by our balloon.
Somehow I had a sinking
feeling things were about
to get worse.
I really do
traveling.
18S
19R
The Silver
Claw
22
Thea grabbed the binoculars.
“Who is firing at us?” cried my sister.
“Cheese niblets! That’s not an island. It’s a
pirate ship. And those are cats!”
“
Cats?
”
we all squeaked, terrified. Then
another shot shredded our
balloon.
Down we went. We held on to the basket of
the balloon for dear life as we hit the water.
“Thea, Benjamin, Trap. . .are you still
alive?” I whispered. I paddled desperately,
trying to stay afloat.
A lifeboat was approaching. A large
black-and-white cat stood at the front.
purrfect
“Faster, faster, you fools!” he meowed to
the cats pulling the oars.
Soon the boat pulled up beside us. The
big cat plucked us out of the water.
“Mice!” he cried gleefully. “How
Licking their whiskers, the pirates threw
us into the lifeboat and rowed us back to
their ship. It was called The Silver
Claw. Except for the black sails, the
whole ship was covered in polished silver. It
shone brightly under the sun.
13S
14R
EXCELLENCY
The nasty cat who had captured us was
pushing us down a hallway. He stopped now
and then to prick our tails with the point of
his sword.
“Forward, you rodents!” he commanded.
“You must pay your respects to His
Prince of All Pirates,
Grand Duke of Deadly Deeds, Earl
of Evil Matters, and let’s not
forget Baron of Broken Bones . . .
the one and only Black
Bandit!
” He meowed solemnly.
My cousin put his paws on his
hips. “So this prince character is
your boss?” he scoffed. “Sounds like he
24
Three Cheers for
The BlaCk BandiT!
needs to pick one name and stick with it!
For your information, my name is TRAP:
T as in Take that, you crazy cat!
R as in Run for your life!
A as in Attention, everyone: Here I come!
P as in Paws off if you want to live!
The cat sneered. “The Black Bandit
will soon wipe that grin off your snout,” he
told my cousin. Trap just
yawned and looked bored.
He was a braver mouse
than I. I was
quaking in
my Mouse
Jordans!
Meanwhile,
we had reached
an enormous
dining room.
Black Bandit
More than one hundred cats were stuffing
their furry faces with food. At the head of
the table sat a black cat. His fur was as
black as a mouse hole at night. His long
whiskers were dusted with golden powder.
He wore a cape of black silk and a large
black hat with a golden feather on top. His
shiny boots were decorated with buckles
that jingled at his every step. In short,
he was the most terrifying creature I’d ever
laid eyes on. But it got worse. Under his belt
he carried a razor-sharp sword. And even
scarier than that was the cat’s
right paw. It was a horrifying
silver hook!
Prince speared an apple, threw
it in the air, and cut it up with his
sword. Then he caught it in
midair with his silver hook.
26
18S
19R
“Three cheers for the Black Bandit! Hip, hip, meow!”
“Three cheers for Prince, three cheers for
the Black Bandit!” the cats roared as
one. “Hip, hip, meow! Hip, hip, meow! Hip,
hip, meow!”
With a grunt of approval, the Black
Bandit
sat down in his armchair. Then
he noticed us.
The other cats stood up. “Mice! Mice!”
they purred, licking their whiskers.
The Black Bandit stared straight
into my eyes. One of his eyes was yellow
and the other was green. It gave me the
creeps. Like the time I met that circus
mouse with two tails.
“Silence!” the Bandit cried, waving
his hook in the air.
Everyone was silent. He lifted my chin
with his sharp claw.
“Well, well, well,” he hissed in a grim
28
voice. “What do we have here?”
I coughed. His breath smelled
worse than a bucket of moldy
cheese!
Suddenly, a tomcat dressed
in bright yellow leaped into the air and
raced over to a jar full of pickled snails.
Then he began giggling like a kitten on his
first trip to the fish market. There was a
crazy
look in his eyes.
29
30
13S
14R
no More SnailS!
It was Prowls, the Black Bandit’s
brother.
“Mice at last! No more snails!” he
meowed.
“Keep quiet, you nitwit!” snapped
the Bandit. Then he turned to us.
“Four plump mice,” he murmured.
He looked down at his sharp claws as if he
were longing for a nail file. Then he glanced
at a cat in an apron who was huffing and
puffing in the corner. He was busy roasting
a long rod of snails over a fire.
“So tell me, where are you from?” asked the
Bandit, curling his tail into a question mark.
Just then, Prowls began dancing around
the room in a whirl of yellow. He stopped in
front of Trap and pricked him with his sword.
“What’s wrong? Cat got your tongue?”
18S
19R
I glanced at my cousin. He was snorting
like Scar Rat, the famous boxer, before a big
match. “If you were on our island, you
wouldn’t have a tongue!” Trap shrieked.
“Jumping tuna fish!” cried the Black
Bandit
. “Do you mean you are from
Mouse Island? Our ship has been searching
for ages for that place! It sounds amazing!”
“Amaaaaazzzing!” echoed the other cats.
“Amaaaaazzzzing!” shouted Prowls. He
was out of beat with the other
cats.
“Pipe down, you
ninny!” raged the
Bandit, crushing
his brother’s
tail with the
heel of his
boot.
P
r
o
w
l
s
“Meeeeowwww!” cried Prowls.
The Bandit brushed Prowls’s fur off
his boot. Once again he turned toward us.
“So, tell us where your island is. We will
take you back immediately,” he purred.
“Oh, we don’t want to go back,” I said,
pretending not to care.
“And why not?” asked the Bandit,
narrowing his eyes.
“Well, you see, the four of us are the only
survivors of a terrible sickness,” I
whispered, thinking quickly. We had to stop
these bandit cats from finding
Mouse Island! “Yes,
acutis
fungus mousitis
, a very
contagious disease, has wiped out
the whole population! So we left,
hoping to find another island of
rodents.” I wiped away a fake tear.
33
A greasy cat began playing a violin.
The Black Bandit scratched his
head with one long claw.
“So there are no mice on the island?” he
mumbled, drumming the table with his
claws.
Meanwhile, a greasy
cat began playing a
violin.
“What would Your
Excellency like to
hear?” he asked, slimy as
melted cheddar. “‘The Ballad of the Killer
Cat’? Or ‘The Dance of the Pouncing
Paws’?”
But the Bandit only had eyes for us.
“That’s enough, Patches! Enough playing
for today!” he growled. Then he signaled for
me to step closer.
“Come on,” he hissed. “Are you telling
35
13S
14R
me a little lie, or are you pulling my paw?”
I stayed quiet. All the cheese in the world
couldn’t make this mouse squeak!
The Bandit’s eyes drilled into mine.
Then he let out a loud, evil laugh.
“Get me Chef Slobbertooth!” he yelled.
Ha!
Ha!
Ha!
Ha!
MiCe With SpiCe!
Just then, the doors of the kitchen FLEW
OPEN.
A big cat wearing a cook’s hat decorated
with a skull and crossbones bounded in.
“Your Meowing Majesty, weren’t the
stuffed snails to your liking? I wish I could
do more for Your Whiskered Excellency,
but I —” he began.
But the Bandit held up his paw.
“Enough jabbering!” he ordered. “Tell me,
what do you think of these rodents?”
“Mice!” screeched Slobbertooth, nearly
jumping out of his fur. “My favorite meal to
prepare! What an honor, Your Royal
Purrfection! What a privilege! What a —”
37
18S
19R
The Black Bandit clawed the air.
“Silence!” he shrieked. “Tell me their breed
and the best way to cook them.”
Slobbertooth pulled out a magnifying
glass and studied us. Thea patted her head
modestly. “Oh, Mr. Tooth, dear,” she said
with a wink.
“Don’t be too
cruel. I’m having
a bad fur day.”
For a minute,
Slobbertooth
smiled,
confused.
Leave it to my
sister to charm
the claws off a
cat!
“Yes, well, these mice are healthy
specimens,” said the chef, pulling
himself together. “It wouldn’t be a
bad idea to fatten them up, though. We
could feed them for a week before
eating them.”
“How many servings can you
dish out?” asked the Bandit.
Slobbertooth twirled his
whiskers,
deep in thought
.
“I’d say about twenty,” he finally
answered. He picked up a thick cookbook. I
peeked at the cover. It was the
latest edition of Cooking for
Cats: From Rodents to Sweet
Rolls by Kitty Carver.
“Let’s see, I could bake them in a
stew with some juicy vegetables,” he
suggested. “Or a squeaky mouse dip is
39
F
i
r
s
t
c
o
u
r
s
e
.
.
.
S
e
c
o
n
d
c
o
u
r
s
e
.
.
.
T
h
i
r
d
c
o
u
r
s
e
.
.
.
always delicious. Then
again, there’s the
classic: roast
mouse. And, of
course, nothing
beats my mouse
bone steak with
pepper and lemon.”
Licking his lips, the
Black Bandit
nodded. “Yes, the last
recipe will be just
purrfect,” he decided. “But
don’t use too much garlic. We don’t want to
hide the sweet taste of rodent meat!”
“Of course, Your Highness. You couldn’t
Slobbertooth. “Yes siree, you are clearly an
expert on the subject of food.”
40
BANDIT’S
The Black Bandit ignored the
compliments. He waved the cook back
toward the kitchen. “Out of my sight!” he
growled, giving him a boot.
“at your orders, Your Most High and
Excellent Claws!” muttered Slobbertooth,
bowing low. I waited for him to kiss the
boots. But he didn’t. I guess
even Slobbertooth wasn’t up to that much
slobbering. He raced out of the room.
The Black Bandit turned to the cat
who had captured us. He threw him the ring
he wore on his little finger. “Take
this, you idiot. This is my reward
for your brave deed!” he said.
“Thank you, Excellency. You are
more than generous,”
stammered
the cat. He bowed so low his whiskers
brushed the floor. Then he slunk away.
41
The Bandit j
u
mp
e
d
onto the table.
“Take the rodents to their cells, and woe to
the cat who lets them escape!” he meowed
fiercely. He slashed the air with his sword.
All the pirates disappeared under the table
to avoid having their whiskers chopped off.
Four big, ugly cats sprang into action. They
looked like they had been pro wrestlers in one
of their nine lives. They pushed us up a
stairway leading to the Cat’s Ear, a very
tall silver tower.
“Check this one out! He’s plump enough to
eat raw!” roared a striped cat, feeling Trap’s tail.
42
“Raw, my paw!” squeaked my
cousin. “Don’t even think about
touching me!”
“Hee! Hee! Hee!
I’m
not going to bite. . .at least
not yet!” sniggered the cat.
He pushed us into a dark
cell. The key turned in
the lock behind us.
We looked at one another in a daze. We
were doomed to be devoured by cats! What
a horrible way to go.
I just knew something bad was going to
happen, even before we left.
Traveling really is the
PITS!
43
The cats were lowering the sails.
CAT’S Ear.
The CaT’s ear
I stared out the window of our prison cell
in the The cats were lowering
the sails so they could change direction.
“Rotten, stinking cats!” I muttered,
gripping the bars with my paws.
“Holey cheese! I don’t want to
end up in a pot to be cooked by
that sleazy Slobberface,” sobbed
my cousin. “I don’t even like
pepper. It makes my fur break
out in hives.” He sniffled, then blew his
nose loudly into a big yellow
handkerchief with red dots
.
Benjamin grabbed the sleeve of my
jacket. “Uncle, I think maybe -” he
45
b
e
g
a
n
.
The Cat's Ear
S
N
I
F
F
L
E
!
S
O
B
B
B
!
HO
N
K
!
“Benjamin, please, we’ll talk about it
later,” I said. I patted him on the head.
“Auntie, I think maybe —” my nephew
tried, pulling my sister’s paw.
“Benjamin, be a good mouse! Can’t
you see we’re talking about serious
matters?” said Thea.
“Why don’t you go play with some fur
46
balls or something,” suggested Trap.
“But I have a plan!” squEAKed