Mr Tucker cut the engine. Gradually he turned the wheel until the sails filled with wind.
Atticus felt the yacht spring forward. It cut through the water. The wind whipped at his whiskers. They were moving really fast! He had no idea a wind-powered boat could shift so quickly! He wished Mimi were there to keep him company. She would love this.
‘I’m starving!’ Michael said.
‘Me too!’ Callie agreed. ‘Sailing always makes me hungry.’
‘Come on, then,’ Mrs Cheddar said. ‘I’ll get you something to eat.’
‘Atticus, take the wheel,’ Mr Tucker ordered. ‘I’m going to help Mrs Tucker with the spinnaker. Make sure you hold our course.’ He limped off along the deck.
Atticus was left in the cockpit. What was the spinnaker? And what did Mr Tucker mean ‘hold our course’? Was it something to do with steering the boat? He turned the wheel cautiously with his paw. The sails started to flutter.
CRACK!
Suddenly the boat listed violently to one side.
Atticus slid along the cockpit. He hid his face in his paws. They must have hit something!
‘Atticus!’ Mr Tucker was beside him. ‘In the name of Poseidon, what the hake do youze think you’re doing?’ He took hold of the wheel. Gradually the boat steadied.
Atticus peeped through his paws. The sails had somehow moved across the boat to the other side when he wasn’t looking!
‘I told youze to hold our course, not sail by the lee!’ Mr Tucker complained. ‘I wish Bones was here,’ he muttered. ‘That cat was a brilliant sailor.’
Atticus felt deflated. He had a feeling he’d be hearing a lot more about Bones over the next few days.
Mrs Tucker joined them in the cockpit. ‘Atticus doesn’t understand sailing, Herman,’ Mrs Tucker told her husband. ‘He’s never been on a yacht before. You need to explain things to him.’
‘I’s don’t have time for that!’ Mr Tucker said grumpily. ‘And anyways, I never had to explain it to Bones!’
‘All right, then I will,’ Mrs Tucker said. ‘It’s like this, Atticus,’ she pointed to a horizontal beam of wood that stuck out from the mast beneath the mainsail. ‘That’s the boom. When you sail away from the wind, the sail fills with air. That’s what makes us go forward. But if you turn the wheel too much, the wind gets the other side of the sail and the boom swings across and makes the boat unsteady. It’s called an accidental gybe.’
‘It’s boomin’ dangerous,’ Mr Tucker glowered. ‘We could have broached!’
‘He means the boat could have been blown flat,’ Mrs Tucker explained. ‘What you should do is bring the boom across gradually so that everyone is prepared for it.’
Atticus listened glumly. He didn’t think he’d ever get the hang of it … unlike the amazing Bones.
Callie and Michael reappeared with Mrs Cheddar.
‘Where’s Dad?’ Callie asked.
Atticus looked along the deck. There was no sign of Inspector Cheddar. The boom took up the space where he had been standing a few minutes earlier. He felt proud of himself for remembering what it was called.
‘For cod’s sake!’ Mr Tucker exploded. ‘Atticus has knocked him off the boat!’
Atticus was horrified. He hadn’t meant to knock Inspector Cheddar off the boat! He hoped nobody thought he’d done it on purpose!
‘Quick, Edna,’ Mr Tucker ordered, ‘turn her around! MAN OVERBOARD!! All hands on deck!’
Mrs Tucker took the wheel.
‘There aren’t any sharks here, are there?’ Michael sounded petrified.
Nobody answered. Atticus saw Mr and Mrs Tucker exchange worried looks.
‘Don’t youze worry, kids,’ Mr Tucker said. ‘We’ll find your dad. Come and give Mrs Tucker a hand, while your mum steers.’ The two women swapped places. Mrs Cheddar took the helm. Her face was white.
Mrs Tucker and the children went to the other end of the deck and started to pull down the big sail at the front.
Mr Tucker did the same with the other two sails.
Atticus milled around the cockpit. He felt helpless. No one had given him a job. Everyone seemed to have forgotten he was even there.
Mrs Cheddar started the engine. She turned the boat so they were facing in the direction they had just come from. The yacht motored towards the spot where the accident had happened.
Atticus scanned the sea.
‘There he is!’ Michael shouted. ‘Port side!’
Inspector Cheddar was bobbing up and down in the water some distance away on the left of the boat. He waved. ‘Help!’ he shouted faintly. ‘Help!’
‘Cut the engine!’ Mr Tucker ordered. ‘Or we’ll chop his legs off with the propeller.’
Mrs Cheddar did as she was told. There was an eerie silence as the boat drifted towards the Inspector.
Atticus suddenly felt very small and frightened. There were no other boats to be seen. They were out of sight of land. It was as if they were the only sailors on the whole big ocean. If they couldn’t rescue Inspector Cheddar, there was no one else who could help them.
‘Throw him a line,’ Mr Tucker shouted.
Mrs Tucker picked up a coil of rope.
‘Wait, what’s that?’ Michael pointed. ‘Over there.’
Atticus’s green eyes swept the horizon. A thin grey triangle stuck up through the waves. It was making its way swiftly towards Inspector Cheddar.
‘Shaarrrkk!’ Mr Tucker yelled. ‘Give me the rope, Edna. We’ll only get one throw.’
Mrs Tucker handed him the coil of rope.
Mr Tucker made a lasso with one end and leaned over the rail.
‘Quick!’ yelled Michael.
The shark was closing in fast.
SHWIPP!
Mr Tucker threw the lasso. It looped through the air and landed with a splash beside Inspector Cheddar.
Inspector Cheddar grabbed it. He wriggled it over his head and under his arms.
‘Hold on!’ Mr Tucker attached his end of the rope to the drum. ‘Give me the winch handle!’
Michael thrust it towards him.
CRANK! CRANK! CRANK! CRANK!
Mr Tucker’s thick arms whirled the handle round and round.
Inspector Cheddar flew through the water: the lasso around his armpits, his hands grasping the rope. The shark was close behind.
All Atticus could do was watch. Come on, Mr Tucker, he thought. Come on! Please don’t let him be eaten!
‘He’s not going to make it!’ Callie screamed.
The shark was gaining.
‘It thinks your dad’s a seal!’ Mr Tucker cried. ‘Shaarks love seals, they do. It’s their favourite food.’
Suddenly Atticus had an idea. His favourite food was sardines. Maybe sharks liked them too! He raced down the steps into the galley and pulled open the fridge with his paws. It was jammed with food. At the back was a bag of fresh sardines. He pulled the bag out and struggled back up the steps, dragging it in his mouth. He dropped it beside Mrs Tucker.
Mrs Tucker picked the bag up. ‘Good thinking, Atticus!’ She ripped it open.
Inspector Cheddar had reached the ship. He gripped the ladder and started to climb. The shark was only metres away.
‘Hurry, Dad!’ Callie screeched.
The shark leapt out of the water, its mouth open.
Atticus caught a glimpse of rows of razor-sharp teeth.
Mrs Tucker threw the sardines out to sea: away from the side of the boat.
The shark caught the powerful scent of the fish. It arched backwards to catch them.
SNAP!
It gobbled them up and fell back into the water.
Mr Tucker leaned over the rail and hauled Inspector Cheddar on to the deck.
Inspector Cheddar collapsed. The children and Mrs Cheddar raced over to him.
Atticus wanted to go too, but something told him he might not be welcome. He hung back.
He felt a hand on his head. It was Mrs Tucker. ‘You saved his life, Atticus,’ she said, scratching t
he spot between his ears. ‘Don’t forget that.’
Atticus tried to purr but he couldn’t. He might have saved Inspector Cheddar’s life in the end, but the fact remained it was him who had knocked Inspector Cheddar overboard in the first place! He remembered what Mimi said about learning from your mistakes. He didn’t think he could on this occasion, even though he wanted to. However hard he tried, Atticus decided, he would always be useless as a ship’s cat.
It wasn’t until late the following afternoon that they arrived at the island where Mr Tucker believed Fishhook Frank was marooned.
Atticus glanced at the sky. The sun was beginning to set. He counted up the days on his claws. It was Sunday. There were only five more days until Friday the thirteenth – when the curse of the black spot would strike Inspector Cheddar at sunset. Fishhook Frank had to be here. He just had to. They were running out of time.
They anchored in a cove some distance away from the beach. ‘We caarrn’t go any closer,’ Mr Tucker explained. ‘In case we run aground.’
‘Are you sure this is the place, Herman?’ Mrs Tucker scanned the beach with her binoculars. Behind the beach was a dark jungle. ‘There’s no sign of anyone.’
‘Fishhook’s probably hiding somewhere,’ Mr Tucker said, ‘to make sure we’s friendly.’
‘Unless Black Beard-Jumper got here first,’ Mrs Tucker reminded him.
There was an uncomfortable silence. If that was the case, Atticus thought gloomily, they were sunk.
‘Black Beard-Jumper’s never been here before,’ Mr Tucker said confidently. ‘It’ll be haarrd for him to find this place from Fishhook’s message. So I reckons there’s a good chance we beat him to it. Now come on. We’ll take the rib.’ He led the way to the stern.
The rib, Atticus discovered, wasn’t (as he first hoped) a juicy bone with meat on it, but another one of Mr Tucker’s nautical nightmares. It was a rubber dinghy with an outboard motor, which had thus far been sneakily attached to the ship in such a way that Atticus hadn’t seen it. Mr Tucker lowered it carefully on to the water with the aid of yet more rope and some pulleys. The Tuckers and the children climbed in using the ladder. Atticus tried to do the same, but found he couldn’t climb backwards on the rope treads. And he was too scared to jump. There was then a tricky moment while Mrs Cheddar, who was staying on board with the Inspector, lifted Atticus carefully over the side in a canvas bag and handed him to Mrs Tucker, while the dinghy pitched and rolled.
Mr Tucker watched disapprovingly ‘Bones would have been down that ladder like a monkey,’ he commented.
Although he’d never met Bones, Atticus was beginning to seriously dislike her. She sounded like an awful show-off.
Once Mrs Tucker had removed Atticus from the canvas bag, Mr Tucker let out the throttle and the dinghy shot off. The five rescuers bumped through the sea towards the shore, the dinghy chopping through the waves. Spray flew in all directions – mainly, it seemed to Atticus, in his! The water drenched his whiskers and clogged his ears. It trickled off his nose and made his handkerchief damp. Then, when he tried to shelter in the bottom of the dinghy, he sat in a cold puddle. His tail was soaked. Atticus clawed his way back on to the bench next to Mrs Tucker and tried to lick it clean. PTTTHHH! he spat. The water tasted disgusting.
‘It’s salt water, Atticus,’ Mrs Tucker explained. ‘The sea has salt in it. You can’t drink it or you’ll be sick.’ She picked him up and wrapped him in a fluffy towel which she’d brought in case the children felt cold. His head poked out from the parcel.
Callie giggled. ‘Atticus looks like a baby,’ she said.
Atticus felt cross. It was nice to see Callie laughing for a change but not when she was laughing at him! He wasn’t a baby. He was still a police cat sergeant. Or at least he was for the time being anyway. He wriggled free.
The dinghy approached the beach. Mr Tucker switched off the engine. He jumped out with Michael and the two of them hauled the boat through the shallows and up on to the sand. The others clambered after them. Mrs Tucker put Atticus down. He could feel the sand sticking to his damp fur and clogging his paws. He glanced at the sky. The crimson rim of the sun was still visible on the horizon, but it was setting rapidly. In another half an hour it would be dark.
‘It’s definitely the right place.’ Mr Tucker looked around. ‘This is where me and Frank camped before we set off on our voyage to find the caarrsket.’
‘Look!’ Michael pointed at a pile of driftwood. ‘Someone’s been collecting logs.’
‘That’ll be Fishhook,’ Mr Tucker said confidently.
‘Over here!’ Callie shouted. ‘Someone’s had a fire going.’ The sand was dark where it mingled with ash. A couple of charred logs lay half buried.
‘That’ll be Fishhook too,’ Mr Tucker said. ‘To attract passing ships. ’E’s definitely ’ere somewhere.’
‘I don’t want to burst your bubble, Herman, but the fire’s been kicked out.’ Mrs Tucker bent down and examined the remains. ‘And there are footprints all over the place. Someone else has been here, besides Fishhook.’
Atticus padded over to take a look. Some of the footprints were huge. They had a round toe and a square heel, as if they had been made by an enormous pair of boots. Atticus shivered. He glanced at Mrs Tucker.
‘Captain Black Beard-Jumper’s,’ she confirmed.
Callie’s eyes filled with tears. ‘That means Black Beard-Jumper’s got Fishhook Frank,’ she sniffed. ‘Now we’ll never find the mermaid.’
Atticus knew what that meant. He nudged Callie’s hand to comfort her.
She stroked him absently.
‘Never’s a big word, Callie Cheddar,’ Mrs Tucker said firmly. ‘Maybe Fishhook left a clue.’
‘He might have made a map!’ Michael suggested eagerly. ‘And hidden it from Captain Black Beard-Jumper in case one of his friends came to rescue him later.’
‘Come to think of it, there was a map!’ Mr Tucker gasped. ‘Fishhook staarrted it when we was on our voyage together to find the mermaid all them years ago. ’E never got to finish it that time cos I got me leg clipped off.’
‘But he would have finished it when he went back!’ Callie wasn’t crying any more. Her eyes were bright.
A map! Atticus felt his fur prickle with excitement. He began to purr.
‘Is there anywhere you can think of he’d hide something like that, Herman?’ Mrs Tucker asked her husband.
‘Aye.’ Mr Tucker nodded slowly. ‘There is. Follow me, everyone.’ He started towards the jungle.
‘It’s getting awfully dark, Herman,’ Mrs Tucker said doubtfully. ‘Do you think we should wait until the morning? Goodness knows what’s lurking in that forest.’
Mr Tucker shook his head. ‘We’s already behind Black Beard-Jumper. We’s can’t wait. We’s got to find that map.’ He glanced at the children. ‘Kids, you follow behind me. Then you, Edna. Atticus, you take the rear. Watch out for snakes.’ He hobbled up the beach, dragging his wooden leg through the sand.
Snakes! Atticus hated snakes. He wondered what he was supposed to do if he saw one. He scrambled along the sand behind Mrs Tucker.
The party entered the jungle.
It was even darker under the trees and much cooler. Atticus glanced up. The trees weren’t the sort you got in Littleton-on-Sea or even Monte Carlo. They were taller with great thick trunks and leaves as big as lily pads that shut out the sky. Strange brightly coloured flowers blossomed around their bases. Vines twisted round the trunks and hung in thick ropes from the branches.
The procession threaded its way through the gloomy jungle. The trees were full of the shrieks and cackles of animals. The mournful cry of unseen birds echoed from high up in the canopy of dense leaves.
Atticus felt his hackles rise. He had the uncomfortable feeling they were being watched.
His sharp ears caught a whisper of movement behind him. He turned round quickly, just in time to catch a glimpse of a dark shadow slipping away into the undergrowth. He couldn’t tell wh
at it was. An animal of some sort, definitely. But whether it was a snake, or a mongoose, or even a panther, he couldn’t say. He waited for a moment but the animal didn’t reappear.
Reluctantly he padded on after the others.
After a little while they came to a clearing.
‘It’s still here,’ Mr Tucker said in a satisfied voice. ‘I’s thought so.’
In the middle of the clearing Atticus was amazed to see a small log cabin. Flowers grew out of the turf roof and the walls were decorated with bright candy-coloured shells. It looked welcoming in the gathering dusk.
‘That’s so cool!’ Michael cried.
‘It’s like the witch’s cottage in Hansel and Gretel!’ Even Callie was smiling at the sight of the little wooden house. ‘Except it’s covered in shells, not sweets!’
‘That’s exactly how Fishhook described it!’ Mr Tucker exclaimed. ‘Like the cottage in Hansel and Gretel. He loved stories, did Fishhook.’
Atticus thought he might like Fishhook Frank. He loved stories too.
‘Me and Fishhook, we’s made it before we set out to look for the mermaid together,’ Mr Tucker said proudly. ‘Nice and snug it is. Come and look inside.’
‘Maybe Fishhook left the map here!’ Callie exclaimed excitedly. ‘Let’s go and see.’ She raced up to the door and opened it. Her face fell.
Atticus wondered what was the matter. He chased after her and looked in. His heart sank.
The little cabin had been ransacked.
The pirates had beaten them to it.
Inside the cabin smashed plates lay in jagged pieces. The straw mattresses had been torn into clumps and the coarse linen sheets shredded into ribbons. Wooden boxes full of supplies spilled what remained of their contents on to the floor. A thin covering of feathers lay like a dusting of snow over the chaos: two pillows had been slashed with a knife and emptied over the rest.
There was no sign of a map.
‘It looks like someone got here before we did,’ Mrs Tucker said grimly. ‘Black Beard-Jumper and his men, I’m guessing. What do you say, Herman?’
Mr Tucker nodded dismally.
‘They’ve taken it!’ Callie said despondently. ‘I was right, we’ll never find the mermaid.’
Atticus Claw Goes Ashore Page 6
