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

“The boy’s right!” exclaimed the doctor, hopping up and down with excitement. “Why didn’t we think of it before? Our champion can use the ship’s cheese to trap the loaf. Bread and cheese go together like… like rats and whiskers. The loaf will throw itself at the cheese, whether Blackbread wants it to or not.”

“But that cheese weighs a ton. We had to get it aboard with a crane,” said the captain, pointing to a huge round of cheese that was lashed to the deck for safety and easy nibbling. “The legendary Ratercules could lift it and maybe wrestle with Blackbread, but no one here is big enough, or strong enough, or brave enough.”

“Maybe not right this second,” said Peter. “Doctor Norvegicus – when you put the spell on me, you said I’d rise like dough when words were said. Can you say just one or two of the words to make me grow bigger, but not so big that I can’t fit through the hole to Topside?”

“There’s seven magic words to say for you to regain your proper height,” mused the doctor. “I think three of them would make you a giant here, yet not so big you couldn’t get back home. I’m not entirely sure. But even if I make you big enough and strong enough, are you brave enough?”

“Considering,” the captain interrupted, “that if you don’t fight Blackbread we’ll all be taken prisoner and sold as slaves, to work in the Barbary video shops, shining discs until our paws are rubbed to stumps.”

Peter gulped and rubbed his stomach, trying to get rid of the sick feeling in his middle. What if his plan failed and he was cut to pieces by the loaf? Patrick had said he wouldn’t die, but it would hurt worse that anything, and even when he got better he’d be a slave. But if he didn’t try, there wasn’t any chance at all.

“I’ll do it,” he said.

Chapter Nine

The captain stared at Peter, a small tear forming in his right eye. “You’re a brave boy,” he said. “Whatever happens, it’s been an honour to sail with you.”

“Likewise,” said the doctor. “An honour.”

Both rats saluted. Peter nodded. Then the three of them turned to look at the approaching enemy.

The Nasty Cupboard was sailing fast towards the Tumbleweed. Hundreds of pirates hung off the rigging and stood along the deck, all of them laughing and shouting threats. On the poop deck, one rat stood alone. A huge black rat with pink eyes, wearing a coat the colour of old compost. In his hand he held a long loaf of petrified black bread that seemed to cast a cloud of darkness all around him, despite the summer sun.

It could only be Blackbread. As Peter watched, he raised the sharp stick of bread and bellowed, “Run ’em down and board ’em, and I’ll make ’em meet the loaf!”

Rats screamed, the helmsrat let go of the wheel, and the Tumblewheel turned into the wind and stopped dead in the water. A few seconds later, the two ships crashed into each other with the sound of shrieking wood and shouting rats.

In those two seconds, Doctor Norvegicus whispered in Peter’s ear, “Hic haec hoc.”

Peter’s eyes went blurry, the world melted around him and he felt himself stretching out. In the first second he was half as tall as the doctor, and then the doctor was only as high as his waist.