Pyro Watson and the Hidden Treasure (18 page)

Pyro ran.

He didn't think, he just ran. Down to Min's house – Becks wasn't there – and up the next street – no Becks there – and then down to Stan Davo's street, in case Becks had decided to go there and, of course, she hadn't.

So Pyro went back to the town map. He made himself stand still and breathe deeply.

Mr Stig called out. He was on his way home with the paper and had been putting up some more posters and talking to all sorts of people. He took Pyro to the café and bought him a cool drink and then he went on to the high school to see if anyone there had seen a little dog.

Pyro went back to the town map.

He could see the mangrove swamp and how it drifted around the back of the town. He could see the inlet and how it flowed in a wide arc with the old fisheries in the
corner. He could see how it skirted around the backs of houses as it continued on to the next village further down the coast.

It wasn't a big area. There were houses and shops and water and beaches. Pyro looked at the pattern of the streets. If Becks was wandering about, someone in one of those streets would claim her. They all seemed to know her and Min and Min's grandma.

In his head Pyro crossed the streets off his list.

Next, there were the beaches.

He checked the coastline. In some places it was wild with steep cliffs that fell down suddenly to the shore; Pyro had seen them from the caravan park. He'd seen across the inlet to the other side and knew that the beaches there were too treacherous for swimming.
Hiding a dog down here would mean you'd have to scramble all the way around the far side of the inlet, past the fisheries and the little rock-walled boat harbour and the new road with the leftover pipes. Somebody would notice a dog being dragged along here. And there'd been no time for Plonker and Sandy Grivett to do that anyway – not if they'd been dropped off at school by Sandy's mum.

Pyro wished he had some paper to make a proper list. It was hard to keep it in his head and he wished, as well, that Geezer could be here.

He moved his finger around the map tracing a line from Plonker's house and Sandy Grivett's house to the places they'd have time to hide a dog.

He didn't count the streets.

He didn't count the houses along the streets because, even if they had old sheds in their yards, Becks would bark and be heard.

He didn't count the ocean beaches. There'd only be driftwood to tie her to and what would be the use of that? She'd just bolt off down the beach dragging it along behind her.

That left the old fisheries.

And the inlet.

Pyro took a deep breath. It wouldn't be easy. Places like Austen-on-Sea were pretty quiet when school was in. The only human sounds were his own footsteps, and the other sounds didn't making him feel any easier. Cars didn't make a happy sound as they whooshed by; it was almost like the air was gasping, trying to catch up again to get out of the place. And the wind in the trees wasn't helping. But the sailboat further out was the worst of all, the way it creaked out eerie warnings to nobody at all.

There wasn't a single soul anywhere.

His head was already filled up with warnings about keeping with friends and never being by yourself and watching out for strangers and yelling fire, although that seemed a bit silly on this grey day on the edge of this rocky old inlet.

It was too late now to go back. And there weren't any strangers hanging about. He was all alone.

And Becks had to be found.

Going back to the camper would be like perching on a bull ant's nest for an hour or two. He'd never be able to sit still while Becks was still out there somewhere.

The fisheries were going to be the worst.

Do the worst first, that was what his nan always said and, to keep himself company, Pyro thought he could write and tell her when all this was over. ‘I remembered what you said,' he'd write and then he tried to think of other things. But they all slipped away as his ears pricked to the sounds in the silence.

He scrambled over the new bit of road that led to the fisheries. It still had great big rocks jutting out. They hadn't been there long enough to be disguised by plants and bits of trees that would try to grow there. The pipes were there, with their too-white tops gleaming in the strange grey light of the stormy day. They were waiting too, for soil and trees and leaves to cover them, which had better not be too much longer or somebody with spray cans would get in first.

It was the sort of quiet that was filled with sounds that kept making him turn around. Just to check in case there was something that shouldn't be there. Like one of those skeletony things that oozed up from Davy Jones's locker in the pirate movies.

If it was a movie it'd be for sure the right time for one of those to come calling.

The tide slapped at the inside of the pipes. It sounded hungry and brand new horror pictures started to fizz
around in his brain. Waves with foam-shaped fingers. Mzzz Cllump was always going on about how clever they were when they did that in their writing and it would be nice to think about classrooms and school but it was a bit tricky when scary things kept popping into your head and a small dog was missing and you were the one responsible.

Once he thought he heard a sound that could have been a bark but it stopped before he could make up his mind if it really was a bark, or just one of the sea-birds that stood sulking around on the shore with their bottoms to the wind.

‘Shoo!'

The birds didn't shoo far.

‘Get lost!'

They didn't. They grumbled among themselves and frowned over at him with red-ringed seagull eyes and then huddled closer to the old buoys that lined the far side of the wharf.

The tide slapped harder now. It was racing in. Little white-capped waves were jittering about looking nervous, spraying up the sides of the new pipes and making the yacht further out moan and twist as it was slapped about.

He had paused in the shelter of the old building when he heard a new sound.

A hollow clonk, clonk, clonk.

It was exactly the sound that was in
Pirate Movie
before the dreadful, awful ghosties appeared. Little fingers of fear trickled their way up his neck so his hair felt like it was standing on end, and every time there was another clonk it stood even higher.

That noise was never going to go away. He was sure of that. Oh no, when you're all afraid and there's a sound like that, it's not going to leave you alone until you find out what it is.

A bit like the dressing-gown over the door in the middle of the night. How scary is that!

And then you switch the light on.

But now there was no light to switch on. Not in broad daylight in the middle of a wharf with only a flock of stickybeak seagulls for company.

A light wasn't going to show him the clonk-clonker either. It was going to have to be him leaning out over the edge of the wharf.

Him. Alone. His heart almost stopped still in his chest as he thought of it. It would absolutely kill him
but he had to go and lie down and peer over the edge of the wharf.

Giant wooden sleepers held together with nails as big as fists were waiting for him.

So was the clonker. It rang out a few good loud ones to make sure he was totally terrified.

Whistling wasn't going to help. His nan said it helped her but she probably wasn't flat out on a wharf. She didn't have to worry about anything creeping up and clobbering her.

He had to do it.

He tried a whistle and a little puffy sound slipped out. It didn't really help but it stopped him thinking about all the other stuff.

The seagulls watched. A couple of them had their heads cocked as if they could hear something that shouldn't be there. Another couple waddled over to check over the edge with him, just in case there might have been a fish or a bit of bread floating about that they hadn't noticed before.

It was quieter down here, which made it that much easier to see the clonker. It was a bit like the dressing-gown over the door.

It was enough to make him laugh. Almost.

Trapped between the pylons of the old bridge and the new one was an upside-down dinghy. Every time a wave lifted it a little higher the metal sides clonked hard against the thick old timbers.

It was just a silly old clonkin' ol' boat.

But there was something trailing from it. The good feeling that had come with seeing the dinghy shrivelled up as all of the bits started to come together.

The dinghy was their dinghy from over the channel. And the thing trailing from it wasn't just an old bit of rope. It was a dog's lead.

The noise that he could hear, the one that jabbed around in and out behind the clonking, was a frantic yapping. The sort of yaps small dogs make when they're very, very scared and very, very worn out.

He'd found Becks.

It was the sort of thing that should have been good and happy but Becks-under-a-boat-in-the-middle-of-deep-water was just making his breath whoosh in and out of his body and his head fill with booming noises that weren't the waves.

She should have been on land. Or in the backyard of somebody's house. Not here in the middle of a deep, angry inlet that was filling fast with cold ocean water.

It was way too scary. It was too scary even to pretend to know what to do.

He jumped up and tried to run but his feet just pumped up and down and he was going nowhere. Becks had to be saved though. She had to be dragged from under that little clonking boat and pulled to safety and he was going to have to do it.

His breath was really going now. Hauling in and out like it was when the snorkel was over his nose.

And the whole time that boat clonked and swayed. But not enough to muffle the other terrible sounds that filtered out.

He had to get help. It was hard to know how to get help when your feet were scattering up and down and not going any place fast. And who was he going to get? There wasn't a soul anywhere near.

He was going to have to get in that water himself. Little spinny star things danced in front of his eyes as he even thought about launching over the edge of that old wharf. He'd sink.

San Simeon backed up … San Simeon and Calamity all wrapped about with ropes … he'd tied himself to the
ropes from the mast … made sure he was safe and then launched himself over the side …

 

There wasn't any rope.

There had to be something that would keep him afloat. The seagulls rattled and squawked about as he rushed by, which was just as well because he might not have seen what it was they were perched on. The line of old buoys. They shone back at him like bald men's heads.

… sharks and gnashing teeth …

 

What was the point of worrying about sharks anyway? He was probably going to drown first.

Don't think about it. Think about tying that buoy on so it wouldn't slip away and think about somehow getting Becks out from under that dinghy.

Safe.

The first thing he had to do was get into the water. It'd be just like being with Auntie Mor and Mr Stig in the snorkelling pool.