Return of the Emerald Skull (4 page)

By now I was thoroughly spooked – not to mention chilled to the bone and shivering like a plucked goose. I took out the note and, crouching down, found a cargo hook lying at my feet. Grasping the hook, I pinned the note to the cabin door and made a rapid exit.

Without looking back, my heart still hammering in my chest, I set off back along the boardwalk, the crate clamped firmly beneath one arm. As I did so, the fog seemed to clear as abruptly as it had rolled in, and by the time I reached the
Oceania
, daylight was breaking through the thinning mist. Glancing back over my shoulder to get a better look at the ghostly vessel I had just left, I ran slap-bang into the old seaman in the sou'wester.

‘Whoa! Steady there, son!’ he exclaimed, regaining his balance and catching the box that had tumbled from my hands.

He handed it back to me as I apologized for my clumsiness and hurried on my way

It was only when I had left the docks far behind, the crate stowed securely in the haversack which hung from my shoulder, that I paused on top of a roof-ridge and caught my breath.

In the distance, the sun shone out of a blue sky down onto the masts crowded into the wharves of Riverhythe. Just beyond them, floating down the river, was the dark shape of a twin-masted schooner. I felt an icy shiver at the sight and, glancing down, saw that the palm of my right hand was sticky with blood.

aybe it was the cold fog that had chilled me to the marrow. Maybe it was the sinister ship with its haunted-looking captain that had thoroughly spooked me. Or maybe it was the sight of my hand, stained with someone else's blood, that had shocked me to the core. Whatever it was, highstacking it from the Riverhythe docks to Grassington Hall late that afternoon proved far from easy.

I slipped on an easy drainpipe ascent, grazing my knuckles and making a hole in the knee of my breeches. I stumbled on a roof-ridge and came within a bald man's
eyelash of tumbling through an open skylight. And then – most embarrassing of all for a tick-tock lad of my experience – I messed up a perfectly simple Peabody Roll manoeuvre, overshooting the end gable and ending up sprawling on a flat roof beyond.

Luckily I'd instinctively protected the haversack containing the headmaster's package with one arm as I fell. But although there was no damage done, as I climbed to my feet and dusted myself down, I was angry that I had been so inept. Archimedes Barnett had entrusted the safe delivery of this specimen to me and I didn't intend to betray that trust.

Resolving to take far more care as I continued on my journey, I set off at a gentler pace and arrived at Grassington Hall School a little under an hour later with no further mishaps. It was late afternoon by the time I reached the gatehouse. The sun was low in
the sky, casting long shadows across the grounds of the school and turning the pale-grey stone walls the colour of spiced honey. The ‘fish-stew’ fog, so dense and acrid down at the docks, was now no more than a distant memory – and with it, I believed, the horrors that had so unnerved me on the wharfside.

I called a cheery greeting to the gatekeeper. He doffed his cap and waved me through, into the school grounds. A game of Farrow Fives was once again in full swing on the main field, to the accompaniment of loud shouting and whooping from what looked like almost the entire school. As I strode past the swaying willows and spreading oaks, the sounds of cheering voices filling the air – chanting, laughing, singing – I was struck once more by just how fortunate the pupils of Grassington Hall seemed to be.

‘Enter!’ Archimedes Barnett called out in response to my knock on his study door.

I turned the handle and went in, to see the headmaster sitting at his desk with a large leather-bound book open in front of him and a magnifying glass clasped in one hand. He looked up.

‘Barnaby!’ he exclaimed. ‘You've made excellent time. I congratulate you, my boy.’ He tapped a finger on a magnificent engraving in the book. ‘Audley-Bishop's
Birds of the Rainforests
, plate number seventy-three: the catincatapetl,’ he murmured reverently, ‘or
emerald messenger of darkness
– named after the Toltec demon god Catincatapetl, Master of the Underworld and Lord of Chaos.’ He fixed me with a stare. ‘Do you know how rare this bird is?’

I shook my head as I opened my haversack and carefully took out the small crate.

‘No, of course you don't. How could you?’ chuckled the headmaster, greedily seizing the box and examining its wooden sides minutely. ‘If you'll excuse me, Barnaby, I
must go to the bird hall at once and unpack our illustrious guest with the greatest care imaginable … Here.’

He fumbled in his waistcoat and drew out three large banknotes, thrusting them into my hand.

‘But, Headmaster,’ I protested, ‘that's far too much …’

‘Nonsense, nonsense,’ Archimedes Barnett called over his shoulder to me, brushing my objections to one side as he strode out of his study and along the corridor. ‘You've made an old ornithologist very happy.’

I shook my head as I made my way outside, the banknotes neatly folded in the top left-hand pocket of my poacher's waistcoat. I'd wanted to tell the headmaster about the strange ship and the bloody stain on my hand, but he hadn't given me a chance. He was just delighted to get his hands on his precious bird, no questions asked.

And if
he
was satisfied, then so was I. I'd
been rewarded handsomely for my trouble, the
Ipanema
had left the docks and the headmaster had his parcel.

Job done. Or so I thought …

I couldn't have been more wrong if I'd baited an elephant trap with a mouse. Not that I knew it that beautiful sunny evening as I strode across the playing fields of Grassington Hall towards the gates.

I was just passing the main field when a groan went up from the crowd. I glanced across to see a boy in grass-stained flannels rolling around by one of the targets, clutching his head. There was a heavy leather ball lying by his right foot. A loud whistle sounded and a tall, heavily built man with bushy hair, ruddy cheeks and watery blue eyes came striding over.

‘A fine save, Thompson,’ he shouted sarcastically. ‘But next time you might try stopping the ball with your hands, not your head!’

There were sniggers from the watching
pupils as the tall games master stood over the youth. It was the fair-haired boy who'd been my guide on my first visit to the school.

‘Come on, Thompson!’ The master prodded the prone boy with a muddy boot. ‘Stop rolling around like a Highfield lady with a touch of the vapours …’

I pushed through the crowd and knelt by my stricken friend. Gently I pulled his hand from his face and examined the nasty-looking swelling above his left eye.

‘Better get yourself off to the infirmary and have Matron look at it,’ I advised Thompson, who was blinking up at me, a dazed expression on his face.

‘On your feet!’ bellowed the master. ‘
Now!
’

‘Y-y-yes, sir, Mr Cripps,’ Thompson mumbled, trying to get up.

I helped him climb unsteadily to his feet. ‘This boy is in no condition to continue,’ I protested.

Mr Cripps turned on me, his face red with suppressed rage. ‘
I'm
the games master!’ he shouted. ‘And I decide who's fit or not fit to continue. Thompson is up next, as fifth hitter – or Ibis House loses the game!’

‘Not if I take his place,’ I said smoothly, slipping off my topcoat and rolling up my sleeves.

A cheer went up from the crowd as the games master blustered about substitutions and second-half rules and how he had never seen me on the fives field before.

‘The name's Grimes,’ I told him, winking at Thompson, who was being helped to the sideline, ‘and I'm a new boy, you could say.’

Again the crowd roared their approval. Mr Cripps blew his whistle and shouted, ‘Well, get on with it, then, Grimes!’

I strode over to the plate, picked up the fives bat and glanced around the field. From what I'd picked up during my brief observation of the game, my task was to hit
one of the targets in the outfield, where a catcher with a long-netted stick stood waiting. The shot would determine how much of a free run I'd have to get round the bases, before the opposing team were allowed to tackle me or trip me up with the fives mallets – or ‘toe-crushers’ – they brandished. If the ball was caught, then I was out, and it was game over.

I glanced across at Mr Cripps. From the glint in those watery blue eyes of his, I had the feeling he intended to teach me a lesson. As referee, he wouldn't find it hard.

A hush descended as the pitcher stepped forward on the playing field. The farthest target from me would give me three bases before the tacklers could move. It was my best shot.

I nodded, and the pitcher lobbed a nasty-looking screwball my way. I stepped back, giving it air, then swung the bat in a graceful arc with all my might.

I stepped back … then swung the bat in a graceful arc with all my might.

THWACK!

The bat and ball connected sweetly, and the crowd
oohed!
then
aahed!
as the ball flew over the target keeper and thudded into the three-base target. Flinging away the bat, I was off round the bases at a nervous trot as the tacklers, rooted to their field positions, waited like chained lurchers eyeing a mad March hare.

Peeeeep!

Cripps's whistle sounded as my foot hit third base. A trifle early, I thought – but I wasn't about to complain. Not with five tacklers tearing towards me from the four corners of the field, waving their mallets at knee height.

Whoosh!

I jumped over the first mallet and swerved past a second. The third and fourth tacklers collided with the fifth in their eagerness to get at me. The home base was in front of me as, on the sidelines, the members of Ibis
House cheered wildly and threw their tasselled caps in the air. I was going to score a home dodge, and an eagle's eye at that!

All at once, out of nowhere – like a brick wall or a fog-smothered chimney stack – Mr Cripps rose up in front of me, his red, snarling face bearing down and his great ham-like hands outstretched. It was obstruction, plain and simple, but since he was the referee, there was no point appealing. Instead, at the last moment, I dropped into a perfectly executed Peabody Roll, straight through the great oaf's legs, and up again.