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- Herausgeber: David Fickling Books
- Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022
Ten-year-old Jack is stranded on a desert island. He's been very lucky: he's survived a terrible storm and the mysterious island he has found himself on has a kindly if unusual inhabitant, fresh water and plenty of food. But Jack needs to find his way home, and as he uncovers incredible hidden treasures on the little island, he starts to formulate a plan. A plan that will involve witchcraft, terrifying sea monsters and pirates! But if Jack's going to succeed he will need to be very very lucky.
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Seitenzahl: 266
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For Eliza, Daisy and Jack, whose ship in a bottle was the germ of this story.
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Contents
Chapter One
Storm
Have you ever seen a model sailing ship inside a bottle? Yes? Well, did you know that such an object is called an ‘impossible bottle’? Because, of course, how would one get a little ship, with masts and sails, in through the narrow neck of a bottle?
I don’t know, do you?
This is the story of how the very first little ship got inside a bottle, and the person who put it there. It begins, however, not with a model but with a real, full-sized ship long ago on a faraway ocean, and on a wild night of tempest with waves so tall the ship looks almost as though it were a little model.
Decks awash, masts snapped, the ship tilts to this side and that, bow rising steeply high above the stern, as a vast 2mountain ridge of ocean climbs into the sky, then tips and folds, and crashes down upon the ship …
And it is gone.
34A barrel bobs up to the surface …
A splintered fragment of mast; the broken bowsprit; the ship’s wheel; shards of plank …
Then a hand …
Clutching, grasping, gripping the rope-ringed fragment of mast – a head, an arm: a young boy, spluttering, spitting, coughing, retching the salt sea, gasping in the wind and rain, clinging, clinging to the mast, white as a ghost amid the vast ink-black ocean …
Clinging, clinging, rising and falling with the waves.
Hours pass and the boy begins to slip in and out of consciousness. His body is numb with cold, frozen fingers loosening their grip, then …
‘Jack!’
A voice calling his name, faint and distant amid the roar of the wind.
It comes again.
‘Jack!’
Urgent, insistent. Wild hope flares in the boy’s heart and he tries to call out but can only croak a cracked whisper. He seems to see his father splashing through the surf towards him, arms reaching out to rescue him as the foaming white breakers engulf him …
‘Jack!’
And now he knows the voice is just a memory. The voice of his father from a long-ago sunny afternoon, on a distant beach. 5
There is no one to rescue him. He grips the rope-lashed mast, rising and falling with the hill-sized humpbacked swell.
6Face down, cheek pressed into wet sand, Jack lay on a beach. A fly settled on the back of his neck. He opened an eye, and lifting his head, coughed, and spat out sand and sea. Then, sitting up, he raised a hand, shading his eyes against the glare, looking along the beach to right and left. Then out across the blue-green ocean. For a moment, he’d thought it might have been that other beach of long ago – that his father would be there, and his mother and sister. But no; he was alone with a few fragments of the broken ship scattered across the white sand.
Away to his right, Jack saw rocks rippling in the heat shimmer and, standing up, he walked towards them. On top of the rocks, he could now see a little of what lay behind the beach; an uneven stony land of sand and low-growing bushes and, farther off, a jumble of larger boulders rising up to form a small hill. All around was evidence of the storm: bushes, torn from the ground and tossed here and there, and others adorned with seaweed, shells and the broken bodies of small crabs. He could see no sign of any house or building. He tried to call out, but so dry and parched were his throat and mouth, his thin, cracked ‘Hello!’ was lost to the wind.
Below him, the beach veered sharply to the right and on to where more rocks shimmered in the heat. He climbed down, and as he walked, he called out – as best he could – the names of his shipmates: ‘Captain Trelawney! … Mister Scobey! … Billy Braddock!’ and so on and so on. But he 7heard no answer, and the thought gradually grew in Jack’s mind that perhaps only he had survived the wreck, and that he was all alone on that strange shore. He blocked the thought; that was something he dared not think about. There must be someone else, there must be!
He began to run. But weak with exhaustion and hunger, he stumbled and fell, and lay sprawled on the sand, panting hard.
His outstretched right hand had come to rest on something smooth, hard and rounded. He lifted his head to look at the thing; a kind of bleached white dome, rising a little above the sand. A stone perhaps. Yet it did not feel like a stone. He sat up, curious, and began to dig around the thing … then jumped away in shock.
Staring up at him with eyeless sockets, was a human skull.
Chapter Two
A Castaway
Backing away, Jack turned and ran again, scrambling over rocks, heedless of cuts and scratches, the image of that gruesome object fixed before his eyes. Again, he tried to call out, desperate to discover that he was not alone. But still, no one answered his call.
Scrambling up the rocks at the top of the beach, he looked towards the low hillock of jumbled boulders. From there he would see a wider view of this country. He would see a house maybe, or a village? He set off towards the outcrop.
The bushes, he noticed, bore lime-green-coloured fruit, like strange knobbly pears. He picked one, raised it to his nose and sniffed it. Oddly, it had no smell whatever. Tentatively, he took a bite. Then pulled a face and spat. 9
‘Yuck!’
It tasted horrible. He spat again, fearing he’d poisoned himself. It was the nastiest thing he had ever tasted in his life.
He threw the fruit away but was suddenly aware just how hungry he was. Achingly, ravenously hungry. And thirsty too, but he could see no sign of fresh water, nor anything else he might eat. If he could find a house or a farm, they would have food.
Stumbling and slipping on loose stones that scratched and cut the soles of his bare feet, he clambered over the uneven ground towards the outcrop of rocks. The bushes had sharp thorns and several times he ripped his shirt. Then he got a thorn stuck in his thumb and sat down on a large rock to squeeze the thumb and pull it out.
But the rock began to move …
It lifted him up and up, and with a yelp of sudden terror Jack leaped forward, tripping and falling – smashing his head on a stone. Stunned for a moment, he scrambled to turn over, but the rock – the thing – was upon him, trunklike scaly legs planted either side of his body, lifting the ‘rock’ above him … and emerging from within, a blunt reptilian head on a wrinkled neck of sagging, leathery skin. The head stretched down towards Jack’s face, swinging slowly from side to side. Black beady eyes examined him, a wide beak-like mouth snapped open, and the monster exhaled a long, rank hiss. 10
11Then it lifted a great horny-toed foot, stepped over his body, and walked ponderously away.
For several minutes, Jack lay still, heart thumping high up in his throat, and only when all sounds of the monster’s retreat had stilled did he get up. Some distance away, bushes moved, violently agitated, as the creature pushed its way among them.
Jack’s limbs were still trembling, and his steps unsteady, as he began to climb one of the large boulders that formed the rocky outcrop. He wondered what other monsters lived in this barren and desolate land.
Scrambling up to the highest point of the hillock, he stood on the narrow summit and looked out over the land beyond.
What he saw filled Jack with dismay.
He spun around and looked back the way he’d come. Then turned full circle before falling to his knees with a pitiful wail of despair. In all directions, the view was the same. No house, no farm, no village. Nothing. He was surrounded by the vast, empty ocean.
He was on a tiny island.
Chapter Three
A Discovery
The awful truth of his predicament struck Jack like a blow to the chest. It seemed certain that he was doomed to spend the rest of his (probably very short) life on that tiny island, and his heart quailed. A great black void of loneliness came upon him, and a homesickness so acute, he wept uncontrollably.
Lying upon the rock, cheek against the stone, he thought of all that he had lost. Of his mother and his father and his sister, of his home back in England, of all the years of his past life … of all the things he would never see again.
But as the hours passed and the sun grew hotter and hotter, there came a time in the afternoon when the heat began to cook him, up there on his lofty perch, like toast on a grill. He stopped crying, rubbed a sleeve across his red 13swollen eyes, and looked about for a way to climb down. Somehow, he would escape from this wretched island – there must be a way, there must.
As he began to climb, he saw below him a pool of bright, clear water, glinting in the sun. A spring, and snaking away from it down towards the beach was a small stream. Slipping and sliding down the boulders, he ran to the pool, throwing himself on to the sand beside it and dipping his head to drink.
But before his lips touched the water, he stopped.
Inches from his face … was a giant human footprint.
Chapter Four
A Very Small Noise
He was not alone on this island.
But rather than relief, this discovery only brought a shock of fear. Slowly he stood up and placed his own foot beside the print in the sand. The footprint was more than twice as large as his own. It could not belong to any of Jack’s shipmates. There were no giants among the crew of the Wessex.
It was the footprint of a stranger. A stranger who was hiding from Jack. For they must have known he was there. Perhaps they were watching him at that very moment?
He quickly looked up at the boulders rising above the pool, and then spun around, looking across the bushes towards the beach. Nothing.
Turning back, he noticed that there were other prints, 15less distinct, but clearly made by the same foot – or feet – leading away from the pool and towards a mass of big rocks. He followed them across the sand, and it was not until he was standing right beside the great stones that Jack discovered a gap where one rock overlapped another. Between them, a narrow sandy path enclosed by sheer walls wound its way towards the centre of the outcrop.
He had no idea who might be waiting for him at the end of that path – or whether they were friend or foe – but he realized, quite sensibly, that he had no chance of remaining hidden from the stranger, not for long at least – not on this tiny island. And so, he began to walk down the narrow sandy path, creeping along very slowly and trying to make absolutely no noise at all, listening with all his might for the tiniest sound. But heard nothing. The air was perfectly still 16and even the crash of the distant waves was blocked out by the rocks around him. He almost felt he could hear the beating of his own heart, and though his inclination was to gulp in long, deep breaths to calm his nerves, he tried to breathe as slowly and as quietly as he could.
Not many yards along the path he was suddenly struck by the idea that the stranger might be waiting in ambush … to catch him. And then he remembered the skull on the beach and the word cannibal sprang into his mind …
He stopped.
Sheer terror engulfed him then. He could not go on. His heart seemed to stop and the breath froze in his lungs. He began to shake.
And at that very moment, he heard a noise.
Only a very small noise, but a noise so odd – so utterly out of place on that desolate island – he was confounded and waited for the noise to come again.
And there it was!
In an instant, Jack’s fears seemed to evaporate … and he smiled.
He was absolutely certain that he could hear the sound of someone reading a book …
Chapter Five
The Reader
It was the sound of a page being turned. A slight sound, but quite distinct. And a sound that Jack somehow found hugely reassuring. He crept forward again with much more confidence.
Just up ahead, he could now see sunlight shining down on the sand and he guessed that the path must widen there. Mustering his courage, he walked forward and stepped out into the light.
A square space surrounded by high vertical rocks opened out around him. And sitting on a wooden chair in the middle of it, was a man doing exactly as Jack had guessed. He was reading a book. 18
19A huge man with an immense black beard. He made no sign that he was aware of Jack’s presence and continued to read his book. Jack stood stock still. Then, when he’d made his mind up to say something and was about to clear his throat, the man raised a forefinger and without lifting his head, said:
‘Please excuse me for just a moment. I have only this page to finish – it’s the very last page of the book!’
Jack was flummoxed. He opened his mouth to speak, but up went the stranger’s finger, so he closed it again.
He wasn’t frightened. Not much. Chiefly, he was filled with an overwhelming sense of relief; the man sounded friendly. He had a voice like deep, slow music, a warm and comfortable voice. And so strong was Jack’s sense of reassurance and hope, that he was suddenly overcome with emotion and his face crumpled a little, and his eyes filled with tears.
‘Finished!’ declared the stranger, closing his book with a snap and laying it on the sand. ‘A wonderful story – and very instructive! I recommend it!’ Then, looking across at Jack and seeing his tears, he leaped to his feet and cried, ‘Oh my! Oh my! Dear, dear me!’
And now Jack was alarmed; the man towered above him almost blocking out the sun. He backed away down the path a little.
‘Forgive me,’ said the man in a voice filled with remorse. ‘I did not mean to frighten you.’ And then he bowed so low 20his great beard brushed against the sand, and straightening up, he said, ‘I mean you no harm. Please excuse my rude and callous behaviour.’ Then he reached out an enormous hand towards Jack, and said, ‘I am honoured to meet you, Mister …?’
Jack sniffed, wiped his sleeve across his face, and stuttered, ‘Er … Jack – Jack Bobbin,’ then raised his own hand.
‘A pleasure, Jack Bobbin!’ said the stranger, gently shaking Jack’s hand. ‘My name is … My name is … Goodness me, what is my name?’
He seemed altogether at a loss.
After a long pause, the man said, ‘Oh dear, it’s been so many years since I had need of a name, I seem to have forgotten mine – the one I was last using, at least. I’ll have to choose a name.’
As the stranger spoke, Jack began to wobble a little; exhaustion and hunger as well as immense relief were beginning to overcome him.
‘Good heavens! What am I thinking – sit down, young man, sit down!’ cried the man, guiding Jack towards the chair. ‘And here, have some water.’ He picked up a bottle from the sand, uncorked it and handed it to Jack.
‘One moment,’ the man said, and disappeared into what must have been a cave in one corner of the sandy square. Beside it was a large pile of empty bottles, similar to the one Jack was now holding.
When the man reappeared, he was carrying a second 21chair which he planted in the sand beside Jack, and said: ‘Please forgive my rudeness, Jack – I’ve lived alone too long and forgotten all my manners! But tell me your story – what happened to you? Were you caught in the storm? Was your ship wrecked?’
Jack nodded.
‘And you are alone?’
Jack nodded again.
The man was silent for a while, then asked, ‘Did you have family or friends on the ship?’
Jack shook his head.
‘You were with the crew, perhaps?’
Again, Jack nodded. ‘But I didn’t really have friends among them. Not good friends.’
‘A cabin boy?’
Once more, Jack nodded.
‘Forgive me, but you seem very young.’
‘I lied. I’m ten and a half, but I told Captain Trelawney I was twelve, just small for my age.’
The man nodded now. He seemed to sense that the memory of the storm and shipwreck were still painfully fresh in Jack’s mind and changed the subject.
‘Forgive me for not coming to your aid sooner.’
Jack looked up at the man, puzzled.
‘I was out at the pool filling that bottle when I heard your wail – from up on the rocks above. It gave me the shock of my life! I thought for a moment it was some strange bird, 22then I heard you begin to cry. I would have come up to you but was wary of introducing myself there. The summit of the rock is a rather precarious spot; I feared the sight of my approach might result in a dreadful accident! Better that you should come and find me, I thought. Forgive me.’
Jack smiled. The sight of the giant stranger climbing up towards him would certainly have given him a fright.
‘You saw my footprints by the pool, I suppose?’
23Jack nodded. And then an idea seemed to occur to the man and with a laugh, he bent down and picked up the book he’d been reading.
Inscribed on the book’s spine, in fine gold lettering, were the words: The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, Mariner by Daniel Defoe.
‘Would you believe, Jack, this book is the story of a castaway on a desert island? It’s given me an idea for the name I will choose. The castaway is a chap called Robinson Crusoe, and in the story he saves another fellow from being eaten by cannibals and befriends him. He calls the fellow Friday – Man Friday, as Friday is the day on which they met. And as it happens, they meet in a similar fashion to the way we two have met; he finds a footprint in the sand! Today isn’t a Friday, however, it’s a Thursday – I keep a very careful calendar, Jack.’
‘Do you want me to call you Thursday?’ asked Jack.
‘Why no,’ replied the man, ‘I was thinking Robinson: the chap who does the rescuing.’
Chapter Six
Supper
‘You must be famished, Jack,’ said the man – Robinson – standing up and laying the book on his chair. ‘What about some supper?’
Before Jack could answer, Robinson disappeared into the cave once more. A moment later he reappeared with a canvas bag slung over his shoulder and what seemed to be a broom handle with a large fork attached to one end.
‘My fishing spear!’ he declared, with a broad smile. ‘We shall light a fire and cook supper down on the beach. Follow me!’
He set off down the narrow, sandy pathway. Jack followed.
‘I’ll try my luck in the sea, Jack,’ said Robinson, as they stepped on to the beach at the point where the stream ran down across the sand. ‘You collect some wood for a fire 25– there are plenty of dry branches lying about under the bushes.’
Robinson walked down to the sea with his spear and climbed on to a low pier of rock, jutting out into the waves.
By the time Jack had enough wood for a decent-sized fire, Robinson was walking back up the beach carrying two plump fish. Laying them on the sand, he handed Jack a tinderbox he’d taken from his canvas bag.
‘You get the fire going, Jack, while I gut and clean the fish.’
Jack knew how to use a tinderbox, and with dry leaves as tinder and twigs as kindling, he soon had the fire crackling away nicely. Robinson gutted and cleaned the fish then skewered them and placed them over the fire. Almost instantly a wonderful aroma filled the air.
The sun had sunk below the horizon by the time they’d finished eating, and darkness had crept up all around them. Jack was sucking the fish bones for any last morsels of flesh, when a disturbing thought struck him.
‘Er … Mister Robinson, sir – there aren’t any cannibals on the island, are there?’
‘Cannibals? Goodness me no! What a horrible idea!’ said Robinson, aghast.
‘It’s just that I saw the skull …’
‘Skull?’
‘I think it’s back there, beyond the stream.’ Jack pointed away into the darkness behind him. 26
Without a word, Robinson stood up and walked off in the direction Jack indicated. Jack jumped up and followed him.
The moon was now high in the sky, and away from the fire, the beach and the waves were rimmed with a silvery glow.
‘There!’ cried Jack, pointing ahead to where the white dome rose above the sand.
Robinson bent down over the gruesome relic and gave a low whistle. ‘I’ve never come across this fellow before!’ he said. ‘The storm must have shifted the sand and uncovered it.’
The skull looked particularly creepy in the moonlight. Jack was glad he was not alone.
‘We shall have to rebury the poor fellow a little deeper,’ said Robinson. ‘Though not now of course – we’ll come 27down in the morning. I wonder who they were?’
They left the skull shining grimly in the moonlight and walked back to the fire, which was now just glowing embers, and while Jack washed the plates and forks in the stream, Robinson scraped out a hole in the sand with his enormous hands, and pushed in the embers along with the fish bones. Once he’d covered it over and smoothed down the sand, no trace remained of their supper.
Picking up the canvas bag and spear, he said, ‘Time for bed, I think. You are most welcome to share my cave, Jack.’
Jack, of course, accepted this offer and they climbed the rocks at the top of the beach and set off for the rocky outcrop, now just a vague outline on the horizon. In the dark, Jack found it impossible to follow Robinson’s footprints as he had done earlier and almost immediately, he stumbled on a loose rock and fell.
‘Would you like some help?’ asked Robinson, pulling Jack to his feet once more.
Jack nodded, vaguely wondering what ‘help’ meant. Before he could ask, Robinson had handed him the spear, caught him under the armpits, and swung Jack up on to his massive shoulders as easily as a sack of feathers.
Utterly exhausted, Jack began to nod off long before they reached the cave. He had a memory of squeezing down the narrow path, then he must have dropped off altogether, for he dreamed that he was laid down on a great four-poster bed with a thick mattress and the softest pillows …
Chapter Seven
The Cave
It wasn’t a dream. The next morning Jack woke to find that he was lying in a great four-poster bed on a thick mattress, his head resting on the softest pillows! He sat up, and for a moment wondered where on earth he was. This surely wasn’t the cave he’d seen the day before. All around him were things such as one might expect to find in a grand house – a very grand house; fine chairs with legs carved like spiralling serpents, an ornate table standing on a richly patterned oriental rug, a leather Chesterfield sofa, a bow-fronted chest of drawers with shiny brass handles, wardrobes and cupboards and armchairs, stacks of blue-patterned plates piled up on sideboards, china teapots, candlesticks, crockery and cutlery; pots and pans and pewter mugs, and in one corner, a tall grandfather clock gently tick-tocking 29away – and possibly telling the right time.
And yet, he was in the cave. For looking up, he could see the rough rock ceiling above his head. And the floor, where it was visible between the rugs, was sand.
30He stood up and began to walk around, picking up objects and marvelling at all he saw. The cave was large, very large. It seemed to slope down and must have stretched underground far beyond the extent of the rocky outcrop. How far, he couldn’t guess, but all he could see of it was filled with fine furniture and wonderful objects.
Until that moment Jack had assumed that Robinson was a castaway – a sailor, washed ashore just as he had been. But this was surely not the case. Robinson must have wished to come to this island. He must have brought all these things with him. And to own such things, he must surely be a very rich man.
But why would such a man choose to live in a cave on a tiny island?
Jack’s eye suddenly fell upon something that looked altogether out of place among all the grand and marvellous things in that cave. Lying on a small table was a rough-looking stone. He wondered why it was there. Then he noticed marks on the cave wall above the table – scratched lines covering quite a large area, as if someone had spent some time inscribing a pattern there. He guessed that the stone had been used to make the marks and walked over to have a closer look.
The lines were not a random pattern. They were arranged in neat rows of seven, one row on top of another so that they formed tall columns. He began to count the rows and suddenly he understood what he was looking at. 31Seven scratched lines in columns of fifty-two rows – the lines were days, the rows were weeks, and the columns were years.
He was looking at Robinson’s calendar!
Standing back, he counted the columns. Robinson had been living on this island for nineteen and a half years.
Chapter Eight
Yuckies
Outside, Jack found Robinson sitting on a rock by the pool, reading.
‘Thank you, sir,’ he said, sitting down beside him.
Robinson looked up with a smile. ‘For what?’ he asked.
‘Thank you for the loan of your bed, sir – and for supper. I’m sorry, I forgot my manners last night.’ He suddenly felt the need to be more respectful; this man might well be a person of some importance.
Robinson laughed. ‘You’re welcome to the bed; it’s much too small for me – I sleep on a straw mattress on the other side of the cave. And there’s no need to worry about manners here. And no need to call me sir either, or Mister. Just Robinson will do fine.’
Jack nodded, though he was puzzled as to why Robinson 33would have a bed that was too small for him to sleep in. He was about to ask whether there was somebody else on the island, when Robinson picked up two of the knobbly, pearlike fruits that Jack had found so disgusting the day before.
‘Breakfast!’ he declared.
Jack pulled a face. ‘You don’t eat yuckies do you? They’re horrible!’
‘Yuckies?’ queried Robinson. ‘Is that what you call them? An excellent name – perfectly descriptive; they are, indeed, yucky! I’ve never called them anything myself, but henceforth – yuckies they shall be!’ He took a bite from one of the fruits and chewed unenthusiastically, then, after swallowing his mouthful, said, ‘One must eat fruit, as I’m sure you know, Jack, and as these are the only fruit to be found on this island, I eat them. I can’t say I enjoy them – I don’t; they’re the foulest, most unpleasant things I’ve ever eaten in my life – and one never gets used to them, ever. But, eat them I do. And you must too.’ He handed the other fruit to Jack.
Jack looked at it with distaste. ‘What if you cook them?’ Jack asked. ‘Do they taste better then?’
‘Not a bit,’ said Robinson bluntly. ‘I’ve baked them, fried them and boiled them, but they’re just as bad. I’ve chopped them up and mixed them with other things, but they overpower and spoil any dish they are added to. There’s nothing good to be said for them, except that they are not poisonous. Now eat up! We have some grave digging to do.’
Chapter Nine
The Skeleton
A short time later they stood on the beach, looking down at the skull.
‘No good just piling up sand on top of the fellow,’ said Robinson. ‘It’d soon blow away again. I think we shall have to disinter them to do the thing properly.’
Jack wondered what ‘disinter’ meant.
