She spread her wide wings and flapped away, gliding to land on an old log in the river, where she began searching the water for fish.
When the heron was gone, Kate walked back to the library car. Only the fishing cat and the porcupine were left. Even after Tom came in to join them, it felt very empty.
Kate sat down on the couch, and for the first time ever the fishing cat came and sat in her lap. She was so big that she overflowed Kate’s legs on either side like a big dog.
“Would you mind terribly much,” the cat said, “scritching me behind my ears?”
“I was just going to ask if you’d mind if I scritched behind your ears.”
Kate scratched gently.
“Mmmmmm. That’s good. I can do it myself with my hind leg, but it’s so much better with fingers.”
She started to purr—a deeper, louder, more rumbling purr than a house cat’s. Kate had never heard her purr before.
“I didn’t know you could do that,” Kate said.
“There are two kinds of cats in the world: roaring cats and purring cats. You can’t do both. Lions roar. Tigers roar. But fishing cats are purring cats.”
Kate was glad fishing cats could purr.
All too soon the train slowed down again. Kate had known these animals for only a few weeks, but somehow she felt closer to them than she did to anyone in the world except her family. Now she’d probably never see them again. Kate bent down and smooshed her face into the fishing cat’s furry neck, and a couple of tears leaked out.
But it was so amazing that she’d gotten to meet them at all. She would always have that. When it was time, the fishing cat jumped lightly down from her lap, and together they walked forward to the passenger cars.
The train pulled in at a station in a huge marsh full of curious-looking trees that stood up above the water on long, stiff roots like stilts. There were so many of them so close together that they were all woven into one another. The air smelled like the ocean.
The station itself was all made of tropical wood, with a hairy-looking thatched roof.
“Where are we?” she said.
“We’re in a mangrove forest,” the fishing cat said.
“How can trees grow like this? In the sea, I mean.”
“Mangroves grow in salt water,” the cat said. “They’re the only trees in the world that can.”
It started to rain, a light, warm rain, but that didn’t seem to bother the fishing cat.
“I’ll probably never see you again,” Kate said.
“I know.”
“It makes me so sad, it feels like I can’t stand it! Don’t animals get sad?”
“Of course we do,” the fishing cat said. “But we try not to brood about it. Animals never think about what might have been, or what should have been. We only ever think about what really is.”
“I’ll try to remember that.” Kate leaned down and gave the cat a kiss on the top of her head. “And I’ll always remember you.”
“I’ll remember you, too, Kate. And I want to tell you something, just to make sure you know it, just in case your parents are too busy to remind you as often as they should: You are special, Kate. You are strong and smart and good, and the world needs you.”
Kate’s eyes were blurry and swimming with tears. It was the one thing she’d always wanted to hear, all her life. If anybody else had said it, she might have had trouble believing it, but she knew she could trust the fishing cat.
“Thank you,” she said.
“You’re welcome. Ooh—a frog!”
And with that the cat took a running leap into the water and disappeared.
After that, whenever Kate was feeling down—which would always happen, because you’re never too grown up to feel down sometimes—she would think about the fact that somewhere out there in the world, in a mangrove swamp, was a fishing cat who remembered her.
And that was something. It was a lot, really.
In all the excitement Kate had almost forgotten about the polar bear, but of course she was still with them, in her boxcar. They let her off late that night at a station deep in the Arctic, right out onto the pack ice. It was the coldest air Kate had ever felt. The wind whipped snow in through the open doors so hard that she had to scrunch her face up and look away. Before she did, she caught a glimpse of a sign that said simply NORTH POLE.
The polar bear paused on her way out into the blizzard. Kate had never heard her speak before, but now she put her great black muzzle right up to Kate’s ear and said the first and last words that Kate would ever hear her say. Her voice was deep and rumbly.
“If you humans let us die, you will never, ever forgive yourselves.”
24
The Journey Home
KATE AND TOM AND THE PORCUPINE HUDDLED together around the firebox in the cab.
“Right,” Kate said, raising her voice over the clackety-clack of the train. “Where to now?”
Click-bing.
HOME
Oh.
“But what about you?” Tom said. He meant the porcupine.
“Oh, don’t worry about me.” He sounded almost civil for once. “I’ll get where I’m going.”
Click-bing.
LET’S STEP ON IT
WE’RE CUTTING IT CLOSE AS IT IS
When Kate read books about kids who got to go on magical journeys, she never really believed that they ever wanted to go home at the end. But now she realized how badly she was missing her parents and how much she needed to be somewhere safe and familiar and stationary for a while, even if it was a little dull.
As they steamed past glaciers and snowfields and crags, Kate felt proud and happy about everything they’d done. But on top of that feeling, weighing it down like a paperweight, was a heavy, heavy sadness. For the animals she’d never see again. For the baby pangolin who had no safe place to be. For the cat and the heron and the polar bear and all the animals out there who were just trying to survive in a world that had lost its balance.
Tom sat next to her on the other side of the cab. His face was tired and blank, too. Uncle Herbert had been right: The world was more interesting than it looked, but it was so much harder and more complicated, too.
The sky was gray, and a light, thin snow fell and melted into droplets on the windows. The tracks wound through a deep pine forest. It was getting dark, and the snow was going blue in the twilight. Kate had always loved snow—it made her think about sledding, and being cozy indoors, and hot chocolate, and days off from school. She ate dinner in the dining car by herself, reading a book, and went to bed in her lovely fold-down bunk with the window above it. She wondered if it was for the last time.
Lying there in the darkness, she thought about what the Silver Arrow must look like from above, the way a bird would see it: puffing along through the snowy nighttime wilderness, small and determined, its headlight splitting the darkness. Its whistle sounded, and where before it had sounded huge and triumphant, now it sounded sad and a little lonely—the sound of something far from home that had come a long way and still had a long way to go.