The Palace of Laughter by Jon Berkeley

with warm blankets, then with a deep sigh she damped down the fire and shuffled through a purring sea of cats to her hammock.
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    Now imagine for a moment that you are an owl,drifting silently over the garden of that deserted mansion in the middle of an October night. Your sharp hunter’s eyes would see the strange jumble of Lady Partridge’s tree house, nesting in the tree below you. A thin wisp of smoke is rising from the crooked pipe that serves as a chimney, before being pulled apart by the night breeze that rocks the tree house gently in the arms of the twin beech tree.
    If you should perch on one of the higher branches, you would see through the single dusty window in the tree-house roof the outlines of three sleeping figures, and the twitching shapes of a hundred dozing cats. Inside every one of those sleeping heads is a world of dreams.
    The dreams of the cats are much as you would expect them to be. Insects buzz through the dry grass of a summer’s day, always just out of reach, and sometimes a whole fish will jump out of nowhere and land in a shower of sparkling droplets, right at the surprised dreamer’s feet.
    Curled up under a tartan blanket, Miles dreams of the basement laundry in Pinchbucket House. He is working with the other children, hauling damp sheets from a giant washing machine. On top of the machine sits the Bengal tiger, calmly cleaning his whiskers as though the laundry were his naturalhabitat, and not the jungles of Asia. Miles turns to drag his full basket over to the dryer, and sees to his horror that Fowler Pinchbucket is feeding his orphan brothers and sisters, two at a time, into the mouth of a huge machine in the corner. His mean face wears a grin of satisfaction. Miles turns to the tiger, who is paying not the slightest attention. He points at Fowler Pinchbucket and opens his mouth to shout, but no sound comes out. Two by two the children disappear, while the tiger licks his paws and the machines rumble on.
    From your perch in the branches you would see Miles turn over in his sleep, rubbing the arm he has been sleeping on, while Lady Partridge snores gently in her swaying hammock. She is dreaming of a hot summer afternoon, her hammock strung between the twin beech trunks, in the shade below the tree house. Her cats are swarming over her, rubbing their cheeks against her chin and mewing loudly. She feels groggy from the heat, and she brushes them off irritably. When she opens her eyes they have disappeared, every last one of them. She has an uneasy feeling that they were trying to tell her something important, but it is too late to ask. She groans in her sleep, and the dream slips away.
    But what of Little? The vast dreams that fill hersleep are beyond anything you or I have ever imagined. She is soaring high above the Earth, riding the speeding winds among bright billowing clouds that tower above her as thunder rumbles deep in their bellies. All around her the One Song, of which we have never heard more than a lost echo, fills the skies of her dreams like a braided river of light. She sings as she swoops and climbs, feeling the thrill of speed in her stomach, and the wind sings with her. She becomes aware of two angels, riding on either side of her. They still the wind and silence the Song, and the clouds dissolve into a gray fog. “Silverpoint,” says one. “Where is he?”
    â€œWhere is Silverpoint?” echoes the other, and he reaches out and lays a cold hand on her forehead. Little whimpers quietly in her sleep.
    And now, if owls are as wise as they say, you will know that it’s time to leave in search of that crunchy mouse you fancied for supper, for the tree in which you are resting is home to a hundred cats. They have begun to slink out along the branches and drop to the ground, and Little is waking from her sky-blown dream.

CHAPTER NINE
THE COUNCIL OF CATS
    M iles Wednesday, sleep-muddled and blanket-warmed, woke to find Little shaking him by