Ariel, Zed and the Secret of Life Read online

  ‘The bats are in the other room,’ said Ariel cheerfully, ‘stuffed. They’re in glass cases in their own natural habitats, with little trees and running streams. You’ll love Beatrice. She’s my favourite Common Bent Wing Bat, even though she looks a bit like a gangster since one of her glass eyes fell out. But I think it gives her loads of personality.’

  ‘Geez, don’t you ever stop? Oh why did Mum drop me in this Backwoods place? I’m surrounded by dead bodies and live weirdos!’

  ‘I’m not as weird as you, miserable rat face!’ Ariel shouted. ‘You’re the one who should be in a glass case!’

  ‘Yes,’ yelled Zed, ‘packed in there with my Mummy!’

  They both thought of Zed’s Mum, who would by this time be spooning her dinner out of a plastic airline plate, while every minute flying further away from Zed.

  Ariel felt dreadful. Zed, she supposed, felt worse.

  ‘Sorry Zed, I didn’t mean—that is—’ Ariel floundered to a stop.

  ‘Forget it.’ Zed turned on his heel and marched out of the room. Ariel could hear his angry footsteps falling like dropped bricks over the floor.

  She stared glumly at Max. Max, she told herself, would be on her side. She looked more closely into the glass case. Nothing. That faint tingle of horror that she had always felt, like being tickled on the inside, was gone. Max was just a bag of old bones under wraps. His name probably wasn’t even Max.

  Zed’s a real spoiler, thought Ariel. He hates everything, even chocolate cake. He’s about as welcome as a lump of wax in the ear.

  But then she thought of him sitting cold and stubborn in the living room. Her picture of him was still an unfocused photo, she thought, an unfinished puzzle. Figuring him out was like trying to stuff him into a jar; bits of him would overflow, untidily.

  Ariel left the museum without looking at the stuffed killer mammals and the Common Bent Wing Bat. She went on down the steps in a maze of thoughts, each of which needed picking over like those old fishy skeletons that she sometimes found washed up on the beach.

  It was a quiet afternoon at Birchwood. Ariel spent it with her notebook out in the garden. Zed was nowhere to be seen. He had come home, Concetta testified to that, having seen a long pale face droop by the window. Ariel supposed he was in his room. A sign made hastily out of cardboard and hung up with sticky tape said ‘Do Not Disturb. Influenza in Progress’.

  The dinner table that night was set in honour of Zed, with the family heirlooms—the lacy white tablecloth and silver servers. Lancelot nosed his chair a little closer to Ariel’s and jumped up. He shivered with anticipation as his plate was filled, and barked companionably at her, checking the size of her helping.

  When Zed entered the room he looked first at the silver cutlery and then at Lancelot’s moist open jaws.

  ‘You can’t be serious,’ said Zed, his voice gravelly with disgust and his cold. ‘Does this animal eat with us?’

  ‘Sir Lancelot has impeccable manners,’ Concetta replied haughtily. ‘He cleans everything off his plate.’

  ‘Don’t you know that dogs are walking diseases? In just one drop of saliva there may be millions of microscopic germs. You could catch rabies or tetanus, where you go rigid as a tree, and stop breathing. In just one pawful of fur there may be a thousand hydatid eggs.’

  ‘What are hydatid eggs?’ whispered Ariel.

  ‘Eggs that grow into long grey worms. They live in your stomach and absorb all your food before you do. You just get skinnier and skinnier, and then you die.’

  Ariel stared at Lancelot. Lancelot—the friend who shared her room, her doona, her slippers when he was little. She’d put her teddy in his basket, together with her clock, so that he wouldn’t be lonely for his mother. Could Lancelot be raging with tetanus, writhing with worm eggs, rancid with rabies?

  ‘Zedinov,’ Concetta said gently, ‘I don’t think that our lives are in danger. I would say that our chances of being attacked by a shark, while struck by lightning and hit by an albatross with gangrene would be more likely than catching any disease from our Lancelot here.’

  Ariel sighed happily. How soothing her mother was—she always put things in just the right perspective.

  Zed scowled. He watched Lancelot demolish the pasta al forno and start on the roast beef. The dog only made a couple of splashes, one of which reached Ariel’s chin. Delicately, Lancelot licked it off. With a choking sound, Zed put his hand to his mouth.

  Ariel wanted to hit him. She looked over at her mother, hoping she would put him in his place again with one swift sensible comment.

  But Concetta was silent. She was regarding Zed with an experienced eye. As a writer, she was used to dealing with difficult characters. Often, particularly at the beginning of a book, the characters she was creating just wouldn’t behave. They’d wriggle out of shape and sulk behind doors. Occasionally, they would rebel completely and become musicians instead of bankers, gentle instead of fierce. Then, she would just have to change her book—or perhaps take more drastic measures. Now, watching Zed’s grim mouth and mournful eyes, she was wondering if such measures mightn’t suit a boy such as he.

  ‘Zedinov,’ she said finally, ‘how do you feel about staying at Birchwood for the coming year?’

  Zed looked hunted. ‘Do I have to be honest?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, nothing personal or anything, but I don’t like staying with strangers. I wanted to go to Africa—I’ve never been there.’ His shoulders slumped and his grey eyes flickered, like the sea in shadow. ‘But then, I don’t know if I’d be happy anywhere much.’

  There was silence. Ariel felt like pressing his hand, but his body looked too closed to touch.

  ‘I know a place that you might find interesting,’ Concetta said, breaking off a hunk of bread. ‘I often—recommend—it to people who need a bit of a change, who could benefit from another point of view, let’s say.’ Concetta munched on her bread in a considering way.

  ‘You’re talking about the Island!’ exclaimed Ariel.

  ‘I might be,’ answered Concetta and gave Zed a mysterious smile.

  Ariel had heard about the Island. That was where writers like her mother sent their ‘impossible’ characters. ‘Go and learn to behave!’ Concetta would say to their defiant backs. ‘Go and write a different book!’ they’d retort over their shoulders. But off to the Island they would nevertheless go.

  Ariel had never met anyone who had returned from the Island. Still, her mother said it was a beautiful place, with its shiny sand and ancient caves. There was some kind of School there, too, where characters went to learn their proper roles in life. But Concetta had always been a little vague about the Island. Deliberately, Ariel thought. Suspiciously.

  Ariel had only ever heard two people speaking about the Island—her mother and Miss Heckle, who ran the School. Ariel remembered their low voices together, and Miss Heckle’s sliding eyes. Ariel’s heartbeat quickened, and she felt a tingle, like something cold, creeping down her neck.

  Zed blew his nose loudly. ‘What on earth are you talking about?’ he demanded. ‘Where is this island?’

  ‘Oh, it’s not very far from here,’ said Concetta. ‘Just a few days’ sail.’

  ‘A few days!’ Zed’s eyes widened. ‘But—I don’t know how to sail, and I don’t swim so well—’

  ‘No, no, no, that can all be arranged. Captain McGull will take you. Mind you, he’s a bit of a dreamer.’ She laughed. ‘Old McGull’s so absent-minded, he once threw a passenger overboard and put the scrap bucket in a deck chair. They soon fished the passenger out,’ soothed Concetta, noticing that Zed was having trouble breathing, ‘and it’s really a lovely island: tropical, you know, with great leafy palm trees and warm breezes that smell of spice.’

  Ariel and Zed looked at each other.

  ‘But what is it—some kind of holiday resort?’ asked Zed.

  ‘You might say that,’ smiled Concetta. ‘It’s somewhere people go who need to get into shape, that sort of
thing. I’d recommend it—to both of you.’

  Concetta looked at Ariel and nodded. She went on, ‘The holidays are coming up—a week here or there won’t matter—I think you could both do with a change. What do you say?’

  There was a pause. Lancelot, having finished his dinner, scratched, burped and left. The silence ticked on.

  Ariel thought about the long holidays ahead. She saw herself in the garden with her notebook. The museum. Occasional trips to the movies. Walks with Lancelot. Lonely days. She sighed.

  ‘I’m sure you’ll find a few interesting people there, too,’ said Concetta. ‘There’s Cliff Robertson, for one.’

  ‘Cliff! Is that where he went?’ cried Ariel. She turned to Zed. ‘Cliff was, er, staying with us for a while this year. He plays the guitar fantastically, and he has a recipe for spaghetti sauce that makes your ears smoke!’

  Ariel caught her mother’s frown. Cliff, in fact, was supposed to have been a tough, tricky lawyer with a brain like a computer—the dynamic hero of Concetta’s last book. Instead, he developed a talent for music and strolled around the house in his slippers, singing and forgetting to shave. Ariel had liked him very much. Her mother had found him ‘impossible’.

  Now Concetta began to clear away the plates. From the fridge she took the chocolate ice-cream cake. When she handed Zed his piece, he didn’t seem to notice.

  Zed was in the grip of panic. He had gone very pale, and he felt electrified, as if someone had put a switch right inside his chest, and turned it on. He tried to take deep breaths. Birchwood, he thought, was bad enough, but what about this island? He didn’t trust what he couldn’t see, and the information around here was pretty thin. These two people ‘recommended’ it—but he hardly knew them.

  Being a child, thought Zed, was like living in a game of Monopoly. You had choices, you could move about on the board. And you could even win money. But it was always fake money; no matter how involved you got, the game was never real. Somewhere else the real game, the adult game was going on.

  Zed watched his ice-cream melt and spread over his plate. He considered. The choice to stay on at Birchwood or go to this island wasn’t a real choice—or at least, not his own. These were adult-invented alternatives. They had nothing to do with what he wanted, what he would choose to do with his life.

  Zed’s eyes prickled. Despite his dinner, he felt empty: too thin, like a shadow or a piece of glass. His eyes filled as he saw himself out on an open sea, a piece of old driftwood bobbing along. Fish nibbled at him and swam away. And on and on and on he drifted, moving wherever the great tides nudged him.

  The next morning, Zed came down late to breakfast. ‘Got any brochures about this island?’ he asked casually.

  The morning sun dazzled the table, making the marmalade transparent.

  ‘No,’ Concetta smiled. ‘You’ll just have to trust me.’

  Terrific, thought Zed. Blindman’s Buff. Whoops, here comes the cliff.

  ‘Okay,’ he said wearily. ‘I’ll go.’

  ‘Do you think Zed will understand?’ Ariel found Concetta in the garden. ‘About the Island, I mean, the characters.’

  ‘Don’t forget he’s the son of a writer, too,’ Concetta replied. ‘He’ll be all right. The magic is in his blood, even if he doesn’t recognise it yet.’

  ‘Well, I’m going to the Island, for sure.’ Ariel smiled bravely, but she shivered.

  ‘I’ll miss you, cupcake. But still, it won’t be for long.’

  Even as Concetta hugged her, Ariel wondered if time really ticked on in quite the same way on the Island.

  4. THE VOYAGE

  ZED WAS DREAMING of water. On a vast flat ocean Zed the bird sat motionless, as still as a china duck on a shelf. He began to grow smaller, in the way that things do when you travel further and further away from them. He became just a speck, and the ocean swelled and swelled, until it blotted out the horizon. Zed was on the verge of disappearing, which wasn’t pleasant, when he woke up.

  Thunk! The writing desk slammed into his bunk. Zed blinked. He stared up at the panelled walls which curved over his head. There on the shelves, stacked in rows, were the folded oilskins and lifebuoy rings—things which made Zed feel both alarmed and reassured at the same time.

  After four days at sea, Zed was still amazed upon waking to find himself in this strange cabin smelling of diesel oil and fish. But this awakening was perhaps truly amazing as reliable things like gravity and the stability of objects had vanished. With a sickening lurch, the cabin heaved and the writing desk swung over to the far wall. Life jacket arms unfolded themselves and hung limply down from the shelves.

  It was dark in the cabin and, when Zed looked at his watch, he saw that his afternoon rest had become a long nap. It would soon be dinner time. At the thought of food Zed grimaced and sat up. He had to grab on to the bunk as the world rolled again and his stomach detached itself from his middle and seemed to float off like an unanchored boat. Now he could hear a loud slapping from outside, and a pummelling noise that sounded like hundreds of lost children tapping their fingers on the window. Zed, though, had a deep suspicion that this was rain, not fingers, that the awful slapping was waves against the boat, and that they were in the grip of a mighty storm.

  Now he could have told anybody that this was exactly the kind of dangerous thing that happened at sea. But naturally no-one had listened to him. Here it was then, the probable end to his young life—a life, he reflected, that had not been particularly sunny, leaving plenty of room for improvement. It was typical. He was eyeing the life jackets gloomily when Ariel burst in.

  ‘Zed!’ she cried, catching on to the door as the boat lurched. ‘Come up on deck and see. The waves are as big as houses!’

  A blast of wind entered with Ariel, blowing life into papers on the desk and making the life jacket arms clap together. Beyond Ariel, Zed saw a patch of dark, bruised sky.

  Wordlessly, Zed put on his oilskin and followed Ariel out on to the deck. The dirty grey of the sky had seeped down into the sea, and they gripped the rails as the boat rose and plunged between boulders of waves. Rain drove hard onto their hands and faces, stinging their skin, pocking the dull, greasy waves that rose like giants around them.

  ‘It’s like we’re the only people left in the world,’ Ariel shouted over the howling of the wind.

  As the boat crested a wave Zed stared out at the seamless skin of grey beyond, and shuddered. ‘I’m going to see the Captain!’ he cried.

  Captain Felix McGull was seated at the helm. With one hand he was steering (but it looked, Zed thought, suspiciously like he was just trying to hang on). With the other hand he held a book, open at a page that was dark with underlinings.

  ‘How can you read at a time like this?’ Zed exploded.

  The Captain showed him the cover. ‘Typhoon’, it said, ‘by Joseph Conrad’, and the picture of giant waves under the title looked just like those surrounding them.

  ‘I was just trying to pick up a few hints,’ said the Captain cheerfully. He jabbed at the page with a thick thumb. ‘Quite a sailor, this Conrad codger, but then again, you can’t believe everything you read in books, I s’pose.’ He scratched his head. ‘See, according to this, we could steer the boat a few points off course, and so avoid the storm. Go around it, you might say.’

  The boat smacked against the cliff of a wave and Ariel lost her hold on the railing, skidding over to the wheel.

  ‘Tricky things, storms,’ said the Captain, throwing her a sympathetic glance. ‘Aye, we’re in a spot of trouble, there’s no denying it. Never seen such a storm out this way—it must be a sign.’

  ‘Sign of what?’ Zed yelled over the rain.

  ‘Things to come, laddie. Aye, reckon there’ll be bad things to come.’

  Zed rolled his eyes. Any moment, he was sure, his life would parade before him, shot in sequence like a film. He’d see how he looked when he was a baby, the way he’d cried the first time he’d got lost in Bombay. And then he’d die.

/>   Ariel scrambled to her feet and raced back to the rails. She hung on, facing the ocean with her head thrown back and her feet apart. Zed could see her lips moving, and leaned forward to hear a wild chant of exhilaration and delight. He watched, horrified, as she began to flap her arms like a demented seagull. Suddenly she turned to look at him and her face was shining. Lit by the strange green glow of the storm she seemed transparent, unreal. It crossed Zed’s mind that he had already died of fright and drifted into a mad land of the spirits.

  ‘It’s like being on a roller-coaster!’ she shouted. ‘Or inside a pinball machine!’ And she swayed her body to the rhythm of the waves.

  ‘’Course, there’s those that like a storm,’ said McGull, with his ponderous air. ‘Aye, we’re all different fish swimming in the same sea, as they say. Take me, for instance, now I don’t like to get wet. No sir.’

  ‘Well, why did you become a sailor then?’ asked Zed.

  McGull looked shifty. ‘I didn’t decide, someone decided for me.’ And he frowned, looking fiercely down at his knees.

  Zed nodded in gloomy sympathy, but then it occurred to him that McGull was an adult with a beard and a bald patch, and it was a pretty curly world if a man like that couldn’t make his own decisions. Still, he didn’t have time to puzzle over that now, what with the wind roaring and the waves threatening to swallow him. The thing was to survive, that was all, and it occurred to him that he’d had this thought many times before. He wondered briefly if other people did more than just survive, that is, hang on desperately to the rails of life, yearning only to be safe and warm. Maybe they hoped for bigger things, things that seemed more noble. But with another buffet of wind, the boat turned smack into a wave, and Zed’s thoughts returned to the storm. The chances of getting out of this alive, he calculated, were pretty low, as he stared at Ariel’s mad swaying and McGull’s pale blue eyes gazing dreamily into space.

  Zed shook the Captain by the shoulder. ‘Well,’ he demanded, ‘what are we to do?’

  McGull grinned. ‘Calm down, laddie.’ He gave himself a shake. ‘Like I was saying, we could head off course a touch, but then, in what direction? And how would we find our way back? Me and this old boat only know one way to the Island—we’ve been going that way since Sinbad was a cabin boy.’