Davina Dupree Puzzles a Pirate (3 page)

‘Davina and Arabella are always the first ones up in the mornings,’ Cleo said sulkily, getting to her feet. ‘Maybe you should search
their
tent first. Their goody-two-shoes behaviour is probably all an act. It wouldn’t surprise me if-‘

‘That’s ENOUGH Cleo,’ Mrs Pumpernickle rose to her feet and leaned across the table. Cleo swished her blonde hair as she turned and walked back to her tent, hips swaying all the way. Arabella rolled her eyes at me. Trust Cleo to try and pin the blame on us. So
pathetic.com
. But whole thing does sound slightly mysterious. If the jewellery can’t be found, then who on earth took it?

Early Evening, Saturday, 10
^th
January

OK Diary, its official.

There’s definitely a thief among us.

Basically, the crook must have struck again when Mr Snap and Mr Fossil took us right over to the other side of the island this afternoon, to carry on our projects. Mr Snap wandered off with Mr Fossil to search for Kapatoo birds, while the rest of us split up and carried on searching for rare animal and plant species.

I never thought of being an explorer before but it’s so fun finding all these unusual looking creatures, I’m seriously thinking about becoming a famous explorer when I’m grown up. Art’s totally my favourite subject so I’m loving drawing everything too. I can’t say Arabella loves the project work so much but she’s really good at spotting new species.

‘Look,’ she yelled as Mr Snap and Mr Fossil disappeared. ‘What’s that, Davina? Can you see the spikes moving behind that mossy log? Come on, let’s go and have a look.’

We crept up to the log slowly and saw the most gorgeous little animal rubbing’s its spikey back along the bark. It looked like a cross between a reptile and a small dog, with red, green and yellow stripy fur, sharp spikes protruding through the fur where its spine was. It had SUCH a sweet face, all puppyish and adorable. I quickly looked it up in my species guide.

‘Arabella, it’s called a Conich,’ I said, bending to pick it up.

‘Don’t touch it,’ Arabella yelled. ‘It might be acting all sweet then suddenly turn and bite or scratch you.’

‘It’s ok,’ I soothed, picking the little animal up. It was about the size of a puppy and immediately snuggled down in my arms, making soft croaking noises. ‘The species guide says Conich’s are very friendly unless they feel threatened, in which case they scream and run away. Hello cutie,’ I said, stroking its fur. ‘Ouch, I don’t think it realises how sharp its spikes are.’ The Conich had wriggled when I stroked it and one of its spikes dug hard into my upper arm. ‘I’m going to call you Thorny.’

‘Can I hold Thorny?’ Arabella came close, seeing the animal wasn’t going to hurt us.

‘Yup,’ I said, gently sliding Thorny into her arms. ‘I’m going to draw him while you’re holding him.’

‘How do you know Thorny’s a boy?’ Arabella asked, stroking his stripy fur.

‘I don’t for sure,’ I said, opening my project folder. ‘But his face looks kind of boyish, don’t you think?’

‘I don’t know about that,’ Arabella said, holding him up to inspect him more closely. ‘But I’ll take your word for it.’

We played with Thorny for over an hour, also finding three new plant species we hadn’t seen before and a strangely flat frog, drawing all of them while Thorny followed us about happily. At one point he ran off excitedly and completely disappeared so we followed him and found ourselves entering a half hidden lair.

‘Ooh, I don’t like this place, it gives me the creeps,’ Arabella said, looking around.

‘I know what you mean,’ I said, walking further inside and finding rows and rows of empty, dirty cages. ‘What on earth has been going on here? Hang on, can you hear that cheeping noise coming from further inside?’ But before she had time to answer, Thorny raced out again and we followed him quickly, glad to get away from the mournful, abandoned cages.

When my waterproof phone said it was time to meet up again with all the others, we VERY reluctantly said goodbye to Thorny, and headed back to the enormous tree Mr Fossil had told us to regroup next to.

‘He’s following us,’ Arabella said as we clambered over tree roots. ‘Go home Thorny, you’ll get lost if you stray too far away.’ But Thorny kept running, his short little legs going faster and faster.

‘I think he wants to come with us,’ I said. ‘What shall we do?’

‘Let’s keep going and ask Mr Fossil what to do when we see him,’ Arabella said, which I thought was a very sensible suggestion.

‘Oh, a Conich!’ Mr Fossil exclaimed when he saw the little spikey bundle running after us. ‘I haven’t seen one for years.’ Mr Snap looked down his nose at Thorny as though he was the most revolting thing he’d ever seen, mean man.

‘He followed us all the way back here,’ I said. ‘We’re worried he won’t be able to find his way home.’

‘The Conich is a most affectionate animal,’ Mr Fossil said, picking Thorny up and smiling at him. ‘They’d make wonderful pets, but as they’re an endangered species they have to be protected in the wild on a few sand islands like these. They make quite sophisticated burrows deep under the beach. I think he’s rather taken to you girls,’ Thorny leaned towards me and Arabella. I reached out and took him.

‘I KNEW Thorny was a boy,’ I grinned at him.

‘Oh how sad, they’ve already named him,’ Clarice sniggered. ‘Is he your new toy, girls?’

‘Mr Fossil,’ Arabella said loudly, completely ignoring her. ‘Do you think it would do Thorny any harm if we took him back to our tent with us? It’s just that he really
does
seem to want to come.’

‘Conich’s are very loyal,’ Mr Fossil said, looking round to check that all the first years had arrived back. ‘It will probably do him more harm than good to be separated from you at this stage. It’s fine to bring him back for a while, as long as you feed him properly. Conich’s are strictly vegetarian, they get very angry if anyone tries to feed them meat.’

We walked back in a group to our tents, Mr Snap stomping ahead, watching the sun set and feeling a cold wind blow up. As a few rain drops splattered us Thorny climbed inside my faux fur coat. When we got back to our camp we all dived inside our own tents quickly but seconds later I heard Erica’s voice. She sounded upset.

‘Mrs Fairchild? Mrs Fairchild? Lottie and I have been robbed!’

Needless to say there was much general fuss and confusion as everyone tried to find out what was going on. It was raining harder by then so we all got soaked and Mrs Pumpernickle kept saying,

‘Why you lot brought such expensive items on a school trip, I’ll never know. Very silly of you, if you ask me.’

Mrs Fairchild eventually established that while we were all off doing project work with Mr Fossil and Moody Mr Snap, and she and Mrs Pumpernickle were catching prawns, muscles, fish and lobsters for our yummy dinner, someone had stolen the portable TV, DVD player and both laptops from Lottie and Erica’s tent. She immediately called an emergency assembly under the big sheltered area next to her tent that Mr Snap had moodily assembled at her request on our first day on the island.

‘This is a grave situation, girls of Emeralds, Rubies and Sapphires,’ Mrs Fairchild began, as we all sat cross legged on a giant waterproof, Thorny on Arabella’s knee, listening to the soft pitter patter of raindrops dancing on the canvas cover above. Even Mrs Pumpernickle was there, tutting under her breath, along with Mr Fossil, who was staring dreamily into the middle distance, and Moody Mr Snap, who was looking bored. I still love the way our school houses are named after precious metals. Sapphires is the best of course, because me and Arabella are in it!

‘It appears that one of us here on this little sandy island is a thief,’ Mrs Fairchild went on, loudly. Intakes of breath could be heard all round. ‘Stealing is a criminal act and will be treated with the utmost seriousness by myself and the police. I’ve talked the matter over with Mrs Pumpernickle and we both agree that the school trip will still go ahead for now, as it wouldn’t be fair on the majority of you who are honest and truthful to cancel it so soon. But I want the thief to know that whoever they are, they will be found out, publically named and dealt with accordingly.’ She looked very fierce at this point. ‘If anyone has any information about the robberies, please speak to myself or Mrs Pumpernickle in private. This kind of behaviour is simply
not
acceptable and must be stopped
at once
.’

Cleo and Clarice, who’d sat and listened unusually well for them and hadn’t even brushed their hair once, turned and narrowed their eyes at me, Arabella and Thorny. How stupid to imply we’re the thieves, as IF we’d ever do anything like that. One things for sure, Diary, Arabella and I have A LOT to talk about tonight if we’re going to start tracking down the real crook. Detective
work.com
.

Sunday, 11
^th
January

A crisis, Diary.

Everyone was much quieter at breakfast than usual. We all kept staring at one another, unable to believe that someone on Ni Island was actually a thief.

Arabella and I talked about it for so long last night that I feel terribly bleary eyed today.

We BOTH thought that the most likely candidate was Moody Mr Snap because he’s so rude and weird, but the only problem is that he was with Mr Fossil the whole time yesterday afternoon, hunting for Kapatoos. So if it wasn’t him it must be a girl from Egmont Exclusive Boarding School for Girls and that’s a REALLY horrible thought, because I didn’t think any of us would be that mean, not even Cleo and Clarice. There’s no point even including Mrs Fairchild and Mrs Pumpernickle as suspects because the idea of either of them being a thief is beyond
ridiculous.com
.

To make matters worse, Mr Fossil is getting fidgety and stressed because we only have six full days left on Ni Island after today, and so far he hasn’t detected any signs of Kapatoos. He says we must explore bits of the island today that we haven’t been to yet.

To be honest, my only favourite bit about today was watching Thorny run round after us like a little puppy. He’s SUCH a
cutie.com
.

Ooh I DO hope this thieving business is cleared up quickly. It’s cast a bit of a shadow on everyone, and I was SO enjoying our school trip.

Monday, 12
^th
January

Big news, Diary!

You are NEVER going to believe this.

So, yesterday evening, after we’d had dinner and gone back to our tent to give Thorny some carrots and cucumber, Arabella and I agreed that the only way to catch the thief would be for one of us to be on constant watch, especially in the night time because that was when Cleo and Clarice were robbed, and there was a good chance the thief would strike again. So we decided to do two hour shifts of being “on guard” through the night, me from nine to eleven, Arabella from eleven to one, and so on.

When it was Arabella’s turn at about half past midnight and she was sitting all snuggled up in her duvet, looking out of a crack in the door at all the other tents, an unusual dragging sound started. She woke me up and we both listened, holding our breaths. It sounded like someone was pulling a heavy object through the sand and was easy to hear as everything else on the island was so quiet.

‘Let’s investigate,’ Arabella whispered and the excitement in her eyes was illuminated by the moon. My heart started beating very fast, but I knew she was right. If there was something funny going on that was related to the robberies, the only way we’d find out was to do some detective work.

So we pulled our faux fur coats, night caps and thick boots on because as usual it was FREEZING outside, and tiptoed out, hiding at first behind the tent in front of ours, which belonged to the twins, Moira and Lynne. I checked Thorny before we left and he was snoring away happily under my hammock so we decided not to disturb him. My teeth started chattering and I knew it wasn’t just because of the cold. I tried to stop them, knowing we mustn’t make a sound if we wanted to stay undiscovered.

Luckily, sand doesn’t make much noise if you tip toe across it, so we managed to manouvre ourselves round a few tents quite quietly.

‘Look,’ I whispered, pointing at a shadowy figure who came into view about four tents away. ‘Who on earth is that?’

Arabella put her finger to her lips and we ducked down, watching in silence, hardly daring to take any breaths.

Even though it was mainly dark with just a streak of pale moonlight shining down on the sea, I could tell that the tall, gangly person who was dragging something heavy over the sand was DEFINITELY Mr Snap. He pulled whatever it was jerkily, too intent on his task to wonder if he was being watched.

Arabella made a funny noise in the back of her throat and I looked over to where she was pointing. Fear shot through my body like electricity. An old fashioned, familiar ship, proudly flying Jolly Roger skull and cross bone flags, glided towards the shore. Before it got too close, a dark object attached to a chain was thrown overboard.

‘Pirates,’ Arabella muttered. ‘They’ve just anchored their boat. What on earth is going on?’ For one horrible moment I thought I was going to faint, but then I shook my head and gave myself a stern talking to, telling myself to stop being silly and to concentrate. For goodness sake, we’d solved mysteries before and we’d solve this one too, but it was VITAL to keep a cool head at all times or the whole thing would go horribly
wrong.com
.

Mr Snap continued dragging his heavy load down towards the shore. He was further away from us now, nearly at the water’s edge, looking over towards the pirate ship and waving.

I could hardly believe my eyes when a small boat was thrown from the top of the pirate ship into the sea, and was quickly boarded filled by six pirates. As they sailed to the shore, I could see by the moon’s light that each wore a bandana round his head, a white frilly shirt under an expensive looking colourful coat, tight trousers and knee high boots. Accessories included very sharp looking cutlasses and lots of gold hoop earrings and each face was so scarred and fearsome I could see the main details from where I crouched. One pirate jumped out as their boat neared Mr Snap, holding it still while the other five hopped out.