“Do you think this is what Amaros meant when he said it would cost us four hours’ hard work to meet the hero?” Ren said. “Why else would wanderers be doing all this? It must be part of the challenge.”
Arthur agreed, but they wouldn’t know for sure until they got to the farmhouse. As they approached, he studied it carefully. The wooden building was two storeys high, with white-framed windows and a wide porch that ran all around the ground floor. Wanderers holding small bowls filed up the steps and through the double front doors.
“Over there.” Ren nodded to the side of the building, where a V-class mimic was dispensing bowls to those waiting. Her flame-red tresses were contained in an unflattering hairnet and she was wearing a frilly green apron with the words Chef’s Assistant sewn onto it.
Arthur kept his voice low as they hurried to the back of the queue. “The shadow patches only mask our identities from mimics. What if a wanderer recognizes us as the Flying Pipsqueaks?”
“We deny it,” Ren said, pulling up the hood of her gilet. “Or better still, we don’t say anything at all.”
As they fell in behind a group of wanderers, Arthur was feeling jumpy. Tiburon Nox could have spies anywhere.
The V-class handed them a bowl each, and after queuing for ten uneasy minutes, they walked through the front doors of the hut to be greeted by the roar of chatter and the mouth-watering smells of home-cooked food. Arthur hadn’t eaten since Milo’s headquarters, and it made his stomach gurgle. The floor was set out like a huge open-plan canteen, with chairs and tables arranged in rows and a long serving hatch in the back wall, where the queue finished. A Hxperion-branded jug of water, stack of beakers and tray of cutlery was placed in the middle of each table.
“Plantain stew,” Ren read from a blackboard suspended above the hatch. She lowered her voice as the wanderers behind them shuffled closer. “Well, I could do with eating, but this doesn’t really help us with the challenge…”
Arthur scoured the room, making sure to avoid the gaze of any other wanderers. The walls were decorated with photos. They showed wanderers working in the tree nursery, painting the farmhouse or cleaning the kitchens. Over at the serving hatch, several V-class mimics shuffled around in the steam, ladling soup into people’s bowls. Among them was a familiar-looking woman with black hair tied in a brightly coloured headscarf.
“I think that’s her,” Arthur said, pointing. The sleeves of the woman’s dress were rolled past her elbows, revealing strong, muscular arms. “She’s the hero. I’m sure of it.”
She had a wide smile that made her eyes and nose crinkle, and a defined face with prominent cheekbones. “I don’t recognize her,” Cecily admitted. “Maybe these photos can tell us who she is?”
As the line moved forward, they studied the walls. The images were arranged by date, reminding Arthur of a school yearbook, because each group commemorated a certain period of time on the farm. When the Wonderscape was still new, Arthur saw how wanderers had built the farmhouse, ploughed the land and harvested the first crops. There were pictures of people sitting around campfires with guitars or singing in the fields as they worked. He guessed they might be learning the songs that Amaros Ba had spoken about.
The plot had changed dramatically over the years, with new orchards planted and extensions built. Towards the front of the queue, animals appeared in the photos as well as wanderers. There was a strutting rooster with green and blue tail feathers, a floppy-eared grey bunny and a sheep with chocolate-brown wool.
Arthur stopped in his tracks when he spotted another animal, one he’d met before: a large greyish-brown pig with a blond beard. “I think these are all Cloud,” he whispered, sharing his theory with Ren and Cecily. “These pictures are dated from three years ago; that must have been when he was here.”
As the people in front of them moved aside, the trio came to the serving hatch. Arthur searched for the woman in the headscarf, but she had vanished again. He plucked up some courage and said to a V-class mimic with a whisk for an arm, “Excuse me, there was someone else here – a lady wearing bright colours and a headscarf. Can you tell me where she’s gone?”
The mimic poured a measure of steaming plantain stew into his bowl. “Your request cannot be processed,” she said derisively.
Arthur chewed on his lip as he followed Ren and Cecily over to a table. “Maybe we can’t meet her because we haven’t completed the challenge yet?” he said, keeping his head low. “Everyone she was serving must have already done their four hours’ work on the farm.”
He took a seat opposite Ren, hunching over his bowl with his elbows tucked in, so as not to brush arms with another diner and give them an excuse to talk to him. Next to Ren, Cecily reached for a jug of water and three beakers.
“We’ll just have to do the work, then,” Ren said, sticking her spoon into her stew. “The sooner we get started, the better.”
The stew tasted amazing – sweet and sour with just the right amount of seasoning. Arthur mopped his bowl clean with his finger, feeling re-energized. Once they’d cleared away and used the toilets, they went out to find another V-class.
“The fig orchard will be fairly quiet,” she advised them stuffily, after they enquired whether they could do four hours’ work away from other wanderers. “But it isn’t really in the spirit of things to work on your own. The task in this realm is about coming together as a team for the good of the environment.”
Arthur couldn’t think of a decent enough excuse to explain their request until he saw Cloud chewing on Cecily’s bootlaces. “Some people don’t like dogs. We are thinking of others.”
The V-class didn’t appear entirely satisfied with their reason, but after collecting a wheelbarrow and several wooden crates, they made their way to the fig orchard on the other side of the farmhouse.
Peacepoint Estate, unsurprisingly, didn’t have an orchard, so Arthur had never walked in one before. The sun through the leaves cast dappled light on the ground and the air smelled of blossom and wet earth. Cloud ran around happily, chasing his tail and sniffing at any fallen fruit. The trees were planted in narrow lanes with two muddy ruts between them, where barrows laden with produce had been pushed before. Arthur wheeled their first crate into position and the three of them started picking.
The task was fairly monotonous. They looked for a fig, they grabbed the fig, and then they put the fig in the crate. The ripest fruits were on the outside and lower branches; anything too small or too green they left on the tree. Arthur found it strangely relaxing.
“You know what I miss the most about the twenty-first century other than my family and friends?” Cecily said at one point, inspecting her water bottle. “My wardrobe.”
Arthur laughed.
“Come on, aren’t you sick of wearing these cloaks and second-hand outfits?” she argued. “Plus, it freaks me out that I’m broadcasting my feelings all the time through these sunflowers.”
“I miss understanding how everything around us works,” Ren said. A branch cracked as she tugged at a fig. “Here, you watch videos through microscopes and cloaks give you superpowers. I know it’s science but it creeps me out.” She hesitated as she dropped another fig in the crate. “And my bed, I miss that too.”
“What about you, Arthur?” Cecily asked.
He thought carefully. “Other than my dad’s enchiladas – which are the best, by the way – I suppose the most unsettling thing about where we are is that we don’t know where we are. I didn’t realize it when we were back home, but it’s comforting knowing exactly where you are on Earth; it gives you an anchor.” He imagined himself from a bird’s-eye view. He knew where the orchard was in relation to the forest and the farmhouse, but what was beyond the farm? How big was the planet they were on, and where on its surface were they?
“It’s obvious where we are,” Cecily said, as if Arthur was joking. “The planet Nyiri, in the Clamshell Galaxy.” She held her thumb and forefinger up in an L-shape and aimed it at the sky. “Latitude of approximatel
y zero point one five degrees south, I should think. Near the equator.”
Arthur blinked and peered into the sky, where Cecily had been gazing. “How can you tell that?”
“Easy,” Cecily replied. “It’s the angle between the lowest star in the Psi Constellation, and the northern horizon. Nyirian people measure their prime meridian from the city of Doveton in the northern hemi—” She stopped, and frowned. “Wait … how do I know all that?”
Ren pointed to the sunflowers on Cecily’s Wondercloak, which were now covered in thin red grid lines and annotated with the same strange writing they’d seen on the tent-flap Wonderway to Amaros’s realm. “Look! This has to be something to do with your Wonderskill from Amaros Ba. The language is probably Tyrian.”
Arthur remembered one of the postcards they’d read on the IGC building. “Of course. Amaros was a famously good navigator – you must have inherited his talents.” He inspected the lining of his Wondercloak to check whether Cecily was right. Sure enough, orbiting a large green planet was a flashing ring of text that read, REALM 42: PLANET NYIRI, CLAMSHELL GALAXY.
“OK, which way is north?” Ren asked excitedly.
Cecily pointed behind them. “There.”
Ren’s eyes widened. “You’re like a human compass!”
Before they could test Cecily’s new Wonderskill further, a bell rang over at the farmhouse and the V-class with the hairnet called over, saying they’d completed the challenge. Four hours had passed already. As they hauled everything back to the farmhouse, Arthur estimated, with a little help from Isaac Newton, that they’d picked over a thousand figs each. On the approach to the farmhouse, he noticed a swirling ball of red mist nestled between the figs in their cart. When he touched it, a holographic coupon for fifty per cent off Hxperion merchandise appeared, along with a snow-white realm-key. He left the coupon in the cart and stowed the realm-key in his pocket.
Inside the farmhouse it wasn’t plantain stew on the menu, but little sugary doughnuts called mandazi. To Arthur’s disappointment, there was no trace of the woman in the headscarf – not behind the serving hatch or anywhere in the rest of the canteen.
“What do we do now?” Cecily asked, as they took three places at one of the tables.
Other wanderers piled in around them, munching eagerly. Arthur had to admit the mandazi were unbelievably good. So good, in fact, that while he was devouring a bowl of them, he didn’t notice a woman sit down right next to him.
“What’s your name?” she asked gruffly.
He tensed and kept his eyes on his plate, until Ren kicked him under the table.
“Arthur,” he replied, immediately stuffing his mouth full of mandazi, so the woman would get the hint he didn’t want to talk.
But then Cecily kicked him too and he looked up.
The woman sitting next to him had a smile that made her eyes crinkle and her cheeks glow. “It’s nice to meet you, Arthur,” she said. “My name’s Wangari Maathai and the five of us have work to do.”
21
Wangari Maathai? Arthur hadn’t heard the hero’s name before and by the blank expression on Cecily’s face, neither had she. Ren, however, was frowning as if she knew who the lady was but couldn’t quite place her.
“You must listen carefully and do as I say.” Wangari’s voice was tense but her movements relaxed. “Follow me, and make sure none of the mimics see you.” She rose swiftly from the table and proceeded across the canteen floor towards the far corner of the room.
Arthur scanned for V-classes and spotted one through a window. She was outside, distributing plates to the remaining wanderers in the queue. The T-classes were all busy serving behind the hatch. “Everyone’s distracted,” he told Ren and Cecily. “Let’s go.”
Cecily grabbed Cloud’s lead and they weaved through the tables, dodging wanderers who were either leaving their seats or taking their places. Wangari stood close to the wall, tracing her fingers over an area of the photos, as if feeling for something underneath. Her hand paused over one particular picture; she pressed a spot in the middle, there was a subtle click and a hidden door opened. “Inside,” she hissed, shoving Arthur, Ren and Cecily over the threshold.
As he passed through the door, Arthur marvelled at how well concealed it was. The edges were covered by carefully placed photos, so you would never see it at all.
They emerged into a small room dimly lit by candles. A square wooden table in the centre was scattered with architectural drawings of the farmhouse; there was a noticeboard on one wall pinned with a large map of Kenya and a bookcase crammed with books on biology, zoological science and African history stood against another wall. At the back of the space, framed certificates and photos stood on a sideboard along with a display case of gold medals. A Wondercloak hung from a hook on the wall and Arthur spotted a handful of shadow patches resting on the side.
“Useful, aren’t they?” Wangari said, catching Arthur adjusting his own shadow patch. She shut the door soundlessly behind them and locked it with iron bolts at three different places. “With a Wondercloak around my shoulders and a patch on my arm, I can explore this realm unseen by Hxperion.”
Just then, Ren gasped and dashed over to the sideboard. “I know what that is,” she exclaimed, peering through the glass display case at a shiny gold medal. “We did a whole project on this award at my old school – it’s the Nobel Peace Prize!” She gawped at Wangari Maathai. “I thought your name sounded familiar – you’re Professor Wangari Maathai, the first environmentalist to receive this.”
“And the first African woman,” Wangari added, as they all drew closer. “I was awarded the medal in large part because I founded the Green Belt Movement – an organization that empowers communities to care for their environment by planting trees.”
Ren’s eyes widened. “Nature gives us all we need: to save the future, plant a seed,” she recited from the riddle scroll. “Now it all makes sense.”
“When we plant trees, we plant the seeds of peace and hope,” Wangari said wisely. “The Green Belt Movement became a voice for change. Together we halted the construction of a sixty-storey tower block in a park in central Nairobi and fought against our government’s greedy land-grabbing that caused the loss of precious forest.”
Listening to Wangari’s accomplishments filled Arthur with confidence. If just one person could achieve so much, maybe the three of them really could save the heroes and make it home in time. He examined the professor’s memorabilia. Among several other prestigious-sounding prizes were photos of Wangari holding protest banners and giving speeches alongside powerful world leaders and famous film stars. “So the safari-bus challenge…”
“…was about opening your eyes to the problems around you,” Wangari said. “The bus journey is similar to one I took as a child, across the foothills of Mount Kenya. It was the first time I had seen large-scale deforestation.”
“But why was the realm-challenge called Forest of the Leopard?” Ren asked. “I didn’t see any big cats stalking around the farm.”
Wangari laughed. “Wangari means ‘she who belongs to the leopard’ in my language. It’s a nickname of sorts.” She unstacked five chairs and slid them around the table. “Enough questions. We only have a little time before one of the mimics notices I’m gone. Sit.”
Arthur dropped his rucksack on the floor and took a place opposite Ren. Cecily was between them, with Cloud on his own chair next to Wangari. He looked bright-eyed and alert, as if he’d been preparing for this meeting.
Wangari leaned forward. “The farm is a well-meaning project that helps fund a new intergalactic version of my Green Belt Movement,” she began, “but it is a cover for my real activities. I am part of a secret activist group of heroes. Between us, we have been gathering intelligence on Hxperion, with the aim of escaping our realms and helping Milo Hertz. It all started when I first met Cloud.”
The little dog ruffed proudly, lifting his chin as if to say, That’s right.
“He arrived through a Won
derway three years ago, not far from where I was working in the forest,” Wangari continued. “Thankfully, the V-class with me didn’t spot him, but I knew he was special, so I kept him close and tried to puzzle out where he’d come from.”
Arthur stared into Cloud’s fluffy, white face, wondering what other secrets he might be hiding. “The first time we were alone – right here in this room – he finally explained himself.” She lifted her chin at Cloud. “Go on – you’re in safe surroundings now – show them what you showed me.”
Cloud sniffed the air like he might be checking for the scent of danger. Once satisfied, he turned around and obediently lifted his back-left foot. For a mortifying second, Arthur thought he was about to pee on Wangari Maathai, but the little dog remained perfectly still. There was a snapping sound, like a cog turning, and Cloud’s right ear pricked up and a hologram projected out of it.
Unlike the crystal-clear, pixel-sharp holograms they’d seen in the Wonderscape, this one was fuzzy and broken. It showed a flush-faced man with a mop of messy dark hair, dressed in a tattered T-shirt. Despite his ragged appearance, Arthur recognized him. It was Milo Hertz.
“If you’re watching this, then you’re one of my all-time biggest heroes and it’s an honour to be talking to you,” he said breathlessly. Daylight highlighted grease marks on his clothes and a sweaty sheen to his skin. “My name is Milo Hertz and I’m one of the founders of Hxperion. Like you, I am trapped in the Wonderscape and I need your help.”
Arthur’s skin tingled, thinking this was just like in Star Wars: A New Hope, where the droid R2-D2 was found to be carrying a secret message from Princess Leia.
“My older brother Tiburon has trapped me in a closed realm,” Milo continued. “He is a master strategist and has ensured there is no way for me to discern which number it is – even the map on my Wondercloak has been disabled. What’s more, part of the realm-challenge here can only be completed by a team of people, so I’m unable to win a realm-key and leave.” His hands moved closer to whatever device he was using to make the recording and he slowly swung it 360 degrees.
Wonderscape Page 18
