Ghosts on Board (5 page)

‘I do hope his plan is good,' says Eric, jamming his foot into his trainer.

I grab my Field Craft backpack and rush outside, watching to see where the others have gone. ‘This trip doesn't feel like a good idea to me,' I say. ‘I don't want to go there, but Tilly's insistent, and I don't think we should leave Victor here on his own – so he's going to have to come too.'

Eric fiddles with his laces.

‘Do you think he's really going to help?' I ask.

‘I think we have to give him the benefit of the doubt. I can't stress how serious this is, Tom,' he says. ‘Without the bird sanctuary, Bywater-by-Sea will become an ecological desert.'

‘But he hasn't actually suggested anything.'

‘No – but what have we got to lose? It's just a little trip to the island. What can go wrong?'

Jacob and Tilly have raced on down towards the lighthouse, and Victor is following more slowly, apparently examining everything as he passes.

Catching up with them means passing through the bird reserve. We clamber over the low fence and Eric stops to look at a pile of twigs that might possibly be a nest, although it might equally be random rubbish.

‘Little Tern nests,' he says, pointing at the twigs.

‘How interesting,' says Victor, glancing at the sticks, his eyes quite cold and uninterested, before looking up towards Jacob and smiling. He strides out over the shingle to catch up. Leaving Eric and me behind.

A large shiny car crackles over the stones and comes to a slow halt on the other side of the reserve. It's the man and the woman from the library. They're obviously drawing up plans because they sling a long tape measure between them and spend a lot of time staring at a map.

‘Oh look,' says Eric, gloomily. ‘We've had it. There's no point in your grandma protesting now. They're already practically building the wretched thing. Victor really is our last chance.'

‘Yes,' I say, watching the man struggling on the cobbles in his town shoes and then looking round towards Victor, who, far from looking at the birds, is chattering away to Jacob and Tilly. ‘I'm sure he'll think of something.'

‘Hmmm, let's hope so,' says Eric, speeding up and almost running down to the lighthouse. I watch him jog awkwardly over the stones. I wish I could think of a way round the redevelopment. It's making him so miserable and he's been such a good friend. But most people in the town will want a theme park, and in all honesty only a handful of people have any idea about the birds. And a theme park would be fun. I let myself think about the thrill of whizzing down a roller coaster and feel immediately guilty.

Eric really loves his birds and I'm sure he's right, they're almost certainly worth preserving. It's just that I can't think how and I don't for one minute think Victor's going to help.

It turns out that Jacob doesn't really know how to steer the Speedmaster 2000. After we've packed ourselves in to it, and it really isn't a very big boat, we immediately bump into the angry water-taxi driver, and while reversing out of that one, we clunk a small white yacht leaving a long red streak down the side.

‘Oops,' says Jacob, pushing away with the boathook.

‘Shouldn't we leave a note? Explaining?' says Eric. ‘Offering to pay for the damage?'

‘Why on earth would we do that?' says Jacob, heading for clear water.

We chug out of the harbour mouth. I'm braced for more scrapes. The nearest object is a small lump of concrete marked by a tall green stripy pole. It's the only thing in front of us and, I would have thought, quite easily avoided, but Jacob heads straight for it.

‘Jacob!' I yell over the sound of the straining engine.

‘What?' he shouts.

I point frantically at the fast approaching pole. This looks as if it could be about 95 per cent bad.

‘Scaredy cat!' he shouts back and throws the wheel to the right, veering violently and throwing Eric and me right across the boat. The manoeuvre bounces us so that a wave caused by our own wake washes over the side and soaks me and, a millisecond later, Eric. Tilly hoots with delight.

‘Faster, faster!' she shouts.

I honestly didn't think the boat could go any faster, but it picks up speed and we lurch from side to side until we're properly outside the harbour.

I look around to Victor. He's crouching on the floor of the boat, his coat pulled up over his shoulders. I can't actually see his face. I don't think he likes water much.

‘Go, Jacob,' shouts Tilly again. ‘Faster!'

There isn't any faster, but it's about then that I realise that the water around my ankles is coming from the bottom up, rather than the top down, and that the little boat is sinking.

‘Dad'll kill me,' shouts Jacob, swimming hard for the shore and waiting for no one.

‘We'll drown first,' I splutter, groping for a wooden oar and hanging on. ‘Are you all right there, Eric? Tilly? Victor? And is that cat with us?'

‘No, Shipwreck James stayed on shore,' calls Flora Rose from above.

I tread water, watching the boat turn over and rest, upside down. I'm not sure, but there appears to be a hole in the bottom, which is odd, because there can't have been one when we set off, or we would have sunk much earlier. Tilly's clinging to the side, but her head is only just above the water.

‘Tom,' she wails. ‘Help me!'

‘You can swim can't you?' I say, helping Eric to get to the oar.

‘Yes, but I'm weak, and not as strong as you, and I've never been in a boat accident before – I need rescuing. I feel faint and feeble and  … '

I reach out for her hair with my free hand. It's not that I want to hurt her, but it is a ready-made rope – lots of it and well attached.

‘Ow! Tom!' she screams, batting at me and suddenly remembering how to swim.

‘Can't you use your powers?' shouts Victor, bobbing up and down, clinging to his battered top hat. ‘Can't you do anything? Jacob, you must be able to do something?'

But Jacob's already too far away to hear him.

I think for a moment. I don't imagine that there's anything helpful that I could do, and Eric would only make us wetter.

‘Oh, I could do something,' says Tilly, puffing along beside me.

Which is how we end up swimming back into the harbour on a giant pink sparkly oar.

‘So it's not just Jacob who can do remarkable things,' says Victor, dripping onto the quayside. ‘And exactly what gives you the power?'

‘Oh that's easy,' answers Tilly. ‘We all caught meteor—'

I deliver a sharp kick to her shin. I don't agree with physical violence, but sometimes it's necessary. Especially with someone as dense as Tilly.

‘To-om!' she says. ‘Ow-wa! That really hurt.'

I smile at her. ‘Sorry, I must have missed my step. Gosh – look, Jacob's breaking in to the Marigold Tours boat. We'd better hurry or we'll miss the trip.'

Tilly narrows her eyes. ‘What are you up to, Tom?'

‘Did you say meteorites?' says Victor. ‘What –?'

But I don't give him time to ask, bundling Tilly along the jetty in front of me and pushing her onto the boat. ‘Shhhh,' I say, in the split second that Victor takes to follow us. ‘Don't tell him – he's really –'

‘Untrustworthy?' she interrupts. ‘Yes, I know – isn't it fun?'

About a minute after the engine starts, it stops again. It won't work, and we reassemble on the quayside, dripping. I'm actually getting quite cross with this and sit soggily on Tilly's giant inflated oar – which is by now not so giant, nor so inflated – watching a puddle form around my feet.

‘Perhaps we're not meant to go,' says Eric, squeezing water out of his T-shirt. ‘Perhaps we're supposed to be organising the campaign for the preservation of the bird sanctuary back here with the Worthies and your grandma.'

‘A helicopter?' asks Jacob. ‘Anyone got one?'

‘What a shame! I haven't – whatever a helicopter is,' says Victor. ‘Why don't we go back to your house, Tom, and you can all show me your wonderful abilities?' He nudges me. I don't much like being nudged by a ghost, even if he looks like a man. A grey grubby sort of man, with slightly see-through skin. I shuffle further along Tilly's giant oar until I'm teetering on the edge. It tips, spilling Victor onto the ground.

‘But I thought you had an idea?' says Eric. ‘And that going over to the island would help crystallise that idea?'

‘Nice use of vocabulary, my boy,' says Victor. ‘But here, or there, I can think, and garner and gather and put together all the little details of your lives – I mean, the life of the town, so to speak.'

‘Quite,' I begin, but I stop. Something's, or somebody's, writing a message in water on the stone by my feet.
Don't
– but then it runs out, because the D starts to evaporate.

It's a most peculiar feeling. I watch as the letters form again. It must be Billy. He must be trying to tell me something, but I'm not getting enough at once.

‘We could swim,' says Tilly, watching the giant oar shrink back to its usual size. ‘I could make a giant rubber ring.'

‘Or we could build a raft?' says Jacob.

‘How come you ghostly people can't summon a shipwreck from the bottom of the sea? One that would take us over the water?' says Tilly.

‘Yeah, that would be neat, with a skeleton crew!' Jacob sits down on the quayside. Gentle steam rises from his shoulders and I notice that his clothes are almost dry.

‘Why don't you, Tom and Eric take Tilly to the island?' says Victor. ‘Flora Rose and Billy can go with you and I can stay here with Jacob.'

‘What about the bird reserve in all this?' asks Eric.

‘No,' says Tilly firmly. ‘We all go.'

‘Yes. We're a team,' says Jacob, putting his arm out in front of him and galloping around behind it.

Something flickers at the side of my vision.

‘Billy?' I say quietly.

A Y appears on the stone.

I look back down at my feet. ‘Dang,' it says.

‘Danger?' I whisper.

I feel a cold finger against my skin, and once again the letter Y appears, on my arm this time. And despite the sunshine that should be warming my back, a shiver as cold as anything I've ever felt races down my spine.

‘I can't believe they're really ghosts,' I say to Eric as we huddle inside the bow of the
Trusty Mermaid
alongside the day trippers.

We're sheltering here because about a minute after we'd all decided to go home, the
Trusty Mermaid
pulled into the pier quay and Jacob and Tilly raced off to climb on board. We had to follow. Unfortunately.

‘They can't be,' says Eric. ‘But you're right, they are. And that Victor – I'm beginning to think he's stringing us along. He's got no intention of helping out with the bird reserve, has he?'

I nod, desperately grateful to see that Eric is finally getting the point. ‘How did Grandma know he was a ghost? And she seemed to be able to see Flora Rose and Billy – she knew they were there.'

Eric sighs. ‘She's either an Indigo – a person who can see ghosts – or she can smell them or something. I don't know. I don't know everything – OK?'

‘OK,' I say. I can tell that he's cross, that he feels let down, that he'd rather be back in the village waving placards about bird sanctuaries, but I'm glad he's here.

I look around to see if I can see any sign of Billy and Flora Rose, but if they are with us, they're keeping very quiet and invisible. Jacob's up on the bow of the ship, studying the horizon. He looks very excited. I am not very excited. If it wasn't for the presence of Victor, Grandma's warning and Tilly's emotional blackmail, I wouldn't be here.

I squeeze some water from my shorts.

Eric sighs, staring past a squabbling family to the waves beyond.

‘He definitely made a hole in the bottom of the boat,' I say. ‘There was one when we sank, but nothing beforehand. And why did that other boat start and stop? I'm guessing it was Victor pouring water in the tank or something.'

Eric doesn't answer.

‘Have you had the messages on your arm?' I ask.

Eric nods.

‘Creepy, aren't they?' I say.

He nods again.

‘Eric, are you listening?'

‘Hmm, yes.' He turns to me. ‘Messages, creepy. Victor bad – that sort of thing.'

‘But you're thinking about birds.'

He sighs. ‘I was remembering a Cormorant, diving into the shallows off North Beach early last August. It was stunning.'

‘Right,' I say. ‘Well, I was thinking about Victor. It's only a matter of time before he discovers that there are loads of people in Bywater-by-Sea with strange powers and I can't imagine that he's going to use that for any good at all.'

I look over to Victor. He's hunched against the wheelhouse, watching a snotty baby eat a chocolate ice cream. The disgust on his face is so strong that I'm surprised the baby hasn't burst into tears. A woman hands him a camera and asks him to take a picture of her and the baby. At which point the baby notices Victor and begins to scream.

‘Yes,' says Eric. ‘I suppose you're right.'

I'm worried about Eric's lack of interest. Surely he now sees that Victor's dangerous, even without the disturbing Billy messages, and I'm still thinking about it as the boat pulls into the milky fog surrounding Mystery Smoke Island.

‘What's that awful smell?' I ask. ‘It's like drains.'

‘The island,' says Victor. Mournfully. ‘It smells hideous – mouldy.'

‘Oooh, are we nearly there?' says Tilly. ‘Is it here? In this fog?'

‘Anyone for Mystery Smoke Island? We only dock for a moment, so could you get yourselves to the forward exit – thank you. We'll pass again at dusk – if you're not on the quay we'll assume you've made your own way back.' The captain's voice is muffled by the mist, but we all shuffle to the front, Tilly jumping up and down with excitement, craning to see the island emerge from the fog. Jacob is bouncing beside her.

All I can actually see is a broken wooden jetty and the ruined spike of a tower poking out of the cloud. All the details have disappeared in the mist.

The boat thuds into the landing stage and as soon as we've stepped ashore, it turns and heads back out to sea. None of the other passengers disembark and we're left alone on the crumbling boards.

No one says anything as the last little square of colour disappears into the grey and the final chug of the engine fades out to sea. A wave washes gently up to the landing stage and plips back, leaving dead-calm water.

‘Whoooo, spooky,' whispers Tilly, tiptoeing to the end of the jetty and standing on a patch of sooty black ivy.

‘Yes,' I say. I look back to the swirling fog hanging over the sea. I can't see anything of the boat. I can't immediately see any way of getting off the island.

Victor walks off the jetty, picks his way through a groaning metal gate and sinks down to sit on a gravestone. He lets his head sag onto his hands and stares gloomily at another stone, one carved with skeletons, apparently writhing in agony. ‘I can't believe I'm back on Mystery Smoke Island,' he says and sighs. He raises one of his hands in front of his face. It might be my imagination, but I think I can see through it.

Beside me, Eric pulls a soggy map from his pocket and arranges it on the wooden planks of the jetty. It's very ancient and very wet.

Everyone stays very still, as if we're all waiting for something to happen.

Distantly, a low howl builds. Not like a wolf – more like wind in the trees. It rises and falls, rushing up towards us and then turning and racing away. I jump. ‘What
is
that?'

‘The Evergone Forest.' Victor raises his head. ‘It's in the dark heart of the island. Dismal, isn't it?'

‘Does it do it all the time?' asks Tilly. I detect a very slight lessening of enthusiasm in her voice.

‘Almost,' says Flora Rose out of nowhere. I try not to leap out of my skin but I'm still not used to the way she does it. ‘Sometimes it goes quiet for nearly long enough for you to forget about it. Then it gets loud and shouty again. It's horrible to live with.'

‘Really?' says Jacob, his voice unusually high. It's the first time he's spoken since we saw the blackened stumps of the island emerging through the fog. In fact he's not been remotely superhero-like. Since we left Bywater-by-Sea, not a single spark's leapt from his fingertips. ‘Why's it Evergone?'

‘No one's ever come back from there,' says Flora Rose. ‘Some explorers disappeared in the 1920s. We never saw them again, which was a shame. They were quite fun. They had a fire and sang songs.'

I shiver. I can see that a fire on this island would make it much more bearable. Some light would help.

Flora Rose is still talking. If I listen to her carefully, I can work out where she is, and then it's just possible to see her shape because it's the space the mist doesn't occupy. She's about my height and next to her is a smaller figure who appears to be clinging to her arm. It must be Billy. ‘It's also called the Fearful Forest because of the terribly afraid faces on the trees. I think some of them were once ghosts,' says Flora Rose. ‘It's not wind in the trees – it's screaming you can hear.'

‘Screaming?' says Jacob, shivering. ‘I'm not sure I can stand too much of this.' He's standing with his back to the sea. I suppose it's like standing with your back to the wall.

‘Then you'll understand why I chose to leave,' says Victor. ‘Anyway, chaps – Jacob, old fellow, light us a fire and tell me a spot about the meteorites, eh? Who's got them?' His eyes widen and a long smile creases his face. ‘And what do they do?'

‘Don't, Jacob,' starts Eric, slightly too late to stop Jacob who looks infinitely more cheerful now the topic of conversation has moved away from ghosts.

‘Meteorites. We get powers depending on where they land. We've all got different powers. Tom can  …  Ow! Snot Face, why'd you kick me?' Jacob hops around clutching his leg.

‘Oh, this is boring! Can I see the forest?' interrupts Tilly. ‘Can we go there? Sounds spooooky.'

‘I disagree. This meteorite thing sounds very interesting,' says Victor, looking better, but still a little see-through. ‘And here the fog's so thick you can't even see a hundred yards. Let's go back to that nice place you're from, so much warmer, and you could show me your pretty space rock and we can eat more heavenly cake.'

‘Oh, I think he's right,' says Flora Rose. ‘I know I brought you here, Tilly – but now we're back, I don't feel at all good about this. Can't we go over to the mainland? It was so nice. And really this place is so dark.'

‘Ooh,' says Tilly. ‘Look at the seagulls! Aren't they weird?'

‘We keep our meteorites in our – Geddof!' yells Jacob at a large gull which seems to be stalking him. ‘Pockets. Go away, you foul creature.'

Victor grabs Jacob by the elbow. There's a sort of a tussle while Victor forces Jacob upright, and Jacob sags. Jacob's sweatshirt gets hitched over his belly, the seagull flies off and Victor straightens up his top hat, a large grin spreading over his face. ‘How wonderful!' says Victor.

Wonderful that the seagull flew away? Or wonderful that Jacob keeps meteorites in his pocket? I look again. Victor definitely has something in his hand. I can see because the hand is more transparent than solid and there's definitely something extra in his palm.

‘Jacob, Victor – I saw that!' I say.

‘What?' says Victor.

‘That! You took something out of Jacob's pocket – it's in your hand.'

Victor splays his hands, opens his jacket. I can't see anything and feel really stupid.

‘Tom,' glares Jacob. ‘Guests – be polite.'

‘But –!'

‘It's nothing,' says Victor, turning his back on Jacob and heading towards the end of the jetty.

I whisk my meteorite from my pocket into my backpack. I don't know what he's done with Jacob's stone, but he definitely took it. Not that Victor would be able to use mine – because it only works for me.

But I suppose he doesn't know that.

And I don't know for sure that Jacob and Eric's meteorite only works for them.

I'm still staring at him, wondering how he did that, and how to get the meteorite off him, when Tilly grabs my backpack. ‘I'm going this way,' she says, yanking the torch off the side. ‘Do any of you scaredy cats want to come with me?'

‘Don't!' shouts Flora Rose from alarmingly close. ‘That's Vile Lucy's place, Ghost Lane. She'll  … '

But Tilly's already stomped off into the mist. She's already invisible.