It made the national news.
For a year after, the residents of the picturesque seaside town talked of little else. Friends of Robert's family kept copies of the newspapers his disappearance had provided headlines for. The headlines ranged from shrieking alliterative tabloid sensationalism at its worst, to a slightly calmer, more informative recounting of events. Some included an appeal for information. However, in all reports, the details were the same, for despite their different political biases, newspapers always treated an inexplicably missing child in the same way.
Such a thing is an outrage and all newspapers sell outrage.
Robert Taylor, an intelligent and reasonably popular twelve year old, had left his house one sunny Easter holiday morning and met up with four friends at a pre-arranged meeting place. From there they had gone to the beach of Carbis Bay to play amongst the rocks and the rock pools and in and out of the small caves dotted along the cliffs. After a while the five children had decided to play hide and seek. Robert had asked to hide first - in fact, according to the other children, he'd been very insistent about this one particular detail. His fervent insistence had unnerved them and their acquiescence had been nervous and hurried. Robert had promptly run off into the afternoon air to hide as his friends counted to two hundred. Then they searched for him.
They have not found him yet.
After an hour of searching, the four children gave up and walked to the local police station, where they tearfully told the duty policeman, Sergeant Stuart Goddard, what had happened.
That night, a line of police officers and civilian volunteers walked the length and width of the halogen lamp-lit beach of Carbis Bay, shining torches and pushing poles into every crevasse, hollow, enclave, pool, cave and such like. By the first pale light of morning they searched for a final time, finally calling a halt to a fruitless search. The evidence was incontrovertible; Robert Taylor (alive or dead) was not on the beach.
The four children were tactfully questioned again, but they all swore vehemently that they had played only on the beach of Carbis Bay - they had not gone and played in any of the other bays. Were they sure? Of course they were. Had they - just by accident - wandered along to Porthmoor Bay? No, they hadn't. Or perhaps to Rock Point? No. Definitely not. Nor anywhere else. They'd played in Carbis Bay all day, only leaving to go to the police station and report Robert's disappearance to Sergeant Goddard.
Robert's parents had made a televised plea for help, offering a very large sum of money to anyone who provided information that led to Robert being found.
Time passed. Days, weeks and months went by and Robert was not found. The general consensus was that he'd either hidden in or by the sea and had been washed away by the waves, the tide and the currents, or that he'd been abducted by a child molester/killer.
Whatever happened to Robert Taylor will never be known.
Me, Sarah, Jasmine and Alex had hung around the bowling green for what seemed like ages before Robert showed up. Old Vic the park keeper had told us to "stop hanging about" the entrance to the green, so we'd called him a few choice names as he sedately rolled and sprinkled, then moved away a bit - not too much though, just enough to annoy him with our continued peripheral presence.
When Robert got there, he was sweating a lot, the way fat kids do. We were all sweating a bit, it was very hot - but him the most, as usual.
“Where are we going?” Sarah asked.
Alex and I exchanged surreptitious conspiratorial glances. We had discussed our "goals" the previous evening. We wanted to take Jasmine and Sarah to Rock Point, a small bay half a kilometre west along the coast. It was a secluded and sandy suntrap, and it was screened from the other bays by a lot of tall rocky outcroppings. Once there, Alex and I would have complete privacy - and if we could find a way to make Robert go away, we'd be able to get Jasmine and Sarah to do what we wanted. So we'd sat and devised a plan. We'd worked it out.
“Rock Point,” Alex said on cue.
“Too far!” Jasmine protested instantly.
Before anyone else could voice a further negative reaction, I chipped in with my rehearsed lines.
“Chris Watling said last night he saw a jellyfish stranded on the rocks there - a huge purple one with millions of legs.”
“That'll probably be an Aurelia aurita,” Robert said. “It's a medusa that drifts just about anywhere between the Arctic and the Equator. It's made of non-living jelly with stinging cells in its mouth only, so it can narcotise struggling food. Post-breeding adults usually get stranded en masse, so there might be more of them. Cool, let's go.”
