Free Anton and Cecil by Lisa Martin Page B

the chest, and the hinged lid popped up and creaked softly as the captain lifted it.
    Cecil’s head thumped on the underside of the bed as he stretched his neck to see better, but the captain didn’t notice as he stuck his hand down into what looked like layers of silky cloth packed into the chest. Gently he pulled out a little red cloth bag and loosened the strings holding it closed. He poured a small object out of the bag into his hand and held it in front of his eyes. It was the size of an acorn but round like a ball, and even in the dim room Cecil could see it clearly because it glowed with a pale light. The captain stared at it with his mouth slightly open, a tiny white full moon between his fingers, and Cecil was transfixed as well.
    In the next moment, voices rose to shouting in the corridor and the captain dropped the stone into the bag and down into the chest, shutting the lid with a thud. Cecil skittered backward to avoid being seen. The captain struggled to his feet and whipped the door open, bellowing at the crew in the hall and waving his arms in agitation. Cecil shot out from under the bed and scrambled to the doorway, where the captain’s tall black boots blocked most of the way out. Cecil leaped from side to side as the captain stepped back and forth and shouted orders. Finally Cecil backed up, timed his jump, and lunged between the captain’s legs. He raced down the hall and up to the deck without looking back, the startled captain cursing him as he ran, which, he thought grimly, probably made a bad situation even worse.

    Early in the afternoon, Cecil sat just inside a tipped-over crate near the port rail and pondered the state of things. There was the mystery of the captain’s hidden stone, whatever it was, which gave Cecil an uncomfortable feeling as he had found that humans often fought over small, shiny objects. And what of the whale, whom he had not seen since the night of the storm? It had not returned either to rescue him or to finish the job of drowning him, and he didn’t know if it wished him well or ill. Cecil felt restless on this immobile ship in the middle of this endless ocean, and he’d never find Anton on a ship that didn’t move.
    As he sat in the crate sifting through his problems, Cecil noticed small wisps of steam begin to rise up through the air over the water, vanishing in the sunlight. Is it so hot that now the sea is boiling? wondered Cecil. He roused himself, standing and stretching his back legs one by one, then stepped to the railing. Indeed the water, which had been dead calm since the storm, was simmering with tiny bubbles under the surface. Cecil glanced around to see if the men had noticed, but most of them were below decks taking a midday meal, and they could not man the crow’s nest since the mast came down.
    The bubbling waves began to make a faint hissing sound, and the steaming wisps became more densely packed, making the air hazy and vaporous. That’s actually kind of pretty, Cecil thought, and quite a bit cooler too . One of the sailors awoke from a doze and looked around quizzically, then lumbered over to the below-decks door and called something down. Cecil doubled back and hopped up onto the crate for a better view. The haze steadily thickened, washing out the horizon line and muting the sunlight, and started to swirl, dancing in currents around the ship. Emerging from below decks, the captain and crew stood and stared. The haze condensed around the ship until it felt as if they were floating inside a cloud.
    Abruptly, the younger sailors burst into laughter and slapped one another on the back. They waved their hands in the moist air and ran their fingers through their hair. Giggling, some romped about and held their mouths open as if to drink the air in, and Cecil noticed that he could not even see to the far end of the deck now through the thick haze. He watched the playful sailors, but he also saw the faces of the older crew,