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‘What do you mean you guess? You don’t seem particularly excited about it. Can’t you see that this is major? You’ve suddenly started talking like a person.’
‘Perhaps,’ replied the cat, yawning. ‘Only, without wishing to put a hole in your boat or anything, as you’re the only one who appears to be able to understand me, maybe it’s actually <<you>> who can suddenly talk like a cat?’
Arthur stared at him, gobsmacked. ‘Oh! Do you really think so?’
‘I really do,’ he purred. ‘And now, not wanting to be a killjoy about the whole discovery thing and all, but having just spent the last two hours deep cleaning my fur after that rain, I’m totally knackered. Soooooooo, super excited and everything, but as the saying goes, “Too much doing and not enough sleeping turns cats in to rats.”’
And without another word, the cat curled up into a ball and fell asleep.
2
More Surprises
Arthur wasn’t the first to wake that morning. His stepfather, who worked shifts for the emergency services, had already left to go to work. In the summer, when they were all at the cottage, that always meant a very early start in order to stay ahead of the traffic.
Not wanting to get up, but finding that he’d forgotten to charge his phone, he lay watching his baby sister taking little side steps along the edge of her cot. She hadn’t started to walk yet but seeing that she was barely having to hold on to the edges at all, he understood that it wouldn’t be long now.
All of a sudden, the words ‘liquorice sticks’ filtered through his mind, and with them, the weirdest feeling that he and the cat might really have been talking to each other the previous night. Deciding that he was going to have to go and find out once and for all, he got up quietly and crept out into the garden. The cat was stretched out on his favourite patch of sunny grass near the rose climbers.
‘Alright, Cat,’ said Arthur, perching himself on the swing.
The cat didn’t react.
‘Hey?’ he called out. ‘Earth to Cat!’
‘Whaat!?’ meowed the cat unhappily, making him jump. ‘Can’t you see I was sleeping? I was having the greatest dream ever. I was able to fly! <<And>>, if you really must know, I’d be a lot more <<all right>> if breakfast wasn’t always those same dreadful, dry biscuits. And now that you bring it up, I need you to have a little word with your mum for me. You know, ask her to come up with something a bit more exciting for a change. What d’ya say?’
‘So, it’s really true, then. We can talk!’ Arthur said, mouth agape.
‘Oh Lord, didn’t we go through all of this last night?’
‘Well, yeah we did, but…’
‘But you woke up thinking that maybe you’d dreamt it?’
‘Well, actually yeah, but…’
‘But, as you can see, you didn’t, and yes, we can.’
‘Well, yeah, but…’
But before he could finish, a screeching sound made them both look towards the porch door. His sister’s head had just appeared in the doorway, and she was looking very pleased with herself.
‘Anna!’ puffed his mother, seconds later, looking decidedly flustered. ‘You can’t run away before breakfast—how far do you think you’ll get on an empty stomach? Arthur, come and eat, and don’t leave the door open to the porch. How many times have I told you?’
‘But, Mama! It wasn’t me!’
‘Of course it wasn’t. It never is,’ she said, making a point of stepping outside and looking around.
‘Ugh!’ he groaned. But it was pointless to argue. And in any case, what did it matter? He was always in trouble for just about everything that went wrong, especially where it concerned his baby sister. His mother went back inside, closing the door with a bang.
‘Well, Cat, that settles it, then. We definitely need to go fishing again today.’
It took him much longer to finish all his tasks that day. The list had included helping his aunt vacuum the entire cottage, which, whilst not big, was still a pain, especially when you were in a rush not to be there. On top of that, he’d also been told to mop the floors in the kitchen, which he’d ended up having to do twice because no sooner had he finished the first time, than the dog had traipsed through, leaving muddy paw marks everywhere.
‘What took you? I’ve been waiting ages,’ meowed the cat, spotting him coming up the path.
‘Aunty M decided I needed to help her vacuum everything. Come on, let’s get out of here before she and mum come up with something else for me to do.’
‘Good idea. But don’t think for a moment that your life is harder than mine. I just woke up with ants in my fur!’
In all the excitement of discovering that he could talk with the cat, Arthur had quite forgotten about the events of the previous afternoon, and it was only once they climbed up onto the railway path that everything flooding back. Drawing nearer to the spot where the train had stood, two hefty crane engines were now lifting large pieces of tangled metal out of a very large hole.
‘Cat, look there. That’s where a weird-looking black train was parked last night…You’re not thinking what I’m thinking, are you?’
‘Well, not unless you were also thinking that we’ve just missed the turning for the lake path.’
‘Halt! That’s as far as you!’ growled a man, suddenly appearing from down the side of the embankment, dressed like a security guard. ‘This section of the line is closed.’
‘Closed? But why? What happened?’ Arthur asked, seeing that a whole load of trees on either side of the hole had been blown over, and that most of them were blackened and charred.
‘Nothing happened,’ the man replied tersely.
‘Nothing!?’
‘That’s right. And that means that there’s nothing here that you need to be concerned about. Now, be on your way before I phone your parents and tell them that you’re trespassing and poking your nose into things that don’t concern you!’
Pretending for a second not to have heard him, Arthur craned his neck to see what else he could see.
‘Go on! Be off with you,’ said the guard, noticing the cat by Arthur’s feet and becoming more agitated. ‘And take that fleabag with you!’
‘Fleabag, indeed. I bet he has more fleas that I do,’ grumbled the cat, as they headed back towards the main crossing to the lake.
‘You know, Cat, I have this really strange feeling that whatever happened here was somehow connected with that white light last night. Only, I still don’t get why it made my hands go all weird?’
‘And my tail!’
‘Really? What happened to your tail?’
‘It went all black hole-like. It totally freaked me out. I thought I was about to get sucked into myself or something.’
‘Army, train, white light, a huge hole in the railway line. What do you reckon it could mean?’
‘That it’s probably time to get the heck out of dodge, while we still can.’
Arthur stopped and looked at him.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Beats me. I think I heard it on a cowboy film once.’
‘Really!?’
Reaching the road, Arthur found that the barricades from the previous evening had all been removed. The men, too, were gone. The only signs that anything had happened were dozens of scorched patches of ground, all triangular in shape and about the same size.
‘What do you think could cause burn marks like that?’ he asked, crouching down to examine one of them.
‘Giant pizza slices,’ mused the cat, and jumped out of the way as a twig came hurtling towards him.
‘Well, whatever they were, they’ve all been cleared away, by the looks of it.’
Disappointed not to have found anything more and guessing that he probably wasn’t going to now, Arthur left the cat stalking something in the hedgerow and headed to the jetty. On the other side of the lake, yesterday’s crowd had returned; groups of kids were jumping and shouting near the water’s edge, while their parents lay on towels nearby, looking like pink seals.
‘Damn birds!’ meowed the cat, catching up to him.
‘No luck?’ Arthur asked, casting out his fishing line.
‘Luck? Depends on what you mean by luck. I wasn’t trying to eat them, if that’s what you were thinking. Not much into feathers—they’re always getting stuck in my teeth. No, if you must know, I was just trying to teach them a lesson.’
‘Really? What kind of lesson?’
‘I don’t know, just a lesson… What?’ he meowed, seeing Arthur’s puzzled look. ‘Why should there have to be a reason for wanting to teach pesky birds a lesson?’
‘Yeah, but Cat…’
But before he could finish what he was going to say, the tip of his rod dipped sharply.
‘Oh my God. It’s a monster!’ he cried, striking hard and feeling a heavy weight suddenly twisting and pulling on the other end.
‘Speaking of fish, it might come as a surprise to you to know that I’m not into fish much, either.’
‘What kind of cat are you?’
‘The roast chicken kind.’
Arthur laughed.
‘You know that they’re birds too though, right?’
‘Not the way I get served them, they’re not.’
It must have taken a full ten minutes before Arthur was been able to land it. The fish had weaved left and right, breaking the surface, and thrashing about wildly before diving again, attempting to tangle his line in the reeds. Finally managing to haul it onto the jetty, Arthur watched triumphantly as it flopped around on the weathered wooden boards. By far the biggest ever, in his mind he could already picture the expressions on everyone’s faces when he brought it home.
‘So, do I take it that you’re planning on keeping it, then?’ asked the cat.
‘Too right I am! This one’s for the frying pan. Aunty M will have a fit. She’s always laughing because I never catch anything big. Now let’s see what she’s got to say!’
‘Right you are, then.’
‘Just look at it! Why would you ever think I wouldn’t want to keep it.’
‘Oh, no reason, really,’ purred the cat. ‘Only it seems pretty desperate to try to make a deal with you, that’s all.’
Arthur raised an eyebrow.
‘A what?! Oh, come on—you’re having me on?’
Arthur stared at the fish and then at the cat and back at the fish again.
‘Honestly?’
‘Yep, it’s true.’
‘What sort of deal?’ he asked, bewildered. ‘And why can’t I hear it?’
‘No idea, but it keeps going on about some kind of box thing. It’s quite hard to understand him, actually—he has a really strong fishy accent. Apparently, this box fell into the lake last night during the white light, and hundreds of men came looking for it afterwards. If we agree to let him go, he’ll take us to it.’
‘The white light? You mean the fish saw it, too?’
‘What did I just say?
‘Well, yeh, but…’
‘So, you have to decide and decide quickly because he says that he can’t breathe.’
‘Oh right,’ said Arthur, suddenly feeling terrible. ‘OK, fine—I guess.’ And gently placing the fish back in the water, they watched it floating lifelessly in front of them.
‘God, you don’t think that it’s…?’
‘No idea.’
‘Well—go on, ask him then!’
‘What, ask him if he’s dead?’
‘Yes!’
‘Don’t you think that’s a strange question to ask someone?’
‘No!’
‘Fine!’
‘Also, why can’t I hear you talking to him? Is this why you don’t like fish? Because you can speak with them?’
‘Me? No! I don’t like them because they taste like mud. And actually, I’ve never talked to a fish in my life. Well, at least not until this one started just now.’
‘Cat, there’s something really strange going on, isn’t there?’
