Captain Whiskers and the Nap Break

Whiskers had decided that the captain’s chair was much too empty.

It sat on the deck of the pirate ship, the *Jolly Sardine*, right beside the wheel. Its wooden arms curled like two sleepy sea snakes. Captain Bramble was busy checking a basket of clean socks, and the crew was busy doing nothing in particular. The ship was anchored in a peaceful harbor, where little waves bumped the hull with gentle plunks.

Whiskers was the ship’s cat. He knew every rope, every sunny board, and every place a crumb might hide. He also knew that a captain needed a hat. So he found Captain Bramble’s hat and wore it backward.

“Look at me,” he told the crew. “I’m ready to be captain for an afternoon.”

The crew looked at one another. Then First Mate Pru handed him the hat’s feather so it wouldn’t tickle his nose.

“Very well, Captain Whiskers,” she said. “Show us what a captain can do.”

He leaped into the tall chair. His paws barely reached the seat, but he sat up straight and flicked his tail to the left.

“Turn the ship?” asked Pru.

“No,” he said. “Bring me a fish.”

His tail flicked right.

“Hoist a sail?” called Dandy, the cook.

“I meant, scratch behind my ear!”

Dandy scratched the wrong ear. Whiskers gave a tiny yowl. The crew hurried around, each guessing at what his tail meant. One sailor carried over a mop. Another brought a bucket. Dandy returned with a spoon.

“Captain,” Pru said, “we can’t understand your tail signals.”

Whiskers sat taller. “Then I’ll use the chair. A captain in a tall chair must be clear as a bell.”

He pointed one paw toward the front of the ship. Everyone stared at his paw. He pointed toward the back. Everyone stared at his paw again.

The chair creaked. The crew waited. The harbor water made a plunk against the hull.

Whiskers was beginning to suspect that sitting high was not the same as knowing what to do. But he wasn’t ready to give up his afternoon command just yet.

“A captain needs a grand order,” Whiskers said, mostly to himself. His hat slid over one eye. He pushed it back with his paw and tried again.

“Crew! Prepare for… a very important maneuver!”

Pru grabbed a rope. Dandy lifted the bucket. The sailors rushed to the wheel, though the *Jolly Sardine* was safely anchored and not going anywhere. They all looked at Whiskers, waiting.

He flicked his tail in a brisk circle. It was his finest signal yet.

“Is that ‘spin around’?” asked Dandy.

“Or ‘fetch the mop’?” said a sailor named Mott.

The crew began to turn in little circles. Pru spun once, then bumped gently into the bucket. Clonk! The sound startled a gull perched on the railing, and it flapped off with a squawk.

“Stop!” Whiskers cried. “Everyone stop spinning!”

They stopped. The bucket rolled a little and settled beside his chair. Nobody was hurt, but everyone looked puzzled. Whiskers’s hat had slipped down over both eyes. He could see nothing but dark wool and one feather poking his whiskers.

He wriggled out of the hat. “Oh,” he said. “I thought being captain meant giving orders from the tallest chair.”

Pru smiled. “A captain helps the crew know what they need.”

Whiskers looked at the crew. Dandy rubbed his sleepy eyes. Mott yawned so widely that his mustache wobbled. Pru’s shoulders drooped. The sun made a warm, bright patch across the deck, just beyond the chair.

Then Whiskers understood. They didn’t need a fancy order. They needed a comfortable place to rest.

He hopped down and padded toward the sunny patch. He looked back to make sure they followed. They did.

“Captain’s instruction,” he announced. “Bring yourselves over here. Leave the bucket behind.”

Dandy set the bucket down. Mott folded his arms into a pillow. Pru stretched out her legs with a happy sigh.

Whiskers circled once, twice, then curled up in the middle of the sunshine. The crew gathered around him, leaving room for his tail. No one asked what his signals meant. No one needed to turn in circles.

“Is this the important maneuver?” Pru asked.

“It is,” Whiskers said. “The nap break.”

The crew nodded. And just like that, he had found something useful for a captain to do.

Dandy tucked his hands under his head. Mott used his rolled-up coat as a pillow. Pru leaned against a coil of rope and let her boots rest side by side. The crew’s busy faces slowly went still.

Whiskers kept one eye open, because captains must keep watch. The harbor was quiet. A little boat bobbed near the shore, and a pair of ducks paddled past the *Jolly Sardine* as if they had nowhere at all to be.

“Captain Whiskers,” Pru murmured, “you may be captain of the nap break whenever you like.”

“Good,” he said. “I shall make it a regular command.”

His tail curled over his paws. He purred a small, steady rumble. It sounded like the ship’s engine, if the ship’s engine were a very contented cat.

Dandy began to snore softly. Mott’s mustache quivered with each sleepy breath. Pru smiled without opening her eyes.

Whiskers watched the sunny patch stretch across the boards. It warmed his whiskers, his ears, and the place where his paws tucked beneath him. Above them, the ropes rested against the mast. Below them, the harbor water made its quiet plunk against the hull.

The captain’s chair stood empty again, but it no longer seemed too empty. It was only a chair. A captain could sit there, or stand beside the crew, or lie right in the sunshine when that was what the crew needed.

Whiskers kept watch while the afternoon settled around the ship. There was no rush to raise a sail, no need to turn a wheel, and no reason for anybody to fetch a mop. The crew had found the best place on deck, and he had found his proper captain’s job.

His purr hummed on as the sailors rested in the warm patch of sunshine. Whiskers stayed curled beside them, keeping his first peaceful watch.