Adventures In Otok - Chapter One

ADVENTURES IN OTOK

BY

DONALD HARRY ROBERTS

VOLUME ONE

THE SHIP, THE JESTER AND THE OWL

CHAPTER ONE

Not so very long ago, in fact, this story took place in the afternoon of October 20^th, 2019 on the last ferry crossing from Tobermory to South Baymouth. This story is about five children who were being sent to stay with their uncle for the winter for reasons that need not come into this story just yet but will before it is all told.

Their names were Arly, Anna, Teddy, Randy and Lacey Wayward and they were in the care of Mrs. Lawly, their Nanny. This is a story about an incident of a most mystical and magical nature that happened to them during the crossing from Tobermory to South Baymouth that begins with an adventure had by Teddy, the middle child by two years on either side of his age of ten.

 It was a cold, cloudy, stormy day that rolled the Chi Cheemaun back and forth, back and forth, side to side and side to side.

Mrs. Lawly was the first off, the bus that delivered her and her charges to Tobermory. She was not a person to be over run by the children and in many ways was quite strict in her handling of them, especially about paying attention to what they were doing, which meant putting away their phones until they were all safely aboard the ship and settled.

“Now take up your pull-a-longs and follow me to the waiting area and stay close together. I will give you your passes just before we board. Please stay close together and do not wander off. Once we are aboard, we will go directly to the Cafeteria and have our lunch. Afterwards we will find a quiet place to finish the voyage. I have brought a book to read to you.”

“Mother promised us you would tell us about Uncle Busker.” Anna, the second oldest reminded.

“So, she did, and it will be as good a story as any book I might read.” Mrs. Lawly said with a chuckle and a sly glint in her eyes, but their uncle’s tale will not come into this story except that while it was being told Teddy slipped away to visit the head and…

The ferry listed one way and then the other so that Teddy had to weave his way from the cafeteria into the corridor and finally to the door of the bathroom, hanging on to anything he could to keep from bouncing off the walls, which did not quite work because just as he was going through the hatch way a big wave bashed the Chi Cheemaun and sent Teddy careening down the corridor around a corner, over the barrier and down the stairs descending to the belly of the ship.

Nope. Teddy didn’t bang his head and as far as he knew he never lost consciousness though there was a moment that he seemed to be lost in a kind of whirlpool made out of crayon colours filled with gold and silver stars. And when everything settled down, he found himself in the bilge of a ship, but not a big modern vessel like the ferry, it was a ship with a wooden hull that creaked and groaned as the waves tossed it about.

“Wow. What happened?” Teddy said in a louder voice than he planned and, in a tone, somewhere between awesome and scared. And who wouldn’t be a little scared?

He thought about calling out but decided that might not be a very smart thing to do, not knowing where he was and what sort of people would be sailing about in a wooden ship. Instead, he climbed up from the bilge through a hole into the mid-ship hold where he found wooden crates and barrels and casks with strange writing on them but some he could tell by the smell, like apples and potatoes and something that smelled like the rum his father nipped into at new years or other special occasions. There were lots of other smells and not all of them were pleasant.

After scrummaging around the hold for a few minutes Teddy climbed a ladder through another hatch onto another deck. When he poked his head up, he nearly cried out, though he could hardly believe what he saw.

Quickly Teddy ducked down again and was going to back track a little but as he turned away from the ladder a hand like thing grabbed him by the shirt collar and lifted him off his feet.

“Heyo.” Cried his captor. “We have a stowaway hiding about our cargo.” The voice was thin and squeaky but really quite loud and grating on the ear.

“You’re a Rat.” Teddy bellowed then tried to squirm free but to no avail and the Rat, as big as Teddy and much stronger hauled him topside.

Teddy really started to squirm and yelled, “Let me go you creepy rat or I twist your tail off when I get the chance.

The Rat hung Teddy higher and stared in straight in the eyes. “What manner of beast are you to be so bold as to threaten a master of the seas.”

“I am a boy a human boy and where I come from, we feed the likes of you to our cats,” Teddy replied threateningly.

Suddenly the rat dropped Teddy like he was a piece of hot coal and backed off.

“Oh, sunder me.” Cried the rat. “We are boarded by a Skyfaller. I, Bucca Toth, have done ill to a Skyfaller. Forgive me spirits. I meant no harm. I have never seen the likes of this Boyhuman. I hardly believed such a creature existed.”

Teddy gave himself a stiff shake, especially his head hoping that if he did, he would be back on the Chi Cheemaun with his brothers and sisters and Mrs. Lawly. But it didn’t work. He was still on the deck of a wooden ship looking across at a rat his own size and talking a kind of English that was strung loosely on a mild, foreign accent he could not place.

To Be Continued weekly