The Red Map of Captain Gato

This is Part One of a Four Part series (The Red Map of Captain Gato, The Marooned Cat, The Privateer Mouse, The Long Lost Shark)

Some pirates find their way to a map, but once it's in their possession, they can't figure out how to read it.

Once there was a group of pirates looking over a map on a large table in the middle of a ship. They had just finished eating what looked like quite a large meal. There were fish skeletons and chicken bones and apple cores and cheese rinds. There were used napkins and breadcrumbs and grape stems everywhere. It looked like they had just eaten a feast.

The truth is, they had just eaten a feast. They were celebrating finally having found the sought-after map to Captain Gato’s treasure.

The problem they were having now was that no one could figure it out.

“Avast, you scallywags!” said the Captain. “We’re in need of everyone’s brains.”

“Even mine?” said the Swashbuckler.

“Arrg!” said the Captain. “Even yours Matey!”

Everyone quieted down.

“We’ve been traveling far and yon for this here map,” said the Captain. “And to find out that it’s unreadable is chappin’ me raw.”

“Let me have a look at it,” said the First Mate.

The map was on an old parchment paper, with fold lines crisscrossing it in every direction, and the markings and drawings were all in red ink.

He looked at it up and down, left and right, and scratched his head.

“This looks familiar!” he said as he pointed to a red drawing of an island shaped like a ring with a lagoon in the center.

All of the pirates groaned.

“That’s where we dropped anchor this morning,” said the Swashbuckler. “So that’s where we are now. That’s why it looks familiar.” And he threw his hat at the First Mate’s head.

“Arrg! Shiver me timbers,” said the Captain. “We’ve established that it all looks familiar. Sit down.”

“I’ll have a go at it,” said the Old Seadog.

He turned the map toward him, and then turned it again, then again.

“I’ll be losing me grub for all this turning!” said the Swab.

They all laughed loudly and threw leftover food at him. He lost his balance a bit and almost stepped on the ship’s recently acquired cat, fell backwards and landed square on his backside.

They all laughed again.

“Belay that laughin’!” yelled the Captain. “You’re all flirting with kissing the gunner’s daughter if you don’t apply yer brains to this mess.”

“Cap’n!” said the Swashbuckler. “Ain’t no one on this ship that can figure that map out.”

“We did not come this far for nothing,” said the Captain.

“Maybe we should go back to shore and ask the old woman if she knows how to read it,” said the Lookout.

“No, don’t you remember, she was blind,” said the Captain. “And she didn’t …” He stopped mid-sentence. “Wait a minute! If you’re down here, who’s keeping watch?”

The lookout stared at the Captain for a moment, then rushed out the door as quick as he could.

“Any more great ideas from you mongrel dogs?” said the Captain.

“Maybe the old hag didn’t give us the right map? Maybe we should go back and torture her for the real map,” said the Old Seadog.

“I’m not going back in there!” said the Swashbuckler. “I won’t risk losing my arm or leg in those shark infested waters.”

See, just earlier, they had rowed in to the ring island and were attacked by a hungry shark. The shark grabbed onto an oar and almost pulled the Young Lad in. By the time they reached the shore, the shark had almost tipped the small jollyboat over and made the crew fish food.

On the shore, they were attacked by mosquitoes the size of seagulls that left welts the size of chicken eggs.

Once past the shore and into the trees, a low menacing growl and movement in the trees quickened their step until they reached the small cabin set up on stilts. The windows were all shuttered closed and the roof sagged.

Once inside the dark candlelit house, all they found was an old blind woman rocking in her rocking chair, surrounded by objects gathered from around the world. Some were dark and mysterious, while others looked like everyday objects.

The pirates pushed over tables and broke vases and jars and threw down bookshelves before they finally spoke to the woman.

“You don’t scare me,” she said in a crackling little voice. “So you can stop breaking my stuff.” She paused and seemed to look right at the Captain with her blind, sunken in eyes. “It’s not very nice. I have to clean all of this up, you know.”

“Sorry ma’am.” said the Captain to the surprise of the crew.

“Can I help you?” said the Old Woman.

“Oh. Yes. We want Captain Gato’s map!” said the Captain in his most earnest, voice.

And he was about to threaten her, when she produced a folded up parchment with a red string tying it closed.

“Here you go,” she said as she handed it over. “Now, before you leave, could you pick up some of those things your clumsy crew knocked over?”

They cleaned up a little, but left most of it. They felt bad, but not as good as they felt about having the map.

That’s why they had a feast when they got back to the ship, and then after the feast, the Captain quieted them all down to try to figure out how to read the map.

“We can’t go back,” said the Captain. “We left a mess. She’ll have us all swabbing her deck and her porch and cleaning her bathroom. No, we can’t go back.”

“Let me have a look at the map,” said the professor.

The professor had picked up the cat and was petting it on the head. He put the cat down gently and the cat hopped skillfully up to the top of the bookshelf behind the Captain’s chair.

“Have any of you swabs looked on the back of the map?” he said as he turned it over.

“Sink me!” said the Captain.

There were red markings and portions of islands and even an “X” marked boldly in red in the corner.

All the pirates leaned in closer.

“The Professor’s using his deadlights, mateys,” said the Captain. “Move back, give him some room.”

The Professor put on his small round glasses and picked up the paper. It was dead quiet except for the creaking of the ship.

He took the corner with the tail of a fish drawn in red and folded it over so it matched up with a drawing of the head of a large fish. Then he took the corner with the butt of a sword drawn on it in red as well, and folded it over to match the rest of the knife drawn on the other side.

“Shiver me timbers!” whispered the Captain.

The Professor then took the last two corners and folded them together to form a sort of a pocket, and where the two corners met, suddenly, everyone saw that the two corners put together made a drawing of the fiercest looking wild cat none of them could have ever imaged, and it being drawn in red made it all the more fierce.

Some of the pirates sat back a little further in their chairs.

The Professor went on. He took the middle of the map and brought it forward, and when he dropped the map on the table, it had folded itself into a box, with all the parts lined up, and the “X” plain as can be.

“Bring me some light!” said the Professor as he leaned in on the curious box-map. “Interesting.”

“What do you see?” said the Captain. “Does it make sense?”

The Professor had picked up the box-map.

“Well, it looks like we’ve been searching in the right area, but I can’t make out these landmarks,” said the Professor. “I’ll need to study it.”

At that, he put the box-map back on the table.

Suddenly, the cat jumped over the Captain, knocking off his tricorn. The force knocked the chandelier away to swinging, and the cat landed right on top of a cup of red wine, sending it crashing, and spilling it’s redness all over the box-map.

The cat was quickly grabbed off the table, but it was too late.

The professor inspected the map and the red wine had ruined the map. Parts of the map were stained red, and there would be no way to decipher between the red ink and the wine.

“Can we wash it off?” said the First Mate.

“No!” said the Captain. “It will smudge it even further.”

Oh, they were so upset. Some of them went outside and shot their guns. Some of them just yelled as loudly as they could. The Captain just slumped in his chair.

“Arrg!” he said to himself.

The cat was put in a dinghy tied to the aft and thrown overboard.

There was not much talk for many hours on that boat. The only sound was from one of the crew who had seen a mouse snooping around in the dormitory.

The crewman ran to the line that was tied to the aft of the ship to fetch the cat. He didn’t like the idea of a mouse running around on board.

Something must have gotten the cat, though. When they pulled in the line, the dinghy and the cat were gone.

They never knew the reason why the cat pounced onto the table, but every hand was sad that he was gone. They had just meant to punish the cat, not drown him.

The cat was found on the last port the ship was docked to by The Professor. The very same day, the Captain left port and set sail for the ring island in search of Captain Gato’s map.

Next: The Marooned Cat