Echo Quickthorn and the Great Beyond

by Alex English

  ‘Professor!’ she called. ‘Professor!’ She ran over to his hammock and shook him awake. ‘Professor, something’s wrong!’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  The professor lurched out of his hammock and ran to the control deck. As he pulled levers and punched at buttons with his good hand, the steady hum of the little ship’s engine stuttered and ground to a halt.

  ‘What’s happening?’ wailed Horace.

  Gilbert shook himself awake and peered worriedly through the windscreen.

  ‘We appear to have run out of fuel,’ said the professor, shading his eyes and scanning the horizon. ‘But I can see an island up ahead. We’ll just have to hope the wind will get us there. I’ll take her down on the first beach we come to.’

  ‘Is it one of the Violet Isles?’ asked Echo, squinting hopefully out of the window.

  ‘No, my dear, we’re still a few miles off the Violet Isles,’ the professor replied, a grim look on his face. ‘This is good old Galligaskins.’ He took the wheel and steered for the rocky island that had appeared in the haze up ahead. Without the engine to help, steering the Hummerbird was down to luck – the wind took the little ship wherever it wanted to. But the professor held her steady, and finally, after several nervewracking attempts, they were skimming over the waves and grinding to a halt on the rocks.

  ‘Now, this is something of a predicament,’ said the professor, as they stood on the pebbly beach beside the Hummerbird. Galligaskins was a large but somewhat bare and windswept island, with plenty of stones, spiky plants and mangy-looking rock rabbits, but not an awful lot else.

  A large bluish-grey seabird squawked past overhead, hitting Horace’s shoulder with a splat of white guano. ‘Yuck!’ He grimaced. ‘Oh, this is the worst luck.’

  ‘Don’t panic,’ said the professor, with a smile. ‘You know what they say: there is always a way out for an explorer.’ He broke into song:

  ‘When you’re feeling full of gloom,

  You are never really doomed,

  There is always a way out for an explorer!

  When you’re sure you’re out of luck,

  You are never truly stuck,

  There is always a way out for an explorer!

  When you’re trapped,

  Your rope’s snapped,

  There’s a spider in your shoe,

  Lost your map,

  In a flap,

  And you don’t know what to do,

  Do not swerve,

  Hold your nerve,

  There will be a passage through,

  Because there’s always a way out for an explorer!’

  ‘Er . . . how far exactly are we from the Violet Isles?’ asked Echo when the professor had finished his song.

  ‘It’s thirty miles to Amethyst,’ he said, with a sigh. ‘If only we could contact Doctor Beetlestone. She knows these islands much better than I do. I’m sure she’d have some ideas.’

  ‘Wait!’ Echo dashed back inside the Hummerbird and riffled through her bag to find the little white-and-copper bird Jimmy Mainspring had given her. She climbed back out and slithered down the ladder. ‘How about using my postal pigeon?’

  ‘Perfect!’ said the professor, reaching into his pocket for his fountain pen. ‘I’ll send her a message straight away.’ He scribbled several lines on a piece of paper, rolled it up and inserted it into the mechanical bird’s claw.

  Echo spun the dials under the little bird’s wing to set the coordinates of the laboratory, wound the key and threw the pigeon up into the air. It whirred off into the sky, scattering the local seabirds. Echo watched it fly until it was just a dot among the clouds.

  ‘We’ll make camp here and see what’s what by daylight,’ said Professor Daggerwing, squinting into the thorn-clad trees. ‘But . . . how are we to get the airship started again with no fuel?’ said Horace.

  Professor Daggerwing winked at him. ‘Don’t worry, dear Horace. I have complete faith in Doctor Beetlestone. She is a most remarkable woman.’

  Horace sniffed and hugged his caterpillar jar to his chest. ‘I hope you’re right.’

  The professor nodded. ‘For now, let’s find something to make a fire. I don’t know about you, but I’m famished.’

  Echo wandered away from the shore, scuffing her boots through the stones. Why couldn’t anything ever run smoothly? It was yet another delay to their journey. Would they ever even get to the Violet Isles? She sighed, gathered an armful of desiccated wood shards and brought it back to the airship, where Horace was still clutching his jar and looking nervously around him.

  A cool breeze blew off the sea and down the shoreline and the professor hummed a jaunty tune as he collected driftwood. Suddenly he gave a shout, scrabbled for a moment in the sand and held up a shiny black rock. ‘Look!’

  Echo licked the salt from her lips and screwed up her eyes to see. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Black gold!’

  ‘Black gold?’

  ‘Sea coal,’ said the professor, with a grin. ‘I felt it crunching under my boots. Probably broke off a seam of coal out in the water somewhere. If there’s more of this around, it’ll make a fantastic campfire.’

  The sea coal did indeed make a strong fire, although it was rather damp and smelly and occasionally spat salty flares into the air. In the last light of the evening, the professor showed Echo and a reluctant Horace how to spot sea potatoes and starfish in the shallows and spear them with a sharpened branch. They were soon roasting the strange, fleshy creatures over the flames, while Gilbert nibbled with relish on a blue clump of weed he’d dragged back from a rock pool.

  ‘Anyone for a pickled sweetroot?’ said Professor Daggerwing, opening the jar with a pop and releasing a pungent cloud of vinegar.

  ‘No thank you,’ said Horace.

  Echo was about to decline too, but, at the professor’s hopeful look, she softened. ‘I’d love some,’ she said, reaching out for a couple of the slippery white spheres. She popped one into her mouth and almost choked as she bit into the crunchy flesh. It was so tangy it made her eyes water.

  ‘Ooh, I think the sea potatoes are ready!’ said the professor, turning to take his stick off the fire. Echo swiftly shoved the other sweetroot into her pocket, before retrieving her own spear and taking a mouthful of sea potato. It was strangely salty and as chewy as rubber, but definitely better than a sweetroot.

  ‘How is it?’ said Horace, sniffing the charred lump on the end of his spear with suspicion.

  Echo continued chewing and considered this. ‘It’s . . . different,’ she said, after managing to swallow. ‘Like a hairy, salty egg that’s been boiled for far too long.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Horace, looking queasy.

  ‘It’s really quite all right,’ said Echo. ‘Go on, try it.’

  ‘I don’t think I can.’ Horace recoiled, as Echo took another bite, squirting briny juices across the sand.

  ‘Adventurers must eat, Horace,’ said the professor, swallowing his own in one gulp. ‘I think they’re quite delicious.’

  After hesitating for what seemed like an hour, Horace finally held his nose and put the sea potato to his mouth. He closed his eyes, took a bite, gagged and eventually swallowed.

  ‘Better than the pickles?’ said Echo, trying not to laugh in case she upset him again.

  ‘I really couldn’t say.’ Horace was looking almost as green as he had in the Hummerbird, but he forced a few mouthfuls down and soon even he had managed to relax as they lounged companionably in the glow of the fire, drinking mugs of sweet tea and gazing at the luminous pulsing of jellyfish in the shallow waters of the bay.

  Echo leaned back on her elbows and took in Horace’s face, still smudged with coal dust, and his fingers slick with sea-potato grease. He seemed like a different boy from the pampered prince she’d known back in Lockfort. She smiled to herself, then finished up her mug of tea and stifled a yawn.

  ‘I think it’s best if we get some sleep,’ said the professor, noticing Echo’s eyelids drooping. ‘And,
with any luck, we’ll be on our way to the Violet Isles in the morning.’

  They all clambered back into the Hummerbird and arranged themselves in their hammocks.

  ‘Goodnight,’ said Horace.

  ‘Goodnight,’ said Echo, tucking Gilbert into the crook of her arm. But, although she was bone-tired from the adventures of the day, her head was so full of sky pirates and airships and mothers, and her heart was so full of hope, that it was a very long while before she fell asleep.

  Echo woke the next morning to a nudge from Gilbert and a strange tapping sound on the porthole near her head. The little lizard scurried to the window with a chirrup.

  ‘What is it?’ She struggled out of her hammock, disorientated, and peered through the glass to see her postal pigeon fluttering at the window, a scroll of paper in its claw.

  ‘A message from Doctor Beetlestone!’ Echo opened the airship’s hatch and clambered out on to the roof. The little mechanical bird flew up to her and landed in her cupped hands.

  ‘Professor!’ she called, scrambling back inside. ‘There’s a message for you!’

  The professor groggily climbed out of his hammock and after a few moments found his glasses. ‘Aha!’ he said, as he unrolled the scroll of paper and read.

  ‘Is it from your friend?’ asked Echo, hopping from one foot to another.

  ‘Yes, yes, indeed,’ said the professor. ‘And she’s on her way!’

  The professor relit the coals and they sat huddled on the rocks for a campfire breakfast of slightly charred golden snapperfish. Horace tucked in with relish, having finally got used to the taste of the ocean. Gilbert made do with snapping at flies that landed on the rocks. Seabirds perched warily around them, eyeing Gilbert and the travellers suspiciously.

  ‘When will she be here?’ Echo shaded her eyes with her hand and scanned the skies for the millionth time. They had to get to the Violet Isles. What if the sky pirates had moved on already?

  Then, with a jolt, she saw something. In the southern sky, a small dark dot hovered among the clouds.

  ‘Is that her ship?’ Echo jumped up, knocking her half-eaten snapperfish on to the rocks, where the gulls leaped on it in a mass of squabbling beaks and flapping wings.

  ‘It doesn’t look like an airship,’ said Horace, squinting in the morning sun as the dot grew bigger. ‘It looks like a . . . a flying person.’

  Echo stared. Horace was right: it did look like a flying person! She turned to the professor, open-mouthed.

  ‘Well, I do declare!’ Professor Daggerwing beamed. ‘The doc’s finally got her jetpack working.’ He stood up, waving his arms. ‘Edie!’ he shouted. ‘Edie! Over here!’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  After a few attempts, the flying-suited Doctor Beetlestone made a wobbly landing on the rocks, the flames shooting out of her jetpack sending the gulls squawking into the air. She flicked a switch in one gloved hand to turn off the burners, then took off her helmet and goggles to reveal a tanned face with friendly crinkles around twinkling green eyes. Two thick silver plaits tumbled out over her shoulders.

  ‘Professor Daggerwing!’ she said, striding over and slapping him heartily on the shoulder. ‘It’s been far too long. How are you?’

  ‘Oh please, call me Mangrove,’ said the professor, turning scarlet to the tips of his ears. He cleared his throat. ‘I see you’ve got the old burners firing at last.’

  Doctor Beetlestone nodded and unstrapped the copper contraption from her back, laying it down carefully on the rocks. ‘It’s a prototype really. A tricky beast to steer, but it gets me about. Now, you must introduce me.’

  She pulled off her glove and stuck out a hand to Echo, who was still staring in wonder at the doctor’s jetpack, complete with gas tanks, a propeller and the two burners that had propelled her through the sky. ‘I’m Edie Beetlestone.’

  After they had all introduced themselves, the professor explained what had happened.

  Doctor Beetlestone nodded. ‘I’ve plenty of fuel back at the lab.’ She pulled on her jetpack and helmet again. ‘You get her aloft, I’ll guide you back in and you can refuel at my place.’

  Soon the Hummerbird was gliding over the sea towards Amethyst Isle, with Doctor Beetlestone clinging to the hull and propelling them forward. Echo couldn’t tear herself away from the windscreen, her heart beating a mad polka in her chest as purple mist appeared on the horizon, finally giving way to an island thick with greenery and fringed with sandy beaches. They were in the Violet Isles!

  Even Horace was in a good mood at the thought of seeing the Greater Brimstone and hummed along while the professor sang a jaunty song:

  ‘Oh, the Violet Isles, the Violet Isles,

  Where the purple mist goes on for miles,

  And the sea potatoes grow in piles,

  In the Vio-Violet Isles.

  Oh, the Violet Isles, the Violet Isles,

  Where the mantraps snap like crocodiles,

  And their sweet hypnotic scent beguiles,

  In the Vio-Violet Isles.

  Oh, the Violet Isles, the Violet Isles,

  Where everyone beams with great big smiles,

  Oh, we all are Violet-Isle-o-philes,

  In the Vio-Violet Isles.’

  As Doctor Beetlestone towed them closer to the islands, Echo’s insides fizzed with excitement as the fabled violet mists drew in and clouded their view. As soon as they’d glided on to the sand of Amethyst Isle, she climbed up and released the airship’s hatch. She stuck her head out and was met with warm, humid air, rich with the salty scent of the ocean and the heavy perfume of tropical flowers. She wriggled out and jumped down lightly on to the sand. The professor and Horace followed.

  Echo couldn’t help grinning as she gazed round the island. They were in a curved bay fringed with palm trees, sea foam lapping gently on to the beach of pale pinkish sand. They were in the Violet Isles! And, though she couldn’t see any sign of a sky-pirate ship yet, her mother could be close by. Although that meant the sky pirates would be too, she thought with a sudden stab of fear. They’d approached from the north, as the professor had planned, but would they really be safe? Of course they would, she told herself. Doctor Beetlestone lived here, after all.

  Gilbert ran down her leg on to the sand and sniffed the air appreciatively, before cocking his head to one side and scuttling off to investigate a rock pool.

  ‘I don’t see a laboratory,’ said Horace, looking around.

  ‘That’s because it’s camouflaged,’ said Doctor Beetlestone, jumping down from the rear of the Hummerbird. ‘It can be dangerous to draw attention to yourself out here. Follow me.’ She strode off into the trees and they all tramped after her.

  ‘Here we are,’ she said when they’d pushed their way through the vines and found themselves in a little clearing.

  Echo and Horace looked around, but all that was to be seen were tree trunks hung with dripping vines.

  ‘I don’t see anything,’ said Echo, confused.

  Gilbert chirruped from her shoulder.

  ‘What . . . Oh!’ Echo gasped in amazement as she followed his gaze and saw a spherical building of glossy wood nestled in the treetops. ‘It’s a tree house!’

  ‘Or a tree lab,’ said Doctor Beetlestone. She twisted what appeared to be a knot in the wood of the tree trunk and steps sprang out, spiralling upwards until they reached the door to the laboratory. ‘After you!’

  Echo and Horace scampered up the stairs and found their way into a circular room with windows all around. In the centre was a gleaming steel workspace with saucepans of bubbling, sweet-smelling liquid. On one side was a curved desk covered with charts and notes, and on the other was a curved bed with butterfly-print blankets and a pillow shaped like a beetle.

  ‘Please excuse the mess,’ said the doctor. ‘I wasn’t quite prepared for your arrival and the lollipops are not quite ready.’

  ‘Lollipops?’ said Horace.

  ‘For the butterflies, of course.’ Doctor Beetlestone smiled and
beckoned him over to the saucepans. ‘Here, you two can help. Echo, the moulds are under the worktop. Horace, once the nectar is bubbling, let’s pour it in.’

  Echo found the moulds, each one with a disc-shaped indentation the size of her head, while Horace hovered over the saucepans with a thermometer.

  ‘With any luck, we’ll be able to see the butterflies as they pass by this afternoon,’ said Doctor Beetlestone.

  ‘Splendid,’ said the professor, rubbing his hands together. Then his face turned grim. ‘And on to Lockfort tomorrow.’ ‘Lockfort? The out-of-bounds, nobody-ever-dares-go-there

  Lockfort that hasn’t been visited for more than a hundred years?’ Doctor Beetlestone gaped and almost poured a saucepan of nectar all over the worktop.

  The professor flushed and nodded. ‘The very same. I owe these two a return trip. They rescued me, you know.’

  ‘Well!’ Doctor Beetlestone shook her head in astonishment. ‘You’ll be needing plenty of fuel if you’re attempting that,’ she said. ‘The sea coal’s in the adjoining trunk. Help yourself to however much you need.’

  The professor disappeared off to refuel the Hummerbird while Horace, with the help of Doctor Beetlestone, poured the sticky liquid into the moulds. Gilbert sniffed greedily from Echo’s shoulder as she stood and watched, the enormity of her sort-of-plan suddenly dawning on her. The professor was leaving for Lockfort tomorrow. Then she’d be trying to find the Black Sky Wolves on her own. Worry fluttered in her stomach.

  ‘It’s my own special recipe,’ Doctor Beetlestone explained, as they filled the last mould. ‘The Greater Brimstone only eats nectar from three flowers – the leopard lily, the ginger rose and Foxton’s night orchid. But I’ve found when I harvest all three, and mix them together in just the right proportions, the butterflies can’t resist.’ She took a handful of huge lollipop sticks, each one as long as Echo’s arm, and placed each one in a mould. ‘Once these set, we can use them to lure the butterflies to us.’