The Trophy of Champions (14 page)

Taking Sabre's remark as a direct challenge, the other competitors hurried after him. Whisker interpreted Sabre's comment in an entirely different way. For him, it wasn't so much about winning the trophy as merely touching it.

He felt a sudden rush of excitement as he scurried up the steep plank. The rabbits were so busy preparing the ship for the voyage that not one of them stood guarding the trophy room.

… Seven, eight, nine,
Whisker counted, his eyes searching frantically for Gustave's sons.

…
Ten, eleven, twelve.
The coast was finally clear.

At the top of the gangplank, the other pirates turned right and headed towards the stern of the ship, Whisker slipped away to the left and made his way along the bulwark to the trophy room. With a final, cautious glance at the empty crow's-nest, he leapt through the darkened doorway.

For a moment he wondered what he was facing. Then, as his eyes adjusted to the blackness, he realised what he was looking at: an empty room. The darkness itself was a dead giveaway. There were no bright purple flames and there was no trophy.

Where has it gone?
Whisker thought in dismay, running his eyes over the crimson curtains in the room. He turned and stared through the open doorway. A faint purple glow lit up the distant sky.

Of course,
he gasped,
the bell tower.

He had the fleeting idea of diving into the water and swimming back to the island but the two rabbits standing watch on the pier convinced him otherwise. In the light of several dock lanterns, he realised they were both holding loaded slingshots, aimed directly at him.

Whisker gave them a friendly wave and exclaimed, ‘Whoops! That's not the toilet,' and quickly hurried off to join his teammates.

Despite the disappointment of the trophy room, Whisker was glad to be back at sea. The salty air and icy wind gave him renewed vigour and he stood at the bow of the ship, soaking up the dawn atmosphere.

The
Velvet Wave
sailed south, close to where Whisker had seen the
Black Shadow.
He was strangely comforted to know he was in such despicable company. With six crews of lawless pirates and a dozen trigger-happy rabbits, no ship would be foolish enough to consider an attack.

As the rising sun crept over the horizon, the
Velvet Wave
navigated past a barren, rocky island. The vast majority of the pirates were too engrossed in an all-girls card game between Penelope Pond Scum, Ruby and Tuffy to even notice the scenery.

Whisker's comment of ‘Great hand, Ruby,' earned him a filthy stare from the competitive rat, and Tuffy's subsequent remark of ‘Go talk to your snoring caterpillar buddy, or else …' had him quickly retreating to a quiet corner of the ship.

As the card game entered a two-way showdown between Ruby and Tuffy (which Tuffy eventually won by a single card), Baron Gustave altered his course and continued westward across a turbulent stretch of sea. In the distance, Whisker spotted a tiny island with pure white sand and a small jungle of trees. Horace, who'd been asleep the entire journey, suddenly woke up in his sleeping bag, looking extremely ill.

‘Shiver me sick buckets,' he groaned, trying to block out the sun with the shaft of his hook. ‘Who's shaking the tent?'

‘A large wave,' Pete droned.

‘What?' Horace cried, rolling out of his sleeping bag. ‘Has the athletes' village been hit by a tsunami?'

‘No, you bamboozled baboon!' Pete snapped. ‘We're on a ship.'

‘Oh,' Horace said, tapping the deck with his hook. ‘That would explain the hard ground.' He grabbed the side of the bulwark and slowly pulled himself to his feet.

‘Nice island,' he said, staring at the approaching landmass. ‘Do you think there'll be hula girls …?'

Horace had to wait until the ship had anchored and the pirates had all been ferried over to the island before he finally got his answer.

‘Ze Mystery Challenge is rather simple,' Gustave said to the assembled teams. ‘I am about to sail away, leaving you all marooned on zis deserted island.' There were several gasps and groans – most noticeably from Horace. Gustave stepped into his rowboat and pointed to a small spec of land on the horizon. ‘Ze first team zat can reach me on ze neighbouring rocky island vill vin ze event. How you get zere is entirely up to you.'

And without further explanation, he picked up the oars and began rowing back to the
Velvet Wave.

Wasting no time, the Pie Rats gathered in a small huddle on the beach to discuss tactics.

‘Our first task is to build a boat to withstand the turbulent crossing,' the Captain said, taking charge. ‘We can be on the rocky island by nightfall if we focus solely on locating the right materials for our escape vessel.'

‘That's easier said than done,' Whisker said, glancing across at the small forest. ‘The wooden boat I built with my father took months to complete, not hours.'

‘What about a raft?' Horace ventured. ‘We made a log raft on the Island of Kings and it only took a few minutes to build –
'

‘– and even less time to fall apart,' Pete muttered.

‘Oh, stop it!' Horace scolded. ‘The raft was perfectly fine until we ran into a school of fresh water piranhas and then tumbled down a waterfall.' He swept his hook in an arc over the sea. ‘I can assure you there is zero chance of that happening here.'

‘True,' Pete considered. ‘But there are hungry sharks, killer whales and six metre waves to contend with.'

‘Rotten pies to rickety rafts,' Horace said, quickly losing his enthusiasm.

‘Have you considered page six hundred and seventy-two?' Ruby said abruptly from the outskirts of the group.

Six heads turned to her in surprise.

‘What?' she snapped, still fuming over her card game defeat. ‘I've done my homework. There's an entire section on easy-to-make fishing vessels in there. I presume one of you packed our
reading material
.'

‘Aye,' Pete said in a hushed voice. ‘Fred's your rat.'

‘Might I suggest we find a more private location to review our options,' the Captain said, gesturing to a clump of palm trees at the end of the beach. ‘Smudge, you're on spy duty. Let me know what the other teams are plotting – and stay out of tongue's reach of those toads.'

Smudge gave the Captain a four-armed salute and buzzed off down the beach. The Pie Rats set off in the opposite direction and were soon surrounded by coconut palms, pandanus trees and dense clumps of bamboo. Fred removed the book from his backpack and lay it on a sunny patch of sand.

‘Page six hundred and seventy two, was it?' the Captain murmured, opening the book two-thirds of the way through.

In the light of the morning sun, the white pages slowly transformed into a detailed ocean map with the title,
The
Crumbling Rock Islands
. The number at the bottom of the page read
660.

‘Close,' the Captain chuckled, flicking forward twelve pages.

The crew were soon staring at a double page of canoes, catamarans and miniature sail boats.

‘So, which one do we build?' Horace asked, overwhelmed by the variety of vessels on offer.

Ruby pointed to a sketch of a long canoe with a float attached to one side and a sail raised above it. Its title read
Outrigger.

‘That's our boat,' she said confidently. ‘It's quick to assemble, easy to paddle, and the float will help stabilise the hull in rough waters.'

‘And I have the perfect sail,' Horace added, holding up the corner of his sleeping bag.

‘It's a little on the small side,' Pete said, peering down his nose at the striped fabric. ‘But I'm sure we can attach a few T-shirts to increase the surface area.'

Fred wasted no time in removing his huge red shirt and handed it to Pete. Horace grinned at Whisker, then stripped off his own shirt. Awkwardly, Whisker followed suit.

‘Now this is desert island living!' Horace exclaimed, dragging Whisker into the forest. ‘Come on. You can help me cut down some bamboo. We'll need a hollow stalk for the floatation device, a straight section for the mast and a couple of shorter lengths for the supports. How sharp is your sword …?'

While Horace and Whisker took care of the bamboo, Ruby, Fred and the Captain went in search of a hollow log for the canoe. Pete stayed near the beach, plaiting stringy pandanus leaves together to form short lengths of rope.

The only suitable log the Pie Rats discovered was located deep in the forest and it took the combined efforts of all six rats to roll it to the beach. On their way back they spotted several cane toads carrying the flimsy base of a raft made from sticks and thin stalks of bamboo.

‘I doubt that will survive the crossing,' Pete whispered when the toads were out of earshot. ‘The waves will smash it to pieces before they're even past the breakers.'

‘I suggest we focus on our own vessel,' the Captain said, straining to get the log through the sand. ‘Do we have all the materials we need?'

‘Aye, aye, Captain,' Horace replied, struggling to see over the log. ‘The bamboo is waiting on the shore.'

‘What about the paddles?' Ruby asked. ‘Did anyone bother to think about them?'

‘I did,' Whisker replied. ‘I collected a pile of coconuts after we cut down the bamboo.'

‘Coconuts?' Ruby huffed, giving the heavy log a firm kick with her foot. ‘I said paddles, not provisions!'

Whisker pretended he hadn't heard her and continued pushing.

‘Well, apprentice?' she snapped. ‘Are you going to explain yourself or not?'

‘Err, sure, Ruby,' he said timidly. ‘I was thinking we could cut the coconut shells in half and attached them to the ends of our scissor swords to form cupped paddles. We could drink the coconut milk to stay hydrated and save the rest of the coconut for the crossing.'

‘Pure genius,' Horace exclaimed. ‘You've thought of everything.'

Ruby softened slightly.

‘I could do with a glass of coconut milk,' she said, almost managing a smile. And for a moment, all the hostility, all the angst, and all the awkwardness was gone and Ruby and Whisker were simply two friends on a beach, working side by side to build a boat.

Whisker wished it would stay that way forever.

Do we really have to leave?
he thought to himself as he handed Ruby a shell full of coconut milk.
Life here would be so simple – and so safe
.
We could build a shelter instead of a boat. We could eat bananas and swim and forget everything …

But Whisker knew he could never forget – not the cyclone and certainly not his family. Not even the most beautiful paradise would ever feel like home without all the people he cared about by his side. ‘Home' meant familiar faces, not perfect places.

As he skewered a coconut shell on the end of a scissor sword, he wished they were with him now – his family, his friends, his paradise
.