by Robert Lamb
‘Or a plug,’ added Craig.
‘Well, except for you two, there’s only my brother and me who do know about it.’ Moses nodded. ‘And as for my brother, I haven’t seen him for years, so we may be the only ones to know about it.’
‘Then we’re the only ones who know where the water has gone?’ asked Craig.
‘Well, the only ones who know how to bring it back,’ answered Moses.
‘But how do you know what to do?’ asked Cindy.
‘You’ll see if you come, but neither of you has filled your part of the bargain.’
‘Bargain?’ asked Cindy.
‘I’ve told you the legend, but you haven’t said you’ll come.’
‘Let me speak with Cindy for a moment,’ said Craig. He took Cindy away from the fire and whispered. ‘Now, Cindy, don’t you be frightened. We’re responsible and you heard what Moses said.’
‘What?’ asked Cindy.
‘About our being the only three people who know about the water and the hole and the plug, so we’ve got to go.’
‘But will it be dangerous?’ asked Cindy.
‘Oh, Cindy.’
‘Well, I …’ Cindy could see that Craig would not be pleased if she was afraid to go. ‘All right,’ she said, ‘we’ll go to the plug, but …’
‘No buts,’ said Craig. ‘All the way. Or you try to find your way back by yourself.’
‘But I can’t find the way, alone.’
Craig shook his head, very slightly.
‘All right, then I’ll come,’ said Cindy, almost in tears.
Walking back to the fire, she asked, ‘Would you really let me go back alone, Craig?’
‘No, of course not, but we are responsible and I want to go anyway.’
‘Well?’ said Moses, puffing away next to the small fire of almost dead red coals.
‘We’ve decided to come.’
‘Well, I’m glad about that. But you know it’s not just fun and excitement. It’s dangerous, so I hope you haven’t forced Cindy to come.’ He looked over at Cindy. ‘Craig hasn’t forced you to come, has he?’
Cindy looked at Craig and then at Moses. ‘Oh no,’ she said, ‘he just said he’d desert me if I didn’t come.’
‘Cindy!’ Craig glared at her.
‘Well, that’s what you did say.’
‘Well, why don’t you two sleep on the plan and decide in the morning when it’s light,’ said Moses. ‘As for me, I’m tired and I’m going to sleep up there on top of him.’
‘On top of him?’ both Craig and Cindy said at once, looking at the whale.
‘Yep, and you’d better too. Put some sail over you and stick close together.’ He climbed the rocks after stamping out the fire and jumped the last four feet onto the whale’s head. The whale raised one eye suspiciously, but didn’t flip his tail or roll over.
‘It seems safe,’ said Craig to Moses.
‘Safe as a featherbed and twice as warm,’ called out Moses in the dark. Craig and Cindy followed up the rocks and came to the jump. Craig took a few steps and jumped with a bundle of sail in his arms. Cindy, taking a deep breath, followed and landed on much harder skin than she had expected.
‘I thought he would be like a balloon, but he’s just like a rock,’ said Cindy. They walked down from the whale’s head, trying to see where there would be less wind, for the cold night wind was blowing terribly. The moon was out and the clouds were racing by, as they looked over the massive body.
Suddenly, there rose up in front of them a great black tail: two points high in the air. The tail settled back down into the water as silently as it had risen, not slapping, but as if the whale were just yawning and stretching before going to sleep.
‘It’s gonna be cold tonight so let’s get on this side of him, down on one of the flippers, far away from the tail.’ The fin was wide and rested just above the black water with the cloud reflections racing by.
‘Will it be safe down here?’ Cindy asked. ‘Do you think he’s asleep?’ but Craig did not answer. ‘Sh,’ he joked as he spread out the sail, ‘he may have ears down here.’ They both lay down with the wind whipping over their heads.
‘I hope he doesn’t move,’ said Cindy in a whisper.
‘And you hope,’ said Craig teasing her, ‘that we get to the plug soon and find all the fish and the sailors and the ships. You want to get back to land safely, and get home. Mother and father must be worrying about us.’
‘You’re a genuius, Craig. You guessed all my thoughts.’ She fell asleep smiling.
Chapter 7
Captain Tiny and Mrs Mermaid
Slivers of sunlight were slanting in Cindy’s eyes from slits in the sail. She heard Moses call out, ‘Who goes there?’ ‘Captain Tiny of H.M.S. Lazy’ was the answer. What was this? thought Cindy, and where was she? She pulled off her sail blanket.
The sun was bright and the whale glistened like a giant golden pillow. Craig stood near the ear, looking out over the cliff to where Moses was shouting. Moses stood on the cliff, waving.
Out on the mud was a tiny man with a lifebuoy around his neck, wearing a captain’s hat and coat. With a rope he was pulling a large sea chest, both taller and longer than himself, and, in the other hand, he carried a globe on a stand. His long moustache went up at the ends like two eels coming out of his mouth. They swung up and down as he walked, like an elastic seesaw.
‘Ahoy,’ he cried.
‘Where’s your ship?’ asked Moses, laughing.
‘Wish I knew. Lost it in a storm. Thrown overboard. Woke up with no water. Queerest thing I ever saw. Lost a whole ship full of animals for a zoo.’
‘But if you were thrown overboard, how did you get that chest and the globe?’
‘Found ’em, I did, so I guessed my ship must be near here. Has all my papers in it’ he tapped the chest, ‘and in here,’ he tapped the globe, ‘I have all my important possessions.’
‘In a globe?’ asked Craig from on top of the whale.
‘That’s right. Everything. Strange how I should find these but not the ship.’
‘What do you keep in there?’ asked Craig.
‘Oh, trinkets to trade with the savages. My ribbons and medals.’
‘Well, we’re no savages, but we’re glad to see you,’ said Craig.
Moses gave the captain a hand as he pulled his chest up to the fire where the sled and bags were. ‘Come on over here and have some breakfast, Captain. I was a captain myself,’ said Moses.
‘You were?’ said the tiny captain, looking at the red beard and the enormous man suspiciously.
‘Captain of the Lucy Home, best frigate, till she sank, of any ship upon the seas,’ answered Moses, cutting some cheese for the tiny captain and handing it to him on the knife. The tiny captain, somewhat frightened, took the speared cheese off the knife as if it were a human. Moses pointed the blade at him. ‘Yours was a naval ship?’
‘The best till those penguins took over,’ said the tiny captain eyeing the knife as if he were in the company of pirates.
‘Penguins took over?’ asked Craig. ‘How could penguins take over a ship?’ Craig was folding the sail and tying it to the sled.
‘Ha, that surprises you? These were no ordinary penguins. No, not at all. These were from the isle of Tierra del Fuego, the lowest point of land towards Antarctica, at the bottom of the great Horn.’
‘The Horn?’ asked Craig.
‘Sailing around the bottom of South America is called “going round the Horn,” for South America looks like a horn.’
‘Oh, I see,’ said Craig, not really seeing, but anxious to know how the penguins had taken over his ship.
‘Well, the penguins had swum or floated on a chunk of ice over to South America from the South Pole. The Indians saw them arrive on a chunk of ice floating into the shore. They had never seen penguins before, so they thought they were gods and they bowed down on their knees and worshipped them and made thrones for them to sit on. They even taught them special tricks and h
ow to work together to build things and climb things, paddle boats. And taught them how to count and speak so I’m told, although they never said a word I could understand.’ The tiny captain had been speaking all this time between munches, so that everyone had pressed very close to understand him.
‘But how did you happen to find them?’ asked Moses.
‘Find them indeed. I didn’t find them. They found me. I was coming round the Horn in a terrible storm, my ship crashed with another. Our whole crew trying to save the other crew. Suddenly found we too were sinking, so had to abandon ship. Then, in the midst of the storm, this boat full of penguins paddles up and starts to rescue the men. Well, I’d never seen anything stranger in my life. Next thing I know they’d landed me on some island with the savages all bowing to these birds. Well, I can tell you, I didn’t know whether I was going into the pot for the birds’ supper or the savages’, but I was scared.’
The tiny captain paused to take another piece of cheese and put it on a piece of bread. Everyone was very impatient as he slowly arranged the cheese in the centre of the bread before taking a bite.
‘Well, where was I?’ asked the captain a bit confused.
‘You were getting ready for supper.’ Moses laughed.
The captain eyed him suspiciously, not finding this at all funny. ‘Oh yes. Well it just so happened my ship had been on an exploration for strange animals for the navy, and these savages had found the ship the day after the storm with all my animals in it. Well, any savage that was going to take a penguin for the Almighty was quite ready to take other animals for the angels. They wanted to keep my whole boatload. Well, they agreed to let me go with my men. But since we had come out to get animals, we couldn’t return without some. I had to think of a way to get them back. So that night we started a fire at one end of the village, and when all the men had gone to put it out, we made off with the animals and took some of the performing penguins too.
‘Well, of course we were chased all the way out to our boat and we were still pushing them off when the sails were filled.
‘Now, just at that moment another storm began, far more frightening than the one the night before. We couldn’t steer the boat, the tide pulled all one way faster and faster so we were almost flying across the sea. I’ve never gone so fast in my life. At the same time there were thousands of other boats flying at the same speed. The pride I had felt a moment before in my skill with the boat disappeared and my terror grew, for fish and logs, birds and boats, were all flying across the sea in one direction.
‘Well, my boat started to go faster and faster leaving all others behind. I was going in a circle, round and round like in an enormous whirlpool with the water walls around me getting higher and higher. Well, since I had broken nearly all of the ten commandments that night, I didn’t have to think very long to understand what was happening. Down and down I went. Just then I remembered what my mother had said, It’s never too late. I rushed to my cabin and got out my chest and globe and dragged them out on deck, pulled out my Bible and began to read.
‘Now it may seem surprising that someone like me, who in life and in the navy has always gone up, should be so certain of entering the hereafter by going down, but that’s how I had always been. So I closed my eyes to the whirling water and prayed. Now, just before everything went black. I looked at the wheel and saw it was not one of my men steering the boat, but one of the penguins. Well at that moment everything was clear to me—except at the same moment everything went black.
‘In the morning I awoke in the mud, only my neck above the ground held up by this life preserver. I still wear it for I’ve learned my lesson, and that,’ he said with another bite of cheese, ‘is the end of my story.’
‘Well, Captain, that was quite a tale and I think you may like to be introduced now. This is Craig, and Cindy, and this is …’
‘Oh no, it’s one of my penguins!’ cried the captain, jumping up.
‘Now, don’t be frightened, Captain.’ Moses laughed. ‘He’s as gentle as a lamb.’
‘Bah,’ said the captain, bowing on his knees. You’ll see what happens to you if you don’t start praying any second now.’ Craig and Cindy and Moses all laughed to see the tiny captain down on his knees before this black and white bird. The penguin looked as confused as the captain looked terrified.
‘If you aren’t scared of him, take off that label we put on him when we took him on the ship.’ Craig went over, still laughing, and untied the string.
‘How did you find him?’ asked the captain, as he got up from his knees. The penguin was waddling over to the pond. He hopped in and swam, flapping his wings, all around the great whale.
‘In a seaweed tree. We gave him some food and decided to take him to the Queen ourselves,’ said Moses.
‘Well, you’re welcome to him—’ Captain Tiny grunted— ‘but why are you down here on the sea bed?’
‘To find the plug,’ answered Craig.
‘The what, ha ha, the plug in the …Ha, ha,’ he laughed.
‘That’s where we’re going.’ Cindy nodded.
‘That’s where the water is,’ agreed Craig. The captain laughed again. ‘All right,’ asked Craig, ‘if you’re so smart, where has the water gone then?’ The captain stopped laughing.
‘How do you know about this plug?’ the captain asked.
‘There’s a legend. Oh,’ Craig remembered that it was Moses’ secret and he might not like it told.
‘It’s all right.’ Moses smiled. ‘The cat’s out of the bag now. No use tryin’ t’ stuff it back in! You tell Captain Tiny the legend while we get the things ready.’
Cindy and Moses collected their things as the sun rose and when they had finished, Craig had finished the legend. ‘And so you see, that’s why we’re going to find the plug.’
‘All set?’ shouted Moses.
‘How much gold did you say was down there?’ asked the captain, the sunlight reflecting from the pond and dancing over his face, dazzling him.
‘I didn’t say ’cos I don’t know,’ said Moses, ‘but you’re welcome to come along to find your boat and the rest of your animals. But if you want to, we can point the way back home.’
‘Now just a minute,’ said the captain. ‘If there’s all that gold down there like you said, then I’d better come along. Besides, my ship and my animals and …’ He tried to think of more reasons why he should come along and dropped his globe. It bounced down the rocks and splashed in the mud.
‘You’ll need to make some mud feet,’ said Cindy.
‘Mud feet?’ he asked, and she pointed at her feet.
‘Do you need to take all that?’ Moses pointed at his luggage.
‘Of course, I always need my papers and my globe.’
‘Well, it would be a lot easier if you left them.’
‘Oh, I couldn’t think of that, the chest must come.’ He reached up to pat its top.
‘Well, you’d better make a sled for it out of those long pieces of seaweed.’
‘Seaweed?’ asked the tiny captain.
‘Like this,’ said Moses, his red beard tossing around as he showed him how to tie it.
‘How’s that?’ asked the captain. ‘Like this.’
‘And where do you tie it?’
‘Right here like this.’
‘Oh, fine.’ The captain smiled. ‘I think I can do that.’
‘I’ve just done it for you,’ said Moses, fuming from his pipe and from his eyes.
‘Oh, so you have.’ The captain slapped his hands as if he had done it and said. ‘Well, let’s be going,’
‘Now, wait a minute,’ said Moses. ‘I’m the captain here.’
‘So you are, so you are, and I obey. It’s just difficult for a captain to stop giving orders.’
‘Well, let’s be off then,’ said Moses.
‘Would you lift that chest onto the sled?’ the tiny captain asked Craig. Craig lifted the large chest, which was twice as big as himself. ‘Now right, now down, easy,’
ordered the captain. Craig was amazed at the weight of the chest. He could hardly lift it. But he did not say anything.
‘Now, little girl, could you pull that sled over to your brother?’ Cindy did, but she was angry that this little man, not even so tall as herself, was making them work for him. Moses didn’t ask them to do things for him, but this man acted helpless.
‘There,’ said the captain, ‘now,’ as Craig let the chest down. His face was red and he looked at the little man with his wide moustache twirling out on either side of his face, lifted up at the ends like wings. Smiling, Captain Tiny called, ‘Now, you just pull it along, that’s a good girl.’
‘No,’ said Cindy. ‘Captain Tiny, you pull it yourself. If those papers are so important you can pull them.’
‘Now, son,’ said the captain, turning to Craig, but Craig shook his head. ‘Now, children,’ begged the captain and he turned to Moses, but Moses just smiled.
‘Come on. It’s time to leave. Ready, Captain?’ He laughed. The captain pulled the ropes over his shoulder and buttoned his captain’s jacket, twirled his moustache, and nodded. They all began to move. They waved good-bye to the whale as they pulled the sleds between the rocks, out of the little rock hole in the mud.
Craig looked behind to where the whale stuck up above the rocks. Their tracks in the mud were the only signs of life around. As Craig looked at the whale he wondered where all the fish were. Could they all be inside the earth or on the other side? Maybe they were all in the rice paddies of Japan and China—or packed like sardines in the caves inside the earth. We must do something for the whale, he thought as he saw the last spurt of water rise from behind the rocks, as if to say ‘Remember me.’ The whale must not die.
‘We must hurry,’ said Cindy, starting to run.
Windmill circled around the hill in front of them and then came back. ‘Skee skee,’ he cried and hopped wildly up and down on their heads.
‘Windmill’s seen something up there,’ shouted Cindy. ‘Do you think it’s dangerous?’
They all stopped. ‘Well, it could be an animal or a fish, but we have to go that way,’ said Moses, pointing to the large rope going round the hill. ‘Let’s sneak up and take a look around the corner of that rock,’ he suggested.