The Song of Lewis Carmichael

by Sofie Laguna

  ‘Oh,’ said Matthew.

  ‘Yes, it happens.’ Lewis half-lifted the extended wing, so that Matthew could see a white quill at the base of each feather. ‘I landed badly.’

  Matthew thought about the myna birds that built their nests in the trees around his letterbox: the way the parent birds taught the babies to fly every spring. The young birds would land in the grass, stumbling, trying again, avoiding the cats and cars and foxes as best they could.

  Lewis went on: ‘At first I thought I wouldn’t survive – my wing hurt me terribly. I was lying on my back in the gutter beside the path, and I thought if I allowed my eyes to close, I would never open them again. Then I saw, from the corner of my eye, a strawberry plant growing by the fence – and, peeking through its leaves, a strawberry. I thought, I want that strawberry. And so, somehow, I turned myself over, got myself out of the gutter and pecked the strawberry from its stem.’ The bird looked up at Matthew. ‘That was it. I had to survive.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And what?’

  ‘How did you survive?’

  Lewis ruffled his feathers. ‘My parents had given up by then; birds are harsh that way. I learned to be resourceful. To take shelter where I could. To hide. To find food. I stayed close to the world of people. I do better there. Not your untamed wilderness for me. Far too dangerous.’

  Matthew nodded. ‘I can imagine.’

  ‘More crumbs in the human world, too. More cake. More food all round. Speaking of which, are there any more of those seeds for me in that chest?’

  ‘Of course.’ Matthew passed Lewis a handful of seeds. He liked to listen to the sharp crack as the crow pecked them in half. How clever and determined Lewis Carmichael was, to have been able to survive the way he had – how brave.

  Matthew had the sense that they were moving faster and faster through the sky – flying in fast-motion, the way he’d imagined the seasons turning in the Arctic as he was falling asleep at home. When the clouds thinned enough, Matthew caught glimpses of sea, then land, then sea again.

  That night, the winds became very rough. Lightning flashed, thunder rolled, and rain drenched the outsides of the basket.

  ‘Lewis, are you all right?’ Matthew called to his friend. By now the bird spent most of his time on Matthew’s shoulder.

  ‘Feathers!’ the bird called back, as the balloon swung about. ‘The best insulation there is!’

  When Matthew needed to release the gas jet, the flame’s fiery blast was reassuring. The wind roared, as if Boreas was furious. Matthew was glad they were not trying to fly against him.

  As Matthew sailed the balloon, he forgot that he was in a dream; that it couldn’t possibly be real; that he would soon wake. He was too busy – and at times, too anxious. He had to check the dial and work the gas, and keep himself and Lewis fed. The bird demanded endless cups of tea. It seemed as if Matthew was always hooking up the stove, boiling the water. Minding it didn’t slosh over the sides of the tin pot when Boreas blew.

  Chapter Seven

  WHAT A RELIEF it was to climb into the chest and sleep. Matthew kept the lid open. ‘You can close it if you’d like,’ Lewis said. ‘I’ll wake you. I woke you from the other side of your window, didn’t I?’

  But Matthew wanted the lid open; he was so comfortable in the chest, and he wanted to see the sky. He looked at the stars for a while, then slowly closed his eyes. He imagined himself rocked, as if he was in a boat on the sea. What really is the difference, he asked himself, between the air and the sea?

  He wondered if his parents were worried. When Matthew thought about his parents, from here in this balloon in the sky, it was as if they weren’t real. When he thought about his home, he saw it in dark colours: far away and small and less important than this world here, in which he was flying the balloon with Lewis Carmichael. The balloon was real – look at it there above them, glowing and bright. Lewis on his shoulder, the balloon above, the nautical miles they had covered and the ones that lay ahead … these things were real. Every nerve in Matthew’s body was alive, ready. This was real, and he was not alone. He had a friend.

  Friends weren’t easy for Matthew at school. He was baffled by the way other children knew how to fit in so well, how to belong. How to share what was important to them. He didn’t understand what it was in him that made it difficult.

  Friend. My friend, Lewis Carmichael. With the bird, it was easy.

  On the second morning, at first light, when Matthew released the gas from the tank there was very little pressure. Not enough to make the usual blasting flame. ‘Lewis, we seem to be running out of gas.’

  ‘Out of gas?’ Lewis hopped across the floor to the tank.

  ‘It barely made any flame at all.’

  ‘Did you open the valve all the way?’

  ‘Of course – same as I’ve done every other time.’

  ‘Then we must be about to land,’ said Lewis.

  ‘To land? Really?’

  ‘Yes. The tank contained enough gas to carry us six thousand, nine hundred and twenty-two nautical miles. Plus a little extra for cooking. And look at the gauge – the balloon is falling.’

  ‘So, what do we do now?’

  ‘There is nothing for us to do but brace ourselves.’

  Matthew gripped the edge of the basket, his heart pounding. The balloon was still flying over the ocean – the Arctic Ocean! – but an icy shore was fast approaching. Further inland, in the distance, he could see grasslands partially covered in ice and, beyond that, a range of snow-capped mountains encircled by forest. He recognised these as the Arctic tundra and the boreal forests. Beyond the shore, further out to sea, all he saw was white. Could that be the North Pole?

  Matthew did not see houses or streets or buildings or towns out there. He did not see people. He felt as if he was the last person left in the world. Every part of him tingled. He had dreamed and read and thought about the Arctic and the North Pole for as long as he could remember. And he had done it secretly. It was a place that could not be touched by the demands and the ordinariness of the world in which he lived. And now he was here.

  As they fell further and further below Boreas, Matthew saw snow on the sleeves of his pyjamas; he turned his face to the sky and felt snowflakes on his cheeks. And through the falling snow, always, was the balloon – a translucent bauble of bright silk against the sky. Down, down, down. The basket rocked and swung as they crossed the thermals. Matthew planted himself in a corner with Lewis on his shoulder and braced himself.

  Chapter Eight

  SLAM! THE BALLOON hit the ground, sending Matthew and the bird flying across the basket floor. Then it lifted a little way from the ground before slamming down again, skidding along the ice. Matthew and Lewis slid back across the basket, hitting the other side, the air forced from Matthew’s lungs. They rose one last time – Matthew felt his stomach turn – then dropped heavily, finally coming to a standstill. Matthew’s chest heaved. ‘Lewis, are you all right?’

  Lewis peeked out from behind Matthew. ‘Y ... y...yes. I believe so. What about you?’

  ‘I’m all right.’ Matthew got to his feet, rubbing his back, his bruised knees and elbows. Snow fell softly onto his face, his pyjamas.

  The balloon had landed close to the shore – the shore of the Arctic Ocean itself. How often he had looked at it on the pages of his books: covered in tracts of ice, the coldest ocean in the world, the least known, the most remote. Now he, Matthew Zajac, was seeing it for himself. And out there somewhere on this ocean was the North Magnetic Pole, floating on the ice.

  Even though it was millions of years old, to Matthew the landscape appeared new. It was a country made new by ice. By snow and cold. He looked behind them at the tundra, partially covered in snow – and, in the distance, the forest and the mountains. In winter he knew that both tundra and mountains would be covered in snow and the sun wouldn’t rise; that nothing could be seen at all.

  ‘Let’s take a walk to the shore, shall we?’ Lewis said. />
  Matthew climbed over the rim of the basket. As soon as he was on the snow, the cold took his breath away.

  ‘You’ll need the coat,’ said Lewis. ‘Boots, too. And gloves. Don’t forget the gloves.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Matthew, quickly climbing back into the basket. He was already shivering from the seconds he’d spent outside the balloon’s heat. He had never felt a cold like it. He opened the chest and put on the coat, the boots and the gloves. How well everything fit him – he was immediately warm. ‘Why don’t you hop into the hood?’ he said to Lewis.

  ‘Oh ...wonderful ...yes, why not?’ The bird settled himself inside the hood, his head peeking out the side.

  Matthew’s boots crunched on the icy grass as he walked down to the shore, the binoculars dangling from their leather strap around his neck. His legs felt wobbly after so many hours on board the balloon. But it felt good to be walking again, with the air fresh and cold in his lungs.

  When they reached the shore, Matthew had never seen so many birds at once. They were on the icy sand and over the water – diving, swooping, squabbling over fish. There were gannets and ducks, bright-faced puffins, barnacle geese and razorbills, Arctic terns, and snow geese like the ones they had seen on the way here. Matthew knew all the names from his books. Not like at school, where he forgot the names for things he was supposed to know.

  ‘See the skua!’ he said to Lewis. ‘And there is the little auk.’

  ‘You have quite the memory, Matthew,’ said Lewis.

  When Matthew pressed the binoculars to his eyes, he saw king eiders out at sea – so many that the ocean seemed made of ducks. They bobbed and dipped their heads, their cheeks bright-yellow, and preened their sleek feathers. Is it always like this? he wondered. So many birds? Or are they putting on a show just for us?

  He could sense the change in Lewis.

  ‘Can you set me down, please?’ the bird asked.

  Matthew knew better than to argue. He placed his friend on the shore. Lewis stood with the cold waves washing over his claws and watched the birds play and hunt and fly and dive. What a sound they made. How many there were, so full of life. Lewis – who seemed so sure of himself at other times – appeared out of place, perched on the sand with his head hunched between his wings.

  ‘Come on.’ Matthew crouched and held out his arm. Lewis hopped on, then up onto his shoulder. ‘Let’s get back to the balloon.’

  ‘Yes, yes. You are right. Plans to make. All that.’

  The balloon was still floating taut above the basket, bright against the snow. ‘The balloon will remain just buoyant enough for us to fill it with the second tank of gas the day we leave,’ Lewis said when they returned to the basket.

  ‘Oh, I see,’ Matthew answered. ‘Good.’ But he didn’t want to see. He didn’t want to think about anything but this moment – certainly not about leaving. He looked out over the snowy mountain range. The sky was changing colour, filled with streaks of blue and white and grey. It was all so enormous, and he had thought about it for such a long time that he hardly knew where to start. What happened next?

  ‘Breakfast!’ the bird announced. Matthew appreciated the way Lewis could move from sadness to happiness. As if the feelings didn’t mind each other; as if they might be friends.

  ‘But after breakfast?’ Matthew asked.

  ‘How about we walk up the mountain and get our bearings?’ said Lewis, running his beak through his feathers.

  Matthew looked out again over the range rising up and down in a jagged wave, each tip capped in snow. ‘But ...which mountain?’

  The bird answered, ‘The best view is always from the highest point.’

  Doesn’t anything scare you? Matthew thought. Even though Lewis couldn’t fly, even though he was unlike the other birds here, he wanted to try things. Hard things.

  Matthew grilled toast over the stove’s flame, and heated seeds in the pan. If he didn’t think ahead – watched only the toast, saw only the seeds in the pan – he could do these things. He could grill the toast until it was brown and crunchy, and spread it with butter and jam, just as his father did at home.

  ‘You’re getting good at this,’ said Lewis, clacking his beak.

  ‘I am!’ said Matthew, biting into his toast. How crunchy it was, both salty and sweet. Toast tasted better in the Arctic. Matthew wiped jam from his mouth.

  ‘We’d better prepare,’ said the bird. ‘We’ll need food for the day.’

  Matthew packed biscuits, chocolate and dried fruit, seeds and cheese, and peanut butter and crackers into the daypack. Then he boiled a flask of water for tea. ‘We can sleep here in the basket,’ he said to Lewis. ‘We only need supplies for a day, then we can return to the basket at night.’

  ‘Yes, yes, good idea, up here for thinking, up here for thinking.’

  Lewis hopped from claw to claw, clacking his beak, making jokes. His excitement was infectious; Matthew could hardly wait for them to be on their way.

  Chapter Nine

  MATTHEW ENJOYED THE feeling of the pack against his back as he walked. When he had hiked with his school, he hadn’t liked carrying the weight at all – it had prickled, and the straps had dug into his skin – but here it felt different. The pack connected him to the balloon and its basket and their camp, as well as enabling him to leave it. The boots kept his feet snug and helped him maintain his grip in the snow. He liked the feeling of Lewis Carmichael on his shoulder, too – hearing his voice, the things the bird said, the little questions. Like: ‘Beautiful isn’t it?’

  ‘Very beautiful.’

  ‘Cold, though.’

  ‘So cold.’

  ‘Oh, yes, yes, cold as ice, ha ha.’ Clack clack.

  Matthew trudged across the snow, working hard not to slip and fall, breathing heavily – the cold clean air, in and out. He kept his eyes on the highest mountain in the range ahead: its cap of snow, the snow-covered trees at its base. The sun was rising higher in the sky, white against grey. The bird on his shoulder began to sing.

  In all the world, I never did see, I never did see.

  In all the world, I never did see, I never did see.

  Oh yes, oh yes, in all the world.

  Then he stopped singing and encouraged Matthew. ‘That’s the way, good work, Matthew, keep it up, warmer all the time, aren’t we?’

  When they reached the mountain’s timberline, the land began to steepen. Black, leafless tree branches were covered in so much snow they seemed about to break. Matthew remembered pictures of Dr Juliana Rossi, in Journey to the Farthest North, trekking across the ice with two long steel walking poles. Matthew stooped to pick up a fallen branch almost his height. The bumpy stick was a good fit in his gloved hand. He poked the stick into the icy ground and pulled himself forward.

  ‘Ah, yes … a walking stick,’ said Lewis. ‘Well done.’

  ‘It helps,’ said Matthew.

  ‘But it’s not quite ready ...’ said Lewis from his shoulder. ‘If you don’t mind me saying.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Matthew asked.

  ‘Your stick.’ Lewis turned his head and plucked a long black feather from his broken wing.

  ‘Oh ...Lewis!’

  ‘Go on – see what you can do with it.’

  Matthew took the feather from Lewis’s beak and stuck its quill through a small crack at the top of his stick. There it was, his walking pole – a black feather sprouting from a bumpy branch.

  ‘Perfect,’ said Matthew.

  ‘Perfect,’ said Lewis.

  Matthew used his walking pole to break the icy ground ahead. He liked the rhythm he made as he went along – left foot right foot stick in the ice! Left foot right foot stick in the ice! Lewis’s feather at the top was like a tiny black sail, changing direction in the wind.

  Matthew stopped a moment to look back down the mountain, the way they had come. He could see the balloon peeking between the trees, like a giant glowing landmark. Home base.

  ‘Matthew ...’ Lewis whispered.
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  Matthew turned ahead and gasped. Coming down the mountain, between the trees, was a polar bear. He froze. How many nights had he lain in bed tracing the outline of a polar bear’s thick white coat on the pages of his books? But this was real. Dangerous! The bear swung around, looking behind her. Coming slowly, clumsily, through the snow at the rear was a polar bear cub.

  Matthew’s mouth dropped open. The cub was pure-white, its eyes round and innocent. Matthew could see how young the animal was, how vulnerable. He kept completely still, knowing there was no animal more protective than a mother polar bear. He was aware that he was shaking. That his heart was beating very, very hard.

  The mother polar bear came to a halt.

  ‘Oh dear ...’ Lewis whispered.

  Matthew took in the bear’s claws – long and sharp enough to tear him apart; her intimidating jaws; her thick fur. She could survive in temperatures as cold as minus eighty degrees. Nowhere was too cold for the polar bear.

  The cub kept coming. Not towards its mother, but towards him! Matthew gripped his walking stick and bowed his head. He knew, from his reading, that he must not meet the eyes of the mother bear. Early explorers learned to avoid the gaze of the polar bear. The cub kept coming.

  ‘Oh no, no, little one ...off you go, go with your mother,’ Lewis whispered.

  Matthew could barely breathe. He didn’t move a muscle. He could hear the mother bear snuffling and snorting.

  Suddenly, she thundered across the snow. In that instant, Matthew looked up and met the eyes of the bear – dark and ferocious. A split second before she reached him, she swung towards her cub, barrelling into it with her great head. Roaring.

  The cub squealed. The mother nosed it roughly away from Matthew, pushing it through the trees. Matthew watched as they left: from a distance, the mother turned once more and looked at him. Then she swung back around, and they were gone.