Ray Taylor And The Torn And Tattered Treasure Map by N. Degen

Ray Taylor – an average school boy from a small town who, to his great disappointment and regret, happens to be belowaverage in height – is growing up with his pediatric nurse mother, and without a father, whom he misses very much. Pestered by the bully Murrayand his pals, he is saved from the daily grind of school routine by his love of drawing, something that his sketch-filled notebook and the constant complaints of his teachers attest to. But there is a special secret that he can only entrust to his best friend, retriever Buddy. Yet there is something that beckons him even more than hisartwork, and his first, timid infatuation with his classmate Jane – that is the search for infinite treasures.

By a stroke fate, having been detained in the home of a strange elderly neighbor, Ray finds himself in the company of 17th century cutthroats and takes his place as the seventh and, as it so happens, missing member of a crew of pirates. On board of the schooner Celestine, Ray sets off on dangerous and captivating adventures across the seven, in no way resembling each other, distant worlds, in search of the seven glowing magical stones hidden there.

It is these magical stones that, instead of seven keys, open the seven chests that lie undisturbed in a grotto on a mysterious, paradise-like island of Tuki-Tuki, on the bottom of which repose the seven parts of the torn and tattered map of the buried treasures. The legends promise the daredevils, who have reached the grotto, treasures fit not just for a single king, but enough to satisfy the desires of an entire hundred kings. Their way is guided by the dead Bloodthirsty Cook himself, through the pages of his Secret Book. Battling the devils in hell, at cards, bad-mouthing and cursingCaptian Archie and his crew, Cook reveals to Archie each new step, but only after Archie undergoes ordeals, on dry land and on the high seas. Crowning all of these is the puzzle of Cook himself. Where should they sail to and where should they search? All the hidden answers would be revealed in The Secret Book, if only all of its pages weren't left entirely blank…

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Excerpt from Ray Taylor And The Torn And Tattered Treasure Map © Copyright 2025 N. Degen

Chapter One

Never Skip Ahead While Reading a Book

The clock on the city tower struck two and a half minutes past ten. The brass hum of the bell still hung suspended in the warm air, just as the most distinguished members of the court, raising gingerly the hems of their long, dark robes, were climbing up its dust-covered stone steps, their heads drooping low, as though weighed down by worldly concerns. Their black hoods, entirely covering their foreheads, draped down almost to their eyelashes, hiding even their gazes from the prying eyes of the crowd.

The somewhat befuddled members of the jury and a sea of the curious faces of the unlookers, flowing together like columns of ants, were already filling the great hall of the courtroom. The sun's rays were trying to tickle their serious faces, but the thick, pale yellow, stone walls barely admitted them through the narrow slits of the tall oval windows.

The iron-clad sentries with their tall and pointy spears, their faces covered by masks with only a slit for the eyes, carried in the heavy cage. Huddling inside it, like a hunted animal, quivering in fear in its furthest corner, was the body of a small child.

“Your Majesty, the Laws of our Grandest of States were violated in the most horrible manner and, moreover, deliberately and cold-bloodedly, by this wayward child! I call upon you to declare the boy guilty of all of the seventeen charges of the indictment!” the speaker for the prosecution pronounced.

Brandishing above his head the thick stack of pages covered in a microscopic script, the prosecutor triumphantly pointed with it into the corner where the iron cage rested.

“Taking into consideration the uncertain origins of the foreigner boy, who does not possess knowledge of the Laws of our Most Sacred of States, I ask the court to be lenient in its sentence. And to substitute the public quartering on the city's main square with an execution by hanging on the smaller square, behind City Hall,” the defense interceded.

Bang! A slap resounded, and the small, persistent fly that had only just been squashed by the scroll of papers in the strong hand of the public defendant ended its all too brief life, expiring right there, on the table in the hall of justice.

The youthful head with its unruly mop of curly hair was raised up for one second, as though in an attempt to swallow the long-awaited breath of fresh air, and immediately faltered back down to its knees, tightly bound together in the grasp of the child's thin arms. The cold iron bars of the cage once again came into contact with his spine, hunched, as though it too were a weapon of accusation that stood at the ready, with lightning speed, at the beck and call of an order, to pierce his body.

Reading out the new counts of the charges resoundingly and unanimously passing the indisputable sentence, the judges and the jury departed from the hall. Despairing of ever getting a peek at the assembled, if even only with one eye, the rays of the sun sluggishly and disappointedly slid across the western windows as the third day of the trial came to an end.

The sentries heaved the cage upon their backs and the heavy, forged doors, awakening, instead of yawning, barked in irritation, angered that their peace had been disturbed.

A wave of light, brazenly and life-reaffirmingly, burst into the hall, as though impatient to overhear the sentence. The child's eyes, squinting tightly under their long bangs, were not delighted, but frightened by the light, as by everything and everyone that surrounded him.

“Criminal! Bandit!” the throng in the market hooted.

“Villain! Evil doer!” exhorted the street vendors.

Someone grabbed a tomato out of a basket and with a running start hurtled it with all their might at the cage. The tomato made a squishing sound and splattered on the massive iron grating of the bars. The cage on the broad shoulders of the iron-clad goons rocked slightly to and fro and, slowly but surely, like an icebreaker wedging its way through the crowd, split it into parts, scattering the curious, maliciously gloating, riled up throng to the left and to the right like pieces of shattered ice.

The morning of the execution was slightly chilly, fragrant, and piercingly silent. The child's bare feet, bound in shackles, barely surmounted the damp and cold steps of the dungeon. The early morning breeze fluttered the heap of the child's hair, and it seemed that for the breeze alone, the crude iron grating was no obstacle in this. The cart kept bouncing over and over on the pavement cobblestones, and the guards, sensing the importance of the impending hour of retribution, stretched to their full height as though on a string, as though it were an entire enemy army and not a single lonesome, little boy, that was being led to its execution.”

“Ray! Are you awake yet?” a woman's voice burst into the room.

“No! I'm still asleep!” Ray replied immediately, slamming shut the book.

He knew that what he was doing now was something that ought never to be done: first of all, he was reading, instead of getting up and quickly getting ready for school. And secondly, he was reading the book not from the beginning, but opening it at random and butting in in the middle of the narrative. He had decided he wanted to know nothing more about the execution of a child! And if he were ever to open this book again, then it would be from the very beginning, and he would read it all the way through, in the order that it was written, without even being tempted by the thought of looking several chapters ahead.

Something under his pillow made a crunching sound, and Ray, plunging his hand behind it, fished out his notebook of drawings, and a pencil.