Miranda the Great (2 page)

Today was Punka's birthday. She was one year old. Claudia had given her a dish of cream to celebrate, and now Miranda was washing her face. Miranda was telling Punka that she was going to have some more kittens soon, any day now. She purred happily and Punka purred, too. Punka promised to mind them sometimes so that Miranda could have some free time and keep the cats and dogs chased away.

All was peaceful in the garden. Claudia was writing her lessons on her tablet, learning the rules of the ablative absolute. Zag was lying at the garden gate waiting for Marcus. Lavinia was playing the lyre. Both cats rolled over on their backs, closed their eyes, and listened blissfully to the music.

Suddenly Miranda turned over. She sat up, turned her ears back, and narrowed her eyes. She scanned the sky. She began to clean one of her back legs, the better to think. Between licks, holding her leg stiff and stationary and ready for the next lick, she carefully sniffed the sunny air. She fastened her unblinking glass-green eyes on something she saw high up in the air ... a cloud? Smoke?

Miranda closed her eyes, the better to smell. She drew in deep sniffs and with each sniff gave a little nod. She did smell smoke! Punka, because of the old bee-bite, smelled nothing. Anyway, she was used to having her mother tell her all the news, what to watch out for, what dog might be coming into their alleyway, and she did little thinking for herself. She continued to listen in ecstasy to the plucking of the strings of the lyre.

Zag had not smelled anything either. Her
nose had never been very good because of the mean cats of Barcelona. That made two pets in one family that had poor noses, and it was lucky that Miranda's was so excellent. Miranda went over to Zag and told her that she smelled smoke. "You must warn the people," Miranda told her. "Say, 'Ai-ooo! Ai-ooo! Smoke! Fire!'" Zag was a brilliant dog, but she did not smell the smoke, and so she was not going to say, "Ai-ooo!"

Then a cinder flew into Claudia's eye. She dropped her tablet and leaped up. "Mother!" she cried. "I smell smoke!"

Her mother quickly laid aside her lyre. "You are right, Claudia," she said. "I smell it, too."

At this moment Marcus raced up in his chariot. His toga was awry. He was covered with ashes. His horse, Hamilcar Barca, was neighing in terror. "Wuh-huh-huh-huh!" he said. "Wuh-huh-huh-huh!"

"Come!" shouted Marcus. "Rome is burning. The barbarians are sacking the city. The wind is rising, fire is spreading in every direction, and we must flee! I'll take you to 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?"

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, Punka was helping. In her anxiety to get close to her mother, she was rubbing her body first on one side of the urn and then the other. And inside, Miranda put her weight first on one side of the urn and then the other. The urn began to totter. Then ... over it turned, and not into the pool, thank goodness. Miranda, somewhat dizzy from the rocking, crawled out.

Miranda and Punka ran into the garden. They could not see the sky because the air was now filled with black billowing smoke. The fire was
coming nearer. Sometimes a gust of wind was really hot. The wind was sweeping the fire closer and closer to Miranda and Punka. Did Miranda wish now that she had heeded Claudia's beseeching calls? Probably not. Cats do not live in the past. They waste no time in brooding, and some cats, like Miranda, really like a taste of excitement and danger.

"Follow me!" Miranda said to Punka.

Punka was not the sort of cat that likes excitement and danger. To lie on her back, to be petted and admired was what she liked. She was frozen with terror. She knew something horrendous was happening. Her mother took the time to give her a one-second bath. Punka's courage was somewhat restored by the motherly act, and Miranda's courage was replenished. But now, they had to go.

So it was that Miranda and Punka, the colossal cats of the family of Marcus Luminus, left their golden house and their pretty garden and went out into the alleyway behind. They walked and crouched together, side by side, and they made their way, sometimes swiftly, sometimes slowly, to the entrance to the alleyway, where the street led straight to the Appian Way. Miranda had often traveled this road held tightly in
Claudia's arms as the family went on vacation to their villa. And that was where, rightly, she supposed that her family had gone now with Hamilcar Barca.

Miranda felt exhilarated and full of brilliance. Her beautiful daughter beside her and her new little kittens, soon to be born, gave her a great sense of power and confidence. When smoke and cinders choked her daughter, she stopped long enough to give her a few reassuring licks. "It's your nose," she said, "that the bee stung. But you're all right. You'll be all right," she said.

"Wah," said Punka.

However, the minute that Miranda saw the street that led to the Appian Way, she knew she and Punka could not go that way and that she must think of another plan. The street was thronged with men, women, and children, with cows, horses, donkeys, dogs, and also a few cats, these last held mainly in someone's arms. Sacred geese from the Temple of Juno came cackling by. Everyone was trying to get out of Rome and wait for the fire to be put out and the barbarians routed.

Miranda viewed the throng with distaste. "Woe-woe," she said. She had not meant to cry but could not help it, for the spectacle was truly
terrifying.
"Back into the alleyway!" she told Punka. "Make a dash!" She had resolved to get to the high wall at the other end of the alleyway, for she thought that once she and Punka were beyond the wall, they would be safe and that the high wall would stop the fire. She told this plan to Punka so that there would be no slip, like Punka losing her wits, for example, tearing off and having to be found. Only Miranda and a few other cats, the lizard cat from Barcelona, for one, knew of a secret way, through a little tunnel that was supposed to carry rainwater beneath this high wall.

"Wah," said Punka, who was going to stick to her mother and be safe and sound, and not lose her wits and tear off.

"We are going to make the dash through the fire and the smoke, now,'" Miranda said. "Come on, Punka!"

Punka could have made her famous leap clean over the fire and not have to race through it; but she did not want to leave her mother. Wiggling, preparing for the great dash, they hesitated. What had they heard?