cannon with another. With two more arms he made an explosion gesture. Whisker immediately understood.
‘They’re cannonballs!’ he exclaimed.
‘Exactly,’ Horace said with a wide grin. ‘They don’t call us Pie Rats for nothing.’ He beckoned for Whisker to follow him to the nearest pile of pies. ‘We have two categories of pie projectiles, long range and close range. You are currently looking at the long range variety. They are triple-baked by Fred and left in the sun until the pastry is harder than an armadillo in armour. They won’t disintegrate in the air over long distances and can tear a hole through a sail.’
He walked over to the second pile of pies. ‘Over here, we have everyone’s favourite, the Close Range Chaos.’
Whisker took a step towards the pies and caught a whiff of something truly disgusting. He decided not to venture any closer.
‘Close range pies,’ Horace continued, ‘are child-friendly projectiles that disintegrate in the air, showering our enemies in a stinky, sticky slop.’
‘Child-friendly?’ Whisker scoffed. ‘You’d have to be a skunk with a blocked nose to find that friendly.’
‘It stinks, but it’s safe,’ Horace said. ‘As Pie Rats, we can handle a few drops of putrid pie filling on our sleeves, but to our enemies, it’s utter chaos. Some victims think they’ve been sprayed with acid. Some think their gizzards have been blasted out of their stomachs. Others think we’ve used our cannons as toilets. But whatever they believe, it’s the quickest way to send them jumping overboard for a much-needed bath.’
Horace chuckled and tapped the side of a pie with his hook. It effortlessly broke through the soft, green pastry.
‘Don’t you just love mould?’ he mused. ‘I keep these pies in the bottom of the ship where it’s damp and dark.’
As he removed his hook, a slow stream of grey-green slime oozed out. Whisker screwed up his mouth and groaned, ‘What on earth is that?’
Fred leant down and took a big sniff. He paused and considered, ‘It’s seven months old.’
‘Good vintage,’ Horace chimed in.
Fred sniffed again and frowned miserably. ‘Triple garlic with Brussels sprouts and blue-vein cheese. Two dozen pies and no one wanted any.’
‘Cheer up,’ Horace said, patting Fred on the back. ‘If all your pies were perfect, we’d have no ammunition. Your worst pie is our best weapon.’
Fred’s face lit up with a beaming smile. Horace poured a small amount of gunpowder into the barrel of the cannon and packed it down with a ramrod.
‘We’ll start with the long range practice,’ he said. ‘I’m not one for rules, but it’s essential that you look before you fire. You never know what could be in your path.’ He wedged a pie into the cannon, inserted a fuse and adjusted the angle. ‘You also have to consider the wind direction and the distance to your target. Pete has a formula for it, but I rely on experience.’
Looking ahead, he yelled, ‘All clear. Ready, Smudge … FIRE!’
Smudge bobbed up with a flaming match and lit the fuse.
Horace counted down as the fuse sizzled, ‘Three … two … one …’ KABOOM! The cannon exploded.
The pie shot into the air, veered to its left and then splashed into a wave a short distance away.
‘Rotten pies to crash landings,’ Horace said in dismay. ‘I got the angle all wrong … Oh well, let’s see what you can do.’
To Horace’s surprise, Whisker was a natural. His first shot soared in a graceful arc through the sky before wobbling into the ocean twice as far away as Horace’s attempt.
‘Where in the blazing britches did you learn to do that?’ Horace exclaimed.
‘The circus, of course,’ Whisker replied. ‘I was friends with the Armadillo Cannonballs. I sometimes got to fire their cannon during performances.’ He squinted out to sea to where his pie had landed. ‘With a few adjustments, it could go even further …’
Fred shook his head. ‘No one shoots better than that. Not even Pete with his fancy maths.’
‘The angle of the cannon isn’t the problem,’ Whisker said. ‘It’s the pie – and don’t worry, Fred, it’s nothing to do with your cooking. Did you see how my pie wobbled off course before it crashed?’
‘Yes,’ Horace replied. ‘All the long shots do that.’
‘Well, that’s the problem,’ Whisker said. ‘In the circus, the armadillos would often sway in one direction or the other.’
‘And what did they do?’ Horace enquired.
‘They used something a pie doesn’t have,’ Whisker said, pointing behind his back.
‘A tail!’ Fred cried. ‘Are we going to make pies with tails?’
Whisker pondered, ‘A tail only works if you can move it from side to side … We need something that doesn’t require movement.’
‘You’re starting to sound like Pete,’ Fred groaned.
‘Sorry, Fred,’ Whisker apologised. ‘I’ll try to give you an example to make it clear.’
Whisker’s eyes darted out to the horizon for any signs of sea birds. There was no activity against the morning sky. He lowered his gaze to the ocean as a pair of dolphins splashed gracefully from the surf.
‘There,’ he said pointing with his paw.
‘A dolphin’s tail!’ Fred exclaimed.
‘Not a tail,’ Whisker clarified, ‘a fin. Look at their dorsal fins.’
‘We’re not going to catch one, are we?’ Fred asked in horror.
‘Of course not,’ Whisker laughed. ‘We can make the fins out of pastry.’
‘How many do we need?’ Horace asked excitedly. ‘Fred can start baking this afternoon.’
‘Dolphins have three fins,’ Whisker observed, ‘so maybe three fins per pie …’
‘Wow!’ Fred gasped. ‘You are as smart as Pete.’
‘He’s smarter,’ Horace whispered. ‘Pete gets his answers from books. Whisker uses his head.’
Whisker blushed. ‘The dolphins deserve most of the credit.’
The rest of the long range practice ran smoothly, despite having nothing at which to aim. There were no small islands or rocks in sight, and Whisker wasn’t about to start aiming at dolphins.
Pete, Ruby and the Captain emerged from the navigation room to check on Whisker’s progress, but soon lost interest in the demonstration
