Two rival keepers, one bet, and a lighthouse lens that vanished overnight from the top of a locked tower.
On Skerrow Rock the light has not failed in ninety years, and the head keeper and the relief keeper have spent the last three of them betting on everything from the weather to the number of gulls on the gallery rail. Last night they made their biggest wager yet. This morning the great brass lens is gone from the lamp room, the tower door was bolted from the inside, and the supply boat is due at noon with an inspector who will notice. Nobody can leave the island until the tide turns, which gives four people one day to find a lens the size of a wardrobe on a rock the size of a car park.
4 roles. You take one; your friends take the rest, and the narrator plays any left over. Anyone can bring a character of their own into a role instead.
A head keeper of thirty years who has never lost a bet she cared about and is about to lose the one she cares about most.
A cheerful relief keeper who arrived three years ago with a trunk of board games and has been trying to win something from the head keeper ever since.
The captain of the only boat that comes to the rock, who carries mail, groceries, gossip and, this week, an inspector.
A visiting ornithologist who came to count puffins and has counted a great many other things instead.