Eva Ibbotson: Monster Mission

It was a dreadful moment, but of course help was at hand. Minette only had to think of saying goodbye to the man who had saved her life and she was off.

She took Myrtle’s place — and as the seventh tear fell on to Herbert’s head there was a flash of blinding jagged light.

And when they looked again they knew they had done right. On the ledge of rock was a pair of crumpled boxer shorts — but streaking out of the cave into the open sea was a silver hunk of streamlined muscle which thrust through the waves like an arrow.

The next morning was the children’s last on the Island and they got up early and walked along the strand as they had done on the first day when they woke up to find they had been kidnapped.

‘You will come back, won’t you?’ Minette asked. ‘You won’t stay and become Prime Minister of Brazil?’

She wanted to make him swear; to have a kind of ceremony — but then she saw his face as he looked out over the Island and saw that he loved it as she did, and she knew for certain that they would both be back. And the ache of parting became a different sort of ache — an ache of happiness — and then they turned and went back towards the house where the aunts were waiting.