Admiral Ransom signalled, and Thorn was seized by sailors and tied up in ropes.

‘Very brave, Prudence,’ the admiral drawled. ‘And you’ve saved me a lot of unnecessary trouble.’

Cordelia and the Troublemakers watched, stunned, from the treehouse.

‘I won’t run!’ Thorn declared as the ropes were knotted at her wrists. Her voice was steady, but, even from up in the treehouse, Cordelia could hear fear just under the surface of the words. ‘You don’t need to tie me up.’

The admiral tested the ropes.

‘It’s insurance, Prudence,’ he explained. ‘In case you change your mind.’

‘I won’t,’ Thorn announced. ‘I’m a girl of my word.’

A sailor ran forward carrying a sack and Admiral Ransom thrust the struggling dodo into it.

‘Wh-what are you doing?’ Thorn stammered, as the admiral tied the sack closed. ‘You have to leave the island unharmed now that you’ve got me. You can’t take that dodo!’

But the expression that stretched the admiral’s face was cruel as he passed the wriggling sack to a sailor.

‘There’s an old mariner’s myth that this island is home to a dreadful beast!’ the admiral announced to his men. ‘I want its head as a trophy!’

Cordelia was horrified. He must mean the Sea Dragon!

‘I forgot to mention the other order your father gave me, Prudence,’ the admiral continued, turning back to Thorn. ‘The last thing Sir Piers said to me before I departed London was … Kill all the other Troublemakers.’

These words fell like an executioner’s axe.

‘NO!’ Thorn screamed.

The admiral yelled, ‘MEN, ATTACK!’

Ranks of sailors broke apart and stormed up the beach, producing ropes and nets and knives and sacks. Smoke exploded from their guns as they shot at the dodos. The birds scattered in a flurry of panic and feathers.

‘NO!’ Cordelia’s voice was drowned in the yells of the Troublemakers and the squawks of frightened creatures.

Sailors swarmed beneath them, trying to get up to the treehouse. More streamed into the jungle, swords slashing paths through the plants.

‘The admiral lied!’ Goose yelled.

‘We’ve gotta save Thorn!’ shouted Sam.

Cordelia turned to the Troublemakers – their faces blazed with outrage and fear, but she could see roaring courage alive in their eyes. Thorn had told Cordelia to look after them; they were her responsibility now. Cordelia turned to the youngest few.

‘Annie, Billy, Tabitha – hide!’ she ordered. ‘You’re too young to fight!’

Outrage exploded from all three.

‘NO!’

‘We want to fight!’

‘We’ve got to help!’

Even Shelly shook her head in a hell-bent kind of way.

Cordelia felt frustration squeeze her from the inside out.

‘You’re too young!’ she shouted at them. ‘I’m trying to stop you getting hurt!’

Then she suddenly remembered her own furious objections to her father’s order to hide: I can fight! I’m strong!

It was enough to change her mind.

‘All right. But promise me you’ll be careful!’

There was no more time to waste. Cordelia turned with a battle cry.

‘TROUBLEMAKERS, ATTACK!’

With that, she launched herself into the vines.

The world was a blur of green and war screams – then Cordelia found herself set back down on the planks of the prow again. Around her, other Troublemakers were being firmly returned to the treehouse.

‘No!’ Cordelia panted. ‘I need to get down to the beach!’

Below, sailors slashed and hacked, scrambling up the trees, trying to reach them. Thorn was being bundled into a rowing boat.

Cordelia threw herself at the Turbidus Vines. ‘Take me down to the beach, please!’ she gasped, in as polite a voice as she could muster.

But the vines replaced her firmly on the deck, catching the other Troublemakers and returning them all to the safety of the treehouse.

‘I’m trying to help! I’m trying to save things!’ Cordelia yelled. ‘Please!’

She hurled herself into the vines again and again, but each time they caught her and set her back down.

‘The vines are stopping us getting in harm’s way!’ Never panted, as he was returned to the deck beside Cordelia. ‘They’re trying to keep us safe!’

Indeed, thrashing and writhing around the trees, Turbidus Vines were smacking back sailors attempting to climb them. Men were knocked to the ground, grabbed and hurled, tumbled across the jungle floor. Bushes and fungus puffballs bowled through the trees, flattening sailors and pushing them down the beach into the sea. Sailors plunging through the jungle with armfuls of ripped-up flowers were knocked down and swept away.

The island was fighting the invaders.

But the sailors kept on coming. And they came with knives and guns.

The air exploded with acrid smoke around Cordelia’s head.

‘DUCK!’ she screamed, pulling Tabitha and Jim to the deck beside her, flat on their bellies.

‘We can’t get down and they can’t get up!’ Sam cried.

‘So let’s chuck things at ’em!’ Billy bellowed.

‘To the workshop!’ yelled Never.

Cordelia led the way, crawling across the treehouse, avoiding the crack and hiss of gunshots that exploded from below.

Sailors were heading in every direction. There were too many of them for the vines to stop their advance. Some, hacking footholds in the trees, were smacked back, but others surged onwards, deeper into the jungle, ripping up plants, snatching birds and butterflies out of the air.

The admiral sent a group of men ahead of him and carved his way through their wake. As they were taken out by tumbling shrubs and whipping vines, he ploughed forward, his drawn sword sharp for slaying. Cordelia spied his tall, wide figure stalking through the glade below.

‘He’s going to try to kill Rainbow!’ Cordelia gasped. ‘We’ve got to stop him!’

They reached the workshop and the Troublemakers seized every ingredient they could, pelting them at the sailors.

‘Put trouble in your fingertips!’ Cordelia instructed, hurling snapping shells at sailors hacking handholds in a tree trunk.

The Troublemakers rained chaos on to the heads of the invaders. Sailors cowered as they were met with a volley of chomping flowers and exploding coconuts. Vines thrashed and Sun Eaters divebombed them, sending them splaying in navy blurs to the ground.

The admiral was stopped in his tracks as several Petrifying Parrots landed on his hat. Tabitha took the opportunity to shower him with needling splinters of lightning. The parrots fled in a red blur and the admiral slashed furiously at the crackling air, but found he couldn’t fight lightning with a sword.

‘Somebody kill those Troublemakers!’ Admiral Ransom roared, desperately hitting himself to extinguish the tiny lightning fires catching on his uniform. ‘NOW!’

‘We can’t reach ’em, sir!’ a sailor yelled, as his crew mates were hurled to the ground around him.

‘Then do what we always do!’ the admiral snapped. ‘BURN EVERYTHING!’

‘AYE, AYE!’

Cordelia emptied a sack of thunderclouds over the sailors, then hurled a Fungus-Glove that knocked the admiral’s hat off. But the Troublemakers were running out of things to throw.

‘What do we do when we’re out of ingredients?’ Smokestack panted.

Cordelia looked around for an answer and saw a blazing light coming down through the trees.

‘It’s Rainbow!’ Never gasped.

The Sea Dragon was prowling down the hillside, swiping sailors aside with her tail. She was ready to defend her home, wearing the colours of righteous fury in her scales. As they saw her, sailors quailed.

‘The – the beast of the island!’

‘It’s a monster!’

‘RUN!’

The admiral stood like a rock as his crew rushed away. The Sea Dragon was fearsome to behold – the kind of sight that shrinks your guts and narrows your mind to a single point of pure fear. Her fangs flashed in the firelight as she roared at the admiral. Cordelia’s belly blazed with something more ancient than pride, knowing they had this ferocious saviour on their side.

‘FOUL BEAST!’ the admiral yelled. But his voice was as pale as a surrender flag beneath the roaring fury of the Sea Dragon.

The Troublemakers marvelled as the Sea Dragon reared, her wings bursting in a mighty banner from her back. She was poised, ready to strike. The admiral’s sword drooped in his hand and he let out a whimper.

Then a terrible rending noise – like hope being ripped from a heart – tore through the jungle.

The Soulhope Tree crashed through the canopy, felled by the axes of sailors. Even Rainbow turned to look as birds fled their nests, screaming in distress.

The whole jungle grew darker.

‘HA!’

Cordelia whirled round.

The world folded and failed as the Sea Dragon slumped to the jungle floor.

In the moment of distraction, the admiral had plunged his sword into Rainbow. The lights of her scales dimmed to darkness as the Sea Dragon’s lifeless body crumpled at Admiral Ransom’s feet.

‘VICTORY IS MINE!’ he gloated.

A crackle reached Cordelia’s ears, sending a primal shudder through her soul.

The men were using what men have always used to subdue nature. It was fire, dancing a path of destruction through the jungle, licking at the trunks of the trees, gobbling plants in its greedy mouth.

The dreadful smell of burning hope twisted through the twilight.

And suddenly the island was overrun – sailors slashed through the greenery, uprooting ferns and ripping through glades, dragging the felled Soulhope Tree back to their ship. The Troublemakers stood, smothered by hopelessness, as the fire grew like a terrible symphony below them.

Cordelia looked around desperately.

Sailors were scrambling up to the treehouse now, hacking handholds in tree trunks and clambering up limp Turbidus Vines like ropes. The island was giving up the fight, its heart and soul both defeated.

Soon the treehouse would be swarmed by the enemy, who had orders to kill every Troublemaker.

‘We’ve got to go!’ Cordelia yelled. ‘They’re coming!’

They could not escape downwards, into the rising tide of fire and knives.

The treehouse shuddered as sailors thumped on to the decks.

‘Go where?’ Never wailed.

Cordelia had one idea left. She ran along the treehouse, yelling, ‘Everyone, follow me!’

It was their only hope of escape; there was nowhere to go but up.

She skidded to a stop at the bottom of the mast and sent everyone scrambling up towards the crow’s nest.

‘Go on, missy!’ Smokestack urged. ‘I’ll come last and cut off the rigging with my cutlass behind me.’

Cordelia threw herself upwards and Smokestack followed, sawing at the ropes below his feet to slow down the enemy.

It was crowded on the crow’s nest. They could hear the shouts of sailors below, on their trail like bloodhounds on a scent.

‘The wind-dinghy’s our only escape route,’ Cordelia panted. ‘Everybody, in!’

Night was spreading like spilled ink across the sky. The lights of St Freerest glimmered distantly.

‘I don’t know if we’ll get there with so many passengers,’ Never hissed into Cordelia’s ear as the Troublemakers climbed aboard. ‘It’s only built for one or two!’

The boat dipped as Sam and Goose swung themselves in beside the pirates.

‘St Freerest isn’t where I’m proposing we go,’ Cordelia told him.

‘Then where?’

‘They’re coming up!’ Smokestack called. ‘I’ll hold ’em off!’

‘I say we go back to London!’ Cordelia told everyone.

‘Back to London?’ the Troublemakers gasped in disbelief.

‘But how do we get to London?’ Billy wailed. ‘We’ve got no ship!’

Cordelia clapped a bracing hand on his shoulder.

‘We smuggle ourselves.’