When she awoke, Celeste realized that laboring over her chores had worked up an appetite. She gathered two baskets and headed down the attic stairs and through the knothole.
The hallway was dark. Celeste scampered past Joseph’s room, then quickly stopped. Her ears flicked, her whiskers quivered, and her heart felt a sudden fullness. Was that the sound of his pencil sketching? She felt dispirited when she realized it was just the distant ticking of the hallway clock downstairs.
The dining room seemed unusually still. There were leftover crumbs and bits dotted across the carpet, but certainly no bounty. The dining-room carpet had been swept. She sniffed the air for traces of cat.
Ducking beneath the sideboard for a short rest, she let out a tiny cry of surprise. The hole was no longer there: A short wooden board had been nailed to the wall, sealing off the entrance, and the emergency escape route, forever.
She evenly distributed her meager spoils between the two baskets, securing the straps across her shoulders. She studied the dining room and then ran cautiously toward the stairs.
The looming clock suddenly struck five, startling Celeste so that she left tiny claw marks in the waxy patina of the oak floorboard. Her heart beat furiously. Some inner feeling was nagging at her. She sniffed the air again and again. Her whiskers twitched nonstop.
The journey across the hall, up the newel post and the stair rail seemed routine now, although still arduous. But there was a faint feline odor hanging in the air. Her dark eyes pierced the dim hallway, but there was no other sign of the cat.
Celeste reached the end of the upstairs hallway, then stopped in her tracks. The scent of cat fur and cat paws and cat breath quickly thickened, like a soupy mist moving in off the river. She saw it now: the dark, cloudy shape of the cat crouched and waiting, staring motionlessly at the knothole in the attic door, between Celeste and home. The cat didn’t see or hear Celeste. It seemed completely fascinated by the hole in the door.
Celeste hid as best as she could in the shadow of a bookcase that stood against the wall. She waited.
Rescue came in the unlikely form of Eliza Pirrie.
There was a swishing sound from the hallway downstairs and then continuing up the steps. Celeste pressed her body against the bookcase as Eliza glided by, inches away.
“There you are, Puss!” she exclaimed, hurrying to gather up the gray cat, who glared at her from the base of the attic door. “You’ve been hiding from me! Shame on you, Puss! Time for your breakfast!” Eliza carried the cat down the stairs, fussing and cooing. Celeste made a dash for the attic knothole.
It was a relief to be within the relative safety of the attic, and Celeste smiled contentedly at the thought of her warm, cottony bed with the soft satin pillows.
She unpacked her goodies, stowed her baskets, and nibbled a bread crumb as she made her way up the steps to her bedroom.
“Well, well, well,” squeaked a vaguely familiar voice. “You finally made it home. I hope you brought back something to eat.”
Celeste stared as the cool, gray, dawn light came creeping into the bedroom. There, stretched across her bed, pinched face and beady eyes poking out from beneath the pink blanket, was Trixie.
