Lights Over the Marsh

by Carol Prior

  ‘It’s no good, I give up,’ said Luke after a while, ’perhaps Grandma knows how to open it. What I want to know is what’s behind it, and, more importantly, why it’s there at all?’

  CHAPTER 3

  Aliens!

  It was already getting dark when they went to bed. Banks of low cloud had rolled in as they wandered along the beach picking up pebbles to throw into the foaming waves. Grandma had told them that she didn’t know there was a secret room. She hadn’t owned the house for very long and she and her friends had spent lots of time just cleaning as it had been empty and neglected for ages! She said the house had been named after a notorious smuggler. His name was Old Joll, and he became very rich as people were happy to buy the cheap brandy and silks; and they often helped smugglers to escape from the revenue men. The secret room was probably a hiding place for smugglers to lie low until they could escape, or it could even have been used to store smuggled goods.

  ‘Night, Vi,’ said Steph as she snuggled down in her bed under the window, ‘tomorrow we’ll find our way into the secret room.’ She was about to close her eyes when she saw a faint light moving slowly across the sky.

  Steph shrieked and leapt out of bed, ‘Violet! The light in the sky is back. I’m sure it came last night too, but I wasn’t sure if it was a dream.’

  ‘What, where?’ cried Violet. ‘Oh, what is it? I hope it’s not aliens!’

  ‘Well it’s not a plane,’ said Tom as he and Luke came into the room. ‘We saw it last night as well and we couldn’t work out what it was. It’s completely soundless and it just seems to float inland from the sea.’

  ‘Oh no, we’re going to be abducted by aliens!’ cried Violet and she jumped back into bed and pulled a blanket over her head.

  ‘You can come out, Violet,’ said Tom ‘it’s gone now, and there’s sure to be an explanation, could even be marsh gas.’

  Steph looked puzzled, ‘Marsh gas doesn’t fly across the sky, does it? Do you think it comes every night? I wonder if Grandma has noticed. Maybe you can only see it from this side of the house.’

  ‘Well it’s gone now so I’m going back to bed,’ said Luke ‘all this running around is wearing me out!’

  Steph yawned, ‘Well tomorrow morning we’ll ask Grandma what she thinks.’

  ‘I’m wide awake now,’ said Violet, ‘secret rooms and aliens, and we’ve only been here a day. I think this must be the most exciting place in the whole world!’

  TUESDAY

  CHAPTER 4

  JOL LYO LDP IEC ORN

  ‘What’s all this about aliens?’ asked Ollie the next morning. ‘Tom says he saw something in the sky and Violet thought we were going to be abducted.’

  Grandma stopped halfway through pouring the tea. ‘What have they been telling you? I don’t know where they get these ideas; aliens and secret rooms, indeed!’

  Violet walked in at that moment and sat down at the table. ‘Actually it’s true, Grandma, we did see an unidentified flying object, a UFO, but we didn’t get abducted so probably not aliens. We’re going to see if it comes back tonight.’

  ’Well don’t you go frightening Elizabeth when she gets here. Ruth has put her on the train from London so we have to collect her from the station.’

  ‘Not much chance of frightening Lizzie, Grandma,’ said Ollie. ‘She doesn’t scare easily. And what’s all this about secret rooms, Vi?’

  ‘We’ll show you later,’ said Violet. ‘It’s in the west wing.’

  ‘Haha,’ Ollie laughed, ‘always the west wing isn’t it, nothing strange ever happens in the east wing.’

  ‘Might do,’ said Luke from the doorway. He slammed the door behind him and the house seemed to shake.

  Grandma looked worried. ‘Be careful, Luke, I’ve got to replace a few beams, we don’t want the ceiling to fall in on us before I get the chance to find a builder!’

  ‘I was just saying, anything could happen anywhere, east wing, west wing, upstairs, downstairs…’

  ‘We get the idea, Luke,’ said Ollie. ‘Anyway, I want to see where this secret room is before we collect Lizzie from the station.’

  Grandma glanced up at the giant clock above the dresser. ‘You’ve got about three hours. That’s plenty of time I’m sure, and when you find the way in I’d be grateful it you’d let me know.’

  ******

  ‘It’s along here,’ Steph led the way upstairs and over the little bridge that joined the west wing to the main part of the house. ’See, it’s a bedroom, and downstairs is a living room and a door to the garden but we don’t think it’s been opened for years!’

  ‘A four poster-bed!’ exclaimed Ollie, ‘And it’s enormous!’ He gazed around at the heavy oak chairs and ancient chests. ‘Where’s the secret room then?’

  ‘The end wall, the one with the wood panels and the weird writing at the bottom, come and see,’ said Tom. ‘We’ve looked everywhere for a way in but nothing, no levers or buttons to press but if you tap on the panels it sounds hollow. And the room is much smaller than the one in the east wing of the house.’

  ‘Not the east wing, again,’ muttered Luke.

  Ollie walked to the end wall and knocked a few times on the wooden panels.

  ‘I think you’re right, it does sound hollow! Have you tried pressing the letters?’

  ‘Yep, tried that already!’ said Luke

  ‘We just have to give it some thought,’ said Violet. ‘I know we’ll find a way in, we’re good at solving these riddles, and maybe we’ll find some more clues; it’s just a case of knowing where to look. It’s cold in here; let’s go outside, we should try to open the door; you never know when it might come in useful.’

  The garden door didn’t open easily as the wood had swollen in the marsh mists that swirled around the isolated house. Ollie threw his weight against it, ‘There you go,’ he said rubbing his shoulder. ‘That wasn’t easy; I have to do a spot of revision now before Lizzie turns up. It’s going to get hot this afternoon and I don’t want to be stuck indoors.’

  They went out into the garden and down a path that was barely visible in the overhanging branches and foliage. The green parrots were back, they screeched and cackled and fought with one another in the trees. A high brick wall ran along all three sides; it was crumbling in places and at one point had fallen down completely so that the sea could be seen gleaming in the distance over a pile of broken bricks.

  At the very end of the path near the wall was a stone slab made up of fifteen blocks in rows of three and on each block was engraved a letter.

  ‘What does it say?’ asked Violet.

  ‘It’s not very clear,’ said Steph, she bent down and scraped away some of the mud and leaves. ‘It doesn’t make sense, does it?’

  ‘J O L L Y O L D P I E C O R N’ read Tom. ‘What do you make of that?’

  ‘And look what it says at the end,’ said Luke, ‘you’ll never find me! What does that mean?’

  ‘I like the wavy design around the edge,’ said Violet. ‘I think it’s much more interesting than a fountain.’

  ‘JOLLY OLD PIE CORN, You’ll never find me.’ Steph laughed, ‘Look, that’s what it says if you join the letters together. Wow, wait till we tell Lizzie! I wonder what she’ll make of it.’

  They made their way slowly back to the house, the sun was overhead and the air was fragrant with warm honeysuckle.

  Tom looked up at the sky, ‘It must be almost time to pick her up from the station!’ he said.

  CHAPTER 5

  Lizzie!

  ‘You boys stay here and the girls and I will collect Lizzie,’ said Grandma. ‘There isn’t enough room for us all in my little car. Such a shame Caroline couldn’t come too; she would have been company for Ollie. Still I’m sure she’s enjoying her school journey, she might have been bored here. Hurry up, Violet; we’re waiting for you!’

  It was only a short distance to the station and Grandma knew where all the deepest potholes were so she was able to avoid them. The shingle bank glinted i
n the sun and even the scarecrow looked hot and bothered.

  Before long they pulled up outside the little station just as the London train was arriving.

  ‘There she is!’ yelled Steph when a small girl with yellow curly hair climbed off the train. Lizzie looked around with a slightly baffled expression then followed all the other commuters and tourists to the exit.

  ‘We’re here, Lizzie!’ called Violet and they rushed to greet her as she came through the station doors.

  They were chattering excitedly as they got in the car, about secret rooms and strange rhymes.

  ‘Jolly old pie corn,’ laughed Grandma, ‘are you sure it says that? I might have known you’d all find something peculiar almost as soon as you got here! Please don’t do anything dangerous. There’s a fair on the Salts, shall we go past it and have a look. Maybe you could come tomorrow; it’s fairly safe, usually.’

  ‘There’s a hot air balloon!’ cried Lizzie, as they drove past the fair, ‘I went on a tethered one in Rome. It was amazing; we could see all sorts of things because we were so high up, then after about half an hour they pulled us down again.’

  ‘How nice,’ said Grandma ’perhaps I’ll go next year, and maybe you could all join me, that would be such fun. And I like the idea of a balloon that stays in one place, much more sensible!’

  ‘It’s so beautiful,’ gasped Violet, ‘green and blue stripes!’

  ‘Yes and the fair looks fun too,’ laughed Steph, ‘you’re so funny, Violet!’

  Ollie, Luke and Tom were waiting by the steps when Grandma’s car came bumping along the unmade road.

  ‘Oh!’ gasped Lizzie when she saw the rambling old house with its strange courtyard. ‘I want to see everything! Where am I sleeping? And where is the secret room?’

  ‘This way,’ said Violet, ‘we’ll show you our bedroom first; come on, it’s really lovely. We can see the fields and the old undercliff from the window.’

  ‘And unidentified flying objects,’ added Steph.

  ‘UFOs, you didn’t mention those!’ Lizzie’s eyes were wide, ‘What, real UFOs? I’m so glad I came, I’ve always wanted to see one!’

  ‘Well, so long as we don’t get abducted,’ said Violet, ‘Grandma would never forgive us.’

  ‘You make me laugh, Violet, I’d forgotten,’ Lizzie hugged her tight; ‘it’s great to see you though, and you, Steph. Caroline really wanted to come but it clashed with her school trip to France. Come on, give me the guided tour.’

  ‘Yes, off you go, and I’ll put the kettle on,’ said Grandma, ‘and I’ve made a delicious lemon cake so hurry down.’

  Lizzie was amazed when she saw the strange little bridge that linked the two parts of the house. And she agreed that there was definitely something very mysterious about the old room with the four-poster bed.

  ‘I think Ollie is right,’ she said ‘you have to press the letters to get into the hidden room. You just have to know which letters to press for the panel to open, and probably the right order to press them.’

  ‘We thought so too,’ agreed Steph ‘but how do we know which letters? And what about ‘jolly old pie corn, you’ll never find me’?’

  ‘Maybe one will give you a clue to the other,’ suggested Lizzie.

  ‘Come on, cake time,’ said Tom eventually ‘and after that we’ll show you the walled garden, and then we’ll get ready for alien watch. What do you say?’

  ******

  ‘Here it comes,’ whispered Steph as a pale light appeared in the sky and began to drift over them very slowly.

  ‘Where is it?’ asked Grandma. ‘I can’t see anything at all. Oh yes, I can now, it’s very faint isn’t it.’

  ‘It’s getting lower though,’ said Ollie. ‘If we had any sense we would have watched from the big room that overlooks the sea and the marsh; we’d have some idea where it’s coming from then. Here you can only see it drifting inland.’

  ‘Move over a bit, will you,’ Tom nudged Luke with his elbow, ‘you’ve got your head right in front of mine! Oh, look, there’s the moon, the clouds are clearing so we might get a better view.’

  ‘It’s only a hot air balloon,’ announced Lizzie, ‘just like the one we saw today on our way back from the station. You can’t see the colours properly in the moonlight, but it might even be the one we saw. Look there’s the basket hanging down underneath.’

  ‘Well I’m very surprised that it’s flying at night, I’d have thought there was a law against that,’ Grandma stood up and stretched. ‘Make sure you turn off the lights won’t you. I’m off to bed.’

  ‘Me too,’ said Ollie.

  ‘Yeah, come on Luke,’ said Tom, ‘the show‘s over. Just a hot air balloon and I was really hoping for aliens!’

  Steph, Violet and Lizzie watched as the balloon floated inland towards the hills of the old undercliff.

  Violet smiled as she gazed out of the window, ‘If you ask me it’s lucky it’s not an alien spaceship and isn’t it gorgeous, all billowy and glowing?’

  ‘Yes, beautiful,’ agreed Steph, ‘and that’s one mystery solved, two to go, the secret room and ‘jolly old pie corn’.’

  ‘I want to go up in that balloon,’ said Lizzie, she gazed longingly into the sky as it drifted away. ‘I think it’s landed. We should go into Rye tomorrow, we might be allowed to go up and hover above the town; that would be so incredible!’

  WEDNESDAY

  CHAPTER 6

  Up, Up and Away!

  It was a warm day, the mist had gone and the unmade road across the marsh was dry and dusty. Luke and Tom and the three girls set off soon after breakfast. They could hear the soft bleating of sheep on the other side of the hedge and the occasional moo from a herd of black and white cows by the canal. Red splashes of poppies bordered the meadows in the distance and the old scarecrow in the field seemed to smile at them as they passed.

  They could see fishing boats on the river as they crossed the bridge into Rye and set off down the main road past the old Strand Quay towards the Salts. The fair was quiet as most of the rides were still closed but a big wheel and a giant slide had already been erected. There was a stall run by a large lady who was selling toffee apples and seaside rock. Next to her was a ‘hook the duck’ game and rows of teddy bears sat on a shelf in the middle waiting for a lucky winner. All around the field were caravans and trailers and people milling about setting up stalls.

  The beautiful blue and green hot air balloon sat in an enclosure at the back of the field; it shimmered in the sunshine and wavered and billowed slightly in the breeze.

  ‘Look, it’s tethered,’ yelled Lizzie. ‘We can go up in it, just like the one in Rome. Come on, I want to be first in the queue,’ and she took off at top speed.

  ‘Wait for us!’ screamed Luke. ‘Quick, Tom, before she gets herself into trouble,’ and they dashed after Lizzie who had already reached the little fence that surrounded the enclosure. Steph and Violet watched in horror as she jumped over the fence and ran straight for the balloon basket.

  ‘Don’t get in, Lizzie!’ shouted Steph, ‘we haven’t paid or anything.’

  ‘I can’t see anyone to pay in any case,’ observed Violet. ‘Oh no, Steph, she’s climbing in!’

  ‘No, Lizzie,’ yelled Tom ‘it’s dangerous, get out!’

  Steph and Violet couldn’t believe their eyes. The balloon was starting to rise, it lifted slowly at first but then the wind seemed to catch it and it went higher and higher above the ground! Luke was clinging to the outside with one leg in and one out and Tom was hanging on for dear life and trying desperately to somehow fling himself inside the basket as it drifted slowly away. It rose above the trees and floated over the flats and towards the sea while Steph and Violet stood staring towards the horizon as it disappeared from view.

  ‘She’s really done it this time!’ muttered Steph. ‘What do we do next?’

  ‘They could be anywhere,’ Violet looked about to cry, ‘they’ve gone, what if they drown?’

  Then they noticed
a grey-haired man who was gazing up at the sky with a perplexed expression. In one hand he held a bright green shopping bag and in the other a small black box.

  ‘Look at that old man, Steph. Do you think it’s his balloon? It’s so awful, not only have Luke, Tom and Lizzie disappeared but they’ve taken his hot air balloon as well.’

  ‘Excuse us,’ said Steph who was trying hard not to panic, ‘we were just wondering if you could help us. You see, it’s like this, my brother, Luke, and Violet’s brother, he’s Tom, and our cousin Lizzie, have just floated away and…’

  ‘We wondered if that was your balloon,’ continued Violet, ‘and if it is we need to know where they’ve gone and how we’re going to get them back again. And we’re so sorry…’ A tear ran down her cheek and landed on the grass.

  ‘I think they should be the ones apologising,’ he said, ‘and I must say you’re being very calm under the circumstances. It’s an extremely valuable craft. Luckily I have the means to bring them back; it might take a while so you’ll have to be patient. With any luck they’ll get a lesson they won’t forget in a hurry!’ He opened the bright green shopping bag and took out a small computer. ‘I should be able to do this; it’s just a question of adjusting the controls. I’m Professor McDonald,’ he held out his hand, ‘but you can call me Dan, and who might you be?’

  ‘I’m Violet, and this is my cousin, Steph,’ said Violet and they both shook hands with Dan.

  Steph sighed with relief, ‘Thank you so much! Do you know how long it will take to get them back? We need to be home before dinner.’

  Dan switched on his laptop and began to turn dials on the black box. ‘Right, I’ve adjusted the time controls so they’ll go back to balloon base and then turn around straight away for the return journey. It’s lucky I was nearby when it happened and also fortunate that I’ve developed a remote control system. It’s my idea, I’m going to register the patent for my new invention next week and this will be a really good test to see if it works. Of course, I usually go with my balloon.’ He glanced over his shoulder uneasily at two men who were watching him closely then turned back, scratched his head, and adjusted a few more dials. ‘I suggest you go for a walk around and enjoy yourselves, they’ll be back before you know it!’ He smiled at them, ‘And you’re not to worry, all will be fine. Oh, and by the way, there’s a poster over there that you might find interesting, if you like that kind of thing.’