Summary

Torrie's back for more excitement.The irrepressible Old Thing who narrated Torrie and the Pirate Queen returns in another amazing adventure. With spunky young captain Anna again at the helm, the (former) pirate ship Shrike sets sail for Keastipol, grandest of the city-states on the Great Southern Continent.Our heroes have hardly set foot on shore before they encounter a boy fleeing an angry mob. Anna and Torrie rescue Kokako and embark on a dangerous quest to clear his name by finding the true thief of the Oyon -- a giant gem revered by the continent's inhabitants.Their journey takes them through forest and desert where they face challenges both natural and supernatural: crocodiles, sand-goblins, and ...emus? On top of all this, Torrie and Anna must struggle with Kokako's would-be heroism and the unexpected appearance of a mysterious sorcerer. Torrie begins to there's more to both the Oyon and their unknown enemy than anybody realizes.In the end, it takes all their efforts to defeat the sorcerer, prove Kokako's innocence, and uncover the mystery of the mythical Firebird, a magical being thought only to exist in legend.

Author Biography

K.V. Johansen is the author of six novels for young people and the Pippin and Mabel series of picture books. She lives in Sackville, New Brunswick.

Christine Delezenne is the illustrator of a popular series of junior novels. She lives in Montreal.

Glossary of People, Places, Things, and Old Things
In which Kokako meets some goblins
In which we rescue Kokako
In which Mirimick's laundry comes in handy
In which crocodiles don't keep promises
In which one of us disappears
In which Kokako asks some questions Which is very windy
In which Kokako meets a stranger
Which is about the salt lake, sand-goblins and Wind Dancers
In which Kokako enters the sorcerer's lair
In which we get very wet
In which we get even wetter
In which Keastipol is besieged
In which the Firebird sings
The Great Southern Continent: A note for the curious
Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.

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Excerpts

Chapter One In which Kokako meets some goblins If you recall, I promised to tell you the story of the adventure I had on the Great Southern Continent, when I sailed there with Anna. Although she was quite young, as humans go, Anna was a master mariner, captain of the Shrike, which used to be a pirate ship but wasn't anymore. Anna didn't expect anything very exciting to happen on that voyage. She was going to sell the salt fish she had in her hold from the retired pirates' last fishing expedition, and buy trees for our friend Prince Frederik of the Granite Isles, so that he could plant new forests on his barren kingdom. Simple. But, you're probably thinking, not very exciting. I thought so, too. I was still in a mood for adventure when we sailed to the Great Southern Continent, and luckily, I still had that itchy, fidgety feeling in my feet, which told me something interesting was about to happen. Almost as soon as we tied up at a wharf in the great, bustling harbor of the city of Keastipol, something interesting did happen. Anna and I weren't there for the start of it all, though we came into it later. In the very beginning, there was just a boy named Kokako, waking up in the night with a strange sound ringing in his ears. --- Kokako lay very still, straining to hear. The sound was gone, now. There was nothing disturbing the night but his own breathing. For a moment, though, he was sure he had heard something, a sound that was both very large, and very quiet, like a giant's sigh. He must have heard something, he told himself, or he wouldn't have woken up. And since he was the only person who slept in the building called the Oyon-Sbrine, which was a bit like a shrine or holy place and a bit like a museum, high on a hill overlooking the city of Keastipol, it was up to him to investigate. Carefully, Kokako felt around until he found his tunic and his sandals. If there were someone out in the main hall, a thief or even just a stray dingo dog, he didn't want to run into anyone wearing only his drawers. It's hard to feel brave and bold wearing nothing but your underwear. Kokako's bed was a cot in one of the little back storerooms of the Oyon-Shrine, but he didn't mind. During the day, the Oyon-Shrine was filled with visitors who came from all the cities of the Great Southern Continent, but at night, when the other servants went home to their houses in the city, it became his own private palace. Nobody else could say that. The Oyon-Shrine truly was one of the most beautiful buildings in the whole world. You reached it by climbing uphill on a broad flight of stairs and then entering a porch of many pillars, all in white marble. If you looked up before you went in, you saw carved scenes from history scenes of warriors fighting and towers burning, as the seventy cities of the Great Southern Continent fought one another in their terrible wars, which usually started over some fairly pointless argument. In the past, there had been wars about whether the sky was blue or azure (which means "sky blue"), wars about whose mountains were higher, wars about which city was the first to make some important discovery or was the best at some art or grew the best grapes or raised the best sheep. Then, in the carvings, you'd see the appearance of the woman they called Tero Korax the Wanderer, a foreign minstrel always shown with a harp slung over her shoulder and two feathers stuck in her hair. She was the one who had formed the first Parliament of Seventy, to which each city had sent one magistrate a magistrate is a person rather like a judge. The Parliament was supposed to settle arguments between the cities without war. Most importantly, there were carvings showing Tero Korax the Wanderer giving the Seventy Magistrates the Oyon. This was a large gemstone, an opal so big even a grown man would need both hands to carry it, milky white and shimmering with streaks and fl