Scarborough Fair and Other Stories Read Online Free PDF Page A

own private solarium (though his junior housemates had made free of it as he couldn’t always be bothered to run them off. Besides, they were bigger than he was, all except the kitten. She had been a rather sweet little thing who begged him for hunting stories and when he growled in annoyance, would flop purring beside him.). His house was set in a large yard with a strip of forest in the back where he caught many tastey adjuncts to his the healthful but monotonous diet of low-ash kibbles his attendant provided. His last happy memory was of sitting at the picnic table being petted by his old friend Drew, who had stopped by to visit.
    â€œDon’t look now, but we’re not in Kansas any more, Red,” the black-robed female told him.
    â€œMy name is not Red, it is Mustard,” he said. “And I do not live in Kansas. I was born and raised in Fairbanks, Alaska but for the past ten years have resided in the state of Washington. It is warmer there and I may go outside and it is altogether more congenial. Are we there still?”
    â€œYour questions will be answered at length,” she said. “When you’ve met The Master. And don’t fret about a little nicknaming. You’ll have to take a new one when you join the Order. I was formerly known as Jessie Jane Goodall but now am known simply as Sister Paka, which is in the Black Swahili tongue the name of our kind.”
    â€œHumph,” Mustard said. “Affected. I’ve fallen into some cult, haven’t I?”
    She turned her new-moon dark tail to him and he waved it for him to follow. Since he wanted answers and had nothing better to do, he graciously obliged.
    He was not, however, prepared for how weary he would be or how long the corridors were—miles and miles of them, stone walled or pillared, lined with trees and bushes—his favorites, roses. He was mortally shamed and self-disgusted to have to pause to rest from time to time on their journey, which felt more like a quest of many days’ length from the way it taxed his strength. Normally he was light and spry, even though well advanced in years for one of his kind. He considered himself merely seasoned, toughened, tempered, but today he felt every second of every minute of every hour of every day of every week of every month of every year of his life.
    He expected impatience and jeering from the so-called sister, but instead she simply squatted on her haunches, closed her eyes and wrapped her tail around her front paws until he pronounced himself ready to carry on once more.
    At last they padded up a long, long flight of stairs, high into the rafters, by which time even the flitting birds could not hold the exhausted orange cat’s attention. The lady in black scratched at an enormous wooden door, partially open, and from within an unusually deep and sonorous voice, a voice like the rumbling growl of a big cat—the kind Mustard had once seen in a television movie-- bade them enter. Mustard straightened his white cravat and remounted the three steps he had backed down upon first hearing that echoing tone.
    Sister Paka pawed and pawed at the door but couldn’t get it to swing further open. Mustard meanwhile had regained his breath, and with a deep sigh walked to the door, inserted first his nose, then his head, shoulders, and upper body, and walked in. She entered grandly behind him, tail waving, as if she always sent her messengers to announce her entrance. She bumped into Mustard’s behind immediately.
    He could go no further straight forward, because a big hole took up most of the floor space, about an inch from his front paws. Hanging above the hole was a gigantic metal thing, a bell, as he recognized from the tinier versions he’d entertained himself with on various overly cute cat toys. That had to be why the so-called Master’s voice sounded so deep and sonorous—it was bouncing off this humongous piece of hollow iron. Cheap trick.