“The whole town’s flooded.” His mother’s voice was tearful. “The river burst its banks.” She sighed, watching one of Jack’s trainers float past her shins. “We’ve got no electricity. The soft furnishings are ruined…”

  His dad put a comforting arm around her shoulders.

  David’s bedroom was really a spare room. His big brother was away at university, studying law. His stuff was still in boxes from when they’d moved house. There were already a few pieces of hurriedly salvaged furniture from downstairs in it. Jack slid the chair, seat down, on top of another. Peeping into the bathroom on his way past, he saw a mound of sopping wet cushions and rugs in the bath.

  A horrible thought popped into his head. What had happened to the hide? He’d never gone back to storm proof it.

  Jack got dressed quickly, pulling on two pairs of socks and waterproof trousers over his joggers. He tugged his cagoule from his chest of drawers whilst shoving his feet into wellington boots. His heart was trembling. Was Aves Wood flooded? Was the hide still standing? He’d told the others that he’d put anything that might get wet into the plastic boxes and stored them up on the platform under the tarpaulin … but he hadn’t!

  He grabbed his phone to see if he’d had any messages. Nothing. He guessed his friends’ houses looked a lot like his. He tossed the phone onto the bed. What should he do? His stomach was a mess of panic. The others were going to be furious with him. What would Twitch think when he found out that Jack had lied to him? What if they wanted Jack to leave the Twitchers? What if Twitch didn’t want to be his friend any more?

  Hurrying downstairs, Jack splashed to the front door. He paused to take in the surprising sight of Winnie’s brightly coloured dog toys floating about in the paddling pool that was his living room.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” his mother asked. “There’s work to be done here.”

  “I need to check on … Mr Frisby.”

  “Who?”

  “The nice old man who lives at the bottom of the cul-de-sac. The one whose cat I saved. I’m worried about him. He uses a walking frame. He might need help. Can I go, please?”

  “Oh! Yes.” His mother looked stunned by Jack’s uncharacteristic neighbourly concern. “That’s very thoughtful of you, Jack. You can go but be careful. The water is dangerous, and it will have flushed everything out of the sewers.” She grimaced and shook her head. “What a mess!”

  Jack felt horrible as he dashed out the front door. He wasn’t thoughtful, he was deceitful.

  He sloshed up the street, angry with himself, but he had to slow down because the water kept threatening to pour into his boots. People were standing outside their houses looking stunned and shocked. Others worked frantically to salvage what they could. As he approached Reggie’s house, Jack saw his bedroom window was wide open. The old man was looking out, enjoying the chaos in the street as people tried to start their cars and sweep water out of their houses.

  “Hello, Reggie,” Jack called out. “Are you and Colonel Mustard all right?”

  “I told you it was going to flood, didn’t I?” Reggie crowed triumphantly. “Don’t you worry about me and the old Colonel. We’re having salmon for breakfast. We’re both fine, thanks to you and your friends.”

  “Our downstairs is underwater!”

  “You mustn’t worry.” Reggie nodded as if this was only to be expected. “It’ll drain away in a day or two.”

  “You were right about another thing, Reggie. The weapon that hurt Colonel Mustard wasn’t a gun,” Jack told him. “We think it was a hunting slingshot.”

  “Yes!” Reggie looked thoughtful. “That would do it. You can kill a squirrel with one of those things.”

  “We’re still working on who did it, but we’ve got a couple of suspects.”

  “Well done, Jack. Good for you.”

  “I’ll come back later, just in case you need anything.”

  “You’re a good lad,” Reggie called, waving goodbye as Jack turned and sloshed away.

  He felt miserable. He wasn’t a good lad. He’d used Reggie as an excuse to check on the hide.

  Picking his way down an alleyway that passed between the houses on Redshank Road, Jack waded out onto the footpath that ran parallel to the river, crossing under the railway bridge and meeting the towpath at the east gate. But, at the end of the alley, he had to stop.

  All of Briddvale was underwater. The banks of the river were submerged. The footpath was sunk. He tried to inch forward but the water got deeper, reaching the rim of his wellies. He could feel the pull of a strong current and knew that moving forwards when he couldn’t see the ground was dangerous. A plastic doll with yellow hair and a pink dress floated past as he stepped back. He didn’t fancy a swim in the dirty water after what his mum had said about the sewers. With a sinking feeling, Jack realized he wouldn’t be able to get to the hide.

  Aves Wood was in the bottom of the valley, beside a pond, surrounded by wetland, between the canal and the River Bridd. Staring out at the sludge-brown sea in front of him, Jack realized there was no chance it wasn’t underwater. He wondered if Twitch might be able to reach it from the other side of the nature reserve. His house was on the north side of Briddvale, up a hill. It might not be flooded.

  As he stood there wondering what to do, a white plastic chair glided past followed by a conga line of liberated garden furniture. He decided to go home. But as he turned around, he heard a muffled shout.

  “Jack! Hey! Jack!”

  In the distance, he saw an inflatable dinghy. He took his binoculars from his coat pocket. Ozuru was sitting in it, dressed in his fishing waders, yellow rain mac and hat. He was clutching an oar and waving it at Jack.

  “Ozuru!” Jack waved back, grinning as his friend rowed towards him.

  “Climb in,” Ozuru said, as he bumped the prow of the little boat against Jack’s knees.

  Jack lifted a boot.

  “No! Not like that!” Ozuru cried out in alarm. “You’ll tip us over. Turn around and sit your bum into the boat. That’s it. Now lift your legs in.”

  “This is brilliant.” Jack found himself sitting in the dinghy facing Ozuru. “Where did you get the boat from?”

  “It’s Dad’s. He keeps it in the garage. I was going to check on the hide, but the current from the river pushed me this way.”

  “I was going to check on the hide too. Is your house flooded?”

  “Badly.” Ozuru nodded. “Here, take this other oar and come sit beside me. We’ll get there quicker with two of us rowing.”

  “Got it,” Jack said, as he slid the oar into the rowlock.

  “Have you spoken to Twitch today?”

  “No, I…” Jack patted his pockets, then clapped his hand to his forehead. “I’ve left my phone on my bed.”

  “I dropped mine in the water, getting into the boat.” Ozuru sighed as he held up a dead phone. “Hey, how’s your ankle?”

  “Fine. Why?” Jack was thrown by this question, then his heart lurched. “Oh! I see. No, it was Terry’s ankle that got hurt, but it was better by the end of the day.”

  “Oh, I thought Ava said it was yours.”

  The boys rowed the dinghy under the railway bridge, struggling as the river pushed them away from the nature reserve. The pair of them paddled frantically against the current, finally reaching a calm patch of water beyond the bridge. Jack could see how Ozuru had struggled to control the dinghy on his own.

  He looked about, disorientated by his surroundings. All the paths he knew were gone, entire bushes were underwater, tall trees appeared short, and the dinghy kept turning around. His shoulders were beginning to ache from paddling, and he was about to suggest they give up and go home when he spied the top half of the east gate into Aves Wood.

  “Look! The east gate! But wait…” Jack looked around, completely confused now. “Where’s the canal? The whole place is like a massive swamp!”

  “Is that the top of Aves Lock?” Ozuru pointed. “I think this is the canal. We’re over it.”

  “But where’s the Kingfisher?” Jack took out his binoculars and looked upriver and downstream, but he saw no boats.

  Ozuru looked scared. “You don’t think they were swept away by the storm?”

  “Nan must have been in storms before,” Jack said, more to reassure himself than Ozuru. “She will’ve known what to do.”

  “Do you think we should still try and get to the hide?” Ozuru looked anxious.

  Jack wasn’t sure any more, but he desperately needed to know how badly damaged the hide was. “I think we should try.”

  Opening the east gate from an inflatable dinghy on moving water was a complex and wobbly manoeuvre, but they managed it without falling out of the boat. Jack and Ozuru rowed down the avenue of trees, floating above the path. The nature reserve looked like a fairy-tale swamp. A spectral mist drifted lazily between the trees whilst mallards swam about acting like the emerald-headed kings of this new land.

  “The shopping trolley!” Jack cried out, delighted to see something familiar in this disconcertingly watery world. “Do you think the trolley got stuck in the tree in a previous flood, years and years ago? I’ll bet it did.”

  “Jack, we won’t be able to row the boat through the trees to the hide, they’re too close together.” Ozuru peered over the side of the dinghy. “How deep do you think the water is here?”

  “A metre,” Jack guessed. “Maybe less.”

  Ozuru swung his legs out over the side and carefully lowered himself until he was standing in the water. It came up to his thighs. Making his way to the front of the boat, he took the rope and waded forward, pulling the dingy. Jack wished he owned a pair of fisherman’s trousers. They would be very handy right now.

  Ozuru had to take a roundabout route to get the boat through the trees. “Everything looks so different,” he said nervously. “I’m scared of sinking into a bog.”

  “Maybe we should turn back,” Jack said, getting more worried with every step his friend took. “This is too dangerous.”

  “Wow!” Ozuru halted. Jack followed his gaze beyond the edge of the trees, and saw the huge lake that had not been there yesterday.

  “The river must’ve flooded into the pond when it burst its banks,” Jack said, awed by the great expanse of shimmering water. “Do you think the hide is along the water’s edge?”

  “It could be in the lake,” Ozuru said, turning around. “Help me get back in. We’ll row there.”

  As they steered the dinghy over submerged reeds, Jack felt like he was in a dream. The swamp world was so quiet. There was no sound of traffic. No human voices. Only dripping, splashing, pouring, slurping – and birdsong. This morning the birds seemed to be singing as if their lives depended on it.

  Jack scanned the trees sticking out of the water, searching for the viewing platform above the hide. He spotted colour and movement, then a glimpse of white skin and blond hair.

  “Twitch!” he yelled, making Ozuru jump.

  Twitch spotted them and waved.

  Jack picked up the oar and began rowing madly. When they reached the copse of trees that encircled the hide, he grabbed one of the coppiced hazels and pulled the dinghy towards it so Ozuru could tie the boat up. The hide door was gone, and THE TWITCHERS sign was dangling from a high branch of the oak tree.

  Twitch’s grinning head poked over the viewing platform. A moment later the end of a rope came dangling down. Jack grabbed on to it and climbed up. Ozuru shook his head, slid into the water, waded to the ladder still strapped to the oak tree and climbed that instead.

  “Isn’t the world strange today?” Twitch said, looking pleased about it, as Jack and Ozuru sat down on the platform beside him. He was wearing a large pair of waders that he’d had to tie around his chest because they were too big for him. Underneath, he had on a wetsuit. “Nature is a powerful thing.”

  “What are you doing?” Ozuru asked, pointing at a bundle of sticks.

  “Making rafts for floating nests,” Twitch replied. “I found a great crested grebe nest, with eggs, floating on the water. It was getting pulled apart by the current. I didn’t want to touch it, because hopefully the birds will return to it, so I made a raft of twigs and slipped it under the nest to make it more buoyant. I thought I should make a few more, just in case.”

  The three of them looked about, swinging their legs above the water as they took in the damage. Jack felt wretched as he noticed that their gear in the cabin had been washed away and there was no sign of the plastic crate.

  “I didn’t think anyone else would be able to get here,” Twitch said.

  “I wouldn’t have been able to come if Ozuru hadn’t showed up with his boat,” Jack said. “The flooding is serious down my way.”

  “My road isn’t flooded, because it’s on a hill, but it’s like a waterfall. We had to bring the chickens and the pigeons into the house last night, the weather was that bad.”

  “Where did you put them?”

  “The hens went into the living room and immediately got comfy on the sofa. I moved the pigeons’ nest boxes into my bedroom.”

  “I’ll bet Dodo was happy,” Jack said. “She hates the rain.”

  “And she loves the living room. I don’t think we’re ever going to get her out of there. Eggbum laid an egg in front of the TV this morning!” Twitch laughed.

  “The hide is ruined,” Ozuru said mournfully, looking down at the water swirling around beneath them.

  “The door’s been torn off and swept up into that tree,” Jack said, surveying the wreckage.

  “How could a door get swept into a tree?” Twitch chuckled. “There wasn’t a tsunami.”

  “Well, how did it get there then?”

  “I took it off and put it there,” Twitch said. “I pulled out the weaker branches from the tepee and back room too. I made channels for the water to flow through. I thought it might help stop the hide from being completely swept away and it seems to have worked. The damage isn’t too bad. We’ll be able to fix it, after the water drains away. There’ll be mud and silt everywhere, but we’ll be able to use it to make the foundations even stronger.”

  Jack looked at his friend with amazement. Twitch never expected things to be easy, and he never grumbled when things were hard work. He just got on with it and found pleasure in doing so. “When did you do all that?”

  “After Ozuru’s dad dropped me home from Passerine Pike, I changed into my wet gear and came here. If you’ve lived in Briddvale all your life, you know it’s going to flood when the rain’s that heavy.” He looked at Jack with a puzzled expression. “When I got here, all our stuff was still down in the cabin. I thought you’d packed it into the plastic boxes?”

  Jack felt his neck going red. His mouth opened but he couldn’t think of what to say. He didn’t want to tell more lies, but how could he tell Twitch the truth without his friend judging him? The horrible silence seemed to go on for ever. Seeing Jack’s discomfort, Twitch said, “Not to worry. I sorted it. I wasn’t sure how high the water was going to rise so I carried all our birdwatching kit to the Kingfisher.”

  “You went to the Kingfisher?” Jack’s heart was jerking about erratically and his voice was high. This was it. He was about to be found out. Twitch knew about the lies. He must be testing him.

  “I missed you and Terry by minutes. I’m glad your ankle’s better by the way.”

  “Terry’s ankle,” Jack corrected him weakly, unable to meet Twitch’s eyes. “It was just bruised.” He felt like the lowest of the low. He was a slug. No one liked slugs.

  “Tippi told me you and Terry got soaked and went home wearing Nan’s clothes.” Twitch laughed.

  Jack nodded miserably as he lied again. “Terry’s ankle got better. We’d been planning to cycle up to Passerine Pike car park and meet you guys, but the storm beat us back.”

  “The Kingfisher’s gone,” Ozuru said. “We thought they might’ve been shipwrecked or washed out to sea.”

  “Not Nan,” Twitch said. “She was worried about her mooring, thought the river was going to burst its banks and, because of the junction where the river meets the canal, she said there was a risk of capsizing if the water level rose above the embankment in the night.”

  “What did she do?” Jack asked, relieved they were talking about something else.

  “They drove the Kingfisher up the canal to the Rosefinch Marina, for a safer mooring.”

  “Good job she did,” Jack said. “The towpath is completely submerged.”

  “The whole of the high street is underwater,” Twitch nodded. “I saw Mr Bettany outside the newsagent’s this morning. All his stock is ruined.”

  The three of them stared out over the lake.

  “What do we do now?” Jack said.

  “Wait for the water to subside,” Twitch replied.

  “What about the lammergeier?” Ozuru asked.

  For a second Jack didn’t know what Ozuru was talking about. Then he remembered that lammergeier was the fancy name for the bearded vulture.

  “It’ll come,” Twitch said, happily. “The weather forecast is clear for the next week. I think the vulture will enter Briddvale skies tomorrow or the next day.”

  And all of Lady Goremore’s gruesome plans for Twitch’s prized lifer came back to Jack in an instant.

  “Twitch…” Jack couldn’t think of a good way to explain everything that had been going on. He knew Lady Goremore’s collection of dead birds would really upset his friend, but Twitch needed to know about the threat to the vulture. He felt nauseous. Whatever he said, Twitch was going to be cross. “I need to talk to you about something.”

  “Is it about trick-or-treating on Friday?” Twitch asked. “Because I liked your idea of dressing up as a zombie birdwatcher. Shall I come over to yours in the afternoon? You’ve got all the zombie make-up. Hey, maybe we should all dress up as zombie birdwatchers, and be the zombie Twitchers.” He grinned. “That’d be cool!”

  Jack’s brain stalled. He’d been so caught up in the investigation that he’d totally forgotten about going trick-or-treating. Friday was Halloween and the day of the party at Mord Hall. He couldn’t do both! He cursed himself inwardly. Here was yet another thing he’d messed up. “Um, yeah, about that…”

 

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