by Susan Moore
“And so you shall,” said Wen, waving her finger like a magic wand. “I took the liberty of…” She produced a blue bag and handed it to Nat.
“Thanks, Wen!” said Nat, pulling out a Tiger Rocks Out T-shirt, a pair of Slider shorts and Trenko sneakers.
“I nearly bought you some Mito jeans but I knew you’d never wear them.”
“Lucky Movie Theatre, Miss Wen,” announced the driver, pulling up outside the main doors.
Wen climbed out. “Thank you, Shin.”
“Enjoy the film,” said the driver with a short bow. “Do you need me to take you both back to Wetley Towers later?”
“No, we’ll make our own way back, thank you.”
Throngs of people were heading into the cinema. The Grooverider pulled away. Wen grabbed Nat’s arm and steered her off down the street.
“We’ve got to hurry, we’ve only got two hours to get the plane.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
BORNEO BOUND
“Natalie Walker and Wen Tang, please follow me,” said the flight attendant in a Tiger Airlines orange-and-black-striped catsuit.
Sitting in the seats marked “Special Services” in the departure lounge, Nat and Wen stood up and followed the flight attendant, trying not to fiddle with their plastic “Unaccompanied Minor” badges.
The flight attendant led them on to the plane, seating them in Row A before the rest of the passengers arrived.
“I hope we get Coco-Zaps as the snack,” said Wen, kicking off her sandals.
“I’m too nervous to eat,” said Nat.
“We’ll be back before anyone realises we’re gone,” said Wen, pushing the airline pillow behind her head. “I’m meant to be staying at the witch’s Wetley lair, and you’re with me at the beach house. Your aunt is too busy thinking about the Dragon Club invitation and my mum is too busy with a new deadline at work. You’ve got to admit, it’s the perfect plan!”
“Zoinks, I hope so,” said Nat, closing her eyes.
“We’re going on an adventure. Let’s enjoy the ride,” said Wen, putting on her eyeshade.
The other passengers began to board. Nat started to bite her nails.
“Wen,” she said, giving her a nudge. “What’s the name of the man who’s meeting us again?”
“Ikat Santang.”
“Even with the voice modifier do you really think he believed that I was a grown-up?”
Wen lifted her eyeshade. “Ai yah, you worry too much!”
Nat nodded. Wen was right. She tried to close her eyes but big, uneasy questions played in her head. Would they find Doctor Fairlight? Was Jamuka still alive? Would they get found out?
“Play sailing movie fifteen, Fizz,” she said, needing some kind of distraction.
His eyes fluttered open and he spread his wings. Jamuka appeared on screen at the wheel of the Junko. Nat stood next to him. She was three years old. Her tiny hand was holding his as he showed her how to steer the boat with the wind.
She watched herself – so serious one moment, giggling the next – as Jamuka scooped her up in his arms. She wished she could turn back the clock.
Three hours later the plane landed in Kuching. A Tiger Airlines escort led them through customs to arrivals, where a crowd of tour operators were gathered.
“That’s us,” said Nat, spotting a man holding up a wooden board with their names scrawled in black ink. She waved, catching the man’s eye. He smiled and hurried over. He was no taller than they were, and wore a white T-shirt with “Johnson’s Engines” written on the front. Instead of shorts he was dressed in a long sarong.
“I am Ikat Santang,” he said with a big toothy grin. “Welcome to Kuching.”
The airline escort handed them over. Ikat shook their hands vigorously, pumping them up and down.
“Follow me,” he said, with a wave towards the exit.
They stepped outside. The humidity hit Nat like a wet towel. They passed a line of taxis and arrived at a white minibus with “Sarawak Tours” painted down the side.
A policeman marched across the road, blowing his whistle.
“In quick!” urged Ikat, opening the door.
They jumped inside. Ikat slammed the door shut and started the engine, ignoring the policeman, who by now was banging on the driver’s window and shouting. He threw the minibus into gear and pulled away.
Nat looked at Wen in alarm. An icy draught of air conditioning blasted through the van, making her shiver. They left the airport and sped out on to the main road. Ikat pressed down hard on the accelerator. Metal chimes jangled noisily from the mirror.
“We go to boat,” he shouted over a Malaysian pop song blaring on the radio.
“How far?” asked Nat, gripping the door handle.
“Ten minutes. Boat ready. We go.”
Ikat dropped a gear, rammed his foot down hard to coax more speed from the old minibus and pulled out to overtake a slow-moving car in front. Just as they drew alongside, a pair of bright headlights came into view, hurtling straight towards them. Nat closed her eyes.
“Ai yah!” cried Wen.
Ikat swerved just in time to avoid the oncoming car. The angry driver beeped his horn.
Fizz started snorting, smoke billowing out of his nostrils. Fu let out a high-pitched squeal.
“Cool fire dragon!” shouted Ikat, glancing at them through the rear-view mirror.
“He’s a worse driver than Granny Tang,” said Wen.
Nat clutched Fizz close. She looked out of the window to see brightly painted shopfronts locked up for the night with metal shutters. A pack of dogs was on the loose, nosing through rubbish bins, on the hunt for supper. Small knots of people were milling around, but otherwise the city was asleep. It was a ghost town compared to Hong Kong.
Ten minutes later Ikat came screeching to a halt at the edge of a rickety wooden pier. A blinking sign read Tunku Jetty. A row of longboats, sitting low in the water, roped to their moorings, bobbed up and down. One of the boats had a spotlight on its roof while the others floated in darkness. A man was standing on its roof.
“Peja!” shouted Ikat. The man looked up and waved.
“Road stop, river start,” said Ikat, helping them out of the minibus. “You good sailors?”
“Yes, I live on a boat,” said Nat.
He threw back his head and laughed.
Nat had no idea what was so funny. “Will we be safe?”
“Never lost passenger. Sarawak Tours first class.” He held up his right hand, which was missing a finger. “Five-star safety rating. You in safe hands.”
Nat was relieved to see two enormous engines strapped to the stern as she stepped into the small cockpit. Peja greeted them with a bow and the same toothy grin as Ikat. He led them down the stairs into the cabin.
“Ai yah, this is so last century,” said Wen.
The cabin was lit up like a Christmas tree with multicoloured fairy lights. Flowered curtains covered the windows, and rows of Hong Kong Air seats were bolted to the floor, leaving enough room for a narrow walkway down the middle. At the front, hanging off a steel rail, was an old TV. All the seats, except for two at the back, were piled high with boxes, bags and pallets of fizzy drinks. A loud cluck-cluck came from some crates. It was followed by a hiss.
“Sounds like a travelling zoo,” said Nat, lifting up a metal cage containing three chickens and a cockerel. “What’s all this stuff for?”
“People upriver,” said Peja on his way back to the cockpit. “You stay here. Dangerous river.”
Nat jumped as the engines roared into action, sending vibrations through the boat. She climbed into the seat next to the window and pulled back the curtain.
“Fizz. Film,” she said, holding him up.
The boat was already reversing off its mooring.
The TV crackled into life. A grainy Chinese gangster movie started to play at full volume. The fairy lights began to flash on and off.
“Isn’t first-class travel…” Wen stopped and wrinkled her nos
e. “Can you smell that?”
Nat sniffed the air. “Zoinks!”
She put Fizz on the window ledge, stepped across Wen’s seat and made her way up to the front row of seats as the boat jolted through the water.
She peered into a wooden crate.
“Aha, the king of fruits!” she said, pulling out a large green spiky fruit.
“Yuk. Durian is not the king, it’s the stinker of fruits,” said Wen.
“The smelly sock stinker of fruits,” said Nat, putting it back.
She returned to her seat.
“Time for some zzzzzzs,” said Wen, pulling on her eyeshade again.
Nat couldn’t sleep. The word poison was swimming around in her mind like a menacing, circling shark.
“Search NewsAmp, Fizz. Looking for new poison or sickness reports in Mongolia,” she whispered.
He turned his snout so that it was now close to her ear. “No news found,” he whispered.
She sighed with relief. “Show me the top news story.”
Fizz spread his wings. A text-based report showed on screen: “Rumours abound about the undisclosed Barzurkan mega-weapon. General Golkova remains tight-lipped on details.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
TRICKY BUSINESS
He examined the diagram one more time, double-checking the incision point, before pulling the scalpel carefully out of its pouch. The fine silver blade glinted in the overhead light. Taking a deep breath, he put his good eye to the microscope. A droplet of sweat fell on to the eyepiece. He wiped it away with his sleeve and tried again. This time the petal came into sharp focus, blood red, the electric blue like a neon strip.
He brought the scalpel under the microscope and positioned it so that the tip of the blade was at the top, where the blue and red met. His hand trembled and he nearly scored the petal. This was harder than he thought. All the bravado he had mustered to report to the Barzurkan General about his progress had vanished the moment he had left the tent.
He took another deep breath and exhaled slowly before repositioning the blade. The veins in the petal were easily visible. All he had to do was draw a line with the scalpel between the major third and fourth ones, making sure he only severed a maximum of eight of the spider veins, which ran between them.
The blade sliced through two spider veins. He continued to cut, trying to trace around the others but it was useless.
“Ugui!” he said, watching the petal begin to curl, the beautiful red and blue fading to brown.
It folded in on itself, withering before his eyes. His priceless weapon had once again turned into dust.
Chapter Thirty-Four
TROUBLE ON THE RIVER
Nat woke to the rattle of machine-gun fire on the television. Daylight filtered through the net curtain. She felt stiff and cold from the icy air conditioning.
“Fizz, where are you?” she said, her teeth chattering.
“Window, recharging,” came his robotic voice from behind the curtain.
She reached underneath and picked him up off the ledge.
“Messages?”
“One from Henry.”
“Show me.”
Fizz opened his wings. Henry appeared on screen. He was in his bedroom, still in his pyjamas.
“Hai, Nat. Did you get to Borneo? Mummy just came in and told me to put on my suit. We’re going to her lawyers about you. I’ll try to record it. I miss you. Bai,” he said.
Nat swallowed hard. The guardianship – Aunt Vera really was going to fight for it. She closed her eyes, wishing for Jamuka to come back safe and sound.
She stepped over Wen, who was sound asleep under a sarong, and headed for the deck. It was like climbing out of a freezer into an oven.
Ikat waved from the helm. Nat smiled, waving back. The air was filled with the roar of the engines propelling the boat up a muddy brown river at high speed. On either side dense jungle gave off a rich, musky odour. Nat grabbed on to the side rail to keep her balance. The sun shone down from a clear sky. Happiness unexpectedly bubbled up inside her – it was good to be on deck again.
Looking upriver she saw a big tree trunk floating towards them. She braced herself for the bump but the boat’s steel nose just pushed it out of the way.
“Logging camps,” shouted Ikat. “Dump trees in river. Free transport!”
Nat smiled.
As the sun reached higher, the river began to narrow. Ikat slowed the engines. Birdsong and buzzing insects replaced the engine roar. Nat ate the last of the coconut rice Peja had given her, kicked off her shoes and dangled her feet over the side. Cool water splashed up her legs as she gazed out at rainforest. Soaring trees with leaves as big as plates reached out across the water.
A sudden yell in the distance broke the calm, followed by a chorus of angry shouts. The pointed nose of a canoe came racing round the bend up ahead. Someone was paddling towards them at a furious pace. Nat shaded her eyes and squinted against the sunlight bouncing off the water. A figure dressed in khaki, wearing a wide-brimmed hat, was sitting in front of a stack of crates, weighing the canoe dangerously low in the water.
Ikat cut the boat’s engines.
She saw another canoe come round the bend in hot pursuit. Two men wearing bandanas round their heads, black vests and camouflage trousers were paddling at a clip. Nat gasped. One of them stood up and waved a machete in the air, its blade glinting menacingly in the sun.
“Pirates. Go inside!” said Ikat, opening the hatch as Peja ran across the roof with a metal anchor on a rope.
Nat sprang down the steps. The hatch slammed shut behind her.
“Hai, Nat!” said Wen. “I just got a message about those discounted ding Mito jeans––”
Nat grabbed Wen’s arm, her eyes wide with fear.
“Pirates,” she gasped. “Outside. They’ve got a machete.”
Wen laughed. “Ha! You’ve been watching too much bad TV.”
Nat leaned across to pull back the curtain.
“Real pirates, Wen. Look!”
They peered through the grubby window. The pirates were nearly at the boat. There was a loud thud. Shouts erupted like gunfire.
Wen’s hand flew to her mouth. “Ai yah!”
“They’re chasing another canoe full of crates,” said Nat.
There was another thud on the roof, followed by heavy footsteps. The pirate with the machete was now waving it from side to side.
Wen shrieked as an anchor came flying across the water, knocking the pirate off his feet.
“Zoinks!” said Nat. “One down.”
The other pirate lunged towards the boat, leaping on board. The first pirate’s hand slapped against Nat and Wen’s window as he pulled himself up, out of the river.
“Ai yah!” cried Wen. “They’re coming on board.”
More heavy thuds hit the roof. An ear-piercing scream sounded out.
Fizz’s eyes lit up bright red. Thick smoke came billowing out of his snout. Fu started thumping her feet in alarm.
“Stop!” said Wen, clamping her hand over Fu. “You’ll give us away.”
Peja’s face flew past the window. He splashed into the river.
“Oh, no! That leaves Ikat against two pirates,” said Nat, her mind spinning. “There’s only one thing for it. We’re going to have to take action.”
“We can hide under our seats,” said Wen.
“But they’ll find us. I mean real action,” said Nat, her eyes scanning the cabin.
Wen frowned. “What? You mean, real action, gun fu stuff, just like Scowler Stone?”
Nat nodded, jumping into the gangway and making her way to the front.
“Are you mad? They’re big, we’re kids and this is real. It’s not the movies.”
Nat reached over and picked up a cage. The cockerels inside began squawking. Fizz blew smoke at them, making them squawk even more.
“Stop, Fizz! We can use these,” she said, holding it up.
Wen screwed up her face. “You think you’re going to be
at two pirates armed with machetes with two cockerels? They’ll chop them up and have them for supper.”
Nat ignored her, ran over to another seat, dragged a heavy box on to the floor and pushed it up towards the hatch.
“And for your next trick?” said Wen.
Nat opened the box.
“No way!” said Wen.
“If we don’t do anything the pirates will get us and I hate to think what they might do with us. So, take your pick.”
Nat pointed inside the box with one hand and held out the cage in the other.
Wen took the cage.
“Right. This is my plan,” said Nat.
Chapter Thirty-Five
FRED
Two minutes later Nat undid the bolt and yanked open the hatch. Outside in the cockpit Ikat was engaged in a fierce battle with one of the pirates, using a metal pole to fend off the thrusts of the machete.
“One, two, three,” whispered Nat.
The pirate spun round just as Nat and Wen jumped up, each holding a cockerel. They hurled the cockerels at the pirate. The birds opened their wings in fright, hitting him squarely in the face.
“Argh!” he cried, dropping the machete.
Wasting no time, Ikat hit him hard with the pole. He fell to the ground, out cold, the two bewildered cockerels landing on top of him.
“Ding!” shouted Wen, punching the air.
Nat spun round to see the other pirate up on the roof. He was wrestling with the giant canoeist who was clutching a crate.
Nat jumped up.
“Here,” said Wen, passing her the box.
Nat set it down on the roof and reached in for a spiky durian fruit about the size of a football. She aimed at the pirate and threw it as hard as she could. He saw it and ducked but Nat had already picked up a smaller one. This time the fruit hit his arm, exploding on contact.
The pirate roared, let go of the crate and charged at Nat. The third durian hit him on the shoulder, but it didn’t stop him. Nat crouched down.