He didn’t watch where the nuts dropped. His eyes were fixed on the prize at the top. He nearly lost his hold when he heard a shrill squawking from below. Then it suddenly stopped.
Wicked peered down through the leaves.
Doomsday was lying flat on his back, his little wrinkled feet sticking straight up. But Wicked scrambled down, and when he leaned over him, the bird staggered up, wobbling in circles as if he’d drunk too much rum.
‘While there’s life there’s hope!’ cried Wicked, surprised at the sharpness of his relief. He studied the parrot, checking for injuries. Doomsday was undented – although his feathers on the left side looked a bit crushed. It must have been only a glancing blow. But the bird did seem more confused than usual.
‘Lie down with dogs an’ you get up with … zebras,’ muttered Doomsday groggily.
The next time he went up, Wicked decided, he’d be more careful. Although he’d only met Doomsday two days ago, the parrot was now the most precious thing he had.
That afternoon Wicked went in search of rocks to build a cooking fire. Along the creek he found some good-sized stones and he put these, together with his collection of sticks and dried leaves, into the satchel. Back at camp he arranged the stones in a ring, placing the kindling inside with a couple of bigger branches on top.
‘I wish I had something tasty to cook,’ he told Doomsday.
‘If wishes were fishes then no man would starve,’ the parrot replied.
‘Aye, and a fire will send a signal to any passing ship,’ said Wicked.
By now the parrot’s conversation felt normal. It was funny how quickly you got used to things, he reflected. Before Horrendo came on board, pirate conversations only lasted long enough for a yes or no. Talk never wandered away from the point. With the parrot, there was no point, and it was no use looking for one. But somehow, he didn’t mind.
Wicked put his flint to the dry twigs and leaves, and blew on it. A spark caught, and then another, and soon a bright flame leapt up.
The two sat together on the sand, gazing at the fire. As the sun sank into the sea, Wicked thought how much cosier he felt with their own little source of light, right here at their feet. Every now and then he wandered into the bushes to collect more kindling, always able to find his way back to Doomsday, and their camp.
And by firelight he was able to prepare the coconuts, ready for breakfast. He scalped the green rind from the top and split open the shell with his knife. Catching the milk with his cup, he offered some to Doomsday, before swilling it down. Wicked savoured the sweet white meat – delicious! He wondered if it tasted even better than he remembered because he’d worked so hard to get it.
It was a good thing that Wicked liked coconuts, as that was all he found to eat in that first week. Doomsday brought him some lizards and once, a small dead green snake, but he just couldn’t face the idea.
The bird shook his head. ‘Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.’
‘I know,’ said Wicked. ‘But what can I do? I wish we did have eggs. This here is Turtle Island, but where are they all? I haven’t spotted one!’
He dimly remembered something Treasure had said about turtles – she hadn’t been keen on eating them, he thought. But maybe he’d dreamed that, dreamed her …
By the end of the week, coconuts lost their thrill for Wicked. Every day his eyes searched the horizon, and with every fire he lit, he hoped for some sign from a ship. Coconuts were all right if you thought that one day you could eat something else. But what if help never came? What if this was it?
One morning when he was slicing the top off his twentieth nut, he felt his stomach heave. A cramp made him wince and he remembered the bad old days on board ship when his guts had given him strife.
‘Blimey,’ he complained to the parrot, ‘I hope I’m not going down that road again.’
He moaned and lay back down. But an hour later Doomsday came back with something in his beak.
‘An oyster! Well, what do you know?’ Wicked remembered the time they’d stopped at Bell Island and Horrendo had made such a show of collecting oysters from the rock. He’d served them up with a slice of lemon and handed them around. Wicked had taken one, just to show he wasn’t yellow-livered, but as it had slipped down his throat he’d thought it was like eating your own snot.
‘Aye, but beggars can’t be choosers,’ he sighed, and took out his knife.
‘You get what you pay for,’ nodded Doomsday. ‘The best things in life are free.’
The oyster tasted just like he remembered – slimy. But it made a change.
‘Show me where you got it,’ he said to Doomsday, and they walked down to the shore.
There were ten, twenty oysters within easy reach, and Wicked went to work with his knife. He saw more around the rocks where the water was deeper, and glimpsed the slim white shadows of fish. With sudden longing he remembered the smelly hunks of mullet Dogfish used to keep in his pocket, the fresh swordfish Horrendo once caught …
‘By thunder,’ he groaned, ‘what I wouldn’t give now for a fish on my plate! Look, there’s a whole sea of ’em out there.’
‘Give a man a fish and he eats for one night, teach him how and he eats for life.’
‘Aye, but you gotta have the equipment, right? What, am I just gunna wade in there and catch one with my hands?’
The bird looked at him and shook his head. ‘There’s more than one way to skin a cat.’
Hmm, thought Wicked. But what if you don’t want to eat cat?
That day Wicked followed his usual routine, collecting kindling and coconuts, replenishing his water supply. But as he worked he was thinking about fish. Surely he could find a way to catch that sea of food out there. What kind of sailor was he?
Every time he thought of wading in, his guts turned to ice. He remembered the feeling of water closing over his head.
And then, facts were facts. He didn’t have a fishing line.
But all day, niggly fishy thoughts twisted and turned in his mind.
That evening, when the fire was lit and dinner eaten, Wicked stared into the flames. How wonderful it would be to roast a snapper over the coals. He licked his lips, imagining the tasty grease dripping down his chin.
He had to try. Tomorrow morning, soon as the sun rose, he’d wade into the shallows.
It must have come to him in the night, the idea of using the spear.
‘I’m gunna catch me a fish with this,’ he told Doomsday. ‘See?’ He showed the parrot the little white bone that was stuck to the spear, near the sharp chiselled point. ‘I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before.’
‘Beware!’ said Doomsday as he hopped after him down to the shore. ‘Never leap from the frying pan into the fire.’
‘Can’t you be encouraging for once in your life?’ Wicked called back.
Doomsday said something but Wicked couldn’t hear it now. The water was up to his knees. He looked back at the bird pacing anxiously up and down the shore. Then he turned to face the water.
The unease in the pit of his stomach swelled with each small step he took. His toes sank into the sand. His fingers clenched around the spear. There – a flicker of ghostly white near his thigh. Quick! He lunged with his spear and the point came down in the sand near his foot. Any closer and he’d have stabbed himself.
Blast. He waited, focusing on the clear shine of water. Stars of sunlight dazzled the surface. Another fish! He stabbed at it again, and missed.
He went out a little further. Now he was up to his thighs. His lungs tightened at the thought of deep water, the sinking into darkness.
He looked up ahead, past the ripples of breakers. A cloud of bigger fish was circling just below the foam – a whole school of them, ripe for the picking. If he just had the mettle to go after them.
How could he get out there? He’d have to drown first. Even here, now, in a sea like glass and with the water only up to his thighs, he was anxious. He was never going to catch a fish like this. Stuck to
the shore like a barnacle to a rock.
He was the one who should be called Doomsday, he thought. Doomed to be a landlubber, a coconut-eater, a snot-swallower for the rest of his days.
Wicked tried four more stabs at tidbitty fish who came to tease him. Nothing. He dragged himself back through the water, and flung himself down on the sand. His stomach growled with hunger.
‘Hopeless,’ he sighed.
‘You can’t teach an old dog new tricks,’ agreed Doomsday.
‘Aye.’
‘If you always do what you always did, you always get what you always got,’ the bird added.
‘Blimey, that’s about the most depressing thing I ever heard,’ said Wicked.
Doomsday waddled to his side and hopped onto his chest. He pecked at Wicked in a soothing way, flapping a wing against his ribs as if trying to pat him.
‘You know we’re alike, us two,’ Wicked told the bird. ‘You can’t fly and I can’t swim. We’re doomed to stay here for the rest of our lives. The only cheery thing is that mine won’t last too long – a man can’t live on coconuts and snot forever.’
‘Better to light a candle than curse the darkness,’ said Doomsday. ‘Who took my boots?’
‘Bird-brain,’ Wicked muttered, ‘why can’t you say something sensible for once?’
Chapter 21
Wicked took his spear into the water again the following day. He stayed till late afternoon. Once, he almost speared a fish. But it swam off as if it had only been flicked by a rope.
He tried boiling up seaweed and eating that – it tasted like old underwear. He cooked little pipis in their shells and ate oysters. And coconuts. But he was always sickeningly hungry.
The next time he waded into the sea he told himself that if he didn’t get a fish, he’d give up. He’d turn his back on the sea, and all the cruelty it held. As he ventured further, he cursed until his throat hurt.
He glanced back at Doomsday. He was doing his usual pacing along the shore. Wicked felt a twinge of … he didn’t know what. But it was good to have someone back on land watching him.
When he turned to face the sea again he saw a bottle bobbing on the waves. It was just beyond his reach. The familiarity of its shape stirred a strange longing for company.
If you always do what you always did, you’ll always get what you always got. That bird said a lot of crack-brained things, thought Wicked, but maybe there was something in this. Maybe it was time to try something new.
He took a stride through the breakers until he was up to his waist. A bottle would be handy to fill with fresh water for the nights. Funny, he thought, why doesn’t it sink like me? He watched it bob along the water, drifting where the current took it.
The bottle was empty, just full of air.
Air is lighter than water, he thought excitedly. Water was just about the heaviest thing he knew. He remembered carrying those brimming buckets across the deck. Back then he’d wondered how the slippery, shapeless stuff could weigh more than something solid, like wood. Wet rope weighed more than dry; sodden sails were murder to lift …
That hadn’t seemed important back then.
Now it was everything.
He took a deep breath.
He imagined his lungs expanding, filling with air. How light I am, he thought. If I lie on my back like the bottle, perhaps I’ll float too.
But he didn’t. The back of his head sank up to his ears, and the water ran up his nose. Even though he clenched his body tight, ready to fight, the nasty stuff kept winning. He tried again and again, locking his jaws together in determination, lying rigid as a plank. Even his toes curled under with effort. But he just kept sinking and spluttering and spewing.
When he stood upright and shook out his ears, he heard Doomsday screaming. The bird thinks I can’t do it, Wicked muttered. Thinks I’m gunna drown. Can’t teach an old dog new tricks, eh? Well, I’ll show him.
His eyes searched out the bottle. It was floating calmly on the waves. He remembered watching Horrendo drift like that on his back, puffed from diving down to fix the nets. The boy looked like he enjoyed it. Calm. Every now and then he’d kicked his feet – that’s right! And when he wanted to come back to the boat, he’d flung his arms back behind his ears, and pulled the water through his fingers.
Wicked tried again. This time he let his muscles go slack. He stayed up a few seconds longer. Relax, he told himself. When he felt himself sinking, he kicked his feet like Horrendo, slow, then fast, turning the water to froth. The power in his feet was surprising. All his life he’d tried to keep them still, carefully poised on the rope – hadn’t that been his strength? But now his feet were wild things!
He was kicking, breathing, floating … oh!
He gave a crow of joy and the stinking stuff rushed into his mouth.
He came to a standstill and coughed out his guts. Then he lifted himself back up. This time he spread out his arms like a starfish and flapped his wrists at the same time as his feet.
Wicked floated in the sea well past noon.
It felt amazing.
It was mysterious.
It was the most fun he’d ever had.
He would keep practising until he was perfect. Until he was at least as good as Horrendo.
Until he could swim.
Chapter 22
Doomsday didn’t like the new routine.
Each morning, after his coconut juice, Wicked ran down to the beach. Doomsday hovered on the shore.
‘A leopard can’t change its spots,’ Doomsday told him one night as they sat by the fire.
‘No,’ said Wicked, ‘but a man can learn to swim.’
Doomsday looked at him sideways. ‘A little learning is a dangerous thing.’
‘That’s why I have to practise,’ said Wicked. ‘I have to get really good, so I can chase fish with my spear wherever they go. One day I might even make it back to Devil Island. Then I’ll get a boat and sail to the Mainland, or anywhere else in the world!’
When he said that, Doomsday’s head sank onto his chest. For a change, he didn’t comment. He didn’t even look at Wicked. He just poked his beak into his feathers, and shut his eyes.
But Wicked was thinking about the next day. By now he could float without having to concentrate. And he could cover a bit of distance on his back. Tomorrow he would try turning over. He’d keep his face out of the water, moving his arms and legs like a frog, the way he’d seen Horrendo do.
He felt a lurch in his belly. The idea was scary and exciting at the same time – a bit like those early days when he was learning the tightrope. He had a sudden memory of his mother looking up at him, smiling. ‘That’s the way. Check your centre. Don’t look down!’
A pain just under his ribs made him stop thinking about that, so he thought about tomorrow instead, when he was going to try real swimming.
Like floating, it wasn’t easy at first. He swallowed a lot of seawater, and didn’t get very far. But he kept trying.
Each morning after breakfast, he’d race down to the water. He always said goodbye to Doomsday, but the bird wouldn’t look at him. He didn’t chat as much as he used to, Wicked noticed, especially in the mornings. But Wicked was so taken up with his swimming, he couldn’t think about anything else for very long.
When he came in at sunset, Doomsday didn’t want to talk about Wicked’s swimming.
‘Give you enough rope and you’ll hang yourself,’ was all the parrot said.
Every day Wicked was learning something new and important: if he kept his fingers closed and his hands cupped, he went faster. If he kept kicking while he moved his arms, he went at maximum speed. He had to concentrate at first, or he got mixed up. But after a lot of practice, he began to move naturally in rhythm with his breath.
And he started to love it. At night he would wake, a strange excitement tingling in his chest, and remember that he could swim. He could hardly wait until the morning. He wanted to try a new kind of stroke, or see if he could last longer in the water b
efore his breath gave out and he had to stop. It was splendid, this feeling. Why, he had his own little boat tucked inside him, taking him wherever he wanted to go. He could change direction in a second, he could hold his breath underwater and glide like a fish. And now, when he spotted his prey, he could go after it.
The first night that he roasted his own dinner was the happiest in his life so far. It was a fine snapper, twice as long as his hand. It had given him quite a challenge, disappearing past the rocks, leading him to a whole school of them. He let the flames die down, then carefully laid the fish over the coals. The smell of roasting meat made the juices dribble in his mouth. Tears came to his eyes. He held his face over the fire, taking in great draughts of frying fish.
And when he took his first bite, he cried out with pleasure. ‘Have some,’ he urged Doomsday. ‘It’s bloomin’ wonderful!’ On the bark plate next to him, he served up a fat piece for his friend.
Doomsday came over and picked it up with his beak. But when Wicked added, ‘You know, I’m gettin’ so good I’ll be able to swim off this island soon – I won’t even need a boat!’ Doomsday spat it out.
‘One man’s loss is another man’s gain,’ the bird muttered gloomily, but Wicked was too busy savouring the snapper in his mouth to notice.
Wicked knew he had to go into training in order to swim the long miles back to Devil Island. And he knew it would take some time. But now he didn’t mind. One day he could leave; knowing that made all the difference. He could hunt and cook his own dinner, he could keep himself warm and dry, and he could feel himself getting stronger and leaner with each week that passed. It was like growing down, not up, his limbs remembering their childhood grace, his mind waking up.
He enjoyed the beginning of the day and the end. He liked having something delicious and rewarding to look forward to: the dinner he’d caught with his own hand. He never went hungry. It was a marvellous feeling to know that the sea was full of riches and he had enough skill to take from it what he needed.
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