by Carol Prior
The letters were quite hard to press and if he hadn’t been so convinced he was right he might have given up. It was about ten minutes later that there was a whirring sound followed by creaking and a panel about the size of a small door opened up revealing a dark space full of shadows thrown from the bright light behind him. He could see his own Luke-shaped shadow; and the shadow of someone or something else that reached out a hand and tapped him on the shoulder.
‘Aghhhh…! Yikes, Tom, it’s you, you gave me a fright; I thought it was Old Joll coming to get me for discovering his secret.’
‘I can’t believe you’ve found it,’ said Tom. ‘It’s amazing, why didn’t you wake me?’
‘You were out cold, I did try. Actually, I’m glad you’re here; I wouldn’t have wanted to go in on my own. It’s really creepy! There’s a tiny skylight but that doesn’t help much because it’s black as pitch outside on the marsh.’
The room was quite long and narrow, and empty apart from a pile of old rags on the floor. In one corner was a strange object that looked like a watering can with nothing inside but an old candle.
Tom picked it up, ‘Disappointing or what’ he said ‘nothing much at all, no skeletons or treasure chests, just old rags and an antique watering can! Still at least you’ve found it and that’s pretty amazing. Everyone is going to be really impressed. What’s that noise?’ He turned around just in time to see the wall closing behind them. ‘Luke! Quick, the panel…!’
Luke reached out but it slammed shut nearly trapping his fingers. ‘Too late, missed it, we’re stuck! What shall we do now?’
‘Well, there could be a password to open it from inside. It won’t be easy to find though because we’ve only got a little torch. If all else fails we’ll just wait until morning and hope the others find us.’
‘Yes, before breakfast preferably, I’m hungry already,’ said Luke, ‘but let’s start looking for a way out, there must be one.’
‘Um, not always, Luke, I think sometimes they relied on other people to let them out when the coast was clear. Still, as you said, no old bones so that’s a good sign. We’ll just have to wait if we can’t find a way out. We can bang on the walls, they’ll be sure to find us; eventually.’
FRIDAY
CHAPTER 13
Where are they?
‘Has anyone seen Luke and Tom this morning?’ asked Grandma. ‘It’s nearly nine, they’re usually awake by now and I want to clear up the breakfast things.’
‘Now you mention it I must say it’s been nice and peaceful,’ replied Ollie, ‘very civilised.’
‘It’s a bit odd though,’ said Steph, ‘they’re always up before us normally. Did they go out?’
‘Well I hope they haven’t gone for another ride in that balloon,’ said Ollie. ‘They know I want to go up next time.’
Grandma looked worried, ‘You never know with those boys, perhaps we should search the house and garden. I hope they haven’t gone off somewhere and had an accident!’
‘Well let’s see,’ said Violet, ‘they could have climbed through the secret tunnel under the wall but that wouldn’t take very long. Or maybe they’ve gone to see the twin house again. Yes, that’s it! I reckon they got up early and decided to walk to Cornypie. Perhaps they were hoping for a ride to town in the Prof’s balloon. He goes early in the morning and comes back at night.’
‘What!’ Ollie looked peeved, ‘I hope not!’
Grandma turned to Steph and Lizzie, ‘Have you two got any sensible suggestions? So far it’s an early walk, or the tunnel under the wall, but if I know Luke he won’t be up for a long hike first thing in the morning and certainly never before he’s had his breakfast.’
‘What do you think, Lizzie?’ asked Steph.
‘If it was me,’ said Lizzie, ‘and I couldn’t sleep, I would probably go into the strange room with the four-poster bed and see if I could work out how to get into the secret room, yes, that’s definitely what I’d do.’
‘You could be right, Lizzie,’ said Grandma. ‘Ollie can you go and look around the outside of the house and down on the marsh? I’ll search the garden; and you girls had better go upstairs and check out Lizzie’s theory; though I can’t help feeling that if they were stuck in the house somewhere they’d be kicking up an enormous hullaballoo!’
Violet giggled, ‘Brilliant word! I’ll add that to my favourites along with gazebo and balustrade and…’
‘Come on, Violet,’ said Lizzie taking Violet’s hand and pulling her up the stairs. ‘I think we should find Luke and Tom as soon as possible. If they are stuck in the secret room they could have been there for hours already!’
They crossed the small bridge and opened the heavy door that led to the west wing.
Steph stopped and cupped a hand to her ear, ‘Listen, can you hear a peculiar thumping sound? Oh, no, it seems to be coming from the end wall. And why is the light on in here? They must be in there, you were right Lizzie! How are we going to get them out?’
She went close to the wooden panels, ‘Hello, Luke, Tom,’ she called, ‘are you in there?’
‘Steph…’ Luke’s voice sounded faint and distant, ‘get us out, we’ve been in here for ages and it’s dark! And there’s no food or water, or anything!’
‘Look at these letters in the dust,’ said Violet, ‘C, O, R; of course, Cornypie that’s the password, we should have guessed!’
‘But, how do we know which ones to press?’ asked Steph.
Violet ran her hands over the wall ‘Some of the letters are slightly raised; we never noticed that before. You press them Lizzie, I don’t dare, what if it goes wrong and we can’t get them out!’
‘Okay, I’ll try it, the C in Jack, the O in out, hooray! Don’t worry, Violet, it seems to be working! The letters are sinking into the wall, that’s it, last one, the E in pie, what’s happening?’
‘We’ve found the secret panel, that’s what!’ cried Steph as a door-shaped hole appeared in the wall, ‘Yes, come on let’s go in!’
Two pale faces stared out at them from the gloom. ‘Well you took your time…’ said Luke.
‘I thought it would be more interesting than this,’ complained Lizzie, ‘huh, nothing but a pile of rags.’
‘Quick, the panel’s closing,’ Tom leapt to his feet… ‘Oh no, one of you should have stayed outside, just in case! There goes my breakfast, no one will find us now and I’m hungry… and…’
Steph was the nearest, she tried to catch it as it slammed shut but before she got there a shoe appeared in the gap and a hand reached in and pulled the panel open.
‘Ollie,’ gasped Steph, ‘thank heavens! Quick get us out.’
‘Yes, especially me!’ yelled Luke as he shot past on his way to the bathroom, followed by Tom who was trying to overtake him.
‘And then,’ mumbled Luke through a mouthful of eggs and mushrooms, ‘Tom came up behind me, he nearly scared me to death. I thought Old Joll was coming to get me.’
‘Or Cornypie,’ said Violet.
‘Or both of them together,’ said Lizzie, her eyes round with excitement.
‘Yeah, all of them probably, a whole gang of smugglers, but it was just Tom. Then we went in, and that’s it, we were stuck for hours and the battery on the torch ran out!’
‘We were banging and shouting for ages,’ added Tom, ‘all last night but no one could hear and in the end we gave up and fell asleep. Could I have some more toast, please, Grandma?’
‘And there was nothing worth finding in the end,’ said Steph, ‘not a single bone, just a pile of old rags and an ancient watering can!’
‘Yes, and that nearly got used for something altogether different,’ laughed Luke ‘but we were afraid it might leak!’
‘It’s a good thing we found the letters in the dust,’ said Steph, ‘or you might have been stuck for longer!’
Luke looked blank, ‘Letters, what letters, nothing to do with us,’ he grinned at the look on their worried faces. ‘Haha… I’m only joking! Anyway, I might
have to go to bed now, that floor was too hard to sleep on comfortably.’
The phone rang and Grandma went off to answer it. ‘It was your friend, Bert,’ she said when she came back. ‘He told me that he’s remembered the name of the other smuggler and I’ve invited him for tea this afternoon. I know you’ve found out already but I thought you would prefer to tell him yourselves. He says he will be here by half past three.’
CHAPTER 14
The Smugglers’ Lamp
Bert was pleased to see them all again, and Grandma, and her old black cat, Bluebell. He was very interested in the secret room and he told them that there probably was a way out from inside though he wouldn’t guarantee it. He said it didn’t help if your torch had run out, especially as the skylight was almost completely covered in leaves and grime so it would be gloomy even in the daytime.
‘What have you got there?’ he asked when Luke showed him the old watering can they had discovered in the secret room. ‘This is incredible, have you any idea what it was used for? Look, here’s a clue, there’s still an ancient beeswax candle inside.’
No one spoke so he went on.
‘This is a smugglers’ lamp. The candle sat at the bottom near the base of the spout and the smuggler would hold it under his left arm so his right hand could be used to signal. Shall we try it?’
Bert lit the candle and tucked the lamp under his left arm then he closed the spout with his right hand.
‘You see,’ he said, ‘the light from the candle would flash on when I take my hand away, and off when I cover it up, and because of the shape of the lamp it could be seen far out to sea. I reckon it might be worth a bob or two!’
‘Would you like another slice of carrot cake?’ asked Grandma.
‘That would be lovely,’ said Bert ‘thank you, Mary. You can’t beat a good carrot cake. You know, I used to play round here when I was very young, not in the house, you understand. Oh, no, we wouldn’t have dared. The old couple who lived here were very strange. She had a black cat too so we always said she was a witch.’
‘That’s dreadful!’ exclaimed Grandma. ‘Poor little cat!’ She picked up Bluebell and gave her a cuddle.
‘Go on, Bert, what else?’ asked Steph eagerly.
‘We did climb into the garden once, me and my mates, but she came running out waving the frying pan and we fled, off across the march. Of course it wasn’t called Old Joll in those days, no, people kept quiet about those things, smugglers and so on. And Cornypie House wasn’t called that either. Why ever would someone call a house Cornypie? It probably happened in the nineteen sixties, things went a bit odd then. They must have heard the stories and decided it was a good name, a way of remembering its history maybe, I couldn’t say for sure. I was quite young at the time, hard to imagine. Don’t know where the time’s gone, eh Mary?’
Grandma looked sad for a moment; she shook her head, ‘I’m quite sure I don’t, Bert! It’s certainly flown!’
‘We boys knew there were ways in and out of this house but we never got the chance to find out. And it was the same with the other one, Cornypie. I think it was owned by some rock star and a crowd of them hippies, you know, flower power and all that. I can’t remember his name but he kept a black panther in the garden so we didn’t go anywhere near for fear of being eaten! Keeping big cats was quite fashionable, and I mean leopards, lions, even tigers. Did I ever tell you about the giant cat I saw on the lane beyond Udimore, Mary? I believe they’re still out there.’
‘Tell us some more about the smugglers, Bert,’ said Violet.
‘Oh they was a wicked bunch for sure. People kept on the right side of ‘em. There’s an old poem that says watch the wall my darling*, and that’s what everyone did, they looked the other way. It was best not to know anything. And the smugglers put out tales to scare people so that no one interfered in their dealings. They spread rumours about hauntings on the marsh
*‘A Smuggler’s Song’ by Rudyard Kipling
and because people often saw flames of
marsh gas they believed them. They thought that the will-o’-the-wisps were ghosts leading them off into the marsh to be swallowed up.’
‘What is that, what you just said?’ Lizzie asked.
‘What? Oh the will-o’-the-wisp, sometimes called a jack-o’-lantern; they say it’s just gas from the marsh but no one really knows. The funny thing is that when you get near, it moves away, which is why many people believe it can lead you off the path and into a swamp. The smugglers loved all these tales; it meant they were safe to get on with their smuggling. They had secret tunnels all over the place. Did you know that there’s a tunnel between the Mermaid Inn and the Old Bell? Not many people do. It was the old Hawkhurst Gang that met at the Mermaid. Of course, that were hundreds of years ago, not the 1960s!’ He laughed, ‘Smuggling still goes on though but it’s a completely different business nowadays.’
‘Grandma told us that the smugglers had lots of money because everyone wanted the goods they brought across from France,’ said Tom.
‘She’s right, she usually is, hahaha… Everyone was happy to buy their goods so long as they weren’t the ones getting the blame.’
‘Will you have another cup of tea, Bert?’ asked Grandma.
‘No thanks, Mary. I’ll be on my way. And please keep me up to date with all the goings on, won’t you. No more getting stuck in secret rooms or flying off across the English Channel; it’s dangerous!’
‘Are you sure I can’t give you a lift back, Bert?’ asked Grandma.
‘No thanks, m’dear, Shanks’s pony suits me fine, it’s not far.’
Lizzie’s eyes shone, ‘A pony, where? Have you got a pony?’
Tom laughed, ‘I think he just means he prefers to walk.’ ‘We’ll come and wave,’ said Steph.
‘Look,’ yelled Luke, ‘it’s the balloon! Why is it coming back at this time of the day? It’s not even six! I hope nothing is wrong, Violet’s friend Esmeralda is supposed to be going up in it tomorrow.’
‘She’s not my friend,’ said Violet indignantly. ‘I think she’s a bit silly, actually.’
‘Well, we’ll find out tomorrow, won’t we?’ said Luke. ‘Come on Tom, when it gets dark we can try out the candle lamp from the big room at the end. And bring the binoculars!’
SATURDAY
CHAPTER 15
Esmeralda, Queen of Cupcakes
It looked as if the whole town had turned out on the Salts. Grandma was coming with Julia, and two more friends, Hattie and Rose, were meeting them there. The field had been decked out with flags and there were film crews and cameras and crowds of arty looking people standing around trying to appear busy and important. The balloon stood in the middle looking resplendent with its beautiful green and blue stripes shimmering gently in the breeze as if to welcome the crowds of people flocking onto the field and gathering around its enclosure.
‘Wow, I can’t see a thing,’ complained Luke. ‘Let’s push down the front and see if we can find Professor Dan.’
‘He’s nowhere at all,’ said Tom. ‘How can he operate the balloon if he’s not about?’
Lizzie looked puzzled, ‘You’re right, Tom, I don’t think he would just go off somewhere. I hope he’s alright. And who are those strange men over there? They’ve got the Prof’s green shopping bag and his lap top.’
Tom shook his head, ‘I don’t know, Lizzie. They’re probably part of the film crew, Dan must have handed the organising over to them.’
‘Well I don’t believe it,’ said Violet, ‘do you, Steph? He told us he hopes to get his new invention patented next week so I don’t think he would let just anyone operate his balloon.’
Ollie was waving at them over the crowd and pointing towards a large car that was trying to make its way across the field, ‘Esmeralda,’ he mouthed.
The crowd parted, clearing a path for the black limousine as it bumped across the grass and stopped by the enclosure, then the door opened and a chauffeur got out. Everyone watched in awe as he wal
ked round and opened one of the rear doors for Esmeralda, star of stage and screen, to make her appearance. She climbed out carefully and waved regally to the crowd. The Press were there too and you could hear cameras snapping away above the noise, ‘Esmeralda, over here!’ they yelled trying to attract her attention.
‘Could be anyone in those shades,’ scoffed Luke. ‘You can’t even see her face, or her head with that big hat.’
‘Or any part of her,’ finished Tom ‘in that cloak and long dress!’
‘She’s supposed to look regal,’ said Steph. ‘You know, ‘Light-As-Air Queen of Cupcakes’ and all that. I wonder where the famous tiara is. Stand back, they’re coming this way!’
Esmeralda flounced through the crowds and into the balloon enclosure. A golden throne had been prepared for her so she sat down while several people fussed around arranging her cloak. Then one of them produced the tiara and her hat was ceremoniously removed to be replaced by the glittering diamonds. It was at this moment that her sunglasses dropped onto her lap but she grabbed them hastily and put them back on.
‘It’s not Esmeralda!’ gasped Violet, but no one else seemed to have noticed, and they all cheered as the tiara was placed on her head and she was helped into the balloon basket to hover above the town, filmed by the crew from ‘Light-As-Air Queen of Cupcakes’.
‘Oohhh!!!’ murmured the delighted crowd, and ‘Wow!!!’ Then ‘Noooo!!!!’ as the balloon broke free from its tether and drifted off towards the sea.
‘Oo er, what now?’ asked Luke.
People were leaving the field, some in tears, and others were staring off into the sky as if willing Esmeralda and the balloon to come back the way they had gone. The film crew were in hysterics and the makeup ladies were passing round tissues and trying to consol one another; while the man left holding a purple lined box, that usually contained the priceless tiara, looked about to explode.