Davina Dupree Suspects a Smuggler (2 page)

‘Stop here, first years,’ Mrs Bunsen boomed loudly. ‘Arms by your sides, eyes on me.
Absolutely
no talking.’ I tore my eyes away from the sweets and saw that she’d positioned herself, soldier like, in front of a battered looking wooden door. ‘This is the door to the old smuggling tunnel,’ Mrs Bunsen glared round at us, almost as though she thought WE were the smugglers who’d dug the tunnel. ‘So best behaviour from now on and NO pushing once we’ve set off, the tunnel is
very
narrow in places and I don’t want any accidents. Thank you for your help Marcel.’ She nodded at the chef.

Marcel, who was standing near to me and Arabella, bowed theatrically and took down a large key from a shelf. He unlocked the door and pushed it open, revealing the big, dark mouth of the tunnel. A whoosh of cold, salty air blew onto our faces and we all shivered. #Seaweedy.

‘Mmm,’ Melody said, taking in deep breaths. ‘I can smell the sea already.’

‘Single file and off we go!’ Mrs Bunsen roared, switching on her head torch and stepping into the tunnel. Arabella and I switched on ours and walked into the darkness behind her, followed by Melody, Lynne, Moira and Lottie then the rest of the first years.

I could hear Mrs Bunn talking in a kind way to Cleo and Clarice right at the back. ‘Come on you two, it’s only a harmless tunnel, for goodness sake. Honestly, I’ve never met two bigger wimps in all my life.’

‘Do you
realise
I’m missing my helicopter flying lesson in order to stagger down this stinking tunnel?’ Clarice whined in reply. I heard lurching and slipping noises. ‘This is SO not my idea of fun.’

Our head torches were quite strong and gave off enough light for us to study the eerie green and black, slimy walls. Choppy axe marks were everywhere and there was even one whole axe sticking out of a particularly rough looking wall. Mrs Bunsen had been right about the old fashioned graffiti – the walls were littered with scratchy writing that said things like, “One eyed Amos smuggled here, 1799”, “Five tons of whiskey waitin’ for Billy at the house, 16
^th
October 1753”, and “Mack Mousel lost ‘is axe here on 3
^rd
April 1802”. The more I read and the further down the tunnel we went, the faster and louder my heart beat, until I thought EVERYONE must be able to hear it. It was like going back in time, seeing actual smuggling messages. I was just beginning to feel a little scared when...

‘Agh,’ Cleo screamed. There was a thump.

‘Oh get up,’ came Mrs Bunn’s voice. She sounded like she was chewing – probably one of those strawberry sweets again. ‘For goodness sake, ducks, grow up and turn your head torch on. Then you’ll be able to see and you’ll stop sliding all over the place.’

‘Never!’ Cleo shouted. ‘It’s a crime to fashion.’

‘Please yourself,’ Mrs Bunn clucked in reply. ‘But don’t blame me if your raincoat gets covered in slimy moss from the tunnel floor, you silly ninny. And why you’re wearing high heeled wellies is beyond me.’

‘Hrmph!’ Cleo snorted.

I lost track of time and for a little while it seemed like we’d be trooping through the tunnel forever, sometimes upwards, sometimes downwards, sometimes through narrow bits, sometimes through wide caves. Mrs Bunsen stopped in one particularly large cave to show us the pointy rocks that hung down like sharks teeth from the cave’s roof.

‘These are called stalactites,’ she boomed, her voice echoing off the walls. ‘Remember that name, I’ll be testing you on it next week.’

‘Slave driver,’ Cleo hissed.

Eventually a pin prick of light appeared in front of us and within minutes we’d reached the end of the tunnel and stepped out into a cold, blustery February day. A mixture of grey and white puffy clouds billowed across the silvery sky, while curved waves raced each other over a slate coloured sea. The long stretch of sand that made up Little Pineham’s beach looked damp and blotchy as though it had recently been rained on. A few drops fell onto my face as if to prove this fact and I pulled my warm coat round me even tighter, hoisting the hood over my head. High cliffs loomed to the right of the sand and as I walked on I saw that our tunnel entrance was carved into one of these. There were other caves set into the cliff’s base too, some quite deep looking and I shivered with excitement, loving the mysterious sight of them.

‘Gather round, first years,’ Mrs Bunsen strode into the middle of the sand and zipped up her waterproof coat, tying the hood tightly under her chin, her bun causing a mound of blue canvas to loom up at the back, alien-style. She put her hands on her hips and stared at us until we were all assembled in front of her, Mrs Bunn ushering the angry looking Cleo and Clarice ahead of her. They were having trouble tottering over the sand in their high heeled wellies, most
hilarious.com
. ‘Now,’ Mrs Bunsen went on. ‘I shall explain the science experiment to you so please listen
very
carefully because if it’s not done correctly it could be
extremely
dangerous. I don’t want to have to call any ambulances.’ We all nodded. #Scary teacher.

‘Right,’ she said. ‘I hope you all remember what we learnt last week about the sun?’

‘Ooh, me, me, me!’ Arabella’s hand shot up and she jumped up and down.

‘Yes Arabella?’ Mrs Bunsen said.

‘The sun creates solar energy,’ Arabella said. ‘The light from it takes eight minutes to reach the earth and we turn it into electricity. I read a book about it after your lesson.’

‘Swot,’ Clarice whispered. She’s just jealous, the mean thing. She always says things like that to anyone who gets better grades than her.

‘Well done, Arabella,’ Mrs Bunsen said, the corners of her mouth tweaking upwards ever so slightly. ‘Today we’re going to create our own energy, right here on this beach. A little bit like the sun does, only in reverse. Mrs Bunn, do you have the anti-explosive aprons?’

‘Indeed I do,’ Mrs Bunn swung a small backpack off her back and rummaged around in it, drawing out a pile of silvery, metallic material.

‘Put one of these on each, girls,’ Mrs Bunsen commanded, picking one up and tying it round her own waist. ‘They’ve been specially treated to deflect any hot sparks and explosions.’

‘I’m putting one over my face,’ Cleo draped one over her head. ‘There’s no way I’m risking
these
looks for a stupid science experiment.’

‘You never know, if a spark flies through your ear and into your brain it might make you MORE intelligent,’ Arabella said. Cleo growled but the apron stayed firmly over her head.

Mrs Bunsen rolled her eyes.

‘I have a pair of special glasses for each of you for that very reason, Cleo,’ she said, swinging her backpack off and lifting a bunch of thick plastic spectacles out of it. She threw a pair at Cleo. ‘Here, take that apron off your head and put these on, then at least you’ll be able to see. These are specially designed goggles that will shield your eyes.’ #Clever invention. #SO funny to look at.

Soon, we were all standing in a group, looking like a bunch of mad scientists, wearing aprons and giant plastic goggles. Mrs Bunsen bent over and rummaged around at the bottom of her backpack, drawing out three curious looking bottles and a shiny container. Mrs Bunn just stared out across the sea at the horizon. I thought she was probably bored, wishing she was back at school drinking a nice, hot cup of tea.

‘Our secret ingredients,’ Mrs Bunsen brandished the bottles and container above her head. ‘Cardomina, Belzum and Raducci, and a mixing bowl made from Sparkozi. I think we’ll have a quick practise now, maybe test out small amounts of the chemicals, then break for lunch. After all we need to make sure we have enough energy ourselves if we’re going to be conducting nuclear experiments, don’t we?’

‘Nuclear what?’ Mrs Bunn’s eyes snapped away from the horizon and focused on Mrs Bunsen. ‘Oh for goodness sake, you haven’t changed a bit, have you Andromida? You were always on about nuclear experiments as a child. I remember when you blew up dad’s greenhouse trying to split the atom. His prize cucumbers were in there, you know, it affected him very badly. He never entered another garden show again.’

‘As a child? What, do you mean you’re sisters?’ Arabella asked, eyes widening.

‘Haven’t you told them we’re related, Andromida?’ Mrs Bunn’s eyes stopped looking all twinkly and narrowed so that she looked rather spiteful.

‘No, Hilda,’ Mrs Bunsen said quietly. ‘And this is neither the time nor the place to go into it. Right, first years, there’s been a change of plan. We’ll break for an early lunch now, and resume our experiment in forty five minutes time. Please take great care of your goggles and aprons, they’re very expensive.’

Well gosh and golly and blow me down with a feather, I wasn’t expecting
that
revelation! But now that I look at them they do look rather similar, although Mrs Bunn’s eyes are darker and deeper than Mrs Bunsen’s and she always looks rather untidy as though she’s just been blown through a hedge backwards, whereas Mrs Bunsen’s SUCH a neat dresser. Right, must go now, Diary, as Arabella and I are going off to find a nice spot on the beach to eat our packed lunches.

Later on the beach, Tuesday, 7
^th
February

Curious happenings, Diary...

Wow, what a day. Arabella and I went and sat in the mouth of a really sweet little cave to eat our packed lunches, so we could look out to sea and be protected from the breeze at the same time. We’d talked about Mrs Bunsen and Mrs Bunn and how unexpected the whole thing was, and were half way through our smoked salmon and avocado sandwiches, when Arabella said,

‘Look over there. What on
earth
is Mrs Bunn doing?’ I looked where she was pointing and saw the dinner lady looking out to sea, doing what looked like some very strange exercises. First she stuck her right arm up in the air and her left one out horizontally, then she swapped them round. Before long she was twirling her arms as though she was pretending to be a windmill. #Talk about odd.

‘I have no idea what she’s doing,’ I said, giggling. ‘But she does look
very
funny. Maybe she’s trying to keep fit or something. We watched for a bit longer, drinking our fizzy grape juice, nudging each other and giggling every now and again because Mrs Bunn really
did
look like she was doing an exercise routine in time with the waves.

Arabella looked at her watch, then scrambled to her feet.

‘Time to go,’ she reached out and helped me up. ‘Come on, l can’t
wait
to do this experiment.’

‘Yes,’ I said, feeling very doubtful, wiping the sand off my glasses and apron then traipsing after her.

‘Gather round,’ Mrs Bunsen shouted as we joined the huddled group of first years on the other side of the beach. ‘Make sure everyone’s standing where they can see because I’m going to talk you through the experiment and do a demonstration, then ask you to split into groups so you can try the experiment for yourselves. Goggles on everybody? Then here we go.’

She unscrewed the caps of the three bottles. One gave a hiss, one oozed green smoke and the other frothed over. Cleo and Clarice took several paces back. Mrs Bunsen stepped forwards, placing the mixing bowl in the centre of our circle.

‘One drop of Cardomina,’ she said, shaking a thick bright blue glob from the bottle that had hissed. It landed in the middle of the mixing bowl with a “SSssssss”. ‘Three shakes of Belzum,’ Mrs Bunsen’s eyes lit up in a way I’d never seen before as she gently prized out three feathery drops of green goo, making sure they landed on top of the Cardomina. Nothing happened. ‘And four healthy squeezes of Raducci,’ she said, whacking a load of deep pink froth on top of the contents of the mixing bowl.

White light shot upwards from the depths of the bowl, causing most of us to fall over backwards in shock. Only Arabella was left standing, her mouth open, a look of adoration in her eyes. As the light arced it turned into a fountain of pink, green and blue sparkles that rained down on us. Clarice and Cleo screamed and ran into the tunnel and I must say I was glad to be wearing my safety goggles because the sparks were so bright they made my eyes hurt a bit, but they didn’t seem to do my hair any harm, just made it smell smoky for hours afterwards.

‘And there you have it,’ Mrs Bunsen came forwards, rubbing her hands together when the sparks had died out, her eyes still alive. ‘A simple yet effective experiment, dangerous if you haven’t been listening. A source of energy made from splitting the atoms of a few simple ingredients. Remember, one drop of Cardomina, three shakes of Belzum and four healthy squeezes of Raducci. Now split into pairs, collect a mixing bowl from Mrs Bunn’s backpack and spread out along the beach to conduct your own experiments.’ #Woo hoo!

Arabella took charge of our science experiment and told me
exactly
what to do and how many drops to squeeze out of each bottle, which I was quite glad about because otherwise I might have blown up the whole beach, although it was a
bit
annoying how bossy she became at the end. We practised making the fountain of light and sparks loads of times in different parts of the beach. Arabella made one that went half way up the cliff! Fountains of all shapes and sizes were going off all around us the whole time; Lynne and Moira made quite a good one, Lottie and Erica’s was quite small – Arabella says they probably didn’t use
quite
enough Raducci – and Cleo and Clarice went wrong with theirs and managed to set the end of Clarice’s hair on fire, which she screamed and screamed about. #Really loud voice. #Hurt my ears.

At the moment, I’m sitting on the beach drinking hot chocolate with the rest of the first years. Mrs Bunn brewed some up for us as a treat on the portable stove she brought in her backpack, as she said we’d worked so hard all day.
And
she gave us all one of her chewy, strawberry sweets. She’s rather sweet really, let us sit down to drink it while she went round collecting up all the goggles and aprons.

Right, I have to go now Diary, Mrs Bunsen is calling for us to troop off down the tunnel and back to school. Cleo and Clarice are first in line, I don’t think they’ve enjoyed today very much!