Body on the Rocks

Main character
Becky:
Becky is a curious young girl who is on vacation with her friends. She finds a dead body on the rocks.
Other important people
Amber and Natalie:
They are the best friends of Becky. With the three of them, they are on a holiday on Rottnest.
Richard:
Richard is a boy they met on their holiday. And he likes Becky. He turned out to be the grandson of the
Murder.
Dominique:
Dominique is a friend of Richard.
In the cottage across the girls, are three older women, also on holiday. Their names are: Shirl, Sally
and Ruth. They come to Rottnest for years.
Murderer:
The Murder is the grandfather of Richard, and his real name is Charles Scanlon, and he was
discovered by Becky.

Summary

This story starts with chapter 1. In this chapter there is a man with tattoos and long hair who comes to
a house. The gardener sees him. The man looks for someone in the house, but that person is not at
home. He leaves and shouts: “I’ll find her”. (At the end of the book, you know that this man is the man
that killed on the rocks).
In the second chapter the real story begins, in a car park near the dock. In the car park the three friends
(Becky, Amber and Natalie) meet each other because they go on vacation to Rottnest Island. It is their
first vacation without their parents, and they are very excited. The take the ferry (boat) to Rottnest.
Rottnest Island is a beautiful island near Australia. In 1696 a Dutch explorer Willem de Vlamingh
(ontdekkingsreiziger) landed on the island. He thought the little quokkas (small wallabies) were rats.
He named the island ‘Rats Nest Island’, or in Dutch: Rottenest.
On the boat to the Island there comes a lady to Becky who gives her a piece of paper with things she
can do on Rottnest Island. And when they arrive with the ferry on Rottnest Island, they hire their
bicycles, and they went to their cottage.
The next morning they go and decided what they are going to do. They met two young boys;
Dominique and Richard, who stay in the cottage next to them.
And after the girls went to the bakery to get bread, they go on their bikes to West End. A nice place
with a lot of rocks. Amber’s head was blown away by the wind and it flew down the rocks. The girls
went to the edge and looked at the rocks below. Then they saw a dead body on the rocks.
Becky goes down the rocks to get to the man. Amber and Natalie go to the police.
Becky sees blood on the man, and she thinks he was murdered. Later when the police arrive, she went
back to her cottage. Later that day they needed to go to the police to tell what they saw.
The next day Amber invites Richard and Dominique for dinner, but Becky and Natalie didn’t like that
idea. The girls go to the supermarket. In the supermarket Becky heard a woman say that the man on
the rocks was indeed murdered and that the man was dead before he was lying there on the rocks.
In the newspaper Becky read that the dead man’s name is: John Tavis Radcliff (51 years old). He was
just released from prison.
Becky has very bad dreams about the dead man on the rocks. In the book, some parts are written
italics (schuingedrukt). That is what Becky is dreaming about.
The next morning Amber and Natalie went swimming and Becky was going to the place where she
saw the dead body. But when she stands on the rocks, she saw a strange guy behind her looking at her.
The man had a red and white cap.
Becky is very afraid and runs to her bike. The man is gone.
The next day, the three girls are going to the lighthouse. On the list with lighthouse keepers she saw
the name Tavis. Tavis was also the middle name of the dead man. Becky wondered if they are family.
The guide in the lighthouse told the girls that lighthouse keeper Tavis murdered a 16-year-old girl,
called Lizzy Keegan. The lighthouse keeper always said that he did not kill the girl, but no one
believed him. The lighthouse keeper killed himself.
Becky goes to the old girls across her cottage (Shirl, Sally and Ruth), and she gets a lot of information
about what happened in 1961. The old girls tell Becky that in 1961 a boy of the Scanlon family said to
the police that he saw the lighthouse keeper with Lizzy Keegan on the beach the day before she was
murdered. The Scanlon family is a rich family that come to Rottnest for years.
That evening the girls go out for pizza with Richard and Domique. Richard says that he comes to
Rottnest since he was a little boy. He also tells that he and his brother used to burry ‘treasures’ in the
sand on the beach near the lighthouse.
Richard asks Becky to come with him the next day to look for the treasure. Becky and Richard go to
the beach and start digging. They find the treasure and in the old tin (blik) there was a necklace with a
golden heart. Richard tells Becky that he found which in the wardrobe of his grandfather where it was
hide. Richard gives the necklace to Becky and she wears it on her neck.
When Becky comes back, she sees Ruth (one of the old girls). Ruth sees the necklace and starts
screaming. She tells Becky that she is Lizzy’s Keegan sister, and that Lizzy had the same necklace.
Ruth also tells Becky that the necklace was gone when Lizzy’s body was found.
That evening Becky asked Richard where he gets it from. And he said he found it in an old wardrobe
from his grandfather
The next day they are going with Dominique and Richard somewhere with underground shafts.
Dominique says that Richards arrived on Rottnest with his grandfather and his sailing boat. Becky
thinks about the necklace of Lizzy and thinks that Richard or his grandfather killed the man on the
rocks.
Richard wants to kiss Becky, but Becky thinks that Richard wants to kill her. She starts running and
finally she ends up on the beach. There she ran into a man with a white and red cap. It appears to be
Richards grandfather.
Becky starts yelling to the grandfather and accuses him of murdering Lizzy and the man on the rocks.
Richard also comes out of the shafts and the rest of the group. Finally, Richard’s grandfather admits
that he killed Lizzy in 1961 and the man on the rocks.
The man on the rocks was the son of the lighthouse keeper that killed himself after he was accused of
murdering Lizzy. The son knew that his father did not do it. He read his diary and found out that his
father did not kill Lizzy because his father was not on the beach with Lizzy, but he was there with his
son. Lizzy sister (Ruth) was on the beach. The man looked for Ruth so she could tell the police that
she saw his father on the beach. With this the man wanted to prove that his father was not the killer of
Lizzy.
Richard was afraid that the man (the son of the lighthouse keeper) would find out that he killed Lizzy
and therefore he killed him.

******