The Castle in the Sea: Quest of the Sunfish 2

by Mardi McConnochie

Sujana shook her head. ‘They missed him somehow. Avery was very angry. He made me promise that if I heard from Spinner again—or if I saw you—then I’d let him know.’

  ‘And have you?’ Annalie asked, her voice little more than a squeak.

  ‘No,’ Sujana said. ‘Once I actually saw you on my doorstep—’ She broke off. ‘Avery promised me he’d take care of the project and keep all the research safe, and Spinner just wouldn’t. . . But when you told me about Dan, I didn’t know what to think, or who to trust.’

  ‘You can trust Spinner,’ Annalie said urgently. ‘This research means just as much to him as it does to you. He’d do anything to protect it. I promise you that.’

  ‘Then how could he even consider destroying it?’

  Annalie thought quickly. ‘Think about what could happen if the wrong people got hold of it—the Admiralty. You said it yourself, they don’t understand science, they don’t understand pure research. They want results, and power, and—and weapons.’

  ‘The Collodius Process is not a weapon!’

  ‘We understand that,’ Annalie said. ‘But do they?’

  Sujana didn’t reply, but Annalie hoped she was coming round to her point of view. ‘I know Spinner doesn’t want to destroy the research,’ she continued. ‘He wants to keep it safe, just like you do. And if you help us get away from here, and avoid Beckett, I promise I’ll do everything I can to help him keep it safe.’

  ‘But what can any of us do against them?’ Sujana moaned. ‘I bet Dan Gari thought he was safe, and now he’s rotting in jail—and I’ll be next.’

  ‘It’s not too late,’ Annalie said. ‘Get away now, while you still can.’

  ‘How can I go on the run?’ Sujana said. ‘You’ve seen my mother. She’s never going to leave this house, and there’s no way I could leave her here alone.’

  Annalie didn’t know what to say.

  Sujana was silent for a moment more, weighing things up. Then she said, ‘I think you’d better go. As quick as you can. Get back to your boat. Find Spinner.’

  Annalie felt a surge of relief wash through her. Sujana was not going to betray them. Her mind began racing ahead, back to the boat, back to sea, on to the next destination. There was no time to lose. They must get on, as fast as they could. ‘Do you know where he was going?’ she asked.

  ‘He wouldn’t tell me,’ Sujana said.

  Sujana’s mother appeared in the doorway. She looked from Sujana to Annalie and seemed to realise at once what was going on. ‘I’ll make you some food for the journey,’ she murmured.

  ‘What will you tell Beckett?’ Annalie asked.

  ‘Nothing,’ Sujana said.

  ‘Thank you,’ Annalie said, knowing that Sujana was, at last, being entirely sincere. But she knew in her heart Sujana could not really be relied upon; she had let Beckett back in. He knew where she lived and what her weaknesses were. He would never let her go; he was ruthless in pursuit of what he wanted, and he would do anything, threaten anything, to get it. However good Sujana’s intentions were right now, Annalie knew that when Beckett came back, he would soon find out everything there was to know.

  And when he did, Annalie wanted to be nowhere nearby.

  As she reached the door, Sujana spoke one last time. ‘When you see Spinner, tell him I’m sorry.’

  Annalie nodded, and was gone.

  Down the mountain

  Will, Annalie and Essie hurried down the steep slope of the mountain as quickly as they could without actually tripping and rolling all the way to the ocean. When they got into signal range again, Essie’s shell began to buzz and vibrate in her pocket. She pulled it out and saw the message from Pod. ‘Uh-oh.’

  She put the shell on speaker and they all heard Pod say, ‘Guys, I’m in trouble. Call me back.’

  Essie called him back immediately and Pod answered on the first ring.

  ‘What took you so long?’ he demanded.

  ‘No signal,’ Essie said. ‘What’s happened?’

  Pod quickly filled them in, and Will and Essie looked at each other in dismay.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Annalie said. ‘We’re coming to get you.’

  ‘And the boat,’ Will said.

  ‘Do you know where you are?’ asked Essie. ‘Can you see any signs?’

  ‘I’m hiding out in a park,’ Pod said. ‘Under a tree. It’s raining.’ He paused. ‘Couldn’t read the signs anyway.’

  ‘Oh. Of course,’ Essie said. She thought quickly. ‘Go out on the street, look for some signs, take some pictures and send them to me. Okay? Do you know how to do that?’

  ‘Okay,’ Pod said. ‘Don’t go anywhere.’

  He ended the call and ventured out into the rain.

  On top of the mountain, where it was sunny, Annalie, Will and Essie looked at each other. ‘How are we going to get the boat back?’ Essie asked.

  ‘We stole it once before,’ Will said. ‘We can do it again.’

  ‘That still doesn’t seem like a good idea to me,’ Annalie said.

  ‘You got a better one?’

  They waited for Pod to call back. It didn’t take long. Soon there were photos pinging into her newsfeed and Essie got to work searching all the names she could see—streets, businesses, buildings, the park he was using as a hide-out—until she managed to work out where he was. She called him back.

  ‘Okay, I’ve got it,’ she told him. ‘Sit tight and stay out of anybody’s way. We’ll be there as soon as we can.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Pod said, for the tenth time.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Will said. ‘Just keep your head down.’

  The sweep

  Dusk came early in Norlind at this time of year. In the park where Pod had taken shelter it seemed even darker, for, unlike the city streets, the park had no streetlights. The park gates closed at sunset; Pod watched people leave. He was hungry. When all seemed quiet again, he ventured out to see whether he could find any food in the bins.

  He crept out of the trees and was making for the nearest bin when he heard a low whistle behind him. He stopped and turned; a girl’s face was looking out at him from the undergrowth. She beckoned to him urgently; he frowned, wondering why she was trying to attract his attention. Then from the corner of his eye he caught a glimpse of movement; an electric vehicle was coming towards him.

  He ran to the spot where the girl had been hiding. She had melted back into the shadows, and he joined her, holding his breath, while an electric vehicle went gliding past, very slowly.

  When the vehicle was gone he said, ‘Thanks for the warning.’

  ‘I not protect you. I protect me. They see you, they sweep,’ the girl said, gesturing with her hands.

  ‘Sweep what?’

  ‘Park,’ she said. ‘Many peoples here.’

  Pod understood. ‘And we’re not supposed to sleep here?’

  She shook her head. ‘But is good place to hide.’

  ‘You don’t have any food, do you?’ Pod asked.

  The girl shook her head. ‘Sometimes there’s soup. I show you. But sometimes dangerous.’

  ‘Why is it dangerous?’

  ‘Sometimes police come to soup place. Check papers. Take you away.’ She looked at him shrewdly. ‘You got papers?’

  He shook his head. ‘You?’

  She smiled and shook her head. ‘We wait now. Soon, check bins.’

  Pod nodded. ‘You don’t mind sharing?’

  She shrugged.

  They settled in to wait.

  ‘I’m Pod.’

  ‘Lyope.’

  ‘How long have you been here?’ Pod asked.

  ‘Norlind? One month. My mother send me. I go to my uncle.’

  ‘Does he live here?’

  Lyope looked uneasy. ‘Yes.’

  ‘In this park?’

  ‘No. He has house.’ She paused. ‘He away just now. I wait for him.’

  Pod felt a prickle of alarm. ‘Does he know you’re here?’

  ‘My mother send word I coming.’


  ‘But do you know if he’s coming to get you?’

  ‘He comes,’ Lyope said, with an uncertain toss of her head. ‘Eat now?’

  They crept out of the trees and hurried over to the bin. Pod had longer arms than Lyope; he reached in and carefully lifted out everything he could put his hands on, laying it out on the footpath for inspection. The pickings were slim: half a sandwich, made rather soggy by something else in the bin; a third of a bottle of drink; an apple core with some fruit still left on it. The rest was empty wrappers, bottles and various unpleasant things. They carefully divided what they’d found and made a meagre meal of it, stuffing the rest of it back into the bin.

  ‘Where’d you come from?’ Pod asked.

  ‘Camp Lov.’

  Pod looked at her interestedly. ‘That’s one of the places they were threatening to send me.’

  ‘You no go there,’ Lyope said firmly. ‘Very bad.’

  ‘It’s a refugee camp, right? How did you get out?’

  ‘My mother pay big money. I travel in box in ship. We all so sick.’

  Pod nodded sympathetically.

  ‘They drop me in city. Someone help me find my uncle’s house. He no there. So now I wait.’ She paused. ‘When he comes, I get job, help bring my mother.’

  ‘Cost much?’ Pod asked.

  ‘Plenty,’ Lyope said feelingly. ‘You? Where you from?’

  ‘Nowhere really,’ Pod said.

  ‘Huh,’ Lyope said, as if she knew what that meant. ‘What camp you in?’

  ‘No camp,’ Pod said. ‘I was a slave. But then I escaped.’

  Although it was very dark by now, Pod could see the whiteness of her eyes as they opened wide.

  ‘How you do that?’ she said.

  ‘Long story,’ he said. ‘But I’ve got friends I’m travelling with. I’m trying to get back to them, and they’re going to get me out of here.’

  ‘You not stay Norlind?’

  ‘Why would I want to stay here?’

  ‘You seen it?’ she said incredulously. ‘Norlind paradise! So nice, so clean. People so happy. And food—mm-mmm!’

  ‘Don’t suppose you’ve had much chance to try any of it yet,’ Pod said.

  ‘Not much,’ Lyope agreed. ‘But I see, through windows. Now I here, I never going back.’

  Later, Lyope showed Pod where to find some cardboard to use as a bed—the ground was very cold—and the right kind of tree to sleep under. This tree had long branches and a wide canopy that drooped down to the ground, making a useful hiding place. Lyope already had a spot there; he made his own bed at a discreet distance from hers, and the two of them soon fell asleep. It was uncomfortable, but Pod had spent most of his life sleeping in uncomfortable places so it didn’t bother him.

  In the depths of the night he was woken by sudden noises—the thrash of foliage, voices shouting. Lyope hissed, ‘Sweep! Run!’ then he heard her scamper off into the darkness. Blinding torchlight flashed across his eyes and he staggered to his feet and began to run too, with no idea of where he was going.

  The darkness was almost impenetrable, but the trees behind him were lit up by what seemed like hundreds of swinging torches. A line of people was trampling through the park, sweeping up any illegals they could find. He was aware of a few other people dashing through the trees around him as the line advanced implacably behind them. He heard a cry as someone was caught; it sounded like a man’s voice, and he hoped Lyope had managed to escape. The park, he knew, was big, but the wooded band through the middle was not enormous. Once he burst out onto the other side of it he would be in open parkland, and all too visible. A tree caught his eye—it looked climbable, and without another thought he went up it, desperately hoping that he could get high enough to escape detection before the line marched through. He could hear the branches rustling as he ascended; he hoped the noise wouldn’t be too obvious. The branches grew spindly; he couldn’t get any higher, and he clung there in the crown of the tree, watching as the line advanced. Flashlights darted and flickered over the foliage; feet tramped through the long grass; now and then, a cry went up as someone spotted something. Sometimes an officer broke out of the line to give chase; the rest of them formed up again, leaving no gaps, and continued the march. No one thought to look up.

  The line passed beneath him and away; for a long time after it had passed he could hear voices and movement, shouts and cries, then he heard the sound of doors slamming, engines starting, vehicles moving. They had swept up the undocumented and the unlucky; anyone who couldn’t escape had been arrested and taken away. Silence fell once more over the park. Pod crept back down the tree—the descent somehow more difficult and terrifying than the ascent—and found a place to sleep. But his sleep was full of dreams of being chased and captured and he was glad when the first light began to appear in the sky the next morning. He hoped he might see Lyope again, and offer his help, or at least wish her well; but he didn’t see her again.

  Finding the Sunfish

  Annalie, Will and Essie found their way to the park the next morning. Pod had taken a photo of the place where he’d be waiting for them and they found him easily enough.

  ‘So, the police have impounded the boat until they can contact the registered owner?’ Annalie said, getting down to business.

  ‘I think so,’ Pod said.

  ‘And if the registered owner comes forward, they’ll hand it back?’

  ‘I guess so.’

  ‘That’s easy then,’ Annalie said.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Will asked. ‘We can’t just turn up and pretend to be Spinner.’

  ‘I’m the registered owner,’ Annalie said.

  ‘You’re what?’ Will said, outraged.

  Annalie explained that while the Kangs were rebirthing the Sunfish they’d asked her whose name they should put on the papers. Naturally enough, she’d given them her own.

  ‘Your name was on the papers the whole time?’ Pod said, very annoyed. ‘I wish you’d told me.’

  ‘Why’d you put it in your name?’ asked Will huffily.

  ‘Spinner is missing and I didn’t know where you were,’ Annalie said. ‘Obviously we can change it again later.’

  ‘But wait a minute,’ Essie said. ‘You used your real name? Isn’t that going to be on a watchlist too?’

  Annalie paused. ‘Um. Yes.’

  ‘If you go and try to claim the boat back, Beckett could be waiting for you,’ Will said.

  ‘This is all my fault,’ Pod said glumly.

  ‘Why didn’t you get fake papers for yourselves while you were getting fake papers for the boat?’ Will said.

  ‘Oh, like it was so easy!’ Annalie snapped. ‘We would have had to do a whole extra mission to pay for that!’

  ‘All right, what’s done is done,’ Essie said, to stop it escalating any further. ‘Now we need to work out what we do next.’

  ‘I say we find out where they’ve impounded it and just take it back, like I did last time,’ Will said.

  ‘Too risky,’ Annalie said.

  ‘What choice do we have?’ Will snapped. ‘You put your real name on the boat. They’re going to be looking for you. They’re probably waiting for you to show up right now.’

  ‘It’s not just the boat,’ Pod reminded him. ‘There’s Graham too. The guy who arrested me was threatening to have him removed. He said he was a dangerous animal.’

  ‘Did they catch him?’ Annalie asked.

  ‘Not while I was there, but I don’t know what happened after that.’

  Will and Annalie looked at each other worriedly.

  ‘Graham’s pretty cluey,’ Will said. ‘If he thought he was in danger, he would have just flown away.’

  ‘But what if he got lost?’ Annalie said.

  Graham did have a bit of a knack for getting lost.

  ‘Essie, is there any way you can find out where they might have put the boat?’ Annalie asked.

  ‘Let me see what I can find out,’ Essie said.
<
br />   It didn’t take her long to find the location of the water police headquarters on the map. It was located on a small bay. When they got down there they discovered that all the impounded boats, including the Sunfish, were anchored out in the bay.

  ‘We can’t get out there without a boat,’ Essie said.

  ‘I could swim out,’ Will said.

  ‘That water’s less than ten degrees,’ Annalie said. ‘You’d be dead of the cold in minutes.’

  ‘We need a dinghy then,’ Essie said.

  ‘Could we borrow one?’ Pod asked delicately.

  ‘You mean steal?’ Will said with a grin.

  ‘Can anyone see Graham?’ Pod asked.

  The four of them studied the boat as carefully as they could in the fading light, but he was not perched in any of his favourite spots above deck.

  ‘Perhaps he’s below,’ Pod said, although he had a bad feeling about it.

  ‘Let’s find a dinghy. Then we can go and check,’ Will said.

  They split into pairs and went looking for a dinghy. Annalie and Pod found nothing, but Will and Essie got lucky: Will spotted a kayak. It was hanging from a wall in someone’s shed, but the shed was unlocked and the kayak was there for the taking.

  The search had eaten up the remains of the afternoon; the sun was gone and the remaining light was fading from the sky. Will and Pod eased the kayak from its pegs on the shed wall and hurried it down to the water’s edge as quickly as they could. Will squeezed in and paddled off, leaving the other three to stand there, shivering in the darkness, listening to the splash of Will’s paddle growing fainter and fainter. They waited for what felt like a long time. Then, finally, Essie’s shell chirped.

  ‘I’m here,’ Will reported. ‘There’s no sign of Graham.’

  ‘Do you think he flew off when they moved the boat?’ Annalie suggested, looking at Pod. She’d put Will on speaker. ‘If he did, he may have gone ashore somewhere near that village.’

  ‘He’ll be hard to find if he did,’ Essie said.

  ‘What if the police caught him?’ Pod said.

  There was a silence. Although Graham certainly could have escaped, they all had a horrible feeling that the police probably had him.