by David Alric
‘The Seven Hills is another name for Rome,’ said Grandpa, ‘and of course the mountain of fire must be the great volcano Vesuvius – we’re talking about Italy.’
‘Well, that’s all I know about him,’ said Lucy. ‘Any ideas?’
‘None at the moment; let’s leave him and come back to him. Who came last?’
‘Now, he’s really mysterious. He talked to lots of animals and – wait for this – he had a ring of fire round his head that stayed there till the day he died.’
Grandpa fell deep into thought once again.
‘I know who this is,’ he said after a few moments, ‘and so do you. But I can see why you didn’t understand the ring of fire. Pictures with rings of fire in them aren’t so much in fashion as they used to be and you probably haven’t seen many.’
‘Many? I don’t think I’ve seen any!’ said Lucy, mystified.
‘I think the “ring of fire” must be a halo,’ said Grandpa. ‘Does that help?’
‘A saint!’ exclaimed Lucy. ‘He was a saint. I know – it was St Francis of Assisi!’
‘Well done,’ said Grandpa. ‘I’m sure that’s who it must have been.’ He paused for a moment. ‘It’s fascinating that the animals could actually see his halo – they obviously do have some kind of sixth sense that enables them to detect things that are invisible to humans.’ They both fell silent for a few moments, marvelling at the thought of animals being able to perceive the halo of a saint.
‘Wasn’t there a story,’ said Lucy, returning to their discussion, ‘about someone who took a thorn out of a lion’s paw? It always seemed a bit unlikely to me that the lion would have let him get anywhere near a sore paw, never mind poke around at it!’
‘You’ve got it!’ exclaimed Grandpa. ‘Androcles and the lion. He was a Roman slave – so that fits perfectly with the Seven Hills story. Like you, I’ve always wondered about that thorn-in-the-paw story. It makes so much more sense if we assume Androcles possessed your power.’
‘I’m really glad that we’ve solved these “mystery men”,’ said Lucy. ‘Knowing about these famous people and thinking that they had the same power as I have makes me feel less of an oddity and more part of a plan which is somehow going to end in something good.’
Grandpa was thrilled to hear her say this. He and Grandma had been very worried by the fact that her powers seemed to make her different from all other humans – even her own family. Yet now she could relate to other people, all of them apparently good or even saintly, who had shared her gifts, and this made her part of something she clearly believed would be of benefit to all creatures. They sat thinking for a while, looking at the sea and the waves crashing endlessly on the shore.
‘Now,’ Grandpa said eventually, ‘what about today’s developments?’
‘Well, Jonathan seemed very comfortable with your idea of my only doing something I can cope with while I’m still at school. They’ve already asked Tibbles about my cuddly toys – can you believe it? – and he’s going to find out whether the kangaroos or the jaguars have any problems for me to think about. Now that’s something I need to ask you about; well, two things really. The first is that he said his own kin lived in the great river of the junglefangs – that’s jaguars by the way. I thought that dolphins only lived in the sea.’
‘The great river of the junglefangs has to be the Amazon and its tributaries,’ said Grandpa, ‘but I certainly didn’t know dolphins went up it. Let’s look it up after tea. What was the other thing?’
‘That’s even more intriguing. He says he’s going to check out things with the kangaroos and the jaguars and let me know tomorrow. When I asked him how he could do that, he said he did it through the whales; that they spoke through the Great Salt. What does that mean, and how can it possibly work faster than a bird can fly?’
Once more Grandpa became excited by what she had said.
‘Whale song,’ he said. ‘Of course! Whales can sing under water,’ he explained to Lucy, ‘and they use the special noises they make to communicate over thousands of miles. Sound travels more than four times as fast under water as it does through the air, so it travels vast distances very quickly. Not only that, but there’s a special “sound channel” about one kilometre below the surface that’s something to do with the physics of seawater and temperature and all sorts of complicated things. Anyway this channel – I think the scientists call it the SOFAR channel – can transmit sounds for thousands and thousands of miles around the earth under the water and it’s thought that whales use this channel for their songs.’
‘What does SOFAR stand for?’ asked Lucy, fascinated. She wasn’t quite sure if she believed what Grandpa was telling her.
‘I’m not sure exactly – something like “sound fixing and ranging” – we can look it up on the internet when we get home. The physicists have known about it for ages and submarines used to use it if their radios didn’t work. Once, the noise of an underwater bomb set off in Australia was heard over three hours later in Bermuda; the noise had travelled round half the world under the sea. It’s thought that, before ships’ engines made so much noise, whales could use sound and infrasound to communicate over thousands of miles. Now it’s much more difficult for them because of all the noise generated by manmade things – another example of how man, even unconsciously, can mess up things that animals have taken millions of years of evolution to attain. Apparently whales can “shout”, however. A blue whale can generate more noise than a jet aeroplane, so we think they can still communicate over vast distances despite man’s interference with their systems, and that, presumably, is how your Jonathan will find out overnight what’s happening in Australia and South America.’
Lucy was impressed. ‘That’s really spooky,’ she said at last, ‘and I’m just thinking how useful that’s going to be in the future.’
‘How do you mean?’ asked Grandpa.
‘Well, I don’t know exactly what I’m going to end up doing for the animals,’ said Lucy, ‘but whatever it is, it has to be a good thing for me to be able to use that kind of long-distance messaging service.’
Grandpa agreed and was struck by the fact that she was already thinking about the future possible use of her special powers. That evening he took down his big book on the River Amazon and gave it to Lucy.
‘Dolphins – here we are,’ said Lucy, running her finger down the index. She turned to the appropriate page and began to read. ‘Gosh,’ she said, ‘Jonathan was right. There are special river dolphins that go deep into the jungle along the river.’
Her eye wandered down the page which was full of interesting details of the many other creatures inhabiting the river: half of all the freshwater species of fish; giant otters and electric eels that could stun or even kill a man with a shock of several hundred volts. Fascinated, Lucy decided to read the book properly and turned to the beginning where she read about the Amazon itself. The river, the largest in the world, apparently carried one-fifth of all the running fresh water on the planet and was up to sixty-five kilometres wide in places. The Amazon rainforest was by far the largest on earth and contained the greatest diversity of animal and plant species to be found anywhere. She read of the many different benefits that had come from the plants of the rainforest: rubber, which had changed the world in countless ways; hundreds of medicines including the first cure for malaria; chicle, the sap from which chewing gum was made; the cacao tree from which chocolate was made; and how there were vast numbers of unknown plants, fungi and insects that might produce new foods or medicines.
Lucy read on, utterly absorbed in the incredible world of the Amazon, but then she came to a new chapter and her enjoyment was shattered. For the chapter was about the destruction of the rainforest as it was cleared for timber, for ranching, for development, for access, for mining – much of it illegal – and many other reasons. Lucy stared at the page in disbelief; apparently an area of rainforest larger than the country of Wales was being destroyed every year. The book went on to say that,
as the forest was destroyed, thousands of species, many of which were completely unknown, were being extinguished.
Scientists estimate, she read with horror, that across the world something between 20,000 and 80,000 species are driven into extinction every year – probably about 100 a day. As well over half the species on earth exist in the tropical rainforests, that is where most of the extinction is occurring. While you have been reading this chapter a species has become extinct.
Lucy took the book over to Grandpa.
‘How can this be true, Grandpa?’ she said, pointing to the terrible statistics. ‘If all those species are becoming extinct how can there possibly be any left?’
Grandpa read the page in detail before answering.
‘Don’t forget’, he said, ‘that they are talking about all species, including thousands of plants and thousands of different tiny mites and bugs, which make the figures seem much worse than you might at first think.’
Lucy was somewhat relieved by this but was still shaken by what she had learnt.
‘Can I take this book to bed, Grandpa?’ she asked. ‘In fact, can I take it home with me when I go?’
‘As long as you don’t read any more of that particular chapter tonight,’ said Grandpa. ‘You’re tired and it’s making you depressed. Read about all the wonderful animals and plants and remember that somebody, somehow, will make sure that most of them survive. Nothing really bad lasts for ever.’
Lucy went to bed and followed his advice. She read about the magnificent jaguar, lord of the jungle; the sloth, hanging upside down in the trees; the anteaters; the giant ten-metre-long anaconda, the largest snake in the world; the cayman – a type of crocodile – that grew over six metres long; the armour-plated armadillo; the amazing variety of monkeys ranging from spider monkeys using their prehensile tails as a fifth limb, down to the tiny pygmy marmoset, the size of a mouse and the smallest monkey in the world. She read about the herds of peccaries or wild pigs who could attack large snakes with their razor-sharp hooves and long, sharp tusks; the tapir, looking like a bizarre cross between a small elephant, a rhino and a hippopotamus; and the coati mundi, a playful creature related to racoons and pandas with a long bushy tail and a delightful nature that made it popular as a pet in almost every village.
Eventually she fell asleep and dreamed of the tropical paradise where her jaguars roamed and ruled.
Lucy was bleary-eyed after her late-night reading and received a gentle scolding from her grandmother when she appeared late for breakfast.
‘What will your mother say to me when you go back looking worse?’ she said. ‘You’re meant to be here to get your strength back, not to stay up half the night reading Grandpa’s animal books.’
Lucy promised to have an early night that evening and then persuaded Grandpa to give her a lift to the dolphinarium so she would be in time to feed the animals.
‘Greetings, O Promised One,’ said Jonathan after she had finished helping Catherine and Steve and settled down to talk to him. ‘The Great Ones have told me many things while the Brilliant One slept beneath the Great Salt. From the marsupihops in the Great Southern Land there is nothing new to report but there is news from the junglefangs, news of great concern to all that live near the mighty river of the West. Some wicked Tailless Ones have captured many of their kin and are keeping them in one place. There are more of them there than have ever been gathered together before; they are treated very badly and they fear greatly what is to become of them.’
Lucy couldn’t imagine why somebody should be collecting large numbers of jaguars, but the animals clearly believed that something sinister was going on and she trusted their instincts.
‘I will make a plan to help,’ she told Jonathan, ‘but I need to know exactly where the junglefangs are held.’
‘My kin have already told me this,’ said the dolphin, ‘but the way in which we understand these things is very different to your own and I know not how best to make it clear to you.’ He then told her many things, to help her identify the campsite, all of which she wrote down. They included the colour of the water in the river, the islands and forks in the river, natural features in the landscape and, of major importance as it turned out, information that the birds had provided concerning the exact time the sun rose at the campsite. This was expressed in terms of other places north and south where the sun rose at the same time. One of these was a great city near the shore of the Salt of the Many Islands which Lucy was sure Grandpa would recognize from its description.
‘We know not how the fledgiquills are aware of these things,’ the dolphin had said, ‘but just as I can feel from the water upon my body whither I go and whence I come in the Great Salt, the fledgiquills know deep in their bones about the Brilliant One and its ways.’
Soon Grandma and Grandpa came to collect her for the last time and she thanked Catherine and Steve and all the dolphins for their help as she said goodbye.
At home, over tea, Lucy told her grandparents about her discussions with Jonathan that day and they were astonished by the apparent scale of the jaguar operation described by the dolphins. Grandpa became very interested when Lucy produced her notes relating to the location of the campsite where the animals were being kept and sat at the table and started to pore over them while Lucy went off to start packing for home.
‘Got it!’ Grandpa suddenly exclaimed in great excitement later that evening. He had been busy for hours with maps and reference books and had twice disappeared to his study to look things up on the internet.
‘Got what?’ asked Lucy.
‘I think I know where the jaguar camp must be,’ he explained. Lucy was delighted.
‘That’s brilliant! Where is it? How did you work it out?’ She went round and stood behind him, looking over his shoulder at the map spread out before him1. Her notes from the dolphinarium were scattered around the map.
‘It’s a bit like solving a special puzzle,’ said Grandpa. ‘The key information was from the birds. They said that sunrise occurs at the camp at the same time as it does in a great city on the coastline of the sea of many islands. What the birds are telling us is effectively the time zone or longitude on which the camp is situated.’ He pointed to the vertical lines of longitude on the map before him. ‘As you can see, the lines of longitude crossing the Amazon basin also cross the Pacific coastlines of Peru and Chile, the Caribbean in the north, and the North Atlantic in the north-east. Now the interesting bit is the mention of islands. Out of the three oceans I’ve mentioned, which do you think is the “Salt of the Many Islands”?’ Lucy looked at the map.
‘Wow!’ she exclaimed. ‘I’d never really looked properly at this part of the world before. It must be the Caribbean Sea. There are dozens and dozens of islands. No wonder the pirates liked it so much for hiding treasure.’
‘Exactly,’ smiled Grandpa. ‘And from the description the birds gave of the city, I think it must be …’ He pointed to a city2 on the coast then picked up a ruler and laid it vertically on the map with one edge passing through the city he had mentioned. With a pencil he drew a line along the ruler down through the entire Amazon basin.
‘Now,’ he continued, ‘the sun rises at the same time everywhere along this line and the camp we know to be situated on a river, so it has to be where one of the tributaries of the Amazon crosses this line.’
Lucy was fascinated. She leant forward to pore over the map, pushing the ruler away so she could see better. Then she frowned.
‘But there are lots of places where that’s true,’ she said rather disappointedly.
‘Ah yes, but don’t forget all these wonderful notes you made,’ said Grandpa looking over the sheets scattered around the table. Finding the one he wanted, he showed it to Lucy. ‘The most important clue to start with is here,’ he pointed, ‘where Jonathan says that, as a dolphin swims up the Amazon, it comes to a great confluence of two rivers where the river is black.’ He turned to the map and pointed to a city called Manaus; Lucy saw that two river
s joined there to become one great river.
‘That confluence is here,’ he continued, ‘and the dolphin is explicit that the camp lies up the black river. That’s the one coming down from the north-west.’ He traced the river with his finger.
‘It’s called the Rio Negro which is Spanish for “black river”. The river looks black because of optical effects produced by a special pigment in it derived from decomposed plant material. As you can see from our pencil line, we’ve now narrowed down considerably the number of possible sites for your jaguar camp – it can only be on one of the tributaries of the Rio Negro. Using these other notes,’ he picked up more sheets off the table, ‘which give details of islands and vegetation and various other clues, I think the camp is here.’ He planted his forefinger firmly on a spot where his pencil line crossed a tiny blue line representing a tributary of the river they had been focusing on. ‘I’ve looked up this area in my various books and on the internet and can find nothing about it. It’s incredibly remote and, as far as anyone knows, remains unexplored. Heaven only knows what anyone is doing with captive jaguars out there, but whatever it is they are obviously very keen that nobody finds out. There can be few better places on earth to hide something.’ He replaced his right forefinger with his left, on the same spot, pulled a pad towards him and picked up the pencil again. ‘While we’ve got it pinned down let’s note the map reference so we won’t ever have to go through all the clues again.’ He wrote down the exact location of the spot in degrees of latitude and longitude and gave the pad to Lucy. ‘There it is. That’s your spot.’ Lucy glanced from the numbers on the pad in her hand to the map on the table in wonderment.
‘It’s amazing, isn’t it? A dolphin tells me a few details about a place in the middle of the largest jungle on earth and now we know exactly where it is.’ She paused and turned and a furrow appeared in her brow.