The Cartographer by Peter Twohig Page A

is, I would no longer be the person who had been cursed. Then the expeditions could continue. For the new person I’d become, the map would hold no dark secrets, but would help me to succeed and to find my way.
    So once I’d refined my map, I worked at putting a new explorer’s kit together. Soon my bag had in it: a magnifying glass; binoculars, a birthday present from Granddad, and damn handy at the races; my new compass; a red multi-purpose pocketknife (another birthday present, this time from Dad, before he shot through); a liquorice strap, to keep my strength up; a Spirax notebook (a real reporter’s notebook); and a pencil (HB: the initials of Harry Black, the private eye, who had lost it on one of his capers). The only thing missing that I really wanted was Mum’s Brownie Box camera, but I had no idea how to work it — I made a mental note to find out. If I’d had that damn camera when I saw the murderer looking at me, I could have taken his picture, mailed it to the police, and saved myself about twenty-seven nervous breakdowns.
    A few days later, the paper said that the Harrigan kid had been kidnapped and his family had received a ransom note. So all the kids were allowed back on the street, as our parents reasoned that the kidnapper was hardly likely to kidnap every kid in Richmond. And besides, the kidnapper was probably flat out at home, now that he had an extra mouth to feed.
    I was so glad to be out and about again that I went for a walk — a practice walk, to test the explorer’s kit — down the lane that followed Church Street along the back of its shops. I had an idea that if I went for a nice long walk I might bump into Dad,who I thought might be working undercover as a spy. Dad had shot through before, but never for a whole month, and usually to some place we all knew, it being pretty impossible for anyone in my family except Granddad and me to keep a secret. He’d lobbed on Uncle Ivor so often they’d cleaned out the lean-to for him and his bike. And Nanna Blayney kept a bed for him at her place, though he preferred not to show up there, as it only upset Mum more, if that was possible. This time he hadn’t gone to either place, but no one in the family was walking around going: ‘Now where’s that scallywag Bill Blayney got to?’, which struck me as strange.
    â€˜Granddad,’ I said to him one night when he came over to deliver a wooden crate full of lollies that he’d found, ‘ you seem to know everything.’
    â€˜Uh-huh,’ says he, offering me a humbug from a little jar, but already not liking where this was going.
    â€˜Where do you reckon a bloke would go if he wanted to disappear, motorbike and all?’
    He looks at me as if he’s just discovered he’s got a cavity in one of his teeth. ‘What you mean is, where’s your father?’
    â€˜You could say that,’ I said with a mouth full of humbugs: one for me and one for Tom.
    â€˜Well, I’ll tell you this much’ — he looked around to make sure we were alone — ‘he’s all right, and thinking of you, and he’ll be in touch when the time is right.’
    â€˜You mean when he’s completed his mission ?’
    He made a frog mouth. ‘Yeah, when he’s completed his mission.’
    I knew it!
    â€˜Thanks, Granddad. Help yourself to a humbug — they’re on me. Have two.’
    I reckoned that if I did bump into Dad, he might take me to the pub and shout me a lady’s waist of raspberry vinegar and lemonade, and I’d forget everything that had happened for a while. As I said, it was an idea.
    It was a quiet afternoon. There was nobody around, just cats — I actually saw a black and white cat with three legs, and he is now on the map. I thought it was lucky for me that I had not been around when he lost that leg as that would have done nothing for my confidence at all. Anyhow, I was