‘Please?’
‘All right. But please try not to bite me, OK?’
‘Yes,’ said Max. He took a firm hold of Fred’s wrist, put it in his mouth, and went to sleep.
It was just as Fred was falling asleep that he saw the movement in the trees. He rose to his knees and crossed, keeping low, to the doorway of the stone house. He looked out over the square. Moonlight filtered through the holes in the canopy.
Something was watching them. But it wasn’t an animal: nor was it a monster.
It was the explorer. He was sitting in a low branch, leaning easily against the trunk, knife in hand, keeping guard.
They woke to rains so heavy that Fred could barely see his own hand when he held it out in front of him. The explorer had left fresh fish outside their doorway, but he was nowhere to be seen; there was only the white thundering smoke of the rain. It filtered through the roof and dropped on their faces. They crouched, bleak, waiting for it to stop. It did not. They grew steadily wetter.
‘Let’s go and hide under the statues,’ said Fred. ‘We can take the fish.’
They pelted across the square towards the far end, where the four vast statues stood. Baca let out a snuffling, mewling sound as Lila ran with him, her feet sliding in the mud.
Behind the statues, up against the wall, was a slight overhang, enough to shelter under. They crouched, all four in a line, watching the sky, and scaling the fish. Fred half expected the explorer to be there too, keeping dry, but there was no trace of him.
Fred threw a stone out into the downpour and watched it disappear into the wall of wet.
‘Shall we do something?’ said Lila. She offered Baca a handful of leaves from her pocket. Baca turned away and licked his damp fur. ‘Let’s go looking for food? Or, we could play something?’
Fred put down the fish he was scaling. ‘Play what?’ He was glad to stop working. The rain made the fish slippery, his hands were covered in nicks, and his fingernails were full of fish scales. His fingers, he saw, were calloused now, toughened over the past days.
‘What game?’ said Con. She sounded suspicious. ‘I only know bridge, and we don’t have any cards.’
‘Bridge?’ asked Lila.
Con looked defensive. ‘We didn’t play much at school. Or at least … sometimes the others did. But I’m not usually …’ Her voice trailed off. ‘I don’t really want to. Aren’t games for babies?’
‘Do you know stuck in the mud?’ asked Fred. ‘It’s like tag, only if you get touched, you freeze, until someone comes and crawls under your legs to set you free.’
‘Out in that rain?’ Con scratched a mosquito bite.
‘We can’t really get that much wetter,’ said Fred, gesturing to his jersey. It was dripping on to the fish.
‘All right.’ Con jumped to her feet. ‘Let’s go!’
‘You’re it!’ said Lila to Con.
It wasn’t like any game of tag Fred had played before; it was more like swimming than running. They darted in and out of statues, slipping on the wet stone. The mud churned under their shoes and spattered all the way up to their waists. Rain got in their eyes and ears and mouths, and hammered down on their hands as they tried to lunge at each other. Con ran awkwardly, with her heels hitting against her bottom, but her face was vivid with excitement.
‘I didn’t expect this game,’ said Con, panting, ‘to be so literal. I like it.’
They ran outwards, towards the trees of the jungle. Fred scrambled up two lianas to escape pursuit, one in each hand and his knees around both for balance, until Con lifted Max in her arms and he touched Fred’s ankle with the tips of his fingers.
‘You’re stuck!’ Max called. The rain hammered on his upturned face and slicked his eyebrows into shape.
Con put Max down. She doubled over. ‘Wait! Fred! Lila! I think I might be dying.’
‘What?’ Lila skidded to a halt, throwing up an arc of mud.
‘The side of my side! It’s burning.’
‘Like fire?’
‘Yes!’
‘And it’s hard to breathe?’
‘Yes!’
‘That’s just a stitch.’
‘What?’
‘How do you not know what a stitch is?’ asked Max. ‘That’s so silly!’
‘Shush, Max,’ said Lila. She turned, calming Con’s deep purple blush with her businesslike nod. ‘It’s just what happens when you run. The best thing you can do is take a fat branch in each hand and make a really strong fist around them.’
‘Right! Thank you!’
‘Does that work?’ Fred asked. ‘I’ve never heard of it.’
‘Yes, it definitely works.’ Con ran into the rain to find two sticks. Lila whispered, ‘I don’t know, actually. I just made it up. But it might, if you believe it will. That counts for something.’
Con reappeared, clutching a stick in each hand, her face pink with the effort of making a fist, straining as if she were trying to lay an egg. She thumped Fred on the shoulder. ‘You’re it!’
If ever there is a chance to play tag in the jungle in a tropical storm, it is a chance worth taking. Years later, it would shine for Fred like a gold coin he carried with him.
It was the last day of light, before their days tore open.
The screaming was not coming from inside Fred’s head.
He sat bolt upright and stared around the stone room. Dawn was beginning to break. Con was pushing her hair out of her eyes. Lila was already on her feet.
Max was not lying on the stone floor. Max was missing.
Fred ran out into the stone square, staring around at the grey light, praying that Max would jump out from behind a tree and stick his tongue out at them.
‘Max!’ shouted Lila. ‘Maxie! Where are you?’
‘Max?’ roared Fred.
The screaming stopped, and the silence battered itself against his skin harder than the noise.
‘Not again!’ said Con. But there was no lightness in her voice.
Then Fred’s stomach turned suddenly cold, full of something writhing and maniacal. ‘Is that him?’ He pointed at the sloping wall they had tumbled down, to the foot of a tree. There was a bundle lying at its base.
Fred sprinted to the bank, but Lila outpaced him, legs working like fury.
Max lay in a ball. He was shaking, his spine convulsing against his shirt, and his breathing was rough and erratic.
‘Max?’ said Lila. ‘Max, are you hurt? Can you hear me?’ Her hair fell over her brother’s face. ‘Say something!’
Max moaned and shook. His lips formed shapes, but he spoke no words.
‘What’s wrong with him?’ said Con.
‘I don’t know.’ Lila gathered up his arms and legs and little body and stumbled forward. ‘I don’t know! Come on!’ She tripped on a rock and nearly fell on top of him.
Fred held out his arms. ‘Shall I carry him?’
‘No!’ She held Max tighter. ‘Where’s the explorer?’ she said desperately. Her eyes raked the city.
‘He’ll be working behind the vine curtain,’ said Fred.
Lila turned, shouting as she ran. ‘Explorer! Hey! You! Where are you?’ Baca was tangled in her hair, clutching at her neck with both arms. She didn’t seem to realise the sloth was there.
Fred ran after her, followed by Con, who slipped in the rain that glistened on the stones, scrambled up, her knee bleeding, and sprinted faster. Fred reached the vines ahead of Lila and began to push them away, fighting through the dense wall to where he’d seen the explorer disappear. ‘Help!’ he called. ‘Are you here? It’s an emergency!’ His voice sounded very small and thin.
The vines parted and the explorer stared out. His face was black with anger. ‘What did I say to you about this place?’
‘Shut up!’ Lila whipped to face him, Max cradled against her chest, her fingers clawing at his skin to hold him as he shook. ‘Max is sick! You help my brother or I’ll kill you.’
The explorer’s anger vanished. ‘What happen
ed? Is he dead?’
Lila let out a roar, a noise the like of which Fred had never heard. It had blood in it. Saliva flew from her mouth, and she backed away. ‘No! NO! Don’t you dare come near him if you’re going to say he’s dead!’
She stood, the tallest four foot ten Fred had ever seen, the sloth still on her shoulder like a bird on a pirate king. She blazed.
‘I apologise. I was startled,’ said the explorer. ‘He’s not dead. Here, give him to me.’
Tears poured down Lila’s cheeks as she lowered Max into the explorer’s arms.
‘Get a branch from the fire. I need more light,’ he said.
Fred ran to fetch a torch. Lila stood over them, unblinking.
The explorer laid Max on the floor. He pulled off his shirt and made a pillow, and raised Max’s head. He muttered but didn’t open his eyes. The shaking jerked his legs, and he had saliva around his mouth.
‘Is he going to be all right?’ asked Lila.
‘I feel like I’ve eaten a goblin,’ said Con. She retched and coughed. ‘What can we do?’
‘What’s happening to him?’ asked Fred.
‘He’s been bitten.’
‘By what?’
‘Ants.’
‘Ants? Oh thank God! I thought it was a snake!’ Con let out a bark of laughter and relief. The explorer shook his head.
‘A snake would be better. He must have stood on a bullet-ant colony.’
‘Bullet ants!’ Lila let out a moan. ‘Aren’t they …’ She couldn’t say the word.
‘Deadly? They can be, particularly if there are allergies involved. He needs to get to a hospital. They can treat it. But only if he gets there soon.’
‘How soon?’ asked Lila.
‘He will shake for another day, and he’ll develop a fever. The fever can’t be allowed to last more than five days. A week at most. It will cause the brain to swell.’
‘So … so he’s just going to die? That’s it?’ said Lila. ‘You’re going to let him die? You can’t! I’ll kill you!’ Her face and eyes were wild.
‘No. Of course not.’ The morning light showed the explorer’s face was grey and suddenly ancient. ‘I won’t let him die. Not another.’
Fred thought of the explorer’s face, that night around the fire, as he had talked about love.
‘How, then?’ urged Lila.
‘Let me think,’ said the explorer. His tone was measured.
‘No! There’s no time to sit and think!’ said Lila wildly. ‘You don’t care! You don’t understand! We have to do something now!’
‘I do care, in fact. I do understand.’ He raised Max in his arms and began to rub his hands and feet, trying to quicken the circulation. ‘I told you I had a son.’ He stood and cradled Max against his chest. ‘Come. This one will not die.’
‘But how do we get to the hospital?’ said Fred.
‘You said the walk would take a month!’ said Con.
‘There’s another way.’
‘What is it? Whatever it is, I’ll do it!’ said Lila. ‘Anything! Anything.’
‘You fly.’
The explorer passed Max to Lila, one hand under the boy’s head. ‘Stay here with him. We’ll be quick.’
‘No!’ said Lila. ‘Whatever it is you’re planning, I need to know.’ She rearranged Max in her arms, clumsy with love, cradling him to her. ‘Come on!’
The explorer opened his mouth as if to argue, then met Lila’s eyes and shut it again. He turned to the wall of green foliage.
‘It goes further back than you think,’ he said. ‘Come, push away the vines, quick.’
Fred shoved aside a great armful of the lianas, some browned with age, some thick as his wrist.
The vines looked too closely woven to have grown that way. Up close, it was clear they had been draped from something; they fell, uniform, an impenetrable curtain.
‘Did this grow here? Or did you plant it?’ panted Fred as he pulled at the vines. It felt like trying to climb through a hedge.
‘I planted it, plaited it, pruned it. It is worth having a secret space.’ The explorer pushed past Fred, pulling out his machete. He hacked through the foliage. ‘Almost through.’
He widened a space and held back the vines for Lila. She shifted Max so the boy’s head rested on her shoulder, then she stepped through. Fred heard her gasp.
He pushed aside the final layer of tendrils and creepers. He stopped short.
The vines fell from the roof of a large three-sided stone room. It was built in similar stone to their sleeping room, but with its ceiling almost intact. It was as high as a cathedral, and it smelt of moss and quiet growing things.
The walls were covered in vines, and something had made a nest in the far corner, a ball of grass and feathers.
And in the middle of the bare earth floor, something shone yellow and chrome in the green light.
‘An aeroplane,’ breathed Fred.
‘Precisely.’ The explorer strode towards the plane. ‘Come. Quickly.’
They edged forward, clumped together, Lila’s arms tight around her brother.
‘Here she is.’ The explorer thumped the side of the plane: it was small, with two seats set one behind the other.
‘But you said it burned!’ said Fred.
‘I did not. You assumed that. I said there was a fire, which is not the same thing. I was on a recce when she started to choke. We crash-landed through the canopy, straight on to the stone city. Saved my life. It took five years to repair her.’
Very slowly, Con put out a hand and stroked the wing of the plane.
‘I’ve been keeping the boulevard between the trees clear of grass ever since I came – just in case. It will make a good runway.’ He stopped, corrected himself. ‘It will make an adequate runway. I hope.’
‘We’re going to fly home!’ said Con. Her eyes were shining.
‘I am not. I can no longer fly –’ he smacked his wounded leg – ‘you need both feet to fly a plane. You will fly.’
‘You want us to fly a plane?’ asked Fred.
‘Well, not all three of you. One of you.’
‘No!’ said Con. ‘Never, not possible, absolutely not! We’ve already been in one plane crash. Have you any idea what the odds are on surviving two?’
‘What else are you planning to do?’
Con looked at Max. She looked at the plane.
‘It’s much simpler to fly than you think,’ said the explorer.
Max gave a moan and struggled in Lila’s arms.
‘There is enough fuel for one brief lesson, and the journey to the hospital. Which of you will fly? Lila? As Max is your brother, you have first rights to it.’
‘I can’t!’ said Lila. Her eyes were full of tears. ‘I would! But I can’t breathe when I’m near heights!’
‘Con?’ said the explorer. ‘Fred?’
‘Absolutely no way in the world!’ said Con. ‘I don’t want to kill us all!’
The explorer looked at Fred. Fred looked at the plane. His insides were growing hot with the hope of it and cold with fear. His fingertips began to quiver. His ears were ringing.
‘I can’t,’ he said.
‘Why not?’ asked the explorer. ‘The thing that makes driving dangerous is the other drivers. There will be no other planes.’
‘On one lesson?’
‘You will have to learn fast.’
‘What if I crash?’ Fred asked.
‘You will have to refrain from doing so,’ said the explorer.
‘But –’
‘You have not, I notice, said you won’t. You have said only that you can’t. I say you can.’
‘Fred,’ said Lila. Her eyes met his. Fred had never seen a person look at once so frightened and so brave.
‘All right,’ said Fred. ‘I’ll try.’
‘Of course you will,’ said the explorer. ‘Lila and I will make Max comfortable. I’ll return in an hour. I expect you to be waiting here.’ The explorer held out his arms to take Max, but L
ila clutched him closer to her chest.
‘I’m coming with you,’ said Con. ‘I could be useful. I care for my great-aunt, when she’s sick.’
‘Don’t waste time,’ said the explorer to Fred. ‘Climb into the front seat and get a feel for the controls. But don’t press the black button – that’s the starter. I do not recommend you try to fly through stone.’
And they turned, leaving Fred alone in the great stone cathedral with the waiting aeroplane.
An hour later, Fred helped the explorer cut and pull down the curtain of vines, enough to roll the plane out of the stone shed and on to the boulevard of the ancient city.
Fred climbed back into the front seat of the aeroplane and looked through the windshield. Seat padding was sprouting up from holes in the black leather, but the inside of the plane was spotlessly clean.
‘How’s Max?’ he asked.
‘Sleeping. Lila is keeping him cool with rainwater.’
‘Is he going to be all right?’
The explorer looked serious. ‘As long as you can get him to the hospital in Manaus soon, yes. I hope so.’
‘And if –’ Fred began, and stopped.
‘If not, no,’ said the explorer shortly. There was a muscle contorting in his jaw.
It felt entirely wrong to be sitting here, while across the stone boulevard Max struggled to breathe. The explorer must have seen Fred’s rigid body, must have seen him shaking, because his voice grew less curt.
‘He will live for now,’ he said. ‘But you must get him to a doctor. So concentrate.’
Fred bit down on his tongue and clenched his fists. He looked at the dials arranged in a row in front of him, and at the joystick between his knees. Everything shone: there was not a speck of dust or greenery.
‘I clean the engine every day, to keep the rust off. And I run it every now and then, to check it’s alive. Look after the things you love, or else you don’t deserve to love anything,’ said the explorer, swinging his bad leg in after his good one and settling in the back seat.
‘I think we heard the engine!’ said Fred. ‘Twice. We thought it was an animal: a panther, or a bear. Or a person roaring.’
The Explorer Page 17
