The Lornea Island Detective Club

by Gregg Dunnett

  Dad doesn't work on one of the boats, though he wants to, because that's where the real money is. Dad works onshore, in the warehouse. That's the big, flat-roofed building next to me, where they take all the fish that comes in, and auction it off. Dad doesn't get involved in that either. He just washes the auction house down when all the fish have been sold. He has this big pressure hose, and he has to blast all the fish guts and scales back into the water.

  When I get there, the big, double doors are open, and I stick my head inside. I'm used to the smell now, a mix of fish and the chemicals Dad uses – but it's still not very nice. I see him at once, dressed in his overalls and boots, limping along in the far corner of the warehouse.

  "Hi Dad! Did you make a bag for Steven?"

  In response he shuts off the hose and points to a plastic sack just behind the door.

  “Thanks," I say, then add. "How long you gonna be?"

  He looks around the warehouse. "Gimme an hour." He says. Then he turns the hose back on and goes back to spraying it at the floor.

  "OK." I shout over the noise. "I'll see you at the truck."

  I grab the sack – it's quite heavy, but that's mostly the ice. I make sure it's properly closed, then heave it over my shoulder. Then I go back outside and dump it in Dad's truck, along with my school bag.

  Dad used to have a much better job. He looked after the vacation properties for Mr. Matthews, who owns the Silverlea Hotel, but he lost that a couple of years back after the whole murdered tourist thing. It's kind of a long story, but basically this teenager went missing, and the police thought that Dad killed her. Obviously he didn't, but it was the second time Dad got blamed for murder, so – well – some people thought there was no smoke without fire. I guess Mr. Matthews was one of them, because he told Dad he didn't need anyone to look after the vacation properties any more. But then, a few weeks later, we found there was someone else doing it. So we knew that wasn't the actual truth.

  Then for a really long time, Dad couldn't get any other jobs at all because it seemed no one trusted him. He says he only got this job because it's the kind of thing no one else wants to do. And it is a bit disgusting. But it is handy for Steven.

  Since I've got an hour to kill, I walk out of the commercial harbor towards the marina. I like it here too. I like looking at all the boats. There's all sizes and shapes, from stubby little yachts to massive motor cruisers. You're not allowed actually onto the floating pontoons, unless you have a boat of course, but that's OK because I know the code to open the gate. I look around to make sure no one's looking, then I quickly unlock it and step through.

  I really like the way the deck moves when you walk on it. It's like you're already on a boat, even before you get to the boats. I walk out now. I do this quite a lot, looking at all the different boats and deciding which type I'm going to have when I'm older. Probably it'll be one of the little ones, with just a small cabin, because I'm going to be a scientist when I'm older, and they don't earn very much money. I was going to be a detective for a little while, after everything that happened with Dad, because I thought the police could do with some help, but then I changed my mind because I realized my science was more important. And anyway, I don't think detectives earn that much either. And they certainly don't have much time to go out on boats.

  I keep walking, out to where the bigger sport-fishing boats are tied up. Some of these are really flash, with huge flying bridges and blacked out windows. I don't like these much, but they're interesting, in a funny way. You see, tourists like to rent these boats out, the ones who have lots of money. The skippers take them out and help them catch fish and give them lots of food and beer. It's something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately.

  The boat I do like is right at the end. It's 39 foot long, or 11.8 meters, and though it's still a charter fishing boat, it's a bit older and looks nicer for it. More friendly somehow. It's called The Blue Lady. There's a little offshoot to the pontoon that lets you walk right out alongside it, so I do that now. And then, because there's no one looking, I reach out and touch the boat as well, running my hand along the cool steel railing. They used to be shiny, but now they've gone a bit dull from the weather and the salt water. This boat isn't being used for charters at the moment, because the man who owns it got too old. So it's just been sitting here, with no one using it, or even looking after it. Not once since Dad started work in the fish warehouse.

  I look around the harbor. Some of the restaurants are putting out their tables for dinner, but no one’s watching me. So very carefully I put both hands on the railings, and then I step across the little gap of clear blue water between the boat and the pontoon. Right away I feel it dip under my weight, but only very slightly, because it's quite a big boat. Then I climb down so I'm standing in the cockpit at the back. The wooden floorboards are scrubbed clean. There's a ladder leading up to the bridge, where the skipper sits with a view out over the top of the boat. And there's glass doors that let me see into the cabin. It's light and clean inside, there's a little kitchen area, and a little table for charts, and then stairs too. I've seen from the internet that there's two bedrooms and a bathroom too, but I've never actually seen it for myself. I know the door is locked, but I try it anyway, and when it doesn't open I press my face up against the window, trying to imagine how it would be, inside the cabin out at sea. Being in charge.

  I stay like that for a while, then I climb up the ladder to the bridge. This is my favorite part of the whole boat. Up here you can see all around. There's a fabric roof that keeps the sun off, and a plastic screen for the wind, so it's sheltered and feels protected. I sit on the captain’s seat and put my hands on the wheel. Then I look at the other controls. There's a GPS, a depth gauge, and the one I'm most excited about, the fish finder. The way it works, it sends out sound waves into the ocean below, and if there's something down there, like a shoal of fish, then the sound bounces back and you can see where it is on a little screen. But it doesn't just bounce off fish, which is why my idea is such a good one. You could use it to find anything. You could use it to find...

  "Hey kid!" A sharp voice suddenly cuts in, from close nearby. I give a little jump in surprise.

  "The hell you doing up there?"

  A man is standing on the pontoon right beside the boat, in the blue uniform of the private security firm that patrols is harbor.

  "You here with someone?"

  I consider telling him about Dad working in the warehouse nearby, but I change my mind.

  "No."

  "Then get the hell down from there."

  For a second my daydream wants to come back, to ignore this interruption. This is my boat and I'm far out in the ocean doing important scientific...

  "Are you deaf or just plain stupid? I said get down from there. Right now."

  Reluctantly I let the image fade away and do what he says. I climb down the ladder, then step off The Blue Lady and back onto the pontoon. I don't look at the security guard, but I feel him glaring at me the whole time. Then he blocks me off from leaving by holding out his hand.

  "I seen you before haven't I? Hanging around here?"

  I don't answer. I try to get past again, but he's still blocking my way.

  "This is private property. No public access. You can't read the signs?"

  "This one isn't private. It's for sale. They want people to look at it, so they can sell it." This stops the man for a moment, but only a moment.

  "And what? I'm supposed to believe a punk like you's gonna buy it? You clear off, you hear me? I ever see you climb on the boats again, I call the cops. You got that?"

  At last he drops his arm, so I can walk past, but he stays standing in the middle of the walkway so I have to go close to the water to do so. And I get a weird feeling he's going to shove me in as I step by, but he doesn't. Then, I sense him, following close behind as I walk back up the pontoon to the gate. And all the way I feel my face burning red.

  Back at the fish warehouse I wait while Dad gets ch
anged out of his overalls, and when he comes out we walk together to the truck. On the way we go past a yacht broker, it has all the ads for boats for sale in the window. I try to steer Dad a bit closer as we go past. And when we're level with it I point at one of the ads.

  "Look Dad, Blue Lady is still for sale."

  But Dad just ignores me.

  Four

  Dad goes for a shower as soon as we get home. He takes ages because it’s so hard to get the smell off. So I go up to my room and check on Steven. Before I even get to my door I can hear he's excited, and jumping up and down in his cardboard box. And the moment I open the door there's this big explosion of flapping and squawking and load of loose feathers fly around.

  Steven almost bowls me over, but I manage to sit down at my desk. Then there's a noise like a helicopter and he's up there too, striding back and forth because he's so excited.

  I open the plastic sack now and see what Dad's got. I pick out a little flatfish, a plaice. I hold it out and Steven steps towards me, squawks loudly, and then delicately takes it from me. When he was little I had to train him not to peck at me, because even then his beak was very sharp. Now he could easily bite my finger off if he wanted to. He swallows the plaice whole, tipping his head back and flapping it around until it curls up and goes down his throat. Then straight away he wants another one.

  It was Dad who called him Steven. He thought it was funny because of someone called Steven Seagal, who is a famous actor from the old days and whose name sounds like ‘seagull’, although not that much. I'd never heard of him but Dad said I wasn't allowed to keep the chick unless I went along with the name. It's all a bit silly because there's actually no such thing as a seagull, not technically. There's just different types of gull, like Black Backed Gulls, Common Gulls, or Ring-Billed Gulls.

  Steven is a Herring Gull. I've had him since he was a baby. I found him on the beach, near the cliffs. He must have fallen out of his nest, and when that happens to the chicks, the parents can't do anything, they just have to leave them to die. So that's why I had to keep him and bring him up myself. And he's not a baby anymore. Now he's about the size of a chicken – a big brown-and-white chicken, with a black beak and pink legs. And he really likes fish. Which is why it's helpful that Dad can get the scraps from the fish warehouse to feed him.

  I give him about half the fish scraps, until he tells me he's full by shaking his head. Then he stretches out his wings, they're so big they almost touch both sides of my room at once. He flaps them a bit, then bounces around the room, and then he just goes and stands in his box and preens himself. Steven can actually fly already, but Gerry – she's from the Lomax Wild Bird Rescue centre and she's helping me to look after him – she said I should keep him inside for a bit longer so that his wings get the chance to grow stronger before he starts using them. But pretty soon he'll have to move outside, because he's quite messy now.

  Once I've fed Steven I make dinner for me and Dad, then I do my homework, and after that I do some work on my new project. But I'm still feeling a bit down because of what happened with the security guard. So in the end I pick up my laptop and go down and sit with Dad in the lounge. It's a bit weird, because he isn't actually watching TV at all. He's got the sound off and it's a sitcom, and Dad doesn't usually watch stuff like that.

  "You alright Dad?" I ask eventually. He doesn't look at me. He just stares at the screen.

  "Dad?"

  He turns round. He gives a weak smile. "Sure. Aches a bit. That's all."

  Dad got shot a couple of years ago, back when the whole tourist-girl-murder thing was going on. They sort of fixed it, but his hip still aches sometimes.

  He smiles again, a bit stronger this time.

  "School good?" He asks. I hesitate, wondering whether to mention everything that happened with Principal Sharpe and my BullyTracker idea. In the end I just shrug.

  "It's OK," I say.

  Dad's smile fades away, and he turns back to the TV. So I tell him about something else, since he's in a talkative mood.

  "Dad," I say. "I was kind of looking at bank loans. The other day, on the internet." I don't look at him, I know he won't like this.

  "That way you wouldn't need to pay the whole fifty thousand in one go. You just need some of the money, then you pay the rest in installments. As you get the customers I mean?"

  I risk a glance at him. But his expression is familiar. It’s really frustrating. It's like he's totally resistant to my idea, even though it's actually a really good one.

  "I'm just saying you wouldn't need to clean the fish warehouse. And it would be better for your hip."

  Dad takes a deep breath, but he doesn't say anything.

  "I've sort of been working on a website," I tell him. "To show you."

  I’m good at making websites. It's kind of a hobby of mine. I think it's really important that children know how to do things like that. Making websites. Coding. Using the internet.

  "I put all the species on it, that people could see. And then if you click the species name it takes you to a new page with more information about them. I reckon they'll like that. I really think they will."

  I open my laptop to show him, and I've already got the site loaded up. There's lots of pictures of the Blue Lady, one taken from the yacht broker's website, and then others that I took. And then around the edge I've put all the different types of whales, and dolphins and porpoises you'd be able to see if you hired Dad to take you out.

  "I thought you could call it Blue Lady Boat Charter."

  Dad looks at the screen, and for a moment I see him smiling, but then it fades away.

  "Billy. Believe me, I would love nothing more than to buy that fishing boat you're obsessing over, and run charters or track poisonous jellyfish – or whatever it is you think is gonna make us rich...”

  "It's whale watching," I interrupt. "It's taking tourists out to see the whales. It's really popular in some places, but no one is doing it on Lornea Island. Even though we get lots of..."

  "But it ain't gonna happen Billy. Not now. Not for a few years at least."

  I don't reply. We've had this conversation before so I know what he's going to say.

  "I told you. I gotta show the guys at the fish dock I can work hard, even with this goddamn hip." Dad sighs, then turns to me.

  "And I tell you Bill, I'm close to getting a space on a boat. Then all I gotta do is haul nets for a few years. I can put a little aside every month. Then maybe, in a year or two..." He glances at the screen again.

  "But if you get some sort of a loan?"

  "Billy they ain't gonna give a guy like me a loan. OK? I told you this before. It ain't gonna happen, and even if it did..."

  He lapses into silence. I guess he's tired, because sometimes he gets angry when I try to talk to him about this. And because I know it's pointless I shut my laptop and start to walk away, heading for my room. But just as I do he calls out.

  "Hey Bill, I ain't saying I don't like your dream. It's a nice dream. It really is. You just gotta work out what's a dream and what's reality. You know?"

  He looks so sad I don't want to make him any sadder, so I just nod.

  "Sure Dad."

  Five

  I've never had an actual detention before, so I'm quite looking forward to seeing how they work. But it turns out to be very boring. We just have to sit in the computer lab after school and do the exact same homework that we'd do at home anyway. It’s not much of a deterrent is it? I guess that's why the bad kids get them over and over again.

  Mr. Coyne is the only teacher here. He's sat at the front marking books, and he's not even very strict, so some of the students behind me are chatting to each other.

  I just ignore everyone. Or at least I mean to, but then I do something silly. I glance around to see who's talking and I notice the girl who was outside Principal Sharpe's office the other day. She's sitting on her own, and she looks up at the exact same time as I do. I almost don’t recognize her, because her hair isn't b
lue anymore, it's purple. Then when I see it is her, I can't stop myself raising my hand to wave hello. She stares back, then rolls her eyes and looks away, so I feel a bit embarrassed about that.

  But then, about half way into the detention, she sneaks forward and comes to sit at the computer next to me. I look up at Mr. Coyne, a bit worried, but to my surprise he's put headphones on and doesn’t notice.

  "So? You figure it out?" The girl whispers to me.

  "Figure what out?"

  "You figure out why you're here?"

  "Oh. Sort of."

  I turn back to my history homework, but it's awkward, because now she's sitting right next to me.

  "Well?"

  "Well what?"

  "You gonna tell me?"

  Obviously not. But I have to tell her something.

  "I was late."

  "You don't get sent to see Sharpe for lateness."

  "Don't you?" I ask. I didn't know that. "I was late a lot."

  I feel uncomfortable with how close to me she is now. And the way she sits there staring. In silence.

  "I have to do my homework now..." I start to say, but she cuts across me.

  "You know there's loads of rumors about you." Then when I don't reply, she goes on.

  "About when you were a baby... About how your mom went crazy and drowned your sister, and then tried to drown you..."

  I don't answer. It's not really something I talk about with strangers.

  "And then how the cops blamed your dad, so he kidnapped you and brought you up here in secret. Is it true?"

  "It's not really something I talk about with..."

  "So it isn't? I didn't think it was."

  "I didn't say it wasn't true."

  "So it is true?"

  I don't answer that.

  "Alright. You don't have to tell me." She looks away now, like she’s suddenly bored. It annoys me a bit.

  "It is true. I just don't like to talk about it with strangers."

  "I'm not surprised. That's mental."