Saving Abbie

by Allan Baillie

  With the cackle of the last retreating monkey, the silence came back. But not as it was.

  There was another sound, a faint drone, like a dragonfly humming over the water.

  She had heard it before. The sound grew, tickling her ear. She unfolded her arms and leaned forward, staring into the mist.

  An engine. An old engine bubbling in the water far ahead.

  Abbie shifted uncertainly.

  A motor with an occasional shudder. The same sound Abbie had heard in the still night in the river town.

  She waited, shivering.

  Ian was fiddling with a spoon at the breakfast table when he felt Mum’s frown. ‘What?’ he said.

  ‘How’s the high school?’

  He shrugged. ‘It’s all right, I suppose.’

  ‘But?’

  ‘No, it’s okay. It’s just different.’

  ‘Uh-huh. You are thinking of Abbie. Don’t get Abbie tangled up with school.’

  Ian jerked his head up in astonishment.

  Mum smiled. ‘Mothers know everything.’

  Ian dropped his eyes. Hope not!

  Yos glanced at Abbie as he slowed the boat and turned the wheel.

  Ki lifted a questioning eyebrow, then picked up the sound and nodded. The slow green boat was drifting to one side of the river and Abbie flicked her eyes to the short stretch of brown water between the boat and the bank.

  ‘Don’t do it, you’ll miss the bananas and milk,’ Ki said to Abbie quietly, but he was making no effort to hold her.

  She turned back and saw another slow boat limping round the bend ahead. Very slowly, as if it was pulling a mountain.

  ‘Oh, him,’ Ki murmured.

  Yos clicked his tongue.

  The other slow boat was about the same size as Yos’s boat, but everything else was different. On Yos’s boat Abbie was sitting on a top deck that ran almost the full length – there was a little spot at the bow where she could sprawl, and at the other end was a high box with no top where people went inside to squat, but that was it. The other boat didn’t have a long top deck, only a short box up front with an open area behind it with a few drums, a large box covered by mouldy grey canvas, and some coils of rope.

  Abbie stared. There was something about the box and the grey canvas …

  Yos’s boat had the smell of fresh paint, with everything aboard polished, swept, folded and put away; but this other boat had peeling dirty yellow paint and the deck looked like the bottom of Ki’s forbidden rubbish pile – without the interesting fruit pieces.

  Then the hairs lifted from Abbie’s neck.

  You know this boat! You know how it is going to smell – burnt oil and dry rot. She slapped her shoulders and scrabbled around the deck. You want to go, you want to go.

  ‘Hohyeh! Take it easy,’ Ki said and reached for Abbie.

  The old straining engine shuddered and coughed as the boat began to clear the bend. It was pulling something. Something low and flat. Abbie looked again at that close bank and shuffled her legs under her.

  But Ki had his hand on her arm. ‘It’s nothing, Abbie. Nothing can happen here.’

  The boat was towing a log side-on, but so slowly there was no bow wave. And there wasn’t just one log.

  ‘Is he there?’ Ki said softly. He tightened his grip on Abbie’s arm.

  Yos grunted. ‘It has to be him. The boat is wandering all over the river.’

  A man seemed to grow from the roof of the yellow boat. Abbie stared at him with widening eyes.

  ‘Gadas!’ Ki hissed the word.

  The man pushed himself up on top and began to steer the boat with his feet on the wheel. He wore a soiled white hat over long black sideburns, hollow eyes and a fixed grin.

  Abbie was breathing heavily, hissing softly through her teeth.

  The boat was towing hardwood logs – so hard they wouldn’t float – tied on top of some other logs that would float. The bark of many were blackened, as if they’d been in a fire.

  ‘If that cockroach hits my boat again with his bloody logs I’ll have his head!’ Yos said.

  ‘Now that’s a great idea.’

  ‘Nah, it’s a junk head. Not worth it.’

  ‘Pity.’

  As the boats passed each other Gadas pointed at Abbie. ‘You got one, hey?’ And rubbed a finger on his thumb. ‘Hey? How much?’

  ‘Maybe I should just let Abbie go. She wants to go to your boat now, maybe she wants a piece of you. Maybe she knows you.’

  Gadas’s grin died a little. ‘Ah, she’s too old now. You keep her, I want the little ones.’ He waved at Ki as if he was saying farewell to an old friend, then turned his back and his yellow boat pulled the logs slowly past.

  Ki lowered his head and murmured: ‘But you didn’t want Cas, not the baby orang without an arm …’

  As he swung from the bus, Ian saw Thick Lip and his bunch kicking around the gate.

  They’re waiting for you.

  He hesitated on the footpath as the stream of students flowed around him.

  Come on, that’s stupid, they’ve got to have other things to think about apart from you. But … maybe wait a bit, until the bell goes. He began to shuffle away from the gate. This is stupid. Worse than that. He suddenly ran at the school’s mesh fence, clawed to the top and went over.

  But Thick Lip saw him. ‘Hey, out of sight Monkey Breath!’

  The laughter followed him all the way into the school.

  Abbie watched the yellow boat turn until it reached the next bend and then her body stopped trembling. But the logs were still passing her. It took a long time for the last log to slide away from her. After that the river became lonely and quiet. Yos moved his boat away from the bank and increased its speed enough to make the engine mutter sourly. The mists lifted from the water and the sun began to scorch the green deck.

  Abbie was glaring at the still jungle and shifting about the deck when the engine suddenly stopped. ‘Hey!’ Ki stood up beside Abbie and waved.

  A blonde woman was standing on a floating landing that jutted out from the jungle. She looked as if she had been waiting for a week, but she waved back and flashed a smile.

  ‘That’s Anne,’ Ki said to Abbie. ‘You’ll like her. She’s nicer than me.’

  But Abbie wasn’t interested in Anne. She was looking past her, to a rickety ramp connecting the floating landing with a high wooden track leading into the jungle. Gistok was lying back on the ramp like she was Lady of the River.

  Abbie clapped her hands. You knew Gistok would be in charge! Anywhere.

  Gistok ignored her.

  As the momentum pushed the boat towards the landing Yos lifted himself out onto the deck. He jumped lightly onto the landing, turned and caught his moving boat, stopping it from touching. He used his foot to deflect a bobbing canoe.

  Anne smiled at Abbie and reached up for her hand. ‘Hello, Abbie.’

  Abbie lifted her hands to Anne’s cheeks, staring into her eyes.

  ‘She’s seen Gadas,’ said Ki quietly.

  Anne kept her head motionless in Abbie’s hands for a long time. Finally she cocked an eyebrow. ‘Okay?’

  Abbie took Anne’s waiting hand, swung down to the landing, and waddled beside Anne towards Gistok and the ramp.

  ‘Abbie?’ Ki waved goodbye as Yos pushed his boat from the landing and jumped aboard. The bow caught the current and turned slowly downriver. ‘I’ll see you sometime.’

  Abbie waved once, then turned to face Gistok with the touch of a grin. She blew a raspberry at Abbie, but took her free hand and joined Anne in escorting her into Pondok Tanggui.

  The wooden road led past swamp grass and bushes to a couple of small buildings and a track into the jungle. Gistok stayed with Abbie as far as the buildings, then swung into the trees ahead of her.

  Almost immediately Abbie saw something huge among the trees and pulled her hand from Anne.

  Anne stopped. ‘What’s the matter?’

  Abbie shook her head.

  A
cage sat among the trees, a cage as tall as a sapling, as broad as Ki’s house. And Gistok was moving around in it.

  ‘Oh, the cage. It’s for sick orangs, it’s not for you. Only if you come back all the time. Then it’s punishment.’

  Two men walked past Abbie, carrying bananas and a bucket of milk. Gistok was climbing around inside the cage – ah no, outside the cage, Abbie realised with relief. The cage was not for her, for someone else. Abbie turned away and watched the bananas-and-milk men instead.

  ‘Okay?’ asked Anne.

  Abbie pressed her lips together as she looked up at Anne, then waddled beside her, past the cage and into the jungle. They walked together for a long time, across roots, fallen trees, sluggish creeks. And the trees became taller and closer.

  Suddenly several orangs crashed through the foliage, ambushing Anne, climbing over her. ‘Get out of it, you lazy monkeys!’

  A male leaped to Anne’s shoulder and beamed at her.

  ‘Not a chance.’ Anne pushed him down. ‘I am not carrying any of you.’

  The male orang lifted his upper lip in regret but he allowed her to put him aside.

  ‘You see what we’re up against, Abbie. Just a bunch of louts. We shall ignore them.’

  Abbie looked up at Anne and wrinkled her nose as she loosened the other orangs from her shoulders.

  It would be nice to be carried …

  ‘Don’t look at me like that. You walk.’

  The orangs took to the trees, capering in the high branches above. They were a little bigger than Abbie, but not quite as big as Gistok. They made Abbie and the other orangs downriver look like a bunch of old men hanging around the trees. Wide-eyed, Abbie watched the male make a long swing from a supple sapling to the top of a stag – a dead tree, upright still, but dead. He used his weight to force the stag to tilt across a clearing, and left it leaning perilously as he chased the orangs through the canopy.

  ‘Clowns, all of them,’ Anne said. ‘Don’t you think so?’

  Abbie looked at Anne, still holding onto her hand. She opened her mouth and sighed. I might have gone with the others, if you weren’t holding onto me. But still, the men with the bananas and the milk were up ahead, so just keep on following them …

  She shuffled clumsily along the jungle floor as she watched the orangs dance overhead, making the trees thrash together.

  The men unloaded their bananas and milk on a high stand in the middle of a clearing. Abbie clambered onto the stand and groped for the bananas as the dancing orangs slithered from the canopy and whirled about her. Apart from a flash of teeth from a sour female who wanted the banana Abbie had taken, the orangs accepted her with a casual eye and a nudge.

  Abbie rubbed the side of her head and looked around her.

  There was no sign of Gistok, not on the busy stand, not on the fallen logs, nowhere in the now silent trees. She had disappeared after climbing over the big cage. As if she had given up eating bananas and milk for a better food.

  ‘Bye now,’ said Anne.

  Abbie looked down from the stand and saw the men tramping away along the jungle track. Anne waved a little at Abbie and then she was gone. Abbie half waved back with a loose hand. Then she finished her banana, drank some milk and left to make a nest.

  Ian stopped on the steps of the school and watched Thick Lip and his bunch shoving each other at the gate.

  What, go out by another gate? Now you can’t do that, can you? The problem is always going to be there. Another gate, another bunch of kids. You haven’t changed, have you? The same scared little kid who didn’t want to go up into the wreck. You want to stay safe on the beach. Always.

  Thick Lip noticed him and waved.

  But you finally did. You climbed onto the wreck and you were there with Reene and Abbie with the storm and the sinking. You are mates after that. So how come the clowning? How come you aped Abbie for those kids? Would you do that to Reene?

  Ian stumbled down a step and Thick Lip and his bunch grinned.

  The storm, the black storm. Nothing could be worse than that. Nothing.

  Ian walked slowly towards the gate.

  Abbie climbed from her nest, turning a small twig between her thumb and forefinger. She flicked the twig away and watched its tumble. It reminded her of when she and Komo dropped things on Ki. But there is no Komo here. That is sad. But there is Gistok. Where is Gistok? She doesn’t make nests. She would stay near the people and the river.

  Abbie followed the track she had waddled along the day before, but this time she stayed in the canopy. She was moving with care, shifting her weight from each solid branch, but even so she was travelling far faster than she would on the ground. She stopped a few times to nibble a few berries and leaves, listening to the sounds around her so she had a direction.

  She reached the large cage, dull metal in the sunlight, and swarmed over it. Gistok wasn’t there. Nothing was there, just long grass and insects.

  Then she heard a shout from the river.

  Abbie drifted past the buildings and over the wooden track. She stopped in a thick tree and that’s when she saw Gistok. And Harry.

  For a moment she remembered Ian and saw a fast boat pulling away from the wharf. She looked around, but Harry was alone. He was on the causeway with his arms stretched out.

  Gistok lumbered down the causeway, accelerating as she neared Harry. She leaped at him from a distance, landing on his chest and clutching at his shoulders. He staggered back and beamed at her.

  ‘You missed me, hey? Yeah, you missed me.’

  Gistok rolled back her black lips, showed her teeth and nibbled Harry’s neck.

  ‘Getoffit!’ Harry pushed Gistok away and rolled her in the dust. But he was grinning.

  Gistok shook some of the dust from her tawny hair and crabbed across the causeway after Harry. ‘Ah, want me now? Well, come on, come on.’ Harry back-pedalled, lifted his hands as if he was preparing to lash out, but his hands never closed into fists.

  Gistok waddled around Harry, swinging her long arms, while Harry patted her cheeks. ‘Too slow, too slow …’

  She lunged to the right and then quickly went the other way to catch Harry off-balance. She grabbed his right leg, toppling him in the track and bouncing on his belly. They rolled and wrestled in the dust, with Gistok nipping Harry’s arms and legs and Harry tickling Gistok’s ribs. Then they broke apart, panting, Harry to drink from a water-bottle, Gistok to eat some leaves.

  Abbie sat in her tree and turned a leaf to catch the sun specks.

  Ian. Ian wasn’t like Harry at all. He never wrestled with her, but he did scratch her head and rub her arms and he sometimes shared his milkshake with her. And he always talked to her …

  She rubbed the top of her head slowly and smacked her lips together. Wish Ian was here. Why isn’t he here like Harry?

  Harry sat on the ramp and looked up to Gistok. ‘I got to go home for a bit.’ Gistok was rocking the dug-out canoe tied tightly under the wharf. She snorted.

  ‘I’ll be back, you know that.’

  Gistok prodded the thick knot that held the canoe, and stared at the river.

  ‘Ah, come on, don’t be like that.’

  After a short time they wrestled again. When they were both too tired to continue Harry passed his water-bottle to Gistok before waving down a passing boat. Gistok ignored Harry’s farewell wave but she watched his boat until it was out of sight. Then she drank his bottle dry.

  Abbie rested her hand on her head for a bit, and swung away.

  ‘Hey, Monkey Breath, give us your dance!’ called Thick Lip.

  ‘No.’ Ian shook his head.

  Thick Lip look astonished. ‘No? What is this? Hey guys, the Monkey Breath is hassling us.’ He moved in the way of Ian.

  ‘I don’t want to. I want to go home.’ Ian stepped sideways.

  Thick Lip moved in his way again. ‘Hey, he talks. A monkey that talks.’

  Ian looked up at Thick Lip. ‘It is an orangutan.’

  ‘Yeah, ye
ah, monkeys, oranges, what’s the difference?’

  Ian blinked, licked his lips. He thought. Has to be, no other way. He kept his voice down, sitting on a nervous quiver. ‘What’s different is that the orangutan is an ape. Like us.’

  ‘You calling me a dumb ape?’

  Ian swallowed. ‘Some orangs seem to be smarter than some guys.’

  Thick Lip cocked his head, as if he wasn’t quite sure what he heard. Then the bunch roared in laughter. ‘Hey!’ he shouted and swung.

  It was a short fight. Ian dodged the first punch, he even hit Thick Lip in the eye, but then Thick Lip clouted him in the lip, the stomach, the ear …

  He was sprawled in the dirt and he heard a girl shouting.

  ‘Come on, Tash.’ One of the bunch. ‘Leave the mad kid.’

  Thick Lip snorted from far above, and he was gone.

  Then there was someone’s squatted knee. ‘You all right?’

  Ian pulled his head up from the ground and focussed at a girl with glittering butterfly glasses. ‘Wasn’t as bad as the ship,’ he said.

  Abbie was snacking from a termite nest when she heard shouting from the river. Not Harry this time. This time the shouting was done by several men. Not angry, but not happy either.

  She licked her fingers. Perhaps she’d had enough termites for a while. She swung down and saw Gistok across the river, picking berries very slowly at the top of a lush tree.

  Abbie stared at the canoe in the edge of the mud under Gistok’s tree. Across the river. The last time she saw that canoe it was being pushed out of the way by Yos’s foot and it had been knotted tightly several times under the wharf on this side of the river. It looked as if a man had paddled across but all the men were on the wharf waving and shouting. At Gistok.

  She shivered for a moment.

  She could remember how it was when she was in a canoe like that. Ian had gone in Yos’s green boat and she’d wanted to follow him. She’d grabbed a post, and the current was pulling at the canoe, almost taking her into the open water. But Gistok had managed to cross the river. Alone.

  Finally one of the men took most of his clothes off and dived into the river. Gistok watched him with interest as she nibbled her berries. The man pulled himself onto the canoe, called to Gistok and waved in invitation. But Gistok just threw a twig down at him and kept on eating.