Twelve-year-old Carmen has a secret: she can talk to her cat Grim. But the powerful Brotherhood has banned pets, and the penalty is death.
Ward is the most wanted boy in the world. The only thing standing between him and the hangman's noose is maste...
He woke the next morning with a firm resolution. He would escape.
He was so preoccupied with this thought as he made his way down to the galley for breakfast, that he didn't notice the man beside him at the table until he felt a gentle nudge in his ribs.
"Marvellous breakfast, isn't it?" the man said. "Tremendous cook we have on board. This coffee couldn't be hotter if it were brewed by a snowman. And look at this egg. Have you ever seen an egg like it?"
Ward, surprised into speechlessness, shook his head to indicate that he had not.
The man took this as a cue to expand on his theme. "Even in the finest public house in Bareheep they will ruin such an egg by cooking it on not just one, but both sides. The chef on this vessel however, has taken pains to cook it on neither side. Why, you couldn't achieve such a feat if you tried. I dare you to try it."
"It looks okay to -" Ward began.
"This toast now," the gentleman said, warming to his topic. "Have you ever seen anything like it?" And he proceeded to relate the various properties of toast, and methods of toasting, for which the ship's cook must surely be famed across the seven seas, and any waterways as yet undiscovered. This gave Ward a chance to examine him.
What first struck him was the man's roundness. Ward could honestly say he had seen no rounder thing in his life. The arms and legs were exceedingly short, and if there was a neck at all it lay behind a ruff that began at the chin and flared out beneath the ears. The head wore a luxuriant mop of hair. It was like something that had been dropped there. The face was characterised by a distinct redness about the cheeks, like they had been repeatedly pinched; the eyes, nose, and mouth lay in close proximity, as if the cheeks had grown outwards but everything else had stayed put. The eyes shone with a mixture of enthusiasm and the kind of madness one would see in the eyes of a dog set loose in a butcher's shop.
The man had concluded his overview of toast, and was about to enter into the weighty subject of bacon, when Ward interrupted him.
"What's your name, Sir?"
His head brimming with baconish thoughts, the man appeared to have momentarily forgotten it. "Oh – what? Oh." Then he puffed himself up like an adder. The ruff flared out. "Handel – Lord Handel – Handel Snapper. Lordhandelsnapper." After this he visibly deflated. As if unsure what to follow up with, he thrust his hand out for Ward to shake.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Comments are a convenient way to inform the author that he stinks.
