As a red morning sun started to rise over the calm Ligurian Sea, a young adventurer named Jimmy lifted his head from the sack of grain that he had made his pillow the night before. Last night had taken a turn for the worst after a brave roulette spin cost Jimmy the rest of his travel money. Thanks to some crumbled euros and loose coins scattered throughout his pack, he had found enough to buy a bottle of something stiff (the drinking age is 18 in Monaco). Now as the previous night’s memories came back to him one by one between headache pains, Jimmy noticed the empty bottle lying next to him amid bits of fish carcasses.

“The boat leaves at dawn,” Jimmy suddenly remembered, hoping he was not already too late. Somehow last night between beach staggering and a brief live performance with some street buskers (Jimmy played the spoons), he had concocted a brilliant plan: Get a job, earn some honest pay, and for God’s sake, don’t lose it again in some gamble. The bucket drummer from the busking group said he was leaving bright and early on a fishing boat, and that the crew could always use more able-bodied workers like Jimmy. Jimmy had never been on a fishing boat before, but he figured it would be the perfect way to earn some money to get home. He knew the townsfolk were probably worried about him, and they were certainly missing his speedy and all-too-convenient neighbor deliveries.

Jimmy jumped to his feet, and with a mad crick in the neck, he took off toward the ship, which fortunately had not yet departed. “C’est l’enfant cuillère,” Jimmy’s bucket-drumming friend shouted from the deck. The announcement was met by an explosion of manly laughter from all over the ship. Apparently news of Jimmy’s percussive spoon talents had reached the crew. He was welcomed aboard, and not long after, the boat was headed out to open sea.

Jimmy had a lot of questions about his new job, especially now that he could no longer see the Monaco shore. His bucket drummer friend was named Claude. Claude spoke very little English and Jimmy’s French was less than conversational, so for his answers he turned to the captain of the boat, a British sailor named Sir Neville Falswain. Sir Neville wore a cocky smirk that showed off his multiple gold teeth. His blue coat waved in the wind like a hero’s cape as he stood like a pirate character from a rum label, master of his domain. As Jimmy approached the captain, the high morning sun’s light reflected from his uncovered glass eye, blinding Jimmy for just a moment.

“What have you gotten yourself into, lad,” the captain laughed in Jimmy’s direction without taking his good eye off the horizon.

Jimmy was nervous, but he felt an odd sense of trust for the grizzled skipper. He imagined the other sailors had great respect for (and a healthy fear of) this man. Jimmy was well experienced in being laughed at, so he responded boldly. “What are we out to catch today, sir?” His voice only cracked 2 or 3 times while speaking, so better than most of his verbal interactions.

Captain Falswain found no amusement in Jimmy’s question, but looked directly at the boy, then said, “Fortune and glory lad. Fortune and glory.” He continued to stare Jimmy down for several seconds, sizing him up and hopefully (for Jimmy’s sake) making a favorable assessment.

Finally the old fishing boat, called the Renflouer, reached its destination in the open waters of the Ligurian Sea, the northernmost branch of the Mediterranean. After piecing together information from the rest of the French-speaking crew, Jimmy had discovered that this crew would normally fish for tuna, but today another animal was on everyone’s mind: A narwhal. Narwhals are indigenous to lower arctic waters and rarely find their way this far south, but across the treasure-hunting underground of Europe fascinating stories were circulating of a particular wandering narwhal. That was the narwhal these fishers turned treasure hunters were seeking.

Not only would this narwhal be the only one in Mediterranean waters, but it would be recognizable for an especially peculiar item of decoration: A durable cloth map, pierced firmly to the base of its 3-meter spiraling tusk. The stories say the map leads to one of the largest treasures ever known. No one could say how the map ended up impaled on the tusk of a narwhal, but stranger things have happened in the seas.

As day turned into night, the Renflouer crew continued looking for the elusive narwhal. More days went by, and Jimmy watched as the sailors’ beards filled in like untrimmed bushes. Jimmy has never been able to grow a beard himself; he hoped the others wouldn’t notice. The ten mates exchanged stories, laughed together and sang traditional songs as each day they combed the waters in search of a unicorn of the sea.

The Renflouer’s tracking expert was a veteran of the Swiss armed forces named Maxime. His special system for luring the narwhal involved submerging a large air horn looking device and making a horrible noise beneath the water’s surface. According to Maxime, the noise would repel all underwater beasts in the vicinity except for narwhals, who would be driven into a fury and drawn in attack to its source. Captain Falswain had paid Maxime handsomely for his strangely specific narwhal tracking skills. He had also outfitted the bottom of his boat with a thin layer of lightweight steel, which all the sailors hoped would prove impenetrable by a narwhal’s tusk.

Finally one morning after nearly a week at sea, lookout spotted a narwhal in the distance after one of Maxime’s underwater noise blasts. It was furious, thrashing and splashing quickly through the water directly toward the boat. “Brace for impact,” shouted Captain Falswain. “This is our fellow!”

About 30 meters out from the boat, the narwhal suddenly vanished beneath the choppy water and there was a silence that seemed to go on for several minutes. The sailors looked about each other’s faces curiously, wondering if they had scared the beast off. Moments later their curiosity was answered as the largest narwhal they ever saw launched itself from the water off the Renflouer’s bow. Its head shook wildly in every direction as it began to sail through the air over the sailors’ heads. Everyone saw plain as day that the legends were true. There, firmly attached to the 5-meter narwhal’s forehead was a worn piece of parchment covered in mysterious markings.

The fearless captain was the first to action, leaping for the narwhal’s tail and grabbing its caudal fin. Claude and Jimmy then threw themselves at the beast, which emitted a loud shriek of annoyance but was barely slowed in its flight. If enough of the mates could just grab hold, they could stop the narwhal’s jump before it hurdled the boat. It took every last one of the crew to slow the momentum of the jumping creature, and finally it came crashing down onto the deck. Expertly dodging the flailing tusk, Maxime went straight for the map as the rest of the crew held the massive animal down. He ripped it loose from the narwhal’s face and nearly impaled himself as he slid the map up the tusk.

Jimmy watched with wonder, daydreaming about buried treasure as the crew continued to wrestle with the beast until it was safely back in the water. Nobody noticed when he picked up a torn piece of cloth (a corner that was separated from the map during the struggle) and quickly pocketed it.

Captain Falswain staggered toward Maxime and moved to snatch the map from his shaking hands. Jimmy swore that he saw a paused moment of high-stakes standoff between the two men, but Maxime gave up the map. The captain held it toward the sun and cackled wildly with a newfound power that almost sounded like madness. “What’d I tell you mates? Fortune and glory!” He slapped the map down onto the deck and studied it for a moment. His satisfaction quickly turned to rage as he noticed the crucial corner of the map that was missing. “Without this piece we’re barely further than where we started,” the captain fumed.

The Renflouer solemnly headed back toward the Monaco shore, full of silent sailors. The captain looked suspiciously from one mate to the next, wondering if someone had double crossed him. Jimmy pretended to sleep, hoping that nobody had seen him shove the missing corner of the map into his pocket. He wasn’t sure why he did it, but instinct was now telling the young delivery boy to lay low and hold onto the map’s missing piece, at least until he was safely back on land with cash in his pocket.

One thing was now clear to Jimmy. His vacation may be nearing its end, but his adventure was just beginning.