A Nest for Celeste (3 page)

C
eleste felt a shove as Illianna and Trixie suddenly appeared behind her.

“Where’ve you been?” Illianna whispered. “We’re
practically starving, and you’re here dawdling. I tell you, Trix, if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.” She sniffed the air. “Mmm. Something smells good.” Her nose told her that with guests in the house, the spoils under the table were improving; and she was anxious to take advantage of things and sample every morsel.

She turned to Celeste. “You wait here,” she said. “I don’t want you getting all the good
pieces first. Keep an eye out for the cat. Come along, Trix!”

The two shadows paused beneath the sideboard. Their noses waved back and forth as they studied the
field of carpet and the forest of table and chair legs. They listened. Except for the ticking of the hallway clock, the only thing they heard was the galloping of their own heartbeats.

Trixie’s nose sniffed the air. “That’s piecrust,” she whispered.

“Yes, indeedy, it is,” replied Illianna.

“And is that spoon bread?”

“Last one there is a rotten egg!”

“Don’t make me drool!”

And the two rats scampered out from under the
sideboard, carefully hugging the wall, following their noses to the broken piece of fallen piecrust.

No one saw the cat, seated on the needlepoint cushion of a dining-room chair, as it suddenly stop licking between two back toes. It peered into the shadows, pupils darkening, eyes as wide as those of an owl on a moonless night, watching the two shapes scurrying
along the baseboard. It raised its rear haunches slightly, careful to use only the necessary muscles, with only barely detectable movement. No blinking of the eyes, or flicking of the ears. No twitch of the tail.

The shadows made a sharp turn, away from the wall and straight to the table.

The cat grinned. Its back feet shifted ever so slightly, tensed and ready to pounce.

Illianna, whose favorite thing was day-old piecrust, suddenly stopped. “Wait!” She sniffed again. “That’s piecrust…and something else.”

A moment too late.

There was a ripping sound of claws on carpet as the two rats split paths, Trixie racing hysterically toward the front screen door and Illianna attempting
to rapidly circle back to safety under the sideboard.

But in an instant the cat predicted Illianna’s turn and cut her off. There came a terrible, frantic, high-
pitched squeak for help, then a sound like wet fingers on a candle flame.

Frozen under the sideboard, Celeste squeaked in horror.

“Illianna!”

The cat ignored Celeste’s piteous cry. Trixie, in a frenzy, scrambled and wiggled through a crack under the screen door and ran out into the dark evening.

Except for the soft ticking of the hallway clock, the dining room was again quiet, though Celeste’s head echoed with the sound of Illianna’s death cry.

She was alone.

C
eleste checked her food stores. She had exactly two pumpkin seeds; the end of a small, shriveled sweet potato; half of a black walnut. Soon she would need to search for food.

And now that the cat knew her hiding place, foraging had become nearly impossible. One night she had started out only to find the hole completely blocked by a large pink nose and a set of black whiskers. The cat stealthily patrolled the edge of the dining-room carpet each night, leaving Celeste little chance to make forays from beneath the floorboards.

The next night she decided to start off again, this
time hoping that the cat would not be an obstacle. She chose her best basket, slinging it over her shoulder.

She poked her nose into the great space of the dining room and sniffed. The air smelled of candle wax, smoke, and the stale remains of a meal. There was also a faint odor of cat. Her ears flicked nervously as she crept along the edge of the carpet.

She followed her nose as it searched the crevices between floorboards and the fibers of the carpet for morsels of food. Her eyes could see all around her, except for directly behind her head. She listened for the smallest of sounds.

The clock ticked.

She stopped. Her nose found a small, dried lima bean. Tossing it into her shoulder basket, she moved on.

She came upon a feather, soft and white, dotted with gray spots. She packed it next to the bean.

Suddenly, all the soft hairs on the back of her neck
stood straight up, and her whiskers twitched. Her pupils widened. She froze in place.

Through the gray gloom at the distant end of the dining room, between her and the hole, she saw two large, yellow-green eyes. And the two eyes saw her.

She set off toward the hallway as though she was flying low, a tawny-colored blur. She careened into the hall, her legs skittering across the polished wood like drops of water on a hot skillet. She heard the scramble of claws on wood behind her and knew the cat was just one large lunge away.

Though the light was dim, Celeste could see just ahead a high tower with carved designs running up it. She had just enough time, she hoped, and just enough strength left to make it to the tower. With any luck
she could use the carved leaves and vines to climb it.

And with any more luck the cat wouldn’t be able to.

She sprang to the newel post in a leap that covered many floorboards. Her tiny claws found the minuscule crevices and notches in the wood and clung to them. She zipped up the tower in a panic of energy.

The cat was seconds behind but slid sideways on the polished floor, giving Celeste a hairbreadth advantage.

As the mouse scrambled to the top, the cat reached the bottom, leaping up in a furious attempt to snag Celeste. But Celeste was high enough, and the newel post was polished to a gleam. The cat stretched its claws, slipped, and missed.

It sat at the bottom, unmoving, staring up intently at Celeste. The hallway clock nearby boomed the hour: four.

From her vantage point, Celeste could see through
the doorway into the dining room to the sideboard. The sideboard now meant safety, and home.

The cat, a large cloud of dark fur, bored but not defeated, drifted silently into the dining room. It finally settled on its haunches, directly in front of the mouse hole. It seemed to know that Celeste would have to return at some point. With a sickening realization, Celeste saw that now there was no turning back: The cat was blocking the opening to her home. She felt small and exposed, the hallway around her huge and looming and foreign. Her throat constricted and she choked, thinking of her quiet, dark nook below the floorboards, of her warm matchbox and scrap of oily rag. Even the belittling comments and piercing squeaks of Illianna and Trixie seemed almost comforting now.

To inch her way back down the newel post meant certain death. It seemed the only way to go was up.