At least, free in the sense that she could move about. But she was still trapped in a balloon thirty metres above the ground.
The rope was beginning to slip through the fingers of Adam, Anna, the Doctor and Calico Jack as the balloon tugged relentlessly against their ever-weakening arms.
‘Don’t let go,’ cautioned the Doctor. But even as he said it, he felt the rope slipping.
Adam too was struggling. But he thought of his mother and somehow found the will to hold on.
Malibu leapt out of the balloon basket and skittered down the rope, landing safely back on the roof of the Hotel Dormir. Lily’s face appeared over the edge of the basket.
So near but so far. How was she to get down? Simia’s face appeared next to hers. The monkey tapped her on the shoulder and pointed to herself.
‘If Simia is giving her one of her lectures about why humans should never have come down from the trees . . .’ said the Doctor said through gritted teeth.
But that was not what Simia was trying to do. She knew that Adam’s mum couldn’t communicate with her like Adam and the Doctor, but she could understand enough to follow the monkey’s lead. Simia pointed at herself, then at Lily and then she clambered out of the balloon and slid down the rope to safety.
But sliding down a rope was easy for a monkey. It was not easy for a human.
‘Come on, Mum,’ shouted Adam. ‘You can do it!’
Tentatively, Lily straddled a leg over the edge of the basket. Everyone below held their breath.
She leant down for the rope. It was just out of reach. She stretched a little further, but still it dangled centimetres from her grasp. On her third attempt, her fingertips brushed the rope and she grabbed it as the rest of her body tumbled out of the basket. There was a collective gasp from below as the others watched her dangle helplessly for a moment. Then she managed to grab the rope with her feet and wrap her legs around it.
‘Slide down!’
Adam’s mum closed her eyes and slid. It was not an elegant descent like Simia’s. It was slower and clumsier. But now she was twenty metres away, fifteen, ten, five, three.
The watchers’ strength gave way. The rope was dragged out of their hands. The balloon began to rise.
‘Let go!’ shouted Adam.
His mother was confused. She opened her eyes. Why was she going up again?
‘Let go!’ Adam screamed as loud as he possibly could.
This time the words blasted through the confusion. Lily let go of the rope, dropped through the air and landed in the open arms of her husband.
‘Hello,’ he said. But his eyes and his smile said much more.
Adam’s mum wanted to see someone else too. She dragged herself from her husband’s embrace and rushed towards her son.
‘Adam!’
‘Mum!’
They had the biggest hug in the history of the world.
Everybody cheered.
Simia stopped cheering first.
‘Of course,’ she chattered drily, ‘with a few centuries’ evolution you might be able to turn back into monkeys and then the sliding down a rope business wouldn’t be such a palaver. There’s no harm in you humans admitting you made an evolutionary wrong turn.’
There was a bark from behind them.
Everybody turned round. Sausage had just reached the roof.
‘I’m ready to help,’ he woofed. ‘Where’s this Scabellax fella? I’ll bite his ankles.’
Adam pointed to the yellow balloon, which was flying away towards the mountains.
Sausage shook his head in disbelief. ‘You mean I’ve missed all the fun?’
Adam nodded.
‘Curse these little legs,’ said Sausage.
And he was most put out when everybody laughed.
.
CHAPTER 35
For two nights and three days Buenos Sueños slept. Nothing moved, no shops opened and no children played in the streets. The only sound to be heard was snoring, which drifted from open windows on all sides of the narrow streets. The snores mingled together and the sound swelled until a symphony of sleep rang out through the streets of Buenos Sueños. But loud as it was, it didn’t wake anybody up, as the city enjoyed the longest siesta the world has ever known.
And then the party started.
The fiesta began on the third night. The Mayor, newly restored to power, ordered that the terrible loudspeakers used to broadcast the Dreadful Alarm were brought down to the harbour, where it was decreed the celebrations be held. But now, instead of an alarm, they blared out music with an infectious beat which got inside the body of even the stiffest and sternest of men and made their feet stamp and their bodies want to dance.
The celebration parade snaked its way through the narrow white streets and terminated in one great dancing mass on the wharf. Everybody in the city was there in all kinds of outrageous costumes. Models of giants with outsized heads danced behind human castles, eight people high, with waving children on the top. Señor Gozo abandoned his tourist information kiosk and changed his T-shirt to join in. The Bajapuentalists were there, having travelled to the fiesta via every low bridge in the city. Fidel Guavera twirled a rolled-up opinion poll about his head like a cheerleader’s baton and Bus Pilot Torres performed a dance which involved a lot of hand flapping. Diego, the spot painter, came too – his dance resembled a rhythmic shrug. Fireworks shot into the sky and exploded in showers of colour. The celebrations would last all night.
The Arkonauts had no distance to travel to join the party as their boat, where they, too, had slept solidly for three days, was moored just along the harbour. Adam watched in disbelief as the Doctor and his mother danced together down the gangplank and into the throng of partygoers. Then his disbelief turned to embarrassment as he noticed that the Doctor, despite being a great scientist, had no sense of rhythm and was the cause of considerable amusement with his jerky robotic movements, which contrasted so strongly with the sinuous dancing of even the oldest Buenos Sueñosian. And talking of old Buenos Sueñosians, Grandma Marquez, free at last from the fear of arrest for the pea-related offence, could be found drinking wine and laughing with her family.
All the Arkonauts joined in. Sniffage and Sausage capered around, barking and sniffing dead things. Simia demonstrated that monkeys could dance better than humans. Even Malibu deigned to swing a paw. And circling around the mast of the Ark of the Parabola, watching everybody below, were Gogo, Pozzo and Vlad. Even the Special Ant Service, safe on board the boat, did some ant dancing – though, under the supervision of General Lepti, they were expected to move in strict formation.
Adam was watching the joyous mayhem and tapping his feet to the music, desperately hoping that he hadn’t inherited the Doctor’s sense of rhythm (his mother, he couldn’t help noticing, was a much better dancer), when he felt a hand clap down on his shoulder. He turned round to see Calico Jack.
‘Well, young ’un,’ said Calico Jack, ‘you did it. You rescued everybody and you saved the city.’
‘It was Anna as well,’ said Adam, unwilling to take all the credit. He was still looking out for the dark-haired girl, hoping she’d show up to the fiesta.
‘Aye,’ said Calico Jack. ‘She’s a fine girl, I’ll give you that. But you, lad. I have to say I wondered whether you had my blood running through your veins when I first met you.’
‘Why?’ said Adam.
‘No offence, young ’un, but you seemed so proper.’
‘You mean honest,’ said Adam.
‘You’re not old enough to tell me what I mean,’ Calico Jack replied. ‘You needed to loosen up a little if you were going to save a whole city, to bend a few rules. That’s all I’m saying. The Doctor might be right about living life by the rules most of the time, but you know what his problem is?’
Adam s
hook his head.
‘He’s so busy looking for rules and answers and explanations, he can’t see that sometimes there aren’t any to be found.’
‘What do you do when there aren’t any rules?’
Calico Jack’s face crinkled into a smile.
‘You do what you did, young ’un: you live by your wits and you make ’em up as you go along. That’s how you saved this city, and I’m proud of you.’
Adam couldn’t help but smile at the praise. Behind him there was whoosh as a firework shot up into the sky. ‘Can I ask you something?’
‘Course you can, young ’un,’ said his grandfather. ‘If I can answer it without incriminating myself.’
‘Why doesn’t the Doctor recognise you? He’s seen plenty of pictures of you. He told me.’
Calico Jack nodded. ‘I was wondering if you’d get around to that. Thing is, young ’un,’ he said with a wink, ‘I’ve been in disguise the whole time. Your grandfather doesn’t look like me one bit.’
He patted Adam on the back.
‘Remember. Live by your wits when you have to. Now I’m going to dance.’ And Calico Jack slipped into the crowd.
As he disappeared from view, the Mayor and Anna emerged from the swaying throng and climbed up the gangplank. Behind them was someone Adam was very surprised to see at the fiesta: Felipe Felipez.
‘Hi,’ said Adam.
Anna nodded hello.
‘Where is the Doctor?’ asked the Mayor.
‘He’s dancing,’ said Adam, and he pointed to his parents.
The Mayor followed Adam’s finger.
Unfortunately the Doctor was attempting an ambitious twirl at precisely that moment.
‘You call that dancing?’ said the Mayor incredulously. ‘It looks like he’s in pain.’
‘Quite the opposite,’ said Adam. ‘I think he might be happy for the first time in ten years.’
‘Well,’ said the Mayor, ‘I won’t interrupt him. I just wanted to thank you for saving my city. While the Chief of Police had me held like a prisoner in my own town hall, you and Anna bravely undertook to stop Señor Le Blacas – I mean, Professor Scabellax – from destroying Buenos Sueños. Deputy Mayor Felipez and I wanted to thank you on behalf of all our citizens.’
Adam couldn’t believe it.
‘Deputy Mayor?’
Felipe Felipez shook his hand. ‘Pleased to meet you.’
‘But a few days ago you hated him.’
The Mayor laughed. ‘You obviously don’t understand politics, chico. Deputy Mayor Felipez and I have always had a great mutual respect, haven’t we, Felipez?’
‘Oh yes,’ nodded Deputy Mayor Felipez. ‘A great mutual respect.’
‘And we both want what’s best for Buenos Sueños.’
‘Best for Buenos Sueños,’ echoed Deputy Mayor Felipez. ‘With Mayor Puig as our leader, the city will make great progress. When the terrible truth about Scabellax was revealed I immediately withdrew from the election and gave all my support to Mayor Puig.’
‘And,’ smiled the Mayor, ‘it was coincidentally at that very moment that I realised the city could not do without a Deputy Mayor.’
The old Adam would have still been mystified. The new one understood.
‘You did a deal?’
‘Of course we didn’t!’ said the Mayor.
‘To think that we would stoop to such squalid behaviour!’ added the Deputy Mayor.
They shook their heads in unison.
‘But,’ said the Mayor, ‘we won’t dwell on what you have just said. Instead we want to thank you once again for saving Buenos Sueños. We will for ever be in your debt. Tomorrow we will begin our work to make this city a better place . . .’ The Mayor was distracted from his plans for the future by the fiesta on the wharf. ‘Please excuse me,’ he said. ‘Someone must teach your father how to dance before he stamps on your mother’s feet again. The poor lady may sustain some permanent injuries if I don’t intervene.’
He hurried down the gangplank with Deputy Mayor Felipez in tow, leaving Adam and Anna alone. With a conspiratorial wink Anna reached behind her back, and from under her jumper she pulled a thick black hardback book.
‘What’s that?’ said Adam.
With a smile Anna showed him the title.
‘The Buenos Sueños Crime and Punishment Code!’ Adam couldn’t believe it. And then he remembered. ‘You took the key when we were rescuing Calico Jack.’
Anna nodded.
‘And you sneaked back to get it today?’
Anna nodded again.
‘I can’t believe you didn’t take me.’
Anna indicated that Adam had been asleep.
‘What are you going to do with it?’
Anna shrugged. Adam shrugged back. Anna smiled. Adam’s shrugs were getting to be as good as any Buenos Sueñosian’s.
They looked at the book.
‘I don’t suppose anybody really needs it, do they?’
Anna shook her head.
Together they took hold of the tome and, on the count of three, hurled it into the harbour. There was a splash and then it sank beneath the waves. The city was going to need a whole new raft of laws in the morning.
And that morning was already dawning. The first rays of sunshine were beginning to light up the harbour and, with them, the great fiesta was coming to an end. As Adam and Anna walked down the gangplank to join their parents, he turned to her.
‘Do you think you will stay in Buenos Sueños when you grow up?’
But before Anna could answer, they were interrupted by an all too familiar sound.
PHEEEP! PHEEEEP!
Chief of Police Grivas and the Buenos Sueños Police Force rushed out of the narrow streets of the city, roughly pushing the celebrating citizens aside.
Chief Grivas, his face dark and furious, strode up to the Mayor.
‘What have you done with it?’ he demanded.
‘What are you talking about?’
‘The Buenos Sueños Crime and Punishment Code. It’s gone. What have you done with it? My officers have been searching for it, but it’s as if it’s vanished into thin air. I know you’ve got it. Hand it over.’
The Mayor shook his head. ‘I can assure you, Chief, that I have never set eyes upon it. I can’t think who could have taken it.’
Anna and Adam exchanged looks.
‘But I do know,’ continued the Mayor, ‘that if the one copy of the Buenos Sueños Crime and Punishment Code has gone, then all its laws have gone with it and we will have to start again to build a newer, fairer, happier Buenos Sueños.’
‘That doesn’t sound like the kind of city I’m going to like,’ Chief Grivas mumbled doubtfully.
The news spread through the crowd and, realising that the dreaded Buenos Sueños Crime and Punishment Code was behind them, the people became even happier.
‘I declare today a public holiday,’ shouted the Mayor.
The harbour erupted in glee.
‘I’m afraid we can’t stay,’ Doctor Forest told the Mayor apologetically.
‘What?’ he cried. ‘But you are our guests of honour.’
The Doctor shook his head.
‘I am sorry. We must depart immediately. There are more scientific discoveries to make. For ten years I have delayed searching for the fabled blue-eared pygmy goat of Patagonia.’
‘The pygmy-eared blue goat of Patagonia?’ repeated the Mayor incredulously.
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ said the Doctor. ‘Pygmy-eared blue goats live in Siberia. Everybody knows that.’
‘Do they?’ said the Mayor.
The Doctor assured him they did. ‘Besides,’ he said proudly, looking at Lily and Adam, ‘my wife, my son and I have a great deal of catching
up to do.’
The Mayor smiled. He saw that the Doctor would not change his mind. He proffered his hand.
‘Buenos Sueños will always be in your debt,’ he said.
And so, an hour later, the Ark of the Parabola pulled up the gangplank, weighed anchor and set sail from the port of Buenos Sueños. An entire city crowded on the harbour to wave farewell. The Arkonauts stood side by side to wave back. Above them, Gogo, Pozzo and Vlad flapped farewell wings.
‘Just moving your arms back and forth to say goodbye seems a rather pointless ability to evolve,’ chattered Simia as she watched the harbour recede. ‘It would be much better to use your hands for climbing trees, like monkeys.’
‘You know,’ yowled Malibu, ‘I think all this waving might be giving me repetitive strain injury in my paw. I’m going to need many restorative winks.’
‘Yeah! Yeah! Has anybody got a stick?’ woofed Sniffage. ‘I haven’t chased a stick in ages.’
There was a bark from behind him. Sniffage whirled his head round, getting his ears tangled in the process.
‘Yeah! Yeah! Who’s that? I thought I was the only one who barked on this ship.’
Sausage emerged from below deck.
‘Where’s the land going?’ he woofed.
The Doctor and his wife turned round in horror.
‘Why didn’t you get off the boat?’
Sausage was offended. ‘Sniffage said he could smell a dead thing so I went to investigate. It took me some time because I have little legs.’
‘Yeah! Yeah!’ barked Sniffage, delighted to see his friend still on board. ‘Want to be an Arkonaut?’
‘Are there sticks?’ asked Sausage cautiously.
Sniffage barked yes.
‘And smells?’
Sniffage barked yes again.
Sausage woofed back that he wanted to join and the two dogs sniffed each other’s bottoms in celebration.
‘Look!’ said Adam, pointing into the sky.
The Arkonauts looked up. There, just visible against the razor-sharp snow-capped peaks of Los Puntos Afilados, being buffeted back and forth by the strong winds that raged at the top of them, was a yellow balloon.
‘Scabellax!’ Adam exclaimed. ‘Where do you think he’s going?’
Adam and the Arkonauts Page 22
