by Bindi Irwin
As the travellers collected their belongings, Mr Indigo pulled Terri aside. ‘I have been entertaining your guests while you were waylaid,’ he said.
Terri smiled. ‘We certainly appreciate it, Mr Indigo,’ she said.
‘You were lucky I was here to make sure they were looked after,’ he continued.
Robert coughed loudly in annoyance.
‘Would you be so kind as to drop me back to my hotel on the way?’ the Frenchman asked.
‘Of course,’ Terri replied, before leading the group out to the minibus.
Mr Indigo started chatting to two younger travellers, who were immediately charmed by his French accent. Bindi and Robert shared a look. They were beginning to think this overly helpful Frenchman might not be so helpful after all!
On the bus trip back home, Bindi and Mr Indigo became involved in a verbal duel of sorts. Bindi tried to give the tourists some background into the flora and fauna of Madagascar – ‘There were once over 55 species of lemur in Madagascar, but at least 16 of these are already extinct!’ – while Mr Indigo kept cutting in.
‘The Tropicale Deluxe is a stylish and luxurious chain of hotels, of which I am the owner,’ he announced, twirling his moustache.
Bindi continued. ‘The lemur is part of the primate family, but is actually a prosimian, which means “before monkey”, as they are believed to be the creatures that evolved, on other continents, into primates. Because of its isolation and the lack of predators on the island, the lemurs of Madagascar have not evolved like their relatives in Africa have done.’
The guests were beginning to resemble spectators at a tennis match as their heads flicked from Bindi back to Mr Indigo, who once again took over.
‘The Tropicale Deluxe hotel, which you will shortly see, has 58 wonderful bedrooms with ensuite bathrooms and air conditioning.’
Robert decided he also had something to offer. ‘Well, there are 59 types of chameleon in Madagascar that you won’t see in the wild any place else in the world. One of the most famous is the colourful panther chameleon, which is a totally gorgeous creature about 50 centimetres long …’
Terri grinned to herself as she continued driving. Her kids had only been in Madagascar a day and they already sounded like professional tour guides.
Mr Indigo remained undeterred. ‘The Tropicale Deluxe has a high-class restaurant that offers 24-hour refreshments and a full buffet breakfast,’ he said haughtily.
Bindi interrupted. ‘And Kily Ecolodge has a wonderful Malagasy chef called Sylvie, who will be cooking authentic Madagascan cuisine.’ Bindi hoped this was true. Besides, she was willing to say almost anything to make sure Mr Indigo stopped going on about his silly hotel!
They pulled into a large paved driveway, leading up to an imposing grey steel and concrete building, which Bindi and Robert thought was not anywhere near as beautiful as the ecolodge.
‘Terri, may I ask your guests in for a nice cool drink in our air-conditioned patio before they head back to the ecolodge?’
Bindi noted that Mr Indigo wrinkled his nose every time he said the word ‘ecolodge’.
One of the American guests answered. ‘Well, I would appreciate that a whole bunch, Mr Indigo. This minibus is a little on the warm side, don’t you think, Melissa?’ His wife agreed wholeheartedly, so Terri opened the doors to let the troops out.
The three Irwins entered the majestic doorway of the Tropicale Deluxe and were momentarily speechless at the lush surrounds. There were chandeliers and large Impressionist paintings on the walls, and lots of staff running around the foyer, finding extra seats for the guests.
Robert didn’t notice any of the hustle and bustle, because he’d caught sight of a ring-tailed lemur in a small cage near the reception desk. One of the American guests was admiring it. Mr Indigo noticed, and clapped his hands. The lemur leapt to attention, jumping about the cage, making quiet little hooting noises.
This attracted the interest of Bindi and Terri too, and the three went over to the cage.
‘Do you like our little friend, Terri?’ Mr Indigo asked, smiling.
‘Well, Mr Indigo,’ said Terri, straining to be polite, ‘I’d like him a lot more if he wasn’t in a cage.’
Bindi added, ‘We passed a rainforest on the way here and I’m sure he’d be much happier climbing trees with his family than cooped up in a hotel lobby!’
The American guests started nodding, now looking unhappily at the caged lemur.
Mr Indigo laughed uncomfortably. ‘Ah, but you misunderstand the situation,’ he said. ‘I am planning on releasing this poor little lemur back into the wild very soon. He was confiscated from some illegal animal traffickers, and I offered to take care of him until he was ready to return to his natural habitat.’
Robert looked unconvinced. ‘How long have you been “taking care of him”?’ he asked. ‘He seems to be pretty well trained.’
Mr Indigo ignored this. He pointed to the waiter who was bringing out a tray of iced tea. ‘Look, here are your refreshments. Please make yourselves at home.’ Mr Indigo flashed Robert an angry look and disappeared behind the reception desk into the office.
Once the group was back at the ecolodge, Bindi and Robert showed the guests to their bedrooms, and gave them a quick tour of the facilities. After the Tropicale Deluxe, it seemed a lot less grand, but the charm of the place soon rubbed off on the guests … until a piercing scream came from one of the bedrooms.
‘Ahhhhhhh. Some sort of prehistoric creature just crawled across my leg!’ a woman yelled.
Robert was instantly interested. ‘A dinosaur? Now that’s surprising.’
‘I meant some sort of lizard that looked prehistoric,’ the guest said, now feeling a little embarrassed.
‘Did it have armour plating and a tail like a whip?’ asked Robert.
‘I don’t know. It was scaly with popping-out eyes. Scary looking,’ the woman replied.
‘You beauty!’ Robert went into the room to investigate.
Seconds later, another woman came out of her bedroom. ‘I turned on the tap and the water’s brown,’ she said.
It was Bindi’s turn to placate the guest. ‘Yes, that’s quite normal for Madagascar. There is bottled water for drinking but the tap water’s fine for washing. Did you notice it also smells faintly of vanilla, which is one of Madagascar’s main exports?’ she asked.
The woman was not impressed. ‘Well, the ceiling fan isn’t working either and there is a cloud of mosquitoes waiting to attack in the corner of the room. Do you have any repellent?’
Bindi was about to answer, when another guest yelped from a different room.
‘Everything all right in there, sir?’ asked Terri.
‘I tripped on the mat on the way to the bathroom and have cut my leg. I need a first-aid kit. Perhaps even a tetanus shot,’ he grumbled.
The Irwins were beginning to realise that looking after guests was not easy. ‘I’ll just go and organise some iced teas,’ said Bindi, ‘as well as the first-aid kit, the mosquito repellent and someone who can fix your ceiling fan.’
Robert came out holding a very cute day gecko. ‘No need to call a palaeontologist to remove the “dinosaur”. I’ve got that one covered,’ he said, smiling.
Bindi got an attack of the giggles as she sped back into the kitchen. Actually, she wasn’t really sure if she was laughing or crying. This was hard work!
As she searched the kitchen for the first-aid kit, she heard one of the older guests mention that there were many more waiters on hand at Mr Indigo’s ‘establishment’. Bindi grimaced. She didn’t know how they would do it, but there was no way the Frenchman was going to get the better of Kily Ecolodge and the Irwins!
After the problems had been fixed, a delicious dinner was consumed and the guests retired for the night, exhausted.
The Irwins were also exhausted. As Sylvie made to return to her village for the night, she offered to take Bindi and Robert to the market in the morning to buy fresh supplies.
Bindi looked at Terri, her eyes shining. ‘Would that be okay, Mum?’
Terri smiled. ‘I’ll try to manage the wild herd of tourists for one morning. Thanks, Sylvie, the kids would love that.’
Early the next day, Bindi and Robert were met by Sylvie. She had found some spare bikes, so the three of them cycled, bouncing along the potholed roads to the market.
When they reached their destination, Bindi gasped. It was a sea of colour and movement. Market stalls were set up all along what looked like a cleared paddock. There were pyramids of pulses and twisted bundles of herbs, strangely shaped beans and piles of eggs in different shapes and sizes stacked high on wooden tables. The aroma of licorice and cloves and vanilla wafted throughout, and the whole area was buzzing with activity. Bindi had never seen anything quite like it.
Sylvie turned, saw Bindi and Robert taking in the scene with mouths open, and laughed. ‘Welcome to my local supermarket,’ she said. ‘Take a look around while I start shopping.’
The kids nodded, parked their bikes, and began walking through the crowds. They attracted lots of interest from the locals, smiled and said Mbola tsara, hello, which thrilled the Malagasy. The stallholders gave them huge smiles and waves as they continued on.
Suddenly a young woman in traditional dress collapsed onto the ground right in front of them. Her companion squealed, and started talking fast to nearby shoppers and flapping her hands. The locals swarmed around the woman. Bindi and Robert were pushed back out of the way. They went to find Sylvie.
‘What’s wrong with the lady, Sylvie?’ asked Robert.
Their friend looked serious. ‘She needs medical attention. My brother is studying to be a doctor. I’ll go and get him. I will meet you back at the ecolodge afterwards. Will you be okay to find your way home?’
Bindi nodded. ‘Sure, no worries.’
Robert was watching the crowds. ‘Why isn’t anyone trying to help her?’ he asked.
Sylvie sighed. ‘Because her friend says she saw an aye-aye last night, and that is why she has collapsed. In truth, she’s probably dehydrated, or has a fever, but the villagers will believe the aye-aye story first.’
She gave Bindi and Robert a small smile, jumped on her bike and rode quickly away to find her brother.
Two stallholders picked up the unconscious woman and carried her to a shaded spot under a nearby tree.
Bindi replied, ‘I hope she’ll be okay …’ But Robert was no longer watching the woman. He’d noticed something else out of the corner of his eye.
‘B, look at that,’ he said, pointing to an out-of-the-way stall, where a very familiar man stood talking to the stallholder.
‘Not Mr Indigo again!’ Bindi exclaimed.
Robert pulled his sister along with him. ‘Let’s get a little closer and find out what he’s doing.’
The stallholder pulled out two baby ring-tailed lemurs in a cage, and handed them over to Mr Indigo.
‘Did you see that?’ Bindi asked her brother.
‘Yep,’ he answered.
‘He doesn’t look like he intends to release those lemurs back into the wild,’ said Bindi. ‘I wonder what he’s going to do with them?’
‘Let’s find out,’ said Robert.
As Mr Indigo discreetly took the cage and put it into a Tropicale Deluxe hotel van, the two Irwins ran back for their bikes.
Mr Indigo’s van bumped down the main road towards the airport. Bindi and Robert raced behind on their bikes. It was still early in the morning, but the Madagascan sun was already hot. The cool breeze on their faces felt great.
Bindi looked over at her brother as they rode. ‘This is much better than serving iced tea and sweeping guests’ bedrooms, don’t you think?’
‘You betcha!’ he grinned.
They both continued to pedal hard until the Tropicale Deluxe van made the turn-off towards the airport.
By the time they pulled into the airport compound, Bindi and Robert were both drenched in sweat but there was no time to stop and catch their breath. They leaned their bikes against a wire fence, and continued on foot.
Mr Indigo’s van was parked a short distance from a smallish-looking runway where a freight aircraft sat, preparing for take-off. A conveyor belt was moving boxes from the tarmac through the aircraft’s open door. The boxes all had large ‘FRANCE’ stickers on them. Mr Indigo was taking the caged lemurs, now covered in an old blanket, over to a man wearing blue overalls, who was in charge of the boxes.
Bindi and Robert edged closer and closer, but there was too much open ground between them and the runway to get near enough to hear what the men were saying. They saw the man in overalls put the lemur cage onto the conveyor belt and watched it begin its climb onto the plane.
‘There is no way this is legal,’ said Bindi, angry.
Robert agreed. ‘Mr Indigo is trafficking animals illegally, no doubt about it,’ he said.
Mr Indigo and the man wearing overalls walked away from the conveyor belt and moved towards a nearby office.
‘Are you thinking what I’m thinking?’ Robert asked his sister.
‘We have to get those lemurs off the plane!’ Bindi said. The children started towards the aeroplane but stopped short, and sprinted behind a pile of boxes when they saw a man emerge from the side doorway of the aeroplane.
‘Argh, that was close,’ whispered Bindi.
The man looked around, saw that there were no more boxes to be loaded, turned off the conveyor belt and jumped from the plane to the tarmac. He walked away to light a cigarette.
‘Okay. Take two,’ suggested Bindi, and the brother and sister sprinted across the tarmac.
Once inside the aircraft, the kids didn’t take long to identify the lemurs, as they could hear high-pitched barking coming from their cage. Bindi whipped the blanket off, and saw the two sad little lemurs peering up at her.
‘Don’t worry, you guys. We’ll have you back running through the rainforest in no time.’
Robert glanced around. ‘Can you hear something else in here?’ he asked, straining his ears.
A box much further back in the shadows was emitting a similar quiet yapping noise. Robert went over and pulled off another blanket to find the lemur the kids had seen at the Tropicale Deluxe the previous day.
Robert and Bindi quickly took a look through the rest of the cargo but found no more live animals. They poked their heads out of the aircraft and saw that the man was about to finish his cigarette. There was very little time!
Bindi turned to Robert. ‘You take the single lemur. I’ll take the young ones. On your marks, get set –’
Robert was off before Bindi could say ‘go’. He ran down the conveyor belt and sprinted towards the bikes they’d left by the fence. Bindi followed close behind, trying her best not to bump the lemurs.
They put the creatures into the baskets at the front of their bikes, and sped off. After they’d left the gates of the airport, Robert couldn’t help himself.
‘Wooo-hoo!’ he shouted into the wind.
Bindi laughed. ‘Total monkey mayhem!’ she yelled.
‘You mean “prosimian mayhem”,’ said Robert, with a cheeky smile.
‘Doesn’t sound as good though, does it?’ said Bindi, and poked her tongue out at her brother.
The lemurs looked like they knew they were on their way to freedom, and emitted a high-pitched catlike miaow, obviously excited.
A few kilometres further on, the rainforest, which backed onto the ecolodge, began. The children released the lemurs, who skipped off towards the trees, their striped tails sticking straight up in the air like flagpoles.
‘It feels good to have freed them,’ said Robert.
Bindi was thinking. ‘Yes, it does, but if we don’t manage to stop Mr Indigo, he’ll just continue to steal Madagascar’s precious wildlife.’
Robert nodded. ‘Yep, that guy has got to go down!’ he said in his best Superstars of Wrestling voice.
Bindi laughed. ‘For now, though, I think we’d better get ba
ck to Mum and the ecolodge.’
‘I wonder how she’s getting on?’ said Robert.
‘Yes, of course, I’ll check to see whether there are any spare left-footed size nine walking shoes with good grip.’ Terri shook her head as she headed for the laundry. These guests were the worst! She knew that Susan hadn’t put her in this position on purpose but, boy, did her friend owe her big-time!
Terri had suggested the guests go for a walk around the rainforest before lunch, in the hope that Sylvie and the kids would turn up in time to help prepare the food so at least there would be something to eat at lunchtime.
As it got closer to midday, the temperature was cranking up. She needed these guests out of here so she could begin tidying the rooms.
‘Terri? When you have a moment, could you take a look under my bed? I have arthritis and I’m missing a sock.’
‘Terri? Could you bring me another cool drink, please?’
‘Terri? I’ve lost a pair of earrings …’
It was too much. She couldn’t handle it a moment longer. Terri walked back into the main area. ‘Now listen here, everyone …’ she yelled, growing redder and redder by the moment.
Before she could go any further, the front door opened and four young Malagasy children bounced into the room, bringing their beautiful smiles and good-natured energy with them. One of the older children came up to Terri.
‘Excuse me, Mrs?’ he said. ‘Sylvie told us to come and give guests a tour of the rainforest. We know a lot about the wildlife,’ he said proudly.
Terri almost kissed the boy in relief. ‘What’s your name?’ she asked.
‘Berriman. I met Bi-ndi and Ro-bert yesterday.’ He pronounced their names carefully.
‘You are a lifesaver, Berriman,’ said Terri.
Berriman frowned. ‘A what, Mrs?’
Terri didn’t have the energy to explain. ‘Thank you,’ she said.