Chapter One

 It was the summer holidays and the children  were doing their maths homework round the kitchen table. Their parents always insisted that homework be done even in the school holidays. Silence reigned. Except for a few sighs. Mr. and Mrs. Fearless had gone off, as they did every year in their motor yacht, to the Mediterranean. They would moor it just outside Beaulieu-sur-Mer and give parties for all their Riviera friends. The children were left in the charge of Miss Schnutzenfuffen, a sort of governess. Miss Schnutzenfuffen was thin and grey and wore big glasses on the end of her nose and was very severe. Every now and then, however, the romance in her soul led her out into the garden to look at the clouds, the flowers and the birds. She was out doing that right now. At the kitchen table, silence reigned.  Then the kids all sighed together.

Emma put down her pencil and said, 'Ugh!'

Blue put down his pencil and said, 'Yikes!'

Lily stopped sucking her pencil and groaned.

Twin banged down his pencil and said, ‘Yu-yu- yu-yu-yuk!’ (Twin pretends he has a stutter, to get more attention).  Their dog, Jackely, lay under the table, his ears sadly drooping.

You may wonder why the boys have such unusual names. The answer is simple: Mr. and Mrs. Fearless were not very good at thinking up names. But they did want all the children to be christened in church. At Blue's christening, the vicar asked Mr. and Mrs. Fearless what the baby was going to be called. Mrs. F. said ‘Wilfred’, while Mr. F. said ‘Kevin’. Actually, they mumbled the names because they were a bit ashamed of their name-picking ability. The vicar was half deaf and somewhat eccentric and entered the name ‘Blue’ in the registry of names.

As for Twin, he was given that name by his father.  When he was born, Mrs. F. wanted to have another go with the name ‘Wilfred’ but Mr. F. got quite angry about that, and finally said that as the baby boy was a twin, then that should be his name. Anyway, back to the kitchen table.

Blue rubbed his forehead and said, ‘Let’s stop doing this horrible math and go off somewhere. What do you say, Emma?’

Emma thought for a moment and then said, ‘Yes, let’s. But we must get some supplies to take with us, in case we’re out for a long time.'

‘What about Miss Schnutzenfuffen?’ asked Lily. ‘And Mr. Million?’

Mr. Million was their big, scary math teacher with bushy eyebrows that waggled at you when he was angry – which was most of the time. Mr. Million had scared more maths into kids than he had taught it.

‘It’s time we had a break,' said Blue. 'Come on, let’s get going!’

So off they went to get supplies: orange squash, digestive biscuits, chocolate bars, cheese, plasters and jelly babies. They crept through the back garden so as not to be seen by Miss Schnutzenfuffen. They could hear her communing with the birds saying ‘tweet, tweet’ to them. They walked quite a bit and then ate a few jelly babies.

‘Let’s go down to the beach,’ said Blue, ‘And see if we can find a boat’.

And they did. It was an old rowing boat with one oar. They all jumped in, including Jackely, and pushed off into the ocean.

Twin said, ‘I’ll ro-ro-ro-row’.

Emma said, ‘If you row with only one oar the boat just goes round and round’,

‘Ru-ru-ru-rubbish,' said Twin. ‘I bet you one of my newts that I can get us out to sea in no time’.

‘Alright,' said Emma. ‘But don’t say I didn’t

warn you’.

Twin heaved on the oar and heaved and heaved and the boat went round in circles. The other children tried to look out to sea.

'Go straight!' shouted Twin at the boat.

‘Told you so,' said Emma. ‘You owe me a newt’.

‘Oh, alright,' said Twin.

He thought for a bit.

‘I’ve got another idea’, he said.

The children looked interested. Usually when Twin had ‘another idea’ disaster quickly followed.

‘I’ll do it like a gondolier,' he said. He stood at the back of the boat, took the oar in both hands, plunged it down, gripping it firmly. The boat swung about, leaving Twin, his legs waggling in the air, hanging on to the oar which gradually toppled over. Twin went into the water with a loud splash and a shriek. The others pulled him out. Lily tried to dry him with her handkerchief. Jackely the dog tried to lick him dry. Emma interrupted this demonstration of affection.

‘Look! Over there! There’s an island!’

They all forgot about wet Twin.

‘If we all paddle hard, we could get there in no time,’ said Blue. ‘An exploration trip!’

Meanwhile, back at the house, Miss Schnutzenfuffen walked into the kitchen saying, ‘How beautifuls today, children, the clouds are,’ and found there was nobody there to share her admiration of the heavens. She ran about the house looking for them and shouting, ‘Childrens! Childrens!’ Eventually she realized the children were gone. She dashed to the phone and stabbed it several times with her finger.

‘Hallo! Hallo!’ she cried.

Then a gruff voice at the other end said, ‘Million speaking’.

‘Oh, thanks heavens it is you, Herr Million.

Here is Schnutzenfuffen,’ she said, relieved.

‘Yes. Well? And my name is Mister Million, not Herr.’

‘Of course, sir. Yes. Yes.’

‘Well? What is the reason for this interruption?’

‘The childrens. The childrens are gone!’

‘So?’

‘But, don’t you seeing? They were in the middle of their homework maths!’

‘What!’

‘Yes! All gones. Mit dog. Sorry. With dog.’

‘Are you telling me, Miss Schnutzenfuffen, that those brats have gone off in the middle of their maths homework? And have not finished it?’

‘Yes. Yes. Precisely!’

‘By Heaven! How dare they?’ He stopped.

Miss Schnutzenfuffen could hear him growling to himself.

‘We shall bring them back and punish them! I am coming over right now and we will pick up their trail!’

‘Yes. Yes. Gut!’ said Miss Schnutzenfuffen, but Mr. Million had already left. Hardly had she put down the phone before he arrived, red in face, his bushy eyebrows waggling furiously and his muscles bulging,

(Mr. Million’s hobby was weight-lifting).

They ran about the garden, looking for the children and puffing a lot, but soon gave up.

‘To the beach!’ cried Mr. Million, and off they raced again. When they arrived, almost completely out of breath, they were rewarded by tracks in the sand, showing where the children had pushed the rowing boat out into the water.

‘Ah ha!’ shouted Mr. Million in triumph,

‘Now we are getting somewhere!’

He looked about. Further down the beach there was a lonely motor-boat bobbing on the tide.

‘We shall take that!' he cried.

‘Ooh’, said Miss Schnutzenfuffen.

Stealing boats was not normal behaviour for governesses.

‘Stop dithering!’ shouted Mr. Million. ‘Jump in!’

Miss Schnutzenfuffen gathered her skirts about her, paddled delicately through a small wave and stepped gingerly into the motor-boat. The engine started with a roar.

‘Oh, Mutti’, groaned Miss Schnutzenfuffen. She wished she was back with her nice, kind mother and father in their little country village, far away from math teachers, disappearing children and stealing motorboats.

The boat snarled off in a long curve, leaving a wide and impressive wake.

‘Look there!’ shouted Mr. Million. ‘An island! That’s where we’ll catch ‘em. Then I’ll give ‘em what for!’

Miss Scnutzenfuffen did not know what ‘what for’ was, but she was certain it was not going to be very nice.

In the rowing boat, the kids – two on each side - paddled furiously with their hands and chewed jelly babies. Slowly they closed on the island. Jackely barked excitedly. It began to rain but nobody cared. An exploration trip was what all of them liked doing best. The boat reached the beach and they all jumped out and ran for the trees as the rain was now coming down very hard.

‘Super!’ cried Blue. ‘We made it!’

They shook the rain off and peered about.

‘We’d better split up,' said Emma. ‘The twins can go and explore – but not too far away - while we get a fire going at the edge of the trees. Jackely, you go with the twins.'

The twins and the obedient dog raced off down the beach (funny how dogs are always obedient when they want to do what you want them to do). There was not much to be seen except sand and rain. They ran a bit more until they reached the edge of some trees. It was then that they saw two foot-prints.

‘Gosh!’ said Twin. ‘Foot-prints!’

‘They’re not ours are they?' asked Lily.

‘Course not!’ said Twin. ‘They’re too big. Let’s follow them. Come on!’

The twins slowly followed the foot prints through the trees and out into an open space.

‘Wow! Look at that,’ said Twin. ‘A sort of village.'

A few dark huts could be seen, grouped around a small grass square.

‘Wonder who lives there?’ said Lily.

‘We do,' said an unpleasant voice behind them.

The twins froze and turned round slowly.

‘Oooh,' said Lily.

‘Eek!’ said Twin.

Standing there were three big, tall, nasty looking men, dressed entirely in black, with black hats, and huge black umbrellas held over their heads.