by Peter Bunzl
Malkin cowered beneath the control desk, which Dane was gripping with white knuckles, while Caddy clung onto the wall, and Lily and Robert held on tight to the ladder.
“I don’t know how long I can keep her afloat in this storm,” Dane said, scooping up a shivering Spook. “We need to send an emergency message. Does anyone know how to work the radio telegraph?”
“I do.” Robert stumbled across the rolling floor to the ship’s miniature radio telegraph transmitter and flicked the switch on its front. He supposed they could have tried to use it before, but he’d heard they usually only worked on the surface of the sea for submersibles, not during a dive.
As the machine sprang to life, Robert tapped in the international emergency signal with the finger pad: SOS. Normally you would add your latitude and longitude coordinates as well, but Robert didn’t know what those were, so he left them off and just hoped that the message would be enough for someone to find them.
“Now what?” he asked, when he’d finished tapping in the letters.
“Now,” Lily said, “we wait and hope that someone hears our signal and comes to the rescue.”
“Then we aren’t out of the woods yet?” Caddy asked.
Lily shook her head. “No,” she said. “It doesn’t seem like it.”
It was true, Robert supposed, this could all still be the end of them. Lost at sea. “Maybe I should try the SOS signal again one more time, just in case,” he suggested.
“Keep sending it out, until we get a reply,” Dane said.
Robert kept it up. Tapping in the SOS over and over again as the waves tossed them from side to side…
After what seemed an age, the receiver lit up and beeped out a message in response. Robert translated the code as it came in: “‘This is the USS Swallowtail of the New York City Lifeguard Patrol Airship Fleet. We are tracking your signal. We are nearby. What are your coordinates?’”
Lily, Malkin and Caddy looked elated, but when Robert turned to Dane, the boy looked pale with unease. “We won’t be able to give our coordinates,” he said. “The radar’s not working.”
“They’ll never see us from the sky in this storm,” Caddy said, the elation draining away from her face as fast as it had come.
Robert knew she was right. Without their coordinates, the life-ship might miss them totally, and if they didn’t hurry then the waves battering against the side of the life-ship might pull the submersible back under the waves where they would sink and be lost for good with no chance of rescue.
“What can we do?” Lily asked Dane.
“I have an idea,” Dane said, rooting through an emergency tool cupboard beneath the control panel. After a few minutes he pulled out a flare gun.
“The emergency flare!” Lily exclaimed. “Clank it! Why didn’t I think of that? It would’ve been good against the zombies.”
“But then we wouldn’t have it to fire now,” Caddy said.
“You’re right,” Lily said as Dane handed her the flare.
“You should do it,” he said. “I get seasick.”
With the flare gun tucked into the belt of her dress, Lily climbed the ladder to the external hatch. Robert, Caddy and Dane reached up and helped her push it open, while Malkin offered some encouraging barks from beneath the control panel desk.
Outside, mountainous rolling waves were breaking against the round metal crown of the sub. Lily crouched in the doorway and aimed the flare gun up to the grey sky above. Then she pulled the trigger.
The flare shot upwards in a bright arc of smoke and light.
Lily ducked back inside and watched it through one of the viewports as it exploded into a sparkling red firework, like a flame against the sky. Afterwards it dropped, letting off a plume of red smoke that hung in the air above the Diving Belle.
Robert hoped that the USS Swallowtail would spot their marker soon, before the storm winds blew its smoke away.
Flecks of seawater broke over the crown of the sub and came tumbling in as Lily pulled the hatch closed and climbed back down into the iron belly of the sub. “Well,” she said. “That’s the flare gone. Let’s hope they see it.”
They waited, Robert desperately scanning the skies with his binoculars.
Minutes passed in horrible anticipation…
Then, over the clattering raindrops pounding on the roof of the Diving Belle and the waves crashing against her side, they heard another sound. The THUP-THUP-THUP of an airship propeller.
Through the uppermost viewport, they glimpsed a bright orange zep with USS SWALLOWTAIL – NYC Lifeguard Patrol Airship written on its balloon. It hovered in the air above them, buffeted this way and that by the wind.
Through his lenses, Robert saw the hatch in her side open and a man in a flying helmet, goggles and a yellow rubber windbreaker lean out. He began unfurling a rope ladder that was attached to the edge of the zep.
The chain-link ladder fell downwards and with a CLUNK, the bottom rung hit the metal roof of the Diving Belle.
“Quick,” said Lily and she threw open the exit hatch once more and climbed up onto the roof. The others followed her. Robert pulled his cap down tight over his ears, and scrambled behind everyone, bringing up the rear.
By the time he got to the top of the Diving Belle’s ladder, water was pouring in through the hatch opening and he had to fight against it. Lily took hold of his hand and pulled him out onto the submersible’s roof.
“CLIMB!” she ordered over the gurgles and glugs of the sinking Belle, the roar of the wind and waves and the loud whirring of the zeppelin’s props.
The binoculars swung heavily around Robert’s neck. He stared upwards.
The others were already on the rope ladder, hauling themselves towards the USS Swallowtail. Caddy was first, carrying Malkin around her shoulders. She had almost reached the top of the chain ladder and the lifeguard was waiting in the gondola’s open hatch to pull her aboard. Behind her was Dane, with Spook in his pocket.
Lily stepped onto the lowest rung, her striped scarf billowing like a flag in the spray. Robert joined her, clinging on tight to the ladder as it waved in the wind, and letting Lily take the lead up to the next rung.
Below him the Diving Belle was sinking beneath the waves. Its open hatch gurgled as it sucked in gallons of raging seawater. As he climbed, he wondered why everywhere they went they ended up somehow scaling ladders in and out of airships.
A few minutes later, he and Lily were at the entrance hatch to the Swallowtail. The others had already clambered inside. The lifeguard hauled Lily aboard and then him too.
The man pushed them down the corridor to join the others, and for the second time in the last few hours, Robert and Lily embraced everyone in relief.
They were all aboard and finally, properly safe.
The man rolled the ladder up and slammed the hatch shut. He pressed a button on the wall and a bell rang through the airship. It must’ve been the signal that the rescue was complete, for the airship took off from its hovering position. Through the window, Robert glimpsed the last porthole of the Diving Belle sink beneath the ocean. Then the zep’s propellers change direction and, with a slow about-turn, it began to fly north.
“We’ve been searching everywhere for all of you,” the man said as he draped blankets around them and escorted them through the corridors of the airship. “You were reported missing to the police two days ago by your parents. Then we got a lead on your location yesterday, after a bunch of kids who work at your hotel contacted the police. Your folks are just through here.”
He brought them into a cabin where their parents were poised on the edge of their seats, nervously waiting, along with Kid Wink and Inspector Tedesko, and an older woman in a thick woollen coat.
Instantly, everyone sprang to their feet and rushed over to gather round them.
Papa barged past the others and grabbed Lily and Robert in an enormous bear hug. “Lily! Robert! You’re alive! And Malkin, you’re still ticking!” he said kissing them both on their cold
cheeks and rubbing the mechanical fox underneath his chin.
“Thank goodness you’re all all right!” Selena seized Caddy, squeezing her close, and then Robert, and then Lily…even adding Dane to the scrum for good measure.
“I’m so clanking pleased to see you!” Kid Wink babbled. “Happy eighteen-ninety-eight!” She took each of their hands in turn. “You missed the greatest ever New York New Year’s fireworks show. Five boroughs’ worth – they were amazing! But forget about that, I’m just glad you’re safe!”
“It’s mostly thanks to your invention.” Lily took the Wonderlite from her pocket and passed it back to Kid Wink. “If we hadn’t had this to shine a light in the darkness, I don’t know how we would have survived.”
Kid Wink grinned and flipped the Wonderlite over in her hand, its silver case glinting in the light. “Pretty swell, ain’t it?”
“Sure is!” Dane said. “It lasted hours and hours. I don’t reckon I could’ve created anything better myself, and I love inventions!”
“Thanks.” Kid Wink stared at him. “Is that the kid from the hotel?” she whispered to Lily. “He looks different. Much…better.”
“It is!” Lily said. “Dane Milksop, meet Kid Wink. She’s the one to thank for there even being a ship here to rescue us!”
“Hey, Kid,” said Dane, shaking her hand. Then he noticed the old woman, who was still seated at the back of the cabin, and his eyes suddenly went wide and his face lit up with memory and joy. “Grandmom?” he said. “Is that you?”
“It sure is, honey.” The old lady stood slowly.
She put her arms around his shoulders, enfolding him and, as she did so, Dane burst into tears. “I forgot I had you, Grandmom. I forgot everyone.”
“Well, I didn’t forget you, Dane,” she said. “Not for one moment.” She brushed her lips against his forehead and when Dane took Spook from his pocket to show her, she gave the mouse a kiss on his nose too.
“What happened to you down there?” Selena asked, clasping Robert and Caddy tight. “You look terrible.”
So Robert, Caddy, Lily and the others told their story, as briefly as they could, for they didn’t want to scare the adults with the horror of what they had seen, and they knew that there would be more questions to answer later.
But they told the gist of it and when they arrived at the waking of the dead and the death of Miss Buckle, it elicited looks of alarm and upset from everyone present.
“It is a harrowing tale,” said Inspector Tedesko when they’d finished. “An awful predicament, but thank goodness you escaped with your lives.”
He shook Lily’s, Robert’s and each of their hands gratefully; even Malkin’s paw. “You’re darn brave, the lot of you. I’m only sorry we didn’t believe your story in the first place, when it was just this young girl’s vision and prophecy.” He smiled at Caddy. “If we’d done as you’d said back then, then none of this would’ve happened…” He trailed off for a moment and gaped at them, horribly embarrassed, but then brushed it away as if it was nothing. “Still,” he said, with somewhat false bonhomie. “All’s well that ends well, as your greatest poet was fond of saying.”
“Are you a fan?” Papa asked, beaming brightly. “I’ve recently become interested in his works myself.”
“Only the comedies,” the inspector said. “You see, I can’t bear anything with a tragic ending! I prefer the happy ones.”
“Oh, I almost forgot.” Lily pulled something from her pocket. “I have Miss Child’s diamond – it’s a little cracked, and the necklace is gone, lost at the bottom of the ocean, but we managed to recover her stone.”
The inspector took the gemstone from her and examined it. “Thank you,” he said. “I shall see that she gets it, and, I am sure, when she does, she will be singing your praises!”
“Goodness,” said Papa. “In all the furore, I never remembered to book tickets for her show!”
Lily, Robert, Malkin, Dane, Kid Wink and Caddy crowded into the observation room of the USS Swallowtail as the airship approached the city. Selena stood behind Robert and Caddy with her arms around them both. Papa had Lily by the hand and Malkin by the scruff of the neck.
Dane stood hugging his grandmom. She had come to the police as soon as she realized that Nathaniel Shadowsea had no answers about what had happened on his base. Then the police had taken Professor Matilda Milksop in for questioning a second time and the whole story about what had happened to Dane, his parents and everyone else down on the Shadowsea had broken wide open. Now Matilda was under arrest, awaiting trial, and the whole mess of the situation was beginning to be unravelled.
There would, of course, be lots more questions for Dane and Lily and the rest of them to answer about what had happened on the undersea base last night, what Professor Milksop’s engine had done and what they’d seen, but for now they just stared out of the window at the view and beamed elatedly at one another, ecstatic to be alive.
Robert watched his ma and Caddy seated beside him – Caddy in particular. Since the start of this adventure she had felt like a true sister to him. Seeing her upset and comforting her had made him realize that perhaps she needed someone to look out for her, as well as their ma. He’d even started to think that maybe, when all this was over, he could stay here with her and Selena. But after all Lily and John had done for him, could he really do that?
Robert’s eyes strayed over to Lily, her freckled face reflected in the glass filled with relief and joy. If he stayed in America, he would miss Lily so much, and Malkin and John too.
No, he didn’t think he could do it. But perhaps, in the long run, there would be a way to keep everyone together, at least in his heart.
It was like Lily had told Dane, about his parents – about all those who were gone, like his da or her ma: just because you were apart from someone, just because you missed them, just because they were gone for a little while, or even for ever, it didn’t mean that a part of them wasn’t always with you in everything you chose to do.
As the airship began her descent through the clouds, Robert glimpsed New York City bobbing closer for the second time that Christmas holiday. The city felt almost as if it was floating towards him.
Like Selena and Caddy stood beside him, Robert had yet to really see all sides of it. But it was growing on him, and there was so much more of the city and the country that he wanted to take in. He was looking forward to exploring New York and Boston with his ma and sister while they were still here, and then, he would go back home to Brackenbridge with Lily and John. That was still his home, there with them, the place where he belonged, he reflected, as the airship sped on through the rainstorm, back towards New York.
The next morning, quite soon after breakfast time, Lily finally began to feel like she had recovered a little from her ordeal. It was funny how a good night’s sleep and some warm food and friendly company could turn things around.
Lily, Robert, Caddy and Malkin took the elevator up to the sixth floor to visit Dane and his grandmom in their new suite. The pair had been given a room at the hotel for free, after all that had happened. Today there was a different operator running the elevator and different maids cleaning the rooms, because Kid Wink and the rest of the Cloudscrapers had been rewarded with a week’s paid leave to celebrate their part in securing the safe return of Dane, Robert, Lily, Caddy and Malkin.
When they arrived at room six hundred and one, they knocked three times and waited for Dane’s grandmom to let them in. She was all smiles as she opened the door. And when Lily and the others stepped into the suite, they saw that much else was different too. The curtains were drawn back to let in the morning sun and this room felt less oppressive and somehow lighter than room one hundred where Dane had been shut up by Professor Milksop.
Dane was sat at the table in the sitting room, dressed in a new suit. Spook was curled up asleep on the tabletop, while Dane busily worked on a set of sculptures and inventions with the tools his grandmom had bought for him. He’d placed a photograph
of his parents on the mantelpiece, beside a photograph of him with his grandmom that she’d brought with her from home. So he was surrounded by family.
“How did you sleep last night?” Lily asked him.
Dane smiled. “Better than in a long time,” he said. “I’m still sad. Still missing my parents. I’ll never forget ’em, but at least now I don’t think that it should’ve been me instead.”
Lily thought of the conversation she had had with Papa a year ago that had been almost the same.
“I’ve realized something from this whole adventure,” Dane said to her. “Somehow I’ve resigned myself to all that has happened.” He paused and stroked the little mouse’s ears as he surveyed them all. “I know now that the past can’t be changed. It was my mistake to think everything could be put back to how it was. All that’s gone.”
“Gone but not forgotten,” Robert said. “You can remember your folks and try to do things that make them proud. And you can grieve for them and miss them. But you can also live on and, with them always in your heart, go out into the world and find out what the future has to offer.”
“I like that,” Dane’s grandmom said happily. “It’s a good philosophy. I’ve been so glad to have Dane back unharmed after losing my son and daughter-in-law. He has the good of each of them in him, just like you do with your folks, and that’s how we carry that good on.” She pursed her lips and stepped to a bell rope in the corner that called the concierge. “Now then, if you’re not full from your breakfasts already, I thought we might send for room service and ask them to bring us some cake and tea?”
Later, when they returned to their own suite, they found John and Selena sat together talking by the fire and playing cards.
“Your father’s been teaching me whist!” Selena said as they entered. “It’s the first time in years I’ve picked up a pack of cards and not been asked to tell someone’s fortune with them!”
Papa chuckled. “Come on, all of you,” he said. “Why don’t you join us?”
