What-the-Dickens had never seen the night sky before. It was so vast, so salted with stars, he got a headache. Dizzy with gaping at it, he lost his footing and slid down the roof, ending up in a rain gutter.

Sitting up to his waist in the muck left by yesterday’s hurricane, he rubbed gritwater out of his eyes. I’m in an aqueduct of swamp, he thought, and there — look — oh, gosh — what is it —

A shooting star stitched a broken line of light across the velvet black. It was gone before he could speak or point — but what a jab of surprise it supplied.

He didn’t know enough to say, “Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight: I wish I may, I wish I might, have the wish I wish tonight.”

Instead, he reached his hands up as if, by force of devotion, he could will the brilliance to come back.

But the shooting star didn’t return. It was oblivious to the attention of an orphan skibberee. So What-the-Dickens stood up, shook himself, and began to make his way along the gutter. Rounding the edge of a gable, he squinted through a window. Inside, he saw another glow: a plain ivory-colored night-light in a socket.

“It looks like a nice warm little tooth there, biting the dark,” thought the skibberee. “That would make a nice present.” He tried to see who was in the bed. He could make out cowboy motifs on the headboard, but he couldn’t identify the lump under the covers. He only knew it wasn’t old Granny Menace upstairs.

The window was closed to him. The sleeper didn’t know or care about him. Keep going, he said to himself. You can’t catch the attention of a star; you can’t wake a sleeper for company. Just keep McCavity in your heart, and find her. Offer her your allegiance. That’s your job.

At the far end of the gutter, he lost his balance. Before he could panic, his shoulder webs flared out like extra arms, stabilizing him. Whoa! With a little practice he found that by rotating his shoulder blades, he could stretch the webbing so it billowed like parachute silk, or relax it back into folds. Cool!

I’ll show this new skill to McCavity. She’ll hire me as her pet, for sure. If nothing else, my present could be to sit on her brow and keep the sun out of her sultry eyes.

What-the-Dickens took his time climbing down the side of the old house. The building had been painted ivory at some point, though now it was aging into a kind of silvery, sea-drift color. This is only important to mention because later he would need to find his way back here, and then he would be glad he had noticed a few details.

The prospect was pleasant enough. The house stood on a little rise. Several jalopies were abandoned on the back lawn, apparently being gutted for spare parts. Sheets that no amount of washing would ever get quite white again hung and flapped on clotheslines in the dark.

The world at night smells richer than it does during the day — at least for the skibbereen. They have capable noses. What-the-Dickens followed his nose and zigzagged about. McCavity, McCavity. Not anywhere near here, by the sniff of it.

He was beginning to feel practiced at things. When a field mouse darted by with a sly sideways smile, the skibberee grinned back. I bet mice know where cats live, he thought. Maybe I can ask for directions.

He gave chase to the little brown creature, but he couldn’t catch up fast enough to ask the question — which was lucky, for suddenly a black curse of shadow fell upon the mouse. An instant later, the squeaking mouse was airborne, clutched in the talons of an owl.

So What-the-Dickens became more wary.

He took his time and kept as hidden as he could, darting from the shadow of a trash bin to the lee of a telephone pole to the safety underneath a US mailbox. Once, by accident, he took a lift on a child’s abandoned roller skate. Faster and faster it rollicked him downhill until it dumped him at a big stone gate with a sign above that read ZOO.

A curb here, a streetlight there. A gravel parking lot here, a stone wall there. What-the-Dickens tried to stay inconspicuous, but here was a piece of popcorn — yum! — and another one there, and another one beyond that. So he was learning about mealtime at last, thanks to a shuttered refreshment kiosk. The remains of spilled snacks glistened in the lamplight like edible jewels.

Caramelized peanuts. A half-melted gumdrop. Sorry, I won’t talk about food anymore.

It was all pretty stale. But What-the-Dickens ate with gusto. Then he pushed beyond the snack stand. He felt braver and stronger. McCavity, he thought. Am I on her trail? I can sense something.

The popcorn led past the Elephant Palace, past the Monkey Pagoda, past the netted domes of the Tropical Bird Sanctuary, and right up to the Cat House.

What-the-Dickens smelled the big smell of big cat. McCavity? Is this her home? Will she take me on as her pet? I’ll apologize for the mama grisset’s behavior. I’ll make amends. I’ll find her a present. She likes presents. That human said so.

Climbing over the stone enclosure and slipping through the double rows of iron paling, What-the-Dickens readied himself to make a formal apology. He walked beneath a sign saying MAHARAJAH: BENGAL TIGER without seeing what it said.

He noticed Maharajah: a snoring mountain in the tiger keep.

Hmmm, thought What-the-Dickens, getting a closer look. McCavity, as I recall, is more white and less orange.

He inched forward. Now, as it happened, Maharajah suffered from a bad toothache, and the animal surgeons were going to operate the next day. To prepare, they had fed the tiger some nice raw ribs marinated in morphine. So the tiger was having a heavier snooze than usual. Otherwise Maharajah might have felt What-the-Dickens climb up on his mighty orange-and-black foreleg, or mount the slope of his nose between his eyes.

“You’re awfully big,” said the skibberee. “Would you wake up and tell me where I might find a distant cousin of yours known as McCavity? You must be related: you share a common shape. She, perhaps, has let herself go, but maybe she’s got big bones. I mean big bones for a small cat. Hello?”

He tugged at Maharajah’s eyelid. The eye twitched open.

“Oh,” said What-the-Dickens. It was a large eye, and he suddenly remembered the owl and the field mouse. A skibberee is small in any instance, and very small when set next to a Bengal tiger.

The tiger purred, in a kind of pain. Pain — or a persuasive lulling? You never can tell with cats. Still, What-the-Dickens thought, Maybe I can help out a little here, in exchange for some advice.

But how to proceed? “Is something the matter?”

Maharajah thought he was having a dream. He opened his mouth.

“Oooh.” The skibberee wrinkled his nose. (Tiger breath is no joke, and there was a reek of infection.) Yet what an impressive set of choppers! “May I look in? Do you mind?” he asked politely. His eyes adjusting to the gloom, he peered. “Is that a bit of swelling on the right, there? I think it is. Shall I just nip in and see? Won’t take but a moment.”

For McCavity, and for her kin, he thought bravely. Long may they smile. Then What-the-Dickens stepped onto the tiger’s tongue, which gave way spongily under his feet. He knelt down to take a better look.

The skibberee rocked the tooth in its footing. “This doesn’t seem right,” he said. “My gut instinct says it should come out. Shall I take care of it for you?”

Since the tiger didn’t say no, What-the-Dickens assumed that meant yes. So he went to work. First he threw himself at the tooth from every direction, pushing it this way and that. Then he slid his forearm along the base of the tooth to widen the gap between the gum and the root. “Messy work, and I’ll need a good cleanup when I’m done,” wheezed the skibberee, “but someone’s got to do it. And if you’ll put in a good word for me when you next meet up with McCavity, I’d be obliged.”

The jaws began to close.

“Oh, no, you don’t,” said the skibberee. He flexed his extended shoulder blades and he thumped the tiger in the roof of the mouth. “Open wide. Got that? We’re at a delicate stage here.”

A little to one side, then the other, then a little more forward. Then: Presto. The tooth was out.

A tiger tooth. It was nearly as tall as What-the-Dickens. And I am sorry to have to say it was not without blood; that’s the reality of dentistry for you.

“That is a beauty,” said the skibberee. By now, however, the pain of the extraction was getting through to the tiger. He was beginning to wake up. He began to murmur. It sounded like distant thunder at first, and then like nearer thunder. Very near. What-the-Dickens and the tooth tumbled out through the tiger’s open mouth.

“Now, about McCavity —” began What-the-Dickens.

Maharajah growled, producing a gust of hot, meaty breath. What-the-Dickens was tossed aloft. He felt his shoulder limbs flail clumsily, the way the baby grissets’ wings had. He was hovering three inches from the tiger’s nose.

What-the-Dickens was more surprised at this than Maharajah was himself. But the skibberee pressed on. “Perhaps you can arrange for an introduction to your cousin, the white cat? And suggest a suitable present —”

The tiger roared. Still clutching the tooth, What-the-Dickens was blown backward into a trough used for tiger runoff. The skibberee sailed off down a pungent stream, through caverns measureless to man, since man can’t fit in anything that small. At a clip, he bobbed along under the tiger’s cage, plopping into a channel that ran out the back of the Cat House.

“Well, maybe he’ll feel better in the morning,” said What-the-Dickens, “though that was a lot of dirty work for no payoff. You can never be sure with cats. I guess I’m going to have to find McCavity on my own. But this thing is too heavy to carry around with me. What was I thinking? A tiger tooth is nice, but it’s unwieldy as a souvenir. I suppose I could give this as a present to McCavity when I find her — but I have to find her, first. And I don’t dare go back and interview that big cat.”

What-the-Dickens had to act quickly. He could hear noises: the night cleaners were arriving with their broad brooms and their hoses.

He darted back to the refreshment stand, and then he saw a solution: a mousehole in the bottom of the kiosk. The field mice living inside almost had heart attacks when they noticed a tiger’s tooth shoving itself in their front door.

“Sorry,” said What-the-Dickens. “Do you mind terribly?”

They refused to touch it, so he guessed it would stay safe until he was ready to come back and reclaim it.