When Abigail's Aunt Harriet told her she could bring along a friend with her to stay for Easter, she didn't stipulate until later it had to be a girl. But what was going on in the little village, cut-off from the rest of the world? This is a story set partly at Seacombe Independent Girls' High School, commonly known as SIGHS and involves young people involved in such things as humour, adventure, crossdressing and growing-up.

Part Four: The mystery solved

Author's Note: This story is complete and will be published in four parts at approximately daily intervals.

We both heard Aunt open her bedroom door and quietly step across the landing and down the stairs. We heard the front door open and then quietly shut. A second later, we heard the sound of the Land Rover approaching from some distance away. Presumably, it was Jethro starting out to collect the new students, but it abruptly stopped.

"He's waiting at the top of the lane to pick up Harriet," Stevie said. "Come on," he said. "We're going."

"But we can't catch up the Land Rover," I said. "You can bet that Jethro will start up again soon. He's simply picking Aunt up."

"We're not going up the lane," Stevie said. "We're going to the boatyard. You can bet whatever's happening is going to happen there. And don't forget, it's a Spring tide, tonight."

Whatever that had to do with the price of eggs.

We quickly finished dressing and then raced down the stairs and out of the back door. With the full moon, we could easily find our way to the path along the river and started walking towards the boatyard.

"Schh, a minute." Stevie commanded. We both stood still and heard the Land Rover moving, this time it seemed to stop in the village.

"He's picking someone else up," Stevie said. "Come on. Let's beat them back to the dock."

I raced besides him, stumbling a little as I took an uneven step, and Stevie grabbed my hand to steady me. It seemed sensible to keep hold of it as we continued to run. It felt much nicer to run together.

When we arrived at the boatyard, we could see the entrance gates were wide open. Clearly, Jethro had left them like that whilst he went to pick up the other people from the village. We raced inside and then hesitated. Where to go? There was no cover. We heard the Land Rover approaching along the road and instinctively stepped to the one side to avoid being caught in the glare of the headlights as they shone down the road and straight through the open gates and over the water in the dock.

Too late, we both realised our mistake. We had moved the wrong way. When Jethro drove through the gates, he would turn to the right, so he could drive around the top of the dock and stop alongside his boat. We'd be illuminated like startled rabbits.

"Oh!" I gasped.

"What?" Stevie said. I'd never heard him sound so uncertain.

"Onto the pontoon," I said, "and lie flat. The headlights will shine over the top of us."

We both scuttled down the ladder onto the pontoon and lay flat, as the Land Rover drove through the gates, turned and then – Oh Shikes! – it stopped, its headlights shining right above our bodies. We heard Jethro getting out of the Land Rover! We were about to be outed.

We waited, our breaths held tight, for Jethro's bellow. We heard the screech and rattle as the gates were closed and locked. Then we heard other doors opening on the Land Rover.

"They'll see us when they look around," Stevie whispered. "I don't know how we're going to get out of this."

"Look at the tyre," I whispered. I'd been staring at it floating in the water for the last few seconds. Except that it wasn't – floating, that is.

"What about it?" Stevie said, distracted by other thoughts.

"It's not really a tyre," I said.

"Abigail, I couldn't care less if it was a hula hoop. I'm more concerned…"

I scrabbled to my knees and then tentatively lowered my left foot towards the tyre, lying beside the pontoon. I pushed it through the hole in the middle. It should have got wet but it didn't and I continued pushing down until I reached something on which to rest it.

"Have you gone crazy?" Stevie said. "We're about to be exposed and you're paddling in the water."

"No I'm not," I said, and I put my whole weight onto my left foot, whilst grimly holding onto the edge of the pontoon with my hands. Then, I pushed my right foot down through the hole in the middle of the tyre, feeling for and finding the next step down the ladder which I thought I'd seen whilst lying prone on the pontoon.

"It's a ladder down into a submarine," I added, and started to climb down it, step after step after step. It felt really weird, lowering myself below sea level, but I gained confidence the further down I went. A second after my head went below the tyre, Stevie's foot appeared on the step above my head, and we climbed down together.

It seemed like dropping into the bowels of the earth, but it was probably only a couple of metres before the vertical tube I was in opened out and I was standing towards the end of a horizontal tube, about two metres diameter. It was so dimly lit I could barely see the other end just a few metres away. Two shelf-like planks stretched down either side.

"They could get hundreds of crates of brandy down here," Stevie said, having joined me. "So it is alcohol they're smuggling, after all."

I smiled at him, seeing it all, now. "Did you hear the story about the security guard who suspected a worker was smuggling stolen goods out of the factory in the wheelbarrow he was using to carry his tools?"

"No. But what's that got to do with anything?"

"Every day the guard searched the wheelbarrow but only ever found the man's tools."

Stevie looked even more puzzled. "So what?"

I was grinning from ear to ear, now. "The man was stealing wheelbarrows." Seeing he still didn't understand, I added, "You suspected the girls of smuggling drugs, but it was the girls themselves who are being smuggled. They're not from Croatia but some other, non-EU Eastern European country. They come into Britain inside this submarine."

Stevie's mouth was forming a large O, when we heard Jethro shouting something, above our heads, then a foot clunked on the top of the ladder.

***

As one, we raced to the far end of the tube, where we could see doors on what were presumably large lockers. Stevie opened one of the doors and helped me step inside the locker over the waist-high sill. He followed and we pulled the door too, just as a large sea boot came into view at the top part of the ladder. We sat on the floor and, in the darkness, sensed we were worriedly looking into each other's faces.

I pulled out my mobile phone, which this time I'd remembered to bring, and tried to get a signal.

"They don't work underwater," Stevie said.

What to do? To remain hiding and hope we would not be discovered on what would presumably be a long journey to pick up the new bunch of girls. Or to open the lockers and confess to Jethro that we had seen everything, and were in a position to blow it all to the police. On top of that, there was the issue of our vulnerable sexual position. Presumably Jethro was on his own. Would he rape us and throw our weighted-down bodies into the sea, so they would never be found? As far as Aunt knew, we were still tucked up safely in our beds. If we were missing tomorrow morning, no one would suspect our secret mission down to the dock, and into a hidden submarine.

We stayed hidden.

Within a few minutes, a whirring noise started, which Stevie reckoned was the sound of pumps emptying the ballast tanks, so the sub would be slightly buoyant, rather than resting on the bottom of the dock, as it was currently doing.

"You see," Stevie whispered. "There was a Mystery of the Water in the Dock." I could sense the grin on his face. "It was to hide the submarine."

I had to give it to him he was right about that but I chose not to remind him that curiosity killed the cat.

After a few minutes, we felt the sub lifting off the bottom, and the pumping stopped for a while. Then we felt a little jerk forwards.

"We're being towed by the fishing boat," Stevie said. "Presumably, when we've left the dock, he'll pump water back into the ballast tanks so that we're completely submerged. Then we'll be towed out to sea and across to France."

"But that will take hours and hours," I said. "The Plymouth ferry takes seven hours, and that must go a lot faster than the little fishing boat towing us behind it.

"Besides," I added, "we haven't got our passports."

"And the girls are due to arrive tomorrow morning," Stevie reasoned, "so you're right. We can't be going all the way to France. We must be meeting a boat out at sea. I hope it doesn't take too long," he added. "I want to go to the toilet."

I really, really wish he hadn't said that, because suddenly I wanted to go as well.

The time ticked by: it felt like hours but I suspected it was about a minute.

"What are we going to do?" I asked. "Do you think there's a toilet on board?"

"Shouldn't think so," he said. "This sub hardly gives the impression of being a luxury yacht. I suppose we could wee into the bilges."

"Don't be disgusting," I told him. "You'll just have to tightly close your legs together."

More time ticked by, and I so desperately wanted to go.

"They must have something for the girls," he said, rethinking his previous statement. "One of them is almost bound to want to go, and as you say, they wouldn't want that sloshing around in the bilges of a submarine."

"But we can hardly ask Jethro if we can use the toilet," I said. "He'll probably rape us."

"At least he'll have to let us use the toilet beforehand," Stevie said. "Otherwise he'll be in for an unpleasant surprise."

"So will we, when he gets out his enormous thing."

"Look," he said. "If both of us put up a fight, we could overpower him."

"Are you kidding?" I said. "Did you see his muscles?

"And those sea boots," I added. "He'd only have to kick me with one of those and I'd be out of it. He's probably got a knife, as well. All seamen carry knives so they can slice the main brace."

"It's splicing the main brace," Stevie corrected, "and they don't do that anymore, especially on submarines."

"Well I'd rather not get into a fight with him," I said, "especially as I really need a wee."

"OK," he said. "You make yourself really small in the corner of the locker. I'll get out as silently as I can and try the next door. Perhaps that's a toilet. If I'm discovered, Jethro can have his wicked way with me. After all, he'll only be shoving his thing into a plastic hole between my legs. It won't be the real thing. You just keep perfectly still and you'll be safe."

I suddenly felt so emotional about him that I wanted to cry. I did something else; I felt for his face, pulled him towards me and kissed him. "Don't let him catch you," I said. "Come back."

"I'll make certain of it, now," he said. Then he was standing up and quietly pushing open the locker door, whilst I squeezed tightly into my corner.

With the locker door open, I could see Stevie outlined against the dim light in the rest of the submarine as he stepped out. He quietly pushed the door too and was gone.

I waited ages. Then I waited some more. At least, I didn't hear Jethro shouting. Finally, the locker door pulled open and Stevie was stepping back inside.

I reached for him and gave him another kiss, and then pushed him away as he responded. I had something rather more urgent to attend to.

***

I quietly stepped over the high sill and stood for a second, feet astride, just to get my balance after being confined in the locker. At the far end, a computer screen showed a trace on it, which I guessed was some kind of echo sounder, showing where the bottom was. It was only then I noticed the two figures seated in front of the screen. In that light, it was impossible to make out any detail, but the one figure seemed very burly, much bigger than Jethro was. I shivered. Any hope that two girls would be able to defeat Jethro on his own faded to nothing.

I mentally shrugged. I needed a wee and that currently took precedence over all else.

***

After doing my business, I opened the toilet door and a large figure stood in front of me.

"Uuhh!" I whimpered. Thank heavens I'd already done my business, otherwise I'd surely be wetting my pants.

"Ah, Abigail," Mr Robinson said. "Don't tell me. You couldn't keep away from me and wanted to brighten up a long sea voyage."

"Uh?"

"Abigail?" Said a very familiar voice from the other end of the submarine. "How on earth did you get there?"

I heard, rather than saw, my aunt stand up and start moving towards us when Mr Robinson snapped out an order. "Don't desert your post, Harriet. It would be most unfortunate if we crashed into the bottom and we all drowned."

Reluctantly, Aunt turned back to monitoring her screen, but it didn't stop her talking. "What the hell are you doing here, and where's Stevie?"

"I'm here, Mrs Barker," Stevie called, pushing open the locker.

"So what the hell are you two doing here?"

"I think I can probably answer that," Mr Robinson said. "They had an insatiable curiosity, and when they heard you leaving the house, decided to investigate. Rather than trying to follow the Land Rover, they had the presence of mind to come straight to the boatyard using the riverside path." He turned to me. "Am I right Abigail?"

I nodded. "Yes Mr Robinson."

He smiled and said, "It's Captain Robinson at the moment, Abigail, but I won't make you walk the plank for that misdemeanour."

"But how did you know they'd stowed away?" Aunt asked.

"I'd have known there were extra bodies on board when I pumped out ballast to make the boat float," Captain Robinson said. "But actually I saw them lying on the pontoon when we entered the dockyard."

"Then why didn't you make a fuss?" Aunt said. "I'd have got them out of here pronto."

"To do what?" the captain said. "Travel with Jethro on the boat? Or stay behind to call the police?

"Besides," he added, "we were already running late and we have twenty girls out at sea depending on us. What would have happened to them?"

Aunt gave a big, derogatory sniff.

"So you worked it all out in the end?" Captain Robinson said to me. "I knew you would."

"When you said you'd get into greater trouble by talking about the submarines for platoons of commandoes," I said, "it wasn't the authorities who'd give you trouble; you meant it was from the rest of the village."

He smiled. "I wanted to tell you everything, but everyone else thought Stevie was a security risk because of her choice of newspapers."

"My choice of newspapers?" Stevie said. "What are you talking about?"

"When Mrs Clark reported that you'd asked for The Daily Mail in the shop," Aunt said, "we realised the risk in telling you we were helping Ukrainian girls to enter the country illegally. You wouldn't understand they were ordinary girls who'd gone through hell. You'd just treat them as nasty immigrants."

"But I only wanted it to read Fred Basset," Stevie said. "One of the other b… Well, one of the others in the dorm has it delivered, and I always enjoy the cartoons.

"You didn't think I was stupid enough to believe all that stuff they print, did you?" he continued. "I mean, it's all rubbish."

I'm sure if we'd been able to see her properly, Aunt would have been blushing.

***

"How on earth did you get into this business?" I asked, once we'd all moved up to the front of the submarine and Stevie and I were sitting on the plank benches next to them. "I wouldn't know where to start."

"Gemma taught EFL in Ukraine for several years," Captain Robinson replied. "She came home when the civil war started. Lots of families managed to get out of the country, and wanted to get to Britain. But they were terrified at the risks that posed to young girls, who are often enslaved by the smugglers and turned into prostitutes. Some of them approached Gemma and we came up with this scheme. Sure we make money from it, but we look on it more as a social service to needy people. Harriet, watch your height again. We're almost breaking surface."

"Where did the submarine come from?" I asked him. "Surely it wasn't left over from the war?"

"We made it," he said. "It wasn't as difficult as you might expect. A few years ago, they laid a massive sewer along the valley, and one of the pipes, together with inspection chamber, was left over. We tried to get the water company to remove it, but they never did.

"I'd often thought I could build a submarine with it," he continued, "simply by sealing both ends of the pipe. It was a bit more complex than that, of course, but that was essentially it. Really, it was just the sort of thing we were doing during the war."

"Is it safe?" I asked.

"As houses," he said, adding, "Or at least as safe as sewer pipes."

I didn't feel much reassured.

***

Annoyingly, the rest of the journey was such a whirlwind, I can't remember much of it, save to say that Stevie and I took turns at keeping the submarine level, which Captain Robinson said we made a much a better job of than my aunt.

Jethro was steering the fishing boat. He towed us right out to sea where we met a French fishing boat carrying the girls and Mrs Starkey, who'd flown from Heathrow to Paris to meet them and escort them here.

Anyway, the girls' rucksacks were thrown down first and Stevie and I had to stack them in the lockers. That was when Aunt came into her own. She had to go to the top of the conning tower, as Captain Robinson called it, and coax the girls, who must have been terrified, to climb down into the submarine. Apparently, the French fishermen had a sort of gangplank the girls had to walk along, which all must have been very scary.

Then the girls started climbing down, one by one. Finally, Aunt came down, followed by Mrs Starkey. With us two stowaways, it made it incredibly crowded, and Captain Robinson said it was a wonder we didn't sink to the bottom of the sea, but most of us thought that was not much of a joke.

Jethro then towed us back to Seacombe and upriver to the dock at Combehaven. The girls climbed out and then Stevie and I had to help unload the rucksacks.

Dawn was breaking by the time the girls had all been ferried in the Land Rover to their billets, as Captain Robinson called them, and we finally got home. We went to bed and slept.

***

"You know I said that Anastasia told me you borrowed her rabbit," I said to Stevie as we awoke a few hours later.

"What about it?" He sounded so incredibly guilty that I couldn't help smiling.

"I realised last night what kind of a rabbit it was," I said.

"Oh."

When the silence lengthened, I added, "I guess it's quite different being a girl? Sexually, I mean."

He suddenly grinned. "It can't be that different," he said.

"But being a girl," he added, "is not just about sex; it's about a whole different attitude to everything. I like it, but..."

"You'll be glad when it's over?"

"No. Not glad at all. This is the best holiday I've ever had in my life, but a large part of that is because you're here."

I couldn't help smirking at him, even though I knew I shouldn't. "Me too," I said. "I can't remember having a better holiday."

"Temporarily being a girl is great, as well," he said. "Like nothing I've done before. And it… Well, this may sound crazy but without the sex element, it's more relaxed with you. Nicer. Much nicer. Does that make sense?"

"Perfect," I said. It means we can do this without it going any further." And I grabbed hold of him and kissed him like I'd never done before.

***

"So Abigail and Stephanie," Aunt said to us after an incredibly hectic breakfast with the new girls barely understanding a word we said. "You need to decide your position. Are you going to accept that we were all trying to help these poor girls, who through no fault of their own have been facing appalling conditions, to make a better life and contribute towards the British economy?

"Or," she continued, "are you going to have your poor aunt and the rest of the villagers here thrown into prison, whilst these young girls are deported back to a country in the throes of civil war?"

I looked at Stevie who was looking a little tight lipped, and then back at Aunt. "Well, Aunt," I said. "You may have presented the facts in a rather biased fashion, but I'm in. If Stevie wants to come clean, then I'll have to go to prison as well."

We both looked at Stevie.

"It's all right for you, Abigail," he said. "But Harriet, I can't understand," he paused, staring Aunt in the eye, "how you could possibly have believed I was a Daily Mail reader. Just what type of person do you think I am?" Then he grinned and I found I was grinning also, from ear to ear.