Jungle Tangle

by Debbie Thomas

  Brag waggled his hands in the air. ‘So that’s why ah need a new set o’ prints. Think ah’ll have mah fingers stretched too, so ah can fit more rings on. And while ah’m here, I might just explore this ol’ jungle for oil.’

  A snort came from the reception desk. ‘Eh stupido! Why you want more? My husband, he always want more – more gold, more seelver. For thees we die.’

  Brag Swaggenham whistled. ‘Gee. Love the special effects.’ He crossed the lobby to the desk. ‘Where’s the wires?’ Grabbing Carmen’s ears, he tried to unscrew her.

  ‘Aieee!’ she screeched as Bitter Albert’s Superdooperglooper Glue held her fast.

  Klench came over to the desk and pinged a bell. A moment later a man came down a staircase at the right of the lobby. He wore a white doctor’s coat. His face was tanned to toffee. His hair was banana yellow.

  ‘Dr Banoffee,’ said Klench, ‘pleasse take Mr Brag for pre-treatment chattinks.’

  11 - Doctor’s Orders

  Email: corkyshocka@bradleighbellow.net

  Subject: Letter from the Equator

  FIERY FUMES AND

  GOLD MEDDLES

  By Abigail Absinthe

  Flying into Quito, the capital of Ecuador, is like landing in a giant mouth. The mountains rise on all sides like broken teeth and buildings speckle the lower slopes like fillings.

  When I stepped off the plane this morning, my eyes wouldn’t stop watering. The light is dazzling here, nearly 3000 metres above the sea, and the sun scorches down. As we wandered round the old city centre, the back of my neck felt on fire.

  Quito is the second highest capital in the world, nestling in the second highest mountain range, the Andes. The grumpiest peak is Mount Pichincha, a volcano that grumbles above the clouds, ready to blow its top any minute.

  The Ecuadorians don’t look worried, though. In fact they look pretty relaxed about everything – and so colourful. In the Plaza San Francisco, the oldest square in Quito, there was a lady in the brightest red shawl you’ve ever seen, selling the brightest blue cloth you’ve ever seen and grinning with the brightest yellow teeth. She wore a black felt hat and had a long plait. On her back was a bundle of blanket that turned out to be a baby. We found this out when Grandma Hartley-Absinthe smiled and the blanket burst into tears. The lady’s one of the Quechua people who lived here with the Incas before the Spanish grabbed Ecuador. I don’t mean she lived here, of course, but her relatives way back did.

  And wow did the Spanish grab. Inside the San Francisco church the walls are coated with gold. There are gold statues, gold screens and gold pillars. The conquistadores pinched all this gold from the Incas, who used it to make plates and cups and things. Imagine a 24-carat bowl of cornflakes!

  Abbie stopped typing. She leaned back in her chair in the Internet café and yawned. It had been an exhausting morning. Not because of the flight. Not because of the jet lag. Not even because of the sightseeing. Well, sort of because of that …

  Inside the San Francisco church Fernando had started sobbing. Luckily he was on Perdita’s palm, covered by a hanky. That meant his tears could be mopped up and muffled at the same time, preventing funny looks from other tourists.

  ‘Thees church not complete when I die,’ he’d whispered with what would have been a lump in what would have been his throat. ‘Always I want to see thees masterpiece, thees place to honour God. But now what I see? Only greedy wallpaper.’

  ‘There, there.’ Even Perdita had whispered in the dark splendour of the church. ‘Don’t be hard on yourself.’

  But Abbie could see Fernando’s point. Gazing at the exquisite altar with its statues of Jesus and Mary, she wondered why people would kill each other to grab a stack of metal and give it as a gift to God, who hated people killing each other.

  ‘All a bit grand for me,’ Grandma had declared. Abbie agreed. Overawed by the smell of incense and the careful creak of shoes on the wooden floor, she’d followed Grandma outside. An old lady had been sitting by the entrance. She peered at them from a face that needed ironing. Mumbling something in Spanish she’d held out a cup. Grandma had fished out her purse from her bag. Bending down she’d pressed a ten-dollar bill into the lady’s hand.

  The lady’s face had smoothed into a grin. ‘Muchos gracias, señora.’

  ‘You’re welc– aaaaahh.’ There was a cracking sound. ‘Me back!’

  … Which was why Grandma was now at the doctor’s getting painkillers. The others had gone with her while Abbie slipped off to the café to write her first article for The Bradleigh Bellow.

  She reread it. All that history. Dad would be proud of her.

  Dad. A lost puppy whined in her stomach. Mum. Ollie. Coco Pops.

  Abbie pressed ‘Send’ and wrote a quick email home. Then she paid the bill and rushed off to join the others for lunch before the whine became a bark.

  * * *

  Grandma glared across the restaurant table. ‘So what did the doctor say, then?’

  Coriander was the only one who’d understood his Spanish. ‘Well …’ She ran a careful tongue over her lips. ‘He advised that we go to the town of Baños. So you can, um, swing from a bridge. On a rope.’

  ‘What?’ Grandma dropped her spoon in her soup. ‘You must be jokin’! I’d rather eat a guinea pig.’

  Which everyone had just refused to do. The waiter had come to their table and pointed to the back of the restaurant. Abbie had gasped at the line of guinea pigs roasting gently on spits. It wasn’t that she was vegetarian. It was just the sight of those little paws going round and round.

  ‘Just say “No gracias” politely,’ murmured Coriander. ‘It’s a speciality here, called Cuy. People have kept guinea pigs in their homes for food since Incan times.’

  Abbie opted for tortillas de papa – potato cakes with cheese – and fried eggs. Which, when you thought about it, were baby chicks who’d never even seen the world, let alone roasted in it. For two and a half seconds she went off her food. Then she tucked in heartily.

  ‘That doc wants ’is ’ead read if ’e thinks I’ll dangle from a bridge,’ said Grandma, fishing out the spoon from her bowl and licking the handle.

  ‘But he said it’ll straighten your spine,’ said Coriander.

  ‘I’ll come with you,’ said Perdita cheerfully. ‘Sounds fun.’

  Abbie grinned. Who else would offer to swing from a bridge with a grumpy old grumbug? Perdita might have annoyed the pants off her at times this term, but she was still the best friend ever.

  ‘Aahh,’ groaned Grandma. ‘Well, I s’pose it’s worth a try. Anythin’ to get me out of this agony.’

  ‘It’ll mean a slight detour,’ said Coriander. She opened a guidebook on the table. ‘We’ll get to Logroño a day later.’

  A wail came from Grandma’s handbag. ‘But my Carmen! So close we are and steell you delay. How I can wait?’

  ‘You’ll ’ave to,’ moaned Grandma, ‘if I’m to go traipsin’ round the rainforest.’

  ‘And remember,’ said Abbie, ‘we don’t know exactly where your wife fell out. There’s a lot of jungle round Logroño. It could take a while to find her.’ If we ever do, she thought.

  The handbag sulked.

  ‘Where did you say we go for this swingin’?’ Grandma swept Chester off her head to wipe up the soup she’d spilled on the tablecloth.

  ‘Baños.’ Coriander found the page in the guidebook. ‘“This lovely town in the central highlands has natural springs and other outdoor things.”’

  After lunch Abbie, Perdita and Coriander headed for the new part of Quito to stock up for the jungle. When Fernando begged to come too, Abbie put him in her rucksack. In the back of the taxi she checked that the driver’s eyes were on the road ahead. Then she popped Fernando on her palm so that he could look out of the window.

  ‘What happen to my country of conquer?’ he whispered as taxi horns hooted, buses parped and office blocks towered around them. ‘Where the trees, the flowers? Now beeg smelly mess.’

&nbs
p; At the shops Coriander bought binoculars for bird-spotting and pens for clothes-dotting. ‘That’s in case we meet a jaguar,’ she said. ‘We’ll draw spots on ourselves so that he thinks we’re jaguars too.’ Abbie marvelled at the patience of a carnivore who’d wait while she coloured herself in.

  Meanwhile Grandma was back in the Hotel Cóndor, where they’d booked in for the night. She spent the afternoon playing ‘I spy’ with Chester. It went like this:

  1. Grandma's turn. She said 'Somethin'-beginnin'-with.' Then Chester flew onto the Something. It worked well until she chose A for Aeroplane and Chester knocked himself out against the window.

  2. Chester's turn. He curled into the shape of his first letter. If Grandma guessed the word correctly, he jumped back onto her head. If she didn't he landed on whatever was the right answer. That was fine until Grandma said that his 'T' for Trouser Press should have been 'TP' and accused him of cheating. And, as any fool knows, you never accuse chest hair of cheating. Chester dived behind a pot plant and stayed there.

  So Grandma watched a TV quiz game in Spanish and couldn’t answer a thing.

  By the time the others got back, Grandma and Chester were crabbier than crabs who’ve been picked for dinner from one of those restaurant tanks. Because of that, and the early bus ride to Baños the following morning, everyone had dinner and went straight to bed.

  * * *

  On the top floor of the Hotel Armadillo, Brag Swaggenham lay on an operating table. ‘What’s with the buckets?’ he asked nervously, glancing down either side.

  ‘They’re to catch your rings,’ said Dr Banoffee. ‘The anaesthetic will start working any second now. When your fingers go numb the rings will slide off.’

  ‘Now don’t you go nicking ’em,’ said Brag as the first diamond band clanged into a bucket. ‘Ah’ve got twenny-three – and twenny-three ah’m keeping.’

  ‘Don’t worry.’ Dr Banoffee bared his yellow teeth. ‘With the money you’re paying, I could buy a hundred and twenty-three. Now straighten your arms, please. I need to tie you down.’

  Brag’s eyes widened. ‘You what? Ah’m anaesthetised – surely ah shouldn’t feel a thing.’

  ‘True,’ agreed the doctor, tying a rope round his arm. ‘But we can’t be sure. Redesigning fingerprints is groundbreaking science. And finger-stretching is cutting-edge medicine.’ He laid a hand on Brag’s arm. ‘One moment, please, while I fetch the Groundbreaker and the Cutting Edge.’

  Three minutes later Brag Swaggenham, brutal oil baron and tough-guy supreme, was screaming for his mummy.

  * * *

  ‘Hey, look!’ Marcus nearly choked on his porridge.

  ‘Don’t speak with your mouth full, boy. I don’t appreciate seeing your oatie canines over my toast.’

  ‘Sorry, Dad. It’s just … that article’s written by Abigail Hartley.’

  Terry Strode-Boylie snatched The Bradleigh Bellow from his son. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Remember I told you she’s gone to Ecuador with Perdita Platt? Well this letter’s from Quito.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous. The writer’s surname is Absinthe.’

  ‘But look. It says, “when Grandma Hartley-Absinthe smiled and the blanket burst into tears”. Abigail must be using a false name.’

  ‘A pseudonym, you mean. Can you spell that?’

  ‘S-U …’

  Terry glared at his son and scribbled the word on the edge of the paper. ‘I’ll test you later. What the blazes is a girl in your class doing writing for the newspaper? You’re far better at English than she is.’ He raised a warning eyebrow. ‘I hope.’

  ‘Course he is, dear,’ said Genevieve, squeezing Marcus’s arm.

  ‘Good,’ said his dad. ‘Because after school you’re going to write an article. And we’re going to take it to The Bradleigh Bellow. And they’re going to print it.’

  Marcus wiggled his spoon miserably round his porridge. ‘But what do I write about, Dad?’

  Terry scanned Abbie’s article. ‘They’re obviously into gold. Write about winning the gold medal in the Swimathon.’

  ‘He didn’t, dear,’ said Genevieve. ‘He won stainless steel.’

  Terry’s silver eyebrows bunched in fury. ‘I didn’t build the family name by telling the truth, woman! And it paid off. Look at me now.’

  Genevieve looked. And saw a man with thunder in his eyes and jam on his tie.

  12 - Gulp!

  Email: corkyshocka@bradleighbellow.net

  Subject: Letter from the Equator

  OLD SWINGER

  By Abigail Absinthe

  Grandma Hartley-Absinthe spends most Friday mornings at the library. But she spent this one swinging from a rope high above a river.

  We’ve come to Baños in the central highlands so that Grandma can go ‘puenting’. That’s when you leap off a bridge while attached to a rope – like a bungee jump that swings instead of bounces. It’s all the rage here.

  Even so, tour agent José Molina wasn’t keen to let Grandma go. ‘When you are seventy-three, you are not twenty-one,’ he said. But hearing it was the doctor’s orders, and seeing the dollars in Grandma’s hand, Molina understood. ‘When you are seventy-three you have more money than sense.’

  So at ten o’clock she was standing on a bridge above a river, wearing a harness strapped to a rope.

  Tour assistant Eduardo Huerta checked all the fastenings were secure. He looked very pale. But Grandma was grinning from gum to gum (she’d removed her false teeth and wig in case they fell into the river).

  Grandma did the thumbs up at Perdita Platt, who was strapped to another rope next to her. Together they counted to three and dived head first.

  With cries of ‘Bingo!’ and ‘Dreadlocks!’ the plucky pair swung below the bridge. They came to rest a few minutes later above the raging Rio Blanco.

  ‘She fantastico grandmama,’ said Huerta. ‘I wish she mine.’

  Replacing her wig, Grandma Hartley-Absinthe recommended puenting to all pensioners.

  ‘I feel twenty years younger,’ she said, sucking her teeth back in. ‘Not a twinge in me back. I could salsa the day away.’

  Which is exactly what she was doing right now, while Abbie wrote her second email to The Bellow. Coriander and Chester had gone with Grandma to wiggle their hips and shake their curls. Perdita and Fernando had stayed with Abbie in their Baños hotel.

  ‘Finished?’ asked Perdita, looking over Abbie’s shoulder. ‘Let’s go and look round town. I want to get some souvenirs for the class.’

  Guilt did its own little salsa in Abbie’s stomach. Trust Perdita to think of presents. She’d probably buy something for everyone, even Marcus. ‘There’s no room in our luggage,’ she snapped.

  ‘Just little things,’ said Perdita. ‘Come on, Grumpy Guts.’ She jabbed Abbie in the ribs, which didn’t help at all.

  Strolling along the warm streets of Baños, Abbie couldn’t help but cheer up. The breeze breathed life into her bare arms after their woolly imprisonment in England. Shops and stalls lined the pavements, their brightly painted fronts peeling. The air was sweet with the scent of huge red flowers that lined the road. They passed a man lounging in a chair. A boy knelt at his feet and polished his shoes till they gleamed like coals.

  A lady in a long skirt fat with petticoats stopped them. She took out a round cheese from her basket. ‘Delicioso,’ she said, waving it in Abbie’s face.

  ‘No gracias,’ Abbie gasped as sour goat galloped up her nostrils.

  At a street stall the girls bought lemonade and packets of crisps that were pegged along a string like washing. Abbie gazed hungrily at thick ropes of toffee that dangled from the wall. But seeing the flakes of green paint stuck to them she lost her appetite.

  She looked up at the mountains that protected Baños on all sides. Taking a deep breath, she opened Grandma’s handbag. ‘It’s so beautiful, Fernando.’ She lifted him onto her palm, shielding him from sight with her fingers.

  He glared round the street where
tourists strolled in shorts and bikini tops. ‘These people,’ he hissed, ‘why they wear notheeng? No helmet, no armour, no beard. Ay caramba, they naked like bebé!’ He dived back into the bag. Giggling, the girls walked on.

  ‘Hey,’ said Perdita, swigging her lemonade, ‘look at that shop. Bet we’ll find little presents in there.’ Before Abbie could answer she’d dived through the doorway. Abbie followed, banging her head on the low beam.

  Her eyes took a moment to adjust. She peered through the gloom at the tables cluttered with tiny bric-a-brac. ‘Dad would love this old junk,’ she murmured.

  ‘Old it may be. Junk it ain’t,’ squeaked a voice. A little head popped above the counter.

  ‘Oh, sorry,’ Abbie mumbled, grateful for the darkness that hid her blush. ‘It’s just that my dad’s a History teacher and he loves old stuff.’

  ‘Well you’ve come to the right place, Miss. Merv’s my name; old stuff’s my game. Inca knick-knacks, Conquistadornaments …’

  Grandma’s handbag gasped.

  The tiny man’s teeny ears heard nothing. ‘Feel free to browse,’ he said. ‘But remember, I’ll be watching you. Just ’coz it can fit in your pocket doesn’t mean you can fit it in your pocket. Or something.’

  ‘Excuse me,’ said Perdita, all high-and-mighty, ‘we are not thieves.’

  ‘Excuse me,’ said Merv, all low-and-mighty, ‘but you never can tell. I lost me two greatest treasures ten days ago – to a very smart-looking bloke.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Perdita whose heart was bigger than her huff. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Not half as sorry as me, Miss. Waddled in here, all suit and tie and la-di-da. Distracted me with some yarn about flying veg. And next thing I knew, he’d pinched a golden box from the table and was off down the street. Genuine Incan it was – had an engraving of the sun on the lid. Worth a pretty penny, I can tell you.’

  ‘Why didn’t you keep it safe, then, inside a display case?’ said Abbie.