Benny and Babe by Eoin Colfer

Author:Eoin Colfer [Eoin Colfer]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780141939544
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2011-08-22T04:00:00+00:00

Mask and Flippers

Granda was fixing a bearing on the tower lens when they went to see him.

‘Captain? Have you got a minute?’

‘Nope,’ said Paddy Shaw around the screwdriver between his teeth. ‘Work to do.’

He pointed at the console. ‘Push that blue button.’

Benny’s finger hovered over the complicated array of controls. He chose one.

‘No, for God’s sake, no! That’s the self-destruct!’

Benny jerked his hand away.

Babe shook her head in disgust. ‘Sucker.’

‘Oh, come on up, the two of you,’ chuckled Granda.

They scaled the metal steps and into the actual lamp. It was like sitting inside a giant bulb. The outside world warped and blurred through the tooled lenses. The meagre jot of Irish sun seemed almost Mediterranean.

‘Wow,’ said Babe.

‘Wow is right, Scut,’ said Granda, screwing a panel over a lattice of wires. ‘So how was the hop last night? Tell me now, are you two mods or rockers?’ He winked to show he was in touch with the younger generation.

‘Granda. We have a bit of a problem.’

‘Furty Howlin, is it?’

Benny blinked. ‘How did you know?’

‘Jerry Bent told me,’ said Granda, straight-faced.

Babe snorted. ‘But he’s only able to say “butterflies”.’

‘Sucker,’ sniggered Benny.

‘It’s a small village. Someone sees everything. I noticed the little confrontation at the arch the other morning. What’s his problem?’

‘He says we’re poaching his baits.’

‘He’s the poacher,’ Babe interjected. ‘Putting down bait traps all over the place.’

‘Bait traps,’ frowned Paddy Shaw. ‘That’s bad news. Gets the whole village a bad name.’

‘He’s trying to put us out of business.’

‘Well, the way he sees it, you’re putting him out of business.’

‘What?’

Granda sat on the rubber mat beside them. ‘Let me tell you something about Furty Howlin. Since getting out of Julian’s, he’s asked every captain in a twenty-mile radius for a job. Nobody will touch him. With the amount of overfishing that’s going on, it’s hard enough making ends meet without having someone you don’t trust on the deck.’

‘It’s his own fault,’ interrupted Babe.

Granda nodded. ‘Maybe so. But for a sixteen-year-old country lad, not to be earning is a great embarrassment. Most of the other fellows his age are bringing home the bones of two hundred quid a week. So for him, bait hunting is the bottom of the barrel. And now he doesn’t even have that to himself.’

‘So what are we supposed to do? Give up baiting because Furty’s depressed?’

Granda grinned. ‘God, Scut, you’re hard-faced, all right. Did you ever consider a career in psychiatry?’

‘No. I’m putting all my energy into the high jump.’

‘I’m beginning to see why Furty wants to throttle the pair of you.’

Benny was getting a bit frustrated with all these jibes. Couldn’t anybody he knew just have a straight conversation?

‘Granda? Are you going to help us or not?’

Paddy Shaw scratched his stubble thoughtfully. ‘You see, Benny. There is, inside us all, a power. A force. Use the force, Luke … I mean Benny; use the force.’

Babe buried her face in her hands. ‘I thought fishermen were too ruggedly tough to be robbing lines from Yankee movies.’

‘What lines?’ protested Granda.

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