Voyage to the Volcano
Page 13
‘Well, it was quite easy really, swapping the necklaces …’ began Rasmussen, but the Captain laid a steady hand on her arm as he continued.
‘Not just that. If you hadn’t kept an eye on Charlie, followed Fassbinder, made the Brunt warm in the snow, where would the Galloon be now? I owe you so much. Is there anything I can do for you?’
Astounded by this, Stanley and Rasmussen eyed each other.
‘There is one thing you could tell us,’ said Stanley warily.
‘Go on,’ said the Captain, taking a sip from a glass of hot punch.
‘Why is the pendant vital to the future of the Galloon?’ asked Stanley.
‘Ah. A good question,’ said the Captain, a serious look on his face now. ‘I will show you why. Come.’
Stanley and Rasmussen followed him, the now familiar thrill of being alone with the Captain welling up in them. Together they hopped in a dog cart, and with the Captain’s cry of ‘mush!’ they were soon trundling along the decks, towards the quarterdeck, where the Captain’s wheelhouse stood. They felt the eyes of the partygoers on them as they trundled through the crowds. Once there, they hopped out and followed the Captain up a short ladder and into the wheelhouse itself – the hallowed inner sanctum, where neither of them had ever been before.
There was the great wheel of the Galloon, fully as broad as the Captain was tall, with brassbound handles sticking out from each huge spoke. It creaked and moved slightly as the Galloon pulled at its moorings.
‘Try and move the wheel,’ said the Captain calmly.
Stanley looked at Rasmussen, who shrugged a little, then he stepped up to the wheel and reached for the nearest handle.
CLANG.
A metal cage or grating, like a huge iron gate, shot up from the floor and covered the wheel entirely. Stanley stepped back, and – CLANG – it fell back into the floor. He stepped up again, and CLANG.
There was the grating, stopping him getting within two or three feet of the wheel and the other controls. As Stanley watched, the grating began to heat up, until it was cherry red all over.
‘How do you …?’ said Rasmussen, bemused.
‘There is a code,’ said the Captain, clearly pleased to be able to tell someone all this. He turned round, to where eight brass levers stuck up from the floor, each one about five feet tall.
‘To be allowed access to the wheel, these levers must be set in a precise configuration – different each day of the year, dependent on the seasons, the tides, the movement of the stars, and the current price of a cup of tea in the mess. I carry this information in my head – but I cannot be the only person who knows. What if something were to happen to me?’
‘But what …’ said Stanley, although realisation was beginning to dawn.
‘The pendant!’ said Rasmussen. ‘Those patterns on the back – it’s not just a pretty design. It’s the key to the code!’
‘The legend. I intended for Isabella to have both parts, once we were married. But it never got that far.’
‘So – if Zebediah got hold of the pendant, he could fly the Galloon,’ said Stanley.
‘He’d have to get past me first, and make it up here to the wheelhouse, but yes. His chances would be much improved. But Isabella’s half of the token only contains half of the legend – useless on its own.’
‘So that’s why retrieving the token was so important!’ said Rasmussen, almost as if she was relieved to know that all this trouble had not been taken in vain.
‘What’s important is that we are all here, we are all well, and we all live to fight another day. But I will not ask you to risk your lives for me again. While you were down there, fighting so gallantly for the Brunt, and the token, and the Great Galloon, I was beginning to teach the vagaries of this machine to Ms Huntley. Soon I will no longer be the only person able to fly it.’
‘But we still need to find Isabella,’ said Rasmussen. ‘They could be miles away by now, if they’ve managed to fix the Sumbaroon.’
‘Oh yes, even the Kraken’s attack will not have slowed up my brother’s departure. He will be far away before long. If only there were some way of finding out what was happening onboard his infernal Sumbaroon from a distance. Then we would have the advantage we need …’ said the Captain, deep in thought once more.
Stanley looked again at Rasmussen, who raised an eyebrow knowingly.
‘Let’s just enjoy the party for now …’ he signed to her, surreptitiously, in the secret sign language that only they knew.
‘Cloudy with a chance of rain I believe, but I don’t see the relevance of that right now …’ she replied irritably.
He rolled his eyes, and together they went off to dance.
Far below, in the cosy cabin Stanley shared with his pet rat, a mysterious black box buzzed into life. Written on the front was the following phrase:
The Long-Distance Examinator
Invented by T. Crumplehorn.
Property of Stanley Crumplehorn, for the purpose of learning lessons and keeping in touch.
A light flashed on the front of the box, and a dial twirled of its own accord. A crackling noise trickled from the single speaker, causing the rat to sit up in his bed of straw, and nibble a nut excitedly.
‘… body out there …?’ said a disembodied voice, causing the rat to drop its nut and listen.
The machine crackled again, then a kind of metallic, echoing ‘ping’ noise took the place of the speech for a few moments.
‘… hear us?’ said the same voice after a pause, followed by a different person saying, ‘If you can hear us, give us a sign …?’
‘Testing … testing …’ said the first voice, that of a boy of around ten, before continuing. ‘No use … if there was anyone out there, they’d need a machine of their own to be able to hear us …’
‘I know,’ said the second voice, a girl of about the same age. ‘But if we’ve made one, surely there’s a chance …’ The crackling took over again, and the voices died out, to be replaced by someone singing in a foreign language, then part of a weather report.
The rat went back to sleep again, so even he didn’t hear the last few words that came from the Long-Distance Examinator.
‘If anyone is listening, we’d love to hear from you … call us back … using the call sign “Grand Sumbaroon” … this is Big Dipper, signing off, from the Grand Sumbaroon …’
‘Told you …’ said the girl’s voice, slightly petulantly. ‘Useless. Now, can we please go and find an adventure of some sort …’
The Sultana of Magrabor’s Splendiferous Etiquette and Gallooning Quizzette
Write in fine black ink on high-quality paper only, please. None of this cheap muck. Smugness will not be tolerated. Anyone scoring above eighty per cent will be downgraded for being too clever by half. You may turn your papers over … wait for it … NOW!
Q1. How should one correctly address myself, the Sultana of Magrabor?
Harness of the Four Winds
Empress of the Lowest Lands
Wearer of the Biggest Pantson
Q2. What do I, the Sultana of Magrabor, usually wear on my head?
A turban
A turbot
A pair of pants
Q3. In Voyage to the Volcano, mention is made of a charabanc (pronounced ‘sharrabang’). What is a charabanc?
A vegetable, similar to a carrot but with the temperament of a rattlesnake
A type of old-fashioned open-topped bus
A pair of pants
Q4. The automaton Fassbinder is unmasked in Voyage to the Volcano. Which part of him sends a warning signal to Zebediah in his final moments?
His eye, which sprouts an aerial and floats in the air
His leg, which hops overboard and swims to safety
His pants, which let off a hideous warning stink
Q5. What is the name of the Volcano where Cloudier and the Brunt find the Captain’s love token?
The Kraken’s Stair
The Kraken’s Lair
Mark your answers clearly, fold the paper carefully, place it in an envelope made of lead, and then drop it in the sea, as far as I’m concerned. I don’t give a monkey’s whether you got the questions right or not. Life’s too short for such things. I’ve never done a test in my life, and look where I am today. Let’s have a dance, shall we?
Erm – Sultana, I think we should at least give them the answers, if you don’t mind.
Captain A.
Ah. Yes, of course, Captain. Only joking, of course. So:
Q1. a) or b) are correct, although c) is perfectly true. They’re quite enormous.
Q2. a). I wear a turban, although I have worn a turbot once, when I went to a fancy-dress party dressed as the sea floor. As well as the turbot, I had a seashell bra and a sandy bottom. Happy days.
Q3. It’s b). I’ve never known a vegetable with the temperament of a rattlesnake. Although I did once eat a parsnip that didn’t agree with me.
Q4. a) It’s his eye that pops out and sends off a signal. His pants were, as far as we know, squeaky clean.
Q5. As Kraken means ‘whale’, it’s very unlikely that any of them would wear pants – you just can’t get them in big enough sizes, and I should know. So the answer is b), the Kraken’s Lair.
Well done – if any of you got all the questions right, you can consider yourselves experts on the affair of the Kraken’s Lair. If any of you answered ‘Pants’ to all the questions, you can consider yourselves experts in knowing what’s funny and what isn’t. If any of you got them all wrong, go back and try again now you know the answers. If you still get them all wrong, you really need to start paying more attention.
First published in Great Britain in 2013 by Hot Key Books
Northburgh House, 10 Northburgh Street, London EC1V 0AT
Text copyright © Tom Banks 2013
Illustrations copyright © John Kelly 2013
The moral rights of the author and Illustrator have been asserted.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Ebook ISBN: 978-1-4714-0171-8
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