Lantern Sam and the Blue Streak Bandits (15 page)

Who knows what direction my life might have taken if I hadn’t caught a whiff of the intoxicating aroma of sardines at that very moment. Or if I hadn’t been hungry, and simply ignored it. But I did and I was, so I had no choice but
to investigate further. Cats are, as everyone knows, naturally curious, and if we have one fault, it is that we often let our curiosity get the best of us. This may have been one of those times—I’ll let you decide.

I lifted my nose, which has never let me down, high in the air and inhaled deeply. There was no doubt about it. Somewhere close by—
very
close by—there were sardines, and plenty of them. I followed the trail to the back of a seedy joint called Norm’s Diner, on the corner of the square. A screen door, patched in several spots, was the only thing between me and the pot of gold at the end of a fishy-smelling rainbow. At first, I thought I was dreaming, or that my tired eyes were playing tricks on me, but nope, it was the real thing, bigger than life—a football-sized can of Sail On brand sardines. It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.

I wiped away a tear and composed myself in the alley behind the diner. Lined up against a wooden fence at the back of the lot was a row of metal trash bins. And if there are sardines inside the restaurant, then those trash bins must be chock-full of empty sardine cans, right? And a little bit of Sail On sardine oil is better than nothing. In fact, it’s better than anything—except whole sardines
and
their oil.

The lids were on the trash cans, but that only slowed me down for a moment. Right before I met Marmalade, I’d
watched a cat jump onto a lid in order to get the can moving, and then ride it back and forth until it tipped over. Pure genius. So I took a running leap at the first can in the row, landing on the lid. It must have been top-heavy, because when it went down, it started a chain reaction that took the other four cans with it. And
that
, as you might imagine, made a tremendous racket. It brought the cook flying out of the kitchen, waving a giant cleaver, so I scurried into a dark corner away from the action.

“Ach! Doggone those raccoons! I gonna keel you, you good-for-nothings!” he shouted into the darkness before ducking back inside and slamming the door.

“What was that all about?” whispered a female voice mere inches from me.

I jumped straight up, completely caught off guard.

“Sheesh! I just lost a whole life,” I said when I could breathe again. “How long have you been there?”

“A few minutes,” she said, stepping out into the light.

She was no Marmalade, but she wasn’t half bad. And in my own defense, it was no wonder that she’d been able to sneak up on me like that. Coal black from nose to tail, she was a walking, talking, cat-shaped shadow. I wasn’t surprised, then, when she introduced herself.

“I’m Shadow. Sorry to scare you like that. Happens all the time.”

“I can see why,” I said. “I’m Sam. I grew up over in Linesville. Let me guess: you have an all-white brother named Light, don’t you?”

She laughed. “No, but I have a sister named Shade. She’s gray, not quite as dark as I am. So, Sam from Linesville, what are you looking for?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I suppose I’d like to find a little place in the country, with fresh air and good milk, and someone nice to settle down with—you know, the usual things.”

Shadow laughed again, a bit louder. “No—I mean, what are you looking for
right now
, in the trash?”

Lucky for me, cats don’t blush. “Ohhh. Of course. The
trash
. I was, uh, looking for, uh …” She had me so befuddled that I had forgotten what treasure I had so desperately been seeking just moments earlier. Suddenly it all came back to me: “Sardines!”

“What’s that?” asked Shadow.

“You’ve never had sardines? They’re fish. They come in a can. They’re delicious.”

“Like tuna?”

“Hmm. Yes and no. They’re both fish in a can, but there’s really no comparison. Look, I
like
tuna.” I dug through the spilled trash until I found what I was looking for and then pushed a can with the familiar Sail On label toward Shadow. “But for these? For these I’m willing to go to war.”

“I see,” she said, purring. “You’re a very passionate cat, aren’t you, Sam from Linesville?”

“I just know what I like.” I licked the inside of the can and then motioned to Shadow to do the same. “Come on, give it a try.”

She moved next to me and used her tongue to get the last few drops of precious sardine oil. “Oh my. That
is
good.”

“And that’s not even the best part. Look, there’s an open can that’s bigger than me inside. You wait here. I’m going in after those delectable fish.”

“Are you sure? That cook seems kind of crazy.”

“No problem. I’ll be in and out so fast he won’t even notice.”

Even as I said the words, I knew I was tempting fate, but it was too late to take them back.

Crouching next to the screen door, I waited until the cook left the kitchen and the kid washing dishes had his back to me. Using my sharpest claw, I sliced an opening in a weak spot that had already been patched once, and then slipped inside. In one motion, I was on the counter and scooping out sardines as fast as I could. They hung from both sides of my mouth, making me look as if I had a huge, droopy mustache. When I could fit no more, I escaped the kitchen and sprinted back to the dark corner where Shadow sat waiting silently.

I placed the booty—half a dozen lovely little fish—in the Sail On can and stepped back. “Ladies first.”

For a cat who had never tasted sardines before, Shadow wasted no time in polishing off all six. “Oh,” she said, licking her lips when she finished. “I should have saved you some. Those were delicious.”

“Don’t worry; there’s more,” I said, pointing at the screen door. “Back in a flash.”

I dashed through the opening in the screen, popped up onto the counter, and stuck my nose into the can. Temptation got to me, however. Sure, Shadow was cute, but I couldn’t risk her eating everything I set in front of her—again. So I dug into those beauties like there was no tomorrow, gulping down half a dozen in mere seconds. I had just lifted sardine number seven when the door between the kitchen and the dining room swung open and the cook spotted me.

I stared back at him, my mouth dripping with sardines, my eyes big as salad plates.

“Hey!” he bellowed, running after me.

In my hurry to go, I kicked the rest of that giant can of sardines onto the floor, where it landed upside down with a splash. Meanwhile, the dishwasher, who was terrified of cats for some strange religious reason, ran screaming from the kitchen, knocking the screen door completely off its hinges.
Then, of course, he crossed paths with Shadow, which sent him over the fence and into the town square, still bawling like a baby.

What happened next I know only because Shadow witnessed the whole thing.

The cook chased after me, grabbing his favorite cleaver along the way. Like a circus knife thrower, he wound up, aimed it at me, and let it fly.

I was saved from certain decapitation by a strange twist of fate, which is further proof that sardines are all-powerful: At the exact moment the cook let go of the cleaver, he stepped in the spilled sardine oil and his feet slid out from under him. Into the air he flew, his substantial backside landing with a splat in a mountain of sardines. Meanwhile, the cleaver spun round and round, whizzing past my head—neatly slicing off the top half-inch of my left ear on the way—before burying itself into the wooden fence with a resounding
thwunk
.

I froze, convinced that if I moved, my head would fall off. “Am I still in one piece?” I whispered.

“Not quite,” Shadow said, showing me the triangular chunk of ear that the cleaver had surgically removed. “But all the important parts are still attached. I think you’ll live. Quick, let’s beat it before he finds the rest of his knives.”

We ran two blocks to a tidy bungalow on a quiet, tree-lined street.

“This is home,” she said, striding up the porch steps and taking a seat on the sill of an open window. Inside the house, a middle-aged couple laughed aloud at something coming from their radio. “Do you need anything? If I bang on the window, my people will bring me some food and milk.”

“No thanks. Tell me: how does my ear look?”

“Um … not too bad, I guess. It’s only bleeding a little. I think it makes you even more handsome. It kind of … balances out the other one. I suppose there’s a story behind that one, too.”

“You could say that. Another close shave,” I bragged.

She moved nearer to me, purring loudly. “You’re so
exciting
, Sam. And so brave. The way you marched right in there and took those … those …”

“Sardines.”

“Right. Sardines. All that, just for me.”

Let’s not get carried away now, I thought. Sure, I was showing off a little for a pretty girl cat, but I wanted some of those sardines for myself.

She leaned in so close that our whiskers touched, and I instinctively moved back, knocking loose the length of broomstick that had been propping up the window. In an instant, the heavy wood frame fitted with twelve panes of thick glass dropped like a guillotine—right on my tail!

For those of you reading this who
don’t
have a tail, I can’t
possibly describe the pain I felt at that moment, but I can tell you this: my caterwauling and howling woke up every dog and baby within a three-mile radius of Shadow’s house.

As I hobbled across town with a bleeding, chopped-off ear and a very sore, swollen tail, I decided that it might be best if I stayed away from female cats for a while.

My foot slipped on the last rung of the ladder that led to the roof of the Shoreliner, but somehow I managed to hold on, my fingers clutching desperately to a handhold. Accelerating down a gentle grade before leveling off and launching itself across an iron trestle bridge, the train was more than three hundred feet above the rocky riverbed. I made the stomach-churning mistake of looking down as my nails dug into the rusted steel, but when a bullet ricocheted off the side of the car just inches from my face, a shot of adrenaline rushed through my veins, giving me the sudden burst of strength I needed to drag my body over the top.

I pulled myself to my feet. There he was, three cars in
front of me and making a mad dash for the locomotive—to do what, I could only guess. Turning and seeing me, the man in the gray suit pointed his revolver and fired twice, three times, with the final shot whizzing by so close to my ear that I felt the
whoosh
of air. Undaunted, I ran after him, jumping over the spaces between cars and closing the gap between us.

“Give it up, Shipley!” he shouted. “You’ll never catch us.”

“You know he’s right,” came a voice from behind me.

I spun around to find the woman in the dark glasses, her dress snapping noisily in the wind created by the speeding train. She reached under her chin and untied her scarf, setting free her long, wavy black hair. With a dangerous smile, she lifted the blood-red scarf above her head and then let it go. Away it sailed over the edge—soaring down, down, down into the valley below.

Still smiling, she raised her gun, aiming it at my heart. Suddenly the man’s hands were on my shoulders, pushing me over the edge, and I was falling … falling … falling.…

“Henry! Henry! Are you in there, kid?”

I opened my eyes, gasping for breath. It was too dark to see anything, but I was still alive! As I drifted in and out of consciousness, with the rest of my body trying to catch up to my brain, I noticed that my mouth was sore and dry from
the gag tied around it, and the back of my head hurt worse than anything I had ever experienced. I wanted to rub it, but I soon realized that my wrists were handcuffed—to Ellie’s! I couldn’t make out any features in the darkness, but there was no doubt whose wrists were squeezed in the single pair of handcuffs with mine.

“How are you feeling, kid?”
asked a voice inside my aching head. Sam!

“ ’Ere am I? Wha’ happened?”

“I should have seen it coming—sorry, kid. We must have left the door open a crack. Somebody came in, saw you, and conked you one good on the head, probably with the butt of his gun. You were out cold for half an hour. Unfortunately, I had to hide under the seat, and I never got a good look at him. When he left, he turned the light off and I couldn’t get to the door in time to escape and go for help. By the way, say hi to Ellie. She’s been worried about you.”

I grunted a hello through the gag.

“ ’Anks ’or ’rying to ’escue ’e,” said Ellie.

“ ’Id they ’urt you?”

Ellie shook her head. “I’m okay. I’m ’irsty. Is your ’ead okay?”

“It ’urts, ’ut I’ll live.”

“So, now that everyone’s awake … anyone for cards?”
Sam asked.

“ ’Am! ’Top ’ooling around and ’et us out of ’ere!” I sort of shouted, which made my head hurt even more.

“All right, all right. I’m working on it, but I wasn’t going anywhere until I was sure you weren’t dead. The bad news is that the door is the only way out of here, so I have to wait until somebody opens it. The second they do, I’ll get Clarence. Okay?”