The Thorn Island Adventure

by Fleur Hitchcock

  “I know no one else saw anything,” said Chloe, “but I am sure. I’d sort of like to tell the police.” She walked on, almost talking to herself, “but they couldn’t help Jake and his boat’s been stolen. They said to him that they couldn’t come until tomorrow.” She clapped her hand to her mouth and swung round to face the others. “Oh! They’re looking for that child. Perhaps that’s who I saw.”

  “The Charlie’s Cheerful Chews child?” said Josh, launching into the advert. “Charlie, Charlie, love your dooooooooog!” He leaned down to kiss Bella who barked at him and sneezed him away.

  “Seriously?” said Ava. “On an island? Here? No – I don’t think so.”

  “I still want to tell the police,” said Chloe, her lower lip jutting just a little. She stomped over to the red call box next to the Plaice and Ships. Before she even opened the door she could read the sign, out of order, taped over the buttons. “Urgh,” she said.

  Aiden wrinkled up his face, as if thinking about Chloe’s idea and deciding that it was bonkers, but trying to be sympathetic all the same. “You could tell the harbour master? He could call the police.”

  Chloe let out a long sigh. It was obvious that no one believed her. “Will someone come with me?” she asked, feeling mildly cross and doubly sure of what she’d seen, and also convinced about the face in the window being the kidnapped child. “He can be a bit…”

  “OK,” said Ava. “Hold my bike,” she told Josh, letting go of the handlebars and joining Chloe.

  “Stop telling me what to do!” Josh shouted, but he grabbed the bike all the same.

  Chloe knocked on the door of the harbour master’s shed.

  She knocked again.

  “Hello!” Ava shouted, peering through the small window into the mass of everything nautical jammed inside the tiny space. “No one there,” she said.

  “He’s gone to the dentist,” said Pearl, the woman who rented out kayaks from the other side of the harbour. “Broke a tooth. Won’t be back for ages.”

  “Oh!” said Chloe, almost stamping her foot. “Have you got a phone that works, please, Pearl?”

  “Not down here. Hey – other way!” Pearl shouted, catching sight of one of her kayaks heading towards Thorn Island. She ran off to shout and gesticulate and send them round towards Fire Point.

  “Well, that went well,” said Aiden when the girls rejoined him and Josh and the bikes.

  “Perhaps it wasn’t there; perhaps Chloe made it up,” said Josh.

  “I did not!” said Chloe. She felt … cross. Actually, properly angry. She glanced over at Ava, who was taking a selfie against the calm blue sea. They were all … not taking it seriously.

  “Does anyone else want a pasty?” asked Aiden.

  “Go on then,” said Josh, and the boys wandered over to the café.

  Chloe fumed.

  In the wall of the Plaice and Ships café was a little hatch, and behind the hatch stood a man in a flowery apron with a bobble hat on his head. Leaning against the wall was another man, holding a piece of an outboard motor engine. Josh paused and took out his red notebook. Outboard motor engine in pieces. SUSPICIOUS. Very.

  “Afternoon, boys, what can I do you for?” said Mr Bobble Hat.

  “Two steak pasties, please,” said Aiden.

  The man shook his head. “Sorry, haven’t got any today,” he said. “Clean out.”

  Aiden looked at the board. Josh pointed to the second item on the menu. “Oh, um, two chicken then?”

  “No chicken ones either,” said the man. “All gone.”

  “What have you got?” asked Josh.

  The outboard-motor man wandered away to the quayside.

  “Ice cream,” said Mr Bobble Hat, staring over their heads. “Salted caramel or rum and raisin – what do you fancy?” Aiden looked back to where the man was looking. The girls were standing together in the middle of the paving, arguing.

  “What’s up with her?” asked Mr Bobble Hat, pointing at Chloe, who looked completely furious and was waving her arms about.

  “Oh, she tried to get the harbour master to radio the police,” said Aiden, “but he wasn’t there, and the mobiles don’t work and the call box is out of order.”

  “Oh aye,” said Mr Bobble Hat. “Hopeless down here, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” said Aiden, warming to the man despite the lack of pasties and the lack of ice-cream flavours. “One caramel please.”

  “What was it about – had a bike stolen?”

  “And one rum and raisin,” said Josh, looking faintly disgusted. “Actually, no – caramel for me too. She thought she saw something. Someone in trouble.”

  “Where?”

  “In the little tower on the island,” said Josh.

  “Oh!” said the man, turning away to wash his ice-cream scoop. “Ice creams coming up, and, tell you what, I’ll ring the police for you from my landline.”

  The ice creams arrived and Josh called the girls over. Chloe told the man what she’d seen and he came back to the hatch, the phone in his hand. He prodded the buttons and then began to talk.

  “Yes, two young ladies and two young gentlemen saw a face in the tower on Thorn Island.” The man stopped and listened. “Yes, they’re with me now. Can you describe the face, miss?” he asked Chloe.

  She shook her head. “I only saw that it was a person shouting. I thought it might have been a child. I thought it might have been the Charlie’s Cheerful Chews boy, you know.”

  The man repeated what she’d said and wandered back into the café, holding his hand out to the cousins so that they waited by the hatch.

  A moment later, he was back.

  “Very interesting, they said. AND they said to go home, not to worry about it and they’d be there very soon to investigate. Well done.” Mr Bobble Hat beamed at them. “I need to close up now, but before I do would you two girls like an ice cream on the house?”

  As they approached the farm delicious baking smells wafted across the fields.

  “Scones,” Chloe heard Josh say. “Scones.”

  “Cream tea?” asked Grandpa as they ran from the bike shed back through the orchard to the farmhouse. “Primrose is just taking scones out of the oven.”

  Chloe followed the others; they’d obviously forgotten all about the strange face at windows and the missing boat as they crammed round the kitchen table, the aroma of baking and fresh jam filling the air. But she hadn’t. She didn’t feel at all as if it was over, and it was hard to sit there eating cream and jam with a head full of doubts.

  “Jam and then cream,” said Aiden, slicing open a scone, the heat making his glasses steam up. “It makes more sense. The jam sinks into the scone and then the cream blobs on top.”

  “No!” cried Josh, cracking open his second scone and slapping cream on first. “You’re wrong – it has to be this way.” His dollop of cream melded with the hot scone and he placed a gentle dab of jam in the centre before stuffing the whole thing into his mouth in one go. “Delishus!”

  “I’m not even joking, Josh – you are soooo greedy.” Ava leaned over her brother and helped herself to another scone. “Grandpa, does anyone live up at the lighthouse?”

  Grandpa topped up his teacup and frowned. “I don’t think so. I think it’s automatic now and the buildings are closed up – why?”

  “Oh, nothing,” said Ava, glancing at Aiden. “Just wondered.”

  A silence grew and Grandpa broke it by asking, “So, what have you all been doing today, apart from building up an appetite?”

  “Did you know Jake had his boat stolen? We went to look for it in the Black Diamond,” said Ava. “Went to Brandy Cove – checked Thorn Island. Didn’t find it.”

  “And Chloe thought she saw someone imprisoned in the little tower on the island – but it was rubbish,” said Josh.

  “Goodness,” said Grandma. “Really?”

  Chloe sighed. “Well, yes, and we got the man in the café to call the police in case it’s…” She trailed off.

/>   Grandma was shaking her head. “You’re thinking about that boy that’s been kidnapped, but I can tell you that they’re looking in the London area – not around here. No one would ever hide a child somewhere so touristy, would they?” She rose from the table.

  “See,” said Josh. “You’re making it up, Chloe.”

  Chloe kicked him under the table but had a sudden thought. “Can we borrow your binoculars?” she asked Grandma. “Please?”

  “Of course,” said Grandma Primrose. “I didn’t know you were interested in birdwatching, Chloe dear? I always thought that was Aiden.”

  Chloe shrugged. “I thought I’d give it a try – I thought I saw –” Chloe struggled to remember a bird’s name – “a nesting egret on the estuary.”

  “Really?” said Grandma. “Very late in the year – but do use them; they’re on the dresser.”

  “What are we doing?” asked Josh. “Are we just following Chloe?”

  As the golden evening light flooded the farmyard Chloe led the way to the field behind the farm. From up here there was a terrific view of Drake’s Bay, Thorn Island and the lighthouse. Big round bales of straw were dotted through the stubble, leaving long shadows, and she clambered on top of a double one.

  “Er, yes, what are we doing?” said Aiden, pulling himself up and reaching down to help Bella.

  “Tell you in a minute,” said Chloe, peering out to sea.

  “You said birdwatching? Why are we looking at birds?” asked Josh, jumping off the bale and scrambling over another one. “Are we looking for the boat from up here or what?” He reached the top, punched at the air, missed his footing and fell over the far side. No one seemed to notice, so he clambered up again.

  It was dead still out there. A couple of fishing boats visiting their lobster pots out at sea, a yacht stranded by the tide on the far side of the island, and families crabbing in the mud by the harbour. A perfect summer’s evening.

  Chloe trained the lenses on the tower. “It’s just…”

  “What?” asked Josh impatiently. “You’re not looking at that stupid tower, are you? You heard what Grandma said.”

  “I don’t think… I can’t— Oh! What’s that? There – look!” She handed the binoculars to Ava.

  “What am I looking at?”

  “The tower, not the window in front but the one to the right, facing the cliffs, see? There’s definitely something in the window this time.” Chloe turned to the others. “That means that if there was someone, and there definitely was, they haven’t been rescued. The police haven’t been. And I’m right, Josh – you owe me an apology.”

  Slowly Ava scanned Thorn Island. “I dunno,” she said, handing the binoculars to Aiden.

  It took Aiden a second to find the window. “I can see…” he said. “But it’s definitely not a face.” He fiddled with the focus. “It’s like writing on the glass, and then maybe someone behind. Waving? Although it’s kind of white – and— Oh, I don’t know … there might be nothing at all.”

  “Let me have a go,” said Josh, hauling himself up to the top of the bale and sitting on Ava’s feet before yanking the binoculars out of her hands.

  “Josh!” yelped Ava, “that is sooo rude.”

  He ignored her, fiddling with the focus until the binoculars gave him a really good view of Grandpa’s beans and a moderately good view of Bella sniffing around a foxhole. He raised the binoculars in the direction of the harbour. He could see everything really clearly. An ice cream dropped by a toddler, a gardener locking up a goose, a patch of brambles with ripe blackberries, a really shiny bicycle. Further out a seagull shot across his vision. Resting his elbows on his knees he moved up over the undergrowth that surrounded the shore and past Thorn House’s walled vegetable garden to swing over to the wilder woodland and the folly.

  “Well?” asked Ava.

  Josh didn’t bother to answer. He’d finally reached his goal. One of the windows faced them and was blank, but the other had white squares on it. And there was a hand waving back and forth behind the squares. “H … E … L … P,” he said. “Yup, HELP.” He threw the binoculars up in the air and leaped from the bale. “ONWARD!” he shouted, charging back towards the farmyard. “Chloe’s right. We have a mission!”

  “Wait!” yelled Chloe, stumbling off the bale and running after him.

  “Let’s rescue them ourselves,” called Josh, dancing backwards into the farmyard, “with ammunition and a diversion and a giant cherry picker.”

  “That’s a mad idea,” replied Aiden.

  “I don’t see why not. It’s obvious that no one believes us, so we have to do it ourselves.” said Josh. “We could launch a full-scale attack – we could take the village tennis-ball machine and fire things at them. Like coconuts and … eggs.” He looked at the others. They all stood with their mouths open as if he’d said the most stupid thing in the world. “Ugh! You lot. You’re so boooring. You’ve got no…”

  “Seriously?” said Chloe. “You’re suggesting that we go in and free them? Ourselves?”

  “We tried the harbour master,” said Josh. “And then the pasty bobble-hat man rang the police – but you can see that nobody’s actually done anything about it. The police are too busy to listen to anything we say. And even Grandma thought it was rubbish.”

  “I think,” said Aiden. “I think…”

  They all stared at him.

  “I think…” He looked at Josh. “That Josh’s almost possibly right.”

  “But who are we rescuing?” asked Chloe a few minutes later.

  “Whoever’s asking for help – silly,” said Josh, beaming. “You said it yourself: Charlie’s Cheerful whatsits,” and he launched into song. “Charlie, Charlie, love your doooog!”

  “Shut up, Josh – you are so jumping to conclusions here,” said Ava, addressing them all. “It’s probably nothing to do with the Cheerful Chew thing. I bet Grandma’s right. And, the idea of us rescuing anybody from that tower is – idiotic.”

  No one answered her. They all stopped and looked out towards the island.

  “I suppose,” said Aiden in the end, “we just have to think of a way of getting them out of the tower and off the island.”

  “Aiden?” Ava pleaded.

  “We could smuggle them out on the ferry,” said Josh. “In a wheelbarrow maybe.”

  “Seriously?” said Ava. “You are seriously going to go over to an island and rescue an invisible person from a tower with a wheelbarrow?”

  “I suppose a ladder might reach that window,” said Chloe. “If we could get one over there.”

  “I think,” said Ava, “that you’re all completely mad.”

  “Are we?” said Chloe, wondering if it was a stupid idea.

  “If we could get a ladder down to the Black Diamond, we could get it across to the island that way; the boat’s long enough,” said Aiden, taking off his glasses and polishing them on his T-shirt. “What harm can it do? We’re just taking a ladder to the island – taking a look. If there’s no one there, then…”

  Ava stood, open-mouthed. “I … I…” she began, before closing her eyes and leaning against the gatepost.

  Josh, Chloe and Aiden stood blinking together at the cobwebby darkness of Grandpa’s storage barn and, as they stood, staring, shapes began to make sense in the gloom. Kayaks, lawnmowers, bicycles, random wheels. There were ancient cracked gas masks and paint masks. Solid paint brushes and half-empty paint pots. A pile of sacks, plastic. A pile of sacks, sacking.

  Chloe sighed. “What?” she said. “Who needs all this stuff ?”

  Aiden glanced back at Ava who was sitting on a stone mushroom playing games on her phone. They needed Ava. Without her they couldn’t get to the island.

  And she was the oldest.

  The bravest.

  And it felt wrong doing things without her.

  Bella trotted up to Aiden, wagging her tail. “There must be a ladder here somewhere,” he said, mostly to Bella but a bit to Chloe who was staring into the tan
gle of stuff and looking like she wished she’d never mentioned it.

  “I’ve found a diver’s helmet!” shouted Josh, advancing into the muddle. “Oh, and an old sewing machine! And a pram! Give me a hand someone – this pram’s really cool.” He pushed the pram into the doorway and climbed in, sticking his thumb in his mouth. “Waaaa!” he cried, doing a baby impression.

  Aiden groaned. “Hey, Josh – we’re looking for a ladder. This is serious, you know.”

  This was mad. He glanced back at Ava. She was still playing a game. Keeping out of it all.

  Getting bored, Josh leaped out of the pram to investigate more things in the darker corners of the barn.

  Aiden began to search properly. One end was definitely agricultural, the other domestic. Also, someone had stowed all the tall things together. “Just let me get this out,” he said to no one in particular. A sheet of corrugated iron slid easily from the front of a pile of tall timbers, releasing a mass of wolf spiders.

  “Yow!” he yelped, stepping back.

  Chloe ran out of the barn, flapping her hands at the back of her neck as if they’d raced straight up to her hair.

  Ava picked her feet up from the ground and continued to look at her screen. “Yeah,” she said to no one in particular.

  But Josh was trapped because the spiders headed for the shadows, and he was in the darkest part of the barn. “Yow!” he yelled, blundering backwards through a pile of sacking and tripping over something noisy and metal. He reached out to steady himself and caught on more sacking, releasing a stack of garden canes. The whole lot cascaded to the concrete floor in a mass of clanging and banging and spiders and mice and Josh’s knees.

  Chloe peered round the doorway.

  Aiden held his breath.

  Bella ran after an escaping mouse as Josh emerged from the muddle, his hand clutching a section of something slightly shiny. “Here, look what I’ve found.”

  Aiden pulled away the piece of sacking. “Ace!” he said. “A ladder. A folding one. Brilliant.”