Chapter 13

      MAX KNOWS ALMOST EVERYTHING

      Back on Earth, Anna couldn’t sleep. Finally, just after midnight, she took the dagger from underneath her pillow, slipped her feet into soft, rubber-soled shoes and sneaked out onto the veranda.

      The tropical air was warm and humid. The lights in the hut above the laboratory were on – her mother was still working.

      Anna knew that if she was to get any information out of Max that night, she’d have to do it without disturbing Sabatina. But she knew of a way! Anna went back into her bedroom, logged on to the laptop on her desk, and sent Max an email: Wake up, Max!

      Max immediately activated the direct-communication programme on Anna’s computer that he used when helping with her science homework – now they could chat directly.

      Max: Hello, Miss Anna. I never sleeps, you know. But why be you awakes? Little humans needs sleeps to grows. Why no growings, Miss Anna?

      Anna: Because I found this in the sea yesterday!

      She pushed the dagger under the nose of the laptop’s little webcam.

      Max: Ah! A dagger, probably datings to the late 18th century, although I needs carbon testing to be sure. The blade be made of a metal alloy, probably a steel and copper mix, and the handle be decorated with precious and semi-precious stones. There be an interesting design on the handle, a symbol of an extinct bird. This be the symbol of the Hodoul family.

      Anna: You’re right! It’s faded, but there’s a picture of a dodo in the crest. I didn’t notice that at first, Max – you are clever!

      Max: Max be no dog you needs pat his head when he does a trick.

      Anna: Don’t be so sensitive, Max! Can you tell me more? Do you know how it got to be in the sand next to my slug garden?

      Max: The coordinates of Anna’s slug garden be here …

      A map of Monpetit and the surrounding ocean popped up on Anna’s screen with a flashing arrow indicating her slug garden.

      Max: Known shipwrecks be here, here and there.

      Pictures of three little ships appeared. They were labelled ‘Felicity, 1768’, ‘Da Gama II, 1482’ and ‘Chivonne, 1802’. The wreck of the Chivonne was the closest to Monpetit. It was located on the sea floor about four kilometres from the bay below Anna’s house.

      Anna: That must be it! The Chivonne is the name of the ship Monsieur Raymond Hodoul mentioned. But we know the water around the island well, and nobody has ever seen the wreck.

      Max: Ah, but looks how the sea floor drops steeply just before the wreck. Sees, I draws you the tectonic lines on the map. The Chivonne was losts due to a freak wave caused by volcanic activity on the seabed. This, as you should knows, be rare arounds here. The Chivonne was very unlucky. She was dumped by a tsunami and sunk straight to the bottom, where she was immediately burieds by a swell of lava.

      Anna: And she disappeared completely! That means we’ll never find her.

      Max: There you be wrong, Miss Anna. Lava has preserves the ship perfectly. It be very easy to finds her with my subterranean sensors. Then it merely be a matter of breakings the lava around her with some ultrasonic vibrations. And then there stands the ship, almost good as new!

      Anna: Can you really do that?

      Max: Easy as pies! Max has all necessary equipment onboard the Submarine Explorer.

      Anna: Max, how long have you known this?

      Max: Max has always knows.

      Anna: Why have you never told us this before?

      Max: You has never asks.

      Anna sat staring at her computer screen for a long time. Out there, barely four kilometres from her bedroom window, and probably perfectly preserved, was the wrecked ship of one of the most famous pirates to have ever sailed these waters, with all its secrets onboard, probably all intact and well preserved by a blanket of molten rock.

      And only she and Max knew about it.

      Chapter 14

      THE MASTERMIND

      But Anna was wrong.

      At that very moment, someone else had arrived at exactly the same conclusions. A shrewd mind now also knew where the wreck of the Chivonne lay, and what had caused it to sink. And it had calculated that, due to the volcanic activity indicated by data history on a precise date, there was a good chance that the ship had been covered in lava shortly after it had sunk – which accounted for the fact that the wreck had never been spotted before.

      He also knew that there was a very good chance that the lava encasing a ship would have preserved all living things aboard, and that it was very likely that specimens suitable for cloning could be recovered from the wreck.

      Long-fingered hands closed the copy of Hodoul’s stolen diary that he was studying, and a greedy smile lit his long face.

      Chapter 15

      ANNA TAKES ACTION

      As the stars started to fade and the sky in the east became a pearly haze, dawn found most of the residents of Monpetit Island in various states of sleep.

      Anna was tossing in her bed, dreaming of lost islands. She was walking through a deep forest with a large dodo. The dodo was wearing a pirate’s triangular hat and he carried a spyglass, through which he peered from time to time. Damp leaves clung to Anna’s shoes and got stuck to the dodo’s clawed feet. They were searching for a lost treasure of gold and jewels. Anna had a map in her hand. A huge black cross marked the spot where the treasure was buried, but as soon as they reached it the cross crawled to another part of the map. She was very hot and sweaty. In her dream she was carrying a large, heavy shovel.

      In real life, Ton was still sitting next to Pip’s bed. He’d watched him through the night, and had now fallen fast asleep in a chair that was much too small for his big body. He was snoring softly, and a drop of saliva was hovering on the brim of his lower lip.

      The little boy, too, was sleeping – but fitfully. His blue rash had intensified during the night, making him look as if he’d had an unfortunate encounter with a fountain pen. Graphs and figures were flashing on a monitor next to his bed. A diagnosis was blinking in the left-hand corner of the screen: “Variated mumpskins”.

      In the underground laboratory, Sabatina had also fallen asleep in her chair, and out of consideration for his human “pet” Max had dimmed the lights.

      Max, however, was as alert as ever. Through the small hours he had kept himself busy with different tasks that would have taken a team of human scientists a month to complete. He’d continued with the routine monitoring of atmospheric conditions across the globe, calculated the wind speeds moving across deserts, ordered stores for Monpetit’s pantry from the local grocer, and also kept track of the rate at which the invading

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