from Gryphon Magic, Book 3 of Guardians of the Forest
Callie has finally been captured by the shouting Captain Jarrow. Can her wild army of creatures rescue her?
Callie sat on the stool below the open porthole. She stared at the locked door.
Would someone come?
A soft scrabbling made her look down. The twitching pink nose and long whiskers of a field mouse poked through the gap between the floor and the door.
‘Mouse,’ Callie whispered, ‘yes, it’s me, I’m in here.’
The twitching stopped and the rest of the mouse squeezed into the cabin. It immediately turned and climbed up the rough wooden boards of the door to perch on the handle, head bent towards the keyhole.
Callie was about to ask what the plan was, when she heard Tristan’s voice in the passage outside.
‘Must be boring work,’ he said in a friendly, and loud, voice.
The sailor at Callie’s door murmured a reply which Callie couldn’t hear.
Tristan’s voice came again. ‘Happy to stand in for you for a bit while you fetch yourself a drink.’
The sailor murmured and Tristan chuckled, loudly. ‘I see,’ he shouted, ‘scared of what the captain might say. Understood. Well, never mind, another time perhaps.’
Callie, leaning on the door, watched the mouse push its head into the keyhole, the soft clink of the key falling to the boards outside hidden by Tristan’s shouting.
An unseen foot kicked the key under the door into the cabin. Callie picked the key up and carefully inserted it in the lock.
‘Perhaps I can bring you a drink, if you don’t want to leave here. I’ll go fetch you one, be back in a trice,’ Tristan said.
His steps faded.
Callie slowly, slowly turned the key. She drew in her breath, one hand gently easing the key from the lock, the other on the handle. There was a soft scraping noise, and a click.
The sailor heard. ‘What?’
Callie tugged the door open.
The sailor spun around, his mouth open in an ‘Oh’ of surprise.
Callie grinned, first at the sailor, then at the sight behind him.
A pattering swarm of mice swirled towards her.
The sailor shouted and lifted a foot as if he would stamp on the mice.
Callie gasped and then laughed out loud. A brown and white weasel had leaped onto the sailor’s leg and lithely climbed up his body. Its teeth were bared.
‘Aaaggh!’ The sailor shook his leg and flung his hands about to shake off the weasel. The weasel stuck tight, squirming and twisting, nipping at the sailor’s flailing hands. Unbalanced by his one-legged defence, the sailor tumbled backwards, over the threshold into Callie’s prison.
The weasel jumped away and out of the cabin. Callie jumped too, into the passageway, slamming the door shut behind her.
She pushed in the key and turned the lock.
‘Right, let’s get out of here!’
The sailor banged on the door. ‘Help, somebody help!’
Callie and the mice dashed down the passage to the ladder leading to the deck. The mice surged up and out through the hatch, making way for Callie’s hands and feet on the wooden rungs. She reached the top and poked her head above the opening.
No!
Captain Jarrow stood between Callie and the gangplank.
‘Don’t see me, don’t see me,’ Callie chanted.
Captain Jarrow’s pale eyes were round and staring – but not at Callie.
‘Aaaggh! Mice!’
He jigged madly as the mice swarmed around him on their way to the gangplank.
The sailors who had been scrubbing the deck jumped to their feet and those in the path of the racing mice danced out of the way. Others gaped, mouths wide open. Somewhere, Callie heard laughter, which stopped abruptly.
She jumped over the lip of the hatch and ran through the confusion, past the screaming Jarrow, past the sailors – who paid her as much heed as they would to a passing gull – her legs pumping, speeding between the mice, onto the wharf and on, on, on to the safety of the trees.
Callie didn’t stop until she reached the willow, where she threw herself down by the stream to splash her face and mouth with handfuls of cold water.
When she’d had her fill, Callie rolled onto her back and laughed until her already aching stomach turned the laughter into hiccoughs.