The Great Galloon and the Pirate Queen by Tom Banks Page A

listening.
    08hrs 47mins Wha? Jus’ woke up. Woss goin’ on?
    08hrs 48mins Refreshed after quick 8hr nap, now really ready to listen out for anything suspect.
    08hrs 49mins Nothing.
    08hrs 50 mins Voices!
    08hrs 51mins Turns out it was Mother. Time for lessons. Rasmussen laughing at me.
    15hrs 19mins Beautiful, haunting music – must be picking up whale song somehow.
    15hrs 21mins Not so beautiful music now – Rasmussen snoring. She’s got no stamina.
    15hrs 22mins 32nd cup of tea of the vigil so far. Best yet. That should keep me awake for agkvkjcfjhgvjkb . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
    And so on. In a nutshell, they had heard nothing, except a few snippets of conversation between ships on the ocean below, some whales and dolphins, and Stanley’s mother telling him all about the Square on the Hypotenuse, wherever that was. But Stanley was determined that they should continue. Rasmussen wasn’t so sure.
    â€˜We should be out there, seeking here and seeking there, seeking the Sumbaroon everywhere!’ she moaned for the umpteenth time.
    â€˜We will. But we can be a vital part of knowing where Zebediah is going. We just have to listen out.’
    â€˜But nothing’s happened!’ said Rasmussen. She rarely whined, but when she did, she made up for lost time by being the whiniest person since Little Whingey Martin, the Grouchiest Boy in Moansville.
    â€˜Well, that’s perhaps true. But maybe there’s a pattern. Let me see your notes,’ said Stanley.
    Without looking up, Rasmussen tossed him her notepad, which was purple and smelled of lavender. He flipped the page, and saw what she’d written:
    All listening and no adventuring makes Stanley a dull boy.
    All listening and no adventuring makes Stanley a dull boy.
    All listening and no adventuring makes Stanley a dull boy.
    All listening and no adventuring makes Stanley a dull boy.
    All listening and no adventuring makes Stanley a dull boy.
    All listening and no adventuring makes Stanley a dull boy.
    All listening and no adventuring makes Stanley a dull boy.
    All listening and no adventuring makes Stanley a dull boy.
    All listening and no adventuring makes Stanley a dull boy.
    All listening and no adventuring makes Stanley a dull boy …
    â€˜Is it all like this?’ asked Stanley.
    â€˜Yes,’ said Rasmussen. ‘Except for some of page fourteen.’
    Stanley turned to page fourteen. In the middle of the page, alongside the same sentence repeated over and over again, was a picture of Stanley, with a speech bubble coming out of his mouth. He was saying ‘What am I? A monkey or a unicorn or an alien or an abominable blue snowman?’ Stanley was used to this from Rasmussen, and he was about to close the book and give it back, when he noticed something at the bottom of the page.
    â€˜Hello, hello, anybody out there?’ it said.
    â€˜What’s this?’ he asked Rasmussen. He showed her the page.
    â€˜It’s you, wondering whether you’re a monkey or a …’ she said.
    â€˜Not that! This!’ snapped Stanley, unwilling to have the ‘what creature is Stanley’ conversation for the seventy-second time.
    â€˜Oh,’ said Rasmussen, picking crumbs off a plate she found under Stanley’s bed. ‘That’s nothing. Just a conversation I heard over the Examinator while you were asleep.’
    â€˜Wha?’ said Stanley, agog.
    â€˜What are you doing?’ asked Rasmussen.
    â€˜I’m being agog!’ said Stanley.
    â€˜No you’re not. Agog means “very eager to hear something”. What you’re doing is more “astonished”.’
    â€˜Oh. I’m both astonished and eager to hear something. Is there a word for that?’
    â€˜Yup. Agognished.’ Said Rasmussen. ‘It looks like this.’
    She pulled a face of astonishment while cupping a hand behind each ear.
    â€˜Okay. This?’ said Stanley.
    â€˜Yup.