The Forgotten Map

The Forgotten Map

Titles available in the Pie Rats series

(in reading order):

The Forgotten Map

The King's Key

The Island of Destiny

The Trophy of Champions

For my parents, Robin and Lis Stelzer,

who raised a mischief of rats.

First published by Daydream Press, Brisbane, Australia, 2013

This electronic version published 2015

Text and illustrations copyright © Dr Cameron Stelzer 2013

Illustrations are watercolour and pen on paper

No part of this book may be reproduced electronically, verbally or in print without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

The author acknowledges the assistance of The Regional Arts Development Fund. The RADF is a Queensland Government through Arts Queensland and Logan City Council partnership to support local arts and culture.

ISBN: 978-0-9942486-0-2

National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication Entry

Author: Stelzer, Cameron, 1977 –

Title: The Forgotten Map / by Cameron Stelzer

ISBN: 978-0-9942486-0-2 (eBook.)

Series: Stelzer, Cameron, 1977 – Pie Rats; bk. 1

 Target audience: For primary school age.

Subjects: Rats – Juvenile fiction. Pirates – Juvenile fiction.

Dewey number: A823.4

Digital edition distributed by

Port Campbell Press

www.portcampbellpress.com.au

Conversion by
Winking Billy

In every adventure, the moment will come when the hero is faced with a choice –

Attack or surrender, run or hide, set sail or anchor.

The right choice will save him.

The wrong choice will seal his doom.

He will always have two options.

Sometimes he has another, a hidden option waiting to be discovered.

It may seem simple, it may seem absurd, but when all else fails, it may be the key to his survival …

Anso Winterbottom

Explorer, Discoverer and Adventurer

This was a storm.

It wasn't a warm sun shower on a spring afternoon. It wasn't the soft drizzle of winter rain. It was the drenching downpour of a tropical cyclone.

A small boat drifted helplessly on the night sea. Its sail hung in tatters. It disappeared into the water with every passing wave before bobbing up again in a shower of spray. These were giant waves for a tiny boat.

A mother sat cradling her crying infant while two others battled the storm. Every crashing wave meant another bucket to bail. All they could do was drift, stay afloat and hope.

Through the waterfall of rain falling from the sky, a faint light appeared. It was lantern light, warm and inviting. It grew brighter as it moved closer. Soon more lanterns emerged, shining like angelic fireflies on a rescue mission. Surrounded by the lights, the dark silhouette of a ship appeared.

Cries of relief rang out from the small boat, and through the deafening noise of the storm, a reply was heard.

At the moment of hope, the storm intensified its fury. Waves hammered the small boat from all directions. Rescue was close, yet disaster seemed closer.

With the mighty crash of an enormous wave, a small figure was swept head first into the churning water. He vanished beneath the waves.

For a moment there was peace. No sound of the raging storm above, no blinding sting of the salty wind, just the cold calm world beneath the surface. His body relaxed as he drifted into unconsciousness and slowly sank into the dark unknown.

As the blackness closed in, his mind began to wander through distant memories:
diving with turtles in aqua
lagoons … rolling down hills with armadillos
…
soaring through the air with
f
lying foxes
…

His mind hovered on the last memory. It was all he could see. It was sunny, he was happy and he was soaring through the air.

Was it trying to tell him something? What did it mean, soaring through the air?

Then he understood. It wasn't what he was doing that mattered, it was where he was – in the air.

He needed air.

The realisation came to him with a searing pain in his lungs and a throbbing in his head. The pain woke his body. Suddenly he was fighting for survival.

He frantically tried to guess which way was up – all around was darkness. As panic set in, he began to kick his legs. His lungs burned with pain as he moved through the water, but the pressure in his head began to lighten – he was headed in the right direction.

Finally, his head pierced the surface of the water and the silence of the ocean was replaced by the roar of the storm.

His heaving lungs gasped for air.

He'd barely taken a breath when a wave smashed over him, filling his mouth with stinging salt water. Coughing and spluttering, he tried to wipe the water from his eyes before the next wave hit.

He looked around. His small boat was barely visible in the distance. But it was afloat. He swivelled his body and peered up … in horror. Towering over him, like a prehistoric monster, was the dark shape of the ship.

Before he had time to cry out, a wave struck him from behind and his body was thrown towards the hull of the ship. His head smashed into rough wooden boards with an agonising
THUD
. Splinters and barnacles dug into his arm. He felt the sleeve of his shirt tear from his body as he dropped backwards into the foaming surf.

With arms outstretched in surrender, he watched the lights of the ship swirl before his eyes. Everything became a blur.

Struggling to remain conscious, he felt strong arms reach down and grab hold of him. He was dragged from the ocean, hauled to safety. He felt the comforting hardness of the ship's deck beneath his limp body and the reassuring whispers of voices around him.

He tried to look up. Through the relentless rain, all he could see was one eye staring down at him. And with a whiff of stale pie, he heard two words yelled into the raging storm.

‘I PROMISE!'

Then his world went black.

In the Company of Rats

Wentworth awoke with a dull pain in his arm and a pounding in his head. Wearily, he opened his eyes and looked around.

He was in a sunlit cabin. The curtains surrounding a small porthole window were pulled back to reveal a cloudless morning sky. He heard the faint lapping of water against the ship's hull and felt the boat gently rocking from side to side.

All was calm.

The cabin was small but cosy, and would have appeared much larger if it weren't for the strange piles of books that ran from floor to ceiling.

From where he lay, Wentworth made out several titles in the pile closest to him:
Ailments and Illnesses
,
Art for Beginners,
Astronomical Navigation.
The next pile contained books starting with the letter
B
. There seemed to be a pile for every letter of the alphabet, all perfectly aligned, with their spines facing a wooden desk in the corner.

The strangest items in the cabin were not the bizarre book piles, but the objects leaning against its walls. Stacked in straight rows of matching colours was an array of giant coloured pencils. They covered the entire perimeter of the cabin – red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, pink. With the morning sunshine streaming in, Wentworth imagined he was lying in an ancient library at the very top of a rainbow.

CLOMP, patter, CLOMP.
The sound of approaching footsteps drew his attention from the room.

CLOMP, patter, CLOMP.
The footsteps stopped
.

With a soft creak, the door slowly opened to reveal a crooked white nose and two pink eyes. A scrawny albino rat in a green vest and spotted bandanna edged through the doorway. Wentworth immediately understood the reason for the peculiar footsteps. Occupying the place of a missing left leg was a giant red pencil.