by JM Coombs
Richard pointed to the tree-line that marked the start of the council preserve way off in the distance. "You know the wreck way past the peninsular there? What would it take for you to give me a lift to it?"
Charles smiled. The wreck didn't have a ferry service to it. There was nothing in the rules about not taking someone there. His eyes slid to the trunk at Struggle's side again. "A spot on your next memory diary entry and a discount on a trunk when you start making them?"
Struggle's eyes sparkled. "Done."
Richard and Charles stood at the end of one of the many wooden piers that made up The Second Island docks. The sun shone down on them. The crystal blue water blobbed and sploshed around the wooden pier legs. Richard wore only swimming shorts and his trunk.
"Hi all," Richard said, talking to no one.
"Hey everyone!" Charles waved at nothing.
Richard pointed at Charles. "This here is Charles Moore — dolphin whisperer working for the council post office — and he's going to be helping me with this next bit."
Charles looked between Richard and the nothing they were both talking to. "Yeah, the island's a fair bit away, and carrying people can get pretty exhausting, but I'm sure we'll manage."
"Yep," Richard said. "I'll try and find out later exactly how far it is."
A loud voice interrupted them, calling to them from across the far end of the pier.
They turned.
"Richard!" Elizabeth was marching up the pier.
"Ah," Richard said.
She stopped a few feet away from them and hesitated, wide eyes dragging over his shirtless upper body.
Richard chuckled.
Elizabeth visibly shook herself and said, "So, that's your 'cunning plan?' Use the wood from the wreck?"
"Yeah."
"And how long will that take you?"
Richard shrugged and his face turned more serious. "I'm not sure."
Elizabeth looked away. "You know I'm leaving tomorrow evening."
Richard nodded. "I'll try and be back before then."
Elizabeth didn't say anything.
Richard gave her an uncertain smile. "But there is something you could do for me while you're still here."
Elizabeth looked back. "Oh?"
"Could you tell Julie what I'm planning? Tell her to get the people trapped here ready to leave in a hurry. Oh, and they need to be ready to build a small boat too."
Elizabeth nodded slowly. "Be ready to leave quickly. Be ready to build a small boat. Got it."
"I trust you," Richard said with a grin.
Elizabeth snorted and Richard noted with satisfaction that she hadn't been able to keep herself from flashing her wry smile.
Charles stretched his arms. "You ready now? We're going to need to finish this before I have to start my next post run."
Richard's eyes firmed. "Ready."
Charles took a running dive off the pier and transformed into a dolphin mid-jump. He hit the water with a splash and re-emerged moments later, clicking and squeaking and bobbing up and down.
Richard jumped in next to him, grabbed Charles' dorsal fin, and together the two sped away through the wonderfully cooling water.
Pretty soon, the water stopped being cooling, and started being annoying. Charles swam just below the surface, meaning that Richard was right at the surface. Every so often, he'd take a face full of warm salty seawater, causing him to splutter and cough and try to get the water out of his eyes while maintaining his hold on the dolphin whisperer. His back, shoulders and neck were burning too, he could feel it. The sun beat down like a hammer and the water only made it worse, reflecting and concentrating the rays on his far too pale skin.
Eventually, though, Charles slowed down, and Richard could fully appreciate how close they now were to the small island ahead of them. They turned a corner around some rocks and Richard spied his prize up close for the first time. It wouldn't win any awards for the most aesthetic boat of all time — it was dirty and rotten and looked like someone had been over it with a sledge hammer. Great gouges had been taken out of the hull and splintered wood lay all over the rocks around it, but to Richard, it might as well have been made out of solid gold.
"Can you get me close?" he yelled to Charles.
Charles made a trilling noise and darted off in that direction.
Richard let go of his ride and paddled ashore, followed a few moments later by a once-again human Charles.
"There you go, man" Charles said. He gestured to the wreck. "Think that'll be able to do you?"
Richard's eyes sparkled. "I should say so." He wandered over to the side of the boat, which was tipped on its side, and pulled himself up to look at the decking. It was almost all still there.
"Well, I need to be heading back," Charles said. "Are you sure you'll be okay for getting back on your own?"
Richard nodded. "Not like I've got much of a choice. I'll make it."
Charles gave him a wave. "Good luck, man!" He dived back into the water and transformed once again. The dolphin whisperer sped away across the tropical sea.
Richard watched him go until he was out of sight, then turned to the ship and rubbed his hands together. Time to get down to work.
Richard dropped his trunk on the pebbled ground and opened the lid. He'd done a quick survey of the immediate area and determined that making camp by the boat would be an extremely silly thing to do. The water lapped up the rocky beach and there would be nothing to stop it if a storm blew up.
He'd found a rocky alcove not far away from the boat, which would serve him well. It was protected from the wind and was high enough to be safe from all but the worst waves. It also supplied ample flat surfaces for him to unpack everything he'd need, just like at the customs point yesterday morning and half an age ago.
Planes, hammers, saws — he took out just what he thought he'd need and tried to keep the rest as tightly packed together as it had been before. The last thing he wanted was for his vintage tools to get rusty again, or for his precious books to become damp. He pulled on his shirt and winced as the redness of his shoulders and neck brushed against the thin cotton.
He then wandered down to the wreck — pencil, folding rule, and try square in hand — and started marking out the usable parts he'd need. Over-head the sun continued to beat down.
Richard stared at the pile of neatly cut planks at his feet and took a moment to catch his breath. Lugging all that all the way up to his alcove had taken a fair bit out of him, but he couldn't afford to rest. The day was dragging on and he didn't like his chances of continuing the build at night.
He reached for his pencil again and started marking up dovetail joints.
Richard stepped back. The dovetail joints for the box section were done. He had all the main bits laid out around him. Now he just had to put them together. He still hadn't started on the lid. The sky had started to blaze orange and red. He took a deep breath, wiped his brow, and got back down to work.
Light was failing. The oranges and reds were slowly retreating, making way for dark purples and blues. He wasn't going to make it in time, Richard could tell. The trunk itself was almost complete, but he still needed to put together the arch-like lid and that might well take more time than the rest of the trunk had. If he didn't get this finished, then he wouldn't be able to start the magic spell to expand the trunk, and if he couldn't do that overnight, then he'd never be able to make it back before Elizabeth left.
Richard looked over his half finished trunk and considered his options. Would being late actually be terrible in the grand scheme of things? No, not really. He'd miss Elizabeth's departure but she would be leaving soon anyway. It would be annoying, but he could live with it. Maybe it would be better to get a good night's rest and make sure to do the job properly in the morning.
Not far away, waves crashed against the rocks — a rhythmic sound track of oceanic persistence, battering away at wood and stone, slowly rendering them as nothing by billions of weak, watery hammer falls.
The light of a campfire flickered around the alcove. Lighting it hadn't been easy, but, with the help of one of his knives, his flint, and a small pile of sawdust from the trunk project, he'd managed it. Now black smoke drifted up from the slightly damp scrap wood planks too weak and shoddy for the trunk itself.
Richard drew a long line of wood glue along the last line of the trunk's lid and pressed the last two bits of wood together, before clamping them with one of his last hand screw clamps. Even if the trunk would be indestructible once the spell caught, he'd learned he had to build it as though it wouldn't be or the spell wouldn't work.
The trunk now had so many long metal clamps attached, at almost every angle, that it more resembled an over-sized pin-cushion than a trunk.
The air was now far colder. The wind chilled his bones and blew sea water on his skin. His lips tasted like a salt-lick. The night sky shone once again with a thousand-thousand stars and a pair of half moons finished the painting. There wasn't another human anywhere in Richard's whisper sensing range and probably not any for miles beyond even that.
Magic spell time.
Richard doggedly began to form a triangle around the trunk out of wood offcuts. He then formed three circles, each one just touching the outside of one of the triangle's three tips. He then sat down in one of the circles. He closed his eyes and felt reality stir to his command. His mouth opened, words started streaming out in a slow and gentle chant, and, gently, gradually, he started casting his mother's spell.
All through the night, Richard stayed focused on casting and chanting. He was never in danger of falling asleep — the spell made sure of that. It commanded his attention the way a gripping novel might. Before he knew it, morning came, the spell caught, and, with no more need to focus, Richard slowly collapsed forward, finally allowing sleep to take him.
Richard slowly opened his eyes.
Sunlight shone down on him.
What was he doing? Oh! Suddenly, it all came back to him. The trunk! He hastily scrabbled to his feet and looked around. The sun was overhead by now. The trunk sat in front of him, still clamped down with every clamp he had.
Right. Richard's eyes focused. Unclamp trunk, load up with wood, paddle back to The Second Island.
He quickly set about unscrewing the many clamps from his newest creation. In the clear sunlight, the trunk looked like something dredged up from the deepest depths of the ocean. Despite his efforts to clean up where he could, he just hadn't had the time to fully treat and sand the wood as he would have liked. The net effect was of an object hewn from a ghost ship. It was a far cry from the fine carving and oil stained wood of Creakylid itself.
Richard grasped the sides of his new trunk's lid and opened it. It made a loud squeaking noise as the brass hinges rubbed together for the first time under the lid's weight. He looked inside and grinned. A large cavernous space greeted his gaze. He'd check to be sure later, but if his calculations were correct, the space would be exactly 16.25 meters square and exactly two meters high — about the size of a fair sized bedroom — just big enough to fit two dozen people if they really crammed together.
He spent the next half hour hacking a ladder and paddle out of scrap wood, and then another few hours loading up the trunk with as much wood as he thought they might need to build a small rowing boat. Finally, he loaded all his stuff back up into his side-trunk, and slung it over his shoulder.
He was ready. He picked up the heavy trunk with difficulty and walked it in increments out to the sea. It floated. It was by no means a stable craft and tended to rock about worryingly, but he didn't have time to worry. Richard climbed into the trunk's opening, stood atop the access ladder he'd fitted, and, using the paddle he'd just fashioned, started the slow journey back to The Second Island.
"Richard, you made it!" Elizabeth stared down at him from atop one of The Second Island piers. She wasn't alone either. Several men and women surrounded her, looking at the trunk Richard was bobbing up and down in with undisguised interest.
Richard grinned up at her. "Did you ever doubt me?"
Elizabeth crossed her arms. "No, but I was still worried. You didn't put any memories on your crystal ball the whole time."
One of the men stepped forward. "If I might suggest, pleasantries can wait till later — we should get you out of there first — if that trunk is all our young lady here says it is"—he indicated Elizabeth—"then we've got a lot of work to do before we can get off this Prudence damned island."
Together, the men and women helped Richard get the trunk on dry land and then carried it all the way up Main Street to one of the all-metal buildings at the very end. It looked to be the most scrappy and least appealing building on the whole street.
"I rented the whole thing," Elizabeth explained. "I figured it would be perfect for secretly building a boat."
Richard looked around as two of the men put the trunk down in the centre of the open plan living space. "It's perfect."
Elizabeth nodded in satisfaction and brushed an imaginary speck of dust from her shoulder.
Then, surrounded by the trapped craftsmen and women, Richard approached his new ghost-ship like trunk, which had been shut for the journey to the safe house, and hefted the heavy lid open again. The hinges, once again, let out a loud squeaking noise.
One of the men elbowed his friend in the ribs. "Squeakylid," he said with a grin.
Half the room groaned. The other half laughed. The group then watched in awe as Richard descended into the trunk's depths and started handing up length after length of wood, all of which was demonstratively longer than the trunk by a wide margin.
The group's leader laughed mightily. "Yes! Finally!" He turned to the rest of the trapped craftsmen. "Alright, people. This is the real deal. Be ready to leave on a moments notice. Let's get this job going!"
The group cheered.
It didn't take long for the room to be transformed. Sawdust lay everywhere. Men and women seemed to rotate in and out as though through a revolving door. Julie had already been, but couldn't stay long for fear of her absence being noticed by Mister Offwood. Plans and measurements were drawn up on scraps of paper pinned to the walls. Before Richard's eyes, the skeleton of a small rowboat was starting to take shape. He'd heard about the process of boat building before but this was the first time seeing it with his own eyes. It was fascinating.
"Richard," Elizabeth gasped as she saw the raw sunburn all over his neck and shoulders.
Richard grunted. The journey back hadn't been any kinder than the journey there and had taken many times longer without a dolphin whisperer to help.
"This must hurt so much." She lightly touched the redness, causing Richard to wince. "Sorry," she said, hastily pulling back her hand.
Richard shrugged. "It'll heal." He returned his focus to the rapidly forming boat in front of him. There were so many skills on display here that he'd yet to learn. His trunk, which everyone now insisted on calling Squeakylid, might as well have been done by a total amateur compared to the craftsmanship in front of him.
"I wish we could do something about it," Elizabeth said. She was glaring at the sunburn as though it had insulted her.
"Aloe vera is supposed to help relieve the symptoms," Richard commented in an offhanded sort of way. He watched as a man slotted a row guide onto the side of the skeleton using a joint he'd never seen before.
One of the carpenters walked over to them. "Mister Struggle?" he said. His voice held a deferential respect that still
felt alien to Richard. "We've got a man here who got wind of what we're doing and wonders if there's any room for an extra passenger."
Richard glanced over to the door, and saw a familiar looking man wearing a faded baseball cap, looking rather hung over. It was the same man who'd taken his coin and then sloshed it away on drink the other night. He pursed his lips. "Tell him we're very sorry but we don't have any more room."
Elizabeth looked up from inspecting his shoulders. She narrowed her eyes and gave him an approving nod.
They watched the carpenter walk back to the man in the baseball cap to deliver the message.
The man didn't look at all happy and cursed the whole room out before staggering out.
"Good riddance," Elizabeth said.
Richard nodded slowly. More time passed. The sun started to go down in the sky. The boat was well on the way now. By tomorrow morning it should be ready. Richard frowned. He couldn't shake the feeling he was missing something. His eyes widened. "Elizabeth," he said urgently, turning to the girl sitting beside him. "Your boat — your ticket."
Elizabeth hesitated. "I ah, I already talked to Julie," she said, sounding rather more nonchalant than was strictly necessary. "She said there would actually be room in your trunk for one more, at least."
Richard blinked. Elizabeth wanted to wait for him. She wanted to put off leaving the island, even if it meant travelling in a cramped, claustrophobic box… just to be with him for a few more days? He'd obviously done something right. He smiled. "I'm sure you're always welcome to travel with me, my lady."
Elizabeth looked away. "I should hope so."
Richard grinned.
Elizabeth looked back at him. "Actually," she continued, this time with quite a lot more hesitancy. "I was wondering if you could do me a favour?"
"What kind of favour?"
"Well, ever since we got here, I've been feeling rather uncomfortable carrying this around." She reached into her backpack and withdrew her large bag of chad." She shifted around in her chair. "I was wondering if… well, if you"—she hesitated one last time, but then plunged on regardless—"if you could take care of it for me?"