by Chris Mould
“No, please. I’m fine,” MacDowell insisted, but Stanley had already interfered. He picked up a large case. It was so heavy that as he lifted it across, it fell out of his hands and its contents spilled across the bottom of the boat.
A thousand little pieces of golden rock showered the wooden carcass of the boat. They shone and twinkled in the moonlight that had begun to spill across the seafront.
All the children gasped. MacDowell looked awkwardly at Stanley, not wanting to meet his eye.
“Awww, come on, Stanley,” he said. “It’s only a couple o’ pieces.”
“But you’ve broken the alliance!” exclaimed Stanley, his jaw dropping wide open.
“No I ain’t, ’cos I ain’t told nobody else!” MacDowell insisted.
“We agreed!” said Daisy. “We agreed that none of us would take a single piece.”
“I ain’t pinchin’ from nobody, am I? Same as if I grabbed a couple o’ shells off the beach there. Don’t belong to no one. Belong to whoever picks ’em up an’ takes ’em, just like you said, Stanley.”
Berkeley was furious. He jumped into the boat and bit MacDowell’s left leg, sending him hopping around the deck.
“Aargh, yer little devil. Where on earth did yer get teeth as sharp as that?” MacDowell yelled, as the children sneered and giggled at him.
He stood up straight and tried to compose himself.
Stanley was still staring hard at him, absolutely infuriated.
“Mac, when you came here you were looking for my Great-Uncle Bart. I’ve let you stay at the Hall all this time. I think we deserve a proper explanation,”’ he insisted.
“Ahh, I ’ave to be straight with yer, Stanley. Yer a good kid and I like yer, but I weren’t never no friend o’ Bart Swift. I never knew yer great-uncle. I only came ’ere for what’s in that bag,” he admitted.
Stanley’s frown deepened. “But what about all the tales of pirate days and wild adventures with my great-uncle?”
“Ahh, I always told a good tale, lad. But that’s ’ow I got yer out o’ that mess the other day, now isn’t it?” he muttered, almost as if he had done Stanley a huge favor.
“It was you!” said Stanley as he realized. “You went back to the mines when we weren’t there and took out the gold. And then you forgot to replace the stone slab in the corner. We couldn’t understand how Berkeley had lifted it, but he didn’t. He said he didn’t and he was telling the truth. It was you. You’re just a villain!”
“Once a pirate, always a pirate, eh lad? It’ll be a long time afore old MacDowell gives up on gold, I tell you. And I guess I’ll be back for more. But don’t worry, I’ll keep a lid on it. Mum’s the word!” he said. “I told yer I wouldn’t break me promise. I won’t tell no one”’
He lifted the rope that held his boat to the harbor, hoisted his little white sail, and picked up all his golden nuggets, tucking them safely back into the case.
And then, as the five remaining members of the Secret-Keepers Alliance watched from the quayside, the silhouette of old MacDowell sailed off alone into the evening sunset, with the waves lapping behind him.
“Can we play now?” asked Berkeley.
Stanley stared at Berkeley’s forlorn little face and gave a long hard sigh.
“Race you to the house!” he said, and the two of them clattered across the cobbles up to the door of Candlestick Hall.
Text and illustrations © 2008 Chris Mould. First published by Hodder Children’s Books, a division of Hachette Children’s Books, an Hachette Livre UK company.
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eISBN 9781429992596
First eBook Edition : March 2011
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First Edition August 2010
