Mr Rigger looked impressed. “You were very lucky he was around,” he said. “But what’s this got to do with needing your phone?”
Badger explained, telling Mr Rigger about the disappearance of Mike’s father and how Mike had had to leave school to help support his family. Mr Rigger listened intently, nodding now and then to show he was following. At the end, he thought for a while before he spoke.
“Do you really think your parents would say yes?” Mr Rigger asked. “We’d like not to have to charge very much for a place on the Tobermory, but it’s very expensive to run a ship like this, you know. There are some special funds for scholarships, of course, but the last one went to Tanya and there’s nothing available at the moment, I’m afraid.”
Badger assured him that he did know that it cost a lot. “But my parents have got heaps of money, Mr Rigger. They could afford this without even noticing.”
“Very well,” said Mr Rigger. “But what about this boy Mike? How do you know he wants to join the school?”
Badger told Mr Rigger about some of the remarks Mike had made earlier. “I know he’d love to join us,” he said.
“But his mother is here, you say,” said Mr Rigger. “And he has a fishing boat. Who’s going to catch the fish to keep the family going?”
“His mother has another job,” said Badger. “Selling fish is only part-time for her, and if Mike were on the Tobermory then they wouldn’t need so much money anyway.”
“I suppose so,” said Mr Rigger. He seemed to think for a while and then continued, “All right, Badger, I think you’ve made out a very good case. But how do you know that the Captain will be able to fit him in?”
“The Captain likes him,” said Badger. “I bet he’ll find a place.”
“You’re probably right,” said Mr Rigger. “Don’t tell him I said this, but Captain Macbeth has a soft heart. He’s one of the kindest men I know.”
“Then he’ll say yes?” Badger asked.
“Possibly,” answered Mr Rigger. “But first things first. You make that call – and we needn’t even bother to get your phone out of the storeroom. Use mine. I’m allowed to carry one for emergencies.”
Mr Rigger extracted his phone from his pocket and handed it to Badger. His heart beating loudly, Badger dialled his father’s number.
Far away in New York, a telephone rang. And then a voice snapped, “Tomkins, Tomkins and Postlethwaite. Whom do you wish to speak to?”
“My dad,” blurted out Badger.
There was a slight delay before the voice answered. “Arch Tomkins the Third?” asked the voice.
“That’s him,” said Badger. “That’s my dad.”
“I’ll see,” said the voice. “Hold the line, please.”
Badger closed his eyes. He knew how difficult it was to get in touch with his father, and he hoped it would be easier today.
The voice returned. “Mr Tomkins is very busy. Can he call you back?”
“I need to speak to him right now,” said Badger. “Tell him it’s really important.”
Once again there was a delay, and then Badger heard his father on the line. “Badger, son? Is everything all right?”
“It’s fine, Dad.”
The relief was clear. “Good, in that case can I call you back some other time? I’ve got this big project on at the moment and the office is full of people.”
“No, Dad,” Badger said firmly. “This is important. I want to ask you a question.”
“Sure,” said his father, “But make it a short one, please.”
Badger seized the opportunity; he had his father’s attention at last. “If somebody saved my life,” he began, “would you be grateful to him?”
“Saved your life? Of course I’d be grateful. I’d be very grateful.” And then, after a short pause, “You are okay, aren’t you? You did say you were all right.”
“I’m fine, Dad. But I almost wasn’t.” Trying to be concise so as not to waste his father’s time, Badger related the story of his rescue. At the end he said, “Mike – the boy who saved me – would love to be on this ship, but his family don’t have the money. Can you pay his fees, Dad? As a thank you for saving my life?”
There, he thought. I’ve asked the question, and now, I suppose, I’ll hear the answer: No. But that was not what happened.
“Sure, I’ll pay the fees,” came the reply. “And more than that: I’ll give him pocket money too.”
Badger was so astonished – and overjoyed – that it took him a little while to collect his thoughts.
“You still there, Badger?” asked his father.
“Yes, Dad, I’m here. And thank you so much. Thanks for being the kindest dad in … in … in New York.”
There was a chuckle at his father’s end of the line. “Oh, I don’t know about that, but thanks anyway. May I speak to one of the teachers? I’ll have to talk to someone about all this.”
Badger handed the phone over to Mr Rigger, who had been listening to the conversation with growing pleasure and now discussed some details with Badger’s father.
After the call was ended, Mr Rigger turned to Badger. “Now we’ll need to go and ask the Captain. We can’t tell Mike before we know he has a place.”
As Badger had predicted, the Captain required no persuading. “That boy’s a born sailor,” he said. “It’ll be a privilege to have him on board.”
At the Captain’s suggestion, Badger went off to fetch Mike from his cabin.
“The Captain wants to speak to you,” he told him.
Mike looked worried. “What have I done?” he said.
“Oh, you’re not in trouble,” Badger reassured him. “In fact, quite the opposite. He just wants to ask you some questions.”
“What do you mean?” Mike asked.
“You’ll find out soon enough,” said Badger. “But we can’t keep him waiting. Come along with me.”
Mike’s interview in the Captain’s cabin didn’t take long. He was asked a few questions about his education up to that point and he was then quizzed by Mr Rigger about his knowledge of tides and winds. Finally, the Captain reached out to shake his hand, announcing, “You’re in.’
“In what?” asked Mike, looking puzzled.
“You have a place on the Tobermory, paid for by a generous person. Do you think your mother will let you accept it?”
Mike knew he would not have to wait for an answer: she had always wanted him to continue his education, but had been unable to afford it. He knew she would be pleased.
“You go and ask her then,” said the Captain. “Just to be sure.”
“I know she’ll say yes,” said Mike, his voice brimming with excitement and pleasure. “And when can I start, sir?”
The Captain shrugged. “Tomorrow morning, I’d say. That’ll give you time to pack.”
“Which deck will he be on, sir?” asked Badger.
The Captain looked at a list on his desk. “It’ll have to be Upper Deck,” he said. “There’s a space in one of their cabins.”
Badger’s heart sank. Upper Deck was the last place he wanted Mike to be, as that was where William Edward Hardtack was Head Prefect. But there was worse to come.
“You’ll be sharing a cabin with …” The Captain consulted his list again. “You’ll be sharing with a boy called Maximilian Flubber.”
Badger’s heart sank even further, but he didn’t want to spoil things for Mike. “That’s great,” he said, trying to sound enthusiastic. “That’s just great.”
There are times when you use words in such a way as to convey the opposite of what they really mean. And this was one of them.
The old sea-chest
They spent another two days in Green Island Bay. There were more kitesurfing classes, more diving instruction from Matron, and Mr Rigger held scuba-diving lessons. Ben jumped at the chance of learning how to use scuba equipment. Badger signed up for this too, and so did Mike, who despite living by the sea, had never been able to afford the costly equipment you need to b
reathe underwater. Once Mr Rigger had taught them the basics, they were able to descend to the sea bed on equal terms with the fish and turtles that lived there. From down below they looked up to see the hulls of the boats floating above them.
Fee and Poppy concentrated on diving lessons with Matron. At first they dived from a floating platform which was moored beside the Tobermory, then gradually they learned how to do higher and more complex dives from high up on the mast. Matron was a brilliant teacher, and they were soon doing swallow dives, half turns, corkscrews and even somersaults in mid-air.
“Good work, girls,” shouted Matron as they surfaced. “But remember to keep your ankles together. Keep them together and you can’t go wrong.”
Mike settled in quickly. He loved everything about the Tobermory and he was a quick learner too. There was a small library on the ship, the shelves of which were lined with books about the sea. Mike spent a lot of time there, his nose buried in a book, absorbing all sorts of things he hadn’t had the chance to learn before.
Of course, there were some things he knew already, as Captain Tommy had given him some valuable lessons. One of these was how to use flags to send signals. This is not easy, as you have to remember what each of the signalling flags means. There are special flags for whole messages – such as one that says I am not in control of my vessel. There is also one that says I am about to leave port, and a flag you can fly when there is a diver down below. But every flag, when used in conjunction with others, also represents a different letter of the alphabet. So by stringing flags one after the other, you can send any message you like. You can say Happy Birthday, for instance, or Please send me more doughnuts, in particular ones with lots of jam inside – if it is somebody’s birthday on another ship or if you really need doughnuts. Of course, a long message will take a lot of flags and keep you busy for some time, so you should avoid sending messages like the one about doughnuts. And there is always a possibility that the person receiving the message might not see the flags properly, and might misread what you are trying to say. So Please send me more doughnuts, in particular ones with lots of jam inside might be read as Please send me no more nuts – we have lots of jam inside. That would lead to a lot of head-scratching and puzzlement. “No more nuts?” people would say. “What on earth do they mean by that? And why are they telling us they have lots of jam on board?’
Mike’s mother knew how to read signalling flags, so he was able to send a message to her several times a day. Raising the flags on a special line tied to a high spar, he sent this message to his mother: HAVING A GREAT TIME, MA! VERY HAPPY! And from way over on the far shore, he was able to make out flags being raised in reply: GLAD TO HEAR THAT, BUT REMEMBER TO WEAR CLEAN SOCKS EVERY DAY. LOVE, MA.
Ben and Badger introduced Mike to all their friends, and everybody liked him immediately. Mr Rigger took a particular shine to Mike because he saw in him the makings of a really good sailor. He lent him a book on knots, although he was impressed with just how many knots Mike knew already.
“You’d win the knot competition hands down,” said Ben, “if only there weren’t certain people who are prepared to cheat.”
He was talking about Hardtack, of course, and his two unpleasant lieutenants. Mike now knew all about them because he had already heard them sniggering about him at the table during dinner one evening.
“I saw him sending signals to his mum,” Geoffrey Shark had said. “Poor little boy is probably homesick! Needs his mother to tuck him in at night!”
“Probably still scared of the dark,” William Edward Hardtack had sneered. “Flubby, you share with him. Do you have to leave the light on at night? Got a night-light for baby?”
Flubber had not replied, as he knew that Mike could hear and Flubber would never say anything mean about another person if he thought that person would hear it. He would wait to say it when his back was turned – then he would be every bit as spiteful as Hardtack or Shark.
Mike was strong, though. He had encountered people like this before and had not let them intimidate him. At the same time, it was hurtful to hear himself being described by Shark as “some riff-raff the Captain’s taken on. Some nobody from a tiny little island. Some nothing fisher-boy with no more than two cents to his name.”
“Don’t worry about those guys,” Ben told him. “Nobody listens to them – I promise you. We just ignore it.”
“But they called me riff-raff,” said Mike. “I don’t like that at all.”
“Forget it,” advised Ben. “If anybody’s riff-raff, it’s them.”
“And they laugh at me because I’m poor,” Mike went on. “I can’t help that. My dad went missing, you see …”
“I’ve heard what happened,” said Ben. “Badger told me. You’ve had very bad luck. But, as I say, just ignore them. And so what if Hardtack’s dad owns big hotels somewhere? I’ve heard that he got the money to buy them from some scam he was running. He’s lucky the police haven’t arrested him by now.”
The support of people like Ben and Badger helped Mike a great deal, but it still was not easy feeling the hostility of that unpleasant trio. Bullies are best ignored – Mike knew that – but it is sometimes hard to do that when you are their victim.
On the night before they were due to leave Green Island Bay, word came that the Captain wanted to see those people who had accompanied him on his visit to Captain Tommy. That was Poppy and Fee, Ben and Badger, Thomas and, of course, Mike. So the six of them gathered after dinner and Poppy knocked loudly on the Captain’s door. “He likes you to knock firmly,” she explained to Mike. “If you knock too softly he pretends he can’t hear so you have to knock louder. He says it’s something to do with confidence.”
From inside the cabin they heard the Captain’s voice telling them to come in. Once they were lined up smartly in front of his desk, he told them to stand at ease.
“That old sea-chest,” he said, looking up from his papers. “I promised you’d be able to sort through Captain Tommy’s things. Are you still keen to do that?”
Poppy spoke for them all. “Definitely, Captain.”
“Well, in that case,” he continued, “the chest is over there in the corner. Go and have a look and we’ll see what’s inside.”
Holding her breath with excitement, Poppy prised open the lid.
The hinges were stiff with rust, and she needed help. Mike pulled on one side and Badger on the other, and very slowly they opened the chest completely.
If they had been expecting treasure, then they were in for a disappointment. But since none of them really know what to expect, they did not feel let down when they saw what the chest contained.
The Captain was looking over their shoulders. “Well, well,” he said, as he surveyed the contents. “Exactly what I’d expected.”
Badger picked up a small box made of highly polished wood. “What’s in here, Captain?” he asked.
“I’d say it’s a sextant,” answered the Captain. “But why don’t you open it and find out?”
Badger unhooked a small brass latch on the side of the box and opened up the lid. The Captain was right: within the box, nestling on a layer of baize cloth, was a sextant, complete with its tiny viewing mirrors and lens.
“You all know what this is for, I assume,” said the Captain. “Has everybody used one?”
Hands went up, but not every hand. Mike had never used a sextant, and neither had Ben.
“I’ll show you tomorrow,” said the Captain. “We’ll have to wait until noon. At twelve o’clock on the dot we can use this to take a sighting of the sun that’ll show us exactly where we are on the ocean.”
The sextant was replaced in its box and they moved in to the next item. This was an old compass in a cracked leather case. “Now I’m sure everybody will have used one of these,” said the Captain.
The compass had been made a long time ago, and its rose – the dial on which the degrees were inscribed – had been painted by hand. Poppy held it flat for a few moments and watched
the tiny needle quiver, spin round, and settle in position.
“That’s north,” she said. “And that’s south. See – it still works perfectly.”
Mike picked up the next item, which was the tooth of some creature, on which somebody had scratched a picture of a boat in full sail. That was on one side – on the other was a picture of a sailor with a beard looking through a telescope.
“Anybody know what that is?” asked the Captain.
“The tooth of a whale?” suggested Poppy.
“Right first time,” said the Captain. “It’s the tooth of a sperm whale, I’d say. And some sailor way back spent a lot of time engraving those drawings on it. We call these things scrimshaw.”
They handed round the tooth.
“Poor whale,” said Fee.
The Captain nodded. “It was a cruel business, whale hunting. Those poor creatures were hunted to the edge of extinction. Fortunately, it stopped – apart from one or two people who still do it.”
They were silent for a moment, thinking of what it must be like to be a whale and to be pursued by whaling boats with their great harpoons.
“Horrible,” said Poppy, shaking her head.
The Captain bent down to rummage in the items that remained. There was a box of pencils, an old cap, a bo’sun’s whistle, and a watch. There was a set of sea clothes, still freshly pressed and not at all mouldy, and finally, under an oilskin-wrapped sailor’s knife, was a large piece of folded paper.
“That looks like a chart,” said the Captain, picking it up and beginning to unfold it.
“Ah yes,” he said. “I believe that’s exactly what it is.”
They all pored over the chart as the Captain spread it out on the floor.
“It looks like an island,” said Badger. “Look – there’s a harbour and there’s a river over there.”
“And some hills,” said Ben, pointing to a place behind the harbour.
“And a volcano,” added Mike, drawing their attention to a triangular shape near the centre of the map. “Those squiggles look like smoke coming from the crater. There are lots of volcanos in the Caribbean, you know.”