The Castle in the Sea: Quest of the Sunfish 2

by Mardi McConnochie

  ‘We have to get him back,’ Pod said.

  ‘But if we go to the police now, they could arrest us,’ Essie said.

  ‘We wouldn’t all go,’ Annalie said. ‘Just me.’

  ‘How does that make it any better?’ Essie wailed. ‘Then you’d get arrested!’

  ‘I’ve got the boat, this is our best chance to escape,’ Will said. ‘I think you guys should get to the rendezvous point and we should just go.’

  ‘And leave Graham?’ Pod cried.

  Annalie looked at Will. ‘Pod’s right. We can’t leave him behind.’

  Will was silent. He didn’t really want to leave Graham behind either.

  ‘We don’t even know the police have got him,’ Essie said. ‘Maybe he did just fly away. We could sail back to that fjord and see if he’s there.’

  ‘And what if he’s not?’ said Will. ‘Then what?’

  Annalie looked at her friends. Essie was wringing her hands. Pod’s face had closed like a fist at the prospect of losing Graham.

  ‘I have to go to the police station,’ Annalie said. ‘If there’s a chance Graham’s there, I’ve got to try and get him back.’

  The registered owner

  ‘I’d like to report a stolen boat,’ Annalie said.

  The night duty officer moved as slowly as if he was underwater, as he reached for his notebook.

  ‘Name of vessel?’ he asked, in heavily accented Duxish.

  ‘The Sunfish,’ Annalie said.

  ‘Registration? Country of origin?’

  Annalie rattled them off.

  ‘Do you have your ship’s papers?’ the duty officer asked.

  ‘No,’ Annalie said. ‘They’re on my boat. Which has been stolen. But I have my identity papers.’

  The duty officer went to a computer and began typing slowly. His eyebrows rose when he saw what came up.

  ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Your boat has been reported as stolen already.’

  Annalie remembered to look surprised. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Your vessel has been impounded. A person was on board, acting suspiciously. We have been trying to contact the owner of the vessel.’

  He studied the computer screen and his notes, then he did some slow clicking and typing.

  ‘The owner of the vessel is Annalie Wallace,’ he read. ‘What is your name?’

  She held her papers up for him. ‘Annalie Wallace.’

  He was about to start his laborious typing again, but she interrupted him. ‘I’m particularly anxious about my pet parrot, who should have been on board the boat. Do you have a record of where he is and what happened to him?’

  ‘A parrot?’ the policeman asked, as if she’d asked something perfectly incomprehensible.

  ‘He’s a pet and I’m very attached to him. Was he on board when the boat was impounded?’

  The duty officer stared at her for another long moment, then went back to his computer, frowning. Tap tap. Frown.

  ‘Yes,’ he said finally. ‘A large bird. It’s scheduled to be destroyed.’

  ‘Destroyed?’ Annalie squeaked. ‘When?’

  The duty officer stared, frowned, looked baffled. ‘Yesterday,’ he said. ‘But the paperwork has not been completed.’

  ‘What does that mean?’ Annalie said. ‘Does that mean it hasn’t been done yet?’

  ‘That would be very irregular,’ the duty officer said. ‘But if the order had already been carried out, the paperwork would be here. And it’s not here.’

  ‘Where was he being kept?’ Annalie asked. ‘Is he still here at the station?’

  The duty officer frowned and tapped, tapped and frowned. ‘The bird was entered as evidence,’ he reported finally, ‘although procedurally that is not correct. Procedurally the animal should have been passed on to the animal control division.’ He tapped, tapped, hummed, tapped. ‘But they have not been this week. So no pick-up was made. Very unusual.’

  ‘Does that mean he might still be here somewhere?’ Annalie asked. ‘I have to get him back, I just have to!’ She tried to pile some pressure on. ‘He’s a very rare bird and he’s very precious to me. I’d hate to think something might have happened to him while he was in your custody.’

  ‘Rare?’ the officer repeated, looking worried now.

  ‘Very rare,’ Annalie said. ‘And valuable, although I don’t care about that.’ She said it in a way that implied that although she didn’t care, there were others who did care about his value—a lot. And that if the police had unfortunately destroyed a rare and valuable bird, the trouble could go on for aeons. ‘I just want him back. Is there anywhere he could be around the station?’

  ‘I’ll check,’ the duty officer said, and disappeared into the depths of the building.

  He was gone for a long time. Annalie waited, fidgeting and anxious. She was almost at the point of bolting out the front door and into the night when the duty officer appeared again through a security door, carrying a large cardboard box. It was taped shut, but as the officer came towards her she saw it bump and jolt, and the officer almost lost his grip on it.

  ‘Graham, is that you?’ she cried. ‘Are you all right?’

  A flurry of frantic squawking came from inside the box.

  ‘An animal lover among my colleagues,’ the duty officer said, looking embarrassed by what he had to report. ‘When animal control didn’t come yesterday, he decided to take matters into his own hands. He was intending to find it a good home.’ He held the box out, and Annalie took it. ‘You won’t mention this to anyone, will you?’

  ‘But what about the anomaly in the paperwork?’ Annalie challenged.

  ‘We’re going to report the bird as escaped,’ the duty officer said.

  ‘And that will settle things?’

  ‘We believe it will,’ the duty officer said.

  ‘Then I’d like to have my boat back now, if you don’t mind,’ Annalie said.

  ‘It won’t wait until morning?’

  Annalie didn’t dare wait that long. ‘I’ve already been significantly delayed,’ she said, conjuring up the voice of her most frightening teacher. ‘I’d like someone to take me to my boat right now.’

  Flustered by the business of the bird, the duty officer went back to his typing. A form was produced, and Annalie signed it while the duty officer made a phone call.

  ‘This way, please,’ he said. He came out from behind the police desk and led her out the front door into the cold.

  Annalie followed him into the chilly night, her heart pounding, afraid that this could all still go wrong. Graham bumped and thrashed angrily in his box. The walkway down the side of the police station was unlit. The building loomed on one side of her, a tall wire fence on the other. The walkway was so narrow they had to walk in single file, the duty officer in front, Annalie behind, and it was so dark she couldn’t even see where she was putting her feet. They reached the back of the building and came to an open yard where various police vehicles were parked. At the other end of the yard was the police dock and the restless sea.

  ‘That’s where you need to go,’ the duty officer said, pointing to a little office beside the dock. There was a light in the window; someone was on duty.

  ‘Thank you,’ Annalie said.

  ‘And you won’t mention the bird to anyone, will you?’

  Muffled swearing came from inside the box. Annalie hoped the officer couldn’t hear what Graham was saying.

  ‘I won’t,’ she said.

  The duty officer turned and headed back towards his front desk and Annalie walked across the yard towards the office. She could just make out a couple of police launches tied up at the dock; she guessed another officer had been tasked with taking her out to the Sunfish.

  She stepped towards the office and was just raising her hand to knock when she heard the murmur of voices from inside. Something made her look through the window. She saw two men. One was dressed in the uniform of the Norlind police; the other, a tall man with a craggy face and a high forehead, w
as dressed in a black leather jacket and jeans.

  She knew him at once. It was Beckett.

  Beckett again

  Annalie stepped away from the door, her mouth going dry. She hadn’t been trying to disguise her footsteps as she approached the office. Was it possible he’d heard her coming?

  She scurried away from the office and shrank into the shadow of one of the vehicles. To her horror, the office door opened and Beckett and the second officer appeared in the doorway, looking for her.

  Her eyes darted frantically around the yard, looking for a way to escape. The bulk of the police station loomed behind her. On either side of the yard was a huge chain-link fence—she had no chance of climbing that. Ahead was the cold ocean. She imagined making a dash for it, stealing a dinghy from the police dock, trying to escape that way. But even if she could make it past Beckett and the second officer, she knew she couldn’t outrun one of the powerful police launches.

  Crouching down, she crept along behind the parked vehicles. She would go back the way she’d come. If she could just get out into the street again, she could make a run for it.

  Boom! The yard was flooded with light.

  The police officer had switched the floodlights on. Dazzled by the sudden glare, Annalie ducked deeper below the cars.

  There was nothing to be done. She bolted.

  ‘There!’ shouted Beckett.

  They were after her.

  Annalie fled up the side of the building, now brilliantly lit, the shadows knife-hard. She could hear at least one person hard on her heels, and feared that soon all the police in the building would be pouring out to look for her.

  ‘Stop!’ roared Beckett. ‘You’re not getting away from me this time!’

  Annalie kept running, but Beckett was fast, horribly fast. She zigzagged out into the street—a car had to swerve not to hit her and honked angrily—but Beckett kept coming. She ran, encumbered by the cardboard box with Graham inside, Beckett’s footsteps loud in her ears, more footsteps following. She turned a corner, then another, trying to put some distance between herself and the police station. She felt him swipe for her. His hand closed on her jacket. If she hadn’t been carrying the box, she could have wriggled out of the jacket and got free, but she could not let Graham fall. Beckett hauled her roughly back.

  ‘Gotcha,’ he said with satisfaction. He took the box from her and put it on the ground. Inside, Graham was going berserk.

  ‘You took a big risk coming back for that bird,’ he said. ‘I hope he was worth it.’

  With one hand gripping her tight, he reached into the pocket of his jacket for his handcuffs. Annalie fought with all her strength to get free, and the handcuffs fell to the ground at Annalie’s feet. She kicked them into the gutter.

  Beckett glared at her, then twisted her arm behind her back as he reached once more for the cuffs. Annalie heard a faint whistle above her head, then suddenly the pressure on her arm was gone and Beckett staggered forward onto the road.

  Annalie turned, astonished, and saw Pod standing there, a long wooden object in his hand. He dropped it with a clatter and picked up the box with Graham in it. ‘Come on!’ he said.

  He ran, and Annalie followed, glancing back to see if they were being followed. For a sick moment she feared Pod had actually killed Beckett, but then she saw him stagger to his feet, holding his head. He fumbled in his pocket, this time for his shell. Dazed as he was, she knew he was calling for back-up.

  They fled, following the darkest routes through alleys and back streets. They could hear sirens on the move, sometimes close, sometimes far away; the police were looking for them, and the Admiralty would be looking too.

  ‘Here,’ Pod said. They ran down a quiet street; at the end, the ocean glinted darkly.

  ‘Will’s waiting with the boat,’ Pod explained. ‘But he can’t get in any closer. Getting out there might be a bit unpleasant.’

  Annalie didn’t have enough breath left to ask what he meant.

  Pod flashed a signal with a torch, and Annalie saw an answering flash over the water. The Sunfish was out there with no lights on, invisible in the dark.

  They ran to the water’s edge. The kayak Will had stolen earlier was lying on the rocks.

  ‘Quick—get in,’ Pod said.

  ‘But where are you going to go?’ Annalie asked.

  ‘I’m going to hang on to the side,’ Pod said.

  ‘The water’s freezing!’ Annalie said.

  ‘I’ll hang onto the rope, I’ll be fine,’ Pod said. He ripped the tape off the box and set Graham free. ‘And you can get yourself back to the boat. They’re coming. Hurry!’

  The sound of sirens was getting louder. Annalie clambered into the kayak.

  Pod looped a rope that was attached to the kayak under his armpits. Then he flashed his torch one more time as he pushed the kayak into the freezing water, gasping in shock. A winch started up and the kayak gave a jerk, then began to plough through the water, towing Pod behind it.

  ‘Are you all right back there?’ she asked anxiously.

  ‘I’m fine,’ Pod said, although his teeth were already chattering.

  Soon the white hull of the Sunfish loomed above them, and Essie and Will were there to help them up on deck. The trip had only taken a few minutes, but Pod was already so cold he couldn’t move. Will and Annalie had to drag him up.

  ‘Graham, you good?’ Pod called, through chattering teeth.

  Graham fluttered down and landed beside him. ‘Hate wet,’ he said, but stroked Pod’s cheek with his beak.

  While Pod lay on the deck, shuddering with cold, Will and Essie hauled up the sails in double quick time. The sails filled; the Sunfish leaned into the wind and they were away.

  A boat race

  ‘That was not the plan,’ Annalie said angrily. ‘You were all supposed to wait for me to get the boat back.’

  ‘We changed the plan,’ Will said calmly.

  ‘If we hadn’t, Beckett would still have you,’ Pod said.

  ‘But what if someone had seen you?’ Annalie said. ‘You’ve already escaped from custody once. If they caught you again—’

  ‘They didn’t,’ Pod said, ‘so stop worrying about it. You got Graham back and we all got away.’

  ‘We haven’t got away yet,’ Will said. ‘We just have to put as much distance between us and Norlind as we can.’

  Will had set a course west, to get them far away from the shore. Then they would go south. Their last two scientists both lay in a southerly direction; they seemed impossibly far away, but it was too soon to even think about that yet.

  They sailed through the night and into the light of dawn.

  ‘No ships on the horizon,’ Pod reported, when it was light enough to see.

  ‘It doesn’t mean they’re not out there,’ Will replied.

  All they could do was keep sailing, west and then south. The winds were favourable for a while, but then they shifted. The Sunfish slowed, beating against the wind.

  ‘If they’re out there, they’re going to catch us for sure,’ Will muttered to Annalie. ‘Where are we?’

  Annalie checked her instruments and did the calculations. ‘We’re out of Norlinden waters,’ she said.

  Not half an hour later, a shape appeared on the horizon. They all took turns looking through the binoculars. There was no question: it was an Admiralty patrol ship.

  ‘Do you think they’re coming for us?’ asked Essie.

  ‘We’ll see,’ Will said.

  He stuck to his course. The others watched the patrol ship as it cruised along on the horizon.

  ‘Are they stalking us?’ asked Essie.

  ‘Looks like it,’ said Pod.

  ‘They may just be going the same way as us,’ Annalie said.

  ‘Seriously?’ said Essie.

  ‘They’re not making any moves to intercept us,’ Annalie said.

  But they weren’t moving away either. The Sunfish sailed on; the Admiralty vessel kept pace.

  ‘
What are they waiting for?’ Will muttered. There was something crazy-making about waiting to be arrested like this.

  ‘It’s Beckett, messing with us,’ Essie suggested.

  ‘I’ll mess with him,’ Will grumbled.

  Every time it looked like the Admiralty were starting to veer closer, Will would steer away. After a while Annalie noticed what was happening. ‘I think they’re trying to herd us towards the shore,’ she said.

  They could just see a distant smudge of land on the horizon. They were definitely moving towards the coast.

  ‘What do you think they’re doing? Trying to pin us against the shore?’ asked Will.

  ‘Maybe. Or push us back into local territorial waters. Whichever it is, I know we don’t want to go the way they want us to go.’

  ‘Hey you guys,’ Essie interrupted. ‘There seems to be something going on up ahead.’

  The water was full of boats, none of them going anywhere in a hurry. They were mostly small- to medium-sized vessels: fishing boats, sailing boats, pleasure craft and little working boats. Annalie looked at the flotilla through the binoculars.

  ‘I think it’s a boat race,’ she said. ‘And by the looks of things we’re just in time for the start!’

  ‘A boat race!’ Will said, and grinned. He turned the wheel.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Annalie asked.

  ‘Best place to hide one little wooden boat is in the middle of lots of other little wooden boats,’ he said.

  They sailed towards the crowd of spectators. Many boats had already taken up the best positions around the starting line and along the course, which was marked with coloured buoys; many more were arriving late and jockeying for position. Engines blurted and surged; boats manoeuvred; skippers shouted angrily at each other. Will took the Sunfish right into the middle of it, braving the shouts and the near misses, navigating with his engine on quarter speed.

  The patrol boat was still just visible, hugging the horizon, although the other boats mostly blocked their view now.

  They drew closer to the starting line. The racing boats were tacking and jostling, waiting for the starter’s gun; Will looked at them enviously, admiring their elegant shapes, the huge spans of sail. They were the thoroughbreds of the sea and he would have loved a chance to take one for a spin. Two of the yachts almost collided and the audience shouted excitedly. Then the starter’s gun blasted, and the boats were off.