His Royal Whiskers Read online

  His mother and father? Pieter didn’t want to see them. When they had appeared on the plaza to sweep away the czarmy, he had gone away and hid. How could he ever forget how they had abandoned him?

  I’m sure I don’t need to tell a mathemagician, said Grim, what the odds are that you can avoid them forever. And I’m certain too that someone who has dabbled in alchemy like you have already knows that people can change.

  “Family,” Pieter said, the ghost of a headache groaning in his head. “Now there’s a problem that no formula will ever solve. But I suppose you’re right. I should try and work it out anyway.”

  I’ll be sad to see you go, Grim said. There’s an enormous backlog of souls to collect in Petrossia. I can barely keep up with today’s deaths, let alone the deaths from Yule and spring that are still waiting to happen. . . .

  Pieter looked at the skeleton suspiciously. “Wait a second.”

  What? The pupils in Grim’s twin eye sockets shone with twinkly innocence.

  “This sounds as if you’re about to offer me a job, Grim.”

  Grim’s jaw clacked open and shut rapidly, like a pair of wind-up teeth. It took Pieter a moment to realize the skeleton was laughing.

  Offer you a job? As my assistant? Not if you were the last soul in Catacomb! You indirectly murdered the last person who employed you.

  “But you’re already a skeleton,” said Pieter, trying not to sound hurt, “so that wouldn’t be such an issue. . . .”

  Grim leaned on his scythe. You don’t want to work for me, Pieter. You’ve got unfinished business. You want to go back and live again, don’t you?

  Pieter felt his blue soul blush. “Is it really that obvious?”

  I can see right through you, Pieter. Literally.

  He sighed and slumped onto the plaza, hugging his knees. “I know it’s impossible—” he began, but Grim cut him off.

  Don’t be ridiculous. Of course it’s possible. Anything is. It’s just not allowed. Souls go from Life to Death—never the other way. I almost didn’t get permission to let Teresa go home.

  “Right.”

  I had to fill out a whole bunch of forms.

  “I see.”

  And make an appeal.

  “Oh.”

  Life and Death have very strict rules on these things.

  Grim’s red gaze started to flicker amber, then a mischievous green.

  Fate, however . . . Well Fate is much more willing to make exceptions. Complete romantic, She is, in my opinion. Which is why, when it came to you, I put in your request straight to Her.

  “Request?”

  From the black folds of his robe, Grim took out a scroll and held it out. It looked very official—there was a black wax seal and silver-gilt paper.

  If I had eyebrows, they’d be waggling up and down right now.

  Pieter just looked even more confused.

  For a genius, you sure are fond of explanations, said Grim with a sigh, unrolling it from the bottom upwards. It’s an Asking, Pieter. This is just how we see it, of course.

  On the form, in scrawly black handwriting, Grim had written out Pieter’s name, his date of birth (and death), and every other detail about him.

  “Is this . . .” Pieter looked up breathlessly. “Is this a haunting request?”

  No, said Grim. Better than that.

  Typed at the top of the form was:

  !!! APPLICATION FOR EMERGENCY REINCARNATION !!!

  And at the bottom, stamped in red, was the word:

  It hadn’t been easy for Grim. He’d been determined to repay Pieter for his part in defeating the Czar, but bringing people back to life wasn’t exactly his area of expertise.

  To pull it off, he needed help.

  And so it was that, a week after she’d returned to the Winter Palace, Teresa found a very tall, very thin man in a hooded cloak waiting by her bed when she woke.

  “What do you want?” she said to Grim, arms folded. She still hadn’t forgiven him for what he’d done to her best friend.

  I’ve got a problem on my hands, he began. Called Pieter Abadabacus.

  Teresa’s scowl became a smile. “Well, that’s a problem I’m happy to help you solve.”

  And so Grim explained his plan. The biggest issue was this: Pieter’s old life was gone, and so he needed a new one. But lives are precious things—as far as Grim knew, there weren’t many knocking around to spare.

  “Sure there are,” Teresa interrupted. “Cats have nine of them, don’t they?”

  Grim stood up. Then I think we need an audience with the Empurrer.

  At first, Teresa had tried to work out a way to weaken and dilute the Catastrophica potion in Alexander, so that her little brother might change back into a boy. It was hard. Teresa was good at making alchemy, not reversing it, and the Catastrophica had been made to last. She searched Blüstav’s books for ways to weaken the potion, but she soon gave up. It was clear that Alexander was quite happy being a gentle, friendly, and rather lazy cat, who liked snoozing, having his belly rubbed, and playing hide-and-seek with Petrossian children dressed up as mice.

  The people of Petrossia were delighted with him: everyone agreed that he was the best ruler they had ever had. Because he was so huge, Alexander scared away the marauding Mongols or barbarians. And because he was a cat, there was no more need for serfs to serve in his palace, or soldiers to fight in his wars: the Empurrer was happy to sleep in a giant wicker basket, as big as a barn, and drink from a pond-sized saucer of milk.

  The only problem was keeping Alexander well fed, but it was Teresa who provided the solution to his appetite. After many days, and over a dozen extra ingredients, she whipped up another batch of Gargantua potion. Then she walked with her brother down to the River Ossia every morn, crouched by the hole he poked in the ice, and with a fishing rod (the same one the Czar had used to conquer King Harollia) caught a fish.

  With a sprinkle of Gargantua, the fish became the size of a whale, and the people of Petrossia were saved from starvation.

  Alexander happily gave up one of his nine lives for Pieter to have. He had eight others to live, after all, and by the time he came to the end of his last one, he had grown into a gentle, sleepy old cat, and Petrossia had become a gentle, sleepy old kingdom. In history books, his reign is known as The Long Snooze, for it was the loveliest and dreamiest and most contented time in Petrossia’s history, and Empurrer Alexander is often called the Purrfect.

  But no historians mention anything called Operation: His Royal Whiskers.

  So I got you a second life, Grim said to Pieter in the city of Catacomb. Alexander’s second life, to be precise. He poked the scroll with a bony finger. All you need to do is sign on the dotted line. If you want it, that is.

  Pieter didn’t think he could ever want anything more. When a quill appeared in Grim’s fingers, he snatched for it at once, but the skeleton whipped it back.

  Wait, he said. There’s a catch.

  When it comes to contracts (and life in general) there always is.

  The catch was this: if Pieter chose life, he would have to start it from the beginning.

  The very beginning.

  As an ickle-wickle baby.

  He wouldn’t be able to take much with him. A baby’s head is like a very tiny suitcase, with not much room for luggage. There’d be just enough space to pack a few memories and feelings, or maybe a single First Word. That would be all.

  Everything else, he’d have to leave behind: his memories, his name, his fifty-seven times table . . .

  Resurrection wasn’t an option, said Grim. I did check, but it’s almost Swoon now and your old body has gotten sort of . . . squishy. So what’ll it be? It’s time you left Catacomb, one way or the other.

  Pieter looked at the contract. He looked at the horizon, toward Elucid. Then back at the dotted line on the contract. Which line should he choose?

  To answer, he looked inside himself. He wondered which memories he would take, and which he would leave behind. He th
ought of his triumphs and regrets. His rights and wrongs.

  In the end though, it wasn’t any of that which made Pieter decide to go back. It was remembering a blue door of sky, with a girl standing in it, and that moment, which had seemed to last longer than the rest of his life, when they had looked at each other, wondering what might have been.

  7

  The End and the Start

  When the baby came, Amnabushka and Elsie Peppercorn were too busy playing dominoes to notice. They sat in their trundle wagon—two old ladies with their slippered feet propped up by the roaring stove—whilst the storm shook the shutters and rain rattled on the tin roof. Outside, the waves heaved themselves one by one onto Albion’s shore, an endless cycle of dump, drown, and dissolve upon the shingle. Blue flashes lit the nets on the table that Elsie mended for the fishermen. Thunder rattled the lid on the teapot.

  They remembered all of this later, when wondering why they hadn’t heard the door open. It was simpler to blame the racket of a storm than to consider the other possibility—that the door had not opened at all—that the monk had just appeared in the middle of the room with the child.

  The monk (he had to be a monk, for who else wears such long hooded robes?) had held out his pale, slender hands.

  “Almost white, they were,” Elsie would tell the fishermen the next morning. “I bet he hardly ever leaves the monastery.”

  A baby lay there, in the cradle of the monk’s grasp. A little squalling bundle. Raging storm in miniature.

  Please make him stop, pleaded the monk. (Such a voice he had! He must have picked it up from talking with the angels.)

  Elsie and Amna got up from their dominoes. They started to ask the monk who he was, and why he was there, and how he managed to walk through the storm without getting a single raindrop on his robe, but somehow when they saw the baby, their questions just disintegrated into a sounds of Ooh! Aah! Coochy-coochy-coo!

  And the baby boy stopped crying.

  Thank the Universe, said the monk. And I thought he was irritating before he reincarnated.

  “Teresa,” said the baby.

  Elsie and Amna stopped blowing raspberries and wiggling their noses. Their silly faces went slack. They blinked in astonishment. The boy looked barely hours old, and already he could talk?

  Just that word, said the monk, although neither Elsie nor Amna had spoken out loud. He absolutely refused to forget it.

  “Amna knows a Teresa up in Barter town,” said Elsie in wonder. “She’s apprenticed to Alchemaster Blüstav.”

  “We sailed over the Boreal Sea together last summer,” Amna explained.

  “My Amna came with her,” gabbled Elsie. “All the way from Petrossia! I was by the harbor when they first came ashore, mending nets.”

  “Ensnared me, she did,” said Amna, touching a new fish-hook charm in her hair, and cackling when Elsie blushed.

  The monk interrupted with a sigh. Yes, yes. I know all about you two. And Teresa. That’s why he asked to be born here. Obviously there’ll be an age gap, but not so big that . . . well. You can tell him. You’re his parents, after all.

  Before Elsie and Amna could say anything in reply, the monk had tipped the baby into their arms.

  “Teresa,” said the baby happily, as an indescribably awful smell wafted up from its nappy.

  Wow, said the monk. I don’t even have a nose, and that still stinks. I’m off.

  “Off? What do you mean, you’re off?” said Elsie. Amna didn’t say anything because she had gone over to the stove to change the baby.

  Look, said the monk. I know this is strange. To be honest, the two of you were destined to always wish for a child but never be granted one. And then you were both going to die after eating a bad omelet. The monk paused, as if mentally checking something. Yeah, that’s still gonna happen. But the child thing has changed. So I can understand this is a bit of a shock, but—

  “Elsie!” Amna called out happily. “Help me change him!”

  “But wait!” said Elsie, turning to the monk. “What’s the lad’s name?”

  The monk had already gone. (He really did open and close doors very quickly.) Strangely, Elsie still heard him speak.

  His name’s Daffodil.

  Then:

  Only joking. He didn’t choose to remember his name. Only hers. Call him whatever you like.

  Outside, the weather still seethed and spat. Inside Amna and Elsie’s wagon, the tiny storm that had entered their lives that night was burbling happily in his new mother’s arms.

  “Teresa,” he murmured sleepily.

  “Say Amna,” said his mum.

  “Teresa.”

  “He’s a clever little mite.” Elsie grinned. “Could even be a genius.”

  Amna touched the abacus bead tied in her hair. “Truly? Then we should name him Pieter.”

  Elsie scrunched up her face as she inspected the baby. “He doesn’t look like a Peter. Besides, Peter Peppercorn? What is he, a tongue twister? Can’t give a boy a name like that. They’ll tease him at school. Looks like a Henry to me.”

  “Henry Peppercorn,” Amna murmured, looking down at the little boy in her arms. “Many miles may you live.”

  “Sing him a song,” Elsie said. “Send him off to beddy-byes.”

  Amna smiled. “Make a babbi sleep? That’s magic beyond what I know.”

  Elsie grinned and said, “Tell him a bedtime story, then. Stimulate his brain.”

  “A story?” said Amna.

  “From Petrossia,” said Elsie, settling back into her chair and throwing wood into the stove. “And I’ll listen too.”

  “A story from Petrossia . . .” Amna closed her eyes and thought. She only really knew one. It was rather gruesome for a baby, but then their little Henry Peppercorn was a genius, and besides, it had a happy ending of sorts, and no one truly died in it.

  “Bloom and Swoon and many a moon ago,” Amna began, “in the lands beyond the Boreal Sea, there lived a mighty king who loved conquering. He conquered crowns and cities and countries. His name was the Czar . . .”

  The End

  Acknowledgments

  So many thank-yous, great and small:

  My agents, Becky Bagnell and Allison Hellegers at Rights People and Lindsay Literary Agency. My editors, Charlie Sheppard and Chloe Sackur, along with Annie Nybo at Margaret K. McElderry Books. You grew this story with me, and turned it from catastrophe to purrfection. Your skills at alchemy never cease to amaze me.

  Sydney Hansen—you had the impossibly gruesome job of illustrating a severed skeletal fist in a children’s book, and you executed said task brilliantly.

  Debra Sfetsios-Conover—you made this book look sharp as a guillotine blade.

  Sue Cook—thanks for chopping away the spelling mistakes.

  My early readers: Sarah, Erin, Mum—who encouraged me to advance ever onward.

  Ms. Tysall—who first inspired me with tales of Czarist Russia.

  And finally to Helen Vjestica, from Brewood CE Middle School in Staffordshire, who came up with the title of His Royal Whiskers four years ago when I started this story. Thank you for giving me permission to magpie your title.

  If czars have War Councils, then authors have Story Councils. Thank you, all. Here’s to the next conquest.

  About the Author

  Sam Gayton grew up in Kent with a cat called Archibald, a dog called Ruby, a bunch of humans, and a ghost called Kevin. He spent his days playing with Lego and making comics with his friend Loo Loo.

  Nowadays, Sam still loves Lego and comics. But he also loves drinking tea (milk, no sugar), eating pizza (pepperoni, extra cheese), and wondering how long he would survive a zombie apocalypse (probably about fourteen minutes). He is the author of The Adventures of Lettie Peppercorn, Hercufleas, and Lilliput. Visit him at samgayton.com.

  Sydney Hanson was raised in Minnesota alongside numerous pets and brothers. Her illustrations and paintings still reflect these early adventures and are marked by a love for animals and the n
atural world. In 2011 she moved to Los Angeles with her husband, dog, and cat. While she initially made this move to work in animation, she discovered a love for children’s book illustration along the way. In her spare time she enjoys traveling, running, climbing, and trying to cook.

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  Also by Sam Gayton

  The Adventures of Lettie Peppercorn

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  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2015 by Sam Gayton

  Illustrations copyright © 2017 by Sydney Hanson

  Originally published in Great Britain in 2016 by Anderson Press Ltd. Rights licensed by arrangement with Rights People, London.

  First U.S. edition 2017

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  Book design by Debra Sfetsios-Conover