Shark Adventure

by Anthony McGowan

  The following morning, their third on the island, dawned grey and bleak. Bluey decided that they’d swap beaches, and he walked round the headland to show Amazon and Frazer where he thought the nests were.

  Amazon looked up at the brooding skies. ‘OK, two days … is that, like, it for the good weather?’

  ‘It should really be better than this,’ replied Bluey. ‘I don’t quite get it. These are the sort of conditions you expect in typhoon season, but that should be over by now.’

  ‘Climate change!’ said Amazon and Frazer together.

  ‘Who knows for sure?’ said Bluey. ‘But we’re here to help the turtles, not to top up our tans.’

  ‘That’s fine talk, coming from a beach bum like you,’ joshed Frazer. It got him a playful little shove from Bluey. Frazer hammed it up, staggering back into the lagoon as if he’d taken a harpoon in the chest, and finally flopping back with a splash into the water.

  ‘I may be a beach bum,’ laughed Bluey, ‘but I’m still the boss of you guys, so no backchat.’

  And then suddenly Bluey’s face changed. He was staring at Frazer who was sitting in the warm, shallow water.

  ‘What are you gawping at, then, Boss Bluey?’ said Frazer, beginning to pick himself up.

  ‘Don’t move,’ said Bluey, his whole body as tense as a leopard waiting to spring.

  ‘Stop messing with me,’ said Frazer, although there was a hint of uncertainty in his voice.

  And then Amazon saw what it was that Bluey was staring at. In the water, a few metres away, there floated a strange bag with an unearthly pale purple tinge. It looked like some sort of crazy balloon, with a frill along the top.

  ‘Is that a jellyfish?’ she said.

  ‘You’d think so, wouldn’t you?’ replied Bluey in an undertone. ‘But it’s actually a Portuguese man-of-war, which is from a completely different family. It is, however, one deeply unpleasant dude.’

  ‘A what!’ said Frazer, staring wildly around. Then he caught sight of the floating bag.

  ‘Oh, jeepers, I hate those things. They sting like a scorpion. And it’d be just my luck to die, killed by a floating pink handbag made of jelly.’

  ‘Just relax, Fraze – I think it’s dead,’ said Bluey. ‘I can see it – it’s drifted in between you and the beach.’

  ‘So, if it’s dead, I’m OK, yeah?’

  ‘I wish it were that simple. The stinging cells can stay active for days. There’s a kind of octopus that rips off the tentacles and uses them for self-defence.’

  ‘How can you tell that it’s dead?’ said Amazon.

  ‘You see that weird dark blue creature, on the air sac? Looks like a slug, but with those pretty feathery fingers sticking out of it?’

  Then Amazon saw that what she had thought was part of the Portuguese man-of-war was, in fact, a quite separate animal, creeping slowly over the jellylike balloon. It looked like an enamelled brooch, or a tiny bird of paradise.

  ‘Oh yeah … it’s actually rather beautiful.’

  ‘It’s definitely a look-don’t-touch kind of animal. It’s a Glaucus – sometimes called a sea swallow, and it’s the Portuguese man-of-war’s worst nightmare. It eats them, slowly. And it’s also pretty unpleasant for any humans that make the mistake of picking it up – it’s able to store the stinging cells from the man-of-war at the ends of those fingers, and it concentrates them, so they’re even more dangerous.’

  ‘Ah, excuse me,’ said Frazer impatiently. ‘I happen to be sitting in the middle of a sea full of stinging death here, while you have a nice old chat about slugs. A little help, please.’

  Bluey stared into the water for a couple of seconds, and then jumped over to where Frazer crouched. He quickly pulled the machete from the scabbard on Frazer’s back and with a skilful flip, he sent the gassy bag and streaming mass of tentacles sailing through the air and on to the beach.

  It appeared that Bluey had accomplished this perfectly, but then one trailing tentacle, longer than the others, somehow managed to flick at him as the creature flew. Bluey gave a yelp, followed by a stream of very inventive curses. Frazer sprang up and helped him to limp out of the water.

  ‘Oh my gosh, Bluey …’ exclaimed Amazon when she saw the ugly red welt across Bluey’s calf. It looked like he’d been flogged with a thin whip of fire. ‘What can we do?’

  ‘Feels like the little blighter stuck red-hot needles into me,’ said Bluey, examining the slashing red mark on his leg. ‘But I’ll live. Hardly ever fatal. Best treatment is splashing it with cold saltwater … there we go. Not a serious stinging. I’ve seen guys with the red stripes all over their faces and bodies when they’ve got tangled up with one of these when they’ve been out swimming. There are actually two different species of Portuguese man-of-war. The Pacific model isn’t too bad. The species that lives in the Atlantic packs a bigger punch. Let’s go take a look at her.’

  ‘Bluey,’ said Frazer, a look of wonder on his face, ‘you are undoubtedly one tough Aussie.’

  The Portuguese man-of-war had landed in a shallow pool, formed by some dead coral. Scrunched up in the pool, it looked more than ever like an extraterrestrial. The children peered at the now half-deflated pinkish bag with its frill, almost like the wattle of flesh on a cockerel’s head, at the dense area of short, intensely blue fringe ‘fingers’ beneath it and at the long, evil-looking tentacle, coiled like a mass of tapeworms. And the sea slug was still attached, and was still slowly munching its way across the dead Portuguese man-of-war, like a tiny, beautiful blue cow, grazing on a field.

  ‘That is the single freakiest thing I’ve ever seen in my entire life,’ said Amazon as she gazed at it.

  ‘It’s like some guy thunk this monster up just to give me something to have nightmares about,’ said Frazer.

  ‘You know it’s not just one single animal, don’t you, Fraze?’ said Bluey.

  ‘Yeah, well, I know that the sea swallow thing isn’t part of it …’

  ‘No, I mean the actual Portuguese man-of-war itself.’

  ‘Not a single animal?’ asked a baffled Amazon. ‘Surely it must be? I mean, well, it all sticks together, and, and …’

  ‘Yeah, it’s pretty amazing, actually. It’s halfway between a colony animal, like the little individual polyps that make coral, and something like a jellyfish, which is a true multi-celled organism. You see, the Portuguese man-of-war is really four different animals all hanging out together.’ Bluey pointed with Frazer’s machete. ‘Here you’ve organism number one that makes up the gas-filled bladder. She can deflate it to sink under the water if she’s attacked from above.’

  ‘Hang on,’ said Amazon, ‘why does it have to be a she?’

  Frazer and Bluey exchanged annoying smiles, although Bluey’s transformed itself halfway through into a grimace of pain.

  ‘If it’s pretty and stings like a scorpion, it’s got to be a she, right?’ said Frazer. When Amazon made as if to whack him, he added, ‘Kidding, kidding. But also, you know, like the way to prove that you don’t pack a punch is to stop punching me.’

  ‘OK, kids, Amazon’s right. I’ll stick to “it” from now on. The second type of organisms are these short, dangly guys here.’ Bluey pointed to the dark blue fringe below the balloon. ‘These are the digestive cells – the stomach, if you like. And this long tentacle is the killer. It’s covered in stinging cells that fire a dart loaded with venom seventy per cent as potent as that of a cobra. Then they hook whatever it is they’ve caught – a fish, say, or an annoying kid – and draw it up until it reaches the digestive cells. All very clever. Well, except it hasn’t got a brain …’

  ‘Then how does it know to do all that?
’ asked Amazon, genuinely mystified.

  ‘Each individual cell has its own job. If a fish brushes against it, the poison cell knows to fire its deadly dart, so that’s what it does. When the fish is hooked, the muscle cells in the tentacle know it’s time to do their job, which is to contract, so the fish gets pulled up to the stomach cells. When the food reaches them, they do their job, which is to get down to digesting the fish. So lots of tiny little tasks performed by cells that only have one thing to do end up with this beautiful, big, complicated organism doing beautiful, big, complicated things. OK, that’s the lesson finished for today. Let’s check out this turtle beach.’

  But Amazon noticed how much Bluey was limping, as well as the look of pain that he was trying so hard to hide.

  ‘I think that we should get you back to the hut for some rest,’ she said.

  ‘She’s right, Bluey,’ said Frazer. ‘It looks to me as though that red welt is spreading.’

  And so, despite his protests that he was, ‘Fine, I’m fine I tell you,’ Amazon and Frazer took an arm each and helped Bluey limp back to the hut.

  It had only taken half an hour to walk round the headland to the turtle beach, but it took them the best part of an hour to drag Bluey back. By that stage his whole leg had become reddened, and even his face was flushed.

  And he was becoming heavier – with each step, Amazon and Frazer had to bear more of his weight.

  ‘This isn’t … right,’ he mumbled, as at long last they approached the hut. ‘Reckon I’ve had an allergic reaction … Should take some of the antihistamine in the med kit.’

  Bluey staggered over to his pack, dug out the medical kit and twisted off the top of a bottle of pills. He emptied the contents into his hand. There were just two of the small pills left.

  ‘Should have checked this,’ he said in a voice barely more than a whisper. Then he swallowed the pills and slumped down on to his mat. ‘They’ll kick in soon. Just need to sleep.’

  ‘Bluey,’ said Amazon, her voice full of concern, ‘do you want us to get someone from the village …? Maybe they can help?’

  Bluey shook his head. ‘No, no contact. That’s what the chief said. Don’t want to endanger the mission. And there’s nothing to worry about anyway. And just because I’m crocked doesn’t mean the mission is off. I want you to get back to the other beach. I’ll keep an eye on this one from here. It takes more than a slight allergic reaction to derail TRACKS. Now go!’

  So, dragging their feet, and with many a backward glance, they went.

  It was a horrible day, full of boredom and worry. They took it in turns to run back to check on Bluey, finding him either dozing fitfully or staring fixedly through red eyes out at the beach.

  The allergy pills definitely seemed to help, but their effect gradually wore off towards the evening, and his face grew as red as his hair and sweat glistened on his forehead.

  They finally came back at sunset and found him fast asleep. They tucked him up, and then Frazer went outside to try again with the sat phone.

  ‘This is dumb, dumb, dumb,’ he spat when all he got was the now familiar static. ‘Either it’s bust or there’s someone trying to jam it. If I’d have got through, I’d definitely have asked Dad to sort out a medical evac. This has all gone too far. You said before that I like to pretend I’m in a movie … Well, maybe I do, but this is the wrong sort of picture. It’s like a zombie apocalypse.’

  ‘There’s no point raving like a madman,’ Amazon said. ‘We’ve got to work with what we’ve got. I say we go and ask at the village for some more allergy pills. I know Bluey’s against it, but I don’t think he’s thinking straight.’

  Frazer nodded. ‘OK, I’m sick of doing nothing but watching sand all day. And I bet big chief Huru Huru has every medication under the sun, all paid for with that Swiss bank account.’

  So together they set off towards the village.

  Once again a grey day had died in an unexpected blaze of glory. By now the last of the sunset had burned itself out, and the sudden deep black of the tropical night had fallen. A few hundred metres away, on the other side of the beach, the low orange light of small fires glowed through the small windows of the village huts, and even showed through the flimsy walls. It was a target to aim for.

  They reached the village and found the open spaces utterly deserted. No children played outside. No neighbours chatted in front of open doors.

  ‘Kind of spooky,’ said Frazer in a hushed tone.

  Amazon marched up to one neatly kept hut. She looked for something solid to knock, but nothing seemed suitable: the walls were made of matting, and the poles holding up the roof just didn’t seem to be the kinds of things that you knocked on. So she cleared her throat and said, ‘Excuse me, I mean, excusez-moi.’

  She heard the sound of whispering within. But nobody came to the door. She tried another hut, with the same result.

  ‘We need medicine for a sick man,’ she said. ‘Er, nous avons besoin de médicaments.’

  Still there was nothing, and then even the light within the hut was extinguished.

  ‘What is the meaning of this?’

  The voice, deep and rumbling, made them both leap in the air. It was Huru Huru, and he looked even more terrifying than usual, with his tattoos and huge size both somehow exaggerated by the starlight.

  ‘Hello, Mr Huru,’ said Frazer once he’d overcome his surprise. ‘Our friend Bluey is in a bad way. He needs some allergy pills. We were hoping that –’

  ‘You were warned!’ boomed the giant. ‘No contact with my people. That was the simple request. And yet here you are.’

  ‘But it’s an emergency,’ cried Amazon.

  ‘And what, girl, would happen if you use up our meagre supplies of medicine, and then one of our village children falls ill? How do you think my people would feel about you taking the medicine from the very lips of their children? I can tell you now that I am not responsible for the actions of an angry parent …’

  Then Amazon noticed, for the first time, that Huru Huru’s war club was swinging in his mighty grip. The threat was clear, and it did not come from the frightened villagers. She suddenly knew in her soul that the chief was a very dangerous man indeed. The sort of man who would kill to get what he wanted.

  ‘Come on,’ she said to Frazer. And, when he looked like he wanted to argue the point with Huru Huru, she grabbed his sleeve and dragged him away.

  Frazer knew better than to argue in front of the big chief, but, as soon as they were out of earshot, he turned to remonstrate with her.

  ‘We need that medicine,’ he said in an urgent whisper.

  ‘And,’ came a voice from close by, ‘I will help you get it. But not tonight. Tomorrow.’

  ‘Tomorrow!’ gasped Frazer. ‘But Bluey needs help now …’

  ‘Tonight it is too dangerous. Huru Huru is prowling. It must be tomorrow.’

  And then little Oti, who had followed them silently from the village, told them his plan.

  The next day was filled with joy and unhappiness. The unhappiness came from Bluey. The children hoped he would somehow be better when he woke up in the morning, but he was worse. They wanted to stay with him, but he insisted that they fulfil their mission.

  ‘I’ll get well in the end,’ he rasped, ‘but the baby turtles only have one chance, and you’re it.’

  So once again they spent their time running between the two beaches and the hut as the day grew heavy and humid.

  Amazon had just returned to the turtle beach with the report that Bluey had drifted back into sleep when she saw something rather strange happen out on the rippled dune. At first she thought it was just
heat haze, or perhaps a mysterious breeze stirring up the sand. But then she saw a definite little plume of sand erupt from the surface.

  ‘Fraze …’ she said.

  ‘What? I wasn’t asleep, I was just resting my eyes. Who …? Where …?’

  ‘I think it’s beginning,’ Amazon continued. ‘Come on.’

  Together they ran over to the patch of dune Amazon had witnessed stirring. They got there just in time to see the first baby turtle emerge. It was hardly bigger than the circle made by Amazon’s thumb and forefinger. Amazon could not resist a squeal of pure pleasure. Suddenly all the other problems disappeared into the background, and all that existed was this patch of sand and these tiny creatures, struggling for dear life.

  Amazon and Frazer looked at each other. He smiled and said, ‘You do the first one, Zonnie. You’ve earned it, with all that puking you did on the boat.’

  Without another word, Amazon picked up the little turtle. It flapped its disproportionately large flippers, almost like a baby bird stretching its wings, and Amazon nearly dropped it. But then she cupped it more securely in her hands and ran the twenty metres down to the sea. She waded out until the water lapped round her knees, and gently released the turtle. It bobbed on the surface for a few strokes and then dived down. Amazon lingered, trying to catch another glimpse, but it was gone forever into the infinite blue.

  She turned back and saw that Frazer was right behind her, carrying half a dozen of the babies in the untucked front of his shirt.

  ‘They’re coming thick and fast,’ he said, his face wearing a smile so wide it reached his ears.

  As thirteen-year-olds go, Amazon thought that Frazer was pretty mature. But the joy of the moment had transformed him back into a carefree boy, playing on the beach.

  Amazon raced past him. Three more of the babies were already trundling down the dunes. She scooped them up and raced back to the water, her bare feet hardly touching the hot sand. Frazer’s smile had gone when she reached him. He pointed into the sky.