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.
The white rat directed his eyes to the collection of books and pencils around the room. Satisfied that everything was in order, he turned his attention to the bed.
‘Oh,’ he sniffled, clearly surprised to see Wentworth staring at him. ‘I see you’re awake. I’ll go and fetch the Captain then.’
Before Wentworth had time to respond, the pencil rat disappeared out of the room with a patter, CLOMP, patter, shouting, ‘Captain! Captain! The little squib is finally awake.’
It wasn’t long before Wentworth had more visitors. They filed in one by one and stood in an arc around the bed. There were five rats in total, and one large blowfly. Wentworth pulled the covers up to his chin as the curious strangers peered down at him.
‘Do you think he can understand us?’ the pencil rat asked.
An extremely short rat with grey-blue fur and a purple hat prodded Wentworth with a sharp object.
‘Ouch!’ Wentworth cried. ‘Of course I can understand you. I’m a rat.’
The short rat pulled away and Wentworth realised the sharp object was a hook attached to the end of his right arm.
‘For Ratbeard’s sake, give the boy some room,’ said a distinguished-looking rat with black fur. ‘He’s not an animal!’
‘Well, technically he is, Captain,’ the pencil rat mumbled.
The Captain straightened his black eye patch and looked down at Wentworth.
‘Sorry about that. My crew gets a little over-excited at times.’
Wentworth nodded and stared back at the hook.
‘Do you like it?’ the short rat asked. ‘I’ve got a knife attachment, a fork attachment and even a skeleton key attachment. If you were a pirate, you could have your own.’
Wentworth felt his tail go rigid with shock.
‘Y-y-you’re pirates?’ he stammered. ‘All of you?’
‘Every one of us,’ hissed a caramel-coloured rat wearing a crimson eye patch. ‘Do you have a problem with a female pirate?’
‘Yes,’ Wentworth gasped, staring back at her accusing green eye. ‘I mean no … I mean … I don’t have a problem with females being pirates. I just have a problem with pirates … in general.’
She narrowed her eye and glared at him.
‘Oh dear,’ Wentworth moaned, pulling the covers up to his eyes. ‘Are you going to throw me overboard?’
‘Why would we do that?’ the pencil rat snapped. ‘We risked our necks rescuing you and you’ve been sleeping in my bed for the past two days. Why would we want to throw you back again?’
‘Because that’s what pirates do!’ Wentworth exclaimed.
‘We’re not just common everyday pirates,’ the short rat boasted.
‘So what kind of pirates are you?’ Wentworth asked in confusion.
‘Write it down for him,’ the Captain said to the pencil rat.
The pencil rat scribbled something with his leg and the Captain turned back to Wentworth. ‘You can read, can’t you?’
‘Of course I can read,’ Wentworth replied. ‘Everyone can read.’
‘Fred can’t,’ the short rat said, pointing behind him to the most enormous rat Wentworth had ever seen.
The rat’s teeth protruded, his shoulders were huge and hunched and his cauliflower-shaped chef’s hat made him look even bigger. But the most striking part of his appearance was not his blue anchor tattoo or his safety pin earring, but his gigantic left eye. He reminded Wentworth of an oversized goldfish.
Wentworth gulped and waited for the giant to flatten him like a pancake, or at least stare him to death.
The giant rat did neither. He simply opened his mouth and rumbled, ‘We are rats. We like pies. That’s why people call us the Pie Rats.’
At once Wentworth understood and his tail began to relax.
‘I like pies, too,’ he squeaked.
‘Fred is our chef,’ the short rat explained. ‘He makes the best pies. You should try one. I’m sure you’re hungry after nearly dying in a cyclone and sleeping for two days …’
‘Horace, please!’ the Captain interrupted.
