by Paul Mason
Contents
Chapter One Shipwreck
Chapter Two Heroes
Chapter Three Holiday
Chapter Four Uncle Amir
Chapter Five Abandoned
Chapter Six Searching
Chapter Seven Hussein
Chapter Eight Poachers
Chapter Nine Flash Flood
Chapter Ten Tiger Pit
Chapter Eleven Ambush
Chapter Twelve Trapped
Chapter Thirteen Tiger Hunt
Chapter Fourteen Home Again
Chapter One
Shipwreck
The rocks off the island had claimed another victim. Another ship was being pounded against the cold stone. Some townspeople gathered on the old wharf in the rain to watch. There was nothing they could do to help the ship – not in this gale. The coastguard had been called out. But in this weather, it could take ages.
Then the onlookers saw an explosion on deck. An eruption – a fireball blasting high into the sky. The townspeople yelped, and backed away.
‘God help them,’ one of them muttered.
But now, in the glow of the flames, they spotted something else. A flying shape, barrelling through the air towards the ship. Travelling like a rocket. Only this was no rocket.
‘What on earth is that?’ someone called out, pointing.
‘Is that someone flying?’ gasped one. ‘Tell me I just didn’t see that.’
Zephyr swooped down low over the ship, arms by his side. He cut through the storm, riding the currents of the wind like a hawk. He swerved to avoid the flames, and doubled back, checking out the situation.
‘I’ve found the North Star, but I can’t see anyone out on deck,’ he shouted into his mike. ‘Going in to take a closer look.’ Zephyr abruptly halted his flight, and dropped to the deck. Even through his flight suit, the heat from the flames was strong. The ship shook under the pounding waves.
Zephyr grabbed the railing and looked over the edge. There was a gash down the side of the hull stretching below the water line. He could see a darkness spreading out through the water. Oil. And lots of it.
Things had just taken a turn for the worse.
Zephyr quickly passed on everything he’d seen to the others. He hoped they weren’t far behind
He shot back into the air. He needed back-up, and he needed it fast.
‘Aqua – you there?’ Zephyr called into his mike.
‘Coming up to the ship now.’ Aqua’s voice in his earpiece was a little jumbled. She was underwater, after all.
‘Any chance you can control this swell – keep this ship from being crushed?’
‘No problem,’ Aqua shouted. Typical Aqua. Nothing was ever a problem.
Zephyr spotted Inferno racing over the shoreline, jumping from rock to rock, trying to get to the ship. Inferno’s legs hardly seemed to touch the surface. His body was on fire, flames trailing behind him in the wind. Zephyr still wasn’t used to seeing his friend like this: the human fireball. As if he wasn’t unpredictable enough.
‘I need you up here, pal,’ Zephyr shouted into his mike. ‘This fire is getting out of control. I need you to switch it off.’
‘On it!’ Inferno shouted back, his microphone crackling. ‘I guess I can save the day again.’ Zephyr could picture Inferno’s wide, cheeky grin.
Now Terra came online. ‘I’m going to try and shift some sand under the hull, wedge it against the rocks a bit more. See if I can’t get that ship more stable.’ Zephyr could see her running along the shore. ‘If I can force up a large dune, it might just block the hole and stop the leak.’
‘Good idea,’ Zephyr called back. No surprises there – Terra was always thinking.
Zephyr flew to the other side of the ship, and turned his body into the wind. He’d practised controlling the wind plenty of times. He could twirl the air like it was a top – but he’d never tried it in a gale.
Swallowing hard, he threw out his arms and pushed with everything he had. He hoped it was enough.
The captain on the bridge of the ship had already made the call to abandon ship. He’d made it ages ago – about the same time he had shouted ‘Mayday!’ on the emergency frequency. But that had been before the explosion. Before the fire. Half the crew were still trapped below decks with no way of making the lifeboats – if they were still alive at all. The walkie-talkies were out.
‘Stay on the bridge!’ he shouted at the first mate. ‘I’ve got to get below, to the engine room.’
The captain swung open the door to the bridge, the wind knocking him back. He struggled out onto the gangway into the gale. Then, suddenly, it was calm. Completely calm. As if someone had pressed a button, and switched off the storm, just like that.
Chapter Two
Heroes
The friends were back at the abandoned airstrip, at the old Hercules plane that Mr Arturi had found for their base, everyone talking a mile a minute. Mr Arturi was finally able to stop pacing up and down and catch his breath. He’d been monitoring Factor Four’s moves on the radio as they tackled the ship, helping them when he could. But the thought of his four students putting themselves in harm’s way left him feeling a wreck – the way it had done last time, at the out-of-control forest fire.
‘Well done, all of you,’ he said, over and over. ‘You were great.’
‘Thanks, Mr Arturi,’ said April drying her hair. ‘Couldn’t have done it without your help.’
‘Yeah, it was fun,’ Ian laughed. ‘And that flame suit you rigged up for me was the business.’ The others agreed. Their new suits had combined with their powers perfectly and had kept them safely disguised.
‘The captain of that ship looked like he had seen a ghost,’ Zaf chuckled. ‘And when Ian and I spoke, he practically fell over.’
‘What’d you say to him?’ asked Tara.
‘Told him that we were called Factor Four, and that we had it under control,’ said Zaf, and grinned. ‘I guess word is going spread pretty quickly.’
Zaf was right. Word did spread quickly. Newspapers up and down the country got hold of the story about the superheroes who had saved the ship and all its crew, and stopped an environmental disaster. The TV was swamped for days with eyewitness reports from the crew of the ship and the townspeople who had seen the whole thing from the dock. There were interviews with experts trying hard to work out just what powers these superheroes had. There was talk of a comic – maybe even a movie.
Factor Four had arrived.
‘Check it out,’ Ian said at their next meeting. To the groans of the others, he strutted about in a Factor Four T-shirt he had bought off the internet. ‘I always knew I was going to be a star.’
***
At school, things took a while to quieten down. The idea that there might be real-life superheroes swooping around had created a bit of a buzz, to say the least. Gossip and chat flowed through the school hallways, but the four friends didn’t bother to take part. Mr Arturi had suggested they all lie low. Ignore the emergency scanner and all the hype; put their heads down and concentrate on their work until the end of the term.
Zaf was following his advice. He was at a desk in the library, a pile of books by his side.
It felt good to be normal for a bit. Ever since he and his friends had breathed in the yellow gas from deep in the earth’s core, things had been pretty helter-skelter.
Mr Arturi still wasn’t close to working out just what the vapour had done to the four of them, or how exactly it had given them the powers of earth, wind, fire and water. But their science teacher had said he had a feeling they might develop even more powers. More power? Now there was a thought.
Zaf brushed it from his mind. He had a test to study for. Fractions – he liked fracti
ons. At least you always knew where you stood with maths.
***
‘How’d the test go?’ Zaf’s mum asked when he got home.
‘Nothing I couldn’t handle,’ Zaf answered.
His mum closed her lap top and came over to give him a hug. ‘I’m so proud of you – you know that, don’t you? The way you work so hard. Both me and your ābbā.’
Zaf blushed. ‘Yes, āmmā.’
‘Well, guess who I just got an email from?’ Zaf shook his head. ‘Uncle Amir.’
Zaf’s ears pricked up. Amir was his dad’s younger brother – the tiger man. A park warden in a tiger reserve back in Bengal. Amir was one of his heroes. ‘What did he have to say?’
Zaf’s mum shrugged her shoulders. ‘Oh, nothing much. He was only suggesting that we send you out to him to have a visit in these holidays coming up, and that you could bring some friends. I emailed back to say you probably wouldn’t be interested in anything like that. Tigers are a bit boring – yes?’ she said with a straight face.
‘Are you serious?’ Zaf’s mouth hung open.
Zaf’s mum laughed. She’d caught him, hook, line and sinker. Zaf had to chuckle. ‘No, silly boy. I told him that your ābbā and I would discuss it.’
Now it was Zaf’s turn to wrap his arms around his mum and give her a big hug. Uncle Amir. Bengal. Tiger Reserve. Now that sounded good.
Chapter Three
Holiday
‘You’re joking, right?’ Tara was wide-eyed. ‘A tiger sanctuary?’
Zaf grinned. ‘Yep. My parents agreed I could go – if I raised half the money myself.’
Ian took a slurp of his juice. ‘So, the four of us get to fly half-way across the world, hang out in the middle of a jungle and meet the fiercest big cat there is?’
‘That’s about the shape of it,’ chuckled Zaf.
‘Suits me,’ Ian mumbled through a mouthful of sandwich.
‘Would we get to help your uncle?’ April asked. ‘Do some conservation work?’
‘For sure,’ said Zaf. ‘He said that was part of the deal. He needs some extra hands to gather data. It’ll be like a working holiday.’
April pictured herself in the jungle, setting camera traps, measuring paw prints, helping tigers. It was too good to miss. ‘I’m in,’ she said. ‘If I can convince my parents, that is.’
‘I’m sure mine will say yes. But I’m not sure just how we can raise the money,’ Tara sighed.
‘That’s simple,’ said Ian spraying the table with crumbs. ‘Car wash.’
‘Have you any idea just how many cars we’d have to wash to get that kind of money?’ April rolled her eyes. ‘We’d need ten arms each!’
‘Or to be superhuman,’ said Zaf with a wink.
***
Even with the help of Mr Arturi, it took the four friends weeks of washing to get the money they needed. Row after row of cars. They got the permission of the shopping mall owners and their parents, and set up a gazebo in the mall car park with a sign that explained what they were doing. There were no shortage of customers.
Tara was the only one with a driver’s licence, so she took the bookings and moved the cars. Under cover of the big tent Ian, Zaf and April got to work. Or rather, Ian, Zephyr and Aqua did.
‘This doesn’t seem right to me,’ Ian grumbled. ‘I’m the one doing all the hard work here while you two take it easy.’
Under April’s hands, a tower of water rose up from the bucket at her feet and covered the car like a swirling blanket. ‘Quit your whining and get scrubbing,’ she laughed. ‘Tara said we have five more to do before we finish today.’
Once Ian had covered the car in suds, April washed the soap off with a flow of water from her hand, and Zaf blasted the car dry with a mini tornado.
Ian shook his head. ‘Couldn’t I try to use a fireball – just once?’ he moaned.
Chapter Four
Uncle Amir
After the long flight, the first thing the friends noticed when the door to the plane opened was the heat. It wrapped itself around them like cling film. Their clothes were soon clammy. Then came the line to get their passports stamped, and the struggle to drag their bags off the conveyor belt.
Finally the four were swept along in the crush and out through the airport doors.
Zaf spotted Uncle Amir waving at them in the crowd outside the arrivals hall. Good thing too – the place was a zoo. Crowds of relatives greeting family members, hawkers selling snacks, a chain of buses with conductors leaning out of open doors shouting destinations. There were brightly coloured motorcycle rickshaws, and an army of porters carrying luggage on their turbaned heads.
‘Uncle!’ Zaf called out. He weaved his way through the crowd. The others followed close by.
‘Goodness, how you’ve grown,’ Uncle Amir said, wrapping his arms round his nephew. ‘Last time I saw you, I could throw you over my shoulder.’ Zaf introduced the others and they shook hands.
Amir forced his way into the commotion and led them to a green jeep parked down the road. There was a tiger emblem on the side, and a man asleep in the driver’s seat.
‘Rajiv!’ Amir shouted, and the driver woke with a start. Amir laughed. ‘My good friend and assistant,’ he said, introducing them. ‘We had a long night, tiger-watching.’
‘What did you see?’ asked April.
Amir shook his head. ‘Unfortunately, nothing. That’s the problem. Things have changed lately.’ He looked down for a moment, but then broke into a smile. ‘But come, hop in the back. We’ve got a bit of a drive ahead of us to get to the park.’
Rajiv steered the jeep through the maze of traffic-clogged streets. Soon they were bouncing along a potholed country road, swerving to avoid cattle. They drove on through farm land and villages of huts with mud walls. Tara pointed out some workers bent double in the fields, up to their ankles in water, harvesting some kind of crop.
‘Rice,’ Amir explained when he saw the puzzled look on her face.
Finally, after what seemed like hours on the dusty road, they reached the edge of the jungle.
Tiger country.
The jeep passed through the gate to the national park and followed the road of dusty, red soil that cut through the forest. On either side of them was a web of trees, their trunks standing tall like statues, thick bush at their feet.
‘If you’re lucky you sometimes spot a tiger on this very road,’ Amir said. ‘Sometimes they even sit in the middle, and stop us passing.’
After that, the four friends kept their eyes on the road ahead, and on the tangle of green around them. But there was no sign at all of a great cat.
***
The tiger camp was a small bunch of camouflaged tents gathered around a clearing in the jungle, a few minutes’ drive off the dusty road. Blink and you would miss it. April and Tara shared one of the canvas tents, and the boys had another. The tents were large and pretty comfortable; each had little camp beds with mosquito nets, and a gas lantern for when the sun went down. Across the clearing was the dining tent and the shed that was Amir’s office.
From the nearby village, Amir had arranged elephants for them to ride into the jungle on tiger safari. So, just after first light each day, they had a quick breakfast prepared by the cook in the dining tent, and then scrambled onto the great animals. Then the mahouts, the elephant drivers, gently guided the elephants into the dark forest, their strong legs crunching through the undergrowth.
Amir had to stay at camp each day – something to do with a project he and Rajiv were working on – but told them they were in the care of their best mahouts.
But things didn’t work out as planned. The four friends didn’t see a tiger on the first day. Or the day after that.
‘Look at that!’ Tara hissed loudly after they had set out again one morning. The elephants had reached the bank of a river. Just below them at the edge of the water lay a dark shape with a long row of teeth.
‘Crocodile!’ she called out to Zaf and April, snapping a photo.
‘Gharial,’ the mahout corrected her. ‘Little bit different than crocodile. Very rare to see.’
‘Also tiger prints,’ said the other mahout pointing to the mud at their feet. ‘Tiger was here for drinking.’
‘Wow,’ said Zaf. He took a picture of the pug marks with his camera.
But though the friends were enjoying the thrill of riding through the jungle on the back of elephants, they couldn’t hide their disappointment from Amir when they got back to camp. The paw prints were the closest they had come to seeing a tiger.
Amir just shook his head when he heard their news. ‘Perhaps tomorrow,’ he said with a sigh. ‘Now, please excuse me.’ He went back to his office.
Zaf could see there was something troubling his uncle. But whatever it was, he was keeping it a secret.
Chapter Five
Abandoned
That evening after dinner, Amir wished them all a good night, and said he would see them in the morning. ‘We have some field work to do,’ he said walking over to his Jeep.
Rajiv was at the wheel, and Zaf saw there was a rifle by his side.
‘Can we come?’ asked April, following him. ‘We’d love to help you collect data.’ The others agreed.
Amir smiled. ‘That’s very kind. But this is something we have to do by ourselves. I promise to give you some work tomorrow when I get back.’ Then he climbed into the jeep and drove away.
The four friends settled back in Zaf and Ian’s tent to play cards instead. Around them they could hear the sound of the camp staff going about their jobs, closing down the camp for the night.
‘Does it seem strange to you that we’ve been here almost a week, in a place where tigers are supposed to be protected, and we’ve not seen a single one?’ Tara said, picking up a card.
‘Ah, but maybe they’ve been there all along.’ Ian widened his eyes. ‘You can’t see them, but they can see you.’ He lifted his hands like claws and bared his teeth in a hiss. April shoved him off the bed. Ian lay on the floor, giggling.
