Ariel, Zed and the Secret of Life

by Anna Fienberg

  ‘So tell me, do you believe in luck, a Pessimist like you?’

  ‘Well, I’d say you had more chance of being struck by lightning than winning the lottery,’ said Zed eagerly. ‘I think that just about sums up the question of luck.’

  ‘Fabulous,’ gasped Electra.

  ‘Thankyou,’ beamed Zed.

  Ariel snorted.

  ‘Lunchtime!’ sang out Miss Heckle, clapping her hands. ‘Who wants to try my Bombe Alaska?’

  After lunch, Miss Heckle led them all into one of the smaller rooms which seemed to be furnished like a chapel. There, behind a glass cabinet, was the Vespertilio gigante, lit up from underneath so that its great smooth wings glowed.

  ‘Let us have a moment’s silence and give thanks to Merlin, our Protector,’ Miss Heckle said in a hushed voice. Everyone stood to attention, so Ariel and Zed did the same.

  After a minute or two they all trooped back again into the main room and sat down. Zed made sure he was sitting next to Electra.

  ‘Could I ask a question please?’ Ariel piped nervously. ‘Why do you all keep looking at this Vespertilio? It seems to be everywhere on the Island. And how can Merlin protect you?’

  There was silence. Everyone looked to Miss Heckle.

  ‘That is an Island secret, dear,’ she said, hesitating. ‘We only tell those people who can be trusted. It’s a question of all the Islanders’ survival, sweetness.’

  ‘You’ve known my mother for twenty years!’ exclaimed Ariel. She was determined. She was not going home until she knew. If there was one thing she hated, it was a question without an answer. ‘You all know my mother wouldn’t have let us come here if she thought we would bring danger to the Island. And didn’t she risk her life once to save you when you fell down that cliff, Miss Heckle?’

  The Principal nodded and shuddered. ‘Well, Concetta did say that you were reliable, dear. I dare say I should read you the Rules, then. Can you vouch for your little friend?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ said Ariel. Zed made his fish face at her.

  ‘Good. Of course the penalty for revealing our secret to anyone outside the Island is dire,’ Miss Heckle said sweetly, but her eyes slid over to Zed, ‘quite dire.’

  Ariel swallowed.

  ‘So, who wants to know?’ whispered Zed.

  ‘Seven centuries ago,’ Miss Heckle began, ‘Merlin the Magician came to this Island. You may have read of him, dear, the books say that it was he who guided the destiny of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. He was terribly hairy, Merlin that is, and rather diabolical, but when he visited our Island he left behind the most precious gift in the world.’ Miss Heckle paused, and her eyes were shining. ‘He left the Elixir of Life.’

  Ariel and Zed gasped.

  ‘It is enough to put one drop on the tongue, and any hurt, any wound or disease is healed.’

  ‘Where is this Elixir?’ Zed asked.

  Miss Heckle studied him carefully. ‘It lies in a bowl, deep in a cave on the south side of the Island.’

  ‘But what has the bat shell to do with it?’ asked Ariel.

  ‘To make the Elixir, Merlin mixed his magic with shavings of Unicorn horn, dew from the oldest forest in the world, and fragments of crushed Vespertilio gigante—the shell that he introduced to the Island. We thank Merlin the Magician every day for his gift.’

  A sigh breathed through the room.

  Zed shifted uneasily in his chair. If this Elixir really existed, no wonder there were no chemists or doctors on the Island. This really was paradise. But he felt like he was walking through a dream, trying to wake up. How could people have no shadows? And how could thoughts become real? He fingered his knee. It still stung. What about those fruit, those persimmons that the Captain had mentioned? He’d said they needed those, too, for survival.

  ‘Excuse me,’ Zed cleared his throat, ‘but could you tell us about the persimmons, too? It’s just that I have this infected knee, and if it gets any worse, I may need to know about cures and things.’

  ‘Do you think it could turn to gangrene?’ Electra asked with interest.

  ‘Probably,’ said Zed, and smiled at her.

  ‘You must never pick those persimmons, Zed dear, unless it is really necessary,’ Miss Heckle told him. ‘You see, with the Elixir, Merlin left a Protector, a real Vespertilio gigante that guards the cave. The giant bat will not allow anyone to enter, and will extinguish any light you carry if you do not bring the persimmons. They feed his magic. They’re an offering of good faith. So there must always be enough for emergencies.’

  ‘Yes, absolutely,’ agreed Zed fervently, and ran a finger over his knee.

  ‘Now, that’s all,’ Miss Heckle said. ‘Are you both pledged to Secrecy? Good, so let’s start the afternoon’s lessons. Do hunch down in your seat, Brogan dear, and please try to think small. ’

  Zed and Ariel looked at each other, and this time, Zed forgot to make his fish face.

  9. THE REWRITE

  ZED PEDALLED FAST along the path to Opal Beach. The sky was huge and endless and blue. The breeze smelled of gardenias, Mr Jones sat in the basket on the back, and Zed had forgotten about his aching legs, together with the possibility of falling off the bike, for a whole seven minutes.

  This was because he was concentrating on his companion, Sleeping Beauty. Only she, Electra, could cycle so elegantly, Zed thought. She was leaning back, as if against some invisible cushion, her legs moving easily and apparently independently while the rest of her looked as relaxed as if she were lying on a lounge. She wore a short black silk dress, like a movie star’s nightgown (the daring kind) and pointed silver earrings that flew back with her hair like wings.

  ‘Black is the only colour,’ she had told Zed. ‘It’s serious, it’s mysterious, it’s dramatic. And it suits my latest film. I know a Pessimist like you would agree.’

  ‘Oh absolutely,’ Zed had replied. ‘Black is my favourite colour.’ From this minute on, anyway.

  It was miraculous, he considered now, that he, Zed, the last letter in the alphabet, was riding (fast!) on a bicycle, invited to a picnic by a staggeringly beautiful girl, and heading for a tropical beach. Who would have believed it—he, the most depressing child that ever lived? He put his hand for a moment on his heart. It was banging away—not with fear or dread, but in a friendly way. It was noisy and celebrating, just like the shouting sun above, and for the moment he felt it wouldn’t fail him. So he tried a bit of conversation.

  ‘How long have you been on the Island?’ he said.

  ‘Ah, Time,’ sighed Electra. ‘Now that’s a subject. Time is so personal, don’t you think?’

  ‘No, I don’t,’ Zed replied, considering the matter. ‘Whenever you want it to pass quickly, it drags. And when you want it to stop, it flies. I think it’s impersonal—it’s just out there, ticking away, beyond anyone’s control.’

  ‘Fabulous!’ exclaimed Electra, and she actually leaned forward. ‘A truly pessimistic answer. I’ll put that in my film.’

  Zed smiled. He had never felt less pessimistic in his life.

  They had taken the road along the coast (longer, but prettier, Electra had advised), through lush grasses and, once, a crowd of goats. Mr Jones had woken up then and screamed so enthusiastically that they’d all scattered before Zed had needed to learn how to swerve. Good old Mr Jones.

  Now and then Electra pointed out things of interest as they rode along, like the trim white cottage in the hills. On one side of its conical roof a crooked chimney was blowing out green smoke-rings.

  That was where Ermintrude the witch lived, Electra told Zed. She had a ‘fabulous’ vegie garden, of which Miss Heckle strongly disapproved.

  ‘Now Ermintrude does a wonderful spell with thyme,’ said Electra.

  ‘Time?’ said Zed.

  ‘You know, the plant thyme—it’s a spice you add to food to make it more delicious. But Ermintrude knows how to cross it with past time—the fourth dimension.’

  ‘How?’ asked Zed, bewi
ldered.

  ‘Secret,’ smiled Electra, and tapped her nose. ‘But it has been used as a rescue remedy more than once on this Island.’

  Now the vegetation grew more dense and the smell of spice deepened into a moist, earthy odour as they rode into the rainforest. Zed looked nervously at the path that ribboned over fallen vines. Occasionally he glanced up, to see the long roots of a strangler fig hanging down like rope, or the strange tree with the moon-white flower that Electra said only came out for one day a year.

  ‘You can be sure I’ll never see it then,’ said Zed.

  ‘Not with your luck,’ Electra grinned.

  The soil was red and damp, soft with a web of plants, and now the ceiling of branches overhead grew lighter, unlacing, opening into sloping hills. Beyond, Zed could just see a shimmer of blue. He felt his heart lift.

  ‘Last one to the beach lives happily ever after!’ cried Electra, and took off.

  Zed laughed. But Electra was streaming on ahead, and as he gazed at the green open country, he started to pump his legs until he, too, was whizzing down the path.

  Green hills flashed past and Mr Jones was hanging over the basket squeaking with excitement. Racing downhill, shouting now with Mr Jones, Zed felt like an arrow zinging through the air. His skin tingled with the whooshing wind and he trembled with a kind of terrified joy. On and on he flew until he was a part of the rushing green and the open blue and his heart was exploding inside him with power. He went faster and faster, yelling till his lungs burned and Mr Jones wrapped his tail tight around the basket. I want to go on and on forever like this, thought Zed, me and the bicycle and the monkey and the wind. Like a spear flying; brave.

  Now he reached Electra and together they hurtled into a wide alley of coconut palms. They began to slow, stilled by the silence cupped between the trees. Like sentinels the palms stood, majestic in their height, their shadows striping the royal carpet of grass running down to the sand.

  And there, suddenly, was the beach. A wave uncoiled itself gently, frilling white onto the shore. Zed gazed from end to end and saw no-one—just the sea breathing, and the sand.

  They parked their bikes under a palm tree and unloaded the picnic. Electra gave Mr Jones some sugar bananas and warned him to leave the rest alone. But the monkey was so relieved to be on firm ground, that he curled up and went to sleep.

  ‘Let’s go for a swim!’ said Zed.

  They quickly stripped to their costumes and ran down to the sand. It burned under their feet, white and vast, and Zed saw no footprints except the primitive three-pronged marks of gulls. They could have been explorers leaving footprints like flags on an undiscovered land.

  The water was warm in the shallows. But when they dived under, the wave’s belly was deep and cool and Zed noticed how all the world went silent, the water sliding softly over his eyelids as he swam up, marbling his legs with gold.

  Weightless, he floated up and down with the waves, lying on his back and watching the sky mirrored and broken into green-lit coins of light. Tiny fish slithered past, silver-veined.

  Later, Zed hovered on the shore where the sand was wet and hard. Bubbles beaded the fine golden hairs on his legs. He pressed his heels into the sand and watched it whiten under the pressure, just like flesh. He felt he was seeing everything for the first time.

  He walked a little way up the beach to find Electra sitting encrusted with sand like a dropped cake. She trailed grains through her fingers, smiling at him.

  ‘Peaches,’ she said. ‘I brought loads of peaches.’

  Suddenly Zed was starving, he couldn’t ever remember being this hungry, and they ran back to the tree to find food and Mr Jones, who was fast asleep again and snoring amongst the banana skins.

  Peaches there were, and Zed ate five of them. Then there was cold chicken and tomatoes and crusty bread.

  When he’d finished, Zed lay with his head propped up on his airways bag, and Mr Jones curled up in the circle of his arm. The monkey’s sideburns tickled the inside of his elbow. He loved the way Jonesy breathed, delicately but snortingly, as if his nostrils weren’t made quite big enough. He thought of his Dad and how he would have loved this beach.

  ‘So you,’ called Electra, ‘you with the shadow. For someone who’s going to play Youthful Despair in my film, you’re looking terribly cheerful. Don’t go getting content on me now, will you!’

  ‘Don’t you go falling asleep on me,’ said Zed.

  ‘Not in a million years,’ replied Electra, opening her eyes wide. ‘What a low-level idea.’

  She was lying on a rug on her side, with an unopened book called The Greenhouse Effect—Countdown to Chaos.

  Zed groaned. He rolled over on his side to face her, careful not to squash Mr Jones. ‘So, what’s it like not to have a shadow?’ he asked lazily.

  ‘I’ve never had one, so I don’t know,’ Electra considered. ‘Kind of free I suppose—one less thing you have to carry around.’

  Zed thought for a moment. ‘But are you really written? I mean, like Roald Dahl wrote that boy Charlie; like Alice in Wonderland?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Electra. ‘I’ve known them both.’

  ‘It must be strange,’ said Zed, trying to imagine.

  ‘I think it’s great.’ Electra sat up and pointed a long red nail at him. ‘Being a character means you get the chance to change and develop—rewrite yourself! You never know where you’re going to end up, especially a rebellious, interesting type like me. And I’m only a First Draft, you know.’

  She lay back and closed her eyes. ‘Maybe you could do with a touch of rewriting yourself. I mean, do you want to stay a Pessimist all your life? But tell me, before you do anything hasty, how did it all start? Were you just born that way, or is it an Effect of the Modern Age?’

  Zed talked and listened and looked at the gulls wheeling in the sky, their white bellies catching the afternoon light. But all the time he was thinking about this amazing idea: the rewrite.

  All his life he’d seen and heard about people going through Major Experiences and then Making a Change. His mother’s friends wrote about it. Some made films about it. They’d discovered True Love, Travelling, Meditation, Mountain Climbing! He just went on having the Experiences, without the Change. But maybe if he did write things down—things he wanted to remember, like today for example—it would be like having a different self for company. He could make up a new Zed, just like Lewis Carroll made up Alice. Only his Zed would be real; it would be his Other Self, the one that could change. If he could learn to ride a bicycle, love a monkey, talk to a person without a shadow—surely he could do this!

  Electra had gone back to her book, so Zed sat up and fumbled in his bag. The notebook that Ariel had given him was still there, and now he pulled it out.

  The pages were yellowed and the ink was smudged in many places, but there were lots of words he could still read. Alice appeared in most of them: tall, tiny, sleeping, playing croquet. The book was only half full and the last sentence ended abruptly: ‘Damnation, Alice has escaped!’

  Zed grinned. Then he felt a stab of guilt. Ariel had in fact given him a precious gift. He thought of her describing the shop where she’d bought it, and how her face had fallen when he’d been sarcastic. But then he remembered her words (No wonder your mother dumped you!) and he shoved her out of his mind.

  He turned to the first clean page and wrote in capital letters: DIARY OF THE NEW ZED (known as NZ for short. Not the country, the hero).

  In the top right-hand corner he put: The Island, 10 January, Tuesday.

  Today, he wrote, NZ cycled 30 kilometres per hour (!) in a foreign land inhabited by shadowless natives. He was brave and fearless; and a fascinating conversationalist for his beautiful companion, Miss Beauty.

  Zed was going to write about NZ’s huge appetite, due to his being so athletic, when a boom of thunder shot the air. He looked up to see the sky blackening, with great swollen clouds ballooning out over the horizon. Within a matter of minutes the day had dark
ened, and the hills to the west and south purpled, rising darkly around them like an ambush.

  Zed looked about. The air had grown strangely still. No birds or insects stirred. And then the lightning flashed and the rain started.

  Heavy and thick it came, in sheets of pummelled glass.

  ‘Quick, pack up the picnic, our books!’ cried Electra.

  How could the day change so fast? Zed, shocked, looked down at Mr Jones. Streaming wet, with his fur flat to his skin he looked half his normal size, and miserable. Zed picked him up, wrapped him in a towel, and put him under his shirt.

  10. GOODSHOT AT YOUR SERVICE

  WHEN THE RAIN EASED a little, Zed and Electra emerged from under their towels. Soon, as quickly as it had come, the rain slowed to a gentle patter and became just a light spray on their faces. But Zed saw that out to sea the sky was still dark and heavy, and above the horizon lightning glittered.

  Zed thought of the storm they’d had on the boat coming over. He remembered McGull’s words that day. ‘It’s a sign,’ he’d said, ‘of bad things to come.’ Zed shivered now and stared out at the brooding sky.

  And as he looked he saw something long and sleek and silver slice through the clouds. It was coming nearer, and its two wings glinted in the eerie light.

  ‘A seaplane!’ whispered Zed. He and Electra could hear the dull throb of the engine now, and see the two floats under its body.

  Soon the throb was a roar and the plane was gliding lower over the water until it was almost touching. Electra began to run down to the shore. But Zed held back. His feet seemed rooted to the ground.

  ‘Come on Zed!’ she cried. ‘Let’s meet the new arrival! He must be classy!’

  Zed reached the shore just as the plane touched down on the sand. The door clicked open and out climbed a large man in a dark suit with a briefcase in his hand. After him, padding down without a sound, was a tiger.

  Zed gaped. Around the tiger’s neck was a silver collar studded with diamonds, and attached to that was a silver leash.