by Matt Haig
But Evie could hear the thoughts of this particular sloth and realised it was too paralysed by shock to do anything.
‘I . . .
what . . .
I . . .
don’t . . .
I . . .’ the sloth was thinking, with slow worry, as it clung onto the branch of the tree.
Evie felt sad, and angry, and fear clasped her brain like the sloth to the branch. And this fear was the sloth’s fear, which she felt almost as her own.
And then a thought arrived in her head. It wasn’t her thought. It wasn’t even the sloth’s thought. It was a thought from below. From the river.
‘What’s the matter?’ the thought asked.
Evie peered over the side of the boat and saw a flash of pink below the water’s murky green surface.
The river dolphin rose up and peered out into the air. It was the large one she’d seen earlier.
‘Listen, remember all that yummy food I gave you?’
‘Of course,’ said the dolphin.
‘Well, I need a favour . . . Look, see that animal on the bank?’
‘That freaky-looking thing?’
‘Um, yes,’ said Evie. ‘That freaky-looking thing.
I’d like you to go and rescue her. I’ll tell her to get on your back and then you bring her to the boat. Can you do that?’
The dolphin bobbed its head underwater, then came back above the surface. ‘Do you have more food? I’ll do it for more food.’
Evie turned and saw that Ernesto had an uneaten fried dumpling in his cabin. ‘We do. And it’s yours if you go over and save that sloth’s life. She is really scared, and I don’t think she will be able to swim. But you’ve got to be quick. The fire is spreading!’
The dolphin disappeared without another thought. Evie was worried. She had no idea if it was going to help or not, but as the seconds became minutes she thought all hope was lost.
But then she saw a bulbous pink dolphin head burst out of the water near the sloth.
‘Get on his back, sloth!’ Evie fired the thought like an arrow through the smoke-filled air. ‘It’s okay. It’s okay. You’re going to drop off the branch because that tree is going to burn soon. We are going to save your life!’
And the thought must have reached it because the sloth very slowly crawled further along the branch.
‘Oh . . .
I . . .
must . . .
It’s . . .
Oh . . .
high . . .
Here . . .
goes . . .’
And then –
Splash.
It dropped and flopped and splashed into the water.
‘Oh no!’ said Evie. ‘She fell in!’
‘Oh . . .
no . . .
I . . .
missed . . .’
‘What’s going on?’ Ernesto asked.
‘Evie is trying to save that sloth’s life,’ her dad explained. ‘My daughter communicates with animals.’
Ernesto’s eyes widened. He suddenly looked very excited. ‘I knew it! I read about her. The story was in all the newspapers. Even in Peru, she is famous! I knew it! Ever since I saw her nodding at that giant otter we saw.’
Evie was hardly listening.
She was waiting to see the dolphin come out of the water again with the sloth on its back.
‘I have never seen anything like this,’ said Ernesto.
‘Yes!’ Evie shouted out loud.
As the dolphin and its load made its way towards the boat, Evie went into the ship’s cabin.
‘What are you doing?’ Ernesto asked, confused.
‘I am stealing your tacu tacu. You see, I bribed the dolphin.’
‘Evie,’ said her dad, ‘you’re not meant to steal things.’
But Ernesto laughed. ‘It seems like a better cause than my big belly.’
And then the dolphin was there with the worried wet sloth still on its back.
‘Be careful of her fingernails,’ the dolphin warned. ‘They’re scratchy.’
Ernesto leaned over the boat and helped the sloth off the dolphin’s back and onto the deck. The sloth looked up at Evie with sleepy eyes.
‘Thank . . .
you . . .’
Evie smiled. ‘Hey, it’s okay. Let’s get you dry. Come into the sun.’
The sloth was drying out in the sun as it clung on to Evie’s back.
‘Where . . .
has . . .
my . . .
home . . .
gone?’ the sloth asked, in a thought of sleepy sadness.
‘I am ashamed to say that my species, the humans, have destroyed it.’
‘Why?’
‘For money, mainly. And because some humans don’t understand the importance of nature. Some of us seem to have forgotten that we are animals too. We need nature as much as you do.’
‘What . . .
is . . .
money?’
‘You’re better off not knowing, to be honest. By the way, I’m Evie,’ said Evie. ‘Do you have a name?’
‘Yes . . .
my . . .
name . . .
is . . .
Ah.’
‘Ah?’ asked Evie.
‘Yes.’
‘Oh. Okay. Ah. I suppose a short name makes sense. What with you being a sloth. I mean, short names are quicker to say. And think.’
‘What . . .
are . . .
you . . .
trying . . .
to . . .
say?’
‘Nothing. Nothing. Never mind.’
‘I . . .
am . . .
tired . . .’
‘Ah,’ said Evie.
‘Yes?’ said the sloth.
‘No. I was just saying “ah” not “Ah”. I say ah sometimes. I didn’t mean Ah as in your name.’
‘Ah,’ said Ah.
And the sloth smiled with her eyes and Evie laughed.
A sloth joke.
Ah closed her eyes and fell asleep, and Evie and her dad carefully laid her down on a blanket.
‘Just think, Dad, if we had gone to Mallorca we wouldn’t have saved this sloth’s life,’ she told her dad.
‘And we would have been entirely safe. Eating entirely safe churros on entirely safe beaches.’
‘Safe is boring, Dad.’
‘I like safe.’
The boat was now a good distance away from the fire and smoke.
‘Is there anything we can do to stop this happening? All this destruction?’ Evie asked Ernesto.
‘It is very difficult. They keep clearing the land to make roads and farms. To plant soy or graze cattle. Cows! In the jungle! I like cows but the Amazon wasn’t made for cows and greedy farmers. There are some laws that should protect the land, but they are broken all the time. The government doesn’t care. They just care about money. It is a crime. They don’t care about the tribes who live here. They don’t care about the rainforest animals. They don’t care about nature. And they don’t care about the planet or the air we need to breathe. It is so sad.’
He looked close to tears.
‘So, so sad,’ said Barbara.
Evie’s dad tried to comfort Ernesto.
‘But there are people trying to stop this. Around the world. And especially here in South America. Isn’t that true?’
Ernesto sighed. ‘Yes, it is true. But it is a hard fight.’
Evie heard her dad tell Ernesto about her mum and she felt pride fill her body.
‘Evie’s mother and I used to live in another part of the rainforest. In Brazil. My wife was an incredibly brave woman. Her name was Anna Navarro. She dedicated her life to trying to look after animals and stop nature being destroyed.’
‘She sounds like an amazing woman,’ sighed Ernesto. ‘And yes, there are people like her in Peru. Like Professor Abigail García.’
Evie raised both eyebrows. She knew that name.
‘Professor
Abigail García! Oh wow! Wow, wow. She is my hero. She is the author of Animals of the Amazon! It’s my favourite book in the world. I learned so many animal facts from it. And she has helped discover new species. Like the García monkey! She discovered that in 2011! They named a whole species after her.’
‘Yes! That is her!’ said Ernesto. ‘She has a charity. It has a boring name – the International Centre for Rainforest Protection or something. But it does magical things. It is based in Iquitos City. They get money from the public and then buy parts of the rainforest.’
‘What happens to the land after they’ve bought it?’ asked Evie’s dad.
Ernesto smiled. ‘Nothing. Nothing at all. Which is the whole point. They let the jungle live. They stop it being burnt or logged or destroyed. They keep the animals safe.’
‘That . . .
sounds . . .
wonderful,’ said the sloth, waking up briefly, before yawning herself back to sleep on Evie’s back.
Ah’s tiredness was catching, and soon the passengers were all asleep along with the sloth while Ernesto yawned in the cabin. He managed to stay awake until morning, when they reached Iquitos City.
I quitos City was a fantastic place. Maybe the most fantastic place Evie had ever been to in her entire life.
A whole city right in the midst of the rainforest, nestled beside the vast curving wonder of the Amazon River. And probably the only place in the world you could walk around with a sloth on your back and no one looked at you funny. They travelled in a three-wheeled tuk-tuk through the streets (a tuk-tuk is like a kind of multi-coloured scooter crossed with a car).
Motorbikes and rickshaws and pedestrians were everywhere. The buildings of the city were a variety of yellows and oranges and reds. They saw houses on stilts and kids in bare feet flying kites.
There was also a surprising number of street cats everywhere, staring as the traffic sped by.
There was no time for sight-seeing or cat-chatting, though.
Evie and her dad had decided to take Ah the sloth to Professor Abigail García at the International Centre for Rainforest Protection.
This had been Evie’s idea. Because Evie really wanted to meet the author of her favourite book. But her dad had also agreed that the International Centre for Rainforest Protection would probably be the best place to take Ah as they would know the safest part of the jungle for the sloth to return to.
‘They’ll know what to do with her. And it’s not like we can take her to England.’
‘What . . .
is . . .
England?’ asked Ah.
‘It’s a place without any jungles. Or wild sloths,’ said Evie.
‘It . . .
sounds . . .
terrible,’ said the sloth.
‘Well, that’s a matter of opinion.’
Evie had imagined the International Centre for Rainforest Protection would be situated in a gleaming skyscraper, but it was very different.
It was a tiny wooden hut on stilts on the river. To reach it, you had to walk over planks of wood that formed a wooden walkway from the riverbank directly over the Amazon River itself. A rickety wooden street in the air.
Then there was an even thinner wonkier piece of wood that they had to walk on once they reached the little hut with the sign outside that said ‘International Centre for Rainforest Protection’ in three languages – Spanish, English and Quechua, which (according to Evie’s dad) was a language spoken by the original people of Peru.
Ah was very still as Evie crossed the planks. And she was very careful not to scratch Evie with her claws. Evie balanced as they followed her dad over the thinner plank of wood to reach the International Centre for Rainforest Protection.
It was a small, humid wooden room. There was a ceiling fan but it didn’t seem to be working. In the middle of the room was a large desk filled with an old computer and messy paperwork. Beside the desk was a bright red parrot with blue, green and yellow wings, sitting on a swing.
‘A scarlet macaw!’ Evie said excitedly. She tried to enter the macaw’s head, but it turned out that parrots’ heads (or this parrot at least) were filled with rude and angry thoughts that were hard to follow.
‘Ssssh!’ said her dad, pointing to a woman.
Professor Abigail García was on the telephone. She was shouting in Spanish.
Evie understood some of what she was saying.
‘No, they can’t do it! We must keep going! . . . We’ll find the money! I don’t know how, but we will . . . I don’t know . . . I don’t know . . . But we can’t let the loggers take that land. We can’t let them chop down a single rubber tree on that land. We just can’t!’
Professor García put the phone down and slumped forward, exhausted, placing her face on the desk and swearing several times in Spanish. Ten swear words in total. Two of them so rude Evie had never actually heard them before and Evie’s dad quickly put his hands over her ears. Then she said another swear word that even Evie’s dad hadn’t heard before, and he seriously thought about covering his own ears.
‘Wow,’ he whispered, a little scared.
Evie noticed a large framed photograph of a jaguar on the wall.
Its spotted fur and ferocious jaws looked magnificent. She remembered that in Animals of the Amazon the first chapter had been about the jaguar. One of the deadliest predators in the jungle.
Professor García clearly hadn’t seen the two humans and one sloth enter the small humid wooden office. But the scarlet macaw parrot perched on a swing near the roof was trying to tell her.
‘Visitors!’ she squawked. ‘Visitors!’
At first Evie thought the noise was just the scarlet macaw’s thoughts entering Evie’s head, but then it became clear that the scarlet macaw was actually chirping it out loud.
‘Neruda! Silencio!’ said the professor, but the parrot – Neruda – kept squawking.
And then Professor García turned to the visitors and smiled wearily.
‘Hola, hello . . . buenos días,’ said Professor García, now in a quiet and tired voice.
‘Hola. Hello. I am Santiago. And this is my daughter, Evie. And this is a sloth we rescued from the jungle.’
‘That is interesting,’ said Professor García, sounding like it was the least interesting thing she had ever heard. Evie couldn’t help feeling she looked a lot older and tireder and sadder than the photo on the book cover.
‘It’s an honour to meet you,’ said Evie, smiling.
‘Ugh!’ said Professor García, as if the words gave her a headache.
‘She hates you,’ thought Neruda.
‘I read your book,’ Evie went on. ‘I learned so much. I learned that thirty-five species in the Amazon rainforest become extinct every day, and that rainfall has declined by 69 per cent since the year 2000, and that it contains one in ten species known on Earth and 40,000 species of plants. I learned that although many parts of the rainforest are jungle, not all are because the word “jungle” refers to the dense and tangled bits you can’t walk around very easily. And I learned that Amazon wildlife is in great danger not just because—’
Professor García could take no more. ‘Please. Stop.’
‘I want to be like you.’
‘Ugh. I don’t even want to be like me.’
‘But you’re my hero. You found a new species of monkey!’
‘Never meet your heroes,’ said the professor, taking a swig from a hipflask.
‘She doesn’t like you,’ thought Neruda. ‘She really, really, really, really, really doesn’t like you. She wants you to leave.’
‘Well, that’s rude!’ Evie thought back.
The parrot jolted upright when she realised Evie could telepathically communicate with her and then she fell off her perch. Everyone looked at the parrot on the dusty floor. The bird quickly shook her feathers and flew back to her perch, looking intently at Evie. ‘I’m okay, I’m okay,’ she squawked, in parrot. ‘I meant to do that.’
‘We just wondered
if you could help us,’ Evie’s dad said, turning his attention back to Professor García. ‘You see, we wondered if your charity could find a new home for the sloth. A safe part of the jungle.’
‘She’s called Ah,’ said Evie, as the sloth dribbled in her sleep.
Professor García looked like she could cry. ‘I can, of course, take the sloth. I can place it in the jungle. But it won’t be a safe part.’
‘Why not?’ Evie’s dad asked. ‘I thought that’s what you did. You buy up land and you keep it safe.’
The professor sighed. ‘Not any more. Nowhere is safe.’
‘What happened?’ asked Evie.
‘We ran out of money. The land prices are rising and people have stopped giving us money. No one visits our website any more.’
Evie was confused. ‘Why is the website so important?’
‘The website is the easiest way for people to donate money! But it is a terrible website. It is the worst website in the whole history of websites. There is nothing on there that you couldn’t find anywhere else. It’s a really bad—’
The professor’s eyes widened as she stared at Evie.
‘Espera! Wait a minute! You! It’s you! I know you. I have seen you . . .’ She opened a drawer in her desk and rummaged around. Then she pulled out a copy of Nature magazine with Evie’s face on it. ‘Here! You are Evie Navarro. The animal talker!’
‘You are everywhere,’ the professor said, her breath smelling stale. ‘I saw a video on YouTube where you told a bearded dragon to change a TV channel, and one where you interviewed a seagull.’
‘That was my idea,’ Evie’s dad said. ‘The seagull. She wanted to interview a rattlesnake or a tarantula and I said, “Hey, maybe start with a seagull?”’
Professor García smiled. ‘You are famous, Evie!’
‘Also annoying,’ thought Neruda.
‘That’s why we came here,’ Evie told the professor, frowning at Neruda.
‘Because you’re annoying?’ wondered Neruda. But Evie ignored her.
‘It was getting a bit much at home so we came . . . here,’ she said. ‘I want to feel hopeful again.’
Professor García sighed, as if she was imitating the sloth. ‘Well, I wish I could have given you that. Hope, I mean. But as of today, I have no hope. Tonight I’ll shut down the website. And tomorrow I’ll head back to the University of Lima and teach.’