The Island of Dragons (Rockpools Book 4)

by Gregg Dunnett

  “Say, I heard there’s a party tonight,” Guy tells us all at one point, and it’s clear he expects we’re all going to go. “Let’s get some more beers in and get out there.” And then him and Jimbo go off together to the store to buy more beer – because we’ve drunk it all by then. When they’re gone, the girls go back to their rooms, and gratefully, I do the same.

  Chapter Six

  We all go out to a special student bar first. It’s massive, and it takes ages to order any drinks at the bar. We all huddle together, because we’re the only people we actually know, but actually the music is so loud you can’t really talk. So I spend the time looking around at the other students. I don’t know why, but I expected them to look really different to the other students in my school. I mean they are a bit bigger, but they’re all wearing the same sort of clothes, and they look disappointedly similar. Like they’re interested in pretty much the same things.

  After a while Guy gets a message on his cell telling him to come to the party, so we go there instead. It’s held in an apartment that’s identical to our new one, only it somehow looks as though the occupants have been there forever. They’ve put up a few decorations – those foil-banners you can buy in Walmart, and their kitchen area is completely stocked with alcohol. And again, for a while, all of us stand together in the kitchen, and I get the sense that everyone else there is doing the same thing. Then Jimbo finds someone from the hockey club, and he goes over to their group, and we all watch a bit enviously, except Guy, who keeps pretending that we’re having an amazing time. But then things get a bit better when a girl called Kate (I think she lives there) announces we all have to ‘fire-extinguisher’ cans of beer. I don’t know what she means, so she explains we have to punch a hole in the bottom of a full beer can, and then shake it really hard and put it to your lips. Then, when you open the tab, all the beer gets fired straight down your throat, like it’s being shot out by a fire extinguisher. I don’t want to do one, but Kate forces me to, and I have to say it does make it easy to drink a beer very quickly. I guess things loosen up a bit soon after that, and my new housemates disappear. I bump into lots of people and I make sure to ask them all questions, like what they’re studying and why, but then I kind of run out of conversation, and they usually wander off. Maybe I look a bit disappointed when they don’t turn out to be studying Marine Biology with me. I guess it does disappoint me a bit.

  A bit later on and the little living area is now a kind of dance floor, although there’s a big difference between how the girls are dancing (quite well), and the boys (more like they’re wrestling or playing football.) It reminds me of the seal colony I was studying back in Australia, and I look around for someone to tell this to, but there’s only Kate, and she doesn’t listen, instead she takes my arm, and drags me out of the room and into her bedroom. For a moment I get the wrong idea, but there’s about twenty people in there, listening to more relaxed music and smoking pot. She pats the floor next to her, and I sit on the carpet, but just to be polite really, and to make an effort, like Dad said. But there’s only so long you can sit in a room full of people smoking pot, and not actually smoke any pot, before you begin to question whether this is actually a worthwhile use of your time. So eventually I tap Kate on the shoulder and tell her I’m going back to the lounge. She gives me a funny look, then shrugs. From the delay in the two actions, I can tell Kate’s pretty wasted.

  In the lounge the dance/fight thing is still going on, although the boys have moved on to ripping down the decorations. I can’t find anyone from my house now. So after waiting what seems a polite amount of time, I leave and walk home.

  So that’s my first experience of a college party.

  I’m not the first up the next morning, Sarah is already in the kitchen making toast. She asks me if I enjoyed the party, and I tell her it was OK, and she gives me a funny look. Then I think I should tell her how it reminded me about the seal colony, with her studying psychology and everything. But I don’t get the chance because she goes out. So I start to clean up instead. The room is a horrible mess. There’s take-out food just abandoned where people left it, and someone has arranged all the empty beer cans into a pyramid shape in the window. I pick it all up and dump it in the trash can, which is already looking dangerously full. Then I open the refrigerator to get my sandwiches from yesterday, but they’re not there.

  “Oh man, last night I was so freaking wasted.”

  I look up, to see Guy walking in wearing a dressing gown, but open to show his underpants. I didn’t have him down as a dressing gown type.

  “Have you seen my sandwiches?”

  “No mannnn. Hey, you sneaked off early didn’t you?” He sits down and hold his head for a moment. Then looks up. “So did you?”

  “Did I what?”

  “Did you do the business?”

  “What?”

  “With that Kate? She was all over you, man. Did you slip her one?”

  I look at Guy, not quite believing I’m going to have to spend an entire year of my life with someone who keeps talking like this.

  “No.”

  “Oh.” He looks disappointed, but then a bit hopeful. “Anyone else?”

  “No.”

  “Mmmmm.” He pulls his dressing gown closed and ties it up. Thankfully. “Me neither. But plenty of time hey Billy?” He looks around the room, and I think he notices the lack of beer-can-pyramid, but he doesn’t say anything, because at that moment Laura pokes her head in. She looks very bleary eyed, and just has a towel wrapped around her, from the tops of her thighs to just above her boobs. She says good morning, and then turns around and goes into the one bathroom we have to share.

  Guy nudges me.

  “Oh my lord. Tell me you saw that? Tell me you saw those tits?”

  I leave Guy to it, and go back to my room and check my emails. There’s one from Steve Rose, from Shark Bites, the TV show, well formerly of Shark Bites. I worked with him in Australia, monitoring shark populations, and then he helped me when I had to stop a drugs gang from murdering Amber’s sister. He’s gone back to live in Australia now, but he’s emailed to wish me luck, which is really nice of him. I start to reply, then get distracted as a new email comes in from the university. I open that, and discover I’ve been assigned my tutor from the Marine Biology department. It’s someone called Lawrence Hall. I don’t actually recognize the name, which is odd since I’ve studied the staff list on the Marine Biology section of the University website – I wanted to see how many I recognized from journal articles I’ve read – and I don’t remember a Professor Hall. But there could be all sorts of reasons for that. He could have come to work here recently, and the university hasn’t updated its website in a while. That’s probably what’s happened.

  Even so, I’m quite excited about it, because having a really good tutor is super important. He’ll guide me through which subjects to study, and that will have a big influence on my future career. For that reason, having a strong student-tutor relationship is important as well. So I decide that, even though my actual classes don’t start for a few more days yet, I’ll go and introduce myself to Professor Hall today.

  Chapter Seven

  The Marine Biology building is a little distance away from the main part of the campus, down by the harbor and next to the aquarium. It’s almost brand new, and really well equipped, which was one of the main reasons I chose to study here. I go on my bike, riding along by the river, and it’s a beautiful morning. In my head I go through the questions I want to ask Professor Hall – about what articles he’s published, and what his specialisms are.

  When I get there I lock my bike up and go inside. I have to scan my new Student card to do so, which is quite fun. The building has an exciting, busy feel, with lots of students and staff milling around, carrying folders and drinking cups of coffee – actually it’s just as I imagined it would be. I ask at the reception desk for where Professor Hall’s office is. She looks on her computer, and directs me to the third floor. S
o then I have a choice between taking the stairs, or using the amazing glass-walled elevator, which offers a view out over the harbor. Obviously I call the elevator.

  I’m alone when I do so, but then I’m joined by a gaggle of girls. It’s a bit sexist of me to call them a gaggle, but there isn’t really any other word – they certainly don’t look like scientists – and they’re behaving in a very girlish way, giggling and whispering things to each other, and shaking their hair about as if they’re in a shampoo advert. It all makes me feel a bit self-conscious. And inside the elevator I can’t help but hear what they’re talking about, a party that either happened or is going to happen soon, I’m not quite sure, and something about a boy one of them is sleeping with. I assume the last part, as that’s the bit that’s whispered, but it’s fairly obvious. When the elevator stops at the third floor I get out, realizing only then that I didn’t even notice the view. So I stop by the window to have a look.

  It is a nice view. A lot nicer than my new room, though maybe not quite as good as the view from my house back on Lornea, if I’m being picky about it. I do like the islands here though. There’s no islands in Silverlea bay. When I’ve looked for a while, I turn around and start to search for Professor Hall’s office, and after a few hundred meters of corridor I find it. And then I’m nervous again, when I knock on the door.

  At first there’s no reply, and I start to think that maybe I should have emailed first, to make an appointment, when suddenly a voice replies from inside.

  “What is it?”

  He doesn’t say if I should go in, or anything else in fact, so after a second I knock again, and again the same reply, only a bit more annoyed now.

  “I said what is it?”

  So this time I open the door a fraction. And inside there’s a frankly wonderful sight. It’s a room lined with bookshelves, and a couple of desks with quite good computers, and covered with papers and work. Proper work. There’s posters on the walls showing different species of octopuses, and there’s a glass tank filled with water with some pebbles and seagrass at the bottom. I squint to try and make out what else is in there.

  “Yes? Can I help you?”

  I turn quickly to the man at the desk. Professor Hall is almost exactly as I imagined him. He’s quite old, probably in his forties, and he’s sitting at one of the desks with a microscope in front of him. He looks friendly even though I’ve interrupted him, well quite friendly – no one likes to be interrupted when they’re doing important work.

  “Professor Hall,” I begin. “I’m very sorry to disturb you without an appointment, but my name is…”

  POP!

  I stop talking, unsure where the noise comes from, and also because it’s kind of obvious he’s not listening to me. Instead he’s staring intently at the tank, I notice now there’s some kind of shrimp in it.

  “Did you hear that?”

  “Err…”

  “Did you know there are over five hundred species of Alpheidae? Probably far more than that, but five hundred we know of?”

  “Alpheidae… is that pistol shrimp? The ones that fire bubbles?”

  Professor Hall looks up, he looks pleased. “Yes! Except they don’t fire bubbles so much as generate a low pressure vortex by snapping their claw incredibly fast, producing a shockwave capable of stunning or killing much larger prey. Watch this.”

  He dips a wooden stick in the water, moving it near to where the shrimp is half buried in the sand, at the bottom of the tank. For a moment nothing happens, then:

  POP!

  It happens quicker than I can see it. Professor Hall turns to a digital thermometer he has pointed on the tank.

  “The temperature, in a tiny area, is as hot as the surface of the sun. Isn’t that incredible?”

  “Yeah it is. Are you doing a study on them?”

  “Actually no.” Professor Hall looks up and looks thoughtful. “Sebastian here is more of a pet. Although I am thinking about it. Did you know the noise from snapping shrimps is so loud it can interfere with marine sonar?”

  “No, I didn’t know that.”

  “Oh yes. Extremely interesting invertebrates. Anyhow.” He suddenly smiles. “What can I do for you young man?”

  For a second I actually can’t remember, but then I do.

  “I just – I wanted to introduce myself, I’m Billy Wheatley. I’m one of the new students in your freshmen tutor group.”

  Professor Hall’s face goes a bit dark then.

  “No you’re not.”

  “What?”

  “You would be, if my name was Professor Hall, but it’s not. He and I share an office, but I am not he.” He articulates the last words very individually, so that even though it doesn’t sound like it makes sense, it still does. I glance across at the other desk in the room. It looks kind of similar to his, but it doesn’t have the fish tank.

  “Oh. Sorry.”

  “No problem at all. If you’d been looking for Professor Little, then you’d be in the right place, since that’s me. But I don’t take any freshmen students. Professor Hall did just leave though, if you’re quick you may be able to catch him. He’ll be in the refectory.”

  “Oh. Right, thanks.”

  Professor Little smiles again, as if to say it was no trouble, and then leans back over his microscope. I’m about to back out and leave him alone, when I realize I can’t.

  “Erm, just one more thing…”

  He lifts his eye from the microscope and, after a half-second’s hesitation, gives me the same smile.

  “Let me guess, you want to know why I named an Alpheidae Sebastian? Well it’s a perfectly decent name for a shrimp, don’t you think?”

  “Erm, yeah. Only it’s not what I wanted to know. I just wondered what Professor Hall looks like?”

  “Oh. Yes. Look for the outrageously loud Hawaiian shirt imprinted with images of the Hibiscus flower. You can’t miss him.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Thank you.” He turns back to the tank, and a bit reluctantly I back out.

  I take the stairs this time, since I need a little time to steady myself. Everything is so new, and so exciting, and I want to make a good first impression on the real Professor Hall. Plus it’s only one floor up.

  The refectory is quite large, and it has views all the way around the building, but it isn’t full. There’s maybe twenty people here. And I quickly scan around for a man wearing a Hawaiian shirt, and like Professor Little said, there’s only one. But that can’t be Professor Hall, because this man is far too young. Like, in his twenties young – with long black hair, a gold chain around his neck. And he’s sitting with the girls I saw earlier in the elevator, they’re all laughing together. I stare in confusion, and somehow he must notice it, because I catch his eye. And then I’d feel wrong if I didn’t explain why it is I’m staring. So I move forward.

  “Excuse me, are you Professor Hall? Professor Lawrence Hall?”

  “No.” He says, and I’m immediately relieved. I have made a mistake after all. Which is good, because this man can’t be my tutor.

  “Well technically I am, but I’m not a fan of the title. Makes me sound a bit too uptight if you know what I mean.” He turns to the girls. “Just call me Lawrence.” They giggle like they did in the elevator, and I feel their eyes on me.

  “And you are?”

  It’s kind of an automatic reaction. I stick out a hand. “Billy. Billy Wheatley.”

  He raises his eyebrows to make me go on.

  “I’m in your tutor group.”

  Then his face changes. It’s like he panics. “Oh shit. Now?”

  I don’t understand what he’s talking about.

  “You’ve got a tutor group now?”

  “Oh! No. No it’s not until next week. On Wednesday, at three pm.”

  “Thank Christ for that.” He looks relieved, and smiles. He’s got a good smile but he knows it, I can tell by the way he turns to show it off to the girls. Then he looks back to me.

  “So
how can I help you?”

  Still I feel the girls watching me. I start to wonder what they’re all doing here. I start to wonder what I’m doing there, come to that.

  “I just wanted to come and introduce myself. As it says in the course prospectus. The relationship between a student and a tutor is very important.”

  There’s a silence. And as it stretches out I know I’ve said the wrong thing. I don’t know why I added the bit about the prospectus – although it does say it there. It’s like I wanted to provide evidence to back up my argument. Then one of the girls, the prettiest one I note, starts to laugh, covering her mouth a moment later, but it sets the others off. Then Professor Hall starts laughing.

  “It’s just…” I begin, feeling my face flushing hot.

  “No, no. You’re right. It is important. Something some of my second year students here would do well to remember.” He raises his eyebrows at the girls, then leans back and stretches his arms behind his head. I think back to the questions I thought of earlier, about what his specialisms are. But I’m not going to ask them now. I’m not an idiot.

  There’s a silence, as they all stop laughing.

  “Well Mr Wheatley. Consider yourself introduced.” Professor Hall says, a few moments later. “I’ll see you in our first session next week.”

  I think about asking whether there’s anything I need to do before then, like read up on a subject or anything, but I guess he’d email us if there is. So instead I just nod and take a step back. Then I turn and walk away, but I can hear the girls are bursting into laughter behind me, and this time Professor Hall isn’t doing anything to stop them.