He studied the buoy for a moment longer, thinking. Then his eye was caught by a long white streak of bird poo that dribbled down the side. And he had a brilliant idea.
‘You want Graham to poo on the solar panel?’ Pod repeated.
Essie had dissolved into hopeless giggles.
‘It’ll take a lot of poo to cover the whole panel,’ Annalie said.
‘Graham not poo on demand,’ Graham said haughtily.
Will turned to Annalie. ‘Which foods make him really squirty?’ he asked.
‘You’d need something that came out with a thick consistency,’ Annalie said thoughtfully. ‘Otherwise you’re not going to get the coverage.’
‘I can’t believe you’re discussing the consistency of Graham’s poo,’ Essie said.
‘Graham not say yes,’ Graham reminded them.
‘Come on, Graham, you don’t usually care where you let them go,’ Will said. ‘Why not poo somewhere that will actually help us for a change?’
Grudgingly, Graham agreed to stuff himself with food, then fly over to the buoy and wait for the results. They ended up having to do this several times before they had a thick enough coating on the solar panel. Then all they had to do was wait until the tiny winking green light on the side of the buoy stopped working. Late that night, the light went off—the buoy was dark. They sailed into Sundia’s territorial waters.
The Skeleton Coast
Will was at the wheel as they sailed towards the still-distant shore. Annalie came to join him. The air began to grow perceptibly damper and colder.
‘Feel that?’ Will said.
All around them, the starlight grew hazy. Then it disappeared.
‘Fog,’ Will said.
‘We’re going to have to be extra careful from now on,’ Annalie said. ‘They call this the Skeleton Coast.’
‘That’s here?’
‘Uh-huh. Rocks, reefs and fog. It’s a bad combination.’
‘What are our charts like?’
‘Out of date,’ Annalie said. ‘Pre-Flood.’
‘That’s got to be good news, right? Some of the rocks and reefs are further underwater now. Not so much stuff to hit.’
‘Maybe,’ Annalie said. ‘Maybe not.’
The Skeleton Coast was one of the more notorious regions of the Sundian coastline. Its treacherous conditions had made it a graveyard of ships for the early sailors from the north; many ran aground on reefs they couldn’t see in the fog, and those sailors who made it into longboats and got ashore found themselves pinned on the stony beaches between the pounding surf of the Outer Ocean and the vast immensity of the desert, unable to escape.
The next day, the fog was still there; as they sailed, they discovered that it rarely lifted, blanketing the coastline, making it impossible to see the shore. Where possible, Will skirted the edge of the fog rather than sailing through it—it was too exhausting and too dangerous to sail through it for hours at a time, eyes struggling to penetrate the shifting amorphous greyness. The rocks and reefs were a very real danger—easy enough to see in the daytime but harder to see at night—and the charts were not a reliable guide. It felt sometimes that they were feeling their way south, sailing by hand and eye.
They drew up a roster; even Blossom was forced to do her share of keeping watch, and it was she who discovered one of the other ways the Sundians protected their coastline.
‘What’s that thing in the water?’ she called to Will, who was at the wheel. She had spotted another floating object, different from the signal buoy.
‘Where?’ Will asked, coming to look.
Blossom pointed. Will looked, then ran back to the wheel and spun it hard. The boom swung; the boat began to turn. Something tipped over down in the saloon, and Annalie came up to see what was the matter.
‘Everything okay?’ she said.
‘There are mines,’ Will said. ‘Look!’
Annalie ran to the railing where Blossom was standing. She watched in horror as theSunfish sailed past a huge, round, spiky object floating on the surface of the water.
‘Are you sure that’s a mine?’ she asked.
Essie had come to join her. ‘That’s what they look like in old war movies.’
‘I bet that’s not the only one,’ Will said.
‘What would have happened if we’d hit it?’ Blossom asked.
‘Ka-boom!’ Will said, his hands flying up expressively.
After that, they steered clear of the fog; the risk of crossing the electronic barrier seemed less immediate than the risk of crashing into a mine. But this carried other dangers too: once they were out of the fog, they could be seen.
One day, Graham raised the alarm.
‘What is it?’ Pod asked, grabbing the binoculars.
‘A ship!’ Graham said, as the others came running.
‘Sundian coastguard?’ Will said.
‘I think—’ Pod said, and stopped. He handed the binoculars to Annalie, who was standing next to him.
‘Oh no.’
‘Who is it?’ Will said.
‘It’s the Admiralty.’
The Cauldron
The Admiralty ship was still far away on the horizon, but there was no mistaking it. It was the same boat they’d encountered in Dio, the boat that had carried Beckett halfway round the world in pursuit of them. And now here it was again.
‘Do you think it’s the same ship?’ asked Essie.
‘It has to be,’ Will said.
‘How did they find us?’ Annalie wailed.
‘They’re the Admiralty,’ Pod said. ‘That’s what they do.’
‘What are we going to do?’ asked Essie.
‘I don’t think we’ve got a choice,’ Will said grimly. ‘We try and lose them in the fog.’
They sailed into the veil of fog. The greyness closed around them, cold, bleak, disorienting. ‘Everybody watch out for rocks!’ Will ordered.
Pod, Essie, even Blossom took positions around the deck and watched the water. Will sailed on as fast as he dared.
‘Be really careful,’ Annalie warned, checking the charts. ‘There’s a thing called the Cauldron somewhere near our position.’
‘What is it?’
‘I’m not exactly sure, but they warn us to stay away from
