Skeleton Island Read online

  For

  Isabella Blount,

  with love

  1

  SCHOOL TRIP

  2

  LUCK OF THE DRAW

  3

  ARGH!

  4

  BAT CAVE

  5

  TRAPPED

  6

  MAROONED

  7

  BILLIE’S BONES

  8

  BILLIE’S STORY

  9

  SKELETON CREW

  10

  PIRATE TREASURE

  11

  THE PIRATE SHILLING

  12

  THE CURSE OF THE CUTLASS KATE

  13

  GARGOYLE GHOST

  My friend, Wanda Wizzard, and I live in Gargoyle Hall, which is a boarding school for ghouls. Oops, I mean girls. We used to live in Spook House with a whole load of ghosts—and also my aunt Tabby and uncle Drac, and Wanda’s parents, Barry and Brenda Wizzard. Now we spend the week at school and go home to Spook House at weekends because Brenda misses Wanda. No one has said anything about missing me, but I think my uncle Drac secretly does, even though he would not dare tell Aunt Tabby that.

  The only thing I miss about Spook House is our ghosts. We have three really good ones: Sir Horace, who is a knight in rusty armour—definitely not in shining armour like they are in all the stories. There is Sir Horace’s page, Edmund, who, even though he moans a lot, is quite brave. And there is Sir Horace’s ghost-wolfhound, Fang, who is a big, messy dog and does not realise he is a ghost at all. Fang is fun.

  Gargoyle Hall School is fun too, but it doesn’t have any ghosts. It had a horrible monster when we first came but that wasn’t a real monster, it was two nasty girls in a monster suit, and they have gone now. I prefer ghosts to monsters; they are so much more interesting and I have often thought it would be really good if we could have a school ghost. When I mentioned that to Miss Gargoyle, who is the headmistress, she just laughed.

  Even Wanda did not seem very keen. “We have lots of ghosts at home, Araminta,” she said. “What I would really like at school is a pirate.”

  I sighed. Wanda has got a craze for pirates and it is all my fault. I have an old pirate map of Skeleton Island, which has a big cross on it showing where their treasure is buried. Uncle Drac gave me the map when I first went to Skeleton Island with him. I had wanted to look for the treasure, but Uncle Drac said that bats were much more interesting. So, even though there was buried pirate treasure and an old shipwreck you could see at low tide, we went to visit a boring cave of bats. The best bit was on the way home when Uncle Drac told me lots of pirate stories.

  But last week, when we first heard we were going to Skeleton Island on a school trip, I made the big mistake of showing Wanda my pirate treasure map and telling her one of Uncle Drac’s stories—and now she is pirate mad.

  The morning of our trip to Skeleton Island, when we were in the school dining room and I was having my favourite breakfast—wobbly porridge and syrup—Wanda said, “Isn’t it brilliant, Araminta?”

  “Wherris?” I mumbled and spat some porridge out by mistake.

  “Manners, Araminta,” Bossy Bella called out. Bossy Bella is one of the big girls who sits at the end of the table and makes sure we behave. She was going to come on the trip too, to help out. “Do not talk with your mouth full,” she said. “It is rude and no one will understand what you say.”

  That was not true. Wanda always understands what I say when I talk with my mouth full. And she obviously had, because she carried on with what she was saying: “It’s brilliant that we’re going to Skeleton Island today.”

  I swallowed my porridge and said, “Yes, it is. Totally brilliant.”

  “Wouldn’t it be great to see some real pirates? I’d love to meet one,” Wanda said. “Pirates are much more fun than ghosts.”

  “Wanda,” I replied very patiently, “real pirates are not fun at all. Uncle Drac told me some horrible stories about pirates.”

  “But pirates are so exciting!” said Wanda in an excited, squeaky voice.

  “No they are not, they are boring,” I told her. “All pirates do is go around pushing people off planks and saying ‘Arrgh!’ in a silly voice. You cannot have an interesting conversation with someone when all they say is, ‘Arrgh.’”

  Wanda made some syrup circles on her wobbly porridge and said, “But, Araminta, pirates always have a parrot and that is who you talk to.”

  “Huh,” I said and flicked some syrup over Nosy Nora, who was busy listening in. “Who wants to talk about birdseed all day?”

  Wanda raised her eyes up like she was looking for a piece of porridge stuck to her fringe. And then Creepy Cora, who is thin and spiky and is Nosy Nora’s best friend, said, “I like talking to parrots.”

  I was not surprised. Creepy Cora looks a bit like a parrot herself.

  Wanda gobbled up the rest of her wobbly porridge very fast and then she said, “Skeleton Island will be so exciting. I can’t wait!” and she jumped up from the table.

  “Sit down, please, Wanda,” Bossy Bella said. “It is good manners to wait until everyone else at the table has finished.”

  So Wanda sat down. “But, Araminta,” she said, “suppose we found a pirate ghost. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

  Wanda was right. I would definitely like that.

  It was fun getting to Skeleton Island, but it took ages. The bus taking us to the ferry boat was late. Nosy Nora was sick on the bus and it had to stop. Twice. Then the bus went into the car park the wrong way and some spikes jumped up and poked holes in its tyres so it couldn’t move, so we all had to stay in the bus until it was safe to get out. Miss Gargoyle went and got us some chocolate while we waited and Nora was sick again.

  When we were at last allowed off the bus and we all had to put on our bright yellow Gargoyle Hall jackets, so that we didn’t get lost. Wanda said we looked like a lot of yellow plastic ducks. We picked up our rucksacks and I checked inside mine carefully to see that the bat box was safe. Inside was Baby Bat, who I was taking on her very first trip across the sea. Uncle Drac gave me Baby Bat for my birthday and there was no way I was going to leave her behind.

  The ferry boat, which was red and called the Fat Seagull, was waiting for us down on the dock. It was quite misty and the sea was calm, but Nosy Nora was sick again, and she was allowed to lie down in a little cabin downstairs. Wanda and I were fine, but we got so cold that we decided to put on the silly hats that Uncle Drac had knitted for us. Uncle Drac likes knitting. My hat was a blue octopus and you could tie its tentacles under your chin to stop it blowing off in the wind, which I did. Wanda’s was a seagull. I had to tie its long yellow legs under her chin to stop her teeth chattering, which is a very annoying noise.

  At last we saw Skeleton Island looming out of the mist and a few minutes later the Fat Seagull pulled up to a little wooden jetty that stuck out from the cliffs. The mist hung around the tops of the cliffs and a fine drizzly rain was falling. Everyone went very quiet—the island felt really spooky.

  “Do you suppose there are pirates here?” Wanda whispered, sounding as though she now hoped there weren’t. “I mean the fierce kind, with cutlasses and daggers and things.”

  “Wanda, all pirates are fierce,” I told her. “It is their job.” Wanda thinks that because pirates have bright stripy tops and earrings and parrots sitting on their shoulder they are fun to be with. Most of the time she forgets about their cutlasses and daggers. But I could see that now she had remembered.

  “Actually, Araminta,” she said, “I don’t think I mind if there aren’t any pirates here. It would be fine not to have any pirates here. Totally fine.”

  Suddenly Miss Gargoyle shouted out in her little high-pitched voice, “Girls, gi
rls! Hurry along to the hut! Quickly now!” Bossy Bella jumped up and began helping at last and led the way to a big hut perched just above the beach on the far side of the jetty.

  “Oh good,” Wanda said. “We can have our packed lunch.”

  Inside the hut Miss Gargoyle told us what we were going to be doing on Skeleton Island. We were going on what she called a “learning treasure hunt”, which I knew at once wasn’t really a treasure hunt at all. It was just a lot of learning.

  Wanda was feeling braver now she was inside and the spooky wet mist was outside. We took off our soggy hats.

  “Wow!” Wanda whispered as I helped her undo the knot in her seagull hat’s legs. “We might find the pirate treasure.”

  “Don’t be silly, Wanda. You’d have to dig for ages to find that.”

  “I don’t mind digging,” Wanda said. “It would be fun to dig for treasure.”

  Wanda was right, it would be fun to dig for pirate treasure, but I didn’t get a chance to agree because Nosy Nora put up her hand and said, “Please, Miss Gargoyle, I can’t hear what you are saying because Araminta and Wanda are talking all the time.”

  “Thank you, Nora,” Miss Gargoyle said. “Well, Araminta and Wanda seem to have stopped now, don’t they?” And she carried on telling us about the learning treasure hunt.

  Since I started going to school I have noticed that teachers are a lot like my aunt Tabby. They try to make really boring things sound interesting by giving them misleading names, like “Emergency Environmental Action” (picking up litter) or “Discovery Trail” (going for a walk in the town and counting manhole covers). I knew at once that the “Learning Treasure Hunt” was one of these. What Miss Gargoyle should have called it was: “Looking at Wet Grass and Boring Stones and Drawing Them”.

  I sighed. There were so many interesting things to see on Skeleton Island, like the old shipwreck at low tide and the bat cave hidden in the cliffs, but all we were meant to do was to find rocks and as many different kinds of grass as possible.

  But the worst thing of all was, we had to go in groups of four.

  That morning, before we left Gargoyle Hall, we had had to get into pairs. Wanda had asked if she could go with me and I had said I supposed she could (I was going to ask her anyway, but I didn’t tell her that because Wanda can get quite big-headed sometimes). Then we had to write both our names on one piece of paper and give it to Bossy Bella.

  Now Bossy Bella took off her red bobble hat. She tipped all the bits of paper out of an envelope into her hat and then she drew them out in pairs.

  Most people in our class are OK. Our favourites are twins called Frog and Grilla Storm. Frog is called Frog because she loves—guess what? Frogs. She draws them all the time; her pencil case is covered with frogs. And Grilla loves gorillas, even though they are much more difficult to draw than frogs. Frog and Grilla both have fair hair in wispy little plaits and lots of freckles. They have really weird laughs and they love cheese and onion crisps and gummy bears just like Wanda and I do. We think they are very funny, so we were really hoping we would get paired up with them, even though Miss Gargoyle says that we should learn to get along with everyone and not stick together in what she calls “gangs”.

  So when Bossy Bella read out our names, Wanda and I crossed our fingers and toes that the other piece of paper would say Frog and Grilla. But it didn’t. Guess what it said? That’s right: Nora Morris and Cora Crumm. Whose real names, in case you hadn’t guessed, are Nosy Nora and Creepy Cora.

  Before I had a chance to tell Bossy Bella that there was no way we were going to share a clipboard with those two, Nosy Nora piped up and said, “Please, dear Bella, could you put us with someone else? Cora and me want to do some proper work. We don’t want to go around talking about stupid ghosts all the time. It is so boring.”

  “Yes,” said Cora like a little echo. “Boring.”

  Well! What a cheek.

  But Bossy Bella just gave Nosy Nora a sympathetic smile and said, “I’m sorry, Nora, that’s the luck of the draw, I’m afraid.”

  “Bad luck of the draw,” Nora muttered loudly.

  Wanda looked cross. “Too right,” she said. “Bad luck for us.”

  Miss Gargoyle heard everything. She has ears like a bat. I don’t mean that they look like bat ears—although bat ears are really sweet and furry and I think they would suit Miss Gargoyle—but she could hear just as well as a bat. “Girls, girls!” she called out. “Remember what we say: Gargoyle Girls Get Along, Gargoyle Girls Sing a Happy Song!”

  Miss Gargoyle had lots of sayings about what Gargoyle Girls did. They all rhymed and were very silly. But it didn’t matter what she said. We knew we wouldn’t get along with Nosy Nora and Creepy Cora.

  We sat in the hut and ate our packed lunch, while outside the mournful seagulls called and it began to rain. It wasn’t the best fun I have ever had, but anything was better than looking for grass and stones with Nosy Nora and Creepy Cora, so I didn’t mind too much.

  Wanda and I talked to Frog and Grilla.

  “I wish we were with you,” Frog said.

  “We could have gone looking for real treasure instead of stupid grass and stones,” Grilla said.

  “And told pirate stories,” Wanda said sadly.

  “Tell us one now!” said Frog.

  Wanda looked at me. “You tell it, Araminta,” she said. “You make the best scary faces and ghost noises. I’ll do the pirate noises.”

  “Do I have to?” I asked.

  “Yes,” Wanda said. “You do.”

  So while the rain pitter-pattered down on the tin roof and we ate our soggy sandwiches, I told them the story of Skeleton Island that Uncle Drac had told me.

  “There was once a pirate ship—”

  “Arrgh!” said Wanda.

  “Wanda, pirate ships don’t go ‘Arrgh!’”

  “But pirates do,” Wanda said.

  “Yes, but we haven’t got to actual pirates yet. I am talking about their ship. Have you ever heard a ship go Arrgh?”

  “It doesn’t matter, Araminta,” Frog said quickly, because Frog always tries to make things OK, “we just want to hear the story.”

  “And we all want to go Arrgh!” said Grilla.

  I sighed—I knew I was outnumbered—and I began again.

  “There was once a pirate—”

  “Arrgh!” went Wanda, Frog and Grilla.

  “—ship called the Cutlass Kate and she sailed the seven seas. The Cutlass Kate had a jolly crew. At night beneath the stars they would play their fiddles and dance, but in the day they were the fiercest pirates—”

  “Arrgh!”

  “You would never wish to meet.”

  “Arrgh!”

  “No,” I told them, crossly. “You only go ‘Arrgh’ if I say pirate.”

  “Arrgh!” This time it wasn’t just Frog, Grilla and Wanda saying “Arrgh!”, it was half the class—and I was sure I heard Miss Gargoyle’s squeaky voice in there too.

  “With every ship they sank, every crew they forced to walk the plank, the pirates—”

  “Arrgh!” the whole class yelled.

  “—of the Cutlass Kate took gold and silver, diamonds and pearls, pieces of eight and Spanish doubloons until the hold could take no more and the treasure spilled on to the deck. The pirates—”

  “Arrgh!” Now even Bossy Bella had joined in.

  “—drank from silver cups and sat on benches of gold ingots, they wound pearl necklaces around the masts, they stitched diamonds into the sails, so the Cutlass Kate sparkled and shone in the sun. But one night there was a terrible storm. The pirates—”

  “Arrgh!”

  “—were used to storms, but this one was really bad. The wind howled, the rain came down in sheets, the waves got higher and higher, while the thunder crashed around them and the lightning lit up the sky. The Cutlass Kate sank lower and lower in the water. The pirates—”

  “Arrgh …” I noticed this one was a really quiet one.

  “—were
in big trouble. They had to find safety. Fast. Billy, the cabin boy, was sent up to the crow’s nest at the top of the tallest mast to look for land. At last there was a shout from the top of the mast. ‘Land ho!’ And the land that Billy had spotted was the pirates’ very own hideaway, the island where they stored their treasure. Which was …” I stopped for dramatic effect and then I said, “Skeleton Island!”

  The youngest girl in our class, Mavis Milligan, burst into tears and wailed, “I want to go home!”

  Miss Gargoyle got up and I thought she was going to be cross with me for being so scary, but she just picked Mavis up and sat her on her knee. “Now, now, Mavis, dear,” Miss Gargoyle said. “Gargoyle Girls Laugh at Fears, Gargoyle Girls Say Boo to Tears!” Mavis nodded nervously. Miss Gargoyle gave me an encouraging smile and I carried on.

  “The Cutlass Kate set sail for Skeleton Island. As she drew near, a huge wave rolled in and crashed over the deck. The ship gave a horrible creaking, groan just like a load of pirates—”

  “Aaaarrgh …”

  “—and she sank beneath the waves.”

  There was a silence in the hut, which I was very proud of because it meant that my story had been really scary.

  “Poor Billy,” Mavis snuffled.

  “Yes, poor Billy,” I agreed. “But the Cutlass Kate came to rest on Skeleton Island and at low tide, you can still see the wreck.”

  Miss Gargoyle stood up. “Thank you, Araminta, I think that’s enough about shipwrecks for now.” She pointed out of the window. “Look, girls, the rain has stopped and I can see some blue sky. I do believe there might just be enough to make a pair of sailor’s trousers.”

  We looked at Miss Gargoyle as though she had gone a little bit bonkers. But she just smiled and said, “Which means we are in for a nice, sunny afternoon. Perfect weather for our learning treasure hunt.” She stood up and brushed the crumbs from Mavis’s sandwich off her skirt. “So get into your groups of four, pick your clipboards up from Bella and off you go.” She picked up the handbell that she takes everywhere with her. “I will ring my bell in two hours’ time and expect you all to come to the jetty as fast as you can. Have fun!”