Matt Cruse Timeline and Summary

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• Matt bravely rescues Benjamin Malloy from his failing hot air balloon.
• He visits Malloy in the infirmary, where Malloy tells him about the beautiful creatures and then proceeds to die. Thanks dude.
• Six months pass.
• Matt assists with the daring arrival of Kate and Miss Simpkins via ornithopter in mid-air.
• Then the captain informs Matt that his promotion to sailmaker has been given to Bruce Lunardi, because his dad owns the ship. Oh crumbs.
• Matt gives Kate a tour of the ship and they bond.
• Kate tells him Benjamin Malloy was her grandfather and gives him his journal to read over.
• During his watch, Matt spies the pirates' ship coming in for a raid.
• They survive the raid with minimal casualties, but just as the pirates are leaving a gust of wind causes a collision and terrible damage to the Aurora.
• Matt helps Bruce do repairs on the ship, but they are forced to land on an island anyway.
• Matt, Kate, and Bruce go on a water-finding expedition.
• Kate goes off into the woods looking for her creature; Matt is forced to follow because he's such a stand-up guy. They find a skeleton up in a tree.
• Even though he gets in trouble for being late, Matt agrees to go on a second expedition with Kate to bring back the bones and photographs.
• On their way back a huge storm hits the island, and Matt and Kate are forced to hide in a cave. The ship is once again devastatingly damaged.
• Matt realizes that the cave they hid in has a ton of hydrium—the Aurora is saved.
• Kate goes missing (to look for the living cloud cat), so Bruce and Matt are sent to find her.
• They get attacked by the cloud cat, and Bruce takes a nasty bite to the leg.
• On the run, they discover the pirates, who see them and take Matt and Kate captive.
• Szpirglas realizes who they are and throws them into a hydrium pit.
• Matt has another stroke of genius and they manage to escape back to the Aurora.
• They see that the ship has been taken by the pirates again, make a plan to take off, poison the pirates, and then take them out one by one.
• Matt battles Szpirglas on top of the ship and almost falls to his death.
• The cloud cat makes a timely appearance, and Szpirglas gets knocked off instead.
• Matt has saved the day, so he earns reward money. Now he's able to go to the Airship Academy like he's always wanted.