May Bird Among the Stars by Peter Ferguson, Jodi Lynn Anderson, Sammy Yuen Jr., Christopher Grassi

nose in the air and her letter tucked under her arm, started floating off across the plain, leaving May watching her back, bewildered. What had she said?
    That night all sorts of things kept them up. The wind howled down upon them from the north, causing May and Somber Kitty—the only two who felt the cold—to huddle together in theirsleeping bag, their teeth rattling. The mountains—which again did not seem to be getting any closer—danced with strange lights, flickering here and there like lightning bugs. Even Beatrice, sleeping at a cool distance from May, had no explanation for them.
    When May finally slept, she dreamed that the breeze coming down from the mountains was the breath of the Lady herself.
    â€œMeow”
    Commander Berzerko stood before the group of goblins and zombies she’d summoned. They had rendezvoused just a few minutes before, at a graveyard just north of the Dead Sea.
    In her left paw she held a marker. With her right, she pointed to a collapsible blackboard, indicating a drawing she had just completed:

    The commander sniffed a pawful of catnip, then surveyed the crowd. “Meow?”
    The group gazed back at her blankly. Not one of the zombies or goblins present knew how to speak cat. But, since their recruitment that morning, no one had had the nerve to tell this to Commander Berzerko yet. So far they had just nodded a lotas she’d pulled out maps, done drawings, even sketched the occasional portrait.
    â€œMeow?” the commander asked.
    The zombies shifted uncomfortably. A few goblins nodded. Neither group looked at the other. Unbeknownst to the commander, zombies and goblins had been sworn enemies since 1912. (That year the goblins had determined that zombies had the worst outfits of any group of spirits in the realm.)
    â€œMew meow?” Commander Berzerko directed her gaze at an unfortunate goblin in the front, who’d been examining his cuticles. The goblin started and looked up in horror. Clearly aware that he was being asked a question, he pretended to be thinking really hard. He began to tremble and sweat profusely. He looked at the others helplessly. “Ufffff, meow?” he ventured.
    â€œMeow?” Commander Berzerko considered, with deadly calm. Her eyes narrowed. And then something strange began to happen. Her fur stood up on end. Her body began to shake. Her green eyes widened and crossed. She floated several feet into the air like a balloon. All over her body, her fur formed itself into shiny black spikes. Her claws shot out into the air, smoke flowing madly from her ears. But most horrible of all was what happened to her tail.
    â€œMeeeeeoooooooooooooow!” The tail shot out and wrapped itself around the goblin, whipping him into the air and dangling him before the others as he screeched.
    And then the screeching stopped. Commander Berzerko began to shrink to normal size and float back toward the ground. Her spiraled tail unraveled itself, revealing no sign of the goblin who had been there a moment before. And then something fell from the last curl of the tail with a clatter.
    A glittering black diamond.
    Commander Berzerko scooped the diamond up with one paw and tucked it somewhere inside her collar as the Dark Spirits before her watched, shocked.
    Calmly, she returned her attention to the blackboard and pointed once again to the figure of the cat with the big ears.
    â€œMeow,” she said. Which, though no one understood, meant,
Leave this one to me.
    May awoke to a gentle tap on her cheek. Kitty was staring at her proudly, wearing something filmy and gray. It was a little kitty coat.
    Behind him, Fabbio sat with a tiny silver needle and a little sewing bag. “Now be very still, I am needing to finish hem.” Noticing May staring at him, he sniffed. “What, you thinking it is unmanly to sew?” He nodded toward the white, snow-blanketed mountains in front of them. “This cat. He was not made for cold