The Explorer

by Katherine Rundell

  To Charles

  CONTENTS

  Flight

  The Green Dark

  The Den

  The River

  Food (Almost)

  Fire

  The Raft

  Maiden Voyage

  Sardines

  Abacaxi

  The Monkeys and the Bees

  Con

  Smoke

  On the River

  At the Top of the Cliff

  The Ruined City

  The Explorer

  The Trap

  Tarantulas

  Twice-Fried Oiseau Spectacle

  Fishing in the Dark

  The Vow

  Explorer School

  Stuck in the Mud

  Max

  Behind the Vines

  The Green Sky

  Waiting for Dawn

  Flight Home

  Another Kind of Exploring

  Epilogue: Twelve Years Later

  A Note on Explorers

  Acknowledgements

  One

  Like a man-made magic wish, the aeroplane began to rise.

  The boy sitting in the cockpit gripped his seat and held his breath as the plane climbed into the arms of the sky. Fred’s jaw was set with concentration, and his fingers twitched, following the movements of the pilot beside him: joystick, throttle.

  The aeroplane vibrated as it flew faster into the setting sun, following the swerve of the Amazon River below them. Fred could see the reflection of the six-seater plane, a spot of black on the vast sweep of blue, as it sped towards Manaus, the city on the water. He brushed his hair out of his eyes and pressed his forehead against the window.

  Behind Fred sat a girl and her little brother. They had the same slanted eyebrows and the same brown skin, the same long eyelashes. The girl had been shy, hugging her parents until the last possible moment at the airfield; now she was staring down at the water, singing under her breath, her brother trying to eat his seatbelt.

  In the next row, on her own, sat a pale girl with blonde hair down to her waist. Her blouse had a neck-ruffle that came up to her chin, and she kept tugging it down and grimacing. She was determinedly not looking out of the window.

  The airfield they had just left had been dusty and almost deserted, just a strip of tarmac under the ferocious Brazilian sun. Fred’s cousin had insisted that he wear his school uniform and cricket jumper, and now, inside the hot, airless cabin, he felt like he was being gently cooked inside his own skin.

  The engine gave a whine, and the pilot frowned and tapped the joystick. He was old and soldierly, with brisk nostril hair and a grey waxed moustache which seemed to reject the usual laws of gravity. He touched the throttle and the plane soared upwards, higher into the clouds.

  It was almost dark when Fred began to worry. The pilot began to belch, first quietly, then violently and repeatedly. His hand jerked, and the plane dipped suddenly to the left. Someone screamed behind Fred. The plane lurched away from the river and over the canopy. The pilot grunted, gasped and wound back the throttle, slowing the engine. He gave a cough that sounded like a choke.

  Fred stared at the man – he was turning the same shade of grey as his moustache. ‘Are you all right, sir?’ he asked. ‘Is there something I can do?’

  Fighting for breath, the pilot shook his head. He reached over to the control panel and cut the engine. The roar ceased. The nose of the plane dipped downwards. The trees rose up.

  ‘What’s happening?’ asked the blonde girl sharply. ‘What’s he doing? Make him stop!’

  The little boy in the back began to shriek. The pilot grasped Fred’s wrist hard for a single moment, then his head slumped against the dashboard.

  And the sky, which had seconds before seemed so reliable, gave way.

  Fred wondered, as he ran, if he was dead. But, he thought, death would surely be quieter. The roar of the flames and his own blood vibrated through his hands and feet.

  The night was black. He tried to heave in breath to shout for help as he ran but his throat was too dry and ashy to yell. He jabbed his finger into the back of his tongue to summon up spit. ‘Is anybody there? Help! Fire!’ he shouted.

  The fire called back in response; a tree behind him sent up a fountain of flames. There was a rumble of thunder. Nothing else replied.

  A burning branch cracked, spat red, and fell in a cascade of sparks. Fred leapt away, stumbling backwards into the dark and smacking his head against something hard. The branch landed exactly where he’d been standing seconds before. He swallowed the bile that rose in his throat and began to run again, faster and wilder.

  Something landed on his chin, and he ducked, smacking at his face, but it was only a raindrop.

  The rain came suddenly and hard. It turned the soot and sweat on his hands to something like tar, but it began to quench the fire. Fred slowed his run to a jog, then to a stop. Gasping, choking, he looked back the way he had come.

  The little aeroplane was in the trees. It was smoking, sending up clouds of white and grey into the night sky.

  He stared around, dizzy and desperate, but he couldn’t see or hear a single human, only the fernlike plants growing around his ankles, and the trees reaching hundreds of feet up into the sky, and the panicked dive and shriek of birds. He shook his head, hard, trying to banish the shipwreck-roar in his ears.

  The hair on his arms was singed and smelt of eggs. He put his hand to his forehead; his eyebrow had charred and part of it came away on his fingers. He wiped his eyebrow on the sleeve of his shirt.

  Fred looked down at himself. One leg of his trousers was ripped all the way up to the pocket, but none of his bones felt broken. There was vicious pain, though, in his back and neck, and it made his arms and legs feel far-off and foreign.

  A voice came suddenly from the dark. ‘Who’s there? Get away from us!’

  Fred spun round. His ears still buzzing, he grabbed a rock from the ground and hurled it in the direction of the voice. He ducked behind a tree and crouched on his haunches, poised to jump or run.

  His heart sounded like a one-man band. He tried not to exhale.

  The voice said, ‘For God’s sake, don’t throw things!’

  It was a girl’s voice.

  Fred looked out from behind the tree. The light of the moon filtered deep green to the forest floor, casting long-fingered shadows against the trees, and he could see only two bushes, both of them rustling.

  ‘Who is it? Who’s there?’ The voice came from the second bush.

  Fred squinted through the dark, feeling the remaining hair rise up on his arms.

  ‘Please don’t hurt us,’ said the bush. The accent wasn’t British; it was something softer, and the voice was definitely a child’s, not an adult’s. ‘Was it you, throwing poo?’

  Fred looked down at the ground. He’d snatched up a piece of years-old, fossilised animal dung.

  ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Yes.’ He was becoming accustomed to the dark, and could see the shine of eyes peering out from the grey-green gloom of the undergrowth. ‘Are you from the plane? Are you hurt?’

  ‘Yes, we’re hurt! We fell out of the sky!’ said one bush, as the other said, ‘No, not badly.’

  ‘You can come out,’ said Fred. ‘It’s only me here.’

  The second bush parted. Fred’s heart gave a great leap. Both the girl and her brother were covered in scratches and burns and ash – which had mixed with sweat and rain and made a kind of paste on their faces – but they were alive. He was not alone. ‘You survived!’ he said.

  ‘Obviously we did,’ said the first bush, ‘or we’d be less talkative, wouldn’t we?’ The blonde girl stepped out into the lashing rain. She stared from Fred to the other two, unsmiling. ‘I’m Con,’ she said. ‘It’s short for Co
nstantia, but if you call me that I’ll kill you.’

  Fred glanced at the other girl. She smiled nervously, and shrugged. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘If you say so. I’m Fred.’

  ‘I’m Lila,’ said the second girl. She held her brother on her hip. ‘And this is Max.’

  ‘Hi.’ Fred tried to smile but it made the cuts on his cheek stretch and burn so he stopped and made do with a grin that involved only the left half of his face.

  Max was at the breathless stage of crying, and he clung to his sister so tightly his fingers were pressing bruises on her skin. She was leaning over to one side to hold him up, shaking with the effort. They looked, Fred thought, like a two-headed creature, arms entwined.

  ‘Is your brother badly hurt?’ he asked.

  Lila patted her brother desperately on the back. ‘He won’t talk – he’s just crying.’

  Con looked back towards the fire and shivered. The flames cast a light on her face. She was no longer blonde; her hair was grey with soot and brown with blood, and she had a scratch on her shoulder that looked deep.

  ‘Are you all right?’ he asked, wiping rain out of his eyes. ‘That cut looks bad.’

  ‘No, I’m not all right,’ Con spat. ‘We’re lost, in the Amazon jungle, and statistically speaking it’s very likely that we’re going to die.’

  ‘I know.’ Fred didn’t feel he needed reminding. ‘I meant –’

  ‘So, no,’ Con’s voice grew thin and high, ‘I think it would be safe to say that none of us are all right, not at all, not even slightly!’

  The bushes rustled. The rain hammered down on Fred’s face.

  ‘We need to find shelter,’ he said. ‘A big tree, or a cave or something that would –’

  ‘No!’ Max gave a sudden scream: a yell that was wet with spit and fear.

  Fred stepped backwards, raising his hands. ‘Don’t cry! I just thought –’ Then his eyes followed Max’s pointing finger.

  There, three inches from Fred’s shoe, was a snake.

  It was speckled brown and black, patchworked to match the jungle floor, and its head was as big as a fist. For one second nobody breathed. The jungle waited. Then Max let out a second scream that dug deep into the night and the four of them turned and fled.

  The ground was sodden and they ran pell-mell, sending up mud into one another’s eyes and grazing their elbows against trees. Fred ran as if his body were not his own, faster than he’d ever run, his palms stretched ahead of him. He tripped over a root and turned a full somersault, coming up spitting earth. He ran on. The rain blinded him and shadows flashed past him in the darkness.

  There was a yell behind him.

  ‘Please, Max!’ said Lila.

  Fred turned back, skidding in the mud.

  ‘He won’t run!’ Lila bent over her brother. ‘And I can’t carry him!’

  The little boy lay on his back, weeping up at the sky, his whole body shaking in the driving rain.

  ‘Come on!’ Fred heaved Max over his shoulder. The boy was far heavier than he’d expected and he screamed as Fred lifted him, but Fred grabbed both of Max’s knees and started running, his whole body screaming with pain. He could hear Lila, her feet thumping close behind them.

  The stitch in Fred’s side was almost unbearable when he tore out of the trees and into a sudden clearing. He halted, and Max bumped his head against Fred’s spine and yelled. Angrily, he began trying to bite one of Fred’s shoulder blades.

  ‘Please don’t,’ said Fred, but he was barely paying attention to the boy on his back. He stared, stunned, ahead of him.

  They were standing at the edge of a wide circle of trees, open to the sky and lit by the fat moon. There was a carpet of green moss and grass, and the stars above them were clustered so thickly that the silver outnumbered the night. Fred lowered Max to the ground and stood bent over, his hands on his thighs, panting.

  ‘Did the snake chase us?’ said Max.

  ‘No,’ gasped Con.

  ‘How do you know?’ wailed Max.

  Lila dropped to her knees, clutching at her side. ‘Snakes don’t, Maxie. We both know that. I just …’

  ‘Panicked,’ said Con. Her voice was bitter. ‘That’s what happened. See! Look: no snakes. We were stupid. Now we’re even more lost.’

  The ground in the clearing sloped slightly towards a large puddle of water. Fred crossed over to it, his muscles aching, and sniffed; it smelt of rotting things, but he was feverishly thirsty. He took a tiny sip and immediately spat it out. ‘No good,’ he said. ‘It tastes like a dead person’s feet.’

  ‘But I’m thirsty!’ said Max.

  Fred looked around the clearing, hoping to find water before Max started crying again.

  ‘If you wring out your hair,’ he said, ‘there’ll be water in it.’ He tugged his dark fringe down over his forehead and twisted it: a few drops fell on his tongue. ‘It’s better than nothing.’

  Max chewed on his hair for a second, then scrunched his eyes closed. ‘I’m scared,’ he said. It was said without whining, as simple matter-of-fact. Somehow it was worse than the tears, Fred thought.

  ‘I know,’ Lila said softly. ‘We all are, Maxie.’ She crossed to her brother and pulled him close to her. His small bony fingers closed over a burn on her wrist, but she didn’t brush him away. She began to whisper in his ear in Portuguese: something soft, almost a song; a lullaby. They were both shaking slightly.

  Fred swallowed. ‘All this will look less bad in the morning,’ he said.

  ‘Will it?’ said Con. There was bite to the question. ‘Will it, really?’

  ‘It can’t look much worse,’ he said. ‘Once it’s light, we’ll be able to work out a way to get home.’

  Con looked hard at him: there was challenge in the look, and Fred stared, unblinking, back at her. Her face was all geometry; sharp chin, sharp cheekbones, sharp eyes.

  ‘What now, then?’ she said.

  ‘Our mama and papa say –’began Lila. The mention of her parents made her face crease and crumple, but she swallowed and went on. ‘They always say: you need to sleep before you think. They say, when you’re exhausted, you do stupid things. And they’re scientists. So we should sleep.’

  Fred found his whole body was aching. ‘Good. Fine. Let’s sleep.’

  He lay down on his side in the wet grass. His clothes were soaked through, but the air was warm. He closed his eyes. Perhaps he would wake up in his bed at school, he thought, next to the snoring of his roommates, Jones and Scrase. An ant crawled over his cheek.

  ‘But aren’t we supposed to stay awake in case we die of concussion?’ said Con.

  ‘I think if we’d got concussion we’d be dizzy,’ said Lila.

  Fred, already half-asleep, tried to work out if he was dizzy. The world began to spin away from him.

  ‘If we all die in the night, I’m blaming both of you,’ said Con.

  It was on that cheering thought that Fred felt himself dropping down, down, away from the jungle and the thick night air and into sleep.

  It was ferociously hot, and he was still alive. Those were the first thoughts that came to Fred as he opened his eyes and found himself staring straight up at the Brazilian sun. Instinctively he looked down at his wristwatch, but the face was cracked and the minute hand had fallen off.

  The two girls were asleep next to him. Both of them were covered in blood and scabs, but they were breathing easily. Con had her thumb in her mouth.

  There was a host of dragonflies in luminous blues and reds dancing around them. He thought they might be attracted to the blood.

  But there was no sign of the little boy. Max was missing.

  ‘Max!’ Fred whispered, jumping to his feet. There was no answer, no movement except the burr of dragonfly wings.

  Fred’s heart started to pound. ‘Max?’ he called louder. Lila stirred in her sleep.

  He ran to the edge of the trees. There was no trace of the boy.

  ‘Max!’ he roared, staring wildly around.

 
‘What?’ Max looked up; he was lying on his stomach behind some fernlike plants next to the vile-smelling puddle, plashing his fingers in the water.

  ‘Max!’ Fred ran over to him, wincing as one of his ribs protested sharply. ‘You haven’t been drinking that water, have you?’

  Max stared up at Fred as he approached, then screwed his eyes shut and let out a scream that shook the baby flesh in his cheeks. Across the clearing Lila gave a yell as she startled awake.

  ‘That’s not very flattering,’ said Fred to Max, but it was possible, he reckoned, that covered in blood and soot, and with less eyebrow than usual, he didn’t look very reassuring.

  The boy kept screaming, barely drawing breath.

  Lila jumped to her feet. ‘Max!’ she called. ‘What’s happened?’

  Sugar, Fred thought. He knew that you should give people sugar for a shock. ‘Do you want a sweet?’ He had some mint humbugs in his pocket. ‘Please stop crying!’ He fished the sweets out.

  His hand came out wet: there was a cut on his thigh and half-dry blood in his pocket, and the mints had spent the night marinating in it. He grimaced and put one in his mouth. The taste hadn’t been improved, but the sugar gave his blood a twitch.

  ‘Do you want one of these?’ Fred spat on a corner of his shirt and polished one clean. ‘It’s a mint.’

  ‘No! I hate mints!’ said Max.

  ‘It’s the only food I’ve got.’

  ‘Oh. Then I’ll take it,’ said Max. He said it like a lord accepting a peasant’s bread.

  ‘Here,’ said Fred. He put it in the boy’s sticky hand. ‘Eat it slowly if you can.’

  Max sucked loudly. His nose began to run, down past his lips and on to his chin.

  ‘Max!’ Lila called. ‘Come here!’

  ‘Come on,’ said Fred. The boy’s face was intent on working on the mint, his eyebrows furrowed in concentration. He looked very breakable. Fred felt his chest tighten, but he said only: ‘You should probably blow your nose.’

  ‘I don’t blow my nose,’ said Max. They walked, both limping, towards Lila. ‘It’s not a thing I do.’

  ‘I think you should.’

  ‘No!’ Max licked the snot off his upper lip and added it to his mouthful of mint.