Ella hovered outside Arthur’s bedroom. On the other side of that closed door a battle was taking place. She heard bellows of “Ahoy!” and “Avast!” and shrieks of laughter. Bedchambers weren’t usually the place for pirate battles, but Arthur’s bedroom was decorated in blue—cobalt and duck-egg blue, smalt and gentian and indigo and dozens of shades in between. It was a sea grotto of a bedroom, which was presumably why it had been chosen as the site of the skirmish currently taking place.
The four-poster bed was probably the pirates’ sailing ship.
Ella wanted to peep into the room. She wanted to see what the pirates were up to.
One of the kittens wanted to participate in the mayhem, too. It scratched at the door, the tiny scritch-scritch of its claws lost beneath the tumult within.
scritch
