Lula Does the Hula (34 page)

There was a sudden movement from the mattress.

‘Don’t leave me,’ whimpered Emily.

I glanced at Alex in mutual outrage. ‘
Sheesh
, Emily Saunders!’ I said, bending down to pull her to my chest, then struggling to stand. ‘What do you take us for? And what are you
doing
here?’

‘I left a message,’ whispered Emily. ‘But nobody came.’

‘They thought you were saying you were at your grandparents’ place,’ said Alex. ‘Tide’s Up.’

‘Then they worked out what you were really saying,’ I added, ‘but in all that time no one was looking for you at all. And the trail obviously went cold. You could have d–’

‘Can you carry her?’ interrupted Alex.

‘I’m worried about my dodgy back,’ I admitted. ‘Can you take her arms?’

‘Wait,’ said Alex. ‘Swap shoes.’

‘Don’t worry – keep my boots. You won’t be able to run in the wedges.’

‘You can’t go barefoot! We’re in the wilds out here. Thorns! Snakes! Sharp rocks!’

I grinned, despite myself. ‘Sharp rock or gun to the head,’ I muttered. ‘Forget the footsies. Let’s just get going!’

‘Take mine,’ whispered Emily. ‘Size six. I’m not going to be running anywhere.’

We lowered the girl back to the mattress. ‘I can’t believe you’re still alive,’ I said. ‘A person is only supposed to last ten or eleven days without water. In the shade. Not moving.’

‘There was distilled water in the supply cupboard,’ said Emily. ‘I tried to drink as little as possible, but it ran out a while back. How long have I been in here?’

‘Three weeks,’ said Alex shortly, finishing with the last lace of Emily’s boots. ‘And, just for the record, I am bloody amazingly fast in wedges.’

‘Good to know,’ I said, unpacking the goodybag stuff into the camera bag before slinging it across my body. My boots were back on – we were ready to move.

Alex hoisted Emily in a piggyback and moved up the stairs at speed. I followed. Small spotlights overhead winked on as we approached and after a few minutes winked off again. I hadn’t noticed them doing their own thing on the way down.

‘The lights know we’re here,’ I said. ‘And I’m not sure I like it.’

Alex shot me a look over her shoulder, still walking.
‘Quiet. We don’t know if the Healeys are gone.’

A few steps up and she froze. ‘What was that?’

I’d heard it too. ‘Was that the door?’

Alex waved at me to be quiet. We stood perfectly still for a while longer and the stair lights went off. It was very, very dark.

Another click, then nothing.

At last Alex took another step, and we both winced as the spotlights went on again. Higher and higher we climbed, until at last Alex disappeared up and out. I followed her into the dark cavernous space of the boathouse.

‘Don’t turn any lights on,’ she warned.

‘What do you take me for?’ I asked. ‘This isn’t the first time I’ve saved the day, you know.’

‘What’s the plan?’ asked Emily.

‘I hack the keypad,’ said Alex, ‘and we head up to that security point on the main road and get the guard to call your mum, Lula.’

‘Firstly,’ I said, ‘you forget the leopard. I’m not walking around in the wilds with a half-dead person. He’ll smell us and we’ll be the hors d’oeuvres.’

‘I’m half dead,’ whimpered Emily. ‘Not deaf.’

‘Secondly, there is no keypad.’

Alex still had her phone. She fumbled in her pocket and shone the screen around. ‘Bummer. Can you pick locks?’

‘No need.’

‘Huh?’

I gestured with my head to the far end of the boathouse. ‘The good ship awaits, m’lady.’

‘Oh no.’

‘What?’ asked Emily wearily. ‘What now? Why don’t you guys just call someone with that mobile?’ She began mumbling a number, and her head drooped to Alex’s shoulder.

‘The only reception in this park is on the top exit road,’ I replied, though I wasn’t sure she could hear me. We had to get her to the hospital, and fast. ‘But there’s a sat phone at the Hambledon High boathouse.’

‘I’ve never been in a speedboat,’ announced Alex, moving into the boathouse by the light of her phone. I kept close, squinting in the darkness. ‘To be honest, I’m a little afraid.’

‘
Now
you’re afraid?’ I squeaked. ‘
Now?
Geez.’

Alex cursed the heavens, and her luck and mainly me for landing her in this crappy situation while I helped to get Emily in the boat. It was positioned at the top of the slip – all I had to do was untie it, and we’d be away, gliding into the water. But first I had to open the slipway door. I scouted around with the phone light and found a bog-standard activation switch for the massive roll-up garage door.

‘Our luck has turned,’ I called to Alex, pressing the button.

‘Hurry!’ she urged. ‘If the Healeys are out there, they’ll
hear that for sure! Do you know how to start a boat?’

‘Just like a lawnmower,’ I said confidently, and got it going in a trice.

In minutes we were out on the water, the engine throbbing quietly behind us, and the roll-up door rolled decorously down as we exited.

‘Now,’ I murmured, ‘which way to the school boathouse?’

Alex was giving Emily more water, and had got chocolate out of the camera bag. ‘Try this,’ she was saying, but Emily had started to shake and wasn’t making much sense. I took off my press-photographer-stylie jacket and threw it over her, opening up the throttle on the boat to accelerate further into the lake as fast as I dared. I looked back at the shore, dreading what I might see.

Whew.

No bad men with guns.

But up on the ridge, close to the gatehouse, there was something moving.

Car lights!

I was just about to warn Alex when a shot went off, cracking across the water. Oh! My! God! I don’t know how I didn’t scream out loud, but instead the adrenalin whooshed in and I went for the throttle again.

‘Sheesh!’ squeaked Alex. ‘Tatty!’

‘I’m on it,’ I muttered, and went up to full speed, hanging on to the wheel like a woman possessed. Thank
goodness the Hambledon boathouse was out of sight of the road. I careered round the lake at top speed and came up to the final straight in no time. The engine was roaring at full throttle, but even with that massive volume we all heard another two shots ring out.

‘Tatty!’ screamed Alex. ‘Get down!’

‘I’ve got to drive the frikking boat!’ I yelled back, but even so I crouched as low as possible, keeping the westernmost peninsula in view. If we could just get to that corner, we’d be out of view of the top road and minutes from the Hambledon boathouse jetty.

Another bang cracked out just as we cleared the corner.

Ha haaa!
I thought.
You’re too late, bad men! We’ve made it!

But then a pained ‘OOF!’ came from the back of the boat.

‘
What
. . .
?
’ I yelled, looking round wildly. ‘
What happened?
’

‘Just saying that was close,’ murmured Emily, saying, ‘oof,’ once more, quietly, before her stricken face lolled back into Alex’s lap.

‘You’re telling me,’ I murmured. ‘You okay, Al?’

‘Yeah, but Emily’s passed out again.’

I eased the throttle back, and slowly, carefully, stared into the darkness. Thank goodness it wasn’t like last night, all thick mist and wild waves. Thank goodness for still water and moonlight. I made out silhouettes of trees I
recognised, familiar rocky outcrops, and in no time I was pulling up to the Hambledon jetty with a pounding heart and shaky knees.

‘Wait here in the boat,’ I commanded, leaving the boat idling quietly, and took off for the boathouse, blocking all thoughts of leopards and rhinos from my mind.

‘I’m so brave, I’m so brave, I’m so brave,’ I muttered, as, fingers shaking, I fiddled the combination lock open and reached for the satellite phone just inside the door. I snatched it up and raced back down to the jetty. The sound of car tyres on the road somewhere drifted on a breeze down to us, and then there was another shot. Throwing myself into the boat, I threw the phone to Alex. ‘Call Mum!’ I said. ‘999! Anything!’

‘Wait!’ said Alex, staying my hand from the pull cord. ‘Don’t we have to keep still to pick up a signal?’

‘Don’t know!’

‘I think we do! Just hang on!’

‘Someone is shooting at us from up there! There’s no time to hang on! Let me get to the other shore. You can’t get there without a boat – we’ll be safe! All the time in the world to call whoever we want!’

‘What about Emily?’ asked Alex, her thumbs dancing over the keys of the phone. ‘She’s . . . she’s . . .’

I looked down at Emily Saunders, shaking like a leaf in Alex’s lap. By the light of the moon I could see her eyes had
rolled back in her head and her tongue was protruding from her mouth in a totally frightening person-on-the-brinkof-death kind of way.

‘Okay,’ I said quickly. ‘Here’s what we do.’

Alex didn’t like my plan. She didn’t like it one little bit. We were having a heated discussion when Emily’s eyes rolled the right way round and she jerked to attention.

‘W-what?’ she moaned. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘Quiet, Emily,’ I whispered. ‘That car is coming round the corner. Dammit, Alex! Now we really can’t get away! If I try powering out of here, we’ll be riddled with bulletholes like a ripe Swiss cheese! Why is no one answering their phone?’ I turned off the engine for the best chance of staying unheard and unseen.

Alex ignored me, just calmly punching numbers in, then listening, then hanging up with a shake of her head and trying again. Her cool demeanour made me pull myself together. Taking a deep though shaky breath, I sat up a little in the boat and watched the headlights come ever closer. I could just about hear the engine now. Funny. It didn’t sound like the Healeys’ van. Maybe Healey Senior wanted to finish me and Alex off neatly and cleanly without his family getting all squeamish, and he’d come alone in his own vehicle. I reached out for an overhanging branch near the jetty and pulled us away along the bank so we’d be a little more obscured by the bushes growing there.

No, definitely not a truck, not a van either, but familiar . . .

Another gunshot had me ducking down low, and Emily whimpered. Alex was crouched down, furiously tap tapping at the phone, her face set in grim determination.

Very familiar
. . .

The car pulled right down to the jetty, sending gravel skittering across the boards and into the water. Alex shoved the phone with its telltale light under her jumper and crouched even lower. I held on to the branch we were hiding beneath, my eyes glued to the car, staring at the driver.

Then just as another shot rang out across the water, I sprang up from the boat and shouted, ‘ALOHA!’

Alex’s face was a study in total shock. I could see a thousand thoughts whipping through her head, none of them good, but when a dark figure hurtled from the car to the jetty and shouted, ‘ALOHA!’ back, her face creased up into a grin.

‘Oh, thank God!’ she breathed.

I hugged her tightly, both of us sobbing shamelessly in relief.

‘My legs feel like they’re going to give way,’ I admitted, clutching at her. ‘I was so frikking scared!’

‘You were brilliant.’ Alex pushed me away, holding on to my shoulders before swiping at her eyes with the backs of
her hands. ‘Bloody brilliant, Tatty Lula.’ She took a shaky breath and called, ‘How did you know we were here, Jack? And why are you just standing there? Were you shooting at the Healeys? Where are they? Can you get us out of here? Emily’s in a bad way.’

‘Not gunshots,’ I said to Alex. ‘Jack’s rubbish car backfiring all through the safari park. I’m thinking that leopard has headed for the hills.’

‘Leopard?’ said Jack. ‘Like a
leopard
leopard?’ And jumped straight into the water.

‘What are you doing, you maniac?’ I laughed, my nose all prickly and tears still streaming.

‘Bringing you to shore, fair maidens,’ he replied, shooting me a look over his shoulder as he pulled the boat towards the jetty. ‘I heard you say Emily. I’m guessing Emily Saunders?’

‘Yep,’ said Alex. ‘We’ve got to hurry.’

‘Mona,’ called Jack. ‘Bring the picnic blanket!’

There was a skitter of gravel as Mona – I hadn’t even seen her standing there; did she still hate me? – ran to the car and back at the speed of light. I tied up the boat while the other three whisked Emily off into the car, cocooned in Jack’s picnic blanket. I felt a rush of love for Jack and his picnic blanket, and regretted that I’d be squashed in the back seat with the girls instead of canoodling in joyous freedom and victory in the front with him.

‘Will we all fit in there?’ asked Alex, poking her head into the car’s tiny interior.

‘We won’t have to.’ Jack was standing, half in the car, half out, looking up the road. I followed his gaze to see a pair of headlights making its way steadily down to us. The rush of the engine was only just audible in the still air.

‘Oh, frik! Who’s that?’ I asked, clutching my boyfriend. ‘Is it them? Is it the Healeys?’

‘Geez, don’t say that,’ murmured Jack, looking hard as the vehicle came closer. ‘No . . .’ He shook his fringe from his eyes, then nodded, now certain. ‘I know that car – it’s not the Healeys. I rang Sergeant T, like you asked. Couldn’t get hold of her directly, though I told the duty officer everything. Rang Jazz to get her to keep calling – better if Sergeant T herself is on the case, y’know?’