Poppy Pym and the Smuggler's Secret

by Laura Wood

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  We had arranged to meet near the firepit at midnight, the exact time we’d seen the lights last time. Ingrid and I arrived first, but it wasn’t long before we saw the glimmering of Kip’s torch approaching. So far there was no sign of any light in the turret or out to sea. Despite the relatively warm evening, when Kip finally appeared he seemed to be wearing everything he owned, including a scarf that was wrapped around his head and tied under his chin, leaving only his face poking out.

  “Why are you dressed like that?” I asked, wrinkling my nose. “Aren’t you hot?”

  “WELL, I’M NOT ABOUT TO LET A GHOST NEAR ME WITH ITS DEADLY ECTOPLASM, AM I?” Kip whispered in the loudest whisper I had ever heard.

  “Shhhhh!” I hissed. “No one’s getting attacked by deadly ectoplasm, whatever that is. We’re just investigating. Quietly. But you won’t be able to move in all that lot.”

  Sulkily, Kip undid the scarf and removed his gloves and a couple of jumpers, bundling them in his arms. “I’d better just take these back then,” he said.

  “Be quick!” I whispered. “You don’t want to miss any of the good stuff.”

  I could hear Kip grumbling over his shoulder as he ran lightly back to his tent, but he was very speedy, and was back (dressed more appropriately) in no time.

  “No sign of any lights,” Ingrid whispered.

  “Let’s just give it five more minutes,” I said, glancing up at the turret window.

  Those five minutes passed verrrrry slowly. (Partly because Kip kept asking if it had been five minutes yet roughly every seven seconds.) Still there was no sign of any light, blue or otherwise. “OK,” I said finally. “Let’s give up. But I’ve thought of something else we can do. It’s time we had a look around at the beach.”

  “What? In the middle of the night?” squeaked Kip.

  “That’s the best possible time!” I exclaimed. “No one will be around, and we can get on with our investigation in secret. How would we explain it if we disappeared in the middle of a surfing lesson? Plus the moon is so bright and the night’s so clear we’ve got a great chance of finding something.” Reluctantly Kip and Ingrid acknowledged the merits of my excellent plan. “We’ve done way scarier things than this,” I pointed out helpfully as we made our way to the coastal path by torchlight.

  Winding our way down to the beach we passed through the village, which was eerily quiet. I could hear that owl hooting again in a tree nearby, but apart from a couple of street lamps all of the lights seemed to be off. “Well, this is pretty spooky,” Kip grumbled, as the three of us stuck close together. He was right, but I knew that all of us were also feeling that familiar thrill of adventure. Ingrid’s eyes shone behind her thick glasses, and Kip began to hum his own little theme tune, a sure sign that he was getting into the spirit of things. His eyes lingered on Honeybee’s Ice Creamery (he was up to the Ds now, having demolished everything chocolate flavoured that afternoon) as we scurried past, rounding the corner and down the final bit of the path, hitting the sandy beach.

  I was right about the moon. It hung over the water like a beautiful shimmering Frisbee, looking bigger and closer than it did when we were at school, and casting everything in a glowing bluish light. The sea was calm, and little waves wriggled across the sand. The tide was far out so the beach felt big and empty.

  “What exactly are we looking for?” Kip asked, his voice breaking the quiet.

  “Well, there aren’t any lights anywhere,” Ingrid said. “Which is good … or bad? I’m not sure.”

  “There must be some clue here about Henry’s escape,” I said, spinning around on the sand. “After all, this is the actual, real spot where it happened.”

  The three of us stood for a moment, letting that thought sink in.

  “Do you remember what the guidebook said about the night that Henry Redshank disappeared?” Ingrid said slowly. “Didn’t it say that he appeared to vanish into the cliff face?”

  We all turned to look at the cliff, looming above us with the castle perched on top.

  “You’re right,” Kip nodded. “It did say that. But how would you get from down here to up in the castle?”

  “There must be a secret tunnel!” I exclaimed, and I knew by the twitching of my nose that I was experiencing what we detectives call “a hunch”. “We have to try and find it!”

  Kip and Ingrid both nodded in agreement and we began clambering cautiously along the rocks in front of the cliff face, shining our torches and looking for any gaps. It was hard work and it seemed as if we weren’t going to have any luck. Suddenly I heard Ingrid’s voice calling softly, “Over here!”

  Kip and I hustled over to where Ingrid was standing, her torch pointed at a big rock. “What have you found, Ing?” I asked.

  “Here,” she said, pointing to a tiny gap next to the stone.

  “Er, no offence, Ingrid, but I don’t think your brain is screwed in properly tonight,” Kip said. “No one could fit through there.”

  “I know that!” Ingrid rolled her eyes. “But look at this.” She pointed next to the boulder at a long piece of driftwood that was wedged up against it. Kip and I both looked at her blankly. “I think it might be a lever,” she whispered. “You know, to roll this out of the way. It looks like someone has deliberately whittled the bottom to make it thin enough to wedge underneath.”

  “Really?” Kip asked, but I was nodding.

  “I think it could work,” I said, picking up the piece of wood and wedging the thin end underneath the stone. I pushed down on the other end with all of my strength and felt it shift a little, but I couldn’t get it to move. “I think this one’s going to be a team effort,” I panted.

  Kip and Ingrid clambered alongside me, joining in the effort. The rock began to move, and we all pushed as hard as we possibly could. With a final groan the boulder moved to one side, leaving a gap just big enough for a crouched person to fit through. I shone my torch in the gap and bent over to have a look. “It looks like it opens up inside,” I said. “Great job, Ing! I would never have spotted that.”

  Ingrid smiled, but looked nervously at the gap. “I don’t know. I don’t like the look of it.”

  “I’ll go first,” I said bravely, crouching down a little, and shuffling through. As soon as I was on the other side I shone my torch around and found myself standing inside a large cave. “Come through!” I called. “It’s huge!”

  Ingrid appeared next, quickly followed by Kip.

  “Wow!” Kip said, “this is it, isn’t it? It’s a real smuggler’s cave!”

  Ingrid looked back at the gap we had crept through. “It is! You’d have to be pretty strong to open the entrance, but if you managed to push the rock over a bit further the gap would easily be big enough to roll barrels of rum through. Just think” – she shone her torch in an arc around us – “we’re standing right inside a piece of history!”

  “So this is where Henry disappeared to,” I mused, looking around.

  “But why didn’t he just hide out here until the coast was clear?” Ingrid asked.

  “Yeah, why did he go up to the castle?” Kip looked puzzled, and I had to agree it had been a strange plan.

  Just then there was a groaning sound from behind us, and the boulder rolled back across the entrance, extinguishing all the light except that of our torches.

  A small squeaking noise escaped Kip’s lips.

  “Well,” I gulped, trying to sound cheerful. “Looks like there’s only one way out of here.” I shone my torch into the dark and forbidding passageway that lay ahead. “Shall we see where this goes?”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The ground was sandy, and the walls of the cave were high and cool. At the back of the cave was the mouth of a long, dark tunnel. We began to creep silently towards it when, suddenly, Kip exclaimed, “What’s that?”

  In the shadows I saw a dark shape against the wall of the cave. Shining the torch on it revealed a black tarpaulin sheet that seemed to be covering s
omething. “This must be the goods that they were bringing ashore last night!” I exclaimed. “That’s why the signals were lit!” I knew in my bones that we had stumbled across the smugglers’ terrible hoard. What could it be? A pile of stolen jewels? A hoard of careful art forgeries? Priceless antiques stuffed into brandy barrels? With a flourish I twitched the corner of the sheet back, revealing … a big pile of tin cans all neatly stacked.

  “What are these doing here?!” I exclaimed, picking up a can for a closer look and giving it a shake. Much to my dismay it didn’t make a tinkling noise to indicate it was full of pristine diamonds. No, the faint sloshing only confirmed what the label had to say … it was a tin of chicken soup.

  “Well, that settles it,” Ingrid said. “Someone has definitely been here recently. I don’t think those tins of chicken soup are two hundred and fifty years old.”

  “But why would anyone want to smuggle tins of food and hide them down here?” I puzzled, picking up other cans of baked beans and spaghetti hoops.

  “And who has been coming down here in the first place? I doubt chicken soup is popular with the ghostly community, so at least it seems like we are dealing with a real person.” Ingrid pushed her glasses up her nose.

  Kip nodded wisely. “I think ghosts are only interested in munching on human brains, so this probably doesn’t belong to ghost smugglers.”

  “I think that’s zombies,” I said. “I’m not sure ghosts eat anything.”

  “Imagine not being able to eat ANYTHING!” Kip shuddered. “I never want to be a ghost. You’d be drifting around all day seeing people eating all the best food and you couldn’t even have a tiny little bite of cake or anything. No wonder ghosts are always supposed to be all sad and angry… I get like that when I’m hungry too.” He looked thoughtful. “Maybe someone should invent, like, ghost biscuits or something and then nowhere would ever be haunted by mean spirits. They’d all be really friendly and help you with the washing-up—”

  “Anyway!” said Ingrid, interrupting before Kip could develop his marketing strategy for GhostBiscuits™. “If there are modern-day smugglers using this cave, they must be connected to the lights we saw the other night. So that means … whoever was in the turret room was no ghost.”

  Ingrid was right, but we were no closer to finding out who that person was.

  “Maybe there are more clues further in?” I suggested, illuminating the mouth of the tunnel with my torch once more.

  “Only one way to find out,” said Ingrid, and Kip swallowed hard. “Let’s go!”

  As we made our way along in single file, my excited voice bounced off the narrow walls of the tunnel. “This must be the tunnel that Henry used to reach Crumley Castle!”

  “Yes, we do seem to be going uphill, and in the right direction.” Ingrid’s voice came from behind me, and she was right, the tunnel turned steeply up at a sharp angle. We crept further along, until we reached a fork and the tunnel split in two, both paths carrying on further uphill.

  “Hmmm,” I pursed my lips thoughtfully. “Which way, do you think?”

  “Let’s go right,” Kip piped up, “the tunnel looks wider that way.” We turned right and carried along for another minute or two. Kip was right: the tunnel was wider here, and there were some very old-looking wooden beams along the walls and overhead. Finally, after walking for what felt like for ever, we almost bumped smack into a solid brick wall. “Noooooo!” I hissed. I ran my hands over it and felt cool, slightly damp and very unyielding stone. My heart sank. I was so sure we were on to something but the massive wall in front of me was the deadest of dead ends. It was a huge disappointment.

  “I guess this is the end,” I sighed, turning to face the others and leaning back against the wall. “Should we—” My sentence was cut short as a brick moved beneath my elbow with a low click, and the wall began sliding silently to one side.

  I turned and we all watched open-mouthed as the wall moved, revealing a small entrance. “A secret passageway!” Ingrid whispered.

  Dim light spilled into the tunnel and we could see we were behind some kind of heavy green tapestry. I was about to shriek with amazement when I realized that I could hear a voice on the other side of it – and not just any voice, but a very familiar one. It was Miss Susan!

  We must be behind the tapestry in Agatha’s study, I thought, recognizing the colour. But what on earth was Miss Susan doing there at way past midnight? This was hardly normal, teacherly behaviour, plus our whole plan had been based on the idea that all the grown-ups would be tucked up safely in their beds. I swung back to face Kip and Ingrid, my finger on my lips. They both nodded and we all shuffled forward as quietly as possible to listen to the conversation that was taking place.

  “I just don’t understand why we needed to meet like this, in secret and in the middle of the night,” Miss Susan was saying in a low voice. “Something is obviously very wrong, Agatha. Why don’t you tell me what is going on?”

  “I don’t know if I can!” Agatha’s nervous voice replied, and she sounded high-pitched and tearful. “Oh, Elaine, it’s just so terrible – I don’t know what to do!” Agatha dissolved into tears here, and there was a pause in which we heard Miss Susan make some murmured, soothing noises. This was followed by some quiet snuffling as Agatha blew her nose.

  “Come on, Aggie, you know you can tell me anything,” Miss Susan was saying now. “You and I have never had any secrets from one another, remember?” This made my heart skip a beat. If Miss Susan really told Agatha everything, did that mean she had told her about me? Did Agatha know that Miss Susan had had a baby, a little girl, and that she had left her at a travelling circus? I held my breath, half desperately hoping that they would start talking about it, and half desperately hoping that they wouldn’t. Instead of discussing Miss Susan’s dark secret past, however, there was the sound of Agatha blowing her nose again.

  “You’re right,” she murmured finally, “there’s something I need to show you,” and there was the scraping sound of her chair being pulled back. We pressed ourselves tight against the wall, in case she came too close to our hiding place. Instead she seemed to be opening a drawer and rifling through some papers – she must be going through her desk, I realized. “Here,” she said, her footsteps crossing the room again. There was another pause and then Miss Susan let out a horrified gasp.

  “Agatha! Is this real?”

  “Yes, I’m afraid so,” said Agatha heavily, and there came the sound of more tears spilling over. “It’s – well, you can see for yourself – it’s a ransom note. Darling Jenny’s been kidnapped!”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  The Booths’ daughter had been kidnapped! Kip, Ingrid and I had to stifle gasps of our own. I strained to hear the rest of Agatha and Miss Susan’s conversation.

  “I – I can’t believe it!” Miss Susan’s voice was frightened. It was not a tone I had heard her use before, and it made my stomach flutter nervously. She began reading from the note, her voice hushed. “I have your daughter. No harm will come to her unless you call the police…” There was a stunned silence, and then Miss Susan spoke again. “When did you realize she was missing?”

  “Just before you arrived,” Agatha’s voice wobbled. “We have no idea how they got to her.”

  “Why haven’t you called the police?” Miss Susan asked.

  “You’ve read the note!” exclaimed Agatha. “They said if we do they’ll hurt Jenny! They said that they’re watching us! How can we risk it?!” She started crying again. “I wanted to anyway, but Bernard doesn’t think we should take the chance. He’s beside himself with worry.”

  “I’m sure you both are,” Miss Susan said, and she sounded stunned. “I can’t believe you’ve been keeping this a secret. Are you going to pay the ransom?”

  Agatha whimpered. “If only we could. But we don’t have that sort of money … nowhere near.”

  “But the inheritance…” Miss Susan murmured. “Surely that would cover it?”

  “There is n
o inheritance!” Agatha sobbed. “After all the bills were paid, there was so little left over. Of course Bernard inherited the castle, but the place is falling down around us and the cost of running it is astronomical. Everyone seems to think that we’ve inherited a fortune, and that we’re using our mountain of cash to do the place up, but the truth is we’ve never been worse off!”

  “Do you have any idea who is behind the kidnapping?” Miss Susan asked.

  “None at all.” Agatha sighed. “We can’t even work out how they did it. We all saw Jenny go to bed that evening, but in the morning she had just gone. Vanished.”

  “Someone must have gone into her room,” Miss Susan suggested.

  “Impossible!” Agatha cried, then lowering her voice, she continued, “Jenny’s room was locked … from the inside. The key was still in the door! We didn’t know anything had happened until we got the note. You know teenagers, sometimes they don’t leave their rooms for days. Bernard had to break the lock in the end, and she was … gone.” Agatha was sobbing quietly again now. “To be honest, I’m starting to hate this place.” She sniffled. “We feel so unwelcome! I’m beginning to believe all this talk about dark forces being at work here. Things keep going wrong. You saw what happened at the campsite today with all the tents falling down and the pipes in the bathrooms breaking. That’s only the latest problem; it’s been one disaster after another. And we can’t shake off Stanley Goodwill because he’s lived here for years, and Fuddling is so cold towards us. And now my darling Jenny. It’s all just too much!”

  “I had no idea you were under so much pressure,” Miss Susan said. “You’ve done all the work on the campsite, it looks so good…”

  “But the campsite is part of the problem,” said Agatha, and there was the gentle thud of her sitting back heavily in her chair. “We wanted to keep the castle going – we couldn’t bear the thought of losing it, so we decided to turn it into a business. We knew people would want to come and stay here, and the grounds are such a beautiful place to camp. Of course, we had to borrow an awful lot of money from the bank, and they’re breathing down our necks to make sure we repay them. We had so many problems with all the building work, you wouldn’t believe it. Equipment went missing, something seemed to have chewed through all our new wiring, then one of the builders broke his leg when a ladder wasn’t secured properly. It was problem after problem, and every accident meant paying out more money. We desperately need the camping business to succeed, but we have absolutely no money to spare … let alone enough to pay off these kidnappers. What will we do? Oh, my poor, poor Jenny…” She trailed off hopelessly.