Henry was a beautiful Siamese cat. He watched, jealous, as The Man and The Kid got ready to go out on the boat. “Cats don’t like water,” The Man said. Henry begged to differ. Left alone on dry land with The Woman couldn’t possibly compare to the adventure of going out to sea. He wanted to see the dolphins and the fish the humans were always talking about.
Taking the first opening he saw, Henry slipped down into a hatch on the boat. He was a feline stowaway!
As the boat drifted away from the dock, Henry enjoyed the sensation of being carried along. But as the wind picked up and buffeted the boat, he started to feel sick. He needed some fresh air.
He slipped up to the deck to come face to face with The Man, who was sure he’d fall in the ocean and drown. The Kid, however, was delighted to him.
Henry drank in the fresh air and started to feel much better. He looked around at all the sights. A fishing boat, sea gulls, and black cormorants drying their wings in the air. He’d never seen anything like it before. He climbed up the mast, enjoying his birds-eye view, but the boat lurched and he dug in his claws. The Man was teaching The Boy how to steer the boat! This couldn’t be good.
He skidded back down to the cabin just in time to see dolphins leaping through the air just off the port bow. They were beautiful, just what he’d come to see. A moment later a whale appeared, spouting. It was everything Henry could have dreamed.
Moments later, a storm rolled in and the deck of the boat got wet. The Man slipped and fell overboard, leaving Henry and The Kid alone. The boat had to be stopped; otherwise they would leave the man far behind. But how to do that?
Henry had heard just enough of the boat lesson to know the answer. He put his claws into the ropes that held the sails and pulled them down. Then he meowed loudly enough for The Kid to hear, nodding his head toward The Man’s location. The Kid steered the boat back around and The Man was able to scramble back on board.
Henry was a hero, but all that didn’t matter to him! What mattered was that he had been able to go to sea at last.
This book is well looking in to just to see the beautiful, realistic illustrations.
(This book was published in 1994 by William Morrow and illustrated by Erick Ingraham.)
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