Saving Abbie

by Allan Baillie

  The stick snapped in its hand, tumbling the monkey, screaming, with only a few leaves clutched in its fingers. It hit the flattened leaves on Abbie’s side of the river.

  The tribe of monkeys shrieked.

  The small monkey bounced to its feet. It looked up at them and flashed its teeth nervously.

  And the monkeys kept on shrieking.

  So the small monkey turned and began racing for Abbie’s tree. But it saw Abbie sitting there and faltered.

  Then the leaves burst apart a metre from the small monkey. It started to run again, skimming across the leaves like a flung stone, leaping high to clutch the trunk.

  But not high enough. A crocodile rose from the water and snatched the small monkey from the trunk as neatly as an orang with a banana.

  The monkey tribe yowled and ran wildly about the trees, then eventually became quiet. Abbie squeezed Pebble to her body so hard that he whimpered. When she swung slowly away from the silent river her arms were trembling.

  ‘I hate Maths Two,’ Ian muttered bleakly from his dining-table.

  Becky looked up from her books on the other side of the table. ‘You hate Science, Economy, Physics, English – you hate everything.’

  ‘Especially Macbeth.’

  ‘I thought you were getting into it.’

  ‘Oh, I feel the guilt of the murdering king. All the time.’

  ‘Guilt? Abbie?’

  ‘Guilt?’ Mum shoved her head in from the kitchen. ‘Hah! He doesn’t know the meaning of the word. D’you know he’s getting ready to fly off to Borneo?’

  ‘Sort of.’ But Becky arched an eyebrow at him.

  ‘Oh, leave him be,’ Dad called from the lounge. ‘He’s big enough.’

  ‘The size doesn’t matter. It’s the age. He hasn’t got the experience.’

  ‘Hey, I’m old enough for a job.’ Ian was looking at Becky. ‘I can almost drive.’

  ‘Let him go, Alice,’ yawned Dad. ‘We know where he’ll be. And there was nothing to worry about in Tanjung Harapan besides thieving orangs.’

  ‘All right, all right, buy the air tickets, Ian.’ Mum snorted and withdrew her head. ‘But I don’t like it.’

  ‘I was going to tell you when it was fixed,’ Ian said apologetically to Becky.

  ‘It’s all right. I knew you were going. You know Abbie could be living it up in a lovely piece of jungle full of fruit trees.’

  ‘I wish. Now is the time when the loggers start their fires and nobody seems to stop them. I should be doing something about it. But what?’

  ‘Never mind, in a month you won’t have to worry about either Macbeth or the exams and you can escape into your jungle.’

  ‘If there’s any of it left.’

  One afternoon Abbie heard a man shouting, like the banana-milk rangers at the old places. She swung towards the noise, almost without thinking.

  Or was the shouting like Gadas …? She stopped, hanging between two trees. She would have liked a couple of bananas. They were rare in the jungle. And especially she liked the milk. The sweet milk just did not exist in the jungle. But the taste wasn’t worth the risk. Not now.

  She hadn’t seen people for a long time. Maybe Ian is at the shouting. That doesn’t make sense. Like The Mountain pushing over a huge stag. That doesn’t make sense but he still does it.

  A couple of small orangs clambered past Abbie, grinning briefly at her while they chased each other through the canopy.

  She could stay safe in the leaves, and just look. Abbie rocked her body and reached for the branch she had originally been after. She followed the young orangs with a smooth movement, and without making any effort at all to catch up.

  Then she saw him. He was a ranger, shouting, beating a yellow basin with a stick near a high wooden stand in a small clearing. It was like the stand Gistok used to hang around, but the trees here were taller and older. There were some bananas on the stand and the two orangs dropped down to join some others, and some people with flashing cameras.

  It was safe.

  Next to a short woman with a bag on her back there was a tall man with sandy hair. He lowered his camera and scratched the back of his ear, like Ian used to do. Abbie blinked, and moved in an arc around the wooden stand to see the face of the tall man.

  The sandy hair was right for Ian, but that man was so tall, even taller than The Mountain. But not as broad. Nothing was as broad as The Mountain. The face, it could be Ian’s …

  Abbie slid down a tree trunk and moved towards the man.

  The man flinched.

  ‘Hey!’ The ranger put the yellow basin down hurriedly and turned to Abbie.

  ‘It’s after me!’ said the tall man, with a slight quiver in his voice.

  Abbie stopped in disappointment.

  Not Ian. The eyes were different.

  ‘Don’t be silly, Clive, she’s not interested in you,’ said the woman with the bag. ‘More likely she wants the milk.’ She pulled the bag round from her back, lifted what seemed to Abbie to be a little pink animal from the bag, and pointed at Abbie. The little pink animal looked at her and yawned. It was wearing a small blue hat.

  ‘Hey!’ The ranger yelled at Abbie and struck the poles of the stand with his stick. Abbie frowned back and sucked in a breath through her trumpet lips, a kissing squeal.

  What are you doing, man?

  ‘No, no!’ said the ranger quickly. ‘You are too big, too old, mother. This is for orphans. All right?’ He banged his stick on the ground between Abbie and him.

  ‘Oh, what?’ The woman looked cross.

  Pebble squeaked in fear and Abbie made a soft hoot to calm him as she stared darkly at the ranger.

  ‘All right? Get off!’ The ranger moved towards Abbie and struck the ground with the metre-long stick again. Abbie didn’t move her eyes from the ranger, but she whipped her right hand across to a slender sapling near her shoulder, and bent it down to swat the ranger as if he was a fly.

  ‘Wo!’ he yelled, covering his head and capering sideways.

  Abbie swatted the ranger another two times, then released the sapling to quiver back to its original height.

  The woman laughed as the little pink animal with the blue hat stared back at Pebble.

  The ranger backed off, a little sheepishly.

  ‘Serves you right. That’s what I would have done too!’ the woman said.

  Abbie relaxed, grinning.

  The woman lifted the little animal up and she smiled at Abbie with a touch of pride.

  Oh, that is a people baby! Abbie realised. She craned her neck to see it better but kept the sapling within reach just in case. The woman took the baby out of the bag, squatted and waddled slowly, clumsily towards Abbie.

  ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea, Sue,’ said the tall man.

  ‘It’s all right. Isn’t it?’ She was talking to Abbie.

  Abbie watched the rocking movement of the approaching woman, then looked at the baby in wonder.

  The people baby was a little bigger than Pebble but there was no hair, just a little bit around the bottom of the hat. It was mainly pink skin, where you could see it – there were clothes everywhere! And big staring eyes, like Pebble’s but blue. But those short legs and arms and tiny fingers! How can it use them to move around and cling? It can’t; that’s why it is carried in a bag.

  ‘How’s things?’ the woman kept moving forward. Abbie shifted back a little. Ah, what do you want?

  The woman stopped at arm’s length from Abbie and beamed at her. ‘Galum,’ said the baby and smiled at Pebble. Pebble tilted his head and frowned.

  The baby reached out and clutched at empty air.

  ‘Well, I don’t know …’

  Pebble plucked a leaf from behind Abbie’s head, sniffed at it and swung free to hold it near the baby’s hand.

  The woman’s smile weakened. But the baby said ‘Camum,’ and leaned from the woman’s body to touch Pebble’s finger. For a moment it seemed to be puzzled, moving its eyes from Pebble’s hand
to his face and back again. Finally it took the leaf.

  ‘Hey, now,’ said the woman as the smile swept back.

  The ranger was carrying the yellow basin towards Abbie, now that the small orangs had finished with it. Abbie could hear some milk in the basin, but she was looking warily at the ranger’s stick. The ranger hesitated, threw it away and passed the basin to Abbie. ‘Truce?’ he said.

  Abbie studied the ranger for a moment, then took the basin from him. She carefully tipped it, and drank the remains of the milk without losing a drop.

  ‘Do you know her?’ the woman said.

  The ranger shook his head. ‘She’s new to Camp Leakey.’

  ‘Wild?’ The woman was trying to take the leaf from the baby.

  The ranger shook his head again. ‘Nah, she wasn’t worried about the camera flashes, and she’s not worried about you. She used to be an orphan, probably from downriver.’

  ‘She was wild enough when she used that sapling. C’mon, give.’

  ‘That’s a different wild, I guess.’

  ‘Yeah. Goes with a baby.’ The woman pulled the leaf from the baby’s clenched fist.

  The baby shrieked across the jungle, a sound that would carry to the river. Pebble hid behind Abbie’s head as Abbie scuttled up a tree, to the safety of the canopy. She stared down at the people baby and rocked her head as if to shake the terrible sound from her ears.

  ‘Well?’ Becky was frowning.

  ‘Oh yes, I’m going all right. Just after Mac … after The Scottish Play.’

  ‘You don’t look happy about it.’

  ‘It’s not that. It’s just that it’s not raining up there in Borneo.’

  ‘Ah, yes.’

  ‘It should be pouring, monsoon, all over Borneo. The loggers’ fires should have been put out, but El Nino has fouled up the weather.’

  ‘Oh, your jungle – Abbie’s jungle – is on fire.’

  ‘Not yet. There’s just a lot of fires burning a long way away and there’s no rain to stop them …’

  Two days later Abbie woke in the early morning and sniffed the faintest wisp of burnt green wood. She sat up in her nest, ignoring Pebble’s murmured complaint, but there was nothing to see.

  The wet season is coming already?

  Abbie had noticed that before the rains there was a smell of burning and the sky began to whiten. She didn’t know why, but it happened every time.

  She rubbed Pebble’s bald head and curled her lip. It’s all right, nothing to worry about. Abbie forgot about the burning smell and began to look for breakfast.

  She was munching fresh leaves at the top of a tree when she glimpsed the edge of a small wooden roof through the canopy. She rubbed her nose and moved closer. A house in the trees? Last time she saw one the boy Ian was there. He couldn’t be there now, could he?

  The roof was sitting on a weather-worn hut on a tower. The tower was taller than the fully grown trees – it seemed to be striding through the jungle.

  And there was someone in the open. Just a shadow in the distance, but there was something about the way he leaned on the rail and tilted his head that looked very familiar.

  Abbie whipped through the leaves, stretching her body, her fingers hardly touching the branches until she could clearly see the silhouette in the hut.

  It was The Mountain. He was standing hunched with his knuckles widespread on the rail, surveying his jungle. Abbie grunted and slowed down. What, disappointed?

  The Mountain looked down at a wide pool beside the tower and yawned. Abbie saw a couple of slow boats tied to a wharf and realised then that the pool was actually part of the black river she had recently followed. Down that river there were some crocodiles waiting under the flat plants. But here, boys were splashing in the middle of the pool, leaving washed clothes near a female orang. The orang was scrubbing her hands very thoroughly with soap. No crocodiles here?

  The Mountain glanced up and saw Abbie on a low branch. He clapped his hands and began to swing down the outside of the tower. Abbie gave Pebble a worried glance and moved from the tree. He’s just not going to throw Pebble up in the air like Brown Berry!

  She thudded onto a wooden road that ran past the tower, then felt the heat of the sun on the planks and swung quickly underneath them. The Mountain shambled after her, with the boys in the pool calling behind.

  The Mountain shoved Abbie sideways under the planks and for a long moment he and Pebble eyeballed each other, almost touching noses. Then he blew into Pebble’s face. Pebble wrinkled his nose and sneezed as The Mountain rippled his lip smugly at his son.

  But then a boy’s brown arm slithered from the wooden road to wobble one of The Mountain’s cheek flaps. The three boys shrieked in laughter from above. The Mountain leaped onto the wooden road in front of the boys, leaned towards them with those huge arms quivering. And roared.

  The boys scrambled down the road to some low buildings and the Mountain lumbered after them. Abbie patted Pebble reassuringly, climbed into the trees and followed them.

  She saw The Mountain chasing the shrieking boys round the clearing, past an open shelter and a small cage. There was something in the cage.

  One of the boys looked over his shoulder and tripped over a flying leg. He cannoned into the second boy, who clutched at the third boy, bringing down all three in a squealing hump. The Mountain swung himself onto a roof, beating his chest and inflating his cheek pads, and made a loud groaning cry of triumph. The boys scuttled away. He had regained his dignity.

  But Abbie wasn’t looking at him, she was staring at a young ape scampering to the cage. And it was Brown Berry.

  The Mountain dropped to his hands and moved across to the cage. Abbie could make out Cas’s prone form in the shadows of the cage, but she was hardly moving. The Mountain frowned at Brown Berry for a moment, then gripped the bars of the cage with both hands. He rippled his lips and heaved, buckling his huge back. Brown Berry ran around him hooting. The cage moved a little along the ground but the door remained solidly closed.

  ‘Hey!’ The ranger had stepped into the centre of the clearing.

  Brown Berry scuttled under one of the buildings and The Mountain dropped his head a little and took his hands from the cage.

  Another man came up behind the ranger, carrying a brown leather bag. ‘You leave Cas alone, you hear?’ the ranger said. He strode up to the cage and The Mountain shuffled sideways. ‘Everything has got a reason.’

  The ranger unlocked the door with a key that he was carrying in his pocket. But he was unable to pull the door open. Both men couldn’t budge it.

  The Mountain moved between the men, gently bumping them away from the cage. He gripped the bars of the cage door and pulled the door free. But the man with the bag dipped into the open cage and put a flat stick into Cas’s mouth and shone a torch after it. Cas watched the man’s face and opened her mouth wide.

  The man stood up and gave the ranger a small bottle from his bag. ‘She’s just got a touch of flu, that’s all. Get that into her milk.’ He waved at Cas and walked back towards the river.

  The Mountain looked at the bottle, then the ranger and finally Cas. The ranger closed the cage door, holding it shut with a piece of string, but The Mountain did not attempt to stop him. He just looked at Brown Berry for a moment and swung into the trees.

  ‘Lay on, Macduff!’ Ian roared and swung his painted wooden sword at the thin boy.

  The boy shuffled backwards, wobbling his sword in weak defence. Ian hurled his words at him as they crossed the stage and plunged into the wings.

  ‘No, no!’ hissed Luce. ‘Macduff wins this one, and Macduff has the anger. What’s happened?’

  ‘Sorry, I got carried away.’

  ‘Thank God it’s only the dress rehearsal. Get it right!’

  Macduff picked up the papier-mâché copy of Ian’s head and waved it at Ian before he stepped to the edge of the curtain.

  Becky frowned as Ian moved backstage. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘No rain. Bo
rneo is as dry as black toast and the loggers are still lighting fires!’

  Abbie began following The Mountain, but she looked back at the cage, hesitated and stayed. She stared at Cas. Undo the string that holds the door? Finish The Mountain’s attempt? But after the man with the bag came The Mountain left the cage alone: he even helped them. Cas was sick, as though she’d eaten bad fruit. When Cas got better she could undo the string. There are cages and cages …

  For a while Abbie watched Brown Berry doodling unhappily in the dust. Then she patted Pebble and swung away for some fruit. But Abbie found that there was little food in the jungle around the buildings. There were too many orangs in the area, snatching fruits which disappear the moment they ripen. And the termites seem to have gone underground too. She would have to search further away to find a patch of jungle just for her and Pebble.

  Macduff waved Ian’s papier-mâché head as the curtain closed for the last time. ‘Reckon it’s better-looking than Ian’s nut?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Becky grabbed Ian’s hair and tugged. ‘We’ll change it.’

  Ian smiled sloppily. ‘Say anything you like. It’s over.’

  Luce pounded his shoulder. ‘A great effort.’

  Ian wandered through the cast, shaking hands and mumbling, until he found a wall he could lean against. He looked at his trembling hands with astonishment, and then he laughed.

  Becky pulled the ragged wig off her head and shook her hair loose. ‘What?’

  ‘Just remembered. On Albatross Beach Reene said we were lucky. We would never experience terror like the ship again. But I did. Tonight. When I was clanking around at the beginning I saw the audience – and Dad and Mum – and I couldn’t remember what I was supposed to say. I wanted to shrivel up to nothing.’

  ‘You had that look, but you got out of it.’

  Ian nodded and slammed his flat hands against the wall. ‘Now I’ve got to concentrate on finding Abbie.’