The Fire Bay Adventure

by Fleur Hitchcock

  For Lewin and Rosa

  The four cousins had eaten the sandwiches laid out for them before Grandpa even had a chance to change his shoes.

  “Delicious,” announced Aiden, scraping chutney from his chin.

  “Mmm,” said Josh through the crumbs. He pointed at his sister’s plate. “D’you want that?”

  “Off,” said Ava, waving him away and stuffing a last chunk of cheese in her mouth.

  Chloe said nothing. She was just enjoying sitting at the table with her cousins, her grandparents and Bella the dog, and feeling the expanse of the holiday stretching in front of her. She was an only child, and this was the nearest she ever got to having brothers and sisters. Josh was younger than her, only eight. She was nine, Aiden was eleven and Ava, Josh’s older sister, was twelve. But age didn’t matter here at Clifftopper Farm. Anyone could do anything, and everyone listened to everyone else.

  They’d all just arrived from different parts of the country, and in a minute they would go down and investigate the bonfire that was being built for the annual Drake’s Bay Fire Festival tomorrow. Chloe was excited because she’d never been allowed to go before.

  “All full?” said Grandpa. “Ready, Primrose?”

  “Ready,” said Grandma Primrose, taking a coat from a peg and jamming a woolly hat on her grey curls. “Bella, lead the way.”

  As they followed Bella down to Drake’s Bay village, the sea and the sky were both dull grey, with a thin sliver of greeny orange dividing them. Lights were coming on in the village below, strings of coloured bulbs laced between the houses, and a pool of yellow from the harbour-master’s office warmed the quayside. Chloe shivered and thrust her hands into the pockets. It was chilly up here on the hill.

  “Beautiful,” said Ava under her breath, and in her head Chloe agreed.

  Being here always made Chloe feel good. It was all that emptiness, all that nature with no cars racing around. It was so calm. There were boats idling out at sea, their masts clanking. Seagulls slowly floated back into land, and people were stomping about on the beach, but it was all distant. Mellow.

  “Bliss,” she replied eventually.

  “Almost makes up for my broken Nintendo,” said Josh beside her.

  “I’m not gonna lie, Josh – it was your fault,” said Ava.

  “Wasn’t,” he snapped.

  “Was,” she said. “You were the one that sat on it.”

  “You could have warned me,” he said. “It was on the seat next to you.”

  Ava sighed.

  Josh sighed.

  Chloe looked back at the view. It was still very peaceful here. Even with Josh around.

  They wandered through the village, and as they grew closer to the beach Chloe gradually noticed the stack of wood right in the middle. From the top of the hill it had blended in with the pebbles, but now they were nearly there she could see what it really was. There was driftwood of course, but also in the heap were broken chairs, benches, cupboards, pallets, and bits of boat, all tangled together. Chloe stared, wondering just how massive the flames would be and if it was really a good idea to set fire to so much so close to the village, and if it was really necessary to set fire to all the driftwood because she knew her mum would have liked to have it and turn it into a mirror or something.

  “Race you to the arch, Aiden,” said Ava as they stepped on to the beach, and she pelted off over the pebbles towards the stone arch at the end of the beach, Aiden and Bella in hot pursuit.

  Josh ran two paces after his sister, and then, deciding that she’d win anyway, stopped and turned back to walk with Chloe, who was slowly heading towards the bonfire in the middle of the beach. They passed a mum and her daughter, sitting on a rock, arguing.

  “But Mum, it’s fifteen pounds. Just fifteen pounds. Those things cost like, loads, and I really, really want it. It’s made by Xarca – they’re like, really, really good.”

  Josh paused. Xarca?

  “What?” asked Chloe.

  “They’re talking about Xarca – the best ever makers of electronics,” he whispered. “Why would they be talking about them here? In Drake’s Bay?”

  “But what is it exactly?” said the mum. “And why would you need such a thing?”

  Josh shuffled closer.

  “It’s a VR headset. Virtual reality, Mum.” The girl sounded really excited. “It’s not one of those stupid ones where you put the phone inside, it’s a proper one where you’re in the world itself and you can, like –” she whirled her arms around – “shoot things all around you! Pleeeeeease? And I bet you’d use it. It’d give us hours and hours of fun. And I promise I won’t not go for walks and stuff, it’s just sooooooo. Oh!”

  Her mother laughed. “Goodness – I suppose so, and what about your friends? Will you let them use it?”

  Unable to keep quiet any longer, Josh stepped over to them.

  “’S’cuse me, but are there VR headsets in Drake’s Bay? Where?”

  The girl frowned at Josh and looked up at her mum.

  “Hello,” said the mum. “Apparently, there’s a man in the market, or he was there today, who sells virtual-reality headsets. And he’s going to be there tomorrow morning too.” She tilted her head towards her daughter. “And Jasmine wants to buy one.”

  “Did you say fifteen pounds?” said Josh. “Like, one-five?”

  The girl nodded.

  “Whooooo,” Josh let out a long sigh. “Magic.” Leaving Chloe, he ran to look for Grandma.

  “Grandma, could you please, please, please give me fifteen pounds so that I can buy a virtual-reality headset? It’s this kind of magic thing that you put on your head that lets you play computer—”

  “No, Josh, certainly not,” she said, without even pausing to think about it. “Evening, Jake,” she called over Josh’s head. “How’s it going?”

  “But, Grandma!”

  “Oh, hello, Primrose,” Jake replied. Jake was a local fisherman, who right now was directing a man with a wheelbarrow of trellis with one hand and scooping his nets into a heap with the other. “Here – this side.” The man emptied his wheelbarrow on the heap.

  “So much … stuff!” said Aiden, strolling back from the end of the beach. “Was it this big last year?”

  “It’s definitely bigger!” called Ava. “And more coming all the time.”

  “It’s going to be huge,” said Chloe.

  “When do the tar barrels come in?” asked Josh, trying really hard to feel happy about the bonfire, and not furious with Grandma, although, to be fair, he knew she would never give him fifteen pounds. Certainly not for technology. She might give him fifteen pounds for an encylopedia, or a football.

  Jake laughed. “Keen to carry one then, pipsqueak?” He ruffled Josh’s hair.

  “Can I?” asked Josh, ignoring the hair ruffle and putting on his sweetest most charming face.

  “You have a snowball’s chance in hell, young man,” said Grandma, laying a restraining hand on Josh’s shoulder. “This is the first year that Chloe’s mum has said she can come to the celebrations – I’m not letting you, as an eight-year-old, carry a flaming tar barrel on your head.

  “Oh Grandma! Please? If I can’t buy a VR headset, at least let me—”

  “Definitely not.”

  “Grandpa?” Josh fluttered his eyelashes at his grandfather.

  “I think it’s a no, Josh,” he replied. “Your mother would never forgive us. Ava on the other hand…”

  “Me?” said Ava. “I’d love to!”

  Josh shot her a look that he hoped she would understand as a deadly threat. No way was he going to let his sister get away with barrel carrying if he couldn’t. “That is totally unfair,” he said.

  “It isn’t at all
unfair,” said Grandma. “Now, Josh, I just need to explain the difference between eight years old and twelve years old.” Grandma swept him round to the other side of the bonfire and shook her finger at him rather more seriously than he had expected.

  Ava watched her brother trying hard to persuade Grandma and Grandpa that he was, actually, older than eight. Had Grandpa meant it? Was she actually old enough to be allowed to carry a barrel?

  “So how does the tar barrel thing work?” Chloe asked Jake.

  “Starts at the church,” Jake replied.

  “Then,” butted in a woman, who Ava knew was Pearl, the kayak-hire lady, “the runners lift the barrels on to their heads…”

  “And we set fire to them,” said Jake.

  “Seriously?” asked Chloe. “Isn’t that dangerous? Doesn’t their hair catch light?”

  “Special woven fireproof headgear.” Jake laughed. “We’ve learned our lesson with that one.”

  “They come down the high street,” said Pearl.

  “On to the beach,” continued Jake.

  “And roll them up to the bonfire,” finished Pearl.

  “Sounds brilliant,” said Chloe. “I’m so glad Mum’s letting me go this year.”

  “And then the fireworks go off,” said Aiden.

  “Oh yeah, the fireworks,” Ava said, remembering last year’s amazing display. “They’re double good because they go off over the sea. Reflections. The whole thing’s pretty awesome. Especially the barrel bit.” Ava said it extra loudly, just to make sure that everyone knew how much she wanted to carry one.

  “Glad you think so,” said Pearl, lugging a wooden sawhorse up to the pile.

  “But why?” asked Chloe. “I get the bonfire and the fireworks, that’s like everywhere, but the barrels?”

  “Well, they’re not filled with brandy any more,” said Pearl, as if that explained everything.

  “And that’s why that end of the beach is called Fire Bay, while the rest of all of this –” Jake waved his hands at the sea – “is Drake’s Bay. See?”

  “Uh?” said Chloe.

  “It’s to keep the ghosts away,” said Ava. “They used to burn blue – because they were full of brandy, like Christmas cakes.”

  “It’s all about the ghosts,” said Grandma, stomping towards them over the shingle with a slightly miserable Josh in tow. “Blue ghosts.”

  “I didn’t know it was for the ghosts,” said Josh, his voice very slightly wobbly. “If they don’t burn the barrels do the ghosts appear?”

  “What?” Chloe looked very confused.

  Pearl laughed, and lowered herself on to a log. “So, hundreds of years ago, there was this sound – a booming sound. It echoed through the village night after night. People couldn’t sleep. It made the children cry and the old people pray. Some people said it was a whale. Others said it was waves crashing in an underwater cave, a log caught in the undertow. But most people thought it was because of the ghostly shipwreck out here in Fire Bay.” She pointed across to some small rocks that stuck out from the sea at the end of the beach. “Some years earlier, one awful stormy night, a smuggler’s lugger was wrecked on the reef and a few small barrels of brandy floated in through the storm. They were alight. Burning with a blue flame. But when the men went to search the wreck of the boat the next day, expecting to find the rest of the shipment, there was no one there. No sign of any brandy neither.” Pearl paused and looked around.

  Josh let out a little whimper. “I didn’t know that,” he said, very quietly.

  Pearl continued. “The ship was empty. The villagers decided that it must have been attacked at sea, the brandy mostly stolen, the crew gone overboard. That the lit barrels were a lesson to any smugglers.”

  There was silence.

  Although she’d heard it a hundred times, Ava felt a shiver run down her spine and Josh slipped his hand into hers.

  “Or,” said Aiden, loudly into the silence, “the crew crept on to the land with some of the brandy, while the people were distracted by the flaming barrels, and then they tiptoed home in the darkness.”

  “You mean the smugglers double-crossed the villagers?” asked Chloe.

  “Good idea, Aiden,” said Grandpa. “They were all crooks – why not?”

  “The villagers kept a watch all night and all day, they say,” said Pearl. “No one saw hide nor hair of the smugglers. No one was ever seen. The missing men, the missing brandy and the booming remain a mystery to this day.”

  “So there’s no other way off the beach,” said Chloe.

  “Unless…” said Pearl. “Unless, the rumours of a smugglers’ tunnel are true.”

  Josh immediately started back across the beach towards the huge cliffs, now glowing slightly pink in the last of the light. “Why didn’t you ever tell us about the smugglers’ tunnel?” he shouted.

  “Didn’t we?” said Grandpa.

  “Sure we did,” said Grandma.

  “Did you ever look for it, Pearl?” asked Ava, gazing up at the rocky wall, scouring every lump and bump for signs of a cave entrance. There were caves on the other side of the harbour – why not here? Perhaps Pearl and Jake hadn’t been very good at looking.

  “Course. Spent our childhoods looking for it, didn’t we, Jake? All summer long, searching for that thing.”

  “Never found anything,” said Jake, threading a broom handle into the pile.

  “Nor I,” said Grandma. “All the years we’ve lived here, not a hint of a tunnel.”

  “Or a ghostly boom!” added Grandpa.

  Pearl glanced over at the cliff. “Gotta be there somewhere though.”

  “Oh?” said Ava.

  “Stands to reason, don’t it?” said Jake.

  “No smoke without fire,” replied Pearl, staring wistfully along the beach. “I longed to find it when I was your age.”

  “So you really think it exists?” asked Aiden, taking his glasses off and cleaning them on his sweatshirt. “Can you see anything over there, Ava? I wish I could see better in the dark.”

  “Well I’m going home to put the dinner on,” said Grandpa. “Coming, Primrose?”

  Grandma smiled and took Grandpa’s hand. “Happy hunting – see you at home in an hour or so?”

  But Ava had followed Josh and was running towards the rock face, even though all that could now be seen of the cliffs was a gentle rose glow.

  In the end, darkness won, and they gave up looking. But not before Josh had been convinced that he’d found the entrance, and Bella had disappeared halfway up the cliff and reappeared some time later chasing a gull.

  “So she definitely said VR,” said Josh, teetering on the edge of the sea wall. “But Grandma’s not going to help me get one. I mean, wasted opportunity or what?”

  “They’re probably pretend ones,” said Ava. “You know, like those little mobile phones kids have.”

  “Are you sure the girl said Xarca?” said Aiden. “They don’t make kids’ stuff – they’re a really good brand.”

  Josh let out a long sigh. “Fifteen pounds is nothing. People pay, like, loads for them. Hundreds.”

  They walked on a little further. “Have you got fifteen pounds, sis?” he asked.

  “No,” said Ava.

  “Nor have I,” said Chloe quickly.

  “Me neither,” said Aiden.

  “Poo,” said Josh. “And they’re not going to let me carry a barrel.”

  “Are you surprised?” asked Chloe.

  “No,” said Josh, mournfully, pointing at Ava. “But they’ll let her carry one.”

  “We don’t know that,” said Ava. “Grandma hasn’t said I can. Nor’s Pearl.”

  “They will though, won’t they?” said Josh, and then he let out the longest, most unhappy sigh.

  He was so dismal that he didn’t seem to notice the first fire engine stopping at the top of the hill.

  A couple of minutes later, another joined it.

  Ava had to poke him to get him to run at all.

  Aiden fol
lowed Ava and they half ran, half walked up through the village, chasing the blue lights that bounced from hedges and walls ahead of them. He could smell smoke and hear the distant crackle of fire.

  “Look!” yelled Chloe, pointing up the hill towards the post office.

  She didn’t need to point. Ominous orange flames were licking around the sides of the thatched roof that hung low over the post-office windows and small sparks of burned straw shot high into the midnight sky. A ladder from the first fire engine was already resting against an upper-floor window and a woman was handing a child out of the window to a waiting fireman. Water poured over everything from a giant hose, and clouds of steam and smoke rose from the building. But it wasn’t just the post office that was on fire. The storage yard next door was also on fire. And next to that was the village petrol station and twenty thousand gallons of petrol and a lorry load of gas canisters.

  “Mind out!” shouted Chloe as a third fire engine howled its way into the village, screeching to a halt ahead of them.

  Firefighters leaped from the truck and ran straight into the yard to tackle the growing flames. “Keep back!” they yelled as they ran.

  “Let’s get out of here,” said Ava, grabbing Bella’s collar and heading down the street. “That petrol station’s not safe.”

  The four cousins darted back through the narrow gap between the fire engines, raced under the drifting sparks and stopped on the far side of the post office. Below them the village looked normal. Dark, with squares of yellow light. But up the hill everything was lit by the awful orange glow of the burning thatch and the high street was blocked by fire engines and firefighters and fire.

  “We could walk home over the fields,” said Chloe as the rain of sparks doubled. “It might be safer.”

  They wandered a little further back down into Drake’s Bay and the sounds changed from the roar of the fire to the ordinary clattering of masts and slopping of the tide.

  Crash…

  “What’s that?” shouted Ava.

  The sound came again. Glass shattering followed by thumping, and was that shouting? Bella sniffed the air and then let out a growl.