by Lin Oliver
“With Crane. He wanted to tell me that we’ll be camping here tonight, so we should settle in.”
“Like we couldn’t have figured that out,” Hollis said, giving me a suspicious look.
“Boys, Diana and I are having dinner with some of our old friends tonight. In Balong Lum, a traditional village just up the river,” Dr. Reed said. “I know they’d be happy to have you. We’re going to discuss how to keep the palm-oil plantations from slashing and burning the rain forest and encroaching on their native lands.”
“Yeah, just another fun evening in Borneo,” Diana said.
“Your mother is doing important work,” Dr. Haga said. “You shouldn’t make fun.”
“Boys, would you care to join us?” Dr. Reed persisted.
“No, Dr. Reed. They’ll be staying at the campsite tonight,” Crane’s voice slithered out of the darkness. He emerged into the firelight in a fresh khaki suit, his splotches healed, his cheeks smooth and shining. “Dr. Haga has prepared an extensive lecture on the tree shrews of Borneo for them. A fine bit of education. But by all means, feel free to join your friends at any time…. Now, is one of those times.”
Klevko brought Crane’s plush chair from the tent and set it down right next to the fire. Mr. Singh joined him. With a deep sigh, Dr. Reed rose and beckoned for Diana to follow her. Nodding good-bye to Hollis and me, she took Diana’s hand and they headed off on the trail upriver.
As the food was being handed out, Dr. Haga stood up, cleaned his glasses on his shirt, and pulled out his field notebook. “So, we begin tonight with the rare and skittish greater slow loris. A nocturnal beast, the greater slow loris is not a shrew at all, but is actually a member of the lemur family —”
“Knock it off, Haga,” Crane barked as soon as Dr. Reed and Diana were out of sight. “The sound of your voice makes me want to retch.”
The minute Hollis and I were done with our dinner, I grabbed him and escaped to our tent for the night, once again claiming jet lag. Crane and Mr. Singh stayed behind to pore over the maps.
“So, Leo, when you were in Crane’s tent,” Hollis said as we walked by flashlight through the campsite to our tent, “were you sound bending in there?”
“No, Crane can’t ever know about my power. I don’t want to be out of control in front of him. Or pretty much anywhere out here in the middle of nowhere.”
Something rustled in the bushes near us, and we picked up our pace.
“I know the feeling,” Hollis said. “But you have to admit it’s pretty weird, Leo. Suddenly, you’re all buddy-buddy with Crane. I bet you’re using your power to help him find the mask. Am I right or am I right?”
I grabbed him by the arm, pulling him close. I looked over both shoulders as some sort of creature wailed from deep within the jungle. “Don’t say anything about that, okay?”
“About what?”
“My power,” I whispered. “Listen, Hollis, I’m helping Crane because I want to make sure he never splits us up again.”
“I heard you the first time,” he said too loudly, pulling his arm away. “But what am I doing here? What am I supposed to do?”
“Nothing, just take it easy and enjoy the ride.”
“But I just want to go home. I missed band practice. I hate the thought of getting sick here. I hate Borneo.”
“But you’re feeling okay, now?” I asked.
“So far,” he said, and scratched his leg.
“Don’t itch it, bro. And stay positive.”
That’s when some sort of giant moth the size of a small bird fluttered out of the darkness and made right for Hollis’s flashlight. At least we hoped it was a moth. We ran the rest of the way. Zipped up in our tent, we took our antimalarial tablets and settled in. As Hollis played his sape rain-forest guitar, I picked up crazy Marie’s book and read for a while, hoping to find somewhere in that huge formless book the real reason why Crane wanted that mask so badly. I tried to concentrate, but I found my thoughts drifting with the sound of the river and Hollis’s sape, and every now and then, my thoughts would wander to Diana, wondering what she was doing and even what her favorite thing to do in New York was.
“What’d you think of that, Leo?” Hollis said, taking a break from his sape.
“It sounded awesome. It didn’t sound like any of the new music you usually play. What was it?”
“I don’t know,” he said, strumming a few passages from the song. “I just followed my fingers, you know? It came so easily, I didn’t even have to try.”
“You made that up? Whoa, you should write it down. Or I can record it for you so you don’t forget it.”
“I won’t forget it,” he said. “You reading that Borneo book again?”
I considered telling him that the book resting on my chest was written by Crane’s beloved mother, Marie, but then I’d have to explain her complicated theory about the weird race of people living in the hollow center of the Earth, and I knew that would creep him out so completely he probably would forget the song he’d just invented and start worrying about malaria again.
“It’s called Borneo: Her Customs and People,” I said. “I’m reading about the island’s first settlers. It’s getting pretty good, actually.”
“Have fun, bro,” he said, yawning, and started playing his song again, more softly.
Now that I’d lied to Hollis about enjoying it, I had to make a good show of being super fascinated with Marie’s book. But as I read on, I actually did start enjoying it. Crazy Marie had moved on from methane burps and was now talking about ancient civilizations, about how every old civilization made up stories about how they were created. A great many of those creation myths told of a foreign visitor or visitors arriving from the sea, claiming to be from far away. Most of those visitors were described as having beards, and some of them as having feathered arms. But they all did the same thing — they traveled the lands spreading new knowledge and teaching: how to farm, how to read and write, how to keep a calendar, and how to build monuments. And when they had taught everything they knew, they returned to the sea, always promising that one day in the future, they would return.
According to Marie, most of those ancient civilizations turned their foreign visitors into gods, believing them to possess great and magical powers. But perhaps, Marie argued, those myths were really factual accounts. Not just stories, but history. Maybe those visitors were real people. Then she started getting all weird and went into how half the Boskops retreated into the hollow Earth while the other half blew their spirit trumpets and blasted off for the star Sirius. It was at that point that I realized Hollis had stopped playing his sape and was fast asleep. Listening to his breathing and the strange jungle ambience outside our tent, I got so scared and lonely that I almost went outside to find Dmitri, who was surely lurking somewhere nearby. But then I heard female voices echoing through the night.
I poked an eye through a sliver of our tent and watched Dr. Reed and Diana walking along the jungle trail to our campsite.
“That wasn’t so bad, was it, Diana?” Dr. Reed said, laughing. “The chief and all your old friends were happy to see you.”
“You mean they were happy to see you,” Diana said. “You could at least include me, and not just sit me with the kids. I don’t know what to talk to them about.”
“Anything at all.”
“Like subways and pizza and skyscrapers? Don’t you get it, Mom? I don’t like it here. There’s no one to talk to.”
They were nearing the camp, and not wanting to seem like a spy or vampire, I shut off the lantern and dove into my bed, listening to them continuing the same argument they’d been having for years. I felt for Diana. Like me, her parents had made a lot of unusual decisions in their lives, never realizing that their decisions affected her life. Those decisions made Diana weird, strange, alone. But at least she had a mom to argue with.
When everything was quiet outside, I poked my eye through the tent again. Dr. Reed was on her hammock, rocking back and forth. But Diana had made her b
ed on the ground, in a clearing away from the trees. She was on her back with her hands folded neatly on her chest, her face pointing up at the night sky. I watched her for a long time, but she didn’t move a muscle. I kind of wanted to go talk to her, but she looked so peaceful I was afraid I’d be bothering her.
“What are you staring at?” Hollis said, sitting up.
“Nothing,” I said quickly, jumping into bed. “Go back to sleep.”
With Hollis tossing and snapping at bugs, and my mind racing through images of old fossils and Boskops beings and twin masks dangling from the ceiling, I was wide-awake. I poked an eye through the tent again and surveyed the site. Diana was still lying on her back, in the same position as before. It was impossible to tell if she was awake or asleep. Dmitri and Klevko were definitely asleep because I heard them snoring. Crane was definitely awake; the light in his humongous tent was on. I also saw a tall shadowy figure lurching around the campsite, then lurch into the jungle and disappear. It had to be Mr. Singh.
Plenty spooked, I read Marie’s book with my flashlight until the night faded into the gray-blue of morning.
What makes you ugly are the dark circles under your eyes,” Dmitri said to me the next morning as I zombie-shuffled out of my tent for some breakfast. I’d hardly slept at all, an hour at best.
“Thanks, Dmitri,” I said, noticing Crane dragging himself out of his tent. He also sported dark greenish-brown circles under his bloodshot eyes. Yet the campsite was humming with Hollis’s sape guitar, and I found him giving a recital of his new song to Diana and Dr. Reed by her hammock. I zombie-shuffled over.
“That was wonderful, Hollis,” Dr. Reed said, touching her chest. “Just wonderful.”
He pretended like he didn’t care and tuned his strings, but I knew he was thrilled.
“I didn’t realize you knew classical music so well,” Dr. Reed continued. “But being Yolanda’s son, it shouldn’t be surprising that you can play Brahms so beautifully.”
“Huh?” Hollis asked.
“Oh yes, what I remember most of our summer in Madagascar was listening to your mom practicing Brahms, his String Quartet in C Minor. The house was alive with that wonderful piece, even when she wasn’t playing! It was so soothing and beautiful, we’d all nod off. But you were just two or three and probably don’t remember that.”
Before Hollis could respond, Crane came bounding over, full of manic energy, telling everyone we had to get on the river in five minutes. Mr. Singh trailed after him. Apparently he’d developed a mysterious injury, because he was limping around on a crooked old cane. Had he injured himself on his midnight stroll into the jungle?
“Let’s get moving, gents,” Crane said, pointing specifically at Hollis and me. “Five minutes, everyone. Lim Sum, stop dawdling.”
We set off into the dark steaming water like a ghost ship armada, the sun behind us and shadows in front of us. We didn’t see another soul on the river all morning, just the steamy jungle surrounding us, getting thicker and denser with every turn. I could barely keep my eyes open. All morning, I drifted in and out of consciousness, riding the currents of Hollis’s gedang drum. After a lunch of sticky rice, we passed through some light rapids and then a hot drizzle. It was scorching out, the air as thick as syrup. So hot I could barely breathe.
In the trees, there were hundreds of little gray blurs darting around. It took me a second to finally recognize they were animals. Others were also sitting by the riverbanks, mamas holding babies, and smaller ones were playing or cracking rocks on little pellet-size fruit.
“Monkeys!” I screamed.
“Hey monkeys! Over here!” Hollis shouted, and took out his nose flute. “Maybe I can get their attention,” he said, and tried out a few different tunes. One of the little gray blurs glanced up briefly, then resumed rummaging around for brown pellet fruit. I heard Diana’s mini-operatic laugh from upriver.
“I didn’t know you spoke monkey,” I said.
“I don’t, but maybe that guy speaks nose flute.”
Even Tamon Dong, our driver, laughed at that. But the monkeys didn’t hold Hollis’s attention for long. Almost immediately, he was back to scratching at the red lump on his leg. “So, chief, your nose flute is impressive,” I said, trying to distract him. “And your drumming is insanely good. When are you going to combine them?”
“I don’t know,” he said, focused on his mosquito bite.
“’Cause I bet you could do it,” I said. “You’re an unbelievable musician. That thing you played last night —”
“Yeah, but I was just copying Brahms. Dr. Reed said so.”
“So what? You’re just a kid. You can write your masterpieces when you’re older.”
“Mozart wrote his first symphony when he was five.”
“Come on, Hollis, you write tons of music. All those songs you wrote last month for the Freight Elevators were amazing.”
“We’re called Secret Stairwell now, and those songs were just okay.” He paused for a long moment. “When we get back, I want to rededicate myself to music,” he declared.
“Rededicate? Hollis, you’re in like five bands.”
“But we’re just screwing around. It’s pretty simple music, actually.”
“It doesn’t sound simple to me. I’d give anything to play even half as well. You can play every instrument ever made.”
“But I want to really learn an instrument. When we get back, maybe I’ll call Arturo or Gabor from Mom’s old string quartet and see if they can teach me. Unless I’m too old already.”
“You’re eleven!”
“Those classical musicians can do stuff normal people can’t. And they never mess up, not once. They’re like super-heroes. It takes years to get that good. You think I could be that good, Leo?”
“Sure, chief, but classical music? Seems pretty boring.”
“It isn’t boring, Leo. Maybe I should be more like Mom. I wish I could just ask her what to do.”
Hollis puffed away some of the sweaty black hair that was hanging over his eyes and wiped his brow. He was pouring sweat, and his skin had a grayish pallor, except for that bump on his leg. That thing was red as an apple.
“Leo, I don’t feel good,” he said, rocking back and forth. “My stomach’s twitchy again.”
“We’ve just been on the river too long. Once you get on solid ground, you’ll —”
“But I feel all hot, too,” he said, suddenly shivering.
I waddled to the back of the boat and felt his forehead. “You don’t feel hot. And besides, you can’t get malaria. We’re taking the pills.”
“But that thing bit me before we took the pills. And what about all the water I was rubbing on it? Dmitri was telling me this morning about all the different parasites and bacteria in the water, and all the weird jungle diseases you can get. Some of them, Leo, nothing happens for years. But then one day you wake up and your eyes are all clouded over, and then you go blind.”
“Stop listening to Dmitri,” I said, wrapping one of our rain ponchos around him.
“Don’t touch me, Leo. You can’t make it better. I need Mom.”
I did, too. She could make it better; she could make anything better. No matter how sick you felt, she knew just exactly what you needed, just what food to make for you or how to touch you to make it all okay. I’m not saying she was a doctor or anything, but she could always make it better.
Clouds had moved overhead, and it started drizzling. When the drizzle turned to raindrops, we gathered all the boats together in the middle of the river. It was decided that the armada would pull in for the night just upriver, near the Pomantong Cave.
As soon as we were ashore, I took Hollis by the hand and raced him over to Dr. Reed, weaving between all the porters who were scrambling to set up the rain tarps and Crane’s deluxe tent.
“He’s got a slight fever,” she whispered to me, touching his forehead with the back of her hand. “Let’s get you somewhere out of the rain, sweetie,” she said to Hollis. “
How about Crane’s tent?”
“Okay,” Hollis said meekly.
I was sick with worry. I was such an idiot to bring Hollis to this dangerous place. An idiot to take a chance with his life. All of my worst fears swarmed in my mind like a hornet’s nest, and the only thing I could do was walk. I just kept walking along the riverbank, away from everyone, until my heartbeat started slowing. Finally, I was able to tell myself that it would all be okay. It had to be.
I found a spot alone under some trees, overlooking the river. I sat down and stared into the clouds and mist, and listened to the raindrops plopping into the water, just trying to breathe. Eventually, the rain faded into a light drizzle, and together with the breeze rustling the leaves, it all sounded like someone saying shhhhh. But soothing, like a mom calming a toddler. The sun began to set, and the frogs began their chorus of croaks. For a moment, I found a little peace.
“There you are!”
I turned to see Diana trotting up to me. Her hair was wet and shining, but her green and yellow eyes were warm and soft.
“You’re so dark and mysterious, Leo. Going off by yourself to think deep thoughts in the rain,” she said.
“I’m just so worried about Hollis.”
“My mom thinks he just has a virus,” she said. “She knows a lot about this stuff. Come on. Let’s get your mind off this.”
“And do what?”
“Catch a frog, what else?”
I jogged after her as she skipped ahead of me, stopping at times to touch an orchid or to search for monkeys up in the jungle canopy. Occasionally, she’d turn around to see if I was still there and chuck a pebble at me. She laughed and teased me the whole time, and I began to feel a little more at ease. It was almost like we were still little kids back on that path to the pond in Madagascar, surrounded by plants and animals so colorful and astonishing they seemed out of a dream.
Sometimes Diana would get down really low and catlike, crouch close to the ground looking for a frog.
“Look!” she gasped, approaching a bizarre green and red spotted thing near the ground. “This is very special. Come here.”