The Plug at the Bottom of the Sea (2 page)

The wind whistled round this great building all the way to the top.

‘Craig, I'm scared.' Cindy snuggled close to Craig, her teeth chattering.

‘Oh, just fall asleep!'

‘I'm an insomniac,' Cindy said proudly, trying to stop a yawn and keep her eyes open.

‘Girls are nutty.' Craig looked at her wondering what they would do the next day—what they would see—whether they would get off the island on their boat or whether it was beyond repair—whether there were other people living on this strange island—whether the mill was built years ago, and by whom.

Just before he fell asleep he thought he saw a large bat circle overhead and others circle past the windows high above. In another flicker of lightning he saw, or thought he saw, an enormous roller with rope coiled around it high as the platform they slept on. He thought it was turning but the lightning died and he couldn't tell.

In that moment he realized that there was no millstone and bags of grain in the mill. This island was small, or so it seemed, and probably had very little grass or anything else. If this wasn't a windmill for grain, what was it doing here with its many sails so old, large and strange?

Cindy awoke with light in her eyes from the cracks between the stairs. After yawning and shaking herself, she realized where she was. Then she remembered what had happened the night before. Her foot felt cold, and, looking down, she saw it was in a puddle of water that had spread under the stairs. Both she and Craig were completely surrounded by water. Craig's hand was submerged and he was shivering in his sleep. Cindy woke Craig and saw his teeth chattering as he, too, took a moment to remember where they were.

‘No w-w-w-wonder I was so cold,' he stuttered.

‘It's sunny outside, Craig. Let's let our things dry in the sun.'

‘Good idea.' He smiled, and went down the stairs. They waded across the floor holding their shoes and socks in their hands.

The sails were still. They no longer blocked the doorway. The sunlight streamed through the opening. As they came into the sun Craig poured out the water in his shoe, and Cindy squeezed out her wet socks.

Although their shaggy yellow hair looked like two twisted stacks of dry hay, their wet blue jeans and sweaters still stuck to their skin. Craig grinned at the way Cindy looked and she did the same.

Craig was tall. ‘Stringy,' Cindy called him, because of the
loose way he walked and because he was always chewing string. Craig was forever figuring things in his head, but he tried to keep his face ‘blank' because he had read somewhere that that way no one could guess what you were thinking. But in between strenuous efforts at ‘blankness,' his wide grin lit his freckles—like just then—in the sun.

Cindy, on the other hand, never looked ‘blank' but always wily or worried, as if she knew something you didn't know. Cindy's look, according to Craig, was ‘weird.' And just at that moment outside the windmill, Craig decided she had never looked weirder. Her dark brown eyes were wide with fright.

Suddenly he knew why. As they looked out over the glistening cliffs they both saw the same thing. They looked at each other in amazement and then said the same thing.

‘
Where's the water?
'

As far as they could see there were only mud hills, seaweed, and other islands looking like mountains and cliffs in the distance.

‘The sea. It's all gone! The ocean!'

‘All that water disappeared, Craig. The whole ocean? Where could it be?'

‘Search me.'

‘But no, Craig. It can't be!'

A few small streams and lakes far below reflected the sun, and ran down into small puddles caught in the valleys. But as far as the eye could see all was mud, grey-brown and hilly—not the colour of the sea at all.

‘Craig, there's so much seaweed, it looks like wet hair on a horse.'

‘I never knew it was so hilly under the sea.'

‘Craig, I don't feel the same without the water. We'll never get home now, even if we could repair the boat.'

‘It's silly to repair the boat, with no water.'

It was then that they saw a thin line of rope in the distance. It grew larger the nearer it came to the island. In fact, as they walked around to the other side of the cliffs, they saw an
enormous rope as thick as they were tall coming over the side of the cliff. It led to an opening in the side of the windmill and the ground around it was torn open.

‘Craig, that wasn't there last night.'

‘Come on, we'll find out where this goes inside.' They ran around and waded into the building.

There they saw piles of rope in a corner and, as Cindy looked down in the water for her step, she saw the reflection of miles of rope tangled up in the top of the windmill.

Looking up she saw the rope blocked her view of the top of the building. It crowded the stairs, pushing them up in a slant against the walls.

‘Craig, I never saw so much rope.'

‘Wow! Why didn't we see it before?'

‘I don't like this whole thing, Craig.'

‘I think I see a sign, down over there, no, that way, Cindy.' He knelt underneath some rope lying in the water and there in the dark on the wall under the roller was a rusted metal sign in old letters. ‘Cindy, wow, read this!'

They read the sign out loud.

TO THE PLUG AT THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA

‘That's impossible. There can't be a
plug
in the bottom of the sea,' said Craig.

‘It just shows you don't know everything.'

‘Did you know? No! Well I don't believe it.'

‘But Craig, it
says
so—it must be true.'

‘Do you believe everything you read?'

‘But Craig, this rope—and the water?'

They waded out to look at where the rope led. They followed the winding rope into the distance with their eyes.

‘Cindy, we must have started the rope pulling last night when we leaned the bar against the sail and the lightning struck it.'

‘How?'

‘Because that started the sails turning.'

‘You mean it's our fault?' Craig nodded. ‘Then we're to blame for all the water disappearing?'

‘And for all the fish and the fishermen who might be dead.'

‘Dead? Oh no! Craig, no!'

‘If we're responsible then we've got to do something.'

‘You're the one who disobeyed Father in the first place. Besides, what can we do?'

‘We have to find out where the water has gone and try to get it back, or tell someone who can.'

‘But Craig, how can we tell someone? We don't know how to get home and there doesn't seem to be anyone on this island.'

‘Maybe not, but we can find out where the water has gone.'

‘How?'

‘By following the rope to see where it leads.'

‘But the rope may just lead in the direction of the plug. There's so much rope here it may be miles and miles from where the water has gone.'

‘Maybe, but suppose it
is
miles and miles, we still are responsible.'

Cindy shook her head back and forth as if saying ‘No,' but what came out of her mouth was ‘Yes.' She often did this when she didn't want to admit something.

‘Besides'—Craig smiled trying to cheer her up—‘we don't know which way home is, so this may be the best direction. You go down to the boat to see if there's anything left. I'll go back to the windmill and see if there's anything we should take.'

Inside Craig found only some straw and string which might be useful for fires. He looked up through the tangled rope and
saw that the stairs led to a little room hanging out from the wall. He remembered this from the bulge on the outside. He began climbing slowly for the stairs were weak and sagged towards the middle of the building. The railing was missing in places, and at one point Craig had to hold on to the wall to keep the steps from swaying with his weight.

Halfway up the stairs, he was almost dizzy from going around, and looking down only made it worse. Just in front of him there was a missing step. Through the space he could see the pools of water below and he thought of going back. But if he was not afraid of the trip to the plug, how could he be afraid here? He jumped over the dangerous space, feeling the stairs sway as he landed.

Through cracks in the wall he could see a view of the mud outside and his sister standing on the rocks far below.

Cindy cautiously went up to look in the boat spiked on a rock like a fish in the air. Craig continued up the narrow stairs.

As Craig approached the room at the top, he saw the door was broken from its hinges. The smell of liquor was heavy in the air. The room was triangular with a great pole running up through the middle to the roof. Except for a messy bed and a chair there was little to see but rows and rows and rows of empty liquor bottles. Craig saw a metal plate on the wall with the same spoked wheel on it he had seen over the doors of the windmill and below the giant sea horse on the roof. He also saw a metal harpoon and a captain's hat on the wall. And, like strange insects all over the walls, hanging from every nail and wooden beam, he saw fish hooks. So delicate and complicated was each hook's design they might have been jewellery, he thought.

The only other useful things he found were a candle under the bed standing in an inch of dust and cobwebs, and a knife stuck in a crevice in the stone wall.

‘Is anybody here?' Craig called. But he was sure there was no one. He thought for a long time whether he should take
the candle and the knife, and finally decided that it wasn't stealing if he borrowed them and then returned them.

He put them both in his pocket with the hooks and began to go down the stairs. He was not as afraid of the missing stair this time, or of the swaying steps and railing, as round and round he went down.

Reaching the bottom just as Cindy was coming through the door, he heard a chirp. Looking up they saw a tiny seagull flutter madly down on top of Craig's head.

Craig was so startled he dropped the knife and candle, and his eyes rose trying to look up through his head to see the tiny bird. The splash of the candle and the knife in the puddle hit the bird and he flapped furiously up to the platform above.

Cindy was laughing. ‘Well, he scared you all right.'

Their bare feet made marks on the steps and a funny sound.

They found the bird balancing dangerously on a fold of canvas between two pools. ‘He must be hungry,' announced Cindy, and she took a small piece of cheese she had found in the boat and held it near its beak. It opened its beak and pecked.

Cindy had not been allowed to have any pets at home since a year ago when she let her horse go. The horse had told her he wanted to be free.

‘Can we take the bird with us, Craig?'

‘Cindy, he's just a baby. He couldn't fly.'

‘But I'd carry him. He's not heavy. Please?'

‘What, is he telling you he wants to come along?' Craig teased.

‘That was different.'

‘We'll let him decide.' They watched the tiny bird quiver under their stare. ‘What's the matter, doesn't this one talk?'

Cindy offered another piece of cheese and the bird, with a great hop, landed on her head.

‘I won. Too bad.'

Craig made a sour face. ‘Spill out the water from this canvas. We may need it to sleep out on the mud.'

‘A very good idea,' teased Cindy, feeding the bird above her head. ‘What did you find up there?'

‘Oh, nothing.'

‘I saw you bring something down.'

‘Oh, just a room with lots of old things: harpoons, liquor, knives, and stuff. But I did find these.'

‘Do you think we ought to take them?'

‘Yes. I thought about it and it's not really stealing. We've borrowed them.'

‘You've already stolen them, you mean. Got a pencil?'

‘No, have you?'

‘With all that stuff in your belt you don't have a pencil?'

‘I already told you, no.'

‘Well, carve a note with your knife.'

Craig glared at her for such a good idea. Why didn't he think of it. Cindy was sure she was a genius. And she thought Craig was far too dumb to understand her, or to realize she was unique. He certainly didn't show the proper respect due to one of such great intelligence. He did not even believe her secret dreams.

‘I'm an insomniac,' Cindy would tell people; which is not really a maniac but someone who can't sleep.

‘She's the
Spook
,' Craig would tease. And Spook she was stuck with. Craig thought she was babyish and was pleased that Cindy did not know the first thing about rackets or spying. In fact she did not know about anything but dreams, which made her very silly indeed. Aside from watching her sleepwalk, joking was the only pleasure he could see in having a sister. Why couldn't he have had a brother? Things were so unfair.

Craig stomped down the stairs to fish around in the clear water on the floor till he found the candle and the knife he had brought from the room above.

‘Try carving on the bottom step,' called Cindy as she finished wrapping up the canvas on the upper platform.

Craig went over to the third step and thought for a second before he began carving.

CRAIG & CINDY BORROWED YOUR KNIFE, CANDLE & CANVAS. DONT WORRY WE WILL RETURN THEM.

The letters were not clear, for the knife was rusty and the last words became smaller as he reached the end of the step.

‘Think they'll see it?' asked Craig.

‘Yes but they won't be able to read that last bit.'

Craig's eyes rose to the ceiling as he shook his head, looking as if he were appealing to heaven for a new sister, or brother.

‘Did you get the food from the boat?'

‘Yes, but there's not much.' They looked at each other, both understanding what that meant. Craig carried the bundle as they left the mill and walked across the bright rocks, to their shoes and socks.