Picking up where I left off

Yesterday I began working my book again. It's the second volume of a trilogy about the interaction of some children and some mythical beasts. In the first book the children discover the magical world in which the beasts live. The second volume is about the beasts' adventures in the children's world.

Today I finished the 8th chapter of the second book. In the section below, the flying horse Magellan, who is no more than 5 inches high in the ordinary world, is lying unconscious in a kitchen cabinet, protected from humans only by the cabinet door and by his friend the flying feline, Icaria, who has just read his rather dreadful fortune in some of Magellan's feathers. The two children have quarreled, and Ivan is watching television grumpily when he would rather be scouring the house for his little magical friends.

Chapter 8
Rat

Icaria hears Amanas's giant footsteps coming nearer and nearer. The floor beneath her rocks with every step. She doesn't dare breathe. He grunts loudly as he stoops down.

"Will you take look at this, George. Looks like the cat must have caught a baby bird. Interesting color, these feathers are." Icaria can tell he is standing again. "I don't know if I've ever seen any like them. They look a little glittery, iridescent. Very unusual! I wonder if we'll find the corpse of the bird around here somewhere."

Icaria's eyes fall on Magellan. Is he breathing? She puts her head on his flank. Yes. She can hear his heart beating too. Now the footsteps begin again, moving away from her this time. Icaria releases her breath and purrs nervously before catching herself. She starts to lick Magellan all over. It isn't safe right there behind the door. What the human decides to look for the 'dead bird'? She licks harder. Magellan, however, does not wake up. Perhaps it's best, thinks the cat, at least until the men are gone. She licks and licks. Soon she is so engrossed in the work that she doesn't even notice that she and Magellan are alone in the kitchen.

Or are they? As night falls, the nocturnal residents of the farmhouse wake up. The cabinet in which Icaria has taken refuge is a well-used one. At its back and sides are several holes of varying sizes, some leading to the sink cabinet just to the right, and others through the wall to the back porch. Once the kitchen is completely still – Icaria is asleep with her head on Magellan’s flank now — a fine set of whiskers emerges from the largest hole, the one leading to the back porch. The whiskers tremble a bit and then the rest of Radicchio Rat follows. Radicchio spots Icaria and Magellan immediately and hastens to investigate. He smells them all over and then he pokes them gently with his nose. Icaria wakes up to see his enormous black eye not more than a tail’s length from her own nose. Instantly she is standing, her back arched, her claws distended, her fur on end.

Radicchio moves back a step or two and sniffs. “What are you?” he asks disdainfully, “A furry bird with a tail? Or a single serving of feathery cat?” He sneers very slightly, just enough to allow Icaria a glimpse of his pointed yellow teeth.

Icaria’s wings would very much like to fly upward at that moment — she is very small in comparison to the rat — but she has to protect Magellan, who hasn’t even stirred since he fell. She holds them still and stands firm.

“Whichever I am, I’m sure you don’t want these in your mouth,” she says, lifting a paw and turning it to show her long, elegantly curved claws. Drawing herself up to her full height, she continues calmly, “And now, since it is settled that I am not your next meal, you might welcome me properly.”

Radicchio isn’t quite sure what to make of her response. The claws look unpleasant. A scorpion he once tangled with comes to mind. But he would so like to know what the larger creature behind her is. Radicchio isn’t a bad rat, but he is a rat, and Magellan smells like fresh meat to him. He decides on a backhand approach. Smiling smarmily, he says,
“Radicchio Rat here. The room in which you are making yourself so at home is my living room. Perhaps you would care to introduce yourself and explain your purpose here?”

Icaria decides to accept his words at face value. “My name is Icaria. My friend Magellan here was hurt in a fall.” The value of sharing a common enemy with the rat strikes her. She continues, “Some humans,” she shudders slightly, “were in the room, so we hid in here.”

“Humans!” spits Radicchio, revealing his ratty teeth once more, “It’s only because they’re so big that they think they rule the universe! They have no idea how limited their world really is.”

Icaria thinks for a moment. The rat is right, of course. “Yes, yes,” she purrs agreeably. “The greatest human flaw is hubris. But I’m afraid that doesn’t make them any less dangerous to small creatures like us. In fact, it makes them even more dangerous.”

Radicchio is getting hungry now. The odor of the injured equus distracts him. His nose is twitching. “Who did you say your friend there was?” He leers a bit and moves closer.

Icaria shifts just enough to protect Magellan from a sudden move by the rat. She decides to put her cards on the table. “It’s Magellan, the famous traveller. He’s badly hurt and I need to find a safe place for him to rest. Can you help us?”

Radicchio is pleased. These new creatures are in his territory and in his power. “That way,” he points to a dark corner with his longest whisker. “Take him there.” Then he turns abruptly and scuttles out of the cabinet through the hole he used to enter it.

Startled by the rat’s unexpected departure, Icaria doesn’t move at all at first. A long moment passes before she even shifts her eyes from the rat’s hole to the corner he recommended. With her cat vision she can see into its darkest parts. Why it should be any safer than the corner opposite it is not immediately obvious. She points her whiskers at it and then directs them to scan the rest of the cabinet. Nothing extraordinary. With the most subtle of movements, Icaria angles her ears toward the rat’s hole and decides that he is not about to return. At last, with half her whiskers still pointed at Magellan, she pads across the floor to explore the corner more thoroughly.

Then it is too late. Not only Radicchio but six more rats silently emerge from the hole and form an ominous gray line separating Icaria from her friend. In seconds they surround the prone figure of the equus, lift him up between them, and carry him out as quickly as they came in.

Icaria watches, helpless, the image of the fallen feathers flashing before her.

* * *

Earlier, when the children argued and separated, Ivan stomped downstairs into the living room. He is sitting uneasily on the sofa with the remote in his hand, the hood of his sweatshirt up. He already went through all the channels twice and he's about to get up to begin a thorough exploration of the living room when Marianna’s father and Amanas come in from the kitchen.

“What’s on?” asks George, glancing at the screen.

“Nothing, really,” answers Ivan, trying his best to sound more relaxed than he is. “I was hoping I could find an old movie to watch, but...” He flips through the channels a little faster.

Amanas interrupts. “What’s on PBS? Or better yet, CSPAN? You might as well use your time well. No point in watching something you can’t learn something new from. I once saw a show about the value of Riboflavin. Now you wouldn’t think that would be very interesting but as it turns out...” He says more but Ivan isn’t listening. A curious image just flashed by that he wants to see again. He switches the direction he’s going through the channels. 108, 107, 106. What he saw was a group of rodents, rats he’s pretty sure, about six or eight of them, moving in a tight group on their hind legs. In the middle of the group, sort of between them so you couldn’t see it all that well, they were carrying something heavy, the body of another animal. Ivan could swear it was a tiny horse with iridescent wings.

Amanas doesn’t stop talking as Ivan scrolls back slowly through the channels, his whole body tingling. 88, 87, 86. Magellan! Could it be? A football game is on the screen. An ad for a car. A rerun of “Friends.” A meteorologist. CNN. MSNBC. Comedy Central. A cartoon. A politician. What was that channel? Amanas drones on. It couldn’t have been Magellan, and yet... oh, of course! Ivan hits the two and then the eight. Animal Planet. How could he not have thought of Animal Planet? But it’s “Animal Cops,” and there’s no sign of the rats. Very slowly he goes through the round of channels one last time but it’s no use, the image is gone, and there’s nothing even remotely like it on any of the channels. And what would Magellan have been doing on TV anyway? He shakes his head at his own stupidity and turns off the TV.

“What? Giving up? Nothing on? What’s new?” George chuckles.

“Here’s an idea,” says Amanas. “You can do some research for me.” Ivan looks up. Research? Ivan remembers why he likes Amanas.

“What kind of research?” he asks.

“Well,” Amanas begins as he pulls his wallet out of his back pocket. “Look at these.” He lays the wallet flat so Ivan can see the four tiny feathers. “The cat got some baby bird, an unusual one by the look of these little feathers. Maybe you can find out what kind it is.”

“Wow!” Ivan is trying to hide his excitement but of course he recognizes the feathers instantly. “Let’s see!” He has to restrain himself from grabbing the wallet and the feathers from Amanas’s hand.

Sitting down in the easy chair George remarks, “I never knew you were so interested in birds, Ivan.”

“I’m not,” Ivan answers hastily, and then he hesitates. “Or I didn’t used to be.” I am such a bad liar, he thinks. “I mean, I did a unit on birds in science last year.” Please, don’t ask me any questions about it he begs the two men silently, please. “Um, I, I could probably figure out what the feathers are if you gave them to me. I like doing research.” At least that part is true.

“You’ve brought a good bird guide with you?” Amanas asks. “Peterson’s?”

“Well, no, I didn’t.” Ivan ‘s heart sinks. But maybe Marianna has one? Or her family?

“We don’t have one here either, as far as I know,” George comments. “We had one once but someone, now, who was it?—Jean would know— borrowed it. What about the internet?” he continues, “You can use the computer if think you could find the information there.”

“Sure, yeah, I can do that, yeah,” Ivan answers, much relieved. “Can I have the feathers?” He is holding out his hand to Amanas now, trying hard not to look too eager.

"Here," Amanas says, carefully picking up one of the tiny feathers. "You can take one of them. What site are you going to? The Ornithology Lab at Cornell? That’s a good one, or you can try the Audobon Society. That’ll be audobon.com I suppose, or maybe it’ll be org. Well, you’ll have to look around. You know how to start the machine in the kitchen? I can help you. All you need to do is..." he says as he places the minute feather on Ivan’s waiting palm.

Ivan shifts his feet restlessly. When will Amanas shut up? Marianna is right about the guy. He never stops talking.

Finally Ivan interrupts. He bursts out, "Yeah, I really do know how to do it. Thanks for the offer of help. Um, this will be really interesting, I’m sure. Right. I’m going to go show Marianna now, okay?" and, holding the feather clasped safely in his closed hand, Ivan walks as casually as he can to the stairs and then, just out of sight of the two older men, he bounds up, three steps at a time.