Blinking, Kip wiped away his tears on his sleeve, noticing that the sky was growing brighter around the edges. The far-off sound of thunder had stopped and on every side, the tops of the mountains began to appear out of the darkness, silhouetted against the dawn. One by one, the stars were snuffed out. The sun took a long time coming up, and there was a cold breeze that teased the feathery surface of the clouds. Far off to the north, Kip could see the frozen mountains like jagged steel teeth on a saw. They looked cold and menacing in the first light, but as soon as the sun broke through the clouds, everything changed. He felt its warmth against his face and saw the ice on the mountains glinting like a diamond necklace.
Now that his friends had vanished, Kip wasn’t sure if he should keep going in the direction of the mountains. Maybe he could just walk to the nearest hill and climb down from the clouds. Somehow, he’d find his way to a road or a town and from there he’d get help . . . but then what? He knew he didn’t want to go back to Paramount Academy. That was for sure. And he couldn’t go home, because his aunts would send him straight back to school. More than anything, he wanted to help free his parents from jail, but Kip didn’t even know how to find them.
Just then, a flock of more than a dozen birds flew out of the clouds. Unlike the vulture, which had glided around effortlessly, these birds were beating their wings as they went past, heading north towards the snow peaks. Kip didn’t know what kind of birds they were, a rusty-brown colour with yellow beaks. As he watched them, he realized they must be migrating. Somewhere beyond those mountains was their destination, where they would build their nests and lay their eggs, so that when summer ended, they could fly back with their young. Somehow, the sight of the birds gave him hope. Kip got to his feet and set off deliberately, heading towards the mountains again. He didn’t know where he was going or why, but there was a reason, he knew for sure.
Almost immediately, he heard a shout. Stopping in his tracks, Kip looked back over his shoulder. Off in the distance, he saw two familiar figures waving at him.
‘Kip!’ He recognized Juniper’s voice. ‘Wait for us.’
By now, he could see all four of his friends. Shielding his eyes from the bright sunlight, he waved and began to run towards them.
‘Where did you go?’ Scruggs asked when he reached them. ‘We’ve been hunting all over for you.’
‘I got lost in the storm,’ said Kip. ‘And I thought you must have fallen through or were struck by lightning.’
‘No, we’re fine, but we were sure you’d been swept away,’ said Meghna.
Each of them slapped him on the back in relief. Kip felt foolish for having been afraid. He should have known that his friends would never abandon him.
Together, they set off once again towards the mountains. The five of them trudged along in a line, single file. By the time they stopped to rest, a few hours later, the sun was directly overhead, and Kip noticed that the clouds were getting thinner. Below him, through the layers of vapour, he could make out the vague outlines of hills and ridges, valleys and forests.
‘It looks as if the clouds are breaking up,’ said Juniper.
‘What happens when they disappear?’ asked Kip.
‘We have to get down on to solid ground before they do,’ said Scruggs. ‘Or else, find a new patch of cloud we can ride on, but you need to make sure which direction it’s going in. Sometimes, the wind can blow you back where you came from.’
For a few moments, they all fell silent.
‘I’m getting hungry,’ said Ameel.
‘So am I,’ said Juniper, pointing to their right. ‘Let’s go across to one of those hills over there and see what we can find.’
Kip could tell that Scruggs wanted to keep moving, but he nodded and turned towards a cluster of hilltops, which was only a few hundred metres away. But before they’d gone more than a dozen steps, Meghna waved for them to stop.
‘Listen! Do you hear that sound?’
For a few seconds, Kip couldn’t hear anything, but soon he was aware of a rough, rumbling noise.
‘Is it thunder?’ he asked.
Juniper shook her head.
The sound grew steadily louder, the whirring and thumping of an engine. All of them looked around, but there wasn’t anything in sight.
‘Run!’ Scruggs suddenly shouted, setting off towards the nearest hill.
At the same moment, Kip saw the clouds in front of them churned up into a white whirlpool that grew bigger and bigger. As the noise became even louder, Kip thought it might be a tornado. A funnel had formed in the clouds and seemed ready to suck him and the others down before any of them could reach shelter on the forested hill.
Just then, a huge set of whirling blades sliced through the clouds, stirring them up. Immediately, Kip realized what it was. A helicopter rose up in front of them like a giant mechanical dragonfly.
Fourteen
Seated at the front of the helicopter, next to the pilot, was Captain Lovelock. He had on a pair of headphones and was holding a megaphone in one hand. As the chopper circled around the five figures, the wind from its rotor blades whipped up the clouds.
‘Stop running!’ the principal bellowed through his bullhorn. ‘Halt!’
Kip looked across at Juniper and Scruggs with panic in his eyes.
‘Give up,’ yelled the principal. ‘You’ll never escape!’
The helicopter was hovering a few feet above the clouds, which were blowing away.
‘Stay close to me,’ Scruggs shouted over the noise of the engine. ‘They can’t land on the clouds.’
‘Now, one by one, I want you to climb aboard!’ the principal ordered as Kip saw the back door of the chopper open. The warden looked out, then lowered a short ladder.
‘Kip, you first!’ the principal shouted.
Scruggs looked at him and shook his head. The helicopter was only 10 feet away, and Kip could see the warden grinning at him.
‘Okay. When I count three,’ said Juniper, ‘start running for the hill. They won’t be able to land because there are too many trees.’
The top of the hill was less than 100 metres away, and as the blades on the helicopter fanned the clouds, Kip could see the top of a forested ridge just below the surface.
‘One . . .’ Juniper counted. ‘Two . . .’
‘Do as I say!’ the principal roared, his voice almost as loud as the engine.
‘Three!’
Together, they ran straight at the chopper, but at the last moment, they ducked down and raced under the helicopter’s skids and out the other side. For several moments, the thinning clouds felt as if they wouldn’t be able to hold their weight, but within a few seconds, the five friends were away from the spinning blades and swirling clouds, racing towards the trees on the hill.
‘Keep going. Don’t look back,’ Scruggs shouted, as Kip heard the principal cursing into the bullhorn. He wished he could dive under the surface of the clouds and hide. The hill seemed so close and yet so far away. Behind him, he heard the helicopter’s engine revving up as the pilot swung around. Kip wanted to look back but didn’t dare.
Moments later, the shadow of the helicopter was gaining on them, and he felt a violent rush of air. The clouds began to separate under their feet. Kip saw Meghna begin to fall, waving both arms to try and keep her balance. At the same moment, he felt someone grab his collar from behind.
The warden had reached down and had caught him by the blazer. As Kip struggled to break free, the roaring in his ears was so loud, he thought his head was going to burst. Just as he was about to be dragged into the chopper, Kip felt the blazer’s stitching begin to rip. By now, the helicopter was ploughing through the clouds and shuddering as the pilot banked to avoid the tops of the trees on the hill. At the last moment, the collar on Kip’s blazer finally gave way and he felt himself falling. He was free again, but there was nothing to stop him now, as he dropped through a gap in the clouds.
Kip braced himself, wondering how long it would take before he c
rashed to the ground and how much it would hurt. But seconds later, he landed on something soft, the branch of a tree that soon gave way beneath him. It was some kind of pine, with long, slippery needles that broke his fall. He slid from one branch to the next until he finally landed on his hands and knees in a thick cushion of pine needles.
The sound of the helicopter receded as the clouds converged overhead, erasing the sky. Looking up, Kip could see the tops of the pine trees disappearing into the mist. Only then did he realize that he’d been holding his breath from the moment the warden caught hold of his blazer. Releasing the air from his lungs, Kip collapsed on the ground, breathing in the comforting fragrance of dead leaves and damp earth.
Moments later, he heard a whistle and looked up to see Scruggs sitting in a tree nearby. He was holding on to a branch and quickly climbed down. There was no sign of the others. For a few brief seconds, Kip heard the roar of the helicopter again, as it circled somewhere overhead, out of sight above the clouds, before the sound faded away.
‘Are you okay?’ Scruggs asked for the second time that day.
‘I think so,’ said Kip, feeling the torn collar of his blazer. ‘They almost had me. What about the others?’
Scruggs looked around for a moment and shook his head.
‘I saw Meghna falling,’ said Kip, ‘but I don’t know where she landed.’
‘We were lucky because this part of the hill was right under the clouds. If you and I had fallen over there, it could have been a whole lot worse,’ said Scruggs, pointing to a cliff that was just visible through the trees, where the ridge fell away several hundred feet into a deep gorge.
‘What do we do now?’ Kip asked.
‘Start looking for the others,’ said Scruggs.
‘Do you think Lovelock and the warden are going to come after us again?’
‘Probably, but it’ll take them a while.’ Scruggs scanned the forest. ‘Let’s go this way and see what we find.’
There were no paths in the forest. Following the ridge, they found their way blocked by thickets of bamboo and tangled vines barbed with thorns. With the clouds shutting out the sun, they were surrounded by shadows. The thick foliage added to the gloom, so it felt as if night was about to fall, though Kip knew it was still the middle of the day. He could hear birds chuckling and twittering in the branches and saw a couple of mushrooms growing at the base of a tree. Though he was hungry, he didn’t dare taste them. They walked ahead and came to a small spring spilling out of the ground, and Kip was able to drink, though the water didn’t taste very good. Flies and mosquitoes buzzed in his ears, and leeches plucked at his socks. Flicking them off, he and Scruggs clambered over fallen trees and around boulders draped with ferns. At one point, he saw a blue flash and thought it might be Juniper’s sweater, but then he realized it was a colourful orchid hanging from a branch.
After a couple of hours, they knew it was hopeless. Until now, they had stayed below the clouds, afraid that the helicopter might return. Finally, Scruggs signalled that he was going up and began to climb a tall tree. It was an oak with broad branches that rose into the clouds. Kip followed him, and as they made their way towards the top, the oak’s branches grew thinner and spread out, so it was harder to climb. Moving cautiously, they climbed as high as they dared, until finally their heads poked out of the clouds.
At first, there was nothing to see, except for a bright glare reflecting off the fleecy surface. Kip’s eyes ached as he searched for any sign of the others. There was nothing but a barren expanse of white. When he turned to face the opposite direction, a hill rose up behind them. It was curved like a misshapen horseshoe, with two low summits. As Kip stared at the dense forest, he noticed something strange.
‘What’s that?’ he asked, letting go of his branch and pointing.
Scruggs squinted and shook his head.
‘I don’t see anything,’ he replied.
‘It looks like some kind of wall,’ said Kip. ‘See that tall tree with the light-green leaves, then follow the line of the hill to the right. It’s definitely a wall, like a fort or a castle surrounded by trees.’
Scruggs studied the hill for a while and then nodded.
‘Could be,’ he said. ‘But we’ll have to go closer to make sure.’
He climbed another foot higher, then reached out with both arms to steady himself as he crawled back up on top of the clouds. Reaching over, Scruggs offered Kip a hand, pulling him up to the surface. Standing in the sunlight again, Kip felt suddenly exposed, as if someone were watching every move they made.
Fifteen
Approaching the hill cautiously, Scruggs gestured for Kip to stay close beside him. By now they could see that a stone wall ran along the top of the ridge, though it was buried in jungle and looked as if it might be part of some ancient ruins. As they drew nearer, Kip began to hear what sounded like muffled music. It was different from any sound he’d ever heard before—a complicated humming that seemed to carry a melody and rhythm but without any regular notes or beat. From time to time, there was a flute-like warble that could have been a bird, though it sounded more like wind blowing through a crack in a window.
Clouds encircled the hill. This time, instead of climbing down a tree, they were able to reach a section of the wall that was 3 feet wide at the top, with shallow steps that were easy to climb.
Peering over the other side of the wall, they saw a garden, neatly planted in orderly rows, with beds of flowers and pruned hedges, unlike the tangled jungle behind them. The garden sloped down into the mist, where Kip saw the top of a peaked roof, like a pagoda, covered in shiny metallic tiles. There was also a flagstaff sticking out of the clouds with a weathervane shaped like a raven that rotated in the breeze. The strange music seemed to be coming from the pagoda. Scruggs and Kip looked at each other, not sure if they should go any closer. Moments later, they heard the crack of a breaking branch.
Turning around, Kip could see something shaking one of the trees in the forest. There was a low, woofing cry followed by a squeal, as another branch began to shake wildly.
‘Monkeys,’ said Scruggs under his breath.
At the same moment, Kip saw a hairy brown face appear through the leaves. The eyes didn’t look friendly. Staring hard at Kip, the monkey bared its teeth. By now, he could see at least three of them in the trees nearby. Then, suddenly, one of the monkeys screamed and jumped from one branch to another, landing a few feet away from Kip. Almost immediately, a second monkey leapt on to the wall, with a menacing expression on its face. Though they were smaller than Kip and Scruggs, the pack of monkeys showed no fear, as more of them appeared, a whole army of wild-looking apes that began hooting and snarling.
‘Jump!’ shouted Scruggs.
It didn’t take a second for Kip to leap from the top of the wall, though it was more than 12 feet above the ground. He landed on all fours in a flower bed that broke his fall. By the time he got to his feet, twenty or thirty monkeys were on top of the wall, and it looked as if they were going to jump down and attack. Both Kip and Scruggs began to run, but as they turned, three large dogs came at them from the far edge of the garden. These were huge, hairy beasts with wild eyes and sharp fangs, barking loudly. Now there was nowhere to escape.
But, instead of attacking Scruggs and Kip, the dogs rushed past them and ran to the wall, where they barked at the monkeys.
‘Don’t worry, the dogs won’t hurt you. They look more dangerous than they are, especially when they’re chasing monkeys.’
The voice came out of the mist, and Kip looked around for a moment, before he spotted a figure standing next to the pagoda. He was a tall man with a grey beard, holding a rake in one hand.
‘I’m sorry, we didn’t mean to intrude,’ said Scruggs.
‘That’s all right,’ said the man with a friendly laugh. ‘Your friends are already here.’
Just then, Kip saw Juniper, Meghna and Ameel step out of the pagoda. Each of them was holding a half-eaten apple.
‘How
did you get here?’ asked Scruggs, relieved.
‘We fell through the clouds,’ whispered Meghna, so the man couldn’t hear, ‘and landed on the other side of this hill. From there, we found a path that brought us up here.’
‘Is this your home?’ Kip asked the man with the rake.
‘My hermitage,’ he said with a smile, gesturing for them to follow.
The monkeys had now retreated, and the dogs circled round, wagging their tails and sniffing at Kip’s hands. The music was louder, though it had a soothing tone, like waves lapping against the shore.
‘What’s that sound?’ Scruggs asked.
‘Oh, that’s my solar harp,’ said the hermit. ‘It makes music out of sunshine.’
Kip looked at him with a puzzled expression.
‘Here, I’ll show you,’ said the hermit, opening a door into the pagoda. It was a large shed with three walls and a hole in one side of the roof, through which sunlight poured in. The tiles on the roof were like a funnel of mirrors, directing the light inside. At the centre of the shed stood a large instrument, about 15 feet high, that looked like a giant spider web, with dozens of translucent threads stretched in different directions and fixed to a wooden frame. Kip could see that the strings were vibrating, creating the humming sounds. All around this were more mirrors of different shapes and sizes that focused the light on the harp, as well as a contraption of glass tubes and vessels, some of which were filled with water and others that gave off steam, which produced a variety of whistling sounds. The music seemed to spiral out of the harp in all directions.
‘The energy from the sun turns into music, using convection currents in the air to strum the harp strings and steam from the heated water to pass through the pipes,’ explained the hermit. ‘The harmonies it produces keep changing all the time, and it helps the plants grow stronger and faster.’
The Cloudfarers Page 7