by Susan Moore
“LOOK!”
Nat and Henry peered close in at Fizz’s screen. Wen had sketched a girl who looked like a cross between a mermaid and a ninja – spiky hair, shell-patterned kung fu trousers and bikini top.
“Will Nat have to wear that?” said Henry, scratching his head.
Wen nodded.
Nat held up her hand. “Stop! Wait! We’ve got to find Mo Ye, the first sword. Atlantis is the last bit. We’ve got to get to Cornwall this weekend.”
“I’ll set up NutNut to do live feed to Fu for the whole trip,” said Henry.
Nat put her hand on his arm. “Hang on, how are you going to be able to come with me? Aunt Vera isn’t going to allow that.”
Henry pouted. “I’m coming, aren’t I? You’ll need me.”
Nat rubbed her temples. Part of her head was still in BlackCod trying to make sense of it all. She felt the sensation again of her mother’s arms around her. Could she just wire back into it, go to the star and stay there forever?
Henry was nudging her. He rested his head on her shoulder.
“Puhleeze?”
Chapter Thirty-Six
VIKING BOAT
Saskia was standing in the middle of her walk-in wardrobe. It was really an entire room specially racked out with shelves, rails and drawers for her extensive, bespoke wardrobe. She didn’t like any clothes or shoes that were mass-produced, and that meant more than one of a kind.
She looked along the rail of casual dresses trying to find something that would work for their trip to Cornwall. It would involve going on a boat, so full length and corseted seemed a little too constricting for life on the high seas. Her stomach churned at the thought. She hated sailing but Mater had impressed upon her the importance of the trip and her role in it.
She held up an ankle-length tea dress with a flying-bat pattern. No, it wouldn’t do. Too dull.
A niggling wave of irritation started to rise inside her. Ever since Natalie, or “the girl” as Mater had called her for years, had arrived, Saskia’s life wasn’t her own. She’d become Mater’s accomplice and it really was most inconvenient.
The cool, refined reputation that she’d been honing for years at Boxbury lay in tatters since the girl’s guardian most inconveniently died.
The sooner the sword was found the better. Mater had been obsessing about it since before Saskia was born. It was the first bedtime story she could remember her mother telling her, all about the sword that bestowed ultimate power and everlasting youth upon the one that wore the golden crown.
Frankly, she was fed up with it all. And now this stupid trip. Saskia sighed and swiped at the dress hanging nearest to her. Stupid, stupid, stupid…
“Mater wants you to meet her in the war room,” announced Poxo, who was sat at her side.
Saskia huffed. “She’ll have to wait a moment. I have to prepare for the trip.”
Perhaps she’d select a hat first. The hat would then anchor the look…
“Mater says she needs you now.”
Saskia groaned. “Come on then.”
She pulled her dressing gown on over her corset and headed downstairs.
Her mother was standing at the fireplace, arms outstretched, while her armourer adjusted the sleeve of a shiny new golden suit of armour.
“Ah, there you are, Saskia,” she said. “I need your opinion on boat hire. Alpha, show the two options once again.”
A large Viking sailboat appeared on the wall screen. It had a massive square sail, a curved-up bow, a stern like a slipper and oars along both sides. A line of round shields ran around the top.
The picture changed to an interior film showing a row of robotic Vikings with horned helmets, one manning each oar.
“Regal and warrior-like, isn’t it?” said Ivy. “I do like the crew.”
Saskia frowned. “Can I see the other one?”
The picture changed to a huge seafaring three-masted galleon with four decks and a row of cannon poking out of the side.
“It comes with a live crew of twenty and is motorised as well as sail-powered.”
“Aren’t we meant to be following the Junko in stealth mode?” said Saskia, looking back at her.
Ivy sniffed. “I must be ready for my transformation once I have the sword. I can’t be running around in some motorboat when I am the Warrior Queen!”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
THE JUNKO
Nat was sitting at the back of the classroom watching the clock tick off each second before the final Friday bell.
Professor Trogalming had put up a very difficult algebra test. The numbers and letters looked like a secret code.
Nat put her fingers on screen where the first question loomed like some unsolvable scientific formula. She felt a small kick under her desk and glanced up. Zixin wasn’t looking at her but he had his wristwatch pointed in her direction. He’d synched it with his desktop and the answers to the first two questions were already blinking up in bright-green LED.
She kicked him back in thanks. The corners of his mouth twitched.
A few minutes later the bell rang. Nat was first out of her seat. Fizz flew out of the top of her locker to perch on her shoulder and they headed for the door.
“Hey, wait up!” said Zixin, running after her down the corridor.
She slowed down a fraction.
“Didn’t know you could move that fast,” he said.
“Mission is underway. We’ve got to get out before the rest of them, otherwise we’ll get stuck in the traffic jam.”
They Retscanned out of the main entrance. Ah Ping was standing outside Jamuka’s Grooverider in the first “stop and drop” space, with the side door raised.
Nat climbed inside and took the front seat.
“Heya, Nat. We’re all ready. Look. I’ve got Gobi, and Ah Ping’s made some plum cake for the trip. Want some?” said Henry, holding out a tin from where he was squashed in next to Gobi’s cage on the back seat.
“Move up, will you?” said Zixin, landing next to him.
Ah Ping climbed into the driver’s seat. The door closed and the Grooverider moved off on auto-drive.
“Drive time to Portsmouth Harbour two hours twenty-four minutes,” announced the onboard computer.
“How was the trip?”
“Lock very difficult to do. Six river police help me. Then bad storm last night on Channel. Big waves,” said Ah Ping.
“Junko’s all ku though?” said Nat, wolfing a large slice of cake.
Ah Ping took a sip of green tea from a flask. “Yes. OK if I sleep now?”
Nat nodded. Ah Ping looked exhausted. She put down the flask and closed her eyes.
“Not much room in these posh cars, is there?” said Zixin.
He was crammed in at an angle, one arm resting on top of Gobi’s cage.
“You’ve got more room than me,” said Henry.
Zixin flicked out his tongue at him. Henry’s face screwed up.
“Zoinks! We’ve got a long way to go, so be nice,” said Nat, wriggling out of her Boxbury skirt and jacket. “Can you throw me my Slider shorts from my bag, please?”
Three hours later, after sitting in a traffic jam for an extra half-hour at the Hindhead tunnel, the Grooverider pulled up at the private Nelson Quay where the Junko was moored up. They unloaded quickly and moved out into the Channel.
Nat stood on deck at the wheel and inhaled the salty sea air. She was barefoot, wearing her old shorts and T-shirt. Her hair was being whipped up in the westerly wind. She was back home.
Gobi started chirping from her perch in her cage, which was hanging from the mast.
Fizz swooped off Nat’s shoulder on to the top of the cage and joined in. Nat grinned.
Zixin came swaying up the steps to the upper deck. He had changed out of his Boxbury uniform and put on a black T-shirt and jeans. Vesperetta slithered from around his neck to join Fizz on the cage.
“This boat’s way cool. If I was an heiress I’d definitely live on this.”
; Nat turned from the wheel. He was grinning at her.
“You’d be an heir,” she said.
“Yeah, whatevs; beats my rubbish gaff in the East End any day.”
Henry came charging up the steps to join them. He stuck NutNut on Jamuka’s old coffee mug shelf next to the cage. Wen was on NutNut’s screen. Her hair was standing on end and she was yawning so widely that Nat could see her tonsils.
“I sent Mummy the photos of us in Portsmouth Harbour and the itinerary we’re doing on the naval history tour there. She called me and said it all sounded very educational, and then she moaned that if only Prissy wasn’t banned from seeing you that she could have come along too. Prissy heard her and went mad. She said she never wants to see you ever again. Mummy said that once she was your guardian then Prissy would need to change her attitude and accept you as her stepsister. Prissy went for a walk, slamming the door behind her. Mummy said she was being a typical teenager.”
“Ai yah! Prissy this, Prissy that. I didn’t get up in the middle of the night to hear about Prissy,” moaned Wen. “How long is it going to take to get to this Cornwall place?”
“Eighteen hours,” said Nat.
Fizz lifted his snout, his eyes flashing red.
“HM Coastguard: Storm warning alert.”
“Zoinks! That’s all we need. Give full details, Fizz. This journey might take longer than we planned.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
STORMY SEAS
Saskia looked up from her sick bag. She would never, ever go sailing again. The Viking robots were pulling their oars as if there wasn’t a force-ten gale and a storm raging outside, tossing and turning the longship up and down skyscraper-high waves.
She wished now that she hadn’t deterred Mater from hiring the galleon instead. At least she could have hidden away in an upper-deck sitting room. It would have been way better than the bowels of this vessel.
The rain and waves were lashing the deck above. She wondered how Mater could stand being up there. And why hadn’t Saskia inherited her mother’s sea legs?
She put her head over the bag again and heaved at the thought. But there was nothing else left to throw up but a thin string of bile.
She loosened the ribbons of her corset and wished for the hundredth time that she hadn’t chosen the blue-and-white striped full bustle dress for the trip.
“Water, Poxo,” she groaned.
The poodle got up from where he had been lying next to her and trotted over to the galley at the back. The boat lurched over a wave, sending him crashing into one of the rowing robots and dislodging it from its oar.
That’s all they needed, one less rower. Saskia clambered down off Mater’s throne and started crawling over to the prostrate Viking.
She vowed that once they reached shore, she’d get off and take a train back home and never leave London again.
The Viking robot’s arm was hanging off its shoulder by a wire. She tried to push it back into the socket but it wouldn’t hold.
The main hatch slid open. Mater’s leonine head appeared, upside down. Her hair and face were glistening with rain and seawater. The wind came howling in.
“It’s broken!” shouted Saskia, holding up the severed arm.
“Then you row!” shouted Ivy.
“No way!”
The boat rolled to one side. Saskia grabbed on to the oar to stop herself rolling with it.
“Row now!” roared Ivy.
Saskia did as she was told. Ivy slammed the hatch shut.
Saskia pulled on the oar. It was heavy and unwieldy. The wooden handle was rough and tore at her skin. She had never hated anyone more at this moment than Natalie Walker. This was all her fault.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
HELFORD PASSAGE
Nat and Ah Ping were the only ones left on deck when the storm clouds disappeared over the horizon. It had been a dark and terrible storm, almost as bad as the one in the middle of the Indian Ocean on their journey from Hong Kong to London.
Henry had turned green and queasy the moment the waves started to buck the Junko, and had headed down to Nat’s cabin. Fizz reported he’d been sick ten times before finally falling asleep.
Zixin had done well. He’d made it until well after midnight, but the relentless rolling up and down waves had its effect and he had gone to lie down in the galley.
Vesperetta had remained with Nat. She’d wound herself around the ship’s wheel and spent much of the night learning navigational techniques and sea shanties from Fizz.
“Jamuka taught you well,” said Ah Ping, patting Nat on the back.
She smiled. How many times in the night had she imagined him standing next to her, giving her orders?
“How far to go?”
“Helford Passage new time calculation is forty-eight minutes.”
“Switch all systems to the MaxEdge, please. I need to shower and eat.”
Nat walked into her cabin to find Henry sound asleep under the duvet. NutNut was lying next to his head, curled up on the pillow with his bushy tail covering his eyes.
She tiptoed across the rug and grabbed a fresh set of clothes. She’d shower in one of the guest cabins. On her way past Jamuka’s door she hesitated and stopped. Her hand trembled as she turned the knob and opened the door.
It was exactly as she’d left it a few days ago. The bed slats lay bare; Dragon Khan was frozen in time in the photo of him crossing the finishing line. So much had happened in the intervening days that it felt like this was the past. A chapter had been closed off, and a new chapter had begun.
“Farewell,” she said softly, closing the door and padding off for her shower.
* * *
“I can’t look at that,” said Zixin, watching Nat dig into a plate piled high with scrambled eggs.
She pushed the toast rack across the table to him.
“Have some dry toast; that always helps.”
He pulled out a slice and bit into it.
“Tastes like cardboard,” he said, chewing.
She laughed. “I guess you don’t want any orange juice to wash it down then?”
“Five minutes to Helford River entry, thirty-six minutes to location,” said Fizz.
Nat jumped up from the table, grabbing her plate.
“Let’s head up on deck,” she said.
The MaxEdge lowered the Junko’s sails and steered it into the mouth of the Helford River.
Grassy green hills rolled down to the water’s edge on either side of the thick deep-blue ribbon of water. A light wind was carrying them in from the sea. A flock of seagulls flew overhead, scanning the deck for food.
“I wonder why they hid the sword here and not on the other coast, where Arthur’s castle is?” she said.
Zixin followed her over to the rail.
“No one knows for certain where Arthur’s castle was, or if it ever even existed, so maybe it’s here instead. Doesn’t look like a bad gaff to me for a king.”
Nat finished up her last forkful of eggs. They were passing a small beach with a whitewashed pub on its shore. A group of people were standing on the open terrace, under a sign saying “Ferryboat Inn”. They waved to them as they sailed by.
“So much for this being a stealth mission. This must be what it’s like to be a celebrity,” said Zixin, waving back.
Nat bit her lip. “Good point. We’re going to be seen if we take this all the way to the Durmaw Creek. Fizz, get the MaxEdge to stop ten minutes out.”
“Aye aye, Captain!” he said with a salute.
She walked across deck to the main storage locker and activated the equipment inventory picker. She located the kayaks and hit the request button. The racks ratcheted round below, the locker top sprang open, and two green kayaks popped up and slipped on to the deck.
“Stealth transport!” she said.
Chapter Forty
THRONE
Saskia lay on the deck. If an eagle swooped down now and picked her up for its supper that would be fine with her. It woul
d be better than this.
Her dress was soaked through, her hands were raw and blistered from rowing, and her back ached so badly she wondered if she’d ever be able to get up again.
She was green too. She’d asked Poxo to photograph her face, and when he’d showed it to her, she’d screamed.
Mater on the other hand was all fired up. She’d battled the storm and vanquished it. She was a warrior queen on a mission.
A loud cheer came sounding across the water. She looked across the deck to see Mater bowing her head in a regal style and waving a hand as if she was a Roman emperor.
“Who’s that?”
“Some of my subjects paying homage from their quaint little inn.”
Saskia groaned. Mater was becoming despotic.
“The Junko has dropped anchor up ahead,” reported beetlebot Alpha from his station at the stern.
Mater clapped her hands together.
“Slow up, Captain, and make sure we keep a low profile. Beta, time for you to track them.”
“Yes, Baron—”
“Yes, Your Majesty, Beta, from now on. Got that?”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
Beta scuttled up to the stern and jumped overboard. Saskia rolled on to her side and hauled herself up very slowly. She watched Beta beetling across the surface of the water with his paddle-flipper legs. She wished she could do the same, but she wouldn’t be heading towards the Junko, she’d be headed to that inn, having a long bath and going to sleep for a thousand years.
“Right, let’s get the throne ready, shall we?” said Mater, sliding back the main hatch and descending the ladder.
Saskia limped across the deck.
“Don’t you think we should leave it and do the ceremony down there?” she said, not wanting to help.
“No. On deck. I need an on-deck coronation, not a below-deck one.”
Saskia looked at the captain, who shrugged at her from the wheel.