by Nette Hilton
‘I wouldn’t sit there if I were you.’
Pyro nearly jumped out of his skin. He looked around to see a boy about his size watching him. A little white dog with a black mark around his eye like an eye-patch was watching him too.
‘Why not?’ There didn’t seem to be anything wrong with the seat. And the table wasn’t too bumpy. It all looked exactly as a table should.
‘It’s Plonker’s table, that’s why.’
‘Plonker?’
A large shadow fell across his shoulders. One hand landed close to his side and one rather large sports shoe landed on the seat.
‘You rang?’
Pyro felt as if he were melting. He could see himself oozing into a creamy lump at the end of the seat as he looked up, up, up into one of the meanest faces he’d ever seen.
It had a hard little mouth and tight mean eyes and hair that sprang out of its head as if it were too afraid to hang around in there any longer.
One rough shove sent Pyro onto the ground. The bag almost came with him, would have come with him except it was snatched away at the last minute and held aloft, drawing book and all.
‘What’ve we got here, then?’ the dreadful Plonker sneered. Another boy, equally large, appeared behind him. He had the same look on his face as if he’d been practising to get it right. His lips weren’t so thin, though, and they looked a bit like stretched sausages as he leaned over and took the bag.
‘It’s a wittle drawing book!’ he said. ‘And some wittle coloured pencils.’ He opened the brand new packet and took one out. Carefully, slowly he held it up and then snapped it in two. ‘Aw, deary me. The wittle boy’s pencil is all bwoken up.’
Pyro watched, mesmerised, as the boy reached into the box to take another pencil. Plonker was busy with the drawing book, tearing one page after the other out and leaving them to float to the ground.
‘Don’t.’ Pyro had managed to stand. He couldn’t bear to see the lovely book destroyed. ‘Stop it. It doesn’t belong to you.’
‘Oo-oo-oo.’ The boy with the sausage lips spoke up. ‘You naughty, naughty boy. Stop that at once. It doesn’t belong to you.’
‘It doesn’t.’ Pyro leaned up to grab the book. He knew what would happen and it did. The book was flung across to Sausage Lips. As soon as Pyro spun to try to get it back it would be thrown again.
Or it would have been except that Plonker had been hit by something that knocked him off balance. Before he could right himself, the book and the bag were snatched up and gone. Sausage Lips lurched forward to try to grab it and Pyro stuck his toe out so the bigger boy tripped.
He roared as he somersaulted himself upright again but Pyro had grabbed the pencils and was already tearing along behind the eye-patched, barking dog and his master.
‘Run!’ the boy yelled. ‘This way!’
The dog danced around in a circle and then disappeared down a path that ran along the cliff face.
They ran until they reached the bottom and then scrambled over the sand until they reached the stairway that would lead them back up to the camping ground.
The boy grinned when they finally rounded the corner and the old camper was once again in sight.
‘That’s why I wouldn’t have sat at that table,’ he said. ‘Plonker doesn’t like sharing.’
The book, its pages neatly lined up again and pushed back inside the cover, was handed over and Pyro slipped the remaining pencils back into the cloth bag.
‘That’s a pretty good bag,’ the boy said. ‘Did you do that?’
Pyro nodded and then explained how he’d done it. He wasn’t sure the boy was really interested but he said he’d use the idea when he had to carry stuff home on his bike. ‘Our teacher’s always giving us extra stuff.’
Pyro nodded.
The dog looked from one to the other and then, when they looked back, leapt up and barked one quick bark.
‘He’s a nice little dog,’ Pyro said.
‘She’s a nice little dog,’ the boy answered. ‘Her name’s Becks.’
‘What? Like Beckham?’
The dog wagged her tail and set off towards the pathway. When nobody followed she came back.
‘Nah. My grandma reckons she’s a headache and there used to be a headache pill called Bex, so she’s called Becks.’
Pyro laughed. ‘That’s pretty good!’ The little dog scampered back to the walk. ‘Hey, Becks!’
‘She wants to go for a walk,’ the boy said. ‘Wanna come?’
‘Not if we’re going near that Plonker and his mate.’
The boy looked back towards the inlet.
‘We can go back that way.’
Pyro thought he should tell Mor and Mr Stig. They’d be worried when they surfaced from whatever they were doing if they couldn’t find him.
‘Are you coming?’
Pyro looked at the sky. The sun was low on the horizon and it would start to get dark before much longer.
‘I’m headed off yonder!’ San Simeon never left his crew without them knowing his absolute whereabouts. ‘I’ll be back afore dark!’
‘I just have to tell my Auntie.’
The dog and the boy came too. Auntie Mor reckoned it was such a nice little dog that she should have one to keep her company when Mr Stig went back to his city job and she moved on to her next town. Mr Stig said she could keep him if she liked but she was so busy getting some biscuits for everyone she didn’t hear. It took a while to find them, and then even longer to make a cup of tea so the boy – whose name was Min – and Pyro didn’t walk anywhere.
Min said it didn’t matter because Becks would still have the walk home to wear her out.
Pyro walked with him to the front gate of the caravan park.
‘I’ll come over tomorrow after school, if you like.’
Pyro said that’d be great. Especially if Becks came and they could go for a long walk the other way.
Pyro woke early. The day stretched ahead of him as empty and boring as a yawn.
Auntie Mor and Mr Stig snored quietly in the gloom behind him and the world beyond his peep-hole window was grey except for a tiny edge of lighter grey on the horizon. Somewhere beyond the camper a bird sang and a kookaburra and his mates cough-started their day.
But Pyro’s wasn’t going to start for hours. And even when it did start there wouldn’t be anything in it that would make it hurry along to day three then four and then quickly, quickly all the way to ten so he could get back home to his own bed with his own telly and computer and Geezer down the road.
Geezer was the best at being on the beach. He never wanted to go out past the first line of breakers. They caught lots of waves on their boogie boards and when they got sick of it there was always sand and islands and canals to dig. Geezer and rock pools were neat. He used to poke a stick into the anemones that waved about on the bottom. The looked like the lamb’s kidneys his mum bought for steak and kidney pie. Except they had arms. When he’d told Geezer about that, Geezer had made erk noises and pretended to vomit. Then it would be Pyro’s turn to jab at the bottom of the pool.
‘Put your finger in! Dare you!’
And Pyro’d try. He really would and sometimes he’d get his finger close enough to feel the faintest murmur of anemone arms before he’d jump back. It always made him squeal so loudly that Geezer’d start squealing too.
They’d flap their arms around like the anemone was hanging onto them and then they’d pretend it was an octopus and that meant more leaping and squealing.
Once a fisherman told them to clear off because they were scaring the fish away. Pyro’s mum said she’d never heard anything so ridiculous but Pyro’s dad said squealing wasn’t really a boy thing.
Mum said it was more a boy thing than being a bully of a fisherman and telling lies about fish being scared away.
Pyro rolled over and tried to close his eyes and go back to sleep. It didn’t work. Not for an instant. His eyes snapped open and all he could think about was Geezer at school without him.
He’d said he’d hate it and wouldn’t do anything to the pirate project they were working on for the library but, and this twitched at Pyro, Jenna was part of their work group too.
What if Geezer let Jenna do the crow’s nest?
Pyro almost sat up with shock. It was as well he didn’t or he might have knocked his block off, as Auntie Mor would have said. The ceiling in his little cupboard was very, very low.
The world outside was still as colourful as an old black-and-white photograph and the soft snoring sounds still lulled away behind him.
Ten days was a long time to be away from a best friend …
San Simeon leapt to the railing of the hated Spewta, Roaring Roy Bistro’s extremely messy galleon, and clasped the rigging that swung above him.
‘Aha!’ cried Roaring Roy. ‘You think you can save the maid! What with, you blighty fool? Your knives and your swords are a-litterin’ my decks! Do your best, but it’s shark bait you’ll be this time!’
Simeon only hesitated a moment. He could feel all eyes upon him and below, the lovely Calamity’s satin-clad toes were tipping the waves. Sharks’ eyes rolled as they waited for this tasty morsel to be theirs.
Quickly he swung back and grasped the sword from a pirate who was so busy ho-ho-hoing he didn’t see what was coming. Just as quickly the rigging was slashed and, while sheets and spars flipped and tossed, Simeon looped a long, loose rope around his wrist. Lassoing it high up on the mast, he threw the sword into the brine and flung himself out, out over the waves.
As he soared above the ocean, he pulled from his vest a tiny pearl-encased knife.
‘It might be a little one,’ he called to Roy, ‘but it’s sharp!’
He swung himself out and then speared his body feet-first against the underside of the galleon. Out again he soared and, once more, pushed hard against the galleon.
‘Be ready, fair Calam! I’m about to save you.’
On his next swoop he leaned out and with one slash cut the rope that hung her from the pirate ship above. She might have fallen, she might have been gnashed and gnawed, except Simeon was so fast, so incredibly quick, that she was in his arms and swinging again to the underside of the galleon.
‘Hold tight, Calam! We’re about to be airborne!’
This time he pushed off and swung them out and out and out so high that they could look down on the lice-ridden heads of the dreadful crew. And then, just when they were about to swing back down to a watery, sharky grave, Simeon let go.
On he soared, over the waves and the heads of angry sharks to land at a frightening pace on the deck of his own ship.
His men cheered. They howled and yelled and called rude things at the ship opposite.
But under it all Simeon saw something that made his blood run cold.
A flash of mirror. Flash. Flash. Flash. Who could be sending a message to Roaring Roy’s boys?
In that instant Simeon knew he’d been away too long. There was a traitor in the camp. Someone who’d loved him last week didn’t love him today.
Who was it?
Who could it possibly be?
‘Okay, up and at ’em!’
Auntie Mor stood beside the bed. The day had turned blue and gold and the kookaburras were silent. Only the waves interrupted the absolute silence.
‘Look what we’ve got!’ Mor held up three snorkels, three goggles and two foam things. ‘We can go out to the reef, the man at the shop said. It’s shallow. And, guess what?’
Mr Stig and Pyro didn’t dare. They were both looking at the rubber and glass that were all there’d be between them and the ocean floor and all who lived down there.
‘There’s an actual wobbegong living there. And under the ledge, the man said, there’s an octopus.’
Pyro felt his face tingle. His mother would have quickly sat him down and made him put his head between his knees but Auntie Mor didn’t seem to notice.
She noticed Mr Stig though. ‘Gosh,’ she said. ‘You’ve gone all white, Stig! You should see yourself.’
‘I know what an octopus is but … what’s a wobbegong?’
Pyro was holding his goggles between two fingers. ‘It’s a shark,’ he said.
‘It’s not, really.’ Auntie Mor had slipped her goggles on which was making her talk funny. ‘Well, maybe … but it won’t hurt. It just sits around on the bottom pretending to be seaweed.’
Mor pushed her snorkel into her mouth. It flopped down and nearly pulled her lips off her face.
‘Put yours on,’ she said as soon as she’d patted her mouth better. ‘Put it through that loop at the top first.’
Mr Stig took a long time to get his snorkel right. Pyro took even longer. He’d rather hoped that if he went slowly enough the clouds that lurked about on the horizon might hurry across and dump some rain on them.
‘I think it’s going to rain,’ he said hopefully, glancing towards the fluffy smoke-sized puffs out over the sea.
‘I think so, too,’ said Stig. He put his snorkel on the table. ‘Can’t do it in the rain.’
Auntie Mor looked from Mr Stig to Pyro and back again. ‘You’re scared, aren’t you?’
Stig looked at Pyro. ‘I’ve never been in a shark pond before,’ he said.
Pyro hadn’t either. ‘And Mr Stig can’t swim properly yet.’
He might have said that Mr Stig couldn’t really swim at all. And he, Pyro Watson, was really only good at dog-paddle for a short distance.
Auntie Mor looked out at the ocean. The ocean winked back at her. ‘You’ll be fine,’ she said. ‘Honestly. Would I put you two in danger?’
Mr Stig didn’t look too sure but Pyro was reasonably certain his mother wouldn’t be too thrilled if Mor let him be eaten by a wobbegong.
‘We’ll sink,’ he said.
‘Course you won’t.’ She held up the foam things. They were yellow and bright enough to dazzle the sun. ‘Use your noodles! Come on, you lot! Let’s get to it.’
The reef lay on the outer edge of a rock platform. It was shaped like a Roman bath. Pyro didn’t know what a Roman bath was but Auntie Mor explained all about them as they clambered down the steep cliff face which overlooked this part of the coast.
‘It’s perfectly safe,’ she said when they’d finally crossed the crazy crisscrossed paving of the wide rock ledge. ‘See …’ She pointed to the edge of the rocky platform where the sea lapped away, trying with each new wave to leap high enough to peer over. ‘There’s a rock ledge between this pool and the sea. Nothing can swim in here …’
Mr Stig and Pyro looked at her.
‘… well, almost nothing ever does. That wobbegong has lived here for years, the man said. Look.’
They had reached a low ledge where white sand had formed a gently sloping crescent-shaped beach. They stepped down. The ledge reached only to Pyro’s thighs and the water, even at the centre, didn’t have the dark, sneaky look of deep water. It had a dappled dark bottom though, as if the sand had been pushed aside by rocks. The edges of the pool had lots of shadowy places as well.
‘I’ll just paddle here,’ Pyro said. ‘You two can go out there. I’ll be fine.’
Auntie Mor stopped ferreting around in her backpack and stood up. ‘Tra-da!’ she cried as she swung three pairs of flippers in the air. ‘Saved the best till last. Come on. No more fussing. Let’s get cracking. That tide’ll turn if we don’t get a move on and we’ll finish up out in the shipping lane before we know it.’
‘Shipping lane?’ Mr Stig had plopped down on a rock that had lots of little sharp barnacles all over it. He didn’t flinch though. ‘Tide?’
Pyro sat beside him. Even the frangipanis on Mr Stig’s shirt seemed paler as they both looked out to sea.
‘We’ve got hours yet. The tide’s still on the way out. So, let’s go.’
This time she didn’t move away. She stood right there and watched while flippers went on, goggles were attached and mouthpieces were shoved into mouths.
Then she gave them a thumbs-up. It was the sig
nal, she’d explained, to say we’re on the way and everything’s okay!
Pyro wasn’t too sure about that. The first thing he discovered was that flippers don’t bend like shoes. If you walk in a shoe one foot leaves the ground and the other one bends, does its thing, and then lands in place. In flippers, Pyro found, it took forever for his foot to come up. It was like it’d been attached to the ground with glue.
Pyro fell face first into the rock pool. Luckily his hands landed first and, before he could stop himself, he was peering down on the sandy bottom.
And then he was peering across, under the water … he could actually see what the water looked like if you were a fish swimming upside down. He looked further. The rocks had water patterns all over them. Sun ripples.
He crawled a little further. It was okay. He didn’t even have to float.
It was brilliant.
‘Hey, Stig!’ He spun around. ‘You should see this. And hey, you don’t have to swim or float or anything. Come and look!’
Mr Stig did.
Auntie Mor left them to crocodile-walk in the shallows while she pushed off over the deeper, rock-covered channel at the centre.
Pyro looked across at her. He felt like a camera because he could see the bits under the water and then, with just a bit of a lift, he could see the bits above the water. Under. Above. Under.
Soon he was finger-walking and then, before he knew it, his hands were trailing along beside him as he watched millions of tiny fish flash around beneath him. It wasn’t hard, this snorkelling stuff. He didn’t really need the noodly-thing but he hung onto it anyway.
Once something bumped his side and his heart stopped as he waited for the pool to fill with his blood from the shark that must be back there somewhere. The pool didn’t fill and Mr Stig flowed past. He grinned inside his mouthpiece and then had to put his feet down because he was choking a bit. But it didn’t stop him. Pretty soon all three of them were floating around out in the middle.