Darwen Arkwright and the Insidious Bleck

by A. J. Hartley

  “Jorge,” Alex inserted.

  “Whatever,” said Nathan. “I told him to cut a piece off that hadn’t been damaged and we could barbecue it, but he was like, ‘We must pay attentions to the world of the forest. We take only pictures and leave only footprints.’ And dead animals, apparently. I mean, what’s the point of the stupid, useless tapir if we can’t even eat the ugly thing when it’s—”

  Bonk.

  “Hey!” said Nathan, grabbing the back of his head and ducking. “What the—?”

  Chip stooped and picked up the object that was still rolling at his feet: it was a piece of fruit about the size and shape of a lime.

  “Who threw that?” Nathan demanded, spinning.

  Standing a little way up the path to the dining shelter was Mr. Peregrine.

  “Perhaps,” said the teacher, “it was one of the monkeys or another of the wonderful creatures that live in this place, offended by your heartless remarks about the tapir.”

  There was a shocked pause.

  “You threw it?” said Nathan, aghast.

  “You did not listen to what I said,” said Mr. Peregrine, smiling benignly and waving at a fly that was buzzing around his head. “You might consider using your ears as well as your mouth.”

  “Whoa!” said Alex.

  The others just stared at the teacher, who had started to gaze up into the trees.

  “There is no way that was a monkey,” said Nathan, half to himself, as if not quite able to believe the alternative.

  “I, alas, did not see the incident,” said Mr. Peregrine. “But I would advise you to show a little respect to the creatures we encounter.”

  “The stupid monkey couldn’t understand what I said,” sneered Nathan.

  “Really?” said Mr. Peregrine. “Such certainty in one so young. I find that if I assume less about the world around me, I learn considerably more. Now,” he said, producing a bag of shiny green-and-gold sports jerseys, “if you would put these on, I believe that Miss Martinez and Miss Harvey are organizing a soccer match with some of the village children.”

  There was so much strange news in this seemingly casual remark that everyone forgot what Nathan was so upset about. There was a village? There was going to be a soccer match? Involving Miss Harvey?

  For a moment Darwen thought that Mr. Peregrine was making the whole thing up to distract them from what Alex was soon calling the Mystery of the Flying Fruit, but it turned out—bizarrely—to be true. At the southern end of the beach was a horse trail that skirted the forest and, between a cluster of ramshackle, single-story wooden buildings, an area of cleared grass just large enough for a soccer field. A dozen local kids, some the children of people who worked at the tent camp, others who had come over from Drake Bay, were kicking a ball around. They wore faded and stained cotton T-shirts and shorts with either ratty sneakers or nothing at all on their feet. By comparison, the Hillside kids looked like world champions in their official green-and-gold uniforms.

  They just didn’t play like them.

  True, the Hillsiders hadn’t brought their cleats—but since the opposition was largely barefoot, this wasn’t much of an argument—and true, they weren’t used to playing together as a team, and true, many of them didn’t have much experience playing soccer, and true, Gabriel, who said he played a lot in Florida, didn’t show up, but none of that could explain away how utterly they got crushed. After ten minutes the locals were leading by four goals to nothing, and after half an hour it was 7–1, the lone Hillsider goal coming when Darwen had run half the length of the field and slotted the ball into the center, where Nathan tapped it home. Their eyes met briefly, but Nathan didn’t thank him for what was, Darwen felt, a gift. Other than that one high point, the game was a disaster.

  Rich, who was looking more than usually huge, lumbering, and pink, was sweating heavily as the local kids zipped around him. Alex had been running madly around the field, but Darwen didn’t think she had touched the ball once—she seemed more interested in practicing her Spanish on the opposition.

  “Miss O’Connor,” called Miss Harvey, “if you are not going to play, kindly leave the field.”

  Alex shrugged and walked off, and the local girl she was chatting to went with her to keep the sides even, at least numerically. They sat on the edge of the field where some of the adults—both teachers and a few of the men and women who worked at the camp—had gathered to watch.

  When Miss Harvey blew the final whistle, Darwen, Carlos, and Simon shook hands with the other team, while the rest of the Hillsiders skulked away looking exhausted and surly in their now soiled green-and-gold jerseys.

  “You lot are really good,” said Darwen to a boy who had scored a spectacular volley. Carlos translated, and the boy shrugged, smiling.

  “Thanks, Carlos,” Darwen said. Then he turned toward the field’s edge. “Alex,” he called, “come here a minute.”

  “What am I, your servant?” shouted Alex, stomping across the grass. “Your majesty called?”

  “What is it?” asked Carlos. “What do you want to know that you need Alex O’Connor for?”

  “It’s nothing, Carlos,” said Darwen. “Just . . . I was curious where he learned to play like that.”

  “I can ask him,” said Carlos, pleased with the opportunity to be useful. “His name is Felippe, by the way.”

  “Hi,” said Darwen.

  The boy nodded. Carlos started speaking in rapid Spanish.

  Darwen glowered at Alex.

  “Don’t look at me,” she whispered. “Anyway, I already know.”

  “What?”

  “While you were kicking that ball around like the future of civilization depended on it, I was making friends. And gathering news.”

  Darwen stared at her, but Carlos was already giving the other boy’s answer about where he learned to play, which amounted to “here.” Darwen nodded and made impressed-sounding noises while trying to suggest that he now needed to be somewhere else.

  “Wow,” he said again. “That’s great. Well, maybe we can play again. Bye!”

  He waved vaguely and walked away, leaving Carlos and Felippe looking slightly confused.

  “Well?” he said as soon he and Alex were out of earshot.

  “I met this girl called Sarita. That one there.” She waved, and a slim girl a year or two younger than they with shoulder-length hair waved back. “I used my natural charm and started by telling her how much I missed my dog. Which is true, by the way. Anyway, we talked for a while, and she said that very odd things have been going on.”

  “Luis,” said Darwen. “He was from here?”

  “He and four others,” said Alex. “Two more have disappeared since Luis and his brother.”

  Darwen stopped walking and stared at her.

  “Five?” he said.

  “Over the last six weeks.”

  “What do they think is happening?” he asked.

  Alex shrugged.

  “Some of them are saying it’s a jaguar,” she said. “But jaguars never hunt people.”

  “Why do they think it’s a jaguar then?”

  “Well, I don’t think the possibility of abduction from another world accessed only through mirrors has been seriously considered,” said Alex. “Some pieces of odd machinery have appeared in the jungle—like that bulldozer thing we saw this morning—but they clearly don’t work and look abandoned. No one is connecting a few old-fashioned engines to the missing kids.”

  “So what have they done about it?”

  “Same thing we would,” said Alex. “They called the police.”

  Darwen was amazed that the idea had not occurred to him. They might be in a remote part of the jungle, but that didn’t mean there was no law enforcement.

  “So there’s an investigation?”

/>   “I guess, though they don’t seem to be making much progress.”

  “If what is attacking them is taking them out of this world entirely,” said Darwen, “that’s hardly surprising, is it? What did you learn about Luis?”

  “Our age,” she said, “smart, good soccer player. Ordinary, except that he and his brother were inseparable, closer than twins, though they didn’t look alike. Sarita said that when Luis went missing, Eduardo searched the jungle for three days and nights by himself. His parents had to force him to go to bed because he collapsed miles away and had to be brought back by boat. The following night he was out again. They figure he stumbled on whatever took his brother a couple of nights after that. No one has seen him since.”

  Darwen stared at the ground, suddenly overcome by a tide of anger and sadness. He had no brother, but he knew what it was like to lose your family, the people who knew and loved you best.

  Alex had opened her mouth to say something else, but stopped. There was a distinctive thrumming sound getting louder each moment: a helicopter, approaching from inland and traveling very low. The kids who were still on the soccer field scattered to the edges, grinning expectantly. When the helicopter came into view and slowed, hovering briefly before descending, several of them clapped and waved. The grass flattened and the trees swayed in the wind of the rotor, and then the chopper was sitting in the middle of the field where they had been playing only minutes before, as out of place as a bulldozer in the jungle.

  Darwen’s first thought was that it was a police helicopter, but then the door on the side of the cockpit opened, and he knew it wasn’t the police.

  A long, slender woman’s leg reached down, a leg ending in a bright red shoe with a high pointed heel. The heel sank into the grass, but the woman wrenched it free and stalked away from the chopper smiling.

  She was, Darwen supposed, beautiful in the way that movie stars are beautiful: perfect, regular features, flowing blond hair, and an air of polish about her that—in this rough-and-ready setting—made her seem unearthly, as if she had strode out of the pages of a magazine. She wore a crimson jacket and skirt that matched her shoes, and her long fingernails were the same vivid color. She reached into a spangled handbag and pulled out what Darwen thought was candy, which she proceeded to distribute among the clamoring local children, walking among them like a princess. It took a moment for him to realize that it wasn’t candy at all.

  “She’s giving out money!” Alex exclaimed.

  Sure enough, she was handing out large yellow coins quite unlike anything Darwen had seen since arriving in Costa Rica.

  “Maybe it’s chocolate,” he said, thinking of the foil-covered candy coins he used to get in his Christmas stocking in England.

  “If it is,” said Alex, “no one’s eating it. It looks like gold. It can’t be though, right? ’Cause that would be, you know, nuts. . . .”

  The kids danced around and shook the woman’s hand and then scampered off, some to the little houses where their parents were emerging, others to the camp. They looked more than happy. They looked delighted, like the answer to their prayers had just drifted down from the heavens.

  Not everyone was pleased to see the woman and her helicopter. Jorge came running from the tent camp, shouting and exclaiming in a mixture of English and Spanish as the noise of the chopper’s slowing blades finally died away.

  “Who are you?” he demanded. “This is a protected environment. You cannot land here.”

  She turned and looked him up and down coolly, the tip of her tongue moving between her shining ruby lips.

  “You must be the jungle guide,” she said in a voice that was much lower than Darwen had expected but still reminded him of slowly dripping honey. She sounded pleased, and one corner of her mouth twitched in a half smile. “Jorge,” she said. “I seem to keep missing you. So glad we will finally have the chance to chat a little.”

  Jorge’s eyes seemed to lose a little of their fire for a moment, but, as the students began to gather silently around, he came back at her with a new surge of anger.

  “I demand to know who you are and what you are doing here,” he said.

  “Demand?” she said with a throaty chuckle. “Let us not get above our station, Jorge. There is no need to demand what will be given to you freely. My name is Scarlett Oppertune, and I’m here to give the people who live here a chance at a real life.”

  “What are you talking about?” said Jorge. “They have real lives.”

  “Living in the woods?” she returned with amused condescension. “Making a few pesos bringing milk and cheese in for the tourists? Miles from decent hospitals, schools, and law enforcement? With no opportunity for advancement or profit and surrounded by dangerous animals?”

  “This is their home!” exclaimed Jorge.

  “For now,” said Scarlett smoothly. “But everyone is free to make their own choices—at least they are where I come from.”

  “Which is where?” said Jorge.

  “I represent Sunbelt Vacation Properties,” she answered, flashing a brilliant, toothy smile. “We build hotel chains.”

  Jorge’s eyes widened.

  “You want to build a hotel? Here?!” he said. “We’re on the edge of a nature reserve! This is one of the most biodiverse regions in the world.”

  “I know!” said Scarlett Oppertune, her eyes bright, “and think of how many tourists will want to see it if they don’t have to sleep in tents! It’s time all this ‘nature’ was shared with the world, don’t you think, Jorge?”

  The guide looked at a loss for words, like the air had been driven from his body, but Rich stepped up.

  “If you develop the area,” he said, “you wipe out the environment that makes it worth visiting!”

  “Not at all,” Scarlett said, smiling. “You know how big these woods are? We won’t get rid of all of it. And if we make it smaller, that will make it so much easier for people to find the fuzzier, less dangerous birds and animals, now won’t it? Once we’ve got the park boundaries redrawn so that we can get some decent roads through here, an airport, a mall or two—”

  “A mall?” gasped Jorge.

  “Tourists have to shop,” she said, winking and smiling. She seemed completely unaware of Jorge’s outrage. “Maybe a hunting lodge . . .”

  “You’ll never get the government to approve,” said Rich, his face pinker than usual.

  Scarlett’s gaze lingered on him, and her right eyebrow twitched with something like amusement. “You don’t think a government will give up a patch of land covered with trees that generates next to no income,” she said, smiling at Rich, “for a sack full of cash up front and the promise of more once the tourist jets start landing? Please.”

  “But it’s . . .” Rich fumbled for a word.

  “Illegal?” Alex cut in. “Immoral? Unethical? Exploitative?”

  “All of those,” said Rich, as red now as Scarlett’s shoes.

  “It seems that way to you,” said Scarlett, “because you are”—she settled on the last word with her sweetest smile yet—“a child.”

  She smiled again, this time in a pitying sort of way, and Rich glared at her, furious and embarrassed, as she took the brown hand of one of the smallest local kids and said, “Okeydokey. Let’s have a chat with your mom and dad, shall we? I expect they might be interested in freedom and the pursuit of happiness.”

  She turned in the direction of the little cinder-block houses.

  “I don’t trust people who use words like that,” said Alex.

  “Like what?” asked Darwen.

  “Like they’re flags that you wave to get people cheering.”

  They watched Scarlett walk away. Several of the local kids had flocked to her, touching her fancy suit and gazing happily up at her, though Sarita and Felippe kept their distance, muttering to eac
h other. Scarlett moved slowly, beaming down at the smaller kids who were holding her hands, and Darwen was reminded of an old science-fiction movie he had seen on TV with his dad in which a man moved up a ramp into a spaceship surrounded by fascinated little aliens.

  Jorge watched her go, speechless, then turned and stomped back toward the tent camp. Rich was muttering furiously.

  “Come on,” said Darwen bracingly. “Nearly time for dinner, and then we get to try out Mr. Peregrine’s portable portal.”

  “Did you hear what she said?” Rich demanded, rounding on him.

  “Yes,” said Darwen, “but—”

  “Doesn’t it matter to you?” Rich said. “That we’ve come all this way to see this amazing place and the things that live here, and she’s going to tear it down to make a few bucks?”

  “Well,” said Darwen, who had never seen Rich so angry, “not all of it.”

  “Oh, not all of it?” repeated Rich, his voice loud and heavy with sarcasm. “That’s all right then. I was worried they were going to bulldoze all the region’s endangered species into the sea, but so long as they’re leaving a few trees for the tourists to look at over their TVs, that’s okay. A coconut palm or two, yeah? Tourists like coconuts. Hang a plastic monkey on one of them and no one will know the difference, right, Darwen?”

  “Hey, don’t blame me,” said Darwen. “I’m just saying it might not be as bad as it sounds.”

  “You know what, Darwen?” said Rich. “You’re right. It won’t be as bad as it sounds. It will be worse. Trust me: I’ve seen it back home. Once the forest goes, it doesn’t come back, and everything in it goes away. Forever.”

  Darwen, unable to think of anything to say, looked down, and Rich stalked off after Jorge.

  For a long moment, no one said anything, then Darwen heard Alex’s voice.

  “Anyone ever told you that you’re a huge comfort to your friends when they’re upset?” she said, adding before he could respond, “Ever wonder why not?”

  Dinner that night was tense. Rich didn’t speak to anyone, but he glowered at Princess Clarkson when she made the mistake of saying that she thought a hotel would be an improvement on the tent camp. The other students were quiet, and though some of them were sympathetic to Rich, there were others who thought Princess had a point. The generator wasn’t working properly, which meant that the water was cold and they had to go to bed as soon as the sun went down since they couldn’t see their hands in front of their faces. To make matters worse, it began to rain again, a drenching downpour that turned the paths to streams and sent the students running for their tents, where they sat, steaming and damp, listening to the drumming of the rain on the nylon. The humidity was so high that even when the rain stopped, nothing dried out, and their wet clothes began to smell sourly of mildew.