A slightly longer one this time – I wanted to get to a certain point (cliffhanger) before closing this chapter off. Hope you like :-D

Chapter 10

Calla of the Jungle

Have you sustained an injury due to improper signage on a strange structure near a beach in Indonesia? If so just call Gruntshaft, Cortboggler & Winckle; Attorneys at Law and we will do our best to obtain for you, a large cash settlement (and a hefty commission for ourselves – he he he).

Oh for heaven's sake Ms. Tinwhistle, don't type the last part... and don't type this part either. NO I AM NOT STILL DICTATING, SO WILL YOU PLEASE STOP TYPING?

That's right Ms. Tinwhistle; you are fired!

Emerson and Calla both stared at each other upon learning of their father's discovery.

"Water? I don't get it" Calla scrunched up her face "Why is such a huge tanker like this filled with water?"

Her father decided to take a risk and scooped some out with his hand; he sniffed it and gave it a taste before spitting it out.

"Its fresh not seawater, so maybe it was part of some kind of relief effort" he suggested "There are bound to be people desperate for clean drinking water all over the world but..."

"What is it Dad?" Calla urged her father to continue.

"Those legs on the side of the ship; they're not strong enough to lift this ship out of the sea with tanks full of water. It must have been sitting in the sea at its current height when it was beached, and then had the legs extended to stabilise it afterwards."

"So the water was loaded after it arrived here?" Emerson asked.

"That doesn't make sense either" Maynard shook his head "Calla; give me a hand line and a sinker."

The young girl took off her travel pack and pulled out her fishing gear. She quickly tied a half inch diamond shaped lead weight to the end of a light nylon line before passing it over to her father. The weight dropped into the tank with a plop as Maynard unwound the line from the spool, feeding it through the open access hole. It should have taken him a few minutes to unwind enough line to reach the bottom of the tank, but within a several seconds, they heard a light tap and line went slack.

"It's only a few meters deep" Maynard exclaimed.

Every new discovery on this ship brought them no closer to finding out what it was and why it was here; in fact the mystery only deepened.

"Maybe it's one of those baffle plates you told us about" Calla suggested.

"I don't think so; wait a minute... hold my feet" Maynard decided to find out for sure as he wriggled further out over the hole and put his head inside.

There was only about a foot between the top of the tank and the surface of the water so he had to be careful not to get his dynamo torch wet as he shone it around the inside of the tank. After he had scanned it on all sides, Maynard extracted himself from the hole; the top of his head was wet and water was running down the back of his neck.

"Do you want me to get the shampoo?" Calla giggled.

"It's a fake" Maynard exclaimed to his children "Not only is the tank shallow, but its sides are only a few meters away all around."

"So that means..." Emerson began "What does that mean?"

"It means that whoever built this ship, wanted anyone who boarded it to think it was only carrying fresh water; chances are every access hatch has one of these fake tanks under it."

"Then it really is empty" Calla noted.

"Who knows" Maynard shrugged "But if it ever was fully load, it was defiantly carrying something a lot lighter than water, or any liquid for that matter."

The mildly confused crew of the Star Runner climbed down off the tank and back onto the walkway, following it to the port side of the ship. From there it ran forward and aft along the length of the ship which gave Calla an idea.

"We were headed for the bow" she noted "so why not take the inside route?"

"No; we have to get out of here now" Maynard said with urgency "The sun is up now and it's going to be a clear day, so the underside of the deck is going to be like an oven before ten-o-clock."

"There are bound to be more stairwells going back up" Emerson offered.

"True but I don't want to take the risk" his father declared as he began to lead them back to the centre steps.

The sun had indeed made its way over the eastern horizon by the time they climbed back onto the deck, and the sky was quite clear. Only a few cirrus and cirrostratus were still hanging around after yesterday's storm, so the day would soon be oppressively hot and humid. The remaining breeze was still quite strong and offered some hope of relief, but before they continued their journey forward, all three rolled down their sleeves and removed the detachable pant legs from their packs. Once their limbs were all protected from the harsh rising sun, they put on wide brimmed canvas hats and resumed their exploration. There were indeed more stairwells roughly a hundred meters apart, but the group did not stop at any until they reached the bow.

"Nothing!" Emerson huffed with disappointment when they climbed down the bow steps.

"It's weirder than you think" his father informed them "This bow section in front of the first tank should be an open area down to the keel, but instead the floor is only about ten feet under the deck. You two check the starboard side for any way down while I look in the other direction; don't go too far and be back here in ten minutes."

"Okay Dad" Calla called out as she took the opportunity to lead the way for a while.

She and Emerson found another passage that appeared to run all the way down the starboard side, just like the one that they had discovered back amid ship. It was still very early in the day and they had only gone a short distance, but the metal around them was already starting to warm up.

"I wouldn't want to be here in the afternoon" Emerson declared "You'd get mildly roasted in this confined space."

"Stop your whining and look over there" Calla pointed ahead with her torchlight.

What she had noticed was another sealed hatch in the floor but unlike the circular one on the water tank, this one was rectangular, with rounded ends and was about eight feet long.

"I think we've found the way down" she smiled satisfactorily.

"Not that it's gonna do us much good" her older brother sighed "Take a look at this."

Calla looked closer at where Emerson had knelt down and concentrated his light.

"What the..." she exclaimed "Why is it welded shut?"

"You know what Dad would say" Emerson smirked.

"To stop anyone from going down there!" Calla tried to impersonate her father's deep voice.

If only they knew, their father had the Grey Heron of Stating the Obvious as his constant companion.

"Precisely; I suppose we'd better head back before Dad starts to panic" Emerson decided.

A few minutes later, they returned to find their father sitting on the steps waiting and Calla could not wait to tell of their latest discovery

"We found a hatch to the lower levels, but..."

"It was welded shut?" Maynard anticipated.

"Yes, it was" Calla looked confused before she realised "Did you find one too?"

"A short way down the port side" he admitted as he stood and started climbing back up to the deck.

Maynard lead them to the tip of the bow before he removed a small pair of binoculars from his rucksack.

"I can see the signs of past tsunami here" He told his children.

"They can't have been very big or the ship would be further up the beach" Emerson thought as he scanned the local area.

During their travels, the crew of the Star Runner had become quite adept at judging how much time had passed since any certain place had been devastated by either a meteor strike, or more commonly, by a tsunami.

"I'd guess the last big one hit just before Calla was born" Maynard declared "There appears to have been quite some regrowth out there, but I can see what looks like an abandoned base camp a short distance inland; I think there was even an airstrip."

"HEY GUYS, COME AND LOOK AT THIS" the two men heard.

Calla had walked a little way back from the tip of the bow and appeared to have found something near the forward port leg of the huge ship. As the others went to join her, she pointed down to the base of the first of the strange support legs. It had a small pier attached leading to the beach.

"What do you think Dad?" she grinned "A good spot to moor the Star Runner eh?"

"Sounds like you're planning to stay here longer than I'd planned."

"Oh come on Dad; this place is just screaming to be explored."

"Well I don't know about that, but I would prefer to have the yacht closer to us while we check out the abandoned camp" Maynard admitted "If we find anything useful, I wouldn't want to lug it all the way back up here."

"Great" Calla started slowly climbing down the steps on the triangular frame closest to the bow "You guys get the boat, and I'll meet you on the beach."

"WHO DIED AND MADE YOU CAPTAIN?" Emerson called out, but his sister just smiled and waved, so he turned to his father "Are you going to let her get away with that Dad?"

"Oh she just wants to look around" his father smirked "and I didn't see anything down there to make me worry."

Calla climbed down the ladder slowly and methodically but once she reached the floating pier, the young girl ran to the shore as fast as she could manage without tripping on the moving surface. She did not stop until she had reached the shade provided by a clump of palm trees. It felt nice in the shade and she wished they had all arrived in this place one day earlier; it would have been much easier to see out the storm on land rather than at sea.

After a short time on the edge of the beach, the exploration bug firmly bit her, but first she decided it would be much better to wash off some of the sweat and grime she had built up while climbing all over the ship. So after removing her boat shoes, she stripped off her long sleeve shirt and unfastened the detachable legs from her pants. Wearing only a t-shirt and shorts in the burning sun was not a good idea, but Calla would not spend long out of the shade and Dad wasn't there to shout at her; and besides, she did keep her hat on. The water was quite warm but refreshing and when she climbed out of the water, the wind on her damp clothes certainly helped keep her cool for a while.

It would not be long before the others joined her, so Calla decided to have a quick look around before they arrived on shore. She always liked to be the first to discover anything interesting and Emerson firmly believed his sister's favourite saying was 'Guess what I found?' Whenever she recited that sentence, Calla always managed to make the 'I' sound as if it had at least three syllables in it. Once she had dressed herself again and was protected against the harsh sun, she shouldered her small pack and set off inland for the base camp her father had seen.

It was not far away, about a hundred and fifty meters or so back from the beach, but there turned out to be not much for her to find. Although the camp looked like it had been built after the last devastating wave had hit the area, it also appeared to have been abandoned immediately after it had been completed. There were no signs of anything ever being pushed around by a large volume of water, but everything Calla found did show the ravages of time. Nature had reclaimed most of the flimsy structures as well as the few vehicles left behind, and any pilot would have to be crazy to try and land a plane on the rough, cracked runway.

A wave of disappointment washed over Calla. Her father and brother would come sauntering up the beach soon and she had not found anything to show them. Her pride started to get the better of her. As she continued to wander further away from the beach, Calla pondered the explosions they had heard early that morning. The mountain was not visible from the shore and she imagined it would take the family much more than one day of walking to reach it, so she doubted her father would want take the time to go and investigate.

Calla decided she would just have to convince him of the vital importance of discovering the truth before her mother or anyone else in the fleet took the risk of sailing north to this strange and deserted place, even if they were just passing through.

After another quick look around, Calla decided the time had come for her to head back to the beach and meet up with the rest of the Star Runner's crew. At least it would have been time to go if not for the structure to her left which caught her attention. It was not the way it looked, for it was only a squat, round metal structure about four feet tall and six feet across. What caught her attention was the fact that it made a noise; it was a low grinding, rattly, echo-ish kind of noise and it called to her.

'Come and discover my secret' it whispered 'Impress your father and annoy your brother.'

There was no way Calla was going to turn down an offer like that, so she hurried over to the tube like structure and listened closely. At first it did not want give up any of its secrets so she decided to force the issue. At the centre on top of the strange tube, was a large louvered vent and it just reeked of information and opportunity. She climbed up on top and moved to the centre. Kneeling down, she turned her head to the side and listened carefully. The grindy, rattly noise seemed to wind down and stop about ten seconds later, but she could still hear sounds drifting up from the depths. She heard some light banging, like someone opening things and moving other things around, but then she heard what sounded like someone talking.

Calla's heart began to pick up speed; it wasn't racing, but it was pulling away from the traffic lights in an unsafe manner. There was a voice; there was another living human here. The first one they had encountered since they had left northern Australia and there was also... a meow? She decided the second sound did not matter; she had found proof of someone else being on the island and it was all she needed; her father would be officially impressed and Emerson would be royally peeved.

As she considered the ramifications of her discovery, a large bird with a huge bill landed on the edge of the structure, but Calla ignored it as she came to a firm decision about what her next course of action would be. She would scream loudly as the vent gave way under her and she fell into the darkness.

As she disappeared into the blackness, the Pelican of Everything going Down the Toilet yawned before flying off again.

How do you know if you are talking to a HTTYD fan in December?

They are the ones who will wish you a Happy Snoggletog.