Space Cat Meets Mars Page 4
While he went on with his work, Flyball and Moofa went for another walk in the cool of the afternoon sun, with the soft breeze blowing away the last of the dust.
While they examined all the strange mushrooms which she showed him, Flyball told Moofa more about life on Earth and his own life as a space cat. She was most interested.
Finally, when they were once more sitting by the side of the canal, paying no attention to the bubbling of the fish, Flyball looked straight at her.
“Won’t you feel awfully lonely once we go off again?” he asked, twiddling his whiskers delicately with his paw. Moofa put her head thoughtfully on a ruby-colored pad and gazed into the water.
“Yes, I suppose I shall,” she admitted. “It’ll be worse than it was before you came. Until I caught a glimpse of you yesterday, I thought I was perhaps the only cat in the universe.”
“That’s just what I meant,” Flyball went on, combing out his whiskers with shining white claws. “I don’t know how you’d like it, but there is room for you on the Halley. Would you like to come with us?”
Moofa watched the fish for a moment before she spoke. “It’ll be very strange,” she said slowly, “but there’s really no point in going on being the last cat on Mars, now that I know about you others. The fish will get by without me. Yes, I’ll come with you—if your Fred will let me.”
“Of course he will,” replied Flyball, showing more conviction in his voice than he really felt.
As they drew near to the ship, they noticed that Fred was no longer whanging away at the tubes. He was seated on the ground, sewing away like mad.
“Miaow,” said Flyball gently, and Fred looked up. It was too late for him to hide his work. Flyball could see it was a cat-sized hammock.
“Well,” said Fred, “you surprised me too soon. I’d hoped to have this fitted up for your friend by the time you got back. I suppose you want to take her with us?”
For answer, both Flyball and Moofa rubbed against his legs, purring loudly.
Late that night, long after the sun had set, and the plants had stopped giving out their oxygen, the lights were on in the Halley. Fred was leaning over the ship’s work bench while Moofa and Flyball lay on his hammock, watching him work. He adjusted springs and tightened wires to rig Moofa’s hammock up next to Flyball’s.
Moofa knew that Flyball had told her the truth when he said that on Earth, cats kept human beings to work for them, even though she could not yet imagine the world where this was so.
At last the job was done and the hammock slung. Moofa settled down in it. As she told Flyball, she had never in all her life known such a comfortable bed, nor had she ever eaten so richly.
Fred turned out the lights. Flyball fell asleep to dream that he and his new companion were jaunting all over space on a huge mushroom. Moofa licked her whiskers as she dreamed of sardines, chicken and all the other delicacies of which Flyball had told her. Fred, it is sad to say, dreamed of chipping away immense quantities of blue glass which gathered on the tubes quicker than he could knock it off.
With the return of the sun, Fred went on with his job, glad to find that the glass had not grown back during the night. He was now at work on the last tube.
When the last blue shard tumbled to the ground, he straightened up.
“That’s that,” he said, unzipping his coveralls. “We should make a start before long. But I’d like to take a few photographs first.”
Among the many pictures which he took was a colored one of Flyball and Moofa sitting on top of one of the giant lemon-yellow mushrooms.
Once Fred had finished, they all went into the Halley. From the door of the airlock Moofa took a long last look at the world where she had been born and which she was about to leave. Flyball gave her a friendly pat.
“So long as you’re around with a space cat,” he told her, with just a suggestion of pride in his voice, “you can bet you’ll be back.”
Fred, all his calculations made, strapped them in their hammocks.
“You’ll feel awfully squashed for a moment, Moofa,” the experienced Flyball told her. “But it won’t last for long.”
Finally, strapped in himself, Fred pressed the firing buttons. This time everything worked perfectly. There was an increasing roar and then the Halley rose from the ground, slowly at first but gathering speed rapidly, until they felt that the springs in their hammocks could not take any more strain. After a long time of this, Fred cut the power. They were in space once more, and this time they were headed for the Moon and a well-deserved leave on Earth.
Before showing Moofa how to use magnetic sandals, Flyball introduced her to the delights of free-fall.
The red and the grey tumbled round the cabin, as happy as kittens.
Scottish poet, novelist, and artist Ruthven Todd (1914–78) is best known as an editor of William Blake’s works and an author of children’s stories, including four Space Cat adventures. He also wrote detective fiction under the pseudonym R. T. Campbell.
Illustrator and writer Paul Galdone (1907–86) specialized in children’s books. His illustrations for Eve Titus’s books include the Basil of Baker Street series. Galdone and Titus were nominated for Caldecott Medals for Anatole (1957) and Anatole and the Cat (1958), titles that were named Caldecott Honor books in 1971. Galdone was posthumously awarded the 1996 Kerlan Award for his contributions to children’s literature.
www.doverpublications.com