Authors: Gabrielle Lord
July (2 page)
Tonnes of water swirled all around me as I thrashed and floundered, trying to claw my way out of the enclosing fishing net. I knew I couldn’t hold my breath much longer. My lungs were
desperate
for air, and already I could feel my mouth wanting to open, even though that would be a fatal move. The net tightened, crushing me against the trapped fish. Fins and prickly scales scored my face and hands like tiny razors.
I struggled, panicked and frantic, feeling like my lungs were going to explode.
Pull it up!
I begged the fishing boat silently.
Please pull the net up! Don’t let me drown down here!
The pressure was unbearable. A ringing in my ears built into a crushing surge. My panic escalated.
This is it!
The pressure shifted as a sudden lurching, swinging motion moved us through the water. The net was lifting! If I could just hold on a few
seconds longer! But my lungs suddenly convulsed out of my control, and I gulped … air! Wonderful, life-saving air!
The net had broken through the surface of the dark sea, and a huge inhalation of oxygen rushed down my throat. I could breathe—just! Higher and higher the bulging net swung above the water, compressing my body even more with the weight of the huge catch surrounding me. Fish seethed, scraped and hopelessly flailed, pressed against my skin.
The bottom of the net abruptly opened, giving way like the wet explosion of a burst water
balloon
. I was sent free-falling from about three metres, and dumped on the deck of the boat. The catch skidded out everywhere and I landed with a thud, flat on my back. I was stunned and still struggling for air as fish flapped desperately around me. My breath came in great sobbing gulps. I couldn’t do anything except suck in oxygen. I had survived, and that was all I knew or cared about just then.
I pulled a small bream from my face, shook off strings of slimy seaweed from my hair, and spat sea water from my salty lips. The dim glow of the boat’s spotlights showed that my hands
were bleeding from the tiny incisions made by hundreds of fins and spikes.
‘Hey! We’ve caught ourselves a mermaid!’ said a voice nearby. ‘Hey skipper! Look what we picked up!’
Wet, black rubber boots stepped up close to my face. I strained my eyes, blinking under the torchlight that was suddenly on me. A young guy was bending over me, his sunburnt face peering out through thick, curly hair. He kicked me
gently
, like he was checking I was alive.
‘Jeez, she’s not the prettiest one I’ve ever seen!’ he said to another guy coming up behind him. ‘You’re pretty badly cut, kid,’ he said to me. ‘How did you get yourself into this mess?’
A booming voice from a megaphone broke through my consciousness, the words loud and clear. ‘Callum Ormond! Stop! Police!’
I struggled to get up. The silhouette of the second deckhand was turned away from me, watching the approaching police boat,
Stingray
.
I looked around for a way out—a way of sneaking off the boat unnoticed. I checked for my backpack. It was still on my shoulders. I still had the Ormond Jewel, but had everything
survived
being underwater? There was no time to check. A brilliant light was sweeping the surface of the sea nearby, every second getting closer to
the deck of the boat that I had landed on. I had to get away or hide!
Think, Cal, think
, shouted the voice in my mind.
‘Hey kid, you in trouble?’ asked the
curly-haired
deckhand, squatting down beside me.
‘Chuck him over the side!’ said the second deckhand, as he backed away from the
approaching
searchers. He stopped, hands on his hips, shaking his head. ‘We don’t want any trouble. We don’t want cops nosing around here.’
I sure didn’t want the cops nosing around either! I scrambled to my feet, almost stacking it as I skidded in squid ink.
‘None of us can afford that,’ the second
deckhand
continued. ‘Everyone we’ve got on board is on the run from something or someone!’
His voice seemed familiar, but before I could think any more about it, the skipper—an old guy with a beard and a black beanie pulled down around his face—appeared. He looked around, confused by all the unexpected commotion
surrounding
his boat.
‘What’s going on here?’ he demanded, in a thick Greek accent. ‘What’s with the police? What’s with the kid?’ he asked, pointing at me, before being interrupted by the megaphone threats from the police boat, which was coming closer every second. The searchlight pierced through
the darkness, revealing the choppy surface of the surrounding sea, and the upturned jet ski, bobbing just a few metres away. The threats stopped for a moment, and the skipper stared down at me once more.
‘Where the in the world did
you
come from, boy?’
My teeth chattered as I spat more water from my mouth. ‘I fell off my jet ski and got tangled up in your fishing net,’ I gasped to the skipper towering over me. ‘I’m being chased by the police, but I can’t let them catch me! I haven’t done anything wrong, I swear!’
The police boat was pulling up alongside us now—the voices of the cops shouted above the noise of the engine. They were going to get me. What was I going to do to protect all my stuff? The drawings, the Riddle, the Jewel?
The skipper swung round, yelling at his deckhands. ‘OK you two! What am I paying you for? Don’t just stand there! Start sorting the catch!’
I finally hauled myself up, grabbing onto the sides of the fishing boat, thinking I’d have to jump overboard and take my chances in the darkness of the sea.
‘So, you’re on the run,’ barked the skipper.
I was afraid to speak again. I guessed what was going to happen next—he’d call out to the
police, and I’d be handed in. Would I make it to my sixteenth birthday in prison?
I could hear the police alongside us, preparing to board. The slapping sound of the water against the boat grew stronger, blending with the gaping gills and flapping fish that still encircled me.
What was I going to do?
I was so distracted, I barely heard the skipper when he spoke again.
‘So, you’re on the run,’ he repeated. ‘Big deal. All of my deckhands are on the run. They’re all crooks!’
‘Callum Ormond!’ roared the loudhailer. ‘Reveal your location! Hand yourself in!’
‘You’d better get out of sight, fast!’ hissed the Greek skipper, before dragging me to the cabin entrance and shoving me down it.
I tumbled into darkness, and crouched quietly, straining to listen to what was happening on deck.
‘Seen a kid around here?’ demanded the officer’s voice from the police boat. ‘Fifteen to sixteen years of age? He must have come past around the point—he was on a jet ski. There it is, drifting over there, so he has to be around somewhere.’
Please, I begged the skipper. Don’t change your mind and hand me over!
‘Haven’t seen anyone like that,’ the skipper’s distinct voice called back. ‘Didn’t see anyone on a jet ski. Maybe he went that way.’
He covered for me! In the cramped cabin below, my limbs went weak with relief.
But my relief didn’t last long.
‘We’re coming aboard,’ the officer continued, dismissively. ‘We need to take a look around.’
‘You’ve got no right to board my boat.’
‘Hiding something, are you?’
While the argument continued above me, I tried to spot a place to hide. But in a few moments, I’d felt out all there was: four narrow bunk beds, strewn with clothes; two small cupboards; a toilet and shower, and, through a doorway, a tiny kitchen. Other than that, there was a humming fridge that reeked of blood and scales, and a couple of long freezers.
The place was so small, there was nowhere to hide. I couldn’t even fit under the bunks. I
listened
intently through the hatch-opening again.
‘OK,’ I heard the skipper say. ‘I guess I can’t stop you from boarding my boat. But I’m not happy about it, officer. We’re just trying to do a night’s work here. We don’t have time to waste.’
Someone thudded down the cabin steps
without
warning. It was the first deckhand, with the black boots and curly hair. He grabbed me and I thought for a moment he’d been ordered to throw me overboard. I resisted as hard as I could until I realised that he was dragging me towards another hatch, half the size of a normal door, cut low into the wall behind one of the freezers. He jerked the door open and pushed me through the hole. Heat and the stench of diesel fuel slammed me in the face.
‘The boss says you gotta get in there!’
I could just make out two large diesel engines in the cramped, gloomy area, but couldn’t see anywhere to hide.
‘There’s some space underneath the diesels—where the mechanic works,’ he added, with a shove. ‘Get in!’
I crawled deeper into the stinking, black hole. There was just enough room for me and my backpack to squeeze under the engines. Cold and wet, I flattened myself into the space.
The hatch door slammed shut, and the freezer was dragged back into position.