One Beastly Beast: Two aliens, three inventors, four fantastic tales

Chapter Six

Peter looked up, and sure enough the sides of the hole were flowing inwards like mud into a bottle. Quickly, he started down again, almost slipping on the next few rungs.

“In any case,” puffed the doctor below him, “you won’t be missed. Time is different in the Neverworld. In fact, if you stay here too long, you might end up going back before you left. Or if you choose the wrong hole between the Neverworld and Topside – which is what we call where you come from – you might end up going back years before you were even born.”

Peter didn’t like the sound of that at all. He was already regretting coming on this adventure. He was tired of this rope ladder that seemed to descend for a kilometre at least through the gloomy, dismal darkness. Besides, there was no knowing what was at the other end of this world-hole. Maybe the doctor and the captain were lying and they were taking him away to be a slave, and he’d never see the sun again, or his mum, or anything.

“Don’t worry,” said the doctor, who seemed to know what he was feeling. “We’ll send you back safely. And we’re nearly there. Look down.”

Peter looked and saw a bright light shining up past the two rats below him on the ladder. It looked like sunshine, though that didn’t seem possible.

But it was sunshine. Peter blinked as he came out and the sun’s rays hit him in the face. When he stopped blinking, he saw that he was hanging on a rope ladder that was invisibly attached to the air. Above there was a blue sky with a few lazy white clouds bumbling along. Below him, there was a clump of palm trees and a golden beach.

Looking around, Peter saw that he was on an island. Anchored not far from shore, there was a ship with white sails and lots of red-capped sailors climbing over its masts and rigging. On the other side of the island, another ship with all its putrid yellow sails set was sailing away as fast as it could.

“There go the villains!” shouted the captain, jumping to the ground. “Quick! To the Tumblewheel!”

A few minutes later, Peter was on board His Majesty’s Royal Rat Ship Tumblewheel. He was out of breath from running and soaked from wading into the surf to get picked up by one of the ship’s small boats. There were rat sailors running all around him, climbing up the rigging, raising sails, tying and untying ropes, hauling on ropes and turning the windlass that raised the anchor. Captain Rattus was already on the poop deck, shouting orders as the ship slowly started to turn out to sea, the wind filling its sails and all the timbers and ropes groaning as if the Tumblewheel was reluctant to move.

“Mister Purser!” shouted the captain, pointing at Peter. “We’ve a gentleman volunteer aboard that needs a proper rig-out. See to it, if you please.”

A small, older-looking rat appeared at Peter’s elbow and led him away below deck. It was surprisingly cramped and Peter had to duck his head as they clambered down steps and through doorways and hatches. It smelled too, of salt and wet rats.

“Here we go, sir,” said the purser finally, as they reached a small room full of chests and bags. “We’ll have you kitted out in a moment. Hoi, Patrick! Get Mister…”

“Peter,” said Peter.

“Get Mister Peter a cutlass and a brace of pistols from Hodges the Armourer,” ordered the purser. Then he took a deep breath and started to hand Peter clothing, reciting, “Here’s a blue coat of best superfine with one inch brass buttons on a nautical line; a linen shirt somewhat patched with a detachable collar that’s practically a match; a pair of double-seated britches made of wool that sadly itches; two pairs of stockings, one silk, one not; a pair of sea boots with holes where they’ve been shot; a broad leather belt with steel buckle showing faint remains of gilt; and a broad-brimmed hat of salt-stained felt.”

A few minutes later, Peter had changed into his new clothes and was realising the truth of the purser’s words. The double-seated breeches did itch. Still, he couldn’t help but stick his chest out and feel proud in his seagoing gear. Then Able Searat Patrick came back with a cutlass and a brace of pistols, which Peter was relieved to see meant only two.

“Captain says I’m to show you how to shoot,” said Patrick. “Because we’ll be boarding those rotten rascal pirates within the hour. And I’ll teach you a few cutlass tricks as well.”

Chapter Seven

Peter followed Patrick out of the hold from the purser’s office to the gun deck, weaving between the rats who were waiting beside the great brass cannons. Past the last cannon, they climbed up a ladder and through a hatch.

Out in the open air, Patrick showed Peter how to fire his pistols and hold his cutlass. Peter shot at a floating barrel and learned how to reload; then he put the pistols away to hack at a spar with the cutlass and learn the basics of attack and defence.

“We’re… we’re not going to get killed, are we?” he asked Patrick nervously. Half an hour of practice with the pistols and cutlass had shown him how dangerous they could be.

“Of course not!” said Patrick, surprise in his bright black eyes. “This is the Neverworld! You only get awfully wounded here and suffer terrible pain till you get better or grow back a paw or tail. No one dies.”

“Terrible pain?” asked Peter faintly. “I don’t like the sound of that!”

“Patrick always exaggerates,” said a small, balding rat who was sharpening his cutlass nearby. “It ain’t that bad. Why, I’ve had both my ears shot off and I hardly noticed when it happened. The doc gave me a cordial and they grew back in two weeks, though I’ve had a little trouble with my fur.”

“Oh,” said Peter. “Things are very different where I come from.”

“Naturally,” said the balding rat. “That’s Topside. All sorts of strange things happen there. You just stick with the captain, Mister Peter. He’ll see you through.”

“Speaking of the captain,” said Patrick, “I think he wants you on the poop.”

“The poop?”

“The deck at the back, where the captain paces to and fro, grappling with strategies and tactics and cunning plans to defeat the foe,” explained the purser, who had just come on deck. “How are the britches?”

“They itches,” said Peter as he climbed the short ladder to the poop deck. The captain was looking through a telescope, but he clapped it shut and shook Peter’s hand with one powerful paw.

“It’s good to see a fellow take to this way of life,” he declared. “Are your pistols primed and ready? Cutlass sharp as it can get?”

“Yes, sir,” declared Peter, who suddenly felt braver for the captain’s handshake.

“Hmm,” said the captain, as if he wasn’t sure what to say next. He took Peter’s arm and led him away from the two rats who stood nearby at the ship’s wheel.

“There’s a bit of a problem,” he whispered. “I’ve recognised the pirate ship and the news is not good. You see, we can’t risk destroying the Ratinci orrery by sinking the ship with cannon fire, so we’ll have to board and fight it out. But that ship’s the Nasty Cupboard and its captain is none other than—”

He looked around to make sure no one was listening, then pushed his snout so close to Peter’s ear that his whiskers tickled the boy’s cheek.

“Its captain… its captain is none other than the worst pirate who ever sailed the seas. The most awful bandit of the oceans, the most ghastly robber of the deep. A rat whose true name cannot be spoken, a rat who is only known by the fearsome weapon he employs, the rat that we call—”

“I say,” interrupted Doctor Norvegicus loudly as he climbed up to the poop deck. He peered through his monocle at the pirate ship. “Isn’t that the Nasty Cupboard? The ship captained by the most awful pirate of our times, the villainous, terrible, disgusting, horrendous rat who is known only as—”

“Blackbread,” finished Captain Rattus, giving up on whispering. As the name echoed out, the fur on the rats across the deck paled from black to grey and their tails began to shiver.

“Blackbread?” asked Peter. “Why is he called that?”

“He has a magic weapon,” explained the doctor. “A long thin loaf of ancient petrified black bread. It’s harder than iron and sharper than a diamond, and its magic powers make Blackbread entirely bulletproof. They bounce off the loaf and off him as well. Some have tried to fight him using only sword or cutlass, but he is too dangerous for that. Blackbread is a true master of the loaf.”

“There’s not a rat aboard the Tumblewheel that dares to face Blackbread,” sighed Captain Rattus. “Including, I’m sad to say, myself. We’ll just have to let him go.”

Chapter Eight

“But what about my DVDs! And the Ratinci orrery!” exclaimed Peter. “We have to get them back!”

“I’m sorry, Peter,” said the captain, and a tear glistened in his eye. “We dare not risk Blackbread’s anger, not even for the orrery… or your DVDs. Helmsrat, hard aport!”

The crew cheered as the Tumblewheel turned aside. Then they groaned as the Nasty Cupboard turned as well and continued sailing towards them.

“The hunter becomes the hunted,” said the doctor, peering through his monocle at the pirate ship. “We’ll have to fight Blackbread after all.”

“What would happen if Blackbread lost his loaf?” asked Peter, who’d been thinking very hard about the situation. It seemed to him that the navy rats had given up too easily.

“Why, he’d be nothing,” said Captain Rattus. “Just another bad rat to be taken in for justice. But he carries the loaf by night and day. It’s impossible! We’re all going to be taken as prisoners and sold as slaves!”

“I was thinking that if you carried something sort of soft and sticky as a shield, Blackbread might get his loaf stuck in it,” said Peter. “Then you could wrestle with him and take the loaf away.”

“Wrestle with him?” squeaked the captain. “He’s the biggest rat around! And we haven’t got a soft and sticky shield.”