Skeleton Island Read online

  It was funny, but we felt much more alone now that Baby Bat had gone. You wouldn’t think that a little bat in a box would be company, but she was. Neither of us felt like eating any more gummy bears or pink shrimps—it is surprising how you can go off them after a while—so we sat in our shelter, looked out at the spooky shipwreck and hoped that we might hear the sounds of the boat coming back for us. But all we heard was a lonely seagull somewhere in the mist and the rumbly thunder. And all we saw was darkness falling and a flash of lightning snaking across the horizon.

  To take my mind off Baby Bat flying into a thunderstorm I picked up the pirate necklace and began to clean off all the bat poo. Soon the fat pearls shone in the light of my torch. They looked very beautiful and mysterious. I put the necklace on and was amazed at how heavy it felt.

  “It’s beautiful,” Wanda whispered. “I wonder who it belonged to?”

  “Probably some lord or lady who was shipwrecked,” I whispered back.

  “Why are we whispering?” Wanda whispered.

  I shivered. Everything had become still and silent; even the seagull had stopped calling. Suddenly it felt very eerie. Far away there was another flash of lightning and then Wanda grabbed my arm. “Araminta,” she hissed. “There is something coming out of the sea.”

  We both stared at the water. Last time we had looked, the sea was flat. Now there was a pale, round bump in it, just breaking the surface. “Jellyfish,” I whispered.

  “It won’t come up the beach and eat us, will it?” Wanda whispered.

  “Jellyfish don’t eat people,” I said. “And they don’t walk up beaches either.”

  “Araminta—look!” Wanda grabbed my arm so hard that I nearly screamed. But I don’t think I could have screamed right then because my throat had gone all dry and gulpy.

  The jellyfish was rising up from the water, but it wasn’t a jellyfish. It was a skull. And as it cleared the water we saw there was more than just a skull. There was a skeleton. It stood waist-high in the water, moving its head to the left and then to the right as if it was looking for something. I had a horrible feeling it was looking for us.

  The skeleton began wading towards the beach. It pushed through the water, sending little wavelets outwards, and soon we could see its leg bones, then its knees, then more leg bones, then bony claw-like feet as it splashed out of the sea and stepped on to the damp sand. It stood still for a few long moments and stared straight ahead—at our hideout. Wanda whimpered. I felt so scared that I don’t think I could have even managed that.

  Very slowly it began to walk up the beach, putting its flat bony feet carefully down on the sand and swaying from side to side. Slowly but surely, it was heading towards us, its empty eye sockets looking right at us.

  “It’s coming to get us,” Wanda whispered.

  I knew that Wanda was right.

  “We’re trapped,” Wanda whispered.

  Wanda was right about that too. If we got out of the hideout we’d be seen at once. All we could do was stay put and hope the skeleton didn’t notice we were there.

  The skeleton was really close to us now and I could see that it was not even as tall as Wanda and me—it was a kid skeleton. I don’t know why that made me feel better, but it did.

  “It’s only little,” Wanda whispered. “I think we could run at it and knock it down.”

  At Gargoyle Hall we are meant to look after people who are smaller than us. And we are definitely not meant to run at them and knock them down. So even though this was a skeleton, I thought that would be a really mean thing to do. “No,” I whispered. “Let’s see what it does first. We can always knock it down if it starts getting nasty.”

  Wanda looked doubtful. “OK … But when it does get nasty, I’ll go for its feet and pull them off so it can’t stand up and you knock its head off.” Sometimes I am shocked at the violence that lurks within the seemingly mild exterior of Wanda Wizzard. But it sounded like a good plan.

  The skeleton was now no more than a few feet away and it had definitely seen us. It was odd; it felt as if there was someone there, looking at us. And whoever it was didn’t feel scary at all. I began to feel much braver—for about two seconds—until the little skeleton stretched out its bony right arm and pointed a bony finger at me.

  “It wants the pirate necklace!” Wanda whispered. “Do you think it belongs to the skeleton?”

  The little skeleton must have not only heard Wanda but understood her too, because it nodded its skull.

  I don’t know about you, but when a walking skeleton wants its necklace back I think it is a good idea to hand it over. I did feel a little bit sad as it was the most beautiful necklace I had ever seen, but it wasn’t mine. Besides, I am not the sort of person who takes other people’s—or skeletons’—stuff. Unlike Nosy Nora and Creepy Cora. So I stood up and I lifted the big fat pearls over my head and held the necklace out to the bony hand.

  The bones of the hand closed around the fattest pearl. Then we watched the skeleton lift the necklace up and clumsily place it over its head. The pearls settled on to its collarbones and then something very spooky indeed began to happen.

  “It’s turning into a ghost …” Wanda whispered.

  It was one of the spookiest and most exciting things I have ever seen. The skeleton grew misty and the outlines of the white bones began to blur. Slowly, we saw the transparent shape of a little kid—about seven years old, I would guess—beginning to appear. It was like the bones were putting on clothes. There was something magical about it, and it sent goose pimples running up and down my neck. Wanda and I did not move—we didn’t want to break the spell of what was happening before us. I guess it took about a minute or so until the bones had almost disappeared and a barefoot, scruffy kid dressed in ragged cut-off trousers and a really dirty stripy top was grinning at us just like any normal kid would do. Wanda and I looked at each other in amazement. We felt like we had just seen someone come alive.

  It was very weird. If you looked hard you could still see the skeleton’s bones, so I guessed that the little kid must be a ghost. But ghosts can’t usually hold anything at all, and this one was wearing a heavy necklace. Then I saw that the necklace was actually resting on the bones and the ghostly shape of its neck was above the pearls. So it seemed to me that the skeleton was real but the outside bits of the little kid were ghost: a kind of combination skeleton ghost.

  And then the skeleton ghost spoke. “Thank you for giving me back my necklace,” it said, in a wispy, thin voice that sounded like it was a long way away. It sounded shy too. I thought it was really cute.

  “You’re very welcome,” I told it. “We found it in a cave.”

  The skeleton ghost nodded slowly. “It was my mother’s. I used to wear it but when we came here Peg Leg took it from me and hid it,” it said.

  “That’s not a nice thing to do,” I said.

  “No,” the skeleton agreed. “Peg Leg was not a nice person.”

  Wanda suddenly piped up, “Are you Billy the cabin boy?”

  The skeleton ghost looked surprised. “I am Billie,” it said. “And I was the cabin boy.”

  I was shocked. I’d thought Uncle Drac had made that story up. I’d never dreamed it might be true.

  The ghost looked around as though it thought someone else might be listening. Then it whispered, “But I am not a boy.”

  Wanda’s eyes widened. “What are you?” she whispered.

  “I’m a girl, silly!” Billie said and she laughed just like a real kid. And then she looked at us. “Are you girls too?”

  “Of course we are girls,” Wanda said scathingly.

  “You’re wearing funny clothes for girls,” Billie said.

  “It’s our school uniform,” I told Billie.

  “School,” Billie said wistfully. “I always wanted to go to school, but Mamma wouldn’t let me.”

  It was almost dark now, so I switched on my torch. Billie looked surprised. She stretched out her hand and waggled her fingers in the beam o
f light, which lit up the bones inside so that I could hardly see the shape of her arm at all. “White fire … ” she whispered.

  Wanda shivered. “I wish we did have a fire.”

  Billie put her head on one side. She reminded me of a little bird. “Oh,” she said. “Are you cold?”

  “Yes,” Wanda said and I noticed her teeth were chattering.

  Billie’s big dark eyes looked sad. “I can’t remember what feeling cold is like, but I do remember it wasn’t nice,” she said. “Shall I show you how to make a fire? That will warm you up.”

  So that’s what Billie did. In a secret place at the foot of the cliff, she showed us where all her fire stuff was. It was wrapped up in a greasy cloth inside a tin box. There was a big stone with a hole in the middle of it, something that looked like a small bow from a bow and arrow set, a short thick stick with a sharp point on it, a little bag of very dry moss and another bag with shavings of wood inside.

  Billie told us what to do because she couldn’t do it with her bony arms. We put the pointy end of the stick in the hole in the stone, then we wrapped the twine of the bow around the top of the stick and moved the bow so that the stick whizzed around in the hole so fast that it began to get hot. I did that while Wanda dropped some bits of the dry moss on to it. And then, when some smoke began to rise, Billie told Wanda to blow very gently. Suddenly a little lick of flame appeared, Wanda dropped bits of wood shavings on to it and the flame spread.

  Ten minutes later we were sitting by the best beach fire ever. All we needed were some sausages to cook on it and it would have been perfect. In fact it was pretty perfect really, because I stuck some pink shrimps on to some sharp bits of wood and we toasted them over the fire. I saw Billie looking at them longingly and I felt really mean that just Wanda and I were eating them.

  “I didn’t miss food under the sea,” Billie said wistfully. “But I do now.”

  “Under the sea?” Wanda asked. “Is that where you live?”

  Billie nodded and I saw her skull glinting in the firelight.

  Wanda—who is very nearly as nosy as Nosy Nora—asked, “But why do you live under the sea?”

  “Because I drowned,” said Billie.

  “Ooh …” Wanda went all googly-eyed. “What happened?”

  “Don’t be so nosy, Wanda,” I told her.

  Billie smiled. “I don’t mind telling you what happened to me,” she said. “It is nice to talk to someone who is not a pirate.”

  “But you are a pirate,” Wanda said.

  Billie looked very offended. “I am not a pirate,” she told Wanda. “Pirates are murderers and thieves. They are wicked and cruel and they killed my mamma and papa.”

  “Killed them?” Wanda was shocked. I could see she was thinking how horrible it would be if that happened to Brenda and Barry.

  “That,” Billie said, “is what pirates do.” She dropped her voice to a whisper. “I will tell you my story but you must promise to keep a lookout. I don’t want any pirates coming to listen.”

  “Neither do we,” I said. “We will both keep a lookout.”

  We sat eating toasted pink shrimps, and as a storm rumbled in the distance, we listened to a little girl whose bones glistened in the firelight through her ghostly clothes.

  This was a real ghost story.

  “My name, when I was alive, was Wilhelmina Josephina Maria Constantia van Diemen. I was an only child and my parents were rich. My father had many ships and they traded in spices from the East. My mother was an adventurous woman and she longed to see the lands where the spices came from. One day my father told us he had a wonderful surprise for us both. His ship, the Serendipity, was about to leave for the Spice Islands—and we were to go too!

  “You can imagine how excited we were. My father gave us just a few hours to pack and my mother was very upset when my father allowed her only one trunk of clothes and no jewels. A ship was not a safe place for precious things, he said.” Billie fingered the heavy pearl necklace that hung down in front of her ribs. “But Mamma always wore this and she told my father that she would not set foot on the Serendipity without it. Papa knew he had to give in.” Billie smiled. “And later that day when Papa was busy, Mamma smuggled the rest of her favourite jewels on board in a little leather bag. She told me she had a way of keeping the jewels safe. She wrote a curse on a slip of leather and put it in the jewellery bag. And as she wrote the words she read them out. They weren’t nice.”

  “What were they?” asked Wanda.

  Billie’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Mamma wrote: ‘I, Seraphina Maria Dracandor van Diemen, do place a curse upon the thief of these jewels. May your ship sink. May you be doomed to haunt the seabed beside her until the day these jewels are returned to their rightful, living owner.’’’

  “Ooh …” said Wanda. “That is scary.”

  “It is,” Billie agreed. “But back then I had no idea that Mamma could do curses for real. I suppose she was a bit of a witch really …” Billie shivered and carried on talking. “But I like to remember the happy times too. It was fun on our ship. As soon as we were out of sight of land and Mamma had gone below for a rest, Papa gave me a present—a thick striped jersey and a pair of trews. He told me I could wear them for the whole voyage. I was so excited!”

  Wanda and I looked at each other, puzzled. We are always disappointed when someone gives us clothes for presents when there are so many more interesting things you can get.

  Billie saw our expressions. “Oh, but you would have been excited too. You see, little girls in those times didn’t wear baggy sacks tied in the middle like you do.”

  “Baggy sacks?” Wanda sounded a little put out.

  “These are not sacks,” I told Billie. “These are Gargoyle Hall gymslips—our school uniform.”

  Billie sighed. “Oh, you are so lucky to go to school. I longed to go to school but I was not allowed because I was a girl. I had to stay home with Mamma. And I had to wear clothes just like Mamma’s. I had lots of petticoats; the top one had hoops in it and my dress was always a pale silk and I had to be so careful not to get it stained. I had itchy white stockings that I had to keep clean too, but the thing I hated most was my shoes. They were narrow and pointy and squeezed my feet so my toes really hurt. I could never run around like you can. But now, on the Serendipity in my jersey and trews, I was free. And I was allowed to go barefoot, so my feet were free too.” Billie stuck her feet in the air and wiggled her toes happily. The little white bones looked like tiny piano keys in the firelight.

  “When Mamma woke from her rest, I told her that I never wanted to wear a dress or shoes ever again: I was going to wear my trews and stripy jersey for ever.” Billie sighed. “And that turned out to be true. Be careful what you wish for.”

  I felt a shiver run down my neck when Billie said that.

  Billie looked sad for a moment, but she soon smiled again. “Oh, it was such fun on the Serendipity,” she said. “The crew showed me the ropes. On calm days I helped with the sails and even climbed the mast all the way up to the crow’s nest. Everyone—except Mamma—called me Billie and sometimes the crew forgot I was a girl and called me Billy boy. I didn’t mind at all. In fact I liked it because only boys were allowed to do exciting things.

  “Our first port of call was in Africa, where my father went ashore to trade beads and fine glass for the gold he needed to buy spices. I wasn’t allowed off the ship and neither was Mamma. Papa said that the port was a dangerous place.

  “All day long I stood at the ship’s rail and watched the comings and goings up and down the gangplank. I soon noticed a group of men watching the ship. I was sure they were pirates. One of them had a wooden peg leg; his name was Peg Leg Jake, although I didn’t know it then. In those happy days I knew nothing about Peg Leg and his evil crew. I told Papa that bad men were spying on us, but he just laughed and said that was what happened in ports. The day before our ship left, Peg Leg and his mates disappeared. I know now that they left to get their own ship
ready—they had seen enough to know who their next victim was going to be.”

  “Who was that?” asked Wanda.

  “Duh, Wanda. It was the Serendipity,” I told her.

  “It was,” Billie said sadly. “We left that night and by the time the sun rose we were out of sight of land, and could see nothing but the blue sea. It was very calm and I was allowed up in the crow’s nest. Towards evening I saw a white sail appear above the northern horizon. I called down, ‘Ship ahoy!’ The master came up with a telescope and we saw that the ship was flying the skull and crossbones flag. It was a pirate ship.”

  “Ooh!” Wanda gasped.

  Billie didn’t say anything for a while; she just stared at the fire with her ghostly eyes. And when she did begin to speak her voice was low and trembly.

  “The next few hours were horrible. The pirates chased us and they boarded our ship. We tried to fight them off but there were so many of them. They took Mamma’s necklace and they found her jewels. Mamma was so brave. And Papa was too …” Billie made a little gulp and then went on with her story. “But it didn’t matter how brave anyone was, the pirates killed everyone—all except for me. You see, their cabin boy had just fallen from the crow’s nest and they needed a new one. They thought I was just a boy who’d run away to sea and that I would love to be a pirate. I went along with it. If they had known I was a girl and the daughter of the ship’s owner they would have killed me too.”

  No one said anything for quite some time and then Wanda asked, “So how did you end up here?”

  “Well, Mamma’s curse began to work. The pirates’ ship—the Cutlass Kate—was shipwrecked here in a huge storm. We were lucky; most of us survived. Peg Leg and his crew were very happy to be here, because it was the island where they kept their buried treasure.”

  Wanda and I looked at each other—maybe our treasure map was real!

  “The crew rescued supplies from the ship and their treasure too. They buried it in their secret treasure place and made plans for building a boat to escape in. But one night we were sitting by the fire just like this, when a storm blew up. The waves got higher and higher and I was really scared. I wanted to go up to the top of the island where the waves couldn’t get us, but Peg Leg made me stay here on the beach. He and his gang just laughed at the waves. And then, in the middle of all the laughing, a massive wave rolled in and swept us out to sea. We were all …” Billie stopped speaking.