Cat Adventures: Part 2
“SHARK!!!” Panda screeches, furiously paddling back.
“What? I’m no shark! Me, Delphine, the shark? How silly!” A high-pitched female voice squeals. I turn to see… a bottlenose dolphin!
“Golly, you’re a big fish!” Panda exclaims, turning around. “Coco, are we gonna eat this?”
“Panda, you idiot, this is a dolphin!” I say, rolling my eyes. “Not a fish!”
“Oh.” Panda sighs, looking disappointed. “But I’m hungry!”
Delphine laughs, which sounds like silver bells jangling underwater. “Watch this!” She starts swimming rapidly in a circle around Panda and me, occasionally flicking her tail. Wow! A school of minnows appear below us, unable to escape because the dolphin is swimming so fast.
“Dig in!” the dolphin chatters. Panda and I easily catch several fish, slicing them in the belly, so they die quickly and float up, belly-up, eyes unfocused. The dolphin quickly cuts in the circle after grabbing a couple of minnows in her mouth.
“Thanks!” Panda and I chorus when we finish.
“Wow, you’re really good at fishing,” I say.
“Thanks, but this is how we dolphins hunt, you know!” Delphine chortles. “Now, tell me what you guys are doing in the middle of the Endless Sea? Not every day do I find two hungry cats!”
“Endless Sea?” I ask.
Delphine frowns, well, as much as a dolphin can frown. “You’re not from around here, are you? It’s called the Endless Sea because it’s endless. No end.”
“Well… not exactly.” Panda says. He tells the dolphin our tale. “We want to go home. Actually, we wouldn’t be here if not for someone…” He glares at me.
“Ah-ha! You’re from the Other Side. But… hey, climb on my back. I want to see this island of yours. Where is it?”
We climb up. Her skin is really slippery, so we grab onto her fin. “It’s roughly half a mile away. We should be able to see it…” But when we turn, the island is gone! Poof. Just like that.
“Oh well, this is the Endless Sea, after all. Islands never stay for long.” She said this commentas casually as if she was ordering a cheeseburger.
“Delphine, can you take us to that island, over there?” Panda waves a paw toward the green speck many miles away.
“Hmmm, that’s a patch of seaweed, I think. But we can still check it out.” She takes off, with me and Panda handing on for dear life.
In about one hour, after a short nap, we arrive at the green place. Turns out it is a patch of kelp where many otters live.
“Wow, bears!” Panda says.
“Otters, dummy.”
“Oh. Right. Of course.” Panda tries to act like he knew that all along, but one otter gives him a look, and he wilts under it.
A fluffy otter swims over, balancing a clamshell on her belly. “Welcome to the Floaty Patch! First time here?”
“Yeah,” I say, still staring at the maze of kelp and hammocks made out of seaweed. Otters swing between them like monkeys.
“I’m Oona,” the otter says. “I take care of visitors. Need a snack? Or directions? Or possibly an existential revelation about your place in the universe?”
Panda tilts his head. “Can I just get a fish?” I swear, he’s a bottomless pit.
“Sure thing.” She tosses him a shiny silver fish. He swallows it whole, bones and all. “Thanks,” he mumbles through a mouthful.
“So,” I say, “you wouldn’t happen to know how to get back to the, ah, Other Side, would you?”
“The Other Side?” Oona scratches her head with a paw. “Dry World? Seriously? Boring there. Well… hmm… that’s a tricky one. You’ll need to talk to Blackfur. He’s a cat too—but, uh, kind of… different.”
“Different how?”
“Well…” Oona hesitates. “He’s a pirate.”
To be continued…