Thaddeus Whiskers and the Dragon

by H. L. Burke

  Chapter Thirteen

  To Make a Princess Smile

  Clarice sat by her bedroom window watching a ladybug crawl on the outside of the glass. She had tried talking to the glistening red bug, but it had just kept wandering in circles. It didn’t listen. Not like Thaddeus.

  Her window looked out over the palace gardens. A gravel path twisted through the trees and bushes pruned to look like chess pieces. It ended at a fountain filled with darting goldfish. Thaddeus loved those goldfish. He’d once tried to catch one and fallen in. Oh, how funny he looked when he scrambled out, dripping wet but trying desperately to pretend it hadn’t happened.

  Clarice sighed.

  A pair of adults strolled below. One was her father and the other Mrs. Redmond. What was her father doing with the royal matchmaker? Clarice unlatched her window and opened it, just a crack.

  The ladybug buzzed away.

  Clarice listened.

  “You sent the notices out days ago,” her father said. “Have no princesses arrived yet?”

  “One has, your majesty, but not a princess, merely a lady,” Mrs. Redmond replied.

  “Princess, lady, damsel, I’m not particular about titles, but I was hoping for a larger selection. It isn’t every day a king chooses a new queen, after all.”

  “I don’t know why the response has been so poor. My invitations were perfect. I hand-lettered them myself.”

  “Well, set up a meeting with the one lady, then. It is rude to keep her waiting . . .” Their voices faded as they walked further down the path.

  Clarice shut her window and stood. She didn’t particularly want a new mother, but she supposed her father was lonesome. Still, he had promised to bring back Thaddeus, and matchmaking seemed an unneeded distraction.

  An embroidery frame stood in the middle of Clarice’s room. Her tutor taught many forms of art, from painting to poetry to playing the lute. Recently, the princess had received a comprehensive course in textile art, which her tutor thought sounded fancy, but which Clarice knew simply meant sewing. However, she liked that she could make pictures out of thousands of tiny stitches.

  She had been working for the last several days in a dozen shades of orange, yellow, and gold. She was creating a portrait of her thoughts, a portrait of Thaddeus.

  Taking up her needle, Clarice sewed stitch after stitch, filling in the kitten’s fur. She had finished most of the kitten’s chest when there came a knock at her door. She opened it to a pageboy, a few years older than herself.

  “Your father requests your presence at tea,” he said.

  Clarice followed the page to her father’s parlor. The lacy room had been decorated by her grandmother. Clarice once calculated that if she laid all the doilies in the room, end to end, they’d probably stretch a mile.

  Her father rose from his place at the round tea table and pulled out a chair for her. This was normally a servant’s job, but when he did such things for her, her heart warmed. She took her seat.

  “We have a guest today,” her father said, easing into his own chair.

  “Who, Father?” Clarice asked, eyeing the plate of sugar cookies.

  “Her name is Lady Ambrosia, and I hope very much that you will like her.”

  A servant poured three cups of tea. Clarice watched the steam rising from the dark liquid.

  “Sugar?” her father asked.

  She shook her head, not intending to drink any. She did very much want a cookie, though.

  He dropped a cube into his own cup.

  Someone tapped on the door. The pageboy hurried to open it, then departed after their guest entered.

  Ambrosia glided to the table. She was pretty, in a put together sort of way, more a carefully pruned rosebush than a wildflower. She wore a peachy orange Clarice had seen a lot of other ladies wearing and a strange little hat, much too small for her head. Her features were thin and straight, her skin pale as if carved from soap. She sat tall, and gazed down at Clarice. She smiled. Clarice did not believe that smile for a moment.

  “So you are the lovely Clarice,” Ambrosia said. “I have heard so much about you.”

  “What?” asked Clarice.

  Ambrosia blinked. “Excuse me?”

  “What have you heard about me?” Clarice stared at Ambrosia. The lady’s smile stayed on her lips but did not touch her eyes.

  “Nice things,” she said.

  Clarice turned her eyes back to the cookies. Finally they began to eat. The cookies were sweet and crunchy, and she even took some tea to wash them down. Ambrosia asked many questions, but thankfully all of them could be answered with one or two words.

  Did Clarice like school? Yes. Her favorite subject? Art. Did she look forward to the ball next week? No. Did she like tea? Not particularly.

  Ambrosia’s smile did not waver, but her brow grew tighter and tighter until tiny wrinkles formed above her eyebrows.

  Clarice had another cookie.

  “Well,” Ambrosia purred, “if you don’t like balls, what do you like?”

  “Thaddeus,” whispered Clarice. The cookie turned to dust on her tongue, and a fat tear rolled down her cheek.

  “Oh dear,” the king said.

  To Clarice’s relief, her father cut the tea short, and Ambrosia disappeared.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Not Even a Bite

  Thaddeus had a plan. It had taken weeks of pacing around Grandious's cavern, thinking about how to get home, but he finally had an idea of how to get back to Clarice.

  It came to him after a nap. While exploring the back end of the cave, he'd discovered a rotating orb on a brass stand. He found if he jumped on top of it and started running, it would turn beneath him, leaving him moving as fast as he could but never getting anywhere. He tried several times to run fast enough to actually move, but never quite managed it.

  Collapsing on the floor beneath the strange spinning ball, he drew a deep breath. From this position he could clearly see blotches of blue and green painted across the surface of the ball. It looked familiar. After some thought, he realized that Clarice's tutor had one and called it a “globe.”

  “It's like a small version of our world,” Clarice had explained to Thaddeus. She loved telling him what she learned in her lessons, though the information was almost never of any use to Thaddeus. “Here is our kingdom.” She'd pointed to the middle of a large green splotch.

  Thaddeus sat up and pawed the globe until it turned to the side where Clarice had shown him their kingdom.

  It's round, he thought. If something is round, you can go around it. Hermes will never expect that. I'll go around the world and come out behind the palace, on the other side of his blasted wall of magic. Ha!

  Thaddeus stuck out his chest and tossed his head. He examined the globe. Obviously, the real world was much bigger than this model. The question was, how much bigger? How long would it take to go around? Probably at least a day or two.

  He glanced across the cavern. Grandious lay like a green coil of rope in the middle of the piles of gold. Thaddeus considered waking him. After all, the dragon had been kind, sharing his home and his food. Thaddeus rather liked the old fellow. It would be sad to leave him without a good-bye.

  However, in spite of the intelligence in the dragon's cat-like eyes, he spoke only “human speak,” which Thaddeus couldn't. It would be impossible to explain. He would just have to slip away and hope Grandious's feelings weren't too badly hurt.

  Thaddeus pranced across the cave. He stopped and rubbed against the dragon's scaly sides one last time. He wanted to memorize the warm, smooth feel of the dragon's skin and carry it with him always. A thought struck him, and he wriggled out of his collar. He picked it up in his teeth and laid it beside Grandious's gigantic head.

  “Good-bye,” he mewed.

  Grandious sighed, his warm breath pushing Thaddeus back onto his hind legs, and smiled in his sleep. Thaddeus bounded away, determined not to look back.

  He emerged from the cave into a perfect day. Puffy
white clouds floated across a pale blue sky and a slight breeze shook the leaves above his head. Some had already begun to turn yellow and brown as the end of summer approached.

  Navigating would be tricky. His natural homing instinct kept telling him to turn around, but to make it around the world, he'd have to ignore it. He hoped to keep to a nice, straight line, but there was a rather large mountain in the way, so he'd have to go around that first.

  For a while, he hugged the rocky cliffs but soon found the hot, hard stones hurt his poor paws. He moved onto the grass at the edge of the forest and bounced along.

  When I get home, I'll find a way to tell Clarice everything that awful wizard put me through. She'll have him fired. She'll have him banished. No! Decapitated! Thaddeus had no idea what decapitated meant. He'd heard the tutor whisper it during one of Clarice's history lessons but had missed the definition. Still, it sounded nasty, and Hermes deserved nasty.

  Thaddeus's feet soon tired even of the soft grass, and he stopped to wash them. The sun dipped below the tree tops. He yawned. Perhaps it was time to find somewhere to sleep for the night. He should've started out earlier.

  He scanned the forest for a likely resting place and saw a hollow tree lying on its side only a few yards into the woods. Perfect.

  The sun only reached about a foot into the log. Thaddeus shuffled through crispy leaves. There was a musky smell, like the piles of dirty laundry the servants would pile about the palace halls on washing day. Once a new maid hadn't noticed Thaddeus napping among Clarice's blankets and had bundled him up and thrown him in a bin with damp rags and stained tablecloths. Thankfully, Clarice had realized he was missing before greater harm could befall him. He shook aside the unpleasant memory and curled up to nap.

  Sleep didn't come. Thaddeus turned about this way and that. He tried lying on his back with his paws in the air. He tried tightening himself into a ball. He tried stretching out long and lean. Nothing worked. He missed Grandious's breath, warm and loud. What would the dragon think when he woke up to find Thaddeus gone? Would he understand? Would he miss him?

  Thaddeus squeezed his eyes shut and forced thoughts of Clarice to take Grandious's place. He'd only known Grandious a short while, after all. Clarice was home.

  Still, when a loud, snuffling sound shook the log, Thaddeus thought Grandious had come for him, and he leaped to his feet, eager to see his friend once again. A large, black furry animal stood outside the log, his bulky body casting a long shadow in the setting sun. Thaddeus's fur stood on end. That wasn't a dragon. It looked sort of like the stuffed animal that sat at the end of Clarice's bed, but bigger and meaner, with ragged ears and a mouthful of pointy teeth.

  “Teddy?” Thaddeus whimpered.

  “Teddy?” The creature huffed. “I am Bite!”

  “You are Bite or you will bite?” Thaddeus's tail quaked.

  The bear, for Thaddeus now realized the word he had been searching for was “bear” not “teddy,” smiled. “Maybe both.” He flattened Thaddeus into the leaves with a massive paw.

  Thaddeus could scarcely breathe, let alone run or fight. He gasped for breath.

  Bite snorted. “You aren't even a bite for Bite. I'm so hungry I could eat a pig or a goat, and all I have is a scrawny cat. Just my luck. Well, better than nothing.” He scooped Thaddeus towards his mouth, but the word “goat” shot an idea through Thaddeus's head like lightning. Clarice had told him a story about goats–terrible, backstabbing goats, but goats who lived.

  “Don't eat me!” Thaddeus yelped. “I know where you can get a much bigger dinner!”

  Bite closed his jaws and narrowed his eyes. “I'm listening.”

  Thaddeus chose his words carefully. “I live in a cave with a bunch of other kittens, all much fatter than I am! If you let me live, I'll show you.”

  “You'll let me eat your family? Selfish little beast!” Bite said.

  Thaddeus swallowed. “There's also half a suckling pig in a cart you can have. Maybe if you eat that you won't want any of us.” This was possibly true. The villagers had delivered the pig that morning, but Grandious had caught a deer and hadn't felt like eating. There was a good chance it was still there.

  “Too good to be true,” Bite scoffed.

  “Well, if I'm lying, when we get there, you can eat me twice,” Thaddeus said, having run out of clever ideas.

  Bite shook his head as if trying to get a fly out of his ears. “Well, how far away is this cave?” He picked Thaddeus up by the scruff of his neck, like Thaddeus's mother used to. It didn't hurt to be carried that way, but his bottom swung like a pendulum and he felt ridiculous. Still, it was better than being eaten . . . probably.

  Bite's traveling speed was much quicker than Thaddeus's. Soon they sighted the glowing outline of the cave on the horizon. Bite squinted. He dropped Thaddeus to the ground but put his paw on the cat's tail so he couldn't escape.

  “Why is it lit up?” he asked.

  “Cats like fires,” Thaddeus said. “Let's go in.”

  Bite hesitated, glancing from Thaddeus to the cave. For a moment Thaddeus feared he would change his mind and eat him then and there. His legs quaked, and he pulled away. A breath of air wafted from the general direction of the cave, carrying with it a smell of pork. A wet drop of drool fell from Bite's mouth onto Thaddeus's head. Thaddeus gagged, glad he hadn't eaten recently.

  The bear grabbed him in his teeth again, this time, though, his jaws clasped around Thaddeus's whole body. Bite's spit dripped into Thaddeus's fur. Too terrified to move, lest he end up punctured by a tooth, Thaddeus went limp, closed his eyes, and prayed his plan would work.

  There, in the cart, lay the pig. Bite dropped Thaddeus and scrambled up after it. Thaddeus shot into the cave, sending coins scattering. The sound of the bear's feast echoed noisily behind him, chomping, swallowing, scarfing. Thaddeus didn't think he'd be able to eat again any time soon, not and keep it down, anyway.

  “Who is in my cave?”

  Thaddeus chuckled as Grandious rushed past like a green avalanche. Bite gave a shriek, then a yelp. Thaddeus watched the bear run off into the night. Grandious growled and sent a wave of flame after him, setting a tree on fire.

  Grandious flapped his wings, exhaled a huge puff of smoke, then turned back into the cave. His jaw dropped. “Little Thaddeus! You're back. I thought . . . and you smell like bear!” He carefully cupped his talons around Thaddeus and carried him deeper inside.

  A purr rippled up through Thaddeus. Every muscle in his body melted, and he just wanted to sleep.

  “I thought you had run away. Did that awful bear try to take you?” Grandious nuzzled Thaddeus. “Poor Thaddeus. Don't worry. You're safe now. I'll protect you.” For a moment, with Grandious's snout rubbing up and down his spine, his breath drying his fur, Thaddeus felt safe and well and . . . home. He felt like he was home, almost like he did with Clarice.

  But even as he thought it, his chest ached. He had failed again. He knew now he could never make it all the way around the world on his own. The world was too big and too dangerous, and Thaddeus was too small.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Where is that Cat?

  Hermes had been brewing a delicate anti-itch potion when the trap door to his tower room exploded open. He dropped the vial which shattered. The blue liquid oozed out and disappeared between the floorboards. He sighed.

  Ambrosia climbed into the room, her usually perfect pink cheeks flaming red. “That child is impossible!”

  “What child, my dear?” Hermes asked.

  “The princess, of course. I swear, I could squeeze blood from a turnip sooner than get her to smile.” She threw her hands up.

  “Turnips don’t have blood,” he said.

  “That’s . . .” Ambrosia blew out a long breath, shook her head, and smoothed her skirts. “She cares only for someone or something called Thaddeus. Who or what is Thaddeus?”

  “Oh, that is her lost kitten,” Hermes explained. He bent down and waved his hand over the broken vial, c
ausing the bits of glass to melt away like ice.

  “Lost kitten?” Ambrosia’s thin eyebrows pulled together.

  “Yes, that’s why she has been so sad.” He offered Ambrosia his rocking chair.

  She sat. “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

  Hermes had tried, of course. Ambrosia had told him not to ramble. He opened his mouth, shut it again, then shrugged.

  “The whole wretched tea was an utter waste. This kitten is obviously the easiest route to the child’s smile and therefore her father’s heart. Have you tried replacing the kitten with a similar one?”

  “I dislike lying to her.” Hermes squirmed.

  “It’s only a white lie. After all, kittens are mostly interchangeable.”

  He hesitated. “He was a most uniquely adorable kitten, and the princess is quite perceptive. If she saw through the deception . . .”

  “Well, it was only an idea.” She waved at him, and he fell silent. “I have a crystal ball in my suitcase. Fetch it for me, Uncle.”

  Hermes’s face lit up. Crystal balls were expensive, and he had broken his some time before. He had left it on an image of a babbling brook one night, and it jammed somehow. Now all it would ever show was burbling water and the occasional drinking deer. Restful but not useful.

  Ambrosia’s crystal gleamed like a pearl. He handed it to her, and she passed her twitching fingers over it three times.

  “Find me a kitten named Thaddeus,” she intoned.

  The crystal glowed. She squinted and held it up to her uncle. “Is that this supposedly irreplaceable feline?”

  Hermes gazed into the ball. The kitten slept in a tight little ball, as kittens are apt to do. “Why yes! So he is alive, the tricky little beast. I had–” He stopped as Ambrosia jerked the ball from him.

  She pinched her fingers then drew them apart, drawing back the image to get a good look at Thaddeus’s surroundings. “Is that gold?”

  He came to stand behind her chair. “It appears to be, and a lot of it.”