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TheMysteryofAdventureIslandTheMysterySeries–BookNo.2ByPaulMoxham

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permissionofthecopyrightownerofthisbook.Thisisaworkoffiction.

Names,characters,places,brandsandincidentsareeithertheproductoftheauthor’simaginationorareused

fictitiously.

THEMYSTERYSERIES

Thisadventureseriessetin1950’sBritainwilldelight

childrenofallages.

~*~*~FullLengthNovels:

TheMysteryofSmugglersCove

TheMysteryofAdventureIsland

TheMysteryofHiddenValley

TheMysteryofClawMountain

TheMysteryoftheGoldenDragons

~ShortStories:TheMysteryoftheMissingMoneyTheMysteryoftheMissingGnomesTheMysteryoftheMysteriousManTheMysteryoftheStrangeNotebook

TheMysteryoftheGoldenElephant

TheMysteryoftheRed

BalloonTheMysteryoftheHowlingDog

TheMysteryoftheHiddenSuitcase

~BoxSet:

TheMysterySeriesCollection(ShortStories1-4)

TheMysterySeriesCollection(Books1-3)

PRAISEFORTHEMYSTERYSERIES

"Iwasdrawninbythe

fast-pacedplot.Ienjoyedreadingthebookand

couldn'twaittoseehowthingsturnedout."---SmashwordsReviewer

"PaulMoxhamtakesthereaderonawhirlwindof

chasescenariosthatuptheantewitheachnarrowescape."---AmazonUSA

Reviewer

"Ilovethisbook,couldnotputitdownandIfeltasifIwasstandingbesidethecharacters."---Shelfari

Reviewer

"Thisisanentertainingadventurestorythatwouldmakepleasurableholidayreadingfor7to10yearolds."---AmazonUK

Reviewer

"It'spackedwithadventureandcourage,reminiscentof

TheGoonies."---LibraryThingReviewer

NOTE:Thiscanbereadasa

standalonestory,butifyouwanttohavefullknowledgeofthecharacters,IsuggestthatyoureadTheMysteryofSmugglersCove,thefirst

bookinTheMysterySeries.-----------

Thisstoryissetin1950’sBritainandiswritteninBritishEnglish-not

AmericanEnglish-sobearthisinmindregardingthespellingofsomewords.

-----------Thisstoryissetafterthe

eventsinTheMysteryoftheMissingGnomes.

TableofContentsChapter 1: A New

AdventureChapter2:TheLazy

LucyChapter 3: Off We

Go!Chapter 4: Rocky

IslandChapter5:AGhostly

EncounterChapter6:APuzzleChapter 7: The

DisappearingManChapter 8: Into The

CavesChapter 9: The

BirdwatchersChapter 10: A

StrangerInNeedChapter11:ThePlanChapter12:Run!Chapter 13: The

QuarryChapter 14:AGood

TrickChapter15:TheRaft

Chapter 16: We’reDrowning!

Chapter 17: A WayOut

Chapter 18:TheBigSearch

Chapter 19:KeepingWatch

Chapter 20:DestinationUnknown

Chapter 21: AChanceToEscape

Chapter 22: BicycleMadness

Chapter 23: HiddenFromView

Chapter 24: InsideTheLighthouse

Chapter 25:Kaboom!

Chapter 26: TheRescue

Chapter 27: SwissFamilyRobinsonStyle

Chapter28:RunningOutOfTime

Chapter29:Fire!Chapter 30: A Leap

OfFaithChapter 31:

Goodbye AdventureIsland!

Chapter 1: ANewAdventure

After gazing throughthe binoculars forseveral minutes, twelve-

year-old Joe Mitchellturned to his two sisterswho were sitting besidehim on the cliff. “Weshould ask Will if heknows anyone who cantake us there. It lookslike a great campingspot.”

Amy,theeldestofthetwogirls,sweptbackherlong, brown hair. “Butwhatwouldwedoifwewentthere?”

Joe looked back atLighthouseIslandwhichwas situated just off thecoast. Apart from alighthouse, there wasnothing on it except afewbushes and trees. “Iknow it might not looktoo exciting, but I betthere are tons ofdifferent sea birdsthere.” He glanced atSarah, the youngest ofthethreesiblings.“What

doyouthink?”“I think it would be

fun,” Sarah said, hergreen eyes shining. “Itmaynotbeasmuchfunas exploring the tunnelsunderneath ChandlerManor or exploringBrackneshCastle—”

“I didn’t think youlikedthoseplaces,”Amyinterrupted. “Last week,after we solved themystery of the missing

gnomes,yousaid—”“I know,” Sarah

interrupted, “but thatwas then and this isnow.”

Joe smiled. “Youknow, I never thoughtthat Smugglers Covecould be so much fun,especially since it’ssmaller than Danfield. Ilike living close toLondon,butweseem tobe having more

adventures here thanweeverhadathome.”

“Iwishwecouldstayforever,”Amysaid.“Butin just over two weeks,we’ll be back at St.Mary’s.” She stood up.“Let’s go and talk toWill about goingcamping.”

Climbing onto theirbicycles, the childrenpedalled along the cliffpath.Theywere soon in

the main street of thesmall seaside village ofSmugglers Cove.Waving as they passedConstable Biggens, theyrode past the shops andhouses, stopping whentheyarrivedatamediumsizedhouse.

Joesawthat their redhaired friend was in thefrontgardencleaninghisbicycle.“Hello,Will!”

Will glanced up and

gave a cheery smile.“Hi.”

“Doyouknowofanygood places to gocamping?”Amyasked.

Will grinned.“Gettingbored,arewe?”

“How did youguess?”Joeasked.

“Well, when I firstcame here fromLondonjust after thewarended,I was bored at first,”Will said. “Of course,

you can’t say it’s beentoodullforyou.You’vehad three adventures infourweeks.”

“Iknow,”Joesaid.“Iguess we’re just lucky.Anyway, I waswondering aboutLighthouse Island. Doyou know if there aremanybirdsthere?”

Willthought.“Idon’tthink there are, but Ihaven’t actually been

there. The lighthousewas closed a number ofyears ago, so therehasn’t been a reason foranyone to go there.Why?”

“I want to see somebirds, and it would befun camping byourselves,”Joereplied.

“We would need aboat,”Amysaid.

“Well, we’d onlyneedarowingboattogo

to Lighthouse Island,”Willsaid,“soI’msureIcould find someone toloanusone.”Hedippedhis rag into a bucket ofwater and gave hisbicycle a rub. “I havesome errands to run, sowhy don’t we meet atthe beach in three hoursanddiscussitthen?”

“Sounds good,” Joereplied.

~The afternoon sun

shonedownonthethreechildren as they raceddownthewell-wornpaththat led to the sandybeach.Aftersplashinginthe shallow water, theydecided to make asandcastle. They didn’thaveanybucketstohelpthemmovethesand,butthey still managed to

make a pretty decentcastle.

Astheywaitedforthetide to come in, SarahspottedWillstandinguponthecliffpath.

Will waved. “Comeuphere!”

“I wonder why hewantsusupthere,”Amysaid.

“Well, there’s onlyonewaytofindout.”Joeraced across the sand

with the girls in hotpursuit. Soon, the threehad joined Will on theclifftop.

“What’s up?” Amyasked.

“Followme. I’ve gotsomethingtoshowyou.”Will turned and walkedaway.

“What?” Joe askedcuriously.

“You’ll see,” Willrepliedmysteriously.

Joe and the girlsfollowed their friendthrough the streets ofSmugglers Cove. Astheyarrivedat thesmallharbour, Will headedtowardsanold shed.Heputhishandonthedoorhandle. “I talked to myfatherand…”Hepausedandflungopenthedoor.

Inside the shed wasan assortment of toolsand scrap metal and

otheruselessjunk,butitwas what was in thecentre that attractedeveryone’sattention.

It was a sailboat.Joe’s eyes lit up.A realsailboat. Sure, it didn’tlook like much, but aslong as it could float,that was all thatmattered.He touched it.“Isthisforustouse?”

Will nodded. “Myfather talked toQuigley,

an old fisherman whoowns this boat, and hetold me that if wewanted to spend sometime fixing it up, wecould take it outwheneverwewanted.”

“Doesitfloat?”Sarahasked.

“Well,Ican’tseeanyholesinit,soitshould.”Will walked over andjoinedtheothersastheyadmired the craft. “I

know it’sprettyold,butit’saboat.”

Amy touched thewoodandrealisedthatitwas coated with a thinlayer of dust. “Golly!This hasn’t been usedforages.”

“As long as it cantake us to LighthouseIsland, that’s all thatmatters.” Joe turnedaround as a mansuddenly entered the

shed.Will smiled. “Hello,

Quigley. It’s a fineboat.”

With deep creases inhis brown, weatheredface and a white beard,Joe thought thefisherman looked veryold. With the aid of awalking stick, heshuffled over to them.“She’ll take you toLighthouse Island and

back again if you treather right. She may notlook like it, but she’sbeenonmanyatrip,shehas.”

Quigley touched thewoodwork of the boatwith tenderness andclosedhiseyes.“IcalledherTheSevenSeas.Shewent on many a grandadventure. Still can feelthe wind whipping meface and hear the

thunder breakingoverhead when I sailedher to AdventureIsland.” He opened hiseyes and grimly smiled.“Young then. Veryyoung.” He turned andlooked at himself in ahalf-broken mirror.“Lookatmenow.”

“Where’s AdventureIsland?”Sarahasked.

“Hmm? Up thecoast,” Quigley

answered.“I’ve never heard of

suchaplace,”Willsaid.Quigley gingerly sat

downonawoodencrate.“It’sthereallright.”

“But none of themaps—”Joesaid.

“Adventure Islandisn’t what the mapscalled it,” Quigleyinterrupted. “Why, backthen Imade upmeownnamesforalltheplacesI

went.Eventhatcastleuponyonhill.TheHauntedCastle, I called it. Quiteasight.”

“What aboutAdventure Island?” Joeasked. “Why did youcallitthat?”

Quigley smiled.“Can’tyouguess?”

“Because you hadadventures?”Sarahsaid.

Quigley nodded.“When I was a lad, I

went therewithme bestmate for severalsummers. We wouldstay there for days onend and thenme father,hewas a fisherman youknow, would pop bywithhisfishingboatandpick us up. We evenbuilt our own treehouse.”

“I wonder what ourparentswould say ifweasked to go there,” Joe

saidwistfully.“I don’t think they

wouldletus,”Amysaid.“It must be ages up thecoast.”

“Well, it’s quite aways,” Quigley said. “Iused to live in Seacrest,so I not be sure howmany miles it is fromhere.”

“But we can still goto Lighthouse Island,right?”Sarahsaid.

“Yes.” Joe looked atQuigley. “Do you mindif we use the tools inhere to fix up thesailboat?”

“Go right ahead.Those tools have beenthere for many a year.There should also besome spare paint lyingaround.” Quigley stoodup. “I best be gettingalong.” He looked atWill.“Oh,andifyoube

wantingmetoteachyouhowtosail—”

“Yes, please!” thechildren yelledexcitedly.

Quigley smiled. “I’llbe seeing you aroundthen.” He turned andlimpedoutoftheshed.

Joe glanced at theothers. “Do you thinkourparentswillletusgotoLighthouseIsland?”

“Dad will let me,”

Willsaid.“Afterall,I’veknown how to swimsinceIwasfive,andtheisland isn’t that faraway.”

“When can we go?”Joeasked.

“Itwill take a day ortwo to fix the boat up,”Will said, “and itwouldbe good to let Quigleyteachustheropessothatwe’refullyprepared.So,we should be ready by

theweekend.”

Chapter 2: TheLazyLucy

The next day, thechildren arrived brightand early at the boatshed. To their joy, theirparentshadagreedtoletthem go to LighthouseIsland, but only if

Quigley showed themhow to sail the boat.Even though the islandwas nearby, anythingcould go wrong and ifwildweather should hit,theywantedeveryone tobeprepared.

Thefirstjobinvolvedcleaning the boat. Thechildren knew it wouldbe dirty work, so theyhad worn some oldclothes.Eventhoughthe

boat was on a trolleywith wheels, it was stillhard tomove. But,withthe help of a fisherman,the children pulled theboatoutof theshedandontothepavement.

With buckets full ofwater, they begancleaningit.Theoldpaintwaspartiallypeeling, sothey needed to removethat as well. The woodneeded to be nice and

smooth before they putthenewcoatofpainton,otherwise the new paintwouldpeeloff.

Ittooksometime,butas the hours passed, theboatbegantolookmuchimproved.“Nowwejustneed to paint her.” Joestepped back andadmired his handiwork.He looked towards thepaint tin that they hadfound. “There shouldbe

enough, but we shouldjust paint the outsidefirst,justincase.”

“We should see ifQuigley has any oars,”Amysaid.

“Whywouldweneedoars?” Joe said. “If wehavethesail—”

“Amy’s right,” Willinterrupted. “A sail isgood, but what happensif there’s no wind?Hopefully we won’t

needtousetheoars,butwe should have themjustincase.”

Will climbed into thesailboat and walked tothebackwhere the tillerwas and tested it. “Itseems to work fine, butwewon’tknowuntilwegetitintothewater.”

Amy climbed aboardandpeeredintothelittlecabin. The room waspretty small, and as she

stepped in, she realisedthat shecould just standup in it. She turned andwalked back to theothers.“We’llbeabletostore the tent and otherthings in there if we gocamping.”

Will lookedupat theblue sky and noticed itwas perfect weather forpainting since thereweren’t any clouds.“With the weather how

it is, I say we paintnow.”

Joe glanced at hiswatch. “Why don’t wego home, grab asandwich, and returnhereinhalfanhour?Wecan also bring any paintbrushesthatwefind.”

~As the three children

raced up the path ofRose Cottage, they saw

theirmother hanging upwashing on the clothesline.

“Did you gethungry?” their motherasked.

Joe nodded. “Do youhave any paintbrushes?We came home to getsomething to eat, andthenwe’regoingtostartpaintingtheboat.Butweonly have onepaintbrush, so we were

wondering—”“Well,” his mother

interrupted, “MrsThompson, the old ladywho owns this cottage,didsayonthephonethatthere was some paint inthegardenshedandthatwe could use it if wewantedto.Iimaginethatthere would be somebrushestoo.”

“Thanks!” Amyyelled, rushing off

towards the shed. Theirmotherwas right. In thefar corner of the smallbuilding, they foundsomepaintandbrushes.

Joe picked up fourpaintbrushes. “We mayonly need three, but I’lltakefourjustincase.”

Amy grabbed twoempty tins. “If we putsome paint in these, wecan each have our owncontainerofpaint.”

“Good idea. Now,what else do we need?”Joesaid.

“I’ll take these rags,”Sarahsaid.

Joe nodded. “Okay,well, that should be all.Let’stakethesethingstothe path and leave themtherewhileweeatsomelunch.”

~Painting was fun. At

least, that’s what Amythought as she dippedthe paintbrush into theblue paint and went towork. Her arms weregetting a bit sore fromswishing the paint backand forth on the wood,butshedidn’tmind.

She stood up andadmired her work. SheandSarahwere paintingone side of the boat,while the boys did the

other side. She walkedaround to see how theboys were getting on.They were going a bitfaster than her andSarah, but that wasbecausetheywereolder.“Itlooksgood.”

“Thanks.How’syoursidegoing?”Willsaid.

Before Amy couldanswer,thunderrumbledoverhead. Looking outacross the sea, she

realised that stormclouds were building.“Golly!It’sgoingtorainsoon.”

“Everyone stoppainting!” Will called.“Weneedtogettheboatbackintheshedassoonaswecan.Hopefullythepaint will still dry inthere.”

While Will racedover to get a fishermanto help, the others

quickly cleaned thebrushes. By the timetheyhaddone this,Willhad arrived back withsomeone. He was astrongmanand,withhishelp, they pushed theboat back into the shed.He waved goodbye andthe children gazed up attheskyasthefirstdropsofrainfell.

Joe sighed. “We’llhave to paint the rest

tomorrow.”“Hey, what shall we

call it?”Amy said. “Wecouldpaint thenameontheside.”

“That’s agreat idea,”Sarahsaid.

Will glanced over atthe blue sailboat. “Whydon’t we all think ofsome possible names,and then tomorrowmorning we can discussthem?”

“Sounds good.”AmylookedatWill. “Doyoufeel like coming over toRose Cottage andplayingMonopoly?”

Willgrinned.“Wouldyoubeabletohandleit?After all, I won almosteverygamelast timeweplayed.”

“I’m going to beatyou fair and square thistime.” Joe opened theshed door. “Last one to

Rose Cottage has to bethe banker.” He racedoffintothedrivingrain.

Chapter 3: OffWeGo!

Thenextmorning,thechildrenwent straight towork on the rest of thesailboat. Once they hadfinished, they raceddowntothesandyshore

and splashed about inknee-high water as theywaited for the paint todry. It had been funpainting, but it was hotwork, so it was nice tofeel the cool water ontheirfeet.

Joecollapsedontothewarm sand and closedhis eyes. The othersjoined him and, for afew moments, no onesaidanything.

Sarahwas the first tospeak. “So,whatarewegoingtonametheboat?”

“How aboutWhispering Wind?”Amysuggested.

“Maybe. What aboutthe Lazy Lucy?” Joesaid.

Will nodded. “I wasthinking of somethinglike the Floating Four,butIdolikethesoundoftheLazyLucy.”

“Okay,sayyesifyouwant to name the boatthe Lazy Lucy,” Joesaid.

Amy and Sarahyelled out at the sametime.“Yes!”

Joe looked at Will.“Whatdoyousay?”

Will thought for amoment.Hethensmiled.“Yes.”

“Okay, so the LazyLucy it is,” Joe said.

“Now, where will ourfirstadventurebe?”

“I thought we weregoing to sail toLighthouse Island,”Amysaid.

“Hey! I just thoughtof something.” Will satupandlookedeagerlyatthe others. “Twosummers ago,my fatherand I went camping onan island just up thecoast.”

“Adventure Island?”Sarahasked.

Will shook his head.“I don’t think so. Thisplace was calledWindswept Island. Asyou might guess by thename,itwasquitewindythere,butthere’sasmallcove there that was theperfect place forcamping.”

“Did you see manybirdsthere?”Joeasked.

“There were quite afew,andevensomewildrabbits and other smallcreatures,” Will replied.“It’sasmallisland,soitmight not be as good ifthere are other peoplethere,butwhenwewentitwasdeserted.”

“Howfarupthecoastisit?”Amyquestioned.

“Not far. A fewhours,threeatthemost,”Will said. “And if your

parentsagreed,wecouldstaytherefortwonights.I’m sure my fatherwould say yes,especially since I’vebeentherebefore.”

“Maybe your fathercan talk to ours,” Joesuggested.

“I’llaskhimtonight,”Will said. “We can stillsailtoLighthouseIslandifyoureallywantto,butI think Windswept

Island would be muchforexciting.”

“Iagree,”Joesaid.After lying on the

sand for awhile longer,theywalked back to theboattofindthatthepaintwas dry. They still hadto attach the white sail,but before theydid that,Will, in the bestwritingthat he could muster,wroteLazyLucy on theside of the boat in big

letters. He stood backand admired hishandiwork. “There, thatlooksquitenice.”

“Nowwejustneedtoask Quigley for a quicklesson in sailing,” Amysaid.

Will nodded. “Whydon’t we see if he’savailabletomorrow?”

“Sounds smashing.”Joe grinned. “Let’s goandtalktohimnow.”

~Asthesunnearedthe

horizon the next day,Joe,Sarah,andAmysatpatiently at the livingroom table in RoseCottage as Mr Mitchellhung up the telephone.“Well,Quigleyseemstobe happy with yoursailing abilities, andthinks that, especiallywith Will in charge,

nothing should gowrong. He also addedthatWill’sexperienceinsailing to WindsweptIsland would be veryhelpful.”

“So?”Amyasked.Herfathergrinned.“I

see no reason why youcan’tgotomorrow—”

“Hooray!” thechildrencriedout.

“Can we stay twonights?”Joequestioned.

“Well…” MrMitchell looked over athis wife. “Quigley didthink very highly ofthem.”

Their mother smiled.“If you’re happy, thenI’mtoo.Besides, it isn’tlike they are going tohave an adventure likelasttime.”

“Smashing!” Joeyelled.

“Goodness, thanks

heaps!”Sarahshouted.Amy hugged her

mother.“Thanksalot.”Her mother smiled.

“Justbehaveyourselves.Andstayoutoftrouble.”

“We will,” Amypromised,smiling.

~Early the next

morning, the threesiblings, with theirrucksacks filled to the

brim and sleeping bagsslung over theirshoulders, wavedgoodbye to their parentsand headed to theharbour.

Arrivingashortwhilelater,theyfoundthatthatWill and Quigley werealreadythere.

“Did you bringeverything I said?”Willasked.

Joe nodded as he put

his rucksack down onthe ground. “Warmclothing in case theweather gets cold, somegamesandmatches.Didyoubringthetents?”

“Yes, and I’ve got asaucepan and bucket,and some rope,” Willsaid.

“What about food?”Quigleyasked.

“We’ve got tins offruit, biscuits, bread,

cocoa, chocolate,lemonade—”Amysaid.

“If you’re anythinglike me,” Quigleyinterrupted, “you’ll bespending your timeexploring.Why, when Iwasexploringtheruinedchurch on AdventureIsland—”

“A church?” Amyexclaimed. “On anisland?”

Quigley smiled.

“Yes.”“Butwhy a church?”

Joeasked,curious.“Well, I asked me

father that samequestion,” Quigleyreplied,“and,as faras Ican recall, he saidsomething about areligious leader,Jeremiah Jones, whowanted to start up asettlement away fromthe hustle and bustle of

town life. He moved tothe island with hisfollowers and startedbuilding a church and afewhouses.”

“But you said thechurch was a ruin,”Sarahsaid.

“Ah, yes,” Quigleysaid. “Well, the storygoesthatJeremiahJonesgot some disease anddied before he couldfinish building the

church.”“What happened

then?”Willasked.Quigley glanced at

each of the children inturn. “The followers leftin a hurry, certain thatthe island was cursed.Someevensaythat,onafull moon, the ghost ofJeremiah Jones roamsthe island, cursinganyoneinsight.”

There was complete

silencefromthechildrenas they digested this.Quigley, seeing thestartled faces on thechildren, suddenlylaughed. “You didn’ttake me seriously, didyou?”

Joe smiled. “Notme.There’snosuchthingasaghost.”

“Well,maybenot,butit still sounded a bitfrightening,”Sarahsaid.

Quigleylaughedoncemore asheputhishandon the little girl’sshoulder. “Sorry aboutthat.BunchofliesIsay,butIwouldn’tbecaughtthere on a full moon.Anyway, I went thereplentyatimebackwhenI be young and didn’tseeasignofanyone, letalone the ghost ofJeremiah Jones. Butenough of that. You’re

going to WindsweptIsland, so don’t worryyour pretty heads aboutwhatIsay.Shallweputthe boat in the waternoworwhat?”

Will glanced aroundand saw several sails inthe harbour that werebillowing.“Yes,let’sgetgoing while the wind isstillstrong.”

The children flungtheir luggage aboard the

sailboat and withQuigley’s help, pushedthecraftdowntheslope.Itslidintothewaterwithasplash.

The childrenclambered in. Wavinggoodbye to Quigley,Will took the tiller andthe Lazy Lucy headedoutofthecove.

Chapter 4:

RockyIsland

It was a marvellousmorning as the LazyLucywhipped along thecoast. While Will tookcharge of the tiller, thegirlsgazedupatthebluesky. Whenever a cloudcame along, they wouldtry to imagine it as ananimal.

With the binoculars

around his neck, Joe satat the stern of the boat.Every now and then hewould let his hand dragin the water to coolhimselfoff.

Seeing the billowingsail, Joe marvelled athowsuchasimplethingcouldpropelthesailboatat the speed that theyweregoing.At this rate,they were sure to reachWindsweptIslandbefore

midday.And indeed they did.

“Land ahoy!” Joe calledout, grinning, a shorttime later. He stared atWindswept Island. Itdidn’t look particularlyinteresting since it wasflat, but he didn’t care.As long as there werebirds,he’dbehappy.

Willsteered theLazyLucytowardstheisland.As they got closer, they

sawsomelargeseabirdsflying over the rocks.Nearer to the inlet, thesmiles on the children’sfaces dropped as theyheardmusic.

“Where’s the musiccoming from?” Amyasked.

Will steered the boatinto the inlet and cameinto sight of a group ofcampers tenting in thesheltered area. Several

peoplewere jumping upanddownastheydancedtoloudmusic.

“Looks likesomebodybeatus to it,”Willmuttered,annoyed.

“They must have agramophone,” Sarahsaid.

Joe peered throughthe binoculars. “Sarah’sright.”

Will looked at thefaces of the others and

saw how disappointedtheylooked.“I’msorry.”

“Can we campsomewhere else?” Amyasked.

“Well,” Willanswered, “this island isquitesmall,sothat’stheonlyplacetocamp.”

Joe glanced wistfullyat the birds flyingoverhead. “What ashame.”

“Sowhatdowedo?”

Sarahsaid.“Well,let’sseewhere

we are.”Will went intothecabinand returnedamoment later with amap. He laid it out andpointed. “We’re here. Ifyou want, we could goback to LighthouseIsland.”

“What about thisisland here?” Joe askedas he pointed to anotherisland further up the

coast.Will looked closer

andsawthatthenameofitwasRockyIsland.

“Would that beAdventureIsland?”Amysaid.

Will shook his head.“Idon’tthinkso.IthinkthisotherplacewouldbetheonethatQuigleywastalking about.” Hepointed to an island acouple of miles past

Rocky. “This one isclosest to Seacrest,which is where Quigleyused to live, so I thinkthat would probably bethe so-called AdventureIsland.”

Amy glanced at herwatch. “If this windkeepsup,wecouldmakeRocky Island by lateafternoon,right?”

Will studied thedistances between

Windswept Island andSmugglers Cove andWindswept Island andRocky Island. “RockyIsland is about doublethe distance fromSmugglers asWindswept is, but ifwehave the same weatherconditions as we hadearlier, we should gettherebylateafternoon.”

“Let’s get some foodin our stomachs before

weheadoff,”Joesaid.Will looked at the

girls. “So, are we all inagreement?”

Sarah grinned. “Aye,aye,Captain.”

Amy smiled“Whatever you say,Captain.”

“Okay,herewecomeRocky Island!” Willyelled, thrusting hishandintotheair.

~Beforelong,theLazy

Lucy was once morewhipping along thecoast. The sail billowedout fully and the boatbobbedupanddownonthe water as it spedalong.Butthenthewinddieddownandtherewasnothing that they coulddo about it. They tookthesaildownandrowed,

butprogresswasslow.Thankfully, the wind

picked up and, afterraisingthesail,theLazyLucy sped along thewater.As late afternooncame to a close, landcameintoview.

Will, who was nowresting while Joesteered, was the first tospot it. “Rocky Islanddeadahead!”Hewalkedover and took the tiller

fromJoe.“RockyIslandprobably got that namebecauseofall the rocks,sowe’dbettergoslowlyand keep a sharp lookout for anything thatcoulddamagetheboat.”

Everyone was silentas thecraftgotcloser tothe island. Soon, theywerewithin sight of therocks. The wavesfrothedandsurgedasthewater crashed against

them,sendingsprayhighintotheair.

“We should takedown the sail,” Willsaid. “I think it’s best ifwe row from this pointon. We want to havecontrol of the directionwe are going in. If theLazy Lucy hits one oftherocks—”

“I’m on it, Captain,”Joe said as he walkedover to dismantle the

sail.With Sarah watching

forrocksononesideandAmy on the other, Willand Joe took the oarsandstartedrowing.

Whenever the boatgot too close to one ofthe rocks, the watcherwould yell out andWillwould adjust thedirection. It was slowgoing, and the boys hadto row for roughly ten

minutes before theyfoundawaythroughtherocks.

As the Lazy Lucyentered the small inletand headed towards thesandy beach, Amysharedaglancewith theothers.“Thatwastight.”

“How about we dropthe anchor next to thoseflat rocks?” Will said.“That will save uswading through the

water.”“Good thinking,” Joe

replied.Theybroughttheboat

alongsidetherocks.Willslung the anchoroverboard and climbedout,gazingaroundashedid so. The tall cliffsmade it impossible toseemuchoftheisland.

“We should havetime toexplorebefore itgetsdark,”Amysaid.

“Yes, but we shouldset up camp first.”Willglanced around at thesurrounding area. “Whydon’t you girls lookaroundandseeifthere’sasuitableplacetocamp?We boys can get thetentsandstuffoutoftheboat and onto thebeach.”

The twogirls jumpeddownontotherocksandmadetheirwayacrossto

thebeachwhiletheboysstarted unloading thegear. They had justfinished doing so whenthe girls came rushingback.

“Did you find aspot?”Joeasked.

Sarah nodded. “Agoodone.”

“There’s a shelteredspotinfrontofawoodedarea,” Amy said. “Thegrass seems nice and

soft and, if we aim thetentstherightway,we’llhave the morning sunwakingusup.”

“Sounds good,” Willsaid. “Let’s get going.”After picking up theirstuff, theywalked alongthe sand and headed upthehillside.

After a few minutes,theyarrivedatthegrassyarea. Everyone wentstraight to work and,

before long, two smalltentswere set up besidea wood of pines andbirches. After they hadgrabbed some firewood,theydecidedtoexplore.

They walkedalongside the wood asthey headed towards ahill thatseemed tobe inthemiddleof the island.With the pines on oneside and thick gorsebushes on the other, it

wasalovelywalk.Sarah was thrilled

when she saw a coupleof wild rabbits dartacross the grass. “Oh,what sweet littledarlings!”

As they reached thehill and started walkingup it, they caught sightof a stream. Uponfurther inspection, theysaw that the water wascoming out of some

rocks.“Thiswill provide us

with fresh water, todrink or wash thedishes,”Willsaid.

“I wonder what elsewe’ll find,” Joe said asheracedupthehill.

The others followedhim and, before long,they were at the rockytop. There were a fewtrees as well as stuntedgorse busheswhichwas

duetotherockyterrain.Amy gazed around.

“You can see thewholeisland from here.”Unlike most smallislands,therewasquitealarge wooded area.There were also grassyareas,especiallyneartherockyshoreline.

Soon, all eyes wereon one spot. For somereason, there was asquare in the middle of

the wood that wasdevoid of trees.And, inthemiddleofthissquarewassomesortofruin.

Thechildrencouldn’tseewhat itwas from sofar away, so theydecidedtogoandhavealook.Theyhurrieddownthe hill, through thewood and into theclearing.

They stopped whenthey saw the ruin. Amy

lookedat theboys.“Areyou thinking what I’mthinking?”

Joe walked forward.“Itcouldn’tbe.”

The others followedand soon they were soclose to the ruinedbuilding that there wasnodoubtaboutit.

It was a church.Inscribed on a piece ofwood that was halfrotted away was a sign.

It read: The Church ofJeremiahJones.

Chapter 5: AGhostlyEncounter

Amy gasped. “Golly!So this is AdventureIsland.”

“Oh,no!Ifthechurchis real, then the curse isreal,”Sarahsaid.

Will shook his head.“No. A church is onething,aghostanother.”

“Iwant togohome,”Sarahmuttered.

Joeglancedup at thesky.“Evenifwewantedtogohome, itwouldbetoo late. Besides, whoreally believes inghosts?” He and Willlaughed and, a fewmoments later, the girlsjoinedin.

Joe walked into theruined building and sawthat the years had takentheir toll on thestructure. Weeds andbushes were climbingthrough windows andholesinthewalls.

“This sure has beenhereawhile,”Willsaid.

“I wonder why theydon’t do somethingabout this place?” Amymuttered.

“Whowould want tolive on this islandanyway?” Joequestioned. “Besides,thegovernmentprobablyownstheislandnow.”

They left the churchand glanced around attheir surroundings.There were a few otherruined buildings thatlookedinasbadashapeas the church, and Joeassumedthattheywould

have been the housesthat the religious leaderwas building. The onlyother building that wasworth exploring waslocated beside thechurch. It was largeplace, almost as big asthechurch.

“It looks like awarehouse,”Sarahsaid.

Theywent insideandsaw that most of it wasstill intact. The sides

were made of stonewhileanupperlevelwasrotting away as it wasmade of timber. Inplaces, they could evenseetheskyabove.

“Thismusthavebeena storehouse of somekind,” Will said. “Afterall, if these peopleweregoing to be living here,theywouldn’twanttobegoing back and forth tothemainlandallthetime

to get food. And, withthe walls being stone,the food would staycool.”

Leaving thestorehouse, the childrenwalked out into theopen. “I wonder whyQuigley liked this islandsomuch,”Sarahsaid.

“Maybe there aresome caves. Theremustbe something toexplore,” Will replied.

“After all, Quigley didsay that he came hereseveral times and lovedit.”

Amylookedupatthesky. “We’d better getback to camp. I don’twant to be here whendarknessfalls.”

“Me neither,” Sarahreplied as she followedher sister towards thecampsite.

On thewayback, the

girls collected someheather to put undertheirsleepingbagswhilethe boys gathered somedry sticks to use asfirewood.

~As night set in, the

boysstartedafire.Soon,the dry wood started tocrackle and, every nowand then, the flameswould flareupand light

up the surrounding areajustthatlittlebitmore.

“Thatwasadeliciousmeal,” Amy said as shefinished eating the soupthat had been heated uponthefire.

Will handed out thesteaming cups. “Here’ssomehot cocoa towashitalldown.”

As Amy sipped herdrink, she glanced up atthe dark sky. All that

couldbeseenwasa fullmoon. “What about thecurse?” she asked,turning towards theothers who, like her,were sitting next to thefire.

Joe looked up at thesky and saw the moon.“It does look like a fullmoon, but I wouldn’tworry. Just becausesome old guy saidsomething—”

“But he was rightaboutthechurch,”Sarahinterrupted.

Will looked at thegirls.“Quigleyisgettingold, and with old agesome people tend toforget things and mixfactwithfiction.So,justbecause he was rightaboutthechurchdoesn’tmean that he was rightabout the ghost. We allknow that ghosts don’t

exist.”“If you’re scared—”

Joesaid.“I’m not scared,”

Amy interrupted. Shelooked at Sarah. “Areyou?”

“No,” Sarah replied,puttingonabraveface.

“Now that we’ve gotthat settled, who wantstoplayagameofsnap?”Willsaid.

~The moon was high

in the sky when Sarah,awakened by a strangenoise, sat up. Shelistened intently butdidn’t hear anything.She started to lie backdown,butthenheardthenoiseonceagain.Shesatback up and shook hersister.“Amy,wakeup.”

“Go back to sleep,”

Amy mumbled, halfasleep.

Suddenly, both girlsheard a ghostly laugh.Amy, now fully awake,sat up. “Theboys. Theymust be playing a trickon us to make usscared.”

“You don’t think it’sa real ghost?” Sarahasked.

“Of course not. I’llshow you.” Amy

crawledtotheendofthetent.Sheglancedoverattheboy’stentandsawalightflickering.“There,Itold you. They’re bothawake.”

Amy suddenlygrinned. “Whydon’twemake some noises andscaretheboys?”

Sarah smiled.“Okay.”

Thetwogirlscrawledout of the tent and over

to the boys tent. Then,when they were rightoutside the flap, Amyand Sarah startedmakingghostlynoises.

“This is JeremiahJones, and I’m comingtogetyou,”Amysaidinthe ghostliest voice thatshe could think of. Shetapped on the tent. “I’macoming,I’macoming,I’macoming.”

Sarah reached

forward and started toopentheflaponthetent.

Both girls nearlyburst out laughing asthey heard the scaredvoices of the boys asthey whispered amongstthemselves.

Amy got a stick andpokeditthroughthetentflap. “I’m a…”Suddenly the stick wasgrabbed from the insideandshefellforwardinto

the tent. When she satup,shesawthegrinningfacesoftheboysinfrontofher.

“Didyou really thinkyoucouldfoolus?”Willsaid.

“We weren’t scaredonebit,”Joestated.

“I heard youwhispering toyourselves,” Sarah said,enteringthetent.

“We were play

acting. Isn’t that right?”Joesaid,lookingatWill.

Will nodded. “Ofcourse.Wehadtoactasthough we were scared.But didyou really thinkwecouldbescaredbyabunch of ghostlynoises?”

“Why did you try iton us then?” Sarahasked.

Joe frowned. “Whatareyoutalkingabout?”

Amy stared at theboys. “The first lot ofnoises. They were you,right?”

Suddenly, a loudghostly sound broke thesilence. Everyone yelledout in fright. Sarahscrambledinsidethetentand pulled the flapclosed.Theyallhuddledat the back of the tent,cramped and scared. Asthe seconds passed and

they heard no morenoises, the boys startedtorelax.

“There’s no suchthing as ghosts, so whyare we getting allworkedup?”Joesaid.

“Thenwhatmadethatnoise?”Amyasked.

“Some kind ofanimal,”Willstatedwithmoreconfidencethanheactuallyfelt.

Sarah froze at the

sound of more noises.“Whatkindofanimal?”

A ghostly voicesuddenly yelled out. “Iam Jeremiah Jones, andyou are on my island.And tonight is a fullmoon.”

The children lookedateachother.“Itmustbesomeone playing a trickonus,”Joesaid.

“What aboutQuigley?”Amysaid.

“Of course!” Willsaid. “Though, how didheknowweweregoingtoRockyIsland?”

“I don’t know, butI’m going to see ifthere’s a face with thisvoice.” Joe took historchandcrawled to theflap. He glanced back.“Are you coming ornot?”

All four of themcrawled out of the tent

and stood up on thegrass as the noisesstopped.Infrontofthemwere the dying embersofthefire.Itwasaclearsky and the full moonshonebrightly.

Noonecouldbeseen.No animal and noperson.

Joe shone the torchfrom side to side.“Whatever it was, theymust…” He paused as

the torchlight picked upaghostlyfigure.

The children froze.He, if it was a he, wasdressed in a flowingwhitecape.

The ghost yelled out.“IamJeremiahJones.Ifyou are not gone bymidnight tomorrow, Iwill come and put acurse on you that willlast forever. So get offmyisland!”

Suddenly,therewasapuff of smoke thatcovered the area. Whenitdriftedaway,theghostwasnolongerthere.

Chapter 6: APuzzle

“Where did he go?”Joe hurried forward andshone the torch around.Noonecouldbeseen.

The children listenedfor the next fewmoments, but nothingcouldbeheard.

“I want to go hometomorrow,” Sarahwailed.

“Wait!” Joe said.“Just because somethingthat looked like a ghost—”

“He was a ghost,”Sarah interrupted. “Didwe hear him come?No.

Did we hear him go?No. If you think I amgoing tostayany longeronthisisland—”

“Just because you’rescared—”Joeshouted.

“Hold on everyone,”Will interrupted. “Let’sjustallcalmdown.Whydon’t we go back tosleep, try to get a goodrest, and talk in themorning? There’snothing we can do

tonight,solet’sthinkourdecisionover.”

“Well, okay,” Sarahsaid.

~The sun shone

brightlyand theseagullswere circling overheadthe next morning as thechildren ate breakfast.Evenafewrabbitscouldbe seen hopping aroundonthegrass.

After finishing off atin of peaches, Sarahglanced around ateveryone.“Whenarewegoingtoleave?”

“Why don’t we havea vote?” Joe suggested.“Putyourhandupifyouwant to stay.” He andWill raised their hands.“Okay, and now put upyourhandifyouwanttogo.”

Amy and Sarah put

uptheirhands.Joestareddownatthe

fire. “Ghosts do notexist,fullstop.”

“Well,whateverthingwe saw last night, itlooked pretty real tome,”Sarahprotested.

“Metoo,”Amysaid.“What if it was a

person dressed up?” Joesuggested.“Justsupposethatsomeonedressedupandpretended tobe that

religious fellow to scareusoffthisisland.”

“Andwhywouldtheydo that?” Amyquestioned.

“I don’t know,” Joeconfessed. “But I wanttofindout.”

Amy glanced atSarah, then back at Joe.“I’llgiveyouuntilnoonto prove your theory,okay?”

Joe looked at Will.

“If that ghost is a fake,we’ll be able to findsomeevidence.”

Will nodded. “Let’sgoandsearch.”

The children headedtothechurchwhichwaswhere the boys wantedto search first. Uponreaching the ruin, theysplitupandsearchedthearea, looking foranything that mightindicate that there was

someone else on theisland.Buttheycouldn’tfindanything.

“There doesn’t seemto be anything here,”Amysaidasshestoodinfrontofthechurch.

“ButI’mtellingyou,”Joe said, “there are nosuch things as…” Hepaused as he heard aghostlywail.

Then, amoment latera ghostly voice shouted

out. “Why are you stillhere?”

Will looked aroundbut he couldn’t seeanyone. He entered thechurch, but as the voiceshouted out again, herealiseditwasn’tcomingfromthere.Steppingout,hefollowedtheotherstothestorehouse.

Amy shouted out asshesawawhitefigureinfrontofthelonewindow

near the roof of thebuilding.“Look!”

The others peered upbut couldn’t seeanything.As theghostlyvoice fell silent, theyquestionedAmy.

“What did you see?”Joeasked.

“Something white. Itwas someone orsomething,” Amystammered. She hadgoneabitpale.

“Didyouseeaface?”Willsaid.

Amyshookherhead.“It was too quick. Buttherewasnothinghumanaboutit.”Shepointedtothe window. “It wasrightthere.”

Leaving the girlsstanding outside, theboys entered thestorehouse and lookedup. “What do youthink?”Joewhispered.

Will lookedupat therottingtimberroofabovethem, but no one couldbe seen.However, therewas one spot directlynext to the window thathadnotrottedaway,anditwas possible someonecould have been hidingthere. Will walkedfurther into the buildingas he tried to find aladder. But none couldbeseen.

“Ifwehad a ladder,”Joe said, “we couldplace it up against thatend.” He pointed to theleft hand corner of thestorehouse.

The ghost yelled outagain. “Come midnightand you will be cursedforever! Get off myisland! This is my lastwarning!”

Joe turned to Will.“Let’s get back to the

girls before they get tooscared.”As they headedback, he spottedsomething on theground.Hepickeditup.It was a cigarette butt.One that had not beenthere for long. Heshowed it to Will.“Look.”

A grin spread acrossWill’s face. “Gosh! Itmust be a person upthere.”

“But how do weproveit?”Joeasked.

“I’ve got a plan. Justfollow my lead.” Willled the way out of thestorehouseandfoundthegirls huddled togetherbehindarock.

“Did you findanything?”Sarahasked.

Will shook his head.“No,let’sgohome.”

“Ineverwanttocomehereagain,”Joesaid.

Amylookedshocked.“What?Butyoujustsaid—”

“I was wrong,” Joeinterrupted. “Come on,let’s go. Just standinghere is giving me thecreeps.”

As the two boyshurried towards the hill,Amy shot a glance atSarah. “What justhappened?”

“Idon’tknow,”Sarah

replied, “but I’m happyto be going back.Comeon, last one to reach theboyshastomakelunch.”Shesprintedoffaftertheboys.

~By the time the

children arrived back atthe campsite, the girlsknew the story behindthe boy’s weird actionsas they had told them

everything.The girls may have

been scared by a ghost,but if it was a person,which the boys werecertainitwas,thatmeantthat someonewas tryingto scare them away.And, if someone wastrying to scare themaway they probably hadsomethingtohide.

“The man might stillbe watching us,” Will

said, “so we have topretend we’re leavingtheisland.”

“And then what?”Amyasked.

“We’ll row aroundthe island until we findanotherplacetohidetheboat,”Will said. “Then,after we have set upcamp somewhere else,we’ll see ifwe can findoutwhat’sgoingon.”

The children packed

uptheirstuffandheadeddown the path to thebeach. After they hadputeverythingonboard,theysetoff.

WillandJoetooktheoarswhile thegirlskepta lookout. They didn’twant to hoist the sailsince they would begoingclosetodangerousrocksand,ifthesailwasup, the boatwould onlygo thewayof thewind,

and thus might smashagainsttherocks.

There were a fewtense moments as theboys rowed out of theinlet,butsoontheywereoutoncalmwater.

Will stopped rowingfor a moment andscanned the horizon astheLazyLucybobbedtoand fro on the water.“We’ll head left. Thereshouldbefewerrockson

the side closest to themainland,butkeepyoureyesopen.”

“For rocks or theghost?”Joeasked.

“For both,” Willreplied grimly. Hesteered the Lazy Lucytowards the mainland.“Most likely, the personis camped on the otherside of the islandwherewehaven’t beenyet. Soweshouldn’tgotoofar.”

“What about here?”Sarah asked as shepointed towards theshore.

Will looked over andsaw a small section ofsand and, next to it, ahalf-flooded cave. Anideacrept intohismind.“Yes,thatmightwork.”

“What do youmean?”Joeasked.

Will glanced at hiswatch. “It’s high tide

now,andthatcavelooksdeep enough to sailinto.”

“But if it’s high tidenow, what happens atlow tide?” Amyquestioned.

“Well,theLazyLucywouldbebeachedonthesand. But that will beokay. We just need tokeep her out of view ofanyone on this island.”Will peered towards the

sharp rocks thatbordered the cave. “It’sgoing to be tight, but Ithink we can justsqueezeinthere.”

Amymoveduptothefrontoftheboat.“I’llbethelookoutoutfront.”

There was a ring ofrocks around the cave,withonlyoneopening.Itwas going to be touchandgo.And theyhad tobe fast. Any slowdown

on speed and the boatwoulddrift to theleftorright,whichwouldputitoncoursefortherocks.

The four childrenshouted out to oneanother as the LazyLucyheadedtowardsthefrothingwaters.

“All clear this side!”Sarahshouted.

“You’re fine to gostraight ahead,” Amyyelled.

“Let’s do it.” Willpulled as hard as hecouldontheoars.

The Lazy Lucysurged forward as itbobbedupanddownonthewaves,gettingcloserand closer to theopening. Closer, closer,andcloser,andthentheywerethrough.

“Yes!” Sarah yelled,happy. She turned toWillandsmiled.

Suddenly, the boatgroaned, and the soundof breaking of woodfilled the air. Sarahglanced down and sawthat a rock had torn asmallhole in thesideoftheboat.

“Oh no!” Sarahshouted.“There’saholein the boat! We’re allgoingtodrown!”

Chapter 7: The

DisappearingMan

Joe stared as waterstarted pouring in theLazy Lucy. “Blow!What are we going todo?”

“Just hold on andpray that we don’t hitanything else,” Willyelled. Along with Joe,he rowed towards the

cave and, a fewmoments later, thesailboatwassuccessfullyhiddenfromtheoutside.

Thiswasoneproblemsolved,buttheystillhadanother problem to dealwith, which was thewater still pouring intotheboat.

Will hurried into thecabin and glancedaround for somethingwith which to bail out

the water that wasalready filling thebottom of the smallroom. It would soonreach the tins of foodthat were tucked insidethe little cupboard. Thiswasn’t so much of aproblemsince theywerewaterproof, but not sofor the tents,books, andclothes that were justabovethefood.

Will grabbed two

plasticbowlsandhurriedback.Hehandedthemtothegirls.“Get towork.”HeturnedtoJoe.“Comewithme.”

As the girls set toworkgettingasmuchofthewateroutaspossible,the boys removedeverything from thecabin and put it on theroof. The water slowlyrose higher and higher.Soon, all of the

children’s shoes weresoakingwet.

As Will finishedremoving everythingfrom the cabin, herealised that the boatwas no longer sinking.He quickly grabbed oneofthepolesfromthetentand poked it into thewaterbesidetheboat.

He grinned as thepole struck bottomroughly two feet down.

“Hey! The sand’s justbelow us.” He lookedover at the girls whowere still furiouslytossing the water out.“Youcanstopnow.”

“What? Why?” Amyasked.

“Thewaterwill keepon coming in until thelevelintheboatisatthesame level in the cave.And we’ve moved allthe stuff out of harms

way, so come and joinus.”Willwalkedovertothecabinandclimbedupontotheroof.

The others quicklyfollowed and, for thenextminuteortwo,theywatched the waterslowlyrise.AsWillhadpredicted,oncethewaterhad risen to the samelevel as in the cave, itstoppedflowingin.

“So, what do we do

now?”Sarahasked.“Well, we can wait

for the water to godown,orwecanjumpinnow and dry ourselvesout by the beach,” Willsaid.

“How deep did yousay it was?” Amyquestioned.

“Well,itwastwofeetatonepoint,butitcouldbe deeper or shallowersomewhere else.” Will

looked down at thefoamingwater. “I’ll testit.” After rolling up histrousers, he climbeddownintotheboat.

Climbing over theside,he loweredhimselfintothewater.Hesmiledasthewaterwentonlyasfar as his knees. “Looksgoodhere.I’llseehowitisgettingtothesand.”

The others watchedas Will slowly walked

through the water andsaw that it graduallybecame shallower.Withinhalfaminute,hewasonthedrysand.Heturned and walked backthrough the water.“Deepestpartisthestart.Just walk where Iwalked. There’s notellingwhatwill happento you if you strayoffline,sostaystraight.”

Following Will’s

advice,theotherswadedinto the water. Beforelong, and without anytrouble, all four of themwere sitting on the hotsand.However,thetentsand other essentials hadto be collected and so,leaving their shoes todry in the sun, theyheaded back into thewater.

Formingachain,theywereable to quicklyget

all of their stuff off theLazyLucy.Afterhavinga short rest, they luggedthe tents across thebeachanduptheruggedterrain.

“Weneed tobecloseto the boat,” Will said,“but not too close. Wecan’t afford to be seenfrom the water, so Isuggest we get as closetothewoodaspossible.”

They walked a bit

farther on until theyreached the wood and,seeing a patch of grass,droppedthetentsthere.

Joe glanced aroundand saw that the woodblocked the view at oneend, and thick gorsebushesblockedtheviewfrom the beach. “Thisshouldsuitusnicely.”

“Let’s hurry and setup camp,”Amy said. “Iwant to see if there’s

somethingmore to yourtheory than just acigarettebutt.”

It didn’t take as longto setupcampas it hadyesterday and, after aquicksnack,theyheadedtowards the church.They kept close to thewood at all times andstoppedwhen theywereinviewoftheruin.

Will looked throughthebinocularsbut,tohis

disappointment, didn’tsee any movement. “Ivote we stay in theshelterofthebushesandheadfortheotherendoftheisland.”

Since it seemedpointless staying wherethey were, the othersagreed with Will andmoved off. It took lessthantenminutestoreachthefarbeach,and,intheshelter of thick bushes,

the children lay downand gazed down thesmall inclineat thesandbelow.

Joe took thebinoculars and spent afullminutesurveyingthearea. There was still nosign of anyone and noteven a sign that anyonehad been there in recenttimes. There was noboat,no tent,notevenacampfire.

Sarahstoodup.“Thisis nomystery.How canthere be onewhen thereisn’t anyoneor anythingof interest on thisisland?”

JoewatchedasSarahstartedwalkingdownthesmall hill and towardsthebeach.“Iguessshe’sright.” He stood up aswell. “Why are we allcreepingabout?”

“Look!” Amy called

out. She pointed to thefar end of the beachwhere a person had justcomeintoview.

“Gosh, they’ll seeSarah.” Will jumped upand rushed after theeightyearold.

JoeandAmywatchedin horrified silence asthe man walked downthe beach, headingdirectly towards Sarahwho, by now, had just

reached the sand.Luckily though, therewas a rocky cliff thatprotruded out and thusstopped the man fromseeingthegirl.

With bated breath,Joe gazed through thebinoculars as Willcaught up with Sarah.The two of them turnedand raced back to thegrassy area. They hadjust flung themselves

behind some gorsebushes when the manwalked around the cliffand headed towardsthem.

“What’s going on?”Amyasked,fearful.

“The man must haveseen them. He’s goingstraight… no, he’sturned around nowand…. he’sdisappeared!” Joewhipped the binoculars

away from his face andgazeddownatthebeach.He was right. The manhadliterallydisappeared.

Half a minute later,Will and Sarah rejoinedthe others. The boyturnedtoJoe.“Whatdidyousee?”

“You were just intime,” Joe said. “Ithought the man hadseen you, but then hedisappeared.”

Will frowned. “Whatdoyoumean?”

“He justdisappeared,” Joereplied. “He waswalking along next tothecliffand—”

“Goodness, thecave!”Sarahwhispered.

“What cave?” Amyasked.

Sarah explained.“Just before Will spoketome,Isawacave.”

Joe looked at Will.“Didyouseeit?”

Will shook his head.“No, but I wasn’tlooking. I was onlyconcernedwithSarah.”

“RememberthecavesatSmugglesCove?” Joesaid. “What if there aresimilar caves on thisisland?”

“Caves would be anideal hiding place forsomeone who didn’t

want to be seen,” Amysaid. She glanced atWill. “Are there manycavesortunnelsthatyouknowofinthearea?”

Will nodded. “Thispart of the coast was abig deal to smugglers afew hundred years ago.Itwasaperfectdistancefrom France, sosmugglers spentmany aday building tunnels.There are even rumours

that Smugglers Covewas built on top of anetworkoftunnels.”

“You mean the oneswefound?”Sarahasked.

Will shook his head.“No.According tosomeof the stories, what wefoundonlyamountstoafractionofwhatthereis.So, yes, it’s certainlypossible that there arecavesonthisisland.”

Joe quickly stood up.

“Let’s explore them. Ifthere’s something goingon, I’m sure there mustbe something in thosetunnels.”Hescannedthebeach. No one could beseen. “We’ll walk insingle file. We knowthere is at least oneperson around, so stayalert.”

“What happens ifwe’reseen?”Amysaid.

Joe looked over at

Will. “What do youthinkisbest?”

We’ll pretend we’refour children outsailing,” Will said.“Whateverthey’reupto,as long as they believeus,we’llbeallright.”

Chapter 8: IntoTheCaves

The children walked

down the hill going asquietly as they could.Stepping onto the softsand, they saw thatSarahhadbeenright.

Acavelayjusttotheright of them. Waitingfor a moment to makesure that no one wasabout, the childrenentered.

Itwasdark inside,somuch so that theyneeded to turn on their

torches. The beams oflight shone around thedarkspace.Theyspottednothing of interest. Itlooked like any otherrocky cave, nothing outoftheordinary.

Will flickedhis torcharound the walls as hewalked close to them inan effort to see if therewas a tunnel. But therewas none. It didn’t takelong for the children to

group back together attheentrance.

“Well, there’snothing in there,” Joesaid,disappointed.“Ifeltsure that therewouldbesomething.”

“But what about theman?” Amy said.“Wheredidhedisappearto?”

Sarahglanced furtheralongandsawthat therewasanothercaveashort

distance away. “Maybehewentinthere.”

The others looked atwhere Sarah waspointing and Willnodded.“Let’ssearch.”

They hurried overand were soon in thecave which was doublethe size of the previousone. Like all the others,Joe was very familiarwith caves, especiallyafter their last adventure

and,ashe felt the rockywall, he hoped todiscoveratunnel.Butnorocks gave way andnothing seemed out oftheordinary.

Amyyelledoutasshepickedupsomethingthatwas on the cave floorand held it up. “LookwhatI’vefound.”

Theothersracedoverand Joe saw it wasanother cigarette butt.

“Howlongdoyouthinkthathasbeenhere?”

“It doesn’t look tooold,” Will said. “Notlongerthanafewdays.”Heglancedaround.“Wecan’t find a tunnel, andthere’snothingelsehere,so whoever is on theisland isn’t staying inthis cave.” He walkedoutof thecaveandontothesand.

As the others joined

him,Willlookedaround.There were a few gullsintheskyabove,butthatwas all. He lookedtowards the trees at thefar end of the inlet.Therewere quite a few,enough to hide abuilding.“Whydon’twewalk towards the woodover thereandsee ifwecanseeanything?”

“Sounds like a goodplan,”Joesaid.

The four of themwalked along the beachas they headed to theother side of the island.They were abouthalfway there whenAmy suddenly stopped.She raised her hand andpointed to the trees infront of them. “Is that aperson?”

Will raised hisbinoculars to his eyesand peered through

them.“Yes.It’saman.”“What does he look

like?”Joequestioned.“He’s bald and big.”

Will looked back at theothers for a moment.“Was the man you sawnearthecavebald?”

Joe shook his head.“No.”

“What’s he doingnow?”Amyasked.

Will looked backthrough the binoculars.

After gazing around forone minute, he droppedthe binoculars,disappointed.

“Has he gone?” Joeasked.

Will nodded. “Hemusthaveheadeddeeperintothewood.”

“Maybe if we hurrywe can catch sight ofhim,”Sarahsaid.

“Possibly.” Willraced along the sand,

fuelled by the desire tocatch up to the man.Theyweresoonstandingat theedgeof thewood.Willwalkedtowherehehadseentheman.

“What was the mandoing?”Amyasked.

“He was lookingaround,” Will said.“Almost as though hedidn’t want anyone tosee where he wasgoing.”

“Iwonderwhy?” Joeasked.

“Let’s see if we canfind where he went.”Will led the others intothe wood. There wasn’tmuch of a path, just ananimal track. The trackmeandered along,sometimes getting quiteclose to the rockycliffs,but always stayingwithin the confines ofthewood.

Willwasjustabouttosuggest that they turnback when somethingcaught his attention. Heshothishandup.“Quiet!Iseesomething.”

Sarah frownedas shepeered forward and sawa small log cabin. “Doyou think themanwentinthere?”

“It seems likeagoodpossibility.” Will creptforward, going from the

trunk of one tree to thenext, pausing each timeas he did so. But, apartfrom some birdschirping,allwassilent.

From what Amycouldsee,therewasonlyonewindowonthissideof the cabin. Sheassumed that the doorand possibly anotherwindowwouldbeontheother. She joined theothers at the corner of

thecabin.“Arewegoingto look through thewindow?”

Joesurveyedthedirtywindow. “I’m not surehowmuchI’llbeabletosee,butgetreadytorunin case someone’s inthere.”

The air was tensewith anticipation as Joehugged the cabin walland sidled towards thewindow.Hepausedonce

he was right next to itand, after glancing backto make sure thatnothinghadhappenedtothe others, he lookedthroughtheglass.

The moss and grimethat covered the lowerhalf of the windowpanemade it hard to get aclear viewof the inside,but Joe saw enough tosatisfy him. He turnedand walked back to the

others.“Is anyone there?”

Willasked.“Not that I can see,”

Joe replied, “butsomeone has definitelybeenthere.”

“Why?Whatdidyousee?”Amyasked.

“There are somesleeping bags, somefood—”Joereplied.

“How many sleepingbags?”Willinterrupted.

“At least two,maybethree. But I….” Joepaused as the bushesnearbyrustled.

“Maybe we shouldtalk somewhere else,”Sarahsaid.

Suddenly,alargebirdflewupfromthebushes.

“Phew! It’s only abird.”Joeglancedat theothers. “I just want tosee if the door’sunlocked,andthenwe’ll

go.”`“Butwhatifsomeone

comes?” Amy asked,worried.

“Hope that theydon’t.” Joe hurriedaround to the other sideof the cabin and pausedat the door. He reachedforthehandleandturnedit.Itswungopenwithoutasound.Thehingeshadclearly beenoiled. That,as well as the sleeping

bags, confirmed thatsomeonehadbeenlivingin here for a period oftime.

Joe waved to theothers and they hurriedover. They all glancedaround the small cabin.There were a couple ofsleepingbags, some tinsof food, a small table,and two chairs. Therewere also threerucksacks leaning

againstthewall.Joe walked over to

themandwas justaboutto open one to seewhatwas inside when thesound of voices reachedhisears.Standingup,helooked back at theothers. “Do you hearthat?”

“We have to go!”Amywhispered.

All four of them ranas fast as they could

through thewood in theopposite direction fromwhere the voices werecoming from. It was ananxious few momentsuntil they reached thecover of some thickbushes.

Peering through thefoliage, they saw threemen come into view.They were still talking,but it wasn’t loudenough for the children

to hear what was beingsaid. They entered thecabin and closed thedoor.

The children waitedfora fewminutes toseeif theywould come out,but when they didn’t,they decided to headbacktothebeach.

After making surethey couldn’t be seenthrough the cabinwindows, they made

theirwaybackalongthepath and, before long,wereonthebeach.Theysat down and rested onthesandas they thoughtaboutwhattheyhadjustseen.

“So, why do youthink those men arehere?”Amyasked.

“It could be anynumber of reasons,” Joesaid.

“They must be the

oneswhodressedupasaghost and tried to scareus,”Willsaid.

“But why? Whatpossible reason couldtheyhaveforstayingonthisisland?”Sarahsaid.

“Idon’tknow.Itrulydon’t.” Will frowned ashe caught sight of themen as they emergedfromthewood.“Oh,no!We need to hide!” Hestood up, but paused as

one of the men turnedandsawhim.

Chapter 9: TheBirdwatchers

As the menapproached, Willquicklywhisperedtotheothers. “Don’t let themknow that we suspectanything.Justfollowmylead.”

The others had justenough time to nodbefore the bald mancalled out. “Hey! Whatareyoudoinghere?”

“We’re camping,”Willsaid.

“We can’t havevisitorsonthisisland,soyou’ll have to moveoff,”thebaldmansaid.

“What about you?Why are you on thisisland?”Joesaid.

“We’re doing a veryimportant study for thegovernment about thebird population in thisarea,” the bald manreplied.

Amystudiedthethreemen. They were roughlooking and wereuntidily dressed. “Youdon’t look likegovernmentpeople.”

The baldman lookedat the children in turn.

“What would yourparentssayif theyknewyou were interferingwith the government? Idon’t think they wouldbetoopleased.”

“We’re not doinganything wrong,” Sarahsaid.

The man sneered.“You kids are all thesame. Why, I wouldn’tbe surprised if you’vebeen snooping on us.

Haven’tyouheardabouttheghostthathauntsthisisland?”

“Jeremiah Jones?”Joesaid.

“Yes. Iwouldn’tstayanylongeronthisislandif I were you,” themansaid.

“But you’re stayinghere,”Amysaid.

“That’s different. It’sour job,” the bald manconfessed. “We can’t

leave. But I’m warningyou – if you stay heretonight, I’m sure you’llbe visited by the ghostand who knows whatwill happen. So leavethis island as soon asyoucan.”

Themanstaredatthefour children oncemorein turn before he turnedand walked away. Theothermenfollowedhim.

Oncetheywereoutof

hearing distance, Sarahlooked towards Joe.“What if the ghost doescomeagain?”

Joe laughed. “Theywere just trying to scareus.”

“But we did see theghost,”Amysaid.

“It was those mendressed up. I know wedon’t have proof, butthere are no such thingsas ghosts,” Joe said.

“Butwecanseewhetherornot themenare lyingabout beingbirdwatchers.”

“What do youmean?”Willasked.

“Well, do you knowmuch about birds?Onesthat live around here?”Joesaid.

“A few, why?” Willquestioned.

~

As Joe led the waydown the hill half anhour later and walkedover to where the threemen were standingbelowatallpinetree,hesaw that they hadchanged into cleanerclothes.Oneofthem,thebald fellow who hadspoken to them earlier,was now wearing anametag on his chest. Itread: Marvin – Bird

Researcher.Joeturnedtotheman.

“Have you seen theDodoyet?”

Marvin hesitated.“I’m not sure.” Helooked over at the manstanding next to himwho had a ponytail andwore glasses. “Haveyou,Luke?”

Luke shook his head.“Of course we haven’t.They’reextinct.Besides,

theylivedinAfrica.”Hegazed at Joe. “Youmustn’tknowalotaboutbirds,boy.”

“What about a GreyWagtail?” Sarah asked.“We just saw one lastweek in SmugglersCove.”

“Didyounow?”Lukesaid. “Well, I think wesaw one here the otherday, didn’t we,Kenneth?”

The third man, ashort, thin fellow withbeady eyes, nodded.“Yes, just near thosehills.”Hepointed to thehillside that the childrenhadjustwalkeddown.

“Washegreyandredor grey and blue?” Joesaid. “The one we sawwasgreyandblue.”

Kenneth looked toLuke. “I can’t recall.Whichonedoyou think

itwas?”Luke paused as he

thought. “It was greyand blue, just likeyours.”

Joe nodded. “Well,wehadbettergetgoing.Oh, and we’ve decidedtoleavethisafternoon.”

“I’m glad you’ve gotsome sense in you,”Marvinpipedup.

“We thought aboutwhat you said about the

ghost and decided wehadbetternotbehereatnightfall,”Joesaid.

Marvin smiled.“Quite right.Well, haveagoodtriphome.”

Joesmiled.“Wewill.Bye.” He turned andwalked away, the othersfollowingclosebehind.

As soon as thechildrenhadreached thetop of the hill, theystopped and, hiding

behind a bush, peeredthroughtheleaves.

As Joe saw the menleave the trees and headin the direction of thebeach, heglanced at theothers. “It worked.They’re going back tothecabin.”

“They’ll probablychange back into theirother clothes rightaway,”Amysaid.

Will nodded. “Yes,

now that they think thatwe’regoinghome.”

“But we’re not,” Joestated. “And all becauseoftheGreyWagtail.”

“It was a good thingwe had two birds inmind,”Sarahsaid.

“Yes. They surprisedmewith theDodo, so itwaseitheraluckyguessor they do know somestuff,buttheydidwhatIthought they would

when the Grey Wagtailwas mentioned.” Joechuckled. “If only theyknew that it was greyandyellow.”

“There’s still achance that they aretelling the truth,” Amysaid. “After all, notevery birdwatcher couldpossibly know everytypeofbird.”

“Well, no, but thereare toomany things that

are not making sense,”Joe said. “I suggest weexplore the island fromend to end. We coulduncover something thatwill explain why themenarehere.”

“Shall we search themiddle of the island ortheshorelinefirst?”Willasked.

“Shoreline. We cangobacktocamp,haveaquick meal, and then

search.” Joe walkedtowardsthewood,whichwouldtakethembacktothecampsite.

~The children strolled

along the beach wherethe caves were andstayedontheedgeofthewood as the shorelinebecamemorejaggedanddangerouslooking.

Waves pounded the

area and, as theyrounded a corner,everyonestoppedastheycaught sight of alighthouse.Sittingat theend of a row of rocksthat jutted out to sea, itlooked as though itwould be a hair-raisingexperience to get to thebuilding.

“I wonder why wedidn’t see this from thehill,”Amysaid.

“We were toodistracted with thechurch. Anyway, itdoesn’t look as thoughit’s still operating. Itprobably closed downwhen theybuilt thenewone on LighthouseIsland,” Will said. “Itwasprobablybuiltmorethanahundredyearsagoanyway, so I’mnot surewhat condition it wouldbeinnow.”

Theyweresilentforamomentastheywatcheda wave break over therocks in themiddle. Joelooked at his watch. “Ifwe came here when itwas low tide,wewouldbe able to hop over therocks.”

“Butifit’sdeserted,Idon’t see much point,”Amy said as she gazedout at the toweringstructure. “Hey, I

wonder if we could callforhelpusingthelamp.”After taking thebinoculars from Will,sheputthemtohereyesand looked at the lamproom.

“What can you see?”Sarahasked.

“Some of thewindows are cracked inparts, and the lamp alsolookstobecracked,soIwould be very surprised

if it still worked.” Amylet the binoculars hangaround her neck. “Wecan’t cross now even ifwe wanted to, so let’smoveon.”

Leaving the noise ofthe crashing wavesbehind them, thechildren walked alongtheshorelinewheretherewerefewerrocksandthewaterwasmuchcalmer.

After seeing nothing

of interest, they decidedto explore inland for abit and,while theywerewalkingpastsometrees,Joecaughtsightofsomebirdsontheground.

They flew upwardsand Joe followed themwithhiseyesupintothetrees. He paused assomething caught hiseye. “Hey, look upthere.”

The others looked up

andsawthathighabove,in the branches of amassive oak tree, was atreehouse.

“Golly,” Amy said.“Is that the tree housethatQuigleymade?”

Will shook his head.“I doubt it. The woodwould have rotted awaybynow.”

Sarah stared at thetree trunk. “Look, thereare pieces of wood

attachedtothetree.”“That must be how

you get up to it.” Willwalked forward andstarted climbing. Theotherswatched on as hewent past the first threepieces of wood. As hestepped onto the fourthone, it broke away fromthetree.

Chapter 10: A

Stranger InNeed

The others looked onanxiously as Willsteadied himself. “Areyou all right?” Amysaid.

Willnodded.“ButI’dbettercomedownnow.”

“It’s a pity thathappened.” Joe lookedup at the tree house.

“Thatwouldhavebeenagood place to hide fromthemen.”

Fromwhat Joe couldsee, some of the timberhad rotted away and, ashe walked around thetree, he saw that therewere only a few planksof wood remaining onthreeofthefoursides.Itwasquiteadistanceup.

“Wecouldhavebeenlike the Swiss Family

Robinson,” Amy said.“You know, the onesthatgotshipwreckedandbuilt a tree house on anisland.”

“But they gotattacked by pirates,”Willpointedout.

“Well, we have themen,”Amysaid.

“I guess so, but whywouldweneedtodefendourselves from them?”Will said. “Anyway,

let’skeeponmoving.”They resumed

walking, but stopped amoment later as theycaughtsightofsomeoldplanks next to somebushes.

Bending down, Joepicked one up. “Iwonder what these aredoinghere?”

“The person whomade the tree houseprobably left them

there,”Amysaid.“That’sapossibility,”

Joesaid.“Theyprobablybrought some planks tothe island and these arethe ones that were leftover.”

They continuedwalking. Apart from afew rabbits and birds,they didn’t encounteranything of interestbefore arriving back attheinlet intowhichthey

had sailed into on theLazyLucy.

Stopping for a rest,thechildrensatdownonthe cliff. They had onlybeenthereforabouttwominutes when theycaughtsightofacraftasit came into view fromaround the rocks on theside closest to themainland.

Sarahstoodup.“Hey,what’sthat?”

Will, who was nowcarrying the binoculars,peered through them.“It’sarowboat.Icanseeonepersoninit.”

“Whywouldapersoncome to this islandalone?”Joewondered.

“Perhaps he’sconnected with themen?”Amysaid.

“Isaywekeepoutofsight until we know theanswer,”Willsaid.

As the others agreed,all four of them movedback a bit into thebushesand laydownontheir stomachs. Gazingout towards the boat,they waited for it tocomeashore.

“I wonder if heknows the way throughtherocks,”Amysaid.

“We’llsoonsee,”Joesaid. “If he does, Ireckon he’s been to this

islandbefore.”“Hecouldbelikeus,”

Willsaid.“Yes, but to do what

we did with just oneperson is a bit trickier,though it is a smallerboat. I guess we’ll justhave to wait and see,”Joesaid.

The craft had notrouble making itthrough the rocks andwassoonbeachedonthe

sand. The personclimbed out and gazedaround.

Peering through thebinoculars, Amy sawwith surprise that itwasn’t a man but ayoungish lookingwoman.Aftergrabbingarucksack from therowboat, she walked upthepath.

Studying her moreclosely, Amy saw that

she was wearing khakishortsandt-shirt.Apairof binoculars hungaroundherneck.“Dowefollowher?”

“Yes,” Joe replied.“Weneedtoseeifshe’sa local, tourist, or acrook.”

“She doesn’t looklikeacrook,”Sarahsaid.“Shelooksnice.”

“I agree,” Amy said,“but I guess we had

betterbesure.”The four children

waited until she hadpassedthemandwasfarenough in front beforethey followed her. Sheheaded straight for thehill and, as she walkedpast the stream and intosome trees, the childrenlostsightofher.

Will,whowas in thelead, raced forward. Ashe came to the stream

and looked around, hefrowned. “She’sdisappeared.”

“But she was righthere,” Amy said. “Shemust have walkedfaster.”

Following Amy, theothers raced up theslope.Astheyarrivedatthe top, they all lookedaround. The mysteriouswomancouldn’tbeseen.

“Where did she go?”

Joe grabbed thebinocularsfromWillandpeered through them ashe scanned thesurrounding area. Nomovement could beseen.

Suddenly, they allheard a noise behindthem. Turning around,Joe saw the womanstanding at the base ofanoaktree.

She walked up to

them. “Playing cowboysandIndiansarewe?”shesaidinanamusedvoice.

Amy frowned.“What?”

The woman smiled,her bright blue eyesshiningaslookedateachof them in turn. “Youwerefollowingme.”

“We weren’t,” Willlied.“We—”

“Have you by anychance seen three men

about?” the womanasked.

“Ah,maybe.Whydoyouask?”Joesaid.

The woman reachedintoherpocketandtookout a badge which sheheldoutfortheotherstosee. It was officiallooking, just like apolice officer wouldhave.Therewasanameon it. It read: NancyAllen.

The woman smiled.“I’m Detective Allenand, as you might haveguessed, I’m a policeofficer. I’m trying tofindthreemen—”

“We’ve seen threemen,”Sarahinterrupted.

Nancy looked at her.“Really? Here, on thisisland?”

Sarah nodded. “Theysay they arebirdwatchers,butthey’re

badpeople.”“Really?” Nancy

turned to Joe. “Is thattrue?”

Joe explained howthey had met the menearlier. Once he haddone so, he lookedcuriously at thewoman.“Why did you comehere?”

“Iheardarumourthatthe men were here,”Nancy said. “Now,

would you be able todescribe the men so Ican see if they are thethree that I’m trying tofind?” As Will did so,the woman nodded.“Yes, it’s them.Do youknow where they arestaying?”

“There’s a cabin inthewoodsonthefarsideoftheisland,”Amysaid.

“Okay. Well, I’mtrying to find something

thatthemenhavestolen,so—”Nancysaid.

“What?” Sarahinterrupted.

Thewomanhesitated.“I probably shouldn’ttellyouthis—”

“We’ll keep it asecret,”Joeinterrupted.

“Well, thosemen arewanted for stealingpaintings,”Nancysaid.

“Paintings?” Willquestioned.

“Yes,” Nancy said.“They’ve stolen themfrom museums. Do youhave any idea of wheretheycouldbe?”

The children shooktheirheads.“Wehaven’tseen much,” Joe said,“we assumed they werenotuptoanygood,butIdidn’t realise that theyhadstolenpaintings.”

“It’s very importantthat they be found, so

can you help me locatethem?”Nancysaid.

“Why don’t youarrest them now?” Willsaid. “If they’re thieves—”

“I need the paintingsas proof, so I want tomake sure that they arewith the men before Iarrest them.” Thewoman gazed around attheislandbeforelookingatherwatch.“It’ssucha

big island, so I needyourhelp.Thepaintingshave to be somewhereclose by. Once I findthem, I can contactheadquarters.”

“Golly, anothermystery,”Amysaid.

Thewoman frowned.“Anothermystery?Whatdoyoumean?”

Amy smiled. “We,ah,seemtohaveahabitof attracting mysteries.

This will be our fourthonethissummer.”

“Did you solve therest of them?” Nancyasked.

Joenodded.“Yes.”“Well, it’s a good

thing that I stumbledonto you lot.” Nancysmiled. “So, who canhelp me solve themystery of the missingpaintings?”

Will looked at the

others. “I’m sureeveryonewillagreewithme when I say that wewilldoallwecantoputthosemeninjail.”

“Good. Now, anyideas of where thepaintings could be?” thewomanasked.

Amy spoke first.“There’sacabinthatthemen use in the woods.We haven’t searched it,but—”

“That sounds like agood spot. Is thereanything else on thisisland?” The womanpointed towards thechurch. “What’s downthere?”

“Oh, nothing much.It’saruin,”Joesaid,“soI don’t think thepaintings would be inthere. There are somecaves though, but weexploredallofthemand

couldn’tfindanything.”“There’s also a

lighthouse, but it washigh tidesowecouldn’tget across and see whatitwaslike,”Willsaid.

Nancy nodded. “Theonethatsoundsthemostpromising is the cabin.Doyouwant to lead theway?”

“Okay,butwe’llhaveto keep watch for themen.”Willheadeddown

the hill. There was nosign of the men as thegroup walked past agroup of oak trees andnearedthechurch,butastheycameinsightoftheinlet, Will held up hishand. “I think I hearsomething.”

The group stoppedand listened. Angryvoices came from thedirection of the wood.As they huddled behind

twobushes,theyspottedthemenemergefromthetrees.Theywere talkingloudly but not loudenoughtoheartheexactwords.

However,itwasclearthattwoofthethreemenwere not happy. Theywalked onto the beachand disappeared fromview a minute later asthey went behind thecliff.

Will was tempted tofollow them to seewhere they were going,but he knew that thiswas the perfect time toexplore the cabin. Helooked at the woman.“The cabin is in themiddleofthatwood.”

“Whatarewewaitingforthen?”Nancyasked.

The children knewthatthemencouldreturnat any minute, so they

raced to the wood andhurriedly walkedthrough it until theyreachedthebuilding.

The woman went tothe door and swung itopen. But before shewent inside, she turnedtothechildren.“Keepaneye out for the menwhileIsearch.”

She disappearedinside the cabin. Thechildren wanted to peep

into the building, butinstead they obeyed herinstructions and keptwatch. Three minutesticked by and still shedidn’tcomeout.

Joe turned to Amywhowasnearest tohim.“I’m going to see whatshe’s up to.” Hemovedoffandwasjustreachingtoopenthedoorwhenitopened and the womanappeared. “What took

yousolong?”“It takes time to

examine everythingwithoutmakingamess,”Nancy replied. “Icouldn’t have the mensuspect that someonehad been through theirstuff.Themenare—”

Suddenly, one of themen yelled out. Joeturned to Nancy. “Weneed to go!” He turnedandracedbacktoAmy.

Chapter11:ThePlan

AsJoereachedAmy,hefollowedhergazeandsaw Will and Sarahrunning towards them.Behind them, they sawthe thin fellow withbeady eyes. As soon astheothers reached them,the group raced offdown the path. As the

man pursued them, Joesaw that hewas gainingground.

“We have to splitup!” Joe yelled. “Let’smeet back at thecampsite.” He turned tothewoman.“Comewithus.” Up ahead, as thepathveeredleft,hewentright,followedbyNancyand Sarah, leaving WillandAmytoheadleft.

~As Will and Amy

arrived at the campsite,they saw that the otherswerealreadythere.

“Did the man chaseyou?”Willsaid.

Joenodded.“Yes,butwe were able to losehim. You should havebeenthere.It—”

“Look!” Sarahinterrupted as she

suddenlyspottedaboat.The others stared

across the water,watching as the boatcruisedpasttheisland.

“Whattypeofboat isit?”Amyasked.

Puttingthebinocularsto his eyes, Joe peeredtowards the craft. Hisface broke into a smile.“It’sapoliceboat!”

“Let’s wave likemad,” Amy exclaimed.

“Ifthepolice—”“No!” the woman

interrupted.“What?” Will said,

surprised. “But they canhelproundupthemen.”

Nancy shook herhead. “Headquartersbelieve that a localpoliceofficerisinvolvedinthethefts.”

“Why do they thinkthat?”Joeasked.

“I can’t go into the

details,” Nancy said.“Just trust me. Besides,whatwereallyneedistodiscover where thepaintings are. Once weknow that, I’ll contactheadquarters,andthey’llsend along plenty ofmen.”

The children fellsilent as theboatpassedby. Will looked atNancy.“Canwegobackwithyou?”

Nancy frowned.“Why?”

“Out boat gotdamagedonsomerocks,andI’mnotsureifitwillget us to themainland,”Willreplied.

Thewomanhesitated,then nodded. “Fine. Butenough talk. Doesanyone have any ideawhere else we cansearch?”

“Wecouldsearch the

church and storehouse,”Joesaid.

“Okay, let’s go therenow,” the womanreplied.

Thegroupmovedoff,heading towards theruined buildings.Arriving at the church,Joe was the last one toenterthebuildingand,ashedidso,he thoughthecaught sight ofsomething out of the

cornerofhiseye.Turning around, he

spotted Luke, the onewith the ponytail,heading in theirdirection. He rushedover to theothers. “Oneof the men is comingthisway!”

Everyone stoppedwhattheyweredoingasthey peered out of thedoorway.

“Doyouthinkhesaw

us?”Nancysaid.“I don’t know, but if

we stand here for muchlonger he will.” Joeleaned against the wall.“Weneedtohide.”

Nancy shook herhead. “I need to findthosepaintingsnow.So,insteadofus runningallover the island, whydon’tweaskthatman?”

Will looked at thewoman. “What? Why

would he tell usanything.”

Nancy reached intoher pocket and pulledoutapistol.“Thiscanbeaverypersuasive tool ifyouuseitright.”

Joe staredat thegun.“Why are you carryingthat?”

“I’m a police officer,remember?”Nancysaid.“Don’tworry, it isn’t asthough I’m going to

shoothim.Ijustwanttofind out about thepaintings.”

“So what do yousuggest we do?” Amysaid.

“If you can makesome noises, he’ll comeand investigate, and I’lluse the weapon asmotivation for him totellus,”Nancysaid.

“I can make a noiselike a cat,” Sarah

suggested.Nancy nodded. “That

should do it. If onlywecould trip him up aswell.” She glancedaround, trying to spotsomethingthatwoulddothe job. But there wasnothing.

“We’ll have to triphim up using our legs,”Joesaid.

“Let’s get intoposition then.” Nancy

and Will stood by thedoor while the girls hidbelow the window. Joekepthis eyeon themanfrom another window.As Luke walked closer,the girls started theirperformance.

“Meow,”Amysaid.“Meow, meow,”

Sarahsaid.Joe saw Luke stop

andstareinthedirectionof the storehouse. He

then walked on, butstopped once more asthe girls continued tomake cat noises.Frowning,heturnedandwalked towards thestorehouse. Joemotioned to the othersthatthemanwascomingandeveryonefellsilent.

The footsteps gotlouder as the manapproached. He steppedthrough the open door

andglancedaround.Hiseyes caught sight of thegirls and his facialexpression turned fromoneofamazementtooneof anger. He strodetowardsthem.

Luke didn’t see thefootthattrippedhimandhefelltotheground.Buthedidseethepistolthatwaspointedathimasheattemptedtogetup.Thiswas evident by the way

he raised his handsstraight away. “Don’tshoot!”

“On your feet now!”thewomansaid.

As themanstoodup,a thin smile flickeredacross his face. “Longtimenosee,Julie.”

Will frowned andglanced at Nancy. “Doyouknowthisman?”

Nancy shook herhead. “Never seen him

in my life. Now, aboutthe—”

Luke spat on theground as he heardNancy’s response. “Youhaven’t changed, haveyou,Julie?”

“Where are thepaintings?” Nancyasked.Lukewassilent.

“If you help us, thepolice will go easier onyou,”Willstated.

“What do the police

have to do with this?”Lukesneered.

“Everything,” Willanswered. “We’re goingto take the painting tothe police with Nancy’shelp.”

“Nancy?Who’sshe?”Lukeasked.

Will pointed to thewoman.“She’sNancy.”

Lukelaughed.“Ifshepromisedyou—”

“Where are the

paintings?” Nancyinterrupted.

The man hesitatedand then pointed. “Upthere.”

Nancy looked up attheroof.“Intheattic?”

“Yes,butyou’llneverget away with this,Julie,”Lukesaid.

“Stop calling meJulie!” Nancy yelled.“And put her handsbehindyourback.”

AsLuke didwhat hewastold,Nancyreachedinto her rucksack andpulled out some rope.She tied it around hiswrists. “Now, how doyougetuptotheattic?”

“There’s a ropeladder in the backcorner, rightside,”Lukesaid. As Nancy hurriedto the spot, he turned tothe children. “She waspartofourgang.”

“What?”Joesaid.“Julie split with us a

year ago after grabbingthe money that we hadstolen in a bank heist.If…” Luke paused asNancy came back withtherope.

“How do I get therope up there?” thewomansaid.

“Throw it over thetwo nails that are in theplanks just abovewhere

you found the rope,”Lukereplied.

Nancy turned to thechildren. “Why don’tone of you stay here toguardourprisonerwhiletheresthelpmesearch?”

“I’ll stay,” Joeoffered.He sat down asthe others followedNancy.

After Nancy threwthe rope over the nails,she started to climb up.

Willwentnext, then thegirls.

As Will stepped onthewoodenplanks, theycreaked.“Becareful,”hecalled out. “These havebeenhereforalongtimeand might give way atanytime.”

“Looks like somealready have,” Amypointed out as shelooked across the flooratthegapingholes.

Nancy glancedaround, trying to spotanythingthatlookedlikea good place to hidepaintings.Shespottedanold chest up against thefarwindow.“Thathastohavethepaintingsinit.”

“I guess so.” Willlooked around. Nothingelse could be seen.“We’ll have to becareful, though. Onewrongstepandwecould

fallrightdown.”Nancy looked

towards Sarah. “Whydon’tyougofirst?”

“What?” Amymuttered, turningtowards the woman.“You’re not afraid, areyou?”

Nancy laughed. “Ofcoursenot.Butsheisthesmallest and lightestperson here, so even ifshe did step on a rotten

plank, she should havethe best chance ofsurviving.”

“Should?” Amyrepeated.

“Well, there’s noguarantee—” Nancysaid.

“If you want thepaintings, go and getthem yourself,” Amyinterrupted as sheclutched her sisterprotectively. “My sister

isn’t going to risk herlifeforsomepaintings.”

SarahlookedatAmy.“I’mnotscared.”

Amy smiled as sheraked her hand throughher sister’s blonde hair.“I know you’re notscared. I justdon’twantyou to take a risk fornothing.”

“Fornothing?”Nancyshouted. “Do you wantto put these men in jail

ornot?If—”“Shouting isn’t going

to do you any good,”Willinterrupted.

“I’m sorry,” Nancysaid. “I didn’t mean toshout. I just want thosepaintings.”

“I think I’ve got abetteridea,”Willsaid.

“You do?” Nancysaid, a smile appearingonherface.

Will nodded as he

went over to the ropeladder and pulled it up.“If Sarah takes hold ofone end of this, we canholdtheother.Thatway,if the plank does giveway and she does fall,we can pull her backup.”

Nancy smiled. “Agreat idea.” She turnedto Sarah. “Will you doit?”

Sarahnoddedandshe

took the end of theladder. She then took adeep breath and steppedonto the first plank.Silence. She steppedonto the next one.Silence.

The others waitedwith bated breath asSarah slowly but surelygot farther and fartherawayfromthem.Asshedidso,Willrealisedthat,while the rope ladder

was long, it would onlygo three-quarters of theway. He shuddered tothinkwhatcouldhappenin the final section. Buthe didn’t say anything.He just kept his eyesgluedonSarah’sfeet.

Suddenly, one of theplanks creaked loudly.Sarah paused, butnothing happened. Shemovedontothenextonewhich also creaked. It

creaked louder than thepreviousoneand,beforethe others knew whatwas happening, theplank, along with thenextone,brokeinhalf!

Frightened, Sarahcried out as she felldownthehole.“Help!”

Chapter 12:Run!

Luckily, Sarah didn’tlosehergripontheropeladder,whichmeantthatinstead of hitting theground she was leftdangling a foot belowthehole.

Clingingtightlytotherope, Amy called out.“Are you all right,Sarah?”

“I’m fine, just pullme up,” Sarah shouted

back.Amy looked at the

others. “We pull onthree.One,two,three!”

With everyonepulling as hard as theycould,Sarahwas slowlylifted up through thehole.Once shewas out,everyonekeptonpullingas they tried todragherback to them. Suddenly,Sarahyelledout.“Stop!”

“Why?” Will

questioned,frowning.Sarah gingerly stood

up. “I’m going tocontinueon.”

“No, it’s toodangerous,” Amy said.“We’lltryanotherway.”

“Thereisn’tanyotherway,” Sarah shoutedback.

“But you could havebeen seriously injured!”Willexclaimed.

“But I wasn’t. Just

givemeanother chance.I know I can do it,”Sarahprotested.

“Let her,” Nancysaid.“It’stheonlyway.”

“Butshe’smysister!”Amyyelled.“Ishouldbetheonedoingthat.”

“She’s more thanhalfway there,” Nancysaid.“Lethercontinue.”

Amy looked at hersister. “Be extra carefulthistime,okay?”

Sarah nodded. Theothers watched as shestood there, trying todecidewhichwaytogo.She then moved, takingonestepatatime.Soon,she had reached the endof the rope. Before theotherscoulddecidewhatto do, she suddenlydroppedtheropeandrantherestofthewaytothechest.

Two of the planks

broke, but fortunatelySarah was a step aheadand she didn’t fall. Theothersbreathedasighofreliefas thegirl reachedthe chest. “I’ll open itand see if the paintingsareinhere.”

The others waited inanticipation as Sarahopened up the lid andshuffled around in thechest.

“What can you see?”

Amyasked.Sarah pulled out

somethingandshoweditto the others. It was awhitesheet.

Nancy frowned. “Isthatall?Nopaintings?”

Sarahnodded.“Afewodds and ends, but yes,that’sall.”

Nancyfrownedasshegazedatthewhitesheet.“Why would that be inthechest?”

Will grinned. “Ofcourse!Ithoughtitcamefromuphere.”

“Whatareyoutalkingabout?”Nancyasked.

“Oneofthementriedto scare us,” Willreplied. “Tried to makeus believe in ghosts sowe would leave theisland. I’m pretty surethey would have usedthat sheet when theytriedtofrightenus.”

Nancy laughed.“That’sjustlikethem.”

“How do you knowwhat these men arelike?” Will said,puzzled.

Nancyhesitated.“Oh,Iwasjustmeaningthatitsounds typical based onwhat I have read aboutthesemen.”

Will called out toSarah.“Isthereanythingelseinthere?”

Sarah closed the lid.“No.”

NancyglareddownatLukeasshespottedhimthrough the rottenplanks.“Helied.”

“Well, it probablywasn’t the first time hedidthat,”Amysaid.

“No, but it’ll be hislast.” Nancy turned toSarah.“Grabtherope.”

Sarah steppedforward. The return

wasn’t as difficult asbefore since she knewwhere to stand, and shewas soon back withthem.

After taking the ropeladder, Nancy threw itdown the side. Once inplace, she climbeddown.ShestrodeovertoLuke and slapped himontheface.“Youlied.”

Luke smirked. “Tookyou long enough to

discoverthat.”Nancy paced back

and forth as the othersclimbed down the ropeand joined her. “Youwill tell me where thepaintingsarenow.”

Luke sneered. “Orelse what? Are yougoingtoslapmeagain?”

Nancylaughedasshepulled out her pistolfrom where it had beentuckednexttoherwaist.

“I havemore persuasivemethods.Ifyou—”

“Oh, no!” Willinterrupted.

Nancy glanced at theboy who was standingby thewindow.“What’sup?”

“The others, they’recoming here,” Willmuttered.

Nancy strode to thewindow and looked out.Marvin and Kenneth

were roughly onehundred feet away andclosing. “They can’tknowwe’re here.Whentheypassby—”

Luke suddenly criedout.“Help!”

“Why,you…”Nancyhurried over to the manandaimedherweaponathim.“Don’t forceme touse this.” She looked atJoe. “Is there a backexit?”

“I don’t know,” Joeadmitted.

Nancy hurried to thewindow and fired herpistol. The bulletwhistled above themen’s heads and theytumbled to the groundbefore crawling to thenearestbush.

“Whatdidyoudothatfor?” Will asked. “Wecouldhavehadachancetoslipbythem,butnow

they know for certainthatwe’rehere.”

“Nowthat theyknowwe’re armed, they’llthink twice beforeentering,” Nancysnapped. “Besides, I’mnot being captured bythosemen.”

“Why? Because theyknow you?” Joequestioned.

Nancy hesitated.“Okay, if you must

know, I was one ofthem.”

Joe glanced at Jake.“Soyouweretellingthetruth.”

Nancy shook herhead. “Only half thetruth. I stole the bankmoney, but only after Iheard that they wereplanning to get rid ofme.”

“So you’re not apolice officer?” Sarah

asked.Nancy shook her

head.“No,butmyfatherwas.”

As she hurried awaytolookforawayout,thechildren crouchedtogether as they decidedwhat to do. “We can’tstayhere,”Willstated.

“Butwecan’tgowithher,”Amyargued.

“She’snota threat tous,”Joesaid.“Shewants

the paintings, not us.”He smiled as Nancycrashedthroughthebackdoor. “Hey! she foundawayout.”

Willstoodup.“Ifwehurry, we can disappearbefore the men knowwe’re gone.” He racedtowardsthedoor.

Letting the girls raceby him, Joe glancedback and saw the mennear the entrance. As

soon as they steppedthrough, theywould seehim. He raced after hissisters, hoping he couldget through the doorbeforetheysawhim.

A yell went out justhe went through theback door and he knewthathehadbeenspotted.He muttered to himselfas he followed theothers.

~By the time the

children arrived at theinlet,Nancywasrowingaway.

“Isuppose ifshewaslying about being apolice officer, than weshouldhaverealisedthatshewouldbelyingabouttaking uswith her,” Joesaid.

“It was worth a try,”

Willsaid.“Anyway,weshould get back to thecampsitebefore themenfind us. Now that theyknow thatwe’re still onthe island, they’ll beafterus.”

The children set offforthecampsite.Astheyneared the wood, Joecametoahaltashesawthe three men runningtowardsthem.“Blow!”

“Let’s hide in the

wood,”Amysuggested.“No.Wecan’t let the

men find our campsite.We have to lead themaway from that area.”Will turned towards thehill.“Let’sgotothetreehouse.”

“Good idea.” Joesprintedtowardsthehill.As he reached it, heglanced back and sawthat the men and werenot far behind. He

realisedtheywouldhavea better chance ofgetting to the treehouseif they split up. Thiswould also mean that ifthe men caught up withthem, not all of themwouldbecaptured.

So,astheynearedthetop of the hill, Joeglanced at the others.“Weneedtosplitup.”

Amy only took amoment to decide. “I’ll

go with Sarah. And ifyouboysgoalone,we’llonlyhaveonemaneachonourtail.”

“Are you sure?” Joeasked.

“We’llbefine,”Amysaid. “Comeon, Sarah.”Thegirlsheadedstraightdown the slope whileWill went left and Joewentright.

Chapter13:The

Quarry

For some reason, thesection of the hill thatthe girls were hurryingdown had the mostnumberofgorsebushes.And, because of theirprickles, it made itnecessaryforthegirlstoslowdown.

They hadn’t actuallygone this way before,

and Amy was wishingthat she had chosen adifferent way. But therewas nothing she coulddoaboutitnow.

“Stop for aminute, Iwant to see if there’sanyone chasing us,”Amy whispered. Shecould hear twigsbreaking to the left andright of her, but nonebehindher.Maybe therewasn’t anyone behind

them.Butthen,whathadhappened to the thirdman?

“What do we do?”Sarahasked.

Amy was just aboutto answer when sheheard twigs breaking assomeone crashedthrough the bushes.“Run!” She turned andpushed through thebushes, not botheringwhether or not she got

scratched.Hurrying down the

slope, shewas surprisedto see the bushessuddenly disappear andfound herself staringdown a steep bed ofgrass that, eventually,turnedintorocks.

Stopping, she waswondering what to dowhenSarahbumpedintoher. The two girls felland tumbled down the

hillside,rollingoverandover, getting faster witheverysecond.

~Willwasn’t afraid of

getting lost as he knewwhere to hide. The lasttime they had walkedpasthere,hehadspottedanoldtreewithahollowtrunk.

Heheadedforthetreeand hid inside. Careful

to be as quiet aspossible,hestoodasstillasamouse.Heheardthepoundingoffootstepsashispursuerracedpast.

As soon as thefootsteps had fadedaway, Will emergedfrom the tree trunk andlooked around to makesure no one had spottedhim. Satisfied that noone had, he headedtowardsthetreehouse.

~Joe was wishing that

he had stayed on thepaththathehadbeenon.Itwouldhaveledhimtothetreehouse.But,withthe man right behindhim,orsoithadseemed,he had turned right,hopingtolosehiminthetrees.

However,asheracedforward, he found

himself out in the open.The sandy beachwas infront of him and, apartfrom the wood that hehad just come from, hecouldn’tseeanywheretohide. Hearing someoneclosing in on him, Joeraced along the sand.Seeing some rocks upahead,anideacameintohishead.

He passed two rocks,then dropped down,

hiding behind the thirdone.Hisfeetwerepartlysticking out, so heshuffled somesandoverthem. He lay still as heheardthemanapproach.The next minute or twowould tell whether ornothewouldbecaught.

~AmyandSarahcame

toastopatthebottomofthehillside.Aftersitting

up in a daze, the girlslooked around anddiscovered they werenexttoaquarry.Hiddenby trees and bushes onallsides,therewerepilesof rocks strewn all overthe area. There alsoseemed to be a hole,which indicated toAmythat it might also be amine.

“Golly,howcomewedidn’t see this before?”

Amyasked.“What is it?” Sarah

said.“It must be where

they got the rocks fromto build the church andother buildings on thisisland.Afterall,itwouldhave been a bit difficultto transport all that rockfrom the mainland.”Amy stood up andwalked around,forgetting for a minute

that someone waschasingthem.

Hearing a noise, sheglanced up and sawMarvin as he emergedfrom the bushes. Hehurrieddownthehill.

Realizing that theyhad to hide somewhere,she hurried over to thehole.Assoonasshesawthat there was a ladder,she started climbingdown it, her sister right

behindher.The ladder was old,

but still in goodcondition.Onceshewason solid ground, sheswitched on the torchthat she always carriedinherpocketandswungitaround.Therewere atleast four tunnels goingin opposite directions.She didn’t know whichone to go down, but asshe heard the man’s

footsteps, she chose theoneclosesttoher.

The light bobbed toand fro as Amy andSarah hurried down thetunnel. The torch lightpicked up the woodensupports, and Amyhoped that they weren’tgoing to give out whentheywereinit.

After they hadwalked for somedistance, Amy slowed

down and looked at hersister. “Are you allright?”

Sarah nodded. “Ican’t hear the manbehind us, so hopefullyhedidn’tseeusgodownthehole.”

Amy listened andrealised that her sisterwas right. No soundcould be heard. Sheswitched off the torch.“We’llwaithereandsee

ifwehearanything.”

~At the tree house,

WillwaswaitingforJoeand the girls to arrive.He swung his legs backandforthashesatontheplatform and gazeddown,searchingthroughtheleavesforanysignofmovement. But nonecouldbeseen.

A minute later, he

caught sightof someoneheadingtowardshim.Heheld his breath as hewaitedtoseewhoitwas.Amoment later, he sawitwasJoe.

Joe started climbingup. As he reached thehalfway point, he calledup. “Are the girls withyou?”

Will shook his head.“No.”

Joe frowned and

resumed climbing,reaching the top aminute later. As hereachedtheplatformandsat down, he turned toWill. “How long haveyoubeenhere?”

“About ten minutes,”Will replied. “Iwas juststarting to wonder ifeveryone else had beencapturedwhenIsawyouthroughthetrees.”

“It took longer than I

thought toget ridof theman followingme,” Joeconfessed.“Ihadtohidebehind some rocks andwaituntilhepasseduntilIcouldheadforhere.”

“I hope the girls areall right,” Will said.“We’ll give them thirtyminutes. If they don’tshow up by then, we’llstartsearching,okay?”

Joe nodded. “If theydon’t come back in that

time, I’m afraidsomething may havehappenedtothem.”

~After waiting for

what seemed likeforever, Amy switchedthe torch back on. “Ihaven’t heard anythingforawhile,sowecouldheadback.”

“Okay,” Sarahreplied.

Amy led the wayback. She wasn’tconcerned about gettinglost since this tunnelonly split into two andthe second tunnel wasmuch smaller than thefirst.

Thegirlswerenearlyat the end of the tunnelwhen Amy heard anoise. She stopped,causing Sarah to bumpinto her. “What’s

wrong?”“I thought I heard

something,” Amywhispered as sheswitched off her torch.“Wait here.” Shecontinued along thetunnel until she came tothe bend which wasquiteclosetotheshaft.

Peering around, shesaw a shadow in thedarkness. She wonderedwhat it couldbewhena

coughbroke the silence.Itwasoneofthemen!

Amy turned andtiptoed back, wonderinghow long they wouldhavetostayinthemine.

~With heavy hearts,

the boys climbed downfrom the tree. Once onsolid ground, theydiscussedwhattodo.

“Weshouldgo to the

topof thehillandsee ifwe can see anything,”Joesuggested.

Will led the way upthe hill. Once they hadreached the top, helooked around. No onecouldbeseen.“Whatdowedonow?”

“Gothewaythegirlswent,” Joe replied. Hetooktheleadandhurrieddown the hill. He soonencountered the prickly

bushes that had sloweddown the girls and,while this wasn’t goodfor the arms and legs, itdid prove something ashe caught sight ofsomethingblue.

It was a small pieceof fabric. Joe turned toWill. “This looks asthough it’s come fromSarah’sshorts.”

Will nodded. “Sonow we know that they

made it this far.” Hecontinued on, stoppingwhen they came intosight of the quarry.“Gosh, I didn’t knowthiswashere.”

Joe shook his head.“Norme.Wemusthavemissed it because of allthose tall bushes.” Athoughtstruckhimashecaught sight of a shaftgoing into the ground.“You don’t suppose the

girls are underground,doyou?”

“It’s a possibility.”Will suddenly clutchedhold of Joe and pulledhimdowntotheground.

“What—”Joesaid.“Quiet!” Will

interrupted. He pointedtotheshaftasoneofthemenemergedfromit.Ashesawhisbaldhead,herealiseditwasMarvin.

As the man looked

around, theboysduckedbehind a clump ofbushes. They froze,wondering if they hadbeenseen.

Chapter 14: AGoodTrick

Apparently satisfiedthat no one was about,Marvin sat down on anearbyrock.

Theboyswaitedforaminute or two, but theman didn’t move.Creeping back a tad,Will whispered to Joe.“There’sonlyonereasonwhyhewouldsitthere.”

“Ifhewaswaitingforsomeone tocomeoutoftheshaft,”Joesaid.

Will nodded. “And Idon’t think he’s waitingforhisfriends.”

“No, so it looks as

though the girls aredownthere,”Joesaid.

“What do we doaboutit?”Willasked.

Joe thought for amoment before heanswered. “We have todistracttheman.”

“What if we throw arock into the other endof the quarry?” Willsaid. “While he seeswhatthenoiseis,wecanslipintothehole.”

Joe grinned. “Goodthinking.” He searchedthe ground for a rockthat would be suitablefor the diversion. Itneeded to be smallenough to go a longdistance,butbigenoughto make a loud noisewhen it landed. Hefoundoneafewsecondslater. “This should doit.”

Will parted the

bushes with his hand.Looking down at theman, he calculatedwheretherockneededtoland.After pointing thisouttoJoe,hewaitedforhimtothrowit.

TherocksailedoutofJoe’s hand a secondlater. As it fell towardsthe ground, he hopedthat itwouldhit thepileof rocks that were pastsome bushes. That

would provide somecover for them whentheyraceddown.

Unfortunately, itdidn’t get that far.As itlanded five feet short ofthe bushes, Joegrimaced. Still hopingforthebest,hewaitedattheedgeofthebushes.

As soon as the rockhit the other rocks, theman stood up, frowned,and walked over to the

bushes.Joe and Will raced

down the hill. Afterreaching the rockyground, they spurtedtowards the hole. But,before they could getthere, the man turnedaroundandheadedback.

The boys duckedbehind a rock, certainthat theyhadbeen seen.Luckily, at that verymoment,therewasayell

as someone called out.Peekingoutfrombehindthe rock, Joe saw Lukewalktowardsthequarry.

“I lost sight of mykid,”Lukecalled.“Whataboutyours?”

“Theywentdownthetin mine,” Marvinreplied.

The boys heard hisfootstepsretreatandtheybreathedasighofrelief.They didn’t know what

Marvin had seen thatinterestedhimenoughtowalk towards them, butit had obviously beennothing since he wasnow engaged in aconversation with theotherman.

With the wind in theotherdirection, theboyscouldonlyhearscrapsofthe conversationbetween them. Wordslike food, torch, and

rope.The talking subsided.

Peeking around the hill,Joe saw Marvin leavethequarryanddisappearinto the bushes. Butwhere was Luke?Looking in the oppositedirection, Joe saw thathe was sitting in thesamespotasMarvinhadbeensitting.

Joe turned to Will.“We have to do

something beforeMarvin gets back. Wecan’t do anything ifthey’rebothhere,butwemight be able tooutsmartoneofthem.”

“What aboutthrowing a rock?” Willsuggested.

“Butwetriedthatandit didn’t work,” Joereplied.

“We’re closer now,”Willsaid.“Ifwethrewit

fromhere,itwouldhaveto go past those bushes.I’msureitwouldgiveusenoughtimetogodowntheshaft.”

Since Joewasunabletocomeupwithabetterplan, he decided to giveit one more attempt.After finding a rock,Willtookaimandhurledit. As soon as Lukemoved,sodidthey.

Reaching the shaft

first, Joe climbed down.Will glanced over atLuke before he climbeddown and was relievedto see that he was stillbehind the bushes. Hebreathed a sigh of reliefashefollowedhisfrienddownintothedarkness.

Joe switched on historch and shone itaround. The girls werenowhereinsight.

After deciding to go

downthenearest tunnel,theboyswalkedalongit,calling as they went.They hadn’t gone farbeforealightwasshoneupon them and voicescriedout.

Itwas thegirls.Theyhugged the boys,relieved that help hadarrived.

“How did you findus?”Sarahasked.

“When you didn’t

show up at the treehouse, Will and I wentsearching,” Joe said.“When we saw a mansitting near the quarryshaft, we put two andtwotogether.”

“Is the man stillwaiting?”Amyasked.

“Yes, but I’vethought of a way to getout,”Joereplied.

~

Five minutes later,Sarah poked her headthrough the top of theshaft and called out toLuke, startling him.“Help! My sister’s introuble.”

Luke hurried over.“Showmetheway.”

The two climbeddowntheshaft,stoppingwhen they reached thebottom. Sarah turned toLuke.“She’sthisway.”

Sarahwalkedquicklydown a tunnel and, asshe heard Lukefollowing behind, shegrinned.Shecountedthecorners toherself as shewentaroundthem.“One,two,three.”

AfewsecondspassedandthensheheardLukecry out. She turnedaround as he fell down,landingonthedirt.

A second later, the

boys appeared withAmy. “Comeon!”Theyturnedandracedbackupthe tunnel with Sarahfollowingclosebehind.

Upon reaching theladder, thegirlswentupfirst, and thenWill. Joeglanced back down thetunnelandwasgladthatthe man couldn’t beseen.Withoutatorch,hewould be much slowerthan them and, Joe

hoped, that would givethemenoughtimetogettothecampsiteunseen.

~Arriving back at the

campsite, Will lookedtowards the cave. “Weneedtoseeifthere’sanyway to get the LazyLucy to sail again. Themen will start searchingthis island from top tobottom soon, and it

would be best if we’reaway by then. Butthere’s no need foreveryonetogettheirfeetwet.”

Will turned towardsthe girls. “If you couldpack up the tent andeverything else, thatwouldbehelpful.”

Amy nodded. “Willdo.” As she and Sarahwent to work, the boystook off their shoes and

socksandwadedintothewater.

They went into thecaveandapproachedtheboat. It had more waterin it thanbefore since itwasn’t low tide, andWill frowned as heclimbed over the sideand walked around. “Iwas thinking that wemight have been able tobail out thewater aswesailed along, but even

withallfourofusdoingthat, I’mnot sure if thatwouldwork.”

“Well,inorderforusto try that,we’dhave toget it out of this cavefirst,”Joesaid.

“What’s the problemwiththat?”Willasked.

“Well, the onlyreason that the LazyLucy isn’t sinking nowis that it’s in shallowwater,” Joe replied. “As

soon as we move it outof thecave, itwillbe indeeperwater.”

“Sowe’ll have to doit at low tide exactly,”Will said. “And we’llonly get one chance atit.”

“Yes.”Joewadedoutof the cave as hecontinued talking. “Westill have another twohours or so until lowtide,sohopefullywecan

hidetillthen.”The boys dried

themselves and joinedthegirlsinhavingtinnedfruit.They told thegirlswhat they had discussedand,afterwards,thegirlstold them that they hadpacked up everythingexceptonetentthattheycouldn’tgetdown.

After Will finishedeating, he went over tothetent.WithJoe’shelp,

hestarted taking itapartwhile the girls washedthe dishes in the nearbywater.

Suddenly, they heardvoices coming towardsthem. Amy dropped thedishesandhurriedalongthe sand until she cameto a bend. She took oneglance around the rocksbefore she turned andraced back, shouting asshewent.

Chapter15:TheRaft

“The men,” Amyyelled. “They’re comingthisway!”

“They must besearching for our boat,”Will muttered. “That’swhythey’regoingalongtheshore.”

“What shall we do?”Sarahasked.

“Grab whatever youcan and head inside thewood.” Will grabbedhold of the tent and therucksack and headedtowardsthetrees.

The others quicklygrabbed some tins offood, the matches, thetorches, sleeping bags,andafewotheroddsandends. They had just

reached thecoverof thetrees when the mencameintoview.

Asthemencametoastop, Will realised thatthey had probablyspotted the footprints inthe sand and, as theybentdown,knewthathewasright.

Within moments, themen had found thefireplace along with thetent and the other stuff

that the children hadn’thadtimetograb.

They talked amongstthemselves for a matterof minutes as thechildren watched fromtheshelterofthebushes,but as the wind wasblowing in the oppositedirection, they couldn’thearanything.

Themenheadedbackonto the sand and thefellowwith the ponytail

waded into the water ashe went into the cave.He shouted and re-appeared a momentlater,smiling.

The children crawledthrough the bushes untilthey could see theentranceofthecaveand,as they watched, thethree men disappearedinsideit.

“What do you thinkthey’re going to do?”

Amyasked.“Smash it,” Will

mutteredangrily.A minute later, the

Lazy Lucy appeared asthemen pulled it out ofthe cave. The mengrabbed the oars, brokethem inhalf, andhurledthem into the water.Then, they dragged theboat deeper into thewater.

“That’s the end of

her,” Joe said indisappointment as hesaw the boat fill withwater.

Within a matter ofseconds, the boat washalf full of water and,less than aminute later,it disappearedunderneath the swirlingwater. The men smiledand laughed as theyheaded back to thecampsite.

Motioning for theothers to follow him,Will took the tent andrucksack and headeddeeper into the trees.Oncehewasfarenoughaway, he looked at theothers. “Thosemenwillstay there until wereturn, so that’s the endofthatcampsite.”

“And the end of theLazy Lucy,” Amy said.“I know it was just a

boat, but after we spentall that time fixing herup—”

“And painting her,”Sarahinterrupted.

“Itwassadtoseeherdisappear,”Amysaid.“Idon’t suppose we couldget her back up whenlowtidecomes?”

Will shook his head.“She’stoodeep.Evenatlow tide, we couldn’traise her off the sand.

No, I’m afraid we’llhavetofindanotherwaytogetoffthisisland.”

“Why don’t wesearchfortherowboat?”Sarah suggested. “Theonethatthemenuse?”

“Well, we didn’t seeitwhenwesearched theisland, so I don’t seemuch point in searchingagain,” Will confessed.“No,weneedsomethingdifferent.”

“Hey,whataboutthatpileofwoodthatwesawnearthetreehouse?”Joesaid.

“What about it?”Amyasked.

“Couldn’tweuseittobuild a raft?” Joe said.“Wedon’thaveasailsowe’ll have to row, buteven ifwepaddledwithourhands,wecouldstillget to the mainland. Itmight take a while, but

it’s worth a try. Everyminute longer that westay on this island, thegreater chance we haveof being caught by themen. And they’ll besitting at that campsitefor some time, sonow’stheperfectopportunity.”

“But thatwood is onthe other side of theisland,” Sarah pointedout. “And the mainlandisthisside.”

“I know, but it can’tbehelpedunlessweusethe branches that arelying around here, butthose planks of woodwillbeawholelotbetterthan the branches.” JoeturnedtoWill.“Whatdoyouthink?”

“Let’s do it.Let’s gonowbeforethemenspotus.” Will grabbed asmuch as he could andhurriedoff.

The others collectedwhat was left andfollowed Will. Theytrudged through thewood and, before long,they were at the treehouse. After they haddumped their stuffbeside some bushes andhiddenitfromviewwithsome branches, theysearchedfor thewoodenplanks.

With each person

carrying what theycould, they made theirway to the beach. Thisside of the island waspretty rocky with cliffson either side, so itprobablywasn’t thebestplace to launch the raft,buttheycouldstillbuildithere.

Joedroppedhisshareof the wood. “We’llneed some vines. Wehave some rope, but not

enough.”Will turned to Amy

and Sarah. “Why don’tyou girls search forsome vines?” As thegirlsracedoff,helookedat Joe. “We should findsome sturdy branches.This wood won’t beenough for the entireraft, sowe’ll need somepieces that are the samesize as these planks.Let’sgetthemfirst.”

The boys hurriedaway. By the time theyarrived back, they sawthatthegirlshadalreadyfound some vines andhadgonetogetmore.

Getting to work ontheraft,theboystiedtheplankstogetherusingtherope. They wanted themiddle to be thesturdiest, so the vineswouldbelefttolast.

From time to time

they stopped when theyheard noises in thenearby bushes, but iteither turned out to bethegirlsorananimal.

Finally, Will pulledtight the last vine andstood up. The raft wasfinished. “What do youthinkofit?”

Sarah studied it. “Itlookssmall.”

“As long we can allfit on it I’m happy,”

Amy stated. “Besides,the mainland isn’t toofaraway.”

“What are we goingto use as paddles?” Joeasked.

“I left this plank ofwood here,” Will said,pointingtoasmallpiece.“Itwastoosmallfortheraft, so I thought thatoneofuscoulduseitasapaddle.”

“It’s a pity our oars

gotbroken,”Sarahsaid.Will nodded. “We

could probably divedownand rescuepartofone,butIdon’tthinkit’sworth taking the timeorthe risk.” He glanced athis watch. “It’s time togo.”

“Areweleavingrightnow?”Amyasked.

“Yes. The sooner weleave the better,” Willsaid. “We can carry the

raft to…” He paused ashe heard a noise.Looking towards thebushes, he waited. Thistime, instead of ananimal, a face withbeady eyes appeared. Itwas Kenneth. As theman yelled out, Willturned to the others.“Help carry it to thewater.”

As Kenneth headedtowards them, the

childrentookholdoftheraftandrantothewater.Luckily, theywerequiteclose. As the rafttouched the water, Joeglanced back towardsthebushes.Themanwasnow on the rocks andhurryingtowardsthem.

Everyone reactedinstantly. After pushingthecraft further out intothe water, they climbedon. Sarah went first

while Will, after givingit one last shove, joinedthem.

“Hey! Come backhere!” Kenneth shoutedas he stood at the edgeofthewater.

The children didn’tanswerastheyusedtheirhands to paddle furtherout into the water. Thewaves slammed againstthe nearby rocks, and ittook all their hard work

to avoid them. It wasslow progress and, justastheypassedtherocks,an extra big wave hitthem, crashing over theraft. Everyone wassoaked.

“Maybe this wasn’tsuch a good idea afterall,” Amy said as shebrushedher long,brownhairawayfromhereyes.

Joe glanced backtowards the beach and

sawthebeady-eyedmanhad been joined byMarvin, the bald man.He turned to the others.“We can’t turn backnow. Ifwedid, themenwould certainly catchus.”

“We have to get tothemainland.Oncetherewe’llbesafe,”Willsaid.

As another big wavesoaked them, Sarahshivered.“I’mscared.”

Amy hugged her.“I’m right here. There’snothingtobeafraidof.”

“But I’mnotasgooda swimmer as you are,”Sarahreplied.

“We aren’t sinkingyet,”Joesaid.“Butifwedo, I’ll be right by yourside, as will Amy.Okay?”

AsSarahnodded,Joeglanced back at thebeach to see how much

progress theyhadmade.Theyhadtravelledsomedistance but,unfortunately, theyweredrifting alongside thecoastandnotawayfromit. “As longaswedon’tgo over any...” Hepaused as he heard ascraping noise. Heshouted out. “We’ve hitarock!”

Before anyone couldreply, the raft broke

apart.As it split inhalf,the children tipped intothe water, disappearingfromview.

Chapter 16:We’reDrowning!

Breaking the surface,Joe glanced around. HespottedWill,butnoneofhis sisters. Worried, he

took a breath and divedunderneaththewater.Hesawashapetotheleftofhim. Kicking as fast ashe could, he swam overand found that it wasAmy. He helped her tothe surface. “Where’sSarah?”

Amy whipped herhead around, searchingforheryoungersister.“Idon’tknow.”

Joe turned to Will

who was holding ontothe part of the raft thatwas still floating. “WehavetofindSarah.”

Both boysdisappeared underneaththewaves.Joedidn’tseeanything at first in themurkywater,butthenhecaught sight ofsomething. Swimmingcloser,hesawthatitwasSarah.Shewasthrashingherarmsabout.

Kicking his feet, heswam closer andgrabbed her. He kickedupwards. As he did so,he felt hands grab him.Together,theyshotuptothe surface. Within aminute, Joe was feelinglikehisoldselfagain.

However, it tookSarah a few moreminutes before she gaveaslightgrin.“Iwouldn’twant to go through that

again. I thought I wasgoingtodrown.Abitofwoodfromtheraftmusthave hit me. For a fewmoments, I felt reallystrange.”

JoesmiledashegaveSarah’s arm a squeeze.“You know I wouldn’tlet anything happen toyou.”Helookedtowardstherockybeachandsawthat they had beendrifting closer to it.

Kenneth was stillstanding on the rocks,watchingthem.

“I saw the bald manrace off a short whileago,”Willsaid.“IfIhadto guess, I would saythey saw us break apartand rushed to get theirboat.” He looked alongthe coast and saw arowboat appear aroundthebendoftheisland.

Amy followed his

gazeandsawthecraftaswell.“We’dbettercallitquits. We can’t go onnowthatweonlyhaveapieceoftheraftleft.”

Will nodded. “Let’sheadfortheshore.”

Hanging onto thewood, they kickedtowards the beach. Astheydidso,Joesuddenlysaw something. Theyhad been drifting alongthesideoftheislandand

were now next to somecliffs. “Hey!Why don’twehideinthatcaveoverthere.”

“Let’s just go back,”Amysaid.

“Don’t you want tostop the men?” Joeasked.

“Yes, but not if we—”Amyreplied.

“Yes or no?” Joeinterrupted.

Amy hesitated. But,

as she saw the rowboatgetting closer, shenodded. “What do wedo?”

“Pretend to drownand then swim to thecave. Will can go firstandyougirlscanfollowhim to make sure youdon’t get lost,” Joeanswered.

“Only if Sarah saysyes,”Amysaid.

Sarah hesitated and

looked at her sister.“Okay, but stay close tome.”

Will agreed to theplan and, a momentlater,yelledout.“Help!”

“We’re drowning!”Joe shouted. Out of thecorner of his eye, hespotted the bald man intherowboatreact.

Will disappearedunder the water, thenSarah, then Amy. Joe

yelled out once morebeforealsodivingdown.Before he knew it, theywere inside the cave.Luckily, it wasn’t hightide, so only half of thecavewasflooded.

As the childrenrelaxed, they could hearthemenyellout.Peeringthrough the entrance ofthe cave, Will saw theman from the rowboatjump into the water.

“They’re searching forus.”

“They can search alltheywantoutthere,”Joesaidasheleanedagainstthe rocks. It wasn’t themost comfortable placeto rest, but theswimminghad tiredhimout and anything feltgoodrightaboutnow.

The situation stayedthe same for the nextfewminutes, but then it

changed as Sarahnoticed that the menwere coming towardsthem.“Oh,no!We’llbediscovered.”

“If we move to theback of the cave, wemight be able to find ahidingplace,”Will said.“But hurry! They’realmosthere.”

After getting to theirfeet,thechildrensteppedover the rocks as they

went deeper into thecave. The cave itselfwasn’tthatlarge,mostlythinandnarrow,so theyhadn’t gone far beforetheyhadtostop.

Leaning against thecave wall, Will listenedto the men talking neartheentrance.

“Let’s see if they’rein the cave,” Marvinsaid.

“But I saw them

drown,” Kenneth said,“so they can’t be inhere.”

“And I keep ontelling you,” Marvinyelled, “I didn’t see anybodies. This is the onlycave along this part ofthe shoreline so let’ssearchit.”

“But we don’t haveany torches,” Kennethcomplained.

“We’lluseoureyes,”

Marvin said. “It’s notthatdarkinhere.”

As the men walkedforward, their eyesscanning thewalls,Willlooked back at theothers. “Can yousqueeze behind thatrock?”

Joe saw the rock thatWill meant andinvestigated. Straightaway, he saw that therewas a pile of rubble all

aroundit.Frowning,heglanced

up and saw that thereseemed to be some sortof hole, and that waswhere the rock hadfallen from. Peeringcloser, he couldn’t seeanendtothehole,sohewhispered to the others.“LookwhatI’vefound.”

The others camecloser and saw thehole.Will looked back at the

men who were nowhalfway through thecave.Theyprobablyhadtwenty seconds or sobefore they would bediscovered.

“Into the hole,” Willwhispered.“It’souronlychance.” He scrambledpast Joe and crawledintothehole.

Joe waited for thegirls to climb in beforehedid.Lookingback,he

saw that the men werealmost on him and so,withoutwaitingforAmyto fully disappear fromview,heclimbedin.

In his haste to hurry,Joe squeezed up againstthe side of the hole andtriedtogetevenwithhissister, but he regrettedthisassoonastherocksstartedtofall.

Chapter 17: AWayOut

The landslide onlylastedafewseconds,butit felt like minutes.Scrambling forward,Amy and Joe bumpedinto the others who hadstopped.

Hearingtherocksfallbehind them, Will

moved forward a bitmore and realised thatthe tunnel was nowwider and taller. “Youcanstandupoverhere.”

“I can’t see,” Sarahwhimpered.

“I’ll put out myhand,”Willsaid.

Soon, they were allstanding in the darknessandtouchingeachother.“Thatrockfallcausedusto lose the light,” Joe

stated.“Wemightbeableto

move the rock fall,”Amy said. “After all, itonly went for a fewseconds.” She movedback along the tunnelandhad just reached thespot when the roofrumbled and caved inagain. This time, it waslouder than before andwentonforlonger.

“Amy!” Joe called

out as he scrambledtowards the sound. Hecouldn’t seeanything sohe had to use his handsto feel around. He feltsomething soft andpulled his sister out ofharmsway.

“Thanks,” Amy said.“Thatwastooclose.”

The twowalkedbackto the others. “There’sno way we can get outthatend,”Joesaid.

“Well, the tunnelseems to keep on goingat this end, so let’s stoptalking and walk,” Willsuggested. “We don’tknow howmuch air wehave in this tunnel. Thesooner we get out ofherethebetter.”

“It’s just like thetunnel underneathBrackneshCastle,”Amysaid.

“Except this one is

bigger.” Joe stretchedhis hands out wide andfound that, while itwasn’t the width of hisarms, it was still quitebig. “I’ll lead the way.We can hold hands tokeeptogether.”

It was slow going astheyfelttheirwayalongthe tunnel. Joe soonrealised that this wasn’tan ordinary tunnel and,as it widened and got

taller, an idea sprunginto his mind. “Let’sstopforamoment.”

“Why?”Amyasked.“I just thought of

where this tunnel couldlead,”Joereplied.

“Where?” Willquestioned.

“To the mine,” Joestated.

“Why do you saythat?”Amyasked.

“Well, I don’t see

why smugglers wouldcreate this tunnel, and itseems too big and tallforanaturaltunnel,”Joereplied.

“That does makesense,” Will said. “Themineisquitecloseby.”

“And we didn’texplore all the tunnels,”Amysaid.

“So, now that wethink we know wherethetunnelleads,whatdo

wedo?”Sarahasked.“Continue,” Joe said.

“It’sallwecando.”With renewed hope,

the children resumedwalking. They had losttrackoftimedowninthedarkness and so, whenJoecame toahalt sometime later, they didn’tknowhowlongtheyhadbeenwalking.

“What’s up?” Willasked.

“We’ve come toanother tunnel,” Joesaid. “I’ve been feelingaroundandIcan’ttouchany rock, so that’s whyI’m assuming this onehas joined with anothertunnel.”

“Which way do wego?”Sarahsaid.

Will thought aboutwhat direction they hadbeen travelling in. “Iwould say that themine

entrance is closer to theright than the left. So ifwehaveanoption togoright,Isaywetakeit.”

Joe walked into themiddle,oratleastwherehe thought the middlewas. Everyone spreadout and ascertainedwherethewallswere.

Deciding that theymay as well followWill’s suggestion, theyheadedright.Thistunnel

seemed much straighterthan the other one andthis confirmed that theywere probably in themine.

Theywereall feelingthe cold from their wetclothes and the coldtunneldidn’t help. EvenWill,whopridedhimselfon being tough, wasstarting to get reallycold. He didn’t knowhow the girls were

taking it, but he hopedthat theywould soonbeout of the tunnel andsitting beside a roaringfire. Imagining the firealready, Will continuedon.

Suddenly, Joe calledout. “I think I see lightupahead.”

The others lookedover his shoulder andsaw a glimmer of light.Eager to see where it

was coming from, theyhurried forward. Thelight grew brighter andthey saw that itwas theentrancetothemine.

They rushed forward,all eager to be the firstoneoutintothesunlight.Reaching anintersection, Joestopped.“Hey,that’sthetunnelwewentdown.”

Will nodded. “Yes.And at the time we

wonderedwherethisonewent.”

“Well, now weknow.” Joe hurriedforward and was soonclimbing up the metalladder. As the othersscrambled up after him,he stepped onto thegrass. The sun shonedown on him, instantlymakinghimfeelawholelotwarmer.Helaydownonthegrass.“Phew,it’s

good to be out in theopenagain.”

Theothersjoinedhimas they soaked up thewarmth of the sun. “Icouldn’t agree more,”Amysaid.

“Especially since ourclothes are wet,” Sarahpointed out. “I’m nevergoing into that mineagain.”

“Well, there’s noneed to go down it

again,”Will said. “Nowthat the men think thatwe’ve drowned, theywon’t bother trying tohide what they are upto.”

“But firstwe have togetdry,”Amysaid.“IfIstayintheseclothesanylonger,I’llfeel that theyarepartofmybody.”

“What about thesmoke? Won’t the menseeitandwonderwhere

it’s coming from?” Joequestioned.

“Aslongasthewoodis dry and we don’tcreate too much smoke,we’ll be fine.” Willlooked up at the sun. “Idon’tknowwhat time itis since my watch wasdamaged in the water,but it will getting darksoon,solet’sgetgoing.”

They stood up andwalkedtothespotwhere

they had camped thefirstnight.Afterpickingup the wood that theyhad put there theprevious night, theymade their way to thebeach.

The boys soon had asmallfiregoingandtheyrealisedthat,inorderforthemtodrytheirclothes,theywouldhavetomakeabiggerfire.

“It’s the only way,”

Joesaid.“Wecouldwaittillthemenleave—”

“Whywould themenleave?” Sarahinterrupted.

“If they’re thieves,they have to steal fromtime to time, right? So,theywouldhavetoleavethis island to do it,” Joesaid. “They probablysneakawayintheirboatto the mainland, stealsomething, and bring it

backhere.It’salmosttheperfectsetup.”

Amy frowned.“Almost?”

“Yes. They didn’texpect us to camp hereand put a stop to theirplan,”Joesaid.

“But we haven’tstopped them.We don’teven know much aboutthem,”Amyargued.

“I know, but wewill.”Joefrownedashe

saw a bunch of smokeblowingupfromthefire.“Hey,whoputthatdampbranchon?”

Nooneanswered.Joereached forward andtried to take the branchout but it was alreadyhalf alight. There wasnothing he could doaboutit,soheletitburn,hoping that the menwouldn’t spot thesmoke.

Chapter18:TheBigSearch

As time passed, theclothesbegantogetdry.The children, all wornout from their swim inthewaterandthetrekinthe tunnel, lay downbeside the fire and hadsoondozedofftosleep.

Wakingupsometimelater, Joe realised that it

wasquitelate.Theglowfromthesettingsunwasjust visible above thehorizon. He estimatedthat they had half anhour or so beforedarknessarrived.

He woke the othersand, together, decidedwhat to do.While Amyand Sarah went back togetthetorchesandsometinned food, the boyswould stir up the fire.

Their clothes weremostly dry, but theirshoes were still dampand they didn’t want tobewalking inshoes thatwerestillwet.

Oncethegirlsarrivedback,thechildrenplacedallthedampstuffclosestto the fire which wasroaringoncemore.

As darkness spreadacross the island, JoeturnedtoWill.“Weneed

to have another look inthecabinwherethemensleep.”

“But that womandidn’t find the paintingsthere,”Sarahsaid.

“Iknowthepaintingswon’t be there, but it’sthebestplacetostartthesearch,”Joereplied.

“But we can only dothat if themenleavetheisland tonight,” Amysaid. “I knowwe talked

about this before, butthey wouldn’t leaveevery night, so whywouldtheygotonight?”

“Theymightnot,”Joeadmitted, “but thenagain, they might. Theyseemed very anxious toget us off the island assoon as possible, andthat might indicate thatsomeone might becoming to pick up thepaintings. And, before

that happened, theywould probably want tostealanotherpainting.”

“That makes sense,”Will agreed, “but theonly way we’ll know isifwekeepaneyeontheinlet near the cabin. Ifanyone is going to beleavingtheisland,itwillbefromthatpoint.ButIcan’t see them leavingfor a while, so let’s eatsomefoodfirst.”

After a quick meal,they smothered the firewith sand, picked upeverything that waslyingaround,andmovedoff.

~It seemed as though

severalhourshadpassedbefore a bobbing lightcould be seen, but itcouldhavebeenmoreorit could have been less

as Joe had no way ofknowing. He woke theothers who were dozingon the grass above thebeach.

They peered throughthe bushes as theywatched themanwith aponytail and glasseswalk along the beachand disappear fromview.

“Iwonderwherehe’sgoing,”Willmuttered.

“Hopefully, he’sgoing to get the boat,”Joe said. “They musthave one hiddensomewhere.”

“But we’ve searchedalong the shoreline,”Amymuttered.

“Well, we’ll soonsee,”Joesaid.

Everyone fell silent.Inside five minutes, amoving light could beseennear thewoodas if

someone was walkingtowardsthebeach.Sincethewindwasblowingintheirdirection,theywereabletoheartalking.

“It’s two men,” Joesaid. “Now, if the firstone appears with aboat…”Hepausedashesawa light in thewater.He picked up thebinoculars and lookedthroughthem.

“What can you see?”

Sarahasked.“It’s a rowboat,” Joe

replied.“Ithastobetheman who we saw justbefore. He’s justbeachedthecraftandthemen are now climbingon board. Now they’repushingoff.”

Will took thebinoculars from Joe andgazed through them. “Itwill take some time toget to the mainland and

back again, not tomentionhowlongitwilltake to steal a painting,if that’s what they’redoing.”

Joe nodded. “We’llhave quite a few hours,butwe don’t know howlong it will take to findthe paintings, and we’llhave to move slower inthedarkness,solet’sgetgoing.”

“Hadn’t we better

waitafewmoreminutesuntil the men disappearfromsight?”Amyasked.“If they were to see aflashoflight,theywouldheadstraightback.”

“Good thinking.”Will looked backtowards the mainlandand waited for therowboat to disappearfromview.

~

AsAmyfollowedJoeinto the cabin andlookedaround,shecouldsee that there were justthe basics. Somesleeping bags, sometinned food, a lamp,some matches, and acoupleofrucksacks.

JoeandWillsearchedthrough the rucksackswhile the girls wentthroughtheotherstuff.

“There can’t be any

paintings here, or thatwoman would havefound them,” Amy saidas she stood up andsurveyedthecabin.

“Well, itwasworthatry.” Joe pulled out ascruffy bird book fromone of the rucksacks.“This is probablywherethey got the informationabouttheDodofrom.”

“But what about thepaintings?” Sarah said.

“There’snothinghere.”“I didn’t think the

paintings would behere,”Joeadmitted,“butI did think we mighthave been able to findsomething that wouldgive us a clue to wheretheywere.”

The children quicklysearched the rest of themen’s belongings, but itdidn’t help. Leaving thecabin, Will shone the

torch around. “Whereshallwesearchnext?”

“There were one ortwo caves over on theother side of the islandthat we didn’t searchbefore as it was hightide,”Joesaid,“butnowthatitisalmostlowtide,weshouldbeablesearchthem without gettingwet.”

Everyone agreed thatthis was the best move,

so they moved off andheadedtothecaves.

Ittooktenminutestosearchthetwocavesandnothing was found.Disheartened, thechildren sat on the sandand discussed what todo.

“Well,” Joe said,“there’s only thelighthouseleft.Ifthey’renot in there, I don’tknowwhere theywould

be.”“With it being low

tide,it’sthebesttimetoget across.” Will stoodupandwalkedaway.

The others followedhim, the lights from thetorches bobbing to andfroastheywalked.

~The moon shone

brightly as the childrenarrived at the rocks.

Sinceitwasalmostafullmoon, they could seeevenwithout using theirtorches that the rockshadnowaterover them.Infact,thewaterwassolow that even some ofthesandwasvisible.

Joe was the first oneto step onto the rocksand the others followedhim.Therocksprobablyhadn’t had water onthemforoveranhourso

they weren’t slippery,butwalkingacross themwas still somewhatperilous as they werejaggedinplaces.

When they arrived atthe lighthouse, Joewentto the door and twistedthe handle. Nothinghappened. “I wonderwhyit’slocked.”

Sarah’s green eyesgleamed.“Goodness,thepaintings must be in

there!”“Not necessarily,”

Willsaid.“Itcouldhavebeen lockedbywhoeverlast operated it. If theyleteveryoneinthere,theplacewouldbedamagedinnotime.”

“I still think thepaintings are in there,”Sarahsaid.

“Well,wecan’tproveiteitherway.”Joegazedupwards at the railing

that went around thelittle platform at the topofthelighthouse.“Ifwecould somehow get uptherewecouldgetin.”

“What about using arope?”Amysuggested.

Joe shook his head.“You couldn’t throw aropethatfarup.Besides,itwouldneedtosupportyour weight as youclimbed,soitwouldalsoneed to grip onto

something. No, I’mafraid that’s out of thequestion.”

Willtried toopen thedoorhimself.When thatdidn’t work, he pushedagainstit.Butthatdidn’tworkeither.

The girls shivered asa big wave smashedagainsttherocksnearby,covering them in astreamofspray.

“Let’s move on,”

Amy said. “There’s nouse standing here if wecan’tgetin.”

“So what do yousuggest we do?” Joeasked.

Amy shrugged. “Idon’t know. But I’mgetting tired of walkingaround.”

“Let’s head back tothe campsite,” Willsuggested.“Ican’t thinkofanywhereelsewecan

search for the paintings,and from there we cankeepwatchforthemen.”

“Ifwefollowthemenwhen they return, theymight lead us to wherethey’re hiding thepaintings,”Joesaid.

“Exactly,”Willsaid.

Chapter 19:KeepingWatch

It didn’t take as longto setupcampas it hadthe other night sincethey only had one tentand half of theirbelongings.

Joe suggested thatWill take thefirstwatchwhile he and the girlsgotsomesleep.Willwashappy to do that, so hetookthebinocularsandatorchandwalkedup the

hill.As the girls climbed

intothetent,Joedecidedto start a fire to keepwarm. After warminghis hands, anoverwhelming tirednesscameoverhimsohelaydown.

After sleeping for awhile, Joe was shakenawake by Will. Hegroggily stood up “Didyouseeanything?”

“Not a single thing.”Will handed the torchand binoculars to Joeand laydownbeside thefire.

AsJoeclimbedupthehill, he was glad that itwasn’t too far away,though it still felt like atrekinthemiddleof thenight. Reaching the top,he turned off his torchand sat down. Peeringupwards,hesawthatthe

moonhadgonebehindacloud.

A cold breeze wasblowing across theisland and he stood upandpacedbackandforthto keep warm. He didthis for tenminutes andsat down. Peeringthrough the binoculars,he looked towards theinlet.Nothingoutof theordinary could be seen.Hehadnoideawhenthe

men would return. Forall he knew, they couldbe gone for a day oreventwodays.

Heput thebinocularsdown and thought abouteverything that hadhappenedinthelast twodays. It had been anaction packed time, butalso scary. It wasn’t asthough he was scarednow, but when he hadbeensearchingforSarah

in the water, that hadbeenscary.Hewasgladthat they weren’t goingtobuildanother raft, forthe same thing mighthappenagain.

He thought aboutwhat his parents wouldsay when they learntabout everything thathad happened. Theywouldn’t be happy but,if themenwere caught,they would be proud of

them.He didn’t know how

longhe sat staringupatthe stars but, as hiseyelids began to closeand he got sleepy, hethought that he wouldheadbackdownthehill.He hurried down andfoundthefirealmostoutandWill fast asleep.Heputsomemorewoodonthe fire and went towakethegirls.

Peeringinthetent,hesaw his sisterspeacefully sleeping anddecided that he wouldtake thenextshift.Theywere younger than himand, especially after theswimming drama, Sarahneededall the sleep thatshecouldget.And ifhewokeAmy,Sarahmightalsowake.

Afterwalkingbacktothefire,hedecidedtolie

downandwarmupforafew minutes beforeheadingbacktohispost.He laydown, closedhiseyes, and before heknew what hit him, hewasfastasleep.

He woke as the firstrays of sunshineappeared over thehorizon. Stumbling tohis feet, he realised hehad been asleep forhours. But before he

could be annoyed withhimself,heheardanoiseinthesky.

Looking towards thesound, he spotted aseaplane as it flew overthe island. He shookWill awake beforecalling to the girls whowerestillsleepinginsidethetent.

As the girlsscrambled out, Joelooked up at the sky

again, but the seaplanehadvanishedfromview.He could still hear itthough, so it wassomewherecloseby.

“What is it?” Amysaid.

“A seaplane. If weclimb to the top of thehillwemightbe able tosee it land.” Joe hurriedtowards the hill, theothers racing after him.Puffing and panting,

theyarrivedatthetopofthehillintimetoseetheseaplaneintheinletasittaxiedacrossthewater.

“They must have abig operation,” Willstated.

“Why do you saythat?”Amyasked.

“Because it wouldcost a ton of money tobuy that machine, notcounting the petrol thatthey would use—”Will

said.“But aren’t some

paintings worth a lot ofmoney?” Sarahinterrupted.

“Yes, but what I’msaying,” Will said, “isthat this isn’t somethingwhich these men dofrom time to time.Theymust be getting awholelotofmoneytokeepthisoperation going, whichmeansthatwehavetobe

extra careful. I hate tothink what wouldhappen to us if theycaughtus.”

“Let’s get a closerlook,”Amysuggestedasshe saw the menlowering a dinghy intothe water. Withoutwaiting for a response,she hurried down thehill.

By the time thechildren arrived at the

beach, the dinghy wasbeachedonthesandandthemenhaddisappearedfromsight.

“Where do you thinkthey’ve gone?” Sarahasked.

“Idon’tknow,buttheonly reason someonewould land here wouldbe to deliverinformation, bringsomething, or takesomething,” Joe said.

“And since we knowpaintings are beingtaken, it would seemmost logical if theycame here to take thepaintings away to sellthem.”

From the shelter ofthe bushes, the childrenwatched as the pilotemerged from the trees.He was carrying anumber of rolled-upobjects.

“They must be thepaintings,”Willsaid.

Reaching the dingy,the man took the oarsandrowed.Whenhegotto the seaplane, heclimbed out anddisappeared inside withthe objects. A fewmoments later, hestepped back into thedinghy and rowed backto the shore. Afterpulling the dinghy up

against the sand, heheaded in the directionofthewood.

Will waited till hewas sure that the manhaddisappeared into thetreesbeforehespoke.“Ijust thought ofsomething.”

“What?”Sarahasked.“Oneofuscouldhide

aboard that seaplaneand, when it lands, tellthe police aboutwhat is

happening on thisisland,”Willsaid.

Joe nodded. “Thatcouldwork.”

“But we don’t haveany idea of where themachine will fly to,”Amysaid.

“Anywhere is betterthan here. We haven’tseen any boats passcloseby, except for thatsole police boat and,with the Lazy Lucy

sunk,we have to take achance. But we have tomake a decision fast.”Will looked at theothers. “Can anyonethink of a bettersuggestion?”

Joe thought for amoment. “No, but whowouldgo?”

“It should be me oryou,” Will said. “And,since I thought of theplan, I’ll go.” He stood

up and looked at Joe.“I’ll need you to comewithmesoyoucanrowthedinghyback.”

“What can I do?”Amyasked.

“I’ll need you andSarah to head for thecabin and keep watch.Letusknowthemomentyou see someonecoming,”Willsaid.

Asthegirlsracedoff,the boys headed for the

dinghy. Climbing in,Will took the oars androwed as hard as hecould. The seaplanewasn’t a great distanceaway, so it didn’t taketoolongtogetthere.

“Goodluck,”JoesaidasWillsteppedonto themachine.

“Thanks,I’llneedit,”Will replied. “Oh, itmight be helpful if youlisten to the men from

time to time. If I do getcaptured, the pilot islikely to contact themsomehow.”

Joe nodded. “Let’shope that neverhappens.”

Will turned anddisappeared inside themachine. Joe grabbedtheoarsandrowedback.Glancing back towardsthebeach,hespottedthegirls racing in his

direction.As the dinghy

touched the sand, Amyyelledout.“Hurry!”

Joefollowedthegirlstowardsthenearestbushand lay down justsecondsbeforethepilotsemerged from the woodand walked across thesand.

As the men rowedtowards the seaplane,Joe looked at the girls.

“Thatwasclose.”“I hopeWill found a

good place to hide,”Sarahsaid.

“We’ll soon findout,”Amysaid.“If theystart the engines and flyaway, we’ll know theydidn’tseehim.”

The children waitedanxiouslyasthemengotready to depart. Theengines started and thepropellers spun around.

A moment later, theseaplane taxied acrossthe water, gatheringspeedasitdidso.Itroseabove the water,climbed, and banked totheright.

Chapter 20:DestinationUnknown

Will felt a bump as

the machine hit thewater. It taxied for aminute or so before itstopped and the engineswereswitchedoff.

Not daring to move,Will listened carefully.With any luck, the menwould leave and comeback for the paintingslater.Thatway,hecouldtake the paintings andshowthemtothepolice.

While he was

thinking, the men’svoices suddenly gotlouder. Will held hisbreath. He could hearthem close by and heheard objects beingmoved. Then, he heardthefootstepsmoveawayand,amoment later, theplanetippedslightly.Heassumed it was themenstepping off and, as thevoices got quieter, herealisedhewasright.

Hewaitedabitlongerbefore he peeled backtherugandstoodup.Heknew they would be onwater, but he didn’tknow if it would be alakeorthesea.

The cabin windowsweresodirtythathehadtotaketherugandwipea spot clean before hecould see through them.Once this was done, hedropped the rug and

peeredthrough.The plane was

mooredagainstapierbythe side of a large lake.He couldn’t see anyonefor a moment, and hewonderedwherethemenhaddisappearedto.

Hethenheardacarasit spluttered to life.Looking towards thecabin,hesawdustspiralinto the air as a vehicleroareddownadirttrack.

Satisfied that bothmen were probably inthe car, he lookedaroundthemachine.Thepaintings were missing,just as he had expected.Unfortunately,therewasnothing else that thepolice would beinterested in, so hehurried to the front oftheplane.

After opening thedoor,hesteppedontothe

pier and looked around.Henoticedthatthewoodencircled almost theentirelake.Itlookedlikeaverydesolatespot.

Even though the sunwas shining, a coldbreeze was blowingacrossthelake.Rubbinghis hands together in anattempt get keep warm,he walked quicklytowardsthewood.

Arriving at the dirt

trackthatthevehiclehadgone down, he startedwalkingalongit.Afterawhile,hewasgladtoseeit joined with a biggerroad.

Suddenly, he heard anoise. It was a carheading towards himalongthemainroad.Thenoise of the engine gotlouder as it approachedand Will waved hisarms.

The vehicle whizzedpast, the driverobviously not seeinghim.Willracedontotheroad and waved hishands at thedisappearing car. Hehoped that the driverwouldglanceinhisrear-view mirror and stop,butthisdidnothappen.

As the vehiclerounded a bend anddisappeared from view,

Willputhishandsdown.He had been just a fewsecondstoolate.

Withhishands inhispockets, he went downthe road in the directionthat the car had comefrom. He knew it wasstill relatively early, buthehopedtherewouldbemorecarscomingsoon.

Will continuedwalking for ten minutesuntil he had reached an

intersection. Except forthat very first one, hehadn’t even heard avehicle, let alone seenone.

He walked up to thesignpost and stared atthe names of the townsin disbelief. They didn’tat all look like Britishnames!He had assumedhe was in England orScotland, but now heknew he wasn’t. He

suddenly saw a namethat he recognises andgasped. He was inFrance!

He should haverealised that it was theobvious place. Apainting could be stolenat night in London andbe sold at noon in Parisbefore it was evendiscovered to bemissing.

Hearing a noise, he

turnedaroundandsawacarcomingtowardshim.Smiling, he stepped outinto the middle of theroadandwavedhisarmstoandfro.

The vehicle sloweddown and Joe hurriedovertothedriver’sside.“Do you speakEnglish?”

“Yes,why?” themansaid, speaking Englishwith a thick French

accent.Will’sfacebrokeinto

asmile.“Ineedtogotothe police station. Canyoutakemethere?”

The man frowned.“Whydoyouwanttogothere?”

“Ineedtellthepoliceaboutsomemenwhoarestealing paintings,”Willsaid.

The man lookedshockedforamomentor

two,but thenhe smiled.“Climb in the back andI’ll drive you to thenearesttown.”

“Thanksheaps.”Willopened the passengerside door and saw thatthere was a personsitting in the back. Hestared into the man’seyes and froze. It wasthepilotoftheseaplane!

Startled,Willsteppedbackwards. Before the

mancouldsayanything,he turned and racedaway. He heard a dooropen as the man yelledout.“Hey!Comeback!”

Will lookedbackandsaw that both men hadclimbed out of thevehicle and werehurrying towards him.He could see that theexpressions had nowchangedandheregrettedhavingtoldthemwhyhe

wantedthepolice.However, there was

nothing he could doaboutitnow.Hearrivedat the wood and ranthough the trees, hismind in a whirl. Howcould he have been sostupid? He should havemade sure that theyweren’t thepilotsbeforehetoldthemhistale.

Willcouldheartwigssnapandbranchesbreak

as the two men chasedhim through the wood.Unfortunately, thewoodwasn’t really thickenough to lose hispursuers. He continuedon for three or sominutes, but still theychasedhim.

Glancing around, hesaw they were gainingground. He would haveto leave the wood andtry another tactic.

Heading towards theroad,hewassoonat theedge of the trees.Pausing for a moment,he caught sight of somecows that were grazinginthefieldopposite.

He tore across theroad to the fence.Climbing through it, heglanced back to see ifthe men were stillfollowing him, whichthey were. He ran past

thecows,mostofwhichtook littlenoticeofhim,but thenhe caught sightof a bull that waslookingathim.

Slowing down, helookedawayandtriedtohide behind the variouscowsthathepassed.Butwhen there were nomore cows, he saw thatthe bull was still there.Anditwascloser.

Seeing that the fence

was just up ahead, heknewwhathehadtodo.Pausingforamomenttoget his breath back, hesaw that the men wereclosingin.

They startedshouting, and Willrealisedtheyhadn’tevennoticed the bull. As theanimal looked towardsthe men, he knew thiswas his one and onlychance.

He ran towards thefence just as the bulltrotted towards themen.Willdidn’t lookbackashe ran, but when heheard a number ofshouts, he knew thattheyhadseenthebull.

However, he didn’tstop running. He knewthat as soon as the bullwanted to, the animalcould charge after him,so he ran like thewind.

Not until he climbedthroughthefencedidhepause and look acrossthefield.

As he did so, a shotwas heard and the bull,whichwasquiteclosetoone of the men, turnedaround and bolted. Willassumed that the otherman, who had reachedthe fence, had fired agun into the air to scaretheanimalaway.

As the second manlimped towards hisfriend,Willknewthathewould never have abetter chance to escape.Withanewfoundrespectfor bulls, he gazedaround at thesurrounding area andsaw that there was afield of corn growingquite close by, justacrossasmallstream.

There was a road on

theothersideofthefieldand, even better, whatlooked like a vehiclewas parked on the edgeofit.

Hoping thathelpwasnot far away, Willwalked to the stream,jumped over it, andhurried through thecornfield. He glanced backfrom time to time, butcouldn’t hear or seeanyone. Maybe, just

maybe, the chase wasover.

As Will walkedbetween the plantswhich were just belowhis height, he wastempted to pick somecorn as he was hungry,but he resisted thetemptation andcontinuedon.

Will hadn’t glimpsedhis pursuers since theincidentwiththebullso,

as he reached the otherend of the field andwalked towards thevehicle beside the road,herelaxed.

Hecaughtsightofanold man and his dogsittinginthecarandwasjust about to wave atthem when a noisestartled him. Lookingleft, he saw dust swirlaround as a car roareddowntheroad.

Willpausedforjustamoment as the carstoppedandoutclimbedhis pursuers. They sawhim at once and gavechase.

Willturnedandracedback into the corn. Heknew that the menwould soon overtakehim,sohewouldhavetotry something else. Hequickly dropped to theground and began

crawling. Itwashardonhishandsandkneesbut,if he could confuse themen,hemightget luckyandescape.

Movingas silently ashe could, he heard themen stop. A momentlater, he heard two setsof noises in differentdirections and realisedtheyhadseparated.

Knowing that hecould never outrun

someone on his knees,Will paused and stayedassilentashecould.Aslong as the man didn’tcrawl about like he wasdoing,thechanceofhimfinding him was small.Will waited until thesound was far awaybefore he continuedcrawling.

Suddenly,therewasarustling noise and thecorn stalks in front of

himparted,revealingthefaceofthepilot.

Will leapt tohis feet,but before he could run,thesecondmanappearedfrom the other side andhe knew that he wastrapped. Seeing thattherewasapistoltuckedinto the man’s trousers,he raised his hands insurrender.

“Thought you couldescape, hey?” the pilot

said, grinning as he ledthe way out of the cornfield. “I thought I’d trysomething smart andstay where I was for aminute or two, and itpaidoff.”

“Yougotlucky,”Willsaid.

“Not at all. If wehadn’t caught you herewe would have caughtyou somewhere else.”The pilot laughed as he

dragged Will towardsthecar.

Chapter 21: AChance ToEscape

The girls and Joewere talking amongstthemselves by the tentwhen Joe paused andfrowned as he heard a

sound rising and fallingonthewind.Hetookthebinoculars and peeredthroughthem.

Nothing could beseenat first,but thenhesaw a speck in the sky.“The seaplane isreturning.”

Amy stood up as themachine approached.“Are you sure it’s thesame one that landedhere?”

Joe nodded. “It looksto be the same.”He fellsilentastheplaneturnedtowards the inlet. “Let’sgo and see whathappens.”

Theyhurried towardsthe place where theseaplane had taken offfrom only a few hoursago.

As they arrived andhid behind the bushes,they saw the two pilots

rowing the dinghytowards the shore. InbetweenthemwasWill.

“Sotheycaughthim.”Joe punched his fistagainst the palm of hisother hand angrily.“That’snotgood.”

“I wonder how,”Sarahsaid.

“Let’sgotothecabinand see if we can findout,”Joesuggested.

They waited for the

men to land and headtowardsthewoodbeforethey followed them.They didn’t want to gotoo close in case theywere spotted, so theywere just nearing thecabinwhentheysawthepilotandco-pilotleave.

Joeandthegirlskneltdown to avoid beingseen.Oncetheywereoutof hearing, Amy spoke.“Iwonderwhere they’re

going.”“Backtotheplaneby

thelooksofit,”Joesaid.“Are they going to

takeoff?”Sarahasked.“Let’s go and see.”

Joe followed the paththat the men had takenand paused at the edgeofthewood.Hewasjustin time to see the menrowingtotheaeroplane.

Within a matter ofminutes, the machine

had roared to life andwas taxiing across thewater. Once it hadenough speed, it liftedoff and banked to theleft.

“I wonder if they’regoing back to wherethey came from,” Joesaid.

“Probably,” Amyreplied.

“Idon’tthinkso,”Joesaid.“Theywereheaded

in the direction of themainland when theyflew off just then, butwhen the plane flew in,itappearedtocomefromacross the water.Anyway, it doesn’treally matter wherethey’vegone,weshouldbe seeing what the menaredoingtoWill.”

“You’re right.” Amyfollowed Joe and Sarahbackintothewood.

They couldn’t hearanything,butasKennethleft the cabin, theyfollowed him. Hehurried along the beach.The children tried tokeep up with himwithout being seen, butwhen they rounded abend,hewasnowheretobeseen.

“I wonder where hewent,”Amysaid.

“Well, if we stay

here, he might return.”Joe left the beach andfound someplace nearthe bushes where theycouldseetheentireinlet.Hesatandwaited.

Lessthantenminuteshad passed before Sarahsaw the man in arowboat. “Hemusthavegonetogetthat.”

“Yes, it must havebeen hidden in one ofthe caves.” Joe watched

as Kenneth beached thecraft on the sand anddisappeared into thewood. He turned to thegirls. “If the men learnthatwe’reon the island,they’llstartsearchingforus.”

“Will isn’t going totell the men anything,”Amysaid.

“Well,wedon’tknowwhat’s going on in thatcabin,”Joesaid,“allwe

knowis thatat leastoneof the men intends toleaveinthatrowboatwesawandgosomewhere.”

“What does thatmatter to us?” Sarahasked.

“Well,Ihaveaplan,”Joe said. “If one of ushidinthatrowboat,theycould find the policewhen it lands and getthem to come here. Itcouldbeour lastchance

togethelp.”“Would that rowboat

beable tohidesomeonein it?” Amy said,sceptical.

“Maybe not me oryou,” Joe said, “but Ithink Sarah would fit. Iknowit’srisky,butit’sarisk that needs to betaken.”

“I could go,” Amyvolunteered. “I knowI’mabittallerbut—”

“I’ll be fine,” Sarahinterrupted. “After all, Idid climbup the sideofthatboattheotherweek,and that was muchharder than hiding in arowboat.”

“Hiding in therowboat is only thebeginning,” Joe said.“You’ll have to get tothe nearest policestation.And thatwill beespeciallyhard sincewe

don’twherethemanwillrow to. Hopefully, itwon’t be too far from avillage, but you neverknow.”

“Shall I tell the firstperson I see?” Sarahasked.

“Yes, but count totwo hundred before youclimb out of therowboat,”Joesaid.“Youcan’t wait too long incase the man comes

back, but if you climbout too soon he mightseeyou.”

“So now we justwait,”Amysaid.

Joe nodded. “Yes. Itshouldn’t be too long,though.”

Shortly, Kennethemergedfromthewood.Joe’s heart beat fast ashewaitedforthemantoapproach. As soon as itwas certain that he was

goingtotherowboat,hestood up and brushedpast the bushes until hewas standing on thesand.

He gazed down, allthe while keeping oneeye turned towards theman.Hewanted to givethe impression that hehadn’t seen him.Hearingayell,helookedup.

Kennethwashurrying

towards him. “Hey! Iwant tohavea talkwithyou.”

Even though themanwas smiling, Joe knewthat he was trying totrick him. But, since itwas he who was tryingto trick the man, itwould work in hisfavour tomake themanbelieve that he wasn’tgoingtorunaway.Sohestayedstill,waitinguntil

the last possiblemoment.

Just as Kennethslowed down, Joe tookoffrunning.Withayell,themanracedafterhim.Joe ran up the sand,through the bushes, andonto the grass. WhileKenneth was stillmaking hisway throughthe undergrowth, Joehurriedintothewood.

Joe heard the man

yelloutoncemoreasheranthroughthetreesandhoped that he would beable to lose him in thethick wood. He didn’twanttokeeponrunningforever and so, once hethought that he had agood lead, he pausedbehind a large pine treeandwaited.Hecroucheddown and listened forany sound that wouldindicate that the man

wasclose.But he didn’t hear

anything. Joe’s heartbeat fast. He didn’tknow if this meant thatthemanhadgivenuporifhewasdoingwhathewas doing, waiting forhim to make a move.There was only onething that Joe could do,andthatwaswait.Sohesatstill,listeningashardashecould.

Anumberofminutespassedandherelaxed.Itlooked as though theman had given up. But,justasherosetohisfeet,the sound of a twigbeing stepped on couldbeheard.Hefroze.

~As the beady-eyed

man followed Joe intothe wood, Sarah andAmy emerged from the

bushes and hurriedtowardstherowboat.

“Hurry up!” Amywhispered to Sarah assheracedalong.Shehadno idea howmuch timethey would have and, ifthey didn’t succeed thistime, there was no waythat they could try asecond time using therowboat. It was now ornever.

Reaching the craft,

Amy turned towards thebushes.Noonecouldbeseen. Turning back, shenoticed that the rowboatwas pretty big, one ofthe largest that she hadseen. A tarpaulincovered the rear half ofit.

Aftersteppingintoit,she and Sarah pulledaway the tarpaulin.Underneath were anumberofboxes.

“I wonder what’s inthem,”Sarahsaid.

“I don’t know, but itdoesn’t matter. Let’stake out enough so thatyou can hide.” Amygrabbed a box andcarriedittothebushes.

Sarah did the sameand soon all thatremained was one box.“We’llneedtoleavethisone else the man willknow something is

wrong.”Amy nodded. “Let’s

hope there’s enoughroom.Climbinandsee.”

Sarah stepped in andsat down at the rear oftherowboat.Sheputherlegsasclose togetheraspossible.“Ican’tgetanytighter.”

Amy frowned. “Itwillhavetodo.Itshouldbeallright.”Shemovedthe sole box as close to

Sarah’s feet as possibleand started to put thetarpaulinover it andhersister. “Take care andgoodluck.”

“Thanks.” Sarah’svoice was muffled asAmy covered her facewiththetarpaulin.

Once Amy hadfinished, she glancedback towards the beach.No one was about. Shequickly ran towards the

bushes. After reachingthem, she sat down andwaited.

~Joe grabbed a stick

and prepared to trip theman up as he walkedpast. He waited andwaited, but nothinghappened. He couldn’tstandthesuspense,sohepeered around. Hedropped the stick and

smiledwithrelief.Itwasa rabbit. The animalracedoffintothebushes.

Joe sighed andhurried towards thebeach. He thought hehad given the girlsenough time, but hewouldsoonseeifhewasright.

~Amy watched with

bated breath asKenneth

climbed into therowboat, grabbed theoars,andstartedrowing.There was nothing toindicate that he knewwhat was hiddenunderneath the tarpaulinat the rear of the boar,and she hoped that itwould stay like that forthe whole journey.Hearing a rustling noisebehind her, she spottedJoe emerging from the

bushes.“Did she get in

okay?” Joe asked. Amynodded and handed himthebinocularssothathecould see for himself. He saw that the craftwas steadily gettingfurther and further awayfrom the island. “Let’shope the man doesn’tneed to pull away thattarpaulin.”

“Well, if we see the

rowboat coming backsoon,it’llprobablymeanthat Sarah’s beendiscovered,”Amysaid.

The two childrenstood side by side asthey watched the craftget further and furtheraway. Soon, all thatcouldbeseenwasatinyspeck. Then, even thatwasgone.

Amy turned to Joe.“So, what do we do

now?”

Chapter 22:BicycleMadness

Sarahstayedassilentas a mouse as the manrowed. She had no wayof knowing which waythey were going, butsince Kenneth hadn’tdiscovered her, she

assumedhewasheadingforthemainland.

Timeseemedtostandstillasshelistenedtothewaves lapping againstthesideof theboat.Shecould hear her heartbeating fast, andwondered if the manwould hear it. Sheresisted the urge tocough and, as therowboat came to stop,shewonderediftheyhad

arrived.A moment later, she

gotheranswer.Theboatcreaked as Kennethstood up and climbedout. As least, sheassumed he did, but shecouldn’t be certain. Shelistened as hard as shecould, but all she couldhear was the calling ofseabirds.She thenheardthe sound of a carengine.

Lying still, shequietly counted to twohundred. It seemed along time, and she wastemptedtomovesooner,butshewantedtofollowJoe’s orders, so shestayed there until shehadfinishedcounting.

She pulled back thetarpaulin and stood up.Glancing around, shesaw the rowboat wasmoored next to some

rocksinasmallinletthatwas bordered by a cliff.It was from these cliffsthat seagulls soared intheskyabove.

She looked towardsthelandandrealisedshewould have to climbover a number of rockstoget to the sand.Fromthere, a narrow path ledup the cliff face. Shepaused for amoment ortwo so she could make

certainshecouldn’theartheman.

She couldn’t, so shehurried towards therocks. Her legs were abit stiff after beingcoopedupinsuchatightspace, but she was ableto cross the rockswithoutslipping.

After reaching thesand, she hurried up thepath. As she neared thetop, she slowed down.

Shehadnoideawhatlayatthetopofthecliffandshe didn’t want to becaughtbysurprise.

The path came outnext to a deserted dirtroad. Sarah had no ideawhich way the nearesttownwas,butlookingtothe right, she caughtsight of a house halfhiddenbytrees.

She crossed the roadand walked towards it.

Notknowinghowfarthenearest police stationwould be, she had tofind someone whowould help her. Thoughtheredidn’tappeartobea single soul around,therewasachancetherewouldbesomeoneinthehouse who could helpher.

Sarah was almost atthe front door when itsuddenly swung open.

Her heart caught in herthroat.ItwasKenneth!

She turned and racedaway as fast as shecould.Shedidn’tglanceback, but she could tellby the footsteps that,after a moment’shesitation, the man hadstartedchasingher.

She was so angrywith herself. She hadassumed he would havea car waiting on the

mainland and woulddrive away in it as soonashehadlefttheboat.

But this obviouslyhad not happened.Glancing back, shecould see that he wasgaining. In anotherfifteensecondsorso,hewould be able to reachoutandgrabher.

As she reached theroad, she changeddirectionandrushedinto

the woods. She twistedandturnedasshepushedpast bushes, not takingnotice of the scratchesthatshewasgetting.

She looked back andsaw that the plumpmanwas having moredifficulty gettingthrough the bushes thanshewas.Shewasquietlyconfident of evadingcapture, but then thewood started to thin out

and, before she knew it,she was on the otherside. Pausing for amoment, she saw therewas a small villagenestlednext to thecoastinthevalleybelow.

Sarah knew that shewouldhavetofindsometransport if she was toreach the police stationbefore the man caughther, so she scanned thefields below as she ran

downthehill.

~Amy and Joe gazed

through the bushes. Infront of them was thecabin.Theonlywindowwason the samesideasthem,sotheycouldlookthrough it and seeWill,who was sitting on achair.

Joe watched as theboss paced back and

forthwhilethemanwiththe ponytail stood infront of Will. “We’llneed to cause adistraction if we’re togethimoutofthere.”

“Like what?” Amysaid.

“I don’t know,” Joereplied. “But I can’tthink of any other waythat would get Willreleased.”

Amy suddenly

grinned. “Hey, I justthoughtofsomething.”

“What?”Joeasked.“We could do a

swap,”Amysaid.“But we don’t have

anything that the menwant,”Joecomplained.

“Well,notyet,butwecould,”Amysaid.

Joe frowned as helooked at his youngersister. “What are youthinkingof?”

~As Sarah ran down

thehill,shecaughtsightof a family lying in theshade of a big oak tree.As luck would have it,several bicycles lay onthegroundnearthem.

Glancing back, shesawthattheleadthatshehad managed to getwhile she was in thewood was rapidly

decreasing. She had toget to a bicycle quickly.Her legs were burningwithfatigueandshewasbreathing heavily, butshe couldn’t give upnow. The others weredepending on her to getto the police and shedidn’t want to let themdown.

She finally reachedthe bicycles. Aftergrabbing the smallest

one, she climbed on themachine and hurriedlypedalled away. Seeing anarrow path that ranalong the side of a fieldbefore going down asmall hill and into thevillage,shetookit.

Sheglancedbackandsaw that Kenneth hadalso grabbed one of thebicycles and was ridingafter her. She turnedback and whipped the

wheel to the right toavoid a pot hole. Thegradual downward slopeincreased the bicycle’sspeed and soon itseemed as though shewasflyingalong.

The shops came intoview as she neared thehill and she realised thevillage was roughly thesame size as SmugglersCove.

Hearing a noise, she

looked back and sawthat the man was righton her tail. She hadn’treally expected him togive up, but obviouslyhe had recognised herfrom the island andrealised what she wastryingtodo.

It would be soannoyingtofailsocloseto her objective, so shetook a deep breath andpedalled furiously. The

bicycle sped down thehill, going faster thanshe had ever gonebefore.

She didn’t glancebacktoseewhatthemanwas doing but assumedhehadalsorealisedhowclose to the village theywere and had alsoincreasedhisspeed.

Thepathtookasharpright hand turn at thebottom of the hill and

though Sarah sloweddown, she didn’t slowdown as much as shenormallywould.

The tires on thebicycle screeched overthestonesasshecametotheroadandshegrabbedon the brakes. Thebicycle flew around thecorner too fast, and shewas lucky to make thecorneras she swept intothe main street and

headed towards theharbour.

The bicycle slowlyincreased speed andSarah realised that thebrakesweren’t working.“Ohno!”Sheflewdownthe street, getting fasterandfaster.

Chapter 23:Hidden FromView

Joe stood on thebeach beside the twocaves. “But we’vesearched both of theseand there’s nothing inthem.”

“There must be,”Amy said. “Where elsewould they be storingthe paintings?Remember,thefirsttimewe saw one of the menhewasaroundhere,and

hedisappeared.He’snotlikely to go into anemptycavefornothing.”

She entered the firstcave and, using a torch,led thewayaround.Shemade sure to inspectevery hidey hole. Thetwoofthemleftthefirstcave after five minutesand entered the secondone. This one wassmallerthanthefirstandit tookeven less time to

search.AsAmyleft thecave

and stood on the beach,she switched off thetorch, disappointed. “Ithoughttheywouldbeinthere.”

“I’m sure there’sanother way to distractthemen,”Joesaid.

Amyshookherhead.“No. This isn’t justaboutrescuingWill.”

“No?”Joerepeated.

Amysatdownonthesand.“Ifthatmancomesback from the mainlandandtellstheothersaboutSarah,whatdoyouthinkwillhappen?”

“They’ll leave on theseaplaneassoonastheycan and take thepaintings with them,”Joesaid.

“Yes.Whichmeansifwefindthepaintings,wecan delay them,” Amy

said. “I just wish therewas some way ofknowingwherethatmanwent.”

Joesuddenlygrinned.“I’ve got it! Pretend tobetheman.”

“What?” Amy said,confused.

“I’ll go to thebusheswhereweweretheotherday, and you can walkalong the beach. If Iwave left, you go left,”

Joe replied. “If I waveright, you go right,okay?”

“What will thisprove?”Amysaid.

“I want to know theexact location of theman before hedisappeared,” Joe said.“So get into position.”He turned and racedtowardsthebushes.

Before long, he wasin position. Waving for

Amytostartwalking,hewaited.Asshegotcloserto him, he waved herright,andthenleft.

After fiveminutes ofstepping this way andthat,Joejoinedhissisteron the beach. Standingwhereshewas,hegazedaround.Hewas close tothe caves but,surprisingly, neither ofthe two were oppositehim.Hefrowned.

Amy turned to him.“Sowhatdidthisprove?We know themanwentinto one of the twocaves,so—”

“Or so we thought,”Joeinterrupted.

“What do youmean?”Amyasked.

Joe waved his handsin front of him. “Wherearewestanding?”

Amy frowned. “Infrontofthetwocaves.”

Joesmiled.“Bemorespecific.”

Amy looked againand suddenly realisedthat while she wasstanding in front of thetwo caves, she wasactually standing inbetween the two caves.“Are you thinking whatI’mthinking?”

Joe nodded. “Wesearched the caves, butwe didn’t search the

bushes in between thecaves.” He hurriedforward and the two ofthem were soon at thebushes. It didn’t takelong before he let out ayell. He flung aside apileofbrush to reveal atunnel.

“Golly!” Amyshouted. She looked atJoe.“Youwereright.”

“Let’s see what’s inhere.” Switching the

torchon,Joeenteredthetunnel. Amy was rightbehind him and, aftershereplacedthebrushinits correct place,followedJoe.

~As Sarah whipped

down the street on therunaway bicycle,Kennethshotpastonhismachine. Startled, shegrimly smiled.

Obviously, his brakesweren’t working either.And, since he had beengoing faster down thehill, the extra weightmadehimwhippasther.She only caught aglimpse of the man’sface, but she could seethathelookedscared.

The two bicyclessped down the road.Luckily, there were notmany people walking

along the street, andthosewhowere,quicklyleapt out of the waywhen they saw thebicyclesapproach.

Sarah was trying herhardest to spot a policeofficer, but she couldn’tseeone.Sheknew therewould be a policestation, she would justhavetofinditbeforeshegotcaught.

She thought about

crashing the bicycledeliberately, but didn’twant to risk hurtingherself, so she justfollowed the man downtheroad.

Justup ahead lay theharbour. It was a sharpturnandshedidn’tknowwhether or not theman,at the speed he wasgoing, would make it.He didn’t. She watchedas the front tire of his

bicycle hit the concreteand he catapulted intotheair.

“Yes!”Sarahcouldn’thelpbututtera shoutofjoy as she saw the manhit the water anddisappearfromview.

The smiledisappeared from herface as she approachedthecorner.Grabbing thehandlebars as hard asshe could, she waited

until the right momentbeforeshewhippedthemtotheleft.

The tires screechedon the gravel as themachine neared thewater. She thought shehad just enough roomandthensherealisedshewas going to suffer thesame fate as the man.The bicycle hit theconcreteandsheflewupinto the air. She hit the

water and sank beneaththewaves.

Sarah swam upwardsand, a few momentslater, broke through thesurface. Glancingaround, she spotted theman swimmingpowerfully towards thepier. Her only hopewould be to reach itbeforehim.

She was closer to itthan he was and she

swam as fast as shecould.Fortunately, therewas a teenage boywalking down the pierwho reached out hishand andhelpedher up.“Where’s the policestation?”

Theboypointed.“It’shalfway up that street.Why, is somethingwrong?”

Sarahglancedbehindher and spotted her

pursuer pulling himselfupontothepier.“Ineedto get there before hedoes.”

The boy smiled.“Leaveittome.”

Sarahlefttheboyandranoffinthedirectionofthe police station. Shedidn’t know what theboy hadmeantwhen hehad said that he wouldhelp, but as she raceddown the street, she

heardayell.She looked behind

her and saw Kennethlying facedown on thepier.Theboysmiledandhurried off. She didn’tknow what hadhappened. Maybe theboyhadtrippedhim,butitdidn’tmatter.Themanstumbled to his feet andhurried after her,limping.

Sarah was used to

running around, but itwas clear that the manwasn’t, and the chasewas taking its toll onhim.But she didn’t feelsorry for him.Hewas acrook and he deservedwhathegot.

Sarahraceddownthestreet. Reaching thehalfway point, she sawthe police station.“Yes!”Withasmile,shewalkedup the steps and

wentinside.

~With Joe leading the

way,Amyfollowedhimdown the tunnel, whichwidened into a cave.AsJoe shone the torcharound the space, hecould see why the manhadcomeinhere.

There were boxesstackedbythewallsanda table andchairs in the

middle.Onthetablewasa lampandanumberofpapers.

Upon examinationthey saw that it was apile of maps. Spreadingone out, Joe saw that itwas a map of England.“I wonder what thesecirclesmean.”

“Maybe they aretownsthat themenhaverobbed from,” AmysuggestedassheleftJoe

and walked over to theboxes.

“If so, these menhave been busy. Reallybusy.” After folding themapupandleavingitinthe same condition inwhich he had found it,Joe joined Amy as shepulledoutatin.

“Hey, it’s bakedbeans,” Amy said,surprised.

Joe reached into the

box and pulled outanother tin of food.“This one is peaches.”Heshonehistorchatthebox and they wereamazed at how manytins were there. “Phew.That’salotoffood.”

Amyglancedtowardsthe other boxes.“Especially if thosecontainfoodaswell.”

“They must beplanningtobeherefora

long time.”Amy lookedaround the cave. “Doyou see paintings oranything that might bestolen?”

Joe shook his head.“The paintings wouldprobably get damp inhere,sotheywouldhavetobesomewheredry.”

“But they’re not inthecabinorthechurch,”Amysaid,“and theyaretheonlybuildingsexcept

fortheruinedones—”“They have to be in

the lighthouse,” Joeinterrupted. “It’s theonly answer. It’s dryinside.”

“But how do we getin?”Amysaid.

“Let’swaitandseeifone of the men goesthere,”Joesuggested.“Itshouldbelowtidesoon,so if we hurry to thewood, we might catch

sight of someoneheading to thelighthouse.”

~Joe and Amy had

beensittingbythewoodfor roughlyhalf anhourwhen Luke, the manwith the ponytail andglasses, appeared. Thechildrenduckeddownashewalkedpastthemandheaded towards the

lighthouse.“Looks like I was

right,”Joesaid.But what do we do

now?”Amyasked.Joe waited as Luke

walkedacross therocks.Once the man hadreached the building, hetook a key from hispocket andunlocked thedoor.

“Now’s our chance,”Joesaid.

“But how do we getin without him seeingus?”Amyasked.

“Wejusthavetohopethat he has gone up thestairs for some reason.”Joe walked forward andhurried towards therocks.

The two of themclimbed over the rocksas fast as they could.While low tide hadpassed, thewater hadn’t

yet started to rise, sothey were able to crosstothelighthousewithoutgettingwet.

Joe slowed down asthey reached thebuilding. He put his earas close to the door aspossibleandlistened.Nosound could be heard.HelookedatAmy.“Getreadytorunincasehe’sstilldownbelow.”

As Amy nodded, Joe

grabbedthedoorhandle.He hoped it would beunlocked,butif themanhadlockeditagain,theywould be unable to getin.

Chapter 24:Inside TheLighthouse

The door openedwithout any trouble.

Steppinginside,Joesawthat the place was quiteold. Also, the spiralstairwaywasbiggerthanhethoughtitwouldbe.

Amy looked around.“Nosignoftheman.”

Joe shook his head.“No. Let’s go upstairsand see if there’ssomewheretohide.”

They went up thestairs. They had yet toreacha roomwhen they

heard footsteps. Theman was coming downthestairs!

Joehurriedlyglancedaround.“Shallwegoupordown?”

“Up. We should beclose to one of therooms,”Amysaid.

The two of themhurried up the stairs asfast as they could,hoping the sounds oftheir footsteps would

blendinwiththeman’s.Joe looked up and

caught sight of Lukeabove him and realisedthey were not going tomakeitintime.“Blow!”They raced back downthestepsuntiltheycameto the door. Joe openedit,butpaused.

“What’s wrong?”Amywhispered.

“I just thought ofsomething.” After

closing the door, Joehurriedtothebackofthesteps and croucheddown. He motioned forAmytodothesame,andthey sat in silence asLukecameintoviewtensecondslater.

Without lookingbehind him, the manopened the door, closedit, and locked it. Joecouldn’tactuallyseehimlock it, but as he heard

the key turn, he knewwhat had happened.Listening, he heard thefootsteps of the manfade away. “Let’s hopewehaven’tgotlockedinherefornothing.”

“I’m sure thepaintings are heresomewhere,” Amy said.“Where else could theybe?”

Joe glanced around.“Well, they’renotdown

here.Let’sheadup.”This time, the twoof

them walked instead ofrunning.Theyweresoonat a door. Finding itunlocked, Joe opened it.He smiled. In front ofhim were a number ofpackages that weretubular inshape.“Thoselook like the packagesthat the pilot took thismorning.”

Amyfrowned.“Butif

these are the paintings,whywouldn’t they havetakenallofthem?”

“Well, maybe theyonly deliver the onesthat people have paidfor.” Joe picked one upand saw that it had aname tag on it. It read:TheBlueLotus.

“Isthatthenameofapainting?” Amyquestioned.

“I don’t know. Let’s

open it and see.” Joeundid the string and,with Amy’s help,unravelled what hadbeen packed inside thepaper.

“Yes!” Amyexclaimed in jubilationas she saw a beautifulpainting of a lotusflower. “I wonder howmuchit’sworth.”

Joespottedanameonthe corner of the

painting.Bendingdown,he read what it said.“Vincent van Gough.Hey, I think I’ve heardofhim.”

Amy nodded. “Yes,so have I. My teacherwastalkingabouthim.Ifwhat she said was true,hispaintingsareworthafortune.”

“We should try totakealltheonesthatsayVincent van Gough

then,”Joesaid.“Wecanmanagetwoeach,sothatwillbefour.”

Amyput thepaintingback in its protectivepackaging.“Buthowarewegoingtogetout?Juststroll out the frontdoor?”

“Of course, we…”Joepausedasherealisedthat theman had lockedthe door, trapping theminside. “I guess we

didn’t think the planthrough.But at leastwehavethepaintings.”

“But what are wegoingtodowiththem?”Amyquestioned.

“Well,oneofthemenshould come backeventually, so we’ll tellhim about the swapthen,”Joesaid.

“Sowejustwaithereuntil that happens?”Amyasked.

Joe nodded.“Hopefully, Sarah willbe back with the policebeforeanythinghappens,butifnot,we’lldoadealwiththosemen.”

“What if they don’tagreetothatdeal?”Amysaid.

“Then they don’t getthe paintings,” Joe said.“Either way, I can’t seeanythinghappeningforawhile, so let’s explore

the rest of thelighthouse.”

Leaving the room,theyclimbedup the restofthesteps.Halfwayupthey came to a door.Openingit,theysawthatitwasaverysmallroomwith no windows and alowceiling.

“Why does it smellweird?”Amyasked.

Joe picked up one ofthemanycanswereona

shelf.“It’soil.”Lookingaround, he realised thatthey were all the same.“This room is packedfullofcansofoil.That’swhyitsmells.”

“Why wouldsomeoneneedthismuchoil?”Amywondered.

“To light the lamp,”Joe replied. “I readsomewherethatlampsinlighthouses had to burnoiltokeepalight.”

“Would itbeanyusenow?”Amysaid.

“No, I don’t thinkso,”Joereplied.“Itmusthavebeenhereforyearsand years. Goodnessknowshowlong.”

Leaving the smellyroom, they kept onclimbing up the stairs.There was one finalroombeforethetop,andinside that room was amattress thathadclearly

seen better days, somematches,andalamp.

They climbed up thefinalfewstepsuntiltheyreached the very top ofthe building, which wasthe lamp room. It hadbigwindows all around.The view wasmagnificent. A massivelampstoodinthemiddleof the room. Brokenglasslayonthefloor,sothey had to be careful

wheretheywalked.Joe examined the

lamp. “This probablyhasn’t worked in yearsandyears.”

Amyopenedthedoorandsteppedoutontothegallery. She clutchedonto the railing andlooked down. It was alongway.Shefeltdizzyeven just looking at theground.

Whipping her head

away, she followed Joeas they walked in acircle around thestructure. Since theyweresohigh,theycouldseeformilesandmiles.

Finishing up wherethey started a fewmoments later, Amyglanced towards thebeach. “Canyousee thecabin?Ican’t.”

“No, I can’t see iteither. It’s in a pretty

good hiding place. Idoubt you could see itfrom an aeroplaneeither.” Joe suddenlyclutchedhissister’sarm.“Look!”

As Amy saw one ofthemen appear near thewood, she frowned. “Iwonder where he’sgoing.”

Both of them soondiscoveredtheanswerasthe man left the grass

and walked onto therocks.

“Oh no, why is hecoming back so soon?”Amysaid.

“I don’t know, butwhy does he have arucksack on his back?Unless…” Joe lookedover at his sister. “He’scome to take thepaintingsaway.”

“So, we’re finished,”Amymuttered.

“Not yet. Followme.”Joehurriedintothelamp room and raceddown the steps. Puffing,hearrivedonthegroundfloorhalfaminutelater.Hehurriedovertosomewooden boxes thatwerelined up against thewalls.Tryingtoliftone,he realised it was tooheavy. “Help me liftthis.”

“But—”Amysaid.

“Just help me!” Joeinterrupted.

Amy helped him asthey moved the box tothe door and placed itdown in front of it. Joerantogetanotherboxasfootsteps were heardoutside.

“Hurry! One more.”Joe hurried over to thenext box and theydragged it across thefloor. Just as he heard

the sound of the keysliding into the lock, theboxslidnexttotheotherone.

“Lean against thedoor,” Joe instructed.“We can’t let the manopenit.”

The two of themleaned against the doorjust as the key turnedandthedoorwaspushedopen. It moved a smallbit, but then stopped.

The man yelled out.“Hey! What’s goingon?”

Chapter 25:Kaboom!

Joe motioned forAmy tobequietas theyboth stood there, notdaring to move. Joe

didn’t want to give anyindicationthatitwasjusttwo children that werestopping the man. Hesmiled as he thought ofan idea. In his bestgrownup voice, hestarted speaking. “Howlonguntilthefourpoliceboatsarrive?”

Amy grinned. In herbest adult voice, shesaid, “shouldn’t be toolong. Though the army

will probably arrivefirst.”

“You’re right. Thefifty commandos shouldbe circling the islandnow,”Joesaid.

“What about the twodestroyers? Shouldn’tthey be here?” Amysaid.

“I just receivedwordthatthey’reonschedule.Should be here in thirtyminutes. If only those

men knew what wasabouttohappen.They’llhave no chance toescape.” Joe stoppedspeaking and put afinger to his lips,motioning Amy to bequiet.

A minute later, theymoved a box away andtried to open the door.But they couldn’t. Themanhadlockeditagain.

“Well, at least he

didn’tgetin,”Joesaid.“But we didn’t get

out either.” Amygiggled. “I could hardlykeep a straight face,especially when youtalked about thecommandos.”

Joe laughed as hethought about theconversation that theyhad just had. “Me too.Though, I think youwent a bit far with the

twodestroyers.”“I just said whatever

came into my head,”Amy said. “Hey, hadn’twebetter see if themanisheadingtothecabin?”

“Yes, though wecan’t leave thisunguarded,” Joe said.“We’ll have to split up.I’ll stay here while yousee.”

Amy hurried up thesteps. Joe went over to

thesealedwoodenboxesand felt around for thelightest one. He slowlydragged it across thefloor until it was firmlyupagainsttheothers.Hewas resting on it whenAmyre-appeared.

After sitting downnext to him, sheexplained what she hadseen.“Iwasjust in timetoseethemandisappearinto the wood. I waited

foraminuteorso,buthedidn’t come into view,so I expect he’s nowtelling the others aboutthe destroyers, patrolboats—”

“And thecommandos,” Joeinterrupted. “Goodwork. I managed tomoveonebox,butwe’llneed to move more ifwe’re to stop thosemen.”

~As Will sat on the

chair with his handsbehind his back, hewondered what theothers were up to. Hehadn’t let themenknowanything about what heor the others knew orsuspected, but herealised that sooner orlaterthemenwouldfindoutthetruth.

Marvin was pacingback and forth whenLuke threw open thedoor and rushed in. Hehad a wild look on hisface as he rushedtowards him. “We needto scramble. Thedestroyers will be hereinthirtyminutes.”

Marvinstaredathim.“What the heck are youtalkingabout?”

Luke quickly

explained, his wordsrushing out all at once.“Iwenttothelighthouseto have a look at thepaintings just like youtold me to do, but Icouldn’topenthedoor.”

“What do you mean,you couldn’t open it?”Marvinsaid.

“Therewas toomuchweighton theother sideof the door,” Lukereplied.“Anyway,Ithen

Iheardvoices.Theysaidthat four patrol boatswere coming, fiftycommandos, and twodestroyers. We need tosplit, boss. Whateverhappens, I can’t go tojailagain.”

“Destroyers?Commandos?” Marvinlaughed. “I don’t knowwho said that, but theyfooled you. There’s noway they would be

interested in us. Butthere’sonethingIwouldlike to know – did thevoices sound likechildren?”

Luke thought. “Well,they did sound a bitweird.”

“Just like I thought.”ThebosswalkedovertoWill. “It seems we’vefoundyourfriends.”

“I don’t know whatyou’re talking about,”

Will said. “There’s noone else on the island.We all went on theseaplane together. Iexpect they’re sittinginside a French policestation right at thismoment. If I were you—”

“You’re not, so shutup!” Marvin turned toLuke. “Let’s go and seeif you’re telling thetruth.”

“But what about thedestroyers and—” Lukeargued.

“Shut up!” Marvinturned to the boy andexamined the ropes thatwere around his wrists.“You’ll soon talk whenwe get back with theothers.”

“You can’t keep melockedupforever,”Willstated.

“No, but once we’ve

finished here we’ll bemovingsomewhereelse,somewhere far, faraway.”Thebosslaughedand grinned at Willbefore slamming thedoorshut.

Will waited for aminute.Satisfiedthatthemen had truly gone, heattempted to undo theropes around his wrists.But he couldn’t loosenthem.Itwasevidentthat

the ropes had beenproperly tied bysomeone who knew athing or two about suchthings.

Despite the situation,Will chuckled grimly ashe thought about thedestroyers andcommandoes mentionedby Luke. There was noway that help like thatwas coming, so it musthavebeenatrickplayed

bytheothers.Butwhy?

~Collapsing on the

floor,Joelookedoveratthepileofboxes thatheand Amy had placedagainst the door. “Doyou think that will beenough?”

Amy nodded. “Myarms are too tired tomove more boxes, so ithadbetterbe.Whydon’t

we lie down on thatmattress we saw in theother room? It will besofterthanlyinghere.”

“Okay.Itwillgiveustime to think of whatwe’regoingtodonext.”Joe followed his sisterup the stairs until theycame to the room withthemattress.

Peering out of thesole window, Joe sawthesea.Hesmiled.They

wouldbeabletoseeifaboat passed nearby anditalsoprovided light,sothey could see withouthaving to turn on thetorchallthetime.

They were relaxingwhenJoesuddenlyhearda noise. He sat up. “Doyouhearthat?”

Amy also sat up. “Itmustbethemen.”

“There’s only oneway to find out.” Joe

hurried out of the roomandclimbedupthestepstothelamproom.

Walking out onto thegallery, Joe and Amylooked down. They sawMarvin and Luke tryingtheirhardest toopen thedoor.

Lukesuddenlylookedup and snarled. “Hey!It’sjustkids.”

Marvin shookhis fistinanger.“Openup!”

The children didn’tsay anything, whichseemedtomakethemenangrier. As theywatched, they had aquick conversation.Afterwards, Marvin leftwhile Luke stayedbehindandsatdown.

As Joe walked intothelamproomanddownthesteps,hefrowned.“Iwonderwhattheyintendtodo.”

“Maybe to keep uslocked in here until wegivein,”Amysaid.

“Which will neverhappen,”Joesaid.

“Yes, but they don’tknow that,” Amyreplied. “Besides, whatelsecouldtheydo?”

Joe frowned. “Weshouldhavealookatthepaintings and see ifthere’s a bag orsomething that we can

putsomeinforwhenweleave.”

He searched, butcouldn’t find anything.Going down the stairs,he heard the men comeback. With his facepressed up against thedoor,hewasabletohearwhattheyweresaying.

“We don’t want toblow the entire buildingup,onlythedoor,”Lukesaid.

“Relax.I’veusedthisstuffhundredsoftimes,”Marvin replied. “But,just in case, we hadbetterstandback.”

Joeheardfootstepsasthemenretreatedandherealised what was aboutto happen. Rushing upthe stairs, he paused tograbtwopaintings.

Leaving the room,hebumped into Amy whowascarryingsomerope.

“Ifoundthisintheotherroom. I thought wecould use it to tie thepaintings together, but—”

“The men are goingto blast the door open!”Joe interrupted. “Wehavetogetoutofhere.”

As Joe rushed up thestairs, Amy followedhim. “What shall wedo?”

Reaching the lamp

room, they dropped thepaintings and rope onthe flooras theyopenedthedoorandheadedoutonto the gallery.Lookingdown,theysawthat the two men werenow huddled behind therocks.

Suddenly, a loudexplosion tore throughthesilence.Thebuildingrockedfromsidetoside.Once the rocking had

stopped, Joe sighed.“Phew! For amoment Ithought we were goingtotipintothesea.”

“Me too. They musthave used moreexplosives than theyneeded.” Peering down,Amysaw that therewasamassiveholewherethedoorhadbeenjustafewmoments ago. As shewatched,themenstartedwalking towards the

lighthouse. Amy turnedto Joe, her face one ofdespair. “We’retrapped.”

Chapter26:TheRescue

Joe shook his head.“I’ve got a plan.” Afterrunning into the lamp

room, he grabbed theropeandcameback.Hetied one end to therailing,madesurethat itwastight,thenthrewtherestovertheedge.

Glancing down, hesawwithreliefthattherewasjustenoughtoreachthebottom.“Iknowthisis risky,” Joe admitted,“but it’s theonlythingIcan think of. You gofirst while I delay the

men.”“What about the

paintings?”Amyasked.“I’ll drop themdown

to you before I climbdown.” Leaving Amy,Joe hurried down thestairsasfastashecould.Hecouldhearthemen’sfootstepsas theywalkedupandknewitwouldbeagambleonwhowouldreachtheoilroomfirst.

Luckily, the men

were only walking andnot running, so Joemanaged to reach theroom first. Throwing itopen,he reached for thecans. He grabbed a canand tossed it down thestairs. He repeated thisprocess several times.As he did so, he couldhear yells from themenas they made contactwiththecans.

Looking over the

edgeof the staircase, hesaw that the men werewaiting until the canshad passed them.Hoping this would givehim enough time toescape, Joe rushed upthe steps and into thelamproom.

Taking hold of thetwopaintings,hewalkedout onto the gallery andpeered down. SeeingAmy down below, he

dropped a painting overthe side.Hewasn’t sureifthewindwouldtakeit,butluckilyitdidn’t.

Amy caught it firmlyin her grasp. Afterplacingitontheground,she held out her handsfor the next one. Justlike the first one, shecaught this one withoutanyproblem.

Joe climbed over therailing and prepared to

climb down. Hearing anoise, he realised thatthe men were probablyat the room with themattress.

Clutchingtherope,hepushed away from thebuilding and halfclimbed and half slidtowards the ground. Hewentasfastashecould,but as Amy yelled out,he lookedup to see thatthe men were at the

railing.“Stop or else we’ll

cut the rope!” Marvinyelled.

AmylookedonasJoewent faster. As he didso, Marvin grabbed therope and, using apenknife,triedtocuttheropeinhalf.

“Hurry!” Amyshouted.

Joe hurried, butbefore he could reach

thebottom,theropesplitin half, sending himhurtlingdown!

Luckily, he was onlya few feet from thebottom and he wasn’tinjured.

“Just you wait!”Marvin yelled. Hewaved his fist before heand Luke disappearedfromview.

Joe turned to Amyand reached for one of

the paintings. “We’llhave to run like we’venever run before. If itlookslikeoneofuswillbe caught, the other hastotakethepaintingsandescape.”

Joe hurried towardsthe rocks. Leaping overthem,hehadtotakecaresince the water wasslowlyrising.

Suddenly,abigwaveappeared and crashed

againsttherocksinfrontofthem.Joeskiddedtoastopas thewater rushedovertherocks.“Careful,they’llbeslipperynow.”Going slowly, he madehis way over the rocksandontodryland.

Looking back to seeif Amy was safe, hecaught sight of the menas they emerged fromthe lighthouse.Confident that the men

would have to slowdown just like theyhad,he turned and hurriedintothewoodwithAmyclosebehind.

~It had taken a while,

but as Amy and Joerestedon topof thehill,theywere confident thattheyhadlostthemen.

“So, what do we donow?”Amyasked.

“We need to hidesomeplacewherewecanbe safe from the men,but still know what’sgoingon,”Joesaid.

“Hey, I just thoughtof something,” Amyexclaimed. “If all themen are out searching,they might leave Willunguarded. If so, itwould be the perfecttime to help himescape.”

Joe nodded. “If wecan evade the mengetting there, it mightwork.” He lookedtowards the inlet. “Oncethat seaplane comesback, there will be anextra two men that wewill have to deal with.So now would be thebesttime.”

“If not, we can stilltry to do a swap,”Amysuggested.

“Yes,wecould,but Idon’treallywanttogivethe paintings up thateasily.Now, ifwewereto get Will, we wouldhave him and thepaintings.”Joestoodup.“Let’s get going.” Hefrowned as he sawsomething in the water.As it came closer herealised what it was.“It’stherowboat.”

“Where?” Amy

asked.Joe pointed towards

the inlet and Amy sawthat he was right. Theywatched as the rowboatpulled up against thebeach. Jumping out,Kenneth hurried up thesand.

Joe smiled. “It looksas though Sarah didescapeafterall.”

Amy nodded. “Thequestion is, does he

knowthat?”“Let’s find out,” Joe

replied.

~Peering from behind

thebushes, Joe saw thatthe cabin lookeddeserted.He tried to seethroughthewindow,butit seemed to be evendirtier than before so hecouldn’t make outanything. He turned to

Amy.“I’llgocloserandtrythedoor.”

“Be careful,” Amysaid.

“Run if I yell out,”Joe replied. Tiptoeing,he crept towards thebuilding, not daring tomakehispresenceheardbyanyonecloseby.Notthathethoughtthattherewas anyone near, but itwas better to be safethansorry.

He reached the doorwithout any trouble andtook hold the handle.Before twisting it, heleaned forward andlistened to see if therewasanyoneinside.

He couldhear a faintnoise. It was almost asthough someone wassquirming about. Hecouldalsohearsomeonemuttering to themselves.Hoping that itwasWill,

heswungopenthedoor.It was Will, and he

was all alone. The redhaired boy smiled. “It’sgoodtoseeyou.”

“Same here. I don’tsupposeyoumanagedtoget to the police?” Joeasked.

Will shook his headas Joe went behind hischair and went to workontherope.“I tried,butthey caughtme before I

could. Oh, have youheardaboutSarah?”

Joe shook his head.“She stowed away on arowboat a few hoursago,andwejustsawthemanwhorowed itcomeback,butwedidn’thear—”

“I heard everything.”Willgrinned.“Shemadeit.”

“Good,”Joesaid.“I’ll tell you the

details later on,” Willsaid, “oncewe’re out ofhere.”

“Okay, hey, wheredid theplane land?” Joesaid.

“France,” Willreplied.

“Golly,” Amyexclaimed, “that was alongway.”

Joe whipped roundand saw his sisterstanding by the door. “I

toldyoutokeepguard.”“I know, but I was

worried—”Amysaid.“Okay,” Joe

interrupted, “help meuntieWill.”

Amy went to workand,withWillhelpingasmuch as he could, itwasn’t long before hewas free. He stood upand stretched his arms.“Thatfeelsgood.”

“Let’s not stand

around talking.” Joehurried to the door andgazedout.Noonecouldbe seen. “Let’s go.” Heracedoff.

Chapter 27:Swiss FamilyRobinsonStyle

“So, does everyone

knowwhat theyhave todo?” Joe asked as hegazed up at the treehouse.

“Yes, but I don’tknowwhywe can’t justgo from one place toanother,” Amy said.“The men can onlysearch one spot at atime.Besides, thepolicewillbeheresoon.”

“Well, they shouldbe,butwecan’tbesure.

And, with the menlooking for us, thisseems to be the bestplace to hide.” Joelookedupat thesky.“Itwill be getting darksoon, so let’s get towork.”

They split up, doingwhat needed to be doneto get the tree houseready. While Will wentto fill a bucket withsand,Amygatheredpine

conesthatwerelyingallover theground andputtheminapile.

Meanwhile, Joe wentand found some vines.Finding two long ones,he tied them betweentwo trees that werelocated between thebeachandthetreehouse.He hoped that the menwouldn’t come beforethey were ready, but iftheydid, theymight trip

on them and that wouldgive he and the othersenoughtimetoclimbuptothetreehouse.

AftertellingAmyandWill about the vines sotheywouldn’tbetrippedup, he climbed up thetree. When he reachedthe top, he tied the ropethattheyhadtoabranchand threw the restdownto the ground.Unfortunately, it didn’t

quitereach,sohehadtotie it to a lower branch.This time it reached theground.

When Will cameback, he tied the buckettotheropeandwavedtoJoewho startedhauling.It took a while as thebucket was heavy, butonceitwasatthetop,hetipped the sand out onthe planks and droppedthebucketbackdown.

Thistime,Amyfilleditwithpinecones.Oncethe bucket was full, Joepulled it up. The coneswere much lighter thanthe sand and, beforelong, they were also upontheplatform.

“Is that enough?”Amyyelled.

“Let’s get two morebuckets,” Joe said. “Justin case. It’s better tohavemorethanless.”

Amy, along withWill, disappeared intothe bushes to collectmore cones. After theyhadfoundsomeandtheyhadbeenputinapileinthe tree house, Joeclimbed down andjoinedtheothers.

They went to thecampsite where Joesurveyed theirbelongings. “Anythingthat we could find

useful, we should bringtothetreehouse.Maybeevensleepingbags.”

“That reminds me,”Will said. “The pilottook my torch awayfromme.”

“I wonder where mytorch is.” Joe turned toAmy. “Where did youlastseeit?”

“Well, we used it toexplore the cave, thenyou let me use it at the

lighthouse.” Amythought. “I rememberlying down on thatmattress.Oh,no.”

“What?”Joesaid.“I think I took it out

ofmypocketwhenIlaydownandIbelieveIleftit there,” Amy replied.“Sorry,Ijust—”

“Forget it. Someonewill need to go and getit,”Joe interrupted.“Wecan’t afford to not be

without a light in casethepolicedon’tgetherebefore nightfall and wehave to hold off themen.” He paused as helooked between AmyandWill.“It’smytorch,soIsuppose—”

“I’llgetit,”Willsaid.“I know I haven’t beeninside the lighthousebefore, but I can runfaster than you two andthat will come in handy

ifthemenspotme.”“Isa torch really that

necessary?”Amysaid.“Yes, it is.” Joe

turned to Will andhandedhimtherucksackwhich he had justemptied. “Take this incase you come acrossanything else in thelighthouse that we canuse.”

Will took it.“Iwon’tbegonelong.”Heturned

andhurriedaway.

~As Will came into

sight of the lighthouse,he breathed a sigh ofrelief.Therewasnosignofthemenandhehopedthatitwouldremainlikethis.

Heading towards therocks, he saw that thewaves were splashingover them. Not every

time,butmore thanhalfthe time. He knew thathightidewasonlyafewhours away so this waswhat he had expected.Thiswas another reasonwhyhehadwantedtogoinsteadofJoe.Hefelthewas a better swimmerand, in case he wasswept off the rocks, hehad a better chance ofreachingtheshore.

He had two options.

Either run and hope forthebest,or take it slow.Deciding that he wouldtakeachance,hewaitedforawavetocrashontothe rocks and then, assoon as the waterretreated,heran.

As he arrived at thefront of the lighthouse,he saw how muchdamage had been done.Joe had told him whathad happened, but he

hadn’t realised how bigtheexplosionhadbeen.

He climbed over thepile of rubble andclimbedupthesteps.Hepassed the oil cans and,as he did so, a thoughtcame into his head.Peeringinsideoneofthecans, he saw it wasalmost full. He put thecan inside the rucksackbeforecontinuingup thesteps.

After reaching theroom with the mattress,he searched around,hoping that he wouldspot the missing torch.He grinned as he saw itlying on the floor.Hurryingover,hepickedit up and put it in hispocket.

Therewasnoneedtostay any longer, so hewent back down thestaircase. As he passed

thecans,hedecidedtheywould need more thanone, so he found twomore and, taking one ineachhand,headedtotherocks.

Ashereachedthem,abig wave crashed over,showering him withspray. Without waitingfor the next one, heracedovertherocks.Henearly slipped, but thenhewasofftherocksand

on the grass. Glancingaround, he couldn’t seeany sign of themen, sohesetoffatabriskpacetowardsthetreehouse.

~It had taken Will a

while to convince theothersofhisplan,butassoonastheyhadagreed,theywenttowork.

“Are you sure this isgoing to work?” Amy

asked as she picked upone of the cans andspread theoil inacircleabout six feet from thetreetrunk.

“Aslongasitdoesn’train,”Willreplied.

The three wentaround the tree, pouringoil.Will’scanwasn’tasfull as the others, so hefinished first. Standingback, hemade sure thatthe others were not

pouring too close to thetrunk.Hedidn’twant toburn down the treewiththeminit.

“I think that’senough,”Will said afterthe others had gonearoundtwice.

Amydroppedhercandown. It hit a rock andfellonitsside.

Willfrowned.“Isthatempty?”

“Ah, no,” Amy

replied as she reacheddown and righted it. “Ithassomeoilleft.”

Willwalkedoverandpeered in. “We coulddrop it onto the men astheyclimbthetree.”

Joe looked around.“We should see wherethe men are. Stay nearthe tree house in case Icome back in a hurry.”He hurried up the hill,glancingupattheskyas

hedidso.Theyhadbeenprettybusy sohehadn’tthought about theweather, but seeing thedark clouds that wereheadingtowardshim,herealised why it was sodark.

Astormwasbuilding.He didn’t know whattimeitwas,butwiththesunbehindtheclouds, itmade it much darkerthan it would normally

be.Reaching the top, he

glanced around. Thereseemed to bemovementby the church so hereached for thebinoculars that hungaround his neck andlookedthroughthem.

Two men weretalking. Turning to theinlet, he could see thatthe seaplane wasn’t yetback. He had no idea

where it had gone, buthewassurethatitwouldreturnsometime.

Hesatdown,wantingto see what the menwould do. Theycontinued talking for afewminutes before theysplit up. He kept hisgaze on the bald onewhom he knew was theleader. Themanwalkedto thebeachand then tothe wood before

disappearing.Joe waited for a few

minutes before hethoughthehadbettergetback to the others. Hestood up and started togo down the hill,pausing as he heard anoise.

Stopping, he glancedto the side where thenoisehadcomefrom.Hewaited to see what itwas.

A moment later, thebushes parted to revealLuke. Startled, Joeturnedandrandownthehill.

Luke sprinted afterJoe. “Stop! I want totalk!”

Joe heard thefootsteps pound afterhim and he realised heneeded to head for thevines and rope that hehad placed between the

trees. He changeddirectionandwasnearlycaughtindoingsoastheman reached out. Heswerved back and forthas he raced through thebushes.

Chapter 28:RunningOutOfTime

Sarahstaredoutattheragingwaterthatseemedto grow more ferociouswith every passingsecond. Dark cloudsweregatheringoverheadand, while it hadn’t yetstarted to rain, it lookedveryominous.

Moving away fromthe railing of the policepatrol boat, she headedtowards the wheelhouse

just as Quigley, alongwith Inspector Price,steppedout.

Sarahhadonlygot toknow the inspector twoweeks earlier, butalready she thought thatthe jovial, bald-headedpoliceman was one ofthenicestpeoplethatshehadevermet.

“Are you going tolandwherewe landed?”Sarahsaid.

Theinspectorglancedat the storm clouds. “Itwould be a tight fit inthese conditions, sowe’ll try the inletwherethe seaplane landed. Ifwe can get in there,we’llalsobealotclosertothecriminals.”

“But will you haveenoughroomiftheplaneis still there?” Sarahsaid.

“We should,

according to the map,”the inspector said, “butonly time will tell.” Helookedathiswatch.“Weshouldbewithinsightofthe island in fiveminutes, so excuse mewhile I make some lastminutearrangements.”

As the policeinspector hurried away,Sarah turned to thefisherman. “Do youthink the others are

okay?”Quigley put an arm

around Sarah. “I’m surethey are. Why, Iwouldn’t be surprised ifthey already have themenalltiedup.”

~As Joe rounded the

corner he saw, withrelief, the vine that hehadtiedbetweenthetwotrees. Hoping that the

man only had eyes forhim,heleaptoverit.Hedidn’t glance back orslowdownhisstride,butas he heard a thud, helooked back. The manwas lying flat on theground.

Joe did a little leapfor joy as he racedaround the next bendandtothetreehouse.Heyelled out to the othersas he came in sight of

them. “I just tripped uponeofthemenusingthevines.”

“What about theothers?”Willasked.

“They weren’t withhim, but we’d betterhurry and get up thetree,”Joesaid.

Will kept lookout asthe other two climbedup. Once they werehalfwayup,hefollowed,grabbing the remaining

can of oil as he did so.He heard a yell as hesaw Luke run towardshim.

As Joe andAmy hadalready reached the topby now, Will moved toone side and yelled out.“Throwthecones!”

Joe grabbed two,aimed,andletgo.

Themanletoutayellas the cones madecontact with his head.

He shook his fist atthem. “Just you wait!”He turned and hurriedaway.

Will resumedclimbing and was soonat theplatform.“Thanksfor that. I was worriedfor a moment that hewas going to reach upandgrabme.”

“He’s probably goneto get the others,” Amysaid.

Will put the can thathe had carried up intothe corner and glancedaround. “Let’s makesure we’re ready.Where’s that pine cone,theonethatwe’regoingto use to light the oilwith?”

“It should besomewhere in thatpile,”Joesaid.

Willshuffled throughthenumerouspinecones

until he found one thathadabitofclotharoundit.“Good.Now,whohasthematches?”

“I have them.” Amyreached into her pocketand frowned. “They’renothere.”

“Did you take themout?”Joesaid.

Amy thought. “No.”Shesearchedintheotherpocket and frowned.“There’s a hole in this

pocket. They must havefallenout.”

Joe glanced around.“They could beeverywhere.”

The three of themquicklysearchedthetreehouse from top tobottom, but no matchescouldbeseen.

Willpeereddownandcaught sight ofsomething. Taking thebinoculars from Joe, he

looked down. Hegrimaced as he saw thematches. “They’re onthe ground by the baseofthetree.”

“What?” Amyexclaimed. She lookeddown and saw that hewas right. “Golly, whatdowedonow?”

“Itwould be risky togo and get them now,”Joesaid.

Will nodded. “I

know, but someone hasto. There’s no way wecan light the oilwithoutthematches.”

“Maybe we won’tneed to,” Amy said.“The police should beheresoon.”

“The oil won’t burnforever, but what if itturns out to be thedifference betweenbeing captured or not?”Will looked towards the

corner of the structurewhere the two paintingsleaned against a branch.“We can’t let the mengetthosepaintings.”

“If Ihurry,”Joesaid,“I should be able to getbackupintime.”

“I can go,” Willoffered.

“No.Youwentintheseaplane. It’s time I didsomething,” Joe replied.“Yellout ifyouseeany

signofthemen.”Amy nodded as Joe

started to climb down.“Will do.” The secondsticked by slowly as hegot closer and closer tothe bottom. Just beforeJoe reached the ground,sheheardalowmurmurof voices and realised itwas themen. “Themenarecoming!”

Joe had stuffed thematches into his pocket

whenheheardAmycallout and he froze.Listening, he heard thefootsteps.Glancingupatthe tree house, herealised that there wasno way he would havetime to climb up. Therewas only one thing todo. He yelled to theothers.“Throwdownthepinecone!”

The seconds tickedbyand,asthemencame

intoview, thepine conefell towards the ground.After rushing over to it,Joe bent down andopened the box ofmatches.Hewasinsuchahurry that thematchesfellineverydirection.

Marvin strodetowardstheboy.“Wherearemypaintings?”

With the matchesfallingallovertheplace,Joe grabbed one and lit

it. Holding it below therag,hemanaged to lightit.With themen staringat him, he shoved theremaining matches intohispocket.

“Trying to scare uswith a little fire, hey?”Lukesaid.

“It’s not going towork, kid,” Kennethsnapped.

As Joe backedtowards the tree, he let

go of the pine cone andflung it towards the oil.Hewatched it rollalongthe ground and hit theoilysubstanceasMarvinwalkedtowardshim.

Nothing happened.Joe stared as the conejust sat there. And, asMarvin got closer, herealised that it was allover. Within moments,he’dbecapturedandtheothers would be forced

to hand over thepaintings.

All their hard workhad come to nothing.Andallbecausethepinecone, themostvitalpartof the plan, had not setfiretotheoil.

Chapter 29:Fire!

Suddenly,therewasawhoosh as the oil lit.Within a matter ofseconds, itwas a ragingfurnace.

With the searingheatwarminghisclothes,Joeturnedandscrambledupthe tree faster than hehadeverdonebefore.

Itwasn’tuntilhewashalfwayupthathedaredlookbackdown.Hesaw

that the men hadretreated to a safedistance away from theflames.

Joeresumedclimbingand the others helpedhimupashereachedtheplatform. He collapsedontothefloorofthetreehouse as he recountedhisclosecall.“I thoughtI was going to getcaptured.Ireallydid.”

“Me too,” Amy said,

“itwas toocloseformyliking.”

WillpattedJoeontheshoulder. “You did agoodjob.Withanyluck,the fire will keepburning until the policearrive.”Helookeddownoncemoreatthefireandgrinned. But, withinmoments, his grin hadturnedtoafrown.“Hey,did any of you put oilclosetothetree?”

Joe sat up and joinedAmyasthetwoof themglanceddownandstaredatthespotthatWillwaslookingat.Aspotoffirewas burning halfwaybetween the trunk andthecircle.

Joe frowned. “That’sweird.”

“Maybe some of theoil dripped,” Amy said.“Anyway, does it reallymatter?”

“Aslongasitdoesn’tcome too close to…”Will paused as the firereached the trunk andstartedgoingupit.

“Howcouldoilgetonthe tree?” Joequestioned.

Will shrugged hisshoulders. “I don’tknow.” He turnedtowards the can of oilthat he had brought upearlier.“Iwonder.”

“Wonder what?”Amysaid.

Will tookholdof thecanandpeered inside it.It seemed as though itwas almost empty.Tipping it upside down,he saw a hole. “Oh no!Theoilwasleakingout.”

“So? What does thatmean?”Amyasked.

“It also feels lighternow that I think aboutit.” Will looked back

down the tree and sawthat the fire wasgradually movingupwards.

As it did so, theothers connected thedots. Joe pointed to thecan. “So that’s why thefireisonthetreetrunk.”

“The hole probablyoccurredwhenithitthatrock,” Amy said,disappointed. “It’s allmyfault.”

“No, I should haverealised that it wasgetting lighter,” Willreplied.“I justhope thatnotalotdrippedout.”

“Is thereanythingwecando?”Amysaid.

Will shook his head.“No. We just have tohope that the fire diesoutsoon.”

As smoke started todrift upwards, Joesighed. “It looks as

though we have gonefromonelotofdangertoanother, except this oneismuchworse.”

Will nodded. “Andwhatever happens is outofourhands.”

~With a pair of

binoculars glued to hiseyes, Inspector Pricewatched as a seaplanelanded in the inlet. The

windblewittowardsthebeach and, withinmoments,ithadbeacheditselfonthesand.

Standing by therailing, Sarah lookedback at the patrol boatthatwasfollowingthem.“Howmanymendoyouthinkwehave?”

Quigley shrugged.“Don’tknow,but itwillbe enough.” He turnedas he saw the seaplane.

“It looks like theyhaven’t left…” Hestopped speaking asshots rang across theinlet.

As bullets beganhitting the side of thecraft, the inspectorturned and yelled to thewheelman. “Turn itaroundonthedouble!”

Quigley and Sarahdropped to the floorstraightawayandstayed

there as the vesselswung around. But theinspector didn’t move.Peering through thebinoculars, he tried toseewheretheshotswerecomingfrom.

Hesawamanby theseaplane.Hegot out hispistol and aimed ittowards him. He pulledthe trigger twice andwatched in satisfactionasthemanretreated.

“Did you hit him?”Quigleyasked.

“No, I only scaredhim,” the inspectorreplied. “But it’s toodangerous to land menhere in case the othercriminals are lying inwait.” He looked atQuigley. “What’s thenext possible landingspot?”

Quigley frowned.“Well,thiswasthemain

one. You could alwaystake your chance on therocks, but in theseconditions—”

“No, we can’t takeany chances,” theinspector said. “I wantthese men brought tojusticeandIwantitdonebefore the sun goesdown.”

“What about theplacewhereme and theothers landed?” Sarah

suggested.Quigley nodded.

“That’s the only otherone. Itwillbea tight fitwith the dinghies, butbetter than taking achanceontherocks.”

The inspector yelledout to a police officer.“Take her around theisland.”

~Just as Joe was

wondering if the firewould go out or not,thunder broke overheadand rain poured down.He had forgotten aboutthemass of dark cloudsthat he had spotted halfan hour or so ago. Thethree of them huddledunderneath the branchesas the rain pelted thearea.

“Thiswillputthefireout,”Willsaid.

“Good,”Amysaid.“Iwas gettingworried thatthe fire was gainingground.”

Joe looked down andsawsmokedriftingupasthe fire was smothered.Hecouldn’tseeanysignofthemen.Heturnedtothe others. “If the raincontinues like this, themen might not climbup.”

Silencereignedasthe

rain continued to pourdown.Lightning flashednearby and thundercrackledoverheadasthestormintensified.

“We don’t normallyget storms like this insummer,”Willsaid.

“It’s a good thingwe’re getting this one,”Joe replied, speakinglouder so the otherscould hear him over thenoiseofthepouringrain.

Several minutespassed before the rainstarted to ease. Thunderstill rumbled in thedistance, but a minutelater, the rain hadstopped.

Peering down, Joesaw the men emergefrom beneath a tree andhead for the tree trunk.As he watched, Lukeand Kenneth beganclimbingup.

“When shall we usethe pine cones?” Amysaid.

“Now!” Joe grabbeda pine cone and hurledit. It sailed past Luke,missing him by a foot.“Blow!”Hetookanotherconeand threw itdown.Thistime,ithitLukeonthe head.He yelled out,butcontinuedclimbing.

A torrent of pinecones raineddownupon

themenastheyclimbedup. As soon as Lukereachedabranch,hehidunderneathit.

Joe turned to theothers.“Wehavetoholdthe men off as long aspossible, so don’t throwanother cone until theymove.”

Amy and Willnodded. Themen didn’tmove for a minute andthen, after glancing up,

resumed climbing. Thechildren threw downmorepinecones.

“Let’s use the sand,”Joe said as he noticedthat they were gettinglowonpinecones.Aftergrabbing a handful, helet it go directly abovethe men. Being wet, itstuck together as it fell,and it had almost thesame effect as the pinecones.

“Yes!” Joe cried outas it hit Luke on theforehead.

For the next fiveminutes, sand wasthrown down and themen yelled out as mostfound their target. But,before they knew it, thesand was all gone.“We’ll have to use upthe rest of the pinecones,”Willsaid.

The pile got smaller

and smaller as the twomen ducked back andforth amongst thebranches as the childrenused up the rest of thepinecones.

As Joe reached tograb another one, herealised that Will hadjust picked up the verylast one. He and Amywatched as Will peeredoveranddroppedit.

Itwasrightontarget.

Luke hid underneathanother branch, as didKenneth.

Will glanced aroundthe empty tree house.Only a rucksack, torch,and the two paintingsremained.

“What do we donow?”Amyasked.

Will looked downand saw that the menwere still not moving.“We hope that the men

staywheretheyare.”“I’m sure the police

must be on their way,”Joesaid.“Wejustneedabit more time.” As heheard Marvin yell out,he glanced down andsawwithannoyancethatLuke and Kenneth hademerged from theirhiding places andresumed climbing. Heturned toWill who waslooking through the

binoculars to see if hecouldseeanysignofthepolice. “Can you seeanything?”

Will shook his head.“No.”

Chapter 30: ALeapOfFaith

Reaching the inlet,

the two patrol boatscame to a stop. Theinspector shouted ordersto his men as a dinghywas lowered from eachcraft into the heavingwater.

Climbing into thelead dinghy, theinspector yelled out toSarah and Quigley.“You two come withme.”

Sarah climbed down

intothecraftasthewindwhipped at her blondehair. For once she wasgladthatshedidn’thavelonghairlikehersister.

AsQuigleyjoinedherin the dinghy, twoofficers took the oarsand started rowingtowards the inlet.Followed by the othercraft, they headedtowards the frothingwater,whererockscould

be seen above thesurface.

WithQuigleyhelpingwith the directions, andSarah yelling out everynowandthen,theywereable to pass the rocksandreachthebeach.

As the officer threwtheoarsonthesand,theinspector waved at thepatrolboatstoshowthatthey were all rightbefore heading up the

sideofthecliff.

~Will looked down at

the men who were nownot faraway.“Wedon’thaveanypineconesleft,so we need to get awayfromhere.IfItiearopeto that nearby tree, wecouldclimbdownitandescape.”

“But how are yougoing to get across to

it?” Amy asked lookingat the gap that was inbetweenthebranches.

“I’ve climbed manytrees before, so I’ll befine.Asforthatgap,I’lljump,”Willsaid.

“Just be careful,”Amysaid.

“Iwill.”Willtiedoneendoftheropearoundathickbranchbeforetyingthe other around hiswaist.Climbingoutonto

abranch,heedgedalongit.

Amy looked down atthemen.“Ifonlywehadsomething else to throwdown.”

Joe suddenly thoughtof something. “I’ve gotan idea.”Hekneltdownon the platform andloweredhimselfontothefirst of the woodenfootholds.

Looking down, he

saw that the men hadanother five or so to gobeforetheyreachedhim.Knowing that he had tobefast,heclimbeddownanother two footholds.Then,withLukeclosingin, he grabbed an upperbranch with his handsand, gripping tightly,stomped down onto thefoothold.

Itmoved slightly.Hetriedagain.Itmovedyet

again.“Hey! Stop!” Luke

yelled.Joeglanceddownand

saw the man hasten hispace.Herealisedheonlyhadonechance.Onelastchancetoslowdownthemen.One last chance tostop them from gettingthe paintings. It was alluptohim.

Takingadeepbreath,he gripped the upper

branch as hard as hecould, raisedhis feetoffthefoothold,andpushedthem down onto thewood with all the forcethathecouldmuster.

Nothinghappened.For a moment, Joe

thought that it was allover. Then, suddenly,the wood gave way.Breaking into twopieces, it tumbleddown,nearly hitting Luke in

the face. Joe grimlysmiled, but he couldn’trelaxorshoutoutforjoyyet.Thebattlemayhavebeen won, but the warwasfarfromover.

He swung his legs toand fro before theylanded on anotherbranch. Standing on it,he pulled himself uponto the next foothold.He considered doingwhathehaddone to the

otherone,butherealisedit would be hard, if notimpossible to do. Therewas no overhangingbranchwhichmeantthathe would have nowheretoplacehishands.

Ifthefootholdfell,hewould go down aswell.To fall at this heightwould mean a seriousinjury,sothatwasoutofthequestion.Anyway,ashe looked down at the

man who had nowreached the placewherethe foothold used to be,hecouldsee thathehaddelayedhim.

It was possible toclimb up using thebranches and not thefoothold, which hewould now have to do,butatleastithadslowedthemdown.

Climbinguponto theplatform, he was just in

time to see Amy wrapher end of the ropetightly around a thickbranch. She lookedtowards him. “Did youslowthemdown?”

“Yes, but not forlong.” Joepeeredacrosstotheothertreeandsawthat Will was safelyacross. He waved andWillwavedback.

Joe turned to Amy.“You’dbettergonext.”

“Shall I take thepaintings or will youcarry them?” Amyasked.

“I’ll carry therucksack.” Joe watchedonasAmy tookholdofthe rope and, with bothhands clutching ittightly, steppedoutontoanearbybranch.

ItwasslowgoingforAmy, and as Joe lookeddown at the men and

sawthemtryingtoclimbup, he knew that timewas runningout.But hedidn’t say anything. Hedidn’t want his sister torushandfall.

He watched as shereached the spot whereshe had to jump off thebranch and land on thebranch connected to theother tree. This was thetrickiestbitandone thatwould require the

biggest amount ofconcentration on herpart.

Holdinghisbreath,hewaitedforAmytojump.Itseemedlikeforeverashe watched her steadyherself. Then, shejumped.

As she clutched theother branch and heldon, Joe sighed withrelief. Tearing his eyesaway from her, he

lookeddownatthemen.They were making

progress, much fasterthan he would haveliked.Aftergoing to therucksack,heputthetwopaintings inside and putiton.

Hewaited until Amyhad reachedWill beforehegrabbed the rope.Hehadn’t wanted to holdonto it until she hadfinished, but maybe he

shouldhave.Glancing down, he

saw that Luke wasalmost at the platform.He realised that as soonas he went across, theman would follow him.He needed to find asolution and fast. Anideacame intohishead.One that was so wildthatitmightjustwork.

Joe yelled to Will.“Tietheropetoahigher

branch.”“What? Why?” Will

asked.“Just do it!” Joe

yelled.Will obeyed, and as

he climbed up to ahigher branch with therope,Joelookeddownattheedgeof theplatformas a hand becamevisible.Heneededtogetmoving.

“What are you

doing?”Amyshouted.Joe didn’t answer as

he untied his end of theropeasWillgaveawaveandanodtoindicatethattheropewasnowtied.

Joe moved to theedgeoftheplatformandstood where there wasnothing blocking hisway.Ifhecrashedintoatree going fast, itwouldnotbeaprettysight.

Looking back to see

where themenwere, hesaw Luke clamber uponto the platform. Hehad to go now. Heturned around and toldhimself to step off, buthecouldn’t.

He muttered tohimself as he tried tourgehimself to stepoff.But he couldn’t. Thiswasworsethanallofhisprevious hair-raisingescapades,suchasbeing

dragged along thewaterin Smugglers Cove andclimbing up the cliffnearBrackneshCastle.

“Give me thepainting, boy,” Lukecalledout. “Iwon’thurtyou. I just want thepaintings.”

“No!” Joe shouted,glancingback.“Never.”

“Why, you...” Lukesnarledashereachedouthis hand to grab the

rucksack.Joe pulled the rope

tight, closed his eyes,andsteppedoff.

~The inspector peered

throughthebinocularsashe looked towards thechurch. He was able tosee two people besidethe building. “Okay,men, let’s move inbefore it starts to rain

again.” He lookedtowards Sarah andQuigley and then at anofficer.“Staywith thosetwo here. I don’t wanttheminharm’sway.”Herandownthehill.

Sarah turned toQuigley. “I want to seeiftheothersaresafe.”

“I’m sure they willbe. As soon as all themen are caught—”Quigleysaid.

“I don’twant towaitthatlong,”Sarahreplied.“Ifyoudon’twanttogo,I’llgobymyself.”

As she walked off,the police officer yelledout. “Hey, you’resupposed to stay hereuntiltheinspectorcomesback.”

Sarah paused for amoment. “I’m going tofind my brother andsister.”Sheracedoff.

~As soon as Joeheard

the wind whip past hisface,heopenedhiseyes.Everythingseemedtogoin slow motion as hesailed closer and closertotheground.

He could hear Amyand Will shout out, butcouldn’t understandwhat they were saying.Gripping tightly to the

rope, he hung on fordearlife.

The ground seemedtorush towardshimandhe grimaced, expectingto smash into it. But,luckily that didn’thappen. As Joe swungback and forth, witheach swing gettingsmaller than before, helooked up at the othersandwaved.

Theywavedbackand

he grinned with relief.Stepping off had beenthemostscarythingthathehadeverexperienced,and he had lived to tellthetale.

As the rope sloweddown, he jumped ontothe ground. Touchingthe dirt with his hands,he was glad to be onsolidgroundoncemore.

~

High in the trees, theothers watched as Joehurried to the tree thatthey were sitting in.Suddenly, he tripped,fallingflatonhisface.

“Oh no!” Amyexclaimed.

Will watched inhorror as Marvinappeared from behind atree and grabbed thepaintings from therucksack.“Hemusthave

beenwaitingforJoeandtrippedhimup.”

“And we can’t doanything,” Amymuttered.

The two of themcouldonlystandstillandwatch on as the man,with a painting in eachhand,tookoffrunning.

AmysawJoe staggerto his feet. She didn’tthink thathewouldraceafter the man who

already had a gooddistanceonhim,andshewasright.

Joeyelleduptothem,“Sorry. There wasnothingIcoulddo.”

Will turned to Amy.“Iguessthat’sitthen.”

Amysighed.“Iguessyou can’t win all thetime.”

~Sarah was halfway

down the hill when shespottedsomeonecomingtowards her. Hidingbehindatree,shesawitwas Marvin. He wasclutching a painting ineachhand.

Sarah didn’t knowwhat was going on, butshe knew that shecouldn’t let him escape.She saw that if hecontinued going in thesamedirection,hewould

pass very close to thetree that she was hidingbehind.

Anideacreptintoherhead. Hunting around,she picked up a long,thick stick and kneltdownbehindthetree.

Listening carefully,she heard Marvinapproach. The secondsseemed like minutes asshe waited for the rightmoment to put out her

stick.Shecouldn’tputitout too soon in case theman saw it, but shecouldn’t put it out toolateeither.

With both hands onthe stick, she suddenlythrust it out. Twosecondslater,hisfoothitthe stick and Marvinstumbled before fallingtotheground.

As he scrambled tohis feet and glared at

her, she realised shehadn’tgivenathoughttowhattodonextaftershehadtrippedhimup.

Marvin glared at her.“Just wait till I catchyou.” He stompedtowards her angrily andshestumbledbackwards,frightened.

Turning, she trippedover a rock and felldown. Before she couldget to her feet, Marvin

wasstandingoverher.

Chapter 31:GoodbyeAdventureIsland!

Just as Marvin wentto grab Sarah, a voiceyelledout.“Holditright

there!”Seething with anger,

Marvin reluctantlyraisedhishands.

Sarah grinned as shecaught sight of a policeofficer and Quigleyrunningtowardsher.

Thepoliceofficerhadhispistol out and itwasaimedatMarvin.Takingout a pair of handcuffs,he snapped them ontohiswrists.“Getgoingup

thehill.”Marvingruntedashe

turned and walked upthe hill, but not beforehe glared at Sarah onelast time. But before hecould say anything, theofficer pushed himforward.

Sarah turned toQuigleyandhuggedhimtight.“Thanks.”

Quigley comfortedher. “It’s all rightnow.”

He glanced down at theground at the twopaintings. “What arethose?”

Sarah picked up thetubes and looked at thenametags. “VincentVanGough.Hey, thesemustbethepaintings.”

Quigley chuckled.“Well, well, no wonderhewasangry.They’llbeworth a couple ofhundred pounds.”As he

heard voices, he lookeddownthehillandsmiledashesawWill,Joe,andAmyalongwithapoliceofficer.

Sarah followed hisgaze and yelled out indelight as she racedtowardsthem.Shecouldtell that they weredisappointed. “What’swrong?”

“One of the men gotaway with the

paintings,” Joe said.“We tried our hardest,but—”

“You mean thepaintings by VincentVan Gough?” Sarahinterrupted.

Joe frowned. “Yes,buthowdidyouknow?”

Sarah smiled as shelooked towardsQuigley.Hewas holding the twopaintingsinhishands.

The others followed

her gaze and smiled indelight. “How did youdoit?”Amycriedout.

“I saw him comingand I tripped him up,”Sarah replied, her greeneyesshining.

Amyhuggedherlittlesister. “I was worriedaboutyou.”

“And I was worriedabout you too,” Sarahsaid. “Did you hear thatInspectorPriceishere?”

“Yes,” Will said.“We were at the treehouse whenwe saw thepilot rush past. Beforewe could stop him,several police officers,alongwiththeinspector,appeared.We told themwheretheothermenhaddisappeared to and theyrushed off, but notbefore the inspector tolduswhereyouwere.”

“Let’sgotothetopof

thehillandseeifwecansee them,” Joesuggested.As theothersnodded, he turned andheaded up the hill, theothers following closebehind.

~Darkness had fallen

by the time the patrolboatpulledupalongsidethe pier. The criminalswere led down the

gangplank and fivepolice officers,who hadbeen waiting patientlyon the pier, took themaway.

As the childrenwalked down thegangplank a fewmoments later, theyheard a shout. Lookingalong the pier, they sawtheir parents rushingtowards them. Yellingout,thefourchildrenran

andhuggedthem.MrMitchellsmiledat

the inspector as hejoined them a fewmoments later. “Thanksfor bringing themhome.”

Inspector Pricegrinned. “It’s the least IcoulddoafterSarahtoldmeabouttheartthieves.You might not know it,butwe’vebeenafterthatparticular bunch of

criminalsfortwoyears.”“What about Nancy?

Was she really part ofthegang?”Joeasked.

“Fromwhat you toldme earlier,” InspectorPricesaid,“andfromthequickchatIhadwiththecriminals, I would saythat she is SusanThomas,someonewe’vehadoureyesonforsometime.”

“Willyoutrytocatch

her?”Willquestioned.“We’ll do our best,”

the inspector replied,“but I don’t have highhopes. Anyway, we’vecaught the rest of thecriminals, so there’s nochance of the operationstarting up again. So,goodjob.”

“It was more luckthan anything,” Joeadmitted. “After all, ifno one had been on

Windswept Island, wewould have campedthere and then wewouldn’t have seen themen.”

“But it was still abrave effort on yourpart.” The inspectorlooked at Will. “Yourescape to France mightnot have turned out theway you expected it to,butthegoodthingisthatitenabledustocatchthe

men flying the seaplaneas well.” The inspectorturnedtoSarah.“Hidingin that rowboat musthavebeenhair-raisingattimes, and from whatI’ve heard about thebicycle chase, you hadquiteanadventure.”

Inspector PriceglancedatAmyandJoe.“You two also did agood job. If you hadn’tdelayed the men by

stealing the paintings,then they probablywould have made theirescape long before Iarrivedat theisland.So,goodjoballofyou.”

He looked up asQuigley joined them.“And if it wasn’t foryou, we wouldn’t havehad such an easy timemaking landfall at theisland.”

Quigley smiled. “I

just had to help. Iwouldn’t want nothingto happen to these nicekids. They’re a goodbunch.”

“It’s a shame aboutthe boat, though,” Willsaid.

“Especially after allthe time we spentpaintingit,”Amyadded.

“It was a dear littleboat,” Sarah piped up.“I’llmissit.”

“Don’t worry,” theinspector said. “I justremembered somethingthat should raise yourspirits.”

“What?” Joe askedeagerly.

“There was a rewardoffered for anyone whocould give usinformationabouttheartthieves, and since youhelped us catch them,you are entitled to it,”

theinspectorsaid.“How much?” Will

asked.“I don’t know

exactly, but it’llcertainly cover the costof a new sailboat,”Inspector Price replied.He looked at his watch.“It’s getting late. I’dbetter go and take careof the criminals. I’ll beintouchwithyousoon.”

“Thanks once again

for bringing them backsafely,” Mr Spencersaid.

The inspector wavedhis hand dismissively.“It was my pleasure.After all, it’s not everyday four children helpyou catch a gang ofcriminals that you’vebeenafter formore thantwo years.” He turnedandwalkedaway.

Joe looked at his

parents. “You’ll neverbelieve the adventureswe’vehad.”

“You should haveseen the tree house,”Amy said. “We had to—”

“Why don’t you tellus in the car?” MrsMitchell suggested asshe lookedatherwatch.“It’sgettingquitelate.”

“My, so it is,” MrSpencer exclaimed.

“We’d better be goingtoo.”

Astheparentswalkedto where they hadparked their cars, Willturned to the others.“Even though the mentook me hostage, I stillenjoyed solving themystery of RockyIsland.”

“It should be calledAdventure Island,”Amysaid, “just as Quigley

called it. After all,everyonewhogoesthereseems to have anadventure.”

“The mystery ofAdventure Island. I likethe sound of it,” Joesaid.“So,howaboutwemeet up at Darby’stomorrow for an icecream?”

“What for? Todiscuss the nextmystery?”Willteased.

“No, but that isn’tsuch a bad idea.” Joegrinned. “After all, westill have two weeksbefore we go back toschool,solet’smakethemost of it. Oh, and lastonetoreachthecarshasto buy the ice creams!”Joe raced off down thepier.

“Hey! Wait!” Amyshouted. She ran afterJoe,determinednottobe

beatenasusual.

TheEnd

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Thankyouforbuyingandreadingthisstoryand,ifyoulikedit,

pleaseleaveareviewonAmazon.You,thereaders,aretheonly

reasonthatIcontinuetowritethisseries.SothemorereviewsIget,thelongerIwillcontinueto

write.Thankyou.

WantMore?Hereareacoupleof

teasersforstoriesthathavebeenreleasedrecentlyorwillbereleasedsoon.

~TheMysteryoftheHiddenSuitcase

~Forthefirsttimein

years,itsnowsintheseasidevillageof

SmugglersCove.Whiletobogganingnear

BracknessCastle,Joemakesasurprising

discovery.

Whyhassomeonehiddenasuitcaseinthebushes?Howdothechildrenescapefromthecastletower?

What'sthemeaningofthecrypticmessage?

ClickHereToBuyIt

Now!~~

TheMysteryoftheHowlingDog

~WhenAmyhearsa

dogbarkinginthewoods,she’sthefirsttocometotheanimal’said.Aftertakingtheanimaltothe

vet,sheandtheothersattempttolocateits

owner.However,thingsdon’tquiteturnoutas

planned.

Wherehasthedogcomefrom?Whydoestheanimaltrytoenteracottageafterthe

ownerdeclareshehasneverseentheanimalbefore?Whatcausesthechildrentopursuetwomenintothe

woods?

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Now!

WantMore?HereisChapter1of

TheMysteryofHiddenValley,thenextthrillingnovelinTheMystery

Series

~TheMysteryofHiddenValley

~

Chapter 1:GuessWhat?

Itwasahotsummer’sdayinthecoastalvillageof Smugglers Cove and

the three siblings haddecideditwastoowarmto ride down to thebeach. So, instead, theylay sprawled out underan old apple tree thatgrewin thefrontgardenof Rose Cottage, thepretty whitewashedhouse where the threewere staying for thesummerholidays.

Joe, theeldest, satupasheheardthesoundof

a bicycle tearing alongthe gravel road. Hegrinned as he spotted aflash of red hair. It wasWill,theirbestfriend.

Will brought hisbicycle to a screechingstopandclimbedoff.Hewalked over and satdownbesidehis friends.“Guesswhat?”

Sarah,whowaseightyearsold,lookedeagerlyattheboywithhergreen

eyes.“What?”“Have you come

across a new mystery?”Joeasked.

Will shook his head.“I think we’ve had ourfair share of mysteriesfortheseholidays.”

Joe lookeddisappointed. “What apity. Itwouldhavebeengood to have one finalmystery to solve beforegoingbacktoschool.”

“Well, I havesomething I think youlot will like just asmuch,” Will replied.“You know how I toldyou my father recentlyfinishedhisfirstnovel?”

Amy,twoyearsolderthanSarah,satup.“Yes,whataboutit?”

“Well, this morninghe told me that hispublisher had justtelephoned him and

asked him to start workon the sequel,” Willreplied. “He thinks it’sgoingtobeabigsuccessand wants the secondnovelwrittenas soonaspossible.”

“Your fathermust beveryhappy,”Joesaid.

Will nodded. “Yes,he is. He’s beenspending such a lot oftimewriting.Infact,justlately, I’ve hardly seen

himatall,whichiswhyit will be good to goawaytogether.”

“Go away where?”Amyasked.

“To Wales.” Willgrinned. “Isn’t thatgreat?”

The three siblingswere silent for amoment, and then Joegave a forced smile. “Ihopeyouhavefun.”

“No. I hope we’ll

have fun,” Will replied,grinning.

Amy’s eyes lit up.“Youdon’tmean—”

“You don’t think Iwouldgoifyoucouldn’tcome along too, didyou?”Willinterrupted.

“Butisyourdadokaywiththat?”Joesaid.

“He’s the one whosuggested it,” Willreplied.“Sincehisnovelis set in the Welsh

mountains,hewanted togo there sohecanget afeel for the place. Hethought if you came, itwouldmake the holidaymorefunforme.”

“Iwonderifwe’llseeanyeagles,”Joesaid.

“Haven’t you seenenough birds thissummer?”Amyteased.

“Of course not.” Joelaughed. “I’m alwaystoo busy solving

mysteries.”Eager to see what

MrsMitchell thought ofthe idea, the childrenracedintothehouse.Shewasn’tverykeenatfirst,but as Will explainedthat his father would bekeepinganeyeonthem,shesaidshewouldleavethe decision to herhusband.

As Mr Mitchellwasn’t due home for a

while, the childrenreturned to the shade ofthe apple tree and laydown.

“Whereabouts inWalesisit?”Joeasked.

“I’mnotexactlysure.As soon asmydad saidthatyou lotcouldcome,I was so excited that Iraced over here,” Willsaid.

“Would we bestaying in a village?”

Amyquestioned.“Not exactly,” Will

replied.“There’sasmallcottage a little way upthe mountain. An oldcouple rent it out fromtime to time, mostlyduringthesummer.”

“So what would wedothere?”Joeasked.

“Dad said somethingabout a castle,” Willsaid.“Healsomentionedhowwecouldhiresome

ponies from the localstablesandgoridinginanearbyvalley.”

“A valley. Thatsoundslikeagoodplacefor a mystery,” Joemurmured with atwinkleinhiseye.

Will laughed. “Youandyourmysteries.”

“Admit it!” Joe shotback. “You likemysteries just as muchasIdo.”

“Well, yes, but Idon’ttalkaboutthemallthe time like you do,”Will said. “I supposewe’re just lucky. Somepeople live their entirelives without runninginto a single mystery,and we seem to bumpintothemallthetime.”

“Funny, isn’t it?”Amy said. “Because itisn’t as though you canmakeamysteryhappen.

It either happens or itdoesn’t.”

The talkingceasedaseveryone lay down inthe shade of the appletree. Gradually, theydriftedofftosleep.

Sarahwas the first toopenhereyes,andwhenshedid,shegotashock.Gazingdownatherwasher father. She leapt toherfeetandhuggedhimastheothersawoke.

“Hello,”Willsaid.MrMitchell laughed.

“Sleeping away the lastdays of the summerholidays,arewe?”

“Wewerewaitingforyou,”Joesaid.

“Me?” Mr Mitchellreplied, a look ofsurprise on his face. Heplaced his briefcase onthe ground as his wifeopenedthefrontdoor.

“The children have

something to ask you,”Mrs Mitchell said,walkingover.

Mr Mitchell kissedhis wife on the cheek.“And what might thatbe?”

“Canwepleasego toWales?” Sarah blurtedout.

“Will’s father isgoing to the mountainsinWalesandaskedusifwewantedtogoalong,”

Joeexplained.MrMitchelllookedat

his wife. “What do youthink?”

“Itoldthemitwasupto you whether or notthey went,” his wifereplied.

“Well, I suppose Ihad better talk to MrSpencer—”MrMitchellsaidwithasmile.

“He’s home now,”Willinterrupted.

“I’llgoandtelephonehim right away then,”Mr Mitchell replied.“That is, if youallwanttogo.”

“Yes, please!”shouted the threesiblingsallatonce.

“I see,” Mr Mitchellsaid. “Give me tenminutes.”

While the childrenwaited for his answer,they played a game of

snap in Joe’s bedroom.Ten minutes later, MrMitchell came into theroom.Themansmiledatthe happy children.“Youmaygo.”

Joeandthegirlsflungthemselves on theirfather, happy beyondbelief.

Mr Mitchell was inthemiddleofuntanglinghimself when his wifeenteredtheroom.

The woman wrappedan arm around herhusband. “Just makesureyoubehaveyourselfandkeepawayfromanymysteries.”

“We’ll try to,” Joepromisedwith a twinkleinhiseye.

~Asthecarcrossedthe

border into Wales thefollowing day, the four

childrengazedoutofthewindow.

Amy thought thescenery looked quitedifferent from thescenery aroundSmugglersCove.Asshetwirled a strand ofbrown hair around herfinger,shekepthereyesglued to the landscape.As time went on, hillsstarted to turn intomountains, and soon it

reallydidlookasthoughthey were in anothercountry.

Throughout the day,Mr Spencer stopped thecar at several smallvillages so they couldstretch their legs andgrababitetoeat.

The villages becamesmallerandsmalleruntilthey were even smallerthan Smugglers Cove.As for the mountains,

they became bigger andbigger.

As the day wore on,Mr Spencer smiled.“We’re almost at thevillage.”

“What’s it called?”Joe asked, peeringforward, eager to be thefirst to see where theyweregoingtobestayingforthenextfewdays.

“Ponty,” Mr Spencerreplied. “It’s fairly

small, but that will beokay. We’ve broughtplenty of food, so we’llonly need to buy breadandmilk.”

Will,whowassittinginthefrontseat,wasthefirsttospotthevillageasthe car wound its wayaround themountainside. He yelledout.“Iseeit!”

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