The Mapmakers' Race

by Eirlys Hunter

  Humph patted his hand. “Not much further. Good boy.”

  The stars and a fat slice of moon were out when they reached a raised patch of dry ground near a stream, almost at the lake. Water and a camping place—but no wood for a fire. They could see a smudge of deeper darkness in the distance that was probably trees, but Joe couldn’t manage another step.

  “You can go on without me. I’m going to sleep here for at least a month.”

  “You’ll feel better in the morning,” said Sal. “Eighteen days to go.”

  When he woke in bright sunshine, Joe could hardly move. His muscles ached, his head throbbed and his face was tight with sunburn. He forced his feet into his boots again. Then he stood up on his protesting legs and made his feet follow the others over the springy grass towards the distant trees which grew beside Finger Lake. By the time he caught up they’d got a friendly fire burning and the porridge was on. While the billy boiled, Joe stripped off his clothes and jumped into the lake before he had time to change his mind. The water was freezing, but his head and his sunburn both felt instantly better, and when he’d eaten breakfast and drunk two cups of tea, the rest of him felt much better too.

  Carrot flew down and perched on the toe of Beckett’s boot and tugged at the lace. The soles of both boots were flapping loose and there was blood seeping out of the toe of one of his socks.

  “Yikes,” said Joe, who hadn’t even noticed that Beckett was limping. He felt bad.

  “It’ll be all right. It’s only a bit sore.”

  Sal peered at his boots. “But if your feet get infected you won’t be able to walk and then we’ll have to stop and we’ll lose the race.”

  Beckett shook his head. “Don’t know that I can cope with so much sympathy, Sal.”

  She scowled at him, but he did take his boots off. His feet were a dirty, bloody mess. He washed them as clean as he could, smeared salve over them, and bound them carefully with some of Joe’s silks. Then he put his spare socks on, which didn’t have any holes in yet, and Joe helped him bind a silk around each boot and tie it very tightly to hold the sole on.

  Just as they finished Francie ran towards them beckoning frantically. Joe followed her under the trees that hung out over the water. She crouched in the shadows and put a finger against her lips. Joe squatted beside her and searched the lake. All quiet and still. The other side of the lake was quite close.

  Then—a voice. A man’s voice. Someone said what sounded like: “Not if my life depended on it”.

  Joe scanned the far bank. Some ducks flew up protesting as something passed beyond the reeds, something brown, something white above and behind. A person. Several people.

  They ran back to the others.

  “It’s the Solemn men!” Joe called. “On the other side, moving fast. They’ve come this way. Francie saw them.”

  “You sure?” Sal screwed up her eyes against the bright morning sunlight. “We can’t let them get ahead.”

  They raced to pack up the donkeys again, talking as quietly as they could. Joe grabbed the bucket. “That has to be good. It must mean that this is the best way. I’ll put out the fire.”

  “Use the shovel and smother it,” said Beckett. “Water makes too much smoke. Don’t want them seeing us.”

  “It’s good news for you.” Sal passed Beckett the cooking pot to put into Dumpling’s basket. “If this is the best direction they’ll surely send the railway through your village and up the Brightwater. But it’s bad for us.”

  Joe buried the fire under shovelfuls of dirt. “Why’s it bad? It just proves we’re the best at finding the best way.”

  “Think about it. The Solemns started out up the Prospect Valley.” Sal stuffed a groundsheet in with the cooking pot. Beckett took it out again and folded it. “So they must have got here by travelling west over mountain passes when we were just going straight up the Brightwater Valley. They’re moving much faster than us. They’ll get to the finish line way before we do.”

  They hurried all that day. Humph rode on Treacle when he got tired, and they only stopped long enough for Francie to draw and for Sal to take essential measurements. In the afternoon the boys kept going when the girls stopped, and by the time the girls caught up at dusk, the boys had made a fire, taken care of the donkeys, spread the groundsheet, put dinner on to cook, and collected a bucket full of pugnuts, which Joe was cracking painstakingly between two stones. They’d only had a few raisins and a small piece of cheese since breakfast because of not making any bread the night before, so their stomachs were growling, but they remembered to ask Beckett and not sneak the nuts.

  “Two each. Dinner’s nearly ready.”

  Joe and Francie left Sal and Humph cracking nuts and took the bucket and water barrel down to the lake. Roosting birds were chattering in the trees, but the water was silent and still. At the head of the lake a mountain rose sheer to a snowy peak, all pink in the evening light. Below, spreading towards them across the water, was its mirror image, a perfect reflection.

  “It’s my turn and I’m going to call it Mt Leopold.” Joe aimed a flat stone and sent Mt Leopold into ripples. “… ten, eleven, twelve jumps! That’s my best ever.”

  Francie was rocking on her toes and squinting down the lake. There was something in the distance that he hadn’t noticed before. A little island? It was getting bigger. It was moving. A bird? No, a boat!

  It was a small boat, and it was moving fast, even though it had no sail and no oars. It was low to the water and it seemed to have a chimney that was puffing little clouds of smoke. The sound it made—a high-pitched wheeze above a growly chug-chug—became louder and louder, until it echoed off the cliffs of Mt Leopold. The others came running to see what the racket was and they all squatted under the willows and peered out across the darkening water.

  There were two men in the boat.

  Francie mimed smoking a pipe. Sir Monty’s Mountaineers. One of them was steering at the back, and the other was standing at the front.

  “The route-finder,” said Joe.

  As the boat passed them they could see it was powered by a wheel turning at the back.

  “But what’s turning the wheel?” whispered Sal.

  “Steam,” said Beckett. “There’s a boiler in the middle, see? They feed wood into it, and the steam drives the crankshaft that turns the wheel. It’s a paddle boat. Ingenious.”

  “So genius!” murmured Humphrey.

  The boat puttered on towards the cliffs of Mt Leopold, then turned in a wide arc and returned down the lake.

  “But how did they get the horses to carry all that?” said Sal.

  “The boat folds. The boiler goes separately—it probably boils the water for their tea too. And I bet the paddle wheel packs flat and slots together.” Beckett looked very pleased to have seen such superior technology.

  “Clever, clever, clever,” said Humphrey.

  “They’ve still got to ride the mechanical horses all the way up the lake. We’re way ahead of them,” said Joe.

  “I bet those mechanical horses gallop like the wind,” Sal said gloomily. “Do you realise that even if we manage to finish this whole race we still might not win anything? I bet they have a map-drawing machine and their maps will be perfect.”

  Francie looked dismayed but Joe couldn’t be bothered arguing because dinner was ready. When they’d eaten their rice and beans Beckett cleaned out the pot, put the shelled pugnuts in it and put it on the fire. He stirred them until they turned dark brown and smelled delicious then he pounded them to a paste and added some salt. He gave them each a lick.

  “Pugnut butter. Tomorrow’s sandwiches will be the best ever.”

  The night was black beyond the firelight, and a cold wind blew off the lake cutting through their clothes. They built up the fire and arranged their sleeping bags close together on one groundsheet, with the other groundsheet over the top of them, and wore their woolly hats, jerseys and socks to bed.

  “Only seventeen days to go,” said Joe.
/>
  CHAPTER TWELVE

  QUITE A BIT SCARY

  Sal was filling the barrel in the lake next morning when she heard click-clack, click-clack. She looked up just in time to see the Belgian tracking hound run, nose down, tail up, across the clearing on the opposite bank, followed by the mechanical horses. Something flashed from the first horse. There were two long blades angled out in front of it, slicing through saplings and small branches to clear a path for the rest. The blades must have been very sharp because the horse moved forward at a regular trot. All the other red hooves rose and fell in a long line behind it; their joints click-clacked, and blue tails swung behind them. The inexhaustible horses were following the Solemn men’s route along the other side of the lake, and they were going fast.

  Humph and Francie were standing in the shallows cleaning out the porridge pot, and they watched the horses, too.

  “There’s only eleven people now, not twelve,” Humph announced.

  “So beautiful, and so fast!” Sal sat on the bank near Francie. “I didn’t mean what I said last night, Francie. I know we haven’t got a hope of getting to New Coalhaven first, really. And I know your maps will be the best. I just don’t think we can get there in time.”

  Francie nodded but her face said I think we can.

  Not long after the beautiful horses had vanished into the distance, one of Monty’s Mountaineers stumbled along on foot, shouting, “Wait for me, damn it. Wait for me.”

  “There’s number twelve. Why don’t they wait for him?” Humph was deeply shocked.

  Francie hugged him and Sal said, “Because they only care about being first. An expedition should never go faster than the speed of its slowest member. That’s what Pa always says. Now let’s all go fast.”

  They hurried all day. Beckett was limping and they were all tired and quiet when, late in the afternoon, they heard a roaring noise that gradually got louder and louder.

  “Sounds like a huge river,” said Sal apprehensively.

  They came out of the trees into an open space and saw a ribbon of water sparkling up a cliff so high they had to crane their necks back to see the top.

  Beckett whistled. “That must be the highest waterfall in the whole country!”

  “Maybe the whole world,” said Joe.

  Sal unstrapped the legs of the theodolite. “I’ll measure it.”

  A cloud of spray hung in front of the waterfall, but there was no lake or mighty river at its foot, just a small stream running through and under a field of sharp-edged, slime-covered rocks.

  The sight and smell and energy of the waterfall—which Sal announced was 2109 feet high—washed away all their tiredness.

  “Imagine it!” Beckett flung his arms out. “Two thousand one hundred and nine feet! Everyone’s going to want to see this. The train will have to come this way!”

  Francie finished the day’s map and carefully printed ‘Francesca Falls (2109 ft)’, then she and Joe went exploring. They clambered over the rocks, picking their way towards the cliff-face until they were right beside the thundering water. The roar of it filled their heads; Joe hadn’t imagined that anything in the natural world could be louder than machines. The noise didn’t bother Francie at all, perhaps because it was all singing with one voice. She pointed to a misty gap between the blanket of water and the cliff behind. Her eyes gleamed.

  Joe grinned, and they scrambled on together until they were right behind the waterfall. They were inside the booming, chest-shaking noise, where breathing was a struggle because a freezing wind whipped all the air away and replaced it with spray.

  Joe could feel Francie fizzing with excitement, and then a small cloud that had been covering the evening sun floated away, and sunlight dazzled and shimmered. Behind the waterfall where there’d been no colour, every drop of spray became a prism; Francie and Joe were surrounded by a million glittering circles of light. She looked as though she was going to burst out of her skin with happiness.

  They held hands and helped each other over the slippery rocks, through the wind and the noise, until they were out the other side, heavy with water that streamed off their faces and clothes and hair. They slithered back over the boulders towards the others, but Joe slipped and found himself sitting up to his chest in a pool of rushing mountain water, which didn’t even feel cold.

  Sal took one look at their faces. “Show me?”

  So they showed her, and Humphrey came too.

  Beckett yelled “You’re crazy!” when they all climbed towards the waterfall, but when they waited for him, he hurried after them, muttering, “This looks like a quick way to get dead.”

  Later, they sat around in their sleeping bags grinning at each other, while their clothes hissed and spat beside the fire.

  “I’ve never been this clean in all my life,” said Beckett.

  “I didn’t even know you could go behind a waterfall!” said Joe. “And the biggest ever! I feel like I could run all the way to New Coalhaven, it’s magic.”

  “I do, too. It’s like energy juice. It’s not magic though, it’s science,” said Sal. “I bet those Solemns understand how it works. I just hope they think it’s beautiful and astonishing as well as scientific. Sixteen days to go.”

  *

  They needed every ounce of energy the next day when they climbed up above the tree line and made their way along a bleak and stony mountainside. The wind blew at their damp clothes, and grey clouds covered the sun. In the evening, tired, aching and grumpy, they unrolled their sleeping bags among the stones.

  Francie went flying before it got dark.

  Up. Beckett coaxing a fire. Joe holding the bucket for Dumpling. Sal cleaning the altimeter wheel. Humph caterpillaring around in his sleeping bag. Up more. Back. The waterfall, and the long finger of the lake. Far, far down the lake some movement: a white horse. The Ruffians. Still coming, but days behind.

  Around. Up high above the others. Such a jumble of jagged peaks, their tops all covered by cloud. And the valleys come together from every direction, no clear way on. Peaks, saddles, cliffs, rivers. Joe will decide. And down between the trees, a smudge of smoke. Another team.

  This was officially a no-dinner night, but Beckett had made bacon and bean soup because the bacon was becoming smelly. It tasted very good. They cleared away the biggest rocks to make a space to lie down, but there were still a lot of small, jabbing pebbles and stones with sharp edges. Francie fell asleep straight away but the others couldn’t get comfortable.

  “Blooming stones,” said Sal.

  “I’ve got a good story about a stone,” said Beckett. “But it’s scary.”

  “I like scary,” said Humph.

  “All right, then. This one will make all your hairs stand up straight. And it’s true …

  “Once upon a time there was a young orphan called Tom who went in search of adventure. He needed to cross the Perilous Mountains, and knowing how dangerous they were he joined a group of travellers who were going in the same direction. The paths were steep and the weather was always stormy, and, also, an ogre called Stoneheart lived in those mountains.”

  “I especially like ogre stories,” said Humph, sounding less confident. Beyond the firelight there was nothing but blackness.

  “The travellers walked for many days, until they were cold and exhausted and starving hungry. Then one evening they saw a light in the distance, just as it began to get dark. A raging river ran along one side of the track, but as they grew closer they saw that the light was a lantern shining out of the window of an inn, and the inn was on their side of the river.

  “A friendly innkeeper flung open the door in welcome and showed them to comfortable bedrooms.

  “‘You’ll find lots of spare clothes in the cupboard,’ he said. ‘Help yourselves, get warm and dry, then come and have dinner. You look as if you need feeding up.’

  “There were wonderful cooking smells coming from the kitchen, so the travellers quickly washed and pulled on dry socks and dry clothes from the cupboard,
and hurried to the dining table where the innkeeper served them the most delicious feast.

  “First they ate a paté, but Tom thought it smelled strange so he only ate the bread that came with it. Then they ate roast goose, but Tom thought it looked strange so he only ate the potatoes. Then they ate pork, but Tom thought it smelled and looked strange so he only ate the baked apple. The others all drank a red wine that the innkeeper poured for them, except Tom, who drank only water.

  “‘What tender pork,’ the other travellers cried. ‘What fine goose, what flavoursome paté! What do you feed your animals that they taste so wonderful?’

  “The innkeeper smiled a not altogether pleasant smile. ‘Aha,’ he said, ‘That’s a secret I cannot tell you.’

  “They all went to sleep full and happy, except for Tom. The moon was too bright, he wasn’t used to sleeping in a soft bed, and he was still hungry.

  “Then, while he lay awake, he heard a strange noise: whoop-whup, whoop-whup. He tiptoed out of bed, down the stairs, out of the back door, and round to the kitchen window. Whoop-whup, whoop-whup. The innkeeper was sharpening his knives. The bright blades flashed in the light of the fire and the innkeeper’s giant shadow moved across the kitchen ceiling. And then the innkeeper turned towards Tom. He had taken off his apron, and in the place where his chest should be there was nothing but an empty cavity.

  “His heart was in his hand, and he was using it to sharpen his knives.

  “Tom ducked down below the window. This was no innkeeper, and this was no inn. They were in the house of the ogre Stoneheart! He tiptoed back inside to warn the others, more quietly than any mouse. But no matter how hard he shook them, his travelling companions wouldn’t wake because they had been drugged by the ogre’s wine.

  “Tom heard the ogre’s heavy footsteps on the stairs so, quick as a flash, he climbed out of the window and jumped down into the garden. He hid behind the rain barrel as the ogre came out into the yard carrying a lantern. The ogre hung up the light, then he lifted a trapdoor in the yard. He went back into the inn and returned with a sleeping body under each arm, and dropped them, one, two, through the trapdoor into the cellar. Backwards and forwards he went until all Tom’s travelling companions except one had been dumped down the barrel-slide. The last one was beginning to wake up. He was mumbling and kicking. The ogre slammed the cellar door shut and carried the last traveller into the kitchen.