The Golden Anchor. Cameron Stelzer

and added, ‘And what rat can stay mad with his grandpa, right?’

      A smile touched Rat Bait’s wrinkled lips. ‘Grandpa Rat Bait. That might take some gettin’ used to.’

      Whisker glanced across at his sister, Anna, standing a short distance away with Balthazar. Throughout the heated conversation she had been attempting to juggle three small pine cones while the swan honked in encouragement. The spiky brown objects were almost as big as she was.

      ‘I never knew Molly,’ Whisker said quietly to Rat Bait, ‘but Dad sees a lot of her in Anna.’

      ‘Aye,’ Rat Bait agreed. ‘It’s the performer in them both. And the eyes. They have the same deep brown eyes. It be the first thing I noticed when I cut li’l Anna down from the web. I thought to meself this wee lass has me dear Molly’s eyes – though I never dreamed she be me granddaughter.’

      ‘Do you miss Molly?’ Whisker asked him.

      ‘I missed her from the day I left,’ Rat Bait said longingly. ‘An’ I often dreamed o’ returnin’ to her in all me triumphant glory – the capt’n o’ me own ship with gold an’ jewels aplenty. But there be always another battle to fight an’ another ship to rob. And then one day I realised I be but a shadow of the rat Molly once loved …’ His words drifted off, his mind lost in the past.

      ‘Ye know, Whisker, it ain’t easy tryin’ to remember what I had to forget, but when I see that wee child, Anna, I can almost imagine I’m back in the rose maze with Molly runnin’ beside me. Sure I be confused ‘bout which direction to take, but I know I got someone with me every step o’ the way. An’ that be a mighty comfortin’ thought.’

      Whisker glimpsed Ruby out of the corner of his eye and remembered his own desperate dash through the maze – two rats, paw in paw, and one scarlet rose. Like Ernest and Molly, they had won the race. And like Ernest, Whisker had left in the dead of night without even saying goodbye.

      There was no comfort for Whisker. All he felt was shame.

      ‘We’re more alike than you know,’ he said.

      Rat Bait shook his head knowingly. ‘Don’t confuse yer actions with the reasons for doin’ them, me boy.’

      ‘But –’ Whisker began.

      ‘An’ don’t think for a moment that because we’re related, ye’re destined to make the same mistakes that I did,’ Rat Bait added quickly. ‘We might start at the same port but we’re sailin’ to different destinations.’

      ‘And yet we both ended up here,’ Whisker argued.

      ‘Aye,’ Rat Bait agreed. ‘But our journeys be very different.’

      ‘I guess,’ Whisker conceded.

      ‘Let me put it this way,’ Rat Bait said. ‘Some o’ us spend our lives tryin’ to be different. We distinguish ourselves from the pack while pretendin’ we’re superior to everyone else. Others, like ye, young Whisker, have their hearts set on makin’ a difference. It be this quality that compels Horace an’ Ruby an’ the rest o’ yer friends to follow ye into danger an’ risk their lives for the causes ye stand for. Not because ye radiate uniqueness, but because ye radiate conviction.’

      Rat Bait extended his right arm towards Whisker. In his open paw lay the gold anchor pendant, its four sets of engraved initials facing upwards.

      ‘One day ye’ll be a great capt’n like Anso,’ he said. ‘May this remind ye of where ye’ve come from, an’ where ye’re headin’.’

      Whisker looked at it hesitantly.

      ‘But Anso intended for you to have this,’ he said.

      Rat Bait shook his head. ‘Anso intended for Ernest to have his pendant, not a scurvy dog like Rat Bait. ‘Besides,’ he added with a grin, ‘me neck be too fat for such a delicate item.’

      Whisker smiled at the joke but kept his paws by his side.

      ‘Go on,’ Rat Bait said, thrusting his arm forward. ‘Take it, before I change me mind and give it to yer father, Robert, instead. His initials ain’t been crossed out yet.’

      ‘So you’re coming with us?’ Whisker said, his face alive with excitement.

      ‘O’ course I’m coming with ye,’ Rat Bait laughed, throwing the pendant to Whisker. ‘I’ve got a son and daughter-in-law to meet, ‘aven’t I? An’ ye could do with a bit o’ maturity on ye team.’

      ‘Humph,’ Ruby snorted in the background. ‘I’d take a map of the prison over maturity any day.’

      ‘I don’t have no map,’ Rat Bait said with a sly smile. ‘But I might have somethin’ else o’ value.’

      ‘What?’ Horace asked, looking up from his hook as he tried to bend it back into shape.

      ‘It’s a story,’ Rat Bait said, ‘only a story, but it concerns that wee gold anchor in Whisker’s paws.’

      The Key

      Whisker stared down at his beloved anchor, wondering what other secrets the tiny object had in store for him.

      ‘The symbol of hope,’ he said, holding it up by its torn black cord.

      ‘Aye,’ Rat Bait agreed. ‘It be a fine symbol o’ hope. But I have a hunch this pendant be much more than a symbol, an’ much more than a family heirloom.’ He glanced warily down at Eddie, who was acting as a footstool for Ruby’s injured leg. Satisfied the gerbil was still unconscious, he lowered his voice to a whisper and said, ‘I overheard somethin’ in me youth, a strange thing Anso once said, an’ it’s puzzled me ever since.’

      ‘Oooh,’ Horace said excitedly, leaning forward on the stump. ‘I love a good Anso story.’

      Looking more like his usual jovial self, Rat Bait winked at Horace and began, ‘It happened when I be very young. We’d just moved from Freeforia to Aladrya an’ livin’ in a brand-new house in Port Abalilly. Surrounded by lavish boutiques an’ sweet smellin’ candle shops, it be the finest buildin’ in the port. With its beautiful furnishin’s, airy curtains an’ ornate plaster façade, I thought I be a prince in me own palace.

      ‘Anso be busy with his admiral duties most days, so I amused meself runnin’ up an’ down the spiral staircase an’ playin’ hide-and-seek with the servants’ children. One wintry day, when I be hidin’ under a couch in Anso’s study, he walked into the room an’ sat down at his desk, unaware that I be there. As I lay silently, waitin’ for him to leave, I overheard him talkin’ to himself. I don’t remember all o’ his words, only the strange riddle he kept repeatin’.

      ‘Riddle!’ Horace squeaked in delight. ‘Anso was the king of riddles. What did he say?’

      ‘I’ll write it down for ye,’ Rat Bait said, picking up the fountain pen and tearing off a blank strip from the back of the newspaper. Using his top hat as a small table he wrote four lines of text, then read them aloud.

      ‘The strange thing be,’ Rat Bait said, continuing his story, ‘when I peered up at Anso, his paws be claspin’ his anchor pendant. He hurriedly left the room without spottin’ me an’ that be that. I never been much o’ a riddle solver, so I pushed the memory to the back o’ me mind an’ never mentioned it to anyone. I presumed Anso took his pendant to his grave an’ with it went its secret. But here it be, in the clutches o’ his great-grandson –’

      ‘– who happens to be a master of riddle solving,’ Horace said, clapping Whisker on the back with his hook.

      ‘So the Book of Knowledge wasn’t the only treasure Anso hid from searching eyes,’