The Secret of Zanzibar (5 page)

He lay there on his back, one arm flung up where he had instinctively tried to protect his head from impact. Although he could hear the others calling his name in urgent whispers, he didn't have the breath to answer them.

He drifted in and out of consciousness without any sense of time passing until he felt a hand on his head and Feast was there. ‘Alistair,' he said, his voice low but insistent. ‘Alistair, can you hear me?'

Alistair tried to form words but all that came out was a strangled moan.

Feast kept talking, his voice quiet but reassuring. ‘You had quite a fall there, didn't you?' He turned Alistair over gently. ‘Can you tell me where it hurts?'

‘Everywhere,' Alistair whispered. ‘But … but nowhere in particular.' The realisation was comforting, and Alistair tried to raise himself onto his elbows. A wave of dizziness washed over him.

‘Not so fast there,' said Feast, pushing him back down gently. ‘Just let me check you out.' He ran his hands over
Alistair's limbs, asking, ‘How does this feel? And this? Can you flex your knees? … Good. Now follow my finger with your eyes.' Feast moved his finger slowly in front of Alistair's face. ‘No concussion.' He looked up to the cliff top and Alistair, following his gaze, saw the anxious faces of Slippers Pink and Tibby Rose.

‘He's okay,' Feast called. ‘Battered and bruised but no broken bones, thank goodness. I don't know if he'll be able to make the climb though. He's pretty –' Feast froze and Alistair felt a twinge of fear as they heard a voice ring out.

‘I heard something!' it cried. ‘Quick, everyone, I think they're close!'

It was the Queen's Guards.

Alice looked at Solomon Honker, perplexed. ‘How is carrying another rucksack going to get us across the border?'

‘Carrying one rucksack's heavy enough,' Alex said with a groan.

Rebus, who had come over to see what they were looking at, heard his son's complaint and ruffled the fur on top of Alex's head. ‘Two rucksacks should be nothing for a big strong mouse like you,' he teased.

‘Anyway,' said Solomon, ‘you won't be carrying this rucksack; it'll be carrying you. Or what's inside it will.' He opened one of the packs and began pulling out metres of light, silky blue fabric.

‘It looks like a parachute,' Alice commented.

‘Close,' said Solomon. ‘It's a paraglider.'

‘A paraglider? Yes!' Alex whooped.

Not for the first time, Alice marvelled at the fact that she and Alex had been born only minutes apart, yet were
so different. She didn't find the prospect of a paraglider the least bit exciting. In her opinion, the silky fabric didn't look nearly strong enough to bear her weight. And besides, if there were five rucksacks waiting on the cliff top, and five of them, didn't that mean …

‘Solomon, is there one paraglider each?'

Solomon looked up. ‘That's right, Alice.'

‘I don't know how to fly a paraglider,' she told him. ‘And neither does Alex – ooph!'

‘Shut up,' Alex hissed, nudging her in the ribs.

‘You'll learn,' Solomon responded. ‘It's easy enough.' He was now laying the paraglider out, and Alice saw that the silk was connected to a harness with a series of lines.

‘This is called the wing,' Solomon explained, indicating the swathe of silk. ‘When you're strapped to the harness, you can control the speed and steer by pulling on these brakes.' He pointed to toggles attached to the left and right sides of the wing. ‘When it's time to descend, you pull each wingtip so it folds in.'

‘How do we take off?' Emmeline asked.

Solomon raised his eyebrows. ‘Run and jump off the cliff.'

Alice let out a gasp.

‘What's the problem?' said Alex. ‘We've jumped off a cliff before. Remember? We jumped into the sea.'

‘Of course I remember,' Alice snapped. ‘But it's not exactly one of my
favourite
memories, is it? And I wasn't doing it for fun: Sophia was threatening us with a knife.'

‘Well, we're not doing this for fun either,' Alex said. ‘Now pay attention, sis.'

Alice clasped her hands tightly together to stop herself from hitting her brother.

When all five paragliders were laid out with their wings and lines trailing down the side of the hill they had recently climbed, Solomon said to Alice and Alex, ‘You see the Winns?' He pointed to the river winding through the countryside like a blue ribbon. ‘We'll be aiming to land just on the other side, to the left of that mountain shaped like a loaf.' He turned to their parents. ‘I presume you have a route picked out for yourselves?'

Rebus surveyed the landscape, then pointed to the right and murmured something to his wife.

She nodded. ‘Yes,' Alice heard her respond. ‘And when we've travelled through the east using the tree paths, we can cross the Winns in the north, up near the source, and travel through the west by the tunnels.'

It hadn't quite hit Alice till now that while she and Alex would be going in one direction, their parents would be going in another. They'd had such a short time together after four years apart.

‘What if …?' Alice began, then stopped, unable to voice the fears welling up inside her.

‘We'll be careful,' Emmeline promised. She put a hand on Alice's cheek and looked into her eyes. ‘And we'll meet you in Cornoliana before you know it.'

‘Once this is over,' her father promised, ‘we'll have all the time in the world together. When you're not at school, of course.' He tweaked Alex's ear.

And then Solomon was helping each of them to buckle themselves into their harnesses. It felt awkward the way it pushed into the back of her knees, so that she couldn't really stand up straight, but Solomon assured Alice that it would be as comfortable as a chair once she was airborne.

Airborne … The idea made her shiver.

‘Rebus, perhaps you could go first,' Solomon suggested. ‘Emmeline, you follow Rebus.'

Her parents seemed so calm, Alice thought. As if they'd paraglided many times before – or as if they were used to trying new and dangerous things.

She held her breath as her father ran towards the cliff, and as he dropped from sight her heart dropped with him. But suddenly the lines went taut and the wing of his paraglider billowed, filling with air.

Then Emmeline, a look of concentration on her face, ran and jumped. As the wing inflated she banked steeply to the right, following Rebus. Alice watched with an ache in her chest as the figures of her parents grew smaller and smaller, the blue wings merging with the deepening sky.

‘Alex?' It was Solomon.

‘I'm ready,' said Alex. He looked confident, but serious, too, as he ran towards the edge of the cliff and over.

Alice's heart began to pound and for a moment she felt so dizzy with fear that she thought she might faint.

‘Alice,' said Solomon softly.

On trembling legs, Alice stumbled forward over the uneven ground.

‘Come on, Alice,' Solomon urged. ‘Faster.'

Alice drew a deep trembling breath then began to sprint towards the cliff edge. Don't look down, she told herself.
Don't look down
. Instead she fixed her eyes on the billowing wing of her brother, moving steadily through the air about fifty metres ahead. Suddenly the ground beneath her dropped away and her breath caught in her throat. Her feet were still moving, as if trying to reach stable ground, and she felt a moment of panic. Then there was a tugging at the harness strapped around her chest and shoulders as the silk behind her filled with air and began to lift.

So this was what it felt like to fly. The wind swept through her fur, currents of cool air washing over her like water, as she soared over a patchwork of fields and trees. There was the same weightless feel as swimming, too, suspended beneath the giant canopy. She glanced to the right, but couldn't see her parents; perhaps they had landed already. What had Solomon said about landing? That's right: you used the toggles to fold in the wingtips. And she should be using them to steer, too. She grasped the toggles and squinted into the wind to see where Alex was, then adjusted her course slightly to the left.

She tried to match her descent to his, pulling at the toggles, but she must have pulled too hard, for she
came in so low over the Winns her feet almost skimmed the surface of the river. She hit the ground and half stumbled, was half dragged through a field of wet grass, the momentum of her flight carrying her faster than her legs could move. Finally she fell to her knees clumsily and the wing fluttered to the ground ahead of her.

Alex, who had already shrugged off his harness, squelched through the sodden field towards her. He had streaks of mud on his white fur, Alice noticed, pleased to know that she wasn't the only one who had had an awkward landing. He helped her undo the harness and Alice flexed her shoulders as they both turned to watch Solomon's approach.

There was nothing awkward in his descent at all. The giant wing seemed like an extension of his body as he floated gracefully to earth, loping across the grass as easily as a long-legged bird, unbuckling his harness as he slowed to a stop.

‘Quick,' he said, beginning to talk at once. ‘Get your gliders. We'll carry them with us and hide them in the swamp. We need to get out of sight.'

‘Swamp?' said Alex, as the three of them hastily gathered silk and strings and harnesses into untidy bundles.

Alice hugged hers to her chest and set off after Solomon across the watery field towards a forest on the far side.

‘Serpentine Swamp,' said Solomon. ‘We're going to cross it. From there we can follow the river north to Cornoliana.'

They stepped into the forest and it seemed to Alice that they were immediately enclosed in a different world. Instead of arching over open grassy fields, the sky was hidden by a dense canopy of leaves which allowed only a trickle of green light. Moss dripped from trees growing straight out of the water that lapped against the muddy path on which they walked. Instead of the fresh river smell of the Winns, the air of the swamp was at once ripe and sour and musty.

‘Pee-uw,' said Alex behind her. ‘This place stinks. I'm going to hold my breath until we're out of here.'

‘How long will it take us to cross the swamp?' Alice asked Solomon.

‘We should reach the other side by around lunchtime tomorrow,' said the rusty orange and white mouse.

‘Tomorrow?' squawked Alex. ‘I'll have suffocated to death by then!'

‘Sorry, kids,' said Solomon. ‘I wish there was another way, but it's the only part of Gerander I know where there's no risk of running into Queen's Guards, and that's an advantage we can't afford to ignore.'

‘Why aren't there any Queen's Guards in here?' Alice wanted to know.

‘Because of the snakes,' said Solomon Honker casually.

‘Snakes?' yelped Alex.

‘That's right. Serpentine Swamp is full of them. But don't worry. You know what they say: snakes only attack when they're hungry.'

‘What do snakes like to eat?' Alice asked uneasily.

‘Mice,' said Solomon Honker.

‘Mice?' Alice repeated in horror.

‘Well, I've never met these particular snakes before. Maybe they're allergic.'

‘So what do we do if we see a snake?' Alex wanted to know.

‘Avoid it,' Solomon advised.

And with that they moved into the cover of the trees.

Alice felt as if her senses were on hyper-alert as she splashed through the ankle-deep water, her feet sinking into the soft mud below the surface. The rustling of leaves sounded like hissing and occasionally a strange cry rang through the tree tops to remind them that they were not alone. The vines creeping up the trunks looked like the sinuous forms of serpents. The slimy mud beneath her feet felt like it was moving, alive, sucking at her toes. Her skin quivered beneath her fur with a sense of dread. She didn't like this place. She would almost rather be taking her chances with Queen's Guards along the road – anything would be better than this eerie, oozing swamp.

A movement in the trees above startled her and Alice turned her gaze upwards. ‘Aaaah!' she screamed when she saw a huge thick brown snake coiling itself around a branch only an arm's length away.

The snake stared back at her, its gleaming eyes unblinking, and flicked its tongue.

Alice, her heart pounding like a drum, put a hand to her chest.

‘Everything all right back there?' Solomon called.

‘J-just a s-s-snake,' Alice called back.

‘Did it seem allergic?' asked Solomon.

‘N-n-no.'

‘So much for that theory,' said Solomon.

Too frightened now to look around, Alice did her best to ignore the slitherings in the reeds, the murmurings in the trees, and instead fixed her eyes on the path ahead so as not to trip on the vine that twisted across it like …

‘Solomon!' she cried, her voice shrill, as the vines on the path moved suddenly.

‘Hmmm?' Solomon started, then: ‘Oh!' He sprang backwards, almost colliding with Alice as the snake on the path slid into the water.

On they sloshed through thickening mud. It seemed to Alice that the stench was getting worse. She tried breathing through her mouth but then it seemed to her that she could taste the rot and decay on her lips and tongue.

‘This place is giving me the creeps,' Alex said behind her. ‘And this mud stinks.'

‘I know,' said Alice, wrinkling her nose. ‘But maybe that's a good thing. It might keep the snakes away. Do you think snakes have a sense of smell?'

Alex didn't say anything.

‘I said do you think snakes have a sense of smell?'

When her brother still didn't respond Alice turned around. He wasn't there. She peered through the tree trunks. ‘Alex,' she said crossly, ‘this is no time to be fooling around.'

No answer.

‘Alex?' she called uncertainly.

A strange gurgling sound to the left of the path made her look down. The surface of the shallow water was rippling. That was odd. Suddenly the tip of a white nose shot out of the swamp.

‘Alex!'

Alice took a step towards him, her hand outstretched, only to be yanked back abruptly. Solomon Honker had her arm.

Alice struggled to free herself. ‘Let me go!' she cried. ‘A snake has got Alex. It's dragged him under water!'

‘Don't move,' Solomon said as Alex sank from view. ‘That's not a snake. It's quicksand.'