The Fire Bay Adventure
Page 8
“On it!” yelled Josh and he raced off to return with something large and noisy and really quite smelly. It took them only a minute to throw it over the person struggling with the electric fence and bring her to the ground.
On the other side of the road, Bella gave chase. She gave chase so effectively that the first man ran for the only tree in the large field leading to the lighthouse.
“Help! Mad dog!” he shouted, which made Bella even more excited.
“Ace!” shouted Ava, and she ran towards the tree, watching as the man struggled and failed to climb it, reaching halfway before he became hooked on a branch.
“Need some help?” said Ava, jogging to a stop.
“Get that dog off!” he shouted.
“She’s not really doing anything.”
“I just want to go home,” said Mushroom-head, wriggling, and getting more entangled in the branch that seemed to be caught in his trouser belt. She leaned down and unclipped Bella’s trailing lead.
“I think we’d really like you to stay where you are. So I’m just going to make sure,” she said wrapping the lead round the man’s flailing feet and gradually pulling them together. “We’ll just knot them like this –” she tied his feet together – “and leave Bella in charge while I find the police.”
Chloe ran for the second man.
She knew she was on her own, but the awful possibility that he could escape in a boat kept her running even though she was terrified.
He was big, and he was in the middle of the high street. Not very fast on his feet, and not very steady. He reminded her of a bowling skittle – a pin or whatever they were called. Large in the middle and with a very small head.
Bowling!
She stopped, swung round and raced to the back of the van. It was unlocked. “Yay,” she said, as she clambered in and wriggled into the small space behind the first of the big barrels. It was seriously heavy, but Chloe braced her legs against the walls of the van and pushed as hard as she could.
The barrel slid slowly across the plywood floor and teetered on the edge of the drop. “Go on, you stupid thing!” she muttered, giving it one last shove. It tipped out of the van on to the cobbles and rolled very slowly.
“Go, barrel, go!” she shouted, willing it to pick up speed. It did, until it was quite steadily bouncing down the road. She wasted no time in getting the other two out and then, jumping down from the van, she gave both of them an extra push.
A minute later, there were three barrels gaining speed, bowling down the high street.
“Yay” she said, as the barrels seemed to take on the challenge, bouncing from side to side, careering, pursuing the person running ahead of them.
“Hey!” The man looked round, still running. The barrels were closing in on him.
“That’s brilliant!” said Aiden, who had appeared by her side. “He can’t get away now!”
A second later, the first barrel hit the man and sent him flying head over heels.
“Hurrah!” she shouted. The second barrel found its mark and pinned him against the postbox.
The last, the fastest and the heaviest, bounced all the way down to the beach, cut a way through the crowd, hit a large stone and finally, when everyone was staring at it, split open, spilling mobile phones in a great glittering heap just as the Fire Festival fireworks got underway.
The police officers who arrived moments later were delighted. The villagers were amazed. Pearl and Jake were embarrassed. “I thought they were very cheap and I wasn’t going to turn away cut-price barrels, but if I’d known…” said Jake.
The three members of the gang were handcuffed and led to the police car, protesting their innocence, the woman still covered in chicken poo.
“We were just here for the barrel rolling – honest,” shouted Mushroom-head, but no one believed them. Another police car arrived and took them away while all the fake phones and VR sets were removed from the barrels by willing villagers and handed to the police.
Afterwards, there was hot chocolate all round, and Bella, who had rather enjoyed guarding a man up a tree, barked at everyone who came near – especially Jake and Pearl.
“Smugglers,” said Grandpa, slipping a hash brown on to Josh’s plate. “They were most definitely smugglers. Very clever bringing all that dodgy tech in by fishing boat. And using the village barrels – a very neat trick.”
“Well done, Team Clifftoppers. Smart work,” said Grandma. “Although I think some apologies may be due to the post office – that postbox may never be the same again.”
“Yeah, but those barrels were brilliant bowling balls,” said Josh.
“I’m sure they were,” said Grandma.
“And,” said Chloe, breaking the yolk on her egg, “they stopped the smuggler.”
“The thing I want to see,” said Grandpa, pulling more bacon from under the grill, “is the famous smugglers’ tunnel. To think you found that too – Pearl will be jealous!”
“It’s very spidery,” said Chloe.
“And narrow.” Aiden shivered.
“But if we hadn’t taken it, we wouldn’t have got to the top of the village in time, and they’d have got away with it,” said Ava, slathering a piece of toast with marmalade and cramming it into her mouth. “And Bella, of course. She was brilliant.”
Unaware of the praise, Bella took a corner of hash brown from Josh’s plate while he wasn’t looking.
“So, will you show me after breakfast?” said Grandpa, dishing out the bacon.
As they all walked to the church, talking about their adventure, Josh kept re-enacting the final moments of the barrel rolling so vividly that Ava had to tell him to shut up.
Grandpa led the way into the church. “Show me, then?”
“Oh goodness, look at the pulpit – it looks like it’s been attacked!” said Grandma. She was right – the gang had damaged the secret door so much that it wasn’t really secret any more.
“That’s a bit sad,” said Chloe.
“Jake’ll fix it,” said Grandma. “He can fix most things.”
“So where’s the lever?” asked Grandpa.
Aiden walked up the steps of the pulpit and pointed at the small hole where Mr Tibbs had hidden. “It was there,” he said. “Somehow me reaching in triggered the door.”
“How amazing,” said Grandpa, peering into the alcove. “Let me just see.” He reached in. “Perhaps this wooden button…”
There was a clunk, and right in front of Bella’s nose the ruined door clicked open.
“Good lord,” said Grandma. “All this time, and we never knew it was there.”
“Right!” said Grandpa. “I’ve got my torch. Who’s coming?”
“Mind your head, Edward,” shouted Grandma as Grandpa bashed it on the ceiling of the tunnel. Bella tugged on her lead as they carefully threaded their way down the steps.
“It was just down here,” said Josh.
“What?” said Chloe.
“The hole that we fell into when the burning barrel came past.”
“Oh, I’d forgotten about that!” said Ava. “It was on the left.”
“No, it wasn’t. It was on the right.”
“Left – I swear,” said Ava.
Even with Grandpa’s torch, Aiden longed to get into the daylight. Even without the walls of cobwebs, there were millions of spiders.
“Here it is!” yelled Josh. “Look!”
Grandpa swung his torch through a curtain of cobwebs, brushing it aside and revealing a small cave. But not a small empty cave. A small cave filled with small barrels.
“Oh!” gasped Chloe. “Were the smugglers using it all the time? Is this more mobile phones?”
They clustered around the barrels, and Grandma ran her finger across the top of one. “I don’t think so, Chloe, love. I think these have been here a very long time.”
“Like, years?” asked Ava.
“Like hundreds of years,” said Grandpa, digging his nails into a bung and pulling. He took a deep sni
ff. “Ah,” he said, smiling. “Brandy. Very elderly brandy.”
“Brandy?” said Aiden. “Like real ancient smugglers’ brandy?”
“And look at the walls,” said Aiden. “See the tide line?” He pointed at the white salty rim on the rock.
“Oh – so the sea comes in here,” said Chloe.
“Or came in here,” said Grandpa. “Look how dried out this seaweed is. I’m guessing that there’s been rock falls over the years which blocked up the hole from the high tides. But it obviously used to come in here.”
“And it made the barrels float,” said Grandma.
“Which would explain the booming noise that they heard for so many years,” said Grandpa.
“So the ghosts were just brandy barrels floating about in a big cave?” said Chloe.
“We found braaaaandy!” yelled Josh, racing past his grandparents and leaping out through the gap. He ran towards the pile of ash that marked last night’s celebrations.
“Yay!” shouted Chloe, taking off behind him, skipping over the rocks. “We found brandy and we’ve still got three more days!”
“How splendid,” said Grandpa, helping Grandma down the rocks. “Isn’t the beach a delight after that spidery hole. Imagine – all that contraband making its way up to the church.”
“And a tunnel, there for so many years. Right under everyone’s noses! We’ll just go and tell someone about your discovery. That brandy’ll be worth a fortune. Good money for the village. See you at home, children,” said Grandma, taking Bella’s lead and Grandpa’s elbow and walking along the beach in the direction of the harbour.
Aiden wandered over to the fire. Someone had raked out all the metal bands from the barrels and the police had taken the three smugglers’ barrels along with the contents. There was nothing left that showed what an extraordinary evening it had been.
“All gone,” said Chloe.
“We’ve got the memory,” said Ava. “Chloe – when you chucked those barrels off the truck!”
“I know, wasn’t that the best?” said Chloe. “And Josh and Aiden tricking that woman into the electric fence?”
“And going down the tunnel for the first time!” said Josh.
“And,” laughed Chloe, “you two jumping in the back of that van!”
“It was all excellent,” said Aiden, looking towards their grandparents. “It always is, here, with them.”
“I know,” said Ava, picking up a stone and skimming it into the sea. “Being here is sooooo good. This really is the best place in the world!”
Copyright
First published in the UK in 2019 by Nosy Crow Ltd
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Text copyright © Fleur Hitchcock, 2019
Cover illustration copyright © Tom Clohosy Cole, 2019
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