Cats Aloft

by Lisa Martin

  Anton nodded weakly. Maybe Cecil would come back, too. He would have to hope.

  Ruby glanced once more at the balloons, now small in the distance, and tipped her head toward Anton. “In the meantime, come with me. There may be someone we can rescue, right this minute.”

  Chapter 8

  Cecil Aloft

  A great chuffing sound awoke Cecil. He blinked blearily, trying to remember where he was. It was dark and chilly, and he felt oddly light-headed. As he got to his paws he realized he was confined in a small space—some kind of box or basket, he guessed, given the tiny bands of light filtering in. He rose up on his back legs and bumped his head against the top to push it open, but it didn’t budge. Then he began to remember. The field near the balloons with Anton and Ruby. The shed, the baskets, the sleepiness.

  I must still be in the basket, Cecil thought. Why can’t I get out? And where is Anton now? He pressed his face against the wicker slats and peered out. He could see a very small room with a few boxes and bags and one pair of human legs in it. Who’s this? He couldn’t see the top of the human, but Cecil could hear him humming to himself. It was odd that he could see shadows on the floor and felt a chill in the little room. He squirmed in the basket, trying to get a better view.

  “Ah!” said the man through the slats of the container. “You’re awake. Quiet, though. Not a barker or a whiner, are you? Good. How about some water before we land?” He opened a bag and brought out a bowl, which he filled with water from a bottle and set on the floor. “We’ll freshen you up for the sale.” The man chuckled to himself—a grating, tittering sound—as he stepped up to the basket, bumping it with the toe of his boot.

  Cecil heard the man fiddling with the latch of his prison cell and readied his back legs. The basket lid cracked open a few inches and Cecil could see the man’s eyes peering into the dark interior.

  “Hold on a second,” said the man, frowning, “you sure don’t look—”

  Cecil sprang upward, driving his head and forelegs through the opening. The lid snapped from the man’s hand and he yelped in surprise and stumbled back. Cecil surged out of the basket, landing on the rough planked floor, and dashed to the far side of the tiny room. There were very few places to hide, but he squeezed between two canvas bags and turned quickly to see if the man was pursuing him. The man sat where he’d fallen on the floor and stared after Cecil, his mouth hanging open.

  “What in blazes . . . ?” he spluttered. The man’s face turned a shade of crimson and he slapped his palm to his forehead. “You’re no puppy—you’re a cat! Oh, when I get my hands on that Roscoe . . . !”

  Cecil crouched behind the bags as the man struggled to his feet. He took two steps and lunged for Cecil, who sprang away with a yowl. The gondola bounced and tilted as man and cat circled, and the ropes holding the balloon in place groaned with the strain. After two trips darting from corner to corner, Cecil ended up behind the bags again and the man stopped, his hands on his hips, breathing heavily. Cecil watched him talk to himself for a moment. The man was wearing a green cap, so he must be the thief they’d been looking for, but where were Anton and Ruby?

  Then Cecil looked up, and his heart leaped. A balloon!

  The gigantic green balloon towered over them in the cloudy blue sky, tilting and billowing in the wind. The gondola, which Cecil finally understood they were riding in, pitched and swung as the ropes connecting it creaked like the timbers on a ship. I’ve got to see this! he thought, abandoning all caution. He darted out from behind the bags to the top of a crate.

  Clinging tightly with his claws, Cecil leaned out to take in a view more astounding than he had ever imagined. The Furs Wheel had lifted Anton and him to commanding heights, but this was much higher than that. So this is what birds see, Cecil thought. I’m actually flying! He blinked a few times to clear his dizzy head and gazed down at the wide spaces inhabited by tiny buildings and the curves of narrow blue rivers winding through the fields. Train tracks ran in dark stripes across the land, and away to the right lay a vast body of water, glinting in the sunlight, miniature ships moving slowly over the surface. That must be the lake we saw from the Fair—it’s gigantic!

  Cecil turned and saw the yellow balloon at about the same height but far away, and he wondered briefly where it was going. The ride was so quiet—unlike the blustery, chuffing trains—that Cecil could hear the voices of people on the ground and dogs barking. Some of the people looked up at the passing balloon and waved their arms. Why did humans like to do that so often? But he had little time to enjoy the view as, just behind him, the man in the green cap began talking at him again.

  “I don’t know how you got into that basket, cat.” The man huffed, adjusting his cap and straightening his coat. “I ought to just throw you overboard.” He glowered at Cecil, who watched the man from over his shoulder. “I will, too, if need be. Don’t think I won’t.” The man continued grumbling as he surveyed the landscape over one rail of the gondola, then shook his head. “And now we’re off course, thanks to you!” He grabbed the dangling ropes attached to the great balloon, tugging on some and looping others around metal hooks sticking up from the floor.

  Cecil watched from his high post as the man worked to bring the balloon under control. The man yanked hard on a slim rope dangling from inside the balloon, and Cecil heard a sharp hissing sound.

  “Uh-oh,” muttered the man.

  As he surveyed the ground again, Cecil saw the fields and rivers below getting nearer. Where will we land? he thought, suddenly wondering how he would find his way back to the Fair. He glanced behind and could still spot the towering Furs Wheel in the distance. It won’t be so easy to see once we’re on the ground. He gazed ahead and gasped at a more immediate problem. The balloon was sinking rapidly, and Cecil didn’t like the looks of the landing area. Great cats in heaven. We’re headed directly for the lake.

  The man was frantically throwing anything he could find, the barrel, a chair, a metal box, even the basket Cecil had come in, over the side into the lake. I’ll be next, Cecil thought, and sure enough the man turned on him with a gleam in his eye.

  “Sorry, tubby,” said the man, lurching across the deeply slanted floor to where Cecil stood.

  I don’t think so. He leaped down from the crate and slid across the floor to the other side. The man turned his attention to the crate, which went over the side and made an audible splash. The balloon was going down fast, like a sinking ship. The man lurched to the ropes, hauling them this way and that and grasping at the stiff edge of the balloon itself. Cecil pulled himself up by the claws to look over the side of the gondola. The churning water was beckoning with white-topped waves, so close now Cecil let out a frightened yowl.

  “We’re going to crash,” the man cried, and in the next moment, with a sound like a diving whale’s tail, the gondola smacked into the water. The balloon widened and flattened overhead, descending gently like a rain cloud. Cecil dropped back onto the floor with one question burning in his brain: Will this thing float?

  For the moment, it did, while the balloon folded over and around it. A splash of water came in one side, then the other. We’re going to be trapped in here! Cecil thought. The man had the same idea and climbed up on one side of the gondola, but he lost his balance and fell backward into the water. The gondola tipped abruptly after him and Cecil slid across the floor, struggling to right himself and striking the wall headfirst. His claws saved him from pitching in after the man. Cecil could see the man treading furiously in the water while the heavy curtain of the balloon settled over him.

  “Help!” the man cried. “Save me!”

  Without thinking Cecil leaped out of the gondola and onto the strange fabric of the balloon. This stuff floats, too, he realized. It was forming itself into a kind of raft, with a low spot at the center that steadily filled with water. Beneath the edge where the gondola held the cloth above the water, Cecil could see the man’s frantic efforts to get out from under it. He battled it with his hands, shou
ting all the while.

  He needs to rip the balloon, Cecil thought. And his next thought sent him gingerly hopping across the rubbery surface: This is a job for claws. When he was close enough to feel the rise and fall of the balloon fabric stretched over the gasping captive, Cecil crouched low and popped out all his claws. Then he began the pleasurable business of tearing and tearing with all his strength, while trying very hard not to get his fur wet.

  The material was stiff but it had a fine weave to it, and after only a few tries he’d produced a hole big enough to catch in his claws and pull wider. The man had stopped thrashing and seemed to know what Cecil was doing. As the weave gave and a nice tear opened wide, the man’s hand came through and gripped the edge. Cecil avoided catching the hand with his claws as he pulled harder and harder. Another hand appeared and then Cecil’s claws found a thin strip and a very satisfying rip opened a hole big enough for the man’s head and shoulder to come through. Cecil leaped away from the hole, and the man stared at Cecil in amazement.

  “You saved my life,” he said, pulling himself up onto the still-floating balloon. “I can’t believe it. A cat saved my life.”

  Cecil was thinking about his own life now, as the balloon was steadily taking on water. The gondola rested half on and half off the balloon, which served to keep it afloat. But it wouldn’t last long, Cecil observed, and once it was filled with water it would sink, pulling the balloon fabric down with it. He watched as the man stumbled toward it, groaning and pulling at the fur on his face.

  There’s no sense in that, Cecil thought. He pulled himself up to the highest point of the sinking balloon—it was like trying to climb a bubble.

  All around the water was churning, and Cecil recalled how big the lake had looked from the sky. He swiveled his ears front to back—there was a sound he hadn’t noticed before, a chugging, humming rumble getting closer every moment. He stretched his neck up and gazed over the water and it seemed to him that he saw a white object, like a pipe, and a white cloud as well billowing into the blue sky overhead. Then he heard a human voice cry out and another voice he didn’t recognize but understood.

  It was a cat. “We’re coming!” she called. “We’re coming to get you.”

  The ship sent out a deafening blare, like a goose honking inside Cecil’s head. At this the man shouted joyfully and rushed back from the gondola, which made a sucking sound as it slipped a little deeper into the water.

  “Calm down,” Cecil called to him, but of course the man had no idea what he was saying. He shouted something and applied himself to crawling on all fours toward the high vista Cecil occupied, pulling the balloon down as he clambered up. Cecil could see the prow of the ship now. It was small, without sails, full of humans on two decks and cutting fast through the waves.

  Again the feline on the deck called out, “Hang on! We’ll be there soon.”

  All we can do is hang on, thought Cecil, shaking his wet paws one by one.

  When the ship was closer, all the humans and the man began shouting, and two sailors threw down a heavy white ring with ropes attached to it. The man leaped into the water, grasped the edge and lifted it over his head, which then came up inside the ring. He was floating nicely and the sailors began hauling him in with the rope.

  Cecil watched the man, blubbering and howling, being pulled up onto the deck, throwing his arms around the Captain who quickly passed him to a sailor, and then going off into the throng without so much as a look back at Cecil.

  “Hey, what about me?” Cecil shouted. Now he could see the cat on the deck, a small orange female with a white streak down her nose.

  “You’ve got to get hold of a ring,” she shouted back.

  “Can you get them to throw one out to me?”

  The orange cat commenced yowling loudly and pacing on the deck in great agitation, attracting the attention of the passengers. A lady standing at the rail spotted Cecil and said something to her neighbor, who repeated it, and it was passed on until a throng of excited humans was shouting, “THE CAT, THE CAT!”

  Splat, another ring hit the water very near Cecil’s solitary and sinking post, and he eyed it dubiously. If it can float a man, it can float a cat, Cecil reasoned. He hesitated a few more seconds, trying to think of a way to grab the ring without getting completely drenched, but it was no use. Hoping only that he would be able to get some purchase on the surface, he leaped for it, landing with his front legs gripping the inside of the ring and his back legs hanging over the outside, dipping in and out of the cold, choppy lake. It was rough and even a little stretchy—his claws held him in place, and the sailors, to the delight of the human audience, began hauling him toward the ship.

  The sailor who pulled Cecil in wrapped him in a cloth and rubbed him down before setting him on very wobbly legs on the deck. By now, the humans had gotten over the excitement of the rescue and drifted away from the rails, and the orange cat who had called from the ship ran to Cecil.

  “I cannot believe you were on that balloon!” she exclaimed. “We all saw it go down. How on earth did you manage to hitch a ride on that monster?”

  Cecil was giving his ears a last going over and smoothing the fur on his shoulder. “Believe me,” he said to the strange, bold little cat, “it wasn’t my choice.”

  “I’m Kitty,” she said. “Though the humans call me Cleopatra. But it’s actually just Kitty.”

  “My name is Cecil. Do you live on this ship?”

  “I’ve been here since I was a kitten. The Captain brought me on and I have the run of the place. We ferry people and animals from one shore to the other, back and forth. I’ve seen ships that are bigger and have sails, and whose cats tell me they go much farther.”

  “I’ve been on one of those,” Cecil declared. “I’ve sailed to warm islands and seen exotic places, strange animals. I was even captured by pirates.”

  “Pirates!” Kitty exclaimed. “That sounds exciting.”

  “They’re not very nice, actually.”

  “So you’ve been to sea and now you’ve been in a balloon!”

  Cecil couldn’t resist the chance to impress his new friend. “And I’ve been to the land of the setting sun in a train.”

  “Rolling death?” She shuddered. “There’s a station for one of those near the dock on the other side.” She looked over her shoulder through the rail at the wide water. “Some of the ferry passengers cross the wharf to a big station and then they get on the train. A dog who passed through here told me the trains go to the sea, the one where the sun rises, and that there are more ships there that go all over the world.”

  The sea where the sun rises! “That’s where I’m from and that’s where I’m bound,” Cecil said. “As soon as I catch up with my brother. Thank you for telling me how to get there.”

  “Is your brother in the other balloon? I see it every so often. We’re heading for the place where it’s supposed to land.”

  Anton! Cecil thought. And Ruby! Even Ruby couldn’t track a balloon. How will they find me?

  “We’re on a case,” Cecil told Kitty. “We’re tracking a couple of men who steal puppies. One of them was the fellow on the balloon with me. What happened to him?”

  “My Captain took him to his quarters. He is a very upset human. I’ve never seen one carry on like that.”

  “He’s a thief and a coward,” Cecil said gloomily. “I saved his life and he left me to drown.”

  The ferry was cutting swiftly through the water and a few humans came from the inner rooms to look out over the lake. “We’re getting close to the landing,” Kitty said. “Look. You can see the tent from here.”

  Cecil looked out over the lake. He could make out the shoreline and above it, over the crest of a hill and beyond a grove of trees, a few scattered buildings and the white top of a huge tent. “What’s in the tent?” he asked.

  “They call it a circus,” Kitty said. “I’ve heard they have some unusual animals there. They put on shows and humans go there to see them.”


  “Sounds a bit like the Fair, where I just came from,” Cecil said. “That’s where my man is going, I’ll wager.”

  More and more humans came out on the deck, talking and laughing. A great many children approached the cats with outstretched hands. “Come with me,” Kitty said, skirting the crowd. “We can wait outside the Captain’s quarters and when the man comes out you can follow him.”

  Cecil bustled along behind the young cat. He wished he had more time to talk with her. But for now his mission was to follow the very bad man who had nearly let him drown.

  “Good plan,” he said to Kitty. “Maybe once we catch our man, we’ll come back this way.”

  Kitty looked over her shoulder and Cecil heard her purr. “I’d like that very much,” she said.

  Chapter 9

  Cat Trackers

  Who?” asked Anton miserably, in no mood for games after watching his brother fly away, trapped in an immense green balloon. “Who can we rescue?”

  “Come on, follow me,” said Ruby. The throng of humans milled on the field and gazed at the two balloons in the distance, still shouting and cheering. “I may very well be wrong, but then again I might be right. And if I’m right, and I do hope that I am, then we need to move quickly.” She trotted away, her nose to the ground as usual. With one last glance at the faraway balloon, Anton scampered after her, his heart squeezing in his chest.

  Ruby led them back around the shed, straight to the lone basket leaning against the wall near one corner. She inhaled deeply, and Anton drew close and sniffed as well.

  “There’s so much puppy smell around here that I almost missed this,” said Ruby. “It was only when your brother was taken that I thought of it, to be honest.”

  “Missed what?” asked Anton, distracted with thoughts of Cecil aloft, high above the city.

  Ruby lowered her nose again and nudged the basket gently onto its side. It thumped in the grass as if it contained some weight, and a small, muffled whimper arose from inside.