by Tom Banks
‘Three cheers for Captain Anstruther!’ he yelled. ‘Hip hip . . .’
‘Hooray!’ called a large portion of the crowd.
‘Hip hip . . .’
‘Hooray!’ called everybody present.
‘Hip hip . . .’
‘HOORAY!’ they yelled at the top of their lungs, and meant it.
‘Now let’s get moving!’ called the Captain, and around Stanley, the crew of the greatest vessel the world had ever seen leapt to their well-practised positions.
The chase was on.
A few weeks later, the Galloon was heaving through the low grey clouds of early winter, and onboard, almost everybody slept. There were a few people prowling around, pulling on ropes, winding capstans and generally keeping her on track. And there was Stanley and his best friend Rasmussen sitting wrapped in blankets, looking down at the clouds.
They weren’t often up at this hour. Stanley was a legendary sleeper, and had once slept quite through the end of the world, only to wake up once it had all been set right again – but something had made them both feel that now was a good time to be awake. They could feel adventure in the air.
Stanley scratched his horn – a small one, like a tiny unicorn’s, but crumpled and blunt – and Rasmussen hummed a waiting song. They had been sitting for a while, waiting for the adventure, but had seen no sign of it since the Captain’s wedding day.
‘It might take months, or even years, for the Captain to catch up with his bride,’ Rasmussen murmured.
‘Then we’ll just have to keep our eyes open for other adventures along the way, won’t we?’ said Stanley.
Birds flew alongside, but none of them looked like an enchanted princess trying to attract their attention. The mountains loomed way off in the distance, but they didn’t look like they were going to turn into giants, bent on revenge. The team of Gallooniers in the middle distance weren’t in the process of becoming soulless zombies, hell-bent on mutiny. All was calm. But Stanley and Rasmussen were happy to wait. They knew from experience that once adventure came, they wouldn’t get a chance to sit and hum. Adventure had come to them often over the course of their short acquaintance, but they hadn’t yet known an adventure that they, and the Great Galloon, couldn’t get the better of.
Some people say that the Great Galloon of Captain Meredith Anstruther is the largest ship ever built anywhere in the whole world at any time, including the Queen Beetrix, the SS Great Goodness and the HMS Frighteningly Huge. Others say ‘pish’ to this, by which they mean ‘pshaw’ or ‘that’s simply nonsense’. For these people believe that the Great Galloon isn’t a ship at all, but a hot air balloon of incredible size. You shall have to decide, as you read these adventures, which side you agree with, if either.
‘The sun is getting warm,’ Rasmussen said, shaking Stanley from his thoughts. ‘The ice on the rigging is melting away, and I can see Cook is stoking up the stove. It’s time for a hot cup of tea.’ She jumped up from where she’d been sitting on a greasy coil of rope and hopscotched towards the hatchway that led to the lower decks. Stanley, being slightly less of a morning person, stood up slowly, wrapped his blanket more tightly around his furry shoulders, and trudged off after her.
As he caught up, however, he felt an immense rumbling noise grumble through his whole body. It started in his toes and made his knees shake and his bottom wobble. Next to him the same thing was happening to Rasmussen – he watched her ponytail jump like an eel. This was before he even started to hear it. When the sound hit his ears, it was like nothing he’d ever heard before, and twice as deep. It lasted for thirteen seconds, and he had time to watch the rigging shake and the hatchways jump as the sound boomed and growled around the ship. Looking up, he saw that even the Great Galloon’s big balloon was shivering like the biggest jelly ever made.
‘Th-th-that’s f-f-un-unny,’ he said to Rasmussen. ‘I don’t remember reading on the notice b-board about a te-terrifyingly loud rrrrrumbling noise being pla-a-anned for this moooorning. Perhaps I missed it, or perhaps we’re being attack-ack-acked again. Either w-way, I hope it doesn’t interfere with our ad-ad-adventure.’
After thirteen seconds, the noise stopped as abruptly as it had started. Stanley noticed Rasmussen waiting to see if it would happen again. It didn’t, and nothing else terrifying or unusual seemed to follow it, so they wiggled their fingers in their ears, and went on their way. A cup of tea was even more in order now that there was a mystery to hand.
Captain Meredith Anstruther had heard the noise as well. Usually he would have no truck with these things – he had other things to think about – but this noise worried him. Since his disastrous wedding day, he had spent most of his time prowling the decks and corridors of the Great Galloon day and night, checking the tension of the huge guy ropes, changing candles before they had a chance to die, and shouting, ‘Twelve o’clock, and all’s well,’ in his rolling, chestnut voice.
Of course he didn’t always shout that. If all wasn’t well – or it wasn’t twelve o’clock – he would shout, ‘Six o’clock, and there’s bears in the wheelhouse,’ or, ‘Three o’clock, and my bunions are throbbing,’ or whatever seemed appropriate. More often than not, all was indeed well, but not now.
He had been high up in the rigging when the sound first hit and had felt the thrum of the wind on the ropes. He had clung on and waited it out, holding his second-best tricorn hat on his head and gritting his teeth, then stormed back to his office, from where he felt able to cope with any emergency. He reached out for the speaking tube that stuck out from the cabin wall and used it to announce, ‘All senior crew members report to the Captain’s cabin at once. An enormous noise has been heard onboard, and I’m too busy to be distracted by such things for long. We must get to the bottom of this right away!’
Stanley and Rasmussen had made it to the mess where people were starting to gather, and there was a general hubbub of concern about the place. They pushed their way, politely but firmly, to the front of the queue (Stanley used his horn, but only a little bit), and soon they were the proud owners of two big bacon and banana sandwiches and two steaming hot mugs of tea. This mission accomplished, and with ketchup dripping on their shoes, they approached Clamdigger.
‘Do you know what’s going on?’ Stanley asked him, once they had squeezed themselves into a quietish corner of the ever busier galley.
‘No,’ he replied. ‘I’d love to be a fly on the wall in the Captain’s cabin, though.’
‘Me too,’ said Rasmussen. Stanley knew she was thinking how much fun it would be to be able to walk up walls and never have to go to lessons.
‘Of course, it’ll no doubt be me who’ll have to do the actual work, once they’ve thought of a plan. I wish we could hear what’s going on in there.’
‘Me too,’ said Stanley, who was thinking how great it would be to be able to hear things from four floors away. ‘But the only way we could possibly do that would be to go and ask if we can join in the meeting.’
‘Yes,’ said Rasmussen, ‘or to squeeze into the forgotten storage space above the Captain’s cabin, and open the tiny secret hatch that will allow us to see and hear every word without the possibility of being seen ourselves.’
‘Oh,’ said Stanley. ‘Is there one of those?’
‘Yes,’ said Rasmussen, licking ketchup off her thumb. ‘But we can’t go in there.’
‘Why not?’ said Clamdigger, on tenterhooks.
‘Because we haven’t finished our tea,’ she said. She took a big slurp, and sat back, satisfied.
A few minutes later, with sandwiches scoffed and tea drunk, Stanley and Rasmussen hurried down to the Captain’s cabin. Clamdigger had things to do and wouldn’t fit in the secret space anyway, but they had promised to report back all that they heard. They got to the door of the cabin and could hear the mumbles and grumbles of a group of grown-ups talking in serious tones. Rasmussen braced herself, legs against one wall of the corridor, back against the other, and began to ease her way up the wooden
walls.
Stanley watched her admiringly until she was at head height, and was just about to climb up himself, when a huffing and puffing noise told him that someone was coming. He leaned nonchalantly against the wall and began to whistle – always a sure sign of innocence – and not a moment too soon.
The tall, thin figure of Skyman Abel came panting down the corridor and almost tripped over Stanley where he stood. He stopped when he noticed Stanley and stood directly under Rasmussen, who was still braced against the wall, just over his head.
‘Crumplehorn!’ he cried and ruffled Stanley’s hair. Stanley didn’t like being addressed in this way, especially by someone who then ruffled his hair. ‘Up to no good, I assume? Like always, eh?’
At this Stanley chuckled, but not at what Abel had said. Rasmussen, now sitting on a beam inches from Skyman Abel’s head, was using her ponytail to imitate a moustache and pulling a wide-eyed, big-toothed face that captured his pomposity exactly. But Abel thought Stanley was laughing at his jokes.
‘I bet you are, you little tike! I remember when we, erm . . . Well, when you and I . . .’ Of course, Abel couldn’t remember anything that he and Stanley had done together, except when he had hidden under the seat cushions on the day of the Captain’s wedding. He didn’t want to bring this up, so he finished his sentence with a nervous cough and a wiggle of his moustache.
‘Where’s your little friend, Rogerson? Er . . . Rambutan. Rapscallion! Shaken her off, have you? Hah! You pair of tikes!’ He went to ruffle Stanley’s hair again, but this time Stanley bared his sharp little teeth and Abel stopped halfway.
By now Rasmussen was pulling such a grotesque face that she was in danger of falling backwards off the beam, so it was a good job that Able Skyman Abel said, ‘Well, I can’t stand here chatting all day. I’ve been called to a very important meeting. You won’t have noticed, but something untoward has been going on, and I’ve no doubt it will be up to me to sort it out!’
At this, he puffed himself up preposterously, and Rasmussen did the same, making her look like a little mother hen on the beam. Stanley laughed again.
‘Yes, I knew that would make you happy. You can rest easy, now that Able Skyman Abel is on the case! You fluffy little scamp!’ And, unthinkingly, he ruffled Stanley’s hair one more time and yanked the door to the Captain’s cabin open.
Stanley was reeling slightly from being called ‘fluffy’ – although he was covered all over in fine grey-blue fur, he tended to think of himself as normal and everyone else as unusually bald – but he just had time to catch a glimpse of a roaring fire and the Captain standing behind his desk, leaning on it with both fists.
‘Friends. Thank you for coming. I believe the Galloon is in danger. Grave danger. Abel, close the door.’
And Abel did.
At around the time the first noise was heard, Cloudier Peele had been trying very hard to feel sorry for herself. She was hundreds of yards above the Galloon, and about half a mile behind it, sitting in the spartan but comfortable basket of a small hot air balloon, which served the Galloon as a weather station. She was tethered by a long thin rope to an iron ring set in the deck of the Galloon and was, in theory, watching out for the Sumbaroon, bad weather, and land.
She had a supply of little rocket-shaped capsules that clipped onto the rope, in which she could place a handwritten note. She would then wind up the clockwork key on the side of the capsule and it would whizz away, down the rope, and land on the deck with a loud crack. In this way the crew of the Galloon could get advance warning of any particularly bad weather coming its way.
It was a very responsible job, and Cloudier was secretly thrilled that she was entrusted with it. But the real reason that she always volunteered for weather duty was so that she could spend some time on her own, being pale and interesting. In the basket with her were some cushions and a small side table, on which sat a lamp, some tea and biscuits, and a book of romantic poetry. The book was Cloudier’s favourite book ever. It was extremely well thumbed, and had her name written inside the front cover. One day she even planned to read it.
Cloudier wore a long velvet dress made up of black and purple patches. She wasn’t allowed to wear make-up, but she had smudged some coal dust on her eyelids and coloured her nails in with black ink. She sat with her legs crossed on the wickerwork floor of the small balloon, and thought about how unfair her life was.
Unfortunately for Cloudier’s gothic sensibilities, her life couldn’t have been happier. She had a loving family, lots of friends, and was doing well at school. She was fair to excellent at most sports she turned her hand to, and had an aptitude for music and public speaking. She was furious about all of this, and couldn’t understand why people didn’t resent her, or bully her, or make her feel small, so she could write long poems about her inner turmoil. As it was, whenever she tried to write a poem about being misunderstood, it won a prize and she got her photo in the paper. She couldn’t even bring herself not to smile in the photo, because she knew it would embarrass her mother. And so, in her own way, she had something to feel hard done by about.
She was partway through writing a poem called ‘O Clamdigger, the Cabin Boy on the Ship of My Soul’, and it was this that she was working on as she sat in the balloon. She and Clamdigger were just very good friends, but she thought an unrequited love was a necessary part of being a poet, so he happily went along with it. She was just getting started on verse 129, and trying to find a rhyme for ‘invisible’ (was ‘whizzable’ a word?), when the incredible noise struck.
Even from her vantage point, Cloudier could hear it, and she soon felt it coming up the lifeline rope. When it arrived it shook the weather balloon so hard that her teapot fell off the table. She picked it up and peeked over the side of the basket. Although she was so far away, the Galloon still looked reassuringly enormous as it ploughed its way through the clouds. From here the noise sounded like a million angry wasps caught in a huge metal bottle, and Cloudier could not for the life of her think what it could be.
She could see the Galloon shivering slightly, as if it were going out of focus, and she reached out to touch the rope. It was buzzing like a chainsaw, but Clamdigger himself had tied the knots that connected the rope to the basket, so she knew she could trust them. The noise on the Galloon began to fade away, and Cloudier was just settling down again when she heard something else.
The rope was thrumming now in a more familiar way – someone was sending her a message! She clapped her hands delightedly, and then remembered to be a bit less excitable. She shrugged and sat down again with her back to the rope, as if she didn’t care. It took about thirty seconds for one of the capsules to make its way up the rope, and the noise it made got higher pitched as it grew closer. As it finally arrived and smacked into a metal plate at the top of the rope, a small firework in its nose went ‘crack’ to announce its arrival. Cloudier left it a minute or two, to show the universe that she wasn’t at all bothered by such fripperies as mail. When she couldn’t stand it any more she jumped up, spun round and ripped open the note that was now protruding from the capsule on a jointed arm. She read:
Dear Ms Peele,
There has been a disturbance onboard the Galloon. All is well, but the source of the disturbance is unknown, and the Captain has called all senior Gallooniers to his cabin. Personally, I fear the worst – keep an eye out for BeheMoths.
Yours, Ms Huntley (navigator)
P.S. Depending how long the meeting is, I may not be back in time for tea. There’s a casserole in the oven. Maybe later you can read me some of your wonderful poetry. So proud, darling. Love, Ms Huntley (your mum).
Cloudier sighed and rolled her eyes. Then she put down the letter and picked up a large pair of brass-bound binoculars, so heavy she had to use both hands. She raised them to her eyes and scanned the horizon behind her. There, just visible at the edge of sight, were some tiny winged shapes, no bigger at this distance than a mosquito, but moving quickly.
Hmm, thought Cloudier
. Probably just Seagles, but I’d better keep an eye on them. You can never be too careful.
Stanley watched as Rasmussen pulled back a loose board in the wall above the door of the Captain’s cabin, and a few moments later they had both climbed up and squeezed into the fusty, cobwebby storage space. Rasmussen slid aside a hatch the size of a postcard, and they each put an eye to the hole.
The Captain’s cabin was a snug, warm room with lots of dark wooden tables and chairs covered in interesting instruments of all shapes and sizes. Above the fireplace was a large painting of the Galloon in full sail, at which the Captain was staring inscrutably. Able Skyman Abel had sat down on a bench by the door. There was a number of people in the room, some taking notes, some scratching their heads in a thoughtful way, others pacing up and down. The Captain was still standing behind his desk, and when he spoke again everyone stopped and listened. Even in the space above, Stanley and Rasmussen held their breath.
‘What do you think?’ boomed the Captain. ‘Is she finally breaking up? Are we doomed, do you think?’
Captain Anstruther didn’t mince his words, which was often a good thing, but sometimes put the wind up people. Not Rasmussen though, who often laughed out loud at his most doom-laden pronouncements.
‘Er, no sir, I hope not,’ said Able Skyman Abel. ‘I think the old Galloon will last a little while yet. At least I hope so.’
‘I think you’re right, Abel. I didn’t build this beast to fall apart at the first sign of trouble. So if it isn’t the old girl cracking into pieces, then it must be something else!’
‘Freak weather, sir?’ said a large woman in a tall felt hat.
‘No. It’s cold alright, and if we were on the sea I would agree that perhaps a huge rumbling and cracking noise could be made by the ice sheet rubbing and grating on the hull.’ As he spoke, he poured coffee from a pot at his elbow into a mug the size of a saucepan. ‘However, we are not on the sea; we are three miles above it. And ice doesn’t float in the air, except briefly, in the form of snow.’
