by Nette Hilton
She should have been on land. Or in the backyard of somebody’s house. Not here in the middle of a deep, angry inlet that was filling fast with cold ocean water.
It was way too scary. It was too scary even to pretend to know what to do.
He jumped up and tried to run but his feet just pumped up and down and he was going nowhere. Becks had to be saved though. She had to be dragged from under that little clonking boat and pulled to safety and he was going to have to do it.
His breath was really going now. Hauling in and out like it was when the snorkel was over his nose.
And the whole time that boat clonked and swayed. But not enough to muffle the other terrible sounds that filtered out.
He had to get help. It was hard to know how to get help when your feet were scattering up and down and not going any place fast. And who was he going to get? There wasn’t a soul anywhere near.
He was going to have to get in that water himself. Little spinny star things danced in front of his eyes as he even thought about launching over the edge of that old wharf. He’d sink.
San Simeon backed up … San Simeon and Calamity all wrapped about with ropes … he’d tied himself to the ropes from the mast … made sure he was safe and then launched himself over the side …
There wasn’t any rope.
There had to be something that would keep him afloat. The seagulls rattled and squawked about as he rushed by, which was just as well because he might not have seen what it was they were perched on. The line of old buoys. They shone back at him like bald men’s heads.
… sharks and gnashing teeth …
What was the point of worrying about sharks anyway? He was probably going to drown first.
Don’t think about it. Think about tying that buoy on so it wouldn’t slip away and think about somehow getting Becks out from under that dinghy.
Safe.
The first thing he had to do was get into the water. It’d be just like being with Auntie Mor and Mr Stig in the snorkelling pool.
Just like that – if he closed his eyes and didn’t look too hard at how deep and how dark and how fast that water was rushing along in front of him.
He could hardly believe he was doing it as he lowered himself down onto the rocks at the side of the wharf and let the water lap around his feet, then his knees and then – with a horrible swoosh that made his eyes open and his breath suck in so hard he didn’t think he was ever going to get it out again – he was in.
Even the boat clonked in surprise and then there was nothing. Only chattering teeth and sucking-in breaths.
And then he heard a yap. Just one. Almost as if Becks knew he was on his way.
All he had to do was keep going.
The water was rushing him along and somebody somewhere was yelling out and he would have yelled back but his teeth were chattering too much. And his breath didn’t seem to go in and out unless he thought about it.
It was probably what Dad had been trying to teach him at the swimming pool. Later he’d tell him he got it right. He was trying to say something to Becks, just to hear her yap one more time, but his lips were all rubbery.
He kept talking anyway. It was so quiet that his brain conjured up shark pictures if he didn’t keep his mouth working.
It wasn’t as if he was making much sense. If Dad had been there he would have said that his brain should be in gear before he started running off at the mouth, but Becks didn’t seem to care.
She yapped, just once, to keep him coming.
It wasn’t as though he could stop, even if he wanted to. He almost finished up overshooting the dinghy except he remembered Dad yelling out how to do the froggy leg push.
And then he felt the thing that he thought he’d never, ever feel again.
The lovely, sudden scratchy hit of a dog’s paw as it did its own mad dog-paddle.
He’d have to drag her down. It was the only way to get her out. There was no time to think.
Just one quick tug on her collar and his voice saying sorrysorrysorry because her poor little head was going to be dragged under and then he had her. A little squirmy, terrified body that pressed up into his neck. Her paws, so panicked from swimming for so long, still beat hard and he knew she was digging big scratch marks into his face. It hurt and he wanted to make her stop but he had hold of her and that was all that mattered.
Except for sharks and he forgot about them when he felt strong arms around him and heard dear old Auntie Mor’s voice.
There wasn’t a shark alive that would dare to take him away from her but, just in case, he clung on tight until they were safely on land.
Then it was blankets, four of them, wrapped around them all. It felt so good to have Becks back; she was wrapped up as well. She had to be. No way was she going to be out of his sight again.
He wasn’t letting her go until Min and his gran arrived.
First they got to ride in the ambulance together, even though the driver said it was pretty unusual to have a dog on the bed. Then they were photographed by the local paper who said it was a hero story for sure and it’d be on the front page for the whole world to see.
And then, finally, it was just him and Becks, snug and tight in his own little bed in the front of the old camper where they both stopped shivering long enough to watch the clouds clear and the moon drift her way across the waves.
San Simeon held Calamity close to his manly chest. He would never let her out of his sight again.
The crew had cheered long and hard after he’d found her and they’d fought a deadly battle on the decks of the hated Spewta.
Poor little thing. She’d been flung into the ship’s dinghy and left to wallow about behind. She was as weak as a kitten when they’d found her.
And he’d been right about the treasure map. It was still as snug as it ever was. Roaring Roy was so sure he’d have her forever that he hadn’t even bothered to look at the etching that decorated her sweet bellybutton.
‘We’ll find the treasure ourselves,’ she told her Simeon and the crew. ‘And we’ll live happily ever after.’
‘We will now!’ cried San Simeon. ‘We have our treasure without having to look any further.’ He winked at Sweet Calam and the crew ooohed and made kissy-kissy noises.
But they sailed off anyway in search of Calam’s treasure because, as Derrick the Cook said, ‘Better we ‘ave it than somebody not so worthy!’, which were big words for a cook as everyone agreed.
Their pirate-fighting days weren’t done, even though the dreaded Roaring Roy Bistro had slunk off in a big sulk. ‘… And I’m not coming back!’ he’d cried when he was beaten. ‘You don’t fight fair!’
San Simeon knew that he did fight fair and, because of that, he was always going to win. He also knew that Roaring Roy Bistro would be back because bullies are always as thick as planks and always think they’ll get it right in the end and win.
They just don’t get it.
It was probably all the clonking they got in the fights they liked to pick that made them so stupid.
San Simeon held the Olga straight and true and sailed into the sunset. He had his Sweet Calamity, a treasure to find and a good ship and crew. What more could he want?
Beyond his dreams Pyro could hear lots of people gossiping and talking and the clink and hum of cups of tea being shared at the little table outside the camper.
Once he managed to stay awake long enough to hear the old couple, who were going around Australia but were still here at Drifters Bay Caravan Park, saying how proud they were to know such a brave boy. Pyro thought they probably used big voices so he’d hear that, but it felt good anyway. He lifted his arm to wave out to them but somewhere between the lift and the wave he drifted back to sleep.
The park manager came over and Pyro heard the door open as Auntie Mor let him look in.
‘He’s asleep,’ Auntie Mor said. ‘The doctor said he was in shock and would need a day’s rest.’
The park manager said a loud ‘G’day, champ�
� anyway and Pyro raised his head to smile. He felt a bit like one of the seals at Sea World as he raised his flipper into the air to try and wave g’day.
And then he just let the sun drift across the sky. Only Mzzz Cllump had said it didn’t really, it was the earth that turned. She’d even found a torch and a ball and made Geezer hold it and turn it so they could see the shadow moving. It didn’t work because the true sun, not the torch sun, was shining in the window and made its own shadows. He dreamed happily about the earth turning but it made him feel a bit giddy so he thought about the sun drifting across the sky instead.
He heard Gran Mitchell arrive. She’d left Min at home with Becks who was still too worn out to walk up the hill. She brought some scones she’d made and sat for a long time and gossiped about the inlet and the town and some of her old boyfriends, while Pyro let himself drift in and out of sleep.
Some policemen arrived and stuck their heads through the door to say hello. Pyro did his flipper wave and tried hard not to giggle. If Geezer had been here, he’d have made little arf-arf-arf noises. Min would have done it too.
He had to sit up and answer some questions for the policemen. They’d been down to talk to Plonker’s mum and dad and it turned out his name was Paulie Bottomley. Pyro did giggle out loud then. They’d been to visit Sandy Grivett’s house as well and now they needed to talk to Pyro.
The RSPCA had been to talk to the Bottomleys and the Grivetts as well. ‘And …’ Mr Stig bobbed in, ‘… seems one of us is going to be recommended for a bravery award.’ He did a funny little dance like he was stirring a pot ‘… and I don’t think it’s me!’
‘You did yell out a lot, though!’ said Auntie Mor.
‘And you did swim hard.’
‘But he saved the dog …’ said one policeman. ‘And you should hear what Min’s gran’s got to say. She reckons she knows a thing or two about Grandpa Bottomley and old Jack Grivett and she’s going to the local papers to Tell It All if those boys ever bother Min or you or Becks or her again.’
They asked a lot of questions and finally stood up to leave. Pyro took a deep breath and asked the question that he’d tried hard not to think about while his sun was slipping across the sky.
‘They tied her up, didn’t they?’ he said.
Auntie Mor sat beside him while he listened to how the boys had tied Becks to the dinghy. ‘They didn’t mean for her to be hurt,’ Auntie Mor explained. ‘They thought that you’d find her down there but the tide came in and they’d left the boat angled up against the bank …’
Pyro could see it now. Those angry little whitecaps hitting at the bottom edge and then the boat finally sliding sideways and Becks, poor little Becks, being dragged along with it.
‘They’d tied a bit of rope onto her lead and then hooked the end of her lead onto the boat.’
‘That’s the bit I saw,’ Pyro said and an awful shiver ripped up the length of his spine. ‘It’d caught in the pylons under the bridge.’
‘Lucky for her it did,’ said one policeman, who was a bit too big to be standing in an old camper and had to bend over, ‘otherwise you wouldn’t have found her.’
It was strange how far away yesterday seemed to be. It drifted off and only clapped back quickly in moments when Pyro was between sleeping and waking and even then, with his cool, clean sheets around him and the lovely sounds of Auntie Mor’s snores and Mr Stig’s sighs filling the camper behind him, it was easy to hold tight and wait until it passed again.
Sunlight. Blue sky. Warm breeze.
And voices.
Mum’s voice, Dad’s voice, Nan’s voice. NAN’s voice!
Pyro couldn’t believe his ears. They were all there when he woke. Everyone talking at once and the newspapers on the table with Pyro’s photo looking out at them.
Geezer was there too, grinning at him from the background.
Pyro giggled.
So did Geezer.
Then, when he’d hugged everyone else and Nan had hugged him back four times, Pyro wandered over and gave Geezer a nudge. He told Geezer how he’d had to wave at people who came to visit. He did his seal impression and made arf-arf-arf noises.
Geezer made some, too. And waved his own flipper about by slipping his arms inside his T-shirt so only the bottom bits flapped out. Pyro did it, too. Then they waddled about like seals with their legs tight together and their toes pointed out, giggling and spluttering and tripping over.
Pyro’s dad didn’t look too thrilled and said they should get a football out of the car and play with that instead of giggling around playing girly games. Pyro’s mum and his nan said what rot and girls didn’t giggle around and play dopey games like that anyway. And Auntie Mor and Mr Stig had to quickly get everyone moving down to the bakery to buy croissants before it got to be a fight.
Pyro and Geezer wandered along behind.
‘Do you want to meet Min?’ Pyro said as they passed the town map.
Geezer grinned. ‘I thought you’d never ask!’ he said.
San Simeon looked at the moonlight sparkling on the water. In the old days it would’ve been a night for pirate chasing and pirate fighting. He lay back down on the deck of the good ship Olga. Beside him was the lovely Calamity and beside her were the little Simeons, one and two and three.
The crew snoozed around them in hammocks that were neatly stitched and darned and smelled like roses in May. Sweet Calamity liked things to be tidy since the children had arrived.
The crew didn’t mind. Their swords were sharp and glossy and at the ready under the hammocks. Their yo-ho-hoing was just as loud and mean as it had ever been.
And their daggery knives lay smugly in the chest below decks.
Things were fine and as they ought to be except …
… Every now and then when the moon had her light hidden behind a cloud, San Simeon twitched a little with longing. The crew did too but they pretended it was a flea attack or a loose collywobble …
At times like that he’d take himself into his cabin and run his fingers along the swords that lined the walls. He’d do a quick one-two with his shadow to keep in practice.
Which was just as well, because on nights when the moon was darkened and storms were brewing and thunder rumbling and lightnin’ slashing there was another who let his fingers trace the long, curved steel of a blade and gazed gloatingly at treasure that had been plundered from unwary travellers.
There was another treasure that had escaped him and Roaring Roy Bistro knew it. A passing breeze knew it too and whispered it to the gulls who left messages on the decks of the Olga so San Simeon would not be caught by surprise.
‘Are you ready?’ mermaids crooned when they heard it on the breeze. ‘San Simeon, are you ready?’
San Simeon smiled as he drifted back to his Calamity and the little Simeons one, two, three. ‘I thought you’d never ask,’ he smiled.
