Free Miranda the Great by Eleanor Estes Page B

our country villa, then return to Rome and help to stamp out the fire and stop the pillaging. Hurry, while the Appian Way remains clear!"
    While shouting these awful words, Marcus was unharnessing Hamilcar Barca from the chariot and harnessing him instead to a cart large enough to hold everybody. But where were Miranda and Punka?
    "Get in!" said Marcus.
    Instead, Claudia made a dash for the house to find her two cats, and her mother raced after her. "Miranda! Punka!" they called. They called sternly and they called coaxingly, but there was no answer. They were nowhere in sight. That is the way with cats ... if someone wants them to come, they go, and if someone wants them to go, they come. Zag was already in the driver's place, for that is the way with dogs ... they always get in the driver's place, never to be left behind.
    "Miranda! Punka!" Claudia called again, and her mother whistled a special tune she had made up that Miranda almost always came to. But still, they did not answer.
    Then Hamilcar Barca gave another terrified neigh. "Wuh-huh-huh-huh!" It would be impossible to hold him back another moment. "Come, Claudia! Lavinia, come!" shouted Marcus. "Else we all shall perish. I'll come back for the cats when I return to Rome."

    There was nothing else to do. The smoke was growing denser. Everyone was choking and gasping. Claudia and her mother climbed into the cart, two frightened strangers joined them, Marcus leaped on, and Hamilcar Barca, swift as lightning, sped away.
    Claudia stretched her arms back toward her pretty golden house. "Miranda!" she cried. "Punka! When shall I see you again? Where are you hiding?"

3. Two Brave Cats

    In an urn—that was where Miranda and Punka were hiding! At the first "Wuh-huh-huh-huh!" of Hamilcar Barca, the two cats had dashed to an urn beside the pool, leaped in, and crouched at the bottom of it. It was a tight squeeze, but the urn was large, and they had done it before. They wanted to get as far as possible from the neighing, snorting, clomping, chomping horse. Miranda's heart beat very fast as she listened to the fading hoofbeats of Hamilcar Barca. Then there was a complete silence. "He's gone," Miranda thought with satisfaction.
    Miranda put one of her eyes to the crack in the urn and looked into the garden. Claudia was not in sight. No one was. The air was gray, yet it was not night. "Woe-woe," said Miranda. No one answered her "woe-woe." Miranda realized that she and Punka were alone. She tilted her nose up and sniffed. Even way down in the bottom of the urn, she could now smell smoke. She felt a little uneasy. Black specks and ashes flickered across her view, and some fell inside and onto her and Punka. Miranda studied the specks and ashes on her fur in astonishment. She then decided that it was time to get out of the urn. "Leap!" she said to Punka.
    Punka happened to be a leaping cat, not a singer, true, but a leaping cat ... Punka, the leaper. She was quite extraordinary. She could leap straight up in the air, at least seven feet high, and with no running start at all. She had been born with this ability that few cats have.
    Now, without one single wiggle back and forth, with no preparation, Punka leaped straight up and out of the urn, a six-foot-high leap! Ordinarily she would have landed right straight back down from where she had started, but this time she maneuvered herself so that she landed beside the urn, on the outside. It was a spectacular and successful leap. "Wah," she said. She was scared because she was all alone. Her eyes and nose were filled with smoke. "Wah," she said again, calling desperately for her mother.
    "Woe-woe," Miranda answered reassuringly. "I'm coming. I'll be with you in a minute."
    Miranda was not a leaping cat. She was a great mother and a fine singer. But she was not a leaper. With new kittens about to be born, she was an even worse leaper than usual. "I'll have to topple the urn over," she decided, "and then crawl out." Without knowing it,