The window shut as the door creaked open, silencing the feral fogs barking in the woods. I turned around.
“How do I look?” It was my first time wearing my grandmother’s dress – a unique piece she made herself out of fifteen thousand little spoons. After all, tonight was supposed to be an extraordinary ball.
“Turn around,” the cat ordered, adjusting two of the spoons. “Alright, let’s go.”
I followed the cat, descending the moss-draped spiral staircase, always keeping my eyes on her ears, which helped with the dizziness.
“And I don’t have to do anything else?” I asked upon our arrival in the basement.
“Only what I told you to do,” replied the cat, who was using one of my spoons to fiddle with the keyhole in the door.
“Come on now,” the cat urged, “and don’t get the dress dirty.”
I cautiously followed her through the exit and out into the foresty fog that barked harshly.
“Cat, where are you?”
“Hold on to my tail, I’ll guide you to the lake.”
Holding the tail with one hand and the dress with the other, I moved through the fog until it gradually cleared. The bright lights of the professor’s castle already greeted us in the distance.
“Get in the boat,” the cat said, and I was startled when I realized that it wasn’t the cat’s tail I was holding in my hand but a twiggy branch.
“Let’s move,” said the cat or the branch as I carefully climbed over the skulls on the bank, into the boat and started rowing.
“Be careful not to wake them,” warned the branch that rode on the cat alongside my boat, but it was too late. I had already hit two of the skulls.
“Quack!”
“Please excuse me,” I said, “but I didn’t see you in all that fog.”
After a little more than a little while and three damaged skullducks later, the castle sat enthroned on the cliff before us. The fog lifted and the professor’s horse helped me out of the boat.
“The cat and the branch must stay outside.”
I bid farewell to the cat and the branch and mounted the horse. We galloped along the cliff until the horse leapt through a hole half the size of us. Ever faster we raced through the tunnel, which was covered in green velvet on all sides and lit only by a few candles held in the claws of bats. At the end of the tunnel, we came to an abrupt halt.
“Please dismount, I cannot proceed any further.”
When I went to say thank you, the horse had already vanished into the tunnel.
“Good evening, young lady,” a beak protruding from the rock peeped at me. “If you could be so kind as to pull.” So I pulled, carefully at first, then more forcefully until I had broken the stone bird out of the wall. Then I climbed through.
The light from the chandelier dazzled my eyes, the melodies of the nightingales rang in my ears and so it was only after a short period of orientation that I realised I was already in the ballroom. There they all sat at the lavishly laid tables towards the walls of the room: thrushes, finches, blackbirds, and all sorts of beautiful birds whose names I did not yet know. A lone couple, green at the neck and otherwise rather inconspicuous, danced intimately in the centre.
I took a step into the hall. The clinking of the spoons on my dress caused a great stir among the birds. A silvery voice demanded silence.
“Please come closer,” called the old heron at the head of the table. Hesitant, I waded through the sea of feathers, that the panic had torn from the birds, until I stood in front of him.
“Dear Professor,” I started, bowing my head humbly like the pheasants sitting to his left, “I sincerely apologise for the damage I caused your ducks in the course of writing.”
“Ashes to ashes, ducks to ducks,” replied the learned heron, flicking his beak at the valets.
“It's about time you arrived. Now we can commence.” The tallest of the valets ascended and circled the chandelier two or three times – the light was too bright to see it clearly – before alighting and letting off a roar.
“Caw, caw, cawstard!”
With those words, golden gates swung open on all sides of the room and in came small woodcocks, always in groups of eight, bearing stone bowls on their backs, peenting under the weight with every step.
“Dessert is served,” proclaimed the heron and a brief silence was followed by the fluttering and waving and shaking of thousands of wings – a deafening noise. They all descended upon me, tearing and tugging and pulling, until only one spoon remained on my dress. Now, I could complete the task the cat had given me. I adjusted my dress – or what was left of it – and started climbing the neck of a large swan, who was preoccupied with his custard. Always keeping my eyes on his ears, which helped with the dizziness. Having reached his head, I lowered myself down his beak, waiting for his next bite. Then I leapt inside.
The interior of the beak was covered in white velvet. There was a bed in the centre with eggs on top. How would I open them? I tossed one against the wall, but the velvet prevented it from breaking. I carefully removed the last spoon from my dress and tapped the egg that I had just thrown. Its shell immediately cracked, and the cat emerged.
“Well done,” she said, politely for once, and added in her usual rude manner, “Now the others.”
Swiftly, I tapped all the other eggs on the bed – there must have been about a hundred – and out of each came a different cat. Then, my cat took the floor.
“Dear sisters, let's eat.” And with that, they disappeared out of the swan’s beak into the ballroom.
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