Just when he was wondering what could be done about the problem, he caught sight of what appeared to be hundreds of the sort of tiny cat he’d seen on his way through the woods the previous night. Now they were emerging everywhere along the path, sitting and standing atop the fallen trees. All were watching the parade, as if it were the first such demonstration they had ever seen. And, Max thought, it probably was.
When the other paraders noticed the cats watching, they paraded with extra effort, stomping higher and shuffling more intensely. And the extra effort seemed to attract more watchers. There were suddenly thousands of eyes along the route, most of them attached to the cats but also to thin tendrils of what looked like ferns. Max looked closer, guessing them to be some kind of land-dwelling anemones, with hundreds of eyes, each sitting atop a long twisting stalk. Max couldn’t tell if they were able to think, let alone understand the greatness of the parade, but it hardly mattered. As Max paraded forward, all he could see were the eyeballs, all unblinking, all rapt.
They were about halfway to the lagoon, according to Douglas’s estimate, and Max was beginning to tire. He had an idea which seemed to solve his tiredness problem while also remaining true to the parameters of parades.
He climbed up Douglas’s leg and shoulders and rode for a time there, his scepter pointing the way. But after a few minutes there, Max was getting bored, so he decided to jump, like a spider monkey, from one set of shoulders to the next. It was far trickier than spider monkeys made it look, but every time Max would slip, an enormous paw would be there to restore him to his perch. Max was confident he would get better at the jumping in the future, but in any case it would be how he would travel from now on. It was quicker than walking, and he liked the view from up above far more.
As he sat on the Bull’s head, and while the rest of the paraders paraded, his mind spun through the possibilities — all the things he could and should do with seven giant playmates — and the first and most obvious one seemed to be that he and they needed to make a ship of some kind. He jumped over to Ira and began, mid-thought:
“Yeah, it’s gonna be a vampire ship,” Max said, “the biggest and fastest vampire ghost ship ever created. And we’re gonna need lots of trees. We’re gonna need um … twenty … No, more! We’re gonna need a hundred of the biggest tree trunks on the island. Ira, you get the trees.”
“Okay,” Ira said.
“And lots of rope. And some sails.” He jumped onto Douglas. “Douglas, you have to get the sails. The finest sails known to man!”
“Yes, King Max,” Douglas replied, and with his claw made some kind of notation on his arm.
“I’ll be the captain, and Judith, you’ll be in charge of speed. You have to make sure we have good wind.” Judith seemed very pleased to have been asked. “And Ira, you can steer the boat. What’s the person called who steers the boat?”
“The captain?” Ira offered uncertainly.
“Okay, well, I’ll steer the ship. I’m the captain.”
“And I’m in charge of wind?” Judith said. Her eyes seemed to be envisioning this new and vital role.
Max nodded. “Wind and weather, yeah. And speed.”
“What about me?” Alexander asked.
“You can be the lookout,” Max said.
“No, I don’t want to look out,” Alexander said. “Or maybe I would if the ship was different and I was the captain instead of you.”
Max didn’t know how to answer Alexander. He made a note to try to avoid him altogether in the future.
“Psst. Hey King!”
Max turned to see Katherine hiding in the hollow of an enormous tree. She beckoned him over. Relieved to be away from the goat, Max jumped off Douglas’s shoulders and over to her.
“I need to talk to you,” she said.
“Really?” Max said. “About what?” He didn’t want to leave the parade, so he tried to lure her into talking while walking with the group.
But she didn’t want that.
“We need a little privacy,” she said, pulling him from the path.
Max really didn’t think he should be leaving his own parade, but there was something so intriguing about Katherine. They wouldn’t miss him for a little bit.
“Grab here,” Katherine said, indicating the fur on the back of her neck. “Hold tight.”
CHAPTER XXVII
Max did, and immediately his feet left the earth. With Max on her back, and with incredible speed, Katherine climbed the tree she’d been hiding in. She climbed so fast, chipmunk-style, that he could barely hold on. In seconds they were at the top of a fifty-foot tree, its leaves a pale purple, and Katherine was resting on a platform she had arranged between the tree’s two highest boughs. She placed Max on his feet, and he found himself standing atop a ten-foot square wooden perch.
“You like it up here?” she asked.
He nodded, awed. From the platform he could see the whole island — the cauliflower forests, the burnt-red desert, the black and blue ravines, the ever-grinning ocean. He looked down, where Katherine was laying on her stomach on the narrow platform.
“Oh man, that climb got me sore. Can you walk on my back?” she asked.
Max didn’t know what she was talking about.
She looked up to him and rolled her eyes. “It’s sore. You think you could walk on it?”
Max had never been asked to walk on someone’s back before.
“What, like actually step on you?” he said.
“Yup, step on me, and then walk around.”
Max couldn’t wrap his head around this.
“C’mon, just step on,” she said.
He aimed his foot toward her torso.
“King, do it!” she said, grabbing his foot.
He gingerly began to walk on top of her. She was soft in some places and in others he could feel the ropes of muscle underneath the heavy fur.
“Oh, that feels good,” she said.
Max was trying not to hurt her, while also trying hard to keep his balance. Any slip and he would fall off Katherine, off the platform, and down fifty feet. Katherine didn’t seem to be concerned at all about the danger.
“Now jump up and down really quick, like you’re walking on fire,” she said.
He did so as best he could.
“Good, good,” she said. “That’s the only way to get rid of the knots.”
Max slowed his jumping, hoping that he could be finished as soon as possible. “Done?” he asked.
“Sure. Thanks, King,” she said, and quickly rolled onto her back, forcing Max to step quickly, log-rolling-style, until he was standing on her stomach.
“Please go slower,” he asked.
Katherine looked up at him, as if assessing whether she should ask him what she wanted to ask him.
“Hey Max, you ever feel like you’re, like, stuck under other people?” she said, squinting up at him, seeming immensely relieved to have said it. “Sometimes I feel like I’m trapped under people … like in a bad way. You know what I mean?”
Max began to formulate an answer but she didn’t seem to need one.
“I don’t know,” she continued, “I feel like I’m constantly burdened by everyone’s issues. You know?”
Max thought he knew. Or did he? He wasn’t sure, but it didn’t matter. He just liked being with her, alone with her. She seemed interested in him, in being only with him and talking only to him, and he was having trouble breathing.
She smiled at him. “I was about to go crazy before you showed up. You’re different, you know? You’re …” She seemed on the verge of saying something very serious but then retreated. “You know, you’ve got less hair, you’re cleaner … You smell better. You don’t smell great, but better.”