The Mystery of Adventure Island (9 page)

After
Nancy
threw the rope over the nails, she started to climb up. Will went next, then the girls.

As
Will
stepped on the wooden planks, they creaked. “Be careful,” he called out. “These have been here for a long time and might give way at any time.”

“Looks like some already have,”
Amy
pointed out as she looked across the floor at the gaping holes.

Nancy
glanced around, trying to spot anything that looked like a good place to hide paintings. She spotted an old chest up against the far window. “That has to have the paintings in it.”

“I guess so.” Will looked around. Nothing else
could be seen
. “We’ll have to be careful, though. One wrong step and we could fall right down.”

Nancy
looked towards Sarah. “Why don’t you go first?”

“What?” Amy muttered, turning towards the woman. “You’re not afraid, are you?”

Nancy
laughed.
“Of course not.
But she is the smallest and lightest person here, so even if she did step on a rotten plank, she should have the best chance of surviving.”

“Should?” Amy repeated.

“Well, there’s no guarantee—”
Nancy
said.

“If you want the paintings, go and get them yourself,” Amy interrupted as she clutched her sister protectively. “My sister isn’t going to risk her life for some paintings.”

Sarah looked at Amy. “I’m not scared.”

Amy smiled as she raked her hand through her sister’s blonde hair. “I know you’re not scared. I just don’t want you to take a risk for nothing.”

“For nothing?”
Nancy
shouted. “Do you want to put these men in jail or not? If—”

“Shouting isn’t going to do you any good,” Will interrupted.

“I’m sorry,”
Nancy
said. “I didn’t mean to shout. I just want those paintings.”

“I think I’ve got a better idea,” Will
said
.

“You do?”
Nancy
said, a smile appearing on her face.

Will nodded as he went over to the rope ladder and pulled it up. “If Sarah takes hold of one end of this, we can hold the other. That way, if the plank does give way and she does fall, we can pull her back up.”

Nancy smiled.
“A great idea.”
She turned to Sarah. “Will you do it?”

Sarah nodded and she took the end of the ladder. She then took a deep breath and stepped onto the first plank.
Silence.
She stepped onto the next one.
Silence.

The others waited
with bated breath
as Sarah slowly but surely got farther and farther away from them. As she did so, Will realised that, while the rope ladder was long, it would only go three-quarters of the way. He shuddered to think what could happen in the final section.
But
he didn’t say anything. He just kept his eyes glued on Sarah’s feet.

Suddenly, one of the planks creaked loudly. Sarah paused, but nothing happened. She moved onto the next
one which
also creaked. It creaked louder than the previous one and, before the others knew what was happening, the plank, along with the next one, broke in half!

Frightened, Sarah cried out as she fell down the hole.
“Help!”
 

Chapter 12: Run!

 

Luckily, Sarah
didn’t
lose her grip on the rope ladder, which meant that instead of hitting the ground she was left dangling a foot below the hole.

Clinging tightly to the rope, Amy called out. “Are you all right, Sarah?”

“I’m fine, just
pull
me up,” Sarah shouted back.

Amy looked at the others. “We pull on three.
One, two, three!”

With everyone pulling as hard as
they
could, Sarah was slowly lifted up through the hole. Once she was out, everyone kept on pulling as they tried to drag her back to
them
. Suddenly, Sarah yelled out.
“Stop!”

“Why?” Will questioned, frowning.

Sarah gingerly stood up. “I’m going to continue on.”

“No, it’s too dangerous,”
Amy
said. “We’ll try another way.”

“There isn’t any other way,” Sarah shouted back.

“But you could have been seriously injured!” Will exclaimed.

“But I wasn’t. Just give me another chance. I know I can do it,” Sarah protested.

“Let her,”
Nancy
said. “It’s the only way.”

“But she’s my sister!” Amy yelled. “I should be the one doing that.”

“She’s more than halfway there,”
Nancy
said. “Let her continue.”

Amy looked at her sister. “Be extra careful this time, okay?”

Sarah nodded. The others watched as she stood there, trying to decide which way to go. She then moved, taking
one step
at a time. Soon, she had reached the end of the rope. Before the others could decide what to do, she suddenly dropped the rope and ran the rest of the way to the chest.

Two of the planks broke, but fortunately Sarah was a step ahead and she
didn’t
fall. The others breathed a sigh of relief as the girl reached the chest. “I’ll open it and see if the paintings are in here.”

The others waited in anticipation as Sarah opened up the lid and shuffled around in the chest.

“What can you see?” Amy asked.

Sarah pulled out something and showed it to the others. It was a white sheet.

Nancy
frowned. “Is that all? No paintings?”

Sarah nodded. “A few odds and ends, but yes, that’s all.”

Nancy
frowned as she gazed at the white sheet. “Why would that be in the chest?”

Will grinned.
“Of course!
I thought it came from up here.”

“What are you talking about?”
Nancy
asked.

“One of the men tried to scare us,” Will
replied
.
“Tried to make us believe in ghosts so we would leave the island.
I’m pretty sure they would have used that sheet when they tried to frighten us.”

Nancy
laughed. “That’s just like them.”

“How do you know what these men are like?” Will said, puzzled.

Nancy
hesitated. “Oh, I was just meaning that it sounds typical based on what I have read about these men.”

Will called out to Sarah. “Is there anything else in there?”

Sarah closed the lid. “No.”

Nancy
glared down at Luke as she spotted him through the rotten planks. “He lied.”

“Well, it probably wasn’t the first time he did that,” Amy said.

“No, but it’ll be his last.”
Nancy
turned to Sarah. “Grab the rope.”

Sarah stepped forward. The return
wasn’t
as difficult as before since she knew where to stand, and she was soon back with them.

After taking the rope ladder,
Nancy
threw it down the side. Once in place, she climbed down. She strode over to Luke and slapped him on the face. “You lied.”

Luke smirked. “Took you long enough to discover that.”

Nancy
paced back and
forth
as the others climbed down the rope and joined her. “You will tell me where the paintings are now.”

Luke sneered.
“Or else what?
Are you going to slap me again?”

Nancy
laughed as she pulled out her pistol from where it
had been tucked
next to her waist. “I have more persuasive methods. If you—”

“Oh, no!”
Will interrupted.

Nancy
glanced at the boy who was standing by the window. “What’s up?”

“The others, they’re coming here,” Will muttered.

Nancy
strode to the window and looked out. Marvin and Kenneth were roughly one hundred feet away and closing. “They can’t know we’re here. When they pass by—”

Luke suddenly cried out.
“Help!”

“Why, you…”
Nancy
hurried over to the man and aimed her weapon at him. “Don’t force me to use this.” She looked at Joe. “Is there a back exit?”

“I don’t know,” Joe admitted.

Nancy
hurried to the window and fired her pistol. The bullet whistled above the men’s heads and they tumbled to the ground before crawling to the nearest bush.

“What did you do that for?” Will asked. “We could have had a chance to slip by them, but now they know for certain that we’re here.”

“Now that they know we’re armed, they’ll think twice before entering,”
Nancy
snapped. “Besides, I’m not being captured by those men.”
 

“Why?
Because they know you?”
Joe questioned.

Nancy
hesitated. “
Oka
y, if you must know, I was one of them.”

Joe glanced at Jake. “So you were telling the truth.”

Nancy
shook her head.
“Only half the truth.
I stole the bank money, but only after I heard that they were planning to get rid of me.”

“So you’re not a police officer?” Sarah asked.

Nancy
shook her head. “No, but my father was.”

As she hurried away to look for a way out, the children crouched together as they decided what to do. “We can’t stay here,” Will
stated
.

“But we can’t go with her,” Amy argued.

“She’s not a threat to us,” Joe said. “She wants the paintings, not us.” He smiled as
Nancy
crashed through the back door. “Hey! she found a way out.”

Will stood up. “If we hurry, we can disappear before the men know we’re gone.” He raced towards the door.

Letting the
girls
race by him, Joe glanced back and saw the men near the entrance. As soon as they stepped through, they would see him. He raced after his sisters, hoping he could get through the door before they saw him.

A yell went out just he went through the back door and he knew that he
had been spotted
. He muttered to himself as he followed the others.

~

By the time the children arrived at the inlet,
Nancy
was rowing away.

“I suppose if she was lying about being a police officer, than we should have realised that she would be lying about taking us with her,” Joe said.

“It was worth a try,” Will
said
.
“ Anyway
, we should get back to the campsite before the men find us. Now that they know that we’re still on the island, they’ll be after us.”

The children set off for the campsite. As they neared the wood, Joe came to a halt as he saw the three men running towards them.
“Blow!”

“Let’s hide in the wood,” Amy suggested.