Pippa loved Peppercup Passage when it was busy.
The narrow lane was full of soft footsteps, little bells, and the warm smell of butter from the bakery. Sunlight slid across the faded peach walls, and flour dust sparkled on the stones. Pippa, a small tabby cat the size of a loaf of bread, with a kinked tail, bright green eyes, and a bell on her collar, trotted right down the middle as if the whole market had been arranged for her.
“Watch me,” she seemed to say with every bounce of her paws.
Mina, a small girl about 90 cm tall with flour on her cheeks, a striped apron, and dark curls tied with a ribbon, was carrying a basket past the stalls. Tilo, an elderly man as tall as a doorway, with round spectacles, a brass watchmaker’s vest, and silver hair tucked behind his ears, was checking the awnings stretched over the market tables.
Then the wind changed.
One awning snapped so hard it sounded like a big cloth hand clapping. Another folded inward with a sharp flutter, flinging a few customers back from the stalls. A dangling corner slapped the lane and made the brass bells above the doorways ring all at once.
Pippa skidded to a stop. The market lane that had looked like a stage now looked like a puzzle. One awning was already drooping low over the walkway, and the people who had been smiling at Pippa’s prancing were now staring at the sagging cloth and the worried stallholders.
A fish seller called, “Someone help keep it up!”
Mina looked at Pippa. Tilo looked at Pippa. Even the nearest customers looked at her as if she might know what to do.
Pippa’s tail twitched. She could dart off and try for more applause in the square, or she could stay by the awnings and find out why they kept giving way.
What happens next?
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