“For a second I thought you were a large, defenseless rodent.”
Kate wondered if she should be a little worried. She was definitely bigger than the cat, but she wouldn’t have wanted to get into a fight with her.
“I guess I was really caught up in this book I’m reading,” Kate said carefully.
“It must be very good.”
“It’s all right. There’s a lot of description. I’ve been skimming a little. Have you read it?”
“No,” the cat said. “I’m not here for the books.”
“Oh. Why are you here?”
“To be alone. We’re not social animals.”
Kate wondered if that was a hint that she should leave. But she was here first. And it was her train. She tried to keep things going instead.
“What kind of cat are you? If you don’t mind my asking.”
“I don’t mind. I’m a fishing cat.”
“Sorry, but does that mean you’re a cat who likes to fish? Or is there an actual kind of cat called a fishing cat?”
“The second one.” She began licking a large paw. “I’m not surprised you haven’t heard of us. There aren’t many of us, and we don’t get as much attention as the big cats. We’re related to the rusty-spotted cats and the flat-headed cats—unfortunate name that, although it’s true, they have very flat heads. And they eat fruit, if you can believe it. A cat that eats fruit! Also the leopard cats.”
“Oh. Are leopard cats the same as leopards?”
“No.”
There was another lull. Kate tried to think of something more to say. It was hard to tell what the cat was thinking. Though she guessed that was true of every cat ever.
“So—what’s it like being a fishing cat?”
“Oh, you know. We live in swamps and mangrove forests. We hunt. We swim. And we fish, obviously.”
“Wait, you swim? Like, in water?”
“Absolutely!” It was the first topic the fishing cat sounded really enthusiastic about. “We love it. Other cats think it’s weird, but we don’t care. I mean, it’s not like we eat fruit!”
“I can’t believe you swim!”
“Well, I don’t like to boast about it. Tigers do it, too. But fishing cats probably do it the most. We have waterproof fur. And look.” She held up a paw. “Our toes are even a little bit webbed.”
“That is so amazing!”
The cat seemed pleased.
“You said something before, about what happened last time,” Kate said. “With the train. What did you mean?”
“Oh, I thought they would’ve told you about that,” the cat said. “As part of your training.”
“But that’s the thing, I didn’t get trained! At all!”
Maybe she shouldn’t have admitted that, but it just came out.
“Is that right? How extraordinary.” The fishing cat flopped her heavy tail from side to side like a velvet rope. “Well, it was before my time—we live only ten or fifteen years, you know. But I do know that before this train there was another one, and it left one day and never came back. I don’t know what happened to it, but I doubt it was anything good.”
Just then the door opened and two more animals came in.
One was a very long, very thin snake with large, alert black eyes and skin so bright green it was almost fluorescent. Kate felt a powerful instinctive urge to run away from it very, very fast. The other was some kind of large wading bird with long legs and a curvy neck. If pressed Kate might’ve said it was a stork. Or a heron. Or a crane? Or were they all the same thing? You think you know something about animals, and then you have to conduct a whole train full of them. Anyway, it was a big fancy bird. Not the kind you see every day.
“Mind if we join you?” the bird said. She had a lot of long, elegant gray feathers.
“Yes,” said the cat.
“That’sssssssss too bad,” the snake said, sliding smoothly inside. “It’ssssssss because I’m venomoussssss, I know.”
He slithered up onto a chair.
“It’ssssss a common prejudiccccccce.”
(I’m not going to keep typing all the extra s’s, so just keep in mind that the snake hisses a lot when he talks.)
“A library car,” the heron said. “This is fantastic. Who would’ve thought?”
Kate glowed quietly inside: She would’ve thought!
With two beats of her enormous wings the heron flew up to perch on a lamp.
“You always say things are fantastic,” the snake scoffed.
“Well, you never do,” she said, “so I have to do it twice as much. And anyway, it is!” She turned to Kate. “Are there any cars with fish in them?”
“I was wondering that, too,” the fishing cat said.
“There’s no fish car,” Kate said. Like she would have a fish car! “But they might serve fish in one of the dining cars.”
The porcupine woke up and squinted sleepily at the cat, the bird, the snake, and the human.
“I thought I would be alone in here,” he said.
“And now we’re here!” the heron said. “Isn’t it fantastic?”
“I would like everybody to be clear,” the porcupine said, “that I have approximately thirty thousand quills on my body. They’re mostly for defense, but believe me, they can be lethal.”
The other animals looked at one another.
“I don’t know about all of you, but I’m very frightened.” The fishing cat rolled onto her back on the couch, paws in the air, and stretched exactly like a house cat would. She didn’t look very frightened.
“Me too,” the snake said. “I would shut my eyes in terror, but I don’t have any eyelids.”
“Really?” Kate said. “How is that possible?”
“I have a transparent scale over each eye. Much more elegant than eyelids.”
“But don’t you ever want to close your eyes?”
“Not really,” the snake said. “I do like licking them, though.”
“I don’t want to brag,” the heron said, “but I have three eyelids.”
“Wait, what?!” Kate said.
“It’s true! Upper eyelid, lower eyelid, plus a nictitating membrane.”
“I’m not even listening,” said the snake. “Because I also don’t have any ears. Or a nose. I smell with my tongue.”
Animals were a lot weirder than Kate had realized.
“I am very much wishing that I had never evolved ears right now,” the porcupine said.
“Maybe you could read a book,” Kate said brightly. “Lots of good books here in the library car!”
“That would be nice,” the cat said, “but we can’t read.”
Click-bing.
SORRY TO INTERRUPT THIS FASCINATING CONVERSATION
BUT DUTY CALLS
The train was slowing down again. They were coming to another station.
“I’d better go.” Kate stood up, kind of relieved. “It was nice meeting you all.”
She slipped out. Though honestly she was worried that they would all kill one another if they weren’t supervised.