‘We’ll take the tunnel,’ Mags announced, and my heart sank. She knew how much I hated the shortcut down to the beach. Was she trying to shake me off – hoping I’d leave her alone with handsome Michael Baron?
Something flared up inside me. I wasn’t going to be shoved aside. Besides, if I turned around to go back home via the cliff path, I would have to go past Spooky Joe’s cottage, alone . . .
‘Are you coming, Pet?’
I smiled as innocently as a younger sister can at moments like this. ‘Of course,’ I said.
The entrance to the tunnel was concealed by the ruins of an old lookout tower and the roots of a gnarled, wind-bent tree that grew from between the stones. Most of the children in the village knew about the tunnel. It was a secret passed amongst siblings and school friends, though our Pa had been the one to show it to me and Mags. It was a long, steep, enclosed passageway carved through earth and chalk and tree roots – an old smugglers’ route that took you from the south cliff all the way down to the beach at Dragon Bay.
We used Pa’s torch, its feeble beam illuminating the chalky burrow just a few yards ahead. Michael went first, then Mags, then me. Here at the very top, the tunnel was the entrance to an enormous rabbit warren and, as we dropped down on to all fours, we had to watch where we put our hands, as there were little piles of droppings here and there. Something blinked in the gloom, and scurried away down a narrow hole with a flash of feet and a blaze of tail.
I hated this first bit. Tree roots cobwebbed the walls of the tunnel and dangled down into our path. Sometimes they were sturdy enough to be helpful – you could grip them and lower yourself around the steep, twisting corners; sometimes the thicker roots blocked the way, hanging there like pale stalactites, and you had to hold your breath as you squeezed between them. They were rough and scaly, and caught on my woolly hat and hair. The passage was so low that, in places, we had to wriggle on our backs or bellies. My left foot caught in a root and, for a second, I couldn’t budge. As Michael and Mags got further ahead, the light of the torch died out completely, plunging me into darkness.
‘Mags!’ I called. ‘I’m stuck.’
‘Just wriggle your way through, Pet – pretend you’re a mole or something.’
I forced my foot back, hearing the root tear behind me. Some loose soil pattered down from the ceiling of the tunnel. I forced in a deep breath of the damp, earthy air and struggled on, following my sister’s squirming feet. I felt myself getting angry with her, exactly as I had in the rowing boat on the day of the crabbing competition. Why did I let her get me into scrapes like this?
As we got deeper inside the cliff, the tunnel became steeper. The walls here were chalky – pale and smooth as old bones. There were parts that were almost high enough to stand up in, with steps carved into the chalk, and lower stretches where we had to tuck down on our haunches and skid and slither our way down into the darkness. I felt my boot scrape against something sharp and the same thing tore at my coat. I thought about how angry Mutti would be when we got home and she saw the state of my clothes – and then I remembered that Mutti wasn’t at home any more. Tears started burning in my eyes and I had to bite my lip. Then, dim morning light illuminated the tunnel ahead, and the passageway twisted around a tight corner, suddenly opening up into a much larger space.
Here, halfway down the cliff face, was a round cavern with two window-like openings that looked out over the sea. This was Dragon Bay Cave. It must have been a perfect lookout spot for the smugglers who had first used the tunnel all those years ago, as they could have watched the boats making their way around the dangerous coastline, flashing signals to them with lanterns held up at the round, chalky windows.
Michael stood at the right-hand window now. ‘Such a fantastic view,’ he was saying. Then, more quietly: ‘I love being here with you, Magda.’
I was confused. Had they been here together before, then?
Mags’s face was shining, but I felt as I always felt when I stood here in the cave. I felt eerie. The two windows at the front made me feel as if I were inside a giant skull, peering out through the hollow eye sockets.
‘Just look at the Wyrm,’ I muttered, staring out through the left eyehole. I looked down, and swallowed.
The tide was coming in, the sands were shifting, and the yellow-grey Wyrm was twisting about hungrily beneath the shallow waves.
‘It must be tricky, that sandbank,’ Michael said. ‘If you’re manoeuvring a big ship, or a submarine or something like that.’
‘It’s fine if you know what you’re doing,’ Mags said with confidence. This was her favourite subject. ‘And the lighthouse gives you the perfect bearing to steer safely around it into Dragon Bay or Stonegate harbour.’ She looked at Michael. ‘I can show you if you like.’
He nodded, keen as mustard. ‘That would be wonderful.’
Down at Dragon Bay, Mags led us straight to the line of upturned rowing boats that were pulled up high on to the dry sand, out of reach of the tide.
‘Aren’t we going to take the motor boat?’ I asked. Pa had salvaged the rusty old wreck from the scrapyard as a project for Mags. When we first got it, it just about managed to stay afloat, but the engine had needed rebuilding. Mags had christened her Faith, and she was moored in the harbour.
‘No, I haven’t quite got the engine running yet,’ Mags replied.
‘But you’ve been working on her for months, haven’t you?’
I might have been mistaken, but I thought Mags flashed a look at Michael then.
‘Of course I have. But there’s so much that needs doing before she’s safe and seaworthy. Come on – we’ll take Edward.’
Edward, or rather King Edward, was the family rowing boat we had used for the crabbing competition – a lovely old thing, painted red, blue and white. I used to think it was odd that we had a boat named after a potato, but it had been Pa’s since he was a boy (when King Edward VII was on the throne). Pa had passed it on to Mags, who had always tended it lovingly. If Mags went missing on a summer’s day, she could usually be found down here on the beach, sanding, repairing and repainting King Edward, her sleeves rolled up to her elbows, flecks of paint in her messy hair. My sister had always smelt of yacht varnish and the sea.
Michael and I helped turn the rowing boat over, and then we dragged it down towards the water. There were long lines of barbed wire all along the beach, scoring the sand like razor-hooked fishing lines, but someone from the village had flattened sections of it, and cut other parts back so that children could still take their little boats out or swim in the bay. It was probably against the law, but no one seemed to mind much and the coastguard had turned a blind eye.
When we got to the water, Mags turned to me and said, ‘Why don’t you wait here for us, Pet? The boat isn’t really big enough for three. You could do some drawing or something.’
I stared at her, and she stared steadily back. Her clear, dark eyes said, You’re not welcome.
There were lots of things I could have said to my sister at that moment, but the one that came out of my mouth was, ‘I can’t draw – I haven’t got my sketchbook.’
‘There’s paper and a pencil in my bag,’ she laughed, tossing me the canvas backpack. Then she took off her coat, rolled it up, and threw it at me too.
I watched as my sister climbed into the rowing boat. Michael pushed the boat out until it was floating freely, then he climbed in too, and Mags started pulling at the oars. As the boat grew smaller and smaller, I became aware of my boots sinking more deeply into the sludgy sand, and the deeper they sank, the angrier I felt.
Mags and I had always squabbled, but usually Mutti forced us to make up quickly. ‘Be the bigger person, Petra,’ she’d whisper. It was always me that had to be the bigger person (even though I was much smaller). It was always me that had to apologize, to swallow my pride and say sorry. But then it wasn’t possible for my sister to swallow her pride, was it? She had so much of it she’d probably choke . . .
I felt the wet sand closing over the toes of my boots. I turned my back on the sea, pulled my feet up with a revolting sucking sound, and returned to the higher, drier part of the bay.
I had been waiting for about half an hour, watching the quiet traffic of fishing boats on the glassy sea, before I realized that there was something very important that I could have been doing with my time. I could have kicked myself for forgetting about it.
I rummaged in the pockets of my sister’s coat, and found what I was looking for straight away. It was the piece of paper that Mags had taken from Spooky Joe.
I unfolded it, my heart pattering with excitement. This could be the key to proving that Mutti is innocent. I was expecting to find some sort of diagram, like the ones mentioned in the magistrates’ court, but instead I found an incomprehensible list of numbers. This is what Joe had written:
MB – TB:
0617 040540
0638 110540
0557 180540
0625 250540
Was it a code of some kind? It was so unlike the documents at the tribunal . . . Perhaps Spooky Joe wasn’t the spy after all. As much as I wanted this easy answer, it just didn’t fit. If Joe was on the side of the Nazis, why had he made that comment about ‘Jerry’ in the bakery? No – Spooky Joe was a patriot. Perhaps he was keeping an eye out for suspicious behaviour, just like the government’s posters told us to. Perhaps this note was the clue to who the real spy was . . . I couldn’t make head nor tail of the numbers, but the letters at the top must mean something . . . What could MB stand for? The first thing I thought of was the person who was currently swanning about in the King Edward with my stupid sister – Michael Baron – but I knew that was nonsense. It’s just your anger talking, Pet, I said to myself firmly. Anyway – you’re not really angry with him, you’re angry with Magda. And then I stopped and looked at the letters again. MB. Magda’s middle name was Bernadette. Could Spooky Joe have been making notes about my sister?
I sat quite still for a moment. The salt-heavy breeze tugged at the paper between my fingers and a series of waves rose up and rolled in, one after another on to the beach. My mind churned like mud in the shallows. What if it was Mags? What if Mags had been up to something these last few months? I thought about her odd moods and behaviour, her early morning disappearances, the fact that she had obviously not been working on the motor boat, as she had claimed. She had been lying to us. And then I thought about that anonymous figure in the mist – could that have been my sister? Perhaps Mutti had thought Mags was up to something too. That was why she followed her that morning. That was why she was so desperate for us both to be evacuated . . .
I stood up, stuffing the piece of paper hurriedly into my own coat pocket as I realized that the boat sliding up on to the beach was the King Edward.
They were back.