‘I can understand that.’ Peter grinned.
‘They’ll be visitors to the island, like us,’ said Binti. ‘This is such a small place, I expect we’ll all bump into them before we leave.’
Joe hoped not. Whatever his parents said, he was sure the men were up to no good.
Chapter 10
The Brook family spent the next day lounging on the beach, resting ahead of their night-time sortie. Joe helped his father build an exotic sandcastle decorated with seaweed and shells, while Binti read and Aesha swam. Just before lunch, Rey appeared and took them for a practice snorkelling session around a rocky area at one end of the shoreline. Joe didn’t find it easy, but was delighted by the brightly coloured fish he saw every time he put his face in the water.
‘This is nothing,’ Rey told him. ‘You wait till we look in the big sea.’
In the afternoon, it was so hot that they sought shade under a clump of trees and dozed fitfully, before returning to the staff house for dinner and then relaxing in their rooms.
They set out for the snorkelling trip at ten o’clock that evening. Much to Aesha’s relief, the air was cooler as they meandered down the road towards the beach. This was the adventure Joe had been so looking forward to. There was something otherworldly about going out after dark in a country where all the sounds and sights and smells were so different from back home. Along the way, they passed houses lit by gas lamps and lanterns that cast eerie shadows across their path. Joe could hear laughter coming from them, and some of the islanders were sitting outside, chatting quietly, playing cards or simply meditating. The occasional grunt from a pig made him giggle, and the odd random scuffling in the undergrowth made him wish he had X-ray eyes so that he could see what was there.
As they walked on to the beach, Joe noticed a light glowing a few metres away.
‘Rey’s looking forward to showing you his world.’ Angela chuckled. ‘He’s like a child anxious for you to love his favourite toy.’
‘We can’t wait to see his world,’ said Binti. ‘We’re very privileged.’
They reached the banca, which now had a gas lamp attached to the front of it. Rey greeted them with big smiles and handed each of them a head torch.
‘I show you the most beautiful place you ever go to,’ he said.
They helped push the boat down to the sea and climbed in, Joe sitting as close to the gas lamp as he could, his flippers and snorkel across his lap, his head torch in place and his camera on the bench beside him. He began to get a little anxious as well as excited. What if I get lost or can’t snorkel well enough? He didn’t like the fact that with flippers on he couldn’t put his feet down. It made him feel slightly panicky, especially when water got into his snorkel and all he wanted to do was stand up, pull off his mask and breathe in some air.
‘Whatever you do, don’t take off your flippers!’ Angela had told them. ‘If you tread on a sea urchin it’s extremely painful.’
Joe focused his gaze on where the light from the gas lamp fell on the water. As the banca moved slowly away from the shore he could already see numerous shoals of small fish below the surface. He took his camera from its case and began to take photographs, the flash leaping into action with each shot.
‘If any of your photos are good enough I’ll use them in my article,’ Peter promised.
Joe hoped they might be as he snapped a shoal of bright-eyed, silvery-mauve fish streaming alongside them. He looked back at the photograph on his screen and decided to call it ‘Shadows under the Sea’.
They soon arrived at the marker buoys at the edge of the Marine Protected Area. Rey cut the banca’s engine and allowed the boat to drift while they put on their equipment and got ready to lower themselves into the water.
‘Are you all right, Joe?’ Binti asked him, slight concern in her voice.
Joe nodded. Excitement had quashed any fears he might have had and he could feel the adrenalin pumping through him now. The sea was incredibly calm, the sky cloudless and the moon nearly full. Fish were teeming close to the surface under the light from the gas lamp. Joe waited for his father and Aesha to dive in first, then sat with his legs over the side of the boat, his mask over his forehead, his head torch switched on, before slipping carefully into the water and turning on to his back. His flippered feet rose up in front of him, so that he wound up in a sitting position, where he had to paddle his arms furiously in order not to tip backwards.
‘Stay close to Rey,’ Angela called as she slipped into the water with Binti. ‘He’ll make sure you’re safe and will show you where the seahorses are most commonly found.’
Rey dropped into the water last. To Joe’s surprise, he wasn’t wearing a snorkel, just a small pair of goggles carved out of wood, and he only had a home-made flipper on one foot.
‘I find you the best place,’ Rey said.
With that, he grabbed a rope that hung down from the front of the banca, took a deep breath, turned a somersault in the water and disappeared under the surface, pulling the boat along behind him so that the gas lamp lit his route. He resurfaced several metres away before plunging in again.
Joe pulled down his mask, bit on the mouthpiece of the snorkel, rolled on to his front and carefully lowered his face into the sea. He felt the gentle ripple of the waves as he waited for his eyes to focus. When they did, he was filled with wonder at what
