by David Alric
Just then the other monkeys returned, struggling to pull several plastic-wrapped cases of bottled water to the water’s edge. These they managed to lift into the boat with Lucy’s help and store alongside some cans of what she later realized was fuel for the outboard motor. She looked at the cache of water and started to calculate how long it might last. The lead monkey saw her and, as though reading her mind, said:
‘Fear not, Promised One. There will be sufficient here for our journey on the house that floats. We know of plants in the trees of the forest and special leaves that catch the water from the skies. You will never go thirsty while you are in our care.’ Lucy remembered that in Grandpa’s book she had read of parasitic plants, bromeliads, that could hold up to eight litres of fresh water in their vase-like reservoirs. She also remembered that some of these ponds in the air were home to frogs and other creatures and resolved to try to supervise any water collections that might be made in this way. Her mind then turned back to the more immediate problem of getting the boat moving.
‘I have no knowledge of the tail that roars,’ she said. ‘Is there another way we can move the house that floats?’ She looked about for some oars but with a sinking heart knew already that, even if she found some, she could never move the heavy boat unaided.
‘Call the Dreadful Ones,’ said the monkey.
Lucy immediately understood and called. Within seconds the surface of the water rippled and the backs of two giant black caymans broke the surface. Lucy had seen crocodiles and alligators at the zoo but nothing remotely the size of the six-metre-long reptiles now cruising slowly around the boat. She untied the mooring lines which were attached to the protruding roots of a riverside tree and cast them into the dark waters below the bow of the craft. The waters swirled and the ropes disappeared. The boat suddenly jerked forward as though pulled by giant hands and surged out into the river.
‘Which way, O Promise?’ asked the monkey. Lucy, amused and touched by the familiar abbreviation of her title, gave thought to the question. She knew her father had gone on an expedition into the remote interior, so they had to go upstream.
‘We must travel up the river in the direction from which the waters run. I’m sorry, for this means it is harder for the reptocools to pull us.’ She couldn’t bring herself to refer to any creatures as the ‘Dreadful Ones’ and instinctively knew the other name by which the great saurians were known.
‘You need have no concern for them,’ replied the monkey, ‘for they are truly mighty in the water and their children’s children will speak of the honour of this day.’
The boat moved swiftly and silently up the river and soon the camp was lost to sight. Lucy had escaped!
Sam came to with a start. He thought he’d heard some snuffling and grunting but now he was fully awake he wasn’t sure if it had just been a dream. He lay in his hammock for a moment thinking about the day ahead. The twins were back and he hoped the kid would be in a fit state for them to get to work on her. Chopper would by now be expecting some news and he was not a patient man. He thought he heard another grunt – it was definitely from outside – and then began to be aware of a revolting smell, which he hadn’t noticed the night before. As he started to get up to investigate he saw what looked like a black mophead or brush on the floor just inside the door. He couldn’t remember having stepped over it the day before and reached for his spectacles to have a better look. As he moved, the mop shifted position and he froze with absolute terror as he found himself looking at the largest spider he had ever imagined could exist, even in his worst nightmare. The creature was as large as a plate and its legs were covered in stiff black bristles; it had raised itself into a more upright position since seeing Sam move and he was convinced that, in among a horrifying tangle of gently waving feelers and jaws, he could just discern two red eyes fixing him with a primitive and malignant stare. He had never been so frightened in his entire life but, even as a wave of nausea and revulsion swept over him, he had the presence of mind to realize that he must not be sick – any violent movement would surely bring this frightful thing scurrying across the floor to pounce on him. It was so large he was sure that its feet would make a pattering sound as it ran. Sweating with fear he moved his hand very, very slowly to the upturned dynamite case that served as a bedside table. Without taking his eyes off the spider, which, in its alert position, now looked like a small black woolly dog, he felt about on the box for the gun which he always kept by his side. He felt all over the top of the box and felt nothing. Moving his head as little as possible he rolled his eyes until he could just see the box and the floor around it, but his gun had gone. He was stuck until somebody came to help him.
Unfortunately, nobody was going to help him in the near future. The twins and the other camp staff were already sitting in their respective hammocks hypnotized by the sight of vividly coloured and venomous-looking snakes lying coiled up just inside their hut doors. They too had sought in vain for their revolvers and were now trapped and helpless.
Several hours passed. The radio had beeped several times in the office but nobody could answer it. In Rio, Chopper was becoming increasingly frustrated.
‘Where the hell are they all?’ he shouted at Nandita. ‘They know that there should always be at least one person in the camp.’
Back at the camp Sid realized that he could no longer resist a call of nature that he had been fighting since he first woke up. The spicy food he had eaten the previous evening had been churning around in his stomach all night and a frightful smell wafting in through the wire mesh window was not helping in the battle to control his bowels. Eventually, he could wait no longer. Never taking his eyes off the snakes Sid crept along the wall to the mesh window. The snakes watched him intently in a way that made his flesh crawl, but apart from flicking their forked tongues they remained motionless as he slipped the catch and slowly opened the window. He scrambled up on to the ledge and as he now saw some serpentine movement out of the corner of his eye he threw caution to the wind and leapt out of the window. He had a soft landing. It was, in fact, a very soft landing, for the large pile of pig dung into which he jumped was only a few hours old and was still steaming gently in the late morning sun.
The smell floating in through the window had been bad, but at close quarters it was simply appalling. Sid choked and retched and gave up any pretence of retaining control of his digestive system. Eventually he stumbled to the path and made his way to the river, trying to pick a path through the peccary droppings. It was a difficult task for, though the pigs had been most generous with their donations around the huts, there was barely a square yard of the camp that was clear of any mess. He was heading for the only washing and bathing point at the camp. At the river a pool had been dug out of the bank, which was fenced off with steel mesh from the main stream so the men could bathe in safety. Sid was just about to plunge in when he noticed that the mesh fence had been torn away and he could see a shoal of piranha fish cruising nonchalantly around the pool. He knew that their razor-sharp teeth could reduce a man to a skeleton in a few moments and he was going to have to wash as best he could with bottled water from the store. Glancing along the bank he saw that one of the two company boats had gone and the other was half submerged, its stern and one side smashed to pieces. He ran back to tell Sam the bad news; if he had waited a moment longer he would have seen a giant cayman surface and thrash another large section of boat away with a swipe of its powerful tail.
Reaching Sam’s hut he opened the door and stepped back hurriedly as he saw the spider. Seeing Sid, it moved away from the door and further into the room towards the bed. It moved with astonishing speed and this was the final straw for Sam, who catapulted from his hammock and hurled himself straight through the mesh window; there was a ripping sound as his shorts and part of his left buttock remained behind on the torn wire, followed by a loud slurping noise as he landed face down in a small lake of pig manure underneath the window.
Some time later the men, six in all, we
re gathered in the radio hut. Pollard, the site manager and Barker, the other lumberjack, had eventually managed to chase the snakes and the spider into the forest using brooms and sticks and now, having ineffectually washed with what was left of the bottled water, the unhappy band were radioing Chopper with the bad news. Sam had tentatively suggested that they drew lots to see who should have the pleasure of speaking to Chopper, but the others would have none of it. They had unanimously agreed that, as Chopper’s deputy, the honour belonged to Sam. He held a moistened handkerchief to his face as he spoke – the stench of pig excrement in the midday sun was beyond description – and, stuttering with apprehension, gave Chopper a brief and semi-coherent account of recent events at the camp.
‘What do you mean she’s escaped?’ said Chopper. He was pacing up and down the patio outside his villa, a portable phone clamped to his ear. ‘How the hell can an eleven-year-old girl, supposedly under constant supervision, tear a door off its hinges, dig holes big enough to let out every jaguar in the camp, destroy your bathing facilities, nick most of your water supplies and escape in a boat, all in the middle of the night and without you dumb bozos hearing a thing?’
‘Well …’ began Sam. He wondered whether to mention the pigs in an attempt to win over Chopper’s sympathy, but immediately decided against it.
‘I’m sorry for being so dense,’ Chopper interrupted in a pseudo-apologetic tone. ‘I had this silly idea that she was going to be tortured for information and that six grown men would just, conceivably, be able to subdue her. Silly old over-optimistic Chopper not to know she was going to tear my camp to pieces.’ His voice reverted to a vicious snarl. ‘Listen, you bunch of big girls’ blouses, I don’t give a stuff about your stupid bloody animals, but I do care about the drug consignment that’s due in January. The Bionic Girl can’t have got far. Get after the little bitch in the other boat.’
‘Actually, we can’t. You see, she seems to have smashed up the spare boat and …’ He held the phone away from his ear as Chopper went completely berserk at the other end.
‘Then make a raft and get after her,’ he shouted. He was purple in the face and so much saliva was spraying from his mouth that, as the phone receiver became progressively waterlogged, he was practically incomprehensible. ‘She can’t possibly have started the outboard motor so she must have gone downstream; follow her and shoot her to pieces. But –’ he paused and his voice turned heavy with sarcasm. ‘Don’t tell me – you can’t, because Xena the Warrior Schoolgirl stole all your guns while you were asleep.’
There was a breathless moment of silence while Sam nervously rubbed his nose; it had a small lump of pig dung on it, which he smeared across his face and into one eye which started watering.
He cleared his throat apprehensively.
‘It’s funny you should say that, Chopper, because …’
The line went dead as Chopper crushed the phone in his hand and threw it across the garden. Chopper lashed out savagely with his foot at the nearest garden gnome who was engaged in mugging a smaller gnome for a tiny golden mobile phone. These particular gnomes, being nearest to the terrace, had been repeatedly knocked over and the gardener, fed up with restoring them to an upright position, had cemented them permanently in place on a little concrete platform. He was rather proud of the result and was looking forward to telling Chopper but, unfortunately, hadn’t yet had the opportunity to do so.
The villa windows were all open in the morning sunshine and the sudden crack as Chopper’s big toe snapped could be heard all over the house. His howls of pain and fury could be heard all over the neighbourhood. For some time Chopper remained alone; nobody in the household wanted to be the first to approach him, but eventually his secretary ventured out. He was sitting on the ground clutching his foot, his hand bleeding from where a sharp fragment of plastic from the phone was embedded in his palm. He was leaning for support against the wooden pole of a bird table which was in the process of being felled by another gnome with a miniature golden chain-saw.
‘Get a bloody doctor,’ he hissed through foam-filled lips, ‘and get the bloody plane ready. As usual, I’m going to have to sort this out myself.’ He paused and looked at his rapidly swelling foot; he was going to need help on his journey to the camp. He turned back to his secretary.
‘Oh, and find that little new bloke I took on yesterday – Bert Shrunkshorts, or whatever. Tell him to get his bag packed: he’s coming with me.’
His secretary helped him limp back into the house and then picked up the phone. As she dialled she looked out of the window at the haze of pollution hanging over the city. ‘At least you’ll get some fresh air at the camp,’ she murmured comfortingly to her boss.
11
Jungle Telegraph
Joanna Bonaventure was ironing. She was frantic with worry about Lucy and she always ironed when she was worried. She said it gave her something to do but didn’t require any concentration. The police searches and enquiries had so far all proved fruitless and they were now in the process of arranging a reconstruction of Lucy’s last movements using a child actress in order to try to jog the memories of any possible additional witnesses to her abduction. Joanna’s parents, who were staying with her, were out shopping and Sarah had gone to stay with her aunt and uncle and her cousins, Ben, Henry and Christopher. Ben was the same age as Sarah and they were very good friends.
Joanna always ironed in front of the window so she could see the garden, and her attention now focused on Tibbles who was just reappearing through her favourite gap in the fence at the end of the garden. Until a few minutes ago she had been quietly snoozing on her mat when she had suddenly woken and pricked up her ears. She had got to her feet, intensely alert, with her head cocked slightly to one side. Then she had scrambled through her cat-flap and hurried down the garden and through the fence as fast as she could waddle.
As she returned Joanna could see that she had something in her mouth. The cat-flap rattled and Tibbles disappeared upstairs. Intrigued, Joanna put down the iron and followed the cat into Lucy’s bedroom to see her jump on to the bed, something that she knew she was forbidden to do, and put something on Lucy’s pillow.
‘What on earth do you think you’re doing, Tibbles?’ exclaimed Joanna, picking up the little parcel. ‘Putting rubbish on Lucy’s pillow indeed!’ She threw the little screwed-up bit of paper into the wastepaper basket and swept Tibbles off the bed on to the floor. Tibbles, usually shamefaced if caught on the bed, immediately went to the basket, knocked it over and started pawing frantically at its contents to retrieve the parcel. Clare, intrigued by the activity and noise, came in from her own bedroom where she had been studying. She was amused at Tibbles’s antics.
‘She just ran down the garden to get something,’ said Joanna in bewilderment, ‘and now she’s trying to put it on Lucy’s pillow.’
Clare suddenly stopped laughing and her eyes widened in anticipation. She knew that if Lucy was alive and well she would somehow use her special powers to get in touch with the family, but hadn’t been able to think of how she would do it. Now she thought she knew.
‘Stop, Mum!’ she said, as Joanna started to pick Tibbles up and take her downstairs. ‘Quick, let me see what she brought in.’ She crouched by the contents of the basket strewn over the floor and, taking Tibbles from her mother, put her down in front of the mess.
‘Good girl, Tibbles. What is it you brought?’ Tibbles immediately picked up the little parcel and, jumping up on to the bed, put it once more on Lucy’s pillow. Clare snatched it up, looked at it and ran to the bathroom to get some nail scissors from her make-up bag.
‘Will someone please tell me what’s going on?’ said Joanna. ‘Have you and this cat gone completely mad, or is it me?’
‘Wait two ticks, Mum, and I think all will be clear,’ said Clare, as with fingers trembling from excitement she snipped the tightly bound thread and opened the sweet wrapper it had surrounded. Inside was Lucy’s note, which Clare opened and flattened on the dressing
table top.
‘I thought so,’ she said triumphantly, her voice breaking with relief. ‘It’s from Lucy. She must be OK.’
They read the note together and Joanna was the first to speak, through tears of relief.
‘Hang on a minute – ETC is the company Daddy works for. What on earth are they doing kidnapping Lucy? And what’s this bit?’ She pointed to the note and read out: ‘Clare knows all.’
‘Lucy wasn’t sure if I would have told you about her secret yet,’ Clare explained, ‘and she’s just giving me permission to do so.’
‘We must tell the police about this note,’ said her mother. ‘They’ve got a massive hunt going on and this will tell them that Lucy’s in Brazil. They need to get the police over there on to ETC as soon as possible.’ Clare agreed that the police had to know, and her mother rang the special number that the investigation team had given her.
While they waited for the police to arrive Clare re-read the note.
‘What’s this about keeping an eye on Tibbles?’ she said. ‘It must be important or she wouldn’t have wasted words on it in such a tiny note.’ Her mother thought for a moment. ‘I think,’ she said slowly, as she looked again at the note, ‘that she feels she may not always be able to send us a note, but may be able somehow to let us know something through Tibbles.’
‘Of course. That’s it! Good thinking, Mum! We’ll watch Tibbles like hawks from now on.’
Within half an hour the door bell rang and Joanna Bonaventure opened the door. On the doorstep stood a policeman. His car was parked outside the gate. One of the back wheels was on the kerb and just behind it an old man was cursing and struggling to remount his electric wheelchair.
‘Mrs Bonaventure?’ said her visitor, showing her his ID card. ‘I’m Detective Constable Noholmes.’ As he leant forward to take his card back Joanna was impressed to see what she took to be a small gold medal just above his tunic pocket but it proved, on closer inspection, to be a blob of breakfast marmalade.
