Peering over Cecily’s shoulder, Arthur took note of the curly, looped handwriting. “So the realm-challenge involves code-breaking and … gardening?” he questioned. He wondered why there wasn’t any DIRT in the loot, and why the realm-challenge didn’t sound as life-threatening as the others they’d faced. He couldn’t help feeling mistrustful; nothing in the Wonderscape was that straightforward.
As they trudged onto the road, the safari bus came into closer view. It had a tatty canvas roof, windowless sides and six oversized wheels that lifted its chassis high off the ground. Thirty or so wanderers were bunched near the door at the front.
Ren scanned the area, her fingers reaching for her bow. “I don’t see any mimics yet. Keep your eyes open.”
Edging closer, Arthur fiddled with the shadow patch on his wrist, hoping it would do its job. After Tiburon’s threatening message, he was certain that if they were caught, they wouldn’t be going home.
Splattered with baked mud, the safari bus was painted with the Hxperion logo and a tagline which read: Infinity Tours: Never-Ending Fun! The wanderers chatted excitedly as they queued to get on. Arthur overheard a girl with a chameleon-skin Wondercloak discussing which realm to visit next.
“The next realm-key I win, I’m travelling to Realm Twelve,” she said, adjusting her cloak. “I’ve heard it belongs to Frida Kahlo.”
“Really?” Her companion, a boy sporting a wood-grain-textured Wondercloak, chuckled. “I was thinking Realm One Hundred and Forty-Eight would be fun: Harry Houdini.”
A tall, thin man in safari uniform was standing with his back to them, ushering everyone on board. “Take your seats to start the challenge,” he instructed in a dreary voice. “If you can’t fit on this vehicle, there’ll be another along in a few minutes.”
It wasn’t till he turned round that Arthur realized why he sounded so lacklustre. “T-class!” he hissed, pointing to the hover-wheels at the end of the man’s safari trousers.
Cloud whimpered and ran behind Ren’s combat boots. Although her neck stiffened, she lifted her chin. “If Amaros Ba is right about these shadow patches, then we’ve just got to act natural and everything will be OK.” With that, she bundled Cloud under her cloak and strode forwards.
Arthur tried to stay calm as they fell in at the back of the line, but the longer they waited, the sweatier his hands became. He gritted his teeth as the wanderers in front dawdled up the steps. Come on, come on… When it was finally his turn, he felt a hand touch him on the shoulder. “Cecily, I—”
But it wasn’t Cecily.
The T-class swept an icy gaze over Arthur’s face and Wondercloak. For a heart-stopping moment, Arthur thought he had been recognized, but then the mimic pushed him forwards and droned, “Keep it moving. We can’t set off until you’re all in your seats.”
As he glided away, Arthur let out a heavy sigh of relief. The shadow patch had worked. For now.
Inside the safari bus were ten rows of wooden benches with an aisle down the middle. Cloud wriggled out from under Ren’s cloak and scampered to the back. When they found him, he was sitting on an empty bench, wagging his tail and gazing up at them expectantly as if to say, Look! I saved you a spot.
Cecily gathered him into her lap and slid over so Arthur and Ren could sit down.
The bus rocked and creaked as the other wanderers got settled. Fixed to the back of the bench in front was a steel handrail with a single Hxperion-branded button in the centre. Arthur wondered what it did, but he wasn’t about to press it to find out. It was probably lethal.
When everyone had finally taken their seats, the T-class whizzed on and closed the doors. Next, he grabbed a large wooden box and moved along the central aisle. “Take one each,” he instructed, offering the contents of the box to the wanderers at the front.
Arthur watched the girl with the chameleon-skin Wondercloak seated three rows ahead of them. She reached into the box, collected a small, curved piece of metal and then hooked it over the top of her ear.
“Remember to pay attention to everything your tour guide tells you,” the T-class advised. “And of course, travel with wonder.”
“Tour guide?” Ren repeated, collecting three of the mystery devices and passing them along.
As soon as Arthur slid the contraption over his ear, he had to blink. A faint blue-tinted holographic screen now hovered a few centimetres from his face. When he turned his head, the screen moved with him.
“That’s so cool,” Cecily said, waving her fingers in front of her nose.
She looked cross-eyed, but Arthur didn’t have the heart to tell her. He found it curious that he couldn’t see her screen; they must only be visible to the user.
“Good morning, wanderers!” announced a husky French voice. Arthur started as a familiar half-human, half-lizard in a tailored purple suit materialized on the left of his screen. “Welcome aboard this tour of Realm Forty-Two.”
It was the same reptile who had been their driver in the Pipsqueaks-mobile. Arthur wondered if he was some sort of famous entertainment personality in the twenty-fifth century. “This will be a bumpy ride,” Lizard-Man warned. “So please hold on to the rail at all times. There is an emergency bell in front of every bench. If at any point you want to get off, give it a press!”
That’s what the button does, Arthur realized. He grabbed hold of the handrail as the bus set off along the road, its tyres crackling over the dirt.
They soon turned onto a potholed track with forest on one side and open grassland on the other. A warm breeze blew through the bus, carrying the scent of dry grass and animal dung. Arthur had just retrieved the riddle scroll from his rucksack when Cecily tapped him on the arm. “Look!” she breathed. “They’re amazing!”
As he lifted his head and saw what was outside, he almost slipped off the bench.
A herd of zebra stood only a few hundred metres away, flicking their tails as they stopped to graze. With so many stripes packed so tightly together, they almost created an optical illusion. Arthur had only ever seen footage of the creatures in wildlife documentaries; they didn’t exactly roam wild around Peacepoint Estate.
Even Ren was stunned. Her jaw hung loose as they drove past several buffalo, grazing at the roadside. “I can’t believe all these animals are here. Maybe the hero is someone who worked alongside them?”
The lizard-guide signalled with his scaly, clawed hand. “On the right we are approaching a waterhole where you can view examples of giraffe, flamingo and elephant.”
Sure enough, they soon drew alongside a large muddy pool dotted with spindly-legged flamingos, preening their coral-pink feathers in the afternoon sun. At the water’s edge, two adult giraffes lowered their heads to drink as a herd of leather-eared elephants lumbered closer behind them. Their combined squawking, grunting and splashing was so loud Arthur felt like it was being played right into his ears.
“I know we’re not on Earth any more,” Cecily said, “but this place looks a lot like…”
“Africa,” Arthur finished. It was just as he’d imagined it from movies and TV: sun-baked grassland that stretched to the horizon; vibrant, noisy and thriving with life.
Cecily’s hair sparkled like jewels as she leaned over the edge of the bus, resting her chin on her arms. “I’ve always wanted to go there. My dad promised he’d take me to Abuja last summer to show me where his parents grew up.” She snorted. “That never happened.”
Arthur interpreted from her tone that her dad had been too busy to take her. He thought how disheartening it must feel to have promises broken, especially when they came from people you loved. His dad was always true to his word, something he appreciated even more now. “Abuja – that’s in Nigeria, right?”
She nodded. “He’s Nigerian and my mum’s French. That’s why their salon brand is called Afrocheveux. I think it’s a stupid name but it’s popular in focus groups, apparently.”
Arthur’s French wasn’t great. He thought cheveux was either “hair” or “horse”, and given the
circumstances, he plumped for the former.
Cecily sat up straighter. “Hey, I was just thinking – since we’ve been in this realm, nothing’s tried to kill us yet. Maybe that’s why Cloud has visited the place before – because it’s safe?”
Arthur got a sinking feeling in his stomach. Nothing about the Wonderscape was safe. Given that they’d faced hurtling avalanches, swinging boulders and rocket launchers in the last three realms, he decided something wasn’t right.
He read the riddle scroll again: Once you’ve travelled the hero’s road, seen the truth and broken the code… The hero’s road, he imagined, could well be the one they were riding along, but he hadn’t come across any codes.
Scanning the bus for clues, his attention eventually wandered to the underside of the canvas roof, which was plastered in posters advertising various Hxperion merchandise. They all featured glossy photos, plus various enthusiastic tag lines:
Never forget your Hxperion water bottle, wherever you’re wandering!
Everybody wants a head torch from Hxperion!
Pro-wanderers always wear their Hxperion hiking boots!
Only the best will do: take home a Hxperion compass today!
Arthur noticed the first letter of each slogan was written in a different font to the rest. On a hunch he tried stringing them together to see if they formed an acrostic, but the beginning four letters – N E P O – didn’t make any sense. Then, when he read the letters backwards, the hairs on the back of his neck stiffened. The letters did spell something in reverse. Three words.
OPEN
YOUR
EYES
Arthur had to check he wasn’t seeing things, so he slid off his over-ear device—
—and the unpleasant truth hit him like a mound of zebra poo to the face.
Everything he’d been looking at was a lie.
Outside, where there had been grassland and endless scrub, a field of blackened tree stumps spread into the distance. The flamingos were in fact small tree-cutting robots, busy sawing what remained of the charred wood. Instead of two giraffes drinking at the waterhole, a pair of heavy-load cranes droned to and fro, lifting logs onto the back of a huge grey lorry. It was one of a fleet, parked right where the elephant herd had been standing.
Arthur went numb. The land had been decimated. There wasn’t a single blade of grass left for a zebra to eat; no water for a giraffe to drink; no habitat for any living thing at all. The vibrant, bustling landscape he’d marvelled at only moments before was gone. With a heavy heart, he reached over and slid off Cecily’s earpiece.
She blinked, then gasped and covered her chest with her hand. Arthur elbowed Ren and got her to remove her device too.
Her eyes widened as she beheld the scorched earth. “Why?” she asked simply.
“I don’t know…” Try as he might, Arthur couldn’t find an answer. He skimmed the rest of their surroundings to see what else had changed. To their left, the forest they had been driving alongside was now encircled by a dizzyingly high fence made of thorns and tree roots. The T-class mimic was still sitting in the driver’s seat but the rest of the bus felt emptier. Arthur couldn’t see the girl with the chameleon-skin Wondercloak, and he was fairly sure half a dozen other wanderers were missing. “Something happened while we were watching the animals,” he said. “Other passengers have got off the bus somehow.”
Ren gestured to the Hxperion-branded button on the rail in front. “That lizard dude said if we wanted to get off at any point, we just had to press this,” she reminded them. “Maybe that’s what the others did?”
Just like that, the dots started to connect in Arthur’s mind. Infinity Tours: Never-Ending Fun. He didn’t even need access to his personal Newtoncyclopaedia to understand what had happened. “I don’t think this tour ever ends,” he realized. “And I think the wanderers who aren’t here figured it out sooner than we did. It’s all part of the challenge: Once you’ve … seen the truth and broken the code.”
With an unexpected confidence, he reached out and slammed his hand on the Hxperion button.
The effect was immediate. His seat collapsed from under him and he tumbled into darkness.
20
The darkness didn’t last long. Sunlight glared into Arthur’s eyes as he thudded onto a rocky floor, sending up a choking cloud of dust. He heard the rumble of the bus’s engine and looked up as it drove away.
“What happened?” Cecily asked, coughing.
“I think that button released some kind of hatch underneath us,” Arthur explained, realizing the reason the vehicle’s chassis was so high was because it needed space to dump its passengers below. “The bench must have folded down and we fell out.” He staggered to his feet, brushing dirt off his jeans.
Not far away, several groups of wanderers trekked towards an opening in the forest fence. Arthur couldn’t see another safari bus along the road, but judging by the number of people, he figured there had to be an entire fleet driving around. “The next part of the challenge is probably that way. Come on.”
Cecily attached Cloud’s lead to his collar and, keeping their heads down, they ventured into the trees. No one – including the wanderers they were following – could move very fast. The forest floor was a giant trip-hazard of sprawling tree roots, slippery mud and tangled vines, so everyone had to hop, scramble and leap to make it through. As their feet disturbed the terracotta earth, the scent of wet soil and damp tree bark lifted into the air.
“We need to be careful,” Ren whispered, scanning the shadows. “The realm-challenge was called Forest of the Leopard, remember?”
Arthur’s nerves tingled as he scanned the higher branches for golden fur with brown spots. He considered how they might defend themselves against a wild animal. They could use tiger-Cloud, but she would undoubtedly draw too much attention. Arthur briefly wondered whether Tiburon or Valeria might be tracking Cloud, but he decided it was unlikely. After all, Milo Hertz wouldn’t have sent Cloud away with the time-key if it was possible he could be traced.
“I was thinking, maybe the hero of this realm is someone who fought against all that destruction we saw?” Cecily commented. Arthur could tell by the furrows in her brow that she was still troubled by what they’d witnessed. He pictured the desolate expanse of charred tree remains – each one like a gravestone – and shuddered. Perhaps she was right. A hero wouldn’t harm the environment like that; they would save it.
“These other wanderers could already know who she is,” Ren pointed out quietly. “They certainly seem to know which direction to go in, and it’s not like there are any signposts.”
Behind the hum of insects, Arthur could hear the wanderers discussing something as they pointed into the trees. A couple of lines from the riddle surfaced in his mind. Consider where your steps should lay, look to the trees to show the way…
He studied the trees closest to him and noted they were all different species. Some had smooth, peeling bark and branches that spread like umbrella spokes; others had gnarly trunks with closely woven boughs. Where one variety had jagged, diamond-shaped leaves, another had narrow, feathery fronds.
Ahead, the wanderers turned left, by a tree sprouting bright blue-purple flowers. Arthur glanced over his shoulder and saw that the same species was dotted along their entire route. “Whoa,” he breathed as he realized. “There are signposts showing us the way – the trees.” Keeping his voice low, he drew the others to one side to explain. “The ones with the blue flowers are leading everyone through the forest. It’s like the riddle said.” He was about to repeat the rhyme, when Ren shrieked.
“Erg!” She jumped up and down like she’d just trodden on spikes. “Get it off! GET IT OFF!”
Arthur stepped closer. “What is it? What’s happened?” He scanned her for injuries but couldn’t see anything. There was a thumb-sized grasshopper-type bug on her shoulder, so he brushed it away. “Are you OK?”
“Has it gone?” she asked, twisting her neck so her ponytail swished in Arthur�
�s face. “Did you get it?”
He batted hair out of his nostrils. “You mean the bug? I flicked it into the soil.”
She nodded, sighing heavily. “OK, OK, OK…” she repeated, like she was trying to convince herself she was.
“Do you have a fear of insects?” he asked gently. He raised his eyebrows at Cecily, who reflected his confusion by shaking her head. Up until now, they had both had the impression that Ren wasn’t scared of anything.
“They freak me out,” Ren confessed with a shiver. “They’re always scuttling around, hiding down plug holes or in dark corners.” Her kohl-lined eyes skimmed the trees. “We’ve been surrounded by creepy-crawlies since we arrived in this realm. I’ve been trying not to think about it.”
Arthur couldn’t believe it: despite her tough persona, Ren was just as vulnerable as he and Cecily were. “Well, you’re doing a good job,” he remarked, trying to hide his surprise. “I didn’t even notice.” He felt honoured that Ren had trusted them enough to open up; you didn’t share your fears with just anyone.
Ren swept her hands down either side of her Wondercloak, her neck tense. “Come on, let’s keep going.”
The blue-purple flowering trees guided them out of the forest, into an area of open countryside. There was an orchard to the left, which banked down to a trickling stream, and to the right, fields were planted with neat rows of fruits, vegetables and baby trees. There were cane pyramids covered in climbing beans, bright-green bananas hanging on tall plants and golden squash bedded with straw. Ahead, the land climbed up to a modest farmhouse on top of a hill.
The fields were full of wanderers. Their various textured cloaks flapped around as they planted seeds, dug out weeds or picked produce. A large wooden sign stood like a scarecrow in the middle of one field. As Arthur, Ren and Cecily cornered a plot of sweet potatoes, they could make out what it said. “WM’s Organic Fruit and Veg Farm,” Arthur read. “All profits go to the Intergalactic Green Belt Movement.” The sign was painted with a colourful design of pea pods, yams, figs and bananas.
Wonderscape Page 17
