The Trophy of Champions (11 page)

‘Okay,' Whisker said, giving Athena a grateful smile. ‘Pull up a seat in the sun.'

Athena wasted no time in snuggling down next to him.

‘Who needs a seat?' she giggled. ‘There's plenty of room on this stump for both of us.'

Whisker felt his cheeks flush a bright shade of pink.

‘Here's an idea,' Horace said, before Whisker could wiggle his way out of trouble. ‘Athena searches the right page, Whisker examines the left and I go and get us all a tasty treat from the tavern.'

‘Deal,' Athena said. ‘Bring me back a garden salad, – and don't forget one of those souvenir placemats they're giving away this week. I'm collecting the whole set.'

‘Sure, sis,' Horace groaned. ‘That will be three tasteless salads and three tacky red placemats …'

‘Isn't this cosy, Whisker,' Athena declared as soon as Horace was gone. ‘We could start our very own book club – just you and me.'

‘Pete loves books, too,' Whisker said hastily. ‘I'm sure he'd love to join. Why don't you ask him?'

Athena pretended not to hear him and lowered her golden spectacles to the end of her nose.

‘Gracious,' she said, peering down at the sun-drenched book, ‘the writing is ever so small.'

‘Tell me about it,' Whisker agreed. ‘I go cross-eyed after looking at one page. You're lucky you've got reading glasses.'

‘These?' Athena laughed, removing the stylish frames from her nose. ‘They don't help a bit. Look, the lenses are clear.' She held them up in front of him. ‘I only wear them so people appreciate me for my
brains
as well as my
beauty
. You can try them on if you like. I've got dozens of pairs.'

Before Whisker could protest, Athena tucked the arms of the glasses behind his ears and positioned them on his nose.

‘What a charmer!' she squealed. ‘You look positively dapper.' There was a rustle of canvas from the entrance to the tent. Whisker hurriedly tried to remove the glasses from his face.

‘T-that was quick, Horace –' he stammered. He stopped when he realised the figure in the doorway wasn't Horace. It was Ruby. She took one look at Whisker and Athena, cuddled up on the stump, grabbed a quiver of arrows and stormed out.

‘What's her problem?' Athena said, staring after Ruby. ‘She's always so uptight.'

‘If you just gave her a chance,' Whisker began, fighting back a wave of guilt, ‘you'd find she's really, well …' Athena gave him a bored yawn and Whisker knew it was pointless to continue. ‘Let's just focus on these cane toads,' he sighed, returning the glasses to Athena.

The sun-reactive ink of the blank pages grew clear in the morning light and the two rats were soon flicking through detailed sections, searching for information.

Horace returned with their lunch, bearing news that the penguins were being thrashed by the marmosets in the second pool game. He proceeded to offer them his ‘expert' assistance, which amounted to a string of loud burps and highly irrelevant comments.

‘Listen to this,' he said, reading a caption beside a map:

‘And how is that relevant, Brother?' Athena interrupted.

‘It's not,' Horace replied. ‘But the caption goes on to say that the smaller rivers and swamps of Aladrya are discussed on page four hundred and sixty three. I figure that any water-dwelling animals must get a mention sooner or later.'

Athena flicked through the pages until she located the swamp section and began skim-reading the contents.

‘Bingo!' she said. ‘According to this,
the milky-white secretion from the glands of cane toads is toxic. Care should be taken to avoid contact with the mouth and eyes.'

‘Tell us something we didn't know,' Horace muttered.

Athena continued,
‘Toads absorb moisture through their skin. Exposure to large amounts of salt, without access to water, can be fatal.'

‘Salt,' Whisker pondered. ‘Well, that's an interesting discovery.'

‘It's not just interesting,' Horace exclaimed, ‘it's inspirational! Fred has a large barrel of salt in the ship's pantry. If we sprinkle ourselves like we're buckets of hot chips, we'll be impenetrable.'

‘But what about the poison?' Athena asked. ‘The passage doesn't list any preventative measures.'

‘I've been thinking about that, Athena,' Whisker said with a sly grin, ‘and I think I've got a solution. When the time comes, how would you feel about being our team's official fashion consultant?'

The glorious autumn afternoon of Day Five was the perfect time to showcase the Centenary Games' most ‘graceful' sport, Plank Diving. Every one of the thirty-six competitors had an opportunity to impress the judges by performing a routine of their choosing. The top four divers would then go into a grand final round.

Unlike other diving competitions, a wide variety of conventional and unconventional techniques were permitted, including: handstands, somersaults, belly flops, bomb dives, face plants and side splats.

‘You're in with a good shot, Whisker,' Horace said, as they walked towards the makeshift diving tower on the northern pier. ‘Your practice dives were close to perfect.'

‘I've had a little more experience in the jumping department, that's all,' Whisker said humbly, recalling the many hours he'd spent on the circus trampoline and flying trapeze.

‘Speaking of jumping,' Horace whispered, ‘Papa watched some of the other teams practicing this morning. He thinks the toads are the team to beat.'

‘That makes sense,' Whisker said. ‘They were born in water and spend most of their lives leaping into ponds.'

‘Yeah, but those under-sized swimming costumes will hardly win them any points for presentation,' Horace shuddered, pointing his hook at six warty toads posing in front of a sketch artist.

Whisker took one look at their hideous polka dot bikinis and hurried past.

The diving tower was a square wooden structure with a set of stairs twisting up three sides and a bendy plank protruding from the fourth. The plank overhung the ocean to the south, allowing spectators to watch clearly from the nearby southern pier. The three tournament officials (a plump koala, a sleepy turtle and an old hare) sat at a table in front of the crowd with large piles of score cards.

Many of the competitors were already milling around the tower when Whisker and Horace arrived. Through the rowdy taunts of, ‘Walk the plank, ye scurvy dog' and, ‘I put the bomb in bomb dive, watch me explode!' Whisker heard Siamese Sally and Cleopatra protesting to Baron Gustave about the validity of the event.

‘… It should have been scrapped a century ago,' Sally hissed. ‘Pirates spend all of their time on the water, not in it.'

While the Cat Fish argued in vain, Whisker noticed Ruby walking over from the far side of the pier. In contrast to the slobbering riffraff around her, she was a sight for toad-scarred eyes. She wore a sleek, red swimming top and a pair of three-quarter black leggings with gold stripes. Her scarlet bandanna was gone, but her crimson eye patch remained firmly fastened across her face.

Whisker suddenly realised how much he missed her. He knew she was only a few feet away, but the gulf between them felt more like a shark-infested ocean than a couple of deck boards. It didn't help that they'd barely spoken in days. Even before the cup, Whisker was so preoccupied with his training that their conversations were few and far between. And when they had spoken, late at night, neither of them said anything that really mattered.

That was before the games,
Whisker thought sadly.
Now there are three sisters and a string of failures to complicate things …

Pulling himself together, he tried to say something sincere. ‘Good luck, Ruby. Dive well.'

Without meeting his gaze, Ruby pointed to the southern pier.

‘I think that's for you,' she murmured.

Whisker turned his attention to the large crowd standing along the pier's edge. To the left of the judges hung an enormous red banner. Stretched tightly between two posts, its huge gold letters were as clear as day:
WHISKER RULES THE WAVES.
Standing behind the banner, wearing red, black and gold face paint, were Aphrodite, Athena and Hera. They let out a cheer when they spotted Whisker staring in their direction.

‘Shiver me Whisker!' Horace exclaimed. ‘Could they make that banner any bigger? Each letter is larger than my entire body.'

‘I-I had no idea,' Whisker said, turning back to Ruby. But all he saw was a three-legged pug wearing floaties – Ruby was gone.

The opening round of Plank Diving was a slow and slippery process. Many of the contestants suffered from vertigo when they reached the top of the tower, calling for considerable encouragement from Chatterbeak to coax them down. Despite their thirst for victory, the Cat Fish were afraid to get their paws wet and flatly refused to participate.

The majority of dives followed the predictable pattern of three bounces, an attempted somersault and a splash-landing. There were, however, several failed back flips, an ill-timed synchronised dive by two penguins and the biggest of all bomb dives by Fred, earning him a standing ovation from the soaked supporters and three straight sevens from the judges.

Whisker commenced his campaign with a routine announced eloquently by Chatterbeak as ‘
a
forward dive with two somersaults in a tuck position.'

Standing on the end of the plank, with the cheering crowd beneath him, Whisker felt like he was back at the circus. He'd never been an official performer in the big top, but he'd swung from the trapeze and somersaulted into the safety net often enough to know what big moments were all about. Today the attention was on him.

He touched the gold anchor pendant hanging around his neck – not for luck, but for memories, and began his approach. With three steps and a leap he was airborne. He tucked his legs close to his body, somersaulted twice and straightened up. His body sliced through the calm surface of the ocean like a pin. Only his tail left the smallest of splashes.

Invigorated by the freshness of the ocean, he kicked his legs and his body rose through a shower of bubbles. He emerged from the surface of the water to see Mama Kolina and Papa Niko applauding and the judges raising score cards of
nine, eight,
and
eight
.

Nothing to brag about
, he thought, a little annoyed with his tail.
Let's hope it's enough to get me through
…

With a large number of threes, fours and fives being handed out by the judges, Whisker finished in third place and progressed to the final with two toads and one marmoset. The surprise performer of the event was Jester Mimp. The mumbling marmoset had removed the bells from his jester's hat and tied them to his toes before his dive. The result was a comical musical routine culminating in a triple spin, which earned him the first ten of the event.

Ruby finished in fifth place with a
backwards two-and-a-half somersaults dive.
Her aerial performance was exquisite but she entered the water at a slight angle, losing vital points from two of the judges. Her disappointment, coupled with Whisker's success, did nothing to help their already strained relationship. Whisker made an effort to say something encouraging, but Ruby was whisked away with the other failed competitors before he could get past, ‘Fifth is hardly a result to be ashamed of.'

He was left standing on the northern pier, drawing straws with a musical marmoset, a lipstick-smothered toad and her scantily clad mother.