~~~

Taking a boat to the No Name Islands was neither as short nor as calm as they had expected, for three reasons.

One, the waves were quite rough.

Two, the islands were very far from the mainland.

And three, the aunty drove the boat as if she were going for the Gau-atko[1] sea speed record.

There were times when the boat was going so fast that, as it hit a wave, it would launch into the air and not come down again for at least seven seconds.

Luco seemed to enjoy the speed, as well as the seeds, but everyone else looked like they were gonna be sick.

In fact, Cha Cha was sick, three times, but no one else noticed as she pretended to need the toilet each time.

The last time she came back, Wu Dog Yan spotted a bit of vomit hanging off her chin but decided not to say anything.

‘Does this aunty know which island is Dog Hood’s?’ asked Luco as

the sea calmed down a bit and the boat stopped flying maniacally through the air.

‘I told her to go to the one with the castle on it.’

‘There’s only one?’

‘I assume so.’

‘We should check, just to be sure.’ Luco pulled out his phone and scanned the article he’d looked at before, the one about Dog Hood buying the island, but it didn’t say anything about the other islands. It just said that there wasn’t much there.

‘Well?’ asked Zade, sliding another seed into his mouth.

‘Nothing.’

‘What?’

‘Nothing. It doesn’t say.’

‘Try a different site.’

Luco said ‘pah’ and clicked back to the search engine. A mountain appeared with a diagonal crack ripped through the middle. Luco tried to reload the page but the cracked mountain appeared again.

‘My connection’s gone,’ he moaned, hitting the screen.

The other three all tried their phones and came up with the exact same result; a broken mountain.

‘You can’t get anything either?’ Cha Cha asked Wu Dog Yan, peering over her arm.

‘Nothing.’

‘But your phone looks really expensive.’

The DogTV star looked up at the sky, which had a few clouds, and then down at the sea, which had no waves whatsoever. ‘Must be out of range. Suppose it might come back when we get to the island, but I doubt it.’

‘Then we’re on our own,’ said Zade glancing at the aunty as she steered the boat with her eyes closed.

‘Good,’ answered Luco, dipping a paw into the seed basket and pulling out about twelve.

‘Good?’

‘If we can’t use technology, neither can Dog Hood.’

‘Ah, that’s true. I guess.’

The boat continued to chug along peacefully until the aunty steered left and pointed towards a big chunk of rock sticking out of the sea. It was strange; it looked a little bit like a fork that had been bent to the right, with the bottom part of the rock half the size of the top.

‘How can it still be standing?’ asked Zade, tilting his head towards the bottom of the rock.

‘Nuut kaata,’ said Cha Cha.

‘Is that one of the No Name Islands?’ asked Luco, taking a seed out of the cup in his paw and throwing it into the sea.

‘Nuut.’

‘Just a weird-shaped rock?’

‘That’s Ratko’s Jump,’ cut in Wu Dog Yan, coming out of her deep-sea trance.

‘Rat’s what?’

‘Ratko’s Jump, the gateway to the No Name Islands. We’re actually quite lucky to see it as it’s usually covered in mist.’

Cha Cha opened her mouth to ask a question, but, at the exact same moment, the aunty revved up the engine and drowned out all surrounding sounds. For a few seconds the boat practically stopped, then, with more engine revving, it slowly built up some speed.

‘It’s the currents,’ shouted the aunty, when the engine noise had died down. Everyone waited for her to add more [in a softer voice] but she didn’t.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

‘The currents are infamously strange in this area,’ said Wu Dog Yan, finally giving up on the aunty. ‘Some dogs say it is cursed.’

‘Is it?’

‘Nuut,’ replied Wu Dog Yan curtly.

‘What about that rock?’ asked Cha Cha, remembering her question from a minute earlier. ‘Why is it called Ratko’s Jump?’

‘Cos some dog called Ratko tried to jump off it,’ answered Luco, almost laughing [and spilling out seeds from his mouth].

‘That’s the short version,’ said Wu Dog Yan, shifting an inch farther from the messy-eating hamster.

‘Why would he jump off that?’

‘Didn’t have much choice. He was surrounded by his enemies and trapped in the mist.’

‘You mean he just jumped?’

‘According to legend, ka. Well, a mix of history and legend. The historical part is fairly well-known. Ratko was an ancient king of Gau-atco, one of the first tyrants us dogs ever had, a cruel, merciless leader.’

‘Ah, that guy…I knew I knew that name…’ Cha Cha paused, going back over her line. ‘I knew I’d heard that name before.’

Wu Dog Yan nodded, continuing. ‘King Ratko the Peaceful. Ha, good old dog irony. He was a nightmare, apparently, very sadistic. I remember one of his games from my history class at school. He would invite some dog from his castle, any dog, a servant, a scholar, a priest, didn’t matter, he’d invite them into the King’s Hall and stare at them without saying a word. Eventually, they’d get so scared that they’d confess to something, usually a trivial matter, unimportant stuff, and then Ratko would laugh and have them executed[2]. Don’t ask how he killed them, it’s pretty disgusting.’

‘How did he end up at this rock?’ asked Zade anxiously, rubbing the fur on his throat.

‘That’s the famous part. Or the infamous part. When the dogs finally rose up against him, he tried to flee north in his ship, but got stuck, right there on that rock. Last thing he said, according to my history teacher, was, ‘tired of land, rule low from the sea, never again never, lay dog eyes on me.’

‘That’s quite poetic,’ said Cha Cha, glancing over at the oddly-formed rock already starting to drift into the distance.

‘It is.’

‘Did they ever find him?’ asked Zade, peering down into the waves.

‘His corpse? Nuut. The new Queen had to make a dummy of him just so the dogs would have something to beat and burn and scream at, that’s how much they hated him. But, ka, that was a long time ago now. Fifteen, sixteen hundred years, I guess…’

‘How did they hear what he said?’ asked Luco, scratching his forehead with a particularly large seed.

‘Who?’

‘Anyone. The scholars, historians. If he was on that rock and it was misty, and everyone else was presumably on their boats, how did they hear what his last words were?’

Wu Dog Yan shrugged. ‘Nuut kaata. Sharp hearing?’

‘Ha, or maybe he had a microphone.’ Luco shook his head, throwing the large seed into the sea. ‘Hamsters have this kind of rubbish too. King whatever doing this, Lord thingy doing that, all written by the winners. I don’t trust any of it.’

‘Then everything you believe has no foundation,’ replied Wu Dog Yan, holding down her hat as a strong breeze sailed through.

‘So what? History happened, maybe, but it’s got nothing to do with me. It’s got nothing to do with any of us.’

‘What are you talking about, Luco?’ asked Zade, frowning.

‘Ka, this is getting weird,’ added Cha Cha, shifting the seed basket closer to her legs.

‘Weirdly deep.’

‘I don’t even like history that much.’

‘I got an E in school.’ Zade scratched his face. ‘A lucky E, too.’

‘That’s what I’m saying,’ said Luco. ‘History is all about the kings and lords and aristocrats, not about the normal types like us. We’re not gonna be remembered, and we’re not involved in any of that high-level rubbish, so all we need to do is focus on our own stuff.’

‘Nuut kaata,’ said Wu Dog Yan, taking her hat off and putting it under her thighs. ‘Rescuing Dog Lee is a pretty big deal.’

Luco opened his mouth to disagree, but no words came out.

‘And history is about the normal animals sometimes,’ said Cha Cha, glancing at her idol [and her fluttering hair]. ‘My mum always said Eugene Dibs was a great dog, and he came from a normal family.’

‘A lot of the tiger heroes were from villages,’ added Zade.

‘Those are the exceptions,’ said Luco, reaching left and winning back the seed basket. ‘Most of us don’t get to change anything.’

Wu Dog Yan nudged Cha Cha in the waist. ‘You know who it was who finally forced out Ratko, who led the rebellion against him? A farmer. And you know who helped her do it? A peasant boy. They never got the credit, not officially, Lord Dutat[3] took all that, but everyone knows it was really them.’

Luco bit a seed and spat it out in disgust. ‘Shouldn’t the boat aunty be telling us all this?’

The boat aunty heard her name and grunted.

‘I’m your tour guide for today,’ said Wu Dog Yan, smiling.

‘How do you know so much about all this?’ asked Cha Cha.

‘Ka, and how do you know it was a farmer and a peasant boy who led the rebellion?’

‘Secret.’

Cha Cha shifted half an inch closer. ‘Did you do a drama about it before?’

‘Are you the farmer reborn?’ added Luco, grabbing another pawful of seeds.

‘Seeeeee-cret.’

Cha Cha took the hint and closed her mouth. Luco asked one more time, got no answer so threw the seed pile in his mouth.

The boat sailed around Ratko’s Jump, being careful not to get too close, then continued on to the No Name Islands, which were now visible in the distance. The four comrades sat at the very front of the boat, their legs hanging over the side.

‘I can see why no one comes here…’ said Zade, using a paw to shield his eyes from the glaring sun.

Wu Dog Yan nodded. ‘Ka, it is quite far…’

‘Still no mist…’ said Luco, licking a fingertip and holding it up in the air.

‘Good,’ replied Cha Cha, swatting it down.

‘Not good. Dog Hood might see us coming…’

‘Maybe.’

‘What about his arrows?’ asked Zade, looking over at Wu Dog Yan, who was trying to put her hat back on the complete mess that was her new wind-swept hairstyle.

‘He won’t shoot at us.’

‘That’s debatable,’ said Cha Cha, feeling the top of her own head.

‘Not unless he wants to go to prison for murdering the biggest star of Dog TV.’

Zade pulled at his jacket zip. ‘What about us?’

‘Who, the three of you?’

‘Or just me, really.’

Wu Dog Yan glanced at the three comrades next to her, thought for a moment then frowned. ‘Hmm. Maybe best if you stay low, try and walk behind me.’

Zade looked at Wu Dog Yan’s entire body shape and mass, then looked down at his own. He was almost three times her size. Even a blind snake with arthritis couldn’t fail to miss a target as huge as him.

‘Okay…’ he said, pulling his zip all the way up to his chin.

~~~

----------------------------------------

[1] The name given to dog country, and what some dogs use for the whole continent instead of ‘Kaatlandō’ [cos ‘kaat’ sounds a bit like ‘cat’]. I probably should’ve explained this earlier. Sorry.

[2] Not rewarded

[3] A dog king who started well and finished badly. Some dogs say he was always bad, though others say he was complicated; on one hand, he founded the first dog university [for Dutat family and friends], kept peace between dog cities; on the other hand [formed into a fist], he was a stubborn dog-child who couldn’t handle criticism of any kind, not even from his mum. In fact, he put her in prison twelve separate times for disrespecting the king; four of those times were, allegedly, for asking him to get a haircut.