‘Not to me,’ Essie said hotly.
They both glared at each other for a moment then Will turned away from her, shaking his head. ‘We need to find that plastic.’
They spent the next half an hour searching up and down the beach. Eventually Essie spotted it further down the beach, where it had fetched up among some rocks.
‘This stuff is precious,’ Will said, checking the plastic for damage.
‘I know,’ Essie said.
‘Next time you’ve got to be more careful.’
‘I know!’ Essie snapped.
Will looked at her then, and must have realised not to push her any further. ‘Let’s build another one,’ he said.
The next day, Will wanted to start assembling materials for his raft.
‘There are some big bits of driftwood down in the cove,’ he announced. ‘I’m going to get them out and bring them over to the castle.’
Essie thought that sounded like unnecessarily hard work. ‘Why not just build the boat in the cove?’
‘The current’s so strong there I’d never be able to launch it,’ Will said. ‘And besides, the rest of the materials are already at the castle, so it makes sense to build it there.’
When they’d finished their meagre breakfast, Will handed her the fishing reel and the bucket. ‘Your mission,’ he said, ‘is to go and get some fish.’
‘Okay,’ she said.
And she tried, she really did. She went back to the spot where Will had been successful yesterday. She baited the hook, she threw it in, she waited. There were times when she felt a tug on the line, but when she pulled it up, there was never anything but seaweed, or an empty hook. She baited and threw, baited and threw, again and again, and caught nothing. The morning wore on, hot and sunny. Then she felt something: a tug, a tremble, a shiver on the line. She began to reel it in, afraid of losing it. The tension on the line told her there might be something big on the end. The thought of catching something impressive thrilled her, and she gave a last enthusiastic pull. The line went taut—then suddenly slack.
Essie pulled it up the rest of the way, and what she saw made her heart stop. The line dangled, weightless. The fishhook was gone.
The sun beat down on Will’s head. Yet again, he gripped the huge piece of driftwood in both hands and pulled. He had dug it out of the sand now; it should, he thought, be ready to come free. But it was so much heavier than he’d imagined it would be. Huge and silvery, longer than the Sunfish and thicker around than his own thigh, he could barely shift it. He struggled and strained; it barely moved; a branch dug into the sand and snagged on a rock. He lost his grip and stopped, puffing. He turned the log, repositioned himself so that he was pushing instead of pulling and tried again. Agonisingly, he barely got it to move another foot over the sand before his strength gave out and he had to stop.
It had taken him all morning to extract the large, useful bits of driftwood and wreckage from the tangle. He’d laid the pieces out one by one, high on the beach where the sea couldn’t take them; the next step would be to transport them all back to the castle. He had thought he would have all the materials there before lunchtime. Now he was beginning to see what a gigantic task he had set himself.
Catching his breath, he blew on his battered, painful hands, and placed them once more on the log, his prize. It was the last one to be pulled free from the tangle. He took a deep breath and heaved. At first all seemed well—the angle was right, the effort was right, the log was moving—then an unusually big wave swept up and the log rolled, trapping Will’s foot beneath it. He fell into the debris, sharp pain stabbing from his foot up into his leg. He pulled, trying to free himself, but his foot was stuck fast, and the log seemed to have become wedged again. Panic surged through him. He tried again to pull his foot free, but it only made the pain worse.
‘Essie!’ he yelled. ‘Help!’
No answer came.
The crushing pain in his foot was agonising, but he tried to think clearly. Maybe if he grabbed the log and rolled it off . . .
He wrapped his arms around it and tried to move it, but it was hard to get a purchase when he was pinned underneath it. He reached for a big stick and tried to lever up the log, but the stick broke. Another wave washed off the beach and he tried to use the power of the wave to help him shift the log, but it rolled the wrong way and his foot was trapped worse than before.
‘Essie!’ he called again. ‘Help!’
But he knew she was too far away to hear him.
Essie returned to the castle, wondering what to do next. The loss of the fishhook was a disaster and she knew Will would blame her for it. I have to fix this, she thought. But how?
Annalie would know what to do. But Annalie wasn’t here. Essie would just have to come up with something on her own.
She took the stairs up to the tower, and gazed out at the sea, brilliant, tranquil and empty. No boat crossed the horizon. We could die here, she thought suddenly.
It might not happen quickly. They might be able to keep themselves alive for days, weeks, months. But something would go wrong, sooner or later. A storm, or an illness. They’d use up all the sandworms. Or they’d lose the fishing reel. And then they’d die, and nobody would ever know what had become of them. Her parents would grow old wondering what had happened to her and there would be no one left who could tell them.
Tears blurred the sea, but she wiped them away with the back of her hand struggling to get a grip on herself. Annalie wouldn’t collapse into tears like this, and she wasn’t going to either. She had to make a new fishhook, or think of something else. Will had talked about roasting seagulls—but how did you catch them? Bird traps? How would you design one? Then another thought came to her: A sling shot! She’d never owned such a thing, but she knew what she’d need to make one: a forked stick and something stretchy. Perhaps there might be something down in the piles of old stuff in the great hall?
Inspired, she turned to go downstairs, but caught her toe on the uneven floorboards and went lurching into the stacked up boxes, which tumbled to the floor.
Crossly she began stacking them back up again; as she picked up a box, something stabbed her finger. She jerked her hand back and saw a spot of bright blood well up. She sucked it, looking to see what had stabbed her.
A single fishhook—a real fishhook, from a shop, made of bright steel—lay on the floor. She picked it up, gazing at it in astonishment. Why would anyone have left behind such a prize? She realised it must have slipped down between the cracks in one of these boxes, and her lucky accident had jolted it loose.
A wonderful giddy lightness welled up in her. Yes, it was only a fishhook. But it felt like something more: good fortune touching her shoulder, beckoning her on. They were not going to die today.
Triumphantly, she went downstairs to look for the materials to make a slingshot.
Still trapped, Will lay there, the sun beating down on him mercilessly. Nothing he could do would shift the log.
He knew Essie would probably come looking for him eventually, but he had no idea how long that might actually take.
He remembered her saying, Don’t you think we should work as a team? And how he’d angrily rejected her suggestion. Now it didn’t seem like such a bad idea. If they’d been working together, he still might have got stuck, but he wouldn’t have spent half the morning trapped under this stupid log. He dreaded to think what might be happening to his foot, which was incredibly painful.
What’s going to happen to us if my foot’s crushed? he thought, angry with himself. How can I build a boat and get us off this rock? I won’t be able to do anything. And there’s no way she can do it without me.
Guilt and frustration danced through his mind as he tried to imagine teaching Essie to build a raft, launch it and sail it, while he hopped around with a ruined foot on crutches made of sticks.
It was impossible. They’d never be able to pull it off. Feelings of doom crept over him. Why didn’t I just get her to help me? he thought
bitterly.
He heard a cry, and looked up to see Essie running down the beach towards him.
‘Are you okay? What happened? What can I do?’ she said breathlessly.
‘My foot’s trapped and I can’t move the log,’ he said tersely. ‘But maybe you can.’
Essie studied the log, then wrapped both hands around it and lifted. Simple as that, Will rolled free. The weight lifting off his foot sent a fresh surge of pain shooting up his leg.
‘Maybe we shouldn’t have done that,’ Essie said worriedly. ‘Crush injuries can be really bad.’
‘No, it’s okay,’ Will said through clenched teeth. The pain really was excruciating. ‘Better than being trapped under that log.’
‘In Below Decks: Courage, one of the lieutenants got crushed by a door in a sea battle and they knew that as soon as they took him out of the door he’d die because of the crush injuries, so he had to say goodbye to everybody first,’ said Essie.
‘What?’
‘Sorry. Below Decks. It was one of my favourite vid shows, that’s all. But forget about that, you’re not going to die. Should we get you back to the castle?’
Will nodded. He slung an arm across her shoulders and together they hopped slowly and painfully up the path.
‘Do you want to go up to the tower?’ Essie suggested, rather dreading the thought of all those stairs, but Will sank down on the floor of the great hall beside the front door.
‘Here is fine,’ he said.
The two of them studied Will’s foot. It had darkened like a storm cloud and looked puffy and swollen.
‘Do you think anything’s broken?’ Essie asked. ‘Try and wiggle your toes.’
Will did, and hissed with pain. ‘It hurts,’ he said, ‘but I don’t think anything’s broken.’
‘Why don’t I go and get you some water?’ Essie said. ‘You need to rest. And you should probably elevate that foot to help the swelling go down.’
She found something for him to put his foot on, then left to get water. She was gone a long time. Will was starting to get impatient when at last the main doors swung open again.
‘Ta da!’ she cried.
Essie stood there in the doorway, holding a jar of water in one hand, and in the other, a bucket of fish.
‘Hey, you caught some!’ Will said.
‘Don’t sound so surprised,’ Essie said. ‘And look what else I’ve got.’
She showed him the reel with its real, shiny fishhook dangling from the end. Will’s eyes went round with wonder. ‘Where did—’
‘And that’s not all,’ Essie said. She fetched the slingshot from her back pocket and held it out to him. ‘I tried to bring down a seagull, but I haven’t really got the hang of it yet.’
Will took it from her and examined it, a slow smile spreading across his face. He looked up at Essie with a grin. ‘Who knew you were such a bad-ass?’ he said.
They sat down to eat lunch that had been caught, scaled and gutted—so many new and disgusting skills!—entirely by Essie.
‘You know,’ Will said, once they’d eaten, ‘maybe it would be more efficient if we worked as a team.’
Essie looked over at him and smiled a little. She could have gloated. But all she said was, ‘Sure.’
Will’s foot did not turn out to be broken, although it did turn all the colours of the rainbow over the next few days. Soon enough he was hobbling about again, giving Essie pointers on her fishing technique, refining the design of their solar still, and practising with Essie’s slingshot until he could reliably knock a seagull out of a tree. They kept a lookout for boats on the horizon, but saw nothing. For the first few days, Essie worried that because they were working so hard they might not have noticed the boats as they passed. But gradually they came to realise that the reason they hadn’t seen any boats was because there weren’t any.
‘Where are they all?’ Essie said. ‘We’re still in the Moon Islands. Isn’t it supposed to be full of pirates and refugees?’
‘Well, yes . . . and no.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘It means there are a lot of places to hide here. And to get lost in.’
‘This place would make a brilliant hideout,’ Essie said. ‘Think about what you could do with it if you could fix it up a bit.’
‘It’d be awesome,’ Will said.
‘Wouldn’t it?’ Essie said. ‘I mean, if you had some power and some proper food and stuff. You could live here and it’d be amazing.’
‘You’d never have to worry about the Admiralty tracking you down,’ said Will.
‘Maybe, if we ever get out of this, we can come back here one day and fix it up for ourselves,’ Essie said dreamily.
‘You mean to live?’ Will asked. ‘For real?’
‘Why not?’ Essie said. ‘I mean, maybe not all the time. But it’d be cool to have it as a secret base, wouldn’t it?’
‘Totally cool,’ Will said, the idea growing on him.
They were both silent for a moment, mentally decorating.
‘Now all we have to do is get out of here and find the others,’ Essie said.
Goodbye castle
It took them several weeks to get the raft ready. It was made out of driftwood and the largest pieces of buoyant rubbish from the inlet. There was a central platform where the two of them would ride along with their supplies, and pontoons on either side for stability. Will had put up a mast and made a small square-rigged sail out of the blue tarp. There was a rudder, and some oars in case they needed to row.
‘Okay,’ Will said. ‘Let’s test this thing and see if it floats.’
The raft, perhaps unsurprisingly, was enormously heavy. Even with the two of them pushing and heaving with all their might, they could hardly move it down the beach. After they had pushed it a foot or two—and still had many more to go before they reached the water—Will stepped away, panting.
‘You know,’ he said, ‘even if we do manage to get it down to the water, I don’t think we’re going to be able to get it out again.’
Essie still had spots dancing in front of her eyes from the effort. ‘No,’ she agreed. ‘So what do we do?’
‘I think,’ Will said, ‘we’d better pack it up here on the shore, wait until the tide’s high and then launch it.’
‘Without a trial run?’
‘Yep.’
Essie paused for a moment, thinking about all the objections she should be raising: We don’t know where we’re going. We have no way to navigate. What about storms? What about sharks? What if it takes weeks and we run out of food and water? What if where we’re going is worse than where we are now, where at least we have shelter and can feed ourselves?
But all she said was, ‘Okay.’
They packed their supplies as carefully as they could, a task complicated by the fact they didn’t have proper containers for anything, or much in the way of rope. Will kept one eye on the tide as they loaded their stores. It washed gently up the beach, higher and higher, until at last it was time to go.
‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Let’s give this another try.’
They leaned their shoulders into the raft and pushed and struggled and pushed and heaved. The waves began to lick the pontoons. Essie and Will strained and struggled and pushed some more. The front of the raft reached the water’s edge, and they felt it being lifted and moved by the tide.
‘Push when the waves are going out!’ Will directed, and they used the motion of the waves to move the raft until at last it floated free. Will clambered aboard, pulling Essie up after him, and took one of the long oars to push off against the shallow bottom.
‘She floats!’ Essie said joyfully.
‘Let’s hope she hangs together,’ Will said.
Essie watched the sandy bottom drop away beneath them. The water changed from blue to a deep green and soon the bottom was no longer visible at all. The little sail flapped and caught the wind.
‘How good is this!’ he cried. ‘Didn’t I tell you I’d get
us off the island?’
‘I never doubted it,’ Essie said. She turned to look at him, and saw how unambiguously happy he was to be on the water again—happiness radiated from him.
‘You really love all this, don’t you?’ she said.
‘It’s the best thing in the world,’ he said, and grinned.
The island, topped by its crenellated tower, began slowly to recede.
‘Goodbye, castle,’ Essie said, watching it go. Will’s high spirits were infectious and it felt good to be on their way once more. Unknown dangers lay ahead of them. But if all went well, and their luck held, soon, perhaps, they would be reunited with Annalie, Pod, Graham and the Sunfish.
The Loudon Multi-Phasal Scanning Module
‘Let me get this straight,’ Wirehead said. ‘You want us to fix your boat, look for your missing friends, and help you track down this Dan Gari?’
‘Correct,’ Annalie said.
She was sitting with Pod in Wirehead’s office, a handsomely decorated room with a tall executive chair behind a huge desk and a lot of high-end devices on custom-made shelves. After arriving on the island, they had been given a place to stay and then left alone for a day, presumably while Wirehead went away and checked out their story. Now they had been summoned to his office.
‘So, how were you planning to pay for all that?’ Wirehead asked.
‘I was hoping you or your friends might know how to get in touch with Spinner,’ Annalie said.
‘Nope,’ Wirehead said, smiling blandly. ‘What else have you got?’
Annalie did have some money, mostly supplied by Essie. They usually kept it hidden aboard the Sunfish but she and Pod had divided it up and hidden it inside their clothing before coming ashore. She knew that the money would not be enough, so it was best to keep it to herself.
‘Could we trade you something from the boat to pay for the repairs?’ Annalie asked.
Wirehead raised an eyebrow, reaching for a list. He scanned it, then looked back at her. ‘Nothing you have on your boat is worth anywhere near enough,’ he said coolly.
The Castle in the Sea: Quest of the Sunfish 2 Page 5