‘Hang on,’ Terrifica tutted. ‘Procedure.’ She brought out her whistle and blew. ‘Dyb dyb dyb, listen well. Abigail has news to–’
‘For goodness sake!’ snapped Marcus. ‘Why do we have to go through this rubbish every time?’
‘He interrupted!’ cried Terrifica. ‘He’s always interru–’
‘No I’m not! And what about you, barging in all the time like a bull in a handkerchief?’
‘Neckerchief!’ wailed Terrifica. ‘Guides wear neckerchiefs!’
‘Well you need a moutherchief. Maybe that would stop you braying like a donkey.’
‘He called me a donkey! Do something teacher.’
‘Well I – now then.’ Mr Dabbings waved his arms. ‘Please, Terrifica. Kicking isn’t kind. And Marcus, punching doesn’t help a rose to bloom.’
‘Cut it out!’ yelled Dad, trying to separate them.
‘Pig!’ cried Terrifica, whacking Marcus on the arm.
‘Buffalo!’ he shouted, stamping on her foot.
‘Walrus.’
‘Squawking halfbeak.’
‘Gassy aardvark.’
‘STOP!’ roared Abbie.
Terrifica stopped whacking. Marcus unstamped his foot. They slunk apart.
‘SIT DOWN AND SHUT UP.’
They did. And no one said a word until she’d told the whole story and shown them the sketch in her notebook. ‘The cave’s behind these two rocks.’
‘Oh wow,’ breathed Marcus.
‘Oh double dyb,’ murmured Terrifica.
‘Oh sparkly raindrops on new-cut grass,’ gasped Mr Dabbings.
‘Oh cut the gush,’ cried Dad. ‘Grab any diggers you can find – sticks, toothbrushes, knitting needles. Let’s go!’
‘Wait,’ said Abbie. ‘It’ll be dark soon.’
‘So?’ Marcus arched his eyebrows. ‘Are you scared?’
You bet, thought Abbie, recalling the cave. It had been spooky enough at midday. Her skin prickled as she remembered the drip of water, the dim chill, the feeling of being watched. Imagine all that in the shadow of night. But she couldn’t let Marcus see her fear. ‘Course not. It’s just that we can’t dig in the dark.’
Marcus’s hands flew to his head. ‘Aaagh!’ He turned on Mr Dabbings. ‘Well done, Sir, for not letting us bring torches.’
Everyone scowled except Abbie, who thanked the teacher silently for the perfect excuse.
‘Candles?’ he suggested in a small voice.
Everyone smiled except Abbie, who cursed the teacher silently for perfectly ruining the perfect excuse, and Terrifica who clasped her hands in horror. ‘No way! A Guide never roves by candlelight. What if we set fire to the undergrowth? I’d be thrown out, de-woggled for life.’
Abbie thanked Terrifica silently for perfectly unruining the perfectly ruined excuse. ‘She’s right. And there’s nothing to lose by waiting till morning. The other team doesn’t know about the cave. It’s been there for a thousand years: it’ll be there another night.’
Not even Marcus could argue with that.
It was so warm that evening they didn’t bother with a fire. Everyone climbed to the top of the moor to eat cabbage cake and watch the sunset fan across the sky like the wings of a fiery eagle.
‘It’s crazy really,’ said Coriander. ‘All of us still hoping there’s treasure when we haven’t found a single clue in five days.’
Marcus nudged Abbie so hard that her cake flew from her hand. It landed in a bog where it lay for three thousand two hundred and fifteen years until it was found by a cockroach called Brian Prosser who used it to prove his theory that the human race was wiped out by bad picnics.
‘Look at that sky,’ said Matt, taking Coriander’s hand.
‘Stunning.’ She leaned against his shoulder.
‘Like a whopping great goblet of gold,’ murmured Mr Dabbings. Nine faces turned on him. Five were curious, four furious. ‘I mean …’ he chewed his lip, ‘heavenly gold.’ He blinked round. ‘I mean … maybe that’s what the monks meant by the treasure – the setting sun. Yes!’ He clapped his hands, warming to the theme. ‘Maybe they sat here like us, wowing at the sky, and wrote a prayer about God’s sunset being like a golden cup, dripping with jewels. Maybe Brother Donal found that prayer and … and got carried away, and imagined there really was a cup, and described it in the Annals as if it was real and … and that’s how the legend began. Phew.’ He mopped his brow with a knitted hanky.
Abbie stared at him. She’d always thought his brain was made of tofu. But this was impressive. This was chocolate-up-the-sleeve crafty.
A bit too crafty. ‘Whatever,’ said Matt, yawning. ‘At any rate, we’re clearly wasting our time. We might as well give up looking and spend the last few days having fun together.’
‘Definitely,’ said Coriander.
Now what? Abbie looked anxiously at Marcus.
‘How about a game,’ he said quickly, ‘to round off the hunt? First thing tomorrow, each team collects as many gold things as they can from Nature – to celebrate the island’s, um, environmental riches.’
‘Great idea!’ cried Dad. ‘And the winners get the box of Ferrero Rocher chocolates I just happened to bring along for a rainy day.’
***
Grandma was sitting with the Incas in the garden of the bed and breakfast at Killyboon watching the sunset. Cupping his hands round his mouth, Chunca shouted at the sky.
‘What’s ’e on about?’ said Grandma.
Bacpac sighed. ‘My Master tell Granddad to get our rooms ready. We coming up soon.’
‘Grandson of the sun, eh?’ Grandma gazed at the huge orange ball sinking slowly in the sky. ‘Does ’e really believe ’e’ll end up there? What does ’e reckon it’s like?’
Bacpac sighed. ‘A golden palace with three hundred flush toilets and melted chocolate in taps.’
‘And you?’ Grandma studied Bacpac’s kind face. ‘What do you think?’
The old servant bit his lip.
‘Look,’ said Grandma softly, ‘are you sure you want to go through with this? You could always – you know – forget to ’old ’ands when the time comes.’
Smiling sadly, Bacpac shook his head. ‘What Master want, I want. If he want to die, I want to die too, whether I want to die or not.’
Grandma squeezed his arm. ‘For a load of nonsense, that sort of makes sense. What a pal you are. You remind me of Chess.’ She patted her head. ‘You’d do the same for me, wouldn’t you chuck?’
Chester wriggled madly. It was hard to tell if he was agreeing with Grandma or trembling with horror at the thought.
***
Darkness was falling in the woods as Klench packed for his night-time wash. He eyed the soaps on his inflatable dressing table. Which one to take? Oven Cleaner, Creosote or Marmite? He settled for Oven Cleaner – it might be the cruellest to cuts and scrapes, but it definitely gave the best scour.
His alarm clock was set for 3 a.m. What to do until then? He’d slept all afternoon and finished his supper (three long-life strudels, four lardy cakes and, to shut Mummy up, half a carrot). Taking a magazine, a blindfold and a box of pins from the dressing table, he settled down to fill the remaining hours with his favourite game of Pin the Tail on the Policeman.
16
Not Exactly Stealing
‘Yeeaggh!’ Abbie spluttered awake. Cold was crashing onto her head, soaking her curls and freezing her brain. ‘Get off!’ She sat bolt upright.
‘Ha!’ Terrifica was standing over the stone bench with an upturned bucket. ‘You jolly well deserved it. How could you oversleep on a day like this?’
Abbie was just about to tell Terrifica what she jolly well deserved, when she remembered what day ‘this’ was. Pushing off the soggy sleeping bag, she stood up and stretched. At least the water had jolted her from a restless sleep full of strange rustlings at the edge of her dreams. ‘What’s the time?’ She squeezed out her curls.
‘Time to get rich! Come on. Everyone’s waiting.’ Terrifi
ca clapped her hands. ‘Thrillingtons or what?’
Abbie grinned. Just wait till we come back with the goblet, she thought, imagining the look on Perdita’s face. But until then, they had to play it cool. The Slightly Platt-Hollers mustn’t suspect a thing.
Throwing on shorts and T-shirts, they stooped out of the hut. The newly risen sun spilled orange across the sky. The rest of the team was round the smouldering fire, eating barley flake cereal and trying to hide their excitement from Coriander and Matt.
‘There you are.’ Dad shoved bowls at Abbie and Terrifica. ‘Get this down you and we’ll be off.’
‘Hang on,’ said Coriander. ‘You can’t start before us. Our team’s not ready.’
‘Oh dear, what a shame.’ Dad tutted sympathetically. ‘Never mind, I’ll save you a Ferrero Rocher.’
‘What have you got in there?’ Coriander frowned at the bulging rucksack he’d slung over his shoulder.
‘Oh, just a few spoons and forks for digging up,’ he coughed, ‘er, shiny shells and things.’ He clapped his hands. ‘Ready for the off, team?’ He winked as subtly as a lighthouse.
‘Suppose so.’ Mr Dabbings yawned as quietly as a foghorn.
‘See you later.’ Marcus waved as sincerely as a snake.
‘Wait.’ Abbie chewed as daintily as a piranha. ‘I’ve forgotten something.’ Her notebook – for finding the cave again and jotting down any more clues.
She ran back to her hut and unzipped the top pocket of her rucksack. It was empty. Frowning, she opened the other pockets. Nothing. She rummaged in the main bag. Not there. She shook out her sleeping bag. Nope. Scrunching her hair, she thought back to yesterday. She’d shown it to the team in Dad’s hut. Then I brought it back here, I swear. I was putting it back in my rucksack when Ursula came in and …
Ursula! She bit her finger, remembering how the tiny girl had asked on the beach what was in her notebook. No! She rushed out of the hut.
Henry and Ursula were heading for breakfast.
Abbie grabbed her shoulders. ‘Where is it?’
Ursula wriggled free. ‘What?’
‘My notebook. You’ve got it, haven’t you?’
‘No,’ said Ursula, turning faintly pink.
‘Well one of you has.’
Henry shook his head.
‘OK,’ snarled Abbie, ‘where’s Perdita?’
‘Having breakfast?’ Henry blinked innocently.
‘You know she’s not – and so do I. I know exactly where she is!’
Henry sniggered. ‘So why bother asking?’
‘My notebook!’ Abbie yelled. Everyone at the food tent looked up. ‘My private, personal stuff – Perdita stole it.’
Matt and Coriander rushed over.
‘What did you say? Perdita would never steal.’ Coriander blinked at Henry and Ursula. ‘Would she?’
Henry scrunched Mr Binkles. ‘Well …’
‘Not exactly,’ mumbled Ursula.
‘How can you not exactly steal?’ Abbie stamped her foot. ‘Either she did or she didn’t.’ The other Hartley-Battboilings came up, filling the air with outrage.
‘I mean … it was all three of us.’ Henry dug the ground with the toe of his sandal.
‘Well why not?’ said Ursula indignantly. ‘It was obvious you found a clue yesterday. Why didn’t you tell everyone, when we’d agreed to work together again?’
‘What clue?’ Coriander exchanged a baffled look with Matt.
‘When Abbie came along the beach,’ said Henry, ‘she had “clue” written all over her face – or at least in her notebook. You should’ve seen the way she shoved it behind her back.’ He sniffed. ‘But Perdita said no, if she had found something, she’d have told us.’
It was Abbie’s turn for some squirmy footwork.
‘So Henry and I followed you,’ said Ursula. We listened outside your dad’s hut while you debriefed your team. We heard all about the waterfall and what you’d found there. Then I followed you back to your hut and–’
‘Saw where I put it,’ snarled Abbie, ‘so you could steal it later!’
‘Borrow,’ corrected Henry smugly. ‘So we could prove to Perdita you’d been hiding a clue.’
Abbie recalled her rustling dreams. ‘You mean you nicked it from my bag?’
Ursula couldn’t help a tiny smile. ‘In the middle of the night. Easy peasy with Terrifica snoring like that.’ Her smile collapsed. ‘But when I woke Perdita and showed her, she was furious. Said we should put it straight back.’
‘I knew it.’ Coriander breathed out with relief.
‘Until she read through the notebook – all those things you’d written about her – and the sketch. Then she was even more furious. With you.’ Ursula allowed another teeny smile at Abbie. ‘So furious that she copied it. Then she put your notebook back so you wouldn’t know we’d taken it. And at sunrise she went to find the cave. We were supposed to stay here and, oops –’ she blinked at Henry, ‘pretend we didn’t know.’
‘But she didn’t put it back,’ cried Abbie. ‘I’ve looked in my rucksack.’
Henry shrugged. ‘Not hard enough. Better look again.’
‘No way!’ Marcus wagged his finger furiously at Abbie. ‘Don’t you see? He just wants us to waste more time so that Perdita can find the treasure. She’s probably in the cave right now, digging away.’
‘Quick!’ cried Dad. ‘We need to get there before she … Oh Sweet Mother!’
Which wasn’t dismay at the thought of Perdita finding the goblet but amazement at the sight of something else. Striding over the brow of the moor, arm in arm with two old gents, was his – oh, sweet – mother.
***
Klench stared at the sketch in the notebook he’d stolen so neatly. ‘Cave in mountainside,’ he murmured. ‘Oh no. Zere are two mountains and each has many sides. Cave could be anyvhere. Vhere to start lookink?’
Mummy rolled her inner eyes. ‘Vhere d’you think, my dimvit dearest? If in doubt, zen try ze nearest.’
Klench scowled. It was all right for Mummy, sipping her early morning inner tea. She wasn’t the one who had to slog up a slope to find this cave. He shut the notebook savagely. She hadn’t even congratulated him on his brilliant burglary.
‘Vy should I?’ she snapped. ‘It voss luck zat made you look, and see ze girl return ze book.’
Yes, but it was his keen ears that had alerted him during his three o’clock bathe. Wallowing in the lake like a pale whale, he’d heard angry voices coming from one of the huts. He’d slipped out of the water, donned his mint-green dressing gown, scuttled over in the soft starlight and crouched by the entrance to listen.
As an expert in eavesdropping, he’d quickly worked out that the speakers had stolen a notebook. As a master of meddling, he’d soon realised that the figure who scurried out of the hut holding a candle in one hand and something else in the other, was returning that notebook. As a specialist in spying, he’d easily followed the someone to another hut and watched from the entrance while they fumbled for a rucksack and unzipped a pocket. And as a black belt in burglary, he’d crept in smoothly afterwards, felt for the rucksack and pinched the book.
But as a hater of Nature, he was dreading following the clue. All that dirt and digging – it was enough to make an apple crumble.
Talking of which … he opened his cool box. ‘For energy, Mums,’ he said miserably. ‘Zere is much excavatinks to do.’
17
Bad News Bearers
Abbie blinked. What she saw made no sense. It was a picture of mismatches, like a cabbage on the moon or a cat swimming through Debenhams. Grandma can’t be here. She’s at home.
Abbie screwed up her eyes. Was her brain playing tricks, inserting a memory of Grandma in front of island scenery? But she had no memory of Grandma wearing calf-length hiking breeches, with binoculars round her neck and a T-shirt that said SURF BABE.
Neither did she recognise the two old men. The one on Grandma’s left wore white earmuffs and a T-shirt that said I R
ULE, OK? The man on his left wore a T-shirt with an arrow pointing to the right and the words HE RULES, OK? This poor chap was stooping under the weight of two rucksacks. Both men had skin the colour of caramel and black hair flecked with grey. They stopped in front of the speechless campers.
‘Hi-de-Hi,’ said the man in earmuffs, in a way that suggested he’d been watching old BBC comedies.
‘Hail fellows and well met,’ said the man under the rucksacks, in a way that suggested he’d been reading Shakespeare plays.
‘Any chance of a sarnie?’ said Grandma, in a way that suggested there’d better be. Her grumpy voice banished Abbie’s last doubt. This was no hologram. This was flesh-and-blood Grandma: now mopping her brow with Chester, now clacking her teeth with impatience.
‘Cat got yer tongue?’ She tutted at Dad. ‘And you can stop starin’,’ she said to Abbie. ‘That’s no way to greet the Son of the Son of the Sun.’
Abbie tried to, she really did, but when Grandma slapped Mr Earmuffs on the back and said, ‘This is Chunca, King of the Incas,’ her jaw couldn’t help but drop. And when Grandma whacked Mr Rucksacks on the arm and said, ‘This is Bacpac, servant of the King,’ her eyes couldn’t help but pop.
Dad stepped forward. ‘Mother,’ he said gently, ‘it’s great to see you, it really is. But I think you’ve had too much sun.’
‘Sun.’ Chunca waved at the sky. ‘Hi Granddad.’
‘What ’e means,’ said Grandma, ‘is that ’e’s descended from the sun god Inti.’
‘Sun-shine.’ Chunca pointed at Grandma. ‘My besto.’
She grinned. ‘’E thinks I’m the bee’s knees.’
Dad took her arm. ‘You need to lie down, Mother.’
Grandma shook him off. ‘I’m tryin’ to ’elp ’im die, you see. And it’s provin’ quite a mission, I can tell you.’
Chester bounced on her head in agreement.
‘Aagh!’ ‘Urk!’ ‘Eek!’ and ‘Yeurch!’ shouted Terrifica, Ursula, Henry and Marcus. Or was it Ursula, Marcus, Henry and Terrifica? Or maybe Marcus, Henry, Ursula and … Oh, who cares? thought Abbie. The point was that they’d never actually met Chester. OK they’d seen him – but a battery-powered tonsure was a far cry from a living patch of chest hair. And right now Grandma was causing enough embarrassment without Abbie having to introduce him.
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