The Mapmakers' Race

by Eirlys Hunter

  “I’m glad I don’t ever have to go to school again.” Beckett dumped the grammar with the other books on the back of the cart.

  They tried packing the other way: essential stuff first, then what they still had room for. The food, the cooking pot and the billy for heating water fitted into two baskets. The surveying and map-making equipment, the groundsheets, the bucket, the axe, the slasher, the spade and Humph’s rucksack filled the other two. Everything else had to be left behind. Easy.

  Sal shook her head. “We need the tent. This is impossible.”

  Joe liked sleeping in the tent but he hated all the hammering-in of pegs and slotting together of poles at night, and wrangling the canvas back into its bag in the morning. “We’ll be hours quicker without it. It’s summer. We’ll sleep under the stars, and we can always shelter under the tarpaulin if it rains.”

  “When it rains,” said Sal.

  It was Joe’s turn to worry when Beckett sliced lengths off the coil of rope to tie the baskets together in pairs. Pa and Ma always said carry the longest rope you can, but there was no alternative.

  Beckett’s mother found some old sacks to protect the donkeys’ backs; they loaded Treacle with the baskets of tools and the net of hay Mr Arbuckle gave them, and Dumpling got the food baskets. The empty water barrel was tied on top, and the altimeter rolled along behind.

  Beckett’s mother suggested they take the groundsheets out of Treacle’s baskets and drape them over each donkey’s load.

  “You never know when it’ll start to rain,” she said, “or if you have to walk under a waterfall.”

  That made a tiny bit more room. Sal stuffed in Ma’s first-aid bag, Joe added an extra bag of route-marking silks, Beckett rescued Pa’s fishing rod from the “no” pile, and Francie held out the paraffin bottle and the lantern, which was much better for drawing in the dark than a candle. Sal managed to shove them all in with the tools.

  They checked their rucksacks: a sleeping bag, a change of clothes, plus another jersey and two extra pairs of underwear and socks, a warm jacket, a woolly hat, gloves and a rain cape, a mug, a bowl, a pocket knife and a spoon, some candles and matches. Joe also had his bag of orange silks, a ball of twine and the coil of rope. Francie carried her sketchbook, pencils, pens and ink.

  Humph was wearing old shorts of Joe’s and his favourite red jersey. Sal, Francie and Joe were all wearing comfy old shirts of Pa’s, with the sleeves shortened. Sal had her own trousers that Ma had made her, and Joe and Francie had Pa’s old trousers taken in at the waist and cut off at the knee and held up by braces (Francie) and a belt (Joe). They all had good boots that fitted—unlike Beckett’s boots that flapped at the toe. His mother made him take them off while she waxed a thread and sewed them up. She gave him his father’s old socks, jersey and overcoat for when it got cold, which made his eyes water a bit and he had to blow his nose.

  He didn’t have a rucksack of his own, so Joe emptied out Ma’s for him, and gave him her sleeping bag.

  “But what about when she catches us up?” Sal whispered.

  “Beckett’s a definite, Ma’s only maybe. If she does catch us up, she’ll find what she needs,” said Joe. “She’ll manage.”

  When all the belongings they were leaving behind had been stowed in one of Mr Arbuckle’s empty rooms, and Beckett had his boots back on, they waved goodbye to his family and set off along the river bank, leading two heavily laden donkeys.

  Humphrey could walk for hours so long as he had someone to chat to, and Beckett was a good talker so long as he had someone listening, so Humph stuck close and Beckett told him stories about the dirigible and the steam-driven charabancs he’d seen in Grand Prospect. He’d even seen a mining engine called The Worm that could burrow coal and gold out of the ground.

  Francie and Joe left markers for Ma, in case she followed them. Francie arranged coloured stones in little cairns every few hundred clicks while Joe tied a strip of orange silk to a branch at eye level, so it fluttered in the sunshine.

  Sal walked behind Dumpling, watching the altimeter and dodging the donkey poo. “Blooming donkeys! No need to waste your silks, Joe, the donkeys are leaving their own trail for Ma.”

  But the biggest problem with the donkeys was that they kept stopping to graze.

  “You sure these beasts are donkeys, Beckett?” Sal tugged at Dumpling’s halter, but Dumpling just reached for another mouthful of thistles. “Sure we’re not trying to drag two tortoises over the mountains?”

  Joe pushed Treacle’s rump. “Come on, you! This isn’t a snail race.”

  Treacle just flicked his tail in Joe’s face and put his nose into a wild rose bush.

  It was Carrot who got them moving. She flew down and perched between Dumpling’s ears and screeched: “Sit straight, face front!”

  Like magic, Dumpling started moving, and Treacle followed. And they kept going, as long as Carrot snapped at them from time to time.

  To begin with there was hardly any need for route finding—the way was directly up the wide, straight valley of the Brightwater River. When they came to a fork in the river, Joe checked his compass and Francie’s sketch map and decided which branch of the river to take. The ground was level, the rise was gentle, and there was plenty of room for a railway track.

  The river sparkled and they wanted to jump in. It was a baking hot afternoon but Sal kept hurrying them along the river bank where there wasn’t much shade. The shadows grew longer and longer until finally Beckett said the donkeys had to stop, even if the Santanders didn’t. At last. They pulled their boots off and threw themselves into the cool water. Beckett couldn’t swim, but he sat in the shallows and let Humph splash him.

  In the middle of the night Humph cried out that he wanted Ma, and he sobbed and sobbed. Joe cuddled him and whispered, “You’ll see her soon. Just think, this is our second night on the race already. Only twenty-four days to go.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  A TRUE LIFE BEAR!

  In the morning Humphrey could hardly open his eyes. His whole face was swollen and his skin was stretched and shiny as a currant bun. After swimming, everyone had rubbed themselves with citronella against the stoneflies, but no one had helped poor Humph. Sal gave him a sugar biscuit so he knew how sorry they all were, then they had to unpack Treacle’s baskets to find Ma’s pot of salve to smear over the swollen welts on his face and arms. He was brave, but tears kept trickling down his puffy cheeks.

  Sal made porridge for breakfast and it was just as burnt and lumpy as it had been every morning so far, but there was plenty of sugar so they managed to eat it. No one wanted to scrub out the pot, though, so they left the burnt bits on. They’d meant to start early, but the sun was quite high before they set off again.

  “Why are we trying to do this without Ma?” Sal muttered to Joe as they squelched through a boggy place. “We shouldn’t be doing our first race on our own. It isn’t just about finding a route and making the maps, you know.”

  “What else, then? We just have to keep going and get there.”

  “What about meals? Insect bites? And I don’t know what else until it happens, that’s the whole problem.” Sal’s voice rose to a despairing squeak.

  “We’ll be all right,” he said. “Stop worrying. We’ll be fine.”

  She glared at him. “Stop saying that, Joseph Santander. This was your idea but you’re leaving all the worrying up to me. Which is just not fair. You keep saying ‘we’ll be fine’ all the time. But what if we’re not?”

  Luckily for Joe, who didn’t really have an answer, the measuring wheel’s bell dinged to show a thousand clicks and Sal stopped shouting at him and concentrated on calculating heights and distances and angles instead. She wrote down the answers on a rough sketch map.

  Every time they stopped, Francie’s pencil danced. She drew the landscape to remind herself what needed to go on the map: two long scrolls on spare altimeter paper, one showing the west, and one the east side of the valley, her drawings growing at lightning spee
d as they moved along the river bank. If someone had fallen from a cloud into that long valley they could have unrolled her pictures, looked around, and pointed to exactly where they were. There was the big slip, like a scar on the cheek of the hillside. There was the enormous tree that lay across the river like a sieve, collecting stones and bones and bare-branched bushes.

  They agreed that they’d take it in turns to name things, so Beckett named the shining thread of a waterfall that they saw in the distance “Phoebe Falls” after his little sister.

  “Which do you think sounds better?” said Joe, hurling a stone that landed in the river with a satisfying splosh. “Lake Joseph or Mount Joseph? Or maybe the River Joe? That would be good, if it was a really big river.”

  “Joseph’s Creek?” suggested Sal.

  “Joseph Santander Pond?” said Beckett.

  “Joe’s puddle!” said Humphrey.

  Joe laughed. “Humphrey’s piddle more like!”

  *

  As they went upstream there was less and less water in the river, until it was just several sun-flecked trickles, each finding its own way through the shingle riverbed. There was plenty of space for the donkeys, and whenever the other side looked easier to walk along, they just splashed across. Here and there, whole dead trees lay around on the stones. Sal tried to imagine the river big enough and fast enough to shift huge trees. It was easier to imagine giants throwing them around.

  They were keeping to the shade in the hot afternoon when Francie pulled at Sal’s shirt and pointed behind them. She gave Sal the uniscope.

  Trees, trees, trees. Then … something moving. Something white. A long way down the valley.

  “Oh, please let that be Ma.” Sal sucked on the end of her plait.

  Joe stopped and peered back, too. “Ma’s got a white shirt, hasn’t she, Francie?”

  Francie nodded. It could be Ma, it really could.

  Sal thought she heard a shout. She kept looking back, but there was no sign of the white whatever-it-was. She tried to remind herself that Ma had no way of getting to Grand Prospect, but she couldn’t help going slower anyway, just in case, and she insisted they stop for the night much earlier than they had the night before. After they’d eaten, she suggested they sing some songs, because she secretly hoped that Ma would follow the noise and appear through the trees. But Ma didn’t, and eventually Sal decided they’d better save their breath for walking.

  Joe yawned. “Twenty-three days to go.”

  *

  The next day walking became harder, and so did drawing, as the trees grew so thickly they blocked the view. The valley sides were closer and steeper and Sal had to steer the altimeter around boulders, and up and down banks. Sometimes Joe made a zigzag path around a steep place that the railway track could cut through.

  They kept looking back and listening. Finally, Francie saw something move behind them. She drew a horse.

  “Another team?” said Joe.

  “It could still be Ma,” said Sal. “She could have borrowed a horse. You can check next time you fly, Francie.”

  Next time. Flying was too exhausting to do often.

  In the afternoon, the valley opened out again. Invisible birds called in the trees, hawks floated high above them, and swifts and flycatchers darted above the water. Humphrey fought against the quiet by singing loudly.

  Chocolate or apple cake

  Fruit cake or nut

  We can eat any cake

  That our Ma can bake

  Just take a knife and

  Cut us a slice of

  Chocolate or apple cake

  Sal tried to ignore him, but Beckett soon got fed up with that song and taught him a new one.

  A bear he went fishing all down in the stream

  Hey ho, to catch him a fish

  He stood by the water as if in a dream

  Hey ho, to catch him a fish

  He saw a fat trout and in went his paw

  Hey ho, to catch him a fish

  Out came the trout all hooked on his claw

  Hey ho, he’d caught him a fish

  Joe and Sal joined in and they were all singing loudly when Beckett stopped, held out his arm and hissed, “Shh! Don’t move! Do we have any weapons?”

  Sal laughed but Beckett’s face was serious. He put his finger to his lips and then pointed at a rock at the edge of the water. Except it wasn’t a rock. It was a huge black bear, and it sat up and looked straight at them. It was as if the song had magic powers.

  Beckett held tight to Treacle’s halter and Sal hung on to Dumpling. She felt in Dumpling’s basket without taking her eyes off the bear, which was glaring at them, unmoving. She was feeling for the kitchen knife but found only the lid of the cooking pot, more shield than weapon.

  The bear pushed up onto four paws and padded a few steps in their direction. Joe scooped up some stones; Sal pushed Humph behind her and brandished the lid.

  Dumpling danced sideways.

  The bear took a short run towards them.

  Joe yelped and Francie and Sal moved close to Joe and pulled the donkeys into the huddle. The bear paused.

  It was just a few yards away. It reared up on its hind legs—a great wall of powerful blackness. It stared at them as if it was deciding where to start, then it opened its mouth and snarled, its long canines shiny with drool. Joe’s stones bounced off its fur.

  Dumpling and Treacle kicked and snorted. Someone shrieked. The blade of Beckett’s pocketknife flashed. Sal clanged the lid against the spade.

  The bear dropped to all fours and started towards them, growling. Sal could smell the foul fishy scent of its breath and see its muscles rippling as it tensed to pounce.

  Then Dumpling let out a blood-curdling scream.

  The bear came to a dead stop in a flurry of shingle and rose up onto its hind legs again. It towered over them, claws slashing the air, teeth ready to crunch down on bone. Its eyes rolled white as the unearthly screech came again, bouncing off the valley walls. It was louder than a steam engine’s whistle, as loud as thunder right overhead.

  The bear threw itself sideways and ran. It crashed through the bushes and vanished into the trees, away from Dumpling.

  Sal’s legs crumpled. She sat down; her insides felt like water.

  Joe dropped down beside her. “It would have killed us. Ripped us to shreds.”

  “Those teeth.”

  “And those claws!”

  Humph had been squashed behind the others, so he hadn’t seen the bear when it ran towards them and didn’t quite realise how much danger they’d been in. He bounced up and down with excitement. “D’you see that? It was a bear! In true life! A true life bear! Did you see it, Sal? Did you see the bear, Francie?”

  Francie stared after the bear, then started to draw it running, its fur rippling.

  The lid clattered out of Sal’s trembling fingers. “It was that close! Has it gone? Really gone?”

  “Stupid, stupid, stupid.” Beckett dug in his rucksack and pulled out a catapult. “I should have been prepared, I should always have it ready.” He filled his pocket with pebbles and fitted one to the cradle.

  He aimed at a white bird that was sitting on a rock, and the stone landed near enough to send it flapping into the air.

  “I wasn’t trying to hurt it,” he reassured Humph.

  Carrot refused to ride on Dumpling’s head again, but it didn’t matter because as soon as she’d eaten her reward apple Dumpling twitched her ears forward and set off without even being told.

  They armed themselves with big sticks, which they thumped to keep time as they walked.

  “That shiny stone,” said Beckett, pulling back the cradle of his catapult.

  “How can a pebble win against a bear?” Sal asked as the shiny stone flew into the air.

  Beckett aimed at a rock in the river. “Hit it on the nose, or in the eye, it’ll run away quick enough.”

  That evening they reached the head of the valley. The slope all round was so steep it was prac
tically vertical, and thickly blanketed in forest.

  Beckett looked around, puzzled. “So where does the train track go from here?”

  “Either through a tunnel or it climbs up, depending on what’s at the top,” said Sal.

  Francie took herself off to a quiet hollow to fly before it got dark, so she could give Joe an idea of what lay ahead. Joe wished she didn’t have to fly, but she needed to see from above before she drew her maps. And if Joe didn’t have her sketch map to help him decide the best way, they could waste days exploring valleys that took them in the wrong direction.

  A couple of years ago, Joe had overheard a conversation in the tent in which Ma had tried to make Pa understand how exhausting flying was, and that she was afraid Francie wasn’t strong enough. Pa had said, flying is an extraordinary gift. Francie must be encouraged to fly as much as she can, so she builds up her stamina.

  But Joe worried. When Francie came back from flying her skin looked grey and it was a huge effort for her to stay awake long enough to draw what she’d seen. All he could do was make sure she slept, but he noticed that she had to sleep for longer and longer now before she was back to her normal self.

  “We ought to make a big f-i-r-e because of b-e-a-r-s or w-o-l-v-e-s,” Sal spelled out to Joe, over Humph’s head.

  Humph looked indignant. “I’m not sleepy!”

  Joe laughed. “That’s not what Sal was spelling! She said let’s have a big fire.”

  As they dragged branches back to the camp, he was pleased they’d thought about being kind and not scaring Humphrey. If Humph was worried that something was waiting behind a tree he might refuse to walk and then they’d really be in trouble. Most children Humph’s age weren’t nearly such good walkers.

  “So, what’s for dinner?” asked Beckett when they’d got the fire going.

  “Dinner?” Sal was re-reading the race instructions. She’d already read them at least twice and reassured them all that Francie’s maps and drawings were just what the organisers wanted, but she wanted to check she was doing the right calculations.