"Run Jade! Run now! To the ship!" he shouted. She still seemed unsure, and Johnny grabbed her by the arm and propelled her up the beach towards the ship.
Having overcome obstacles no normal thirteen year olds should have to face, Johnny and Jade fin...
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Scott and Cheryl disembarked the ferry and stood to one side, watching the horde of tourists gawping around them as they snapped pictures and soaked up the atmosphere of the most infamous prison in the world.
The Dutch settlers had named it Robben Island after the Cape Fur seals so prolific in the area. Used as a leper colony for many years, the remaining few had been removed to make way for the new prison complex. It was a microcosm; a world within a world, with a tiny town, a church, and a shop or two. The prison warders and their families lived on the island, and it was commonplace for them to visit the mainland only once or twice in a year.
The apartheid regime had used it to great effect as a convenient place to house the many political prisoners they had to deal with, and therein lay its infamy. The legendary Nelson Mandela, leader of the outlawed African National Congress, had languished here for over two decades, while the threats and pleas from the rest of the world fell on deaf ears.
It was escape-proof, outperforming the equally infamous Alcatraz in that regard, as, besides deadly currents, one of the greatest concentrations of Great White sharks on the planet patrolled a bitter cold sea that could kill within minutes.
Scott and Cheryl had visited the island once before, and had done the tour, listening to the long-winded narrative from African guides who seemed far too young to have been imprisoned here themselves, but still managed to convey a powerful sense of self-righteous indignation over the treatment they had received at the hands of their brutal overlords.
The second part of the tour had been refreshingly unexpected; a bus ride around the island with a tour guide with a sparkling wit, who pointed out the tiny herd of springbok that the previous wardens had imported to the island. He explained the history of the island itself, and told an hilarious tale of a bus that had fallen into the sea while being airlifted from the mainland.
They weren't here for a history lesson, however. This was their rendezvous with Johnny, and to succeed, the first thing they would have to do was escape their minders, which wasn't as simple as it sounded. Despite it being one of Cape Town's principal attractions, the tour was surprisingly badly planned, with no refreshment breaks, nowhere to sit, and nothing to eat. The prison tour lasted anything up to two hours, and the only respite was when you climbed on the bus and could finally rest your feet.
The ferry departed once its passengers had disembarked, so even should a person have a change of heart, there was no going back to the mainland for at least four hours. It was, in fact, strangely poetic and Cheryl wondered if they hadn't planned it that way to give the visitor a taste of the desolation that one would feel if imprisoned here. The unwitting tourist was under the watchful eye of the guides the entire time, and should an item of interest catch your attention while a guide was in full flow, he or she would politely reminded you that this was a serious business, and could you please return to the group. Escape here was virtually impossible.
Scott took Cheryl by the elbow as the group made its way towards the main gate of the prison complex. Several guides stood a little way ahead, and swiftly split the visitors into two groups, one for the prison tour, and one for the bus tour. Both groups would exchange roles in two hours' time and do the other half of the tour. Scott pulled Cheryl into the shadowy alcove of an old warehouse on the pier, and they waited nervously as the two groups slowly went their separate ways.
