Adam and the Arkonauts

by Dominic Barker

  ‘Be quiet, Ezzio,’ said Carla. ‘These are fellow Bajapuentalists. Remember our motto.’

  ‘“We all crouch together,”’ the other Bajapuentalists quoted dutifully.

  But Adam noted that Ezzio did not join in. Instead, he gave Adam and Anna an ugly stare and slunk back into the shadows.

  ‘Follow me,’ said Carla, and she took them down a tunnel. Soon they reached a shaft. A ladder led up it. She checked her map once more. ‘That should bring you out in the centre of the exercise yard of the dog pound.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Adam.

  ‘It’s nothing.’

  Adam and Anna shook Carla’s hand and climbed up the ladder. For once, Adam went first. When he reached the top, he carefully pushed open the manhole cover, hoping there wasn’t a dog warden waiting for them.

  But the exercise yard appeared to be empty.

  Anna tugged impatiently on Adam’s foot. She didn’t like being left out and hated the fact that Adam could see something she couldn’t. But Adam refused to move immediately. He wanted to be absolutely sure there was nobody around before climbing out of the sewers, because once they were out they were far more vulnerable to capture.

  He turned his head left and right, checking to see he hadn’t missed anything. There were cages all the way round the perimeter of the exercise yard, each locked with a large padlock. And in each cage there was a dog. There were all types of dogs: big dogs, little dogs, short stubby dogs, long thin dogs, dogs with short tails, dogs with long tails. And then, in the far corner, there was . . .

  Sniffage.

  Adam forgot about being extra cautious. He pulled himself out of the manhole and ran towards his dog. Anna came straight out after him. There might not have been anyone around to see them, but the other dogs in the pound noticed immediately and exploded into a cacophony of barks and threw themselves against the doors of their cages. Though she couldn’t hear the dogs, Anna could sense all this clamour of activity would attract someone . . .

  Then Adam opened his mouth and barked.

  The dogs calmed down and were silent.

  Anna didn’t know what to make of it. She could lipread perfectly, but whatever noise Adam had just produced was completely unintelligible to her. She couldn’t believe what she had witnessed. Had Adam had just talked to . . . ?

  No. It didn’t make sense.

  Open-mouthed, she pointed to Adam, then to the dogs, then back to Adam. Then to both of them at the same time. Then she shook her head as though whatever she was thinking was impossible.

  Adam smiled. For once, she was the one who didn’t know what was going on.

  One dog, however, was too excited to stop barking. He had his nose pressed up against his cage.

  ‘Yeah! Yeah!’ barked Sniffage. ‘Adam! Yeah! Adam!’

  Adam and Anna ran over to the his cage.

  ‘You smell different!’ woofed the spaniel delightedly.

  ‘We’ve been in the sewers,’ Adam explained.

  ‘Yeah!’ insisted Sniffage. ‘You smell really bad. It’s fantastic! Yeah!’

  Anna had had enough. She tugged hard at Adam, pointed at Sniffage, pointed at him, and with a menacing wag of her finger demanded to know what was going on.

  Adam remembered the Doctor’s rule that they should never tell anyone, but he was on his own now, making his own decisions, and he knew he could trust Anna better than anyone.

  Maybe even better than the Doctor himself.

  Adam shook himself. He didn’t want to think like that. He looked Anna in the eye. ‘I can talk to animals,’ he said.

  Perhaps it was simply because she trusted Adam in the same way he trusted her, but Anna just nodded and smiled.

  Adam turned back to the cage.

  ‘Sniffage,’ he said. ‘I’d like you to meet Anna. She’s our friend.’

  Sniffage barked hello.

  ‘Yeah! Yeah! I like her,’ he informed Adam. ‘She smells as bad as you.’

  But there was no more time for them to get to know each other. So far the dog wardens had not been alerted to trespassers, but sooner or later Adam and Anna were bound to be spotted.

  ‘Yeah! Yeah! You got a stick to throw for me?’ barked Sniffage enthusiastically.

  ‘No,’ Adam told him. ‘And even if I did, you couldn’t get out to chase it.’

  ‘Grrr!’ the spaniel growled. It was very rare to hear him make such an angry sound. ‘I hate cages. Stop you going out for walks and don’t smell of anything interesting.’

  Adam wanted more than anything to be able to throw open the cage door and let Sniffage run out. He hated the idea of animals being locked up. But there was the problem of the large padlock.

  He shook it. But it wouldn’t budge.

  ‘Yeah! Yeah! Open it!’ encouraged Sniffage.

  ‘I want to, Sniffage,’ said Adam, ‘but I can’t.’

  He turned to Anna and pointed at the padlock. Could she do anything? The dark girl shrugged hopelessly.

  ‘Yeah! Yeah! Doesn’t matter,’ barked Sniffage nobly. ‘I’ll get used to doing nothing. Don’t worry about me. Yeah!’

  The spaniel turned away. He pretended to wag his tail as he padded across his cage but his heart was not in it and his tail barely moved.

  Adam felt tears welling up in his eyes. Of all the animals that he knew, Sniffage would find it hardest being caged. He had to release him. He had to.

  ‘There must be a way to get him out!’ he exclaimed

  Then Adam felt something crawl on to his hand. He looked down.

  It was Private Mandible.

  ‘Ahem,’ signalled the army ant. ‘Perhaps I can help.’

  .

  CHAPTER 26

  Adam laughed.

  ‘What are you laughing at?’ signalled Private Mandible indignantly.

  Once more, Anna’s mouth was wide open in astonishment. When Adam had said he could talk to animals, she had assumed that meant cats and dogs, never insects. But Anna was in for a bigger shock.

  ‘Thank you for offering to help,’ Adam signalled to the ant, ‘but we need to get into a locked cage. It may be too difficult.’

  ‘Nothing is beyond the determination of the Special Ant Service,’ Private Mandible signalled back, forgetting for a moment that he’d actually been suspended from the Special Ant Service for being a conscientious objector. ‘We have a motto: “He who dares wins.”’

  ‘Prove it, then,’ signed Anna.

  This was her biggest shock: she could understand Private Mandible too! Human sign language and insect language had evolved independently, but by coincidence had developed in such a similar way that a user of one could understand a user of the other.

  ‘Put me into the lock,’ said Private Mandible. ‘Army ants are the strongest of all ants. I will open it.’

  Adam lowered his hand to the padlock and Private Mandible marched straight inside.

  ‘It doesn’t matter how strong an ant he is,’ Adam informed Anna. ‘Locks are made of metal. The mechanism will be too heavy for him.’

  There was a metallic click from inside the lock.

  ‘I mean, he can’t . . .’ Adam began.

  There was another click.

  ‘It’s impossible . . .’

  There was a third click and the padlock dropped open. Private Mandible marched proudly out of the keyhole.

  ‘Mission accomplished,’ he announced, and he saluted Adam with his legs.

  ‘I thought you didn’t want to be in the army any more,’ Adam reminded him.

  ‘Only when the mission involves violence,’ Private Mandible said. ‘Violence solves nothing. It only leads to more violence. How many more ants have to die before we know too many ants have died?’

  His philosoph
ical musing on the senseless waste of insect life was interrupted by the escape of Sniffage. As soon as Anna pulled the padlock off, the spaniel shot out to freedom. He was desperate to bark with joy but somehow he managed to limit himself to a simple quiet gruff of pleasure.

  Adam put Private Mandible back in his pocket.

  ‘Let’s get out of here,’ he said to Anna.

  The main gate was at the end of the exercise yard. Once through it, they could disappear into the anonymous streets of Buenos Sueños.

  Adam and Anna began to run, but Sniffage didn’t follow them.

  ‘Come on, Sniffage,’ Adam urged. But the dog wouldn’t move. ‘What’s the matter?’

  Sniffage looked sorrowfully around at all the other dogs – their noses pressed up against their cages.

  ‘Yeah! Yeah! I can’t leave them!’

  ‘But the wardens could be here any moment,’ said Adam. ‘We’ve got to go now or we could be caught.’

  ‘Yeah! Yeah! But we’ve got to get them out first,’ insisted Sniffage. ‘I know what it’s like in there. No smells. No dead things.’

  Adam saw Sniffage was right. Whatever the risk, they had to free the other dogs. He reached into his pocket.

  ‘Private Mandible reporting for duty.’

  ‘We need twenty more padlocks unlocking.’

  Private Mandible saluted. ‘Take me to them.’

  Each lock opened faster than the last. Five, ten, fifteen padlocks were opened, and as soon as Adam and Anna took them off the dog inside the cage slipped out and joined the others in a happy but silent pack, their tails wagging together as they waited for the next of their fellow prisoners to be released.

  But now Private Mandible was beginning to tire. There are limits to even an army ant’s strength and straining to move the locks’ heavy parts was having an effect.

  Locks sixteen and seventeen took longer.

  Lock eighteen was even slower.

  Adam thought Private Mandible had got lost during lock nineteen, but eventually there was a click and another dog was free.

  Only one dog remained – a dachshund called Sausage.

  ‘Hey!’ There was a shout from the dog warden’s office. They had been spotted.

  ‘We’ve got to go now!’ Adam cried.

  Private Mandible shook a leg. ‘No,’ he signalled. ‘There is still time. Put me into the lock.’

  ‘But the wardens?’ Adam protested.

  ‘Put me in,’ insisted Private Mandible. ‘An army ant knows that you never leave a comrade behind.’

  Adam put him into the lock.

  ‘Get down to the other end of the yard and open the gate into the street,’ Adam signalled to Anna.

  She nodded. Taking the other dogs with her, she ran towards the gate. Only Adam and Sniffage stayed by the final cage.

  Three dog wardens charged out of their office.

  ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ shouted one angrily. ‘Put those dogs back in their cages.’

  There was a click. The final padlock fell open.

  Sausage the dachshund barked joyfully. He was free. Private Mandible staggered out of the padlock, exhausted.

  ‘Tell General Lepti that I died like a true army ant!’ And he collapsed on to Adam’s hand. Adam had no time even to worry about Private Mandible. He thrust him into his pocket.

  The wardens were running towards them.

  ‘Come on!’

  Sniffage and Sausage didn’t need to be told. They were already running as fast as they could towards the gate.

  There should have been no problem. The dog wardens were fat and out of shape. Adam and Sniffage were easily fast enough to outrun them. But Sausage was a dachshund, and dachshunds have a problem when it comes to speedy escapes.

  Little legs.

  However fast the determined little dog ran, it was never going to be fast enough.

  Ahead of them, Anna swung open the gate. The other dogs rushed through it. Adam and Sniffage would soon be safe too. But the distance was too far for Sausage. With every step, the dog wardens were catching him up.

  ‘Get him,’ shouted one warden angrily.

  Dogs are pack animals, and pack animals survive by acting and thinking as one. Suddenly a collective thought seemed to flash through the group waiting on the other side of the gate. When they were captured by the dog wardens they had been on their own, outnumbered, cornered and overpowered. But now . . . Now they were the greater in number.

  Just as Sausage was about to be caught, the dogs turned round, formed a pack and charged.

  ‘What?’ cried one dog warden.

  ‘I don’t . . .’ began another.

  ‘Nooooo,’ shouted the third.

  The dog wardens were about to be given a taste of their own medicine.

  ‘Run!’

  Adam and Anna watched them turn tail and flee towards their office, pursued by twenty dogs, who were very much enjoying themselves. They barked, they harried, they growled. Even Sausage managed to get in a quick nip before the wardens reached the safety of their office and slammed the door behind them.

  Outside, the dogs capered about gleefully. The jailers had become the prisoners.

  Adam could not permit himself to join in the celebrations, not when his mother, the Doctor and Calico Jack were still prisoners. But watching the joyful dogs and thinking about what had just happened gave him an idea.

  He and Anna had been running from the police. But now they had an army of their own. Maybe they didn’t need to run any more.

  .

  CHAPTER 27

  There were two officers standing outside the police headquarters. Along with uniforms and guns, they wore the earmuffs that seemed to have been added to the uniform of every member of the force. Otherwise the square was empty. The citizens of Buenos Sueños were still being allowed a respite after the enforced ‘Hokey Cokey’ routine earlier that day. But if the past was any guide, this respite could not last for long.

  One policeman yawned. The other scratched his nose. Neither of them particularly enjoyed sentry duty. They would rather be out searching for the escaped conspirators.

  And the escaped conspirators were nearer than they could ever have imagined. For Adam, Anna, Sniffage, Sausage and the rest of the pack of dogs had navigated back to the square through the narrow streets. The dogs had led the way, using their sense of smell to guide Adam and Anna safely away from their pursuers. Now, after an order from Adam, they split into two groups: humans on one side of the square, dogs on the other.

  Adam nodded at Anna. The two of them ran into the square and tripped over each other. They went down in a heap of arms and legs.

  ‘Come on, Anna!’ shouted Adam, making sure the officers caught her name. ‘We’ve got to keep running.’

  Anna struggled to her feet clumsily as though she was exhausted.

  Outside the police headquarters nobody was yawning or scratching their nose any more.

  ‘It’s the conspirators!’

  ‘We must arrest them!’

  Neither of the policemen stopped to consider why the conspirators would run back into the main square. They were too busy thinking of the promotions that might come their way when they brought them to Chief of Police Grivas.

  They sprinted after them. And it appeared they were in luck. Adam saw them coming, but as he turned to flee he banged into Anna. Once more they fell over in a muddle of arms and legs. The two policemen could almost taste their promotions.

  Had they looked behind them, the taste might have changed from sweet to sour in an instant. For the pack of dogs was in pursuit. They were led by Zip the greyhound, and they stretched all the way back to Sausage.

  Ahead of the police, Adam tried to pull Anna to her feet. But amazingly (at
least to the policemen) he was so desperate to escape that he pulled too hard and he overbalanced again. The policemen couldn’t believe how easy this arrest was going to be.

  ‘Surrender in the name of the Crime and Punishment Code of Buenos Sueños!’

  Still running, the officers reached for their weapons as, finally, the clumsy conspirators regained their feet.

  ‘You’ll never take us alive,’ shouted the boy conspirator, shaking his fist theatrically at them.

  Normally the policemen would have hesitated before shooting, but these were not normal times. They had just raised their guns to take aim at Adam and Anna, when an army of dogs struck.

  ‘Aiieee!’ cried the policemen simultaneously as Zip and Sniffage sunk their teeth into their arms. The guns clattered harmlessly to the floor.

  And before they could even twist and turn to try to fight off their assailants, the officers were overwhelmed by the pack and dragged to the floor.

  ‘Help!’ shouted the policemen.

  But there was nobody in the square to hear their screams.

  The dogs knew what they had to do. While Adam and Anna scooped up the guns, they chewed, they bit and they tore. Moments later, the officers were naked apart from their underpants, and as soon as the dogs let them up, they fled into the narrow streets.

  Sausage arrived just as they were disappearing.

  ‘Curse these little legs!’ he woofed. ‘I never get to join in the fun.’

  But there was no time to commiserate with Sausage. Adam needed to put the second part of his plan into operation.

  ‘Are we ready?’ he asked the dogs.

  ‘Woof!’ replied the dogs.

  ‘Let’s go then!’

  Adam, Anna and the pack of dogs charged towards the police headquarters, followed doggedly by Sausage.

  ‘Only just got here and they run off somewhere else,’ he complained to himself, watching the rest of the dogs vanish into the building. ‘Story of my life.’

  But he didn’t stop running.

  Surprise is a key element in any attack, and Adam, Anna and the dogs had more than their fair share. Firstly, policemen in a police headquarters do not expect to be attacked. Secondly, they do not expect to be attacked by children. Thirdly, they do not expect to be attacked by dogs. Fourthly, they do not expect children with dogs. All in all, it is safe to say that the policemen were very, very surprised indeed.