He rounded one corner and then another, guessing now, because he couldn’t hear anything over the noise of the traffic in the street. He reached the end of a big stone building and found himself before a wide, dusty road. There a muddle of carriages and carts loaded with humans and all manner of boxes moved briskly toward an enormous open building with two entrances the size of barns. A huge, black, smoke-belching monster of a machine hissed and steamed halfway out of one of these, while men hurried back and forth across the raised metal strips that stretched out in different directions, glittering in the dirt.