Pyro Watson and the Hidden Treasure (3 page)

He craned up.

‘See something interesting?' Mr Stig looked out.

‘Not really.' Pyro thought about mentioning the pirate map but was worried that it might disappear from his head if he spent too long talking about it. That sometimes happened with drawings, he'd discovered. One minute they were there in your brain, the next … gone, leaving a pencil with a line that had nowhere to go.

‘Keep looking,' Mr Stig said. ‘You're bound to find something sooner or later.'

Pyro had already found something. He was studying the map he was going to draw in his head. He was busy deciding on the way it would have a skull and crossbones at the top corner. And compass points that had twirly lines all over the place like they do in pirate books.

And he had almost decided how the bravest Pirate Chaser of them all was going to find the map and save the treasure.

Sweet Calamity Belle had been captured. She was the granddaughter of the richest merchant who'd ever sailed the Caribbean. He had amassed his fortune and then, as he'd sailed home with his ship filled to the rigging with gold and silver from the Aztecs, spices and jams from the East Indies and glorious silks from the silkworms of China, the most dreaded thing happened. His ship struck stormy seas and, as she foundered on the cruel rocks, Captain Ricketty Belle had hidden her wares.

‘Never fear, me fair ship
Freydra
, I'll be back for ye!' And he set off across land, armed with one long sword and pushing a wheelbarrow in which he'd stacked his most precious cargo.

He did go back and he did float
Freydra
off the rocks. He did mend her sides and fill her again with spices and sweet jams, then he set sail to fetch the treasure he'd hidden ashore.

He never claimed it. Captured he was, by the wicked pirates of the South Seas. He had time only to draw the map of his treasure on the tummy of his tiny granddaughter as he set her adrift. He knew a paper map would be damaged forever in the waves that lapped at the tiny boat he used for her escape.

‘Go safely, little lady!' he called. Then he cried ‘Take me!' and gave himself up to the Wicked Pirates of the South Seas.

Little Calamity was saved by the women of the Illiam tribes of the Itchum islands. The Illiams of Itchum didn't wash very often so the map on the baby's tum became etched there for all time. Of course, the Itchum Islanders knew about it.

But they didn't tell anyone.

It was going to be the best map. Already there were palm trees and a place where the tide would come in
and make a quicksand bog. There'd be a hill, and a graveyard and a little town and there'd be a long fence that separated the town from the cruel ocean. And it was all going to be small enough to fit on a baby's tum.

But it could be done bigger and then shrunk on the photocopier when he got home.

San Simeon looked in horror at Sweet Calamity. She was wrapped around with rope and was, at that very moment, being hung out over the deep, dark ocean.

Shark fins circled. Great open jaws full of razor-sharp teeth snapped at the maiden's slipper-clad feet as she was dangled, closer and closer and closer, to her doom.

‘Save me!' she cried. ‘Help!'

The pirates laughed. ‘HA HA HAHAHAHA HAAAH!' They leaned over the gunnels and dunked her just low enough to let the waves splash at her. ‘Give up the map, me lovely!' they shouted. They didn't know where it was but they bellowed and brayed just the same. ‘Or it's shark bait you'll be!'

Simeon saw her sweet hands clutched tightly to her heart. He saw her eyes, wide open and full of fear. He saw the dreadful circle of hungry sharks.

‘Never!' she cried. ‘I'll never tell where it is!'

‘Bring her up, you fools!' Simeon roared as, with one mighty blow, he sent the miserable Roaring Roy Bistro skidding along the deck. Before Bistro could find his feet, Simeon was on him, wrapped around him like an octopus holding a clam. ‘Tell them, Bistro!'

Bistro didn't.

Simeon squeezed tighter. ‘If you don't, she'll disappear under the waves and so will the treasure map! It will be gone forever!'

The pirates stopped laughing. One of them scratched his head and the other his jaw while they tried to think hard about the map that was down there, snugly tucked inside the maiden's brain.

‘He's got a point, Cap'n,' said one.

‘Yeahs,' said another. ‘It's like she'll be in the shark's belly and so will the map.'

Another pirate stepped back from the side and said, ‘Somebody'll have to go over and make her tell us where it is, won't they, Cap'n?'

Roaring Roy Bistro twisted around. ‘It'll be you …' he cried as he hauled himself and Simeon to the railing. ‘Over you go, Simeon!'

And with a quick, slick, two-steppy step Simeon found himself hanging by his heels above the ocean, the maiden and the ship-slapping waves.

‘You'll never win!' he cried. ‘I'll get you for this!'

One heel started to slip. One heel and then the other.

San Simeon glanced around him. Sharks to the left, sharks to the right, pirates armed to the teeth above him and a fair maiden with a map below him.

A fair maiden swinging on a rope.

A glint appeared in Simeon's eye. ‘Aha,' he muttered. ‘San Simeon lives to fight another day!'

First, though, he had to make his plan work.

Pyro was beginning to think he'd need a map of the camper before he could get started. At home he would simply have opened the drawer of his desk and everything would have been there. His drawing pencils, from 2H all the way up to 8B, lived in a metal tin and his coloured pencils lived in a circular plastic tube. Gel pens, which were not his favourite because they often left giant blobs very unexpectedly, were kept at the back of the drawer, and markers, the non-fluoro ones, lived on the left-hand side of the shelf. Pyro's dad once brought home a giant-sized pencil case from one of his trips away, but Pyro preferred to keep things as they were when they were first bought.

‘All my mates had pencil cases full to the brim when I was at school,' his dad had said.

Pyro could have said that they still did. ‘I like them to stay in their own special packets,' he said instead.
‘They get broken and the drawing pencils make black marks on the others.'

‘Perhaps he could use your pencil case for something else,' his mum said. ‘You know how particular he is.'

Pyro's dad said a few words about boys who were particular and it was high time Pyro joined the Limpton Raiders Junior Team and got out a bit more.

‘We can't all be famous footy players, can we?' his mum had said.

Pyro hadn't said anything but he was pretty sure he wasn't going to be any sort of a footy player let alone a famous one.

He was pretty sure his dad thought so, too.

‘How's it going, Pyro?' Mr Stig appeared in the doorway of the camper. He was all pink and shiny from his shower. ‘Did you find what you were looking for?'

Pyro held up a chewed stump of green pencil and a short red one that had bingo written down the side. ‘I just need something to sharpen them,' he said. ‘Mum doesn't like me to use the sharp knives.'

‘Sensible.' Mr Stig huffed to the back end of the camper and dug around in the pile of clothes at the side of the bed. ‘Here,' he said, ‘use this.'

It was a pocket knife, a tiny one, made of mother-of-pearl shell. It had a silver loop at one end so it could be joined to a chain and hung from a belt. And the blade was hidden away inside.

‘Let me show you how to use it so you don't cut your fingers.' Mr Stig carefully opened it up, showing Pyro how to hold it so it wouldn't slip and, if it did, would only fall to the ground and not cut anyone.

Before he knew it the pencils were sharpened. A quick search in the bottom of the storage seat next to the table revealed a drawing pad with hardly any pages used at all.

‘Fancy that,' said Auntie Mor when she saw it. ‘I wondered what happened to that. Just as well I can't draw.'

Mr Stig looked at Pyro. ‘If you can't draw, why did you buy a drawing book, Mor?'

‘Well,' she said, ‘just have a look at it. There's all these lovely trees and birds on the cover, and the writing's all fancy. And the paper's all smooth and ready.' She sniffed the book. ‘Even smells good. Why wouldn't I buy it?' She handed it to Pyro. ‘Get stuck into it, kiddo! Draw up a storm.'

‘What about you?' It was a really nice drawing book. And it was begging to be filled with colours and pictures.

Auntie Mor looked at her book a second longer. ‘Nope. Probably just spoil it for you. You take it and … hey!' She spun around and pointed one finger at a little cupboard tucked up against the ceiling. ‘I think I've even got some proper pencils.'

There were proper pencils and some modelling clay and even a bit of lino that was going to be a lino cut.

‘Do you want to be an artist?' Mr Stig said.

Auntie Mor blushed. ‘Too big and clumsy,' she said. She held out her hands. ‘These hands are good for teaching people to swim. And for driving big old campers all over the place.'

Pyro sat down at the table. He had everything he needed to make the best map ever. Carefully he opened the book and held the bingo pencil ready.

‘You're going to have to take it outside,' Auntie Mor said. ‘I'm just about to start getting dinner underway. Go and sit at one of the picnic tables.'

As he clambered down the steps she handed him a tablecloth. ‘Be a shame to get gunk all over that cover, wouldn't it?'

 

Pyro wrapped the book and the pencils in the cloth. He knew a special way of folding it so it was like a carry bag. He'd read it in his mother's magazine and knew it would come in handy.

He strung it over his shoulder and set off. It was a little like an old-fashioned satchel and, for a second, Pyro imagined himself as a young explorer off to see the world with all his possessions at his side. He could have been Young Jim from Treasure Island who was dragged on board a pirate ship and made to work as a ship's boy. San Simeon would never press-gang anyone.

‘We're the bravest of the brave!' he'd cried on his first adventure. ‘There'll be no one on my good ship
Olga
who's not wantin' to be here, you can be sure of that! How can you fight a good fight if the stuffing's been knocked out of you getting you to stay on board!'

All his brave crew had cheered then. They'd clapped each other on the back and vowed that they'd only have men who longed to stand up for goodness and right.

 

‘I wouldn't sit there if I were you.'

Pyro nearly jumped out of his skin. He looked around to see a boy about his size watching him. A little white dog with a black mark around his eye like an eye-patch was watching him too.

‘Why not?' There didn't seem to be anything wrong with the seat. And the table wasn't too bumpy. It all looked exactly as a table should.

‘It's Plonker's table, that's why.'

‘Plonker?'

A large shadow fell across his shoulders. One hand landed close to his side and one rather large sports shoe landed on the seat.

‘You rang?'

Pyro felt as if he were melting. He could see himself oozing into a creamy lump at the end of the seat as he
looked up, up, up into one of the meanest faces he'd ever seen.

It had a hard little mouth and tight mean eyes and hair that sprang out of its head as if it were too afraid to hang around in there any longer.

One rough shove sent Pyro onto the ground. The bag almost came with him, would have come with him except it was snatched away at the last minute and held aloft, drawing book and all.

‘What've we got here, then?' the dreadful Plonker sneered. Another boy, equally large, appeared behind him. He had the same look on his face as if he'd been
practising to get it right. His lips weren't so thin, though, and they looked a bit like stretched sausages as he leaned over and took the bag.

‘It's a wittle drawing book!' he said. ‘And some wittle coloured pencils.' He opened the brand new packet and took one out. Carefully, slowly he held it up and then snapped it in two. ‘Aw, deary me. The wittle boy's pencil is all bwoken up.'

Pyro watched, mesmerised, as the boy reached into the box to take another pencil. Plonker was busy with the drawing book, tearing one page after the other out and leaving them to float to the ground.

‘Don't.' Pyro had managed to stand. He couldn't bear to see the lovely book destroyed. ‘Stop it. It doesn't belong to you.'

‘Oo-oo-oo.' The boy with the sausage lips spoke up. ‘You naughty, naughty boy. Stop that at once. It doesn't belong to you.'

‘It doesn't.' Pyro leaned up to grab the book. He knew what would happen and it did. The book was flung across to Sausage Lips. As soon as Pyro spun to try to get it back it would be thrown again.

Or it would have been except that Plonker had been hit by something that knocked him off balance. Before he could right himself, the book and the bag were snatched up and gone. Sausage Lips lurched forward to try to grab it and Pyro stuck his toe out so the bigger boy tripped.

He roared as he somersaulted himself upright again but Pyro had grabbed the pencils and was already tearing along behind the eye-patched, barking dog and his master.

‘Run!' the boy yelled. ‘This way!'

The dog danced around in a circle and then disappeared down a path that ran along the cliff face.