Free The Great Galloon and the Pirate Queen by Tom Banks Page B

occasional burst of air from a side tunnel that would set him off along a different path. The air was warm – he knew from talking to the Brunt that it came ultimately from the very furnaces that kept the Galloon afloat – and he could almost relax as he shot along. He whooshed past a tiny notice on the wall that read ‘Claude’s Head – 40 feet’. He braced himself, and almost before he was ready, he felt himself shot out of the tube like a torpedo, and found himself flying right over Claude’s stripy wooden head.
    â€˜Erm …’ said Stanley, who was not given to panic. He had that feeling you get when you realise that, although things have always turned out fine in the past, there may be one time when they don’t and that this may be that time. Claude’s head was big, but not that big – he was over it fairly quickly, still travelling surprisingly fast. He grabbed at one of Claude’s great wooden ears as they passed, but couldn’t get a finger to it. Then he was looking down at Claude’s great tiger face from above. His eyebrows were like ledges in a cliff face. His nose stuck out like a huge wooden tiger’s nose. Behind him, Stanley was aware of the unimaginable bulk of the Galloon bearing down on him – but it wasn’t bearing down quick enough to save him. He was now out in the wide blue sky beyond Claude – he felt momentarily like a dolphin playing around the bow wave of a seagoing ship.

    Below him, the river rushed not too far away – the Galloon was, by its standards, fairly low, as it hung motionless in the air a few hundred feet from the waterfall. Stanley had a moment to wonder whether he could swim, having never had the urge to find out. Then, as he lost forward momentum, he was tumbling through the humid air.
    â€˜Could anybody lend a hand …?’ he said quietly, hoping that by some chance the gyrocopter, or even Fishbane the Seagle, might be within earshot.
    They were not, it seemed. He fell head over heels over head over heels over head, seeing the green of the forest and the dark shape of the Galloon scooting past his vision in turn. It was almost fun, but with no Rasmussen to share it with, and the certainty of his imminent demise, he couldn’t quite throw himself into it.
    â€˜Ah well …’ he said to himself, sagely, squeezing his eyes shut. ‘It’s what I would have wanted.’
    He just had time to wonder about that, and to wonder whether he could talk his way out of being eaten by a crocodile, when a mighty fist, the size of a mattress, grabbed him round the waist. The fist was solid as oak – which, indeed, is what it was made of – and all the wind blew itself out of him as his downward progress was halted abruptly.
    â€˜Hooooooooooooffffff!’ he said involuntarily. He opened his eyes to find that he couldn’t see. He was inside the fist – enormous wooden claws the size of canoes were closed around him – and it took him a moment to realise what had happened.
    â€˜Claude!’ he breathed.
    It was a legend onboard the Galloon that, in times of great danger, Claude would spring to life to save the ship. Stanley had never seen any evidence of this before now – he had stood on Claude’s head many times with Rasmussen, and knew it to be made of the same wood as the rest of the Galloon – but now it seemed that it was indeed true. He felt the fist moving, as if he were being lifted up again. Now light flooded through cracks between Claude’s huge claws, and he could see the sky, grey and looming, beyond them. The claw opened out like a flower, and Stanley felt the warm air rush in on him again. He was sitting on Claude’s outstretched hand, as the enormous tiger held him up for inspection. Claude was still clinging to the Galloon with his other arm, and his wings were still stretched along the vessel’s sides. But he was now facing Stanley,