Anton and Cecil Read online

  But the gray dawn revealed that they were not sinking after all, and now the crew and captain stood on the deck with their hands on their hips and their faces pinched into frowns, surveying the damage. Cecil crept out from his hiding place under the tarp and tried to take in what had happened.

  The mainmast had clipped a spar of the aft mast on its way down and now lay with its topmost tip wedged in the rubble of the railing bars, the broken-off end still tangled in the rigging high above. Sails hung in drooping lengths like ragged laundry from the crossbars. Piles of rope and tarp lay in heaps on the deck, mixed with hunks of shredded wood and bits of seaweed.

  The men looked up and down the fallen mast, inspecting it from every angle, shaking their heads. After a while a few of the younger crewmen retrieved boxes containing long curved needles and rolls of thick white thread, and set to work repairing the torn sails. Others slowly began setting things right on deck and clearing the debris. The captain, after much grumbling and cursing, finally pointed to the mast and shouted orders, whereupon the remaining ragtag collection of crewmen started cutting lines of rope off the mast and coiling it on the deck.

  Over the next few days, Cecil sensed he was out of favor, distrusted and even reviled, and he stayed far away from the men and out of sight as much as he could. No one fed him, but luckily the storm’s huge waves had tossed a fair quantity of fish onto the deck. Lodged in crevices between bales or behind posts, these were now largely ignored by the men. The sun smothered those on board from a cloudless sky, and there seemed to be no wind at all. Day and night passed, and passed again, as the repaired sails hung limply from their crossbars and the splintered mast lay on the deck. Scuffles broke out among the sailors, and their quick tempers made Cecil even more skittish. The men passed the time working on repairs, or swimming in the warm, flat water around the ship, and endlessly scanning the sky and horizon for some event, though both remained relentlessly empty.

  On the fourth day, gray clouds hung low, touching the ocean at the horizon, and a light rain fell steadily. The crew had retreated belowdecks, but Cecil remained above in the drizzle, tucked under a tent of ripped sailcloth. Some fresh water, at least, he thought as he watched the puddles slowly form. Ignoring his rumbling belly, he closed his eyes to nap, but his ears began to pick up another sound over the soft plinking of the rain on the deck, an irregular flapping coming from somewhere above. He peeked out and squinted upward. Wheeling toward the ship was a large dark gray bird, veering from side to side, its wings beating only intermittently. Cecil ducked back under the sail as the bird extended long red legs with black webbed feet to attempt a landing, but instead crashed into the mainsail mast and fell in a heap on the ratlines.

  The sole crewman on deck lifted the brim of his hat, glared at the bird, then lowered the hat and went back to sleep. Cecil ventured another look around the edge of the sail. The bird had extracted itself from the ropes and flapped over to perch on the railing, where it fully extended its wings to either side and held them open, sitting very still and looking around. Cecil took careful note of the bird’s long, hooked beak and sharp claws. Caution was in order. Birds were unintelligent and unreliable, in Cecil’s view, but it had been days since he’d talked to any other creature, and he was desperate for company. He slowly advanced until the bird took notice of him.

  “Say there, cat,” said the bird, amiably enough. “How do?” Its face was bright orange, wrinkled and featherless except for two short tufts of white feathers that stood straight up above its eyes like fluttering white eyebrows, swaying lightly as it talked.

  “I’m fine,” said Cecil, though this was far from true. “I’m Cecil. You okay?”

  “You can call me Shag,” said the bird. “I’m all right. Trying to dry my wings here, heavy as rocks, and this rain isn’t helping much.” The little white feathers rippled as he shook his head in disgust.

  Cecil kept his back legs tensed, ready to spring away if necessary. He’d never seen a bird this big before.

  “Where are you headed?” Cecil asked, trying to sound casual.

  Shag made a clucking sound in his throat. “The darnedest luck. Looking for some supper, saw a big bunch of bluefish moving fast, followed them for a while and lost my bearings in the clouds.” He glared up at the sky. “Strength almost gave out, had to land on a crusty old whale, if you can believe that.”

  Cecil said nothing. I can, he thought.

  “My island’s still a ways off.” Shag flicked his beak in the direction of the starboard bow. “But I spied this ship just sitting here . . .” He stopped and seemed to notice the way Cecil was keeping his distance. “Say, I’m a cormorant, you know. We don’t eat things with legs, if that’s what’s worrying you.” He cocked his head. “You’re a cat who doesn’t know his avian classification?”

  “As far as I’m concerned,” said Cecil, “there are two types of birds: the ones I can eat and the ones who can eat me. Does a seagoing bird like you know much about cats? Have you seen a small gray cat lately?”

  The rain had stopped and the clouds thinned out to the west. “Nope, not lately,” said Shag, rebalancing himself on the railing and turning to face the weak sun. “But I’ve seen plenty of cats. When you come across cats on ships, you’ve got three categories. The first is pets and they’re pretty happy with their lot. Second, you’ve got your captives and they’re all miserable. And third are the questers, looking for some sort of adventure, or else they’re on a mission.” He surveyed Cecil with round eyes of brilliant blue, like the harbor at Lunenburg on a sunny day. “So which kind are you?”

  Cecil swallowed and looked away. “Questing, I’d say.”

  Shag nodded, then lowered his wings and glanced around the deck, which was strewn with pieces of mast and rigging.

  “You got a big problem here,” he observed.

  “They’re just about done fixing the mast,” Cecil said. “We’ll be on our way in no time.” He nodded sagely. Saying it made him feel more confident.

  Shag examined one of his talons. “Not in my experience, you won’t.”

  “Oh really?” Cecil asked dryly.

  Shag gestured with his wing at the broken mast. “From what I’ve seen, a busted mast like that doesn’t get fixed.” They both regarded the beheaded mast. “And ships with no sails don’t get anywhere.” He pointed to the sleeping sailor. “No food, no water. Your sailors will be skeletons soon. I’ve seen that happen.”

  Cecil’s ears twitched. Skeletons? He sat up straight and studied Shag, who continued.

  “You want my advice, you best get off this ship and I mean pronto,” Shag said, lowering his beak and looking fixedly back at Cecil.

  Get off the ship? A spark of panic lit inside Cecil for the first time. He had been assuming they’d get going eventually, but what if they stayed stuck? He was a cat, surrounded by miles and miles of ocean. If the ship didn’t move, he’d be a skeleton soon, too.

  Shag extended his wings again and beat them a few times to test them out. “Good to go.” He turned on the railing to face the sea. “Well, best of luck to you, Cecil.”

  “Hang on!” cried Cecil. “Can you . . . take me with you? Carry me, I mean?” It sounded crazy, even to Cecil, but he felt desperate.

  Shag turned back and looked at Cecil’s generous frame. “Don’t think we’d get far, would we?” His eyebrows fluttered in the breeze as he gazed out to the horizon. “Somebody’ll come along for you, I’m betting. Somebody smarter than a little old bird.” He looked sidelong at Cecil again, then sighed. “Here, I can leave you something to eat, at least.” He leaned his head forward and made a coughing sound in his throat, and out of his beak and onto the deck flopped two good-size fish.

  Cecil was astounded—this strange bird had been talking all this time with a couple of fish in his craw. “Thanks,” he said weakly.

  “So long,” said Shag. In one powerful motion he launched himself from the rail.

  Cecil watched him go, trying not to think about what th
e bird had said. The ocean looked endless and he felt lonelier than ever. With the ship drifting like a cork in a water barrel, he could see no means of escape, so he had to put the idea out of his mind for now.

  Besides, the fish, it turned out, were still quite fresh.

  Two days later, on a blazing hot morning, Cecil went belowdecks in search of a cooler resting spot, always mindful of staying quiet and out of sight. Food and water were running low, and even the mice had disappeared—he had spotted one actually jumping overboard yesterday, shrieking incoherently, an unsettling sight. The repairs on the mainmast were not yet complete, so the ship was still drifting aimlessly.

  At the sound of men clomping toward him from just beyond a corner, Cecil pushed past a slightly open door to his left into a small candlelit room. The room contained only a bed, a small desk, and a large, decrepit-looking sea chest on the floor. In the hallway the boots stomped nearer, along with the sound of arguing voices. Cecil slipped under the bed, the only place to hide, just as a man entered the room alone. The man shut the door, stepped to the chest, and, groaning with effort, lowered himself to his knees in front of it. Cecil piled all of his bulk into the farthest dark corner, trying to stay absolutely silent. He could see large rings on the man’s fingers and lace sleeves on his coat and knew it must be the captain.

  An uncomfortable quiet settled in the little room as Cecil held his breath, concentrating on not being discovered. He could only hear the raspy breathing of the captain and the small clicks of his rings as he placed his hands on the top of the chest. Finally Cecil breathed out slowly and crept forward to get a closer look. The chest was dented and scuffed on its painted surface. On the front face hung a large metal contraption with a loop on top threaded through a bolt, but the captain ignored that entirely and focused on the raised and decorated top. Cecil saw him trace the outline of a painted yellow fish with his finger, then turn his thumb down onto the fish and push. There was a sharp click inside the chest, and the hinged lid popped up and creaked softly as the captain lifted it.

  Cecil’s head thumped on the underside of the bed as he stretched his neck to see better, but the captain didn’t notice as he stuck his hand down into what looked like layers of silky cloth packed into the chest. Gently he pulled out a little red cloth bag and loosened the strings holding it closed. He poured a small object out of the bag into his hand and held it in front of his eyes. It was the size of an acorn but round like a ball, and even in the dim room Cecil could see it clearly because it glowed with a pale light. The captain stared at it with his mouth slightly open, a tiny white full moon between his fingers, and Cecil was transfixed as well.

  In the next moment, voices rose to shouting in the corridor and the captain dropped the stone into the bag and down into the chest, shutting the lid with a thud. Cecil skittered backward to avoid being seen. The captain struggled to his feet and whipped the door open, bellowing at the crew in the hall and waving his arms in agitation. Cecil shot out from under the bed and scrambled to the doorway, where the captain’s tall black boots blocked most of the way out. Cecil leaped from side to side as the captain stepped back and forth and shouted orders. Finally Cecil backed up, timed his jump, and lunged between the captain’s legs. He raced down the hall and up to the deck without looking back, the startled captain cursing him as he ran, which, he thought grimly, probably made a bad situation even worse.

  Early in the afternoon, Cecil sat just inside a tipped-over crate near the port rail and pondered the state of things. There was the mystery of the captain’s hidden stone, whatever it was, which gave Cecil an uncomfortable feeling as he had found that humans often fought over small, shiny objects. And what of the whale, whom he had not seen since the night of the storm? It had not returned either to rescue him or to finish the job of drowning him, and he didn’t know if it wished him well or ill. Cecil felt restless on this immobile ship in the middle of this endless ocean, and he’d never find Anton on a ship that didn’t move.

  As he sat in the crate sifting through his problems, Cecil noticed small wisps of steam begin to rise up through the air over the water, vanishing in the sunlight. Is it so hot that now the sea is boiling? wondered Cecil. He roused himself, standing and stretching his back legs one by one, then stepped to the railing. Indeed the water, which had been dead calm since the storm, was simmering with tiny bubbles under the surface. Cecil glanced around to see if the men had noticed, but most of them were below decks taking a midday meal, and they could not man the crow’s nest since the mast came down.

  The bubbling waves began to make a faint hissing sound, and the steaming wisps became more densely packed, making the air hazy and vaporous. That’s actually kind of pretty, Cecil thought, and quite a bit cooler too. One of the sailors awoke from a doze and looked around quizzically, then lumbered over to the below-decks door and called something down. Cecil doubled back and hopped up onto the crate for a better view. The haze steadily thickened, washing out the horizon line and muting the sunlight, and started to swirl, dancing in currents around the ship. Emerging from below decks, the captain and crew stood and stared. The haze condensed around the ship until it felt as if they were floating inside a cloud.

  Abruptly, the younger sailors burst into laughter and slapped one another on the back. They waved their hands in the moist air and ran their fingers through their hair. Giggling, some romped about and held their mouths open as if to drink the air in, and Cecil noticed that he could not even see to the far end of the deck now through the thick haze. He watched the playful sailors, but he also saw the faces of the older crew, which were guarded and, Cecil thought, fearful.

  Then an even stranger thing happened. The swirling mist developed long, thin tendrils that slipped through the air and began to wrap themselves around the arms and legs of the men, who pulled up short from their cavorting and glanced around nervously. Some of the men began backing away from the railings, watching the eddies with distrust, picking up their boots and trying to step gingerly out of the clouds. But the mist continued to thicken, and Cecil thought his eyes were playing tricks, for he imagined that he saw figures forming in the densest parts of the haze. The crew seemed to be having the same sorts of visions, whimpering softly and pointing at the empty air.

  “What’s this, then?” asked an older sailor, his voice high and thin. “Somebody there?”

  Another swatted at the mist that drifted around his neck like a scarf. “Somebodies, more like,” he grumbled, turning round and round.

  “Can’t be,” snorted one of the younger fellows. “Just fog, mates.” All the same he edged away from the fingers of murk reaching around his belly.

  Cecil crouched low on the crate as he observed the heightening tension among the men. Foggy swirls had infiltrated every part of the deck and there was no getting away from them now. The white air was clammy and teased Cecil’s nose and ears. He began to feel light-headed and thought he’d better move around a bit, but when he looked at the deck next to his crate he stopped short. There in the mist was a shape that very much resembled a large loaf of bread. His mouth watered at the thought. Well! Wouldn’t that be nice? But as he gazed at it, the loaf grew legs and changed into the figure of a cat. A cat! That would be less nice, though less lonely, thought Cecil.

  The mist cat was completely colorless. It stretched up with its front paws along the crate toward Cecil. He leaned over the top, trying to prepare an adequate greeting for something he wasn’t sure was really there, when the cat suddenly extended its misty claws and hissed violently at Cecil.

  “Oh, is that how it is?” Cecil said out loud, his voice surprisingly muted in the haze. He flattened his ears, bared his teeth, and took a long, hard swipe down the side of the crate with his paw, only to feel it pass right through the cat figure’s head with a wet breeze. He pulled back and the cat slid up to the top of the crate in a sinewy motion and sat hunched, eye to cloudy eye with Cecil.

  “Okay,” Cecil said, assessing the situation. “Crate’s all your
s!” he called out, and bounded off the other side.

  Plunging through the fog on deck, Cecil scampered through the door that led to the officers’ quarters. The air was clear down below, and as Cecil strolled aimlessly about he noticed that the door to the captain’s room stood ajar. He slipped in and leaped atop the chest. The whole surface was carved with pictures of fish, an entire school of them, and he was momentarily flustered. Which one was it? It was up in the corner, yes, but was it red or green or . . . ? Cecil could hear the crew crashing above, and he began frantically stepping on the fish with his paws, trying to push down just the way the captain had done. Press, press, press . . . was it the yellow one? Press, click! The chest popped open and flipped Cecil back onto the floor on his head. He quickly recovered to his feet, dashed around to the front, and pushed his nose through the opening. Snatching the little red bag with his teeth, he turned and bolted back up the stairs, a black streak with a prized possession.

  On deck, the mist still swirled about the sailors, wrapping them in its tendrils and whispering in their ears. The crazed crew ran around batting the misty swirls, picking up hooks, hammers, and buoys from the deck and throwing them at the haze, knocking about other crewmen in the turmoil. Cecil quickly hid his treasure in a coil of rope near the mainsail mast. Ducking the flying objects and staggering crewmen, he looked for the captain and found the poor man rooted to one spot, struggling for control of both himself and his crew.

  Holding his arms tightly around his chest, the captain jumped up onto a barrel and shouted, “ ’Tis but a fingerling mist I tell you! Stand still, men, or it will drive ye mad!”