by Justin D'Ath
Good old Mr Griffin – he was still making jokes.
‘He’s a proboscis monkey,’ I said. ‘I found him swimming in the sea. I had to pick him up or he’d have drowned.’
‘It’s like being on Noah’s Ark,’ Mr Griffin commented. He tried to raise his head. ‘There’s a lot of water in the boat.’
I told him about the hole and how I’d patched it.
‘Good lad,’ Mr Griffin said weakly. ‘Speaking of water, do we have any left?’
The water container was wedged under the middle seat. When I pulled it out, I discovered the lid was missing. I must have forgotten to put it back on when the stingray jumped into the boat. There was still water inside. I tasted it.
Uh oh – salty.
Mr Griffin shook his head grimly when I told him we had no fresh water. ‘Too bad,’ he said. ‘I guess our luck’s run out.’
I looked back towards land. All I could see was fire and thick black smoke. All I could hear was the rumble of the two volcanoes. No one knew where we were. No one knew we were alive, so they wouldn’t be coming to look for us. We were on our own, somewhere off the coast of Borneo, barely afloat in a boat full of animals, without any oars.
Mr Griffin was right, I thought. Our luck had run out.
I buried my face in my hands.
‘APA KHABAR?’ someone shouted.
I looked up in surprise. There was a man about 200 metres away – standing on the water! I was too flabbergasted to say anything. I just stared at the man as he sank slowly back into the sea and disappeared.
For a few seconds I thought I’d dreamed it – people can’t walk on water. Then a wave lifted the man fully into view. There was a boat underneath him. It was bigger than ours and had two other people on board.
‘APA KHABAR?’ he repeated.
I didn’t know Malaysian, but there was a chance he knew English.
‘HELP!’ I yelled.
The man and his boat sank behind another swell. But they were only gone for about ten seconds. When they reappeared, I heard the buzz of an outboard motor and saw the boat slowly turning in our direction.
Yaaay!
It was a long wooden launch with a low square cabin. It looked even more overloaded than our boat. As well as the man, there was a woman and a girl of about my age on board. A family, I guessed. They’d brought along their animals, too – a goat, a dog and several chooks – but most of their cargo was stuff you’d find in a house: bedding, mattresses, pots and pans, a television set. There was even a motor scooter tied to the front of the cabin. In fact, it looked like they were moving house, only doing it by boat instead of using a removal van.
Then it dawned on me – the Malaysian family wasn’t moving house, they were evacuating. Like the people from the blue house where I’d found our boat, this family had been forced to flee their home because of the volcano. But instead of escaping in a car, they’d loaded all their possessions into their boat and taken to the sea.
It was obvious they didn’t have room for us.
And I could tell from their dismayed expressions as they drew close enough to see my strange travelling companions that they especially didn’t have room for monkeys.
The man steered his boat skillfully alongside ours, but not close enough for the monkeys to jump across the gap. He switched off the outboard motor, then called to me in Malaysian.
‘Do you speak English?’ I asked.
‘I am knowing English,’ his daughter said shyly. She and her mother wore head scarves like a lot of women in Malaysia. ‘My father asks if your boat it is sinking?’
I explained what had happened. Then I told her about Mr Griffin’s heart attack. ‘He needs to get to a hospital,’ I added.
The girl and her parents had a three-way conversation in Malaysian. She turned back to me.
‘We can pull your boat behind us,’ she said. ‘But my father says first you must make go the water.’
I didn’t know what she meant until her father tossed me a red plastic bucket. He made a scooping motion with his cupped hands. They wanted me to bail out some of the water in the bottom of our boat so the wash from their boat wouldn’t swamp us when we got moving. It was a smart idea. I set to work, watched by the Malaysian family and all sixteen monkeys. But not by Mr Griffin. His eyes were closed again. He hadn’t said anything since his comment, about five minutes earlier, about our luck running out.
‘Mr Griffin?’
His eyes fluttered half open. But they were unfocused, like the eyes of a sleepwalker. He licked his dry, cracked lips.
‘Drink,’ he said softly.
I asked the girl if they had any water to spare. She spoke to her father, who threw me a soft-drink bottle half filled with water. I gave some to Mr Griffin, then had the rest myself. I hadn’t realised how thirsty I was.
‘Thank you,’ I said to the girl’s father.
He smiled as if he understood. ‘Sama-sama, he said.
When I’d finished bailing out the boat, it sat noticeably higher in the water and felt a lot more stable. The man uncoiled a long rope and threw one end to me.
‘He says to tie rope on your boat at the front,’ the girl instructed.
There was a problem with that idea. ‘What about him?’ I asked, pointing at the big proboscis monkey in the bow. Grumpy was sitting exactly where they wanted me to tie the rope, and it didn’t look like he was going to move.
There was another three-way conversation in Malaysian. This time it was the woman who came up with a solution. Reaching into a basket jammed between the television and a crate of chooks, she pulled out a banana and threw it across to me.
‘For make the big monkey move,’ the girl said.
I carefully peeled the banana, then offered it to Grumpy.
‘Come and get it.’
Here’s something none of us knew about proboscis monkeys: their diet is mostly leaves. They don’t eat fruit.
But macaques do.
All hell broke loose.
17
MONKEY MANIA
Fifteen ravenous macaques and one banana. It was a repeat of the muesli bar incident, only this time within the confines of a small, narrow boat. Monkeys raced everywhere: chasing each other around the edges of the boat like fat hairy greyhounds; grabbing bits of banana out of other monkeys’ hands; zooming back the other way with up to five monkeys in hot pursuit; darting across the seats, under the seats, along the seats; jumping from one seat to another; jumping over other monkeys’ backs; running between my legs; jumping over Mr Griffin – all the while trying to stuff bits of banana into their mouths before someone else stole it from them. Monkey mania.
I thought they were going to capsize the boat, or at least one of them would fall out. But the boat stayed upright and all the macaques stayed on board. The only casualty was Grumpy. He’d been sitting on the point of the bow when the banana fight began, right on what became the hairpin bend when the macaques started using the boat’s edge as a greyhound track. The first two or three racers avoided him – they took a shortcut across the front seat and doubled back down the other edge of the boat. But the next one was trying to eat a big piece of banana as it ran. It wasn’t looking where it was going and slammed into Grumpy’s enormous, round stomach. The macaque bounced back into the boat, but Grumpy lost his balance. He disappeared over the side with a big splash.
Proboscis monkeys are good swimmers. Three or four long-armed strokes and Grumpy hauled himself out of the sea. But he didn’t climb in where he’d fallen out – he swam back to where the boat’s side was lowest, midway between the bow and stern. Now I was closer to the front of the boat than Grumpy. I scrambled forward before he could get past me and quickly tied the rope around a little metal loop attached to the bow.
The banana had worked – not exactly in the way we’d intended, but it had made Grumpy move. I nodded to the girl’s father. He hitched his end of the rope to a fastening point on the rear corner of their boat, then started the engine. As the rope pulled tight betwe
en the two boats and ours settled in behind theirs, I squatted down near the rear seat where Mr Griffin lay.
‘How are you doing?’ I asked.
He nodded weakly, but didn’t say anything.
‘Hang in there, Mr Griffin,’ I said. ‘They’re towing us to some place where we can get you to a hospital. You’re going to be okay.’
We were both going to be okay. I let myself relax for the first time since Mount Bako blew its top. Our troubles were almost over.
Or so I thought. In fact, our troubles were about to get much worse.
18
PIRATES
Blam! Blam! Blam! Blam!
I nearly jumped out of my skin. Sixteen monkeys shrieked in fright. The dog in the Malaysians’ boat started barking. And the chooks in both boats squawked and flapped their wings.
‘Was that a gun?’ whispered Mr Griffin.
‘Sounded like it,’ I said.
Actually, it had sounded like a submachine gun, but I didn’t want Mr Griffin to stress out.
Submachine guns meant trouble.
I tried to see where the shots had come from, but all I saw was pitching blue sea. The girl and her parents were staring off to our right. Their boat was higher than ours, giving them a better view of the surrounding water. The mother slid an arm around her daughter. The man’s expression was grim as he resumed his position next to the outboard motor. I spread my feet wide for balance and stood up to take a look.
There were two boats in the distance. The smaller one was overloaded like the one towing us. I could see two adults and several children on board, as well as a pig and at least three dogs. It must have been another family escaping from the volcano.
A big black speedboat had drawn up alongside them. Standing in its cockpit, having a conversation with the people in the smaller boat, were three men. One of them held something – it looked like a gun.
‘What’s going on?’ I called to the girl in the boat towing us.
She turned a scared face in my direction. ‘It is bad men – pirates.’
My heart raced. I had heard of modern-day pirates – not the ones with wooden legs and swords and talking parrots, but people nowadays who live on boats and make money by stealing from ships and luxury yachts, and even taking hostages. But what would pirates be doing here – at the scene of an evacuation from an erupting volcano?
The girl seemed to read my thoughts. ‘That family has taken all their things on their boat like us – their camera, their CD player, their TV, all their money. It is easy for pirates to come and steal.’
No way! I thought. Not even pirates would be mean enough to rob people who’d just lost their home. But the fear on the faces of the girl and her parents told me it was true.
‘Can we help them?’ I asked.
The girl shook her head. ‘There is nothing to do. Those men are very bad. They shoot you dead if you try to stop them.’
The boat I was on rocked over the churning wake of the boat ahead of me and I had to sit down. The girl’s father had cranked the outboard up to maximum revs and veered sharply to the left, putting us on a course that took us directly away from the pirates. A prickly feeling ran up and down my spine when I realised what was going on. If we could see the pirates’ boat, then the pirates could see ours. As soon as they finished robbing the other boat, they would come after us.
We were running away.
For ten or fifteen minutes we ploughed through the wide blue sea. Whenever we crested big swells, I caught a glimpse of the two boats behind us. They looked smaller every time. Neither boat had moved – the robbery was still in progress. I felt bad for the other family, but the longer the pirates were kept busy robbing them, the better our chances were of escaping.
There was land ahead – a long, low peninsula that poked out from the Borneo coast. The girl’s father adjusted our course slightly, until we were heading towards the very tip of the peninsula. When I stood up, I saw a miniature Lego town of distant buildings, and a large ship moored just offshore. It’s difficult to judge distances at sea, but I guessed the town and the ship were five or six kilometres away.
Could we get there before the pirates caught up?
They were coming after us now. On the boat in front of me, the girl was hugging her mother and looking back over my head. There were tears in her eyes. Her father tried to coax a few more revs from the buzzing outboard motor. But already it was running at top speed.
It wasn’t fast enough. The pirates were catching up.
‘What’s your name?’ I called to the girl.
‘Siti,’ she said.
‘Siti, tell your father to untie the rope. We’re slowing you down.’
‘But the pirates will catch you!’
‘What can they steal from me?’ I asked. ‘All I have is monkeys.’
‘They will kill the monkeys,’ Siti said. ‘Then they will kill you and your teacher, also.’
I didn’t think the pirates would harm Mr Griffin and me. And I hoped they wouldn’t harm the monkeys.
‘You’ve got to untie us,’ I said. ‘It’s your only chance to escape. Our boat is slowing you down.’
‘My father’s boat is fast,’ she said stubbornly.
I looked over my shoulder. The pirates were so close I no longer had to stand up to see them.
‘Siti, please just tell your father what I said.’
She pushed her head scarf clear of her face. For a moment I thought she was going to continue arguing. Every second we argued was a second wasted. The pirates were coming up behind us at an alarming speed. Finally, Siti turned and passed on my message to her father. But he was just as stubborn as his daughter. Shaking his head, he spoke directly to me across the short distance separating our two boats.
Siti translated: ‘My father says he will not leave you and your teacher behind.’
They were crazy. Leaving us behind was their only chance of escape.
Mr Griffin tapped my wrist. I bent down to see what he wanted.
‘Untie it yourself,’ he said softly.
Duh! I thought. How dumb am I? The rope was tied to both boats. It was just as easy for me to undo our end as it was for Siti’s father to undo their end.
Brushing past a couple of macaques, I scrambled into the bow and began undoing the big tight knot that tied our two boats together.
BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!
Hooley dooley! The pirates were shooting at us!
A line of splashes ripped across the water as the bullets hit. They were coming straight towards me. I threw myself into the bottom of the boat and closed my eyes, expecting the next bullet to come smashing through the wooden planking next to my head.
19
YIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!
There was no next bullet.
As suddenly as it had started, the shooting stopped. My ears were ringing. Submachine guns make a lot of noise – especially when they are firing at you. But the pirates hadn’t been shooting to kill, they were just sending a warning.
‘BERHENTI!’ a man shouted.
Siti’s father shut down the outboard motor. The chase was over. Mr Griffin and I lay perfectly still on the wet boards in the bottom of our boat. All around us were monkeys. They were just as scared as us. The only sound was the burble of the pirate boat’s powerful engines as it drew alongside us.
Then I heard voices – two men speaking Malaysian. One sounded like Siti’s father. He was answering the pirate’s questions.
Suddenly, one of the pirates spoke English. ‘Excuse me?’ he called.
I didn’t dare move.
‘Excuse me?’ the pirate said again. ‘You with the monkeys!’
I cautiously raised my head. Three curious faces peered down at us from the flying bridge of the big black launch. I don’t know what I expected modern-day pirates to look like, but they just looked like ordinary people. Except for their weapons – two had submachine guns, one had a pistol. The pirate with the pistol didn’t look much older than me. He was the
one who spoke English.
‘Give me your wallet,’ he said.
‘I don’t have a wallet.’
‘Give me your watch then,’ he demanded, waving his pistol menacingly.
I slipped off my watch and tossed it up to him. Pirate Boy slipped it into his jeans pocket. ‘Does the old man have a wallet?’ he asked.
‘He’s had a heart attack,’ I said.
‘I just want his wallet.’
‘I’d have to roll him over to look,’ I said. ‘He might die if I move him.’
Pirate Boy chewed his lower lip. ‘Okay. Just give me his watch.’
I unclipped Mr Griffin’s watch and threw it up to the boy. Mongrel, I thought. Who’d steal a watch from a dying man?
‘Now give me your bag,’ Pirate Boy said.
Stephanie’s bright pink backpack poked out from under the seat behind me.
‘There’s nothing in it you’d want,’ I said. ‘Just a passport and a couple of books.’
Pirate Boy pointed the pistol. ‘Give it to me.’
I tossed the backpack up to him. Mr Griffin and I had gone to all that trouble to save Stephanie’s passport, only to have it stolen by pirates.
‘At least let me keep the passport,’ I said.
‘You talk too much!’ Pirate Boy snapped at me. Thrusting the pistol into his belt, he undid the zipper and stuck his hand into Stephanie’s backpack.
And pulled it out just as quickly.
Something was attached to his thumb – a small ball of fur with four wriggling legs. It was the cute little possum creature that had crawled into the backpack as we were leaving the headland. Despite its cute looks, it had nasty teeth. They were buried deep in Pirate Boy’s thumb.
‘Yiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!’ he yelped, shaking his hand back and forth.
The animal lost its grip and splashed into the sea between the pirates’ boat and ours.
‘You told me nothing was in there!’ snarled Pirate Boy, wiping his bleeding thumb on his T-shirt.
Then he whipped out his pistol and aimed it at me.
I think he might have pulled the trigger if the other two pirates hadn’t started laughing. The oldest one, who I later discovered was the boy’s uncle, recovered first. He ruffled his nephew’s hair, then said something in Malaysian that sent the other man into another fit of giggles. Pirate Boy looked sheepish and lowered his pistol, pretending to share the joke.