Eddy Stone and the Epic Holiday Mash-Up Page 4

  “The most terrifying sound in all the ocean,” said the Captain. “That song means only one thing – fighting and stealing and burning and yelling and hitting and hurting and bashing and robbing and smashing and looting and sheer misery.”

  The Scavenger was soon close enough for Eddy to be able to see the owners of the voices – and what a wild and beardy and brutal bunch they looked. The wildest and beardiest and most brutal-looking one of all let out a snarl, revealing a mouthful of long, sharp teeth.

  “That’s him,” whispered the Captain. “That’s Barracuda Bill.”

  Barracuda Bill waved his cutlass in the air.

  “Take aim!” he shouted – and took two steps to his left.

  Eddy realized with horror that Barracuda Bill had been standing right in front of a cannon. The Codcakers were now staring straight down its barrel.

  “Fire!” Barracuda Bill’s cutlass slashed the air. One of the pirates put a glowing taper to the fuse on the cannon. With a fizz of flame, a deafening BANG, and a cloud of smoke, a cannonball whistled towards The Codcake.

  Oh, no! thought Eddy. At least, that’s what he started to think, but the cannonball came so fast that he had only just got as far as “oh” and was nowhere near “no” when there was another BANG. The cannonball blew apart and a shower of something white fluttered over the deck.

  Still dizzy with shock, Eddy picked one of the white things up. It was a leaflet, with a message printed in elegant lettering:

  “Well,” said the Crew, “he knows how to write a very polite note, and nobody with manners like that can be all… Oh really, that is too much!”

  Eddy looked up. On the deck of The Scavenger, a hundred pirates had turned their backs on The Codcake. A hundred pirates had dropped their trousers. A hundred pirates had bent over and waggled their hairy bottoms in the direction of the Codcakers.

  A hundred and ninety-nine bare cheeks now shone palely in the bright sunshine. (The odd one belonged to a pirate called Frankie Halftrousers, who had lost one of his buttocks in a swordfight years before. The ship’s carpenter had made him a false one out of a block of seasoned oak, but it was too heavy for everyday wear so he kept it back for formal occasions.)

  The Codcakers watched as The Scavenger pulled away into the distance, and listened as its terrible chant grew fainter…

  …until it was too quiet to hear.

  Calm returned to The Codcake. A few leaflets swirled across her deck in the sea breeze.

  “Right,” said the Captain. “Now, where were we?”

  “We were looking at this,” Eddy answered, leaning over the map again. As he watched, letters started to appear, writing themselves across its surface.

  “Captain,” he said. “You’ve got to see this! It’s amazing!”

  “Shiver my socks!” said the Captain. “I’ve never known a map like this before.”

  “Well,” said the Crew, “I may run a junk shop, but I don’t just sell any old rubbish, you know.”

  Eddy read out the message that had appeared:

  “Grungeybeard’s treasure, here we come,” said the Captain.

  “A flower?” said Eddy. “Why on earth would Grungeybeard want us to find a flower?”

  “I reckon that’s Grungeybeard’s sense of humour through and through,” said the Captain. “He’d have a right laugh thinking of us climbing a huge cliff just to pick a plant. We’ve got to meet the challenge and show we’re worthy of the reward.”

  He drew his sword and waved it enthusiastically in the air.

  “Set sail for the Deserted Island of Blossom!” shouted the Captain. “For we have strength and courage aplenty! But let’s wait a few minutes, just to be sure The Scavenger is safely out of the way.”

  The four sailors stood on a shore of golden sand. Behind them, The Codcake sat calmly at anchor. Beside them, their rowing boat lay beached beyond the reach of the tide.

  “So this,” said the Captain, “is the Deserted Island of Blossom.”

  In front of them, a sheer cliff of dull brown rock almost blocked out the sky. A few seagulls circled near its top.

  “And that,” said the Crew, “really is a tall cliff. Those seagulls up there are so small they look just like ants.”

  “Oh, yes,” said the Penguin. “At least, like ants would look if they had wings and feathers and beaks like very, very tiny seagulls.”

  “And at the top of that really tall cliff,” said the Captain, “is our prize. The fabled warbleflower.”

  The really tall cliff was so very really tall that they had to lean back to see the top of it – so far back that the Penguin slowly overbalanced like a skittle. He toppled over and flumped down flat in the sand.

  “Just so you know,” said the Penguin, “that was not funny.”

  “What we really need,” said the Captain, “is someone who can fly up there to get the flower. Some sort of bird.”

  “Don’t look at me,” said the Penguin, flapping his flippers. “I don’t do flying. Not since evolution. Underwater, I’m like a bullet. In the air, more like a brick.”

  “Time to climb,” said the Captain. “Crew, Pinwing – you stay here. How’s your head for heights, Cabin Boy?”

  “Pretty good,” said Eddy. But he was thinking that shinning up the climbing bars in the school gym was one thing, but this would be like taking on a skyscraper.

  The Captain took off his long coat and folded it carefully, so that the carrot was snugly tucked away. Then he stepped forward to the base of the cliff. He put his right foot on a small bump in the rock face, and found a crack high to his left into which he jammed his hand. He heaved himself off the ground, and hunted with his left foot for something to take his weight. And then he fell off.

  “Just practising,” said the Captain.

  “Perhaps this would help,” said the Crew. She reached into her enormous red rucksack and pulled out a canvas bag. “Climbing ropes, spikes, a hammer – you know, the usual things. Just in case they came in handy.”

  “That was clever of you,” said Eddy. “We had a demonstration once at school about how to use this sort of gear.”

  “First rate,” said the Captain. “Then you can lead the way.”

  “Hang on,” said Eddy. “I saw someone else do it, but I’ve never tried it myself. I don’t know if I can.”

  “Nonsense,” said the Captain. “Nimble lad like you should have no trouble.”

  Eddy tried to remember what to do. He pulled out a long rope, a spike and a hammer, and slung the sack over his shoulder. He thwacked the spike into the crack in the rock, then tied one end of the rope to it, and clipped the other end to his belt.

  “Here goes – I suppose,” he said. He found a handhold on the rock and pulled himself up. Then he slowly leaned back to let the rope take his weight. He was relieved to find that he didn’t immediately slither back to the ground.

  “You see,” said the Captain. “With this kit, getting to the top of this cliff will be easy as falling off a log. As long as we don’t fall off, of course.”

  But it wasn’t easy. Hammering spikes and tying off ropes made it slow work. Eddy felt like they had been climbing for hours.

  “How high up do you think we are now?” he asked the Captain.

  “Never mind that,” said the Captain. “We just needs to keep on going right to the top. And remember, you must never look down, like this. Because if you do, you’ll – oh my goodness…”

  He clung to the rope and looked swiftly back up.

  “…get very dizzy. We’ll just have a moment’s rest, while my head stops spinning.”

  He paused, and took several deep breaths.

  “By the way, I reckons we’ve climbed about three times a man’s height,” said the Captain. “As long as he’s a short one, that is. And not wearing a big hat.”

  “Is that all?” asked Eddy, rather disappointed. “We’ll be climbing for a week at this rate.” He silently wondered if they would ever make it at all.

  “On
ward!” shouted the Captain.

  Eddy hammered another spike into the rock.

  Slowly, slowly, they rose higher and higher.

  And slowly, slowly, so did the sun.

  The cliff face baked until it was almost too hot to touch.

  Eddy’s forehead was wet with sweat.

  His throat was dry with thirst.

  His shirt was sticking to his back.

  His arms were aching. And all he could see above him was cliff and more cliff still to be climbed. I can’t do this, he thought. It’s too much.

  But he couldn’t just give up. He thought of the climbing bars in the school gym. Just a short scramble. A few rungs at a time. Easy. That was the way to tackle this cliff. Take it bit by bit, not all at once.

  Scramble by scramble, totting up his progress in his head, Eddy made his laborious ascent. Soon he was almost level with the circling seagulls.

  Close up, the seagulls didn’t look at all like tiny feathered ants. Or like tiny anythings. Eddy had never noticed before just how big seagulls were – especially when one landed in a splutter of wings on a ledge just above him. The seagull let out a tuneless cry and stared down at him with beady orange-rimmed eyes. It didn’t look at all pleased to see him.

  Please go away, Eddy thought. This climb is difficult enough already.

  The seagull stretched forward and shouted loudly at Eddy. Then it pattered across the ledge to where Eddy’s left hand had found a hold. It cocked its head to one side and eyed his fingers. Eddy suddenly realized that he had also never noticed before what sharp hooked beaks seagulls have.

  “Oh, no,” said Eddy. “You wouldn’t.”

  But it would. The seagull thrust its head downwards, driving the point of its beak into the back of his hand.

  “Ow!” shouted Eddy, and he instinctively pulled his hand away. This was not a good idea, for a reason which very quickly became obvious.

  Gravity.

  With a rush of terror, Eddy felt himself falling. He scrabbled at the rock face. His fingernails grated, but he couldn’t find a grip. With a yell, he tumbled. As he fell, the last spike that he had hammered into the cliff flashed past his eyes. Had he done it right? Had he fixed it firmly enough to save him?

  “Oooooffff!” The breath was driven from him as the climbing rope strained against the spike – and held.

  High above the ground, he dangled in mid-air, his heart thundering in his chest.

  “Are you all right, boy?” he heard the Captain calling.

  “Yes.”

  His voice was a squeak.

  The seagull dropped onto the top of Eddy’s head. It made a throaty chuckling noise, and then started to jab its beak at the climbing rope. Eddy saw with horror that it was trying to cut through the threads.

  Some of them were already fraying. If he didn’t do something, it would soon be sawn through completely.

  “Get off! Shoo!” he yelled at the bird, trying to scare it away. The seagull carried on pecking at the rope. Eddy reached up with both hands, and grabbed the bird. It jabbed its beak painfully at him again, but this time he kept his grip and hurled it away as hard as he could. The startled seagull thrashed through the air for a moment before it regained control of its flight, then wheeled away from the cliff with a screech.

  Eddy hung an arm’s length away from the rockface. He scanned it for a handhold and spotted a promising bump to the right – just out of reach. He kicked his legs hard, trying to set himself swinging, the effort making him feel hotter than ever. With a final wriggle he heaved himself far enough to grip the bump and haul himself across. He found a toehold to steady himself. Now he was taking his own weight again.

  His arms throbbing with tiredness, the ends of his fingers rubbed raw by the rock, he dragged himself onwards.

  When he looked up he could see the top of the cliff now, slashed across the clear blue sky.

  Hand over hand he climbed, until suddenly there was no more rock in front of him, only sunlight and grass, and he flopped over and lay on his back, panting and laughing with relief.

  A moment later the Captain crawled up beside him, gulping for breath.

  “Well done, lad,” he gasped.

  “I thought I was going to fall,” said Eddy. “When that seagull was attacking me.”

  “But you had courage and strength enough to climb to the top,” said the Captain. “You passed Grungeybeard’s test.”

  “You took your time, dearie,” said a familiar voice close by. “I brought your coat, by the way. And two bottles of water. You look like you need them.”

  “What in the blue blazes?” gasped the Captain. “How on earth did you get here?”

  “I took the lift.”

  “Lift?” spluttered the Captain, glugging down the cool water.

  “The lift, yes. From the visitors’ centre.”

  “Visitors’ centre?”

  “It’s just between the two big hotels.”

  “Hotels?”

  “Down where the tourist boats tie up.”

  “Tourist boats?”

  “I’d like you to stop repeating what I say please, Captain dearie. It’s getting very annoying. After you started climbing, I left the Penguin on the beach and went for a little walk. And just round the corner there’s a marina full of tourist boats, and a visitors’ centre with a lovely shop, and a lift so people can get up here easily. Let’s face it, people are hardly going to be daft enough to try climbing that cliff, are they? Not when they’re on holiday.”

  “Holiday?” gasped the Captain.

  “You’re doing it again.”

  “Tourists on holiday and hotels and shops and I don’t know what! What’s going on? According to the map, this is the Deserted Island of Blossom. De-ser-ted,” the Captain repeated slowly.

  “It must be a very old map. And the island must have changed over the years. Places do. I can remember when Tidemark Bay was surrounded by caravan parks. Now it’s all just fields.”

  “And what have all these tourists come here touristing for?”

  “The fabled warbleflower, of course. Look.”

  The Crew pointed behind the Captain. He and Eddy turned round, and saw a long queue of people waiting patiently to pass through a gateway in a tall barbed-wire fence. Uniformed stewards paced sternly on either side of them. They stood in the shadow of a huge sign, painted in bright red letters with the words:

  WARNING! DO NOT TOUCH THE FLOWERS!!

  “This is going to be a lot harder than I thought,” said the Captain. “How on earth are we going to pick a fabled warbleflower with all those guards around?”

  “To get that warbleflower,” said the Captain, “we needs a plan.”

  “Can I just—” said the Crew.

  “Shush!” the Captain shushed. “I’m the Captain and I reckon what we want is a really big cannon. KA-BOOM! We blast a hole in that fence and then snatch a plant.”

  “Problem,” said Eddy. “We haven’t got a cannon.”

  “If I could—” said the Crew.

  “Shush!” the Captain shushed again. “Let me think. Got it! Plan B. We go and find a really big cannon. KA-POW!”

  “But a really big cannon isn’t something you just find lying around,” said Eddy.

  “I’ve got a—” said the Crew.

  “For the last time, shush! Maybe you’re right about Plan B. So – Plan C. Two slightly smaller cannons.”

  “But—” said the Crew.

  “Shush,” shushed the Captain, “for the even laster time.”

  “Suit yourself, dearie,” said the Crew.

  “We need plan D,” said Eddy. “D for diversion. Something that distracts all the guards. Then one of us can sneak in and steal the warbleflower while they aren’t looking. What can we do to get their attention?”

  “Well,” said the Captain, “if we had a really big cannon…”

  “Let’s have a think,” said Eddy.

  “Who would like a sandwich?” asked the Crew. “Cheese and chut
ney. It was the very last one in the shop.”

  “Lovely,” said Eddy. “It has been a long time since breakfast.”

  Seagulls are proud birds. Get the better of one and you can be sure that it won’t forget. Which is why the seagull that Eddy had met on the cliff was now circling high in the sky above. And why it had brought a mob of its friends along. This was payback time.

  The seagull checked its target, tucked its wings in, and arrowed straight down towards Eddy. The other birds tailed after it, a plummeting cloud of angry beaks, bent on revenge. Eddy Stone had no idea what was heading his way.

  Just a feather’s breadth from Eddy’s head, the seagull caught sight of the sandwich. It flipped out a wing, swerved past Eddy’s right ear, and fell on the food. The other birds followed greedily, screeching and squabbling, and filling the air with angry cries, flying feathers, and chunks of bread and cheese. Eddy yelled at the gulls while the Crew tried to drive them off with a rolled umbrella.

  The massive commotion turned every head in the queue of tourists. Guards left their posts and hurried over to try to sort it out.

  “Brilliant!” the Captain shouted through the din. “I don’t know how you organized it but that’s what I calls a distraction, and no mistake. Warbleflower, here I come!” He set off at a trot.

  It wasn’t a very large cheese and chutney sandwich. The seagull had brought along a lot of friends. Approximately twenty-six-and-a-half seconds after the brilliant diversion had begun, the last scrap of food was gobbled up, the disturbance died down, the birds flew off, and the diversion suddenly didn’t look so brilliant after all. Particularly for the Captain, who was way short of the gateway to the warbleflowers. He was still running at full pelt when he clattered into the two guards who’d stepped out in front of him. They lifted him by the back of his coat, and tossed him through the air over the heads of the people in the queue.

  “And don’t try that again!” the first guard shouted after him.

  “We’ll be looking out for you!” shouted the other, as the Captain hit the ground with a bump.