The Book of Story Beginnings

by Kladstrup, Kristin

  “I don’t see how. You didn’t make him change everyone into cats.”

  “But he’s a good King, sir!” said Tom. “He never meant any harm.”

  “Never meant any harm? How many lives has he ruined? Yours, mine . . .”

  “Yours, sir?” Tom cocked his head curiously.

  “Yes, mine! He changed me into a cat years and years ago. I think anyone who steals a boy’s life from him like that ought to pay for it,” said Oscar. Even if he is just a character in a story, he said to himself.

  Tom’s eyes widened. “Why, I know who you are now! You’re that boy he changed into a gray tabby some time back, ain’t you! How is it that you are yourself again? You’re sure you ain’t a sorcerer?”

  “Very sure,” Oscar said firmly. And then, as he had promised, he told Tom his own story. He told him about escaping, about finding Lucy and getting changed back into himself by the potion. He left out the part about The Book of Story Beginnings, for he wondered how Tom would react to finding out that he was just a character in a story, or to finding out that Oscar was responsible for his existence.

  He went on to explain about Lucy’s father and how he had used the potion to change himself into a bird. Tom’s eyes flashed. “Then it’s the Lady Lucy’s father that’s the sorcerer!”

  “I suppose so,” said Oscar. “But it’s not what you think!” he added when he saw the look on Tom’s face. “I’m sure he doesn’t want to punish the King.”

  Tom looked unconvinced.

  “Lucy’s father couldn’t possibly punish anyone because he’s a crow. And he’s locked up at the Queen’s palace,” said Oscar. “I’m sure if he wanted to punish anyone, it would be me, for changing Lucy into a bird.”

  “Oh, sir! That is a terrible thing. And if you’ll take my advice, you’d better find the Lady Lucy right away. There are thousands of cats on the island.”

  “Thanks for reminding me!”

  “Like as not she’ll be captured and taken to the Queen,” said Tom. “There’s folks all over the island on the lookout for birds. The Queen pays good money for ’em.”

  “Then the palace may be the best place to look for Lucy,” Oscar said. “How far is it from here? How do I get there?”

  “I’d say a half day’s walkin’. If you like, I could take you.”

  “Oh, that’s good of you, Tom!”

  “Still some time left tonight,” said Tom. “We ought to leave now, while the King sleeps.”

  “Do you think the King would try to stop us?”

  “The King’d stop me, if he knew what I was about,” said Tom. “And I expect he’d stop you — even if you was to go by yourself. His Majesty’s starved for company. I could tell he liked talkin’ with you, sir, even if he don’t trust you. If he knew you was leavin’ — and if he knew I was helpin’ you — he’d be none too pleased, and that’s puttin’ it mildly.”

  “Let’s go, then,” Oscar whispered.

  “Very good, sir.” Tom crossed the room. “The door’s been locked by magic, of course,” he said, tugging on the knob. “But we ought to be able to take care of that. The King never learned nothin’ but the most simple of spells. Which is to say that just about any old spell can undo one of his. What a locked door needs, sir, is a magic key.”

  To Oscar’s surprise, Tom held not a key in his hand, but the bottle of potion.

  “Where did you get that?” Oscar hadn’t even noticed him taking it.

  “Cats are quick and clever,” said Tom.

  “I’ll take the potion,” said Oscar after Tom had changed a pebble from the floor into a key.

  Tom was putting the stopper back in the bottle. “I’ll keep it safe for you,” he said.

  “No, Tom! Give it back.” Oscar held out his hand.

  Tom looked wounded. “Don’t you trust me?”

  “I’ll need it when I find Lucy,” said Oscar.

  But when he reached for the potion, Tom skipped sideways. The wounded look vanished and Tom grinned. “I told you cats was quick and clever,” he said as he dropped the potion into his pocket.

  “Give it to me, Tom!” Oscar insisted.

  But Tom was already turning the key, pushing the cottage door open. He peered about the clearing, sniffing at the air. And Oscar had no choice but to follow him.

  They hadn’t gone far into the forest when Oscar heard rustling noises. “What’s that?” he asked.

  “Cats. I told ’em to follow us.”

  “How did you tell them anything?” Oscar said in surprise.

  “Oh, I told ’em all right. Never you mind how. The thing is, they think of me as their leader. Cats ain’t exactly anxious to have a leader, but I must say I’ve managed pretty well.”

  “But why do you want them to follow us?”

  “Don’t you bother yourself about that,” Tom said. “And now, if you don’t mind, I think we should make haste. There’s only an hour or so of dark left, and there’s a cave I know where we can rest come daybreak. We’ll all be tired then.”

  Stepping after Tom, Oscar wondered if he had misjudged the King’s familiar. Tom had seemed so — simple was the word that came to mind. All yes, sirs and no, sirs. And yet Tom was leading an army of cats through the forest. Why would he want to take so many cats to a palace full of birds? What was he up to? Oscar was beginning to suspect that Tom wasn’t half the simple fellow he had made him out to be.

  By morning, Oscar was quite sure that Tom was not a simple fellow at all. By evening, he was even more sure. And by the morning of the next day, he would have said that of all the words he could think of to describe Tom, the best one seemed to be calculating.

  For one thing, Tom had a plan. Not a plan to rescue Lucy and her father — Oscar soon realized that Tom cared very little about that. No, as Oscar discovered, Tom’s plan was more far-reaching. His intention in visiting the palace, as he had explained to Oscar, fell nothing short of ending the hostilities between the King and Queen.

  Of course, Tom hadn’t put it quite like that. “My aim is to patch things up between the pair of ’em,” he had told Oscar. “Make the Queen see things from His Majesty’s point of view. Sort of a matter of diplomacy, if you catch my meanin’.” Tom seemed to put great faith in diplomacy. “Diplomacy can join the hands of snakes — that’s what they say,” he had remarked. “And snakes ain’t got hands, of course, so you can see how useful a thing it is.”

  Upon first hearing Tom’s plan, Oscar had been rather pleased. He felt a prickle of intellectual satisfaction at the prospect of his story beginning about the King and Queen coming to a happy end. What an intriguing twist for Tom to play such an important role in the plot.

  Over the course of the next day and night, however, Oscar had begun to have some misgivings.

  After leaving the King’s village in the night, Tom had led Oscar and all the cats through the jungle to a large cave. They had stayed hidden there all day while Tom proceeded to implement his plan.

  To begin with, he had used the bottle of potion. “We mustn’t waste it,” Oscar had protested. But Tom had pushed him away, and Oscar had found himself trapped suddenly near one side of the cave, surrounded by cats, while Tom had gone right ahead and changed a dozen cats into men and women. He called them his captains.

  “Who knows whether the Queen’ll listen to reason?” he had explained. “The captains’ll help me if I have to force her hand. Besides, I may need help keepin’ all the cats in line.”

  Before Oscar could ask what he meant by force her hand, Tom had begun to explain his plan to his captains. Oscar had tried to listen at first. But he had fallen fast asleep on the floor of the cave, waking only when one of Tom’s captains shook his shoulder and said, “Come on! Up with you! The General says we’ve got to move.”

  The General was Tom, and from that moment on, Oscar had not been able to get close enough to say a single word to the King’s familiar. Emerging from the cave, Oscar had found that it was once again dark outside, and he had found himsel
f surrounded on all sides by cats who restricted his movements to a kind of forced march through the jungle. They had marched until dawn, when at last Oscar had stumbled out of the trees and into a town. Bleary-eyed and ravenously hungry, Oscar had marched up to the Queen’s palace, where Tom and his captains and his army of cats had pushed their way through the outer gates.

  Now they were in the throne room, and there stood Tom, and there, facing him, stood the Queen. Tom’s captains stood at attention all around the throne room; the cats sat clustered around them like soldiers. The birds were shrieking in their cages.

  “Just who do you think you are?” said the Queen. “Remove these cats at once!”

  Tom bowed, his greasy hair flopping forward. “Permit me to introduce myself, Your Majesty. I am Tom, humble servant of His Most Royal Majesty, King Bertram.”

  Somewhere in the room, a clucking noise began and ended abruptly. The Queen went pale.

  “What brings me here is a mission of diplomacy,” said Tom.

  “Diplomacy!” said the Queen, her expression darkening.

  There were more clucking noises. It sounded like a fox raiding a chicken house, thought Oscar. He had hoped to ask the Queen about Lucy and her father, but he could see that he wasn’t going to get a chance any time soon. If Tom really wanted to patch things up between the King and Queen, as he had said, he wasn’t starting off very well.

  “His Majesty says he’s willin’ to let bygones be bygones,” said Tom. “Only thing is, he’d like an apology.”

  “An apology! An apology for what?”

  “Well,” said Tom, “for throwin’ him out of his own home, for one thing.”

  “I never threw him out!”

  “You told him to get out or you’d see that his familiar was drowned, Your Majesty. Those was your exact words.”

  “And so it ought to have been drowned! That vicious beast ate my canary.”

  Tom scowled. “It ain’t the King’s fault that I ate — I mean, that his cat ate that canary. Cats eat birds. That’s what they do.”

  “I see!” said the Queen. “And is that supposed to explain why the King has seen fit to change everyone in the kingdom into a cat? So they can eat my birds?”

  “No.”

  “He wants me to apologize to him, does he? I never heard anything so preposterous in my life!”

  “So you won’t say you’re sorry?”

  “I won’t say any such thing,” said the Queen. “I’m not sorry and I haven’t done anything wrong. I command you to leave!”

  “I ain’t leavin’,” said Tom. “And if you look around the room, you’ll see my captains standin’ at attention. You can see my troops, ready to follow orders.”

  “What captains? What troops? What orders?” said the Queen.

  “People is the captains. Cats is the troops, Your Majesty. And their orders is to attack your birds on my signal.”

  Oscar gave a start. Did Tom really mean what he said?

  “You wouldn’t dare attack my birds!” said the Queen.

  “I would dare! On His Majesty’s orders.”

  Liar, thought Oscar. The King hadn’t given Tom any orders at all.

  “Say you’re sorry, or I’ll give my signal,” said Tom.

  “Tom!” said Oscar. “What about Lucy? What about her father? They could be somewhere in this room!”

  But Tom’s attention was locked on the Queen. “Go on! Say you’re sorry,” he said.

  “Never!” said the Queen.

  Tom shook his head. “You give me no choice, Your Majesty.”

  Oscar grabbed Tom’s arm. “Didn’t you hear what I said? Lucy and her father may be here!”

  Tom shook him off. “Diplomacy has got to be backed up by action,” he said, raising his arm in the air. “Last chance, Your Majesty!”

  “Get out of my palace!”

  “No, Tom!” Oscar shouted. But Tom’s arm came down, a signal that was accompanied by an uncanny yowl from his throat. The yowl was answered by others throughout the room. Oscar heard the sound of metal grating on metal, of hinges screeching and cage doors clanking open. He saw one of Tom’s captains throw open a cage full of tiny wrens. Cats poured into the cage as the birds swarmed out. The Queen screamed.

  In less than a minute, it was as if the throne room had been hit by a hurricane of fur and feathers. Oscar was surrounded on all sides by thick curtains of cats, their outstretched bodies slicing like swords through clouds of birds whirling by so fast they looked like streaks of colored chalk. All around his feet there was a horrible mess of cats chasing skittering birds across the floor, of birds defending themselves with their beaks and their talons.

  Some of the birds were flying too high for the cats to reach. They flapped their wings, circling around and around the vast throne room until they grew tired. Then they swooped down low, looking for a place to rest. But there was no rest, for as soon as a bird landed — on a chair, on a table, on top of a cage — a dozen cats leaped up to pull it down into the fray.

  Birds kept flying in Oscar’s face. One even tried to land on his head, and he ducked down, covering himself until he realized that the bird might have been Lucy. He stood up, intersecting the arc of an attacking cat. Claws raked down his arm. “Lucy!” he shouted. “Lucy!”

  It was no good. He would never find her now. Nevertheless, his eyes peered through the maelstrom of birds. And it was then that Oscar noticed the windows. It was then that he had an idea. The birds flying around the room didn’t stand a chance unless they could escape. And the only way that could happen was if he opened a window.

  He tried to run toward the windows, but it was really more like stumbling. Once he stepped on something soft that screamed. Once he stepped on something soft that didn’t make a sound at all, and that was almost worse. Once he fell, coming face to face with a calico cat that had a robin hanging from its jaws.

  When he reached the windows at last, he saw that they were made of large panes of glass that stretched toward the ceiling like cats’ paws. The window sills were level with his head. To his dismay, Oscar found that the windows would not open.

  All right then! He would break one of them.

  Oscar looked around. There was an empty birdcage sitting on a marble table nearby. It was one of the smaller cages in the throne room, but it was large enough — about the size of the parlor stove back home. He slid the cage to the edge of the table without any trouble. Then, as he attempted to lift it into his arms, it smashed to the floor, barely missing the tail of an orange tabby.

  It was too heavy! But it couldn’t be; he wouldn’t let it be too heavy. Oscar pulled the cage up in the air — up to his chest. He pushed it up over his shoulders and heaved it. The cage crashed against the glass and fell backward. Oscar leaped away just in time to avoid being crushed. Glass fell in a downpour as air rushed into the throne room.

  But the birds didn’t take any notice. The opening was large enough, but it was only one opening in an enormous room. He would have to break more windows.

  He hurled the cage again and again and again, until at last he couldn’t lift it anymore. And still the birds ignored the broken windows. They’re too dumb to know what windows are, thought Oscar. They’re too dumb, and Lucy will die, and it will be my fault!

  Then he saw that a flock of sparrows had discovered the broken windows. They hopped along the window ledges, chattering excitedly before disappearing into the sky outdoors. A flock of starlings caught on next, then a crowd of grackles that paused to scold the cats below. Soon more and more birds were escaping, and at last, Oscar could see about him.

  He surveyed the remains of the battle. The carnage, he thought. That was the only word to describe the scene. Everywhere he looked, there seemed to be a cat with a bird dripping out of its mouth. Or a cat patting and pawing at a twitching lump of feathers. Or a cat with a glazed, sated expression on its face. Everywhere he looked, there were feathers, swirling woefully in the air.

  The room was filled with so
ft, dreadful noises. Oscar could hear cats gnawing on fresh bird, cats licking their chops, cats hissing at each other as they fought over their captured prizes. From far away, he could hear the sound of crying.

  Lucy and her father must have gotten away, he thought. It was what he wanted to believe with all his heart.

  A feeling of great security blanketed Lucy from all the many distractions in the throne room. That, and a feeling rather like smugness. As much as a bird could feel proud, she was proud of herself for having found a place of refuge. She had been the first to land there. Other birds — sparrows, finches, and a plucky cardinal — had soon followed, trying to escape the mayhem below, but they had all been nervous types, too fidgety to stay in one place for long, even a place as safe as the ledge above the main doorway of the throne room.

  Fortunately Lucy was a bird who preferred ledges. She belonged on a ledge, or so she felt as she settled in. She was almost all pigeon now. From the moment the cats had entered the throne room, she had quite forgotten she was human.

  Now, as she cooed very softly to herself, it occurred to her that it was growing more quiet. Of course, she didn’t have a word like quiet at her disposal. She sensed only that there were fewer birds about. The ones that were dead she had forgotten, as if they had never existed. The ones that had flown out the windows she had forgotten as well. She did remember the windows breaking. She remembered the crash of glass and metal, and dreaded hearing it again.

  Her eyes were drawn to a woman sitting in a heap near the windows. Broken glass glinted on the floor around her. The woman’s head was buried in her hands, and Lucy could see her shoulders heaving as she made strange wheezing noises. Crying, thought Lucy, and the word surprised her.

  Just then, a boy appeared from behind a group of empty birdcages. Lucy stirred uneasily. She recognized him; he was the window-breaking boy.

  “Excuse me, ma’am,” said the boy to the woman.

  Polite, thought Lucy, and then the word flitted from her mind like a butterfly as she realized that she could understand what the boy was saying.