Cat’s Journey to the Endless Sea
“Coco…Coco!” Hannah says, gently shaking me.
I meow and leap out of my cat bed. She pours kitty food in my bowl. Panda, the other cat occupant in this house, is already eating his adult food. He grunts without looking up. Wow, his food smells soooo good! I sidle up beside him, then poke my head in to try his kibble. Panda starts, jumping back, then hisses at me.
“Now, now, Coco,” Hannah laughs, placing me back in front of my food bowl. “Eat your own food.” I look past her at Panda, who’s glaring daggers at me. Hannah glances at her watch. “Alrighty, I have to get to work now. Try not to annoy Panda that much, okay? Take care of Coco, okay?” She leaves, locking the door behind her.
“Hihi! Hihi! What’re ya doin’?” I jump around Panda.
“Go away, you little twerp!” Panda growls, backing away.
Still, I know that he’s sorta scared of me. Hannah says that’s because he’s gotten into a fight with another cat and got badly hurt, so he is scared of all other cats. I can’t wait to get in a fight when I grow up! Panda has lived here much longer than I have. I don’t really know much about him. He’s really old, at least compared to me. An adult! He’s black and white. Really pretty pattern. If only his attitude were the same!
Laughing, I bat at him. Panda backs into a corner. His tail brushes the wall, then suddenly, there is a beep, then a whirring sound. We both turn to stare at the source of the noise, and, wow, there is a hole in the wall.
“Wowie, a secret door!” I laugh. “Well, let’s go.” I walk into the door. Inside is a long, dark tunnel. I see a speck of light at the very end.
“Hey, get your little butt back here!” Panda meows, though I can sorta tell he’s curious, too. “I promised I’d take care of you!”
But I’m so far away now, he has no choice other than to follow me. “I swear, if I get in trouble because of this… where eve— HEY!” The hole behind us disappears. “Ohhhh, now you’ve done it, we’re trapped.”
I shrug as well as a cat can shrug. “Oh well.”
“Kids these days…”
“Hey lookit! We’re at the end!”
The tunnel has led us straight onto an island. It’s covered entirely with sand and a single palm tree shoots out from the middle. There isn’t any land in sight. Really, the island is tiny, about the side of the grand piano that Hannah has. Luckily, Panda and I are cats and fit easily. As soon as Panda’s back paw steps on the island, the tunnel disappears.
“Trapped again.” Panda sighs. “We’ll slowly starve to death and die here. So, smart aleck, what now? Swim?” He laughs drily.
“Swim! Great idea!”
“Don’t be a fool, cats can’t swim!”
I grin. “You’re just scared. Scaredy-cat, ha!”
“Whatever,” Panda mumbles, looking away. “I’m not swimming.”
I feign shock. “Okay then, you can rot out here while I leave. Come on, we can catch fish on the way, too.”
“Fine. Only because you mentioned fish.” Panda points out to sea with his paw with mock politeness. “After you.”
Choosing a random direction, I step into the water and shiver. It’s icy cold. The water is shallow, and I can keep my paws on the sandy seafloor with my head sticking out.
“AHHH I’m drowning, I’m drowning!” Panda shrieks, frantically flailing.
“Stand up, duh.”
Panda takes a breath and stands. “I’m drowning– hey, I’m not drowning!”
Soon though, my legs aren’t long enough, and I have to doggy paddle. Panda has to follow my lead. After about half a mile, we’re both exhausted, but I see a tiny green speck. I can’t tell what exactly it is, but it looks like land.
“Hey, land!”
Panda paddles up beside me. “Yeah, like ten miles away. I’m tired.” Then, his eyes widen so wide I think they might pop out of the sockets.
“What is it? Spit it out.”
“Sh-sh-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, welcome to the Endless Sea! Islands never stay for long.” She said it as 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.”
—what?
“He roams the Endless Sea with his ghost crew. As stubborn as he is, he is all-knowing. If anyone can get you to the Other Side, it’s him.”
“Where can we find him?” I ask.
Oona flicks her paw. “He was seen near Island Octia not long ago.”
Panda sighs dramatically. “More swimming.”
“You can ride me again,” Delphine giggles, which sounds really traumatizing. “No effort at all.”
Before we leave, Oona gives us each a tiny seaweed bracelet that we slip onto our arm. “These are for good luck,” she says. “You’ll need it, surface cats!”
We wave goodbye and climb back onto Delphine.
As we speed across the waves, the sun begins to dip into the water, turning everything gold and pink. Panda leans his head against my side.
“You know,” he says, “this is the weirdest day of my life.”
“Also the best.” I laugh.
The next morning we arrive at Octia, which is a little island that is covered in, well, seashells. The ocean floor around it has also shells scattered everywhere. There are big ones, small ones, shiny ones, dull ones, flat ones, and round ones.
“Yup, one of the few islands that don’t move. It’s kinda hard to find, you know, with all this water and stuff. Luckily I found it pretty quickly,” Delphine says.
“Wow… so cool!” Panda exclaims. “But, what is that?” He points a paw in the general direction of a big dark shape moving towards us.
“Hmmm, Blackfur, it seems.” Delphine answers. “His ship, I mean. Not him.”
“Let’s go, then! That’s our ticket home!” I say, and Delphine speeds us to the ship.
“Hey, Captain!” A gruff voice calls out as we near the ship. “Got company!”
“Who?” A lazy male voice asks.
“Uhhh, two cats and a dolphin!”
Suddenly a head peers down from the ship’s head. It’s a cat, with fur so black all I see is a black blob with two yellow eyes. “Ahoy, what do you want?”
“Uhhh, to go home,” I say uncertainly. Oona said that he was stubborn, so there was no way this was this was gonna be easy.
“They live in the Other Side,” Delphine adds. “Dry World.”
Blackfur shouts to us, “Alright then, come up!” He lowers down a rope ladder.
“But Delphine can’t…”
“Oh, I’m not coming,” Delphine says. “Why would I? This is my home, the Endless Sea.”
“Alright…” Panda and I sadly say. “Bye, thanks for everything.”
“My pleasure, au revoir,” Delphine smiles, then dives away.
We climb up the ladder, where Blackfur waits. He’s about the same age as Panda. “I’ve been waiting for you.” This is really weird… from the look on Panda’s face, he is thinking the same thing.
“Now, the Other Side, hmm? Well, I certainly know how to get there! But you’ll have to do something for me. Help me fetch my sword from the cat pirate Osar. We were dueling and placed a bet on each other’s swords. I, ah, lost, so he took the sword.”
“Why don’t you go get it?” I ask. Panda shoots me a Shut-up-now look.
“Look, do you want to get home or not?”
Without waiting for a reply, he tells a ghost (yes, a ghost) to sail the ship to Osar’s lair. As the ghost crew hoists the sails, I stare at them. They’re transparent, but you can still kinda tell what they looked like when they were alive. One has no tail. Another has only one eye. One has no ears. Ghost cats, apparently, don’t come back in one piece.
Panda huddles next to me. “I don’t like this,” he whispers. “Why do they moan when they move?”
“They’re ghosts. Moaning is kind of their thing.” The ship cuts across the waves like a blade. I can barely stand; everything is rocking and tilting and swaying. Panda throws up over the side after trying to walk straight.
“Maybe you shouldn’t have eaten so much,” I say. “Anyway, hang in there, we’re almost there.”
“Thanks,” Panda mumbles.
I walk to the front of the ship. “So, how are we getting the sword? We just knock on Osar’s door and ask nicely for the sword back?”
Blackfur laughs. “Oh, no, no. Osar doesn’t do nice. He likes to eat sardines.”
“Come again?”
“I said—he is super mean. Don’t worry, it’ll be safe. Kind of. Maybe.”
Suddenly, the fog parts—and there it is. A wooden fortress. Osar’s hideout.
“Come on. Osar isn’t home. His ship isn’t here.”
We anchor our ship and walk to the fortress, leaving the ghosts behind since, as Blackfur insists, their souls are intertwined to the ship (given that they died there, very likely.) Osar’s fortress is made of bones—cat bones, probably, but I try not to think about it. We tiptoe in through the door, which is somehow unlocked, and end up in a long hallway with doors lining the sides.
“I’ve been here before. My sword should be in here.” Blackfur pushes a door open. “There it is!” A golden sword lays on a pedestal. Blackfur grabs it. “Let’s go.”
“Arrr! No way.” The largest cat I’ve ever seen stands in the doorway. He’s gray, striped, and scarred. “Well, well, well,” Osar says, licking one paw. “Blackfur the Loser returns.”
Blackfur says coolly, “I’ll get my sword back.”
Osar squints. “Why should you get what I won fair and square?”
“Because I’ll fight you for it,” Blackfur hisses.
Osar grins. “Sure. But this time…” He pulls out a large, flat object. “I fight with the Game of Pounce… with them.” He points at me and Panda.
Blackfur groans. “Ugh, that stupid game. And it’s my sword. I fight for it.”
“It’s not just a game,” Osar says dramatically. “It’s legendary. And they fight or no one fights.”
“Fine, but I can tell them what to do.”
“Fine.”
“Fine.”
“Fine.”
“Shut up.”
Panda and I sit across from Osar at a table, the board game laid out between us. It’s full of strange markings—fishbones, paw prints, and yarn balls.
Osar cracks his knuckles. “Let’s see if you guys can Pounce.”
Panda leans toward me. “This looks confusing. I don’t even know what’s going on.”
“Same,” I whisper back.
Osar dramatically places a carved wooden token shaped like a cat on the “Starting Scratching Post.”
“You can go first,” he says.
I roll the dice. One lands on a fishbone. The other shows a number: two.
Blackfur nods. “Fishbone and two. Means you move forward two tail-lengths and steal a fish from the Bank of Sardines.”
Panda draws a card and reads aloud: “Lose a turn and two whiskers.”
“Oooh, that’s rough,” Osar swishes his tail.
“You don’t actually lose your whiskers,” Blackfur mutters to us. “It’s symbolic. I think.”
Osar draws next. “Yarn ball and five. Ah! Yarn Frenzy!”
From somewhere inside the fortress, a cannon shoots a yarn ball right at Osar’s face. He bats it expertly. “Extra point for style,” he gloats.
Panda’s mouth drops open. “Is this… charades?”
“No idea,” I say.
The game goes on in wild rounds: Panda lands on a Sardine Shortcut, jumping to “Litterbox Junction,” where he has to solve a riddle. Osar triggers a Catnip Spiral, where he has to roll while chasing his own tail and knocks over a salt shaker. Both teams land on Midnight Zoomies, which means we race around the room in real life, meowing. First one back gets a bonus claw card.
Eventually, after Panda and I sort of understand the tenets of the game, I smack down a card. “Boom. Laser Dot Conquest. That’s triple points, right? In other words, I win.”
Osar slumps. “NOOOO, not the Laser Dot! I will never win against that one.”
Blackfur leans back with a grin. “Checkmate.”
“That’s not the right game term!”
“Whatever the equivalent is in this weird game. We win anyway.”
Osar groans and tosses the sword onto the table. “Fine. Take it. You win this round.”
Blackfur bows. “Good game, Losar. Get it? Osar and loser? Hahaha!”
Osar grumbles. “Get out of my fortress.”
We scamper out before Osar changes his mind.
“That was amazing!” I squeal once we’re outside. “I thought my brain would explode during the Catnip Spiral.”
“I thought my brain did explode,” Panda says, pointing a paw back toward the fortress. “That Osar guy isn’t right.”
Back on the ship, Blackfur holds up the sword triumphantly, its golden hilt glinting in the sunlight. ”Back to the ship, mates! We’ve got what we came for.”
The ghost crew cheers, well, it sounds like moaning, enthusiastically.
Blackfur says. “Right. A deal’s a deal. I’ll get you home.”
“Really? How?” I blink.
He scoffs. “You think just any cat can return from the Endless Sea to dry land this easily? We have to get to a specific island. Then, you say a spell to open the portal, but it only works every century, for exactly a minute.”
“Of course it does,” Panda mutters. “Why wouldn’t it?”
“But!” Blackfur says dramatically, “You’re in luck. I know where it is, and we’ve got just enough time if we sail like tuna’s on the menu!”
“Is tuna on the menu?” Panda asks hopefully.
Blackfur ignores him. “Set course north!”
The ship lurches forward, ghostly paws working the rigging, spectral tails waving like tattered flags. The sky darkens a little as clouds roll in. Thunder rumbles in the distance.
I go to Blackfur. “Hey… what happens if we miss the portal?”
Blackfur’s whiskers twitch. “Then you’re gonna have to wait another seven years. Like Steve.” He points at one of the crew.
Steve waves, his jaw falling off in the process. Panda faints.
By sunset, we reach the island—a narrow strip of sand, Blackfur jumps onto the beach without hesitation. I follow with a groggy Panda behind me.
“You’ve got one shot,” Blackfur says. “Repeat after me: Why did the cats cross the road? To get to the Other Side.”
“Why did the cats cross the road? To get to the Other Side.” Panda and I chorus. A glowing portal appears, swirling blue and gold.
“Wait, what about you?” I ask. “Are you coming back to the Other Side?”
Blackfur chuckles. “Nah. Even though I came from there, my place is here. I’ve got a pirate crew, a ghost ship, and a reputation. Besides, someone’s got to keep Osar from declaring himself ‘King of the Sea’ again.”
He pats me on the head. “Take care, kitty.”
Before I can reply, the portal starts to shrink.
“GO!” Blackfur shouts.
I grab Panda’s paw and leap.
THUMP.
We land in a pile of laundry. Panda groans beside me, his fur sticking up in all directions.
A familiar voice calls out: “Coco? Panda?” Hannah.
She runs in, eyes wide. “Where were you two? I came home and you were gone! And why do you have seaweed tied around your paw and smell like salt?”
I blink up at her. “Long story,” I say, though she can’t understand.
Panda mutters, “Never eating sardines again.”
And that’s how we came back from the Endless Sea. But sometimes, when I sit by the window, I smell salt in the wind, hear a dolphin chattering, and see a pirate ship sail past the clouds.