The Forgotten Map (7 page)

‘Ailment?' Whisker said coyly.

Horace laughed. ‘We all know you have a rather unique tail, Whisker. While you were unconscious in Pete's bed, it scribbled in one of his books with a pencil. Pete challenged it to a game of chess, but your tail threw the board out the window. If you could train it to fight with a sword, you'll be unstoppable.'

Whisker sighed. His embarrassing secret was out.

‘There'll be plenty of time for sword practice,' the Captain said. ‘There's a lot Whisker can learn from Ruby.'

Whisker doubted if Ruby would be willing to teach him anything. He just hoped she wouldn't hold a grudge for too long.

He thought about the story his father had told him.

The third option,
he said to himself.
I could have picked surrender.

KABOOM!

As Whisker soon discovered, Ruby held grudges. The sword fight was one of the rare times she'd been beaten and she wasn't about to let it go. She spent hours on the deck in the following days, practicing her technique and fighting invisible foes. Whisker considered challenging her to another fight, but feared too much for his safety. He doubted he could block even one of her slashing moves.

On the morning of the cannon class, Whisker saw her up before dawn, creeping like a shadow from one end of the deck to the other, slicing through the crisp morning air with her swords. More than once she nervously glanced up at the sails.

‘She's preparing a counter attack,' Horace whispered as they secretly watched from behind the ship's wheel.

In silhouette against the dawn sky, Ruby spun on one foot like a ballerina, while waving two swords around her head. The spinning got quicker and quicker until suddenly Ruby released one of the swords and it shot through the air towards them. Horace and Whisker leapt back as the sword struck the wheel with a
TWANG
.

Whisker gasped as he realised the sword was protruding from the centre of the wheel only millimetres from his tail.

Ruby stopped spinning.

‘I thought I smelt a filthy spy,' she hissed.

‘We are neither filthy, nor are we spies,' Horace replied indignantly. ‘We were merely watching.'

‘Watching, spying, it's all the same to me,' Ruby huffed, striding up the stairs to the helm.

She stopped in front of the wheel and stared at her sword. It was still vibrating from the impact.

‘Bull's Eye,' Whisker said, trying to cover his fright with friendly conversation.

Ruby glared at Whisker. ‘I wasn't aiming at the wheel.'

With a nervous twitch of his tail, Whisker decided the conversation was over.

‘What are you doing here, Horace?' Ruby asked, ignoring Whisker. ‘You never get up this early.'

‘We are preparing for cannon classes,' Horace replied.

‘The cannons are below deck, not up here,' Ruby sneered.

‘True,' Horace considered, ‘but it's too cramped below for a proper demonstration. Besides, look at the sky. It's going to be a beautiful day. What else could you wish for? A romantic sunrise and the booming sound of cannons – magnificent!'

Whisker stared out at the horizon. The sky was turning a rich shade of pink and the distant clouds were rimmed with the golden light of the approaching sun.

It does look stunning
, he thought. He chanced a look at Ruby. For a moment, in the soft light he saw a different Ruby; a girl with a serene and peaceful face and a gentle smile. She reminded him of his mother on the summer morning they first launched their boat. He could almost picture Ruby holding his sleeping sister, Anna, as their boat sailed from the flooded inlet into the vast, sparkling ocean.

Ruby, suddenly aware she was being watched, shot a glance at Whisker. Whisker dropped his eyes awkwardly and awaited the harsh remark that would certainly follow. It never came.

He looked up and his eyes made contact with hers. She looked at him crossly, but without all of the venom he had come to expect. Their gaze was broken by a loud thudding noise from below the deck.

‘Right on time,' Horace said, rubbing his hook.

‘On time for what?' Ruby muttered. ‘Waking up the rest of the crew?'

The noise grew louder and Whisker saw a large body poke up from the stairwell, followed by an even larger cylindrical shape, thudding on every step.

‘Fred has arrived with our cannon!' Horace cried excitedly.

When Whisker turned back to Ruby she was already pulling her sword from the wheel.

‘Make sure the
boy
doesn't hit anyone,' she said sternly as she left the deck.

Welcome back, Ruby,
Whisker sighed.

As the morning sun rose over the horizon, Whisker helped Horace and Smudge assemble the cannon. Fred made several trips down the stairs, each time returning with a stack of stale pies and a terrible stench.

‘Oooh, yuck!' Whisker gagged. ‘Your pies are disgusting, Fred. Some are close to putrid.'

Horace laughed. ‘Putrid is preferred.'

‘But what are they for?' Whisker asked. ‘Target practice?'

Smudge twitched his wings to get Whisker's attention. Excitedly, he pointed to a pile of pies with one arm and the cannon with another. With two more arms he made an explosion gesture. Whisker immediately understood.

‘They're cannonballs!' he exclaimed.

‘Exactly,' Horace said with a wide grin. ‘They don't call us
Pie
Rats for nothing.' He beckoned for Whisker to follow him to the nearest pile of pies. ‘We have two categories of pie projectiles, long range and close range. You are currently looking at the long range variety. They are triple-baked by Fred and left in the sun until the pastry is harder than an armadillo in armour. They won't disintegrate in the air over long distances and can tear a hole through a sail.'

He walked over to the second pile of pies. ‘Over here, we have everyone's favourite, the
Close Range Chaos
.'

Whisker took a step towards the pies and caught a whiff of something truly disgusting. He decided not to venture any closer.

‘Close range pies,' Horace continued, ‘are child-friendly projectiles that disintegrate in the air, showering our enemies in a stinky, sticky slop.'

‘Child-friendly?' Whisker scoffed. ‘You'd have to be a skunk with a blocked nose to find that friendly.'

‘It stinks, but it's safe,' Horace said. ‘As Pie Rats, we can handle a few drops of putrid pie filling on our sleeves, but to our enemies, it's utter chaos. Some victims think they've been sprayed with acid. Some think their gizzards have been blasted out of their stomachs. Others think we've used our cannons as toilets. But whatever they believe, it's the quickest way to send them jumping overboard for a much-needed bath.'

Horace chuckled and tapped the side of a pie with his hook. It effortlessly broke through the soft, green pastry.

‘Don't you just love mould?' he mused. ‘I keep these pies in the bottom of the ship where it's damp and dark.'

As he removed his hook, a slow stream of grey-green slime oozed out. Whisker screwed up his mouth and groaned, ‘What on earth is that?'

Fred leant down and took a big sniff. He paused and considered, ‘It's seven months old.'

‘Good vintage,' Horace chimed in.

Fred sniffed again and frowned miserably. ‘Triple garlic with Brussels sprouts and blue-vein cheese. Two dozen pies and no one wanted any.'

‘Cheer up,' Horace said, patting Fred on the back. ‘If all your pies were perfect, we'd have no ammunition. Your worst pie is our best weapon.'

Fred's face lit up with a beaming smile. Horace poured a small amount of gunpowder into the barrel of the cannon and packed it down with a ramrod.

‘We'll start with the long range practice,' he said. ‘I'm not one for rules, but it's essential that you look before you fire. You never know what could be in your path.' He wedged a pie into the cannon, inserted a fuse and adjusted the angle. ‘You also have to consider the wind direction and the distance to your target. Pete has a formula for it, but I rely on experience.'

Looking ahead, he yelled, ‘All clear. Ready, Smudge … FIRE!'

Smudge bobbed up with a flaming match and lit the fuse.

Horace counted down as the fuse sizzled, ‘Three … two … one …'
KABOOM!
The cannon exploded.

The pie shot into the air, veered to its left and then splashed into a wave a short distance away.

‘Rotten pies to crash landings,' Horace said in dismay. ‘I got the angle all wrong … Oh well, let's see what you can do.'

To Horace's surprise, Whisker was a natural. His first shot soared in a graceful arc through the sky before wobbling into the ocean twice as far away as Horace's attempt.

‘Where in the blazing britches did you learn to do that?' Horace exclaimed.

‘The circus, of course,' Whisker replied. ‘I was friends with the Armadillo Cannonballs. I sometimes got to fire their cannon during performances.' He squinted out to sea to where his pie had landed. ‘With a few adjustments, it could go even further …'

Fred shook his head. ‘No one shoots better than that. Not even Pete with his fancy maths.'

‘The angle of the cannon isn't the problem,' Whisker said. ‘It's the pie – and don't worry, Fred, it's nothing to do with your cooking. Did you see how my pie wobbled off course before it crashed?'

‘Yes,' Horace replied. ‘All the long shots do that.'

‘Well, that's the problem,' Whisker said. ‘In the circus, the armadillos would often sway in one direction or the other.'

‘And what did they do?' Horace enquired.

‘They used something a pie doesn't have,' Whisker said, pointing behind his back.

‘A tail!' Fred cried. ‘Are we going to make pies with tails?'

Whisker pondered, ‘A tail only works if you can move it from side to side … We need something that doesn't require movement.'

‘You're starting to sound like Pete,' Fred groaned.

‘Sorry, Fred,' Whisker apologised. ‘I'll try to give you an example to make it clear.'

Whisker's eyes darted out to the horizon for any signs of sea birds. There was no activity against the morning sky. He lowered his gaze to the ocean as a pair of dolphins splashed gracefully from the surf.

‘There,' he said pointing with his paw.

‘A dolphin's tail!' Fred exclaimed.

‘Not a tail,' Whisker clarified, ‘a fin. Look at their dorsal fins.'

‘We're not going to catch one, are we?' Fred asked in horror.

‘Of course not,' Whisker laughed. ‘We can make the fins out of pastry.'

‘How many do we need?' Horace asked excitedly. ‘Fred can start baking this afternoon.'

‘Dolphins have three fins,' Whisker observed, ‘so maybe three fins per pie …'

‘Wow!' Fred gasped. ‘You are as smart as Pete.'

‘He's smarter,' Horace whispered. ‘Pete gets his answers from books. Whisker uses his head.'

Whisker blushed. ‘The dolphins deserve most of the credit.'