by Lauren Child
A seahorse and a golden bird
HITCH, RUBY AND KEKOA TOOK A BOAT out to the Sibling Waters. The two sister rocks rose dramatically out of the sea before them. It was easy to understand why sailors of days gone by had been superstitious about them. The rocks were beautiful but lonely, isolated there in restless seas – though today the water was tranquil.
They manoeuvred the boat until they were between the two rocky outcrops once known as the toes of the sisters.
‘So what’s the story with the rocks?’ asked Hitch, peering at them through the haze of the morning light. ‘How did they come to be called the Sibling Islands, apart from the obvious I mean?’
Ruby listened closely as Kekoa explained: as one would expect, she knew a lot about the coasts and seas, but Ruby was impressed at how much she also knew about local history and mythology.
Ruby was familiar with this story from all her library research, but she liked the way Kekoa told it.
It was a melancholy tale of two sisters. Both had been flung overboard during a violent storm. Separated by the waves, they were then miraculously rescued by the tide, which carried them each to their own island. It was said that the girls climbed to the pinnacle of each rock and called to passing mariners. ‘Help us,’ they cried, but their calls were muffled by the wind and sounded like whispers and most did not hear them.
Those who did hear their calls mistook them for the voices of sirens, mermaids luring them onto the rocks. Sailors who followed sirens rarely lived to tell the tale, their bones smashed to pieces and their lifeless bodies dragged down to the depths of the indigo ocean. So the sisters were destined to call to each other across the turbulent channel forever more.
Today though the islands looked far from tragic, glowing gold in the hazy morning light. Hitch scanned the horizon, but there were no other boats to be seen; they were alone as far as they could tell.
They waited for an hour or so, Hitch regularly scanning the radar for vessels which might prove sinister. To pass time more merrily he tuned into the radio and an old-fashioned song spilled out. ‘WELCOME TO CHIME MELODY,’ came the announcer’s voice. ‘HERE FOR YOUR LISTENING PLEASURE.’
‘It would seem your theory is correct kid,’ said Hitch. ‘Chime is the only station you can receive in these waters, so I guess it’s the old tunes or no tunes.’
‘I don’t mind,’ said Ruby, ‘I kinda like the oldies.’
Kekoa didn’t say anything, but Ruby could tell she would rather have silence no matter what the radio was playing.
‘So you find out anything more about the sea whisperings?’ asked Ruby.
Kekoa shook her head. ‘No,’ she said, ‘not yet.’
‘One of the kids in my swim team thought she heard it in Twinford Bay.’
Kekoa looked up. ‘Really?’ she said. ‘No one heard it there before.’
‘Well, I wouldn’t hold your breath,’ said Ruby. ‘Red’s a very imaginative kid, if you know what I mean. She was prepared to believe it was mermaids.’
Kekoa continued to stare at Ruby, but didn’t say a word.
Hitch wouldn’t allow anyone to dive until he had checked out everything he could check out. The coast seemed to be clear – nothing untoward was beeping on the radar – and finally he said, ‘Well, there don’t seem to be any murderous pirates around so I guess you’re good to go.’
The water was dead calm, the whirling currents and undertow gone for a while at least, but there was no way of knowing for exactly how long.
‘Be careful Ruby,’ said Kekoa. ‘This situation is not safe; these waters should not be so still, and might not be for much longer – these are dangerous seas.’
If Ruby had interpreted the coded message correctly, then they were moored just above the wreck of the Seahorse where the toes of the sisters meet. The location seemed to fit with Martha Fairbank’s description too. ‘We sailed to the rock guarded by the golden bird.’
Hitch lined up the boat in such a way that indeed, from that angle, the pinnacle of the rock did look like a golden bird. As he did so, Ruby saw what looked like a blink of light flash from the smaller island. She squinted, staring ahead of her, but it didn’t come again.
‘What is it?’ asked Hitch.
‘I thought I saw something – a trick of the light I guess,’ said Ruby.
‘You sure you’re up for this kid?’ Hitch asked.
‘Why wouldn’t I be?’ said Ruby.
‘Diving for real is different from diving in training; you don’t know what you’re going to find down there.’
‘Isn’t that the whole point?’ said Ruby. ‘Oh, you think I might see a skeleton or two?’ She gave him a mock-horrified look.
‘I’m not so concerned about the already-dead, it’s the live ones who can cause the grief. We don’t know who’s been down there recently or what they’ve been up to so be careful and stay close to Kekoa. You hear me?’
‘I hear you,’ said Ruby.
He tapped her hand that clutched the boat’s side. ‘I’ll be right here kid. And I can follow your movements on the radar.’
She nodded, and the two Spectrum agents attached their breathing apparatus and fell back into the water.
They saw it before long: a carcass of sorts, a ship’s skeleton, covered in barnacles and seaweed, its wooden frame rotting into and blending with the very seabed. Amazing marine plants and coral had grown through it, around it and within it, and this long-dead thing was now alive and crawling with sea creatures.
Ruby stayed close to Kekoa, who signalled them towards the less accessible part of the wreck, and they made their way inside a tangled mess of wood and seaweed. Ruby felt her way, her underwater flashlight illuminating small areas at a time, catching drifts of silt in its beam, flashes of silver as quick fish dodged and darted. Shy crabs scuttled sideways and bashful anemones drew in their tentacles as she passed. All manner of life had taken up residence here, undisturbed by the world above. It was unlikely that any of these creatures had ever seen a scuba-diving schoolgirl before.
She and Kekoa moved slowly round the old ship, half-recognisable objects part-buried in the silt: something that could perhaps be a candlestick, a cup; something that might once have been a piece of furniture, but now was no more than a curiously shaped piece of wood, loomed out of the semi-dark.
They moved methodically and silently, swimming further into the wreck, Ruby pointing the flashlight into the dark recesses of what was left of the ship. They looked for anything that might provide a clue that would in turn lead them to the pirates or whoever else might be after the sunken treasure.
They had been under for about forty-seven minutes when things went bad.
A loud noise, like the rumble of thunder, and Ruby turned to see Kekoa pinned under a huge wooden beam, part of the old ship finally succumbing to the sea. Kekoa was trapped and blood was beginning to drift from her head into the water, creating a scarlet halo. But far worse was the leg wound. Ruby thought she could see bone. It didn’t look good. She attempted to pull Kekoa free, but it was futile.
Kekoa was calm – not the panicking kind. She signalled towards the surface – to Hitch – and Ruby nodded. She swam back the way they had come, through the maze of rotting wood and coral.
Then, as she turned a corner in the old corridor of the ship, she felt something glide past her legs and she pulled back in surprise, dropping the flashlight. It hit something hard beneath her, flickered and went out.
She was plunged into darkness, underwater, trapped inside a fragile wooden skeleton that might cave in at any moment, and with a limited air supply. Well, that was enough to bring on anyone’s claustrophobia. Ruby was suddenly disorientated, unsure which way was out, and barely managing to contain her panic.
Nice going Agent Redfort.
This was not meant to happen – the flashlight was Spectrum issue and should be robust enough to survive a knock. Ruby remembered her training and consciously slowed her heart rate and remained completely still until she felt calm, or
at least calmer. RULE 19: PANIC WILL FREEZE YOUR BRAIN. Then she began to move forward. Now completely blind, she remembered what Kekoa had taught her, and methodically felt around her, feeling for a way through, a way out.
As she slid her hands over the inside walls of the ship, she felt something – a latch, a trapdoor, a porthole perhaps. She pushed and pushed and finally it gave. Ruby was a petite girl, small enough to make it through a fairly tiny aperture, and she twisted and wriggled her way out of the watery prison.
She half swam, half clawed through a forest of seaweed and then out of the gloom ahead of her rose a horse’s head (the old wooden figurehead of the ship) – a tiny fish darting in and out of its rotten eye. It stood there like a memorial or grave marker, which of course it was.
This was the wreck of the Seahorse, and where it rested many had died. Beyond the graveyard Ruby could see glimmers of light flickering – that meant a way out and up. She paused only when she saw something twinkle, something caught in the fronds of seaweed. She reached down and plucked it from where it lay. A stone, a cut stone, beautiful and of transparent yellow.
Ruby gripped the jewel in her palm and pushed on through the seaweed, drawn by a sound, a whispering, a calling, very distant but getting nearer. Hitch? No, not Hitch. She turned full circle in the water, but could see nothing but blue. Was this the mermaid-sound that Red had heard? Or was it just the white noise of her panicking mind?
She started to make for the ocean surface. And then she caught her breath. Menacing grey shapes, like circling planes above her.
Sharks.
They were between her and the boat; they were between her and the boat and her and the rest of the ocean; they were everywhere, surrounding her, circling like some bullying mob.
But one of them wasn’t circling; one of them was moving towards her.
So although it was true that Ruby Redfort had never been scared of sharks, not her whole entire life, that position was rapidly changing. Being surrounded by a whole batch of them (as Tilly Matthews would say) can do that to a person. Ruby opened her hand to grab for some kind of frail defence, and as she did so, the yellow jewel slipped from her hand and fell through turquoise.
The retractable aluminium pole Ruby then pulled from her belt did not do its job. She valiantly prodded it towards the grey menace, but it didn’t make the impact she had hoped it would and none of the sharks seemed even the slightest bit troubled. Despite what her dive master had told her, these guys were definitely interested. It was almost as if they’d been trained to show an interest, like they were guarding the location, making sure no one dallied too long.
Were they being controlled by something? Someone? No, that was far-fetched; it was more likely they were expecting something, food for instance. This was feeding time? Had someone been feeding the fish? It would be a smart way to guard treasure.
Treasure that was evidently no longer there. Just one small stone that could prove it ever existed, though even that had vanished. All these thoughts washed through Ruby’s mind in split seconds as the predators closed in. The whispering was getting louder, much nearer, and the sharks were surrounding her. Bumping her. Knocking the breath from her.
She flailed one way then the other, jabbing the stick, twisting, turning until she lost her grip on it and her only defence twirled away from her. She swivelled round and saw one of the creatures open its jaws to reveal those gums, those teeth.
Chapter 32.
From the jaws of death
SOMETHING CRASHED INTO THE WATER and white bubbles fizzed up to the surface. And just like that, the menacing grey shapes were gone.
Ruby was suspended in the deep blue ocean. She turned to check her back and there behind her was Hitch. He was not in dive gear – there had not been time for that. He was treading water, a knife in his hand. He looked around for Kekoa and then made a gesture, pointing up, and Ruby followed him to the surface.
They clambered onto the small boat, both spluttering seawater, Ruby dizzy to be alive.
‘Wh… what did you do?’ she stammered from where she had collapsed on the deck.
‘All I did was jump in the water,’ said Hitch. ‘Ruby, what happened to Kekoa?’
‘I came to get you,’ wheezed Ruby. ‘She’s trapped!’
‘What do you mean trapped?’
‘Inside the wreck – something fell on her. She looks in bad shape.’
Hitch turned the radar dial on his Spectrum watch, tuning into Kekoa’s signal – it wasn’t there.
‘Darn it,’ he said. ‘You’re going to have to give me a pretty accurate description of Kekoa’s location kid.’
Kekoa had taught Ruby well and she described the place where they had entered the wreck and the direction they had swum through it. Finding Kekoa would be easy – getting her out would be the tricky part.
Hitch grabbed a rope and toolpack. He was already reaching for goggles and air tank as Ruby described the cut to Kekoa’s head and the leg wound, the fallen beam. Three minutes later and Ruby was alone. She looked out to sea, staring across to the Sibling Islands. She thought about the lost sisters, and as she thought of them, she saw that tiny glint of light flash once more on the smaller of the two rocks. Just for a second and then it was gone. She stood stock-still and unblinking, waiting for it to reappear, but it didn’t.
An agonising nineteen minutes and five seconds passed before Hitch reappeared and deposited an injured Kekoa on the warm wood of the deck. She looked pale and the blood continued to seep from her calf.
‘It’s not as bad as it looks,’ Hitch reassured her. But Ruby could see that it was. She grabbed the first-aid kit and handed it over. Hitch bound the leg wound as well as he could and then examined the cut to the head.
‘Gotta stitch this,’ he said.
Kekoa nodded and didn’t flinch once throughout the whole painful procedure.
‘Kid, get the boat started. We need to make it to shore quick and there’s no chance of radioing for assistance out here – all signals are blocked.’
Ruby got the engine started and began very slowly to steer the boat in the direction of Little Bay beach. She had to move at a snail’s pace because Hitch needed the boat steady.
As he worked, Hitch talked to Kekoa. ‘Those were some sharks down there, you shoulda seen them. They were more than curious.’
‘What was so special about them?’ she replied weakly.
‘There were a lot of them and they were interested, not afraid.’
‘Perhaps someone’s been feeding them,’ muttered Kekoa.
‘I thought the exact same thing,’ said Ruby. ‘They were expecting something.’
‘If they were being fed, it would mean they’re attracted to divers rather than suspicious of them,’ said Kekoa, her voice barely audible now.
‘Making them act like a security team…’ said Hitch.
Kekoa almost nodded. ‘It would have that effect.’
‘So why did the sharks react badly to you?’ said Ruby. ‘Why swim away when you appear?’
‘I don’t think it had a whole lot to do with me,’ said Hitch. ‘Something spooked them – I glimpsed a movement in the water, but I couldn’t make out what it was.’
‘You did? ’Cause you see, I heard something,’ said Ruby. ‘At least I think I did.’
‘What kind of something?’ asked Hitch.
‘Something that sounded familiar,’ said Ruby. ‘Something I think I once heard before.’
‘Like what?’ said Hitch.
‘Like a whispering,’ she replied.
‘The same thing those other people heard?’
‘I guess – maybe.’
‘But you didn’t see anything?’
‘No,’ said Ruby. ‘Just sharks.’
When Hitch was done with his first aid, he took over steering from Ruby.
‘Well, we better get out of here,’ he said. ‘While we still can.’ He gunned the throttle and the boat sliced through the water at great speed. Once they made it
to shore, Hitch radioed for Zuko.
‘Agent down,’ he said. ‘We need her ’coptered out as soon as.’ He gave Zuko their location and seventeen minutes later Kekoa was carried on-board and they watched the chopper buzz away, disappearing into a tiny fly-sized dot.
‘So you found nothing down there?’ asked Hitch. ‘No treasure, no sign of treasure?’
‘I did find something,’ said Ruby.
‘What?’ said Hitch.
‘I… I dropped it.’
‘Dropped what?’ he asked.
‘A yellow gem,’ she said.
‘A gem? You’re sure about that?’
‘Yes,’ she said firmly, ‘I’m sure.’
‘But you’re sure it was a gem, not just a piece of glass, a shiny stone, something that caught the light?’
‘You don’t believe me?’ she asked.
‘Yes kid, I believe you.’
But it sounded like he wasn’t sure, though maybe it didn’t matter one way or the other since it didn’t change a thing. Apart from that one tiny stone, the gems weren’t there and there was nothing to prove they ever had been. Maybe the pirates never were looking for treasure. Maybe Ruby had just got caught up in Martha Lily Fairbank’s imaginative world, a world that time had long since forgotten.
‘So what are you going to tell LB?’ said Ruby. ‘She’s not gonna be too thrilled about Kekoa winding up in the hospital.’
‘I guess I’ll just have to tell it to her straight,’ sighed Hitch. ‘When it comes to LB, there’s no other way.’
Chapter 33.
Time for some answers
WHEN RUBY GOT DRESSED THAT MORNING, it hadn’t occurred to her that she would wind up sitting in LB’s office justifying her actions. If it had, she would have chosen a different T-shirt – this one read excuse me while I barf.
By the time they reached Spectrum, Ruby was unusually nervous, though Hitch was as cool as ever. He just headed straight to LB’s office as if nothing was about to hit the fan. LB was talking on the telephone and she waved for them to sit down. Whoever was on the other end of the line was getting quite a grilling.