And no wonder.
Rose had never seen a boat as luxurious as this in her life either. The Tucano was three storeys of polished wooden decks, its cabins sumptuous with floor-to-ceiling blue-tinted glass, making it a gorgeous, floating hotel of air-conditioned rooms, enormous beds and five-star cooking. Usually it carried twenty passengers, but Hazel had chartered it for just the two of them together with a crew of sailors, cook, kitchen staff, stewards, laundry workers and cleaners, all under the command of Captain Eduardo da Silva. Rose liked him very much. A sturdy, cheerful man of sixty-three, with a laugh in his voice, he had spent his life in the Brazilian Navy. Now he spent his days taking glamorous boats through the Amazon rainforest for glamorous tourists. Although Rose was pretty sure he’d never had quite such a glamorous tourist as Hazel.
Rose stood up and waved at the children who giggled and waved back. A tan dog splashed into the water and barked merrily.
A moment later, the boys turned back to their game.
Behind them, the jungle seemed to loom like a barricade and staring into the thick green light beneath the trees Rose felt a strange prickle of cold. Quickly rubbing her shoulders, she felt the knot of worry that had twisted in her stomach ever since they’d arrived tighten as she wondered again what had happened to her father to keep him here.
The sound of Hazel’s cabin door crashing open made her jump.
‘Look!’ cried Hazel, quickly climbing up the steps on to the top deck.
‘I know!’ smiled Rose, spotting a flock of scarlet and turquoise parrots flapping over the water. ‘This place is amazing, isn’t it?’
‘No,’ replied Hazel.
Puzzled, Rose turned back to Hazel who was stomping towards her, hot and sour-faced, waving her right hand dismally in the air.
‘My nail!’ whined Hazel, sticking her finger out for Rose to examine. ‘It’s chipped!’
‘Oh!’ said Rose, trying to sound sympathetic as she spotted a tiny chink in the glossy pink nail.
‘Can you believe, I damaged it swattin’ an elephant-sized moth? Course, I’m all but out of “Blossom of Shanghai” polish and there’s so totally nowhere around here to buy any more.’
‘Eduardo says we’re stopping at a market this afternoon. At Acajatuba. We need supplies. Maybe we could try there?’
‘Me? In that jungle?’ Hazel wrinkled her nose and glared at the riverbank. ‘Besides, it’s nail polish I need, Rose. Not a bag of coffee beans and a new parrot!’
Hazel slumped down beside her, smoothed her pink T-shirt and scowled at the heaps of fresh fruit, cereal, juice and plates of meat set out for breakfast on the crisp tablecloth.
‘What’s that?’ she said eyeing up a brownish-pink fish lying on a blue plate.
‘Piranha,’ said Rose simply. ‘Grilled and salted.’
Hazel curled her lip. ‘You have to be kiddin’ me.’
‘It’s an Amazon speciality,’ said Rose, as Hazel began prodding at the gloomy-looking fish with a knife. ‘The chef made it as a treat.’
‘Treat?’ Hazel picked up her plate and flipped the fish overboard. ‘RIP!’ she muttered and poured herself a large glass of mango juice.
Rose sighed and looked away, wishing yet again that Hazel might lighten up.
You see, almost as soon as they had arrived, things had started to annoy her and just how, as she’d lamented over and again, was she supposed to refresh herself when everything about the Amazon was so dang uncomfortable?
First it had been the sun – sizzlin’ like a Texan branding iron – making it impossible for her to sit outside on deck and sip coconut coolers with Rose after ten in the morning. Then it had been the afternoon rains – beatin’ down like a crazy showerhead – that kept her indoors until five because it ruined her hair. The bugs – bigger ’n nickels – had totally splatted her cabin window – thank heav’n they couldn’t fly through glass – though they’d surely spoiled the view from her Jacuzzi, whilst that infernal whooping of monkeys had so jangled her nerves she couldn’t enjoy playing deck games of quoits. And as for the as for the captain’s nightly talks, well, maybe Rose did find it fascinatin’, but as far as she was concerned when Eduardo shone his torch along the riverbank, pointing out the ruby red lights that glinted back from the caimans’ eyes – creatures just as horrible and snappy as the alligators back home – all she could think about was her rifle.
Rose groaned inwardly as Hazel began picking at a bowl of dry cereal with her fingers. Being a kind and thoughtful girl, of course Rose wanted her new friend to enjoy the trip and she felt a sharp sting of guilt that Hazel was so ill at ease. After all, it was down to Rose that the young star was out here in the first place, which was why, over and over again, Rose had tried to suggest things that Hazel might like to see or do or taste or try or visit. They’d got on so brilliantly in England. But now, after five days of Hazel’s moaning and griping, it was truly starting to wear her down. Being in the Amazon rainforest with someone, Rose decided, was very different from sharing a hot chocolate in a swanky hotel with them and now, as she gazed out over the water, she found herself wishing yet again that it was Alex and Aries on board with her.
If only!
Certain she’d never see them again, her heart sank. She missed them. And, knowing how the Amazon would have fascinated Alex made her feel even more downcast. Like her, he’d have loved the armadillos waddling down to the water for a drink and the pink dolphins, the botos, which followed the Tucano each day. The howlers would have totally amazed him too – the giant russet-haired monkeys, hooting and bellowing from the trees, as raucous as dinosaurs. To be honest, they’d scared her at first, right up until Eduardo told her that according to the ribereños, or river people, their deafening chorus should be cherished, because when they fell silent, it meant evil was present among the trees. She sighed. Alex would have yearned to spot a jaguar lolling in the treetops, just like she did. She swallowed a giggle, thinking of how Aries would be much more worried about the jaguar spotting him.
‘Where exactl’ are we?’ said Hazel, breaking into her thoughts.
‘About two days from the Wedding of the Waters.’
‘Two days?’ Hazel made it sound like a jail sentence. ‘Weddin’ of the what?’
‘Waters,’ said Rose. ‘It’s where the Rio Negro meets the Amazon,’ said Rose, trying hard not to sound like her mother. ‘According to Eduardo, the Negro is so full of dark silt that it doesn’t mix with the Amazon when they meet. One’s black, one’s brown, they stay stripy for miles and miles.’
‘Miles and miles?’ sighed Hazel.
Rose felt her own spirits sinking at how the star she’d been so in awe of could be so, well, disappointing in real life. In London she’d seemed lonely and tired of all the jetsetting and glitz, the interviews, the fame. Now she clearly missed her starry life and all her adoring fans horribly. She watched as Hazel fixed a poisonous stare on a huge moth that was sunbathing on the table before scooching along her seat away from it, and sighed, remembering how on her weekly show, Hazel rode wild horses and ran with the rodeo men. But in reality, far from being what her mother on the show called ‘a tough cookie’, Rose was discovering that Hazel was far more like a Custard Cream gone soft.16
‘It leads into the capital of Amazonia,’ said Rose finally. ‘Manaus.’
‘Manaus?’ Hazel brightened. ‘Then why don’t we take a couple of weeks there? I’ve heard it’s like a cross between London and Las Vegas! We could take a girly break from all this jungle stuff. Enjoy us some serious pampering. What d’ya think?’
Rose bit her lip and looked down. Once it would have sounded so tempting. If only it had been just a holiday, of course she’d have loved to explore the city, shopping beneath its silver skyscrapers, swimming at its beaches and visiting the opera house that Eduardo had told her about, the one built by Victorians in the rubber boom, all pink walls and a spangling roof of gold, green and yellow, that shone like a fairy tale palace in the middle of the jungle.
<
br /> But how could she waste two weeks in Manaus?
Or even two days?
Or two minutes?
When every second of it was more time that her father would be out there, somewhere, lost in the jungle.
Seeing Hazel’s expectant face, Rose bit her lip. ‘Maybe on the way back,’ she said. ‘Because we’ll have to go north to reach Tatu Village and find my father, long before the Amazon reaches Manaus.’
And then, thought Rose, leave the Tucano to travel the rest of the way by canoe and foot. She pushed the thought away, knowing that now absolutely would not be the time to remind Hazel about that.
‘I do understand,’ said Hazel, leaning forward and cupping her face in her hands. ‘And I can’t wait for you two to be back together again either. So, why don’t I hire us a man to go into the jungle instead? Y’know, a native tracker to find your daddy for us?’
Rose shook her head and turned back to look at the river. ‘I can’t wait around for someone else to do it,’ she murmured. ‘And I won’t be parted from him for a second longer than I have to be. I’m going to find him myself.’
The pictures in the scrying bowl vanished in a twist of smoke.
But Medea had seen enough.
Because even without hearing their conversation it was perfectly clear how badly things were going. Feeling a fizz of excitement, she clapped her hands together, delighted to see Rose, the same earnest, serious girl she remembered, and Hazel, who looked like she’d sucked a lemon.
‘Oh my!’ drawled Medea, mimicking Hazel perfectly. ‘I just love a-travellin’ an’ seein’ the world! All those amazin’ new things to discover!’ she laughed. From a mightily safe distance, of course, added her mind spitefully. The sort of mightily safe distance, say, that you found between the back seat of a limousine and the gritty street outside or from your hotel penthouse down to the city several floors below.
Or from a luxury riverboat just far enough away from that squirming, scurrying, slithering jungle across the water.
Suddenly knowing what to do, Medea turned away from the pot and all but skipped to her steamer trunk without even glancing out of the window to indulge her favourite view. One that I’m sorry to say wasn’t the majesty and spectacle of the jungle. Not as breathtaking as a soaring kapok tree or as sizzling as a scarlet orchid. Not even so much as a bad-tempered macaw with droopy blue feathers on its bottom. And to be honest, I’m not even sure I should tell you about it, what with things about to become extremely horrible, you’ll probably only run away.
What’s that?
You won’t?
OK.
But perhaps I’ll better build up to it gently just in case …
Outside the window of Medea’s hut was a beautiful barrigona tree, a palm with a swollen trunk, which was home to a whole family of cheeping blue budgerigars that hopped along its frondy branches every morning.
Tweety-tweet tweet!
How charming.
What d’you mean, ‘Get on with it, grandma?’
All right then, but don’t say I didn’t warn you, because beneath that bounce of budgies was a European man. Haggard and wrinkled beyond his years, he sat hunched against the base of the tree, his bony knees, sun-blistered and poking through his ruined trousers, drawn up beneath his chin. Around him the bowls of armadillo stew and gourds filled with fruit juice that the villagers brought him lay forgotten as he stared into the brown water of the nearby creek.
But, like I said, Medea couldn’t savour a single second of that today, nor even congratulate herself yet again on just how well she’d hidden him (using her obscurity spell) from that pesky magazine crew who’d badgered her for hours, because she was far too busy. And now, with her mind as fluttery as a cave full of bats, she dropped to her knees and threw back the trunk lid, plunging her hands down, down, through layers of jungle socks and cotton tops, mosquito nets and malaria pills, frantically scrabbling about the base until her fingers touched something smooth, hard and familiar. A moment later, she drew out an object wrapped in blue silk and hastily unwrapped it to reveal a solid gold wrist cuff. Egyptian, and over three thousand years old, it would have been the star exhibit in any museum in the world, but it was worth much, much more to Medea.
Now as you already know, without the Golden Fleece, Medea’s magic was about as impressive as a light bulb in a power cut. However, she’d hardly be the most successful, wicked, grimly spectacular sorceress in the history of the entire world if she hadn’t thought ahead and planned for just such a magical emergency, would she? Which made this ancient piece of gold jewellery the equivalent of her box of candles under the stairs. A special something saved for those crucial moments in a sorceress’s life when her down-at-heel magic simply won’t do.
Now, holding it up in the sunlight, she watched its buttery surface twinkle as sunlight glanced off its engraved falcon-and crocodile-headed gods. Sighing, she felt her mind drift back almost a hundred years to Cairo and the sand-blown Valley of the Kings to the excavation of the pharaoh’s burial site led by Howard Carter and his friend, Lord Carnarvon. She closed her eyes, conjuring up Carnarvon in her mind, so dapper in the cream linen suit she’d made for him, nodding back to her as he’d stepped into the black mouth of Tutankhamun’s tomb.17
But there was work to do. Giving herself a quick mental shake, she stood up and turned to the shelves, lifting down an ornate wicker box with a brass catch shaped like a dragon’s face, its snout clasping a shining blue stone. Setting it down on the worktable, she heard a scuttling from inside and felt her fingers tingle with pure nastiness.
Because with just one blast of full-strength sorcery, courtesy of that gorgeous Egyptian bangle, that little Texan fly in the ointment would to be out of the way for good.
Leaving Rose utterly alone.
15 Tricky to say, Aeaea is pronounced ‘I-er–I-er’ as in the phrase ‘I, er, I, er, wish the place was called something easy, like Corfu.’
16 And believe me, there’s nothing more disappointing.
17 Lord Carnarvon died soon after, when a shaving cut led to blood poisoning. This triggered talk of The Pharaoh’s Curse – a death-spell said to strike down anybody who intruded into King Tutankhamun’s tomb, and indeed, another eight people were to die in spooky ways soon after. However, the truth was that they’d all admired Lord Carnavon’s tailoring and had asked for the name of his seamstress so that they could all become customers too.
GREEKS BEARING GIFTS
Meanwhile, down in the Underworld, Alex and Aries were ankle and hock-deep in the cold, salty water of the Cave of Acheron. Squinting in the grey light of the cavern, Alex was trying to make sense of the map he’d torn from Persephone’s magazine whilst Aries was chewing on a clump of rather tasteless seaweed and considering whether the low tide would give him foot rot, which given the day he’d already had would just about put the tin lid on things.
The cave, in case you’re wondering, is the place where the rocky barrier between the Underworld and the Earth is at its thinnest. Back in Ancient Greece, the place was a sort of drippy drop-in for heroes like Odysseus, who’d pop in for a chinwag with a clever ghost. Of course, in those days the River of Pain had gushed through it, a river well-named as far as Persephone was concerned, what with all those bad-tempered carp and snappy eels, so you won’t be surprised to hear that she’d drained it (more or less) and fixed some cheery iron torches into its walls. More importantly, however, she’d used its closeness to Earth to install her own set of royal portals. Not for her the grubby old way back that Alex and Aries had used in the summer. What? Trudge through the Desert of Disappointment in her best holiday sandals? Cross the River Styx in a creaky boat filled with cave spiders? I think not.
Anyway, don’t distract me. The thing is, for Greek portals to work they need to supernaturally connect with Ancient Greece’s lost treasures, those old pots and columns and splinters of shield that were left back on Earth and transmit their energy back to the Underworld like satellites from spac
e. Luckily for Persephone and her vacations, such treasures have long been scattered across the globe by armies and archaeologists, collectors and curators. And so, with the help of the ghost Greek engineers and a goodly dollop of godly magic, the queen now had her own network of shortcuts, quickly linking Hades’ palace to cities on Earth as easily as a hotel lobby leads to its bedrooms.
The portals were arranged in five rows, carved high into the cave walls. Each row was reached by its own boardwalk, edged by a guardrail and festooned with stripy blue bunting, leading to a long flight of steps, damp and glistening, carved out of the rock.
On any other day Alex would have loved to explore what lay behind each portal door, shining beneath the exotic names painted above them, names like Marrakech, Paris, Tokyo and Rome. But this wasn’t any other day and, already changed into the jeans and white T-shirt that Rose had found for him in the lost-property room of the British Museum back in the summer, he felt restless to leave.
Not that Jason was quite ready yet.
‘Just look at them,’ muttered Aries.
Quickly stuffing the map into his pocket, Alex glanced up to see the Argonaut, who was also dressed in jeans and a T-shirt (lovingly made by the palace seamstresses) framed by the arch of the cave’s mouth. Leaping over a patch of damp sand, he twirled and jabbed a stick of driftwood in a mock swordfight with Persephone and the other goddesses. Even Hera, queen of the gods and the wife of Zeus himself (and who Alex thought must be at least three thousand years old and should’ve known better) stood tilting her face up to him, beaming.
‘If we could make a start!’ cried Athena, straining to be heard over the chorus of giggles as the Argonaut spun round and tapped each of the goddesses’ noses in turn with the tip of the stick.
Rampage! Page 5