Aunt Effie and the Island That Sank

by Jack Lasenby

  “The engine driver reminded me of Chief Rangi,” said Marie. “Didn’t you notice he had streaks of coal dust like a tattoo on his face?”

  “The stoker looked like the Reverend Samuel Missionary,” said Jazz. “Didn’t you notice he had his collar on backwards?”

  “The guard looked like Captain Flash,” said Ann. “Didn’t you notice his head was very pointy?”

  “We think they were your three old husbands, Rangi, Sam, and Flash,” we all said together.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” cried Aunt Effie. “The villains are after my map!”

  We looked at each other. If we’d recognised her three old husbands, surely she must have recognised them, too? But there’d been something strange about Aunt Effie ever since she woke out of her long winter sleep.

  “Why did you show the wharfinger that map with Miranda marked in blood?” asked Peter.

  Aunt Effie grinned. “Because we’re going to look for Wicked Nancy’s treasure, but not at Miranda. Let’s get going!”

  “Who’s Wicked Nancy?” asked the little ones.

  “Wait and see. ‘Them that asks no questions isn’t told a lie!’” Aunt Effie grinned at the little ones’ faces. “Hoist the mizzen and jib! Splice the main brace!” she shouted. “Lower the centreboard. Handsomely now!”

  “Splice the main brace,” said Daisy, and scribbled something else on her bit of paper.

  “You’re making up another glossary,” we said to her. “Wait till Aunt Effie catches you.”

  “If I didn’t put a glossary at the end of this book,” said Daisy, “how would anyone understand what all the hard words mean?” We didn’t know what to say back, so we poked out our tongues instead.

  “Mean words hard the all what understand anyone would how?” Alwyn said backwards because he knew Daisy hated it.

  Off Freemans Bay, we jilled to and fro until the dogs spotted Greasy Mick driving a dray-load of fish and chips. We put out a kedge anchor, lifted the centre-board and keel, and let the Margery Daw’s stern carry on to the beach.

  “Who’s Wicked Nancy?” Marie asked Peter as they swung out the heavy lifting gear to hoist the greasies aboard. But Peter shook his head. He’d never heard of her either.

  Chapter Three

  Not Wanting to be Recognised; Spotted by the Prime Minister; The Old Wooden Harbour Bridge and the Net; Eyes in the Back of Aunt Effie’s Head; Returning Masked to the Hauraki Gulf, and Crying Sad Words to the Sea.

  “Eat up!” said Aunt Effie. “It might be your last meal….”

  We stared at her and crammed in the last of the fish and chips. For a while we could only stagger. As high tide lifted and bumped the Margery Daw’s flat bottom, we manned the capstan and kedged off into deeper water. Gasping full of greasies, we lowered the centre-board, dropped the rudder, and slipped down the harbour.

  “Put on these masks,” Aunt Effie said. “We don’t want to be recognised. Give way to the Devonport ferry,” she murmured to Peter at the wheel. “Turn her up into the wind, and let the Suva flying boat take off from Mechanics Bay. Take her to windward of those home boats lying in the stream, and dodge the Blue Boats taking out fresh bread and milk for the crews. We don’t want to be recognised,” she said again, and handed masks to her six enormous dogs as well.

  There was a hum overhead from one of the Zeppelins that New Zealand won off Germany in the Great War. Like a floating sausage, it drifted up Queen Street, where the pilot leaned out of the nose and tied it to the top of the Casino Tower. As we watched through our masks, somebody in a long skirt climbed out of the pilot’s hatch and hobbled in high heels along the rope, thousands of feet above the street, balancing with her arms out. In one hand she held a heavy handbag, in the other a revolver.

  “Tarnation! The Prime Minister!” said Aunt Effie. “She used to climb mountains, but now she flies up from Wellington and spends all day gambling in the Casino. Don’t let her see us, or she’ll call out. She’s turning this way. Duck!”

  It was too late. The Prime Minister’s steely eyes had spotted us. “Hello, Effie!” Her mannish voice boomed across Auckland. She teetered on the Zeppelin’s tethering rope, waved her heavy handbag, fired a shot from her revolver, and bellowed, “Why are you all wearing masks? Are you searching for treasure?”

  Aunt Effie smiled bravely and waved. “Good luck!” she yelled back.

  “Same to you!” Daisy put her hands over our eyes, as the Prime Minister climbed in the top window of the Casino Tower. The revolver shot and the Prime Minister’s bellow had drawn everyone’s attention. All the shoppers in Queen Street ran to the end of Queens Wharf and stared as we sailed past. We still had on our masks, so the little ones poked out their tongues.

  “Whose money does the Prime Minister use?” asked Daisy.

  “Didn’t you notice her handbag bulging?” said Aunt Effie. “It’s full of all the taxes she collected yesterday.”

  “She gambles with our taxes? That’s immoral!”

  “That Herald I read, the one wrapped around the fish and chips,” said Aunt Effie, “it reported that the Prime Minister won so much money at the casino last week, we won’t have to pay any more taxes for the rest of this year.”

  “What if she goes and loses it all today?” asked Daisy. “In any case, it’s not setting the little ones a very good example.” A seagull squawked and swerved at her, but Daisy ducked. The seagull’s flying poop missed her head and landed on Aunt Effie’s foot instead.

  “If it’s not one thing, then it’s another!” Aunt Effie pressed her lips together and stared ahead. “Does something look funny to you?” she asked. We were heading for the old wooden harbour bridge that used to cross to Devonport from the foot of Queen Street. Sitting on top of the arch and fishing for sprats, a boy poked out his tongue, but we pretended not to see him. The Kaitaia Express blew its whistle and chugged across the bridge, and the boy was so busy giving cheek to the driver, he didn’t notice Jazz tie our last piece of fish and a couple of chips to his line. Then we all saw it at the same time: the thing that hadn’t looked right to Aunt Effie.

  “Look out!” we screamed. From the old wooden harbour bridge, a net was unrolling and dropping towards the sea.

  “It’s that school inspector, the one who was dressed as the stoker on the Rotorua Express!” said Ann. “The one with his collar on backwards.”

  He was riding a bicycle over the arch of the wooden harbour bridge, letting the net unfold and fall off the carrier. “Those children have not been baptised!” the Reverend Samuel Missionary shouted in his beautifully modulated voice. “I’m going to save them from perdition!” He stood on the pedals. The bike went faster, and his net spread overhead.

  “Perdition!” said Daisy, and wrote it down.

  “Ready about!” Aunt Effie yelled. “There’s no time to waste making up glossaries, Daisy!” We ran to the sheets and brought the headsails over as she put the Margery Daw on the port tack, reaching fast towards Mechanics Bay.

  “How did Aunt Effie know Daisy’s making up another glossary?” asked Lizzie.

  “She’s got eyes in the back of her head,” Ann told her. Lizzie stared at Aunt Effie and burst into tears.

  The Reverend Samuel Missionary pedalled harder, the net unrolling and filling the space between bridge and sea. There was just one gap it hadn’t filled.

  “Ready with those sheets! Coming about!” We sheeted in the jibs and staysail. The booms swung over. Aunt Effie timed it so perfectly we came out of the tack picking up speed, and hardly a swirl astern. Through the gap and out the other side of the bridge, heading towards Devonport. The net fell across the rudder post and swept off in our wake. No, it just snagged the end of the rudder and tangled in the steering chains.

  “Caught you!”

  Peter hung on to the rudder post with one hand, chopped the net free with an axe, and swung himself back over the transom. “Good work, Daisy-Mabel-Johnny-Flossie-Lynda-Stan-How-ard-Marge-Stuart-Peter-Marie-Colleen-Alwyn-Bryce-Jack-A
nn-Jazz-Beck-Jane-Isaac-David-Victor-Casey-Lizzie-Jared-Jess!” Aunt Effie told him.

  “Bah!” The Reverend Samuel Missionary shook both fists at Peter.

  “One hand for the bike and one for yourself!” Daisy shouted. Too late. The Reverend Samuel’s bike shot off the top of the arch. He was pedalling so fast, his bike floated down and took off across the top of the waves.

  “Keep pedalling!” Aunt Effie yelled after him. “Or you’ll sink!”

  A lonesome voice cried, “Foiled again, fair Euphemia!”

  “He said The Name We Dare Not Say!” whispered Jessie.

  Aunt Effie jumped into the rigging and shouted, “Samuel!” in a winning voice.

  At that soft, attractive sound, the Reverend Samuel Missionary stopped pedalling, turned around with a silly smile, and his bike sank.

  “That’s one of them out of the way,” Aunt Effie told us. “But I think we’re still being followed.

  “Caligula-Nero-Brutus-Kaiser-Genghis-Boris! Out on the bowsprit and watch for Bean Rock. And don’t look behind.” The dogs ran out on the bowsprit, holding the forestay, and carefully not looking behind.

  “Daisy-Mabel-Johnny-Flossie-Lynda-Stan-Howard-Marge-Stuart- Peter-Marie-Colleen-Alwyn-Bryce-Jack-Ann-Jazz-Beck-Jane-Isaac-David-Victor-Casey-Lizzie-Jared-Jess! Up into the rigging and keep a watch out for Rangitoto Island, and don’t any of you dare look behind!” We leapt into the ratlines and stared ahead.

  “Why can’t we look behind?” asked Lizzie, who always wanted to know everything.

  “Because somebody’s following us,” Ann told her, “and we mustn’t let them see we know.”

  “But Aunt Effie hasn’t looked behind, so how does she know there’s somebody following?” asked Jessie who also wanted to know everything.

  “Don’t look behind, any of you!” Aunt Effie roared again. “We’re being followed by a schooner. He’s hiding behind the Baroona, the old Waiheke ferry.” She held the wheel firmly and stared ahead towards Browns Island.

  “How can Aunt Effie see what he’s doing?” Lizzie asked. “She’s not looking behind.”

  “I told you before: she’s got eyes in the back of her head.” Ann laughed nervously and looked straight ahead.

  The swell around North Head lifted our bows, the deck rose, and we all hung on as it dropped, heaved sideways, and swooped up again.

  “I can still taste those fish and chips,” said Jared.

  A drift of spray carried over us. We licked our lips.

  “I wish you hadn’t said that, Jared….” Ann put her hand over her mouth. Her face was whiter than her hand.

  “Said what?”

  “About tasting the fish and chips.” Ann’s neck and chin now had a green shine.

  The deck lifted and fell away, lifted and fell away. Somebody gave a little moan, but we all kept looking straight ahead.

  “I wish I hadn’t eaten so many greasies,” said Casey.

  “I don’t feel very well,” said Lizzie. She, Casey, and Jessie looked at each other and ran to the bulwarks.

  “Get to leeward, or it’ll blow back in your faces!” called Aunt Effie. Hands over their mouths, Casey, Lizzie, and Jessie ran to the other side, hung over, and cried sad words to the sea.

  “I’d better see if they’re all right.” Ann ran and hung her head over the side, too. One by one we followed, and there came a terrible moan from the dogs.

  “It’s those greasies,” said Alwyn, “floating around inside us, getting shaken up in the lemonade.”

  “There’s no need to be coarse… Oh!” said our dignified cousin, Daisy, and she hung her head over the side and talked seriously to the waves.

  Tears were running down Lizzie’s face as she said, “I still wonder how Aunt Effie could see behind.”

  “Don’t look now,” said Alwyn, “but she’s put spectacles on the back of her head.”

  “Oh!” cried Lizzie and was too busy hanging her head over the side to look.

  Caligula, Nero, Brutus, Kaiser, Genghis and Boris joined us, hanging their heads over the side, too. Aunt Effie stood at the wheel singing “What Are the Wild Waves Saying?”, smoking a black cheroot, and wearing a pair of glasses on the back of her head. And so we returned to the Hauraki Gulf, seasick, crying, wearing masks, and wishing we’d never seen the sea.

  Chapter Four

  Flying Fish for Breakfast; the Red-Sailed Schooner; Sailing Over the Edge of the World; Maps; and a Gory Story of Pirates, Treasure, and Blood.

  As the sun sprang out of the sea, we sprang out of our hammocks, jumped over the side, swam three times around the Margery Daw, raced up to touch the tip of the topmast, slid down the backstays, and holystoned the deck.

  “You’ve found your sea legs then?” asked Aunt Effie. “You can take off your masks now.”

  Before going to bed, we’d left a frying pan on deck. It was full of flying fish which had flown aboard during the night. They’d also scaled and gutted themselves, so all we had to do was put the frying pan on the galley stove. At their delicious smell, we forgot we had ever been seasick.

  After breakfast, Lizzie noticed a rear vision mirror lashed to a spoke of the ship’s wheel. “That’s how Aunt Effie could see the schooner without looking round! She hasn’t got eyes in the back of her head at all.”

  “You never know with Aunt Effie,” Alwyn told the little ones. “You just think you know all about her, and you find out something different.” He shook his head, and the little ones shook theirs back.

  Rangitoto sank in our wake. Somewhere ahead lay the peaks of the Little Barrier and the Great Barrier. East we could see the top of Moehau. Somewhere west lay Kawau Island. Marie and Peter were shooting the sun with their sextants, looking at the ship’s chronometer, and doing complicated long division sums in their heads to work out our position.

  “There are the doldrums to leeward,” said Aunt Effie. “The equator’s just coming over the horizon, and the Sargasso Sea’s somewhere to port. If we keep on this course, we’ll see Antarctica before morning smoke-oh.”

  “Are we going to the South Pole?”

  “Just pretending to,” Aunt Effie said to Peter. “Don’t look around, but that schooner’s hard on our hammer.

  “Bring her head around!” she shouted at the helmsman. “You’ll have her gybing!”

  Caligula brought the wheel over, and the mainsail filled and swung out again. Aunt Effie swigged down her coffee, spat to leeward, and wiped her mouth on the back of her hand.

  “Manners!” said Daisy, our correct cousin. “Oh!”

  “Someone slosh a bucket of water over Daisy,” said Aunt Effie. The seagull that had just pooped on Daisy’s head perched on the bowsprit. While Daisy washed her hair, the rest of us gathered around Aunt Effie and looked at a map she pulled out of her rolled-up umbrella.

  “We’re here!” Aunt Effie stabbed the chart with her finger. “Don’t look now, but there’s a schooner with red sails astern. It’s the wretched Rangi on his schooner with the stupid name!” Aunt Effie stuck the map back in her umbrella, strode to the leeward rail and spat a mouthful of tobacco juice. “He’s been down to Miranda, seen we weren’t there, and sailed back again during the night. Now he’s sent down his topmasts and changed his sails, trying to look like a fishing boat. When it comes on dark, he thinks he’ll sneak alongside and board us. His schooner points up into the wind so fine, he can take us whenever he wants.”

  “What’s he after, Aunt Effie?”

  “A map.”

  “That one?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “What are we going to do?”

  “I’ll think of something.”

  The red spot astern grew bigger. “He’s sending up his topmasts,” Marie said.

  “I’m thinking.”

  “He’s setting both topsails!” Peter called.

  “I’m thinking.”

  “He’s coming up fast, Aunt Effie!” we all cried.

  “Can’t you let me think a minute?”

&nb
sp; Something skipped across the waves ahead of our bows, and we heard a boom. “A cannonball!” we screamed.

  “I told you I’m thinking!”

  “Aunt Effie!” the little ones cried and came rushing back from trying to make friends with the seagull on the bowsprit. “There’s no more sea!”

  In front of our bows, the water fell away like a cliff. Ahead of us lay nothing, just a big gap filled with air – which we couldn’t see of course, but the seagull took off from the bowsprit and flew across where the sea should have been, and that’s how we knew it was filled with air because the seagull couldn’t have been flying there, or that’s what we said to each other afterwards.

  “Aunt Effie!” we screamed.

  “I think she’s hibernated again,” said Alwyn. And just at that moment she seemed to waken.

  “Bring her up into the wind! Back that staysail! Bring in the mainsheet so she almost heaves to. Easy does it! With the way we’ve got on, she should slip over sideways. If she’s sailing too fast, we’ll fall into space. Now, let her head fall off, Caligula-Nero-Brutus-Kaiser-Genghis-Boris! Handsomely! Feel her moving again? Bring the staysail across. Tighten the sheet. Now let out the mainsheet. There we are – safe!”

  We felt the Margery Daw tip sideways over the edge of the world, then we were sailing along another ocean at right angles to the one we’d been on before. For a moment, we all thought we were going to be seasick again. We hung on tight, then let go our grip on ratlines, fids, and stays. And the strange thing was, we didn’t fall off.

  “Remember I told you the world’s really shaped like a square box?” said Aunt Effie.

  “I read in the Encyclopaedia Britannica,” Daisy told everyone, “that it’s shaped like a flattened ball, ‘an oblate spheroid’ the encyclopaedia said.”

  “I’ve warned you before about believing that rubbish they teach you at school. Do you want another seagull to poop on your head, Daisy?” Aunt Effie nodded. “We’ve just sailed over one of the world’s edges, from one flat side to another. Rangi will be wondering where we’ve disappeared to.”