The Unlikely Adventures of Mabel Jones

by Will Mabbitt

  A fierce voice sounded from the doorway of the captain’s cabin.

  “Weigh anchor,

  Mr. Clunes!”

  It was the captain. His mad eye boggled with rage. “Captain Idryss Ebenezer Split stops for no storm!”

  Pelf held tightly to the rail as another large wave rocked the boat.

  “But there’s a tornado coming, Captain!” he shouted through the howling wind.

  The captain’s one eye swiveled and fixed Pelf with a terrible stare.

  “Didn’t mean to question, sir,” said Pelf. “Weigh anchor. Steer a course for straight ahead!”

  Had Pelf known the fury of the storm to come, he might have disobeyed the orders and faced the captain’s rage instead. For the sea grew rougher and rougher, and the Feroshus Maggot pitched and rolled with each wave as though it was a toy boat.

  Then a giant wave, bigger than any that had come before, swept the deck of the ship. All but McMasters in the crow’s nest were covered by water. Just before the ship was swamped, Mabel heard his voice calling:

  “Och! I think there’s a storm heading this way!”

  Mabel felt a stab of panic as she was swept off her feet and squashed against the side rail. Looking over, she could see that the ship was perched atop a huge cliff of angry, swirling water. In a second, it dropped with stomach-turning speed so that it was at the bottom of a new cliff that threatened to collapse on top of them.

  From her position wedged in the rail, she saw Milton Melton-Mowbray washed overboard by a great wave—apparently lost forever—only to be deposited back on deck with a bump as another wave crashed into the ship.

  Some of the crew had tied themselves to masts. Others, like Mabel, were clinging to anything fixed to the deck. It was a funny time for Mabel to notice something relatively small and pointless. She only noticed it because it seemed so . . .

  . . . so odd.

  It was a footprint on the deck beside her. A hooman footprint! Someone had trod cannon grease across the deck.

  Could it be my footprint?

  Mabel looked more closely. Whoever had made the footprint had much smaller feet than her. And they hadn’t been wearing sealskin boots.

  How strange!

  Then the thought popped from her brain as another huge wave—this time port side—struck the Feroshus Maggot. The force popped Mabel free from the rails. Mr. Clunes’s strong and hairy hands grabbed her as she slid across the deck, and the pair braced themselves for the next wave, one that would surely break the ship in two.

  But it

  didn’t come.

  Seconds passed.

  The sea was calm.

  Dead calm.

  Milton looked out from under an upturned barrel. “I say, what’s happened to the waves?”

  Captain Split gazed into the distance.

  “We be in the eye of the storm! The ship will be struck again as we pass through the other side.” He looked around at the crew. “Lash yerselves fast. I won’t find the next piece of the X if ye scurvy scum be washed overboard.”

  And with that he stomped back to his cabin, clipping Milton behind the ear with a smart blow from his paw.

  Mabel looked out to sea. Sure enough, in the distance the waves were stormy and black, but around the Feroshus Maggot the waters were so calm that it looked as though they were sailing in a freshly poured bath. She leaned over the side, her tiptoes just scraping the deck.

  “It’s so clear!”

  A school of fish passed underneath the boat. Different colors, all darting among each other, forming an ever-changing, living rainbow.

  Mabel Jones leaned over further still as the last one disappeared from view. “It’s so beautiful!”

  She felt a doorknob-shaped prod to her bottom.

  Then

  she

  was

  falling.

  Falling?

  A silent shadow moved away from the spot where Mabel had lost her balance.

  Sometimes the quietest actions achieve the greatest results, and all it had taken was a whisper of a push from a doorknob attached to the arm of a silent loris to send Mabel tumbling over the side.

  She heard a voice shouting:

  “Snuglet overboard!”

  And then, with a terrible splash, Mabel Jones plunged into the freezing depths of the Cold Gray Sea.

  Down here the water was clear as a stolen crystal. Deep below, large formations of rock projected from the seabed, almost like giant buildings, neatly separated from one another by criss-crossing roads.

  As the currents buffeted her back and forth, for a second Mabel almost believed she was flying high above the streets of an underwater city.

  Curious, that it all seemed so . . .

  Well . . . so familiar.

  Maybe she was dreaming?

  She closed her eyes.

  For a second she was back at home in her bedroom.

  “MOM?” she called. “DAD?!”

  Then the freezing briny water of the Cold Gray Sea filled her mouth and she choked awake with the realization:

  I’m drowning!

  A shape approached. Or was this still a dream?

  A huge, pale shape with a smaller, darker, mouth-shaped shadow at the front.

  It’s coming nearer.

  Now the smaller, darker, mouth-shaped shadow was huge, and the huge, pale shape was

  enormous.

  Nearer and nearer . . .

  And now Mabel could see the huge, darker, mouth-shaped shadow was lined with thousands of tiny teeth, and between those teeth danced tiny fish.

  This is a strange dream.

  And then she realized the tiny teeth weren’t as tiny as she thought. They were more the size of fingers. Big fingers.

  And then the coldness was replaced by darkness and she couldn’t see anything at all . . .

  Oh, Mabel.

  Poor young Mabel Jones.

  Pass me that handkerchief so I may dry my eyes.

  Poor, sweet, kindly, innocent, nose-picking Mabel Jones. Taken from us by the wickedest deed of Omynus Hussh, the Silent Assassin—his natural goodness blinded by the angry tears of misplaced rage.

  Strap me down, friend. Prepare the tattooing needle.

  Or, if you don’t have the nerve or a steady hand, phone Dirty Simon’s Tattoo and Tanning Salon and book me a lunchtime slot.

  For Mabel must be remembered—her name tattooed across the left cheek of my bottom.

  Aye, it will need to be carefully shaved first.

  MABEL JONES, R.I.P.

  And now etch her face upon my right buttock.

  Thank you.

  A fine job!

  Aye, it’s still a little sore but it will heal. Now poor Mabel Jones will be remembered whenever I need to scratch my bum in public.

  What’s that?

  You feel she might still be alive?!

  YOU REALLY THINK SO?!

  Quick, then. Fetch me a soft cushion and let’s continue with the story. Let us pray to Neptune that something, anything, has saved her from a freezing watery grave!

  Well?

  What are you waiting for?

  TURN

  THE

  PAGE!

  CHAPTER 8

  The Unremitting Drip

  Drip

  Drip

  Drip

  Drip

  Drip Drip

  Drip Drip

  Drip

  DripDripDrip

  Drip

  CHAPTER 9

  Mabel Escapes the Unremitting Drip

  Mabel moved her head sleepily to avoid the water that was drip-drip-dripping on her forehead. It had begun to get quite annoying.

  Then she sat up, wide awake, and smiled.
<
br />   It was a smile as big as when you wake up expecting to go to school but then remember it’s the first day of summer vacation. Except this smile was even bigger, because she’d woken up expecting to be dead but then realized she wasn’t.

  “I’M ALIVE!”

  ALIVE

  ALIVE

  ALIVE

  “Oooh, there’s an echo!”

  echo

  echo

  echo

  It was so dark Mabel had to gently feel her eyeballs to make sure she hadn’t forgotten to open her eyes.

  Wet slimy walls + water

  lapping at ankles = a cave

  “That explains the echo!”

  echo

  echo

  echo

  She couldn’t see the other side of the cave or an entrance of any sort, but a tiny beam of light shone through a small hole several yards above her head. The cave was ankle-deep in water. Mabel had woken up half in and half out of it. (Her pajamas were soaking.) All around the cave, as far as she could see, was flotsam and jetsam—the miscellaneous rubbish of the sea. Driftwood, old barrels, parts of ships. Even some unopened crates.

  Suddenly the cave was flooded with light. An entrance had opened, letting in a rush of water that lapped around her knees. The newly opened entrance was lined with pointed stalactites and stalagmites, which looked remarkably like sharp teeth—a bit like the mouth of a huge animal.

  “It’s just like I’m inside the stomach of a huge whale and am looking out of its mouth,” said Mabel Jones.

  “Oh! I am inside a huge whale and looking out of its mouth!”

  Then the mouth closed again. But now the insides of the whale were lit with the soft glow of a very large, freshly swallowed luminescent jellyfish.

  Mabel sat down to think.

  “I wonder how long it takes to be digested by a whale?”

  Mabel jumped as a sad voice answered:

  “It seems to take quite some time, I’m afraid.”

  Mabel hadn’t noticed that she was sitting next to a rather dejected-looking toucan.

  “My name is Abel H. Toucan,” he said, offering Mabel a wing tip to shake. “Welcome to my home and my prison for four long years. I’m afraid there is no way out. The only hope is to sit and pray that the whale eventually beaches itself.”

  Mabel frowned. She didn’t have time to hang about. She needed to get back to the Feroshus Maggot. With every hour that passed, the comet was crossing the sky. And if the pieces of the X weren’t all found by the time it disappeared, she’d be stuck in this world forever. The life of a pirate wasn’t all bad—she glanced fondly at her cutlass—but she did want to get home. And, if she couldn’t get out of this whale, she would never see her mom and dad again . . .

  Mabel Jones bit her lip.

  PIRATES.

  DON’T.

  CRY.

  She’d have plenty of time to cry once she was safely home.

  She looked around the whale’s innards. An old rowing boat was tied to a giant rib. On the boat, Abel had built a small shack of driftwood and seaweed. Useful items swallowed by the whale had been carefully stored in a pile at the back.

  “I think you’ve made it rather nice,” she said thoughtfully.

  The toucan smiled a sad smile.

  “Ah, but all the comforts in the world can’t replace the love of a family or the cuddle of a sibling.”

  Mabel nodded. She knew what it was like to miss your family.

  Abel H. Toucan held up an angry fist of feathers to the sky (or, rather, to where the sky would be if they weren’t inside the stomach of a whale several fathoms underwater).

  “Oh, Ishmael! Oh, my brother! Were it not for this accursed whale, we should be together!”

  He fixed Mabel with a crazed stare.

  “Our last words were in anger! It pains me that he might remember me unkindly, for although that last slice of cheesecake was rightfully mine (me being the younger brother) I should at least have let him have a bit.”

  For it was (if you had not already guessed) the brother of Ishmael H. Toucan with whom Mabel now chatted inside the atmospherically lit bowels of the fabled White Whale of the Cold Gray Sea.

  Abel’s crazed look was replaced with a kindly smile.

  “But I forget myself and my manners. Do you like lemonade?”

  Mabel nodded. She was rather thirsty.

  “The other day the whale swallowed a hundred barrels of the stuff. I can’t abide it. It gives me terrible wind”—Abel lowered his voice to a polite whisper—“and makes me suffer the foulest of belches, for my diet has been a trifle ripe in fish of late.”

  But Mabel didn’t reply. A tiny spark of imagination had lit up her brain and was beginning to smolder like the fuse of a cannon. It was a risky idea for sure, and if it backfired . . .

  Well, if it backfired it meant . . .

  CERTAIN

  DEATH!

  CHAPTER 10

  The Fish Burps

  The pirates, led by the ferocious Captain Idryss Ebenezer Split, paused in their advance across the deck of the PEAPOD.

  Captain Split’s plan had been going swimmingly. Luckily for the pirates, the storm-battered Feroshus Maggot had been deposited by the tornado in an area of clear water within sight of the PEAPOD. The pirates, still mourning the loss of their beloved crewmate Mabel Jones, had launched an immediate assault across the ice. Silently, cutlasses in gritted teeth, they had climbed unnoticed aboard the stricken PEAPOD.

  Unnoticed that is until Milton Melton-Mowbray knocked over a lantern with a stray trotter.

  “Oh, I say—what rotten luck!”

  The burning whale fat had set the PEAPOD’s sail and Pelf’s fleece ablaze. It had taken a dunking in a barrel of pickled onions to extinguish the flames. Pelf’s screams and the smell of vinegary goat had woken Captain Ishmael.

  Now the ship was aflame, and the pirates and Captain Ishmael were in a deadlock. For Captain Ishmael, there was nowhere to hide. For the pirates, another step forward would mean the loss of a piece of X.

  The flames danced higher. Still no one dared move.

  Captain Split growled in frustration.

  Captain Ishmael dangled the piece of X further over the edge of the ship.

  “Another step forward, Split, and it won’t just be bait that’s been lost forever down this fishing hole!”

  Stalemate!

  Both captains’ eyes locked together.

  Watching . . .

  Waiting . . .

  Hoping to see a crack in the other’s resolve.

  Unusually it was McMasters the mole, left as lookout aboard the Feroshus Maggot, who noticed the crack first.

  But it was a crack of a different sort—a small crack in the ice surrounding the PEAPOD.

  One of the massive floes had begun to splinter. There was a fwhump, as though from some tremendous impact on the ice from below. The crack grew wider.

  Then there was another fwhump!

  The crack spread all the way up to the PEAPOD, and the huge plate of ice released its grip on the ship’s hull. She rolled to one side, dangerously close to capsizing and throwing the pirates sideways across the deck. Captain Split braced his bone leg against the gunwale to hold himself steady, and only the long arms of Mr. Clunes kept Milton from rolling overboard.

  Everyone on board the PEAPOD was now watching the ice.

  GWHUMP!

  The crack grew.

  MWHUMP!

  The crack grew some more.

  PHHHWHUMP!

  Then, with a final ear-splitting crash, an enormous hole appeared and the huge bulk of a great white whale came to the surface.

  Captain Ishmael gasped in surprise:

  “THE WHITE WHALE!”

  Pelf lit his pipe from
a burning barrel of tar. “More light green than white, I’d say.”

  Milton Melton-Mowbray tucked his cutlass back into his breeches and went to look. “I say! You’re right, Mr. Pelf—I’d describe it as peppermint colored, myself.”

  Old Sawbones joined them at the rail.

  “Well, I’ll be! I’d say this whale was feeling poorly! He seems to have a case of seasickness. Quite rare in a creature that lives in the sea as it does.”

  And, as if to answer them, the whale lifted his head from the water and . . .

  . . . let out the loudest belch ever heard.

  AND WHAT’S THIS?!

  Flying from the whale’s mouth?

  It’s a boat!

  A boat pulled by a parachute made from a large luminescent jellyfish. A jellyfish filled with the wind of the loudest belch ever heard!

  And clinging to the boat:

  “MABEL JONES!” the pirates cheered.

  With another lost soul . . .

  “ABEL, DEAR ABEL!” Ishmael called, tears of joy running down his beak.

  “ISHMAEL, SWEET ISHMAEL!” cried Abel. “I have brought you this, saved for four long years.”

  Standing sodden in the remains of the rowing boat so skillfully converted by Mabel Jones, he held aloft the small slice of cheesecake that had caused so much strife between them.

  It was still uneaten!

  “Please, have a bit,” he implored his elder brother.

  Clever, resourceful, crafty-fingered Mabel Jones! The only girl ever to have emptied a hundred barrels of fizzy lemonade directly into the stomach of a giant white whale, causing the loudest belch ever heard on any of the seven seas.

  Praise the heavens—the wind was expelled through the whale’s mouth! I would hate to think what would’ve happened if the wind had been expelled through its bottom. I suppose the pair would have come to a sticky end (so to speak).

  As well as freeing Mabel Jones and Abel H. Toucan from the depths of its stomach, the blast from the whale’s belch had also broken the PEAPOD completely free from the ice and extinguished the fire.