Tiger Moth

by Suzi Moore

  I followed the path until I got to the stone seat; the words Culver Cove were carved into it. My legs were feeling tired so I sat down for a while and watched the sea below. The waters were calm and blue, and I could just make out the large rocks where the smugglers used to bring their boats filled with treasure. When I climbed underneath a tree, I had to push the branches away from my face with the back of my hand.

  As I crawled through the darkness, I felt my heart beat quickly and for a moment I wondered if I should go back, but as the thought entered my head I caught sight of the waterfall. Its crystal waters cascaded down the hill in a loud rushing sound and I made the mistake of following the water with my eyes. As I watched the water descending, I felt myself get dizzy and my foot almost slipped off the edge. I grabbed hold of the rocks and tried to catch my breath again. I moved forward towards the ledge. Now I had to do the hard part and jump over the edge to the other side.

  I looked once more at the rushing water and told myself not to look down. I held my head high and concentrated on the large rock face in front of me, counting one, two, three. But I didn’t move. One. Two. Three. Again I stayed rooted to the spot. Could I reach it? I placed one foot forward and tried to measure the gap. Would I make it? Had I ever jumped that far? Should I just turn round and run back home? Home, I thought, remembering my mum and dad in the garden and the stupid baby kicking. They didn’t need me any more. So I took a deep breath and, thinking about the pretty beach which lay ahead of me, I jumped.

  It happened like slow motion. My body tipped forward and my feet sprang into the air. I saw the other side getting closer, closer, a gentle breeze on my face as I descended, but, just as my toes were almost touching the ledge, I felt the rucksack on my shoulder suddenly being tugged violently backwards and I had just enough time to pull my arm free of the strap. I landed hard, falling forward on to my hands and knees, and I watched in horror as my bag tumbled down the rock face all the way to the shore.

  I wiped the sweat from my forehead and listened to the sound of the waterfall above me. I could just about see the water through the thick branches and I knew I had to be close. Finally I spied the little stone steps; I bent down to climb under the last branch and crawled out from the darkened footpath into the bright light of the sunshine.

  At first I felt as though I’d walked right into a painting or on to one of those secret islands where ancient tribes still live. It couldn’t be real. It didn’t feel real. The sand wasn’t yellow, it was pinkish white. The sea wasn’t grey or blue, it was turquoise, and the two rocks on each side of the cove stood proudly like pillars. Like the gateway to another world. And it was hot. Stinking hot. I looked back up the steep hill and wondered why Dad had told me the path was covered with rocks. Why had he always said it was impossible to get down to Culver Cove? Why had he lied?

  I took off my shoes and walked barefoot on the warm sand. A seagull flew above my head and I watched it circle lower and lower; I watched it swoop and dive. Then I saw him. Sitting bare-chested and cross-legged on our beach was a boy I’d never seen before. I quickly ducked behind a large rock. Who was he? What was he doing on our beach?

  I peeped out to look again. He had my bag! I got really angry when he began to open it. My hands clenched into fists when he started looking through it. I saw him pull out the towel and watched in horror as the lemon cake rolled on to the beach where it became covered in sand. I marched out from my hiding place and strode right up to him. I wanted to yell, but I still couldn’t make a sound, and suddenly I found myself standing right over him. The boy jumped up quickly, dropped my bag and, as he looked down at me, I saw his face in the soft light of the sun.

  His hair was thick and darkest brown, and now that I was closer I could see that it was soaking wet. His eyes blinked in the light and it was only when he held up a hand to shield his eyes that I realised that he was like no one I had ever seen before. His eyes looked as though someone had used a big black felt tip to draw round the coloured bit. It made the blue look like wet paint and the angry feeling sort of melted away. I just stared. Then I felt myself blushing from my chest right up to the hairs on the back of my neck. He looked at me with squinty eyes and then he smiled in a way that made me feel as though he was really happy to see me. In a way that made me think he knew me, that he wasn’t really a stranger after all.

  We stood like that silently for what seemed like forever and then he turned round and left. Just like that. I watched him as he climbed along the rocks and disappeared back round the headland to the village.

  Who was he?

  I sat on the beach until my face was burning from the sun and, as there was nowhere shady to sit, I felt hot and uncomfortable. After a while, I pulled out the photograph of my other mother and stared down at her face. Did she like beaches? Did she like to swim?

  I was so hot and worried about getting back before it was dark on my way home, that strangely it wasn’t so bad the second time around. As I slid the rusty bolt back across the door to the garden, I knew I wanted to go back to the beach again. As I climbed out from underneath the red rose bush, I turned and shook my head. You just wouldn’t know the door was there and, as I kicked the red petals back into place, I realised that it looked exactly as I had found it.

  I tried to sneak back into the house, but Mum and Dad were waiting for me and they were really angry. I stood in the kitchen and stared at the floor.

  ‘Alice, I am so disappointed in you,’ Mum said, shaking her head. ‘I love you so much, but you really can’t do that sort of thing.’

  I nodded and waited to hear what my punishment would be. Going to the beach was forbidden. It was the golden rule, never to be broken, and I waited nervously.

  ‘Alice, what are we going to do?’ Mum sighed.

  I held my breath.

  ‘Does your mum have to lock the door and hide the key?’ Dad said.

  I thought about the rusty bolt on the door.

  ‘Alice, that cake was for the stall. I made that for the school fair so that they can raise money for the new school bus.’

  The cake? I’d forgotten all about it. It had probably been carried off by a seagull. They were mad about the cake? They didn’t know where I’d been and I was so relieved that I almost smiled and said something, but then I thought of the boy on the beach and the words got stuck. I tried to look as sorry as I could, but Mum and Dad just shook their heads.

  ‘I’m going to have to make another one now. I haven’t got time to make you dinner as well. You and your dad can go into the village and get something there.’

  Mum gave my dad a funny look and then I spied the little pad next to the phone and, without thinking, I wrote: I am sorry.

  Mum smiled, kissed my cheek and whispered in my ear, ‘I guess I do make the best cakes, eh?’

  10

  Zack

  As I ran down the road and away from Mum, I felt like I wanted to shout in my loudest ever voice, ‘I just don’t want to be here!’ Why didn’t she get it? Why couldn’t we have just stayed somewhere I knew or somewhere that at least had real beaches and not these stupid, stony, ‘Danger no swimming’ beaches? What’s the point of that?

  I heard her calling after me, but I kept on running down the footpath until I couldn’t hear her any more. When I got to the end of the lane, I saw Gary and the removal van parked outside the row of cottages I sort of remembered from that photo Mum tried to show me. He waved at me to come over, but I turned away and jumped over the harbour wall on to the stupid, stony beach. I kicked a few stones, but that kind of hurt, and in the end I went to the far side of the so-called beach, sat on a boulder and tried to throw pebbles into the water. The tide was pretty far out and the greyish stones just clattered down to the beach without reaching the sea.

  I looked back to the harbour and could just make out the side of the last white cottage. I could see Gary again and, when he started heading my way, I got up and left. The stones got bigger and bigger until I was just clambering over bigger
and bigger rocks and there wasn’t really any beach left, just a green headland which disappeared to the left. I turned my head and looked upwards at the hill; it was almost vertical, but it was covered in purple flowers, and then I saw something which made my heart sink: ‘Private property. Keep out.’ I looked at the rusting sign which was hanging off a chain and thought that, if I hadn’t turned my head, I wouldn’t have seen the sign so I pretended I hadn’t and carried on anyway.

  It must have been after four o’clock, but it still felt really warm, and as I scrambled towards the last boulder I felt really hot and hungry. Mum says I’m always hungry these days and I think she might be right, not that constantly eating has made me grow taller or anything because I used to be one of the shortest boys in my class.

  I took off my hoody, wrapped it round my waist and climbed like a monkey on to the last grey boulder which was at least twice as tall as me. I had to slot my fingers into the grooves on the rock face just like my dad had shown me when we were in France. ‘Always keep three points of contact,’ he’d said. Just before the top I saw that there were no more little ledges or holes to put my hands into. I felt my heart beating quickly and, even though I could almost hear my dad’s voice in my head, it didn’t stop me from feeling afraid. I just wasn’t like him at all. Dad would just get on and do stuff without being scared, but I’d never be as brave as him. I had to heave my entire body on to the top of the rock and it left me panting and sweating so hard I had to lie down, close my eyes and rest for a bit. But when I opened them again and turned round I saw what lay hidden on the other side of the headland.

  I blinked and rubbed my eyes to make sure it wasn’t some kind of crazy mirage and, when I realised it wasn’t that or a dream, I grinned from ear to ear. Hiding, tucked away from view, was a beach. A real beach! A proper sandy beach at last and I almost jumped down to the other side. Well, I would have jumped, but it was pretty high up so I kind of slid on my bottom until I felt the warm sand between my toes. It was almost like the beach me and Dad had sailed out to on our last holiday. And, as I looked up towards the other side, I saw it had something which made it probably the most amazing beach I had ever seen. It had a waterfall. It came sort of crashing down from the top of the hill to the sand. I shielded my eyes from the glare of the sun and I couldn’t be sure, but I swear I saw something moving in the green bushes just above me. I waited for a while then I decided that I must have imagined it.

  I walked along the sandy cove towards where the waterfall came down the hillside. The sand was a soft sort of pale pink and when I looked down I saw there were millions of tiny pink and white bits of shell that sort of sparkled in the sunlight. The water on the shoreline was shallow and warm, and the large grey rocks that jutted out of the water created a lagoon like I had only ever seen in movies. As I got nearer to the waterfall, the rushing sound of water was almost deafening and I held my hand under the water. Cold. Freezing cold, but I took a deep breath and dipped my head under the icy rush of it. It felt amazing and my whole body cooled down so that I felt comfortable again. I turned back and saw the sun was dipping lower in the sky. I knew I wouldn’t have long before Mum or Gary came to find me; besides, I was so hungry that I would have to head back at some point. But, for now, I didn’t want to leave.

  I sat down at the far side of the little cove and rested my back against the warmth of the rocks and looked around at the secret, hidden beach. My tummy rumbled again. Then something else rumbled and, when I turned to look, I had just enough time to dive out of the way before it hit me straight on the side of the head. At first I thought it was an enormous rock and it scared the pants off me. I thought, Oh no, I’m going to be squashed to death, and, as I rolled out of the way, my heart was pounding quickly. But when I sat up again and saw what the mysterious flying object was I realised I needn’t have been scared at all, not unless a flying Barbie rucksack can kill you. It made me laugh and I placed it to one side where its little Barbie girl owner could find it.

  After a while, I thought I could smell something lovely and lemony, and when I leaned in towards the bag I realised that it was coming from inside. My stomach rumbled once more so, after I had glanced around to check if there was anyone else about, I picked up the bag and unbuckled the clasp. The smell of lemons got stronger and I would have bet my guitar, my keyboard and my iPod that there was some kind of cake hiding in Barbie world. I pulled out a pale blue towel and watched in horror as the predicted cake rolled out of it and down the sandy beach.

  The girl must have moved like a ghost or something because I didn’t hear her creep up on me at all. The next thing I knew there she was, standing over me, and she gave me such a fright that I jumped up and dropped the bag. She was a lot smaller than me and I thought that she reminded me of someone I knew, but I couldn’t think who. At first I thought she was going to shout because her mouth hung open, but she didn’t. I panicked as I remembered the ‘Private property. Keep out’ sign. I held my hand up to shield my eyes and to look out for some kind of grown-up who was sure to come marching over any minute and tell me to get off the private beach. I suddenly felt scared, but then I remembered what Mum often said to me: ‘Zack, when in doubt, just smile because no one can stay mad at you for long. You’ll break all the girls’ hearts with that smile of yours.’

  So that is what I did. Sounds dumb, doesn’t it? Sounds well stupid, but when I smiled at the girl she stopped looking so angry. She didn’t shout. She didn’t say one thing. Not one single word. She just stared and stared. She went red so I think she was either blushing or she had sunburn all of a sudden, but still she did not say one word. I was sure that her mum or dad would appear any minute and so I turned round and ran away.

  It took me ages to climb back along the rocks and it seemed loads harder than on the way in. When I finally got back to where Gary’s van was parked outside the middle white cottage, Mum was so mad at me that everything she said was a sort of shouty bark. Gary didn’t say much to me at all, he just went back and forth with the rest of the boxes, but Mum went on and on at me for ages. She went on and on at me until I was shouting back at her and everyone that was in the harbour was staring, and when I finally went inside and slammed the door I saw our new home for the very first time.

  11

  Alice

  Dad and I got in his car and drove up the long winding driveway to the road. He didn’t say anything at first, but when we turned on to the lane he did this thing where he sort of pinches your knee and it tickles so much I actually laughed really, really loudly.

  ‘That’s better, Alice. It would be a shame if I never got to hear your laughter again.’

  We drove down the winding lane towards the village and now that all the oak trees had their leaves the road looked a bit dark. We turned left at the churchyard and down the hill past the post office where Pippa lives, and Dad parked up by the bookshop so we could walk down the lane towards the harbour. We ordered fish and chips from the Boathouse Café and the two of us sat down on the harbour wall and ate delicious, hot, salty chips. There were quite a few big boats to look at and, as I waved at a man who was lowering the anchor on his little sailing boat, we heard really loud shouting. Dad and I turned to look. Actually, everyone turned to look.

  At the end of the harbour wall is a little bridge that you have to cross to get to the beach and a row of three white cottages. Years ago, they were the cottages that the fishermen used to live in, but these days they’re the sort of cottages that people stay in for their holidays. The middle one is bigger than the other two and it has a pretty front garden with roses that climb up the front and round the doorway.

  Parked on the narrow cobbled lane was a blue van with the words: A 2 B Removals. No job too big or small.

  The shouting began again and a woman emerged from inside the van, carrying two large boxes. We watched her carry her heavy load into the cottage, but when she appeared again my dad suddenly sat up and craned his neck.

  ‘I don’t believe it!’ he s
aid, shaking his head. ‘I think that’s . . .’ But he suddenly stopped talking and rubbed the back of his head, and when I looked up at him he seemed kind of sad. ‘When I was younger, I used to be friends with the girl that lived there. My brother, Aunt Aggy and I used to have a lot of fun together.’ The way he said ‘used to’ made it sound miserable.

  I watched him gaze out to sea for a while. Mum once told me that, after my dad’s older brother died, Grandma got very sick, but she didn’t have an illness that made your body hurt, she had an illness that made her feel very sad all of the time and she spent most of it in bed with the curtains drawn. I thought about Uncle Tom. Even though there are lots of photographs of him in our house, my dad hardly ever talks about him. There’s a garden bench at the back of our house with his name on and sometimes I see Dad sitting there with a book, but he never seems to turn the pages.

  ‘Your mum made Culver Manor beautiful again,’ Dad said, looking down at me. ‘She made the gardens so lovely and the house full of light and colour, and now I wouldn’t ever want to live anywhere else. You brought the laughter and the happiness back, but it didn’t used to be like that.’

  I looked up at him and because I didn’t want him to look upset any more I leaned into him and squeezed him tightly.

  ‘Anyway,’ he said, trying to look cheerful again, ‘we all spent a lot of time down here at the coastguard cottages and Jane Rowe was the girl who lived in the middle house. She was quite a tomboy. She wasn’t afraid of anything and she didn’t mind telling you what to do either.’ He laughed and shook his head.

  At that moment the shouting started again and we watched Jane Rowe appear from inside the blue van again.

  ‘All I asked you to do was help,’ she barked. ‘I’ve had to do nearly everything by myself! Where the hell have you been? Gary has been looking all over for you. I thought you’d had an accident.’