Under the Weather

by Tony Bradman

  TONY BRADMAN has written many books for children of all ages, and has been published all over the world. He has also edited a large number of highly successful anthologies of short stories and poems, including Skin Deep, a collection of stories about racism, and Give Me Shelter, stories about children who seek asylum.

  Tony has three grown-up children and two grandchildren and lives in London.

  For Lily and Oscar – the future belongs to them!

  T.B.

  Under the Weather copyright © Frances Lincoln Limited 2009

  Compilation and Introduction copyright © Tony Bradman 2009

  Text copyright

  How to Build the Perfect Sandcastle © Candy Gourlay 2009

  Sea Canaries © Susan Sandercock 2009

  As Busy As... © Francis McCrickard 2009

  Tommo and the Bike Train © Miriam Halahmy 2009

  Climate [Short] Change © Lily Hyde 2009

  Moonlight © Karen Ball 2009

  Future Dreaming © George Ivanoff 2009

  Wasters © Linda Newbery 2009

  First published in Great Britain in 2009 and in the USA in 2010 by

  Frances Lincoln Children’s Books, 4 Torriano Mews,

  Torriano Avenue, London NW5 2RZ

  www.franceslincoln.com

  First paperback published in Great Britain in 2012

  All rights reserved

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, electrical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior written permission of the publisher or a licence permitting restricted copying. In the United Kingdom such licences are issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6-10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN 978-1-84507-944-4

  eISBN 978-1-78101-080-8

  Set in Sabon LT

  Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY in January 2012

  9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Contents

  Introduction

  How to Build the Perfect Sandcastle

  by Candy Gourlay

  Sea Canaries

  by Susan Sandercock

  As Busy As...

  by Francis McCrickard

  Tommo and the Bike Train

  by Miriam Halahmy

  Climate [Short] Change

  by Lily Hyde

  Moonlight

  by Karen Ball

  Future Dreaming

  by George Ivanoff

  Wasters

  by Linda Newbery

  Now Meet the Authors...

  Introduction

  I suppose I first began to think about climate change a few years ago during a particularly warm February. I remember getting in my car to drive to the supermarket at the end of the road, and realizing when I got there that I could have probably done without my thick winter coat. In fact, it was very warm, almost like the kind of day I remembered from the summers of my childhood.

  From that moment on, I began to take rather more notice of what was going on around the world. I learned all the terms that we have grown used to – greenhouse gases, carbon footprint, global warming. I watched the news and saw films of freak weather events all round the world, of floods and sea levels rising, of droughts and animals on the brink of extinction because of threats to their habitats. I listened to the debates that raged about what was happening.

  But there seemed to be something missing from all this talk – the voices of the people who were being directly affected, particularly children. I wanted to hear how they felt about climate change, and I had a feeling that it would all be more complicated than the headlines might lead us to believe. The world is a big place, but everything in it is connected. Small things that happen in one part of the world might have big effects elsewhere – and they are not always bad.

  So I decided that the best way to hear those voices was to ask some really good writers to write stories about climate change, focusing on the children of our planet. The result is the book that you’re holding, and I think you’ll soon see just how complex and difficult an issue climate change is. The stories are set in almost every part of the globe – the UK, Zambia, the USA, Siberia, Canada, the Philippines, Australia, Sri Lanka – and what’s interesting is that they’re full of surprises – the biggest one for me being that it’s not all gloom and doom.

  Of course there are problems. In Candy Gourlay’s story How To Build The Perfect Sandcastle the whole future of an island in the Philippines is threatened by something as seemingly harmless as a one degree rise in sea temperature. In Susan Sandercock’s Sea Canaries a girl discovers that Beluga whales are also threatened by changes to the sea, and in Karen Ball’s haunting Moonlight a Sri Lankan family is changed forever because of rising summer temperatures.

  But good things emerge despite the changes – perhaps even because of them. Three children round the world make a connection in Francis McCrickard’s As Busy As... and in Miriam Halahmy’s Tommo and the Bike Train and George Ivanoff’s Future Dreaming children realise that they can do something to help save the future, especially if they work together. That might be hard, as the boy in Lily Hyde’s story set in Siberia shows us – but it’s got to be worth doing if we want to avoid the future that Linda Newbery shows us in Wasters.

  These stories have certainly set me thinking, anyway. Our world is suffering, so in a sense we’re all under the weather. But we don’t have to be – the future is ours to change, should we choose to do so.

  How to Build the Perfect Sandcastle

  by Candy Gourlay

  How to Build the Perfect Sandcastle is loosely based on beautiful Boracay Island in my native Philippines, which has a stunning beach of powder white sand. In 1998, the sea around Boracay became hotter by just one degree. The rise in sea temperature and pollution from uncontrolled development has killed off most of the coral reef that protects its shores. Without the reef, the sand is slowly washing away, into the sea. The islanders have not been quick to seek solutions, and now they are racing against the clock.

  If I told you how to build a perfect sandcastle, I’d have to kill you.

  That’s a joke. Actually it’s easy to build a perfect sandcastle if you live on Sugar Island. Sugar Island has a beach called Sugar Beach. It’s called Sugar Beach because the sand really looks like sugar.

  Tip: When building a sandcastle bigger than you, start in the middle and work your way outwards.

  I don’t want to brag but I am amazing at building sandcastles. The tourists hang around watching me, buying me cola and asking stupid questions.

  I’ve been building this really massive castle for just three hours and the tourists have parked themselves all around.

  Tip: The half-shell of coconut is perfect for collecting tips. And the tourists like it because they think it looks ethnic.

  My coconut is already overflowing with coins.

  That will show Pa. He doesn’t like me building sandcastles for tourists.

  “Ben, stay off the beach. Twelve-year-olds belong in school!” he says. “We don’t need the money!”

  So why does Pa work extra hours at the Green Mango Hotel after spending the whole day taking snorkelling parties out to sea? Why does Ma take in washing as well as making those bead necklaces to sell?

  “If you keep bunking school, you’ll end up a beach bum like that no-good Peanut!” It’s one of Pa’s favourite things to yell about. Funny because when I grow up I want to be like Peanut. I don’t tell Pa of course. He’d go berserk if he knew.

  Peanut’s a sculptor. He’s got cool dreadlocks and a little beard and makes weird vases and pretty l
adies out of clay. He carves driftwood too. Totem poles with monkey-eating eagles and crocodiles and squirrel monkeys.

  I figure that when Peanut was ten years old like me, he must have been stupendous at building sandcastles too.

  Tip: The best time to build a castle is after a big rain when the sand is moist and sticky.

  When it rains on Sugar Island, it rains hard. Last night’s rain has totally washed away the path in front of the Sea Coconut Bar. Even the sand around the nearby coconut trees is gone. The trees look naked with their knotty root balls exposed. Oh boy.

  The Japanese lady who runs the bar has hired my friend Spit and his pa to pile sand around the coconut trees, rebuild the path and shovel grit all over it. She wants it done pronto.

  That’s why I am building on Spit’s spot. Spit and I have a deal. He does his sandcastles on the stretch between the Sea Coconut Bar and the Banana Boat Station and I do mine between the Banana Boat Station and Life’s A Beach (‘The One Stop Beach Shop’). But my stretch of beach is a lot grittier. Spit’s got sandier sand on his spot.

  Spit isn’t coming back in a hurry. It should take ages to rebuild that path.

  Tip: Use a paintbrush.

  The tourists oooh and aaah when I pull out my tools. They think it’s so cool that I build castles without a bucket and spade. I use a paintbrush for the design. My favourite is a slice of driftwood I found on the shore, flat and smooth and tapering to a point.

  I cut out the words: Welcome to Sugar Beach! and they go wild, cheering and clapping, and I turn around and bow like a magician who’s just pulled a rabbit out of a hat. They crowd around and snap photos and put more money into my coconut.

  Doesn’t take long for the tourists to get bored though. Before you know it, they’re strolling off to stare at something else on the beach.

  “Wheresh Shpit?”

  I whirl round to find Peanut swaying behind me, a plank of driftwood under his arm and a bottle of beer in his hand. Oh boy. His voice is slurry and his eyes are red. He sticks an arm around me. His armpit is rank.

  “It’sh all going to be gone shoon, you know.”

  “What’s going to be gone?” I push his arm off my shoulder. I want to be like Peanut when I grow up but not when he is like this.

  He laughs, a high pitched huh-huh-huh. “The shand! It’s washing away! Swoosh, swoosh!”

  “The sand?”

  Peanut puts his arm around me again. “No more shand! No more Sugar Beach! No more tourishts!”

  Whack! Sand sprays the air in a gritty shower.

  Whack! Whack! Whack!

  Spit’s baseball bat hits the castle three more times before I manage to grab his arm. Too late. The castle crumbles like a birthday cake.

  “I – told – you – this – part – of – the – beach – is – mine!” With every word, Spit jerks his arm, trying to pull free. He’s strong, Spit. He’s two whole months older than me.

  At last, Spit manages to rip his arm from me and the bat swings out uncontrollably.

  Whack!

  Peanut drops to the sand, unconscious, a trickle of blood on his forehead. Oh boy.

  Spit and I stare.

  Spit tosses away his bat and shoves me hard on the shoulder. “Look what you’ve done! He’s dead.”

  Tip: A person who snores is not dead.

  Five minutes later and Peanut is still snoring. If I don’t go home now, Pa will find out I’ve bunked school again.

  “Do you think he’s got brain damage?” I wipe the blood off his forehead with the palm of my hand. There’s nothing there but a teeny tiny cut and an impressive blue lump.

  “He’s already got brain damage.” Spit staggers back from the sea with a bucket full of water. “Peanut’s already loony.”

  “What’s that for?” I look at the bucket.

  “This!” Spit empties the bucket on to Peanut’s head.

  Peanut sits up, choking and spluttering.

  “I’ve seen it done on TV,” Spit says. “Always works!”

  “You all right, Peanut?” I peer into Peanut’s face. He is blinking like he isn’t sure where he is.

  “Oh hell. I’m late,” he says, his voice no longer slurred. He gets on his feet and, shading his eyes, looks out to sea.

  “You better sit down,” Spit says loudly, like Peanut is hard of hearing. “You’ve probably got brain damage.”

  “I need you fellows to help me lift something,” Peanut says.

  “We’ve got to go home,” I say. Pa’s voice is ringing in my ear. If I catch you bunking school again...

  “Did I say you had any choice?” Peanut’s eyes were sharp. “What’s your pa going to say, Spit, when I tell him you hit me with a bat? Huh, I wouldn’t want to be there when your pa hears what happened, Ben!”

  Tip: There’s no point protesting when you want to go anyway.

  Peanut’s shack is a short way up a sandy trail from the beach. It’s just a thing made of planks with a hammock out front. You can barely see it for all the ferns and palms and bushes that Peanut plants around it. His driftwood totems and terracotta urns peek from within the lush greenery like artefacts hidden in the jungle. At night the coconut trees sparkle with all the fairy lights that Peanut winds round the trunks. It’s a cool place.

  There are several huge terracotta urns on the path, except you couldn’t plant a palm in any of them because great big holes are cut into them.

  “We need to take these to the boat,” says Peanut.

  “What for?” Spit and I say at the same time.

  “I’m doing some gardening in the sea!” Peanut grins.

  Tip: You can make coral grow on stuff you sink into the sea, like old tyres and even shipwrecks. But terracotta urns are a lot better-looking.

  It takes us ages because we have to lift the urns on to a sort of sled that Peanut has fashioned out of bamboo and then we have to drag it all the way to Peanut’s little outrigger, The Coral Queen, which is moored at the bouldery end of the beach.

  The urns make the boat sit so low in the water it looks like it would sink if it hadn’t been for the long wooden outriggers on either side.

  “Well?” Peanut says when we finish loading the boat.

  “Well what?” I say.

  “Are you kids coming along or going home?”

  “I’m coming,” says Spit, jumping in. “My pa won’t be finished at the Sea Coconut until late.”

  I close my eyes. I can hear Pa’s voice. You’ve been bunking school again, haven’t you? How many times have I said...

  Peanut is not dawdling. The Coral Queen is already out of reach when I make up my mind. I jump into the water and swim for the boat. “Wait for me!”

  Tip: No point missing something if your pa’s going to be mad anyway.

  “So you’re growing a coral garden?” Spit and I crawl out on to the outriggers and make little spurts of sea spray up with our heels as the boat picks up speed.

  “I’m growing a coral reef,” Peanut yells so we can hear him above the motor.

  Spit and I look at each other. Spit twirls a finger around his ear. “Loony,” he yells.

  Sugar Island doesn’t need another coral reef. There is a massive reef on the North end of the island where Pa takes his snorkellers. And there is another big one in the South end, where we are headed.

  Besides, one man can’t build himself a coral reef. Peanut can make the urns, but he’ll need thousands. There isn’t enough clay on the island to make that many. Oh boy. What a loony.

  We stop just within sight of Crocodile Rock which looks more like a dog with a fat tail. Peanut pulls thick ropes out of the boat locker.

  “Peanut,” I stare at the giant urns. “There can’t be any space down there for these. What about the reef that’s already there?”

  “There isn’t anything down there,” Peanut says, looping the ropes around the urns. “This reef is dead.”

  “Dead?” I stare at him.

  “You’re kidding, right, Peanut? The reef
isn’t dead,” Spit says.

  Peanut looks annoyed. “What, you think I’m loony or something?”

  Both of us look away.

  Peanut throws us a couple of snorkels and masks from the boat locker. “Dive in. Go on. Take a look. The reef is dead.”

  We dive.

  I’ve gone with Pa on his trips to the North reef many times. The tourists don’t mind me snorkelling with them, swimming right down to see the underwater blooms, the clouds of rainbow-coloured fish flitting in and out of the coral branching out from the ocean floor like a flower garden.

  That’s not what it’s like here. No way is this a flower garden. It’s more like a disaster zone, like someone dropped a bomb into the sea and blasted away all the coral. It lies broken on the ocean floor, like a million shards of china. The water is still and blue and silent. There are no fish. It is a graveyard. Oh boy.

  When Spit and I surface, Peanut has finished getting the urns ready. We help him drop them into the deep, each sinking swiftly to the bottom. When all the urns are gone, we are silent.

  I am the first one to speak. “What happened, Peanut? When did the reef die?”

  Peanut squints at me. “Remember two years ago?”

  I shake my head.

  “Two years ago, the whole world experienced some really high temperatures. Underwater, it was hot too. The sea temperature rose by one degree. It killed the reef.”

  Spit leans forward. “But the North reef’s OK, right? The snorkel people go there every day.”

  Peanut stubs his cigarette out in the sardine can he uses as an ashtray. “Not for long. It’s still hot in there. The coral is bleaching. Not long before the North reef is dead too.”

  Tip: Without reefs, there is nothing to protect Sugar Beach from the weather. So sand gets washed away. Soon there will be no more Sugar Beach. No Sugar Beach means no tourists. No tourists mean no work. No work means no Sugar Island.