SUNK

by Fleur Hitchcock

  In the centre of town, it’s easier to tell each shopkeeper in turn, although this time I have a go on the megaphone – ‘Please, everybody, could you go and cast your vote so that we’ve got a mayor so that we can win the Best Beach contest and make Mr Fogg really happy – did I say please?’ – and shock someone into dropping a tray of coffees.

  Lastly we run up to the castle and shout it from the castle battlements but the battery’s giving out so it comes out a little mangled:

  ‘Vote now … town hall … immediately … mayor … please … beach … thanks.’

  The ladies in the tea shop agree to go and vote in a rota and so within an hour we’ve covered the whole town.

  ‘I think we’d better go to the town hall now,’ says Eric, jamming the megaphone in the back of his shorts and breaking into a lolloping jog.

  We race down from the castle and cross back into the harbour, peering in at the door of the Trusty Tramper.

  ‘Oh and I must tell you about the year a hot-air balloon got stuck in the castle – oh how we laughed.’ Cheerful Charlie flashes me a desperate smile and points at the three judges, who are yawning and looking at their watches. ‘Won’t take a moment,’ she says.

  We charge away from the café and up the hill to the town hall. Eric heaves and puffs behind me as we crash in through the doors.

  ‘Sssshhhh!’ says Mum. ‘They’re counting. It’s very exciting.’

  ‘Yes, shhh, Tom,’ says Jacob, appearing by my side.

  ‘But you know the result,’ I say. ‘Eric’s dad is the only candidate.’

  ‘Yes, but there’s still the thrill of the chase,’ she whispers.

  ‘And the result of the count is: Colin Threepwood, 882 votes.’ The town clerk beams at Eric’s dad, who smiles and looks desperately towards Mum.

  ‘Was that wise?’ asks Jacob. ‘Shouldn’t we have elected someone else – someone not bonkers, someone with more … charisma – like me?’

  ‘You have to be over eighteen,’ says Eric. ‘And Dad isn’t bonkers – he’s just different.’

  ‘You’ve got to come with us,’ I say, grabbing Eric’s dad from Mum and a scary-looking woman with a huge brass necklace that she’s trying to put over his head.

  ‘What? Where are we going?’ he asks, reaching for Eric’s hand.

  ‘Your first official duty,’ says Eric. ‘Winning the Best Beach contest for Albert Fogg. C’mon, Dad.’

  29

  Fogg, Frog and a Bucket

  We’ve managed to make Eric’s dad look almost normal, arranging him casually against a bollard on the seafront, his Hawaiian shirt blending with the brightly coloured beachgoers, his socks and sandals quickly replaced by bare sandy feet. He doesn’t exactly look like someone from Miami, but he looks less like someone from planet Zog than he did ten minutes ago.

  ‘Ah – Mayor Threepwood,’ says the pointy woman, wiping a moustache of coffee foam from her top lip. ‘How excellent – now we’d like to make a presentation to you and Mr Frog if possible.’

  ‘Fogg,’ says Eric.

  ‘Fog?’ says the woman.

  ‘Mr Fogg,’ says Eric. ‘He’s called Mr Fogg.’

  ‘Oh,’ says the woman. ‘What a coincidence – so there’s Mr Frog and Mr Fog, how funny – ha, ha, ha.’ She laughs hard and high. I do hope she doesn’t have any children. No one needs a parent with a laugh like that.

  ‘Er – thank you,’ says Eric’s dad, holding tight to the bollard. ‘I’m sure Albert deserves it.’

  The woman looks confused. ‘Albert?’

  ‘Mr Frog,’ I say quickly.

  Jacob brings Mr Fogg up the steps and they stand solidly, waiting.

  ‘So – we’d like to present you, Mr Fog and Mr Frog, with this, the Best Beach award golden bucket and spade – hurrah! Ha, ha, ha.’ She holds the bucket out towards Eric’s dad.

  Mr Fogg grabs it and gazes at it. It looks suspiciously like a plastic bucket and spade sprayed with gold spray paint but from the look on Mr Fogg’s face he’s seeing real twenty-four-carat gold. ‘Ah,’ he says. ‘Ah. That’s lovely that is. Ah …’

  ‘Good,’ says Eric’s dad, curling his toes into the sand. ‘Good.’

  ‘Is that it?’ says Jacob. ‘Is that what all the fuss has been about?’

  The following morning, we sit on the sea wall, our legs dangling over the front. It’s a beautiful late spring day, with sunlight dipping on and off the water, seagulls wheeling over our heads and a gentle breeze playing over our toes.

  It would all be perfect except Mum and Dad are with us, beaming and sharing out slightly stale chocolate that I recognise from Grandma’s larder.

  ‘It seems,’ says Mum, handing me a square of whitish chocolate, ‘that the hotel deal broke down. Something to do with mice.’

  I go bright red. ‘Oh!’ I say.

  ‘Goodness,’ says Eric, turning redder than I’ve ever seen him. ‘Mice, did you say? We wouldn’t know anything about that – would we, Tom?’

  I kick Eric. Sometimes you have to kick nice people just to stop them digging holes for themselves.

  Mum doesn’t appear to notice. ‘And without the mayor to hold the negotiations together, Gogleplex walked away from the table, and so did the burger chain and the sofa people. They’ve all gone as fast as they arrived.’

  ‘Were they all sitting at one table?’ asks Jacob.

  ‘It’s a figure of speech,’ says Mum, just as Eric opens his mouth to say the same thing.

  ‘So,’ I say, ‘no multi-million-pound company is going to come to Bywater-by-Sea? Not even the sofas?’

  ‘Seems not,’ says Mum. ‘I mean, in one way it’s marvellous of course, but in another it’s a bit of a tragedy. Without the money they would have brought – the town’s in a pretty poor way.’

  ‘Mr Fogg did say something about that – but how come?’ asks Eric.

  ‘The mayor. He’s been squandering the town’s money right, left and centre – big lunches, consultants, five-year plans, all that sort of thing. It’s awful. It really is just as well that we won the Best Beach contest – at least it’ll bring in the holidaymakers.’

  ‘And at least Mr Fogg is happy,’ I say. ‘He won the competition; he’s got the bucket and spade.’

  ‘But that’s exactly the point. He’s retired – as of tomorrow – off to run a web-design business, so the only thing that makes any money is likely to stop until we can find some poor mug prepared to lug all those chairs in and out every day.’

  ‘I’ve been thinking,’ says Dad.

  We turn to look at him.

  ‘I’m wondering if I’m cut out for school work – I mean, look at this.’ He waves airily over the beach and the sea. ‘I mean, who’d not want to be here all the time – renting out the chairs, fixing the pedalos – a simple life, but a happy one.’

  ‘Are you saying you’d like to take on Albert Fogg’s job?’ says Mum.

  After a long pause, Dad says, ‘Yes.’

  30

  Baby Otter Loses his Hair

  Which leaves Tilly.

  And twelve tiny, but slowly growing, vicious deckchairs.

  And one parasol.

  Oh and a hole in the rock.

  The rock is comparatively simple. Grandma comes with us to have a look.

  ‘Ooh my,’ she says. ‘It must go all the way to the castle. So you think it’s the meteorite dust mixed with the water?’ she asks Eric.

  He nods. ‘Yes, and it’s a steady flow, there must be water trickling through somewhere. If we drain it into the sea then it would dissolve harmlessly.’

  Jacob stares at the crack. ‘Couldn’t I just melt the rock until it seals up?’

  We all stare at him.

  ‘That’s almost a genius suggestion,’ says Eric. ‘Except the water needs to come out somewhere.’

  ‘We could drill another hole,’ says Jacob, ‘somewhere else in the rock, just not in the cave.’

  ‘O – K,’ I say. ‘How? Where?’

  Jaco
b doesn’t answer, just swaggers down the beach and stops under the pier where the sea comes in closer to the shore.

  He turns to Eric. ‘Ready, tap-fingered Snot Face?’

  ‘S’pect so.’ Eric looks bewildered.

  Jacob fires a fireball at the rock, smashing it and heating it up until it smokes.

  Eric sprays it. For a second the rock steams and then, shocked by the extreme temperatures, crumbles.

  Again, Jacob fires sheets of flame.

  Again, Eric shoots water.

  This time, a tiny crack becomes a fissure, and quickly the fissure becomes a canyon, and before very long water begins to dribble from the hole, seeping into the sand and down to the sea.

  ‘Wow, Jacob,’ says Eric. ‘Thermal shock – excellent.’

  ‘Wow indeed,’ says Grandma.

  So that’s one problem solved.

  Then there are the remaining deckchairs.

  ‘You can’t leave them running about, Tom, you do know that, don’t you?’ says Grandma. ‘You boys will have to round them up.’

  We find them roosting in the bird reserve. A line of little chairs and a single parasol snapping and chattering alongside the limpets.

  ‘Now what?’ says Jacob.

  ‘We can try to steam-clean them again,’ I say.

  ‘Or just burn them,’ says Jacob, sparks leaping from his fingers.

  But perhaps they hear us, or perhaps they’re really turning into seabirds, because the moment we approach all twelve dive from their perch into the sea and swim off, leaving the parasol, which twirls once, puts itself up and floats onto the water before drifting seawards, squeaking and rustling in search of its friends.

  ‘What will happen to them?’ I ask, scratching my head.

  ‘Ultimately they’ll become waterlogged,’ says Eric.

  ‘And then sink?’ asks Jacob.

  ‘Or set up a colony somewhere,’ says Eric.

  I gaze at the beach furniture until I can’t be sure if they’re what I’m seeing or simply part of the horizon.

  ‘Suppose they wash up in France and attack people there?’ I say.

  ‘Not our problem,’ says Jacob.

  ‘So you haven’t really learned anything about empathy then?’ says Eric.

  ‘What?’ says Jacob.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ says Eric. ‘I don’t think I can be bothered to explain.’

  ‘Of course I’m pleased that Dad’s stopped coming to school!’ shouts Tilly, dropping baby otter into a pan of boiling water.

  ‘Why are you doing that?’ asks Eric, reaching for a spoon and leaning over the pan.

  ‘He’s been bad,’ she says, brushing Eric away. ‘And I want him to beg for mercy.’

  ‘But he’s plastic,’ I reply. The fake fur curls away from baby otter’s nose revealing the brown plastic underneath.

  ‘Exactly,’ she replies. ‘He’s altogether unresponsive.’ She barely pauses for breath. ‘But I’m furious that Dad’s going to be on the beach all day – imagine – every single person at school will see him forever and ever selling those deckchairs and pedalos and –’ she pauses for a long dramatic sigh – ‘it’ll be terrible – no one will ever talk to me again – I’ll be sent to Coventry, ostracised, given the cold shoulder – never again invited to anyone’s birthday party, never again taken home after school, never again voted for in the best handwriting competition, never again sing the solo, never again picked to be teacher’s helper – it’ll be –’ she drags in a breath – ‘terrible.’

  Jacob, who has so far stayed silent, gazes at Tilly, his mouth wide. ‘Awesome,’ he says. ‘That was utterly awesome.’

  ‘It was rather good, wasn’t it?’ says Tilly, smiling, and poking at baby otter who is now almost completely bald.

  We all stare at the brown plastic thing bobbing in the boiling water.

  ‘It won’t be that bad, Tilly,’ I say. ‘Over time they’ll forget that he’s our dad – and it’s so much better than having him on the bus. And he won’t be out and about in the winter. He’ll be painting deckchairs or whatever it is that Mr Fogg did in the winter. And Mum’s not going to be mayor. She’s just going to be Eric’s dad’s right-hand man, so people won’t really know she’s there either.’

  Tilly stops prodding baby otter and takes the pan from the stove. She turns to look at me, folding her arms and relaxing her shoulders. She scrapes the point of her toe in a semi-circle, glances out of the window and then back at me. ‘I suppose you’re right. I’m overreacting, and I realise that it’s not just me suffering with all this – it’s you too, Tom.’ She smiles at me. A genuine, warm, loving, sisterly smile.

  We stare at her, open-mouthed.

  31

  Empathy?

  I’m feeling confused.

  Tilly has never ever shown me the slightest bit of warmth, love or kindness her entire life. Except when she wants something and then she shows me something vaguely like, but not at all exactly the same as, kindness. But this time I can’t work out what she wants.

  The school’s empathy drive has either worked, she’s growing up, or she’s entered a new phase of her acting career and is taking on an extra persona. It’s disturbing.

  Later on, when Mum’s got the town accounts laid out all over the kitchen table and she and Grandma are going through them looking for ways to make or save money, Tilly tiptoes past, helps herself to a yoghurt and tiptoes back.

  She doesn’t disturb them. She doesn’t say ‘Look at me!’ She doesn’t do anything at all.

  When Dad’s trying on a new version of Albert Fogg’s ancient yellow waterproof, Tilly doesn’t shout at him. She looks momentarily excessively tragic before helping him to pull up the sleeve.

  I so don’t get it.

  Dad does his first day of work on the beach. Tilly actually offers to take him a sandwich.

  I struggle with Miss Mawes’s new art assignment – a copy of the Mona Lisa in rice. I’m feeling 99% lousy about it. Tilly comes past, lays a reassuring hand on my shoulder and says: ‘Don’t worry, Tom, she’ll soon realise you’re hopeless at art.’ I glance up and see that she doesn’t even mean it in a horrible way.

  My mental jaw drops even further.

  Mum spends all day in the office at the town hall sifting through receipts, and when she gets home Tilly offers her a cup of tea.

  Mum nearly falls off her chair. ‘Well – I suppose, yes. I would like a cup.’

  Tilly presents her with tea and doesn’t even wait for Mum to say thank you.

  ‘Is she ill?’ asks Jacob.

  I shake my head. ‘I think she’s genuinely changed,’ I say.

  ‘Maybe she has,’ says Eric. ‘Although …’

  But I suppose the proof comes a few days later when my head itches so badly that I run screaming downstairs to Mum.

  She peers into my hair. ‘Oh dear – yes – head lice.’

  I sit on the stool of shame while Mum pours conditioner on my head and drags the comb through.

  ‘Ow!’ I squeak.

  ‘Sorry,’ says Mum. ‘But it’s bound to hurt.’

  Tilly throws open the kitchen door, and although for a millisecond I’m pretty sure I spy a smug face, she stops, gazes towards me and wrestles with her features until something sympathetic surfaces. ‘Oh, Tom – did I give you nits? I’m so sorry.’

  Mum drops the comb. I yank my head round.

  ‘Really?’ says Mum.

  ‘I am,’ says Tilly. ‘They’re awful – and the combing can be really painful.’

  Grandma comes in from the garden, and pulls off her wellingtons. ‘Oh dear – another one?’ she says.

  ‘Yes, poor Tom,’ says Tilly. ‘And it’s all my fault. I sort of gave them to him on purpose. I was really cross that morning when you’d all been out all night.’

  ‘Out all night?’ asks Mum.

  ‘I’ll explain later,’ says Grandma hastily.

  ‘So I went to Tom’s bedroom and laid my hair on the pillow right next to him. I knew
I still had head lice and …’ She looks at me, her eyes big and round and almost tearful. ‘I’m really sorry. It’s a terribly selfish thing to have done.’

  Grandma raises her eyebrows. ‘Goodness. Anyway, I’ve just heard from Albert Fogg – who is, incidentally, loving his retirement – apparently he’s already got 324 subscribers, whatever that means.’ Grandma struggles to pull up her sock. ‘Although he also said that Mrs Santos had a nasty moment when she went to change the flowers at the old lock-up.’ Grandma looks up and stares hard at me.

  I redden under the conditioner.

  ‘What happened?’ asks Mum.

  ‘Some deckchairs fell on her – she broke a vase apparently,’ says Grandma. ‘Quite a hoo-ha. She got in quite a panic, had to call the fire brigade.’

  ‘Oh no,’ I say. ‘How dreadful.’

  There’s a squeak from the other side of the room. I look round to Tilly, who is holding her hand over her mouth, suppressing a squall of giggles. I know what she’s thinking – she’s thinking of round little Mrs Santos having to be rescued from under a pile of snapping deckchairs.

  It might be funny, but I still stare at her.

  We all stare.

  She pulls her face straight, swallows and purses her lips. Only the tears in her eyes give her away. ‘Oh, poor Mrs Santos, how dreadful for her – what a shock. Poor thing, I do hope she’s recovered.’

  It’s not really empathy, but we’re getting there.

  ALSO BY FLEUR HITCHCOCK

  The SHRUNK! Adventures

  SHRUNK!

  SHRUNK! Mayhem & Meteorites

  SHRUNK! Ghosts on Board

  SUNK!

  and

  The Trouble with Mummies

  The Yoghurt Plot

  Copyright