by Esther David
‘Kila, you’re worse than the mosquitoes! Leave me alone!’ Hudhud took off, leaving a shocked and hurt Kilkila behind.
Hudhud had kept marching silently for hours. He’d let the flare of anger burn itself out so that he could think with a clear mind.
The day had ended in a sunny, pink-gold night. The herd of caribou had covered a considerable distance and crossed a major river. Coach Clicks was in much better spirits by evening when they halted to grab a bite. Bird calls floated in the air along with the smell of freshly chewed blades of grass. A few of the students took a nap. They lived in a land where the sun didn’t set for months and the nights would last for days. They had no internal body clock and had adapted to taking short naps throughout the day. Hudhud too had decided to rest his eyes but was rudely jolted out of his nap as the wind reduced and the mosquitoes landed on his nose.
‘The final tesssst winner will be Ghazzzzaal …’ the leader buzzed, flying around his eye, which was still half-shut with sleep. ‘More power to women!’ All the other mosquitoes joined her in her cry.
‘How could I forget?’ Hudhud looked at the leader’s sting with disgust. ‘Only the girls are bloodsuckers.’
‘Ha ha ha … Yesssss … The boys can’t bite!’
‘You will see how I bite back!’
The leader doubled up with laughter. ‘Try, try, losssser … This is the lasssst week. Clicksssss will join the other caribou herds very sssssoon.’
But Hudhud had tried his best. And almost won too. Almost. It was not fair … What is fair, anyway? He remembered Nanook’s words as he stared at the herd spread over the rocky incline of the mountain. Rudolph and Kilkila were grazing at a distance, not bothering to come to Hudhud.
‘What is fair, anyway?’ he mumbled to himself. ‘What if Ghazaal were to get hurt … oh, ever so slightly … accidentally … and not be able to participate in the last challenge? This is such a rocky landscape … and isn’t there something about rocks and Ghazaal? Everyone knows there is.’ A wicked smile spread across his face. He searched the herd for Ghazaal but couldn’t see her anywhere. He looked again and, to his surprise, found her standing with Kilkila and tossing her head back in laughter.
Hudhud scowled. Now she was taking over his friends too.
‘As the Old Crow flies!’ Coach Clicks roared and the herd started to move forward.
‘Hello there.’ Hudhud ambled alongside Ghazaal.
‘What do you want?’ she asked suspiciously.
‘Just your company.’ Hudhud smiled. ‘Since I have conceded to my betters … Well, my only better, to be precise.’
Ghazaal looked pleased.
‘Soon we’ll be merging with the other herds … there will be tens of thousands of caribou travelling together. I don’t know if I’ll get the chance to be with such a bright student again.’
‘That assumption is statistically probable,’ Nanook said, passing them.
‘We have hardly talked, except for some … pleasantries, isn’t it?’
‘You could say that.’ Ghazaal trotted ahead with a gazelle’s gait so that everyone could see that Hudhud was following her.
‘You know, from next year, we will be travelling on our own from our winter woodlands to the summer coastal grounds. We’ll be adults and Coach Clicks will move on to the next batch of students.’
‘It will be so much fun to be a grown-up and travel on our own! Although I will miss the challenges …’ Ghazaal said in a faraway tone. ‘Actually, I will miss winning challenges.’
The mosquitoes buzzed with laughter in Hudhud’s ears.
As they chatted, Hudhud trotted sideways all the time, leading her subtly towards the rocks. The terrain, intercepted with rocks everywhere, became rougher. ‘Oh, did I tell you about the time I lost my wits crossing a river? My mother had to swim back with me …’ He kept her busy with idle chatter and stories that portrayed him as a fool of the first order. Ghazaal seemed to be enjoying it immensely.
She fumbled once on a rock.
‘Do you need any help?’ Hudhud asked.
‘Why do you think I need that?’ she said seriously and then laughed aloud.
Hudhud had started to enjoy the light-hearted banter.
Before long, Ghazaal tripped on a rock but didn’t quite fall.
‘Did you twist an ankle?’ Hudhud asked hopefully.
‘Where is the herd?’ asked Ghazaal, clearly unhurt.
Hudhud looked around, mildly surprised. The herd was nowhere to be seen. They had turned on to the rocky slope while the others had taken the simpler route to the top.
‘Are we lost?’ Ghazaal stood straight as a birch tree, alert.
‘I am certain the herd is at the top of the hill and Coach Clicks is waiting for us,’ Hudhud said, feeling not quite certain. He looked at the vast expanse of treeless hills.
The wind bellowed around them, giving them temporary respite from the mosquitoes and flies. Hudhud called for Kilkila and Rudolph but his calls got lost in the roaring wind. Ghazaal started calling too but didn’t even hear her own echo in reply. There were desolate lands below and unforgiving sky above. Hudhud cursed himself silently. What a moron he had been to risk his arse to win a stupid challenge!
‘This is what happens when I don’t discuss plans with Kila!’ he said above the howl of the wind.
‘What?’ Ghazaal suddenly looked as vulnerable as he felt foolish. The only girl in a whole class of boy caribou. No wonder she had to put up a tough, smug front all the time.
‘Let’s start walking towards the mountaintop. We’ll find the herd there.’
Ghazaal started to trip on the stones more frequently in her state of nervousness. ‘Did you hear that?’
‘It’s just the wind,’ said Hudhud, walking forward as they couldn’t run on the stony terrain.
‘Listen …’
Hudhud turned this time and froze in terror. A brown bear was jogging towards them, his speed hindered by the rocks. A ripe, rank smell hit them like a wave and Hudhud stood shocked as the dark form of the bear lunged towards them. They hadn’t been able to smell the danger in time as the wind had dispersed his scent.
‘Run!’ he whispered first, taking a few backward steps. ‘RUN!’ he shouted next.
Ghazaal was already sprinting forward, tripping every two steps.
‘Go, go, go!’ he cried, urging her ahead. His breath came out in short spurts, hot and panicked.
The bear was gaining on them. There was no other caribou in sight, no help at hand. Hudhud’s heart hammered harder as he felt the bear getting closer. When he had reached the ridge beyond which there was level ground, he turned to check on Ghazaal, who was bending and twisting her feet as she moved ahead clumsily.
‘Hurry up! He’s right behind you!’ he shouted from the ridge but his words scattered with the strong wind. He wanted to run away, up and farther up the hill, away from the furry killer.
‘Dude …!’ He thumped his hooves. ‘This is where she chooses to come second!’ She was better than everyone their age at everything, but for the rocks. The darned rocks! And he had got her here!
With a loud grunt to drown his own fears, he trotted back on to the rocks to reach Ghazaal. The smell of the bear, who was just a few rocks away, made his knees go weak, but he nudged her with his snout from the back. ‘Keep going!’
He was behind Ghazaal, who had climbed up to the slope, when he heard a loud huff! and turned to see the bear pounce on them. It was all so quick but it seemed to be happening in slow motion. Hudhud saw the bear’s claws draw out and his jaws open, exposing his terrible canines, saliva forming webs in his mouth.
Without thinking, Hudhud threw himself forward and the bear landed on the nearby rock, slipping on it. The bear got up and clawed Hudhud, who was not quick enough to move this time, and one of the bear’s nails gashed his thigh. Pain shot up his back and the edges of his vision darkened just for a moment. The moment was enough for the bear, as he got up and attacked once again. There was not
hing more that Hudhud could do as he watched the savage beast bare his canines that would soon tear him apart. The only thought that came to his mind was how bad the bear’s breath was.
Suddenly, a loud sound pierced through the howling wind. The bear, poised above Hudhud, fell with a thud to his side, rolled down a few rocks and stopped … dead. Hudhud stood still, watching the dead bear in a trance, when he heard a panicked voice. ‘Run, Hudhud! Run!’
Another shot rang in the air and something metallic ricocheted off a nearby rock.
‘Gunshots …!’ Hudhud glanced at the valley below and saw two humans. As if woken from a bad dream into a nightmare, he started trotting and then galloping towards Ghazaal, who stood near the ridge.
He ran and ran, not paying any heed to the pain stabbing his thigh with each jerk. More gunshots sounded in the air, but it seemed he was beyond their range. Ghazaal sprinted forward on the grassy slope as soon as Hudhud joined her. Just on the other side of the hilly curve they saw—their herd! Standing alarmed and still, all heads turned towards the sound.
‘Thundering fools!’ the coach roared. ‘Where have you two been? Playing hide-and-seek with Inuit hunters?’
He cantered ahead to meet them and saw the gash on Hudhud’s thigh. ‘NIN-COM-POOP!’ He looked shocked. ‘Playing hide-and-seek with humans and bears?’
‘We were just chatting, Coach, and strayed on to the rocks absently …’ Ghazaal began and recounted her version of the events. ‘… Ah, those killer claws! And Hudhud was standing there frozen with fear. Had I not urged him to come, he would be dead right now. The Inuit were not there to hunt bear, but caribou!’
‘Well done, trooper!’ The coach seemed sufficiently impressed with Ghazaal. ‘And YOU!’ He looked at Hudhud. ‘It’s just a small flesh wound you have. Move your tail to keep the flies away and you’ll be fine in two–three days.’ He turned towards the students. ‘The hunters will be here soon. Keep moving, troopers! As the Old Crow flies!’
Once again, the herd began to move like a stream flowing through the mountains.
Kilkila came to Hudhud as they tramped forth.
‘Dude … you are something, aren’t you?’ Kilkila shook his head in disbelief.
‘Well, the bear …’
‘Oh, forget the bear and hunters, bro! But making friends with Ghazaal?’
‘Ha ha ha!’ Hudhud hooted with laughter.
‘Never mind, you have a story to tell now, what with a scar and all.’
‘Ghazzzzaal saved your life!’ The swarm of mosquitoes had come back with the light breeze. ‘Shhhhe is the bessssst,’ buzzed their leader.
‘All power to women!’ Hudhud answered, smiling.
The puzzled mosquito leader simply flew ahead and bit him on his cheek.
‘Dude …’ Kilkila shook his head again.
‘Dude, it was my bad. The answer is not cheating.’ Hudhud halted.
‘Cheating?’ asked Kilkila. ‘Answer? Dude …’
‘It is better to lose with honour than win by cheating …’ Hudhud’s face lit up. ‘That must be the answer, bro!’
Kilkila’s confused eyes and fat snout became hazy with the swarm of mosquitoes. No, wait—it wasn’t the mosquitoes. Hudhud’s vision had started to darken. Was it night already?
How can it be? thought Hudhud. It’s the season of the midnight sun.
Night descended on him nonetheless. Hudhud heard a distant cry as darkness swallowed the tundra. ‘As the Old Crow flies …’
4
In Troubled Waters
The deep sea heaved like the bosom of a sleeping beast. Hudhud moved his long flippers in the twilight-blue waters, waiting near the maze of underwater caves. There was a queue of sea creatures behind him—a hiccuping crab, a dolphin with a broken fin, a sobbing eel and a cloud of tiny crustaceans fussing non-stop. Hudhud looked at them wild-eyed; the only thing playing on his mind was the murder of Kilkila by the sea serpent.
‘What do you want from the don, leatherback?’ A tiny seahorse swam out of the mouth of the biggest cave, a cravat of a weed wrapped around his neck.
‘I’ve said this a million times already!’ Hudhud fumed. He had been waiting underwater for more than an hour and needed to resurface soon. ‘To a hundred different valets!’
‘Aha … valets … in the mafia?’ The thuggish seahorse smirked. ‘Wolf Don doesn’t have sidekicks—only henchmen, turtle.’
‘I’m sorry.’ Hudhud regained his composure. If he had to go to the surface and dive down again, he’d end up being the last one in the queue. ‘It’s just that I can’t speak about it in the open.’ He cast a glance around.
‘Hmmmm … Everyone says that, turtle. Everyone who pays a visit to boss. But since you are of … let’s say, good proportions, he would like to check you out if nothing else.’ He stared at Hudhud’s dark, leathery shell that had white spots on it. ‘Move your fat butt after me.’
The seahorse swam inside the cave. Hudhud waited for a moment and swam after him. The cave got darker and darker and split into many sub-caves. Hudhud caught glimpses of different creatures, known and unknown, as he swam through the long corridor. He wondered what Wolf Don would look like. He was the stuff of rumours and tales. Some said he was a vampire squid, others, that he was a giant stingray. Despite thoughts of Kilkila’s death weaving a web in his mind, Hudhud shuddered thinking about his meeting with the mafia lord who was feared across the Atlantic Ocean.
The long cave ended in a chamber lit with fluorescent seaweeds of a hundred hues moving with the gentle currents. Music filled the enclosure, and Hudhud saw a school of clownfish assembled in a corner, singing in chorus. Colourful sea anemones, attached to the rocky cave walls and looking like benign sunflowers, stirred their venomous tentacles deceptively. It was spectacular, yet eerie. The chamber had many cave mouths leading into dark passages. A deep-brown angry-looking anglerfish, with a huge head, pale-grey eyes and terrible, crescent-shaped jaws baring long translucent teeth, peeked from the mouth of one of the many sub-caves. She had a built-in rod jutting out of her head, with a fluorescent light at the fleshy tip to attract prey. Hudhud cringed as he said a brief hello. The anglerfish didn’t reply and continued to look at him darkly.
He noticed that a two-foot-long orange fish, with thick lips and ridiculously large buck teeth—a dentist’s nightmare—had started circling him. ‘Seven-foot-long Atlantic leatherback turtle … weighing no less than 600 kilos. A good specimen.’
‘I am here to talk to the don, so please excuse me.’ Hudhud trembled and began to swim towards the monstrous anglerfish, her open mouth looking at him with hunger.
The orange wolf fish cleared his throat but Hudhud kept swimming until the seahorse zoomed in front of his head. ‘Do you think that dumb fish is boss?’ he snarled.
‘That should give you an idea of the level of intelligence I have to deal with every day, Whale,’ the orange wolf fish said, catching a prawn in his jaws and crunching it.
‘Whale—he’s called Whale?’ Hudhud regarded the tiny seahorse again.
‘Do you have any objection to my name too, Luth?’
‘You are a wolf fish and I don’t know what your name is. But my name is Hudhud.’
‘Ah, we see you are too stuck on names, young and foolish Luth. Don’t you know leatherbacks are called luths too? The seven ridges that run down your back are like the seven strings of a lute, see? Let me tell you something. A great writer called Snakespeare once said that a sea cucumber will be a sea cucumber whatever name you call it.’ The fish smiled, exposing his buck teeth further.
‘What is your name?’ asked Hudhud.
‘Why, I am your humble Wolf. The Wolf of the ocean. Wolf fish. Wolf Don, the terror of the seas. Whatever you’d like to call me.’
‘Oh … OH. I’m sorry, sir! My mind is still not clear. You see … my brother Kilkila …’ Hudhud’s voice became heavy. ‘… was killed. H-he was killed recently.’
‘Did one of my thugs kill him?’ The don gave him
a wry look. ‘Have you come here to seek revenge?’
‘No, but I need your help to take revenge.’
‘You do now, do you?’ Wolf Don grinned. ‘Who else but the wolf of the seas to help the wronged and downtrodden? But you must remember my services don’t come cheap, Luth. See, I have so many mouths to feed.’
Hudhud glanced at the anglerfish’s open mouth and quickly looked away. The waters were cold at this depth and he felt goosebumps all over.
‘I … um … have nothing to offer …’ Hudhud gulped.
The smile vanished from the wolf fish’s face but returned as quickly. ‘There is no one in this whole wide ocean who has nothing to offer, Luth. Let’s see how I can be of help. I am known far and wide to help the needy. First, tell me, what do you want?’
Hudhud suddenly felt the pressure of the water in his ears. He was too far below the surface after all. But leatherback turtles could dive to depths of 4200 feet, more than any other turtle in the world.
‘The sea serpent. I want the sea serpent to pay!’ he gurgled.
‘Whoa … ho ho … The sea serpent, no less!’ The wolf fish’s eyes crinkled in amusement. ‘The sea serpent? She is a bit, ahem, out of your league, big guy.’
‘The leatherbacks are the largest turtles on earth, the fourth-heaviest reptile after the three crocodiles and have been around for a hundred million years.’ Hudhud lifted his head proudly.
‘The sea serpent is a legend, Luth. She controls all the legendary creatures of the ocean and has a reputation second only to … mine.’ The don gave him a cocky smile. ‘But why her, pray tell.’ The wolf fish started to swim around Hudhud again, examining him closely, with Whale tailing him. ‘I’m seeing a leatherback this close for the first time. They’ve been around since the time of the T. rex—can you believe that?’ He grinned his buck-toothed grin at Whale. His teeth reflected the green glow of the fluorescent weeds lighting the antechamber.
Hudhud moved his flippers gently and began his story with a faraway look in his eyes. ‘You know, we leatherbacks undertake the longest migration of any sea turtle—between our breeding and feeding grounds—no less than 5000 kilometres each way …’