Darwen Arkwright and the Insidious Bleck

by A. J. Hartley

  Darwen turned to go but caught himself.

  “Mr. Peregrine,” he said.

  “Yes, Darwen?”

  “You do believe me about Luis, don’t you?” Darwen said. “About the monster pulling him into a portal, I mean.”

  “My dear boy,” said Mr. Peregrine, “of course I believe you. Did you doubt that?”

  Darwen blushed and looked down, but he felt better.

  “Now, I’m sorry,” said Mr. Peregrine, “but . . . these little countries in the middle,” he said, peering at a map of Central America, “are very confusing. I keep forgetting which one we’re going to. Wait, I think I have the map upside down. . . .”

  “Right,” said Darwen, with another twinge of anxiety. “I’ll leave you to it.”

  Darwen had assumed that the air of mystery and strangeness that hung around Mr. Peregrine would go away once the students started having classes with him. He even feared that the former shopkeeper would turn out to be incompetent in the classroom and would become a bit of a joke. He couldn’t have been more wrong.

  For one thing, there were rumors about him. Several of the students thought they recognized Mr. Peregrine, and one of them, Carlos Garcia, remembered that he had seen him three months before on that most famous night in Hillside’s history, Halloween. There had been a party at school, the Halloween Hop, that had ended with power outages and explosions and policemen running about trying to establish order. People saw strange things that night, and though most of it was chalked up to costumes and fireworks, the students still talked about it in hushed and excited tones. Now they remembered that this strange new teacher had been on campus that night, that he had somehow taken charge, consulting with the police and EMTs and telling the teachers what to do. Parents had been overheard saying that they thought he had saved student lives.

  “He just took over,” Carlos murmured to Gabriel and a rapt audience of sixth graders, “ordering people around and everything, but he wasn’t even a teacher! So who was he? And what happened to him afterward? At the end of that night, he just walks away, and no one sees him until the last day of term, when he’s suddenly the world studies teacher?”

  Darwen, Alex, and Rich avoided each other’s eyes, and Darwen found himself irritated that Carlos—who was usually so quiet—should pick this moment to come out of his shell.

  “I heard he’s a kind of shadow principal,” said Jennifer Taylor-Berry in her rich Southern drawl. “That he comes in when the school is in trouble.”

  “I heard he works for the government,” said Simon Agu, whose father was a diplomat at the Nigerian consulate on Roswell Road. “Some kind of secret agency connected to paranormal activity. I mean, there was stuff that happened at the Halloween Hop that no one has ever explained properly.”

  “Yeah,” said Alex. “Because what’s going on in an Atlanta middle school is a matter of national security. And you say I have a vivid imagination!”

  “Nice one,” said Darwen as soon as the others had traipsed off looking shamefaced.

  “Maybe, but these kids aren’t utterly stupid,” said Alex. “Mr. P is going to have to watch himself or even Barry Fails will start putting two and two together.” Barry “Usually” Fails was, as Darwen sometimes said, as thick as two short planks.

  “Anyway, the Peregrine Pact is supposed to be us,” Alex concluded, “you, me, and Rich, not the entire school.”

  Mr. Peregrine’s demeanor in class didn’t help the situation. He did a lot of smiling, as if he had secret knowledge that amused him, and he taught by asking questions, frequently waiting for minutes at a time until someone came up with the right answer. Darwen suspected that the teacher didn’t actually know a lot of what he was teaching, but the others took these long silences as a clever strategy to make them learn for themselves.

  “Best teacher we’ve had,” said Bobby Park, “at least for this subject.”

  “I wonder who he is, though,” said Melissa Young to Genevieve Reddock conspiratorially. “I mean who he really is. He’s obviously not from around here and has lived in all sorts of places. You can hear it in his voice, see it in his eyes. He knows things the other teachers don’t.”

  Darwen, Rich, and Alex made eye contact again, then—as they seemed to be doing a lot lately—looked hurriedly away.

  The night before they left, Darwen went over his luggage with his aunt twice. It seemed that the only thing he wasn’t packing was the stone sphere, and that was only because Aunt Honoria had yet to learn of its existence. “Are you sure you won’t need warmer clothing?” she said, considering a T-shirt skeptically.

  Darwen consulted the list that had been sent from the school again.

  “Says warm-weather clothes,” he said. “Costa Rica is in the Northern Hemisphere but only just, and it’s actually summer there now.”

  “But wait, it also says long pants and sturdy walking shoes,” replied Aunt Honoria, horror dawning. “You’ll be burning up!”

  “I’ll be fine,” said Darwen, smiling and patting her hand. She returned his smile with an effort, and her eyes welled up.

  “Oh, insect repellant!”

  “What?” exclaimed Aunt Honoria, the shock of their having possibly forgotten something nearly causing her to swoon.

  “The list says I need insect repellant for mosquitoes and stuff,” said Darwen.

  “There’s a pharmacy on the corner,” she said, quickly composing herself. “Get your coat on, and we’ll walk down together.”

  By the time they were back, weighed down by the medical supplies with which Aunt Honoria planned to pack his suitcase, it was after sundown. Darwen waited patiently, trying to look appreciative as his aunt doubled the weight of his luggage with boxes of pills and bottles of sprays and ointments.

  “That’s to keep the bugs off,” she said. “That’s to put on the bites if they get you. This is if you can’t go to the bathroom, and this one is if you’re going too much. Don’t mix them up, or it could get ugly.”

  “I get it,” said Darwen. “Thanks.”

  She paused and took a breath, as if resigned that there was nothing more she could do. “Okay,” she said. “Let’s get some rest. I’m sorry I can’t come to the airport with you. I have to—”

  “Work,” said Darwen smiling. “I know. It’s fine.”

  She hesitated at the bedroom door, then turned meaningfully back to Darwen. “I’ll miss you, you know.”

  “I’ll miss you too,” Darwen answered, surprised that it was true.

  “And please, Darwen . . .” she began.

  “What?”

  “Be careful.”

  His aunt had no idea just how careful Darwen wasn’t being. That night, he traveled through the oven door one last time in the hopes of finding any information that could help in their search for Luis and his brother, anything that would make their mission in Costa Rica easier. But the gateway to Moth’s bamboo grove remained troublingly sealed, and though Darwen retraced his steps to the crystal waterfall, he found nothing helpful. He had hoped for another glimpse of Weazen the Peace Hunter or some clue that would make his mission clearer, but no new evidence revealed itself.

  At last, Darwen returned to his room. He put on his pajamas and snuck into bed. And though he remained frustrated by his lack of progress, he stared up at his featureless ceiling safe in the knowledge that for once the morning would bring something almost as exciting as Silbrica. The prospect of being away from home with his friends for a whole week thrilled him, but when he finally fell asleep, he dreamed he was searching for a boy called Luis among jungle vines that turned into tentacles.

  The Atlanta airport was vast and crowded, and though Darwen had been through it once before, he found it all very intimidating. Mr. Peregrine bustled about looking dazed, so it was Miss Harvey and Mr. Sumners who ultimately had to engineer the
logistics of gathering the students and marching them en masse to the departure gate.

  “What’s Sumners coming for?” asked Darwen wearily. “He’s a math teacher.”

  “High teacher-to-student ratio, remember?” said Rich.

  “Maybe we can push him out halfway there,” said Alex. “He can swim to Miami. It would be a shame if the sharks got him, though. I hate sharks, but they are endangered, and eating math teachers can’t be good for them.”

  Besides Mr. Peregrine, Miss Harvey, and Mr. Sumners, the sixteen sixth graders were accompanied by Mr. Iverson and the foreign-language teacher, Miss Martinez.

  “We need to make sure we’re always with Mr. P,” said Alex.

  “Or Mr. Iverson,” said Rich.

  “So long as we stay away from Sumners, I don’t care,” said Darwen.

  Their flight would take them south over Florida and out into the Atlantic, then between Cuba and the coast of Mexico, before dropping further south past Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. They were to land in San José, Costa Rica, and then get a local connection still further south to Drake Bay, which sat on the Pacific side, almost on the border with Panama. The names meant almost nothing to Darwen. They were faraway places as strange as anything in Silbrica, and he sympathized with Mr. Peregrine, who was as unfamiliar with them as he was. At least Darwen didn’t have to pretend he was an expert on world studies.

  Once they had waved off their families and trundled through security, the excitement started to mount, and by the time they were on the plane, it was like someone had turned a volume control up on the students. They were laughing and gossiping, flicking excitedly through Rich’s brand-new Field Guide to Costa Rican Wildlife, planning and speculating, squabbling, and—in the case of Alex—singing very loudly.

  “We are not the only people on this aircraft,” said Miss Harvey. “Miss O’Connor? Miss—will someone please tell her to take those earbuds out?”

  Alex continued to croon at the top of her lungs, her eyes shut. She didn’t respond when Rich, who was getting fidgety, tapped her on the shoulder, so Darwen leaned over and pulled the earbuds right out of her ears.

  “Hey!” she roared. “You could just ask, you know.”

  “That is what we have been trying to do,” said Miss Harvey icily.

  The group quieted but a few moments later produced a great cheer as they felt the aircraft tip up and away from the runway. Mr. Peregrine, who seemed to be having the time of his life, cheered loudest of all, so that Mr. Sumners shot him the kind of look he normally reserved for Darwen’s homework. Darwen found himself grinning widely at Rich, unexpectedly delighted that they were in the air at last and a huge step closer to starting their mission. In the next row, Gabriel, the new boy, was looking blank-faced beside Melissa Young, who was ignoring him and leaning over to whisper to Genevieve Reddock.

  “First flight?” asked Darwen, turning all the way around.

  “Second,” said Gabriel.

  “Mine too,” said Darwen. “I think it’s brilliant.”

  “Hey, Darwen,” said Genevieve. “Is this Mr. Peregrine the weirdest teacher you’ve ever had or what?”

  It wasn’t a criticism. Darwen peered over to where Mr. P was sitting, collecting all the tiny bags of mini pretzels no one wanted and piling them up in front of him gleefully like they were treasure.

  “Pretty weird,” agreed Darwen, grinning.

  They landed in San José and emerged from the plane pointing at the mountains, which surrounded the town. The warm, muggy air hit them, so everyone shrugged themselves out of their winter jackets.

  “Northern Hemisphere geography, Southern Hemisphere seasons,” Rich muttered.

  Darwen and Alex exchanged knowing looks. They had been told this a dozen times so that they wouldn’t stuff their luggage with winter clothes.

  “You okay?” asked Darwen.

  “Fine,” said Rich. “Why wouldn’t I be? It’s just a regular town, right?”

  Except that it wasn’t a regular town—not by Georgia standards, at least, and not only because all the signs were in Spanish. It was bustling with pedestrians, for one thing. Also, while there were cars and traffic lights and shops that might just have passed unnoticed in parts of Atlanta (though Darwen doubted his babysitter Eileen would have found the kinds of stores she liked), the whole still felt different, if only because of the wooded mountains that loomed in every direction. They made everything feel just a little strange and unfamiliar.

  “I like it,” Alex pronounced as they took the shuttle bus across town to a smaller airport. “It’s like Silbrica without the monsters.”

  “Let’s hope so,” muttered Darwen.

  The students were glued to the bus windows, all except Nathan and his friends, who played cards at the back, but even they took notice of the rush of mingled concern and excitement when everyone saw the planes they were to board next. There were two, each one built to carry no more than a dozen passengers.

  “We’re flying in those?” gasped Barry Fails.

  “Propeller planes are perfectly reliable,” said Mr. Iverson, considering the slightly battered aircraft. “Even . . . er . . . older models like this.”

  Rich, who had stopped dead to stare wide-eyed at the antiquated-looking planes, had to be virtually shoved into the tiny airport. Darwen gave him an encouraging smile as they checked in, but it didn’t seem to help.

  “Isn’t this a treat!” exclaimed Mr. Peregrine as he gazed at the antique planes.

  “Everyone stand on the scales with your luggage,” called Miss Harvey, who seemed rather less enthusiastic. “Ladies first, single file and with dignity.”

  An official from the airline checked the weight of each student and their bags, then told Princess Clarkson she was twenty pounds overweight. Princess looked scandalized, then brandished a credit card and announced she would just pay the overage.

  “I’m afraid not,” said the official, shaking his head and smiling. “Each passenger is allowed twenty-five pounds of luggage. No more.”

  “Then I’ll just buy another seat,” said Princess.

  Darwen and Rich gaped at her.

  “No,” said the official, still smiling as if he was used to this. “The plane is full. If you need the bag, we can fly it down tomorrow, for a charge. If you can manage without it, you should leave it here and collect it on your way back.”

  Princess sighed theatrically.

  “Fine,” she snapped. “Bring it tomorrow.”

  She waggled the credit card.

  “What is in the bag,” said Mr. Peregrine, “that you cannot manage without, Miss . . .”

  “Clarkson,” prompted Miss Harvey.

  “Stuff,” said Princess. A huddle of students had gathered around, and more were pricking up their ears.

  “Of what kind?” pressed Mr. Peregrine.

  “Personal stuff,” said Princess with a haughty glare.

  “Could you be more specific?”

  “Er, Mr. Peregrine?” inserted Miss Harvey. “I don’t think we need to know precisely what Miss Clarkson is carrying. In fact, I’m not sure we are allowed to ask.”

  “Getting another bag to us tomorrow is going to be extremely inconvenient for whoever has to actually bring it,” said Mr. Peregrine. “I want to be sure we are not wasting anyone’s time, as well as this young lady’s money.”

  Miss Harvey frowned, but before she could say anything, Princess muttered, “Fine,” and unzipped her bag with a flourish.

  “Happy?” she said.

  “This,” said Mr. Peregrine, peering into the pink suitcase, “is a device for drying hair? And this entire container is full of makeup. These,” he said, holding up dresses of shimmering, lustrous fabric studded with sequins, “are evening gowns?”

  “Gotta have so
mething to wear for dinner, don’t I?” said Princess, as if she had made her point.

  “Where we are going, these . . .” said Mr. Peregrine, searching for the right words, “aren’t going to work.”

  Princess opened her mouth to protest, then closed it just as quickly. Mr. Peregrine’s kindly face spoke volumes about where they were going.

  As Princess, dumbstruck, watched her pink suitcase get carted into storage, Genevieve Reddock put a supportive arm around her shoulders, and Alex turned to Darwen. “That,” she said, “was pretty cool. Did you see the designer label on that dress? Sell a case full of those and you could probably buy Rich’s house.”

  “Thanks,” snapped Rich.

  “What?” said Alex. “I’m just saying.”

  They squabbled as they walked across the runway and up the narrow metal stairs into the plane. Inside they had to bend over, squeezing into their tight little plastic seats and strapping themselves in with considerably more care than they had on the jet from Atlanta. Darwen’s tiny window gave him an unnervingly good view of one wing and an engine, and if he looked ahead he could see right into the cockpit, where the two pilots were flicking instruments to make sure they were working.

  The engines were loud, starting deep and low like the revving of a scrobbler motorbike, then growing higher and more nasal as they approached takeoff. The students, who had been so excited before, were now edgy and quiet, avoiding each other’s eyes. Instead of the long, slow taxi the jet had made, the tiny plane reached its bumpy, rattling takeoff speed alarmingly quickly, and in seconds they were up and banking hard as they climbed.

  Darwen waited for the engines to stall and for the plane to drop out of the sky like a rock, but when time passed and nothing of the kind happened, he began to relax. The plane stayed below the cloud level, so he could see the city fall quickly behind them, instantly replaced by densely forested hills on which, it seemed, no one lived. He thought forested because that was what the proper name—rainforest—suggested, but the word that more firmly pressed itself into his mind was one that had popped out of Treasure Island. The word was jungle.