Ariel, Zed and the Secret of Life

by Anna Fienberg

  Zed still looked bewildered, so Ariel went on to explain. ‘It means a selection of different kinds of shellfish, and things.’ She didn’t think she ought to mention what ‘things’. It was often better to taste something before knowing its entire background. Especially if you were Zed.

  But Zed wasn’t hungry, anyway. The last thing he needed, he thought, was food. What with walking, reading maps and talking with strangers, Zed was tired of eating. He calculated that he’d eaten 13,140 meals in his life. This number was based on the assumption that he’d had three meals a day, even though this was unlikely given all the smelly and pest-ridden countries he’d lived in, where the only way to survive was to swallow vitamin tablets and sit it out until the country and the food improved.

  ‘I’m starving,’ said Ariel. ‘I reckon I could eat a whale.’

  ‘Just wait till you wrap your gums around this, lassie,’ the Captain sang out from the kitchen. ‘These fish are so fresh you’ll have to chase them round your plate before you eat them!’

  Ariel chuckled and glanced at Zed. He was sitting gingerly on the edge of the sofa, his heavy airways bag still slung over his shoulder. Unmoving, he looked about as excited as a damp cloth on a kitchen sink, Ariel thought crossly. She shifted in her chair. Zed’s presence was beginning to feel like a shadow, inevitable and stickily attached to her; his gloom clouded her spirits, with those knobbly legs of his somehow indicating doom. He made her feel guilty and angry at the same time.

  He’s not going to spoil this for me, that’s for sure, she resolved, and frowned at him for good measure.

  Zed scowled back, and went from clutching his bag to examining his grazed knee.

  Now the Captain wandered out of the kitchen again. ‘By the way,’ he said casually, ‘I promised to show you my shell collection,’ and he pointed to a large glass cabinet standing against the wall. ‘Have a squiz at it if you like while I’m getting the chow. It’s a most instructive and multifarious collection, if I do say so myself.’

  There were six shelves in the cabinet, each lined with rows of star-shiny shells. They glowed gently with mother-of-pearl skins; some were as big as pineapples, others were wrinkled and complicated like pale walnuts. Zed opened a glass door and, after a moment’s hesitation, took out the largest.

  It was creamy pink, shaped like a bird in flight, with great smooth wings. As Zed looked more closely he could almost make out a face at the top, stretched tight and flat, as if flying against a powerful wind. Something about it made him shiver, and yet he couldn’t put it back in its place on the shelf.

  ‘That’s a bat!’ said Ariel, breathing down his neck. ‘Look, it has that squashed-in nose and pointy ears—see, at the top there? I can spot a bat anywhere!’

  Zed grunted in annoyance. Now that he looked, he could see a resemblance, and even the wings seemed to be taking on an elastic texture. He went on trying for a while to see the bird he had originally admired, but the batty splayed nose and big eyes became more and more prominent. And with this transformation the shell, to Zed, became Ariel’s treasure, her discovery. He felt a stab of irritation, like a fist in his throat.

  ‘Ah! The Vespertilio gigante,’ exclaimed the Captain behind them. He put a big hand on both their shoulders and gazed with rapture at the shell lying in Zed’s palm.

  ‘Vespertilio,’ repeated Zed. ‘That’s Latin for bat, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, the Great Bat,’ said McGull. He looked at Zed. ‘You’ve put a lot of learning behind you for a lad your age, eh?’

  Zed shrugged, but Ariel could see the pleased smile nudging the corner of his mouth.

  ‘I read a lot of medical textbooks,’ he explained. ‘Infectious diseases and epidemics often have Latin names. It helps to know about them when you travel a lot like I do.’

  ‘Oh,’ said the Captain, nodding. ‘A wary traveller makes a safe voyage.’ He paused, looking for that elusive proverb. ‘Look before you open a—can of worms, as they say.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ said Zed.

  ‘Well,’ the Captain went on, turning back to his favourite subject, ‘you are looking at a very rare shell. The Vespertilio is to be found only on this island, and this here specimen is the largest ever discovered.’ The Captain’s voice changed, and he whispered, ‘They say it comes out of the ocean guarding the secret of life inside it.’ His eyes had grown huge, as if he were trying to see the depths of the ocean in the shell. ‘You’ll see others around the Island,’ he added in his normal voice. ‘They’re in glass cases on the walls of the street, so that people can stop to look, and reflect, like, on their lives, before they go on their way.’

  ‘What a peculiar custom,’ said Zed, who was not looking forward to meeting these strange, bat-gazing inhabitants. ‘What do they do that for?’

  But the Captain was absorbed in his shells. ‘Take an eyeful of the other beauties in here,’ he urged. ‘This butterfly shell, for example, provides an excellent curry chowder when crushed.’ The Captain’s glance dashed between Zed and Ariel, and his chest swelled with satisfaction. ‘Never saw anything like it, did you? A shell in time saves a lot of heartache, or something like that.’ The Captain served lunch on a cucumber-green table. A delicious smell of fried fish (and other things) rose up from the steaming bowl and by its side dozens of mussels cooked in their shells sat on a bed of woven palm leaves.

  ‘A real banquet, eh?’ beamed the Captain, and he began serving them from the steaming bowl.

  Zed looked at his plate. There were tiny fish like sardines and pieces of spongy flesh wrapped in batter. He poked at them suspiciously with his fork, wanting to ask, ‘What’s this?’, but he was frightened of the answer. In Zed’s opinion food shouldn’t be all mixed in together; he liked to see each thing as it really was.

  ‘How’s the octopus?’ asked the Captain.

  And sure enough, underneath the batter, a curly tentacle stood revealed. It was limp and crooked like a finger, with a row of purple suckers running along the top.

  ‘Those tentacles can grow up to twenty metres in some species,’ the Captain said, cheerfully tossing one into his mouth. ‘Could wrap around your neck one hundred times. But these are baby octopus, caught fresh this morning by my friend, Crusoe.’

  ‘Robinson Crusoe?’ asked Ariel, her fork in midair.

  ‘Yes, the First,’ replied the Captain. ‘He was sent here because he just couldn’t agree with his author about all that shipwrecked business, and he still has no great love, let me tell you, for the great outdoors. He only goes fishing as a favour to his friends, and Miss Heckle,’ and he speared a sardine.

  There was definitely something unreal about this island, Zed thought, and looking at his plate, he decided that together with the food it was all too hard to digest.

  When the fishy plates had been cleared away, Captain McGull brought out a huge bowl of fruit. Cut into half moons were slices of mango and papaya, sweet lychee balls and green-skinned purple figs.

  ‘What a feast!’ exclaimed Ariel, and she picked out a bunch of bilberries hiding beneath the figs. They popped on her tongue like caviar.

  ‘All home-grown and picked by yours truly,’ announced the Captain proudly.

  Zed selected a slice of mango (at least he’d had that before) and a fig (he could peel that himself; most hygienic).

  ‘Aye,’ the Captain nodded contentedly, ‘you can pick anything from the trees here and eat it—paradise, I call it.’ But his face grew solemn for a moment and in a warning voice he said, ‘Anything but the persimmons growing on the south side. Mind never to pick those or there won’t be enough for when it really counts.’

  Ariel saw that his face looked suddenly sharp, as if etched in sunlight.

  ‘What’s so special about the persimmons?’ asked Ariel softly.

  The Captain hesitated. ‘They have a magic that helps us to survive.’ As if marking a full stop, he stood up and began clearing away the plates.

  But Ariel’s mind was racing. There was so much she d
idn’t understand. How could a fruit be magical? And what was this about survival? There were other things, too, that she wanted to know: those bat shells, for instance—they were rare, yes, but why put them up on the walls? It was pretty odd, if you asked her, but she supposed it was a mystery she’d have to explore by herself. As far as she could see, Zed was absorbed in his own thoughts.

  But when the Captain returned to the table, Zed was the first to speak. ‘Talking of survival,’ he said casually, ‘you do have a hospital on this island I suppose? Where do you keep your medical supplies? Are there any pharmacies, ambulances?’

  The Captain looked at him blankly.

  Zed plugged on. ‘According to my reading, disease is rife in the tropics.’ He ticked them off on his fingers. ‘There’s yellow fever (usually found in monkeys); malaria, transmitted by mosquitos; schistosomiasis, caused by a parasitic worm which infests irrigation water (a really disgusting disease, but I won’t go into details); and then of course there’s leprosy. One by one your fingers and toes drop off, then your legs and arms. Did you know, in the olden days, lepers had to wear a little bell to warn others they were coming. I’d say leprosy is a highly infectious disease.’

  The Captain regarded Zed, puzzled. Zed grew hot in the deepening silence and fidgeted with his grazed knee. He wanted to ask for some disinfectant to put on it, but he didn’t suppose there was any. No-one here seemed to understand the essentials of life—all this rubbish about fruit and survival. Vitamin C alone never saved anyone.

  ‘We don’t have need of hospitals and the like here, lad,’ the Captain replied slowly. ‘Like I was saying, there’s powers that be on this island that cure all ailments. We just have to heed them.’

  ‘Do you mean these wretched persimmon fruit?’ burst out Zed.

  ‘Aye, but they’re just one strand in the web of our destiny.’ The Captain looked vague again, as if contemplating the wonders of the universe. But then he added, ‘Never you mind, Zed, at the School the laws of the Island will be explained to you. If you’re considered trustworthy, that is.’

  ‘What school?’ demanded Zed. ‘And what do you mean, trustworthy? You could leave me alone with Ali Baba’s treasure and I wouldn’t be the slightest bit interested.’

  ‘Fancy that. Ali wasn’t much interested, either, that’s why he’s here. All that robbing and looting gave him heartburn.’

  Zed looked at Ariel. She shrugged her shoulders at him, and tried to smile in a soothing way.

  ‘Ouffah!’ belched Captain McGull, by way of punctuation, ‘all this jawing has given me a headache. It’s siesta time now, and as the saying goes, “early to bed, early to dream”, or something like that. You two can stretch out your noodles in the spare room, and then tonight I’ll take you to Bertha’s.’

  ‘Who’s Bertha?’ chimed Zed and Ariel together.

  ‘The old woman who lived in the shoe, of course,’ replied the Captain, and shuffled off to his room.

  6. ON BEING A WHUFFLER

  THE MAIN MODE of transport on the Island was the common bicycle. At five o’clock sharp Captain McGull had three bicycles ready at the gate, each equipped with a basket at the back and a bell (that played ‘Sinbad the Sailor’) on the handlebar. Ariel was delighted; she had learnt to ride just last year but she’d never had a bicycle of her own.

  Zed was horrified. In his experience, one of the many misfortunes of having a mother of no fixed address was that he never stayed in one place long enough to learn a thing well. Now, see, here he was again, deprived of a basic skill that all children his age (except him) had acquired. He had only been on a bicycle once and ice-skating twice, and he’d felt very uneasy about something moving beneath him that wasn’t his own two feet. It seemed unnatural, and then there was the horrendous possibility of falling, and ending up dead or with a body broken in forty-six places.

  All these and other possibilities flashed through Zed’s mind as he confronted the fact of the bicycle. But Ariel was already astride hers, clanging the bell with glee. She’d probably been born on a bicycle, thought Zed. Gingerly, he mounted his and looked for the brakes.

  ‘Here, at the back,’ said Ariel, and showed him how to use the footbrake. They circled the yard a couple of times with Zed wobbling around like a pudding.

  ‘Now follow me!’ called the Captain, and off they headed east, to Bertha’s.

  Up and down and across the Island ran neatly-paved paths for bicycles. They were narrow, just the right width for two-way traffic, winding round the countryside like string. There didn’t seem to be any roads or cars, Zed was relieved to see, and he hoped there wouldn’t be too many corners. Going along in a straight line, he could just about hang on. The paths seemed smooth and carefully tended; really, he thought, it was all surprisingly civilised.

  The sun was sinking behind them now, sharpening colours and cooling the air. Ariel’s hair streamed back from her face, the fresh breeze smacking her cheeks, and every now and then she rang her bell just to hear the rollicking notes of ‘Sinbad the Sailor’

  On they flew, past lime groves and pumpkin fields. To the north, from the hills, came the tangy perfume of pimento trees. They threaded through canefields and, as they neared the eastern coast, where a slice of ocean shone in the distance, the Captain shouted, ‘Here we are! You’re home!’

  Rising up ahead of them now was a strange grey construction in the shape of an old-fashioned shoe. Built of stone) it stretched from the rounded toe, running along in a straight line to the heel, where it suddenly shot up like a boot to a second storey. A low wooden fence surrounded it, covered in ivy.

  Zed and Ariel stared.

  ‘But this woman lives in a shoe!’ cried Zed.

  ‘Of course,’ said the Captain. ‘That’s the way she was written. You know how it goes: “There was an old woman who lived in a shoe, Had so many children she didn’t know what to do.” Trouble is, Bertha never liked children much. Whufflers, she calls ’em, always whingeing and snuffling.’

  ‘Great,’ snorted Zed. ‘Someone else who doesn’t want me to stay with her.’ And he wished the Captain would stop talking in rhymes.

  ‘No, you’ll be as snug as two bugs in a feather mattress, as they say,’ soothed the Captain. ‘Bertha’s a good sort of woman—ah, here she is now, bless her heart.’

  Hobbling toward them was a short bony woman the size of a broom handle and just as skinny. The only long things about her were her earlobes that drooped down almost to her chin. Zed deduced that she must be extremely old, since only years of gravity could have made them drop so far. As she stretched out her knobbly hand to shake, he caught a whiff of camphor and eau de Cologne.

  ‘How do you do, I suppose,’ said Bertha, her voice deep for one so small. She looked them up and down, her eyes sharp under their hoods. ‘Not so bad,’ she concluded at last and her old mouth almost wrinkled into a smile. ‘These whufflers are weaned and shod, no need to be after them with hankies and whatnot, eh?’

  Bertha had the habit of talking to herself, which would not have been so bad if she’d kept her voice down or spoken in code. But this kind of social refinement you lose when you are as old as Bertha and are wont to nod off on sofas, or anywhere, for most of the day.

  ‘I have my own handkerchief,’ said Zed, who had not understood Bertha’s peculiarity.

  ‘Eh?’ said Bertha, startled. ‘Strange fellow, hair like carrots. Well, come inside you two, no use standing about here, what’s done is done. Good day to you, McGull, see you at School.’ And she bustled them in through the front door of the shoe.

  Zed and Ariel blinked in the sudden darkness. There were only two windows cut into the stone walls, but as their eyes grew accustomed to the gloom, they saw a neat, sparse room as long as a corridor with a great wooden table running down the centre. This would be where all her children would eat, if she had them, thought Ariel. At the end of the room there was a wooden staircase that spiralled up into the dark.

  ‘That’s where you two will sleep,’
said Bertha, pointing up into the dim. ‘Two fine rooms up there, one for each of you, and out of my way I hope. Lunch is at one sharp and dinner at six, and I always rest in between.’

  ‘But who arranged all this?’ asked Zed, trying to take a grip on the situation. ‘If it doesn’t suit, can’t we go somewhere else?’

  ‘What’s done is done, young carrots, and there’ll be no bother, as long as I get my rest. It’s Miss Heckle’s idea of course, the Principal of the School. Always meddling, she is, trying to better our ways. Thinks this will be good for me, she does.’

  ‘Don’t you have any children?’ asked Ariel, who was still looking at the vast empty table.

  ‘No I don’t, and if you ask me, it’s ridiculous to write a character as old as me, with my legs, and saddle her with whufflers. Not quite right in the head, was my author, touched as a toucan.’

  Zed, who had turned away at this mysterious but repeated mention of authors, began to mount the stairs.

  ‘That’s right, off you go,’ approved Bertha, ‘and I hope the other one follows him. Could turn out a chatterbox, that girl, can tell by the ears. Flapping kind. Good night then, I’m off to bed. You’ll find sandwiches upstairs, and everything you need, I’m sure, and remember that independence is a virtue in whufflers.’ And so saying, she creaked off to the camphor-smelling comfort of her room.

  At the top of the stairs, where Zed was, the darkness had deepened into pitch, and from the gloom a slithery, scratchy sound came creeping, like claws on a stone floor. Zed’s heart banged. His hands fumbled along the wall, searching for the switch.

  Now, in the light, he saw he was standing in a corridor that led off to two rooms, just as Bertha had said. The scratching sound grew louder, coming from the first room. Zed took a deep breath. He clutched his bag to his chest, and turned the door handle.

  Something hairy brushed against his bare shins and scuttled across the floor. Zed snapped on the light and saw, huddling on the narrow bed, a small furry creature with the wrinkled face of a dried pear.