Free The Island of Destiny by Cameron Stelzer Page B

carried large cheese knives, strapped to their backs with thick belts.
    Sabre drew his knife and began sharpening its blade on the Rock of Hope, while the others unloaded a cargo of canvas tents, fishing lines and shovels. After two large chests were dragged onto the beach, Master Meow gave Sabre a high-pitched whistle.
    Sabre tipped his orange captain’s hat to his second-in-command and continued sharpening. Meow climbed into the boat and began rowing back to the Silver Sardine.
    Furious Fur approached Sabre. Although Whisker couldn’t make out the words over the rustling wind in the trees, he saw Sabre pointing to Mt Mobziw and drawing fish shapes in the sand. Sabre’s intentions were blatantly obvious: set up camp, catch half-a-lagoon of fish and then dig up the treasure.
    Under Sabre’s direction, Furious Fur lugged armfuls of canvas and rope to the foot of the dunes. Using long pieces of driftwood for framework, he constructed a primitive-looking shelter. Soon after completion, the rowboat returned with two more passengers.
    The ladies of the crew, Cleopatra and Siamese Sally, pranced up the beach on all fours. Cleopatra, the graceful Abyssinian, gazed straight ahead with hypnotic green eyes. Siamese Sally, bony and bored, looked even more lifeless than usual. Her huge hook-earrings weighed down her scraggly ears. Her red bandanna hung loosely from her skull-like head and a scrap of red material was tied around her scrawny left arm.
    A bandage from the f ireworks incident , Whisker thought. Yet another reason for the Cat Fish to have me for lunch.
    He counted the cats. One, two, three, four, five –
    There was still one crew member missing: Prowler, the Russian Blue and shadowy lookout of the Cat Fish.

    Whisker turned his gaze to the Silver Sardine . He ran his eyes across the deck and then raised them to the broadsword-shaped masts. Something grey and furry moved in the crow’s-nest – Six.
    â€˜I believe we’ve seen enough,’ the Captain whispered. ‘There are safer places I’d rather be when the Cat Fish venture inland.’
    Without protest, the rats crept down from the tree and set off towards the Hermit’s cave on Mt Moochup. The forest thinned as the terrain grew steeper and the three companions found themselves wading through the shallow water of the mountain spring, far upstream from the Rock of Hope.
    Whisker stopped and gulped down huge mouthfuls of the crystal-clear water. He hadn’t drunk anything for nearly two days, and the water was soothing on his dry throat. His mother once told him that rats could go without water for longer than camels. Whisker thought the spring water could keep him going for weeks, such was its pure taste.
    â€˜Whisker needs to keep moving,’ the Hermit said from the opposite bank.
    Whisker wiped his mouth with the back of his paw and hurried out of the stream, following the Hermit into rocky country. He kept a keen eye out for his black-shelled buddies, the scorpions, and was relieved to reach the Hermit’s lair without a repeat of the previous night’s desperate dash. If the scorpions were lurking nearby, they were in no hurry to reveal themselves in the light of day.
    The Hermit stashed his small bag in its hiding spot at the back of the cave and the three companions took turns monitoring the cats from a nearby boulder-top. It had a clear view of the beach but was too high up the mountainside for the rats to see much more than a few blurs of fur without magnification. The rats took no chances and lay perfectly still on the rock on the off chance the Cat Fish were looking back up at them ­– with a telescope.
    The cats devoted their entire morning to fishing. Whisker thought it a rather odd activity to choose, considering there was a mysterious treasure waiting to be discovered, but he knew it was pointless trying to fathom the logic of cats.
    The afternoon brought strong winds and a fierce storm. The rats