“Maybe it was the killer,” said Dooley.

  “That would explain things,” I said. It wouldn’t explain how they had managed to get all the way up there, though. And since I’m one of those cats who likes to solve a mystery when it’s presented to me, I started looking for a different way out of the cave, apart from the entrance through which we had arrived.

  I thought I finally spotted one and started heading in that direction, when water suddenly spouted from the floor and I was lifted up and carried away by the unexpected stream!

  “Max!” Dooley cried, as he too was lifted by another jet that launched from the cave floor.

  All around us, water burst upward, and it was clear that the cave would be flooded a lot sooner than we had anticipated—and all of us submerged in minutes!

  As Dooley and I began to drift away, I scrambled to grab hold of something—anything—but the current was too strong. And just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, I was caught in the pull of what felt like a vortex and yanked downward—like a feather swirling into a drain.

  CHAPTER 51

  As I was being sucked down, I had the perspicacity to hold my breath just in time, and sincerely hoped I would be spat out at some point and not get sucked into the bowels of the earth. By the time I was compelled to take a breath, fortunately I was being jettisoned out into a different location, and found myself in yet another cave—this one partially submerged—and I started to realize all these caves acted like communicating vessels: when the pressure was up in one cave, water was sucked from a different one. They were all connected.

  As I caught my breath, I was hit by a flying object that was quite large and found myself face down in the water once again. When I managed to get myself right side up, I saw that the large object was… Dooley.

  He looked dazed, as I had been, and took a moment to catch his breath.

  “What happened, Max?” he asked.

  “I think we were sucked from one cave to another,” I said. “And ended up in here.”

  We both looked around, and it wasn’t hard to see that apart from the holes in the ground where we had emerged, there was no other exit.

  “Looks like we’re stuck,” I said.

  “And no treasure either,” he added, as if that was the biggest drawback—not the fact that we were effectively cut off from the outside world.

  Just then there was a sort of whooshing sound, as another water jet moved about a ton of water from one cave to the next, and in short order, Brutus and Harriet came popping out.

  “Where are we?” asked Harriet.

  “I’m not sure,” I said. “Probably in yet another one of these caves.”

  “No treasure,” said Brutus sadly, showing us he was on the same page as Dooley.

  “We must have hit some kind of tripwire,” said Harriet. “We went looking for you guys, and then all of a sudden we were whisked away.”

  “No tripwire,” I said. “Just a system of communicating vessels that connects all of these caves.”

  “We have to find a way out of here,” said Brutus. “Or else we might be stuck forever. And I don’t know about you guys, but that prospect doesn’t hold a lot of appeal to me!”

  “Too bad Clarice isn’t here,” said Harriet. “She always seems to find a solution to any problem we face.”

  “We’ll find a solution,” I assured her. Though to be honest, I had no idea how. And since we didn’t have any other options, we started looking around.

  “Hey, you guys,” said Harriet. “I think I’ve found something!”

  We all gathered where she was standing, and I saw she was on the precipice of what looked like a very deep pit that led straight into the center of the earth.

  “Looks deep,” said Brutus.

  “Very deep,” I agreed.

  As we stood there, all of a sudden I saw something rising from deep down. Before we could step back, water spouted out of the hole like a geyser and knocked us off our feet. As water rapidly filled up the cave, I started getting swirled around again, like ice in a glass.

  “I don’t like this!” I cried.

  “I don’t like it either!” Brutus yelled.

  And then, just as we were being buoyed up, we were sucked down again—which was even worse than being lifted up!

  “Here we go again!” Dooley cried.

  The four of us were being sucked right down that hole. I know I probably should have gotten used to it by that point, but does one ever get used to being jostled around like a small ball in a huge pinball machine? Even worse: a pinball machine that’s filled with water!

  By the time the jostling stopped, I found myself lying on a piece of rock, catching my breath—yet again. I groaned as I got up, my whole body feeling quite sore, which was not hard to understand.

  As I looked around, I was surprised to find that I was in an even bigger cave than before. This one was so large it housed… an entire ship!

  As I stared at the ship, which sat crooked in what looked like a lagoon of some kind, I actually rubbed my eyes to make sure I wasn’t dreaming.

  When I opened my eyes again, the ship was still there.

  “Max?” a voice suddenly sounded next to me. When I looked over, great was my relief when I saw that Dooley had also made it. “Is that a ship?”

  “It does look like one, yes,” I said. “And a very big one, too. And very old.”

  “It looks like one of those pirate ships that you see in the movies from time to time,” said Dooley. “Do you think it’s the ship of Captain Quidd?”

  “I’m willing to bet that it is, yes,” I said, and got up to take a closer look.

  Just then, there was a sort of squelchy sound, and when we both looked over, we saw that Brutus had been deposited right on top of a large piece of moss-covered rock. He looked much the worse for wear, just as I imagined me and Dooley looked.

  “Ow,” Brutus groaned. “I think I just lost another one of my nine lives.”

  “Where is Harriet?” asked Dooley.

  Brutus looked around. “She’s not here?”

  We all started looking for our friend, who must have been deposited in the same place as the rest of us—but of whom there was no trace.

  “I don’t get it,” said Dooley. “She must be here. Unless…” His eyes went wide. “Unless she got stuck?”

  “No!” said Brutus, getting frantic. “This can’t be happening! Harriet! Where are you?!”

  “Oh, dear,” I said as my heart sank. I had just spotted what looked like a piece of white fluff—something that might at some point have been attached to Harriet’s tail. I held it up, and both Brutus and Dooley stared at it in abject dismay.

  “She got disemboweled!” Brutus cried. “Ripped apart by that terrible vortex!” He raised his paws heavenward. “Why!” he screamed.

  “Hey, you guys,” suddenly a voice sounded to our rear. “What do you think about this?”

  We all turned—and saw that Harriet was right behind us, and for some reason she was wearing… a hat.

  “I think it looks really cute,” she said. “Don’t you think?”

  “Harriet!” Brutus cried. “You made it!”

  She frowned. “Of course I made it. And while you were lying on the beach, I was exploring.”

  I looked down and saw that Harriet was right: we were indeed on a beach, with the ship stranded there. Beyond the ship, there was an opening in the cave, and beyond that… the ocean. “We’re saved!” I cried. “Look, you guys! It’s the ocean! We can get out of here!”

  “Where did you find that hat?” Brutus asked.

  “Inside the ship,” she said. “There’s plenty more where this came from. Hats and clothes and… treasure. So much treasure, you guys!”

  We followed her as she entered the stranded ship through a hole in the hull, and soon discovered she was right: there was indeed a lot of treasure aboard that vessel. There were also clothes that looked as if they hailed from a time long past—fashion changes, and in the hundreds of years since the vessel had gotten stuck inside this cave, it had changed a lot.

  “We need to tell Gran,” said Harriet. “Only problem is… where is Gran?”

  “Still stuck in that first cave,” I said. “Or the second. Or was it the third?” With all these different caves, it was easy to lose track.

  “I hope the others are all right,” said Dooley. “Clarice and Shanille and Kingman. They should have been here with us, and not stuck in that other cave.”

  “We’ll see them again soon,” I assured him.

  “You’re not saying that in the proverbial sense, are you, Max?” asked Brutus. “As in, we’ll see them in the hereafter?”

  “No, I mean that quite literally,” I said. “As in: we will see them…”

  “Now!” Harriet cried, and gestured to three familiar figures. It was none other than our three friends, who had just emerged from the same hole we had emerged from.

  They looked quite bedraggled, and I felt for them. As we beckoned them over, they soon joined us aboard the stranded vessel.

  “We’d gone looking for you guys,” said Kingman, “when we got sucked up. Just like that!”

  “I feel like I’ve been inside a washing machine,” Shanille revealed.

  “I feel sick,” said Kingman—and threw up right then and there.

  “I feel hungry,” said Clarice, as she looked around the ship. “Any food to be had here?”

  I was about to tell her that so far all we had found were gold and silver and gems and that unfortunately those weren’t edible, when Dooley uttered a blood-curdling scream.

  We hurried to join him, and for a moment stared at the sight that had caused Dooley’s distress.

  It was the skeleton of a man dressed in a captain’s uniform—and far from being the only one, we now saw he was surrounded by similar skeletons. A dozen or so in all.

  “Bummer,” Clarice said. “Not a shred of meat on these bones. Just my rotten luck.”

  CHAPTER 52

  “Ithought you didn’t like nibbling on bones?” said Shanille. “Since you’re not a dog?”

  Clarice shrugged. “Desperate times call for desperate measures, Shanille.”

  “I don’t like dead people, Max,” said Dooley.

  “Yeah, but these people have been dead a really long time, Dooley,” I said. “So that doesn’t count.”

  He thought about this for a moment, then smiled. “I guess you’re right. They have been dead for a really long time, so it’s not as bad as people who haven’t been dead that long.”

  “No meat,” Clarice grumbled. She had been inspecting the skeletons. “No meat at all. Not a shred. Nothing. Probably the rats ate it all.” Then she brightened. “Hey, rats! There have to be rats on this boat.” And off she scooted, to look for rats.

  “Under normal circumstances I don’t eat rats,” said Brutus. “But if Clarice manages to find one, and I’m still as hungry as I am right now, I may be persuaded to have a nibble.”

  “Same here,” said Shanille. “I’d hate to starve to death just because I refuse to eat rat.”

  “I’ll eat a rat,” said Kingman. “I’m sure it’s very tasty. Though it has to be dead before I put it in my mouth. I am not going to put a live rat in my mouth. That’s where I draw the line.” He shivered. “Imagine it moving around in your stomach. That’s just the worst.”

  “Okay, so what’s going on here?” asked Harriet. “And what’s with all of these skeletons?”

  “Probably Captain Quidd’s boat was in a terrible storm and got smashed into this cave,” I said. “His entire crew died, and the treasure’s been here for centuries—until we found it.”

  “But if they all died, then who made the treasure map?” asked Kingman.

  “Maybe one of the pirates survived and managed to get out of here?” I said. “So he drew that map as a reminder for himself but then for some reason never made it back here.”

  “Probably he died from complications sustained in the shipwreck,” said Shanille.

  “It’s a thing,” Dooley confirmed. “Delayed death from injuries, also called sequelae.”

  We stared at the skeletons for a moment, then decided to remove ourselves from their company. There’s nothing especially uplifting or pleasant about skeletons, and I didn’t enjoy staring at them for any length of time.

  “So how are we going to get out of here?” asked Brutus. “Unless of course you want to swim?” he added as an aside to Harriet.

  “I don’t like to swim,” said Harriet. “In fact, I hate to swim. But if it’s a choice between dying in some old cave in the company of a bunch of bones and gold treasure, or swimming and living, I’ll choose the swimming every single time.”

  Kingman groaned. “I hate swimming. Especially in cold water, like we did just now.”

  “There is a big difference between swimming a short distance and going out into the ocean with waves and all of that stuff,” said Shanille. “I’m not even sure I could do it.”

  Clarice returned. “No rats,” she announced glumly. “Not a single one. I have no idea who picked these bones clean, but they’ve long since moved on.” She sighed. “I should never have come along. Scarlett promised me an adventure, and so far all I’ve seen is a lot of stuff I can’t put in my mouth and swallow. Gold! Silver! Rubies! Who cares if you can’t eat it!”

  She was right, of course, and I was also starting to feel my stomach rumble and send urgent signals that it hadn’t been filled in quite a while. But the only way we’d ever enjoy a meal again was if we managed to escape from this cave.

  Just at that moment, we suddenly heard a strange sound, and as we rushed to the nearest window, we saw that someone was pushing a boat out into the ocean. It was one of those small rubber inflatable boats, and as the person took out an oar, they started paddling off.

  “Hey!” Harriet yelled. “Hey, take us with you!”

  And so we all scurried out of the pirate ship and started running in the direction of that rubber boat. It might be our only chance of making it out of that cave alive—at least if we didn’t want to swim!

  CHAPTER 53

  As we hurried to catch up with the person in the boat, we screamed as loudly as we could—which, in our case, is pretty loud. Whoever was in that dinghy paid us no attention at all, though, until finally Harriet had had enough. She halted in her tracks, drew in a deep breath, and opened up those pipes that have made her famous in all of Hampton Cove and beyond.

  The sound of her voice echoed around the cave, and a few birds—who I hadn’t even known were there—were scared off their perches and flew away.

  And then the most wonderful thing happened: the person in the boat turned, and when she saw us, at first she seemed surprised, then started paddling back!

  “She saw us!” Brutus cried, for it was now clear that the person was a woman. And as she drew closer, I saw it was none other than Anthemia, the daughter of the murdered couple!

  “It’s Anthemia Eiderduck,” I told the others.

  “What is she doing here?” asked Brutus.

  It was a valid question—and one to which I didn’t know the answer. Then again, I was sure she must have had her reasons. Possibly she wanted to get away from everything by taking a trip to this deserted island, just like our humans had done.

  “Hey, you guys,” she said as the boat sliced into the sandy beach and she hopped out. “You want to hitch a ride, huh? How did you get stuck down here?”

  “It’s a long story,” I told her. “And if you’ll take us with you, we’ll tell you all about it.”

  “Not that you’ll understand,” Brutus added.

  And since cats don’t like to wait for a formal invitation, we all hopped into the little boat, causing Anthemia to emit a laugh.

  “I guess you do want to get out of here,” she said, before hopping aboard herself. “Okay, so I’ve never done this,” she warned. “So things might get a little rocky. Let’s keep an eye on each other and take things slow, all right? Rumor has it there are plenty of underwater cliffs here and sharp rocks that can slice a boat into ribbons in seconds.”

  And since the last thing we needed was to be sliced into ribbons, we all leaned over the edge of the boat to make sure we didn’t hit those razor-sharp rocks or those treacherous underwater cliffs.

  “Ooh, I think I just saw a fish,” said Clarice. “Here fishie fishie. Come to mama.”

  She stuck her paw in the water, and much to my surprise, all of a sudden… she actually caught herself a sizable fish!

  Two bites and the fish was gone.

  “Yum,” said Clarice. “That hit the spot.”

  When she saw us all staring at her, she rolled her eyes. “Okay, okay. I know I need to learn to share. I’m a work in progress, all right? Don’t judge.”

  And with these words, she went right back to trying to catch more fish. In short order, she managed to catch three more and offered them to us. But even though I was hungry, for some reason the thought of gulping down a living, breathing fish didn’t hold much appeal to me. Call me pampered, but I just couldn’t do it.

  And so Clarice did it for me—or rather, for herself.

  “I can always regurgitate it,” she suggested. “That way you’re sure it’s dead, and it will have the benefit of my gastric juices taking the edge off. How about it, you guys?”

  “No, thank you,” said Harriet as she wrinkled her nose in an expression of distaste. And I had to admit that the thought of enjoying Clarice’s regurgitated fish, marinated in her gastric juices, made me feel a little nauseous.

  Though that could have been the waves, of course. As our little company set out across the ocean, the waves were getting a lot bigger, and we found ourselves rocking up and down, and side to side, in a way that wasn’t exactly conducive to a pleasant outing.

  “Can’t you keep this boat steady?” asked Harriet at some point.

  But clearly, that wasn’t in the realm of possibility.

  Anthemia did her utmost to keep us going in the right direction—I could tell—but she wasn’t an experienced boatsperson. And neither were we.