Adventures of a Cat-Whiskered Girl (23 page)

BOOK: Adventures of a Cat-Whiskered Girl
8.2Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

When Elizabeth and I came in, everyone turned toward us and applauded—it was a soft sort of applause, clapping paws together—and smiled and nodded to us.

"That's for you," Elizabeth said. "For finding me, and getting me out of the tree."

Apparently, Elizabeth was important—some kind of ambassador, or maybe a beacon for the space cats, or she was royalty or something. Anyway, they were all glad she had gotten loose from the tree, and they were all happy about me being the one who did it. Lots of cats, cat-people, and people, and things came up and talked to us, and brought me ice cream, and patted my head, and purred at me. It was a little embarrassing, and confusing—so many little conversations one after another, and sometimes two or three at once. I was able to pick up that the idea that Elizabeth and I were different editions of the same person, each belonging to a particular place and plane, was about right. She belonged to this one, the girl I had seen on the in-between Poughkeepsie plane belonged there, and I belonged to the one I came from.

I saw Chicken Nancy talking to some cats, and Professor Tag was dancing with one. Molly was with some dwergs—they appeared to be telling jokes and laughing. The Hudson River trolls were in a little room
off the main room, playing cards. Harold the giant was there, and Alexandra Van Dood, and the Gleybners!

"Audrey dear!" Mrs. Gleybner said to me. "Isn't this a nice party? I think some of the guests may be extraterrestrials."

"The Wolluf is outside in the bushes," Elizabeth told me in answer to a question that had just occurred to me—not so much reading my mind as having one exactly like it. "He enjoys social occasions but doesn't want to come in and terrify and disgust everyone." So I knew he had gone back to his usual unbearable appearance. I thought Molly or I should take him some ice cream or a piece of cake.

I felt completely comfortable with Elizabeth, naturally, since we were the same person, but it also felt slightly weird to be with her. I was literally beside myself. We didn't speak much, not needing to. We both knew that we would have to sort ourselves out sooner or later. It would not do for both of us to stay in the same time and space. But there was no rush about it, we both thought. We'd get around to it. I was really here as a tourist, and presumably would be going back to from whence I had come, or someplace else, but not just yet.

CHAPTER 69
The Grand Dance

"Everyone take your places for the grand dance!" someone shouted.

All of a sudden, I felt like dancing. I had never danced much, but now I wanted to. Everyone else apparently felt the same way, because they all began a very complicated dance that involved all the guests. This was no ordinary dance—it wasn't just having fun and moving to music.

I knew that bees have long and elaborate dances and by doing them they communicate lots of information about routes and distances, and how to get from place to place. The dance I now joined was something like that, but a thousand times more elaborate. As we moved around the ballroom, sometimes gliding,
sometimes shuffling, sometimes jumping, and sometimes wiggling our bottoms, I could feel my brain being filled with knowledge.

I saw history. I experienced the story of the ancient space-faring pussycat race. Very ancient pussycats had discovered they could transform themselves into beings made entirely of light, traverse immense distances, and then reconstitute themselves into physical form. I learned the stories of the first journeys of exploration and the names of the great pussycat-voyagers, heard the ancient songs, and saw great cities on unheard-of worlds.

I did not learn just big things. I learned the history of my own family. I saw my own parents, of whom I had never had any memory. The sight of them was incredibly sweet, and at the same time I felt hot tears squirting. Then I learned how they had left me temporarily with Uncle Father Palabra and then were lost on a journey, and so far not found—and I learned where it would make sense to begin looking for them. At this precise point, Molly passed me in the dance and whispered, "I'll go with you."

Then, for I don't know how long, the dance was about higher mathematics. Well, better to say
much
higher mathematics. I couldn't believe I was understanding the stuff that was being loaded into my head—but
I was. Then there was a lot of astro-navigation, and recipes, and poetry, and cookery. I was pretty sure not all of this would stay in my brain, at least anywhere in my brain where I could lay hands on it, when the dance was over.

And then ... the dance was over. Dawn was breaking and the guests had said goodbye to one another, and all of them to Elizabeth and me, and had departed. I was standing on the veranda of Spookhuizen with Molly and Elizabeth.

"Well, that was certainly fun, wasn't it?" Elizabeth said.

"It's funny talking to two of you," Molly said. "I mean, talking to one of you, twice. So what are you, individually and collectively, going to do now?"

"I don't know," I said.

"I don't know," Elizabeth said.

"I have to think about it," I said.

"I have to think about it," Elizabeth said.

"I bet I know," Molly said.

"We bet you do," we both said.

(To be continued in
Escape to Dwerg Mountain,
soon to be available at the Gleybners' bookstore, in Poughkeepsie, New York.)

BOOK: Adventures of a Cat-Whiskered Girl
8.2Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

The Kindling Heart by Carmen Caine
The Kissing Stars by Geralyn Dawson
The Blue Hammer by Ross Macdonald
Burning Secrets by Clare Chambers
Weave of Absence by Carol Ann Martin