‘Please, Jesse,’ said Alice. ‘We need you.’
‘Need me?’
‘You’re the best orienteer. A great orienteer.’
‘Don’t try and flatter me! How long have you been plotting this?’
‘Not long,’ lied Alice.
‘Ages,’ admitted Fergus.
‘Why are you doing this?’ demanded Jesse.
‘I do wonder, sometimes,’ said Fergus. ‘But it’s important to Alice.’
‘Will you do it?’ Alice asked.
An uncomfortable lump was forming in Jesse’s throat. That they had plotted this for ages! That they had known, yesterday on the beach, and last night by the fire, and before going to sleep in the tent! Known, and kept it from him, and made a fool of him! You should be an explorer, Jesse – that he should have felt so happy, when they were about to stab him in the back, knowing how much this Challenge meant to him, knowing how much their friendship …
‘No,’ he said. ‘I won’t.’
Fergus, who really was wondering about the plan, whooped silently, then sighed as Alice set her chin in a way he was beginning to recognise.
‘Then we’ll just have to do it without you,’ she said in a very small voice.
‘Alice!’ Fergus whispered. ‘We can’t! Not without Jesse!’
‘I’ll go alone if I have to.’
He tried to reason with her.
‘Think of the Consequences if Jesse gets back without us! School will know we split up – he’ll have to tell them!’
‘I know. I’m sorry.’
Despite the chin, there was an unmistakeable quiver in her voice. And Fergus knew that he could never let her go alone.
Silently, they washed up their bowls, packed up their rucksacks and dismantled the tent.
‘You should take it,’ Alice told Jesse. ‘It’s only fair.’
She hesitated then, standing on tiptoes, kissed him quickly on the cheek. ‘Good luck, Jesse. I’m sure you’ll win.’
‘Please come with us, Jesse.’ Fergus couldn’t believe this was happening. Now that they were separating, he realised how much it meant to him for them to all be together. Not because they might – would probably – get lost without Jesse, but because, astonishingly, he liked him.
And oh, thought Jesse, the swim and the stars and the bonfire and the fish! The seals, and the sound of the waves at night!
‘I’m not coming,’ he said. ‘And that’s that.’
‘Alice!’ begged Fergus. ‘Let’s talk about this!’
But Alice was already walking, and Jesse was looking away. Fergus sighed, swung his pack on his back and ran after her.
*
The beach was pristine again, all traces of their fire wiped clean by the tide. Jesse thought he saw a sleek black head in the water, but it was only driftwood, bobbing.
‘I’m going to win this,’ he said out loud. ‘I’ll show them!’
His words scattered on the wind.
Alice and Fergus were nearing an intersection on the path they had come down the day before. Jesse knew, without even looking at the map, that if they wanted to go north, they had to turn left. Whereas he had to go right. Right, and then inland, and then he would win, because no one was faster or better than him.
Especially with no one to slow him down.
He would win.
He would win!
Except – could he even win if he lost half his team? His heart pinched.
He had loved being part of their team.
They had stopped now, were looking at the map. ‘Left,’ Jesse muttered. ‘It’s not difficult. LEFT!’
They turned right.
He waved. They didn’t see. He shouted. They didn’t hear.
‘Oh, come on,’ he groaned.
They were right. They couldn’t do it without him. That wasn’t surprising. What was surprising was that he didn’t want them to.
‘WAIT!’ he shouted again, and this time they looked back, and stopped, and grinned.
‘Wait for me!’ he bellowed, and began to run.
After all, Jesse had always longed for a real adventure.
Here it was, just begging him to join in.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
The Mosquito Woman
Of course, there is still the question of the parcel at the bottom of Alice’s rucksack, which will shortly be making its full and dramatic entry into this story.
Pictures of the contents of that parcel have been splashed all over the internet, and all over newspapers, all over the world. A lot of people want those contents. The police. Private detectives. Some dangerous criminals. Barney Mistlethwaite.
He’s the only one who knows Alice has it.
But – as you know – people are after him.
Which means they’re getting closer to her.
*
Jesse didn’t explain his change of heart, and Alice and Fergus didn’t ask, but none of them had stopped grinning since he joined them.
‘I reckon I’ve saved two hours off the route you’d planned,’ he informed them when they stopped for a meagre lunch of tuna and oatcakes. ‘Even if you had been going in the right direction. Which you weren’t.’
‘Go on, rub it in.’ Fergus beamed. ‘Do not let an occasion pass without reminding us of your tremendous superiority.’
‘He is superior,’ Alice said, affectionately. ‘He’s a positive marvel.’
‘A marvel!’ Jesse grunted to hide his smile, and went back to the map. ‘So we follow this path –’ he traced a dotted line across the headland – ‘and we get to this village, where we catch the ferry that will take us to the town of Moraig, on Lumm.’
‘An actual town?’ asked Fergus. ‘With cars and people and potentially shops where we can buy actual food?’
‘We have actual food,’ Jesse said.
‘I’m not sure we do,’ said Fergus. ‘We have oatcakes, and tuna. I don’t believe those are food. Or porridge, for that matter. I don’t think I’ve ever been so hungry in my life.’
‘There’s a boat at two o’clock,’ said Alice. ‘Can we make it? We need to get across Lumm this afternoon, so that we can catch the boat to Nish tomorrow morning. It’s the only one, so we can’t miss it.’
‘We can be at the ferry in an hour, if we hurry,’ said Jesse.
‘Then let’s go! Fergus, you can eat while we walk!’
On they went, three friends, happy and carefree and rebellious, over the undulating land, jogging on the downhills, striding across the flat, skipping on the uphills, blisters and aching muscles forgotten. Fergus, whistling tunelessly, reflected on how criminal masterplans were even better when three people were involved. Jesse, feeling a little dazed that he was here, heading north instead of south, was being a knight on a quest. And Alice surprised herself by thinking how much she loved them both.
As they came down again to sea level, the air grew damp and claggy with salt. Mist rose from dips and hollows, clung in beads to blades of grass, hugged the ground like a shroud. The road, when they came to it, was narrow and potholed. Houses began to appear, looming out of the whiteness like ghosts. The children stamped their feet as they walked – for warmth, Jesse said, but also for the comfort of noise in a muffled world.
They almost missed the turning. The bashed-up, rusty sign for the ferry, white with a black outline of a boat, was half hidden behind a holly tree. Jesse and Alice walked straight past it, and Fergus only saw it by chance, because he stopped to tie a shoelace.
They turned down an even narrower road.
‘I thought somehow it would be …’ Alice screwed up her face as she tried to find the right word.
‘Bigger?’ suggested Fergus. ‘Less like a road to absolutely nowhere?’
There were no shops, or even houses. The quay appeared to just be the bit where the road went into the water.
‘Before you ask,’ said Jesse, ‘this is definitely what the map says. Also, there was that sign.’
Doubtfully, they consi
dered the quay, put down their rucksacks and sat huddled together on the road, with their hoods pulled up against the cold.
‘It’s like the station at Castlehaig,’ Jesse said, trying to be positive. ‘You think no one’s coming, but they do.’
‘That’s true,’ said Alice firmly. ‘They do.’
‘They’ll have just finished lunch at school,’ said Fergus. ‘It was shepherd’s pie today. I looked at the menu before I left. I love shepherd’s pie.’
‘There’ll be shepherd’s pie again,’ promised Alice. ‘When we get back. There’s always shepherd’s pie.’
‘If we get back,’ said Fergus, darkly.
‘Something’s coming,’ Jesse said.
*
The boat loomed out of the mist like a monster, a flock of gulls swirling in its wake. It came straight at them, terrifyingly fast, then braked at the last moment with a great churning of grey-brown water. A ramp came down. The children scrambled to their feet. A red-faced man in yellow oilskins signalled for them to stay back, as a tractor lumbered off the ferry, followed by a small white car and a group of cyclists. The oilskin man waved them on.
‘You lot escaped from a prison or something?’ he asked, eyeing their orange jackets.
‘Je ne comprends pas,’ said Fergus, in his best Madame Gilbert French. ‘Trois enfants, s’il vous plait.’
He held up three fingers, pointing to himself, Alice and Jesse. The other two stared, astonished, as the oilskin man produced tickets.
‘What did you do that for?’ whispered Alice as they walked away.
‘We’re on the run,’ he whispered back. ‘We have to have a disguise! It doesn’t work otherwise.’
Laughing, they ran up on to the passenger deck, where they lined up against a railing, facing the mainland. The sea was dark, sullen grey, with white crests blown back by a sharp wind. Further out, a sailing yacht raced across the water, tilted at an impossible angle, and a cormorant was fishing. Lumm was only a few miles away – they could already see its dark mass ahead – but they felt like voyagers setting off on an uncharted journey, all the more exciting because no one in the world knew where they were.
The ferry blasted a horn, making them all jump. They waved the mainland goodbye.
‘Au revoir!’ shouted Fergus, dizzy with linguistic success.
‘Au revoir!’ Alice repeated while Jesse, feeling hilarious, shouted goodbye in English but with a mock French accent.
And here was danger now, very nearly upon them …
A red saloon car was tearing down the road to the quay. It skidded to a halt by the water, and two large men dressed in black spilled out, shouting and waving at the ferry.
‘Aspetti! Wait!’
‘What’s that?’ asked Jesse.
‘Not French,’ said Fergus. ‘I don’t think.’
‘Italian?’ said Alice. ‘Maybe?’
But the ramp was already up, the water churning again. The ferry didn’t wait. The men dropped their arms in defeat, turned back towards the car and stood by the nearside rear door, heads respectfully bowed, watchful eyes darting right and left. The car door opened and a tiny woman stepped out, dressed simply in black leggings and a thick black parka jacket, with long hair tucked into a knitted black cap, and a pair of enormous mosquito sunglasses. In her flat-soled boots, she barely reached the men’s shoulders, but there was no question who was in charge.
The mosquito woman did not shout, or stamp her foot, or berate her driver for missing the sign on the road. This was just a setback. She knew that soon she would get what she wanted.
She raised her hand to the ferry, and pointed.
Fergus laughed, and waved, but Alice shivered.
She had the feeling the woman was pointing straight at her.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Oyster!
Moraig was a pretty harbour, with houses all painted different colours tumbling down steep hills towards the water, and a parade of busy shops. Under blue skies, it would have been a cheerful scene. But the weather had worsened during the crossing. The sky had grown menacing with low heavy clouds, and the air was pregnant with the anticipation of thunder. The shoppers had an urgency about them. No one dallied to browse or chat, but hurried home as soon as they had paid to prepare for the storm.
‘I’ve been here before,’ Fergus realised suddenly as the children walked from the ferry into town. He stopped at the top of a steep flight of steps leading to a little beach. ‘I think I came with my parents! Can we go down?’
Jesse peered fretfully at the clouds. ‘If we miss this bus, we’ll have to find somewhere to camp near here tonight. The next bus isn’t for another two hours, and we really need to get the tent up before the storm.’
‘If we camp here, we’ll miss tomorrow’s boat to Nish. Also …’ Alice glanced over her shoulder towards their ferry, which was already sailing back out of the harbour. Presumably, when it returned, it would be bringing the passengers left behind on the quayside, including the woman who had pointed at her. Alice had not shared her unease about them with Fergus and Jesse, and she couldn’t have explained why, but she didn’t want to be here when they arrived.
‘We’ve got twenty minutes till the bus.’ Fergus gazed longingly at the sand. ‘And it stops right here by the steps.’
‘No way,’ said Jesse. ‘What if the bus comes early, and you’re still on the beach, and it doesn’t wait? You can go on our way back from …’
‘It’s fine,’ Alice interrupted. ‘Go. We’ll shout if the bus comes.’
‘I’ll be quick!’ Fergus promised.
He scrambled down the steps and ran towards the water, then struck out along the sand towards the dark rocks at the far end of the beach.
‘Why did you let him go?’ complained Jesse. ‘It’s not even like it’s a nice beach. It smells of fish.’ He wrinkled his nose. ‘And not in a good way.’
‘He came with his parents,’ murmured Alice. ‘So it matters.’
Jesse would have liked to ask her more, about Fergus and his parents and also about hers, but she had that far-away, dreamy look about her that he knew meant she wouldn’t talk.
The wind picked up, and the sky darkened. Boats came into the harbour on waves swollen by the rising tide. When the bus came, the driver did not want to wait and Fergus, who had lingered at the far end of the beach had to run to catch it. His face was flushed as he climbed aboard, but as the bus wound its way through the hills and valleys of the island, he grew paler and paler. By the time they reached their destination, he was ghost-white, and sweating.
*
The bus left them near the quay in a medium-sized village. Unlike the quay on the mainland, this one had a car park, a proper dock, a long low building marked ‘Tickets’ and ‘Information’ and a harbour full of boats, all anchored offshore in preparation for the coming storm. Alice would have liked to linger, to ask which was the boat to Nish, and whether she could see the island from here, but Jesse wouldn’t let her. The wind was blowing hard now, the air was damp with the promise of rain, and they still had a way to go before they could pitch their tent at the campsite Jesse had found on the map.
‘We have to pitch the tent before the storm,’ Jesse repeated, and led the others back along the road the bus had come in on, turning left a hundred metres after the village on to a narrow, tree-lined track with open marshland on either side. After five hundred metres, they passed a solitary white stone house, set back from the track in an overgrown garden. Two hundred metres after that, they arrived at the campsite, which was small, empty and basic, with just a bin, a tap and a locked toilet, and only partly sheltered from the wind by a bank of trees and a stone wall. Beyond the campsite, hidden from view by the trees, they could hear the roar of the sea.
‘Let’s get to work.’ Jesse shrugged off his rucksack and began to pull out the tent.
Fergus wrapped his arms around himself and said, ‘I’m going to the beach.’
‘Again?’ Jesse was outraged. Fergus,
the tent! The rain! We have to be ready! Fergus!’
‘Leave him.’ Alice laid a hand on Jesse’s arm as Fergus left.
‘But it’s not fair!’
‘We’ll manage.’
Jesse, grumbling, let it go.
A squalling wind played havoc with their work. The canvas flapped wildly as they opened the tent, then refused to be stilled. By the time they had finished, there was not a straight edge or right angle to the tent.
‘We need Fergus back now, before the rain starts,’ said Jesse, looking at the sky. ‘Or it’ll be wet in there as well as wonky.’
‘I’ll go and get him,’ said Alice.
It was a smaller beach than the last one, a white cove almost completely submerged by battering waves. Alice pulled her hood up against the roar of the wind, and battled along the narrow sand to where Fergus sat just above the high-tide line, facing the water.
‘Come back!’ she shouted as she approached. ‘Jesse says we have to get inside before it rains!’
‘I like it here!’ he shouted back.
Alice flopped down beside him on the ground.
‘Jesse really will go mad,’ she said.
‘I don’t care.’
In the weeks she had known him, Alice had never seen Fergus so dejected. She leaned back on her elbows and raised enquiring eyebrows.
‘I was little,’ Fergus said at last. ‘Probably six, or seven. We did a tour of the Scottish islands. I think we stopped in Moraig for one night. I don’t really remember much, just that we were all together.’
Alice squeezed his arm.
‘You know what, Alice, I hope we don’t make it back in time. I hope we get stuck on your dad’s island, and school sends out a massive search party, just like I always wanted, and my parents almost die of worry. Parents are rubbish, Alice, they just are.’
‘Hmm,’ she said.
‘I’m sorry.’ Fergus had gone very pale, and she worried that he might be about to cry.
The Children of Castle Rock Page 11