“I think you are intending to behave very badly towards your mistress,” he said severely. “After all, hasn’t she brought you up since you were a kitten? Hasn’t she fed you, and given you a home, and taught you all you know? Bad she may be, but she is your mistress and you owe it to her to be faithful. What is she going to do for a cat if you leave her like this?”
“I’m sure I don’t know, and I certainly don’t care!” said Sootica crossly.
“Do go and ask her permission first, sister,” urged Gobbolino. “Perhaps she will allow you to leave if you really want it so badly!”
“You are perfectly crazy if you think so, brother,” said Sootica scornfully. “Do you really think that at her age she wants to train up another kitten to be as clever as me? Not likely!.”
“Just as I told you!” retorted the little wooden horse. “You really cannot be so inconsiderate towards your mistress. Make the best of the life you have chosen, my friend— I can assure you that you would soon get tired of living the quiet existence of a kitchen cat, like your brother Gobbolino!”
“I would never get tired of it!” scowled Sootica.
“Perhaps your mistress still has the spell in the cauldron that she dipped me in!” said Gobbolino suddenly. “And if she has, you have only to dip yourself in it and all will be settled in an instant. Once you are an ordinary cat the witch will not want to have you, and you will never want to be a witch’s cat again!”
“Ha!” laughed Sootica scornfully “You do have some foolish ideas in your head, my poor silly brother! Why, when I returned from dropping you off the back of my broomstick on to your happy farmyard home, the witch had already tipped the rest of the spell down the mountainside! No, there is no hope for it but to escape, and I intend to come with you first thing in the morning!”
“But why did you send for me if you meant to escape in any case?” asked Gobbolino, puzzled.
At once the eyes of the witch’s cat became sly, and she half closed them again.
“I will tell you how you can help me, brother!” she said. “My mistress is old and getting very blind. She would never know the difference between us if, for a few hours, you took my place, just long enough for me to reach the plain and across the water that will break her power over me. Only a very few hours, Gobbolino! Just long enough for you to hide your tabby coat in the shadows while she sleeps away the daylight, and as long as she thinks it is me sleeping in the corner she will not take the slightest notice of you. Do just this little favour for me, brother, and I will be grateful to you for the rest of my life.”
Gobbolino’s ears flattened on his head from sheer terror at such a dreadful idea.
“But my paw! My white paw! And my eyes are blue!” he protested helplessly.
“You must keep your eyes half closed and she will never notice the colour!” cried Sootica. “And I shall black your paw with dirt off the walls. After all, it is only for such a little while!” she coaxed him. “My mistress sleeps for hours and hours after her night excursions, and I can assure you you will be as safe up there in her cave as by your own fireside at home!”
“Oh, no! No! No!” sobbed Gobbolino, while the little wooden horse stood up as straight as a wooden soldier beside him, determined to defend his friend to the last.
“You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Mistress Sootica!” he exclaimed. “How can you ask such a thing of your brother? It is wicked and cruel and heartless, and if I have any say in the matter he shall do no such thing!”
“And I shall have to stay a witch’s cat for ever and ever!” said Sootica subsiding into tears. “Very well! You are selfish and cold-hearted, the pair of you! And it isyou who ought to be ashamed of yourselves! There you are both of you with happy homes, and a welcome waiting for each of you when you return; but here am I, doomed to a miserable existence for the rest of my life. I hope you will think of me now and again when you are warm and purring by your own hearth, brother!. We were born and bred side by side, but look at us now!”
Gobbolino was nearly sobbing himself.
It all came back to him, the wretched hours and days and weeks he had spent in the witch’s cave, a slave to her powers and her spells and her mischief. He had never been so miserable in all his life as in those days, and now he was going to abandon his sister to the same fate, rather than help her, just for the shortest possible time, to make her escape.
He looked at the little wooden horse.
“It would be very much better not to do as she asks,” said the horse. “I think you will regret it if you do!.”
“I only want to be good like you are!” wept Sootica. “I don’t want to be wicked any more! Won’t you help me to be good, dear friends? Or are you going to abandon me for ever and ever and ever?”
Even the little wooden horse was silent now.
It was a problem bigger than any he had had to deal with. On the one hand, there was the well-being and safety of his friend Gobbolino, and on the other the saving of a fellow creature, steeped to be sure in wickedness, but who might, if they helped her, turn into something better.
The one person he could think of who might make a good cat of Sootica for the rest of her nine lives was his dear old Uncle Peder. But the risk! Oh the awful risk of such an undertaking, even for a few short hours!
While they all stood dumbly facing one another in the moonlight a shrill and far-off screeching summoned Sootica from the top of the mountain. It was the witch, calling for her cat to join her on her night’s excursions.
Sootica shot to her feet with her fur standing on end.
“My mistress! I must go before she sees you!” she exclaimed. “Brother! I beseech you to do this one thing for me! Just this one little thing! Meet me high up on the mountain when the sun touches the topmost crag, and I will show you where to hide yourself! Please, brother! Oh, do! Oh, do! Just think! You will be giving me my last chance of happiness!”
There came another screech from above, and Sootica shot out of the cave and was gone.
9SOOTICA’S PLAN [Êàðòèíêà: i_018.jpg]
Gobbolino and the little wooden horse stood looking at each other in great perplexity and even despair. Their legs felt weak with terror at Sootica’s suggestion, and even the little wooden horse could think of nothing positive to say.
“If we left her now,” Gobbolino said at last, “we could be back in the forest before dark! But what would become of my poor sister? And then there are the bats! We have promised to help them. How can we be so selfish as to abandon them now, to help ourselves? If they can’t use the caves they will fly back to the village and harass the priest and the congregation. Surely we can’t allow that to happen?”
The little wooden horse could only shake his head very sorrowfully. The whole plan filled him with dread and foreboding.
He did not doubt that Sootica really did long to leave the witch and become an ordinary cat, like her brother, but even if her escape was successful and they all arrived safely home, would she really make a kitchen cat after her long training in a witch’s cave? And even more important than that, what awful risks did his friend Gobbolino run in taking her place? What would the witch do if she caught him at it? He began to shiver in all his little wooden legs.
But Gobbolino was making plans, and the more positive the plans the braver he felt about coming to a decision.
“You and Sootica must start for home the moment the sun rises over the top of the mountain,” he announced. “In that way you can be at the river by midday, avoiding the village. Then, if the witch is still asleep as my sister supposes, I will leave the cave and follow you. Once we are across the water we shall all be safe.”
“I shall not go with your sister Sootica,” said the little wooden horse with outraged dignity. “I shall wait and come with you!”
“Oh, no!” said Gobbolino. “Because my sister will not be safe until she has crossed the stream, and while she is still this side of the bank the witch can still catch her, if by any unlucky chance she finds out the trick we are playing on her. You must go with her, and swim her across on your back as you did me.”