They heard voices. Darwen looked directly ahead and saw a space where the deep shade of the trees stopped. It was the soccer field and the cluster of tiny houses. He snapped the flashlight off, then closed his eyes tight to get them used to the dark. Alex and Rich both groaned, but he shushed them.
“If I get eaten by something in these woods, Darwen Arkwright,” hissed Alex, “I’m going to have something to say about it.”
Darwen pressed on, feeling the ground carefully with his feet with each step. The voices were getting louder. A woman was crying. A man was shouting angrily, and someone else was responding in a placating tone, which was not helping the situation at all: Jorge.
Darwen veered inland across the moonlit field, moving toward the lights of the houses, and nearly stepped on a large iguana, which hissed at him. Under a great, spreading tree was a roughly timbered shack with an open veranda hung with hammocks. There were people there. Darwen could make out Felippe sitting on the deck, his head in his hands. Jorge was standing, murmuring, continually lowering his palms as if urging calm and then looking up into the branches that hung over the house.
Darwen, Rich, and Alex hugged the tree line and moved slowly closer, certain they would not be seen unless someone shone a light right at them. It was Mr. Delgado who was doing the shouting. Darwen was glad to see that someone else had the gun now, because his fury was frightening. He kept pointing at Jorge and shouting, cursing, spitting at the ground, and calling “Calida,” until he finally collapsed beside the hammocks, weeping uncontrollably.
“Her father,” whispered Alex.
Darwen said nothing, but he suddenly felt embarrassed, even ashamed, that they had come skulking around these people’s grief. What had he been thinking intruding like this, sniffing for clues while a family mourned its lost child? Shouldn’t he of all people know that this wasn’t the stuff of adventure? He turned around, pulling at the others wordlessly, determined to get out of there before they were caught spying.
Alex shot him a look, and as their eyes met, he stumbled on something at his feet and fell sprawling to the ground with a dull splat. The next thing he knew he was lying on the forest floor, up to his elbows in a slippery and foul-smelling mud. Though the area around them was quite dry, Darwen had somehow managed to find a round, saucer-like depression that must have been holding rainwater for days. The brown goop was everywhere, all over his face, hands, and clothes. He had even managed to splash some of it onto the others, and they glared at him with disbelief and annoyance. Darwen tried to get to his feet, slipped in the forest slime, and landed on his back.
Alex gave him a look of withering contempt, as if he was being stupid on purpose, but she didn’t get a chance to say anything. A flashlight from where the adults were talking came lancing through the darkness toward them. Then another. Voices called, and Darwen heard the distinct and terrifying snap of a rifle being cocked to fire.
“Run!” he yelled. Darwen scrambled, sliding in the mud, gripping the stone over which he had tripped in the first place, realizing even as he got to his feet and began to sprint that it was perfectly round and was not the only one on the ground there. There was a ring of them—about ten—circling the muddy depression in which he had just been lying.
He dashed blindly along the path after the others, feeling the light vanish as soon as they reached the tree line.
“I can’t see!” sputtered Rich.
“Just keep moving,” said Darwen, catching up with them.
“Do they think we might be the missing kid,” asked Rich, “or the things that took her?”
“Well,” said Alex, “there’s three of us, and Darwen currently looks like the creature from the black lagoon, so I don’t think they’re looking to take us home and feed us empanadas.”
“Good point,” said Rich. “Shine the light on the ground.”
“And Darwen,” Alex added, considering the mud on her shirt, “don’t touch me, okay? This stuff stinks.”
“Just move!” hissed Rich, exasperated.
They jogged along the trail, eyes glued to the shifting pool of light at their feet. From time to time they glanced backward into the darkness, but if the villagers had seen enough of them to give chase, they were a long way back. They slowed, getting their breath back, but as soon as they did, they heard something new above the constant hum of the jungle and the surf: a steady, rhythmic pounding.
Horses.
Darwen, Alex, and Rich began to run again, harder now, all wondering the same thing: could they get back to the tent camp before the horsemen caught up, or did they have to hide in the jungle? If they waved the horsemen down, would they get a chance to explain themselves before someone took a shot at what they assumed to be a pack of ravening pouncels?
Darwen turned to see how close the horsemen were, so he was the last to see the flashlight coming toward them from the tent camp, the last to realize that they had nowhere to go, the last to learn that they had already been seen, and the last to recognize that the man in front of them was the one person they wouldn’t have wanted to catch them out of bed at night.
“What in the name of all that’s holy are you doing out here at this time?”
Darwen spun around. Rich had raised the flashlight slightly, and in its beam he saw the pink and furious face of Mr. Sumners, the math teacher.
“Could have been worse,” said Alex. “We could have been shot.”
Darwen couldn’t argue with that, but it didn’t help. Sumners had flagged the horsemen down and sent them back to the huddle of forlorn little houses looking disappointed and angry, then marched Darwen, Rich, and Alex back to the camp and bed, refusing Darwen permission to shower and wash his clothes.
“But I’m filthy,” Darwen had protested. “The tent will stink.”
“You should have thought of that before you, ahhh, decided to poke your nose into other people’s business,” said Sumners, “risking death and dismemberment in the process for your friends. And you, Haggerty,” he had said, glaring at Rich. “You’re supposed to be smart. I would have thought you of all people would know the dangers of wandering around in a place like this at night.”
They walked back to the tents in silence, Alex clearly peeved that she wasn’t the one whom Sumners recognized as the clever member of their little group. “That was a bad idea,” she finally said. “Following them to the village. Terrible idea.”
“What are you looking at me for?” said Darwen.
“Because it was your bad idea,” she said. “We told you.”
“It was your choice,” Darwen muttered.
“Yeah?” said Rich. “What about ‘We’re supposed to be the Peregrine Pact, remember?’”
“Hey,” said Darwen, defiant, “you didn’t have to come.”
“Next time,” said Alex, “maybe we won’t. You might be the mirroculist, Darwen, but that doesn’t mean you get to make all the decisions.”
She stalked off.
“I just thought . . .” Darwen began.
“Save it,” said Rich. “I’m beat.”
They didn’t speak as they walked the rest of the way. Darwen was annoyed, so he just muttered a goodnight to Gabriel, who had sat up as soon as they unzipped the tent.
“A kid has gone missing?” Gabriel asked, his meek voice suggesting that he already knew the answer.
Darwen paused. “How did you know?”
“I heard them shouting,” said Gabriel, his face unreadable in the dark. “Which one is it?”
“A girl called Calida,” he said. “Felippe Delgado’s sister. He was the one who . . . but you weren’t at the game, were you?”
“No,” said Gabriel. “I, uh . . . don’t know them. I was just curious.”
He didn’t sound curious. He sounded upset, as though he had spoken through gritted teeth, trying to get a hold
of himself. Darwen asked him if he was okay, but the boy didn’t respond.
Darwen lay there in the dark, exhausted. Moments later, he was asleep. He dreamed of the jungle and of huge, brightly colored snakes that hung from the trees and slithered across the path in front of him. For some reason they didn’t bother him, but the further he moved into the trees, the more of them there were, and soon it was difficult to walk without stepping on them. They were also getting bigger, and some of them now were marked with a black zigzag pattern down their backs. These, Darwen knew, were very dangerous, and the dream quickly turned to nightmare as they multiplied, emerging from the underbrush on all sides and approaching him with implausible deliberation. As the largest one reached him, mouth gaping to reveal a swelling tentacle where its tongue should be, he heard wild, maniacal laughter. He turned, and there between the trees was a seated figure, rocking back and forth with odd jerky motions, its head tilted backward and its mouth open. It had red curly hair and wore the garish, oversized clothes of a clown.
Darwen woke with a start.
It was hot and muggy in the dark tent, and Darwen felt himself sweating, even though he was only covered by a single cotton sheet. He pushed it back and then kept quite still, listening, waiting for his heart to slow as his memory of the dream faded. He could hear Rich snoring softly. And then, just as he was about to drift off again, he heard the unmistakable sound of the tent flap being slowly, carefully unzipped.
For a moment he lay quite still, staring into the blackness. The sound came again. Someone was coming in.
Darwen sat up, one hand reaching desperately for the flashlight under the bed. He groped along the plastic floor and found it, swinging it up and turning it on.
The tent entrance was half-open, the zipper moving down, gripped by a spindly black claw. Another was pushing the flap wide, and through the gap the swinging beam of the flashlight found a cluster of black eyes and hard, shiny mouthparts.
Darwen shrieked, scrambling backward on his bed, the light lurching around the tent as the flashlight slipped from his hands. He had the impression of something large stepping quickly inside, and he held his hands out in front of him, terrified that the thing would touch him. He could hear skittering movement inside the tent.
Rich grunted and woke. Darwen’s fingers groped for the flashlight again, finding it and directing it once more toward the tent door.
“What?” gasped Rich. “What is it?”
The flap was still unzipped, but there were only the three boys inside. Darwen swung the light around, and Gabriel sat up, rubbing his eyes and looking scared.
“Something came in,” Darwen gasped. “I heard it.”
Rich snapped on the rechargeable lantern and held it up.
“Check under the beds,” he said grimly. “On three. One. Two. Three.”
The three boys thrust their heads under the beds, turning from side to side but finding nothing more than half-open luggage and their own anxious faces.
“You must have dreamed it,” said Rich.
“No way,” said Darwen. “Someone opened the tent.”
“Have you been out, Gabriel?” asked Rich. “To go to the bathroom or something?”
The skinny boy shook his head fervently, but his eyes were cautious, watchful.
“There’s nothing here, Darwen,” said Rich. “Maybe someone got the wrong tent by mistake.”
“Maybe someone was trying to go through our luggage while we slept,” suggested Gabriel.
“Maybe it was nothing,” Rich replied. He sounded irritable, as if he thought Darwen was being dramatic to attract attention to himself. “Can we please try to get some sleep?”
Darwen said nothing. He couldn’t be sure what he had seen by the flickering light of his erratic flashlight, and he had been having a nightmare. But he saw in his mind’s eye the rail-thin leg with the little black claw, the clustered hard-candy eyes, and the beak-like mouth with the pulsing black feelers beside it.
A name came to mind: a stupid, ridiculous name that made the tropical night feel as cold as November in Lancashire.
Mr. Jenkins.
The next morning Rich still looked crestfallen and surly. Sumners had taken the night to think of a suitable punishment and had come up with something that hit Rich particularly hard. After breakfast, while the other students worked on their bows and arrows and then went on another jungle hike, Rich, Darwen, and Alex were to stay behind with Miss Martinez and help the cleaning staff.
“What’s the point of coming here if we’re not allowed to look around?” he sputtered to the others. When they didn’t respond, he added, with less anger and more sadness, “The hikes are the best part.”
Rich didn’t speak again until the rest of the students were in the motorboats, Nathan, Chip, and Barry waving and laughing as they pulled away. He didn’t even look up as a pair of white-faced capuchin monkeys started dropping half-eaten bits of fruit onto the roof of the tent.
“I hear you had a nocturnal visitor,” said Alex as Rich stomped off to start work.
“Mr. Jenkins,” said Darwen. “Or something like him.”
“Can’t have been,” said Alex. “We smashed the gate that led to their charming cottage. How could one of them be here?”
“Same way I was here, or hereabouts, weeks before ever getting on the plane,” said Darwen. “I came through a portal.”
They were sitting on the platform outside Alex’s tent.
“That particular monster finds a way through to this particular spot in the jungle and then finds your particular tent?” Alex replied. “It’s too much of a coincidence.”
“It’s not a coincidence at all,” said Darwen. “It’s all connected. The thing that once called itself Mr. Jenkins was looking for me. I’m sure of it.”
“I’m surprised it could fit in the tent with your giant ego.”
“I’m not saying I’m special,” said Darwen. “I’m just . . . I don’t know. Involved. Central to this whole Silbrica thing.”
“So long as you’re not saying you’re special,” said Alex wryly.
“It’s because of what I saw that we’re here at all,” said Darwen.
“So the rest of us are what? Your sidekicks? Your helpers?”
“You remember the Halloween Hop, Alex?” said Darwen, suddenly fierce. “I didn’t want to go. I wanted to sit in my room. You made me go because you thought I was important. I was the mirroculist. I still am. That makes me special. I didn’t ask to be. I’m not even sure I want to be. But I am. That’s all there is to it.”
Alex considered him for a long moment, then nodded seriously. “Okay,” she said, looking up toward the dining shelter. “Miss Martinez is coming. Better get your stuff together, Captain Special, you’ve got some scrubbing to do. Too bad being a mirroculist doesn’t get you out of cleaning.”
Darwen glowered at her, but she grinned, and eventually he did too.
“There you are,” said Miss Martinez. “Come on, there’s work to be done. Mr. Haggerty is helping Señor Torres bring the supplies up from the beach to the kitchen. Miss O’Connor, you can help Juanita replace the bed linens in the tents. Mr. Arkwright, you have to go to the village and apologize for the confusion you caused last night. You will need to extend your sympathy to the Delgado family. And quick march.”
Darwen’s heart sank. “Can’t Rich and Alex come with me?” he said.
“They are busy with other tasks,” the Spanish teacher answered brusquely. “Tasks that will be assigned to you also when you return. And take a shower. Rapido.”
Darwen showered in the only stall without a lizard, toad, or insect more than two inches long. He put on shorts and a T-shirt, sprayed himself with mosquito repellant, and set off to the village along the coastal track, wondering what on earth he was supposed to say in his idiot-level Span
ish. How was he supposed to convey his feelings about the loss of their daughter and his ridiculous behavior, which had made the situation worse, when his language skills hadn’t gotten beyond “Is this a banana? No, it is a pineapple.”
Who dreams this stuff up? he wondered. “Is this a banana? No, it is a pineapple.” Seriously? Who would ever say that? I mean, my Spanish might be rubbish, but I’m not a complete moron. I can tell the difference between a banana and—
The thought died as he spotted the muddy depression into which he had fallen. The stone spheres that had ringed the damp hole last night were gone. He gazed at the little hollow, wondering why it was the only piece of ground that still looked wet.
“Are you lost, little boy?”
Darwen looked up. It was a bit like looking at a picture of a shopping cart in the middle of the desert or a fussily upholstered couch on the edge of a cliff, so clearly did Scarlett Oppertune not belong in this place. She was dressed today in an electric-blue suit with padded shoulders, matching high heels, and an elegant little purse. Her watch, ring, and designer spectacles were all studded with diamonds. Her perfectly made-up lips were wide and smiling, her eyes were bright, and her head was cocked slightly to one side in an expression of welcoming interest, which Darwen did not trust for a second.
“No,” said Darwen. “I’m going to the houses.”
“Houses,” she repeated with a still broader smile that suggested he was stretching the definition of the word. “Get a good look,” she said. “After what happened last night, I don’t think they’ll be here much longer.”
She was still smiling, still looking perfectly cheerful, so Darwen was at a loss to explain why he felt cold and uneasy, as if he was alone with one of the pouncel creatures he had seen the night before.
Scarlett’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully, but the smile didn’t alter, as if it was held in place by wires. “So,” she said. “What are you doing out here at this time? Shouldn’t you be out looking at birds or something with your little friends?”
Darwen Arkwright and the Insidious Bleck Page 16