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Authors: Chris Mould

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BOOK: The Wooden Mile
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Stanley dropped his suitcase and stood staring. “It's incredible.”
“It's only planks, you know. Planks and nails, that's all,” laughed Mrs. Carelli. “Ain't nothing new about planks and nails.”
“No, I mean the water,” explained Stanley. “I've never seen the sea before.”
Immediately he thought of home. In the dark town that Stanley hailed from, the coast was a world away. By his bed lay a tattered old leather-bound book, with a page that had been thumbed a thousand times. It held a painting of a rocky beach filled with every kind of seabird. This was exactly the place he had longed to be.
“Well, you've seen it now, lad. Most likely you'll be fed up of it afore too long, just like the rest of us.” And she blustered onward, treading the steps down to the water's edge. Stanley followed, dragging his suitcase, fumbling and tripping and at the same time, trying to take in the view of the sea.
His suitcase seemed to grow heavier. It crossed his mind to hurl it down to the bottom, but then he pictured some terrible accident with Mrs. Carelli as the victim and thought better of it.
Very soon they were at the bottom of the steps and making their journey across the wooden mile. The surface was wet and slippery, but Mrs. Carelli seemed to glide along. Perhaps she was used to it. It was only when they had passed through a tunneled cave and out into the open that the small island of Crampton Rock loomed down upon Stanley.
A crooked-looking fishing village with rickety houses and bent chimneys stared back at him. Filling the harbor and bobbing up and down on the waves was a crowd of wooden boats. He was able to pick out the spire of what appeared to be a small church, huddled in among the rest of the buildings. To its left, one place particularly stood out: a large house of blackened stone with a stepped roof. A scattering of little windows peered out like torchlights from the darkness of the brickwork.
“There you go, young Stanley. That's Candlestick Hall.”
He stopped in his tracks. There it was, the place he had been waiting to see. The place he had dreamed of. There was something
gloomy and dark about it, yet his heart drummed excitedly at the thought that the place was now his. It was nothing like he had expected: to start with, he could never have dreamed it would be so big.
A bird flew from the roof and drew his eye to something else. Something he didn't like. It landed on what he recognized as a gibbet, on a nearby hilltop. He had seen one in a book: a gallows, from which people were hanged in times past. This one held a rounded cage, and in it were the spindly skeletal remains of a single human life.
Mrs. Carelli glanced back and noticed him looking.
“Don't worry, Stanley,” she said kindly. “'Tis only the remains of some rotten scoundrel.”
Stanley shivered. “Who was it?” he asked.
“Pirates,” she answered. “Sometimes we get pirates here. They pass by this way and we would rather they didn't. 'Tis only there to serve as a warning.”
“Is it real?” asked Stanley. He had never seen a dead body before.
“Oh, he's real all right! From the tip of his hat to the soles of his shoes, he's real.” She laughed and then, seemingly unconcerned, she turned and walked the last few boards up onto the harbor wall, where some of the villagers were waiting.
“But what happened to him? How did he … die?”
Too late: Mrs. Carelli was already out of earshot and had begun talking to somebody.
Stanley looked back and watched the waves washing over the wooden walkway as it slowly began to disappear. There was no going back. Not now!
Candlestick Hall
Stanley was about to step up to the harbor when a huge man in a cap and trenchcoat stopped him. He introduced himself as Lionel Grouse, Keeper of the Rock, and he was accompanied by Penelope Spoonbill, the Mayoress. She was dwarfed by his size.
“I'm afraid I'll need to see your papers, son. You can't step onto Crampton Rock until I've
seen your deeds,” announced Mr. Grouse.
This was the second time someone had stopped him, and he was still trying to get there.
Stanley put his suitcase down and fingered through the paperwork. He was panicking that he might have lost what he needed.
The water began to rise up around the soles of his shoes.
“I'm getting wet, sir. Is there a chance I can step up on to the wall to sort out my papers?”
“Sorry, lad, I need to see the documents first.” Mr. Grouse smiled, and waited.
The water washed around Stanley's toes. He found his letter from Mrs. Carelli. That wasn't it. The water sloshed around his ankles. He found his copy of Admiral Swift's will. But that wasn't it. He began to grow worried. Had
he dropped them? The water was rising more and more quickly. It would be up to his knees soon, and Stanley wasn't sure he would be able to swim.
Suddenly he held the document right there in his hand.
“Here,” he said, relieved—and very wet. “Look at this.”
The man held out his arm. “Welcome, Stanley,” he said, and pulled him up onto dry land.
Stanley was stopped short in his tracks by a frail woman who clasped his arm tightly.
“Don't step out onto the moor, Stanley. It's no place for a young boy.”
She was shuffled to one side by Mrs. Carelli. “Please, give the boy a chance.” A handful of villagers herded the old woman to one side and Stanley, in his excitement, temporarily forgot her words.
He dropped his suitcase and ran swiftly to the house, scattering water as he ran and squishing in his soggy shoes. He turned the key in the door and stood in the hallway.
It was hard to take everything in all at once.
“Make yourself at home, Stanley,” said Mrs. Carelli. “I shall be right there in the kitchen if you need me.” She pointed to a long room at the far end of the house. “Put something dry on your feet, have a look around, and I'll make us something to eat. Oh, and don't forget, your suitcase is still sitting by the harbor. It'll not grow legs.”
Stanley went to get it and returned again in two minutes flat.
He was simply overwhelmed by the size of Candlestick Hall. It was so grand, and he had only ever lived in a small house with tiny rooms.
It would take him the whole summer just to explore this place.
The hallway was bigger than his whole house back home. It was full of curious objects, most of which hung on the walls or stood in glass-fronted display cases. A moose head hung over the door and beside it was a stuffed monkey with its mouth wide open, showing sharp teeth. Below, a suit of armor stood staring back at him.
There was a sitting room at the front, looking down on the harbor. The fireplace was so big Stanley was able to stand inside it. The bones of some huge fish were hanging over the mantelpiece.
At the back of the sitting room, a short dark passage took him back out into the hallway and he was back at the staircase. Halfway up it there was a landing, with a tall window. Stanley ran to the window and looked out across the harbor to take in the view of the
water. It was a rare sight for anybody, but for a boy who had never seen any more water than you could get into a bathtub, it was unbelievable. He went to the ledge and watched the waves roll back and forth.
Upstairs was much the same. Room after room after room, some furnished, some empty. Most with the shutters pulled over the windows, sitting in darkness with blades of light piercing through the screens and cutting across the bare floors.
Stanley chose a room at the front where he could watch the sea from his bed. He opened his suitcase and scattered some of his things across the bed to leave his mark, then he continued exploring.
One room held him captive. At first it seemed to be just a room full of cupboards. But when Stanley pulled open one of the drawers, it was laid out neatly with every possible species of bird's egg, labeled in beautiful handwriting.
Female Field Cricket
Hornet
Staghorn Beetle
Red Spined Body Bug
House Spider
House Spider
He opened another. Butterflies. And another. Shells. On it went: insects, animal bones, fossils, old letters, drawings, plans of the house. Here he would spend some time. He knew that.
 
After a while he returned to the ledge and watched the sea until Mrs. Carelli called him for supper.
There were two places set at a small table in the kitchen. A large pie was waiting for him.
He suddenly realized that he was hungry: he hadn't eaten since breakfast.
Stanley sat down and when Mrs. Carelli joined him he asked, “Can you tell me about Admiral Swift?”
She seemed taken aback. “Oh, your Great-uncle Bartholomew. Well, there ain't much to tell really. He was retired from the navy. Spent most of his life out on the water. He even died out there, minding his own business sitting peacefully in his fishing boat. Shame that was.”
BOOK: The Wooden Mile
6.72Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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