The Mapmakers' Race Read online

  Contents

  ONE The Train

  TWO The Santander Team Will Start Tomorrow

  THREE Cream Cake and Jellied Eels

  FOUR Over the Bridge

  FIVE The Truth about Francie

  SIX Dumpling and Treacle

  SEVEN A True Life Bear!

  EIGHT A Story that Isn’t Really about a Pig

  NINE An Unswallowable Rock

  TEN Lazy Lummocks

  ELEVEN A Bucket of Donkey Dung

  TWELVE Quite a Bit Scary

  THIRTEEN The Horse’s Treasure

  FOURTEEN Tumbling Down—Just Like the Rain

  FIFTEEN To the Snow

  SIXTEEN Golden Glints

  SEVENTEEN Stranded

  EIGHTEEN Fantabulous Fish

  NINETEEN A Boot Under a Bush

  TWENTY The Scumbag Crumb-bag

  TWENTY-ONE Desperation and Despair

  TWENTY-TWO Time Suspended

  TWENTY-THREE Stumbling to the Finish Line

  TWENTY-FOUR The End of the Race

  TWENTY-FIVE H is for Humphrey

  CHAPTER ONE

  THE TRAIN

  It really wasn’t Joe’s fault.

  Ma had told him to be helpful, so when the train pulled into a station, he grabbed the empty flask and asked a man in railway uniform how long the train would stop for, and was there a tap? And the railway man looked at the clock and said eleven minutes, and outside the ticket office. Joe couldn’t see a tap where the man said, but he found a pump at the horse trough out the front. He filled the flask, had a quick drink, then he pumped some water for a poor spaniel panting with the heat and was back at the train with two whole minutes to spare.

  Sal was hanging out the carriage door. “Hurry, Joe. Run!”

  He waved to Francie, whose anxious face was pressed to the window.

  Then Sal said, “Where’s Ma?”

  Joe looked around. “What do you mean?”

  “You were taking so long,” Sal said, “she went to look for you.”

  “But I never get lost.”

  “She thought you must have gone exploring.” Sal hovered with one foot on the step and one foot on the platform. “Where is she? Come on, Ma, it’s about to go.”

  The train did a sudden jerk and steam swished up from around the wheels.

  “It’s going to leave!” She jumped back in.

  Joe scrambled in after her and dropped the flask into the picnic basket. In the distance, doors slammed. Still no Ma. “Maybe we should get off?”

  “Yes!” Sal’s voice was panicky. “Let’s get off—quick.”

  They’d been on the train since yesterday afternoon, and jackets, boots and socks, and bits of breakfast were strewn everywhere. Not to mention Humphrey, who was still fast asleep with his thumb in his mouth, and Carrot the parrot, perched on the luggage rack.

  “Hurry, hurry, hurry!” Sal and Francie began to shove things into bags.

  “Hurry, hurry,” said Carrot.

  Then Joe remembered. “But what about all our stuff in the guard’s van?”

  Too late. A whistle blew, someone slammed the door of their compartment, and the station started to move sedately past the window. Joe stuck his head out in case Ma was making a heroic leap for the last carriage, but she wasn’t.

  Their mother was left behind.

  “No!” Sal flapped her hands. “Do something. Stop the train!”

  Joe jumped onto the seat. He could just reach the red emergency handle above the door.

  “Stop, wait!” Sal pointed to the words WARNING and PENALTY next to the lever. “What if they say it’s improper use? Fine: 20 sovereigns. We haven’t got any money. We might end up in prison.”

  She was right.

  “What’re we going to do?” She slumped down in a crumpled heap in the corner. “I told her not to go.”

  The train picked up speed, rushing them further and further from their mother.

  Joe dropped into his seat next to Francie. “She’ll catch us up. She’ll get on the next train.”

  “But that could be ages,” Sal wailed.

  “Well, maybe she’ll borrow a bicycle or a horse or something. I don’t know. It’ll be fine.”

  Francie was clutching her sketchbook to her chest. Joe always knew what his silent twin was feeling, and right now she was sending out waves of worry. He gave her a gentle shove.

  “Really, Francie, she’ll get on the next train. We’ll be fine.” Francie shook her head and opened her sketchbook.

  Even though they had tried to be quiet, Humphrey woke up, scarlet-cheeked and rumpled. “The climbing train! Has it started?”

  They had to tell him about Ma and he burst into a flood of snot and tears. Carrot flew down from the luggage rack and perched on his knee and pecked affectionately at his shirt buttons. Humph stroked Carrot’s soft orange wing feathers and gradually calmed down. Sal dug about in Ma’s holdall and found him a handkerchief.

  “We’re having an adventure, Humph,” said Joe. “It’ll be exciting.”

  “’Citing?” Humphrey narrowed his eyes. “’Citing? We’ll see about that.” Sometimes Humph seemed to go from being four to sixty-four at the speed of a shooting star.

  When the guard came along the corridor Sal slid the door of their compartment open and asked him when the next train went to Grand Prospect.

  He leaned in the doorway. “This is just a once-a-week service at the moment, miss. Should be going daily before winter, though.”

  They sat like statues until the man had moved away, then they exploded together, “A week!”

  Humphrey threw himself at Sal and wound his arms around her neck. “I want Maaaaaaa!”

  Francie clutched her stomach. “Francie feels a bit sick,” said Joe.

  “Me too,” said Sal. “I feel as if I’ve swallowed a mouse and it’s trying to scratch its way out of my tummy.”

  “T-r-u-b-l,” said Carrot.

  “But Ma probably won’t wait for another train. She’ll get a ride on a cart, or perhaps there’s a stage-coach.” Joe tried to sound as if he believed himself. “It can’t be much further to Grand Prospect.”

  The train sped on and on. Francie hunched over her sketchbook and drew pictures of their old home. Humph sucked his thumb and sniffed sadly as tunnels and bridges, fields, farms and forests flashed past the window.

  Joe tried to swallow the lump in his throat. “It’s too far, isn’t it?”

  He couldn’t imagine what might happen next. None of them had ever spent so much as a night without their mother.

  “What about the race?” said Sal quietly. “It’s our last chance.”

  They were going to Grand Prospect for the Great Mapmakers’ Race, and their whole future depended on winning. Their mother was a brilliant mapmaker, but no one wanted to employ her without their father, who was an explorer and route-finder. When Pa hadn’t come back from his last expedition, Ma had taken a job cleaning a beer house, but the landlord said her scrubbing wasn’t up to scratch and sacked her. No job meant no money for rent, so at the beginning of summer the Santanders left their house and moved into their tent, which they all preferred anyway, but Ma said winter would be another story.

  Joe earned a few coins helping the bee woman move her hives from the orchard to the water meadows, and they all worked for a few days thinning apples, but the money had soon run out. In desperation, Ma spent the last of their savings on the entry fee and supplies for the Great Race to find and map a route over the mountains from Grand Prospect to New Coalhaven. They wouldn’t be a family any more unless they could win a share of the prize money.

  The guard walked along the corridor ringing a bell and shouting, “Secure your belongings, sit back in your seats. Ascendi
ng the Vertical in five minutes. Five minutes to the Vertical.”

  Sal looked stricken. “I’d forgotten about the Vertical.”

  They’d all been so excited about going on a climbing train, but now the only feeling they had room for was worry. Sal stood on the seat and the others passed up their loose belongings to shove behind the net in the luggage rack, then the guard came through again and ordered them to sit tight. He released the latches that unlocked the rear-facing seats so Sal and Humph were tipped backwards and their legs shot up, like being in a dentist’s chair. Humph waved his feet at Joe. The train shuddered and clanked. Humph looked worried.

  “They’ll be taking the engine off,” said Sal.

  “Where?” asked Humphrey. “Why?”

  “They don’t need it. The carriages caterpillar up while the engine turns around on the turntable. There’ll be another engine waiting at the top. You’ll see.”

  There was a tremendous jolt—and they were off.

  Up and down the train people were yelling and screaming as the track got steeper. The Santander family were yelling, too, though they were more exhilarated than scared, and Carrot joined in for an excuse to screech. Francie and Joe, facing forward, could see how steeply the carriage was sloping up; Sal and Humph could mostly only see the ceiling and the sky.

  “We’re like a fly crawling up a wall,” said Joe.

  “The train only goes to sixty-seven degrees; walls are ninety.” Sal was the sort of person who minded about the difference, but the others couldn’t care less about the maths. They were in a climbing train, and for a few minutes the thrill of the Vertical blotted out everything else.

  Looking down, Joe could see tiny roofs and treetops—and then suddenly the window was filled with another train, travelling in the opposite direction.

  “Counter-balancing,” said Sal, with satisfaction.

  The people in the other train had their mouths open and looked petrified.

  Then it was gone and there was just a glimpse of its guard’s van vanishing into the distance far below. Too soon the track levelled out and the carriage went back to its regular angle and slowed to a stop.

  “Again!” shouted Humph. “Let’s go on it again.”

  “Poor Ma, she was so looking forward to the Vertical. It won’t be nearly as much fun for her on her own,” said Sal.

  “And Pa,” said Joe. “Pa would have loved it.”

  He tried not to think about Pa too much because he ended up with an ache in his middle, so he made himself think about something else.

  “When does the race actually start?” he asked.

  Sal unpinned the letter of confirmation from the lining of the picnic basket where Ma had put it for safekeeping. She read: “All expeditions will depart at 10 am on Saturday the tenth … Blah blah … and thereafter … forfeit entry to the race if not departed by midday. Saturday. Tomorrow. By midday. So that’s it.” She crossed her arms over her chest as if she were trying to hold herself together. “I’ll have to be a housemaid. A life of servitude. I knew it.”

  That made Joe snort with laughter because Sal couldn’t toast a piece of bread in front of the fire without burning it, and when she was doing the washing up she’d just let go of the plate she was drying if she had an interesting mathematical thought. Ma usually kept her away from the dishes.

  “Well, I’m not going to be a servant,” said Joe. “I’ll be a nomad if I can’t be an explorer. And Francie will be an artist.”

  Francie nodded. She never spoke, but Joe and Francie’s thoughts often got mixed together and Joe had spoken for both of them since they were very small. She drew instead of speaking, and she needed a pen or pencil in her hand like other people needed air in their lungs.

  Sal bit her lip and stared at the telegraph wires swooping past, with a counting look on her face. Joe nudged her leg with his foot.

  “You know what? We can still enter the race. If we set off with the other teams tomorrow, we can stop as soon as we’re outside Grand Prospect and wait for Ma to catch up.”

  “What’ll we eat?”

  “We’ve got sacks full of food. And it doesn’t all need cooking.”

  “Raisins don’t,” said Humph, in a small voice.

  “True. Nor does salt.” Sal’s chin wobbled and she looked as though she were going to burst into tears, but she started to laugh instead, and her crazy whooping set Joe and Francie and Humphrey off, too. For a minute, it was just like the old days before Pa disappeared—falling about and laughing together until their sides ached.

  No parents, no money, no home—what else could they do?

  CHAPTER TWO

  THE SANTANDER TEAM WILL START TOMORROW

  Even though Grand Prospect was the end of the railway line, Sal wasn’t taking any chances. She made them put on their socks and boots, and get everything packed up and ready by the door so they could jump out as soon as the train stopped.

  Grand Prospect Station was just a raised wooden platform in a field of bare dirt. People poured off the train with baskets and boxes. A ramp was lowered from the stable carriage and a group of men filed out, each leading a horse, skittering and snorting, onto the platform. The men were wearing riding boots, big-brimmed Stetson hats, bandanas around their necks, and leather waistcoats with a symbol on the back showing a rifle and a telescope crossed over a map. Another team. Sal bit her lip. They looked so professional.

  “I bet they’re the ones Ma calls the Cowboys,” she whispered to Joe.

  The guard’s van doors opened and the guard began dumping out bags and bundles. Immediately there was a bellow from the tallest Cowboy, a giant of a man.

  “You break anything and I’ll break your neck,” he growled.

  The guard backed out of the way, and the big man climbed into the luggage van and passed out saddles and saddle-bags to his companions, who buckled them onto their horses. Then he mounted his horse and wheeled it in a tight circle, almost trampling Humphrey.

  “Hey! Watch out!” Sal yelled, snatching Humph away from the clattering hooves.

  The man looked at her, eyes narrowed to a slit. Then he spat, and the wad of tobacco he’d been chewing landed at her feet. “You should take care now, girly.” He kicked out and the heel of his boot grazed Sal’s arm.

  “Ouch! You, you—” Sal tried to think of a word that sounded angry enough.

  “You, you!” Humphrey shouted after the men, who were cantering off in a cloud of dust.

  Sal had to forget the Cowboy because everything from the guard’s van was piling up on the platform. She and Joe dragged the bundle of tent canvas to one side and stacked the rest of the family’s belongings next to it: rucksacks, tent poles, surveying equipment and sacks of food. The other passengers strode off, and porters trundled after them with trolleys loaded with crates and trunks; everyone else in the whole world seemed to know just where they had to be and what they had to do next. Sal perched on a kitbag.

  “We can’t possibly carry all this stuff. What are we supposed to do now?”

  “I know,” said Humphrey. “Let’s have dinner.”

  “We haven’t got any dinner,” Sal said, more fiercely than she meant to.

  “Hey. You kiddies.” A man carrying a huge ledger book bustled across the empty platform towards them. He said he was the mayor’s assistant and demanded to know who they were.

  Sal stood up as straight as she could and smoothed her skirt. Her heart was thumping. “Good afternoon. We’re the Santanders. I’m Sal, this is Humphrey, and Francie and Joe.”

  The assistant looked doubtful. He consulted his ledger. “Santander. That name is in my register, but I am looking for Angelica and Leopold. Their dray is waiting.”

  “Our mother and father have been, um, delayed a little. They’ll be here very soon.” Sal hated lying and didn’t think she sounded convincing.

  “No, they won’t, cos they’re—” Humph began, but Joe towed him away to look for the grappling hooks under the train.

  The ma
yor’s assistant looked at Sal and Francie as though they were something nasty-smelling on the sole of his boot. “Your parents may do as they please, of course, but the race begins tomorrow. The dray over there was ordered to convey the Santander expedition to the square. The feast begins at five sharp.”

  He stuck his nose in the air and hurried off.

  “Feast! Joe, Francie, did you hear that? There’s a feast!” Sal suddenly felt very hungry. They wouldn’t starve to death tonight, at least. “And a dray, whatever that is.”

  The dray turned out to be a kind of cart, pulled by an enormous carthorse, and driven by a beanpole of a red-headed boy called Beckett, who was wearing a shirt with sleeves that barely reached his elbows, flapping trousers held up by a string belt, and a fraying straw hat. He helped them heave the heavy tent on board.

  He held out a finger to Carrot and didn’t wince when she pecked at it.

  “Beautiful bird.”

  Carrot put her head down and tickled his hand with her green crest.

  “She likes you,” said Joe.

  “Smart as well as beautiful, then.”

  “S-m-r-t,” Carrot spelled.

  Beckett laughed. “Nearly!”

  When everything was loaded, he said they could all sit on the driver’s bench with him if they didn’t mind squashing. Sal hung on to Humphrey, who was very interested in the horse.

  “He’s so big. What’s he called?”

  “Well, I call him Plodder.” Beckett had a slow way of speaking.

  “Why?” asked Humph.

  “To encourage him, poor beast,” said Beckett.

  The cart rattled out onto a wide dirt road and they headed into town. Sal hadn’t realised how big and grand a town could be. Six, seven, eight blocks already. And the buildings looked so important, with their shiny signs saying The Daily Bugle and Mechanical Mining Machinery Co. Ltd and New Territories Savings Bank in fresh bright paint.

  Humphrey kept squealing and demanding, “What’s that?”

  “He hasn’t been anywhere like this before,” Sal explained. “None of us has.”

  “Grand Prospect’s growing fast,” said Beckett. “See the clock tower? It’s brand new. The green roof behind is the technical school. And see the yellow smoke? That comes from the vulcanizing factory, and the black smoke comes from the Progressive Metal Foundry.”