Islanders Read online

  The adults were shouting. Ben watched them getting nearer. They were shouting and wailing, waving their arms, intent on stopping the boat from leaving.

  “It’s got to be now,” Ben said, very calmly, his eyes still on the fast approaching pack of adults.

  With that he staggered right into the water, knee-high, and helped push the boat.

  Coby and Silver were dithering, their heads spinning back and forth. Bad an’ Worse began to shout, as the adults got closer and closer.

  Ben jumped into the boat. “Coby,” he said, “you can’t stay here forever. Come on. This is it!”

  He threw out a hand.

  Coby’s head swung back and forth. His breathing was heavy, panicky. Suddenly, he seized Ben’s hand, and was pulled aboard. Meanwhile, Bad yanked Silver up into the boat.

  They were off.

  The oars splashed crazily in the water as Bad an’ Worse rowed for all they were worth.

  “We’ll be back!” Ben shouted, turning to look at the angry crowd on the beach.

  But no one on the shore heard him. The adults were all screeching and crying frantically, such a horrible sound that Ben, Coby and Silver put their fingers in their ears and cowered down in their seats, their eyes closed.

  Bad an’ Worse were rowing like maniacs, as if their lives depended on it. They pulled the oars harder and harder through the water. With every powerful, demented stroke of the oars it was obvious that they had dreamed of escaping for a long time, perhaps for their entire, lonely lives. And now it was happening.

  Within minutes, the boat was a good way from the Island. The people back on the shore were soon little more than a luminous smudge in the murky light of dawn, and the sound of their voices had all but disappeared.

  Silver, Coby and Ben finally took their fingers out of their ears, still not quite believing that they’d done it.

  But they had.

  They opened their eyes. They were no longer Islanders.

  Chapter Five

  The boat cut through the water, the oars splashing down into the flat, calm sea with hypnotic rhythm: mainland, mainland, mainland...

  Twenty minutes passed. Half an hour. The twins gasped and puffed with the strain. But they showed no sign of slowing down. No one spoke. They didn’t even look at each other. In the boat were three wooden planks forming little benches. Silver decided that she would sit on her own up at the front of the boat on the first plank. Bad an’ Worse were in the middle, rowing. Coby and Ben sat at the back.

  The sun rose slowly in the east behind them, and the sky above the Island glowed a deep orange. In the other direction, the blackness turned to a dark blue, and then, gradually, clouds could be seen scuttling across the sky, catching the strained light of the new day.

  Ben turned and looked back at the Island, the place he had always known as home. It was getting smaller and smaller, just a bump of land on the horizon. What had he done? Where were they going?

  Ahead of them, in the other direction, a long, low silhouette grew against the sky. From a thin, dark sliver it turned slowly into a thick strip, and then, gradually, into a mass that had no ends, running on as far as the eye could see in both directions. The mainland was getting closer, and whatever dark, ugly secrets it held, they were about to find out.

  “Okay,” Silver said, out of the blue, interrupting Ben’s thoughts. “Shall we begin the class?”

  Bad and Worse stopped rowing and turned to look at her, their faces trickling with sweat.

  Silver, sitting at the front of the boat, was neat and composed.

  “What? Was it something I said?” She was not exactly smiling, although it was always hard to tell with Silver. And her face was all the more infuriating for being so pretty, even Bad an’ Worse agreed about that. “I think,” she said, “that you boys need to know about the war. About the mainland.”

  “War’s war,” Worse snarled. “There was a war. People got killed. So what!”

  “No, you idiot!” she screamed. “You total moron! People didn’t just get killed! No, no, no!”

  “Shut your girly mouth, or I’ll ram this oar in it!” Worse said.

  “But...” Silver said.

  “But nothing! It was a war. And now we’re going back to see what’s left.”

  “But, Worse,” Silver said, almost apologetically, “it was a biological war. There might be...”

  Thump!

  She screamed. The boat shook. They all hung on. Again: Thump! They felt themselves being tipped to one side. Ben clung to his seat until his fingernails dug into the wood. Thump! One of the oars fell into the water and drifted away.

  They were being attacked. Underneath them something was smashing into the boat again and again. Shock waves went through their feet and up into their legs.

  “What the...” Bad said, trying to hold onto his oar. “What...”

  A sea snake reared up out of the water. Gray and slimy, with tiny black eyes, it sprang into the air like a loop of oily rope. About six inches from Silver’s face.

  Her whole body snapped backwards. She flew through the air, and landed on Bad’s lap, screaming. The snake hung in the air, its little slit of a mouth hissing, a thin black tongue flicking in and out.

  The whole boat erupted into a mass of cries and wails, as the drumming from underneath the boat got louder and stronger.

  The next second, gravity took the snake back down into the sea. It hit the surface with a splatter, covering them all in a shower of water.

  “Ugh!” Silver said, wiping the drops of snake-water off her face, shivering. “A sea snake.”

  “A sea snake!” Ben said, over the banging noise from the bottom of the boat, unable to do anything, apart from repeat what Silver said.

  “A sea snake!” said Coby, unable to do anything, apart from repeat what Ben said.

  “Fortunately,” Silver shouted above the noise, still sounding frightened to death, “they are not carnivorous.”

  The other four looked at her blankly, as the boat rocked in the water.

  “Not carnivorous. Carnivorous? Y’know? They don’t eat meat! They don’t eat us! Don’t worry, I know all about sea snakes.” She reached for one of the bags that she had brought and began pulling things out.

  Underneath the boat, the rumbling got louder still. Bad peered into the murky water.

  “It’s a whole family of ’em!” he shouted.

  Ben, his fingernails still digging hard into the seat, peeped over the edge. A swarm of big gray sea snakes slithered and wriggled against one another in the water, so many of them that the sea around the boat looked like a pan full of simmering spaghetti. Coby saw them too. He turned green and began to retch, bent over double, holding his head in his hands.

  “This is it,” Coby said under his breath. “I knew it, I should never have...we’re all...”

  “Come on!” Worse said, delight in his eyes. “I’m gonna catch me a sea snake!”

  “What with?” Silver said, as she rummaged in the bag.

  “I’ll smash their rotten heads off!” he said.

  But then he realized that in the panic he’d dropped his oar, and it had already floated away.

  “Give me that!” he said to his brother, and swiped the remaining oar from Bad’s hands.

  He crawled to the front of the boat, steadying himself on the little plank which Silver had vacated in such a rush.

  “Come on, my lovelies! Come to Daddy!” he shouted, leaning over the side and beating the surface of the water with the oar.

  Meanwhile, Silver was pulling more and more things out of the bag. In her hands was a magnifying glass, a catapult, a ball of string, and a compass...

  “Here,” she said to Ben, her hands full of things. “Help me with this.” She gave him the compass, and then, with her free hand, finally found what she was looking: a small bundle of grass.

  At that moment another snake reared up again out of the water at the front of the boat. Quite a little one.

  “Whoa!”
Worse cried, and swung the oar around in the air above his head, before whacking the snake square between the eyes.

  It seemed to let out a little sigh of defeat, and plopped back down into the sea, where it sank to the bottom, stunned and confused.

  “Who’s next?” Worse shouted, the oar spinning above his head like a helicopter blade. When the next snake broke the surface, it got whacked right in the mouth, and dropped back down, battered and bruised.

  “They’re mutations!” Silver said, above the racket, as she fumbled with a handful of grass and a catapult. “Sea snakes! They’re oversized grass snakes, really. They eat plants. I even know what kind of grass they prefer, but... that’s... not... important!” she cried, as the boat rolled violently under a combined attack from below.

  “They can smell grass miles away. Like... sharks... and... blood...” she said, struggling to keep her balance as the rocking of the boat got worse. Meanwhile, she tied the little grass bundle with string. “And,” she shouted above the mayhem, “they have very short memories. Once they smell the grass, they won’t come back! I hope!”

  She took the catapult and the grass (which was wrapped around a stone to give it weight) and fired. The little grass bullet seemed to go on forever, whizzing through the air. Then it plopped into the water far away.

  Within a few seconds the snakes stopped battering the boat. They slithered off in a big, slimy pack, following the smell of grass.

  “Ha ha!” Worse shouted, still swinging the oar above his head. “Are mutations all that easy to fight? Bring on the mutations!”

  He gave the oar an extra fast twirl in the air. It slipped from his hands and flew out across the water, then splashed down, a long way off.

  They all watched as it floated further into the distance and disappeared.

  Chapter Six

  Behind them the Island seemed no more than a distant spot on the horizon. Up ahead, the mainland and whatever dangers it promised was still some way off. And the sun was now high in the sky, beating down on them.

  Bad an’ Worse began to argue about whose fault it was that they’d lost the oars.

  “Don’t worry about the oars, boys,” Silver said

  But the others were already worrying. Here they were, in the middle of the sea with no oars, and she was telling them not to worry.

  “By the way, Ben,” she said as she delved into another of her bags. “Is that a scar on your face? You been in a fight?”

  “It’s nothing,” Ben said.

  “It suits you.”

  The others looked at Ben’s face. The newly-formed scar was on his jaw line, and ran a little way up his cheek. Silver was right: it did suit him. Bad an’ Worse were slightly jealous.

  Then Silver pulled two ping-pong paddles out of the bag.

  “Now, I admit that even I didn’t foresee the little catastrophe with the oars,” she said. “I swiped these just for fun. Didn’t bring the table, though.”

  The paddles had no rubber left on them, and were the only set on the Island, along with a beaten-up ping-pong table that was in constant use (not any more, though).

  The four boys stared at the paddles. Paddles, they thought. Paddles! Were Silver’s bags magic? What else had she taken from the Island? Was there anything left back there!

  “Your turn,” Bad said to Ben, as he and his brother shuffled off their plank and swapped places with Ben and Coby.

  “Right,” said Silver, returning to her seat at the front of the boat and facing the new paddlers. “Don’t tire yourselves out. Slowly but surely is the way. And Bad, you keep an eye on the mainland. Pick out a point and make sure we keep heading right towards it, otherwise we might end up going around in circles.”

  Bad did as he was told. Even a thug knows when to do as he’s told, and Worse secretly picked out his own point on the mainland and did the same thing, although he tried to make it look as if he couldn’t care less.

  “Hold on!” said Bad. “I’ve had an idea!”

  “Wow,” Silver said. “Did it hurt?”

  “Shut up!” he snapped at her. “You think you’re so clever, but what if your brother drops a paddle? Then what would we do?”

  “It’s not my brother who’s been dropping things,” she said dismissively.

  Bad ignored her. He took the coil of rope which lay on the bottom of the boat—one of the few useful things he’d thought to bring—and tied it to one of the paddles. He threaded the rope twice around the center seat, and tied the other end to the other paddle.

  Everyone was impressed. But they all waited for Silver’s approval.

  “Yes, very good,” she said. “I was going to do that myself. We mustn’t lose the paddles.”

  Bad looked at her, speechless. He couldn’t believe the bare-faced cheek of the girl.

  You’ll get used to it! thought Coby, smiling for the first time all day.

  Ben took his paddle, and dipped it into the sea, making sure there were no more snakes around. Coby did the same on the other side, although he was so nervous that he didn’t know whether to close his eyes out of fear, or keep them peeled for snakes in the water. The boat twisted forwards about a foot. They tried again. Another foot.

  “Ehm, boys?” Silver said. “I didn’t mean that slowly.”

  Ben and Coby blushed. They tried harder, and the boat finally pushed forwards through the water. It was hard work, but by keeping to a regular rhythm they managed to get the boat moving at a steady speed.

  “Ah,” Worse said, stretching out his legs, his arms behind his head, “this is the life!”

  “Don’t get too comfy,” Silver said. “Now we can start on a little background information.”

  After the episode with the sea snakes, no one complained.

  She began:

  “The war. Thirteen years ago. It was terrible. Whole cities were burned to the ground, crushed under the force of non-stop fighting. Airports and roads were bombed, the entire country destroyed. Then, someone released a whole load of deadly viruses. Germ warfare, it’s called. No one knows who did it, and no one knows what germs. But one day they were set free. They attacked plants and animals, spreading across the land, seeping into water, into the food.”

  Silver stopped and looked at Bad an’ Worse. Everyone knew that their parents had died in the war, and she could see that they were listening carefully, although they knew the story already. She continued:

  “The land descended into chaos. The soldiers were dying of disease. The armies were disintegrating. The whole country was covered in deadly germs that no one understood.” She paused. “Ben! Why don’t you tell the rest of the story? You probably know as much as me, after all...”

  “No!” Bad said to Silver, his face serious. “Carry on. You’re telling it good. Go on, tell us the rest, Silver.”

  The others agreed, so she did:

  “Well, a few brave men and women—people like Ben’s parents, the Brewers—tried to gather together the Survivors. They told people to take whatever they could. They looked for somewhere safe. But it was impossible. Nowhere was safe. So they found an island, with a commune already living on it. Our Island.”

  “Worst luck!” Bad muttered.

  “They got a boat,” said Silver, ignoring him, “and the Survivors made their way across the sea to the Island, along with as many of their possessions as they could carry. Back and forth the boat went, the same crossing we’re making now, until no one else could be found. And that’s our Island. Our history.”

  “And,” Ben said, as if to conclude the story, “I was born six months later: the first islander!”

  A thoughtful silence fell on the boat. Of course, they already knew the story, more or less. But each one of them had their own reason for remembering it now with particular sadness. Bad an’ Worse’s parents had both perished in the war. Coby and his sister at least had their mum and dad on the Island, and the story made them wonder if leaving them had been a good thing. As for Ben, there was no telling what had happened
to his dad, but one thing was for sure: he was going to find out.

  “Silver,” Ben said, breaking the silence. “What do you know about Sullivan?”

  “Not much!” she replied, a bit too cheerily, and busied herself with her canvas bags.

  “Not much?” Ben said. “Who is he?”

  Silver sighed. “Sullivan fought with your dad. They were comrades.”

  “And?”

  Silver sighed even louder. “They sort of... fell out, you know...”

  “Silver! Tell me!” Ben shouted.

  “All right! They say it was Sullivan that killed your dad. That’s why your dad never came back.”

  Ben shook his head. “No, no. That’s not right! Bad, Worse, tell her!”

  The twins looked towards the floor. They didn’t say anything.

  “Come on, you two. Tell her what the messenger boy said! My dad’s not dead. He’s alive.”

  No one answered.

  “He is!”

  On they went.

  Chapter Seven

  “What’s that buzzing noise?” Ben said as he paddled.

  But no one else had heard it.

  In the boat they were still talking about the mainland, which was now quite close. It loomed up ahead like an endless stretch of mystery in front of them.

  “No one’s been back there,” Silver said, peering at it. “No one’s been off the Island since the war. We have no idea what has happened, what biological destruction has occurred. Whole species were probably wiped out. My guess is that there’s nothing much left. We’ll be rowing back to the Island in a day or two, dead bored. Frankly, I have very little hope...” She stopped, and listened hard. “You’re right, Ben,” she said. “What on earth is that noise?”

  It was getting louder: a light, fizzing buzz of a sound somewhere near to the boat. A pleasant sound, somehow. They all stuck their heads out over the edge and looked.

  “What the...” Bad said.

  It was about as big as a dinner plate, a gleaming, shimmering star in the water. But it was also strangely fishy. It had shiny silver scales on each of its five points, and a big, bulbous head in the middle with two glossy black eyes sticking up. It was like a starfish. But it was silvery. The whizzing sound had stopped, and the creature now floated right next to the boat without making any noise.