Ariel, Zed and the Secret of Life

by Anna Fienberg

  Goodshot watched the Character Lessons in a desultory manner, and continued to whisper into his hand. But then something happened that lit up every nerve in his body.

  ‘How’s your thumb now?’ Ermintrude turned round to ask Brogan.

  ‘What is happening to the Brogan thumb?’ said Ali, who was sitting next to her.

  ‘He sliced it clean off this morning when he was cobbling his shoe for today’s lesson.’

  Brogan grinned and waggled the offending thumb which was huge, healthy and showing no trace of a wound.

  Goodshot leaned over and inspected it, astounded. ‘But it’s healed—nothing wrong with it! How is that?’ he demanded.

  Ermintrude and Ali muttered something and turned back to face Miss Heckle.

  Goodshot sat staring at Brogan. Why wouldn’t the others tell him? What was the secret? He was onto something, no doubt about it, and so soon in the piece! He rubbed his hands together. He’d take Brogan aside, that’s what he’d do, and get it all out of him, easy as getting a lolly out of a jar.

  When the lessons were over, and everyone was filing out, Goodshot poked at Brogan’s knees (which was about as far as he could reach).

  ‘Ye’d be wantin’ te speak te me then?’ said Brogan in his strong Irish brogue, and they walked toward a piece of shade. The giant squatted down.

  ‘So ye’r enjoyin’ yourself on the Island, I hope,’ began Brogan with a friendly smile. When he breathed, Goodshot’s hair blew about. ‘One day a’d like ye te come across te me house—I grow oranges an’ lemons, the juiciest on the Island!’

  ‘Sure, that’d be real nice,’ Goodshot smiled back. ‘A great little resort, this one. And being the curious guy I am, I was wondering about your little accident this morning. Your thumb doesn’t hurt you now?’ Goodshot looked so concerned you’d have thought he’d just been declared bankrupt.

  ‘No, thank ye for askin’, but Merlin’s Elixir fixed me up right an’ proper,’ smiled Brogan.

  ‘Merlin’s Elixir,’ repeated Goodshot, rolling the sound around on his tongue. ‘That must be powerful stuff. What is it?’

  Brogan shifted on his haunches. ‘Well, a doubt a should be tellin’ ye, seein’ it’s a secret on the Island.’

  ‘But you’re not like those greedy little leprechauns in stories, are you? Always running off on their tiny legs, keeping that lovely gold all to themselves? No, you’re the generous type, I can see by your build. You share your treasure, your secrets, am I right?’

  ‘Mm,’ nodded Brogan, scratching his head.

  ‘And isn’t the Elixir a kind of treasure? You wouldn’t want to keep that all to yourself, now would you? Don’t you want to share it with me, hmm, your new friend?’

  ‘Aye, isn’t that a fact. When ye put it like that, now.’

  Goodshot clasped his hands behind his back. This was it. And so he prodded and poked and hinted and squeezed until Brogan told him about the cave and its treasure. But he didn’t tell Goodshot about the giant bat or the persimmons—only because he wasn’t asked.

  ‘But how can you tell which cave it is? There must be hundreds amongst those crags,’ Goodshot persisted.

  ‘Aye, ye have the right of it there,’ sighed Brogan, nearly blowing him over. ‘But the path leads only te thet cave, and the boulder above is black as night. It’s easy te see.’

  ‘Atta boy!’ cried Goodshot reaching up to slap him on the back. ‘You’ve done your fellow man a good turn. I won’t forget it!’

  Brogan grinned back. ‘Always plased te help. I like te see satisfaction—’ but he was talking to the air, as Goodshot was already striding away, talking rapidly into the dictaphone in his hand, eager to get it all down.

  Brogan stood up. He looked after Goodshot with a strange sinking feeling in his belly. Still, he hadn’t told the man everything. He’d just given him a kind of outline of things. And no-one else would ever know. But somehow, this thought didn’t make Brogan feel any better. The day was spoiled. The sinking feeling kept his customary cheerfulness at bay, like one of those expanding clouds that blot out the sun all day.

  Meanwhile, Daniel Goodshot was over the moon. He paced the floor of his apartment, throwing chunks of fresh meat to his tiger. Hell’s bells, this was the greatest piece of luck he could ever imagine. An elixir for life! The hottest property on the face of the earth—and he, Goodshot, was going to get it! He leapt over a pot plant and pirouetted into the kitchen.

  It was destiny! He’d always known he was bound for greater things. Now the first thing was to find a trade name and design a logo. ‘Goodshot’s Elixir for Eternal Life’—no, too long. ‘Goodshot for Life’, or ‘Formula for Living by Goodshot’. Why, he’d rake in billions. He could make governments topple with this, mafia bosses cry like babies, arms dealers and corporate giants go bananas. The world was his oyster—and he meant to eat it, by jiminy! Now for the Mission Plan…

  13. LIES AND WEAK SPOTS

  ERMINTRUDE DIDN’T LIVE far from Ariel. Almost every day now, Ariel went to visit her. They’d drink cold lemonade made with real lemons, and then they’d work together in the garden.

  Ermintrude lived on a hill in a cottage painted white, with roses growing at the gate. Ridiculous for a witch, Miss Heckle always said—it was more like a happy end to a fairy tale than a hag’s cottage. Most unseemly. (But she didn’t say no when Ermintrude offered her mounds of fresh vegetables for her restaurant.)

  In her garden, Ermintrude grew gardenias and bougainvillea and hundreds of different vegetables and herbs, so that the scent of spice and flowers drifted up in a perpetual mist around the hill.

  Ermintrude had given Ariel her own plot of land to cultivate. Ariel had planted basil seeds, and now she was watching the first sprigs come up—shiny, fragile and sweet-smelling. Basil was delicious in salad, Ermintrude said, or with fresh tomatoes dipped in oil and vinegar.

  Now Ariel surveyed her little garden and hugged herself. It was strange, she felt so tender toward those tiny leaves, as if they were her very own babies, all growing nicely and behaving well, just as they should.

  ‘It’s fun to watch a plant grow and become itself when you’ve planted the seed,’ said Ermintrude, smiling. ‘It’s a special kind of magic.’

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Ariel. ‘I have a garden back home, and I like just sitting there, with everything quiet and growing around me. Did you always feel that you were really a white witch, Ermintrude?’

  ‘Well, I just didn’t enjoy growing plants that would make people sick. It was against my nature.’

  ‘Will you be here on the Island forever then?’

  ‘As a matter of fact, my author is thinking of using me in a different story, set in Africa. He’s going to call it “Magic in Mali”.’

  ‘Oh, I wish I could change my setting, or my friends, anyway. You know,’ Ariel went on excitedly, ‘I’ve decided what I want to be when I grow up. It just came to me in a flash—I want to be a botanist, that’s what; someone who studies and lives with plants. I used to worry that I’d finish up living like a hermit, with only a pet bat and a bean patch for company. But now I want to learn about all kinds of plants, how you cross them, how they grow—maybe I’ll even invent a plant of my own!’

  ‘The Arielus Windwoodus plant,’ grinned Ermintrude, ‘known for its rare bat-shaped flowers and nutty bean flavour.’

  ‘That’s it!’ cried Ariel, and so they went on working, weeding, planting and talking until it was time for lemonade.

  As they went inside, Ariel looked at Ermintrude’s supple brown back and her friendly walk (she always cocked her head to one side as if she were listening to something) and felt a rush of fondness—for Ermintrude, herself, the Island. She hadn’t thought once lately about what other people thought of her, or even her 1.3 centimetre teeth. Maybe her mother had been right—she had needed a change.

  They were sitting out on the porch with a pitcher of fresh lemonade and a plate of carrot cake between them when they heard someone whistling from behin
d the gardenia bush. It was a harsh kind of whistle, like a stuck record, as if the whistler only knew one note and was keeping to it.

  They stared at the bush, and after a minute or two they saw a head pop up and then a dark suit and a briefcase.

  ‘Ah, there you are!’ called out Daniel Goodshot. ‘Good afternoon, good afternoon, good afternoon!’ he cried, all enthusiasm and goodwill. ‘Wonderful day, right?’ He moved a finger around under his collar and Ariel could see beads of sweat forming on his upper lip. How he could bear to wear a suit in this heat was beyond her.

  ‘Come and have a glass of lemonade,’ called Ermintrude obligingly.

  Wasn’t she going to ask him what he was doing behind that gardenia bush? Ariel glared at the approaching Goodshot.

  ‘Ah, this is the life, by jiminy!’ he sighed as he sat down and gulped his lemonade. ‘Mmmm,’ he smacked his lips and Ariel could smell his expensive aftershave. She held her breath. If there was one person she didn’t want to breathe in it was him.

  ‘Where’s your tiger?’ she asked, looking around.

  Goodshot’s eyes darted toward the bush. ‘Well, he was here with me.’ Damn animal faded again, and just when he needed him. ‘Probably trotted off to explore, you know how tigers are.’

  ‘No, tell me,’ Ariel started to say, but Goodshot was onto something else.

  ‘Great garden you’ve got here, Ms Ermintrude. You must make a mint with it, eh?’ And he nudged her in the ribs.

  ‘Well, I do enjoy growing things, mint included, Mr Goodshot.’

  ‘Ha ha!’ boomed Goodshot and slapped his knee. ‘That’s what I like, a sense of humour. There’s a mint in mint, ha! Yessiree, you’ve sure got a green finger. Now, why doesn’t a talented lady like yourself expand? Get a few plantations going?’

  ‘I’m more interested in specialised herbs and vegetables,’ replied Ermintrude, and sipped her lemonade.

  ‘Like that thyme plant I’ve heard about maybe? The one that does tricks with time?’

  Ermintrude stood up. ‘Thyme, Mr Goodshot, is only a plant in my garden, no matter how you spell it. And very good it is too in vegetable pie. Now I’ll just go and get some more lemonade.’

  ‘I’ll help you,’ cried Ariel leaping up. She had just reached the door when she heard Goodshot whispering into his dictaphone. She froze.

  ‘Source No.3, Ermintrude the witch. Proving difficult. A stuck-up vegetarian hippy. No business sense. Has magic, but will be of no use in Mission. Abandon. Her friend Antenna Ears a definite nuisance. Will have to be put out of action.’

  Ariel couldn’t make out what he was saying, but she knew a spy when she saw one. She peeped from behind the door and it was then that she noticed something dark and cloudy squirming at his feet. It was thin like a snake and short—it was a shadow! But it looked deformed and lumpish somehow, and it made Ariel feel sick.

  She crept out and stared at Goodshot, focusing on the dictaphone that lay like a small black bomb in the palm of his hand.

  ‘Why are you talking into that machine?’ she demanded. ‘And what were you doing behind that gardenia bush?’

  Goodshot frowned. His bushy eyebrows crawled together into a long line like a venomous caterpillar. His eyes narrowed. Then he smiled. Ariel hated that smile.

  ‘I’m exploring the Island, my dear, just like you. Dropped in to pay a friendly visit. And I always keep a diary when I travel—’ he held up the dictaphone, ‘don’t you?’

  ‘Humph,’ said Ariel and sat down. ‘Well anyway, I’d like to know what you are doing with a shadow.’ She looked straight at him.

  ‘So many questions for such a little girl!’ he oozed. ‘Well, let’s just say I invented it. Every man needs his own shadow—you’re only half the man without it! And when I’ve worked on it some more, it’ll be as solid as yours. Then we’ll have some fun in the world, ha ha! But that’s enough about me. Let’s talk about you.’ He took out a cigar and lit it. ‘You’re on holiday, so I hear. You needed a change, am I right?’

  ‘Something like that,’ grunted Ariel. She didn’t want his slimy questions probing into her life.

  ‘So your mother’s a writer, eh? I bet she sends a lot of people here for a “change”.’

  ‘She didn’t send me here for that kind of change,’ Ariel said hotly.

  ‘So what do you think she wanted to change about you?’

  Ariel stared at him. He was smiling that perfect smile, running his tongue over his perfect teeth.

  ‘Maybe she wants you to behave better. After all, if she can change her characters, she must be itching to change you.’ Goodshot’s voice was as smooth as butter. ‘You’re not about to win any Popular Girl contests at school, from what I hear. She must wonder what’s wrong with you.’

  ‘She loves me the way I am—she doesn’t want me to be any different!’ cried Ariel.

  ‘She hasn’t written you a letter though, has she?’

  Ariel bit her lip. She’d posted off three letters and had been looking forward to getting her mother’s. She’d just presumed that the post here was a bit haphazard, coming by boat as it did. And of course, she’d known there were no phones. Oh, this man was absurd.

  ‘From what I gather,’ Goodshot leant toward her now in a confidential manner, ‘and I only say this for your own good—so you’ll be prepared—well, my sources say that your mother is really hoping Miss Heckle can do something with you. Make you a social success. She thinks this might be your last chance.’

  Ariel stared at him.

  ‘But cheer up! From what I’ve seen, the School can do wonders. In a few years’ time you could be quite presentable.’ He sprang up, tucking his dictaphone into his right breast pocket.

  ‘I’ll be off now,’ he said brightly, ‘don’t want to interrupt your afternoon. Toodaloo-oo,’ he called in through the doorway to Ermintrude. ‘Thanks for the lemonade!’ And he strolled off down the path, clicking the gate behind him.

  In the distance Ariel could hear him calling, ‘Tiger, here boy! Where the devil have you got to?’

  She closed her eyes. In the silence it seemed as if the world had stopped moving. Her heart thudded. She saw her mother’s face and the glint in her eye when she talked of the Island.

  Oh, that man was just ridiculous—no, he was evil, like all infectious running sore. As if Concetta would want her to be made over, into some different kind of person altogether. Her own mother! She remembered the warmth of Concetta’s hugs, the rhymes she made up every night before they went to bed, and she wanted to howl with the sudden emptiness in her chest.

  When Ermintrude came out they went for a walk in the hills. They wandered amongst the pimento trees as the gong of the sun set behind them. But Ariel was back in Birchwood. She was thinking of her school, of Lynn and Mandy giggling together. She ran her tongue over her 1.3 centimetre teeth, remembering her set of First Principles. The trees were dark now against the bonfire of the sky, but Ariel watched it all from a great distance. She was closed inside her trouble as if behind a locked door.

  That evening, Bertha served a dinner of chicken with roast potatoes.

  ‘What a nice surprise seeing you awake at this hour,’ said Zed grinning. ‘And you haven’t changed into a pumpkin or anything!’

  ‘Cheeky whuffler. Didn’t used to say boo to a goose. Give them their heads and they all get that way. How many potatoes do you want?’

  ‘Four,’ said Zed.

  ‘Eats like a horse. And you, Ariel?’

  ‘I’m not hungry, thanks. I’ll just have a bit of chicken.’

  ‘There’s no figuring out whufflers,’ muttered Bertha as she took Ariel’s plate. ‘The lad used to pick at his food and the girl had the appetite of a wrestler. Change like the weather they do. Must be their hormones. You feeling peaky, Ariel?’

  ‘You do look pale, you know,’ agreed Zed.

  Their concern made Ariel’s eyes prickle. She shook her head and tried to smile, and they all began their dinner.

  ‘Th
is is delicious,’ said Zed.

  ‘You won’t get a better spread on the Island,’ said Bertha proudly, ‘except of course at Miss Bossy Britches’ restaurant, La Dolce Vita.’

  They talked about food and School and Bertha’s arthritis until Ariel demanded abruptly, ‘What do you think of Daniel Goodshot?’

  There was silence for a moment and then Bertha said, ‘Seems like a clean sort of fellow. Never a spot on his suit. He smiles a lot, for no reason that I can see. Harmless sort of fellow.’

  ‘Maybe he smiles to show off his false teeth,’ said Zed. ‘He told me they were made by the top man in New York after a business rival knocked out his own.’

  ‘Haven’t you noticed anything else false about him?’ said Ariel.

  ‘No,’ replied Zed thoughtfully. ‘Not really. He seems very pleasant and friendly. He’s a bit obsessed with business, but I suppose that’s his business, ha ha! His tiger’s a bit of a shock, of course, but he keeps it under control.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know how much longer Daniel Goodshot can be kept under control,’ Ariel said darkly.

  Bertha rose to clear away the plates. ‘Oh my aching legs,’ she sighed. ‘I wish I’d been written as the Queen of Sheba,’ and she hobbled off to the kitchen.

  ‘What do you mean, “kept under control”?’ asked Zed.

  ‘Haven’t you seen his shadow? Daniel Goodshot has a shadow, and he’s got some trick of making it grow. It’s evil-looking, and so is he.’

  ‘Hmm, I suppose that is strange. But a couple of weeks ago I thought not having a shadow was stranger! Nothing on this island happens the way you expect it. Haven’t you learnt that?’

  That snobby superior tone of his, thought Ariel. A couple of weeks ago he thought characters only lived in books! But she tried again. ‘Look, Zed, that shadow means something. Goodshot knows some kind of magic. He’s using it to make himself more powerful. Soon he may be as strong as his author, stronger even. Soon he may be indestructible.’

  ‘Well good luck to him,’ said Zed peaceably. ‘Maybe he’ll make me a business partner. He said I was a real go-getter you know.’