Happy Easter to you all! As we near the end of March, I have finally found time to post this story which I wrote over 10 years ago as my home assignment for the local writers’ group. We liked to explore different genres and one month we decided to tackle the subject of a children’s story. Written from the perspective of an 11-year-old, I hope I have captured the outlook of a child and the adventure he took part in.
The Island Adventure
Moving house? I looked across the room at my twin sister, Carolyn, and she looked as horrified as I did. It was the end of March, the start of the Easter holidays, and Mum and Dad had sat us down for a talk. It transpired that our dad had been offered promotion, on condition he moved from London to his company’s new offices on the South coast in about six months’ time. As we knew, our grandparents were in the process of moving to that area themselves, after many years in the Midlands and now the plan was for us to move in with Grandma and Granddad who had recently taken possession of the old family home, left to Granddad in his brother’s will. Great Uncle Horace had hardly lived in the house since he had inherited it from his parents. He had spent much of his life in South Africa where he had been manager of a diamond mine. He would come home periodically but rarely made contact with any of us which is why Carrie and I had met him only a couple of times. To us he had seemed very big and scary – not at ease with children – and for that reason we had nicknamed him Uncle Horror.
I was particularly upset at the thought of leaving the area. I had just got into the school athletics team and as I was 11, would be going up to the senior school in September. I would also be leaving my best friend, Andy.
After the discussion with Mum and Dad, who assured us that the move would be for the best for all of us, Carrie and I went up to my room to talk about it. Apparently, the house we would live in was being divided into two flats – the ground floor for our grandparents and the first floor for us. Above that, the attic was being converted into two bedrooms and a bathroom, for Carrie and me, so we would have our own little semi-flat. A double garage was being built and the first floor would extend over this so in all there would be two bedrooms, one living room, a kitchen and bathroom downstairs and the same above but with three bedrooms plus our rooms and a bathroom above that. It sounded ideal in many ways, but I was still not keen to leave London, whereas Carrie was not so bothered as she would be starting at a new school on her own. Her best friend, Jackie, had recently emigrated to Australia with her parents and, as Carrie said, e-mailing from London or further South made no difference to her. Mum and Dad had a list of schools in our new area and had found one which we could both attend. They talked to us about it, then applied for two places. We were accepted on condition we went for an interview towards the end of August and passed a test which would be set on the day – at least if we both got in, Carrie and I would know each other, if no-one else.
With my grandparents’ house due to be finished by the end May, the plan was for Carrie and me to move down there first, as soon as the summer holidays started in mid-July. Mum and Dad would follow a few weeks later, when they had sorted out various details and sold our London house. Apparently, Dad’s company had lent him some money to make the move to another house but had agreed that it could be put towards changing and improving his parents’ house as we would be living there. Apparently, it was interest-free and from this I presumed that his boss didn’t want to see the house before or after the changes were made, they just had no interest in it.
The Easter holidays and the summer term sped by and before long we were saying goodbye to friends. I was sorry to be leaving Andy and had even asked him if there was any chance his family would be moving near us as his dad and mine worked for the same company, but he told me there was no hint of this. However, Mum had promised that Andy could come and stay with us in the October half-term so that was something to look forward to. Meanwhile we would keep in touch my e-mail and social networking sites. Towards the end of July Mum and Dad drove us to our new home. We were able to take only the bare minimum beyond our clothes, so we made sure we had our laptops, mobile phones and a few games to keep us occupied. We felt sure that it would be a dead-end sort of place, with nothing ever happening. Dad and Mum stayed for a couple of nights then went home and rang us when they got back to say the house sale had been confirmed and they should be moving down around the end of September.
Grandma and Grandad made us very welcome and took great pleasure in showing us round the house. We were thrilled with our rooms at the top which overlooked the large back garden, bordering on a small lake with a tiny island in the middle. A narrow bridge linked the garden to the island which had a bungalow situated in the centre. Beyond that was a high brick wall denoting the final boundary of our land. Carrie, an avid fan of adventure stories said it looked like a scene from one of her favourite books– and while I wouldn’t admit it to my classmates, I enjoyed these as well. This set me wondering if there was any chance of anything exciting happening there and even though I felt sure nothing would come of this island, it did look a bit mysterious and I bought a diary (for 10p, reduced as we were more than halfway through the year) to record anything interesting that happened to us. I wrote on the first page in my neatest writing “Our New Life and All our Adventures” by Michael Russell. It wasn’t much but it was a start.
The first few days without Mum and Dad were filled with chatting to Grandma and Granddad, going shopping with them and helping around the house. We weren’t right on the coast but one afternoon we got a bus to the seafront and walked along the beach. It was a warm day but there weren’t many people there and it was certainly not a holiday resort, though it was pleasant enough but with hardly a hotel or guest house within a five-mile radius, tourists were not attracted there – and that’s how the locals liked it. Granddad recalled his childhood when he and his brother would spend hours on the beach in the summer holidays, building sandcastles, paddling, swimming and even fishing and said that years ago he had decided to retire back to this area – his inheriting the family home had been unexpected but coincided with his retirement so while the house was being renovated, he and Grandma had moved down, rented an unfurnished cottage in a nearby village and then moved all their furniture again once the two flats were ready at the end of May. On the way home from the beach, we met a couple of surly looking men who just grunted at us and walked on. Our grandparents told us that they used to work for Uncle Horror – one as the caretaker of the house, the other as his handyman. Apparently, the caretaker, Reg, was rather put out when my grandfather claimed the house and told him he had no need of his services, while Granddad thought Fred the handyman might prove useful from time to time, though he had not had any jobs done by him as the builders had left everything in perfect condition. Reg, it seems, had got a job as a barman at the local pub and had a room rent-free there as well. Despite, this apparent good fortune, he seemed to hold a grudge against my grandparents which was rather worrying.
I asked Granddad about the island and the bungalow on it, but he said he hadn’t even gone across to look at it since he’d moved back. As children, he and Uncle Horror weren’t allowed over there as though the island belonged to their father. The bungalow was rented out, so it was considered trespassing or at least invasion of their tenants’ privacy. However, it was empty now and Granddad told us he was thinking of having that done up and decorated and using it as a summer home! “Perhaps for weekends away”, he had said, as it would save all that travelling and paying for hotels! It sounded great and I asked if we might be allowed to stay there – he said he’d think about it but as present he felt sure it was not habitable as no-one had lived there for many years and he doubted if Horace had even ventured across. He seemed too busy with his life in South Africa to take much notice of a dilapidated little cottage like that on his couple of trips home each year. He hadn’t bothered to modernise the house or even get it decorated, despite knowing Fred well.
Next door to us lived the Pennington family, Mum and Dad with a son and daughter who were not only just a few months older than Carrie and me but also twins. My grandparents asked them over for tea on our first Sunday there, thinking it would be nice for us to have some friends in the area and surprisingly, we all hit it off well from the start. Stephen and Eleanor (Steve and Ellie to their friends) were both going to the school which had us listed as likely future pupils. They had just finished their first year there and told us that their parents both worked at that school as teachers, but they weren’t sure if that was a good or bad thing. We told them about our home and schools in London and in the course of a couple of hours we learned that Ellie loved playing the piano, drawing and reading adventure stories, while Steve was in the local athletics’ team. These interests endeared them both to us. Carrie was very fond of music and had recently started to teach herself the guitar and, of course, I was still upset about having to give up my beloved athletics, having put in so much to get into the school team back in London. I asked Steve what the chances were of me joining the local team and he reckoned excellent – as he said, they are desperate for members to swell the numbers, so you don’t even have to be very good. That was encouraging as I didn’t think I was local county standard or even approaching it.
Grandma and Granddad liked to get up and go to bed early. As a result, we had an earlier bedtime than usual. Well, when I say earlier, we went up to our rooms and either Carrie would come into my room, or I would go into hers and we would play board or card games or use our computers. One night we heard voices – at a distance at first but they got louder. Not loud enough to make out what was being said, in fact, it was as if they didn’t want to be heard. We crept to the window and peeked through the curtains – there were two men on the bridge, walking across to the island, carrying parcels. We wondered how they had they got into our back garden to walk on to the bridge, and what they were doing We watched them walk on to the island and to the bungalow. A few seconds later a light went on inside the cottage, but we couldn’t see any more. This was rather puzzling, and Carrie and I waited and waited but nothing happened – no-one came back over the bridge or put the light out in the bungalow. It was quite a mystery. Carrie wondered if it would turn into and adventure for us. Before going to bed I made my first entry in my diary; “Mysterious happenings on the island – watch this space!”
We didn’t mention it to our grandparents as we wanted to see if anything happened the next night. We stayed in my room and peered through the curtains every so often but heard and saw nothing. Just after midnight, when we finished our game, and had decided to get some sleep, we heard voices and sure enough, as with the previous night, two people were walking across the bridge. They seemed to be carrying boxes and as we watched we saw them go into the bungalow and then the light went on. We kept on watching and about 10 minutes later they came out and made their way back over the bridge. Arriving in our garden, they looked round and then one leant against the old oak tree and lit a cigarette and at that moment the full moon shone down, clearly showing Reg and Fred, the caretaker and handyman. What were they doing and why were they lingering in our garden? A few minutes later a car horn hooted, the two men walked to the wall at the side of our garden and reaching up took hold of a few more boxes. They then proceeded to walk back to the bungalow and obviously leave them in one of the rooms before retracing their steps, then disappearing out of sight as the cloud covered the moon. We heard a car start up and race off down the road. They were up to no good that was certain! That night the second entry in my diary was made.
Carrie and I decided we would investigate, and the next morning asked our grandparents if we could go over to the island with Steve and Ellie for a look round. Granddad went and checked if the bridge was safe and walked across to the island and had a look round. He came back and said we could, if we didn’t do anything silly like swimming in the lake or climbing any of the trees over there. We promised to just have a walk round and come straight back. We rushed next door to invite our new friends to join us. Their parents welcomed us and agreed to their trip to the island with us, his mum serving us a glass of lemonade each before we set off. Steve took us up to his room, which like ours overlooked the lake, and we told him and Ellie what we’d seen and heard. He said he had heard voices but assumed they were people walking home along the road at the side of their house and hadn’t thought any more about it. We then set off for the island, deciding that as it had no name it should be given one by us.
We set foot on the bridge at exactly 2:35 p.m. (I made a mental note to include this in my diary). It was a short walk across but we stopped halfway to look at the many ducks which were swimming on the family lake. When we arrived on the island, we made straight for the bungalow. We looked through the first window but could see nothing as the curtains were drawn. We then walked round the back and saw that a door was partly open. We walked in and found ourselves in an old-fashioned kitchen – an old stove with a kettle on it caught our attention, then a box of tea bags, two cups and a packet of biscuits on the old, battered table. It looked like someone had been in there recently and we had a good idea of their identities. The room was long and narrow and ran from the back to the front of the house, with a window at each end, neither of which had curtains. We walked into the hall and turned into the room on our left. It was dark in there, but we found the switch and turned on the light and were faced with boxes of various shapes and sizes filling most of the room, from the floor almost to the ceiling. These were probably the boxes being taken over the bridge by Reg and Fred – they must have been doing it for months. We walked into the other rooms, finding them empty, with one giving us an uninterrupted view of the land and wall behind the lake, through a rather dirty window. We walked back into the room with all the boxes and decided to open one or two of them. They were filled with shredded paper, mounds of it fell out and landed on the floor and all over us. It seemed insane that someone would be storing boxes containing nothing of any value. Then Ellie saw something blue in the middle of it all and pulled it out – it was a strong plastic bag with a drawstring. She opened it and tipped out – one large white glassy stone. I gasped as I wondered if this could be a diamond, but I kept quiet as I watched Carrie and Steve opening two other boxes. These they were the same as the first with loads of shredded paper and somewhere in the midst a blue plastic bag with one white stone inside. It was then I voiced my opinion that these could be diamonds and if so, we were looking at a fortune. But why was the room a storing place for diamonds, hidden in large boxes?
Just then we heard voices and froze.
“Who left this door open?” a rather gruff voice asked.
Steve turned off the light and we all tried to hide. The voices got closer, and footsteps passed our door continuing into the kitchen. We heard the sounds of tea being made and a conversation, revolving around when Reg and Fred would arrive, and how many boxes The Fence would take. I got out my mobile and started to text Granddad, simply saying “Call Police to Island – crooks in bungalow, we think we’ve found diamonds hidden. We are ok”. I put my phone on to silent and a few minutes later got a reply from his Grandad. “Police on way, I’m coming over”. It seemed like an eternity, but we stayed silent. Then more voices in the doorway and Reg and Fred were greeted by the first two men. Still no sign of the police but then another set of footsteps. One of the men in the kitchen called out, but no reply. The latest set of footsteps walked into the kitchen and then we heard Granddad’s voice, “What are you lot doing in my house and on my island?”
“Still doing the job of caretaking”, sneered one voice, obviously Reg’s.
For no pay, Reginald Butterworth?
“Grab him!” commanded Reg and there was a scuffle. I could endure this no longer and indicating to the others to keep quiet, I crept out of the room, with Steve close behind me. We peered round the door of the kitchen and saw two men holding Granddad firmly, with a knife to his throat. Steve and I crept back but not before the men caught sight of us and pulled us into the room. I twisted and managed to get away and started to run, out of the door and to the bridge. I gathered later from Steve that they were so stunned by those turn of events the chap holding him let his grasp slip slightly and Steve then rushed out of the door and caught me up on the bridge, expecting one of the men to follow us but there was no sign of them. We reached the garden just as two large police officers were hurtling out of Grandma’s kitchen door. One raced towards the bridge, while the other stopped and quickly verified who we were, confirmed by Grandma who had rushed out to us. He told us to stay put till his two colleagues in another car arrived and they would want to speak to us. They were with us within a minute, accompanied by a dog, and as dog and handler made their way across the bridge, the other stayed in the garden while Steve and I quickly told them about Granddad being held prisoner by a man with a knife and that the girls were still in the room with the boxes of diamonds. He quickly radioed back to HQ and set off over the bridge, saying not to go back to the island unless accompanied by a police officer and more were on their way.
Grandma went back into the house to look for the next police car and in a couple of minutes two policewomen arrived. By then Steve had phoned home and his Mum and Dad, looking terrified, had joined the three of us in the garden. The policewomen assured us all that their main concern was Carrie and Ellie, and they ran across the bridge and disappeared round the back of the bungalow.
We stood and waited but before long a group of people, with a dog, started to walk across the bridge. As they neared, we recognised the four men from the kitchen, all handcuffed to the police officers. They took them out through the back gate and into the waiting cars and drove off. Over on the island stood five people, all waving and three of them continued to wave all the way back across the bridge. Grandma ran to Granddad, Steve and his parents enveloped Ellie is a hug, while Carrie and I rushed to each other. It was quite a reunion and having been assured that none of them was hurt, Grandma led the way back into the house, clinging on to Granddad all the time, and immediately put the kettle on. We all sat in the kitchen, borrowing a couple of chairs from the hall, and told the lady police officers the tale from the time we heard voices around midnight a couple of nights ago. They both made notes and told us we had been very brave. They then took more details from Granddad about his capture and asked if they had used the knife. He assured them they hadn’t. Reg had told him if he kept quiet he wouldn’t get hurt. Granddad did as he was told, mentally noting the descriptions of the four men and anything they said.
Then Carrie and Ellie were asked about their part in it all and between them the girls told them about the room full of boxes which seemed to contain nothing but shredded paper till Ellie found the blue bag with the white stones. The girls produced three of the bags and tipped the stones out on to the table. It was generally agreed that these were likely to be genuine diamonds, almost certainly good quality ones, and then the older of the policewomen made a phone call, asking for two detectives to come along to investigate possible diamond smuggling.
While waiting for their colleagues to arrive, the policewomen asked Grandma and Granddad if they had any idea why these men had picked their island for this. Granddad told them that the lake and island were all part of the property belonging to the house. He went on to explain about his brother Horace leaving him the family home in his will, after working for the last 30 years or more as a manager of a diamond mine in South Africa, spending far more time there than here. He also told them that Reg and Fred had worked for Horace, and it seemed more than a coincidence that they were apparently tied up in some diamond smuggling crime. He then added a surprising piece of information – he and Grandma had been looking through some paperwork, kept in a metal locked box. Granddad had had to force the lock to get in and inside found some documents relating to the release of diamonds – signed illegibly – and ann expired passport with a photograph of his brother but with the name Herbert Anstruther and an address in South Africa.
Soon after this the detectives arrived and heard all that Granddad had to say about his brother, Reg and Fred, showing them the documents and passport in the metal tin. The detectives said they would need these as evidence and hoped Granddad would let them go. He said he was willing to help in any way. Then they looked at the diamonds the girls had brought across in the pockets of their jeans and said that things were beginning to fall into place. After this they asked us all to go across to the island with them and when we arrived Steve and I were asked to show them the room where we found the boxes. They carefully looked through those we had opened but found nothing else, then set about opening a few more boxes and sure enough the little blue bags with one diamond in each was inside all the shredding. They then tackled the remaining boxes which was very time-consuming.
The detectives took the all the diamonds back with them, along with the metal box, and said they would be contacting us again soon. That evening we rang Mum and Dad and told them all about it. When he was assured that we were all fine and unhurt, Dad said that even as a child he had never liked Uncle Horace, and the older he got the more he felt he wasn’t exactly trustworthy so to find out that he was involved in diamond smuggling didn’t seem to surprise him too much. Mum admitted that she had never taken to him and had often expressed heer concerns about Dad being related to him.
That night I filled my diary to the end of the month, recounting the events of that one day! Another dimension was added to the saga the next day when newspaper journalists and photographers descended on the house, and we were famous for a few days in the local and national papers. Amid all the media coverage, the police returned with a large lorry and collected all the boxes from the bungalow.
A couple of weeks later a Police Inspector rang and arranged to see us that afternoon. He came with the news that an international diamond smuggling ring had been broken and Reg and his friends had confessed to police and given the names of others involved. It seems it had been led by Uncle Horror (a more apt name for him that even I had imagined) who for many years had been stealing large quantities of diamonds from the mine, then got forged papers to allow their clearance through customs. He was then selling some of them on to a dealer (or Fence) in England and those in boxes were being shipped to other dealers in various countries, with labels claiming that the boxes contained Christmas decorations! He was also travelling on a forged passport so although Horace Russell was employed by the mining company, he was never known to leave South Africa. Tracing the movements of Herbert Anstruther, the police found that his arrival in the UK – about twice a year – coincided with an influx of diamonds on the market about six weeks later. After Uncle Horace’s death, Reg and pals had decided to continue the trade with the diamonds they had stored in the bungalow but had apparently panicked when Grandma and Granddad took over the house. These criminals had changed the locks on the bungalow doors, but one of them had carelessly left the back door open the night before our first visit to the island, and this proved to be their undoing.
In due course Reg and his partners in crime were given life in prison which we hoped would be for the rest of their lives. The newspaper coverage of this gave us another few days of fame and we were all pictured with the little bags with the diamonds in them, then we had to hand them back to the policemen. However, we four children did receive a small reward for our part in helping to capture them and our respective parents spoiled us with a few gifts.
By the end of August things had calmed down a lot, though we still felt like adventurers and had decided that if we couldn’t find any more real adventurers, we would invent them as games. The first task was to think of a suitable name for ourselves. Steve came up with the Double Twins and even now, about 10 years later, we are still known as that by family and friends. Carrie and I went for the test and interview by the headmaster at the school Mum and Dad had chosen and found ourselves facing Steve and Ellie’s Dad, Mr Pennington. I am sure it was just a formality because he asked very few questions regarding lessons and gave us a very easy test of sums and English language. By the time we started there in mid-September, The Double Twins were legends; it seems everyone wanted to be our friends!
Steve and I joined the school athletics’ team and were both running for the local team as well. As Steve said, when he saw me rushing over the bridge when we had got away from Reg and his cronies, he knew I’d have no trouble making the team, though I think fear gave us both an extra spurt that day.
Granddad decided to renovate the bungalow and let us use it as our own. However, we were not allowed to stay overnight and had to ensure we had our mobiles with us in case of any trouble.
Mum and Dad moved down towards the end of September, complete with furniture, and when Andy came to stay for half-term that October, he brought news with him – his family would also be moving down here. The London office would be closing in the New Year and our dads would be working in the same building again, only in a new location. It was like a dream come true and although he started at our school a term later than us, Andy had no trouble settling in – the best friend of one of the Double Twins was welcome any time, only now I had three best friends, as well as Carrie who is the best sister in the world. At that point the five of us began hoping for more adventures like our heroes in the books experienced, though in reality they were all played out from our imaginations rather than being actualities, thankfully. I think the ducks were grateful too as they had seemed rather disturbed by all the activity that afternoon and it took them a while to resume their leisurely swimming on the tranquil water.
As to the island, we did name it: Adventure Island!
© Chasqui Penguin, 2024
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