Wicked's Way

by Anna Fienberg

  ‘Come on then,’ said Treasure, leaping up. ‘I love this tune!’

  ‘Oh, I haven’t danced for … I can’t remember,’ stammered Will. He stayed glued to the seat, reddening in the candlelight.

  ‘You know, when I travelled to the Flamingo Islands, I saw a new dance,’ said Treasure. She stood up. ‘I’ve been waiting to try it. See, you go like this, it’s very simple.’ And she pulled him up.

  But just as they were on their feet, the music stopped. Voices faded and an eerie hush crept over the room.

  In the doorway, holding a flaming torch, stood Rascal. The cuffs of his pants were dripping, as if he’d just stepped off a boat and waded to shore. He grinned at the crowd and made a sweeping bow, then stood aside to let a woman with a parrot perched on her shoulder pass before him.

  Whispers whirred through the air. ‘Who is it? Who’s that?’

  The woman made her way through the room, looking neither left nor right. Although her pace was slowed by a limp, she glided through the crowd like a ship through the sea. Her chin was held high, the candlelight leaping in her eyes. Below the skirts of her velvet dress, her wooden leg tapped out a rhythm. Tap step tap step tap. She never turned to answer a query or a smile. Her eyes were fixed on one person, and she wouldn’t stop until she’d reached him.

  To Will, watching her progress across the room, she seemed like a dream. Her face had lit his lonely nights at sea, her words had whispered to him, her hand had held his. And he had lost her somehow. She’d stopped living inside him and a silence had closed over.

  She came to a stop before him. He had been a boy when he’d seen her last. And now he was a man. He looked into her face. Older now, a little more lined, with grey streaks through her wild red hair, she was still his mother.

  ‘All’s well that ends well,’ said Doomsday on her shoulder.

  But Wanda Wetherto shook her head, and smiled at her son. ‘This is just our beginning.’

  Epilogue

  In the years that followed, Devil Island kept its name. Although there were many new suggestions, folk took a vote and decided they should not forget their history. As Doomsday reminded them, ‘Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.’ And nobody wanted that.

  Will set up a swimming school and spent his days down on the beach doing what he loved best. ‘It’ll be fun,’ he told the children who were reluctant at first, ‘and it may just save your life.’ He was a good teacher and soon every child on the island could do the backstroke. His mother came to live nearby and when, much later, Will and Treasure had children, Wanda helped look after them.

  She loved being a grandma and playing hide-and-seek with the youngsters (although she never stayed hidden for long), and when they grew older she taught them juggling and tightrope walking and magic tricks. When the other children saw how much fun they were having, they asked for lessons too. ‘Well, I don’t see why not,’ said Mrs Wetherto, who liked to impart the skills she’d acquired in the world, even if she could no longer perform them herself. Will assisted on his mornings off, and with his share of the treasure he built a gymnasium with rope ladders to climb and trapezes to swing from.

  The family went often to visit Honey on Thunder Island and the book in the library that was borrowed most, Travels with Treasure, was written right there on the verandah overlooking the hills, where all those years before Will had slung his hammock. Treasure continued to travel and write about her adventures all her life, and if her books needed maps or illustrations, Mischief was there to do a fine job.

  The school expanded with a flood of new students from far away, and soon you could hear so many different languages in the square that you’d swear you were at the centre of the world. Rascal took to practically living at the new science laboratory (even though his mother worried about explosions) and invented a cure for warts. And with help from Blusta and her blossoming garden, Horrendo cooked up a recipe for pecan pie so sublime that a tyrant from the Mainland decided to stop making war and start a bakery instead.

  As for the Captain, there was no news for a long time. Then a scrap of talk floated in with a French tourist … ‘The strangest thing, mon dieu, a pirate ship looming up in the moonlight … no crew except one solitary figure. We froze in horror … but it glided past like a ghost, and vanished into the mist. Trick of the light, maybe, but it turned us all cold.’

  When nothing more was heard – and as Dogfish remarked, ‘No light trick never killed no one’ – the islanders decided to ignore the idle fancies conjured by a moon on water.

  And so it was generally agreed throughout the Cannonball Seas that the rules of funambulism could be applied to most things in daily life. If folk went about their business, checking their centre, keeping their balance and putting one foot in front of the other, they found that the joy of their journey, in most cases, became their prize.

  Acknowledgements

  Many thanks to Caribbean Kathy, who introduced me to hermit crabs, hummingbirds, and the gastronomic delights and nature of the islands.

  Grateful thanks also to Kim Gamble for his valuable insights into what is needed to survive on a desert island, having once been stranded himself in just such a situation with only a fishing spear and a box of matches. (Kim was luckily rescued by a cruise ship and a friendly waitress, but that’s another story.)

  My gratitude, too, to Morris Gleitzman, who gave me excellent advice on structure, to Marie Claire for her reading and support, and to my mother Barbara, who was the first to read my manuscript, as always, and provide excellent feedback, creative suggestions and essential encouragement.

  I am grateful, too, to Sue Flockhart for her challenging editorial analysis, and to Kate Whitfield for her unique understanding of magical concepts, her close attention to detail and structure, and her heartfelt enthusiasm just when I needed it.

  About the author

  Anna Fienberg is the author of many popular and award-winning books for children of all ages, including the Tashi series, Figaro and Rumba, Louis Beside Himself, Number 8, The Witch in the Lake and Horrendo’s Curse, which was an Honour Book in the 2003 CBCA awards.

  Anna began writing stories when she was only eight years old. She says: ‘I’ve always had a passion for words. I used to collect them, like some people collect stamps. Certain words gave me a special, billionaire feeling, and when uttered, seemed to have a magical effect.’ She also gets her ideas from her dreams, people she meets and snatches of overheard conversation.

  Anna was once Editor of School magazine, where she read over a thousand books a year. She wrote plays and stories for the magazine, and then began writing her own stories. She has written picture books, short stories, junior novels, and fiction for young adults.