Lantern Sam and the Blue Streak Bandits by Michael D. Beil Page A

yanked out completely, never to grow back, leaving me with only seventeen. (Like most cats, I started out with eighteen, not twenty, in case you’re wondering.)
    But my night wasn’t over yet.
    Maybe if I hadn’t lost that claw, I would have been able to stop a few feet shorter. Two, three feet—that’s all the difference I needed. Instead, a river of rainwater swept me straight into a storm sewer! When my head finally bobbed back to the surface, I found myself floating down the rapids belowstreet level, getting dunked by a waterfall every time I passed under another drain.
    I continued like that for probably half a mile in utter darkness, cursing my luck, a cat named Marmalade, and a watch-rooster with an exceptionally bad attitude. My hopes lifted when I finally saw a speck of light in the distance: the end of the ride! The pipe ended suddenly, firing a furry, soaked-to-the-bone cannonball into Cleveland Harbor.
    Using my last bit of energy, I swam back to shore and managed to pull myself up onto a dock, much to the surprise of the sailor who had tied up his boat for the night.
    “Hey, I know you,” said Walt, who probably recognized me because I looked exactly like I had the first time we met. “Again? I thought cats hated the water. Let me get you dried off and find you something to eat. Do you like
chicken
?”
    I shuddered, picturing the face of the crazed rooster who tried to kill me. “Mrrraaa. It just became my second favorite food.”

Inudged Sam. “Did he just say what I think he said?” My already overactive imagination was churning and sputtering:
Why
was it too late for the little girl to say something? Was he talking about Ellie? What had he done to her? And
how
, exactly, was the man going to “take care of” the lady in the hat?
    While those questions and a thousand others were spinning wildly through my brain, Clarence unexpectedly touched me on the shoulder. I gasped so loudly that we were all sure everyone in the dining car heard.
    “Dinnertime, Henry,” Clarence whispered. “Your table will be ready in a few minutes.” He moved the piano just enough for me to crawl out.
    “Hear anything interesting?” Clarence asked Sam as he pushed the piano back into place.
    “Plenty. I want to hear what else this couple has to say. And then you need to get me into the salesman’s cabin again—there’s something I need to see.”
    Clarence glanced over at the judge, whose nose seemed to be glowing red. “He doesn’t want me snooping around anymore, but you know what—it’s still my train.”
    “That’s the spirit,”
said Sam.
“Besides, after all that booze, it would take a bulldozer to move His Enormousness.”
    “Uh-oh, you spoke too soon. Here he comes,” said Clarence, pretending to be busy wiping dust from the top of the piano. I ducked around the corner, out of sight.
    “Who the devil are you talking to?” Judge Ambrose demanded. He walked around the piano and looked behind it. “Is that cat in here? Get him out—now! Mr. Nockwood. My daughter and I are highly allergic to cats, especially common alley cats like that one, and we will not be subjected to such bothersome complications. You leave me no choice, sir. I shall write to the president of the railroad and inform him of the less-than-satisfactory conditions aboard this train.”
    With that, the judge took a cane from a man sitting at a nearby table and began to poke it in Sam’s direction.
    A growl rose from deep within Sam as he dodged the end of the cane.
“Hsssttt!”
he screamed, and spat.
    “Stop!” cried Clarence. “You’ll hurt him, you—I’ll take care of it,
Mr
. Ambrose. Go, Sam, run!”
    Sam bolted past Clarence and the judge, then scooted through the dining car and into the sleepers, with me a few steps behind.
    Mother stood in the aisle next to our section with her back to me, gathering Jessica into her arms before heading into the dining car. Jessica’s eyes grew wide with excitement as we raced