Shark Adventure

by Anthony McGowan

  Amazon gasped and moved towards the noise.

  ‘No,’ said Frazer. ‘He’ll be fine. We’ll just get in the way. Come on.’

  And then he took her free hand and led her through the dark trees, until they reached the path. Two more shots rang out before they reached it, but each one seemed, strangely, to bring them hope – it meant that the Polynesian was still running, still alive.

  They would probably have walked right past the path had the clouds not picked that moment to part. There was a sliver of moon, and beyond it a shimmering ocean of stars, which provided just enough light for them to see their way. In ten minutes they reached the village. They skirted it, and then ran along the edge of the beach until they found their hut. They got there just as the clouds closed again, turning out the faint light of the moon and stars. Bluey was still snoring gently, under his mosquito net.

  Frazer turned on one of the electric lanterns, setting the light to the lowest level so it shed just a weak yellow glow.

  ‘I hope Oti will be all right,’ said Amazon.

  Frazer did not reply. He wasn’t the kind of kid who hid his feelings well, and his inner turmoil showed on his face. He felt that he should have been the one to have risked his life like that, not a boy they hardly knew.

  ‘I … I thought he was chicken,’ he said eventually.

  Amazon was going to reply. Then she remembered that she was carrying something in her clenched fist. She opened it and saw two things. One she almost expected: it was a foil layer of blister-packed pills. But there was something else.

  ‘My toothbrush!’ said Frazer, a smile spreading over his face.

  The two of them looked at the pills and toothbrush in astonishment for a few moments.

  ‘He must have somehow sneaked into Huru Huru’s house, while we were watching through the window, and grabbed the pills and the brush. And the clever kid didn’t bring the whole box, so that thug probably won’t even notice that they’re missing.’

  ‘Anyone who could do that should be able to escape those goons,’ said Amazon hopefully.

  ‘But that leaves the whole question of what we do next,’ said Frazer. ‘Do you think they were talking about the turtles?’

  ‘It had to be. What do they want them for? Please don’t say soup, like the sharks’ fins …’

  Frazer shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. I reckon baby turtles are pretty valuable alive. People like cute pets …’

  ‘I think we should wake Bluey up,’ said Amazon, ‘and give him some of this medication. He’ll know what to do.’

  That, however, proved trickier than they hoped. Bluey was very groggy. He opened his mouth and swallowed two of the antihistamines, but they got little sense out of him. He stared at them through filmy eyes and tried to say his thanks, but then slumped down again.

  Amazon had been trying so hard to be strong, but the tension and fear of the past few days suddenly caught up with her, and she found that tears were streaming down her cheeks.

  ‘What are we supposed to do?’ she said. ‘We’re only kids, and those two villains, Chung and Huru Huru, are going to take all the turtles, and Bluey’s still sick, and I’m worried to death about my parents, and … and …’

  Frazer was happier dealing with poisonous snakes and man-eating lions than he was with frightened young girls. And the truth is he was frightened himself. But then he looked down and caught sight of the TRACKS badge on his shirt. He took Amazon’s hand and made what he knew was the most important speech of his life.

  ‘Zonnie, we’re still alive and so is our mission. We’ve saved one batch of turtles and we’re damned well going to save the rest. Bluey is the second toughest person I’ve ever met: I’ve seen him wrestle crocs and stand up to a charging rhino. This allergic reaction has laid him low, but now we’ve got the pills he’ll soon be right as rain, as you Brits say. In the morning we’ll be back up to full strength, and together we’re a match for one bloated chief and one mad animal smuggler – if that’s what Chung is.’

  Amazon knew that Frazer was partly faking it. But she also knew that true courage comes not from feeling no fear, but from overcoming it, and that’s what Frazer was doing. And if he could then she could. She squeezed his hand back.

  ‘Fraze,’ she said, a half-smile on her lips.

  ‘Yep?’

  ‘You said Bluey was the second toughest person you’ve met …?

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘So who’s the first?’

  ‘Well, I’m naming no names, but she’s stood up to killer squid, deadly sharks and, back in Siberia, leopards, bears and tigers. And I once shot her in the butt with a tranquillizer dart and she hardly complained.’

  ‘I was asleep,’ she said, now grinning. ‘Or, believe me, I’d have complained! But now,’ she added, yawning, ‘sleep seems like a good idea. You’re right, tomorrow things will be … better.’

  The next morning things did indeed, for a while at least, seem to be better. Bluey was greatly improved. He was still weak, and his legs were like jelly, but his mind at least was clear, and he gulped down two more of the pills with a glug of water.

  ‘I was a fool to trust Chung,’ he said bitterly, after Frazer and Amazon had updated him on the situation. ‘As you guessed, he’s plainly after the turtles. Probably for the pet trade. Well, we’re gonna make sure he doesn’t get them. The key here is the sat phone. It’s obvious now that it’s being blocked from the Tian-long. We have to try it from the other side of the island. Or even take a canoe out beyond the lagoon. In the meantime we –’

  He stopped and looked at Frazer, who was in the doorway.

  ‘Sorry, Frazer, am I boring you? Because, you know, this is pretty important stuff.’

  ‘Sorry, Bluey, it’s the sky. I don’t like the look of it up there. The clouds seem even angrier and the air is as heavy as Huru Huru.’

  Amazon joined him in some sky-gazing, and then more earthly matters caught her eye. ‘And I don’t like the look of what’s going on over there,’ she said, pointing down the beach towards the village.

  A crowd was gathering by the beach in front of the huts. At the heart of the throng was the huge figure of Huru Huru, and with him was Oti, looking as fragile as a butterfly about to be trampled by an elephant. The other villagers formed a half-circle round them.

  Frazer turned to his cousin. ‘I owe him one. It’s all my fault. I’ve a feeling this isn’t to do with the medicine – it’s that wretched toothbrush. Follow me in a minute, with Bluey. He speaks some Polynesian – he may be able to explain what has happened to the villagers and get them on our side – but he’ll need your help walking over there. I’m going to go and make this right.’

  Then Frazer dived quickly into the hut, grabbed the toothbrush and pelted along the beach towards the crowd.

  Amazon began to follow him for a few steps, then paused, thought and decided that Frazer for once was right. But an idea also began to form in the back of her mind. She went back to the hut.

  It took Frazer thirty seconds flat out to reach the scene on the beach. By the time he got there, things had taken a grim turn. Oti was on his knees, firmly held by the grinning Moipu. Huru Huru was towering over the boy. And the enormous chief was carrying that terrifying war club in his huge hand. He waddled round the kneeling boy, declaiming clamorously in his own tongue. But it didn’t take a skilled linguist to work out that what he was saying was very bad news for Oti. And one word came out loud and clear in English – ‘Toothbrush!’

  One man stepped forward and said something quietly to Huru Huru. Begging for mercy on behalf of the child, Frazer thought. The chief stopped pacing, glared briefly and t
hen delivered a vicious backhanded slap to the villager, the blow landing with the sound of a spade hitting a ripe peach. It sent him spinning back on to the ground.

  Huru Huru then issued a command, and Moipu took the boy’s arm and stretched it out. Huru Huru raised the mighty club above his head.

  Frazer watched from outside the circle, fascinated, horrified, frozen.

  No, not frozen.

  He pushed through the circle and screamed, ‘STOP!’

  Huru Huru turned, his face puzzled, then amused. Oti looked at Frazer and shook his head, and silently mouthed, ‘Run!’ But Frazer wasn’t running. He’d had enough of that last night.

  ‘You, little boy?’ boomed the chief. ‘I told you to keep out of the affairs of my village. This is none of your business. Go back to your turtles while you are still able.’

  ‘This is my business.’ Frazer held the bright red toothbrush out towards Huru Huru, almost as if it were a weapon. ‘And this is my toothbrush. I took it back from you. It’s got nothing to do with this kid.’

  Huru Huru looked at the toothbrush, and then at Frazer, and then back at the brush. And then, to Frazer’s great surprise, the big man began to laugh. But this was not a laugh of good humour. It was a huge, rolling laugh that was also a shout, and a sneer, and a threat.

  Moipu joined in with the laughter, and stony-faced Tipua made a noise like heavy rocks being ground together, which may also have been his attempt at mirth.

  ‘I see now,’ said Huru Huru, once the waves of laughter had died down. ‘I thought that the boy here –’ he pointed a sausage finger at Oti – ‘had been acting alone. Now I see that he was enticed and corrupted by you. This is what happens when the simplicity and innocence of my people is infected by the evil ways of you outsiders, with your bribes, promises and lies.’

  Huru Huru then translated his own words for the villagers, as his brothers grunted and goaded. The crowd murmured a little, but still did not raise their eyes from the ground.

  All through Huru Huru’s speech, Frazer had been getting madder and madder. It wasn’t just that the chief was a bully, although Frazer hated bullies more than any other kind of human being. It was that he was a fraud.

  ‘I think you’re a phoney,’ said Frazer. And then he remembered the word he’d been searching for, the one that meant something like phoney and fake and liar all mixed up together. ‘A phoney and a hypocrite. You don’t care about these people. You only care about yourself and your fat belly. These guys all live in poverty, while you live in your palace. And all that money you’ve got in your Swiss bank account – don’t tell me it’s for the villagers. It’s so you can go on living in luxury. I know there aren’t any real cannibals any more in Polynesia, but in a way you are a cannibal – you’re eating your own people alive.’

  Frazer wasn’t just saying this because it was true. He also had a plan. Well, plan was putting it a bit strongly. It was more of an idea. Probably a bad one, but, he’d always believed, a bad idea is better than no idea at all. Well, usually.

  His idea was to enrage Huru Huru, to make him act rashly, to force him to swing that heavy club of his. Frazer had been learning martial arts ever since he could walk. He was pretty good at tae kwon do and karate, which were both all about rapid-fire kicks and punches, while blocking your enemy. But that wouldn’t work here against a monster like Huru Huru. Punching him would be like punching a building, and trying to block that war club would be like blocking a tank.

  No, this was the time for aikido – an offshoot of ju-jitsu that involved using your opponent’s weight and force against him. It was specifically designed for a situation like this: a strong oaf with a weapon against a weaker, unarmed but faster guy. That’s why he had to get Huru Huru to swing his club. Then he would use his favourite move: gokyo, the so-called fifth technique. Left hand on your opponent’s elbow, right hand on his wrist, a pivot, a turn and your enemy would be on the floor, and his weapon was yours.

  Frazer was convinced that, as soon as the villagers saw their chief humiliated by a mere kid, they would turn on him and his dumb brothers, and cast them all out of the village and off the island. They’d be free and he’d be the hero. Hey, maybe they’d make up cool songs about him. There was a fighting chance that they’d worship him as a god, and in hundreds of years’ time they’d still be talking about Frazalua (or whatever), the young warrior who had saved them all from the evil demon Huru Bigbutt …

  But first the chief had to swing. Frazer was already on the balls of his feet, waiting to move.

  He never got the chance. The mistake that Frazer made was a common one: to assume that because Huru Huru was a bully he must also be stupid. Life would be a lot easier if bullies were always stupid. His brothers may have been stupid, but Huru Huru was not.

  ‘I see that you are not without courage, boy,’ he said. ‘But courage is a toothless shark when there is no brain.’

  Distracted by the looming presence of his adversary, Frazer failed to sense that Tipua had come up behind him. He now seized Frazer’s upper arms with a grip like an eagle’s talons.

  Huru Huru came very close to Frazer’s face, so close that he could see the fibres of grey meat stuck in between his brown teeth, smell his breath like some thick concentrate of all the world’s rottenness, feel the moist heat pulsing from his swollen body. Frazer thought he was going to be sick, but somehow fought it down, although he could not fight his body’s overwhelming urge to pull away.

  Huru Huru sensed his revulsion and savoured it, the way you might relish an ice cream, or a good book. His smile widened into a grin, and then was replaced by a look of fake concern.

  ‘Now, truly, I was only going to give your friend here a little bruise – something he could brag about to the younger children. It would let him play the hero. “Look how brave I am, standing up to Huru Huru the ogre!” he would say. But now I am going to do something a little more … let me see … dramatic. Something a little more permanent.’

  And then Huru Huru put out his hand to Tipua, and, with a sound not entirely unlike shwiiinnngg, a machete was drawn from a sheath.

  ‘But that’s … that’s mine!’ said Frazer, and he knew that his voice sounded petulant and silly.

  So much for Frazalua the hero.

  ‘Yes, it is yours. And I trust you will appreciate the … what is the word …? Yes, the irony. You see, it is because of you that I do this. I want you to remember this – the thing that I shall now do – for the rest of your life. I want you to think about it as you fall asleep. I want it to stalk your nightmares. I want it to be there with you when you wake up in the morning. I want it to hum in your mind as you he he he brush your teeth.’

  And then Huru Huru came close again to Frazer, closer even than before, and he spoke quietly, confidingly, in his ear.

  ‘Do you know what the best part of the human body is to eat, hmmm? According to the old ones that is, the ones that taught me, the ones who kept true to the old ways. Shall I tell you, hmmm? Not the fleshy parts, no. Not the leg or the breast, like a chicken, or the belly, like a pig. Oh no. It is the hand, roasted slowly and picked clean, with your teeth.’

  And then, with that surprising speed that seemed a product of some supernatural force of evil within the man, Huru Huru spun round, raised the machete and brought it whistling through the air towards Oti’s thin wrist.

  Before the machete had completed its grisly downward journey, a blur burst through the circle of watchers and cannoned into Huru Huru.

  ‘Bluey!’ Frazer exclaimed, a grin lighting up his face.

  Yes, his friend was here and everything would be OK now.

  He looked around
for Amazon. Where was she? Surely she hadn’t left Bluey to stagger here all by himself? But there wasn’t time to think about it. It turned out that ‘burst’ couldn’t have been a more inappropriate verb for Bluey’s actions. It was probably intended as a rugby tackle, but the young Aussie could only stutter and lurch towards the Polynesian man-mountain.

  Huru Huru didn’t even bother to fend him off. He just let him rebound off his colossal torso, the way you sometimes see a moth bounce off a lampshade. Bluey, who, with his ghostly white flesh and black-circled eyes, looked like a skeleton, staggered back to his feet and made another rush at Huru Huru. Seemingly enjoying himself, this time the chief actively thrust his huge stomach at Bluey, propelling him metres across the sand.

  Moipu and Tipua guffawed. Someone from the crowd – an old man who had, Frazer thought, nothing to lose – went to try to help Bluey, but Moipu first thrust Oti aside, and then kicked the old man to the ground. He unhooked his own war club from the belt around his waist and brandished it at the men and women and children, daring another to step out of line.

  Bluey tried to rise again and failed. He looked totally spent.

  Frazer struggled vainly against the grip of Moipu. ‘You big bully,’ he spat, hardly even looking at Huru Huru.

  For his part, the chief ignored the boy. He seemed to be thinking things over, weighing up deep issues in his mind. He mumbled something to himself. Frazer thought it might have been ‘They’ll never find the bodies,’ or perhaps that was just his imagination running wild. And then Huru Huru shrugged his huge meaty shoulders and walked towards Bluey, who was still slumped on the white coral sand.

  With horror, Frazer saw that Huru Huru was still carrying the machete and the war club. He struggled, but Tipua’s hands held him tight.

  ‘Get up, Bluey, get up!’ he yelled. ‘You’ve got to run.’

  Bluey looked at him and shook his head. His eyes were watery and pale and he had nothing left to give.