Buried Alive! Read online

  ‘You don’t get pearls in every oyster. They’re very rare. Though of course you can farm oysters and have cultivated pearls—’

  ‘Tim,’ Kelly interrupted. ‘Do you want to be a school teacher when you grow up?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because you don’t half act like one sometimes.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said.

  ‘Ooooooooh!’ said Kelly.

  I blinked at her. I wondered if she was mocking me. Or playing the fool with Theresa? She scooped her troll out of the little pool and was holding her at arm’s length.

  ‘Help! Look what’s in her hair!’ Kelly yelled.

  I looked. Then I laughed.

  ‘Oh Kelly. It’s just a weeny little crab. Theresa used her hair like a fishing net.’

  ‘Get it off her. She doesn’t like it,’ Kelly said urgently, waggling Theresa frantically.

  ‘Hold her still then. Come here.’ I held the little wet troll doll and gently untangled the tiny crab from her long purple locks.

  ‘Yuck!’ said Kelly, snatching Theresa back and combing her hair with her fingers. ‘Poor poor poor Theresa – under mega-attack from a sea monster!’

  ‘It’s only a baby crab, Kelly. Nothing to be scared of,’ I said, letting the crab scuttle up my arm.

  ‘I’m not afraid of it. Theresa is. It practically bit her head off. Ugh, put it back in the water.’

  I popped the little crab back into his swimming pool. He paddled out of sight, probably very relieved.

  ‘That’s it, you go back to Mummy Crab,’ I said.

  ‘Mummy?’ said Kelly.

  She started climbing higher very quickly. I climbed too. I was getting the knack of it now and leapt from rock to rock almost as if I were Super-Tim himself. I felt great (though a bit guilty about Biscuits).

  ‘Wow!’ said Kelly, from up above. ‘There’s an even better beach the other side of these rocks. A little cove.’

  It took me a minute or two to get up to the top. Then I saw the beach for myself. It was fantastic, a miniature bay of soft white sand circled by tall cliffs.

  ‘Maybe no-one’s ever spotted it before,’ said Kelly. ‘It looks like you can only reach it by going over the rocks from our beach. Hey, let’s get right down there and make it ours. We can call it Kelly-and-Tim beach. Come on!’

  ‘Well. Hadn’t we better get Biscuits too?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘It’s not really fair if we go off without him.’

  ‘He’s the one that went off, not us.’

  ‘Yes, but—’

  ‘Look, if we go all the way back to get him and then have to climb back all over the rocks, it’ll take forever. Let’s just slip down to the beach and claim it – and then we’ll go back and make friends with him if we must, OK?’

  ‘OK,’ I said.

  ‘Great,’ said Kelly. She was immediately off like a mountain goat down the other side of the rocks to the perfect private beach.

  ‘Kelly, wait. I can’t go as fast. And it’s all difficult and slippery. Suppose we can’t get back up?’

  ‘Of course we’ll be able to,’ Kelly said, leaping a long way down.

  She landed lightly on a flat rock, but it wasn’t wedged securely. It wobbled. Kelly wobbled too, but leapt again before she fell. She landed on another lower rock, safely – but only just.

  ‘Kelly! Do be careful. If you slip and break your leg how could I possibly carry you all the way back?’ I protested.

  ‘You’re such a worryguts, Tim. I’m not going to slip,’ Kelly shouted.

  She leapt.

  She landed.

  She slipped – and fell.

  I screamed.

  She grabbed another rock, hung there, stretched one leg to another rock, steadied herself, edged downwards, and stood properly on her two tough feet.

  ‘Kelly! Are you OK?’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘I thought you were going to fall all the way down.’

  ‘I didn’t fall at all. I slid that bit on purpose,’ Kelly insisted.

  But when we both got down to the soft sand I saw a great gash on Kelly’s leg.

  ‘You’re bleeding!’

  ‘It’s nothing,’ said Kelly, dabbing her leg impatiently. ‘Hey, isn’t this beach fantastic? Aren’t you pleased I discovered it for you?’

  ‘It’s a deep cut, Kelly. You must clean it.’

  ‘Oh Tim, stop fussing. I’m always getting cuts. They’re usually far far worse than that. I climbed over a wall with all this broken glass stuck on top once. Look!’ Kelly lifted her T-shirt and showed a zig-zag scar across her tummy.

  ‘Gosh!’ I said, very impressed.

  ‘I used to kid the guys in my class it was like a zip and I could shove my hand straight into my stomach.’

  ‘You couldn’t, could you?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Well anyway, you ought to go paddling. The sea’s salty. It’s very healing. My dad had a boil on his bottom once, and he sat in a basin of salty water.’

  Kelly snorted with laughter. So did I. We laughed so much we nearly fell over on the sand.

  ‘What a place to have a boil!’ said Kelly. ‘OK, OK. I’ll paddle, just to keep you happy.’

  We both paddled. Kelly winced a bit as the water washed over her leg but she didn’t complain.

  ‘You’re ever so brave, Kelly,’ I said.

  Kelly beamed at me. A wave splashed high and she jumped to stop her shorts getting wet. Soon we were both holding hands and jumping every wave. We got wet after all but it didn’t really matter. Little droplets of water on my eyelashes made me see rainbows everywhere.

  ‘This is our beach, right? We’re the only ones who can come here,’ said Kelly. ‘Let’s stake it out as ours.’

  She searched the sands until she found a big stick. She went near the water’s edge where the sand was firm and wrote a message in spiky capital letters.

  KELLY-AND-TIM BEACH. PRIVATE. KEEP OUT.

  Then she bent over and started drawing a big heart. Well, it was meant to be a heart but it went a bit wobbly and lop-sided. She wrote K L T inside.

  ‘What’s it say?’ I said. ‘Klut? Klot?’

  ‘You’re the clot,’ said Kelly, pink from bending over. ‘It says Kelly Loves Tim. Right?’

  ‘Oh. Right,’ I said.

  ‘Well?’ said Kelly. She held out the stick.

  Obediently I drew my own heart and put T L K inside.

  ‘Right!’ said Kelly. She came up very close. ‘Shut your eyes!’ she commanded.

  I did as I was told. I felt this quick dab on my cheek. I think she kissed me. But when I opened my eyes she’d already darted right across the sand towards the rocks.

  Chapter Six

  BISCUITS WAS VERY huffy indeed when Kelly and I climbed back onto the ordinary beach. I kept telling him this and telling him that but he wouldn’t answer. I tried cracking some of our extra-funny jokes but he wouldn’t even smile.

  Kelly absolutely fell about laughing and said ‘Oh Tim, you are funny.’

  Biscuits became even less friendly. He chatted to Kelly’s little brother Dean instead. He helped him finish a giant tube of Smarties and in return he built Dean a little boat in the sand just big enough for him to sit in. He encouraged Dean to hold the empty Smarties packet up to his eye like a telescope.

  It was a very basic boat.

  ‘Shall we make it into a proper boat?’ I suggested. ‘What sort of boat do you want it to be? Is it a rowing boat or a sailing boat or maybe a big ocean-going liner?’

  ‘I bet you’ve done a special project on blooming boats,’ said Biscuits. ‘It’s just a little sand boat for Dean, OK?’

  ‘Yeah. It’s my boat, not your boat,’ said Dean.

  ‘Leave the little boys with their soppy boats and come and swim, Tim,’ said Kelly, trying to pull me away.

  I dithered, desperate to keep in with both Biscuits and Kelly. Eventually we all went in for a swim. Kelly’s mum’s boyfriend Dave even dangled K