by Nadia Aguiar
Wild, giddy joy seized Penny. She felt fresh and alive. The gloomy past months of worry and the sharp terror of the night in the rowing-boat had been rinsed clean, and in an instant life had opened up and anything and everything had become possible again. She looked ahead eagerly to Kana. The clouds had moved off the peaks, the haze had dispelled, and Tamarind appeared larger and brighter and more solid than it had been before. The sun streamed down and the shadow of the ruby-red sail raced alongside them on the water. Seagrape was far ahead now, a bright green star in the blue sky, leading them in. Kal let out the sails and they rushed towards Kana.
The sea was shallow in some places, deep in others, and Penny looked down into water that was in turns azure and indigo and emerald, animated by flashing schools of bronze fish and sea-bats that fluttered by on their darkly ruffled capes. Several times she saw silent fleets of the same jellyfish that had drawn her to Kana, their glow dulled by the daylight, their tentacles gently trawling the current. The wind coming off the land swelled the red silk mainsail, which Kal adjusted, turning the boat towards a passage through the islands.
Where once there had been just a cloak of green, now individual trees came into view as the boat approached land. What had looked like boulders on the beaches revealed themselves to be snoozing tortoises who roused and shuffled off, their heavy, lumbering bodies leaving surprisingly fine, feathery traces in the sand. Jebby blew the whistle round his neck and a flock of gangly yellow birds wading in the shallows raised their heads and trilled back.
‘That’s what I heard on the other side of the Line – your whistle!’ said Penny, recognizing the sound she’d heard through the fog. The whistle was carved neatly out of pale wood, and Jebby held it sideways, like a flute, his fingers jumping nimbly in sequence to imitate the cries of the yellow flock.
‘I made it myself,’ he said proudly. ‘I can do fifty different calls with it.’
He began demonstrating various calls and the lemony flock turned, alarmed, and retreated on long stilts of legs into the mangroves.
The boat rounded a head and a town came into view, nestled deep in a green harbour.
‘Tontap!’ said Tabba proudly. ‘It was chosen as the place for the competition to start for the Bloom.’
It was not the deserted fringe of shore that Penny, Maya and Simon had first landed on, or the flinty coral fortress town they had approached on their second time to the island. This Tamarind teemed with human life. Palm-thatched huts sprang from the shores all around the harbour. Carts laden with fresh produce rattled over bridges. Boats heeled under bright silk sails. The air seemed clearer, the colours more vivid than Penny remembered. Here, the ghosts of scents that had lingered in the pressed leaves in Maya’s drawer at home were rich and alive – smoke from cooking fires, herbs drying on sun-baked stones, the sour sap of trees and the waft of damp earth. Sounds of squealing and growling and honking and chirping burbled inside the hot shadows of the jungle and travelled effortlessly across the water.
‘Look at all the people,’ said Jebby. ‘Way more than when we headed out this morning!’
The coastal road into the town was jammed with travellers, walking in noisy groups or riding in carts pulled by bristle-maned grey mules that swayed beneath the weight of their passengers.
‘See over there,’ said Tabba, pointing to a group of young men with thick yellow ribbons knotted above their elbows. ‘Those are Bloom Players – they all wear yellow arm sashes.’
‘They’re just showing off,’ said Kal, frowning at the group. ‘You’re not supposed to wear your sash until tonight.’
‘Why can only one person be the Bloom Catcher?’ Penny asked, as casually as she could. ‘Wouldn’t there be better chances of getting it if a whole bunch of people went out to the Wave?’
‘The Wave is big, but it’s very fragile,’ said Tabba. ‘If more than one person dives through it, it will collapse. That’s why a kid has to do it – only a kid is small enough.’
‘Who gets to be a Bloom Player?’ asked Penny.
‘You have to do something that no one else has done,’ said Jebby. ‘Then Elder – or whoever your town elder is – decides if you qualify.’
‘It has to be something really hard or scary,’ added Tabba.
‘Like what?’ asked Penny.
‘One guy walked across a rope over the Naino Gorge,’ said Jebby.
‘Another caught twelve Tagor eels with his bare hands,’ said Tabba. ‘That kind of thing.’
‘What did you do, Kal?’ Penny asked.
No one answered for a moment.
‘We’re not supposed to talk about it,’ said Tabba.
‘Drop me off first,’ Kal interrupted.
They were nearing a wooden dock on one of the tiny islands dotting the small green harbour they had just entered. When they drew close to the dock, Kal hopped lightly on to it.
‘But what do we do now?’ Tabba whispered to him.
‘You’re the ones who wanted to pick her up; you figure it out,’ Penny heard him say as he reached down for the small net of fish from Jebby.
They watched him hoist the catch on to his back and disappear into the trees. Though Penny was relieved to see him go, she knew that Tabba and Jebby would soon leave her, too. She wasn’t looking forward to being on her own.
Without Kal there, Tabba and Jebby relaxed. Jebby took the tiller and Tabba stretched out her legs as they sailed across the harbour. Seagrape, who had been cutting emerald swathes in front of them, returned, coasting in and landing on the bow where she perched, feathers folded crisply, curved beak pointing into the wind.
‘How do you know Kal, anyway?’ Penny asked.
‘We’ve known him ever since he came to Kana,’ said Tabba. ‘He was seven or eight then.’
‘He’s just a year older than us,’ said Jebby.
‘Oh,’ said Penny, surprised by how disappointed she felt. ‘So you really are friends.’
‘I wouldn’t go that far,’ said Jebby. ‘Kal’s just … Kal.’
‘He doesn’t really have friends,’ said Tabba. She reached out and stroked Seagrape’s head with a knuckle. ‘But Tontap’s so small. Everyone knows everyone else. He wanted to go fishing for this kind of fish that school out by the Blue Line that are supposed to be lucky. We like going out near the Line, so we said we’d help him. After all, he is a Bloom Player.’
‘We’re supposed to stay away from the Line,’ said Jebby. ‘But everyone’s so busy getting ready for the festival we figured no one would notice.’
‘Kal’s wanted to be the Bloom Catcher forever,’ explained Tabba. ‘Ever since he came to Kana. His mother sent him to live with his aunt and uncle in Tontap, but he hates it here. He used to tell everyone how great it was at home and how he was going to go back there, but no one ever came to fetch him.’
‘It’s his own fault he’s never fitted in,’ said Jebby. ‘He thinks he’s better than everyone else. For ages now he’s been acting like he’s already the Bloom Catcher!’
‘Ma says he’ll get himself in trouble, messing around with all the things he messes around with,’ said Tabba. ‘That’s how he got the mandrill to appear in the first place.’
‘Tabba!’ snapped Jebby.
‘Sorry,’ she said.
The children had mentioned the mandrill a few times now.
‘Is it a real mandrill?’ asked Penny. ‘A monkey? Have you seen him?’ She remembered seeing a colour photograph of a large, burly monkey with a brightly coloured face in a book her parents had at home. It was the creature’s skin that was brilliantly pigmented, as though he had walked through a rainbow and it had soaked into his body.
‘He’s no ordinary monkey,’ said Jebby.
‘He opens whorls,’ said Tabba. ‘Before the Bloom, he can be anywhere he wants in Kana. He opens whorls all over the place. Look – see that there? In the trees?’
Penny looked where Tabba was pointing and saw something peculiar in the jungle along the shore: a blurred, swirly,
oval patch, as if a giant’s thumbprint had smudged the surface of the canopy. She’d never seen anything like it.
‘It’s the whorl the mandrill left through, the day he came to Kana,’ said Tabba.
Before Penny could ask any questions, Jebby tacked sharply to avoid another boat, and she had to move to the starboard rail. When she looked up again, the funny patch had slipped from sight and they were approaching the edge of town. Seagrape flew off the bow towards the trees along the shore.
‘We’d better take you to Elder,’ said Jebby.
That was fine with Penny.
Elder was exactly who she wanted to see.
CHAPTER FIVE
Tontap ✵ Penny Meets Elder ✵ An Intrusion into the Day ✵ Closing Ranks ✵ Sobering Practical Matters ✵ Tabba Has an Idea
The children secured the boat on a shallow mooring and waded to shore just outside the town. Penny called to Seagrape, who was devouring small, mulberry-coloured fruit from the spiky branches of a tree Penny had never seen before. Scattered below the tree she noticed the same coppery, marble-sized seeds as the one the parrot had dropped in the rowing-boat.
Penny trotted after Tabba and Jebby towards a street paved with flat, sea-smoothed stones. The air was hot and smelled of woodsmoke and the spicy cassava pies cooling on the ledges of windows that opened on to the streets. The town was a huddle of small wooden homes built along the shore and up into the hills. The roofs were thatched with tightly woven palm fronds that formed a rustling patchwork of sloped rectangles. Most were burned to dull pewter tones by the sun, but every now and then amidst them a newly pitched roof shone green and glossy.
‘The town square is that way,’ said Tabba, nodding to where the sounds of hammers on boards rang out from deeper inside the town. ‘They’re finishing the last bits and pieces before tonight. We live way over there, on the other side. And Elder’s house is just up ahead.’
People walked briskly past the children, carrying baskets of shining fish or vegetables still damp from the fields. Others stood on ladders stringing dully glowing white bulbs between rooftops. Freshly picked flowers decked the corners of the eaves. Kitchen gardens burst over the tops of rickety fences and rainwater drums stood outside each door. In the tiny gardens, bright, multi-coloured domes of tents being set up for visiting families were popping up like mushrooms after a rain.
‘How come you guys aren’t in the competition, like Kal?’ asked Penny, hurrying to keep up with the others.
‘Us?’ Tabba laughed. ‘We tried! But no luck! Our feat wasn’t good enough. We climbed the cliff at Malmo, but so did a lot of other people. I told Jebby we should do something harder, but he wanted to be safe.’
‘Most Players are a couple of years older than us,’ said Jebby defensively. ‘Kal’s probably the youngest one in the whole competition.’
‘How many Players are there?’ Penny asked.
‘Around fifty, I think,’ said Jebby. ‘But hundreds tried.’
‘What are the trials going to be?’ Penny asked.
‘They could be anything,’ Jebby told her. ‘Every Bloom they’re different. One time Players had to climb down these sheer cliffs before the tide rushed in, to get a type of barnacle that only lives at the bottom. Another time they had to build boats to sail down a very rough river in the north. The only thing anyone knows for sure is that the first trial is always underwater – what it is exactly no one has any idea.’
‘Why are there trials and a festival at all?’ Penny asked. ‘Why not just let one person go out to the Wave?’
‘The trials determine who the strongest, best person is to go out to the Wave, the one who is most likely to get the Bloom,’ said Jebby.
‘And the festival – it’s a chance for families who live far apart to see each other,’ explained Tabba. ‘It keeps people’s spirits up while the mandrill is on the loose.’
Penny savoured Tabba and Jebby’s company; she knew that after they got to Elder’s she’d be on her own. The further they went the more nervous she grew. They left a warren of streets and headed down a broader thoroughfare in a quiet part of town, where the gardens were bigger and trees drizzled green light over the road. Seagrape caught up with them and landed on Penny’s shoulder.
‘Is Elder nice?’ Penny asked.
‘As long as he gets his nap,’ said Tabba. ‘If you wake him when he’s napping he gets grouchy.’
‘He won’t be napping,’ said Jebby. ‘The elders from other towns are starting to arrive. They’ll probably be having lunch in the garden right now. Here we are, anyway.’
The town elder’s house was set back from the road. It was built on short wooden stilts, its woven-grass shutters closed against the noon heat. A chicken and her chicks were pecking around in the dirt yard in front of the porch. Elastic towers of cane grass swayed nearby in the hot breeze. A bright snaggle of bougainvillea sprang over the garden wall. Penny tiptoed to peer over it and saw a group of people eating lunch together in the jewel-coloured light beneath a canopy of thin sails strung to provide shade. Seagrape flew to the porch railing, and Penny followed the others up the steps. Butterflies churned in her stomach as Jebby knocked on the door.
A woman in an apron answered and went to fetch Elder.
Moments later, from inside the hut Penny heard a voice say irritably, ‘What am I being interrupted for?’ followed by the sounds of sharp footsteps approaching. She glanced at Seagrape to shore up her courage.
A wiry old man emerged, blinking in the bright afternoon sun. Over time his title had become his name, and the people of the town referred to him only as ‘Elder’. A few white hairs sprang from his bare chest, his fingers were stained deep orange, and he wore a bright saffron cloth wrapped round his waist. His bald head shone with coconut oil, and he had an expression – part aggrieved, part distracted – that was familiar to Penny from the faces of almost all the adults she knew. He listened as Tabba and Jebby introduced Penny.
‘A young girl – alone across the Line?’ he said in astonishment. He peered past Penny, as if he expected others to be there too.
‘We saw her do it ourselves, Elder,’ said Jebby. ‘Just a little while ago. A whorl opened in the Line and she came through.’
‘What is a whorl doing out at the Line?’ muttered Elder. He glanced over the rooftops to where the Blue Line shimmered out at sea. ‘It’s all starting,’ he murmured. ‘Things, even people, ending up where they don’t belong … The Bloom is almost here.’ He turned his attention back to Penny. ‘Don’t worry, young lady,’ he said crisply. ‘You’ve stumbled across, but we’ll find a way to get you back.’
Though relieved by the reassurance that there was a way to return home, Penny had no intention of leaving yet.
‘I don’t want to go,’ she said quickly. ‘Not right away. My grandmother sent me here for a reason.’
It was evident that this was not what Elder had expected to hear. He hesitated, though whether in suspicion or just surprise, Penny couldn’t tell.
‘What reason is that?’ he asked.
Penny knew it was important to look strong and capable, so she squared her shoulders and stood as tall as she could. She opened her mouth.
But no sound came out. She couldn’t speak.
Nothing like this had ever happened to her before. How could it be happening now of all times, when it really mattered? She felt a bead of sweat trickle down her temple. Penny wasn’t afraid of adults. Not her parents, not Cab at the Aquarium, certainly not her teachers when they berated her for unfinished homework or rapped their knuckles on her desk to wake her from a daydream. But now she found herself standing there, mouth dry, palms sweaty, heart banging away inside her chest.
Elder waited.
‘Because …’ she croaked. She tried to swallow, but her throat was too dry. Suffering, she stopped. Sunlight crawled up the steps. Beyond the porch, the hot white light of noon burned patches of glare on everything. Bees swarmed in the bougainvillea, rattling it. Penny couldn’t bear
it any more. She took a deep breath.
‘I want to be the Bloom Catcher!’ she blurted out, more fiercely than she had meant to.
Tabba elbowed Jebby sharply in the ribs. ‘I told you,’ she whispered.
‘I mean, I want to be a Bloom Player,’ said Penny quickly. ‘My grandmother needs the Bloom. That’s why she sent me.’
It took Elder a few moments to get over his surprise at such an abrupt pronouncement.
‘I’m afraid you have the wrong idea,’ he said at last. ‘The Bloom is for Kana. It must be poured in the Coral Basin to close the whorls and send the mandrill back to the Gorgonne. The Bloom Catcher is only permitted to keep a few drops.’
Penny was barely listening to Elder. All she cared about was getting the Bloom for Granny Pearl, and to do that she had to convince Elder to let her be in the competition. Everything else she could worry about later.
‘I’ve done a feat that qualifies me to be a Bloom Player,’ she said, and this time she kept her voice strong and steady. ‘Last night I left home in a small boat, alone, in the dark, and I rowed and I rowed until I got here, and then I crossed the Blue Line. It turns everyone back, but I got through. Because I’m supposed to be a Bloom Player – I know I am!’
‘You may have crossed the Blue Line,’ said Elder. ‘But you have no idea how challenging the Bloom trials are –’
‘I can do them,’ said Penny vehemently, interrupting him. ‘I’m strong and I’m fast. Faster than all the boys I know. I can swim underwater for a long time. I’m not afraid of heights – I climb the mast of my boat every day. I’m not afraid of the dark or spiders or anything. I’ve even swum with a shark. Whatever the trials are, I’ll do them!’
She had become louder as she spoke and now she stood there, trembling but defiant, feeling sick that she had been too brash and gone too far, and Elder might refuse her.
‘So you’re brave, or possibly just reckless,’ said Elder. ‘That’s only half of it. You’ve only just arrived – you’re alone in a strange place you know nothing about. How will you know even the first thing about what to do or where to go?’