The Girl, the Cat and the Navigator

by Matilda Woods

  The rest of the men copied the first. They grabbed lanterns and held them against the tentacles. One by one the tentacles dropped away until there were only two left.

  “That’s the way, men,” Captain Holm cried. “We’ll be free of this monster yet!”

  No sooner had the words left the captain’s mouth when disaster struck. One of the men, eager to burn a tentacle wrapped around the forward mast, accidentally burned the mast instead. The white cloth exploded into red flames. Scraps of burning material fluttered down on to the deck. To Barnacles, it had looked like the entire sky was burning. When the cloth landed on the deck the wood caught alight.

  The men tried everything to put out the flames. They doused them with seawater, smothered them with blankets and even tried to stomp the fire out with their feet. But it was no use. The flames kept burning. The whole ship went up. And, just after dawn, the forward mast snapped and fell on Barnacles’ head.

  Barnacles’ hair rose up at the memory. He didn’t want to die, not for a ninth and final time. And despite his negative feelings towards some of the crew, he didn’t want them to die either. He could see only one path forward. The ship needed a crew to get it back to Nordlor safely, not just a cat. So, instead of turning the golden wheel away from the crew, he turned it towards them.

  Barnacles scaled the masts. He spun the wheel. He moved faster than thirty men. He darted so quickly about the ship that he was just a ginger blur. By the time he reached the crew, the monster had sunk into the sea and they were treading water. Two men were helping to keep Olf afloat. Luckily, the flames which had engulfed the creature had also warmed the sea. The ice had melted, but it was still cold enough to kill them if they stayed in for long enough.

  Barnacles lowered a whaleboat into the ocean. The captain, as custom, climbed in first. He turned back to the men still treading water. Instead of reaching out for Haroyld or Peder or the flailing Olf, he held his hand towards his daughter.

  “In you come, Oona,” he said. “You deserve it.” He reached out and, with his large, weathered hand, hauled her out of the sea.

  “FORGET THE WHALE!”

  Birds chirped in the green fields surrounding Turnip Castle. The day was bright and sunny, and the smell of southern blossoms hung heavy in the air.

  “I bet Oona wishes she had come with us now,” Sissel said. “She probably hasn’t seen the sun in weeks.”

  “In months,” Berit corrected.

  “In a whole year,” the twins proclaimed.

  They were sitting down to breakfast in the Great Hall with their mother. Their future husband was absent: he was in the eastern wing counting all his money. But while the Britts may have been enjoying the weather they still weren’t enjoying the food.

  “This is the third day in a row we’ve had to eat cold turnip porridge for breakfast,” Ina said as she used her spoon to push the grey lumps around her bowl.

  “And it’s not going to get any better,” Onka wailed. “One of the cooks said we’re having turnip salad for lunch.”

  Only one of the Britt sisters didn’t complain about the food. Two days earlier, while she was walking around the castle grounds, Trine had met a boy her own age called Hermann who also hated turnips. Hermann was an apprentice gardener and in his spare time, when he wasn’t tending to the turnips, he was secretly growing his own patch of carrots and swedes. He had been sharing these with Trine every day before lunch. Trine hadn’t told her sisters about this secret garden. They ate so much that all the carrots and swedes would be gone in a day.

  To keep their minds off the terrible food, the older Britt sisters started to talk about the mysterious northern wing. Since seeing the outside of it three days before they hadn’t stopped talking about what could be hidden inside. Each sister had their own theory.

  “I bet it’s full of treasure,” Sissel said. “After all, every castle has a treasure room, and the prince didn’t mention one of those during the tour.”

  “I think it’s a swimming pool,” Berit said. “I’ve heard they’re very popular in the South.”

  “Me too,” Ina agreed.

  “I bet it just holds more turnips,” the twins said mournfully as they shovelled more cold porridge into their mouths.

  “It can’t be that,” Trine said. “If it held turnips we’d be able to smell them leeching through the walls.”

  “Well, if you’re so smart,” Plonka said, “what do you think is inside?”

  Trine paused for a moment before she answered. Along with sharing carrots and swedes, Hermann had shared with her a little bit about the northern wing. He hadn’t said much, for fear he would get in trouble, but he had said enough to make Trine worry. Hermann had said that he didn’t want a nice person like Trine to end up inside the northern wing. When Trine had asked him why, Hermann had refused to answer.

  “I’m not sure,” Trine finally said. She knew that if she mentioned Hermann or his warning, her sisters would tell everyone. And Hermann had been so nice to her, she didn’t want to get him in trouble. “I just have a feeling that something bad might be inside.”

  “Don’t be silly, Trine,” their mother said. “Why would the prince keep something bad inside his castle? I bet Sissel’s right. I bet it’s full of treasure.”

  “See,” Sissel said with a smug smile.

  “But how can you know for sure?” Trine asked.

  “I have a sense for these things,” Sissel said. “And,” she added a few seconds later, “I heard one of the maids speaking about it.”

  Everyone at the table stopped eating and looked towards Sissel. “What did she say?” they all said at once.

  “She said that the northern wing is full of priceless treasures that Prince Turnip and his family have been collecting for almost one hundred years. And I bet he’s not letting us see it until the wedding because it’s going to be our wedding gift. He’s going to split all the treasure between the six of us. We’re not just going to be princesses. We’re going to be the richest princesses in all of the South.”

  While her sisters’ faces lit up with greed, Trine’s remained creased with worry. Even though she had known Hermann for only two days, she trusted him more than her sisters. There was something nice about him. Something sweet about him. In a way, he reminded her of Oona. She had a feeling that out of everyone in Turnip Castle – out of all the maids and cooks and the prince himself – Hermann was the only one telling her the truth.

  Oona leant over the side of the crow’s nest and looked down at the ship below. Little pools of flickering light lit the deck. The day after they escaped the island creature, the darkness of true winter had hit. The sun stopped rising in the morning, and every day and night grew black. To mark dawn a bell now tolled below deck, and lanterns and stars became the only source of light. Oona pulled her eyes away from the ship and looked south.

  A week had passed since they escaped the island creature. No one knew for sure if it had died from the flames or if it had only been injured. In case it was the latter and the wicked creature came after them, they were taking turns keeping watch.

  From where she stood in the crow’s nest, Oona felt like the queen of the world. She imagined that if she looked hard enough she could see all the way back to Nordlor and perhaps even further beyond. If she had a telescope she might have even been able to see the South. She wondered what her sisters were doing and if Trine was happy down there. She hoped, very much, that she was.

  Oona was nearing the end of her shift when she spotted something in the darkness beside the ship. A creature was swimming beneath the waves. Her heart skipped a beat and she went to scream the alarm. But then she realized something that made her heart race even faster.

  The creature swimming alongside the ship wasn’t like the one they had just escaped. Instead of murky green – the kind of colour that sucked all other colours in – this creature was shimmering, glistening, twinkling beneath the water, like it was making light instead of taking it away.

  As soo
n as Oona’s eyes fell upon the brightness, she knew what the creature was. She slid down the mast – even faster than Barnacles – and raced below deck to get Haroyld.

  “Look,” Oona said, leaning over the side of the ship. The navigator stood beside her. “It’s a nardoo.”

  Oona pointed towards the water. A giant creature – four times the length of their ship and at least twice as wide – crashed through the waves.

  Thousands of scales lined its back. They twinkled and shimmered like ribbons of smoke and twine in the dark.

  “I think you’re right,” Haroyld said. “It’s wonderful.”

  “Magical,” Oona replied. “Even more magical than I ever imagined.”

  Oona was helping Haroyld up on to the rail when she heard a voice behind them.

  “Magical?” a man said. “What’s magical?” He walked past them and stared into the water. “What in the sea is that?” he cried.

  “It’s a nardoo,” Oona said.

  “A nardoo?” The man smirked. He looked ready to mock her for believing in a children’s tale, but then a different thought came upon him. He turned from the sea and ran across the deck. A minute later, all the men of the Plucky Leopard raced over.

  “This better be good,” they mumbled.

  The man who first saw the nardoo led the others toward the starboard side. The Plucky Leopard keeled to the right as they leant over the rail and peered down into the water.

  “Would you look at that?” one of the men said.

  “Why I never,” said another.

  “What’s all this commotion?” yelled a third. It was Oona’s father. He had been downstairs in his cabin when the ship veered to the side. He had raced up to see what had caused it. “Have we hit an iceberg?”

  “It’s not that, Captain,” said one of the men. “Oona spotted something in the water.”

  The captain’s eyes jumped with delight. He turned to his daughter and asked, “Is it a whale?”

  Oona shook her head. “It’s even better.”

  Curious to see what could be better than a whale, Oona’s father crossed the deck and peered over the side of his ship. A silence fell amongst the men while the captain studied the ocean below. It was finally broken when Oona’s father turned around, smiled in the midday darkness and said, “Forget the whale, boys. We’ve got something bigger to catch!”

  THE HUNT

  At the captain’s order, the Plucky Leopard took chase. The ship moved slowly through the water at first, and it looked like the nardoo would escape. But then the wind picked up and billowed the sails. The Plucky Leopard surged through the sea, like it was a creature of the ocean itself, adorned with fins and a tail of its own.

  As they hunted the nardoo across the water, the men on board took turns telling tales about the creature. Only their tales were not at all like the one Oona had read in her birthday book.

  “The nardoos did not make the North. They destroyed it,” one of the men said as he tightened the forward mast. “They ate all the fish in the sea, tore apart all of the ships and killed all of the men inside.”

  “Some say that’s what sunk the Wandering Walrus,” said another. “It chased the ship for weeks and then, finally, it closed in and ripped the great whaler apart.”

  “I heard that its heart is made of gold,” whispered another. “Just one nardoo heart could make all of us rich.”

  “They say,” said another, “that whoever kills a nardoo will have good luck for seventy years. And if you drink its blood you will gain the strength of one thousand men.”

  “That’s not true,” Oona said to the men. “The nardoos aren’t like that at all. They’re good and they’re kind and they make the North the North.”

  The men around Oona laughed. Only Haroyld agreed with her.

  “Right you are, Oona,” he said sadly. “Right you are.”

  It was when Oona heard the tone of Haroyld’s voice that she knew for certain what her father planned to do. She had come north to see a nardoo, but her father wanted to kill it.

  “I think we should leave it alone,” Oona said. “I think we should let it go.”

  The men around her laughed again. They turned their backs and continued to move the ship forward.

  Even with the wind on their side it took a long time for the Plucky Leopard to close in on the nardoo. Several hours passed before the ship grew close enough to launch the whaleboats. Oona was boarding the fourth whaleboat with Haroyld when her father called her towards the first.

  “Tonight you sit with me,” he said. A lantern from the deck had been tied to the front of the whaleboat so they could see the way ahead. The other four boats shimmered in the light cast from their own flames.

  Oona followed her father into the first whaleboat. When she stepped inside she saw a large net and a giant harpoon. A sense of dread settled over her.

  With the weight of seven people weighing it down, the whaleboat did not rock as it was lowered into the sea.

  “Row! Row! Row!” Oona’s father yelled when the boat touched the waves. “Row hard to port!”

  The first whaleboat moved out into the open sea. Four others followed. The captain’s eyes grew wild and crazy, like a fox on the hunt. Excitement made his mouth foam like the sea before a storm. Oona did not look like her father at all. She looked scared and lonely and sad.

  “Father?” Oona said as they rowed deeper into the night. She tugged on the coat of his jacket until he turned around.

  “What is it, Oona?” he said.

  At first, Oona didn’t say anything; her words got caught in her throat. She knew her father would not like what she had to say, but she also knew she would not like herself if she didn’t say it. Eventually, she swallowed her fear and said, “Please don’t, Father. Please don’t do it. Let the nardoo live.”

  As the words left her mouth Oona felt a glimmer of hope. She knew her father never would have listened to her in the past, but perhaps now, after all the time they had spent together, he would.

  But she was wrong. The captain pushed her hand away, told her to keep quiet and turned back to face the murky night.

  The five whaleboats moved swiftly west. The light of their lanterns did little to pierce the night that loomed dark around them. But then, other lights appeared up ahead. Beneath the waves, the nardoo’s scales glistened. The light they cast – gold, silver and purple – stretched from the creature’s back and up into the sky. The lights rose higher and higher until they looked like they brushed against the moon itself. As she tilted her head back to watch, Oona gasped. The nardoos did not swim beneath the Northern Lights. They made them.

  The closer the whaleboats got to the creature the brighter the lights in the sky became. Soon, night appeared as bright as day. In the newly made light a white mountain appeared.

  “What’s that?” Oona said. Despite the brightness in the sky, the air remained cold. When she spoke, her breath left her mouth as ice and fell with a rattle beside her feet.

  “An iceberg,” her father whispered.

  Oona had expected her father to be worried: sailors hated icebergs. But his eyes widened with excitement, not fear.

  “Go round!” Oona’s father yelled towards the boats. “Go wide!” he screamed. “We’ll block it off. Trap it! Remove all chances of escape!”

  The whaleboats spread out around the nardoo. Soon, the creature loomed before them.

  “Quiet now,” the captain whispered. “We do not want to gally the beast.”

  The men stopped rowing. A silence filled the air. Then, a gentle humming sounded from beneath the water. It made the surface of the sea ripple. The sound made Oona feel old and young: like she had lived for one million years and would live for one million more. It made her feel like she was at home even though she was one thousand miles out to sea. But most of all, it made her feel frightened of what the men around her were about to do.

  Slowly, with their oars only just brushing the water, the boats closed in. The captain picked up the
harpoon and raised it to his shoulder. Then, before Oona could cry out for him to stop, he fired into the night. The harpoon sailed through the air and landed with a splash in the water. Oona’s father had missed.

  The captain hauled the harpoon back in. He was preparing to launch it for a second time when his target moved.

  The nardoo reared up out of the water. It rose higher and higher until it looked even larger than the iceberg looming behind it. The creature paused for a moment. The lights in the sky stilled. And then, slowly at first but then very fast, it fell back down.

  The nardoo landed on the water with a monstrous slap. The ocean rose up around it, and a wave higher than the Plucky Leopard raced towards them.

  All the crew, including Oona, stared in horror as the wave rolled closer. It was so large and so black that it blocked out the stars and then the moon and then the Northern Lights. Soon, all they could see was the flickering of five small lanterns and all they could hear was water roaring towards them. Then, the lanterns went out with a silent hiss, and they were engulfed by the wave.

  The force of the wave pushed the whaleboats beneath the ocean. Water flooded inside. Oona felt the boat tip. She grabbed hold of the edge and held on as tightly as she could. Just as the boat was about to flip and sink slowly to the ocean floor, the wave that had swallowed them up let them go.

  Almost like the creature had called its name, the water surged back to the nardoo. The whaleboats rose to the surface. The lanterns were lost, but none of the crew.

  “That was close,” said the man sitting beside Oona. It was Peder: the man whose son went to school with her. Peder’s hair and beard were caked in ice and his knuckles were white.

  The rest of the men laughed. Though they all smiled, they looked nervous.

  “I think we should head back,” Oona said.

  This time, none of the men argued. But her father did.

  “Don’t be a coward, Oona,” he said. “We can’t go back now. Not when we’ve almost caught it.”