The Aeroplane of Adventure

©2009 David Marlor

This novel is based on the characters created by Enid Bylton in the Adventure Series. In this regard, it is the ninth adventure and follows The River of Adventure.

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Chapter 16: Beyond the Pool

What had happened to Jack and the girls? Well, Jack had spent an exasperating two hours trying desperately to open the lamp-stairway that Philip had been trapped in. But no matter where he looked or how much he tried, he could not find a lever or switch or anything to open the rocky cover.

"Well, Kiki," he said, as they sat together exhausted on the rocks that made up the roof of the lamp. "It looks like Philip is going to have to spend the day down there until the lamp opens again. I can't for the life of me figure out how it opens."

"What a pity, what a pity," said Kiki conversationally.

"Yes, it is a pity, Kiki," said Jack, feeding her some sunflower seeds he had in his pocket. "Come on, we'd better get back to the girls and come back tonight and see if we can rescue poor Philip."

He got up and stretched. He was sore from pulling at rocks and bushes. As he set off an idea hit him. He pulled out a page from his notebook and wrote a quick note to Philip and left it in the bush they had hidden in that night. "You never know," thought the boy, "Philip might find a way out and wonder what's happened to me."

Jack hurried as quickly as he could back down to the treehouse. It was hard going in the dark, but the way was well marked and easy to follow. As he arrived at the treehouse he looked at his watch and let out a low whistle. "My word," he thought, "it's after four in the morning. No wonder I'm tired!" When Jack got to the pool the vine ladder had been pulled up and he felt too tired to scramble over the rocks and climb the inside of the tree trunk. Instead he found a soft heathery spot next to the rocks surrounding the upper pool and curled up and was soon asleep.

It was Lucy-Ann who awoke Jack later that morning. "Jack! Oh Jack!" she cried as soon as she saw him lying on the ground. "Jack, I was so worried about you. Where's Philip?" she asked, suddenly realising he wasn't around.

Jack yawned and stretched in the bright early morning sunlight. He looked up at his sister and saw Dinah climbing down the vine ladder.

"Hello," he said to his sister. "Let's have some breakfast and I'll tell you everything. I don't know how Phillip is. He got trapped behind that lamp on top of the hill."

"No!" exclaimed both girls together. "Oh, and Jack, we've got a lot to tell you," added Dinah, suddenly remembering.

"Oh, yes," said Lucy-Ann looking half-afraid at the upper hot pool, which was shimmering in the early morning sunlight.

"Really? Well, let's eat and swap stories. I'm really hungry," said Jack, getting up."Then we'll figure out how to rescue Phillip."

Soon the three children were tucking in to a breakfast of smoked fish and fruit. Jack brought them up to date on his and Philip's adventures of the night before. The girls were most interested to hear about the light that came up out of the ground, but they were distressed to hear that Philip had become trapped and agreed that Jack couldn't have done anything more by staying near the light.

Then the girls told Jack of their adventures of the night before. Jack listened in amazement. A submarine? A pool that drained? Men and conveyor belts?

"Golly," said Jack at last, looking in awe at the deceptively tranquil hot pool and waterfall and hardly able to believe what the girls were telling him. "You mean to tell me that all this time, while we've been playing around and swimming in that pool, that it covers a secret entrance?"

"Oh, Jack," said Lucy-Ann. "I was so scared. What's going on here?"

"I don't know," said Jack. "I honestly don't know. But the more I think about it, we have to get off this island and tell Bill all we know. I thought Bill would have found us by now, to be honest. Maybe we should make a signal or try a message in a bottle, or sail over to the other island. I hope we can get help there."

"So do I," admitted Dinah. "So what do we do next?"

"Well," said Jack, "we should go up to the top of the hill tonight and try to rescue Philip, and then I think we should go first thing tomorrow morning and sail the raft to that other island we saw."

"What shall we do today?" asked Lucy-Ann. "Do you think those men will come looking for us now that they heard voices last night?"

Jack considered. He really didn't know what to think. At last he said, "I think those men will do a more thorough search the next time they're here, but I don't think they'll purposefully come looking for us before then. Even so, I think we should be cautious and not leave anything to give us away."

"Here's what I think we should do today," he continued. "Let's clean up everything and somehow block up the inside of the tree trunk so if it is found nobody would guess there's a way to climb up inside it. We'll only use the vine ladder from now on. Then we'll explore the pool and see if we can discover its secret so we can report back to Bill when we're rescued. It'll also pass time until we go and rescue Philip."

The girls thought it was a good idea. First Jack climbed the tree and decided the only way to hide the way up inside the trunk was to block the exit at the top so light would not shine down inside. Jack took some old planks from the treehouse and managed to nail them across the opening. He looked up inside the trunk from the bottom and was satisfied that no light shone down. Good! Those men will never think to climb up the inside of the tree, so their treehouse should be safe. "Of course," thought Jack, "one of them may already know of the treehouse! Oh, well, we can't do anything about that. Let's just hope they don't know about it." Jack really doubted that they would.

After they had cleaned up around the pool and removed any evidence that the children had been there, Jack and the girls began to explore around the upper pool. The girls explained as best they could how the water seemed to stop first, then a part of the rocky wall opened up. Jack dived into the hot pool and searched along the bottom for some sort of mechanism. He could see nothing and soon came up to catch his breath. "Nothing," he said, shaking his head in response to the girls' enquiring looks.

The girls searched in the bushes and between the rocks surrounding the pool, but could see nothing. "Oh, beastly bushes," said Dinah as she got scratched for the fourth time. The children spent a good two hours searching and could find nothing.

"There's got to be a way to open the secret door from out here," said Jack. "Even if it is only an emergency lever or something. It's just like that lamp, there doesn't seem to be a way to open the beastly door."

Dinah was looking at the waterfall. "Jack, what about up there, above the waterfall? Surely if the waterfall slows to a trickle, there must be a way the water is diverted? Right?"

Jack and the girls climbed up behind the waterfall. They knelt down and felt under the rocks along the edges of the waterfall. Jack gave an exclamation. "I think I've found something just under the rocks where the water tumbles over the fall. Just a minute." Jack pushed his hand into the large crack between two underwater rocks and there he felt a large handle. He grabbed it and pulled. Nothing happened. He twisted it to the left and then to the right. Suddenly the lever gave under him and a slow grinding sound came to his ears. He watched in amazement as the waterfall slowed to a trickle.

"You've done it," shouted Lucy-Ann joyfully. "You found it." Dinah clapped in glee. They'd found the secret way!

Jack looked in puzzlement at the waterfall. He walked up the stream a little way and gave another exclamation. "Hey, Dinah, Lucy-Ann – look at this." The girls joined Jack and looked at where he was pointing. "Look, that lever must cause these rocks to rise up and block the stream. See. Look how the water is being diverted into this little channel." The girls could clearly see how the water was being diverted from the waterfall.

The children went back down to the hot pool and watched in awe as the water level dropped. "There must be a tunnel under the rocks," said Jack, "that opens and drains the pool when you twist that lever."

Very soon the pool was empty except for a trickle of water across the bottom. Jack and the girls walked down the rough steps into the bottom of the pool. It felt weird to be walking on the bottom of the hot pool just moments after it was full of water.

"So where is the tunnel opening?" began Jack, but stopped in amazement at another grating sound. Right in front of them a portion of the rocky wall of the pool was opening. Lucy-Ann gasped and pointed behind them. Another part of the rocky wall was opening on the seaward side of the pool. Then a long metal object slid silently out of the tunnel opening under the waterfall towards them. Jack and the girls stepped quickly out of the way as the metallic conveyor moved across the pool floor and through the other opening in the rocks. It finally stopped when it reached the lagoon.

The children had been so absorbed in what they were doing they didn't hear the drone of an aeroplane until it was almost overhead.

"Quick!" said Jack urgently, "hide in the cave." The children ran into the cave from which the conveyor had come, as quickly as they could, hoping that the aeroplane hadn't spotted them. "Of course," thought Jack afterwards, "it might have been a friendly plane looking for us!"

Kiki, who had been sitting silently on Jack's shoulder, flew off further into the cave. "Kiki," called Jack softly, afraid there might be somebody in the cave. "Kiki, come back." Jack turned to the girls."Let's get our torches, have a quick look around, get Kiki, and try to close this thing up."

The children soon had their torches and Jack led the way into the cave. He flashed his torch around the large cave. It was quite big, bigger than any of the children expected. Their torch beams picked out large crates and strange cylindrical objects placed in an orderly fashion in the big cave.

Jack had spotted Kiki sitting on a crate near the cave wall to the right of the entrance they had come in. He went over to her slowly, picking his way carefully over the floor. "Kiki, come here." he said softly. The bird flew over to Jack and sat quietly on his shoulder.

The children explored the entire cave and at the back came to another small passage accessed by some steep steps going down into the floor. The passage was quite narrow and the children had to bend low to get through. It led into another even bigger cave than the last, by way of steps climbing up to the new cave. The cave was so big that the children's torches did not light up the other side.

"Golly," said Jack in wonder. "Who'd have thought that there were these big caves in this hill. And, isn't it very damp smelling in this cave. Not at all dry like the entrance cave."

"I think we'd better go," said Lucy-Ann who didn't much like the big damp smelling cave.

"What's that?" asked Dinah, shining her torch over to one side of the cave. "Oh, it looks like a little kitchen." The children went over to it. It was a small kitchen complete with a cooker and a larder. Behind were crates and crates. Dinah read some of the labels. "It's all food," she said. "This must be one of the men's store rooms."

"Jack," said Lucy-Ann plucking at his sleeve. "We should leave before the men come back. Come on."

"Yes, we'd better go," said Jack. He turned to go back to the stairs leading down to the short tunnel to the other cave, then he suddenly lost his balance and fell heavily against a sharp rock. As he fell, he felt the rock give beneath him. In the distance the children could hear a faint grinding and rushing water sound. What had Jack done now?

Continues tomorrow...

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