9

a strange boat

the girls would not go up the secret passage, no matter how much the boysurged them to. they shuddered to think of the dark, narrow, winding tunnel,and although they agreed that it was very exciting, they did not want to feelthe thrill of creeping along it by themselves.

‘i suppose dinah’s afraid of giant starfish jumping out at her, orsomething,’ said philip in disgust. ‘and lucy-ann takes her side.’

but even teasing would not make the girls try the passage, though theynever tired of hearing about it. the boys slipped down into the cellar thenext day, and found that joe had once again piled up the boxes in front ofthe second door, so that it was quite hidden. it was puzzling, but he oftendid silly spiteful things. anyway, they had the key of the door. that wassomething.

the weather became fine and hot. the sun shone down out of a cloudlesssky and the children went about in bathing-suits. they were soon burnt asbrown as toast. philip, dinah and lucy-ann spent more time than jack inthe water. the boy was quite mad over the wild birds that infested the coastin such numbers. he was forever identifying terns and skuas, cormorants,gulls and others. he did not want lucy-ann with him, much to her dismay.

‘the birds are learning to know me,’ he explained to his sister. ‘but theydon’t know you, lucy-ann. you keep with the others, there’s a good girl.

anyway, we can’t both leave tufty and dinah, it would be rude.’

so for once lucy-ann was not jack’s shadow, and spent most of her timewith the others. but she usually knew where jack was, and, when it wasabout time for him to return, she would always watch for him.

dinah thought she was silly. she would never have dreamt of watchingfor philip. ‘i’m only too glad when he gets out of the way,’ she said tolucy-ann. ‘horrid tease! he nearly made me go mad last year when he putearwigs under my pillow, and they all crawled out in the middle of thenight.’

lucy-ann thought that sounded horrid. but by now she was used tophilip and his peculiar ways. even when he was only wearing swimmingtrunks he seemed able to secrete some kind of creature about his body.

yesterday it had been a couple of friendly crabs. but when he hadaccidentally sat down on one, and it had nipped him, he had come to theconclusion that crabs were better in the sea than out of it.

‘anyway, i’m glad freckles takes kiki with him when he goes bird?watching,’ said dinah. ‘i quite like kiki, but now that she has taken toimitating all the birds around here, it is rather sickening. i’m surprised auntpolly puts up with her as well as she does.’

aunt polly had become fond of the parrot. it was an artful bird and knewthat it had only to murmur ‘poor dear polly’ to get anything it liked out ofaunt polly. joe had been well and truly ticked off by aunt polly the day hehad gone shopping in the car and had forgotten the parrot’s sunflower seeds.

the children had been delighted to hear the man so well scolded.

uncle jocelyn’s experience of kiki was definitely not so good. one hotafternoon the parrot had flown silently in at the open window of the study,where uncle jocelyn sat, as usual, bent double over his old papers andbooks. kiki flew to the book-shelf and perched there, looking round herwith interest.

‘how many times have i told you not to whistle?’ she said in a sternvoice.

uncle jocelyn, lost in his books, came out of them with a start. he hadnever seen the parrot and had forgotten that one had come to the house. hesat puzzling his head to know where such an extraordinary speech camefrom.

kiki said nothing more for a time. uncle jocelyn came to the conclusionthat he had been mistaken, and he dropped his head to study his papers oncemore.

‘where’s your handkerchief?’ asked kiki sternly.

uncle jocelyn felt sure that his wife was somewhere in the room, forkiki imitated aunt polly’s voice very well. he groped in his pocket for ahandkerchief.

‘good boy,’ said the parrot. ‘don’t forget to wipe your feet now.’

‘they’re not dirty, polly,’ said uncle jocelyn in surprise, thinking that hewas speaking to his wife. he was puzzled and annoyed. aunt polly did notusually come and disturb him like this by giving him unnecessary orders.

he turned round to tell her to go, but could not see her.

kiki gave a hollow cough, exactly like joe’s. uncle jocelyn, now certainthat the man was also in the room, felt most irritable. why must everyonewalk in and disturb him today? really, it was unbearable.

‘get out,’ he said, thinking that he was speaking to joe. ‘i’m busy.’

‘oh, you naughty boy,’ said the parrot, in a reproving tone. then itcoughed again, and gave a realistic sneeze. then, for a while, there wascomplete silence.

uncle jocelyn settled down again, forgetting all about the interruption atonce. kiki did not like being ignored like that. she flew from the book-shelfon to uncle jocelyn’s grey head, giving one of her railway-engine screamsas she did so.

poor uncle jocelyn leapt to his feet, clutched at his head, dislodged kiki,and gave a yell that brought aunt polly into the room at once. kiki sailedout of the window, making a cackling sound that sounded just like laughter.

‘what’s the matter, jocelyn?’ asked aunt polly, alarmed.

uncle jocelyn was in a rage. ‘people have been in and out of this roomall the morning, telling me to wipe my feet and not to whistle, andsomebody threw something at my head,’ he fumed.

‘oh – that was only kiki,’ said aunt polly, beginning to smile.

‘only kiki! and who on earth is kiki?’ shouted uncle jocelyn, furious atseeing his wife smile at his troubles instead of sympathising with them.

‘the parrot,’ said aunt polly. ‘the boy’s parrot, you know.’

uncle jocelyn had forgotten all about jack and lucy-ann. he stared athis wife as if she had gone mad.

‘what boy – and what parrot?’ he demanded. ‘have you gone crazy,polly?’

‘oh dear,’ sighed aunt polly. ‘how you do forget things, jocelyn!’ shereminded him of the two children who had come for the holidays, andexplained about kiki. ‘she’s the cleverest parrot you ever saw,’ said auntpolly, who had now completely lost her heart to kiki.

‘well,’ said uncle jocelyn grimly, ‘all i can say is that if that parrot is asclever as you think it is, it will keep out of my way – because i shall throwall my paperweights at it if it comes in here again.’

aunt polly, thinking of her husband’s very bad aim whenever he threwanything, gave a glance at the window. she thought she had better keep itclosed, or she might find everything in the room smashed by paperweightsone day. dear, dear, what annoying things did happen, to be sure! if itwasn’t children clamouring for more to eat, it was joe worrying her; and ifit wasn’t joe, it was the parrot; and if it wasn’t the parrot, it was unclejocelyn threatening to throw his paperweights about. aunt polly closed thewindow firmly, went out of the room, and shut the door sharply.

‘don’t slam the door,’ came kiki’s voice from the passage. and howmany times have i . . .’

but for once aunt polly had no kind word for kiki. ‘you’re a bad bird,’

she said sternly to the parrot. ‘a very bad bird.’

kiki sailed down the passage with an indignant screech. she would findjack. jack was always good and kind to her. where was jack?

jack was not with the others. he had gone with his field-glasses to thetop of the cliff, and was lying on his back, looking with pleasure at the birdssoaring above his head. kiki landed on his middle and made him jump.

‘oh – it’s you, kiki. be careful with your claws, for goodness’ sake. i’veonly got my bathing-suit on. now keep quiet, or you’ll frighten away thebirds. i’ve already seen five different kinds of gulls today.’

jack got tired of lying on his back at last. he sat up, pushed kiki off hismiddle, and blinked round. he put his field-glasses to his eyes again, andlooked out over the sea in the direction of the isle of gloom. he had notseen it properly yet.

but today, though most of the distant hills behind him were lost in theheat haze, for some reason or other the island could be quite plainly seen,jutting up from the sea to the west. ‘gosh!’ said jack, in surprise, ‘there’sthat mystery island that joe says is a bad island. how clearly it can be seentoday! i can see hills jutting up – and i can even see the waves dashingspray over the rocks that go round it!’

jack could not see any birds on the island, for his glasses were not strongenough to show him anything more than the island itself and its hills. butthe boy felt certain that it was full of birds.

‘rare birds,’ he said to himself. ‘birds that people don’t know any more.

birds that might nest there undisturbed year after year, and be as tame ascats. golly, i wish i could go there. what a tiresome nuisance joe is not tolet us use his boat! we could get to the island in it quite easily if the sea wasas calm as it is today. blow joe!’

the boy swept his glasses around the jagged coast, and then stared hardin surprise at something. it couldn’t be somebody rowing a boat along thecoast, about a mile or so away. surely it couldn’t. joe had said that nobodybut himself had a boat for miles and miles – and aunt polly had said thatnobody lived anywhere near craggy-tops at all – not nearer than six orseven miles, anyway.

‘and yet there’s someone in a boat out there on the sea to the west of thiscliff,’ said jack, puzzled. ‘who is it? i suppose it must be joe.’

the man in the boat was too far away to make out. it might be joe and itmight not. jack came to the conclusion that it must be. he glanced at thesun. it was pretty high, so it must be dinner-time. he’d go back, and on theway he would look and see if joe’s boat was tied up in the usual place. if itwas gone, then the man in the boat must be joe.

but the boat was not gone. it was in its usual place, firmly tied to its post,rocking gently in the little harbour near the house. and there was joe too,collecting driftwood from the beach for the kitchen fire. then there must besomeone else not far away who had a boat of his own.

jack ran to tell the others. they were surprised and pleased. ‘we’ll goand find out who he is, and pal up with him, and maybe he’ll take us outfishing in the boat,’ said philip at once. ‘good for you, freckles. your oldfield-glasses have found out something besides birds for you.’

‘we’ll go and see him tomorrow,’ said jack. ‘what i really want is achance to go out to the isle of gloom and see if there are any rare birdsthere. i just feel i must go there! i really have got a sort of hunch about it.’

‘we won’t tell joe we’ve seen someone else with a boat,’ said dinah.

‘he’d only try to stop us. he hates us doing anything we like.’

so nothing was said to joe or to aunt polly about the stranger in the boat.

the next day they would find him and talk to him.

but something was to happen before the next day came.