Aunt Effie and the Island That Sank (8 page)

The rising sun
silvered dewy cobwebs between the fence wires. Steam had blown gently all night from the Stanley Steamer and kept us warm. Uncle Chris was connecting a hose to the boiler under the bonnet of his car.

We saw what he was rigging and scampered to be first under the hot shower. Around us the ground was white with an early frost, but we were warm inside a circle of steaming-hot spray. We jostled and fought for the soap. We shoved each other out through the watery curtain. Our toes curled up from the frost, and we shrieked and pushed back inside again.

For breakfast, Uncle Chris cooked our eggs in his boiler. When the little ones finished theirs, Uncle Chris pointed. “Look up the top of the Tower!” They stared up, and he flipped over their empty eggshells.

“But I ate my egg!” said Casey as she looked down at her eggcup.

“You’ve got yellow all round your mouth,” said Uncle Chris, “so you must have. Try eating it again.”

Casey tapped the top with her teaspoon. “It’s empty!”

“You must always knock a hole in the bottom of an eggshell,” Uncle Chris told her, “to let out the witches, or they’ll tie knots in your hair.”

He gave the little ones some more boiled eggs and cut off the tops. They ate them, turned the shells upside down, and poked holes through. “To let the witches out!”

“To keep the Phantom Drummer away,” whispered Alwyn.

Ah-oogah! Ah-oogah! Banana Bob’s Model T wobbled towards us.

A grim man sat in the driver’s seat, working the pedals with his bare feet. Banana Bob leaned across and steered from the passenger seat. His head was so pointy this morning, it stuck up under the canvas hood of the Model T. He took one hand off the wheel and pointed at Alwyn. “That’s him,” he said. “The one who gave me lip!”

The grim man turned dark eyes on Alwyn. We looked at him and ran and stood by Peter and Marie. “He’s got a tattooed face!”

“The Sideshow Man!” said Uncle Chris.

The lines and whorls of the Sideshow Man’s tattoo deepened and darkened as he stared at Alwyn.

“What’s that?” cried Daisy and swooned. Among the crates of bananas, a massive black shadow moved. We thought we could see a white stripe like a parson’s collar around its neck. Its mouth opened, flames came out, and it seemed to lick its lips as it looked at Alwyn. “Boom! Boom! Boom!” – the sound made us go goose-pimply all over.

“The Phantom Drummer!” said Uncle Chris, and his voice
shook. We all cried.

“We’ve come for Alwyn,” said Banana Bob. “We’ve come to take him away!”

“Well, you can’t have him!” said Uncle Chris.

The tattooed Sideshow Man bounded out of the driver’s seat, jumped up and down. “Ugh!” he grunted. “Ugh!” He waved the tea-tree stick with the lady’s hand mirror lashed on the end, rolled his eyes, poked out his tongue – and we saw with horror that it was tattooed like his face.

“Wasn’t there someone else with a tattooed tongue?” asked Peter. Daisy woke, took one look, and swooned again.

Grunting, the Sideshow Man capered across, and laid a scroll of paper in front of the Stanley Steamer. “Ugh!” He poked out his tattooed tongue and waved the tea-tree stick. Before Marie could stop him, Alwyn went, “Ugh!” and poked out his tongue in return.

“Ugh!” With one leap the Sideshow Man landed in the driver’s seat, pushed down a pedal, and Banana Bob steered the Model T away. From among the crates of bananas on the back, the evil shadow of the Phantom Drummer stared at Alwyn, licked his lips, and flames came out of his mouth again. “Boom! Boom! Boom!”

Uncle Chris unrolled the scroll. “Where are my reading glasses?” He patted his pockets and felt on his forehead.

Daisy snatched the scroll. “We hereby challenge you to a race from Tower Hill to the Waterfall and back,” she read in a loud voice. “All Motor Spirits, Oil, and Kerosene to be carried on the vehicles. The drivers must bring back a bottle filled with water from Waterfall Creek.

“If the Stanley Steamer wins, you get a case of bananas. If the Model T wins, we get Alwyn. Signed: Banana Bob, the Sideshow
Man, and the Phantom Drummer.”

“What’s that?” Peter pointed.

“Banana Bob can’t write,” said Uncle Chris, “so he always signs with a cross.”

“And that?”

“The Sideshow Man’s signature. You can tell because he always signs his name in blood. He writes it twice, once with each hand – just to show off.”

“And that?”

“The Phantom Drummer can’t write either, so he makes that mark with his thumb. It’s called The Black Spot!”

Daisy gave a little cry and swooned again.

“Is the Stanley Steamer faster than the Model T?” we asked.

“Heck, yes!” said Uncle Chris. “But we’ll have to watch out for the Phantom Drummer’s dirty tricks. Wake up, Daisy, and read us that bit at the bottom.”

“Mr J. C. Firth has agreed to be the Starter and Judge.” Daisy enunciated elegantly. “He will fire a cannon from the top of the Tower to start the race at six o’clock tomorrow morning. The winner will be the first car or part thereof to cross the finishing line. The Judge’s decision will be final. That’s all it says.” Daisy sounded disappointed there wasn’t more for her to read.

“What’s a ‘part thereof’?” asked Lizzie.

“Lawyers’ silly scribble-talk,” said Uncle Chris. “It just means any bit of the car. We could back over the finishing line and win, just so long as we’re first.

“We’ll fill the Stanley Steamer’s boiler before we start, and refill it at the Waterfall. Banana Bob will have to stop somewhere and fill up his tank with motor spirits, so that makes us even. But they’ll cheat like anything, specially the Phantom Drummer.”

“I think the Phantom Drummer is the Bugaboo!” said Lizzie.

We all shrieked. The Bugaboo lived under Aunt Effie’s enormous bed at home. When we jumped down off it, he used to grab our feet with his bony fingers. He didn’t have proper fingers with flesh on them, just bones – like a skeleton’s hands. We hadn’t ever seen the Bugaboo, but we often told each other how it felt to be grabbed around the ankle by his bony fingers.

“Nonsense!” said Marie. “The Bugaboo’s back home under Aunt Effie’s bed. He can’t be in two places at once.”

We all felt better when she said that. “He can’t be in two places at once!” we all shouted.

“Silly old Bugaboo!” Alwyn yelled.

“Shhh!” we all told him. “Aren’t you in enough trouble already?”

“Oobagub old silly!” Alwyn whispered.

“Besides,” said Marie, “the Phantom Drummer reminded me of somebody we’ve seen before. Anyway, how could he sign the challenge if he has bones for fingers?” She waved the scroll at us, and we looked at the Black Spot. It was large and round.

“That’s been made by a fat thumb,” Marie said, “not a skinny bone!”

Lizzie smiled. “Silly old Black Spot!”

“Spot Black old silly,” said Alwyn.

“Not so silly,” said Uncle Chris. “I warn you, we’ll have to watch out for the Phantom Drummer’s dirty tricks.…”

We spent the rest of that day getting ready. We filled the boiler and made sure the pilot light was going. Uncle Chris checked the spare kerosene for the burner, and topped up its reservoir. We greased and oiled all the pistons, joints, and moving parts of the Stanley Steamer. We polished the red mudguards, the brass
headlights, and the boa constrictor horn. We polished the silver side-lamps, the red wooden spokes, and rubbed the seats with oil till the leather shone. We polished the mahogany steering wheel with the shammy cloth, and rubbed the brass with Brasso till it glowed gold.

“Might be an idea to throw on a couple of timber-jacks,” said Peter. “Just in case we need them.”

Early next morning we got up and had hot showers and boiled eggs for breakfast, and everybody knocked holes in the bottom of their empty eggshells to let out the witches.

We topped up the boiler. Uncle Chris pulled a lever, and the burner came on with a thump. The fresh water took a while to boil, and we watched the needle on the gauge creep up to over five hundred pounds per square inch.

“We need eight hundred,” said Uncle Chris. He was pumping up the tyres, and tightening all the nuts and bolts. “It’ll be too cold driving with the windscreen down.” We put it up and tightened the butterfly nuts.

Uncle Chris put on a big brass fireman’s helmet he found in the black box. It had a horse’s mane on top like a Roman helmet, and it made him look very fierce, so long as you couldn’t see his face. Marie and Peter wore Great War flying helmets and goggles out of the black box and sat beside him.

The rest of us found motoring caps, goggles, gloves, and big white dust coats in the black box. We sat Alwyn in the middle with the little ones so he’d be safe, and the rest of us perched all over the Stanley Steamer.

“It’s nearly six.” Uncle Chris let off the hand brake. The boa constrictor horn went, “Whaaeeeish!” spat steam, and whistled, “Whooo-ooo-oooh!” Uncle Chris opened the throttle just a little.
The Stanley Steamer glided silently to the starting line.

“Eight hundred!” Peter nodded at the pressure gauge.

“We forgot a bottle for the water from Waterfall Creek!” Marie jumped out and ran to our travelling cowshed, the
chin-strap
on her flying helmet flapping.

“Hurry, Marie! We can hear them coming! Quick, climb on board! She’s got a bottle! Hooray!”

“That’s no good,” said Daisy. “It’s one of Aunt Effie’s Old Puckeroo Skin Bracer bottles. I can smell it from here. Skin Bracer indeed! I’ve always suspected it’s actually strong drink. Matamata’s a dry district, and she could get us all arrested, bringing in forbidden liquor.”

“The rules didn’t say what sort of bottle it had to be,” Marie was telling Daisy when, Ker-rang! Clank! Clank! Bang! Bang! the Model T backfired and pulled up beside us. We stared in horror for inside it were three gigantic gorillas who pointed at Alwyn, clashed huge red teeth at him, and dribbled blood as if they were eating him already.

“It’s all right,” said Ann. “It’s just them in gorilla suits.” But the little ones cried because they looked like the gorillas of their dreams, the ones that eat little children.

“Remember the powerful gorillas on Aunt Effie’s Ark?” Ann said to them. “They were real gorillas, and they were gentle.” The little ones nodded but still cried as the gigantic gorillas in the Model T beat their chests and roared, “Gruff! Gruff! Gruff!” The one in the driver’s seat stuck out his tongue, and we could see it was tattooed.

“Look at the one in the passenger seat,” said Becky. “Look at his puku!”

Sure enough, a round belly like half a basketball stuck out
under the gorilla suit. And his pointed head stuck up under the canvas roof.

“It’s Banana Bob!” yelled Alwyn. “We can see you, Banana Bob!”

“Shut up, Alwyn!” we all cried, but it was too late.

“Arrgh! Grrrr! Grrrah!” the three gorillas roared and jumped up and down in the Model T. They shook the folding struts that held up the canvas hood, as if they were shaking Alwyn. They pointed at him and showed their terrible red teeth and their terrible black fingernails, and a cannon boomed on top of the Tower.

“The starting gun!” shouted Jazz. Uncle Chris opened the throttle lever, and we rolled away, silent but for the crunch of the wheels over the frosty grass. The pressure gauge on the dashboard read: “800 lb p.s.i.”

“
We’re off!
Hooray!” Gliding silently the Stanley Steamer climbed on to the Turangaomoana road. We could hear a blackbird cluck in the hedge. Frost had lifted the gravel so the tyres crunched it, rattled it under the mudguards, and chucked it out behind.

“Banana Bob’s stalled! He’s getting out to crank! Hooray, Banana Bob!”

“Be quiet!” we all told Alwyn, and Peter said, “We’ve got a long way to go.” But Alwyn bounced and shouted. “Look at Banana Bob shaking the crank-handle at us!” He pointed and giggled just like Uncle Chris the first time he saw our travelling cowshed.

We had to join in. Then Uncle Chris spluttered and chortled. He giggled till the fireman’s helmet fell over his eyes and he had to pull up.

“Let me remind everybody, this is supposed to be a serious race!” said Daisy.

“You’re right.” Uncle Chris opened the lever so steam filled the cylinder. Chuckling, he drove on round the Springs Corner.

Ah-oogah! Ah-oogah! The Model T cut past on the inside. “Gruff! Gruff! Gruff!” The two gorillas in front jumped up and down and beat their chests.

“Boom! Boom! Boom!” The one on the back threw a four-gallon tin of green, liquid cow-muck. Plop! Squish! It was lucky we’d put up the windscreen, but we lost time, stopping and using a steam hose to clean it. Windscreen wipers hadn’t been invented yet.

“That means we’ll have to stop somewhere for more water,” said Uncle Chris. “I told you we’d have to watch out for the Phantom Drummer’s dirty tricks. Alwyn, when will you learn to shut up?”

“Up shut to learn,” said a little voice.

“Look at the white goose and the weeping willow by the pond,” said Jazz, but nobody took any notice.

Going down the hill to the Opal Springs we steamed past the gorillas – Whooo-oop! The Phantom Drummer tried to lasso Alwyn, but the loop fell over a fence-post. We thought he’d be pulled off, but the Phantom Drummer was so strong, he pulled out the fence-post. The Model T roared and spun its wheels, and the engine stalled. Banana Bob got out to crank it. We would have cheered, but we were getting scared of the powerful Phantom Drummer. Even Alwyn was quiet.

We rattled over the loose planks across Mr Firth’s bridge. The burner came on with a thump. The Stanley Steamer wailed like bagpipes as we climbed the other side. We helped by holding
our noses and whining like bagpipes, too. But the Model T was coming fast. They were going to pass us. The Phantom Drummer threw something, and there was a huge bang.

Alwyn shrieked with laughter and pointed. “You’ve got a blow-out!” he shouted. “A bit of tin, a bit of board, wire it together and you’ve got a Ford!”

“Boom! Boom! Boom!” The Phantom Drummer leapt off the Model T, and held up the back while the Sideshow Man changed the burst tyre.

“That saves them time,” said Peter, “not having to use a jack.” And just then there was another bang!

“They’ve had another blow-out! Ha, ha, ha!” Alwyn pointed. “Ha! Ha! Ha!”

“It’s not them, it’s us!” Uncle Chris pulled up on a level bit. “That was a length of barbed wire the Phantom Drummer threw under our back wheel.”

Peter and Marie jumped off, got out one of the timber-jacks, and started changing the wheel. Jazz topped up the boiler with water out of the drain. The burner came on, the steam pressure built up. Peter was just bolting the spare wheel on when Ah-oogah! Ah-oogah! Ker-rang! Clang! Clang! the Tin Lizzie climbed past.

“Gruff! Gruff!” laughed the Phantom Drummer. “Boom! Boom! Boom!” and he tipped a box of tacks on the road.

Ah-oogah! Ah-oogah! and the Model T shot over the top of the hill. It took us ages, crawling on our hands and knees, to pick up every tack.

“Beats me how they climbed that hill without backing,” said Uncle Chris.

“They must have put a valve in the screw-cap on their petrol tank,” said Peter.

“What does that do?”

“You pump it up with a bicycle pump. The air pressure makes the petrol keep going through. Even when the tank’s half-empty and you’re going uphill.”

“I’ll bet the Phantom Drummer thought of that,” said Uncle Chris. “It’s typical of his dirty tricks.”

“Smart, though,” said Peter.

We drove in their dust, catching up. We held our breath, pulled our goggles tight, and Uncle Chris drove so fast we were almost touching the back of the Model T, but the dust also hid us. Through a gap in its cloud we saw the Phantom Drummer dancing in his gorilla suit, thumping his chest, and laughing, “Boom! Boom! Boom!” because he thought we were miles behind, tyres full of tacks.

Still hidden by their dust, we came to the top of a hill. The boiler gauge read 900 lb p.s.i. Uncle Chris said, “Now!”

Marie pulled the cord on the steam whistle. Bleee-wheep! Whooo-ooop!

“Kreeeg-ah!” The gigantic gorilla on the back of the Model T fell over the side. Hanging on by his black fingernails – running in huge bounds – he pulled himself back on board.

“Ha! Ha! Ha!” Alwyn laughed and pointed as we swept by. “Silly old Phantom Drummer!”

“You invite ill fortune on every occasion you do that,” Daisy told Alwyn, as we splashed through a stream that came out of a flax swamp and across the road.

Climbing another hill, we looked down and saw Banana Bob had run off the road and gone into the drain. “It’s that side-sway a Model T gets,” said Peter. “With any luck, they’ll have bent their front axle.”

“We’ve won!” Alwyn shouted and bounced.

But the powerful Phantom Drummer lifted the Model T out of the drain with one hand, and held it up while the Sideshow Man pulled out the axle and belted it straight with the back of an axe. Then we were over the top of the hill and they were hidden.

“What’s that thundering?”

Uncle Chris pointed. We looked up, and there was the Waterfall. “Aunt Effie said we’d be coming here,” said Jessie. We knelt by Waterfall Creek, dangled our dusty tongues in the cold water, and washed them clean with handfuls of sand. We pulled off our goggles and laughed at the white circles around each other’s eyes before we splashed our faces.

“What are you doing, Uncle Chris?” Lizzie asked. He was laying a green leaf on a grey stone above the creek.

“Back in the olden days, this was a track over the Kaimais to Tauranga,” said Uncle Chris. A little girl travelling with a missionary was murdered here. Whenever I visit the Waterfall, I put a leaf here to remember her.” For a moment we all felt cold, then the sun shone warm again.

He refilled the boiler. Ann and Becky topped up the kerosene reservoir. Marie filled the Old Puckeroo bottle with sparkling Waterfall Creek water. Isaac and Jane scrubbed the patches of dried cow-muck off the radiator.

Jazz sandpapered the punctured tube, and glued a patch over the hole while Bryce cut a boot from an old tyre, and put it inside the rip in the cover. They got it all back together, and pumped it up. We cooled our feet in the creek, washed the dust off our goggles, and climbed back up the bank to the Stanley Steamer.

“The dirty crooks!” said Uncle Chris. “They’ve been here while we were down at the creek. They’ve filled up their tank
and gone!”

We saw the empty Big Tree Motor Spirits tins the gorillas had just thrown down anywhere. “They must have filled their radiator from the drain,” said Uncle Chris.

“They must have filled their bottle from the drain, too!” said Daisy. “The rules said they had to fill it from Waterfall Creek.”

“I warned you about the Phantom Drummer’s dirty tricks. How will Mr Firth know they didn’t fill it from the Waterfall Creek?” asked Uncle Chris. “They’re such terrible liars.”

“Drive on!” said Jazz. “We can still beat them.”

“Something’s missing,” said Lizzie, and she pointed. “The Phantom Drummer’s pinched our steering wheel!”

We all cried, Uncle Chris loudest of all. “Boo-hoo!” he bawled and rubbed his eyes. “Aunt Effie will give me such a hiding if she comes back and finds I’ve lost Alwyn in a race.”

We were so sorry for Uncle Chris, we all cried, too, and held his hand. We didn’t want him getting a hiding, and we knew Aunt Effie could get pretty fierce.

“There must be something you can do.”

At the sound of Daisy’s sensible voice, Uncle Chris stopped crying, and Peter said, “You’re right! Everybody look for a crooked tea-tree! Quick!”

We searched the scrub along the side of the road. Jazz found one, cut it off with his pocket-knife, and came running. “Will this do?”

“Just the thing!” Peter said.

“I see what you mean,” Uncle Chris called. “We’ll steer with a tiller!”

“Here,” said Marie. She was good at knots and lashings. She lashed the bent end of the tea-tree stick down the side of
the steering shaft. The other end stuck up to where Uncle Chris stood at the back on the luggage carrier.

“I’ll work the throttle,” Peter said. “I’ll work the brakes and whistle,” said Marie. “Ann and Becky, you sit in the front seat, too, and turn on the burner if Uncle Chris yells out. The rest of you perch where you can, but watch out for the tiller – it could sweep you off.”

We remembered how an elephant and twenty powerful gorillas were once swept off the deck of Aunt Effie’s Ark by the tiller because it had too much weather helm. We stood on the running boards, wedged ourselves in behind the mudguards and the headlamps, and perched on top of the bonnet so we’d be out of the way.

“Let off the hand brake! Open the throttle!” We torpedoed back down the road. Whooo-ooop!

But Uncle Chris had trouble with the steering, and there was a floppety noise from the tyres. The Phantom Drummer had let them down. He’d even stolen the pump. Uncle Chris tried filling the tyres with a steam hose from the boiler, but the steam melted the inner tubes. We all stared at Alwyn whose face was turning white.

“This is what you do.” Peter tore up some old sacks and told us to get armfuls of grass off the side of the road. “You stuff them!”

The stuffed tyres weren’t as soft, but they worked. We hung on tight and drove fast. Whooo-ooop!

Where a little stream came down across the road, we had to stop. The Phantom Drummer had dug out the hillside and collapsed it to make a dam. Alwyn tried wading through the mud, but went in over his head. He came up mud all over except for his eyes and his mouth – when he opened it. “At least his face
doesn’t look white now,” said Ann.

Marie dragged him ashore with a stick and tried for the bottom. “There’s ten feet of mud,” she said.

“Remember the rafts we saw at the museum,” said Ann. “Made out of flax-sticks.”

“You mean korari,” said Daisy. She never lost a chance to air her knowledge.

“You can call them koraris if you want to,” said Ann. “I mean flax-sticks!”

We tied thousands of them in bundles, tied the bundles together with flax leaves, and made a huge raft. Uncle Chris drove the Stanley Steamer aboard. Alwyn was covered in mud already, so he swam ahead with a rope. He took a couple of turns around a strainer post, and we pulled the raft across.

Whooo-oop! we were off again. Nobody wanted to sit beside Alwyn, so he hung on to the luggage carrier behind Uncle Chris.

Banana Bob’s Tin Lizzie stood facing us at the other end of Mr Firth’s bridge over the Waihou at the Okauia Springs. The Phantom Drummer was tying our steering wheel to the side of the bridge. Smoke came out of his ears when he saw us. He bent down to what looked like a piece of wire, gnashed his teeth so sparks flew, and ran and jumped on the Model T. Ker-rang! Clank! Clank. Ah-oogah! The Model T sped off up the hill backwards.

“Good!” said Peter. “That means the valve’s not working, and they’re running out of petrol.”

“I’ll get our steering wheel!” Marie jumped down and ran.

“It’s a booby trap!” shouted Uncle Chris. “Another of the Phantom Drummer’s dirty tricks. Touch the steering wheel, and the bridge will blow up.” We looked and saw wires leading from the steering wheel, over the side of the bridge, and down to red
sticks of dynamite tied to the wooden legs.

“That’s why he was gnashing sparks off his teeth!” said Jazz. “Lighting the fuse.” He pointed at a spark burning along a length of fuse towards the dynamite.

Even the mud on Alwyn’s face turned white, and he trembled with fear till the Stanley Steamer shook so much we had to hang on tight.