Crown Phoenix: Night Watchman Express

by Alison DeLuca

Chapter 4

  A Tour Around the Island

  hen Neil went to his room that night, the bed linens had already been changed and a fresh nightshirt was laid out across his pillow. A jug of cool water sat on a low table at the foot of the bed, along with the required bowl of fruit and a small tray of biscuits, just in case he should wake up in the night and be overcome with hunger. As he drifted off, he smiled and thought of what Riki had said to him earlier. Grass huts, indeed! This native family lived in a manner that would make Mrs. Marchpane herself jealous.

  Many hours later, he woke up and immediately bounded out of bed. Opening one of the huge wooden doors that blocked the fierce sunlight during the day, he saw that it was still early; pink and purple streaked the sky. Great! He’d finally be able to get going and start to look for Mana, or at least try to ask about the political situation on the island. Last night, Jirili or Kakujife (Neil still couldn’t tell them apart) had mentioned Atol, a name that sounded familiar. He’d try to find out who that was and go to see him.

  He washed and dragged on some clean clothes that were left beside the bath. He opened the door and his heart sank as Riki, who was stretched out in the hallway, bounced up and grinned at him. “I have been waiting here for h-o-u-r-s. Finally! You snore, too,” she added for good measure.

  “I thought it was early,” Neil said, annoyed.

  “It is.” Riki dragged him down the stairs. “Weko and my brothers are up already, though. They wake up before dawn every day when they go to Mixiamani to work. Hey, let’s go and fish!”

  “I’m sorry, I can’t. I have something very important I have to do,” Neil began, and Riki’s face creased, preparing to whine.

  “I want to fish!” Her voice rose.

  “Shhh!” Neil said. “You’ll wake everyone in the house. Listen –” he thought quickly.

  “What?” She stuck her fists on her nonexistent hips and glowered at him.

  “Perhaps you could show me some of Lampala today. Maybe you could be, you know, sort of a guide.”

  She considered this for a moment, and her face lit up. “Ipa! I know! We can go to the market to see who can steal the most fruit, and the loser has to buy lunch.”

  Neil shook his head. “Oh no. Absolutely not. First, I haven’t any money, and second, I’m not a thief. Let’s just walk around the island and you can point out, oh, you know, places of interest, and scenic views, and things like that.”

  She pouted. “Dull.”

  “Come on,” he cajoled. He could keep his eyes skinned as they roamed about, although now, he’d have to watch Riki closely as well. Al least he could get an idea of what the island was like and, possibly, make an effort to find where Mana was being held. “Let’s see how far we can go around the island by following the beaches. And I’ll tell you what, let’s bring some string, and we’ll try to catch some crabs later.”

  Like a puppy that has picked up a new scent to follow, Riki forgot all about the market. She dashed towards the kitchen. “I’ll get supplies,” she shouted. She had completely forgotten to be quiet.

  Instantly, the door to the dining room opened, and one of the brothers’ heads popped out. When he saw Neil, he bowed gravely. He was joined by the other brother and Weko, who held a large napkin. He dabbed his mouth delicately. “Good morning, Mr. Neil. I trust you slept well. Come in and have coffee with us. We are in the middle of a discussion our plans for the upcoming week, when my sons and I return to Mixiamani.”

  “I, er, actually I planned to take a walk around the island with Riki today.” Neil added, “If that’s all right with you, sir?”

  “A walk?” One of Weko’s eyebrows shot up, and he reached out a mighty arm and drew Neil into the dining room. “With Riki?”

  “If it’s all right with you, sir, of course.” Neil wondered what the Lampalan customs were concerning daughters. Maybe he had committed a grave breach of etiquette with his offer to take Riki out for the day.

  “Mr. Neil. Good morning.” Neil spun around. Chichilia stepped into the room. She wore a red gown that was embroidered with gold snakes and dragons. As she moved, her dress rustled in an expensive way. “I trust you will forgive my behavior last night; it has been a somewhat tiring week.”

  “My dear.” Weko approached Chichilia and kissed her hand. “Mr. Neil proposes to view the island today, with Riki as his guide.”

  “Today?” she asked, and an unmistakable gleam of relief appeared in her eye. “All day?”

  “All day.” Weko smiled at her.

  “Mr. Neil, thank you! I do indeed appreciate it!” She took one of his hands in both of her own and shook it up and down for several moments. “That is, my reaction must appear rather strange. The truth is that Riki is a little much for me at times.”

  “It is our own fault.” Weko sat down and picked up a thimble-sized coffee cup. He drank and set it down carefully on a fragile saucer. “Since my sons and I must travel to other islands to supervise the bolemor groves, Riki is left behind with her mother. I’m afraid our daughter takes advantage of my wife and the situation disgracefully.” The two brothers, as usual, nodded agreement at their father’s words.

  “This means that I can do some much-needed work on my temple embroidery, and go over the accounts, and visit friends after lunch – oh thank you so much, Mr. Neil!” Chichilia sat at the table and poured coffee into another tiny cup. She handed it to Neil and poured one for herself.

  Neil felt rather as if he was just about to walk into a lion’s den. He contemplated the day ahead with dread. Still, if the worst he had to face was a little girl in order to find out something about the island, and thus find Mana, he wasn’t doing too badly. After all, Simon and Miriam could be up against something much worse at that very minute.

  “Mr. Wekogono.” He sat in the chair that Chichilia indicated, “Could you explain something to me? Who is Atol?”

  Weko frowned. “He is the ruler of our islands,” he replied. “At least, he took over when the Company changed hands recently.”

  “When Mr. Pearson died?” Neil took a sip of coffee. It was sweet and strong enough to choke an elephant, but it would give him some energy to keep up with Riki.

  “How did you know about the Company?” one of the brothers asked.

  “Oh, Miriam mentioned –” Neil stopped.

  “Miriam? Miriam Pearson?” Weko put down his cup and leaned forward.

  “Ah, yes.” Neil felt acutely uncomfortable. Both brothers had stopped eating their breakfast (it looked like sweet rolls with mango jam) and looked at him intently.

  “You knew Miss Miriam?” Weko asked.

  “Well, yes. Sort of.”

  “My goodness,” Chichilia breathed. “To think that someone who talked to Mr. Pearson’s daughter is actually at our table!”

  A picture of Miriam, hat off and stockings rolled down to her ankles as she poked among the rock pools at the sea, came to his mind, and Neil spluttered into his coffee. “She’s just a normal girl,” he couldn’t help saying.

  “Her father created the Company, and it allows us to own everything that we have here.” Weko waved one hand at the ornately decorated room – the carvings, the figurines, the paintings, and the fine muslin curtains at the windows. “He showed Weko and the rest of us here on Lampala how to plant and cultivate the bolemor trees and sell them to the mainland. He even developed the special passage that allowed us to ship our wood without any of the usual risks incurred. Any other man would have taken the profits and left us in ignorance of the huge profits, but Mr. Pearson insisted that we share in his good fortune, when it was found that the Bolemors provided many products beside the actual wood.”

  “True,” one of the brothers agreed. “In fact, our entire house is constructed from bolemor wood, and thus has outlasted many storms and high winds. It even withstood the Tempest of ’93; do you remember, Jirili?”

  “Indeed I do, Jife,” the other brother agreed.

  “But now, changes are coming,” Jife said in a dour
voice.

  Neil wanted to ask if the changes involved the Marchpanes, but before he could ask, the door opened and Riki stood there, draped with nets, several large baskets, a long coil of rope, and two fishing rods. “I’m ready,” she announced.

  After breakfast, they set off across the lawn and turned in the opposite direction from which Neil had originally arrived. Before they left he had tried to extend the extremely interesting breakfast conversation, but Riki had sent up such a fuss that he had stopped. The familiar worried look had come into Chichilia’s eyes, so Neil had thought it best to leave.

  Reluctantly, he had put on a pair of stout boots offered to him by Jirili, and he and Riki set off. Neil had, at least, won the argument over the amount of gear that they should carry. He couldn’t imagine tramping all over Lampala with all of the fishing equipment that Riki had originally planned to bring.

  “Will we catch many crabs, do you think?” she chattered as she headed for a break in the bamboo hedge that bordered the property. It led to a little path that headed towards the seashore, from the sound of the waves. “I bet we will. Odjo said he’ll make us crab chowder if we get enough. I’m going to take you all the way around Lampala. Ipa! Maybe we can even climb Tiriumbutora!” She hummed and picked her way down to the sands.

  “What does ‘ipa’ mean?” Neil balanced the load of fishing gear that she had dumped on him.

  “Hm. Well, it’s like ‘look here’ or ‘see that’,” she explained, not very well.

  “Like ‘Hey’,” Neil offered.

  “Yes! Yes, that is right! You’re not quite as stupid as you look.”

  “And what is that in your language?” Neil pointed to the sea.

  “Batakelowe.”

  “And the rocks?”

  “Biruti.”

  “And the sand?”

  “Enago.”

  “And what was tirium – what you said we could climb?”

  “Tiriumbutora,” Riki said, tiring of the word game. “It’s the name of a mountain. I will take off my shoes and go in the water now.”

  The sea looked very inviting. The water was light turquoise blue and completely clear, and it washed up onto white talcum-powder sand. After a moment, Neil tugged off Jirili’s boots and joined her in the waves. The sea was also extremely warm; in fact, it was just like wading through clear, salty, crystal soup.

  They chased each other and the waves for a long while, enjoying the water on their ankles and knees. Neil felt his pants get wet and rolled them up farther. Riki was already completely drenched by the surf.

  The sand curved around a series of wickedly sharp rocks, and Riki splashed out of the waves. She climbed the stones quickly and dropped off the other side. Neil followed more slowly and saw little rock-pools filled with creatures that waved bright tendrils and tentacles in the water, sea life that appeared to have come from another world. I’ve seen those before, somewhere, he thought.

  “Come on, slow boy.” Riki appeared beneath him and squinted. “Jump down.”

  Neil dropped off the large rock and thudded onto the sand. “Oof,” he said. “Hey, Riki, how big is the island?”

  “Too big to walk around in one day!” She let out a scream of mad laughter. “We’ll probably get lost in the mountains and have to sleep outside!” She grew thoughtful, and Neil knew with dread that she pondered this new possibility.

  “Oh, no you don’t,” he said. “I owe too much to your parents to have you stay out all night and worry them. Forget it.”

  “You can’t make me,” she responded and gave him a hard shove. “What are you going to do about it?”

  His scalp prickled with anger, and he withdrew himself coldly. “I won’t talk to you,” he said, incensed.

  Instantly she was contrite. “I’m very sorry, my dear, dear, dear Neil. Please talk to me – you’re the only one who does!” She threw down her net and tried to hug him.

  Neil stepped out of her way and shook his head. “I’ll only have a conversation with you if you act like a human being.”

  “Oh, I will.” She clasped her hands under her chin and dropped to her knees. Before he could stop himself, one corner of his mouth twitched up. Seeing this, she giggled. “See? Now we’re friends again. Come on. I want to get to the large rocks on the next beach so we can sit and eat there.”

  This was a new weapon in the attack on Riki’s frightful manners. Neil could hardly believe it, but the threat of silent treatment had actually made her stop complaining.

  As they walked down the beach, swinging their nets, he imagined himself teaching her to be courteous and to listen when she was spoken to. She would stop talking back to her parents, and she would begin to eat without taking all the food in sight and stuffing it into her mouth. Her parents would heap praise upon him! They would offer to help him in his quest! Mana was as good as rescued!

  At that moment, Riki deliberately stuck the handle of her net between his legs and tripped him, and he fell heavily into the sand. His grandiose plans popped out of his head, and he got up and trudged after her. She ran down a long stretch of beach, dashing from side to side in order to disturb any sea birds picking at shellfish on the sand and eventually disappeared round a corner. Neil increased his pace and followed.

  He found her on top of an even larger outcropping of stones. As he ran up, a huge sheet of spray blasted into the air from the waves below, and she lifted up her arms and shouted with delight.

  Neil climbed up carefully beside her and saw that the rocks extended into the ocean like an outstretched hand with two fingers missing. The waves, which were much stronger here, rushed up and hit the “thumb” which sent the spray up to coat the rocks. It was dry, however, where she was sitting, and Neil squatted beside her.

  “See? Isn’t this nice? I’m starving.” Riki beamed at him.

  Neil realized he was hungry as well. He watched with great interest as she untied a large bundle. Someone, undoubtedly Odjo, had packed some of the sweet rolls, along with biscuits and small loaves of bread that were split and filled with different spreads. Some were orange in color with flecks of green herbs and pieces of tomato.

  Riki grabbed one and took a huge bite. Neil ate one as well. The filling was crab, or maybe shrimp, with egg. He produced two stone bottles filled with cold, lemon-smelling stuff, and he took a huge drink. “Aaahh,” he said, and he reached for another sandwich.

  “Mm-hmmmmmm,” Riki agreed. “Neil, what do you think? We could hang our lines over there while we eat.” She stuffed the roll in her mouth, popped up and grabbed a length of twine. “How do I do this now?” she asked around the huge mouthful of roll.

   “I’m having my lunch first.” Neil chewed calmly and gazing out to see. Riki began to argue, before she appeared to remember the threat of silence. She sat back down and kept one eye on Neil.

  “Ready yet?” she asked.

  “No,” he said.

  “Now?”

  “No.”

  “Now?”

  “Riki,” he said, “I will tell you when I’m ready. Stop asking me!”

  “But I just can’t wait to catch a darling little crab!” She bounced up and down with anxiety.

  Neil felt his mouth twitching up again, and she burst into her loud laugh. “I know I’m a pest,” she said. “Don’t you want to see what color it will be, though? And whether it will eat from my hand?”

  “More likely that it will pinch your fingers,” he said, but he relented. “All right, if you promise to show me around after we catch some crabs, we’ll let out some lines now. I suppose it’s a good idea actually, since we can finish lunch while we wait for them to bite.”

  He expertly un-reeled a length of twine and tied a piece of cold shrimp onto it. Riki watched him closely and did the same, and they dunked their ropes into the pool.

  “Wouldn’t it be perfect to live like this, swimming and catching crabs and fish all day? I could build a fire and cook them for dinner?” Riki picked up a sweet roll.

&
nbsp; “Not really.” Neil sat beside her. He picked up another sandwich and bit into it. “Believe me. That’s what my family does for a living, and it’s not much fun.”

  She stopped chewing for a moment. “Your family is poor?”

  “What about it?” Neil glared at her.

  “Nothing,” Riki replied. “Ipa! Touchy! I just wanted to know.”

  “Oh. Very well. Yes, they’re poor.” Neil swallowed some more of the delicious lemon drink, and asked, “Where did you learn to speak English so well?”

  “We all learn English,” Riki said around a large wad of sweet roll. The crumbs blew out of her mouth as she spoke. “So you’re poor, huh?”

  “Yes, I told you that already. Stop going on about it, would you?”

  She swallowed. “Well, don’t worry. When you and I get married, you’ll be rich.”

  Neil shot to his feet and dropped his sandwich onto the beach below, where it was picked up by a triumphant gull. “When we what?” he repeated in a strangled voice.

  “When you marry me.” Riki smiled at him and swallowed the last of her sweet roll.

  He huffed, catching his breath, and finally managed to say, “Oh, no, I’m not marrying you. No-ho. Mhp-hm.”

  She looked up at him in astonishment. “You mean, you don’t want to marry me? Why not?”

  “Because,” he responded, “you are, without a doubt, the rudest, most ill-mannered girl I have ever met in my entire life.”

  She considered this. Her eyes turned into slits. “Well,” she finally retorted, “I’ve been nice to you today.”

  “Maybe. However, I’m not going to marry someone whose best claim to decent behavior is that they’ve ‘been nice today’. If I ever get married at all, that is.”

  “Oh!”

  Neil increased the distance between them. “Besides,” he added, “you’re just a child.”

  Her eyes blazed with anger at that remark. “Oh, that is just so wrong to say that. I am not! I think I’m at least your age.”

  “I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” Neil stated. “Come on, finish your sandwich, and we’ll check our lines.”

  Much to his surprise, she nodded. Still, he kept a wide berth from her after that.