The Mapmakers' Race

by Eirlys Hunter

  “Thirteen,” said Joe. “Thirteen days to go.”

  The next morning the storm was still raging. The rain stopped after breakfast, but the wind continued to howl and Beckett said it would be dangerous to go out.

  “For goodness’ sake, we can’t afford to be scared of a bit of wind!” Sal said in her huffiest voice. Seconds later, an enormous tree went sailing past the cave opening. Her mouth hung open.

  “Holygamoley!” She laughed. “Whoops, I take that back. Sorry, Beckett.”

  Joe tried to think whether he’d ever heard Sal admit to being wrong before. “The good thing is, everyone will have to stop for this storm,” he said. “Not just us.”

  There was nothing for Joe to do, so he showed Humphrey how to write his name in charcoal, and Humph copied Joe’s letters over and over.

  Beckett mended his boots. He’d unpicked some strong thread from the mechanical horse’s bridle and now he pulled it over a candle until it was well waxed, then he used the needle-for-getting-out-splinters from the first-aid bag, to painstakingly poke the thread through the empty stitch holes of his boots’ seams. When he’d finished he rubbed candle grease into the seams of all their boots to help keep the water out.

  Francie brought the maps up to date by the light of the lantern, and when the ink was dry she rolled them up carefully in their waterproof tube. Then she and Sal rubbed the donkeys down with rags torn from Beckett’s old shirt. Sal hunted through the baskets for the hairbrush but it was definitely lost so she couldn’t make them untangle their hair.

  When the wind finally died down at sunset Joe and Francie volunteered to brave the pinksap and get more firewood. Francie led the donkeys and Joe ran ahead of her down the hill, glad to be outside and moving again.

  There was fallen wood everywhere. Joe scooped up branches with his bandaged hands and Francie tied them into bundles and hung the bundles over the donkeys’ backs.

  They were on their way back up the hill when they heard a terrified scream from Humph, followed by Beckett’s bellow. Joe froze, heart pounding in his throat, then raced towards the cave. Something flew out—larger than a rat, with great wings and claws. It was followed by another, and another. They had faces, and ears and hands. More and more poured out, and the air was filled with high-pitched squeaking. Thousands upon thousands of bats filled the sky in a dense funnel of dark wings that stretched from inside the cave to way above the forest.

  Humph cannoned into Joe’s legs. “Teeth! They’ve got teeth!”

  Carrot shot out of the cave and flew round and round in frenzied circles, and Sal emerged with her hands over her head as the last bats joined the black cloud that was flying away over the forest.

  “The cave roof just started to move! It came alive! How come we never saw them? They were hanging there all the time, millions of them!”

  Beckett crossed his arms tight across his chest. “They suck blood. Vampires! I’m not going back in.”

  “They don’t; they’re good,” said Joe. “I know about bats, our Pa told me, only I’ve never actually seen a flock of them before. They eat insects, not people, and they go out at night and come back at dawn. They probably only stayed at home last night because of the storm.”

  Beckett reluctantly returned to the cave, but only on the condition that they get up early in the morning and leave before the bats returned.

  “Twelve days to go,” said Joe.

  He thought about bats as he waited for sleep. How could they fly so close together and never bump into each other? How could something be both a separate individual and also one-millionth of a swarm? What other creatures were like that? Ants? Bees? Those fish that swim in shoals? Were people?

  *

  The next day they climbed nearly all the way up to the saddle between two snow-covered peaks. It was Joe’s turn to choose names and he called them Mt Treacle and Mt Dumpling, and the saddle “Angelica’s Pass” after their mother.

  They camped under a clump of pine trees below the snowline. Humph raced around squealing, “Snow tomorrow!”

  Beckett unrolled Joe’s bandages. “Dunno what magic’s in your mother’s salve but your hands look almost as good as my feet feel this evening.”

  Joe was happy he didn’t need the bandages any more. For one thing, he could hold a spoon again, and for another he could put his gloves on and fit his hands in his pockets. The air was icy. They all wore their hats and jackets inside their sleeping bags.

  In the middle of the night Francie shook Joe awake. They quietly laced on their boots and set off together in silence. The night was cloudless. The full moon hung low and its white light transformed the mountainside into something magical and mysterious. Their toes were freezing and their breath huffed out in small clouds as they climbed, but the moonlight reflecting off the snow ahead enticed them on.

  They took off their gloves. At last they could touch it. It was crisp and icy, not fluffy at all.

  “Maybe because it’s old,” said Joe. “Left from last winter. I think new snow’s soft.”

  They trekked across the snowfield; Joe felt Francie’s delight at the way her boots scrunched into it and at the trail of footprints that grew behind them. A small finger of a peak rose out of the snow and they started to climb. The moon was bright enough to see where to set their feet, up and up. It was a real climb, toes and fingers, but then they were sitting side by side on a rock on top of the world.

  The view was so beautiful that Joe felt his eyes prickling. Everything was below them: there was the snowfield, and the glow of their fire; there the black reach of the forest and the silver glint of a river. Stretching into the distance were layers after layers of mountains all washed in moonlight, and a row of snow-clad peaks soaring out of the darkness on the eastern horizon.

  The full moon hung so big and bright that he could barely make out any stars until he turned his back to the moon and looked towards the dark horizon where there were tens, then hundreds, then thousands of stars pulsing silently—chips of ice in an infinite, frozen world.

  The night sky was the only thing Francie couldn’t draw. She turned slowly, memorising the view, then opened her sketchbook and drew the silhouette of the mountains. She couldn’t draw the night, but she could draw the light and the shadow.

  “Eleven days to go,” whispered Joe.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  GOLDEN GLINTS

  Humph was so excited about touching snow for the first time that he gobbled his porridge and urged everyone to hurry, but when they got close he spotted the footprints.

  “Whose feet?” he roared.

  Joe confessed that he and Francie had had an adventure in the night, and Humph was furious. He put his head down and ran at Joe, unbalancing him so he fell down backwards.

  “Not, not, not fair. Francie and me were going to touch snow first together. You went without me. I hate you.” He stomped off across the snowfield and Beckett went after him. Sal accused Joe and Francie of being stupid and inconsiderate, so Joe didn’t mention that they’d climbed the finger of rock; in the daylight it loomed sheer and unscaleable. He exchanged a grin with Francie that said, how on earth did we get up there? And safely down again?

  Beckett piggybacked Humph back and dumped him at Sal’s feet. “Guess what Humph’s seen?”

  “No, it’s a secret,” said Humph.

  “Please? I’m sorry,” said Joe.

  “I saw the sea!” Humph announced.

  “No! Really?” Joe put his hand up to shade his eyes.

  “Yes, he’s right, look!” shouted Sal. In the far distance, there was a glimpse of the sea, and a haze that must be the chimneys of New Coalhaven. Francie tugged at Joe’s sleeve; she’d noticed something too. He squinted to where she was pointing. It was little more than a disturbance of the air. Smoke. Not so far away, another team was making breakfast.

  Which way? From their viewpoint at the top of the world Joe could see two valleys separated by the Salvatora Range. Both valleys looked as though they could
lead towards New Coalhaven. Francie had to fly so they’d know which one led most directly to the sea. She’d need to sleep after flying and that would use up the rest of the morning, but Beckett told Joe:

  “If we walked all the way down there and then you said, ‘Sorry, we’ve got to go back up and go the other way,’ I’d kill you. Slowly. And feed your liver to the eagles.”

  So they spent the morning looking down on the world. Sal took bearings from the peaks, Humph and Beckett made a snowman and Joe snoozed in a sheltered spot in the sun. Francie flew, then slept, after drawing a map that showed they should start off down the steep Beckett Valley that led west, towards a river that glowed golden in the sun.

  That night, Joe found a campsite in a meadow of long grass with a tree in the middle to tether the donkeys to. As they waited for the billy to boil they listened to the donkeys ripping out mouthfuls of grass, and munching and snuffling happily to each other.

  But people can’t eat grass. Beckett had spent most of the afternoon trying to hit a bird with his catapult. There were some large birds gliding around above the mountainside, but they were too high; his stones all missed.

  “Never mind. I bet they taste disgusting,” said Joe. Still, after the thin soup they had for dinner, he was sorry there was no roast eagle to follow. He’d have eaten it, however disgusting.

  Humph licked his bowl. “My tummy’s still flapping. Can’t we have a pudding?”

  Beckett shook his head. “I’m saving the last one. But I think I saw some pugnut trees ahead, so we may get more dinner tomorrow.”

  “I know a story about someone who was hungry,” said Sal.

  “Is it scary?” asked Humph cautiously.

  “No. It’s got love in it, though.”

  Humph snorted but told her to go on anyway.

  “This is a story our Ma often told us, but you may not remember. She heard it from her mother, who heard it from her mother. It goes like this:

  “Once there was a young man called Griff, who fell in love with Mabli, a young woman who came to live in his village. Griff and Mabli wanted to get married but his father said, ‘What will you live on? Neither of you has any money or the means to earn your living.’

  “And Mabli’s mother said, ‘Griff has never left this village. He will always wonder what lies beyond it. You should send him away to see the world, Mabli. If he comes back after a year with money in his pocket, and you still feel the same about each other, then everyone will bless your marriage.’

  “So Griff went off to see the world. He saw many wonders but he didn’t meet anyone he liked half as well as Mabli.

  “When the year was nearly up he had saved two gold pieces, which he hoped Mabli and her parents would think enough, and he started on his way home. He was so eager that he took a short cut through a great forest and before long he was lost. He walked and walked but soon he’d eaten all the food he was carrying, and he became very hungry. He looked under pugnut trees but animals had eaten all the nuts.

  “Then he heard a cry and saw a hare caught in a trap by its leg. The young man knew that roast hare would taste delicious. He held the animal gently and was about to break its neck when he felt its heart beating fast under his hand. He realised he couldn’t hurt it. So he spoke softly to the hare while he forced the teeth of the trap open, then he washed the bloody wound with water from his flask and let the hare go.

  “The hare hopped a little way away then turned and faced Griff. There were strange golden glints in its eyes and it spoke to him. ‘Young man, you have saved my life. I will grant you a wish.’

  “Griff was astonished. ‘I’m starving,’ he said. ‘I wish for some food.’

  “The hare vanished, and in its place a picnic was laid out on a checked cloth. There was warm bread, a steaming bacon pie, a roast chicken, cheese pannikins, lemon dainties, plum pudding and all sorts of other delights.

  “There was much more food than one man could eat so when Griff had eaten until he was bursting, he wrapped the leftovers in the cloth, slung the bundle over his shoulder and went on his way, full and happy. And the bundle was magic, for no matter how much he ate, there was always more food in the cloth when he unwrapped it.

  “Some days later the young man came to an open heath where there was no shelter from the howling wind. It snatched off his hat, and although Griff ran he couldn’t catch it. Soon it began to snow. His ears became so cold that he thought perhaps he was freezing to death. Then he heard a squeal, from another hare caught in a trap. If he skinned it, its fur might keep his head from freezing so he could get home to Mabli. He put his hand on the animal and once again he felt its heart beating under his fingers and he knew he couldn’t hurt it. So he forced the trap open and let the hare go.

  “The hare hopped a short way off and stopped. It turned and looked at him with golden glints in its eyes. It said, ‘Young man, you have saved my life. Now I will grant you a wish.’

  “‘My head is so cold,’ said Griff. ‘I wish I had a hat.’

  “Then, whoosh—the hare disappeared and there was a warm woollen hat on the young man’s head. And he was wearing new woollen trousers and shirt, and the lightest, warmest cloak was wrapped around his shoulders.

  “Griff went on his way.

  “Now there was only one more obstacle between Griff and his home: the great river that flowed through that country. Griff could see the smoke from the chimneys of his village on the other side, and felt his heart being tugged over the water as he hurried along the bank looking for a boatman to row him to the other shore. He walked until he came to a jetty, but there was no boatman there, and no boat to be seen. How would he ever get home to Mabli?

  “Then he heard a shriek and saw a hare caught in a trap beside a hedge. He knelt down and was about to release the frightened animal when an angry voice called out, ‘Thief!’ A man stood over him with a cudgel raised. ‘That’s my trap,’ he snarled, ‘and that’s my hare.’

  “‘This trap is cruel,’ said Griff. ‘And you must let the hare live.’

  “‘I’ll do no such thing,’ said the man.

  “Griff felt the hare’s heart beating against his fingers. ‘I’ll pay you for it,’ he said. And he felt in his pocket and brought out the two gold pieces. ‘Here,’ he said, ‘this is all the money I have in the world.’

  “The man called Griff an idiot and took the gold, and Griff knelt in front of the hare and forced open the trap. Once again he bathed the animal’s wound, and let it go. The hare hopped away, then stopped and turned. It had golden glints in its eyes, and it said, ‘Young man. You have saved my life, and in return I will grant you a wish.’

  “Griff sighed. ‘Oh, beautiful hare with golden eyes, what I want most in all the world is to get across the river to my beloved Mabli. But even if you could send a ferryboat this way, I can no longer pay for the crossing.’

  “Then the hare vanished, and when Griff looked up, there was a new ferryboat sailing towards the jetty. And steering the boat was a young woman, the most wonderful woman in the whole world. It was Mabli.

  “Mabli’s parents were impressed that Griff had been so far and seen so much, and Griff’s parents were impressed that Mabli had acquired a ferryboat that was desperately needed on that stretch of the river. So Mabli and Griff lived together happily for the rest of their lives, sailing that ferry across the river. And when the sun shone, Griff saw the golden glints in his wife’s eyes, and he smiled and held her close, feeling her heart beating next to his. The end.”

  There was silence. Humph was asleep.

  “That’s a good story. I’ll remember that one to tell my mother,” said Beckett.

  “You told that just like Ma,” said Joe. He squeezed his eyes shut to stop himself thinking about how much he missed her.

  “Only ten days to go, now,” Sal whispered. “Goodnight, Ma.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  STRANDED

  Joe had been hoping the forest would thin out, but instead they spent another w
hole day fighting the undergrowth to make a track, zigzagging endlessly down towards the river. Joe and Beckett took it in turns, one wielding the slasher and the other pulling away the creepers and prickle bushes that blocked their path.

  “I’m sure we’ve done this already,” Beckett grumbled. “This all looks the same. Couldn’t we at least have blue leaves with pink spots, and purple and orange grass in some valleys?”

  Francie clapped agreement. She and Humphrey were leading a donkey each with Sal at the back to make sure the altimeter kept turning as it bounced over tree roots and got tangled in ferns.

  “Perfect for the Vertical. The climbing train will do this in a few minutes, but we’ve got to scramble blindly for hours,” Sal muttered. “I hate not being able to see where I am or where I’m going. I hate not knowing what’s round the next tree.”

  “More trees,” said Beckett.

  “Or a dragon,” said Joe.

  “Pugnuts!” said Humph, snatching one up from the ground.

  “Hooray for Humphrey’s noticing eyes!” said Beckett.

  That night Sal announced that they’d descended over two thousand feet and walked sixteen miles.

  “And we found a whole bucket of pugnuts,” said Humph.

  “Most of which still need cracking,” said Beckett. He held out a pair of cracking stones. Francie took them. She immediately saw how to hit the nuts to make them split cleanly and she squatted by the fire and worked her way to the bottom of the bucket.

  “You’re a machine, Francie!” said Beckett. She smiled and did a jerky mechanical dance.

  “Nine more days to go. Only nine more to go,” Joe sang.

  Later, in their sleeping bags, Humph rolled against Joe. “I’m feeling sad.”

  Joe hugged him. “We’ll be there soon, and you’ll see Ma.”

  “But why I’m sad is cos, when we get there, I won’t be a venturing boy any more. I like being a venturing boy.”

  “I do, too,” said Joe.

  The next morning they reached what Francie had named Golden River when she was flying, but turned out to be disappointingly ordinary close up. They followed the river bank downstream. Humph was galloping ahead of the donkeys, whacking the tops off nettles with a stick, when Sal heard a voice.