The Golden Anchor

by Cameron Stelzer

  Whisker looked above him to where Chatterbeak was perched on a branch, fast asleep after his exhausting flight over the lake. Whisker smiled to himself. It wasn’t the first time Chatterbeak’s ear-piercing screeches had saved their lives.

  ‘Speaking of loud noises,’ Horace said, ‘Why didn’t you just call out to us on the river?’

  ‘I couldn’t be doin’ that,’ the old rat replied. ‘Not with an army o’ eagles circlin’ the sky. They would’ve been after all of us in an instant. It be lucky they didn’t spot me the first time ‘round. A white swan be far less conspicuous than a blue an’ yeller parrot.’

  ‘So how long have you been in the mountains?’ Whisker asked.

  ‘Only just arrived this mornin’,’ Rat Bait said. ‘I found Balthazar diggin’ up worms in a roadside puddle last night an’ the two o’ us struck up a fine ol’ friendship. Together we’ve been flyin’ since first light up Eagle’s Pass. We saw them eagles chasin’ ye into town as we crossed the lake an’ doubled back to assist ye.’ He tapped his nose. ‘It be lucky I knew ‘bout yer fly-in-the-opposite-direction trick, even if ye tried to give me the slip.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Whisker said. ‘It’s hard to tell friend from foe when every other creature is out to get us.’

  ‘Oh?’ Rat Bait said, shooting a wary glance into the forest. ‘What kind o’ creatures?’

  Whisker sighed. ‘Where do I start? Hungry hawks, betraying beavers, one-eared gerbils …’

  Rat Bait turned to where Eddie was lying face down in a patch of pine needles. Ruby sat on a stump next to him, using his motionless body as a foot stool. Her injured left leg lay sprawled across the centre of his back while the blades of her two scarlet scissor swords rested on his shoulders. She drummed her fingers on her sword handles, waiting for him to wake up.

  ‘I’d keep sleepin’, if I be him,’ Rat Bait said, noticing the grim expression on Ruby’s face. ‘Him and his ghastly pyjamas.’

  ‘Do you recognise him?’ Whisker asked.

  ‘Yeah, I know him alright,’ Rat Bait said with distaste. ‘His name be Eddie the Ear, though most folks call him Eddie the Eavesdropper. He loiters ‘round Sea Shanty Island, listenin’ to conversations with that oversized ear o’ his, then pickpocketin’ anyone who sounds half rich.’ He paused and scratched his chin. ‘Though what Eddie be doin’ in the mountains dressed in convict attire be a mystery to me.’

  ‘We suspect he escaped from Hawk’s View Prison,’ Whisker explained. ‘It’s just beyond the forest.’

  ‘Well, that be a right piece o’ news,’ Rat Bait said in surprise. ‘I never heard o’ no Hawk’s View Prison before. Best ye be stayin’ right away from the place. Ye’re not in the gov’nors good books, ye know.’

  ‘Why, what have you heard?’ Horace said, plonking himself next to Ruby on the stump.

  ‘What haven’t I heard,’ Rat Bait grunted. He pointed to the open newspaper, lying in a tangle of silk thread. ‘I’m guessin’ ye already know about them wan’ed posters.’

  ‘We may have seen a couple in our travels,’ Horace said coyly, unsticking his sticky sleeve from Ruby’s coat.

  ‘Are there wanted posters in Two Shillings Cove, too?’ Whisker asked anxiously.

  ‘Two Shillin’s Cove, Oakbridge … ye name it, they be everywhere,’ Rat Bait said, waving a thumb over his shoulder. ‘An’ I’m not just talkin’ ‘bout posters of yer four pretty faces. The entire Pie Rat crew be on the gov’nors most wan’ed list – Fred, Pete, Smudge and the Capt’n.’

  ‘So where is the crew now?’ Ruby asked in alarm, leaping up from the stump and almost impaling Eddie with one sword and Horace with the other. ‘Is my uncle alright?’

  ‘Capt’n Black Rat be safe an’ sound, me dear,’ Rat Bait reassured her. ‘And so are the others. I suspect they’re anchored off the coast, somewhere to the east o’ here with Madam Pearl an’ the school mice.’

  ‘Anchored off the coast?’ Horace exclaimed. ‘But weren’t they supposed to be hiking to Cloud Mountain to rendezvous with us?’

  ‘That was the plan,’ Rat Bait said with a sigh. ‘But the Highland Hounds be convincin’ them otherwise.’

  ‘Curse those Highland Hounds,’ Ruby muttered, lowering herself back onto her stump.

  ‘Had a nasty encounter with ‘em, did ye?’ Rat Bait asked, gesturing to her injured ankle.

  ‘If you call sprinting across an oval, scaling a fence and then leaping off a cliff to my certain death a nasty encounter, then yes,’ Ruby said, plonking her spiked boot back on top of Eddie.

  ‘And she’s not exaggerating,’ Horace chimed in, before quickly adding. ‘Except for the certain death bit. Chatterbeak saved her just before she hit the ground. Two seconds later and we would have been scraping ruby red splotches of Ruby off the rocks. Now that’s a messy tongue twister if ever I heard one.’

  ‘Messy indeed,’ Rat Bait whistled.

  ‘So, Rat Bait,’ Whisker said, eager to hear more, ‘tell us about your encounter with the hounds.’

  ‘It be a little less excitin’ than Miss Ruby’s adventure,’ Rat Bait admitted. ‘I been makin’ me way t’wards Oakbridge with the rest o’ yer crew when who should we spy in the distance but three mice an’ a white weasel runnin’ down the road. Bags packed an’ cloaks fastened, they clearly be in a hurry to reach us. We quickly foun’ out that our fugitive friend, Madam Pearl, be flushed out o’ hidin’ when three raucous rats an’ a colourful parrot led them slobberin’ Highland Hounds to their school.’

  ‘Three rats and a parrot, did you say?’ Horace muttered, glancing up at Chatterbeak. ‘Can’t say I’ve heard of them.’

  ‘Well,’ Rat Bait continued. ‘Mr Tribble tells us he seen wan’ed posters an’ road blocks goin’ up all ‘round Oakbridge an’ figured it’d be certain capture for us to continue. The only rat without his ugly mug on a poster was yers truly, havin’ retired from piracy some years ago. The Capt’n knew there be no hope o’ reachin’ ye before the full moon feast, but we agreed I might be o’ some assistance if ye ran into trouble aft’wards.’

  ‘Which we invariably did,’ Ruby murmured.

  ‘So why the fancy outfit, Rat Bait?’ Horace asked. ‘I thought you were an honest ship repairer in the eyes of the law.’

  Rat Bait straightened his waistcoat and tried to look dignified. ‘Just because me face don’t appear on them wan’ed posters, doesn’t mean I won’t be reco’nised as a friend o’ yers. On my way into Oakbridge I bumped into a travellin’ tailor an’ thought it be wise to procure meself a new outfit.’ He jingled the bulging money bag at his hip. ‘It’s amazin’ what a bit o’ Pirate Cup gold can buy ye.’

  Whisker’s eyes moved to the money bag, an idea suddenly forming in his mind.

  ‘Rat Bait,’ he said casually, ‘I don’t mean to sound presumptuous, but is there any chance we could borrow some of your gold?’

  The Price of Gold

  ‘Me gold?’ Rat Bait laughed, rattling the coins in his bag. ‘Why, this gold don’t belong to me. It belongs to ye. Ye won the Pirate Cup, an’ this be yer winnings. Well, a small fraction o’ it, anyway. The Apple Pie be loaded to the brim with the stuff.’ He reached down to untie the string. ‘Now, how much do ye require? Three coins? Four?’

  ‘Err, whatever it takes to buy our way into Hawk’s View Prison,’ Whisker answered.

  Rat Bait’s top hat almost fell off his head.

  ‘Buy yer way into a prison!’ he exclaimed. ‘Why in Ratbeard’s name would ye want to do that?’

  ‘So we can rescue the fox,’ Whisker said evenly.

  ‘The fox with no name,’ Rat Bait gasped, clutching his hat with both paws. ‘He’s in the clink?’

  ‘He’s on death row to be precise,’ Whisker explained. ‘And he knows where my parents are.’

  ‘Smoulderin’ rat’s tails!’ Rat Bait cried in utter confusion. ‘That be some serious stuff. How’d the sly devil end up in prison?’

  ‘Whisker gestured to the newspaper. ‘From what we’v
e gathered, he was arrested with the Trophy of Champions following our encounter in the Fish ‘n Ships Inn.’

  ‘Aye,’ Rat Bait said, suddenly understanding. ‘Your secret rendezvous with the fox – the trophy for an answer. Smudge went to great lengths to tell me all ‘bout that.’

  Whisker felt a pang of guilt in his stomach as the memory of that evening came flooding back to him.

  ‘I wanted to tell you about the trophy myself,’ he confessed. ‘But I had to keep it a secret. The fox made me promise and there was so much at stake I-I couldn’t risk lying to him. I’m-I’m sorry.’

  ‘Is that why ye gave me that medal o’ yours?’ Rat Bait asked quietly. ‘Just before ye disappeared?’

  Whisker stared at his feet.

  ‘I was kind of hoping it would make up for my actions,’ he mumbled.

  ‘Actions that ultimately saved yer sister,’ Rat Bait said, pointing to the happy rat feeding clumps of snow to Balthazar.

  ‘I-I guess,’ Whisker replied.

  ‘Listen, Whisker,’ Rat Bait said, a serious tone to his voice. ‘I know betrayal when I see it. An’ I’d hardly call what ye did the actions o’ a traitor.’

  Whisker raised his head.

  ‘In fact,’ Rat Bait continued with a chuckle, ‘it’s me that should be apologisin’ to ye. I gave yer medal to that honkin’ swan in return for a lift up the mount’n, an’ now the great galah thinks he’s a world class athlete. I doubt either o’ us will be layin’ our paws on that medal again.’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry about the medal,’ Whisker said with relief. ‘Balthazar deserves some reward for his champion rescue. Besides, I still have my –’ he raised his paw to his throat and felt bare skin, ‘– anchor pendant.’

  For a moment he panicked, wondering what could have happened to it, then, realising the anchor had been in Eddie’s open sack, he anxiously scanned the trees where Balthazar had first appeared. A trail of glittering objects lay strewn across the snow-covered ground. Straining his eyes to see clearer, he spotted his anchor at the foot of a tree, next to his shattered spyglass and a prison guard’s fountain pen.

  ‘There it is,’ he said, pointing into the shadows.

  He attempted a stumbling step forward, but his legs wobbled beneath him and he almost tripped over his own feet.

  ‘Take it easy, lad,’ Rat Bait said, grabbing his arm to stop him falling. ‘Y’er obviously sufferin’ from that post traumatic web disorder thingy. What say I fetch yer belongin’s while you sit down with Miss Ruby an’ Master Horace an’ discuss yer harebrained jailbreak t’gether?’ He lowered Whisker onto the stump and, before the apprentice could protest, he was scampering off towards the trees.

  ‘So, Whisker, do you honestly intend to bribe a prison guard?’ Horace asked, sitting rigidly to avoid sticking to his two companions.

  ‘Not a guard,’ Whisker answered, pointing to the motionless creature at Ruby’s feet. ‘Him.’

  ‘Eddie?’ Ruby hissed, giving the unconscious gerbil a firm kick in the backside with her good foot. ‘You want to give this snivelling little pickpocket a bag of gold as a thank you present for almost slitting our throats?’

  ‘I don’t want to give him anything,’ Whisker clarified. ‘But I won’t waste an opportunity when our alternatives are few and far between. You heard what Rat Bait said. We couldn’t even sneak into a school yard without raising the alarm.’

  ‘I admit we’re somewhat lacking in the stealth department,’ Ruby agreed. ‘But I still don’t see why we have to pay this little runt when we could just threaten to slice off his ear.’

  ‘Threats might get us into the prison,’ Whisker reasoned. ‘But the promise of gold will get us out again.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ Ruby groaned. ‘But I want first dibs on his ear if he tries to doublecross us.’

  The sound of Rat Bait muttering to himself broke up the conversation. ‘… a ruby for Miss Ruby, a bent hook for the pipsqueak, and a golden anchor for –’ He stopped himself midsentence.

  Whisker looked up. The old rogue was standing in front of him, his arms laden with possessions. His eyes were locked on the golden anchor pendant in his right paw. He carried an expression Whisker had never seen before – a strange mix of pain and confusion.

  ‘What is it?’ Whisker asked, rising to his feet.

  ‘Yer-yer anchor,’ Rat Bait murmured in a daze. ‘I seen many anchors in me time – lots o’ sailors wear them, but this anchor, this wee anchor be different.’ He ran a finger over the reverse side of the pendant ‘I never realised yers had these initials on the back. What do they –?’

  ‘– stand for?’ Whisker said, completing Rat Bait’s sentence. ‘They’re the initials of my forefathers.’

  ‘And this A.W. character,’ Rat Bait said, stopping his finger below the first engraving. ‘Was he, perchance, some distant uncle of yers?’

  ‘He was my great-grandfather,’ Whisker said. ‘Anso Winterbottom.’

  Rat Bait’s eyes looked up in shock. ‘Anso Win’erbottom, the famous explorer, be yer great-grandfather?’

  ‘Yes,’ Whisker said in surprise. ‘I-I thought you knew that. He wrote the Book of Knowledge, the book we retrieved from the Island of Destiny. His name is on the title page.’

  Rat Bait shook his head in disbelief. ‘I be lying unconscious in a pile o’ rocks when ye found that book an’ no one’s mentioned the name o’ its author since.’

  Horace raised the stump of his hook into the air. ‘Sorry. That would be on account of me being a blabbermouth. The Captain made us promise not to mention the author or the origins of the book on the off chance our enemies came snooping around for it.’

  ‘And that in turn meant keeping Whisker’s history a secret,’ Ruby added. ‘In fact, Whisker’s true identity has been a closely guarded secret since he first came aboard.’ She shot a hesitant glance at the apprentice. ‘It might not be my place to say this, but my uncle thought having a Winterbottom in the crew would attract a little too much unwelcome attention. It was one of the reasons he insisted on changing Wentworth’s name to Whisker. Even Madam Pearl was sworn to secrecy about Whisker’s past the night we rescued her from Prison Island.’

  ‘Aye,’ Rat Bait said, his face contorted into a painful frown. ‘That explains why ye only mentioned Whisker’s parents’ first names: Robert and Faye.’ He ran his finger over the third set of initials, muttering quietly to himself, ‘R.W. Robert Win’erbottom. Robert Win’erbottom …’

  ‘It wasn’t that we didn’t trust you,’ Horace began. ‘It’s just that –’

  ‘I understand,’ Rat Bait said, his eyes not leaving the anchor. ‘The Capt’n be looking out for his crew. An’ he be right to do so. I been a dirty, double-crossin’ scoundrel, after all.’ He sighed and moved his finger to the second set of initials. ‘E.W.’

  ‘Ernest Winterbottom,’ Whisker said, watching him in puzzlement. ‘He was my grandfather. He ran away before my father, Robert, was born and –’

  Rat Bait raised a paw to silence him, the possessions in his arm clattering to the ground.

  ‘That part o’ the story I do know,’ he said.

  Whisker stared back at him, shocked and confused, trying to comprehend the significance of what he had just heard.

  Rat Bait knew about his grandfather.

  Rat Bait knew about his past.

  What else did he know?

  Whisker’s head spun with questions. Why? When? How –?

  And then suddenly, as if a lantern had been ignited in his mind, Whisker saw clearly what he had been missing from the start. It had begun in the Captain’s Inn, with the curious expression on Rat Bait’s face when he first glimpsed the anchor pendant hanging around Whisker’s neck. It continued with Rat Bait’s interest in the small boat Whisker had built with his father – a boat with a carved anchor figurehead, a boat repaired by Rat Bait himself and renamed the Golden Anchor. And it ended during the Pirate Cup when Rat Bait spoke regretfully about a life he abandoned in his quest to conqu
er the world.

  The evidence was there. And it all pointed to one conclusion.

  ‘So, Rat Bait,’ Horace said casually, oblivious to what was happening around him, ‘I take it you knew Whisker’s grandfather?’

  ‘No,’ Whisker said, without breaking the old rat’s gaze. ‘Rat Bait is my grandfather.’

  Scoundrels and Secrets

  For perhaps the first time in his talkative life, Horace was speechless. He remained glued to the spot, with Ruby sitting in shock beside him as Whisker stared, unblinking, at his prodigal grandfather.

  The anger in Whisker’s eyes was unmistakable. He stood like a boxer, his fists clenched, his tail rigid.

  He’d never anticipated this moment – never imagined standing face to face with the rat who had abandoned his grandmother, Molly, and left his own father fatherless.

  But that moment was upon him, and Rat Bait was no longer the jolly old scallywag he knew him to be, he was Ernest Winterbottom – the black sheep of the family; the deserter.

  Whisker tried to remain calm, but the torrent of emotions that welled up inside him grew too strong, and no riverbank of self-control was ever going to contain them. The deluge broke free and the raging flood waters of anger and bitterness spewed forth from his mouth.

  ‘WHY?’ he shouted, his voice bouncing off the trees. ‘Why did you abandon my grandmother? Why didn’t you come back?’

  Rat Bait retreated backwards, a startled expression on his face, unprepared for such aggression from the usually level-headed apprentice.

  ‘M-maybe if I knew ‘bout the boy, Robert,’ he stammered. ‘I would have …’

  ‘You would have what?’ Whisker fumed. ‘Sent him a birthday card from the opposite side of the globe? I doubt it.’

  Rat Bait’s shoulders drooped. His top hat sagged limply to one side.

  ‘It be a long time ago,’ he said, attempting to fight the charges. ‘I be young an’ reckless.’