Kettlan's Box

By Mark McDonough

Kettlan’s Box, once owned by the pirate Jimmy Kettlan. It’s guarded its secrets well. For nearly a year since being discovered by Tony, Dana, Tom, BJ and K, it’s stayed firmly sealed. When at last the box gives up its secrets, including an old map of Buccaneer’s Bay, the five friends are thrust into their next adventure. Can they compete in a race for buried treasure against a modern-day pirate?

Kettlan’s Box chronicles the continuing adventures of the crew of the Phoenix.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mark McDonough
• Release date: Dec 18, 2013
• ISBN: 9781311756084

Mark McDonough

Mark McDonough has lived his whole life in Queensland, Australia. After growing up in Ipswich, he lived for a short time in Brisbane while attending University. Work then took him to Far North Queensland for a number of years before he moved to his current home of Toowoomba. For as long as Mark can remember, there have been characters clamouring to have their stories told – everything from the depths of time when dinosaurs ruled the Earth through to the vast reaches of space where only the bravest spaceships dare to fly and everywhere in between. Most were written in secret until, one day, those characters demanded that their tales be spread far and wide. Thus, was born Stargon Books. When he's not sitting with laptop or notebook in hand, he can be found at work, with his family or out on the football field where he not only plays but also referees and Coordinates an entire competition. Ultimately, Mark dreams of the day when he can write full time but until then, as he says, "I'm a wordsmith, it's who I am; if I didn't write, I wouldn't be me".

Book preview

Kettlan’s Box

Book 2 – THE PHOENIX CHRONICLES

By Mark McDonough

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2013 Mark McDonough

Current Edition 2019

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it to http://www.smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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Kettlan’s Box

Book 2 – THE PHOENIX CHRONICLES

Chapter One – The Catch

Ready about, Kevin Larson called.

Instinctively, Tony Davis ducked from where he was sitting on the starboard side of their boat, not that there was any need. The boom passed harmlessly overhead. The small, twenty-four-foot yacht shivered as her head swung around before the water once again creamed under her forefoot.

Tony smiled absently, his blue eyes flashing in delight.

It’d been less than a year since they’d first discovered their pride and joy. And, of the five of them, he’d been the only one who had actually had any sailing experience. Since then, Tony had taught Kevin and Tom, Tom’s twin sister Belinda-Jane and her best friend Dana, everything that he’d once learnt from his Grandpa Sam.

Tipping his old battered blue ship’s cap back, Tony looked up at the sail. It was barely full, but there was wind enough to keep her on course.

Belinda’s head appeared in the companion-way to the cabin below. These days, her long light-brown hair was almost always braided back to sway behind her.

How much longer? she asked.

Leave off, BJ, Tom replied, K’s only just started his turn.

In the past year, the twins had become even more alike than Tony had even thought was possible. Their looks, of course, had always been there. Both were tall and slim with brown eyes and hair. For the first twelve years of their life, though, their worlds had been completely opposite.

Tom was forever on the move and if there was a sport being played, he was there. The best word to describe Belinda had been ‘perfectionist’. She abhorred getting even the barest hint of dirt on her always immaculate clothes and the place that you’d most likely find her was in the library.

Of course, that wasn’t always strictly true. BJ and Tom were twins, after all, and often spent time ‘visiting’ each other’s worlds.

A year of working on their boat had brought them closer together. Tom had immersed himself more in books, especially books about boats and sailing. And Belinda had learnt to get dirty, in the cleanest, most fashionable way possible.

But then, digging an entire boat out of the mud where it had been buried and then completely restoring her would do that.

So, what, another five minutes then? BJ asked, looking straight at K.

The short, black-haired boy barely glanced at her. Fifteen. At least.

BJ grinned at him. They all knew that Kevin had become addicted to their boat. He’d worked longer and harder than anyone else. Tony guessed that it had a lot to do with life at home.

K was the youngest of a family full of boys. They lived with their dad and did it tough. They never had the best of anything and rarely anything new.

Alright, K, fifteen minutes, but not one second more, Belinda allowed before ducking back below.

Tony grinned down at the box in his hands. If it’d been Tom at the helm, there would have been no way that BJ would have backed down. They all wanted their time with their hands on the tiller. And it wasn’t like they’d had much chance of late.

It’d taken them a couple of months to excavate the Phoenix. Then, they’d had that one brief triumphant sail before their parents had pulled her out of the water, parked her in Tony’s backyard and declared that she wouldn’t move again until she’d been completely refitted and declared seaworthy.

Finally, five weeks ago, she’d been relaunched, but with school in the way, they’d only had weekends to do any actual sailing.

Turning the box around and around in his hands, Tony felt the intricate carvings for what must be the thousandth time. Dana had found it hidden away in a secret compartment in a wall below deck. Every panel on the box had a different scene of a sailing schooner.

When they’d first found it, it’d been completely encased in mud. An old toothbrush and some water had been needed to clean it. Even now, they often found specks of mud that they’d missed.

The strangest thing about the old box was the fact that they had yet to work out how to open it. The most frustrating thing was that they knew that there was something inside it. The rattling sound that they heard every time they shook it proved that. At one point or another, every single one of them had wanted to smash it open, but no one could actually bring themselves to do it.

They settled with simply playing with the thing whenever they got a chance, provided that no-one else was around. From the instant that the box had been found nearly a year ago, it’d been kept totally secret.

A soft thump on the seat beside him alerted Tony to the girls joining them in the steering well. Belinda took a seat beside her brother; Dana beside him. Tony gave her a smile in greeting.

Over the past year, he and Dana had become almost inseparable. She had come to love boats almost as much as he did. That, combined with her energetic, tomboyish ways, meant that they had much in common.

Tony had even started thinking about joining Dana’s karate classes.

You still playing with that thing? Dana asked, pushing her big straw hat more firmly onto her head.

Yeah, he replied, looking up to meet her hazel eyes.

Any luck? she asked.

Nah, not yet? he gave the