“The poop?”
“The deck at the back, where the captain paces to and fro, grappling with strategies and tactics and cunning plans to defeat the foe,” explained the purser, who had just come on deck. “How are the britches?”
“They itches,” said Peter as he climbed the short ladder to the poop deck. The captain was looking through a telescope, but he clapped it shut and shook Peter’s hand with one powerful paw.
“It’s good to see a fellow take to this way of life,” he declared. “Are your pistols primed and ready? Cutlass sharp as it can get?”
“Yes, sir,” declared Peter, who suddenly felt braver for the captain’s handshake.
“Hmm,” said the captain, as if he wasn’t sure what to say next. He took Peter’s arm and led him away from the two rats who stood nearby at the ship’s wheel.
“There’s a bit of a problem,” he whispered. “I’ve recognised the pirate ship and the news is not good. You see, we can’t risk destroying the Ratinci orrery by sinking the ship with cannon fire, so we’ll have to board and fight it out. But that ship’s the Nasty Cupboard and its captain is none other than—”
He looked around to make sure no one was listening, then pushed his snout so close to Peter’s ear that his whiskers tickled the boy’s cheek.
“Its captain… its captain is none other than the worst pirate who ever sailed the seas. The most awful bandit of the oceans, the most ghastly robber of the deep. A rat whose true name cannot be spoken, a rat who is only known by the fearsome weapon he employs, the rat that we call—”
“I say,” interrupted Doctor Norvegicus loudly as he climbed up to the poop deck. He peered through his monocle at the pirate ship. “Isn’t that the Nasty Cupboard? The ship captained by the most awful pirate of our times, the villainous, terrible, disgusting, horrendous rat who is known only as—”
“Blackbread,” finished Captain Rattus, giving up on whispering. As the name echoed out, the fur on the rats across the deck paled from black to grey and their tails began to shiver.
“Blackbread?” asked Peter. “Why is he called that?”
“He has a magic weapon,” explained the doctor. “A long thin loaf of ancient petrified black bread. It’s harder than iron and sharper than a diamond, and its magic powers make Blackbread entirely bulletproof. They bounce off the loaf and off him as well. Some have tried to fight him using only sword or cutlass, but he is too dangerous for that. Blackbread is a true master of the loaf.”
“There’s not a rat aboard the Tumblewheel that dares to face Blackbread,” sighed Captain Rattus. “Including, I’m sad to say, myself. We’ll just have to let him go.”
Chapter Eight
“But what about my DVDs! And the Ratinci orrery!” exclaimed Peter. “We have to get them back!”
“I’m sorry, Peter,” said the captain, and a tear glistened in his eye. “We dare not risk Blackbread’s anger, not even for the orrery… or your DVDs. Helmsrat, hard aport!”
The crew cheered as the Tumblewheel turned aside. Then they groaned as the Nasty Cupboard turned as well and continued sailing towards them.
“The hunter becomes the hunted,” said the doctor, peering through his monocle at the pirate ship. “We’ll have to fight Blackbread after all.”
“What would happen if Blackbread lost his loaf?” asked Peter, who’d been thinking very hard about the situation. It seemed to him that the navy rats had given up too easily.
“Why, he’d be nothing,” said Captain Rattus. “Just another bad rat to be taken in for justice. But he carries the loaf by night and day. It’s impossible! We’re all going to be taken as prisoners and sold as slaves!”
“I was thinking that if you carried something sort of soft and sticky as a shield, Blackbread might get his loaf stuck in it,” said Peter. “Then you could wrestle with him and take the loaf away.”
“Wrestle with him?” squeaked the captain. “He’s the biggest rat around! And we haven’t got a soft and sticky shield.”
“The boy’s right!” exclaimed the doctor, hopping up and down with excitement. “Why didn’t we think of it before? Our champion can use the ship’s cheese to trap the loaf. Bread and cheese go together like… like rats and whiskers. The loaf will throw itself at the cheese, whether Blackbread wants it to or not.”
“But that cheese weighs a ton. We had to get it aboard with a crane,” said the captain, pointing to a huge round of cheese that was lashed to the deck for safety and easy nibbling. “The legendary Ratercules could lift it and maybe wrestle with Blackbread, but no one here is big enough, or strong enough, or brave enough.”
“Maybe not right this second,” said Peter. “Doctor Norvegicus – when you put the spell on me, you said I’d rise like dough when words were said. Can you say just one or two of the words to make me grow bigger, but not so big that I can’t fit through the hole to Topside?”
“There’s seven magic words to say for you to regain your proper height,” mused the doctor. “I think three of them would make you a giant here, yet not so big you couldn’t get back home. I’m not entirely sure. But even if I make you big enough and strong enough, are you brave enough?”
“Considering,” the captain interrupted, “that if you don’t fight Blackbread we’ll all be taken prisoner and sold as slaves, to work in the Barbary video shops, shining discs until our paws are rubbed to stumps.”
Peter gulped and rubbed his stomach, trying to get rid of the sick feeling in his middle. What if his plan failed and he was cut to pieces by the loaf? Patrick had said he wouldn’t die, but it would hurt worse that anything, and even when he got better he’d be a slave. But if he didn’t try, there wasn’t any chance at all.
“I’ll do it,” he said.
Chapter Nine
The captain stared at Peter, a small tear forming in his right eye. “You’re a brave boy,” he said. “Whatever happens, it’s been an honour to sail with you.”
“Likewise,” said the doctor. “An honour.”
Both rats saluted. Peter nodded. Then the three of them turned to look at the approaching enemy.
The Nasty Cupboard was sailing fast towards the Tumbleweed. Hundreds of pirates hung off the rigging and stood along the deck, all of them laughing and shouting threats. On the poop deck, one rat stood alone. A huge black rat with pink eyes, wearing a coat the colour of old compost. In his hand he held a long loaf of petrified black bread that seemed to cast a cloud of darkness all around him, despite the summer sun.
It could only be Blackbread. As Peter watched, he raised the sharp stick of bread and bellowed, “Run ’em down and board ’em, and I’ll make ’em meet the loaf!”
Rats screamed, the helmsrat let go of the wheel, and the Tumblewheel turned into the wind and stopped dead in the water. A few seconds later, the two ships crashed into each other with the sound of shrieking wood and shouting rats.
In