Switch!

by Karen Prince

  Salih came back, having established that they were indeed not too far from Karibu as the hawk flies, but that the only way in was to follow a dangerous river that ran through the mountains to the east and enter Karibu through the underground water system.

  Gogo Maya pursed her lips. If this river ran into Karibu from underground, could she really send the boy that way? Goodness knew what kind of raging torrents swirled around the caves under there. It was rumored in Karibu that Sobek gods lived there. She wondered if these crocodiles were aware of that.

  Amazingly, Salih assured her that the crocodiles had passed that way before and would help the boy to navigate there. She thought of mentioning the gods but decided not to spoil the plan; surely Salih knew what he was doing.

  “If I cannot make an exchange, you will have to go down the river to Karibu to get your friend,” Gogo Maya began.

  Ethan’s eyes were already as wide as saucers. “What, on my own? With those crocodiles?”

  Gogo Maya gave a sharp intake of breath. She hadn’t realised the boy could read Salih unless the leopard deliberately channelled thoughts straight at him. Another thing she would have to investigate. Darn, she realised, to be able to do that he must have some very powerful magic of his own. Where on earth had he got it? Well, it couldn’t be helped; she and Salih would just have to watch what they said to each other while the boy was around. It would make it a little easier if Salih did not sidle up to the boy like that, she thought. Couldn’t he see the boy was trying to pull away from him?

  One way or another she was going to have to persuade the boy. If she could convince him to go on the journey, then it would be only a matter of time before he accepted the idea of being guided by the crocodiles.

  “You could take another boy with you,” she said. “I am sure the crocodiles can manage two boys if you want.”

  Infuriatingly, the boy didn’t buy it.

  “We can’t go down the river,” he said. “I don’t care what your crocodiles think, those mountains are impassable.” He appealed to the boy in the red shirt, who he called Jimoh, for confirmation.

  “Yes. Very, very dangerous,” Jimoh, the one in the red shirt, said. “Water like washing machine for Mama Joe.” He dry washed his hands to demonstrate, but added helpfully, “Don’t worry, Ethan. I come with you to find Joe. Crocodile, he help us. He got very strong mshonga.”

  “Please, Mississi!” volunteered a small boy, clicking his fingers and waving his hand up in the air. “Those crocs. My dad says they are magic.”

  “Yes, yes,” nodded a couple of the other kids. “It is known. Those crocs are magic.”

  It was starting to dawn on Gogo Maya that they quite possibly were. “Yes, I believe they are.” Now she was getting somewhere. If she could persuade Ethan that the crocodiles were magic...

  But Ethan still refused to be guided by crocodiles. He was so stubborn! “If you switch, and get exchanged for a rock or something instead of Joe, why can’t you just give him the amulet and get him to switch back by himself?” he asked her.

  “Your Joe will not know how to do it on his own,” Gogo Maya explained as patiently as she could. She was not known for her patience.

  “Well, why don’t you switch there, fetch Joe, and switch back again with him?” said the boy.

  “No, then I will have to switch back to Karibu again. That would make four switches. I’m a very old lady. It will kill me.” And bring the whole forest running to see what’s going on, she added to herself. Why wouldn’t the boy just do as she wanted?

  “Well, why me? Why not a grown-up?” Ethan said.

  “Because you have taken the healing power of the amber,” Gogo Maya said decisively. She hadn’t wanted to tell him, but she could think of no other way to persuade the boy to do what she wanted. It had to be him. She needed to get him to Karibu where she could find out where his magic had come from, and how come he was able to read Salih so clearly. Then there was that sneaky feeling she had that his magic had somehow interfered with her own ability to read Salih’s exchange with the crocodiles. Drat, now she was going to have to explain about the healing. Well, perhaps not all of it.

  “Er, were you hurt? When you went down for the amulet,” she said.

  Ethan pulled up his leg to inspect his wound. If she looked closely, she could see two faint white rows of jagged teeth marks across his shin, and the back of his leg, from the crocodile bite. The boy with the wild hair, Tendayi, helpfully pointed them out to Gogo Maya, and several boys nodded. Yes, they agreed. It was a crocodile bite even if it looked like an old scar now.

  Gogo Maya poked at the scar. “The scoundrel definitely bit you, but the power you sucked up out of the amber repaired the damage. For a while, if you don’t do it too often, your body will self-repair. That’s why you are the best person to make the journey.” She glared at him as if daring him to argue, then muttered bitterly, “You shouldn’t have touched the stone.”

  Ethan glanced in the direction of the crocodiles and shuddered. Then he rounded on her accusingly. “I could hardly help touching the stone. The crocodile was after me. When I saw the amulet swimming towards me I just snatched it up and tried to save myself.”

  “It swam towards you?” She gave a start. It was the first time she had ever heard of such a thing. Why on earth would her very own amulet be attracted to this stubborn boy? Amulets have strong attachments to their owners, and she had made this one with her own hands.

  “The blowing in your mouth?” suggested Salih.

  Gogo Maya gaped at Salih. Could it be possible that the boy had sucked up some of her power before he even touched the stone? Enough to confuse her own amulet? “I guess that might do it,” she agreed reluctantly.

  She cleared her throat. “It’s not that I’m blaming you, mind, it’s just that you’ve drained all the healing power. It will take time to replenish itself.” She fondled the amber lovingly. It wasn’t the amulet’s fault. “Were you ill or anything? It’s drained a lot.”

  “No,” Ethan said. Then he seemed to remember something. “Not ill, exactly. I have asthma.”

  “That would do it,” she sighed, vaguely remembering asthma from her childhood. People in Karibu didn’t get it. “Fixing the asthma has taken the energy. Did you touch the opal?” She was almost afraid to ask.

  “I don’t know, I was busy drowning at the time.” Ethan’s steely blue eyes held a hint of a challenge.

  “Sorry, I’m just trying to gauge whether it has enough power to get me back to Karibu tonight.”

  His shoulder lowered a little. “So, what? Is the asthma gone for good? Or just till the, um, spell wears off?”

  Gogo Maya held the amber up to her eye, examining it in the sunlight, then turned to him sternly. “I have no idea. The amber makes up its own mind. You are bloody lucky it didn’t kill you.”

  “Could it have?” he asked. “Killed me, I mean?”

  “I’ve seen people disintegrate before my eyes after touching someone else’s amulet,” she said. “For some it has been a little slower... But since you are not dead, I guess it must like you.” She’d seen nothing of the sort, of course, but if the boy was going to Karibu, she could not have him going around looking for other people’s amulets to drain.

  Ethan put his hand on his chest and took a couple of deep breaths, as if he did not believe it, then sighed. “I suppose it could be true. I can hear the leopard talk.” He reached out and almost touched Salih, who had settled down for a nap beside the boy, and then jerked his hand away, obviously afraid of the leopard.

  “What does the opal do?” he asked, a bit too eagerly for someone who had not touched the thing.

  Gogo Maya gripped the amulet protectively to her chest. “I have hardly begun to understand,” she said evasively. “It has no healing power. I use it to switch.” Not that she was trying to finagle her way out of her responsibility for the situation or anything, but she was not about to go into the dubious mind-manipulating skills Salih had contributed to the
thing, even if she understood half of them. The boy was better off not knowing.

  He regarded her steadily with those flinty blue eyes. Could he sense that she was holding back? At least he looked a little less put upon, almost on the verge of agreeing to go.

  Suddenly Gogo Maya felt very tired. It was about time for her mid-afternoon nap, and it had been a harrowing day so far. Perhaps she should give the boy some time to come to his own conclusion that he had to go. “Now off with you boys. I need to have a little sleep. You should go and make whatever preparations you can for a river journey.”

  8

  A Big Decision

  Ethan leaned up against the tree trunk, flicking the blade of his knife open and shut with sullen resentment while he watched Tariro rummage through their kit in that domineering way of his. In his opinion, Tariro knew less about what to take on an expedition into the wilderness than the small girl, Ketty. She, at least, seemed to have some connection with the crocodiles. He, for one, was not fooled into believing the crocodiles had had a sudden change of their cold, reptilian hearts, and were going to guide them down the river, whatever the girl said – or the leopard, for that matter.

  And that was another thing. He glared at Tariro. “Let me get this straight,” he said. “You believe the crocodiles told Ketty that they would take us safely down the river without biting us, but you don’t believe I can hear the leopard?”

  “I don’t know why that leopard has taken to you, Ethan, but I’m not going to let you use it as an excuse to take charge and order everyone about.” Ethan watched as Tariro reeled in a length of rope and wound it around his crooked elbow, then considered the two crocodiles sunning themselves peacefully on the riverbank. Hitching a ride with the creatures seemed to worry Tariro no more than taking a trip into the unknown wilderness. “Look at them,” he shrugged, “they don’t look like they’d bite anyone.”

  Ethan gestured angrily at his obvious crocodile bite.

  “Well, anyone else besides you,” Tariro amended. “I think the croc was trying to help you. With all that farting about under the water for so long, he probably thought you were drowning. You have to stop showing off like that, Ethan.”

  Ethan shook his head in despair. “Tariro, we seriously can’t go off into the bush to look for Joe,” he said. “We should go right now and fetch my uncle while it’s still daylight. He will call out the Police Reserve and they will search for Joe.”

  “The witch said that would be a mistake because Alan would not believe,” Tariro insisted, “but don’t worry, Ethan, I am sure we are not going to do anything too dangerous for you.”

  Ethan ignored the implication that he was a coward. Rather that than get themselves killed. “We don’t even know where we are going,” he said, stabbing a finger in the direction of the mountain range. “What part of impassible mountains don’t you understand? If nobody goes there, we could get into all sorts of trouble – slavers, militia, wild animals. We could wander into another country and get arrested.”

  “Ethan, you watch too many movies,” Tariro said with a long-suffering sigh. “It’s just down the road and I don’t think we have a choice.” He reached for Ethan’s backpack, and Ethan let him rummage through it. It wasn’t as if he could stop Tariro. Once the boy had his mind set on a thing, it seemed, he did it.

  Spotting the corner of his laptop poking out of his backpack, Ethan wondered if there was enough battery to leave a note on it for his mom and step-dad. There had been an hour or so of electricity supply the night before, and he had managed to recharge it, but his cousins had promptly used up most of it. He wished he was home with his folks now, in the air-conditioned comfort and safety of his own room. Something caught in his throat. He wished he had not come to this horrible place, and he wished he didn’t have to deal with this difficult boy. He wished none of this had happened at all, that it was a week before and he was still in his house in Cape Town, playing computer games and drinking fresh orange juice.

  But if he hadn’t come, he would never have known he could talk to a leopard. Would the others have been able to rescue Joe without him talking to the leopard? Were they going to be able to rescue Joe even if he could talk to it? He wished Joe would pitch up soon – preferably with a more plausible explanation for his disappearance than a magic switch – and put a stop to all this.

  “Oh my word!” Tariro said suddenly. Hauling a giant-sized tin of assorted chocolates and toffees out of the bottom of Ethan’s backpack, he clutched it to his chest, grinning a slightly maniacal grin. “Ethan, have you been holding out on us?”

  “Don’t get too excited,” Ethan said, wondering how Tariro could be so amped over sweets at a time like this. “I’m planning to share that with everyone tonight. You’ll be lucky if you get more than one.”

  “What these rural kids don’t know, they won’t worry about,” Tariro said, tearing a small hole in the corner of the inner packet and popping a chocolate-coated toffee into his mouth. “Honestly, Ethan, they have never even come across sweets like this. I can’t remember the last time even I had imported chocolates.”

  “All the more reason why they should have them and not you, Tariro. Don’t be so selfish.” Ethan stood up and tried to grab the tin from the other boy, a wave of anger boiling up in him, which felt odd because he didn’t even like sweets that much.

  “If you take one more I’m going to smack you,” he found himself saying, frowning at himself as he said it. Ethan had never threatened a person with violence before, much less smacked anyone, unless in a formal Taekwando match, and he was notoriously terrible at that. It did not give him the empowering feeling one was supposed to have when standing up to a bully, and as upset as he was, Tariro was not a good place to start.

  Fortunately, it seemed to work. Tariro returned the chocolates to Ethan’s backpack with a petulant shrug, rather than taking up the challenge. “We will need something to strain our drinking water through, like a hanky or something,” Tariro said, changing the subject.

  Ethan suddenly felt bad. He hoped Tariro didn’t associate his threat with what those other boys had done to him... He promised himself he would try to be kinder to Tariro from now on. “I suppose we could use my Kanga,” Ethan said, indicating the maroon-and-blue-striped length of cotton he had tied around his waist while he waited for his trousers to dry. He tried to relax his hands, which seemed to want to ball into fists.

  “What about fire? Do you have a lighter or matches?” Tariro said through a mouth full of toffee, oblivious to Ethan’s struggle for control.

  “No. No lighter and no matches. You may remember I shot the matches out of the tree this morning before we came up with this stupid plan.” Ethan tried to say it casually, or even jokingly, but his jaw felt tight, so it came out sounding harsh. “Besides, I’ve only brought dry provisions and I don’t see any point in having a fire if we have nothing to cook.” They would have a fire if it was the last thing they did, Ethan thought; there was no way he was going to sleep in the wild without one, but he wasn’t going to tell Tariro that.

  “We will be in the bush, Ethan, obviously we’ll shoot something, or we could always forage for grubs and things, like they do on your Discovery Channel.” His dark eyes held Ethan’s in a challenge. “You’re just scared, city boy.”

  “You know what, Tariro?” Ethan yelled. “It has nothing to do with being scared, although God knows, I am. I don’t want to go down the river, or off into the mountains. I want to fetch a grown-up. And I’m not counting the old woman. If I knew the way back to the farm I would’ve tried to walk there hours ago – lions or no lions.” The angrier he got, the less he was able to control himself. What was happening to him today? Was it a panic attack? Pins and needles prickled under the skin at the base of his scull, and his head felt hot. He reached for his asthma pump before realizing he wasn’t in the slightest bit out of breath.

  He went on, unable to stop himself, and beyond caring if he offended the boy. So Tariro had gone through a ho
rrible experience, but that didn’t mean he had to inflict his need for adventure on the rest of them. “I’m trying very hard to get on with you, Tariro, because you’re Joe’s friend, but quite honestly, I’m sick of your hunting and adventures crap. This is real life, and these people are seriously considering letting us drift down the river with no plan, chasing some fantasy story, with a couple of dangerous wild animals to guide us. The only one amongst us with an ounce of bush skill, a twelve-year-old boy!”

  “Fifteen,” he said. “Jimoh is fifteen. He’s just small for his age, and you should be so lucky, he’s a better tracker than all the grown-ups around here combined.”

  Tariro flopped down on a rock beside the shelter. He suddenly looked vulnerable, as if he was trying to convince himself. “Ethan, I’m as worried about going as you are. Don’t think I haven’t considered going back to the farmhouse and phoning my dad. He could get the army out, but it would do no good. They won’t believe it. Jimoh says there are legends about his people going there before, and we have to listen to the witch. We just have to man up and do what she says. I mean, this is Joe we are talking about!”

  Ethan sagged. Hearing Tariro admit that he was afraid did not make him feel very triumphant. Instead, he felt more worried than ever. He understood Tariro’s need to save Joe – perhaps it was even greater than his own need at this point. But still, the anxiety in his stomach pulsed with a beat he couldn’t explain. It felt almost what he imagined Tourettes must feel like, only, he didn’t feel the need to swear, he felt...