Secrets at Sea Read online

  He dangled me. My hands scrabbled in thin air. My feet hung.

  “Hee, hee,” the Marquess said. “Hickory Dickory Dock!” He held me up for the valet to see. The wheelchair swerved.

  “Oh, my lord, I should let it go,” said the valet. “You don’t know where it’s been.”

  Then the Marquess sneezed again, or this story would have taken a different turn. The corridor was drafty. He reached for his handkerchief. I dropped through space. I bounced off his knee, turned once in the air, and lit running. I ran for my life, on all fours and tail high. Wherever I was, I needed to be somewhere else.

  I ran down one passageway after another, up decks and down. I was like a . . . rat in a maze. I ran toward music, an orchestra playing a ragtime tune. I swerved another way and heard the sound of pool cue against ball. I ran where humans were, beneath their very feet. A lady switched her skirts aside. “Eeeek,” she said. A walking stick swatted very near my throbbing tail. A polished shoe stamped. I bounded off of bulkheads. I raced through a fanning door, and skidded on open deck. I drew up by a coil of rope, very near the end of mine.

  Damp wind cut my eyes. I huddled, shaking in my fur. There beyond the railing tossed the endless black and unforgiving sea. Water, water, everywhere. Above in the night the sparks from the funnels spiraled upward to join the firmament of stars. A terrible and lonesome beauty, and I was far from the tufted jewelry box of my bed.

  I allowed myself a single whimper, but only one. The sea air whistled through my mind. My tail throbbed. My head rang. My hands wrung. Still, I pulled myself together, there in the shadow of the coiled rope.

  In the next moment or the moment after that, I knew I wasn’t alone. The sea made a swishing sound, but there was this other sound too. Nearer, much nearer.

  My ears rose to perfect points. It was the sound of claws digging into rope, climbing. A nearly silent scraping, but there’s nothing wrong with our hearing. I froze. Then above me a dark shadow loomed over the coiling rope, against the starry sky.

  I dared look up at the awful outline of two ragged ears. Then—oh, the horror—a single burning eye, a sickening yellow. It was the ship’s cat, one-eyed thanks to Nigel. And kill-crazy, as cats are.

  I was numb, naturally, but alert. Another scrabble as the ship’s cat gathered his back paws for a sudden leap. I sensed his hindquarters swaying in anticipation, his tail coiling like the rope. He was fixing to pounce.

  Oh, the horror—a single burning eye, a sickening yellow.

  And there I was just below, with nothing between us but thin night air.

  A horrid hiss arched above me from the airborne one-eyed cat. His claws would be stretched wide, his fangs winking by starlight.

  I went blind and deaf for an instant. In my mind’s eye flashed an awful scene from out of the past. I saw the corncob Papa had been working on when the barn cat pounced, all that time ago.

  Then I was traveling as the ship’s cat dropped with a thump upon the deck where I’d just been. The deck was slick, but I am quick.

  I had to get back inside the ship. Otherwise I could be chased off this pitching deck and into the fathomless sea. The cat lost a moment, wondering where I went. A door fanned, and I made for it, swerving. Trying to stay on the blind side of a one-eyed cat is uphill work. I shot through the door into the ship, hoping it would swing shut in that feline face—slam him one, right on the nose.

  But luck was not with me. He was through that door and on my tail. Now I ran at random. My feet went faster than my thoughts. I might have been headed anywhere, even onto the ballroom floor beneath the heedless feet of all those milling humans.

  Instead, I seemed to skim over the carpet of a corridor. It was a deck nearly as grand as the Princess’s Royal Suite. Maids bustled from door to door, carrying bed linens. I fled too fast to be seen. But they couldn’t miss the snarling cat. With any luck, a maid would fetch him a good swift kick in the other direction.

  It wasn’t to be. I picked the first closed door, and was under it in a furry flash. Without a second to spare. If cats could get under doors, there’d be fewer mice. Far fewer. Hisses issued from the corridor side. Claws scratched at the doorsill. I seemed to feel hot cat breath even through the solid door. His chattering jaws rattled in my head. I sagged there, gathering myself.

  The cabin before me was shrouded and dim. But darkness is nothing to a mouse. Another door was cut into one of the walls, so this must be part of a suite, possibly a grand one. Starlight showed through a porthole. Beneath it was a bed, a small one. I crept my way there and jumped up on it, with just enough spring left to lift me. Maybe I thought I’d be safer there, this far from the hissing door. I wasn’t.

  All manner of strange shapes littered the bed. Before I could make sense of them, light flooded. A hand had switched on the electrified lamp.

  Somebody was in the bed. I liked to have fainted.

  I froze of course, one hand drawn up, my eyes staring.

  Two eyes stared back, small blue ones above enormous pink cheeks. It was that boy from the lifeboat drill. Lord . . . Sandown, the future Earl of Clovelly. Five years old and possibly a handful. He may have sensed me leaping onto the foot of his bed. I didn’t have Louise’s light way of bounding up on humans’ beds. I didn’t have the practice.

  We stared at each other, up and down the rumpled blanket. It was littered with his toys. The rubber ball. A drum with sticks. A nutcracker in the shape of a foreign soldier. A cast-iron royal coach with four horses. Boys live in this kind of clutter. I was reminded of Lamont’s bedroom. The collar buttons, the birds’ bones, the ball of twine. The mess.

  Another hiss came from beyond the door. I nearly lost hope then. I’d spent the whole of my life keeping my distance from cats and humans. Now look at me.

  Little Lord Sandown peered down his bed, blinking and interested. His round head was a mass of golden curls. He stuck a pudgy finger into one of his cheeks.

  “I say,” he said. “Are you real or a toy? Do you wind up? Where is your key?”

  My key? Oh for heaven’s sake. Still, I was the only living thing on this bed. Everything else was a toy. I couldn’t think what to do. Then I rose up and turned slowly around, doing something graceful with my tail, until we were eye to eye again. And he could plainly see there was no key sticking out of my back. The idea.

  I thought he might give me a good swat when he saw I was a true mouse. You know how humans are. But his finger was still in his cheek, and his other hand clutched the sheet. On his snowy nightshirt was a small crest, worked in gold thread. I awaited my fate. I was too tired to run. Too discouraged.

  “Oh, you’re real.” He shot a sideways glance to one of the doors. Not the hissing door. The other one. “Would you like to play with my toys?” He was whispering, but of course it was past his bedtime.

  I blinked at him. He had better manners than you’d expect, but how could I play with his toys? The ball was ten times my size. I could hardly lift one of those drumsticks. And the teeth on that soldier-shaped nutcracker were terrifying.

  What would Louise do? She had the background for this sort of thing. I just shrugged my shoulders, though I don’t really have any.

  Little Lord Sandown thought and thought. You could nearly hear his brain turning over. I saw he was lonely. A lonely little human boy who needed company.

  He leaned nearer and peered at me through the two blanketed mounds of his pudgy legs. “Are you hungry?” he muttered. “Could you eat a little something?”

  Suddenly, I was starved. I certainly hadn’t had a bite to eat at the Princess’s reception. I’d either been on somebody’s train or in somebody’s pocket or being hurled through the air. I was so hungry I could eat a horsefly.

  I had never communicated with a human in my life. But now I nodded. It did not come naturally to me, but I saw how Louise did it.

  “Well, then,” said Little Lord Sandown, diving under his covers. “Sweets?” he said from under them. “Licorice all-sorts?”

/>   His head reappeared. His golden curls were tousled now. He held up a somewhat furry morsel of blackest licorice. Which I’ve always hated.

  I shook my head.

  “No?” he said. “Well then. . . .” He popped it into his own mouth and vanished under the covers again. “Biscuit?” He reappeared with a pale cookie. “Scottish shortbread?”

  That was more like it. I nodded prettily and tucked my chin, though I don’t really have—

  “There are chocolate creme sandwiches too and a bit of fruitcake,” His Lordship reported, “and most of a jam tart.”

  No wonder he was almost perfectly round. He slid the shortbread down the bed to me. In mouse terms it was the size of a bath mat. But as I say, I was starved. I tried to pick it up, but it was just that much too big.

  Instead, I reared back, sat upright and made one hop, like a flea, onto the shortbread. It broke in half. Little Lord Sandown watched with interest as I picked up a shortbread half and began to nibble its edges. I have a dainty way of nibbling, and it was absolutely delicious. So buttery. His Lordship was fascinated. He nearly forgot to cram first one and then two chocolate creme sandwiches into his mouth.

  I began to see how he thought. And in fact he was thinking about the jam tart. How at ease I was with a human! I wouldn’t have dreamed it. I suppose it is best to start with their children, who have open minds.

  But it was all too good to last. With a terrible suddenness, everything happened at once.

  After only a quick clatter of keys, the door to the corridor flew open. A maid barged in, bearing a pile of fresh towels. I nearly jumped out of my fur. Two shortbread crumbs went down the wrong way. But worse was to come. Far worse.

  From around the maid’s aproned skirts there appeared a single cat’s eye, a sickening yellow. That dastardly cat had lurked in the shadows by the door. Now his patience was rewarded. He lunged, upending the maid. Her feet went out from under her, and the air was full of unfolding towels. The cat was in the room, breathing hard and snarling. Patchy fur stood tall down his curving spine. The maid sprawled on her back, screaming.

  The cat was making for the bed. I went the only place I could think to go.

  Little Lord Sandown looked up with interest at the screaming, snarling room. He’d been licking the crumbs of a chocolate creme sandwich off his fingers when the one-eyed, kill-crazy cat made a run for the bed.

  It was a nightmare. But by then I was inside the miniature cast-iron royal coach. It was a close fit, but I was entirely inside it except for my tail. I peered out like a furry gray Queen Victoria.

  The ship’s cat was in the air, then on the bed, digging in. His fangs dripped. He knew where I was, just past His Lordship’s right foot, in my carriage, there behind the four cast-iron horses.

  The ghastly cat’s hackles grew higher as he meant to pounce and claw me out. But Lord Sandown merely took up the soldier-shaped nutcracker and brought it down squarely between the ragged ears. The cat keeled.

  “Bad kitty,” said His Lordship.

  BUT THIS WAS only the beginning.

  The other door flew open, and in strode Lord Sandown’s prune-faced nanny. She loomed into the room in a starchy nightdress, and her sparse hair was tied up in rags. In her grip was a hairbrush I didn’t like the look of.

  “Bad kitty,” said His Lordship.

  The maid was up in a crouch now, gathering the bath towels, making her quick escape and banging the door behind her.

  “What is the meaning of this dreadful din?” barked the nanny in a fearful voice.

  I had worked my way out of the royal coach from a window on the far side. Now I was under the blanket, but I could hear everything from here. The nanny clumped closer.

  “Why is your light on, young Sebastian? Why are you not fast asleep, you wretched child?”

  Only small sounds came from Lord Sandown—Sebastian. He was shrinking lower in the bed. I remembered the hairbrush and seemed to know she’d used it on him before. He whimpered.

  “Not to mention the presence of a dead cat in your bed,” said the nanny, very disapproving.

  Dead? The cat? I was so encouraged by this news I peered out from under the blanket.

  The nanny was just picking up the ship’s cat by its tail. He had a ringed tail, absolutely hideous. She held him high with his forepaws dangling, like a lady’s fur piece in terrible taste. But almost at once he hissed slightly, so he wasn’t dead at all.

  Holding him high, the nanny carried him to the door and pitched him into the corridor. He hit the far wall, snarled all the way down to the carpet, and shot away.

  I only hoped he’d learned his lesson about chasing mice, or at least me. But you can’t knock sense into a cat. People think cats are wise and have deep thoughts. They don’t. But they do have nine lives, which is too bad.

  As the nanny turned back to us, I slipped back under the blanket, and for good measure, the sheet. I crept along down there beside Sebastian’s round body, and walked directly into a cupcake. It was disgusting. My whole head went in. I was plastered with icing and covered with crumbs. I stumbled backward, tripping on my tail, and sat suddenly on a chocolate-covered cherry. This bed was like a bakery shop and a candy store. And of course everything sticky. Including me, from stem to stern.

  Now above me the nanny was discovering that Sebastian’s teeth were coal-black from that licorice.

  “EATING?” she boomed. “After you’ve BRUSHED YOUR TEETH? Stuffing your awful pudding face when you ought to be FAST ASLEEP?”

  Oh she was fierce, and so rude.

  In two seconds she’d be stripping the bed. She’d be looking for Sebastian’s secret supply of treats, and guess who she’d find?

  Besides, she was itching to use that hairbrush on His Lordship’s backside. She hadn’t brought it along to brush his tousled curls.

  As I tried to plan my next move, the nanny made hers. She dragged Lord Sebastian out of the bed by one of his ears. And this pulled both blanket and sheet halfway off the bed and me.

  There I stood just where the blanket stopped, completely iced in pink frosting. Just like the cupcake beside me. You couldn’t tell us apart. And of course the caved-in chocolate-covered cherry, at least half a dozen Scottish short-breads, a generous slice of fruitcake, and that jam tart. There was everything in this bed but a three-layer cake with candles.

  Lord Sandown hung from the nanny’s grip by an ear, whimpering. Her mean eyes widened. This quick glimpse of Sebastian’s secret sweet shop was all she needed. I don’t think she saw me. I was pink all over and could easily pass as a pastry.

  “No, please, Nanny Pratt!” Sebastian cried.

  The raised hairbrush threw a shadow on the wall. “Please, not the hairbrush!”

  My heart was in my mouth. But then the door to the corridor opened. There stood a lady. A tall and stately human. Diamonds wound round and round her swan-like neck. Her evening gown was shimmering midnight blue, draped.

  This lady saw the shadow of the hairbrush upon the wall and gasped. Her eyes snapped.

  “Mummy!” shrieked little Lord Sebastian, twisting in Nanny Pratt’s gnarled hand.

  Mummy. So this would be the Countess of Clovelly. I went to work at once.

  “Nanny Pratt!” Sebastian’s mother said. “What is the meaning of this?”

  The hairbrush fell to the floor. Sebastian followed. Nanny Pratt had turned him loose, a moment too late. Her hands, now free, worked before her. I suppose they did. I was too busy to notice.

  “Come to Mummy,” cried the Countess of Clovelly. She dropped to one shimmering knee, and Little Lord Sandown raced into her arms. They clung.

  Then the Countess of Clovelly said to Nanny Pratt, “How dare you raise a hand—a weapon—to this defenseless child! Explain yourself at once, woman.”

  Woman!

  Nanny Pratt gibbered.

  “I am waiting,” said the Countess in quite a worrying voice.

  “I acted only for his own good, my lady, in my usual way,�
�� Nanny Pratt said in a wobbly voice. “He stuffs himself with unwholesome treats that he hides in his bed. He is sly, my lady, and greedy and must be corrected. And all the foodstuffs in his bed are apt to attract vermin. Vermin, my lady.”

  Vermin indeed.

  The Countess rose slowly. She took clinging Sebastian by the hand.

  “Show me these unwholesome treats he hides in his bed, Nanny Pratt,” she said grandly. She wasn’t a countess for nothing. She advanced upon the bed, and Nanny Pratt stood aside to show her the evidence.

  The Countess looked far down her perfect nose upon the rumpled bed. Sebastian looked too. “I see a great many things in this bed,” the Countess remarked. “A drum with sticks. A coach and four. An India rubber ball, and a nutcracker. Nothing remotely edible.”

  “But, my lady.” Nanny Pratt looked again at the bed. There wasn’t a crumb on it. Not a Scottish shortbread or jam tart or fruitcake slice. The cupcake was missing, along with the chocolate-covered cherry. I had stuffed them all down the space between the bed and the wall in two of the busiest minutes of my life. I was at that moment enjoying a much-needed rest, under the top sheet.

  After a moment of heavy silence, the Countess of Clovelly spoke. “Pratt, you may withdraw. And once this ship has docked, your services will no longer be required.”

  “But, my lady—”

  “Pack your traps, Pratt,” said Her Ladyship, “and be gone.”

  I SLIPPED AWAY later, after I’d rubbed the worst of the pink frosting out of my fur. Honestly, I stuck to everything. Then once things had finally settled down and the light was out and little Lord Sebastian was asleep, I stole away. He slept very peacefully without that hairbrush hanging over his head. He had thrown one pudgy hand back upon his pillow. In his other was the nutcracker soldier.

  I had taken a long way home indeed from the Princess’s reception and the Marquess’s pocket. But it had not been a bad night’s work. A wicked nanny had been dispatched, thanks to my quick thinking and even quicker work. I believe in giving credit where credit is due, and I was due some.