Adam and the Arkonauts

by Dominic Barker

  ‘What did you say the name of the undertaker was?’ asked Adam.

  ‘Grivas,’ Isabel repeated.

  ‘It’s odd how many of the laws in Buenos Sueños seems to benefit the Grivas family,’ Adam mused.

  ‘I know. I was going to vote for the Mayor and his plans for change, until this blasted alarm started. My husband, Ferdinand, hasn’t had a siesta in weeks. His temper is terrible.’

  ‘But that’s not the Mayor’s fault.’

  ‘All I know is that Felipe Felipez has promised to end the alarm if he’s elected,’ said Isabel. ‘And that is good enough for me. Now please be on your way, chico. Just by standing near a fruit stall a young boy can attract the attention of the police.’

  Adam looked at the ripe fruit and felt his mouth water. Soon they would be out at sea again and he wouldn’t see fresh fruit for days. His forlorn face touched Isabel’s heart.

  ‘Quick!,’ she hissed, reaching over to pass him a couple of bananas and a glass of orange juice. ‘Have these to show there’s no hard feelings. Now, adios, chico, before the police come.’

  ‘Thank you!’ he said, but Isabel was already serving another customer.

  Not wishing to get caught, Adam rushed straight back to the boat. Although still early, the sun’s rays now flooded the deck of the Ark. Adam sat down by the table, pushing the useless letter that the Mayor had given to the Doctor to one side.

  ‘Where have you been?’ demanded Simia. ‘I could have gone to the Amazon rainforest and back to get fruit in the time it’s taken you to buy it.’

  But Adam was not going to allow the monkey to spoil his breakfast. He placed the bananas and the juice on the table.

  ‘Hey, what’s with all the noise?’ Malibu yowled. ‘What is it with you primates and your nonstop yakking?’

  ‘Don’t you compare me to him,’ said Simia. ‘We’re totally different.’

  ‘Different!’ said Malibu, fully awake now and not at all happy about it. ‘The only difference between the two of you, girlfriend, is that he’s got a decent haircut.’

  Simia was outraged. She was very proud of her fur.

  ‘I’ll tell you what,’ the cat went on. ‘I know a place on Sunset that does a mean fur trim. Next time we’re on the west coast I’ll get the Doc to take you there.’

  ‘I don’t want to hear about your pet barber,’ snapped Simia.

  ‘We ain’t talking about no pet barber here, monkey. We’re talking high-class animal coiffure.’

  ‘You’re a disgrace, cat,’ whooped Simia angrily. ‘You’ve betrayed your species.’

  ‘Just the sort of response I’d expect from a lower-class species,’ Malibu hissed.

  ‘Come over here and say that!’

  ‘You come here, it’s just as far.’

  Monkey and cat glared at each other. Adam decided it was time to step in.

  ‘I think we should all calm –’

  But it was too late. In the same instant the animals sprang, crashing into one another on top of the table and becoming a rolling, snarling, fighting ball of fur. Adam’s juice was sent flying.

  ‘What on earth is going on up here?’

  The Doctor climbed up on deck, looking angry.

  At the sound of his voice, Simia and Malibu stopped immediately. They looked at one another and a flash of wordless understanding passed between them. Both knew the Doctor’s views on animal-on-animal violence and they risked a long, tedious lecture.

  ‘Nothing, Doctor,’ said Simia.

  ‘Just playing, Doc,’ Malibu added.

  ‘It sounded like a very loud nothing,’ said the Doctor. ‘Especially when we should be preparing to sail today.’

  ‘Catch you later, cat,’ Simia muttered.

  ‘Not if I see you first, girlfriend,’ hissed Malibu.

  ‘Look!’ shouted Adam suddenly.

  ‘What is it?’ asked the Doctor.

  Adam pointed to the table. ‘The letter!’

  ‘The letter,’ corrected the Doctor, ‘is simply a piece of paper. I can’t believe I didn’t throw it away yesterday.’

  ‘No, it isn’t,’ said Adam. ‘Come here and see!’

  There was an unusual urgency in Adam’s tone. The Doctor hurried over and looked where Adam was pointing. Orange juice had spilled across the table and wherever it touched the letter, faint shapes were appearing, some of them beginning to resemble words.

  Already Adam could make out two.

  ‘Help me.’

  .

  CHAPTER 8

  ‘How could I have been so stupid?’ Doctor Forest cried, grasping the letter.

  ‘You’re not stupid, Doctor,’ said the ever-loyal Simia.

  ‘I am, Simia, I am,’ insisted the Doctor.

  ‘The man says he’s stupid, monkey,’ said Malibu, ‘you gotta respect that. He’s got a lot of qualifications, so he oughta know.’

  ‘How could I forget?’ the Doctor went on.

  ‘Forget what?’ Adam asked.

  ‘Before you were born, before we were even married, your mother and I used to send each other letters. But they had to be secret. Her father disapproved of me because of my circumstances. My mother was poor and my father was . . . well, we need not dwell on what my father was, or is, whereas your mother’s family were rich and powerful. So I would write her letters – on one side they would be about innocent scientific matters, but on the other side they would be blank. Blank until you added a little acidic juice, that is, which would make the real words in my letter appear.’

  The Doctor’s eyes seemed to mist over as he lost himself in the memory.

  ‘And they would say how I felt, how I . . .’

  Suddenly, he shook himself back to reality.

  ‘What they said doesn’t matter.’

  Adam looked at his father and tried hard to imagine him many years ago sending secret romantic letters, but he just couldn’t see it. The ten years of fruitless searching had hardened him too much.

  ‘Pour some more juice on the rest of it, Adam,’ the Doctor ordered.

  Slowly more words began to appear. Two minutes later the whole communication was laid out in front of them:

  .

  Will and Adam,

  I have very little time. I am in Buenos Sueños. Scabellax and his henchmen watch my every move. But I am sure that you are still looking for me and if anyone can find me I know you can. I pray this message reaches you. Help me!

  Your loving wife and mother,

  Lily

  Adam glanced at the Doctor, who appeared to be wiping a tear from his eye.

  ‘Bit of grit,’ said the Doctor, noticing his son’s look.

  ‘Uma used onions in scenes when she needed to turn on the waterworks,’ Malibu observed, remembering the actress who used to own him, ‘whereas Brad would pull out a nose hair. Whatever it takes to get the shot in the can, they used to say.’

  ‘The Doctor is not crying,’ said Simia firmly. ‘I suppose this means we will not be leaving.’

  ‘Of course we won’t,’ the Doctor replied. ‘Hidden somewhere in that city, desperate for us to find her, is my wife and Adam’s mother.’

  Adam looked out into the city, with its identical white houses and narrow streets. How would they ever find her?

  And then he remembered something else.

  ‘If the letter is real,’ he said to his father, ‘that means we really should help the Mayor find the source of the Dreadful Alarm of Buenos Sueños and get rid of it. Like we promised before.’

  The Doctor agreed. ‘But that would mean having to tell him the letter was genuine. I would rather as few people as possible knew about that at this time. Buenos Sueños is a strange place where, I suspect, all is not what it seems. Ther
efore let us try to help the Mayor as we promised but without telling him, until we have more of an idea about what is going on in this city and whom we can trust.’

  ‘That’s a very clever idea, Doctor,’ said Simia. ‘Fancy you saying you were stupid.’

  ‘Thank you, Simia,’ said the Doctor.

  But Simia wasn’t finished.

  ‘Now had you been talking about the rest of your race – those furless late developers who can’t climb trees – then you’d have had a point.’

  The Doctor decided not to engage with Simia’s views on humans and instead changed the topic of conversation.

  ‘What time does Vlad wake up?’ he asked Adam.

  Realising that she was being ignored, Simia flounced off.

  ‘Vlad?’ said Adam. ‘He’s out all night and sleeps all day. He’s not normally awake until dusk at the earliest.’

  ‘I’m afraid he’s going to have to get up a little earlier today. I have a job for him to do.’

  ‘He won’t like it,’ said Adam. ‘He hates daylight.’

  ‘That’s why I need you to prepare him,’ said the Doctor. ‘He can be so precious, but you seem to have acquired the skill of talking to him.’

  That’s because I don’t talk to everyone like they’re a scientific machine, thought Adam. But he didn’t say that. There was something else he was far more interested in which the Doctor had mentioned earlier.

  ‘You talked about your father before,’ he said to the Doctor. ‘I thought he was dead.’

  ‘I have never said that,’ answered the Doctor. ‘He left when I was very young.’

  ‘But you never talk about him,’ said Adam. ‘He’s my grandfather and I know nothing about him.’

  Perhaps it was the recent letter from his wife, for something seemed to have briefly softened the Doctor. He sighed.

  ‘All right, Adam,’ he said. ‘I will tell you this once and once only.’

  Adam leant forward excitedly. His family had always been a mystery to him. His father was the only relative he had ever known. Except for his mother, he thought bitterly, but he wasn’t even able to remember her.

  ‘Your grandfather was a student of human behaviour, just as I was,’ the Doctor began.

  ‘So you took after him?’ said Adam. ‘He was a doctor too?’

  ‘No,’ his father answered firmly. ‘He was not a doctor. His study was outside academic circles.’

  ‘What did he do?’

  The Doctor looked uncomfortable.

  ‘I suppose you are old enough to know, Adam. But I must stress one thing before I tell you: that if one makes scientific discoveries, then one should never use them for personal gain. One should share them with humanity for the good of all.’

  Adam tried not to look bored, but he’d heard this lecture many times before.

  ‘Your grandfather used his knowledge of human behaviour for the basest of all possible motives,’ said the Doctor shortly. ‘Financial gain. He left my mother and me when we were very young to become a conman and a gambler – travelling the world searching for the foolish and the ignorant and parting them from their money.’

  ‘He just left you and your mother alone?’ said Adam in disbelief.

  The Doctor nodded. ‘One day we woke up and he was gone.’

  ‘What about money?’

  ‘Some mornings we would wake up to discover a bag of money had been left on our doorstep overnight,’ acknowledged the Doctor grudgingly, ‘coming from who knows where but doubtless taken from some poor fool. But being a father is not about providing money. Being a father is about supporting your family day in and day out.’

  ‘Did your mum tell you about him?’ asked Adam.

  ‘She never spoke about him,’ said the Doctor, ‘and neither did I. On the day he left it was as though he had never existed.’

  ‘So how do you know what happened to him?’

  ‘Reports in the papers and on the news, policemen coming to the house wanting to know if we knew where he was. And one time, when I was your age, men worse than policemen – gangsters who threatened to kill us if we didn’t help them find him. But how were we to help? If I could have forgiven him before, I could never have done so after that.’

  For the second time that day, Adam saw tears glinting in the Doctor’s eyes as he remembered the day when he’d stood powerless to protect his mother in front of three heavy-set men in dark glasses whose guns bulged under their jackets.

  ‘What happened to him?’ asked Adam.

  ‘The last I heard he was in prison,’ said the Doctor matter-of-factly.

  ‘Prison! What did he to do to end up there?’

  ‘I don’t know and frankly I don’t care,’ said the Doctor. ‘And as far as I’m concerned he can rot there.’

  Adam had never heard his father speak with such hatred for anyone, even Professor Silus Scabellax.

  ‘And now,’ said the Doctor, ‘you know everything you need to know about your grandfather. That is the first and the last time I will speak of it, so I would be grateful if you would never refer to it again. Go down below and prepare Vlad for the daylight.’

  Even though this was not going to be easy, as Adam climbed below deck he couldn’t concentrate on the task in hand. His mind was still on his grandfather – conman, gambler and convict. Adam could barely permit himself to think of him when he remembered the anger in the Doctor’s face, but he couldn’t stop himself either. Bad as his grandfather obviously was, his life sounded exciting. Adam wondered what it would be like to actually meet him.

  .

  CHAPTER 9

  ‘What time is it?’ asked the Doctor

  Adam looked up. During a voyage across the Pacific Ocean his father had taught him how to use the sun to calculate the time, and these days he only wore a watch when it was cloudy.

  ‘Around quarter past three.’

  ‘I need to know exactly,’ said the Doctor a trifle testily. ‘We need to be ready when the alarm goes off.’

  ‘I’m not happy about this,’ squeaked a voice. ‘Not happy at all.’

  The voice came from under the table, which was entirely covered, legs and all, by a thick brown blanket to prevent any light getting in.

  ‘Adam,’ said the Doctor, ‘the exact time, please.’

  Adam went into the navigation cabin to retrieve his watch.

  ‘It’s twenty-one minutes past three and forty-six seconds,’ he announced.

  ‘Pull the blanket slowly off the table and hopefully Vlad’s eyes will become accustomed to the light.’ said the Doctor.

  ‘Make sure it’s very slowly,’ squeaked the voice from under the blanket.

  ‘Come on,’ said the Doctor to Adam, and together they grabbed the blanket and began to pull.

  ‘Ooooohhhh,’ squeaked Vlad, as the burning afternoon sun seeped under the table.

  ‘Now, now,’ said the Doctor, continuing to pull the blanket away. ‘It’s not that bad.’

  ‘Ooooooooooohhhhhhhhhh.’

  Vlad had a reputation on the Ark for being overdramatic.

  ‘Oooooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.’

  With one final tug the blanket was removed to reveal the vampire bat hanging upside down from the bottom of the table. He didn’t hang around for long. With a thud he dropped on to the deck.

  ‘I’m blind,’ he squeaked. And to prove it he stood up and walked into one of the table legs.

  ‘Don’t be silly, Vlad,’ said the Doctor.

  ‘Dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon,’ cried Vlad, banging into the table leg again and collapsing on his back.

  ‘It’s way past noon,’ Adam pointed out.

  ‘I know you’re doing this on purpose,’ said the Doctor. ‘Your sonar would have told you about the table l
egs even if you couldn’t see them.’

  ‘I think the sun has sent it all haywire,’ piped Vlad.

  ‘Of course it hasn’t,’ said the Doctor.

  Tentatively the vampire bat opened one of his eyes. And shut it again.

  ‘It’s so bright!’

  ‘Am I ever going to get any winks?’ demanded Malibu, awoken by Vlad’s high-pitched squeaks of discomfort.

  ‘Be quiet, Malibu,’ the Doctor snapped.

  ‘Quiet is all I want,’ grumbled the cat.

  Despite Vlad’s melodramatic protests the Doctor knew the vampire bat was genuinely finding it difficult to function in the glare of the strong sun.

  ‘If only we had something to cover his head . . .’ he mused. ‘If his eyes were shaded I’m sure things wouldn’t be so bad.’

  ‘The sombrero!’ shouted Adam suddenly.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ demanded the Doctor.

  Adam reached into his pocket and pulled out the novelty stirrer from the glass of orange juice that Isabel had given him earlier in the day. One swift tug was all that was needed to detach the sombrero from the top of the stick.

  ‘Vlad could wear the sombrero to keep off the sun!’ cried Adam, waving it at the Doctor.

  ‘Do you think I’m running a circus, boy?’ said his father. ‘I do not believe . . .’ Then his voice trailed off. ‘I suppose it just might work.’

  But not everybody was convinced. Under the table, Vlad drew himself up to his full height, which unfortunately for him wasn’t actually very tall.

  ‘I am a vampire bat,’ he squeaked. ‘A near-legendary creature who strikes fear into the hearts of all who see my fangs. I have my dignity. I will not be seen wearing a sombrero. My reputation would be – ow, that sun is bright.’

  ‘We haven’t time for this,’ said the Doctor.

  He reached under the table, grasped Vlad and pulled him out.

  ‘I warn you I will bite,’ said Vlad, showing his fangs.

  ‘You won’t bite me,’ said the Doctor calmly, placing the miniature sombrero on the vampire bat’s head. It was a perfect fit.