I look at Annabel. “Of course,” she says, “but not todayâit'll be too hot this afternoon.”
“They say a big storm is coming through tonight,” Bill adds. “Unusual for this time of year, but we've had a lot of unusual weather lately.”
“If it clears up tomorrow, we'll go and poke around,” Annabel says. “If you want to?” she asks me.
“Sure,” I say, trying to keep the excitement out of my voice. There's nothing I'd rather do than spend the day on the beach with Annabel.
“Great,” Bill says. “Bring me back some Spanish gold or pirate treasure for the museum. Why don't you take Sam down and show him our village?”
“I will, but I thought we might grab a Coke in the cafeteria first.”
“Good idea. Nice meeting you, Sam.” Bill shakes my hand.
“And you,” I reply.
Bill turns away, but Annabel stops him. “I almost forgot. Pete asked me to ask you to put him on the night shift.”
“To get him away from you?” Bill asks. “You don't like him, do you?”
“Honestly? I can't stand him,” Annabel says. “He's crude and rude.”
“He is a bit full of himself,” Bill agrees, “but he does his work. I'll think about the night-shift idea. The security firm we have now is good, but they're expensive, and we can't afford to keep paying them forever. Pete might work over the summer until we can hire someone better.”
Bill heads to his office, and, with a last glance at the
Loch Ard
peacock, Annabel and I head for the cafeteria.
About two in the morning, I wake up convinced that the cabin Dad and I have rented is about to blow into the ocean. The walls are creaking, and the glass in the windows is making a threatening, thumping sound. The storm has arrived.
I open the front door and peer through the screen in time to see a tent bounce by. The lights that normally illuminate the park at night are out, but it makes little difference because the lightning is nonstop, and the thunder feels as if it's coming from the ground beneath my feet. The rain lashes across the scene horizontally, and there are small rivers running over the open ground.
“Wild night, eh?” Dad says over my shoulder.
“Yeah,” I agree.
“Shouldn't last long. Storms like this are unusual at this time of year.”
Yesterday I might have said, “How do you know?” But today I keep silent. Dad has this habit of becoming an instant expert. As soon as he accepted the job in Adelaide, he knew everything about the city and Australia. It had triggered numerous shouting matches before we moved. What I was really shouting about, though, was the move to Australia. Now that I've met Annabel, I am less inclined to get into a fight about being here.
“Are you feeling better about our move?” Dad asks.
“I suppose so,” I reply. Annabel gave me the web address for the museum yesterday, and I read every word it had on the history of the coast. “This place seems to be more interesting than I thought. Though I can't say I'm honestly looking forward to the new school.” I hold up my hand to stop Dad from launching into an explanation of why it's the best school in South Australia.
“I know. I'll manage.”
Dad smiles more broadly than I've seen in a while.
The screen door vibrates loudly, and I look back out at the storm. “It'll all work out,” I say. “Australia's not so bad.”
Dad pats me on the shoulder. “Assuming we don't all get washed away in the storm.”
“I hear they don't last long at this time of year,” I say.
Dad grins and goes back to bed, and I watch the storm a bit longer.
The next morning I look at the sky and think how one would never know how bad the weather was just a few hours before. The sky is a cloudless, washed-out blue, as if all the rain has left it exhausted.
The ground is a different story. The campsite looks like a war zone. Tents are collapsed or ripped, and camping equipment litters the ground. Most campers took refuge in the large communal kitchen area and are now emerging to survey the damage. The water has carved what looks like a miniature Grand Canyon across the volleyball court.
I feel sorry for the people who have had a miserable night, but I'm happy despite that. The storm has passed, and the weather isn't going to stop my meeting Annabel and searching for more relics. Actually, relics of mysterious ships would be a bonusâI'm mainly looking forward to a day with my new friend.
I have breakfast with Dad, who says he's disappointed I won't be spending the day with him, but I know that he's brought work from his new job with him, so he'll be quite happy. I unlock my bike and head off. Annabel and I have decided to take bikes today so that we can cover more ground. Behind the dunes there's a track that runs parallel to the beach, and we can use it to access the areas we want to explore.
I meet Annabel on the edge of town. “Quite the storm last night,” she says.
“It caused havoc in the campsite. Tents blown all over the place, and we won't be playing volleyball for a while.”
“Yeah, it did some damage in town too. Brought down some trees, and the power's still out in some places. The museum's closed today.”
“Was it damaged?”
“Oh no, but an electrical short blew out the security system about two am. Pete's there organizing the electricians, and Penny's helping keep an eye on the place. There were a lot of power outages last night, so it was tough to find anyone to fix it this morning, but we can't leave the museum unprotected.”
“I guess not.”
Annabel hops on her bike and pedals down the trail.
“Do we start searching on the beach?” I shout after her.
“No. There's been a change of plan,” Annabel calls over her shoulder.
“Why?” I ask as I pedal hard to catch up.
“Because of the storm last night. Bill called me and said to meet him down the coast.” It's slow going on the uneven path, but it's wide enough for us to cycle side by side and talk.
“Has he found something?” I ask.
“He wouldn't say. Told me to wait and see.”
“Have you learned any more digits for Pi?” I ask, to keep the conversation going. Annabel laughs. “Not since yesterday. But I am planning a Pi Day party.”
“A what party?”
“A Pi Day party. Pi Day is March 14. To be precise, celebrations occur at 1:59 am.”
“What are you talking about?” I ask, thoroughly confused.
“March is the third month, and three point one four is the approximation of Pi that Archimedes worked out.”
“Let me guess,” I say. “One, five, nine are the next three numbers.”
“Exactly,” Annabel says, her voice rising with enthusiasm. “And you know what else?”
“What?” I ask. This is really weird, and I'm struggling to understand what Annabel's telling me while staying on the path.
“March 14 is Einstein's birthday.”
“Wow. I'm so glad I asked. And what do people do on Pi Day?”
“Eat pie, of course,” Annabel says with a laugh.
“You're such a nerd,” I say. I immediately regret it, but Annabel doesn't seem to mind.
“I'm not a nerd,” she says, “I'm a geek.”
“There's a difference?”
“'Course there's a difference. Nerds were invented by Dr. Seuss. They're obsessed, boring, unpopular people who are often stupid.”
“And you're not obsessed?”
“Okay, I'm obsessed,” Annabel admits. “And maybe I'm a bit boring, but I'm not stupid. Geeks are intelligent, knowledgeable and accomplished.”
“You're such a geek,” I correct myself.
“The original geeks were carnival performers who did weird stuff like biting the heads off live chickens.”
I really don't have a response to that, but Annabel's on a roll. “You know what else?” she asks.
“No,” I reply nervously.
“I brought us pie for lunch.”
Annabel stands on her pedals and bursts forward. I follow, and we shoot out into a sandy parking lot where two beat-up pickup trucks are parked.
“Here we are,” Annabel announces, braking hard and jumping off her bike.
I dump my bike and notice two things. First, one of the trucks has a Flagstaff Hill Museum sticker on the door. Second, the path we've been cycling along ends in an eroded canyon much bigger than the one in the campsite. “That's some canyon,” I say.
“It's an erosion gully,” Annabel replies. “Too much rain all at once. It has to go somewhere, so it cuts down into the ground wherever it's soft enough.”
“Is this where Bill said to meet him?” I ask, but Annabel is already on her way toward the beach. I follow her down the path and up a large dune to where two figures are deep in conversation. One of them is Bill. He waves cheerfully as we approach.
“Good morning,” he says. “You took your time.”
“I had to pick up Sam,” Annabel says.
My first view is of the beach, where huge rollers, a relic of last night's storm, are crashing onto the sand. Then I turn around and see why we are up here. The erosion gully is much bigger hereâI guess at least nine feet wide and almost as deep.
The walls are steep, and tiny avalanches of sand cascade down occasionally. About sixteen feet away, near the bottom of the gully, several thick black pieces of curved timber are sticking out of the bank.
“Is thatâ” I begin.
“The Mahogany Ship?” Annabel finishes my sentence for me. “Yes, it is.”
“Let's not jump to conclusions,” Bill says. “There are dozens of wrecks along here.”
“Who's this?” The man beside Bill asks. He's short and sturdy with weather-beaten skin and watery blue eyes. He's wearing dirty work clothes and a battered and stained, widebrimmed bush hat. He looks angry. “We don't want to turn this into a circus. The fewer who know, the better.”
“He's a friend of Annabel's,” Bill says. “Sam, meet Jim Kelly. Pete's father.”
“Pleased to meet you.” I hold out my hand and Kelly shakes it reluctantly.
“As I was saying,” Bill goes on, “this could be one of any number of wrecks.”
Kelly snorts derisively. “I've been searching for the Mahogany Ship for twenty years,” he says loudly and aggressively, as if challenging people to disagree with him. “It's exactly where I said it would be.”
“Even if this is the Mahogany Ship,” Bill says calmly, “it doesn't prove that anyone was here before Janszoon in 1606. There are countless possible wrecks this could be.”
Kelly clears his throat and spits on the sand. “You know as well as I do that there's no record of ships lost along here that fit this description. This is the Mahogany Ship, and it's either a Portuguese caravel or a Chinese junk from hundreds of years before Janszoon.”
“Well,” Bill says, “we could argue all day, but whatever this is, we have to examine it while we can. This gully is unstable. We don't have a lot of time.” He begins taking photographs with a small camera he's pulled from his pocket.
I feel something rub against my leg and look down to see a black dog wagging its tail and looking up at me. “Hello, Percy. What're you doing here?”
“Out for a morning walk.” We all look up to see Percy's owner cresting the dune above the beach. He's out of breath and looks even more out of place in his suit here than he did on the beach yesterday. “Some storm last night.”
“Why don't we just invite the whole town out to have a look?” Kelly mutters under his breath.
“What do we have here?” Percy's master asks as he joins our little group. “Did the storm uncover something interesting for the museum?”
“Just a few bits of wood,” Bill says. “We won't know what it is until we look closer.”
“Excellent. Excellent,” the man says. “Good luck with it. Nice to see you again,” he says to me. “Come on, Percy. Let's go find some breakfast.”
The pair sets off toward the parking lot. The man nods to Annabel, who has walked over to the edge of the gully opposite the black timbers. She is staring intently into the gully.
“Do you see something?” Bill asks.
“I think so,” she shouts back, taking a step forward.
“Annabel, keep away from the edge. It's unstable,” Bill yells.
“It's okay. I think I can get down here.” Annabel steps to the edge, sits and slides down into the gully, disappearing from our view. We all run to where she was and look down. She's standing in the bottom of the gully, waving up to us. “The edge has already slumped in here, so it's not that steep.”
“But it's dangerous,” Bill says. “The sand's still wet, but as it dries there'll be more slumps. Come back out.”
“I will,” Annabel replies, “in a minute.” She turns away from us, crouches down and begins digging around something in the sand beside the lowest piece of black timber.
“Come back up!” Bill orders.
“I've almost got it,” Annabel replies without turning round. “It looks like aâ”
Without warning, the entire bank above Annabel collapses, and she vanishes beneath a pile of sand. Without thinking, I leap over the edge and slither and stumble down. I ignore the others shouting behind me and dig frantically with my bare hands.
How long can someone survive buried like this? I know it's a long time in a snow avalanche. But this is wet, heavy sand. There are no air pockets in it. How long does it take a person to suffocate? Five minutes? Six minutes? What if I'm digging in the wrong place? Things are happening painfully slowly, but my brain is racing. How long has it been?
The voices from above sound very far away. Then Bill is beside me, shouting, “Get the shovels from the truck.”
My arms are aching already. The middle finger on my left hand hurts. I think I've torn the nail off. I don't stop. I ignore the pain and keep digging. How long can I keep this up? I keep scratching, digging, throwing.