Chapter 8

“GET YOUR TAIL OVER HERE”

Before Stick Cat could say or do anything, Edith had landed on Mrs. O’Mahoney’s window ledge. She had simply, and without hesitation, pivoted on her paws when she was on Stick Cat’s window ledge and leaped the four or five feet to the ledge next door.

“Are you crazy?!” Stick Cat yelled. He was truly astonished at what he had just witnessed. “You did that without even thinking about it!”

“Did what?” asked Edith casually.

“You jumped across to my neighbor’s window ledge!” he yelled. And then, as if to explain things further, he added, “We’re twenty-three floors up!”

Edith checked her reflection in Mrs. O’Mahoney’s kitchen window. After a few seconds, she looked away from the window and back toward Stick Cat. She seemed satisfied with her appearance. “And what’s your point?”

“My point!?” exclaimed Stick Cat. “Well, my point is, it’s extremely dangerous. That’s my point!”

“It’s dangerous?”

Stick Cat shook his head—more to himself out of sheer amazement than anything else. He looked over to Edith on the next ledge and said, “Let me ask you something. Would you jump off a bridge if all your friends were doing it?”

“You bet I would!” Edith answered without pausing for a solitary moment. “That sounds like fun!”

“You would?!”

“Absolutely!”

“But—” and then Stick Cat stopped talking.

This gave Edith a chance to ask a couple of questions herself. “When do we go? Where’s the bridge? Is it far from here?”

Stick Cat looked across the alley toward Mr. Music. He had to get over to his neighbor’s ledge, ride across the alley in the apron with Edith, and then figure out how to get Mr. Music untrapped from that piano.

“We’re not going,” he said to Edith. “It’s just a rhetorical question.”

“You mean, there’s no bridge? We’re not going to jump?”

“No, not today,” Stick Cat said.

“Bummer,” Edith muttered. She seemed honestly disappointed. Then her voice picked up a bit, and she asked, “Maybe tomorrow? Or maybe some other day?”

“Umm, sure,” Stick Cat answered. He was beginning to contemplate the jump from his ledge to Mrs. O’Mahoney’s. “I guess.”

This seemed to satisfy Edith enough for the time being. Stick Cat, meanwhile, tried to determine if he should push off with two legs or four legs. And he calculated how much room he would need to slide and stop himself.

“Well, what are you waiting for?” asked Edith. She had backed to the far corner of Mrs. O’Mahoney’s ledge now and motioned for Stick Cat to jump. “Get your tail over here.”

There was something in the way she said it that made Stick Cat jump. It was as if there was no doubt that he would make it. It was just an accepted fact. She had complete faith that he could do it. And this instilled a great deal of confidence in Stick Cat himself.

Without looking down, he jumped. He pushed off with his back legs, stretched his body long, and kept an eye on his target area. He landed with all four paws on the nearest part of that concrete ledge and then slid across before bumping a bit into Edith.

“Careful there, buster,” she said, and pushed him back a smidgeon. She licked herself where they had made contact. “You’re going to mess up the way my fur is lying.”

“Sorry,” Stick Cat said.

He looked into the neighbor’s window and was happy to see that Mrs. O’Mahoney wasn’t in the kitchen. Comfortable with that fact, Stick Cat turned to look at the apron on the clothesline. It was a few feet out, and just a little farther was a bag of wooden clothespins. Thankfully, the line was within easy reach, and he could reel the apron right up to the ledge. He was about to do so when Edith spoke.

“So, we need to hop into that apron? Into the pocket? To ride across?”

“That’s right. We need to—”

But before Stick Cat could finish his sentence—or even finish his thought—Edith leaped from the ledge and dove into the pocket of the yellow apron.

It happened so quickly that Stick Cat wasn’t even sure Edith had made it into her intended target. He was afraid to look down—afraid he might see Edith plummeting to her doom.

Instead, he stared at the apron. It moved and jostled, but Stick Cat couldn’t tell if it was caused by the wind blowing—or by Edith squiggling around in the pocket.

He waited.

It was only a few seconds, but it felt much longer than that.

Edith poked her head out of the pocket, stroked the fur on her left cheek, and smiled at him.

“Stop doing that!” Stick Cat exclaimed. He reached out to the line and began to reel the apron closer. He shook his head.

“Stop doing what?”

“Just jumping and doing dangerous stuff without even thinking about it.” Stick Cat sighed. “I was still talking when you jumped. It scared me like crazy.”

As Stick Cat pulled the apron closer, it began to swing, and Edith clearly enjoyed the motion. She began to rock her body back and forth in the pocket to magnify the swinging effect.

“Whee!” she yelled. “Swing me harder, Stick Cat!”

Stick Cat did change his reeling technique. He pulled the line a little faster. He wanted to get into that pocket and calm Edith down. And he wanted to get across to Mr. Music. He still wasn’t sure how he would help him once—if—they got across.

When the apron brushed up against the ledge, Edith stopped swinging back and forth, and Stick Cat climbed into the pocket, digging his front claws into the cotton material for a very good grip. After securing himself in the pocket and waiting for the apron to balance out, he slowly stretched his head out enough to see.

“Want to do something really cool?” Edith asked, staring right at him. She was clearly more comfortable being twenty-three floors up in the air than Stick Cat was.

“Like what?”

“If you lean your head out and look straight down to the ground, it makes your stomach feel like it’s upside down or something. It’s a really funny feeling!”

Stick Cat nodded.

“Go ahead,” Edith encouraged. “Try it!”

“No thanks.”

“Come on. It won’t kill you to try it.”

“I’m not sure that’s entirely true,” Stick Cat whispered. Edith didn’t hear him though.

“Come on. Just one peek!”

Stick Cat leaned his head out and over the edge of the pocket and looked downward. Edith was exactly right: it did make his stomach feel like it was upside down.

It was not a good feeling.

He quickly pulled his head back into the pocket.

“Neat, isn’t it?” Edith asked.

Stick Cat emerged a bit and nodded his head nervously. He managed to get his body as secure as he could in the bottom of the pocket and stretched his front legs out to reach the other clothesline. It was made of rope, and he could easily press his claws into the braids to make it move.

And that’s exactly what he did. He wanted to get across the alley—and out of this apron—as quickly as possible.

It took approximately two minutes to get all the way across.

Edith enjoyed the trip immensely. She looked down to the alley several times and giggled and talked about how funny her stomach felt. She shifted her weight back and forth to make the apron swing on the line. To satisfy her curiosity, she stretched out of the pocket to look into the bag of clothespins that hung next to the apron.

When they got to the piano factory window, Edith hopped out to the ledge. Stick Cat maneuvered the apron as close to the window as possible and climbed out too.

Edith looked back across at the way they had come. It was as if she was remembering every second of the trip as she looked. “That was awesome,” she said. “I can’t wait to do it again. How about you?”

“Sure. Yeah. You bet,” Stick Cat said with considerably less enthusiasm.

Stick Cat reeled the apron and clothespin bag back across the alley. He couldn’t risk Mrs. O’Mahoney wondering what her things were doing so far away. It didn’t take long—it was much easier now that he and Edith weren’t along for the ride.

When he was finished, Stick Cat jumped down from the ledge and onto the piano factory floor. He was so happy to have something firm and still under his paws.

He turned his head to see Mr. Music with his arms still stuck in that piano.

And Mr. Music stared right back at Stick Cat.