‘So, somewhere there could be all this treasure,’ gasped Dominic. ‘Hidden away.’
‘I think, somehow, it would have been discovered by now,’ smiled the vicar.
‘Yes, indeed,’ remarked Mr Risley-Newsome. ‘All very interesting, I am sure, but it seems to me that his epitaph does not describe the Reverend Bentley-Brewster very accurately. I should hardly say that the illegal activities of this man could be “exemplary and regular and consistent with his chosen profession as a priest”, if indeed he was a thief.’
‘Well, perhaps “thief” is a rather strong word to use. He was a smuggler and he never profited from his smuggling,’ said the vicar gently. ‘He was a sort of Robin Hood figure by all accounts. He died without a penny to his name. So the story goes, he gave all the money he made from smuggling to the poor and needy, and in those days there were a great many destitute people.’
‘That hardly excuses criminal behaviour,’ said Mr Risley-Newsome pompously. ‘And as for being famous, I should say “infamous” is a more fitting description of the man.’
Dominic could see by the expression on the vicar's face that she joined the many in taking a dislike to the teacher. She managed, however, to remain pleasant.
‘Are there any more questions?’ she asked.
‘Miss, did they ever find a secret cave or hidden passage?’ asked Dominic.
‘No, but then it's only a story and there probably was no secret cave or hidden passage.’
‘Probably a cock-and-bull story,’ remarked Mr Risley-Newsome, consulting his watch. ‘A lot of these tales are not based on fact but just made up for the tourists. They were invented by people with overactive imaginations. Well, we must move on. Thank you for the tour, Vicar. Very enlightening. Follow me, everybody, and don't dawdle behind. The next stop is Thundercliff Bay, and remember what I said about the postcards.’ With that he strode for the door.
‘Thank you so much,’ said Miss Pruitt to the vicar. ‘It was very good of you to take the time and the trouble to show us around your lovely church.’
‘My pleasure,’ replied the vicar, shaking her head and thinking to herself how very different teachers could be.
Dominic was unusually quiet as they set off for Thundercliff Bay. His mind was full of exciting thoughts. Suppose there is a secret passage leading up from the beach to the house, a hidden room full of smugglers' booty, chests of golden coins, cutlasses and muskets, barrels of brandy and bottles of rum. It could be behind a secret panel, maybe in the library, or beneath a flagstone in the kitchen. There might be a passageway behind the fireplace. It would be dark and musty and covered with centuries of cobwebs. There might be the skeleton of a smuggler, there might be…
‘Dominic Dowson!’ It was Mr Risley-Newsome breaking into his thoughts in that unpleasantly loud and strident voice.
Dominic nearly jumped out of his trainers. ‘Yes, sir?’ he cried. Now I'm in for it, he thought. He should have stayed hidden in the cluster of pupils, away from the eagle eyes of the teacher. So lost had he been in his thoughts about smugglers and hidden treasure that he had wandered away from his friends and from the path.
‘Come here!’ ordered Mr Risley-Newsome.
Dominic made his way through the pupils until he was standing in front of the teacher. ‘Yes, sir?’
‘What did I say before we set off?’
‘You said we would need our outdoor coats, gloves, scarves and… boots,’ said the boy quietly.
‘What else did I say?’ He waited for a reply but Dominic just held his head down and felt it best to say nothing. ‘Did I or did I not say to stay on the path?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Then why are you not on the path?’
‘I don't know, sir,’ said Dominic.
‘You are not on the path because you do not listen! Now, keep your mind on what you are doing, Dominic Dowson, and stop daydreaming. These cliffs are dangerous. The last thing we want is some silly boy falling off them.’
‘Yes, sir,’ he replied, with a great inward sigh of relief. ‘Old Grisly-Gruesome’ hadn't noticed his trainers. Dominic edged his way through the pupils and took up a position right at the back, next to Velma. He hadn't been aware, until it was too late, that Nathan Thomas and Darren Wilmott were also at the back.
Seven
The Rock Bun Incident
Thundercliff Bay was little more than a higgledy-piggledy cluster of brightly-painted houses and cottages hugging the cliff side. Narrow, pale-blue and green rendered buildings were sandwiched between larger stone villas and red-bricked terraces, and all were linked by a labyrinth of narrow alleys and cobbled snickleways. There was a run-down inn – the ‘Three Jolly Smugglers’ – a cafe – ‘The Rumbling Tum’ – a squat Seaman's Mission and a general store-cum-post-office-cum-gift-shop. And that was just about it.
‘What a dump,’ muttered Nathan, as the line of children meandered slowly between the houses.
‘Yeah, what a dump,’ agreed Darren, nodding vigorously.
‘There's more life in a deserted cemetery,’ continued Nathan. ‘Come to Thundercliff Bay and die. It's a dead hole. There's nothing here. No fish and chip shops, no arcades, no amusements, no proper shops. Nothing.’
‘It's a dump,’ said Darren, ‘a real dump.’
‘I've just said it was a dump!’ snapped Nathan irritably.
‘Oh, yeah,’ said Darren, giving his companion a weak smile.
‘I wish I was at home,’ sighed Nathan, blowing out a mouthful of air dramatically. ‘At home in my own bedroom in front of my computer, where it's warm. I'm freezing cold, bored and fed up.’
‘Yeah, so am I,’ agreed Darren.
‘Tramping up and down in a boring place, all wet and cold and hungry and bored.’ He caught sight of Dominic, striding out ahead of him. ‘I bet Dowson likes it.’
‘I do, as a matter of fact,’ said Dominic. ‘It's really interesting.’
‘It would be for you,’ laughed Nathan.
‘Yeah, it would be for you,’ echoed Darren.
‘You've probably never been further than the bottom of your street,’ said Nathan. ‘I've been to Disneyworld, Majorca, Tenerife, Florida –’
‘Oh, do shut up, Nathan Thomas!’ snapped Miss Pruitt suddenly. She had been following up the rear to chivvy stragglers but close enough to hear his complaining. ‘You have done nothing but moan and groan since you got on the coach at school, except for the occasion when you had your head in the plastic bucket and that was the result of stuffing yourself silly with sweets and crisps and all manner of things. And as for being at home in your nice warm bedroom in front of your computer, you wouldn't be there at this time of day, would you? You'd be back at school in the classroom, making clever comments, no doubt.’
‘Wow,’ whispered Velma to Dominic. ‘That's telling him. Your teacher can be really snappy, can't she?’
‘She's not like that normally,’ Dominic told her. ‘She's usually very nice and friendly.’
‘I bet it's Mr Risley-Newsome who's put her in a bad mood,’ Velma told him. ‘I heard them talking at lunch and he went on and on about how he had taken ages to arrange all the trips and find all the information, plan the routes and decide where we would be going and what we would be seeing. She was just about to take a sip of her coffee when he told her that caffeine was bad for her. When she reached for the butter he told her it was fattening and full of cholesterol and that margarine was healthier for her. Then, just before we were setting off, he told her she needed a proper anorak and proper walking boots.’
‘Mr Know-It-All,’ said Dominic.
‘Well, I'm bored, miss.’ Nathan was still grumbling. ‘There's nothing to do.’
‘You want to count yourself lucky,’ Miss Pruitt told him. ‘There's many a boy would like to have a healthy walk at the seaside instead of sitting at a desk in a stuffy classroom on a Monday afternoon.’
‘I do like the seaside, miss,’ said Nathan. ‘It's just that I don't like this par
ticular seaside.’
He should have had the good sense, thought Dominic, as he listened to the boy's whining tones, to shut up. Dominic's gran used to tell him that if you ever get in a hole, stop digging.
Nathan continued to shovel away regardless. ‘We go to Majorca and the Canary Islands and Spain and Florida for our holidays,’ he told Miss Pruitt and anyone else prepared to listen. ‘That's the sort of seaside I like, where it's hot and you can go in the sea. There's lots to do. I'd sooner be there than here.’
‘And I would sooner you were there than here, as well,’ said Miss Pruitt. ‘In fact, I would sooner you were anywhere, so I don't have to listen to your constant carping and complaining. Go and join Mr Risley-Newsome at the front and see how he likes your grousing and grumbling. Go on. Because I'm fed up with hearing your voice.’
‘It's all right, miss,’ said Nathan quickly. The thought of having to spend the next few miles next to Mr Risley-Newsome and endure his do's and don'ts was not a pleasant prospect.
‘No, Nathan,’ replied Miss Pruitt smartly. ‘It is not all right. Go on, get yourself down to the front and take Darren with you. I am weary of hearing that whining, whinging voice of yours. Go on and give me a bit of peace and quiet.’
The two boys slouched off. The two pupils who were now in front of the teacher were Dominic and Velma.
‘And how about you, Dominic?’ asked Miss Pruitt. ‘Do you find it boring?’
‘No, miss!’ exclaimed Dominic. ‘It's fantastic.’
‘Well,’ said the teacher, a wry smile playing on her lips, ‘I wouldn't go quite that far. Interesting possibly, but fantastic is something of an exaggeration.’
‘I've only been to the seaside once, miss,’ Dominic was telling her cheerfully as he breathed in the fresh salty air. ‘I went to Blackpool in a caravan with my mum and my gran. We had a great time on the Pleasure Beach, up the tower, on the donkeys. Gran bought a hat with “Kiss Me Quick!” on and this pensioner followed her all down the pier. I had this massive ice cream with fruit and cherries and nuts. It was called a “Knickerbocker Glory”. We had a really good time.’ He paused. ‘But we did have a bit of bother in Blackpool, miss.’
Miss Pruitt sighed. ‘A bit of bother? What bit of bother would this be?’
‘I know what you're thinking, miss,’ said Dominic, giving her a cheeky grin, ‘but it really wasn't my fault.’
‘It never is, Dominic,’ said Miss Pruitt, recalling the fiasco with the paint. ‘It never is.’
‘So, what happened?’ asked Velma.
‘It was all the fault of this stupid seagull,’ Dominic explained.
‘A seagull,’ chuckled Miss Pruitt. ‘Now, that is an original excuse. Whatever did the seagull do?’
‘Well, miss, it was like this. My mum and my gran decided to go on the pier for a cup of tea. I got Gran her tea and a cake from the cafe. It was actually a bun, called a rock bun, and it was really hard like a rock, as well. Gran (she has false teeth you see) couldn't bite into it, so she gave it to me. Well, it was horrible, seriously horrible, all stale and dry and tasteless like crunchy cardboard. Gran told me to throw it to the seagulls, so I did.’
‘Well, that doesn't sound too disastrous to me,’ said Miss Pruitt.
‘So I threw this rock bun, which was hard as iron, off the pier and it shot out of my hand like a cannonball and it hit this low-flying seagull. It knocked it clean out of the sky.’
‘You hit a seagull!’ cried Velma.
‘I didn't mean to do it, it was an accident, a fluke accident. It just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.’
‘How many times have I heard that, Dominic?’ Miss Pruitt murmured.
‘Anyway this seagull went all wobbly, gave a sort of pathetic squawk and then plummeted into the sea with a big kerploosh!’
‘Was it all right?’ asked Miss Pruitt.
‘Oh, yes, miss, it just looked a bit dazed.’
‘Well, no real harm was done, then,’ said the teacher.
‘Yes, there was, miss,’ Dominic told her, nodding. ‘You see, the rock bun sort of ricocheted off the seagull, like a boomerang. It was picked up by the strong wind and blown back on to the pier and that's when it hit this old woman.’
‘There was a woman?’ sighed Miss Pruitt, pulling a pained expression.
‘Sitting on the pier having a cup of tea.’
‘And the rock bun hit her?’
‘Yes, miss, smack in the middle of her head. She was very shocked.’
‘I imagine she was,’ remarked the teacher, attempting to stop herself from smiling.
‘And she dropped her cup of tea and –’
‘And it scalded her,’ said Miss Pruitt.
‘Oh, no, miss, she was all right.’
‘Well, thank heaven for small mercies.’
‘It was the dog that it scalded.’
‘There was a dog?’ sighed Miss Pruitt, her bad mood disappearing fast.
‘A chihuahua sitting under the table. You can imagine how startled it was, having a hot cup of tea spilt all over it.’
Miss Pruitt pictured the mayhem. ‘I can indeed,’ she said, trying to suppress her laughter.
‘It sort of jumped up, yelped like mad, ran off and that's when it ended up in the water.’
‘It fell off the pier?’ gasped Velma.
‘Not exactly fell, sort of leapt.’
‘The trouble you cause, Dominic,’ said Miss Pruitt, shaking her head. ‘Trouble is your middle name.’
‘It wasn't my fault, miss. It was the seagull's.’
‘So, what happened to the dog?’ asked Velma, fascinated by the account.
‘Well, this old woman went bananas, jumping up and down and screaming and shouting and waving her arms about. It was lucky the tide was in and the pier wasn't too high, otherwise the dog could have got hurt.’
‘So, the dog was all right?’ asked Velma.
‘Oh, yes, and as my gran explained to this woman, it probably enjoyed its little swim and, in any case, people shouldn't bring animals on the pier because if they do they are asking for trouble.’
‘She sounds quite a character, your grandma, Dominic,’ said Miss Pruitt.
‘She is, miss.’
Miss Pruitt certainly felt a whole lot brighter. She had to hand it to the boy. He was an interesting character, troublesome maybe, full of mischief, accident-prone certainly, but good-hearted and easy to please. He never complained, tried to be helpful and was always cheerful, except when in trouble and then he would look up with those doleful eyes and make you feel sorry for him. What's more, he could tell a very entertaining story. He has a wild and wonderful imagination has Dominic Dowson, she thought to herself, smiling. It was the first smile she had had that day.
‘I think you had better stay clear of seagulls and rock buns on this trip, Dominic,’ said Miss Pruitt, chuckling.
Mr Risley-Newsome's loud and penetrating voice shattered the happy atmosphere at the rear of the group. Ordering everyone to stop and gather round him, he commenced another lecture on the do's and don'ts. With bored faces, the children formed a half-circle round the teacher, who consulted his watch theatrically.
‘Right. Now, before I let you visit the shop there are one or two ground rules of which you need to be aware.’
Miss Pruitt gazed heavenwards and sighed inwardly, her good mood having instantly vanished.
‘One: you have ten minutes, and ten minutes only, to purchase a postcard to send home and, if you wish, a small present for your parents.
‘Two: you are not to buy sticky rock, fizzy drinks, crisps, sweets or cheap plastic toys.
‘Three: make certain you pay for everything. Anyone who feels inclined to be light-fingered –’
Miss Pruitt, who had clearly had enough, threaded her way swiftly though the throng of children. ‘Mr Risley-Newsome,’ she said in an undertone and trying to suppress her anger, ‘there is really no necessity to warn any of my pupils about shoplifting. I can assure yo
u that none of my children is a thief.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘I said,’ repeated Miss Pruitt slowly, ‘that there is no need to warn any of my pupils about shoplifting.’
Mr Risley-Newsome was entirely unabashed by Miss Pruitt's sharp interruption and, speaking in a voice loud enough for all the children to hear, remarked: ‘I have always been of the opinion that it is best to be perfectly clear from the outset about such things. It is easy to be wise after the event.’ He continued undeterred. ‘Four: we will assemble, after you have looked around the shop, in an orderly fashion outside “The Rumbling Tum” cafe. Be careful, be sensible and be back on time. You may go.’
As the pupils dispersed, Miss Pruitt took a deep breath and turned to her colleague, who was consulting his map. Dominic sat on a nearby step to tie his shoelace and, accidentally on purpose, overheard their heated conversation. He had not fully realized until the start of the trip that teachers, like pupils, sometimes do not get on. They, too, have their differences and disagreements, as he soon found out. As Mr Merriman might say, Miss Pruitt now ‘had the bit between her teeth’.
‘Mr Risley-Newsome,’ she said, controlling her anger, ‘would it be possible for you to consult me occasionally before making decisions. Since the start of this trip you have organized everything. I sometimes feel like one of the pupils rather than a colleague teacher. This is supposed to be a joint venture.’
She is right, thought Dominic. He has taken charge of everything. Do this, do that, don't do this, don't do that.
‘Miss Pruitt,’ replied Mr Risley-Newsome, producing his patronizing smile, ‘I think that you would be the first to admit that I have infinitely more experience in leading school trips than you. Over the years, I have taken children on coaches and trains, boats and planes and I am fully qualified in outdoor pursuits, orienteering, mountain rescue, first aid and survival techniques. I cannot see the point in constantly consulting you as to what to do. It is time-consuming for me and confusing for the children.’
Dominic's Discovery Page 6
