by H. L. Burke
His fluffy fur clung limply to his body. Mayor Pendleton had offered him a home. While Pendleton’s granddaughter wasn’t Clarice, she was a child, and a child might love him . . . but Thaddeus did not love just any child. Thaddeus loved Clarice.
He stepped onto the grass and drew his paw back in surprise. He’d never felt anything like it, cool and springy and tickly. He swiped at a long strand, and it bounced back and hit him in the nose. He sniffed the fresh, clean odor. Maybe this forest wouldn’t be so bad.
Thaddeus had rarely been allowed outdoors. Never unaccompanied for certain. Generally when Clarice took him for a “walk” she carried him and they kept to the paved pathways of the palace gardens. The forest was so much bigger, wilder, and more interesting than the gardens. Tree roots twisted up from the earth like sinewy serpents. Some proved too high to scramble over, forcing him to pick his way around.
Fairy circles of mushrooms sprang up about him. Ferns tickled his nose, and insects buzzed his head. Having had no breakfast, he bit down on a particularly fat bug. He spat it out and stuck out his tongue.
Bitter.
Thaddeus remembered Clarice telling him that many sorts of food grew on plants, like strawberries and apples, and he resolved to keep his nose open for a bacon tree. Everything smelled damp, green, and earthy. Pleasant, but not appetizing.
He paused in a clearing. A grouping of mushrooms caught his eye, like a bouquet of open umbrellas. They had a familiar, musky odor. Closing his eyes and concentrating on the scent, he connected it with a stew the chef sometimes made, mostly beef and gravy, but every few bites, Thaddeus would encounter a spongy bit. Desperate for any form of food, he crept forward and bit into the firm top of the fungi.
Without the accompanying flavors of the chef’s beef and spices, the mushrooms proved bland, but not inedible. The kitten ate his fill then found a bunch of dandelions growing in a sunbeam. His fur blended perfectly with the yellow, puff ball blooms, so he slipped between them and napped.
Chapter Six
Rats!
Grandious shuffled about his cave, pushing at his treasure with his snout. Something smelled wrong. Something was out of place.
A leather bag of coins sat upon the floor, leaning slightly. Grandious liked things straight and neat. He picked the bag up in his front talons to straighten it and coins clattered through a gaping hole. He snorted in surprise and displeasure. How had that happened?
He emptied the sack upon the floor and smoothed the coins with his tail as if spreading butter on bread. When they blended in nicely with the carpet of treasure, he continued his inspection.
Tiny teeth marks marred the edges of his wooden chests. Bits of sticks and strings lay in corners. Worst of all, tiny, brown grains of poo littered the floor.
He growled.
Rats!
Grandious hated rats. The slovenly little beasts had no regard for personal property. He’d encountered the pests before. An invasion in his first cave led him to never allow food in his lairs. It only took a crumb to bring on an infestation.
Now, however, they were attacking his treasure. The gold they could not eat, but everything else–leather, wood, or cloth–had been nibbled.
Grandious lay down and pretended to sleep. He kept one eye and both ears cracked open. Time ticked on. He was about to give up and nap for real when something stirred at the edge of the cave.
The dragon counted five of them, each barely the size of one of his claws. They skittered from shadow to shadow, quick, gray shapes with snaky tails, their bellies low to the ground. Grandious didn’t twitch. They grew closer. He clenched his teeth as one stopped to chew upon the leather straps of a silver-plated shield.
Grandious had strategically placed one of his front talons beside a cluster of cloth sacks, each bulging with gems. After a bit, the largest of the five scurried across the coins and perched atop the bags. The rodent sat back on his tail and looked about the room. His whiskers swiveled this way and that. The rat made a high pitched, twittering sound and the other four hurried to him. Their needle-like teeth sank into the canvas bags. Finally they were all together.
Grandious swooped forward and grasped all five with his claws. For a moment he thought he had them. Then they slipped through his talons like water. Grandious cringed. They were simply too small for his giant claws to hold. The rats fled to the far reaches of the cave, stopped, turned back, and snickered at him. Furious, Grandious sent a wave of flame from his nostrils.
It washed over the treasures, warping coins and setting a wooden chest on fire, but the rodents dodged into the cold cracks of the cavern walls and escaped destruction. Grandious sat up and watched for a while. They did not emerge, and poking into their hiding places proved futile.
Perhaps I drove them off for good, he thought, settling back down.
He closed his eyes. Before he could fall asleep, however, tickly, grasping feet ran across his spine, scraping against his smooth scales.
He jerked up and ran his hind claws over his back, scratching like a dog after a flea. He found no rats, but he swore he could hear a squeaky laugh echoing in the corners.
Rage trickled through Grandious’s chest like hot water. Grandious hated rats.
Chapter Seven
Lost
A clap of thunder awakened Thaddeus, and he shot to his feet. His fluffy fur stood on end. The dandelions above his head trembled in the wind, and the tree branches rocked, dropping acorns and twigs upon the forest floor. The clouds swirled, dark and angry, in the sky. A quick jolt of lightning, like a snake’s tongue flickering in and out, lit the forest in an eerie white light.
Thaddeus could smell the rain and needed a place to hide. Thaddeus couldn’t get wet. He hated water. Occasionally he had endured a warm bath for the sake of Clarice, but cold, driving rain would be unbearable.
In spite of the impending storm, he refused to turn back to Josiah’s. He had to make another attempt to find his princess. Clarice would save him.
As fast as his tiny legs could travel, he bolted through the forest, always upward, knowing his destination was on top of the hill. He followed the slope of the ground, trying to ignore the kettle drum thunderclaps and tingly snaps of lightning.
A mother deer and fawn crashed through the brush and leaped over his head. Thaddeus shrieked and flattened against the ground. Ignoring him, the pair disappeared into a thicket. Terrified, he picked himself up and pressed onward.
Clarice used to hold him so tightly during storms. They’d hide under her covers counting seconds between lightning and thunder. She would tell him everything would be all right. He’d never understood why she felt such comforting was necessary. Storms were noisy, but not particularly dangerous.
However, in the forest, with the wind shaking branches down around him, terror gripped his heart.
Then came the rain, great sheets of water, drenching Thaddeus in an instant. His fur clung to his body. His bottle-brush tail shrank to a thin string. Water dripped in his eyes.
He saw a faint light ahead, a thin line of warm yellow glowing through the darkness. He wasn’t sure what it was, but light had to equal dry. Thaddeus needed to be dry.
The trees thinned, and he stopped beneath a large toadstool. Water pooled at his feet. A bolt of lightning split the air and the flash revealed something that stole his breath.
He stood not at the top of a hill but at the foot of a sheer cliff. He’d somehow gone the wrong way, towards the mountain. Perhaps his mistake was the result of Hermes’s spell. Perhaps he’d simply gotten lost. Either way, before him rose an unscalable, rocky cliff face, slick and shiny in the rain. Thunder rumbled about him.
The light he had seen came not from a castle or a house or even Josiah’s ramshackle cottage. It glowed from a gaping hole in the mountain side. Thaddeus hesitated. Maybe it would be dry, but where did that light come from? Did caves usually glow? Admittedly, he didn’t know much about caves, but the ones in Clarice’s story books sounded a lot like big holes. Big hol
es weren’t supposed to glow.
A bright flash and a deafening crack knocked the kitten back onto his tail. A tree split in two, hot red sparks racing from the shattered trunk into the fallen branches.
A few feet to the left and Thaddeus would’ve been toasted, for fish's sake! Thaddeus made a mad dash for the cave.
He scrambled over the wet boulders at the cave’s entrance. His paws slipped, and he toppled head first into the cave. He twisted and landed upon all fours.
For the first several steps, the floor was damp, slick stone, but as he moved inward the ground dried. The warm red glow flickered like the fire in a hearth, one of Thaddeus’s favorite things. He glanced up and stared at the great stalactites jutting from the ceiling like teeth. His tiny mouth dropped open. He put a paw forward, and the ground slipped beneath him with a clinking sound. He stepped again. Clink, clink, clink came each paw-fall. He nudged at one of the strange pebbles, flat and perfectly round, smooth and cold, gleaming in the fire light.
Coins? Thaddeus didn’t have much use for such things, but he knew humans liked them. He vaguely remembered when Hermes had chosen him from a farm cat’s litter to be the princess’s gift. Hermes had given the farmer two of these coin things, and the farmer had seemed quite pleased–even though Hermes had clearly gotten the better end of that deal.
Coins were cold, hard, and not tasty. What was the use of such objects? No wonder they’d been left in a cave.
The only treasure that interested Thaddeus was the source of the light. Light meant fire. Fire meant warmth. Warmth meant dry. Also, someone must have started the fire, which meant there might be humans there. Humans who could feed and care for him.
Water dripped from Thaddeus’s whiskers. He left wet paw-prints as he picked his way over the pile of gold. Coins loosened and slid down the hill in a tinkling avalanche. Thaddeus paused. Had anybody heard that?
He listened, both ears stretching towards the ceiling. He heard something: a repetitive wheezing in and out, like the bellows the maid used on the fire. Lowering onto his belly, Thaddeus crept to the top of the coins and gazed into the center of the cave.
There, curled among the coins and chests, gems and pearls, lay the largest creature Thaddeus had ever seen. Terror gripped the kitten. His tail stuck straight up.
It glistened bright green with scales like a fish’s but solid and dry, rather than supple and covered in butter and lemon juice. Claws, similar in shape to Thaddeus’s but twice the size of his whole body, tipped each of the monster’s four limbs. Great bat-like wings rested in folds at its sides. He remembered seeing a picture of one in Clarice’s books. A dragon. Thaddeus doubted if the creature would fit in King Victor’s throne room.
A creature like this could swallow him without even noticing. As bad as outside was, inside the cave was worse. Where could he go now?
Thankfully, the dragon’s eyes were closed. If Thaddeus backed out slowly . . .
He stepped backwards and something within the pile shifted. The surface Thaddeus had been standing on rolled forward, pulling him with it. He landed on his back even closer to the dragon.
The dragon moved, and Thaddeus stiffened. He watched as the creature’s tail swept back and forth, scattering treasure, then curled around his body, the tip of it touching his snout. Thaddeus sat up and tilted his head to the side. The pose the dragon now held was comfortingly cat-like.
Clarice’s bedtime stories occasionally involved dragons. They kidnapped princesses and fought knights. Usually they lost. Thaddeus could not remember one story, however, where they ate cats.
And why would they? To a beast that size, Thaddeus wouldn’t be a crumb.
A fire crackled near the dragon’s head. Thaddeus moved forward. He wondered if dragons spoke human or practical animal tongue. If animal, maybe he could ask to stay, if only until the storm ceased. The coins were spread thinly here and barely clanked as he walked across them.
Reaching the dragon’s side, he placed his paw upon the large, leathery wing. The dragon didn’t notice. Thaddeus grew bolder. Heat rose off the dragon’s body, making the kitten sleepy. He yawned and swayed on his feet. He settled into the cleft between the dragon’s tail and body and curled into a tight, fluffy yellow ball. Immediately, Thaddeus fell into a deep sleep.
Chapter Eight
Not a Rat
As Grandious slept, he dreamed of rats. They scurried over his scales causing him to twitch. Tiny teeth nibbled on everything precious to him. Rats poured in from every nook and cranny of the cave like a flood of gray fur. They crashed together and joined into a single, giant rat, red eyes glowing like rubies. In fact, they were rubies: Grandious’s rubies! Beneath the fur of the massive rodent shone all of Grandious’s treasure. The rats had devoured it all.
The dragon whimpered and forced his eyes open. He raised his head and twisted his snaky neck into a loop, working out the kinks. As much as he loved it, gold did not make the most comfortable bedding. Well, it wasn’t as if they made pillows in his size.
Outside, the rain pitter-pattered. He inhaled the cool, clean odor. Perhaps after the rain stopped, he’d fly about, just for the fresh air. He hadn’t left his cave since he moved in.
He laid his head on a pile of coins, and a new scent tickled his nose. His brow furrowed. It was a strange smell, milk and dandelion fluff and . . . fur? The first two scents he couldn’t explain, but his only recent experience with fur had been the rats. He growled deep in his throat.
The nasty beasts! He’d catch them this time.
Grandious lurched to all fours and swished his tail. A yellow ball rolled out from his side onto the ground and uncurled. Grandious blinked. He hadn't noticed this . . . whatever it was before. He lowered his head until his snout was inches from the animal.
It was small, half the size of the rats, and yellow and very fuzzy. It opened two bright, intelligent green eyes, dragon-like eyes with slits for pupils. The creature stretched, flattening forward and pushing its bottom into the air. Then it did something completely unexpected. It flopped onto its back, stuck its paws in the air, and purred.
“No, definitely not a rat,” Grandious mused.
He searched his memory for a name. Cat? Yes, that seemed right. This creature was a cat.
“Cat?” he said. The cat tilted its head quizzically, then nodded. Apparently cats were non-speaking creatures, but they did understand. He didn’t realize cats smelled like dandelions. He lowered his nose ‘til the tip brushed the kitten’s belly and sniffed. Yes, definitely dandelions. The cat batted at the dragon, his paws soft as the beat of a butterfly’s wings. A small golden pendant hung from a narrow strap of leather under the cat’s chin. The letters engraved on it were tiny, but Grandious had superb eyesight. He squinted.
Thaddeus F. Whiskers.
He snorted. “That’s a mouthful for a little fellow.” He withdrew with a harrumph.
Grandious looked about the cave, then back at the cat.
“Look, Thaddeus, this is my cave. Mine. Get it?”
Thaddeus rolled onto all fours, gazing up at Grandious.
“It is raining out, and I’m not a monster. I’ll let you stay ‘til the storm stops, but then it’s out with you. I’ve got enough furry visitors to drive me mad as it is.” Grandious sat down and pretended to ignore the kitten. Out of the corner of his eye, however, he watched the creature scurry about the piles of treasure, chasing loose gems and poking his head into open chests. It was surprisingly entertaining.
Grandious had never spent much time with anything so small. Small things had always been around, of course, scurrying away from him in fear or hiding under rocks. He’d never bothered to watch them, though. None had been quite so bold as this cat, playing at the dragon’s side as if he had no fear. Cheeky little critter.
Grandious yawned. The drone of raindrops hitting the ground outside lulled him back to sleep. Before he drifted off, he murmured absent-mindedly, “Watch out for the rats.”
Chapter Nine
King Snickersnout
Thaddeus’s whole body tensed like a rigid wire at the dragon’s words. Rats? But surely such creatures wouldn’t dare come here. He remembered the beady-eyed, needle-toothed monsters who haunted Josiah’s cottage. Josiah couldn’t stop them, but surely a dragon could . . . or maybe a dragon simply didn’t care.
Thaddeus sat, still as a stone kitten, in the middle of the cave. He watched the shadows. Nothing moved. The dragon had to have been teasing.
Thaddeus’s stomach grumbled. What did the dragon have to eat around here? He poked his nose into containers and found only hard, inedible things: stacks of coins, strings of pearls, and shining diamonds. Useless rubbish.
A grating sound shook the front of the cave. Thaddeus scrambled over the stacks of wealth. A man slowly pushed an old wooden cart into the cavern. He looked around nervously, this way and that.
“The mayor said leave it in the cave, and I have,” he mumbled. “Dragon, here’s your tribute.” He gave the wagon one last good shove, sending it rolling into the hill of coins. The treasure shifted beneath Thaddeus, and he slipped. By the time he steadied himself, the fellow had disappeared into the storm.
A tantalizing smell rose from the wagon, salty sweet with a hint of applewood. An unseemly drop of drool fell from Thaddeus’s mouth. He half-ran, half-rolled down the hill and leaped into the cart. Before him lay an entire roasted pig with an apple stuck in its mouth.
Thaddeus had never dealt with such large portions before. His meals were always carefully measured and plated. Now, faced with so generous a meal, he was uncertain where to begin. He clamped onto the pig’s leg with his teeth and tugged as hard as he could. A mouth-melting morsel came away, and he swallowed it whole.
Thaddeus took one bite after another, completely satisfied for the first time since Hermes had dragged him from the palace.
