He ran through the possible combinations in his head … TSY … JS4 … T Lightning 4 … J Lightning Y …
None of the sequences made any sense and the initials didn’t stand for anything he knew. He felt his frustration growing. The sound of Pete sniffling next to him added to his annoyance.
‘Are you going to hog that key all evening, or can the rest of us take a look at it?’ Pete huffed.
Whisker handed the key straight to him.
‘It’s all yours, Pete,’ he muttered, standing up from his chair. ‘I’ve found it far from enlightening.’ He was hungry and hoped supper might revitalise his mind.
As he walked to the galley he noticed that he wasn’t the only one who’d taken a break. Ruby and the Hermit were playing a board game with shells on a serving bench, Eaton and Emmie were drawing with Pete’s pencil stubs on the floor, Smudge was sleeping on a rafter and Fred was nowhere to be seen.
The Hermit grabbed Whisker’s left sleeve on his way past and thrust something into his paw. Whisker looked down to see the Hermit’s brown bag.
‘W-what’s this?’ he asked, puzzled.
‘Hermit’s thank you present for saving him on the cliff,’ the Hermit replied.
‘I can’t take this,’ Whisker gasped, trying to hand the bag back to the Hermit. ‘It’s all you’ve got.’
The Hermit pushed Whisker’s paw away and shook his head. ‘Hermit has much more than bag of possessions, yes, yes. Hermit has his life back.’ He lowered his voice and chuckled, ‘Hermit’s compass extremely handy for lost apprentices on cloudy nights.’
‘Fair call,’ Whisker muttered, hoping Ruby wasn’t following the conversation. ‘But don’t you want to keep the bag?’
The Hermit shook his head. ‘No, no. Hermit has nothing to tie it to. Whisker has fine pie-buckled belt.’
‘Thanks,’ Whisker said, hesitantly accepting the bag and its contents. ‘I’ll try to use it wisely.’
The Hermit went back to his game. Whisker fastened the bag to his belt and entered the galley. Fred stood next to the open pantry door, staring lovingly at a piece of mouldy cheese. Whisker could smell its pungent odour from across the room. It smelt worse than raw onion.
‘Hi, Fred,’ Whisker said. ‘Have you got any pie crusts I can nibble on? I’ve been on island rations for days.’
Fred appeared lost in his own thoughts.
‘I love cheese,’ he said dreamily. ‘But it always gives me a belly ache.’
‘Oh,’ Whisker said. ‘Maybe that’s because you’re lactose intolerant.’
Fred looked hurt.
‘You think I’m lacking in tolerance?’ he asked, confused.
‘No, no, of course not,’ Whisker said, trying to recover. ‘Lactose intolerant means you’re allergic to dairy. All rats are.’
‘Really?’ Fred said, downcast. ‘Well in that case, cheese is no longer my friend.’ He wrapped the sticky object in a piece of cloth and handed it to Whisker. ‘Take it out of my sight.’
‘S-sure,’ Whisker said awkwardly. ‘I’ll feed it to the scorpions … or maybe the owls? They’ll eat anything – and anyone.’ He slipped the cheese into his new bag.
Handy already, he thought to himself.
‘Now, Fred,’ he said, ‘how about those snacks?’
Fred opened the enormous wood-fired oven and pulled out a large tray of piping-hot pesto party pies.
‘Cooked to piefection!’ he said proudly. ‘I hope you’re hungry?’
Whisker decided there were more than enough pies to share with the rest of the crew and carried three heaped serving platters into the mess room. It was a clumsy task with only two small paws, but his tail helped out as best it could.
He tried to navigate past Pete, who was scribbling frantically with his pencil, while spinning the key in circles with his paws.
‘SUPPER IS SERVED!’ Fred shouted from the galley.
Pete jumped in surprise and snapped the lead of his red pencil. Trying to stay upright, he stumbled backwards and collided with Whisker. Three dishes of pies soared into the air.
CLANG! SPLAT! SPLAT! CLANG! RATTLE! SPLAT!
Half-a-dozen pies landed on Pete’s drawing. The remainder of the pies hit the white walls of the mess room, breaking open on impact. Oily green filling sprayed everywhere.
‘Oh dear,’ Fred gasped, from the galley door. ‘Oh double dear.’
Pete was furious.
‘What the flaming rat’s tail are you doing?’ he shouted, scraping pesto from his bony white nose.
Whisker picked up Pete’s broken lead and handed it to the irate Quartermaster. ‘Ooops … sorry.’
‘Sorry doesn’t cut it,’ Pete fumed, wedging the lead into Whisker’s bag. ‘You can keep the stupid lead! Do you know how hard it is to get a pencil the right length?’
‘No.’
‘It’s extremely hard. I can’t just sharpen it – one leg will be shorter than the other. My favourite red pencil is ruined!’ He looked down at his drawing. ‘And so is my masterful work.’
Pete angrily waved his bony paws in the air. ‘I nearly had it, you know. A few more characters and I would have cracked the code. But look at it now: One big soggy slop! There’s no way I’ll uncover a single word with pesto painted all over it …’
Whisker didn’t hear the rest of Pete’s tirade – there was no need. Pete had just solved the riddle without even knowing it.
In the Shadows Behind
Whisker grabbed the key from Pete, mid-rant.
‘Hey!’ Pete snapped. ‘You’ve had your turn.’
‘So have you,’ Whisker said, throwing the key to Ruby.
Ruby caught it and frowned. ‘What am I supposed to do with this? I hate riddles. Riddles are words, words, words and no action.’ She threw the key back to Whisker like it was a hot pie.
‘Action is exactly what we’re missing,’ Whisker said, catching the key with his tail.
He picked up Eaton’s lantern from the floor, shutting its three mirrored sides and held the key in front of the remaining open side.
‘We’re supposed to uncover the key,’ Whisker explained. ‘But technically it was never covered up – or so we thought. Take a look at the key and tell me what you see.’
Horace stuck his face in front of the lantern.
‘I see the dark silhouette of a key surrounded by an extremely bright light that’s hurting my eyes,’ he said.
‘What else?’ Whisker asked.
‘A couple of tiny rust spots,’ Horace said. ‘They must be pretty deep. The light is shining straight through.’
‘So what?’ Pete snapped. ‘The key was in a rainforest for years. A bit of rust is inevitable.’
‘And I would agree with you,’ Whisker said haughtily, ‘except these are not rust holes.’
‘Well, what are they?’ Pete exclaimed. ‘Worm holes?’
Horace ran his nail over the surface of the key. ‘They feel solid.’
‘Exactly,’ Whisker said.
Mr Tribble tilted his spectacles and peered closer.
‘Glass?’ he considered.
‘It could be,’ Whisker replied. ‘We discovered three substances among the blacksmith’s equipment in the citadel dungeon. One was gold from the false key, one was brass from the King’s Key and the other was a clear substance that resembled glass.’
The Captain looked astonished. ‘So you’re saying there’s a transparent layer of glass beneath the painted surface?’
‘It would fit with the riddle,’ Mr Tribble replied. ‘The word enlighten contains the word light. A hidden layer would be found behind the painted surface – in the shadows so to speak.’
‘There’s only one way to find out,’ Whisker said with a grin. ‘Ruby, if you please.’
Ruby drew a scarlet scissor sword from her belt. ‘Permission to commence operation face-lift, Captain?’
‘Scrape at will, my dear,’ the Captain replied.
Ruby began scratching at the surface of the key with her sw
ord. Almost immediately, a line of symbols appeared along its central shaft. Ruby shifted her blade to the teeth of the key. As the paint flaked away, the X marks-the-spot disappeared and was replaced by three circles and a small arrowhead known as a chevron.
Ruby proceeded to scratch the black paint off the rear side of the key before giving the whole thing a quick dust off with her paw. Triumphantly, she held the newly uncovered King’s Key in front of the lantern.
The light streamed through a dozen miniature glass symbols. Some looked like tunnels, others like stairs. There were circles and arrows, lines and squiggles. The final symbol was a right-handed paw.
‘Argh me pastries!’ Horace exclaimed, pointing to the paw with his hook. ‘I’m sure I saw a symbol like that in the citadel. It was on the doorway to the throne room … or was it the dungeon?’
‘Both,’ Mr Tribble replied knowledgeably. ‘The right paw of royalty was on the doorway to the throne room. The left paw of despair – also the symbol for the great brown bear – was at the entrance to the dungeon.
‘The paws weren’t the only symbols we saw in the citadel,’ the Captain added. ‘We saw scores of symbols matching the ones on the key at the tops of doorways.’
‘Freeforian cave symbols, to be precise,’ Mr Tribble said. ‘They’re part of an ancient underground navigation system.’
‘Do we know what all the symbols stand for?’ Pete asked.
‘I can identify a couple of them,’ Madam Pearl said, moving closer. ‘I’ve seen them on Freeforian antiques, particularly oil lamps. The rest are a mystery to me.’
‘But not to me,’ Mr Tribble said proudly. ‘I took the liberty of recording every symbol from the citadel in my notebook. Each symbol is matched with its meaning. The notebook is in my sleeping quarters, if you’d like me to find it?’
‘We’d love you to find it,’ Horace exclaimed. ‘Why play the guessing game when there’s a know-it-all in the crew?’
Mr Tribble straightened his glasses and hurried from the room. The rest of the crew crowded around the key.
The Captain pointed to the small symbol on the tooth of the key.
‘If I’m interpreting this correctly,’ he said, ‘the X never marked the location of the treasure; it marked the entrance to a maze of tunnels and passages inside the mountain. The symbols on the shaft tell us which passages to take. The last symbol, the right paw, must mark the treasure’s location.’
The Hermit looked perplexed. ‘Hermit never knew about secret tunnels on Mt Mobziw, no, no. Many caves on Mt Moochup where Hermit lived, yes, yes, but only owls on Mt Mobziw.’
‘It appears someone has gone to great lengths to keep the entrance a secret,’ the Captain said, his eye still fixed on the key.
There was a scuffle of small feet and Whisker looked up to see Mr Tribble returning to the room carrying his notebook and several sheets of paper.
‘I thought Emmie and Eaton might like to help me interpret these symbols,’ Mr Tribble said. ‘It’s far more enthralling than last term’s school project on humpback whale calls.’
Emmie clapped her paws together in excitement. Eaton looked his usual nervous self but with an extra dose of jitters.
Mr Tribble handed the children a sheet of paper and several pencil stubs. He opened his notebook and flicked to the page of symbols. Madam Pearl held the key in front of the lantern and Emmie copied down the first symbol, while Eaton squirmed uncomfortably in his chair.
‘C-can I have my own sheet of paper, please?’ he asked timidly. ‘Emmie always hogs the pencils.’
‘Do not,’ Emmie squeaked, hogging the pencils.
Mr Tribble sighed and handed Eaton a blank sheet of paper.
Pete gave Eaton a purple pencil stub and whispered, ‘It’s always good to have a backup, young mouse. Sooner or later, some clumsy buffoon will go and lose the original.’ He looked directly at Whisker and smirked.
Whisker smiled back politely. There was no point arguing. He’d lost the key and the map on more than one occasion. Fortunately for Whisker, he was rather adept at getting them back.
The children raced to be the first mouse finished, carefully matching each symbol from the key with its interpretation from the notebook.
‘Me money’s on the wee lad ‘ere,’ Rat Bait chuckled. ‘He’s got a fierce look ‘o determination in his eye.’
‘But Emmie’s quicker with her paw-writing,’ Horace argued.
In the end it was a dead heat. Thanks to Mr Tribble’s thorough recording skills, the mice managed to find an interpretation for every symbol.
‘Our first task is to locate a line of three rocks,’ the Captain said, summing up their discoveries. ‘The chevron would indicate there’s something under the rock on the left.’
‘A lever, perhaps?’ Mr Tribble suggested, pointing to the first symbol on the shaft of the key. ‘Something that requires an anti-clockwise turn.’
‘The rest of the directions appear straightforward enough,’ the Captain continued. ‘Left, up, through, right, over, etcetera, etcetera … a clockwise turn and we’re there.’
‘So when do we leave?’ Ruby asked, tapping her nails on the table.
Pete screwed up his nose. ‘Not until that cursed Cat Fish crew have sailed off into the sunset. They’ll be waiting to ambush us for sure.’
The Hermit shook his head. ‘Quartermaster Pete has nothing to worry about, no, no. Cat Fish will be too busy bailing water from Sinking Sardine.’
‘Sinking Sardine?’ Horace echoed.
‘Yes, yes,’ the Hermit chuckled. ‘Hermit visited Sinking Sardine earlier this evening. Diving gear exceptional. Kitchen can-opener outstanding. Tomorrow, Cat Fish will wake to find Sinking Sardine submerged in lagoon.’
‘A splendid piece of news,’ the Captain laughed heartily. ‘We’ll leave at first light.’ He grew serious and eyed his crew. ‘An expedition of this nature requires plenty of weapons and plenty of supplies. I expect all crew members to be fully prepared. There’s not a moment to lose.’
‘Aye, aye, Captain,’ chanted the crew.
The Captain strode from the room, stopping momentarily under the doorway. Smudge was busily sucking pesto from the wall.
‘And for Ratbeard’s sake,’ the Captain groaned, ‘will someone clean up this ghastly green goop before it attracts an entire island of insects?’
Whisker knew someone meant the rat responsible for the mess. He begrudgingly raised his paw to volunteer.
Emmie tugged on his shirt.
‘You’ll need a qualified hygiene officer to supervise,’ she squeaked.
‘Thanks, Emmie,’ Whisker said gratefully. ‘You assess the damage and I’ll get the scrubbing brushes.’
While Whisker fetched a large pot of water and two scrubbing brushes from the galley, the crew dispersed to prepare for the adventure.
Whisker returned to find Emmie wiping pesto from Pete’s pencils and Eaton staring at the key.
‘Come to lend a paw, Eaton?’ Whisker asked.
Eaton gave Whisker a horrified look and dashed from the room, clutching a pile of crumpled paper in one paw and his lantern in the other.
‘That’s Eaton’s attempt at cleaning up,’ Emmie squeaked. ‘He’ll never make a good hygiene officer.’
Lighthouses
It took several hours for Whisker and Emmie to clean the oily green stains from the walls. From time to time another member of the crew would pass through the mess room on their way to the pantry. Whisker wondered how much food the expedition actually required.
‘You can never have too many snacks if you’re stuck in a mountain,’ Horace said on his third trip past. ‘Besides, not all of this is for eating.’
He held up two rubber sauce bottles.
‘Hot chilli sauce shooters,’ he boasted. ‘I picked them from the retirement resort gift shop. They came filled with tomato sauce, but I added the hot chillies for an extra kick. They’re equipped with non-clog nozzles and rapid-fire squeezable sides.’ He lowered the
bright red bottles to his hips like a gunslinger. ‘I can give you a demonstration if you like? See that white wall over there …’
‘Err, that’s ok, Horace,’ Whisker said uneasily. ‘I’d prefer it if one wall stayed white.’
Horace let out a long sigh of disappointment and was nearly knocked over by Ruby, bursting into the mess room. Horace, in turn, pretended to squirt her with his sauce shooters. She ignored his antics and opened her paw to reveal a crumpled scarlet eye patch.
Horace’s jaw dropped wide open.
‘Rotten pies!’ he gasped. ‘How could we be so blind?’
Whisker’s tail collapsed into the pot of green cleaning water.
‘But that means …’
‘Aye,’ Ruby said coldly. ‘In all the excitement, we overlooked one crucial fact: Mr Tribble may be innocent, but there’s still a thief onboard and they know exactly where the treasure is.’
‘Rotten pies with mouldy pastry!’ Horace cried.
He glanced down at the table. The Forgotten Map lay next to the King’s Key and Emmie’s drawing of the symbols.
‘Phew,’ he sighed, calming down. ‘At least they don’t have the map and the key.’
Whisker didn’t share his relief.
‘Take another look,’ he said, grimly. ‘Eaton’s page of symbols and Pete’s tracing are gone.’
‘Rotten pies with mouldy pastry and curdled cream!’ Horace gasped.
‘Speaking of Eaton,’ Ruby said in a panic, ‘where is the little mouse?’
Emmie looked up from her scrubbing brush.
‘I haven’t seen him for hours,’ she replied with a shrug. ‘But he could be on the deck with his lantern. He’s often up there at night playing his little game of lanterns and lighthouses. I’m not sure of the rules – he never lets me join in.’
The blood drained from Whisker’s soggy tail. Ruby stared at him in horror and let out an angry hiss.
‘What?’ Horace cried, clearly missing something.
The Island of Destiny Page 11
