by David Alric
‘What’s going on?’ Maria demanded. ‘There’s a young girl locked in one of the rooms being redecorated.’
Nandita knew enough about her husband’s business not to ask too many questions and she certainly wasn’t going to allow a nosy maid to interrupt her life of opulence and uninterrupted luxury. On the other hand it wouldn’t do to have Maria going about saying things that might attract unwelcome attention from the authorities. She thought she would start by reminding Maria just how vulnerable she was.
‘I was so sorry to hear about your husband’s tragic death,’ she said casually. ‘You must be so pleased to have a secure position now that jobs are becoming scarce in domestic service with the downturn in the economy.’
Maria said nothing. She knew that if this monstrous woman said a word to Chopper, she would be out of a job and unable to support her daughter.
‘What was it you said?’ Nandita continued. ‘Ah, the girl. Her parents are old friends of Chopper from England. They have gone on a river trip in the Pantanal but children under fifteen are not included; only adults and older children experienced in boating are allowed. She has had some emotional troubles and run away from home on several occasions, so we’ve been advised to keep her under lock and key. She’s very fond of wildlife so tomorrow Senhor Sam is going to take her to see some of our logging sites along the Amazon.’
‘I understand, Senora Sawyer,’ Maria replied. ‘Please tell Senhor Sam that I will prepare a small bag for the child; it is a long journey and she will need some things. She seems to have brought very little with her.’
Nandita was happy with this. What Maria said made sense and as long as she co-operated without a fuss there was no harm done.
‘Thank you. You may go. Take the evening off if you like.’
Maria went home. She lived just a few streets away in an old part of the town set behind the luxurious new villas on the seafront. As she went she wondered what she should do. She found it hard to believe that the child was not in danger and she was obviously being held against her will. There was little point in going to the authorities: she knew that Chopper’s money and influence would prevail and all that would happen was that she would lose her job – or worse. She had seen Chopper in a temper once or twice and it was not a sight ever to forget. Perhaps she could get the child to give her a note with her name and address on it and she could at least somehow check out Nandita’s story. She decided to take a pencil and paper to Lucy and, if her suspicions were correct and the girl was being held against her will, she would surely know that Maria was trying to help her.
Early the next morning the villa security guard reviewed, as usual, the reports from the night staff and checked the video surveillance tapes for the entire property. He saw Maria embracing Lucy and reported the finding to Chopper.
‘Well, she’s a soft-hearted old cow,’ said Chopper, ‘but she doesn’t speak any English so there’s probably no harm done in the way of an information leak. Get someone else to take up the kid’s breakfast though, just in case she’s thought up something overnight.’
When Maria came in to work she was surprised when Nandita asked her to go straight out again to get some fish from the market.
‘We’ve decided to entertain tonight and I want some nice fresh shrimp for a special recipe. Dolores can take the girl her breakfast.’
Maria was disappointed but there was nothing she could do. Dolores was new and she didn’t dare confide in her but she told her to make Lucy a nice breakfast and to give her the bag Maria had prepared at home.
Lucy, thinking along the same lines as Maria, had planned to pass her a note to send to her family and was bitterly disappointed when a different woman appeared with her breakfast. Dolores gave her a small embroidered bag, pointed at it and said ‘Maria,’ and Lucy immediately understood that it was a present from the kind housekeeper. In it were some clean shorts and underclothes which Lucy guessed must be her daughter’s or niece’s, some spare sandals, a tube of suncream, a bottle of insect repellent, a hair brush and hair bands, a bar of soap, a toothbrush and toothpaste, some tissues, several packets of sweets, some magazines and comics – obviously chosen for their picture content because the text was in Portuguese, and a drawing puzzle book with pencil attached. Lucy was quite overcome with emotion at this thoughtful act and resolved that one day she would thank Maria and try to repay her kindness. She was particularly excited to have the pencil, for she had been hatching an alternative plan should she be unable to pass a note to Maria. She was concerned that it might be confiscated so when Dolores had left the room she bit a tiny hole in the waistband of her shorts and slid the pencil into the puckered elastic binding. It was completely invisible.
Soon Sam appeared. He and Chopper had agreed that for the time being it was best that Lucy should not be too frightened so that she would co-operate for the journey.
‘Hallo,’ he said, ‘I’m Chopper’s brother. He’s not very good with kids, I’m afraid, but his bark is worse than his bite. I’m going to take you up the Amazon to the logging site where we keep the jaguars. When you’ve seen they’re OK and your dad gets back from his trip, you’ll both be off home.’ Lucy couldn’t help being impressed by the skill with which the man lied to her. He’d clearly had a great deal of practice.
‘Can we ring up Mum and tell her I’m OK then?’ she replied.
‘I don’t think we should do that from here,’ Sam replied. ‘As you probably noticed yesterday, Chopper is a bit funny about anyone knowing about his camp. Maybe we can get in touch once we get to the camp and well away from Chopper. I’m a bit wary of him myself,’ he added confidentially, as if he were really on Lucy’s side. He leant forward and gave her a conspiratorial leer, revealing a set of broken, yellowing teeth.
Lucy thought he was despicable. Chopper had been nasty but this guy was a complete slime ball.
‘Now let’s check that Maria’s given you everything you might need for the journey,’ he said jovially, but Lucy knew he was really checking on both of them. He fumbled through the bag and Lucy decided she’d try to wash the clothes before she wore them if she possibly could.
‘What a kind lady,’ he said, taking one of the packets of sweets and putting it in his pocket. ‘Saved me the trouble of getting all this for you myself. Now, let’s get going!’
9
An Eventful Flight to Cayman Creek
Sam drove Lucy to a nearby airfield and they got into the company’s private jet to fly to the river office at Macapá. The pilot told her to call him Hermes and once they were airborne he invited her to sit next to him and see the controls. She liked him and wondered if she could slip him a note. He was employed by the company, however, and she decided not to risk confiding in him, but to wait until she got to the camp and then use her animal friends – at least she could put her absolute trust in them.
She returned to her seat eventually and ate one of the packed meals the pilot had left out for her and Sam. While looking at Maria’s magazines after her lunch she suddenly noticed a fly inside the plane. Jonathan, the dolphin, had been somewhat dismissive of the crawlipods, as he described all insects, spiders and other creepy-crawlies, implying that they were so unintelligent that they would be of little interest to Lucy. She was still interested to see whether they would respond to her and she ‘switched on’ her mental beacon. The fly, which was resting on the back of Sam’s chair – the place it decided had the most interesting smells on the plane – suddenly stiffened and raised its head. Lucy listened intently for its voice but could only hear a high-pitched crackle that sounded like radio static. She spoke to the fly.
‘Greetings, O flying one. I am the Promised One.’ The crackle increased slightly in intensity but was still meaningless to Lucy. The fly had turned towards her. It could obviously understand her at some level but could not speak back to her. She asked it to land on Sam’s balding head which it immediately did. She then told it to land on his lunch which he had just opened, and it obeyed her aga
in. She then amused herself for the next two hours by asking the fly to buzz round Sam’s head, land on his food just as he was putting it into his mouth and dive bomb his eyes. He got progressively more furious.
‘You’ve got a fly in this plane,’ he eventually shouted to the pilot. The pilot turned with an amused look on his face.
‘Really? Fancy that happening in tropical South America! You have my full permission to swat it – though we don’t usually approve of violence in the cabin.’ He laughed and turned back to the controls. He knew Sam was the vice-president of the company but couldn’t help wondering what kind of an idiot felt he had to report a fly to the pilot.
Every time Lucy saw Sam making preparations to swat the fly she warned it to hide under her seat where she had left a speck of jam as a reward. For her the flight had been very useful for two reasons: she had discovered that crawlipods were able and willing to assist her – something she felt might be vitally important; and she had been able to torment Sam for two hours without lifting a finger. She felt he deserved every buzz.
As they landed, Lucy couldn’t resist commenting on how much the fly seemed to have been attracted to Sam while completely ignoring the pilot and herself. Sam immediately started to curse and swear once more and demanded that the pilot ensure that in future the cabin was fly-free. The pilot said he would do his best, making sure Sam didn’t see the amused wink he gave Lucy as he spoke.
‘At least it was only a fly,’ Sam continued. ‘The things I really can’t stand are spiders. Ever since I was a kid I’ve had a real phobia about them. It’s funny how people react to different things – Chopper hates lizards and my twin brothers are terrified of snakes.’
To the pilot’s surprise Sam insisted that Lucy stay in the plane overnight. He didn’t want anybody in the Macapá offices to see her. He told Lucy that they would be flying in a different, smaller plane up the Amazon to the camp at Cayman Creek the next morning. Hermes unscrewed the back of Lucy’s seat on the plane and rearranged it so she could lie down. He then left and returned in an hour or so with a pizza, some apple pie, a hot drink and some English newspapers.
‘I don’t know what all this is about,’ he said. ‘None of my business, you understand, but while you’re in my plane I want you to be comfortable.’ She thanked him sincerely, then he said good night and left for the local hotel where he usually stayed. As soon as he had gone Lucy switched on her beacon and waited. Within a few moments she heard a scrambling noise and, looking out, saw three large monkeys sitting on the wing.
‘Greetings, O Promised One,’ one of them said. ‘The arborikin are here and await thy commands.’
‘Greetings, O Agile Ones,’ Lucy replied. ‘I wish you to inform the animanet of my whereabouts and that I am the prisoner of wicked ones. I also wish to send a message to my family,’ she continued. ‘I could give you a tiny parcel to be taken to my home – is this possible?’
‘It is told that thou liv’st across the Great Salt, in the City of the Great Clock, in the Isles of Albion. Thy precious burden will pass through many paws and jaws and beaks but all will be well, unless some calamity should befall one of the carriers. Where is the package?’
‘I believe that when the Brilliant One rises I shall leave this thunderquill and get into a smaller one which will fly up the great river. When I get out of this door tomorrow I will drop the parcel on the ground – it will be very light.’
‘One will be waiting to receive it – either a scurripod or a fledgiquill.’
‘At the end of the mighty river I go to the place where the junglefangs are imprisoned. There I will need the help of many creatures and will fulfil my promise to release the junglefangs. Thank you for coming to speak to me and for all your help.’
‘We hear thy precious voice and understand. Have no fear this sunsleep; the Malevolent Ones will keep thee safe. There are both stranglekin and fellfangs among them. Fare thee well.’
Lucy craned her neck to look down at the ground. She could just make out in the moonlight a long shape on the ground, then another and another; the longer she looked the more sinuous shapes she could discern, of every shape and size. The plane was completely surrounded by snakes. Some were very large, which she guessed must be boa constrictors – the stranglekin – and the rest were various venomous species – the fellfangs. If she had worried about the plane being broken into and her being attacked by thieves or worse, she could sleep soundly. Nobody would get within yards of the machine without receiving a very nasty surprise, almost certainly their last.
Lucy retrieved her pencil and tore a blank page from the little puzzle book. She tried out the pencil with a scribble on the back of the paper then turned it over and wrote:
She wanted to tell her mother as much as possible, but knew that the parcel must be kept light, so she kept her message brief and when she had written it tore the paper so there was no blank space around the writing.
During her planning she had decided the message must be waterproof. She didn’t know if it would go by sea or air but either way it was likely to get wet. She also remembered that some seabirds swallowed fish at sea and then regurgitated the food for their young when they reached the nest and it seemed possible that the parcel might spend some time in a bird’s gullet or stomach. She folded the note up as tightly as possible, then wrapped it up in a plastic wrapper from one of the sweets. Using her teeth she loosened a thread from the piping of one of the plane’s seat cushions and carefully unravelled a long length which she then bound tightly round the plastic until it looked like a small cocoon. She knotted it several times and cut the loose ends of the thread by rubbing them against the steel rim of the cockpit door.
The final package was the size of a large bean and looked very secure. It was all she could do for the moment, so she stretched out and fell into a restless sleep, tormented by worries about her father.
The next day the pilot came with a carton of juice, some fresh bread rolls and a Danish pastry.
‘I took a doggy bag to breakfast in the hotel,’ he explained, ‘and there’s a drinks machine in the lobby.’ Lucy thanked him and gratefully tucked in.
When she had finished breakfast and washed in the jet’s tiny toilet facility the pilot said he had to take her across to the other plane, which Sam had just boarded. He opened the door and clambered down. Before he could turn to help Lucy out she quickly dropped her parcel on to the ground behind his back. As they began to walk to the other plane the pilot pointed to a far corner of the airfield where a very large bird stood silently watching a flock of smaller birds near the plane.
‘Look at that – I’ve never seen one on land before.’
‘What is it?’ asked Lucy.
‘Well, it looks different on the ground but I could swear it’s an albatross; what it’s doing here is anyone’s guess. Maybe it’s injured or has been blown inland by a storm at sea. It has the largest wingspan of any flying bird – almost four metres – and can fly enormous distances over the ocean.’
‘And what are those others?’ said Lucy pointing to the little flock near the plane.
‘They look like arctic terns,’ said the pilot, who was a keen birdwatcher, ‘and those two on the edge are Manx shearwaters. I’ve never seen them here before either. Like the albatross, both species fly for thousands of miles over the ocean. Something very funny must be going on out at sea.’
Maybe the birds were going to decide which species was best to take the message when they saw how big it was, thought Lucy. She was impressed and comforted by the degree of organization that the animals seemed capable of on her behalf. She glanced back towards the jet. One of the birds had detached itself from the group and was pecking around under the door of the plane. As she watched, it suddenly flew over to where the albatross waited. Lucy knew that her message was about to start on its amazing journey.
She said goodbye to Hermes and climbed on board the little plane that would take her up the Amazon to Cayman Creek. She eased herself into a
bucket seat and fastened her seat belt as the plane manoeuvred to one end of the field to obtain the maximum distance for take-off and turned into the wind beside the wood adjoining the airstrip. As the plane turned, Lucy heard the monkey calling to her from a nearby tree.
‘Thy message has gone with the Great Saltiquill, O Promised One. Fare thee well.’
They flew all day and all night, pausing every few hours to land on even smaller landing strips to refuel, stretch their legs and eat meals at little company offices or logging huts. Sam also inspected all the company sites they visited. They eventually reached Cayman Creek late in the afternoon of the following day. The camp consisted of a few wooden shacks with wire mesh windows instead of glass. Sam took Lucy to the largest of these, which turned out to be the site office, and locked her in a small storeroom while he spoke to the camp manager – a lumberjack called Pollard. She could clearly hear their conversation through the door. Sam asked where Sid and Fred were and was told they had gone down the river to collect a new jaguar caught the day before and that they wouldn’t be back until nightfall.
‘Well, they can speak to the kid tomorrow,’ he said. ‘They’ll probably get more out of her then. Stick her in a hut and give her some grub. I’m going to get a bit of kip now so don’t disturb me. Some wretched spider got into the plane and I couldn’t sleep a wink the whole journey.’
Lucy toyed with the idea of further preventing him from sleeping by arranging a visitation of fleas and ticks to his bed, but reluctantly decided against it. Her escape plan would work best if he slept soundly that night. She could hardly believe her luck: Sid and Fred were away and she had the rest of the evening and all night to talk to the animals about her plans.
Without warning the storeroom door was flung open and Pollard appeared. He was a vicious-looking thug: six foot tall, unwashed, unshaven with dirty hair, and he stank of beer. He grabbed Lucy roughly by the arm and hissed in her ear:
