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Text copyright © 2019 by Sally Gardner.
Illustrations copyright © 2019 by Nick Maland.
All rights reserved. First published in the United Kingdom in 2019 by Zephyr, an imprint of Head of Zeus Ltd.
Published in the United States in 2021 by Penguin Workshop, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, New York. PENGUIN and PENGUIN WORKSHOP are trademarks of Penguin Books Ltd, and the W colophon is a registered trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
Ebook ISBN 9780593095874
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To Amelia Barratt, with all my love—SG
For Susie and David, with love—NM
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Author’s Note
About the Author and Illustrator
1
There is an island that has been left off the map of the world. It is here that the letters of the alphabet come from. As every story starts with words and as every word is made up of letters, it is only fair and two corners square that the letters of the alphabet tell this one in their own words.
* * *
It started on a stormy day when the rain danced shiny over the decks of the Kettle Black, the most feared pirate frigate to ever sail the Seven Seas . . .
“Excuse me,” said Mr. Tiger. “I don’t mean to stop you midsentence, but do you think it would be less confusing if you began by introducing Betsy K. Glory, instead of diving off the deep end into the stormy sea with the pirates? If I were going to give a speech, I would start by saying that Betsy has purple hair, bright green eyes, rosy cheeks, and a sweet, freckly face. And that she is the daughter of Mr. Alfonso Glory, who is known for making the most amazing ice creams, more delicious than any you have ever tasted, on or off the map of the world. Her mum is Myrtle, a mermaid who doesn’t have freckles and lives in the sea as mermaids do, whereas Dad and Betsy, who both have legs, live above Mr. Glory’s café in a tall windy house. You could add, and it wouldn’t be a whisker of a lie, that they are a very happy family. But then again, I’m not making a speech.”
“With great respect, Mr. Tiger,” said the alphabet, “we will tell this tale in our own way with our own words.”
“It’s only a suggestion,” said Mr. Tiger, “but I’m fond of a good beginning and you need an exciting middle if all your words aren’t going to fall flat in the end. Don’t you agree?”
“Once upon a time . . . ,” said the letters of the alphabet.
“Purrfect!” said Mr. Tiger.
2
Betsy K. Glory had felt sure that Mr. Tiger would be back sooner than Sunday. But many Sundays had been and many Sundays had gone and the days began to feel as dull as a dog that hasn’t been walked. Still there was neither whisker nor tail of Mr. Tiger and his circus of Gongalong acrobats. Then, out of the blue, Betsy received a postcard. On the front was a drawing of a sea dragon. On the back, written in the unmistakable paw of Mr. Tiger, it said: “The tide is changing. There is a red rogue wind blowing.”
Betsy didn’t know what that meant.
She showed it to Dad, who was searching for his bicycle pump.
“What does this mean?” she asked.
“Search my socks,” he said.
Betsy picked up Dad’s newspaper and read the headline:
AFTER FIFTY YEARS THE EGG IS COMING HOME
She carried on reading while she ate her cornflakes:
We are delighted to announce that preparations are underway for the Festival of the Sea Dragon.
The article ended promising more exciting news soon.
To Betsy, the festival was the stuff of bedtime stories. There were not many islanders who could claim they’d ever been to one, as they only happened every fifty years. The festival had two parts, the first was when a Pap-a-naggy came out of the sea carrying its egg.
You see, a sea dragon mother, a Mam-a-naggy, never leaves her sea apple orchard, seventy leagues below the waves, and it is the Pap-a-naggy who, every fifty years, brings the egg to the island left off the map of the world. The islanders care for the egg and when the sea apples in the sea orchard have turned solid gold, the Pap-a-naggy knows that his egg has hatched and he returns for the second part of the festival. The islanders dress in their best and there are street parties, and games, and a day of silliness and celebration. Everyone gathers to say a fond farewell to the baby sea dragon, the Nog-a-naggy, who returns with the Pap-a-naggy to the sea apple orchard and its mum.
“Crumble cakes!” said Betsy. “And I’m going to see them now.”
3
Next morning, which was Wednesday, Mum arrived with a letter that had been delivered by a turtle. It was from her sister, Betsy’s aunty Coral. Sitting in the kitchen with her tail in a bucket, Mum read aloud from the letter.
“Coral says she and the Siren Singers have been called away on siren duty.”
“Oh dear,” said Dad, alarmed.
“She goes on to say she would have asked us to have Floss Grimm except that we don’t have a mer-friendly house.”
“Not yet, my love,” said Dad.
“Who is Floss Grimm?” asked Betsy.
“Your cousin—remember?”
“Oh, yes, of course,” said Betsy, who, on account of having two legs and no tail, hadn’t seen much of Mum’s relatives.
“What is siren duty?”
Mum could be very watery when she wanted to be. She said it was to do with shipwrecks and pirates.
“Someone has to keep the seas clear of trouble and if we mermaids don’t, who will?”
“How do you do it?” asked Betsy.
“Oh, by singing,” said Mum with a faraway look in her eye, which meant no further questions on the subject would be answered.
“What else does the letter say?”
“That there have been several sightings of pirate ships at the edge of the map of the world, and that Aunty Coral thinks it’s a lot of seaweed over substance and that pirates never come this way.”
4
Captain Calico Kettle was a roaring rage of a pirate. He had a blue beard, a wooden hand, and three gold teeth. It was said that his temper was shorter than a gunpowder fuse, though he had somewhat mellowed these days. Now he wasn’t so much looking for other ships to scupper as searching for the island that had been left off the map of the world. His quest had started when he’d heard an old smuggler’s tale that had been passed from one pirate’s hairy face to another pirate’s hairy ear. Like all stories that aren’t written on paper, the tale had become as long as it was broad. But Captain Calico Kettle wanted the bare bones, with not a gram of a lie to fatten up the truth of it. And an old smuggler told him that he had proof that such an island did exist.
He’d whizzed and whirled his words into a sea fret until the captain snarled, “Where’s this proof? Show me the proof, you old bilge rat!” and the smuggler had brought out from his pantaloons a small chest that was chained to the wrist of what he called his wicked wooden hook.
“In here,” he said. “In here is the proof.”
Captain Calico Kettle was not a patient man and with a single blow of his cutlass had taken the wicked wooden hook and the chest and skedaddled back to the Kettle Black. There in his cabin he opened the chest, only to find a book full of pesky words that wouldn’t stay still. He shouted at the scallywags, but it did no good. He called the boatswain, the powder monkey, and the cabin boy but none of them, or indeed any other member of his scurvy crew, could read the book, either.
Captain Calico Kettle had an idea. “We’ll have to kidnap some landlubber who can read,” he said.
Three days later, through his spyglass he spotted a cruise liner. The captain of the cruise liner, seeing the Kettle Black, skull and crossbones flying, bearing down on him, made the sensible decision to abandon ship. He made sure all the passengers and crew escaped unharmed in the lifeboats.
All, that is, except Septimus Plank. Septimus was a handsome young man who had trained to be a pastry chef and this was his first job, baking cakes and pastries for the passengers’ tea. He had been so busy making cream puffs that he hadn’t realized the cruise liner had been boarded by pirates. Septimus was extremely small and afterward he thought that his lack of height might have been the reason he’d been overlooked by his crewmates.
Three-Legged Bill, the boatswain of the Kettle Black, held poor Septimus upside down and shouted to Captain Calico Kettle.
“Shall I throw him overboard, Cap’n?”
“Yes,” said the captain. “He’s too puny to make a pirate.”
But just then a book fell out of Septimus’s pocket.
“Hold hard there, Bill,” said Captain Calico Kettle. He picked up the book and opened it. Then he crouched and peered into Septimus’s upside-down face. “What’s your name, lad?”
“S-Septimus Plank, sir.”
“Can you read all these pesky words that jump about as fast as fleas?”
“Y-yes, sir,” said Septimus. “They are recipes. I’m a pastry chef.”
“Take him to the galley,” ordered the captain.
Pastry making is not a skill that is in much demand when cooking for a whole load of greedy pirates, but what saved Septimus was the oldest trick in the book: He could read.
5
So it was that Septimus Plank found himself in the galley of the Kettle Black among the hens and the sacks of potatoes, doing his best to boil an egg for the captain’s breakfast on a rolling sea with a storm brewing.
It should be said that for such a strong, burly man, Captain Calico Kettle was a very fussy eater. He would only eat a soft-boiled egg in the morning, with buttery, toasty soldiers to dip into it. His boiled egg had to be just right. It could not be too hard and it must not, on any account, ever be too runny. The trouble is that it’s near impossible to boil an egg to perfection without the use of an egg timer.
The minute Captain Calico Kettle saw Septimus carrying his breakfast tray, he snarled, showing his three gold teeth.
“It’d better be to my liking or else it will be the PLANK for you.”
He chuckled through his blue beard. He used his wooden hand to crack open the top of his egg. In went the spoon and out came the spoon. There was a moment’s silence.
Then he roared at Septimus in Tangerine, a language full of juicy words that only the nastiest pirates understand, although Septimus got the zest of what he was saying.
“It would help,” said Septimus, “if I had an egg timer.”
“An egg timer? What is an egg timer?” asked the captain.
Septimus tried to explain but Captain Calico Kettle raised his wooden hand to silence him. Etched on his palm were the words BE QUIET OR ELSE. The “ELSE” was hard to read, although the meaning of the hand gesture was clear to everyone.
“You’re no good at boiling eggs,” he yelled. “But if you can read this”—the captain picked up an old, dog-eared book that was lying beside the unloved egg—“then I won’t have you thrown to the sharks.”
Septimus read the book. It told of an island left off the map of the world, of sea dragons and mermaids. But the part that Captain Calico Kettle was most interested in was about a sea orchard and its golden apples.
“The orchard is seventy leagues beneath the waves, Captain,” said Septimus. “SEVENTY leagues,” he repeated.
“Don’t be a limp gumpit—no orchard grows below the waves,” bellowed the captain. “It’s those pesky words, they’re jiggling about to hide the truth. Read it again. Where is the island to be found, Septimus Plank?”
“The book says that on a moonless night, a red rogue wind rises between sea areas Fair Codsroes and Biscuit.”
“Then what? Go on, go on . . .”
“Then you have to find the storm —and sail into the red rogue wind.”
6
While everyone on the island was busy getting ready for the arrival of the Pap-a-naggy, Princess Albee sailed in on her yacht for the festival. She had lived here for a spell as a toad and had grown fond of the place. Now the spell had been broken and she was a princess again. She considered the island left off the map of the world her second home. She also wanted to say a proper thank-you to Dad, Mum, and Betsy, for without their help, and that of Mr. Tiger and the Gongalong acrobats, the moon might never have turned blue. Then Mr. Glory could not have made the Gongalong-berry wishable ice cream that broke the spell she’d been under. And she would still have been a toad with a very long tongue.
Betsy had seen the boat in the distance from her bedroom window and hoped it might be Mr. Tiger. She was a bit disappointed it wasn’t. Still, it was good to see Princess Albee again. Dad made special ice cream in honor of her visit. He called it Princess Pineapple Mango Delight.
“Delicious,” said Princess Albee, spooning the ice cream out of the tall glass. “This ice cream tastes of happy-ever-afters, rather than wishes.”
Mum swished her tail in the bucket of water and asked Princess Albee if she had found her happy-ever-after.
“Yes,” said Princess Albee.
“Have you met a prince?” asked Betsy.
“You don’t need a prince for a happy-ever-after,” said Mum.
“And it’s far harder than you think to meet the right prince,” said Princess Albee. “Most are frogs, and no amount of magic will change that.”
“That’s a pity,” said Betsy, who liked the idea of being invited to a royal wedding.
“It’s not important,” said Princess Albee to Betsy. “I’m very happy in my own ever-after.”
She wanted to know how Mum managed. “I mean, houses aren’t exactly designed for mermaids.”
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“We get along swimmingly,” said Mum. “I live in the sea. Alfonso and Betsy live above the café.”
Before Princess Albee left, she presented the Glorys with three gifts. For Dad, there was a French horn, for Mum, bright pink knitting needles, and for Betsy, a tiny gold seahorse on a chain to wear round her neck.
All too soon the sun rolled out of the hot lazy sky down into the sea for a quick dip before it retired for the night.
And Betsy, tucked up in her bed, said dreamily to herself, “Maybe tomorrow, Mr. Tiger will be here.”
7
Thursday—being the day that follows Wednesday, whether it wants to or not—arrived, and into the harbor sailed Mr. Tiger’s blue-and-white-striped ship. Mr. Tiger stood at the prow waving, and as soon as the gangplank was lowered, Betsy ran up it to greet him. Mr. Tiger lifted her off her feet.
“I’ve missed you, Mr. Tiger,” she said.
“And I have missed you, Betsy K. Glory,” said Mr. Tiger. “Did you receive my postcard?”
“Yes, I did. But what does it mean?”
“That is an excellent question.”
Betsy took his paw and led him to the tall windy house.
Dad had moved a bathtub into the café and Mum sat there knitting with her bright pink knitting needles.
Mr. Tiger purred. “A gift from Princess Albee, I take it.”
“Yes,” said Mum, carefully picking up a stitch she’d dropped.
Betsy hadn’t a clue why Princess Albee thought Mum might want to knit. She was not a knitting kind of mum.
“Have you ever knitted before?” Betsy asked.
“No,” said Mum. “I haven’t had the right type of needles before.”
Mr. Tiger, Betsy, and the Sea Dragon Page 1
