The Nine Lives of Jacob Tibbs Read online

  And watch I did. The bags were being tossed at such a speed over my head that I began to know my first seasickness—this before we’d even put out to sea! I peered over the edge of the barrel to see where my mother had gone, but I’d again lost sight of her in all the furious activity of the sailors.

  Searching over the other side of the barrel, I still had no sign of her. Perhaps being on this barrel wasn’t in my favor after all. But my legs were too small to get me safely down. I mewed once, softly, calling my mother, hoping she would hear me. The draft from the open port door blew hard just then and sent flour dust stirring up. After another sneezing fit, I ran to the other side of the barrel and cried again for my mother. Where was she? I’d almost never been apart from her. Had she left me here for good? How would I ever get down? I closed my eyes tight and let out my loudest cry, meowing over and over, hoping it would cut through the din and send my mother back to me.

  “Ah, that racket’s got to be stopped,” said one sailor as he dropped his parcel and wiped his brow. “I’ve enough of an ’eadache without this one starting in. Where’s your Mrs. Tibbs got herself?” I stopped crying for a moment as the sailor approached me. “Even an old salt as me knows what it is to want your mum.” His warm hand closed around me, and he brought me up to his chest. I looked into his face and saw that his eyes were a very warm brown color. His face was tanned and freckled and crossed with deep lines, and he had a bushy red beard—in fact, it was the first time I’d seen that much hair on a person! His colors reminded me of Butterscotch, and I instantly liked him.

  “Throw that rat into the cupboard, Sean, and let’s get back to work,” a big sailor standing behind him said roughly.

  “Naw, now, you know one of Mrs. Tibbs’s needs to be treated well, mate,” said the red-bearded sailor.

  Another sailor, a boy who seemed not much bigger than Melissa, came up alongside and petted my head gently. “Just a little scrub, he is.” He touched my paws and tried to rub the flour dust off them. “By gum, come have a look, Chippy. He’s got little white paws, every one.”

  The big sailor, called Chippy, finally dropped his work and huffed over. “Means he won’t be any good to us this trip out, nor any other.” He looked down at me, and I up at him. The dark patch he wore over one eye and his deep booming voice made a terrifying combination. He shook his head. “That’s the type that can’t catch a rat t’save his life.”

  His mate with the red beard looked at him skeptically. “What’s that, just because he has white paws?”

  Chippy nodded. “Those white paws are a sign that a cat won’t be a good mouser. Rats can see those paws in the dark of the hold, coming close, and they skitter away. This one has all four.” He rubbed my paw roughly in his fingers. “And mitts soft as silk! Should just toss him overboard now.”

  “Mrs. T. isn’t as young as she used to be. D’ya think the captain wants to replace her with this one?” the young sailor asked.

  The red-bearded sailor holding me perked up. “Shhh, don’t talk such nonsense, Daly. And you, too, Chippy. It’s bad luck to speak ill of the cap’s cat, you both know that. If anything untoward happens on this journey, I’ll be holding you the guilty parties.”

  Just then, a fat face poked down the open hatch. “Eh, what’s the holdup, fellows?” the man asked. “The good cap’n wants to know if we’ll be ready loaded by eight bells. Shall I inform him that I’ve seen nothing but lagging about and little work, or will you bother to get on with it?” With that the sailors all scrabbled back to their posts and picked up their dropped parcels. The sailor named Chippy glanced up at the open hatch, as if to be sure the fat-faced fellow was gone before speaking. “Between our new first mate Archer and havin’ that rat on board, I believe this trip’ll be the death of me.”

  The man called Sean who held me in his hands smiled at me again with his warm brown eyes and whispered, “Archer may be a rat, but you’re surely not. Stay put, and we’ll not have more talk like that.” With one swift motion he tucked me deep into his wide jacket pocket.

  Though I still wondered after my mother—and felt sorry for getting all the sailors in trouble with the first mate—I was grateful for the warm, cozy pocket I found myself in. I could hear the sounds of the men chanting their working song around me, a bit louder now, perhaps (for the benefit of anyone listening, I suppose). I must have closed my eyes and drifted off, for the next I knew, I was above deck for the very first time.

  When I awoke, it was to the feel of a great hand closing around my middle. I was pulled from the sailor’s pocket and plopped, rather unceremoniously, on the deck of the ship. I spotted my mother nearby, but she took almost no notice of me. She was sniffing the air and swishing her tail in an agitated way.

  “There you are, Mrs. Tibbs,” the sailor said, nudging me gently with his boot. “Here’s what you’ve been looking for.” I was still a bit sleepy from my nap, but even I could tell that Mother wasn’t concerned for me. There seemed to be something else on her mind. But she did pick me up by the scruff of my neck and carry me up a small set of stairs to the front part of the ship, putting me down on what I would soon learn was called the forecastle deck. From there I found myself looking over the bow for the very first time.

  As we were in port, the Melissa Rae was tied fast to the dock, but I could still see a great body of water around us. It was huge, stretching out as far as the eye could see. When I looked up, I’d never seen anything bigger than the sky that day as the sun burst forth. The water below was dark and looked quite solid to me until a breeze gently rippled the surface. I was amazed by the way it moved as it waved and slapped the side of the ship with a soothing clunk, clunk, clunk. I had heard that sound below deck, too, but now I saw the source and how great the ocean was around us.

  My mother gave me a once-over and seemed very disappointed. I suppose I was still a bit covered in flour dust, and my nap in the close quarters of the sailor’s pocket probably hadn’t done my fur any favors. But Mother took the time to clean me off and straighten my whiskers. When she was done, she sat back and gave me another look. This time the sparkle in her eye told me she was again ready to have me at her side.

  She turned, twitched her tail quickly, and led me forward along the forecastle deck. There Captain Natick stood in his full uniform. I’d never seen him dressed up, and I took in his new appearance with great awe. He wore a suit of navy with gold medals pinned to the chest and lapels. Beneath the jacket was a crisp white shirt, and on his shoulders were strips of gold fabric with tassels that dangled and swung when he moved. They looked like great fun, and I eyed them curiously, wishing to be brought up near his shoulders to see if I could catch one with my paws. Mother stopped near the captain’s feet and mewed. “Ah, Mrs. Tibbs,” the captain greeted us, looking down. “I’m glad both you and Jacob are here to see us off. We’re started a bit later in the morning than expected, but still, the sea looks pleasant, does it not?”

  When I turned back to my mother, she stood proud with her head held high and her chin up. She was looking not down into the dark glittering ocean as I was, but straight out at the vast horizon that lay before us, with one paw poised in front of the other. In all the days I’ve set out to sea since then, I’ve always remembered that moment, watching my mother at her post, as if commanding the ship herself. She was a regal cat, and I’m sure I’ll never know her equal on sea or land.

  Just then a bell rang, and I heard a voice call out, “All hands!” Immediately the sailors hurried forth. They had been looking over the port side of the ship, waving good-bye to friends and family, but now took up the serious work of setting us to sea. There was a great flapping sound as the sails were drawn up their poles and the sailors called out to one another. I watched the huge white triangles of cloth go up and up and up…The masts were so tall, I could barely see the tops. In all, three huge sails were heaved up, bit by bit, hauled by ropes that the men held down on deck. When the sails were as high and as tight as they wanted them to be, they
tied off the great ropes. I left my mother at the bow and wandered over to investigate the knots—which were many times as big around as my whole self!

  The air on deck was nothing like the warmth down below. As I made my way across the deck, I noticed that the sea breeze was chilled so that it almost hurt to breathe it in. The smell was a little different, too—strong and salty, not like the sweet smell of my mother’s basket or the food smells I knew from the galley. The ropes, when I reached them, smelled of salt, too, and of a woodsy resin—the tar and wax the sailors had used to hold them together. Sniffing at the thick mast that held the knotted twine, I decided it was a good time to sharpen my claws a bit, and I set my front paws into the wood. I dug hard two or three times, feeling quite grown up about things, before hands scooped me up.

  “Jacob, I’ll not have you tearing at my ship,” said the captain. “Now, why can’t you stay by your mum and have a look at how she does her job?” Being so close to the tassels on his uniform, I heard very little of what the captain was saying and instead couldn’t resist taking a whap at the golden strings to see what would happen. The captain said nothing as he held me out from his chest. His ice-blue eyes met mine, and when he spoke, his voice had a serious tone. “This day is not for playing. Run along to your mother, and stay put.” Then he plopped me down and straightened out the tassels on his shoulder, shaking his head as a small smile crossed his lips.

  My mother was close by, still standing at the bow of the ship and staring out to sea. I took a spot beside her and watched as the sailors pulled up the huge ropes that held us fast to the dock. They coiled them in great loops on either side of the deck. I wanted to see more but was afraid to leave my mother’s side again in all the activity.

  Standing as I was, so close to my mother, I caught sight of her as she did something that seemed quite odd. She tipped her head back and sniffed the sea air, first to her right, then to her left. Then, with one paw, she gently scratched the deck three times, smoothly drawing her claws back: one, two, three.

  I was puzzled, as I’d never seen my mother act this way. She seemed to be in a trance, staring out at the sea, and her eyes held the horizon as if nothing could tear her away. She did not break her concentration, even as I nudged her side. So rapt was I with studying my mother that I took no notice of the captain as he came up alongside us. But my mother must have sensed him there, and again she scratched at the deck three times, pulling her paw back slowly and deliberately each time, just as she had done before.

  The captain knelt down and stroked her back. “What’s this, then? You and Jacob have both taken a fancy to scratching up my boat?”

  My mother did not falter, and with the captain’s hand still on her back, she scratched the deck three more times—this time even more slowly and exactly.

  “Ah, rough weather, is it?” the captain asked my mother quietly. He looked out over the sea, studying the horizon for a moment. I did not know what his eyes were searching for, but he seemed not to find it. “Jacob,” he said, turning to me, “that’s the sign your mother makes when she smells rough weather ahead. But pay you no mind today. All the reports are favorable. I think our Mrs. Tibbs has perhaps grown a little too cautious in her old age, haven’t you, luv? You’ve not been yourself since this last litter.”

  He smoothed her fur and went on. “The sea’s as smooth as a looking glass, Mrs. Tibbs, and I’m promised to reach New York in about forty days’ time. We sat out the last storm, but I can’t afford to wait another day in port.” With his petting, my mother finally broke her gaze and turned to meet his eyes. She looked worried, I think, but she bowed her head and allowed him to scratch behind her ears.

  The captain stood up and held fast to the taut rope that ran just below the forward sail, looking out over the sea. What a picture they made, him turned out in his navy suit, my mother in her regal pose. I suddenly felt the overwhelming task that lay before them—before all of us, really, as I was also to be a part of this great adventure. It was no small feat to cross the Atlantic with a hold full of goods, a ship full of men, and to safely reach land on the other side. I tried to strike the pose my mother was in, and held my head high, though the shifting of the ship made it difficult to stand still for long.

  “Milk-and-water seas, Captain,” I heard Sean call out from behind us as he heaved the rope on board. “It’ll be smooth as silk.”

  The sailor’s words snapped the captain back to attention. “Aye there, Sean,” he replied, then he added, quietly, as if to himself, “And we’ll all be home again soon, safe as houses, and back with my dear girl, Melissa.”

  If the captain’s words sounded a little uncertain, I felt no fear. Instead, at the mention of her name, I only longed to see Melissa, her gentle hands and soothing voice, though I knew she wouldn’t be allowed on board today, nor anywhere near the ship. The captain was, if nothing else, a superstitious man, and he strongly believed that women could only bring ill fortune to a seagoing vessel. Why this rule seemed not to apply to cats, I never did know—for my own mother was a lady and never was seen to bring anything but the best of luck to the Melissa Rae. At least until this, her last voyage. But that is a story long in the telling.

  When we actually set sail, leaving Liverpool far behind, it was not the momentous occasion I thought it would be. We pulled away from the dock, with no more slosh or sway than when we’d been moored, and the ship moved out to sea. I watched as the boards of the great dock slipped into one big brown line behind us, and then as the entire wharf turned into a thin sliver on the horizon. Before long the sight of land was lost altogether, and all that lay in front of us was more and more sea.

  Since I’d never known life away from the Melissa Rae, it didn’t strike me as odd to be surrounded by nothing but water—I still felt at home. But the movement of the ship was new. We were constantly in motion, always going forward and pitching as the ship rocked and swayed from side to side.

  There was one among the sailors, the fat-faced fellow called Archer, who seemed unwell from the moment we left port. When he had yelled at the sailors to hurry their work when they were loading to, I had seen only his round, ruddy face looking down from the open hatch, but now I could take in the rest of him, and I was not impressed: He was a short man with a high, round belly that pushed against his jacket buttons. As the Melissa Rae took to the sea, he spent a good amount of time with his head over the side of the ship, food coming out of his mouth instead of going in it, until his usually blotchy face was decidedly green in color. This was before I knew what seasickness was, and I foolishly assumed that perhaps he had a hairball, as my mother sometimes did, for that made her cough and retch as Archer was doing. As for myself, I did not feel unwell, but I will admit it was hard to line up one paw in front of the other as I paced the deck of the ship. The sailors were still hard at work, and I tried my best to stay from beneath their feet. And when I did happen to tumble, I was ashamed to have anyone else as witness—especially the cruel ones among the crew.

  “Look at the wee kitty have a go on his sea legs!” hollered out the sailor with the black eye patch, whom I recognized as Chippy. “Can’t go five paces without the wind blowing ’im over!” The other sailors watched as I tried desperately to stay upright and cross the deck at the same time. But as the wind kicked up, it set the ship and me swaying with it. My paws would step down where the ship planks were supposed to be, and the ground would surely move from beneath me. After nearly getting splinters along my whole self, I ended up standing beside one of the great masts, my claws dug into the deck to hold me anchored, until I caught sight of my mother.

  Unbelievably, she was scurrying, paw over paw, down the ratlines of the ship. How had she gotten up there? I wondered. The ratlines were ropes tied together in such a way as to form a ladder for the sailors to reach the sails. Set, as they were, in squares at least a foot between and not much wider across, they were hard even for the sailors to travel. Yet there was my mother, Mrs. Tibbs, stepping just as daintily as
you please from rope to rope as she made her way to the deck. When her paws touched the solid wood again, I noticed that her once-orderly fur had gotten ruffled, and that her ears were turned up to the sky, as if in tune to every sound. Her eyes were startling—so green, with only a tiny dark slit of black in the middle. She looked at me to check that I was faring all right, and then, quick, she was off across the deck. I watched in awe as she made her way at a steady gait even with the tossing of the ship.

  She wove around the sailors’ moving feet like she was in a maze that she’d learned by heart. She seemed to know, expertly, who would step where next, and just how the ship would pitch, and she would make allowance for it in her path. The sailors, for their part, seemed to take no notice of her, and there was no laughter about Mrs. Tibbs’s sea legs. She made it look so easy that I decided to follow her example and find out, in the process, just where she was off to in such a rush. So I loosened my claws from where they were anchored and walked a few paces. But I was timid of the sailors’ footfalls, and of the ship’s great to and fro. How was it that my mother could make such short work of this? Ashamed, but with no other option, I slowly made my way to the bulwark wall that lined the deck and kept my right side steady to it as I scurried, scared as a tiny mouse, to the back of the ship.

  When I reached the quarterdeck, near the captain’s cabin, without catching another glimpse of my mother, I assumed there was only one place she could be. A quick sniff at the door to the captain’s quarters told me that she had just been there, so I set to mewing and scratching at the door. Oh, what a nuisance I made of myself! I’m ashamed to recall how I behaved those first days out, just like the infant I was. But my noises worked, and it wasn’t long before the door was pulled open and I made my way into the darkness that lay within. I noticed at once that the room smelled like Melissa—of starched freshness and clean linens, and lemon-drop candy. Melissa was on board! I thought with glee.