Action Files: would you dare to read?

Action Files: would you dare to read?

Published by Miles Kelly at Smashwords

Copyright 2010 Miles Kelly

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold 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.

Table of Contents

Island of Fire

Secrets of the Jackal

Flight of Fear

Sword of Betrayal

Shark Attack

When Dad told them where they were going on holiday, Marty whooped round the room and beat a drum roll out on the kitchen table. Mum raised her eyebrows and pinned on her ‘I’m not going to say anything’ smile. Will thought it sounded quite cool but life had taught him that seeing was believing where Dad was concerned.

They didn’t see Dad very often, maybe once every three months. Mum and Dad split up three years ago, when Will was eight. Mum never said much about it. Will thought it was probably one scheme too many that did it – maybe the hotel Dad bought in Asia without telling Mum. He remembered his Dad saying, But it’s going to be the holiday destination for the 21st century! The next day it was razed to the ground by an earthquake. Luckily no one was hurt because the local area was completely uninhabited. Due to the risk of earthquakes.

Dad had paused, making sure he had all their attention. We’re going to Tonga.

Tonga! They’d never been out of the country with Dad before – every year they went to the same camping resort 300 miles away. And now they were going to one of the remotest parts of the world? That was so like Dad. One extreme to the other. Now only the middle of the Pacific Ocean was good enough for them.

Mum couldn’t bite her lip any longer. Why Tonga, Greg?

Dad did his scariest voice, and boomed out, We’re going to the Rrring of Fire!!!!!!!!!!!

Wicked! Marty could hardly contain himself.

Yes, number one son, replied Dad. I’ve waited a long time for this. Business is going well and you never know what’s around the corner.

Er, Dad, said Will, What’s the Ring of Fire? He was imagining all sorts of possibilities – perhaps they were going to the world’s biggest circus?

The Ring of Fire, number two son, said Dad, is the most dynamic place on Earth, where the Earth’s crust slips about like your mother on a pair of roller skates. Mum managed a weak laugh.

Dad continued, It’s a whole dinner service of shifting tectonic plates. Eighty percent of the world’s biggest earthquakes occur there.

He brandished a map and started pointing out the Ring of Fire and enthusing about something called the Moment-Magnitude Scale. Will thought wistfully of the normal holidays his friends went on, where risks were not star attractions.

But the most thrilling thing of all, my children, Dad’s eyes were aglow as he put his arms round Will and Marty, is the volcanoes.

I can’t take any more! Marty was bursting with excitement. Will felt like his stomach was sinking into his shoes.

Volcanoes were a passion of Dad’s. Will thought Dad was a lot like a volcano himself. He would be dormant for a while, then erupt back into their lives, almost without warning.

I’ve also got a big surprise lined up. But I’ll tell you about it when we get there.

Marty, two years older than Will, was also a fan of volcanoes and, well, anything noisy and explosive. He was always on the Internet watching shaky videos of eruptions. Will could never understand why the people who took the shaky videos didn’t just drop their cameras and run.

A month later it was the start of the Easter holidays and they were on their way. It took two days to fly to Tonga. The last leg of their flight was on a tiny plane to their final destination – a remote island of the Ha’apai Group. They flew over postcard-perfect blue seas dotted with tiny islands before landing on what felt like the shortest runway on the planet.

A local man met them and offered to carry their luggage. As they walked, Will saw white sandy beaches and long wooden fishing boats in the lagoon. There were fruit trees, coconut trees and pigs wandering across the path as free as the cats back home. Marty filmed everything with the camcorder Dad had bought him for his last birthday.

In half an hour they arrived at a cluster of whitewashed bungalows in a small holiday resort overlooking the ocean. Once they’d got all their stuff indoors they all slumped on their beds, exhausted. A second later there was a knock at the door and in stepped a big, bearded blond giant. Dad jumped up