Lost World Circus

by Justin D'Ath

  ‘They shouldn’t be too long,’ Hayley said.

  It wasn’t really an answer. Colt rose carefully to his feet. The drifting Zodiac tipped and swayed beneath him. He couldn’t see any signs of activity aboard the ship. He looked in the other direction. Just as he’d feared, there was lots of activity there.

  ‘Sit down!’ said Hayley.

  Colt sat down. He’d seen enough – more than enough, really. The leading rats were no more than 150 metres away.

  And the relentless waves were pushing the Zodiac slowly back in their direction.

  ‘Are there oars?’ he asked again.

  Macca smiled. ‘Be patient, buddy. Help’s on the way.’

  But would it get there in time? Colt ran his eyes around the edges of the boat, checking for places where a rat could climb in over the inflatable PVC buoyancy tubes. No part of it looked safe.

  ‘I really think we should row,’ he said.

  Hayley frowned at him. ‘What are you so worried about?’

  He couldn’t tell her without creating a panic. So he invented a reason. ‘I’m getting seasick.’

  She opened her doctor’s bag and brought out some pills. ‘Here, take a couple of these. There should be a bottle of water in the locker under your seat.’

  Colt had to crouch to open the locker. Sure enough, there was a 1.5 litre bottle of water packed in with all sorts of other survival equipment. He pretended to swallow the pills, but slipped them down the front of his lifejacket instead. He did drink the water, though.

  ‘Hey, only drink enough to wash those pills down!’ Hayley said.

  She was too late. It was all gone. Colt burped. Since arriving on Plague Island the previous day, all he’d eaten was raw shellfish. They were very salty and had dried his mouth out. He felt much better now that he’d had a drink. Stronger, too. Reaching back into the locker, he drew out one of two orange plastic paddles that were packed in with everything else. He passed it to Macca.

  ‘What’s this for?’ the sailor asked.

  Colt pulled out the second one and extended its telescopic handle. ‘To paddle with.’

  ‘There’s no need to paddle – another boat’s coming.’

  ‘I know that,’ Colt said. He couldn’t use seasickness as an excuse anymore, so he invented another reason. ‘But I really need to use a toilet.’

  Macca winked. ‘Just go over the side. We’ll look the other way.’

  ‘Number twos,’ said Colt.

  Birdy was staring at him strangely. She knew something was up and it had nothing to do with seasickness or number twos. ‘Give me your paddle, Macca,’ she said. ‘I’ll row, if you don’t want to.’

  The big sailor shook his head. ‘You row with oars, young lady – with these things, you paddle. I’ll show you how it’s done.’

  Hoisting himself onto the side of the Zodiac, he began paddling.

  Colt took his own paddle across to the other side.

  ‘Let me do that,’ Hayley said, shuffling towards him. ‘You shouldn’t exert yourself if you aren’t feeling well.’

  ‘I’m okay now. Those pills were really good.’

  ‘No pills are that good,’ she said doubtfully. ‘Give me the paddle.’

  ‘When we get to the ship,’ Colt promised, matching Macca stroke for stroke. He would have liked to paddle a lot faster, but now probably wasn’t a good time to display his superpowers.

  The Zodiac pitched and rocked like an empty drink bottle in the huge, heaving sea. Even with two of them paddling, it was hard to tell if they were making any progress. Half the time nothing else was visible – just water, sun and sky. Then they would ride up the side of a swell and the ship’s masts and funnel would appear briefly in the distance.

  It was at one of these moments that Colt risked a quick peek over his shoulder. Shashlik! A line of bedraggled white rats came struggling over a wave not 50 metres behind the Zodiac.

  What did they want?

  Colt wasn’t about to wait around and find out. It was time to bring Superclown into the action. He glanced across at Macca. The sailor’s face was growing pink and there was a sheen of sweat on his forehead. He needed a break.

  ‘Birdy,’ Colt whispered. She had come and sat next to him shortly after he began paddling. ‘Can you go down the front of the boat and do something to distract Macca and Hayley?’

  ‘Like what?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t know. Just get their attention for a couple of minutes.’

  Birdy thought about it for a moment, then grinned. ‘Okay.’

  Slipping off the seat, she ducked down and rummaged in the locker. Then she made her way forwards, holding the front of her over-sized lifejacket closed with one arm. When she reached the very front of the Zodiac, Birdy turned her back on the others and crouched in the small, V-shaped space where the two side tubes met. Macca and Hayley looked on curiously. So did Colt. What was she going to do?

  Suddenly there was a double explosion – Pop! Pop! – followed by a loud hiss, and Birdy all but disappeared in a cloud of billowing yellow smoke.

  ‘What! On! Earth!!!?’ gasped Macca.

  Dropping his paddle, he scrambled forward into the expanding yellow cloud. Hayley scrambled after him.

  That left Colt all alone in the rear section of the boat. He flexed his muscles and felt a warm tingle, like a tiny electric current, buzzing up and down both his arms. It was Superclown time.

  Full speed ahead! he thought. And started to really paddle.

  The Zodiac leapt forward. Its sudden acceleration caused both Macca and Hayley to tumble backwards into the bottom of the boat. Above them, a small gap in the swirling yellow smoke revealed a tiny human figure balanced precariously on the Zodiac’s bow. It was Birdy, dancing from foot to foot as she twirled a pair of hissing emergency flares above her head like a drum majorette in a street procession.

  Colt nearly laughed. But he didn’t want to draw their rescuers’ attention away from the star attraction. At the circus, Birdy’s high-wire acts were a real crowd-pleaser.

  But Macca and Hayley didn’t seem pleased at all.

  They didn’t sound pleased, either:

  ‘GET DOWN FROM THERE!’

  ‘WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?’

  ‘CAREFUL – YOU’LL FALL OVERBOARD!’

  ‘DON’T SET THE BOAT ON FIRE!’

  They were so distracted by Birdy’s antics that they didn’t notice how fast the Zodiac was moving.

  Then the flares fizzled out and the smoke slowly cleared.

  Hayley and Macca’s shouts gave way to gasps of surprise. Ten metres above the gently rocking Zodiac, a row of heads peered down over the ship’s rail. One wore a captain’s hat.

  ‘We thought your motor wasn’t working!’ he called.

  ‘So did we,’ Macca called back.

  Everyone looked at Colt, who had put down his paddle when the flares went out. He tried to look as confused as they did.

  ‘Offshore current?’ he suggested.

  Maybe it hadn’t been such a good idea to use his superpowers. Colt felt totally wiped out. Macca and Hayley had to strap him to a stretcher and two sailors wearing surgical masks hauled him up onto the ship using ropes. They repeated the process with Birdy, even though she told them she was okay to use the ladder. Once both stretchers were safely on deck, four men in orange DoRFE overalls and matching orange surgical masks carried Colt and Birdy down to the ship’s infirmary. There were two hospital beds with sides that could be raised and lowered like cots and curtains that went around them. The men lifted Colt into one of the beds and Hayley gave him a pair of too-big men’s pyjamas to put on instead of his damp clothes. She closed the curtains, then went to help Birdy into the other bed.

  ‘We aren’t sick!’ Birdy insisted.

  ‘Captain’s orders,’ said Hayley, loud enough for Colt to hear, too. ‘I’m afraid you’re both in quarantine.’

  That word again. But this time Colt was too tired to worry about it. Lying between the cr
isp, dry sheets, he struggled to keep his eyes open. ‘I’m hungry,’ he called.

  Hayley slipped back through the curtains with a bedpan. Her eyes looked apologetic above her mask. ‘It might be better not to eat anything until we’ve done a few tests.’

  Birdy’s voice piped up from the next bed. ‘You can’t do any tests without our parents’ permission.’

  ‘We’re just trying to help you guys,’ Hayley said.

  ‘So bring me something to eat,’ said Colt. ‘Please! I’m starving.’

  ‘Me too!’ said Birdy.

  Hayley sighed. ‘All right, I’ll go and see if I can find something. But stay in bed, both of you.’

  No sooner had the infirmary’s door closed than Colt’s curtains rustled and Birdy appeared at his bedside. She was wearing a white nightie that reached almost to the floor.

  ‘What’s that?’ she whispered.

  ‘A bedpan.’

  ‘What’s it for?’

  ‘Number twos,’ he said.

  ‘Eew!’ Birdy took half a step backwards. ‘Are you going to use it?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  She raised her arms and did a spin, watching how her nightie swirled out like the dress of a Spanish flamenco dancer. ‘Hey, did you like what I did with the flares on the boat?’

  ‘You should include it in your circus act.’

  ‘Ha ha!’ she said. Her face became serious. ‘So why did you want to get to the ship in such a hurry?’

  Colt tried to sit up. He was feeling increasingly tired and weak. ‘I hope she hurries with the food.’

  ‘You didn’t answer my question.’

  ‘Rats,’ he said.

  Birdy wrinkled her nose. ‘What about rats?’

  ‘They were chasing the boat.’

  ‘You mean . . . swimming?’

  He nodded. ‘Will you help me get out of bed?’

  ‘Doctor Hayley said you should rest.’

  ‘She doesn’t know I’m Superclown. All I need is food.’

  Birdy helped him out of bed and together they shuffled over to a porthole. The ship’s engines had just started up and it was slowly turning away from the island. Because he was so weak, Colt’s eyes were only working at half strength. But they saw enough. All that remained of the rats was a long line of lifeless white lumps bobbing around in the sea.

  ‘Looks like they all drowned,’ Birdy said.

  Both of them were silent for a few moments. Colt wondered if Birdy was feeling a bit sad like he was.

  ‘Silly rats,’ he said softly.

  Birdy wiped away the fog their breath had made on the porthole. ‘Maybe they weren’t chasing us,’ she said. ‘Maybe they were following us.’

  ‘Why would they follow us?’

  ‘Because you whistled.’

  ‘I was whistling to the firebirds,’ Colt said.

  Birdy looked him in the eye. ‘You know how you can sort of talk to animals?’ she asked. ‘Maybe the rats thought you were whistling to them.’

  ‘That’s ridiculous,’ he said.

  Then he thought: Why would they listen to me?

  They had only just got back to bed when Hayley returned with a tip-proof meal buggy like they used on Smart Jets. Colt watched hungrily through a gap in his curtains. Birdy had left them part way open. His mouth watered. There were two steaming bowls of soup, two bread rolls, two bananas and two clear plastic tumblers of orange juice. Hayley divided everything equally onto a pair of StediTrays, then delivered them to her patients.

  ‘Bon appétit!’ she said.

  Colt didn’t understand French, but appétit sounded like appetite and he knew what that meant. He had a superhuman one right now. There wasn’t enough food on his tray. Would Birdy want to share?

  He couldn’t really ask her while Hayley was in the room (she would think he was greedy), so he drained his tumbler in one long, gulping swallow and handed it back. ‘May I have some more orange juice, please?’

  Hayley raised her eyebrows. ‘Wow! You certainly were thirsty!’

  But Colt’s thirst was nothing compared to his hunger. As soon as she was gone, he got to work on his food. He didn’t bother using the spoon; he simply raised the soup bowl to his lips and tipped. Then he wolfed down the bread roll and slam-dunked the banana. Everything was gone in twenty seconds.

  Birdy had only just started. She was daintily sipping her second spoonful of soup when she noticed him watching. She rolled her eyes.

  ‘Say please.’

  ‘Please,’ he said.

  ‘Sound like you mean it.’

  ‘Please!’

  Birdy tossed him her bread roll, then her banana. She watched him scoff them down. There was a slightly revolted look on her face. ‘I’m glad both of us aren’t superheroes,’ she commented.

  Colt’s face turned pink. He knew he was disgusting. But his body needed the extra food and drink to make it strong again.

  Already he could feel a tiny difference.

  Hayley returned with a refill of orange juice and a pair of mirror-lens sunglasses with their earpieces folded out. She waited while he drank the juice, then offered him the sunglasses.

  ‘What are they for?’ he asked.

  ‘Someone wants to talk to you.’

  Only then did Colt notice the microphone stalk and the swirling optic-imagers in the middle of each mirror. These weren’t sunglasses – this was a RyNo 4, the world’s first 4D phone. He’d seen them on ads, but never a real one.

  ‘You put them on like normal glasses,’ Hayley said.

  Colt slipped them on.

  ‘Mum!’

  It was like she was right there in front of him – her head and upper body, anyway. He almost reached out to hug her.

  ‘Hello, darling,’ Kristin said. She was wearing RyNo 4s, too, so he couldn’t see her eyes – just two tears tracking down her cheeks below their swirling lenses. ‘How are you?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m good. They gave us food and dry stuff to wear. Birdy’s here, too.’

  Kristin lowered her voice to a whisper, as if someone else was there and she didn’t want them to hear. (The 4D link only showed her, everything else was fuzzy.) ‘You said last night that a ghost rat bit her.’

  Colt lowered his own voice. ‘Have you heard of enzyme-C?’

  His mother frowned, then slowly nodded. Enzyme-C was a weird thing in his blood that had saved Birdy’s life. Only Colt, his mother, Birdy and a mysterious scientist called James knew of its existence.

  ‘Are they looking after you?’ Kristin asked, no longer whispering.

  ‘Sure,’ he said. Hadn’t he told her that already? ‘But it’s a DoRFE ship, Mum. They said we’re in quarantine.’

  Kristin smiled. Smiles worked with 4D phone technology, but hers looked fake – like she was just pretending. ‘It’s okay, Colt. We’re all in this together. I suppose you’ve heard what’s happening? How people are catching rat flu?’

  ‘They told us,’ he said. ‘It’s pretty scary. Hayley – she’s the doctor who rescued us – reckons our animals are what caused it.’

  ‘That remains to be seen,’ Kristin said softly. She raised her voice again. ‘In the meantime, we have to cooperate fully with DoRFE. They know what they’re doing.’

  Colt wondered if he’d heard her correctly. It was a weird thing for his mother to say. Nobody mistrusted DoRFE more than she did – apart from Colt himself.

  Was she trying to tell him something?

  ‘What about the circus, Mum?’ he whispered. ‘You said something about it last night.’

  ‘They’ve put us in quarantine, son. Just in case.’

  Son? She never called him that.

  ‘None of the animals are sick, are they?’ he asked suspiciously.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘They all seem to be fine.’

  ‘How’s Lucy?’

  Lucy was the elephant – Colt’s favourite of all the circus animals. She was going to have a baby soon.

  His mother’s 4D avatar smi
led again. ‘Lucy’s fine, son. We’re all fine.’

  Did she mean it? Her voice sounded strange and there was definitely something fake about that smile. And she kept calling him ‘son’.

  ‘Will you be there to meet us when the ship gets in?’ he asked.

  ‘I’d like to, son, but DoRFE won’t allow it,’ Kristin said. ‘We’re all in quarantine. Nobody comes in, nobody goes out.’

  Colt didn’t like the sound of that. ‘So where is the circus?’

  ‘Back where I used to work, oddly enough,’ she said. ‘Culdesac GovFarm. Our good friends from DoRFE have taken charge of the place.’

  Our good friends from DoRFE. That was the clincher. Someone was in the room with her – someone his mother didn’t trust – and she was trying to send him a secret message.

  ‘Who’s phone are you using, Mum?’

  Colt heard another voice in the background and Kristin put her hand over the microphone. For a few moments she seemed to be speaking to the other person, then she removed her hand. ‘I’m sorry, son, I have to go. Do whatever they tell you. Let them do their tests.’

  ‘But Mum . . .’

  She raised her hand, cutting him off. He wished he could see her eyes – RyNo should do something about that. ‘Bye, son,’ she said in a loud, fake voice. ‘Say hello to Birdy. And to James, okay? I love you.’

  Colt’s phone went blank. But only for a moment. A swirl of colours flashed across his optic nerves as another 4D image formed.

  Suddenly he was within virtual hugging distance of the last person on earth he’d ever want to hug.

  ‘Hello, Superclown,’ said Officer Katt.

  Colt and Officer Katt had a shared history. It wasn’t a good one. She was the person who wanted to close down the Lost World Circus and kill all its animals. So far Colt, aka Superclown, and Birdy, aka Clowngirl, had been able to stop her.

  But no one was supposed to know their secret identities!

  ‘What are you talking about?’ he asked, trying to appear innocent.

  Unlike his mother, Officer Katt wore a surgical mask. Now she pulled it down and let it dangle around her neck. Her smile looked real. ‘I’d suspected it for a while, Snowy.’ (That was her other name for him.) ‘And after our last little adventure, when you smashed through a brick wall and then treated me to a piggyback ride, everything suddenly made sense.’