Chichester Greenway

by Alton Saunders

  Chapter 22:

  BELOW THE WAVES AND FAR ABOVE

  Hirri Tatembi had paddled closer. His chest was still heaving from the effort of that last dive, but he was curious to find out more about these new arrivals. He seldom found anyone else on the atoll when he came there. He had never seen a flying machine close up, either. Occasionally a helicopter might fly near his island, startling everyone with its menacing roar, and sometimes a great silver aeroplane might fly high overhead, glinting in the sunshine, but nothing had ever floated down to land as this one had.

  He could make out four people sitting on the beach. They looked like children and their faces seemed to be white, all except for one little girl. She seemed to be an even darker brown than he was himself. He knew there were white people living far away, but none had ever come to this remote corner of the Pacific. He wondered if he might get to meet them. He would be one of the only people on his island ever to have met a white person. For a moment even his worries about Tekto seemed less urgent.

  “Akkri,” said Andrew, “There’s something else I’ve been wanting to ask you, but it may sound silly.”

  “I don’t suppose it’s silly. Just ask me, anyway.”

  “When you and Vonn came to our house that evening, I went to the window after you said goodbye, and I thought …”

  “Yes, you thought?” Akkri prompted.

  “I thought I saw you fly up into the sky,” said Andrew.

  Vicky looked startled. “Can you do that?” she asked.

  “Yes, we can do that,” said Vonn. “We can walk and swim and fly.”

  “I can’t even swim,” said Vicky.

  “Me neither,” said Andrew. “Not really.” His mum had taken him to the baths a few times for swimming lessons but the money had run out and he did not like to remind her. In any case, he hated the noise and the smell of the place. The sparkling water in the atoll was different, though. “Are we allowed to swim here, do you think?”

  “I expect so,” said Vonn with a smile. “Let’s have a swim right away. I love swimming.”

  Vicky did not think that sounded a good idea at all. “Can all Vikans fly?” she asked. She wanted to know, but it also diverted the conversation away from the scary topic of swimming.

  “Yes,” Vonn replied, “but they haven’t always been able to. It’s like swimming. People discovered how to do it.”

  “It was some children who managed it first,” said Akkri. “They were pretending to be a flock of birds and then suddenly they were flying.”

  “Do you flap your arms, then?” Andrew asked.

  “No, it’s much easier than that,” said Vonn. “You just stretch out and off you go. Look!” She stood up and in a flowing movement she let her body fall forward, stretched out her arms as if she were diving, and glided off along the beach.

  “Wow!” said Andrew.

  Hirri Tatembi, watching from his boat, was equally impressed. This was real magic!

  Vonn circled round over the water and settled gently on the sand next to Vicky who was trembling with a mixture of fear and delight. “Could we do that?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” said Vonn. “We can fly, here on Earth, just as we can back home on Vika, so perhaps you could, too.”

  “When children learn to fly they sometimes go to a special arena,” said Akkri. “That’s how I learnt. Ky – he’s the man you met when you came to The Golden Palace – Ky told us about a building in Rome called the Coliseum. The flying arenas are like miniature Coliseums. We climb up the steps with V-shaped gliding boards and we push off on them and glide down onto the soft grass in the middle. It’s great fun, but you quickly realise you don’t actually need a gliding board at all, and then you’re off – you can fly!”

  “Some children learn in the water,” said Vonn. “They push off and glide along the surface of the water and then they go where it’s a bit shallower and push off over the water. That’s the way I learnt. Would you like to try?”

  Vicky had been feeling more and more nervous – water, swimming, flying, it was all too much – but as she listened to Vonn’s calm, matter-of-fact voice, the fear suddenly ebbed away. “All right,” she said.

  “We haven’t brought any swimming things,” said Andrew. He was quite glad to have an excuse for avoiding the flying experiment, but the water did look lovely.

  “Don’t worry, just come on!” said Akkri, leading the way down to the water’s edge.

  Andrew and Vicky had taken off their trainers as soon as they arrived and had enjoyed wiggling their toes in the sand, but they both suddenly realised that their clothes felt different.

  “Look, we’re wearing the same as Vonn and Akkri!” Vicky exclaimed. All her anxiety had disappeared and she ran full tilt into the water. “This is lovely!” she said. She sat down. It felt warm and safe and comfortable. She splashed about and watched the silver droplets drip from her fingers, then licked the strange salty taste on the back of her hand. She had never felt so happy.

  Andrew had gone a little bit deeper. He was lying on the surface, supporting himself on his fingertips and gently kicking his legs. He could feel his fingers dragging through the sand. He was moving forward. He was almost swimming. It felt much easier than in the swimming baths, with all its noise and confusion.

  Vonn had swum down under the surface but now she suddenly shot up again, diving up into the air, then, letting herself fall, landed on her back in a shower of spray.

  “I wish I could do that!” said Andrew.

  Akkri had been paddling around close to Vicky. He knew she had been feeling nervous. The four children came closer to the beach and sat down together in the shallows. “Look, there’s a fish!” Vicky exclaimed.

  “There are some wonderful fish a bit further out,” said Vonn, “every colour you can imagine and all shapes and sizes. There was one that looked like a little horse.” She knew the names of some of the Earth animals now.

  “A seahorse,” said Andrew. “There’s a picture of one in our Science book.”

  “Vonn,” said Vicky, “can you see underwater? I don’t think we can do that, not properly. Could you really see the shapes and colours?” Not for the first time she felt a little envious of the Vikan visitors.

  “Yes, we can see underwater. I think our eyes work a bit differently from yours.”

  “My eyes have changed,” said Andrew. “I haven’t told anybody yet, but I can see all the colours properly.

  “When did that happen?” Vonn asked.

  “Yesterday. When Akkri came to the supermarket with us. I keep feeling afraid they’ll go back to how they were.”

  “I don’t think they will. There seem to be other changes happening, too, since we’ve arrived,” said Vonn. “Something to do with our visit, I think, but I don’t understand why.”

  “There was a change when you came to our classroom,” said Vicky. “Everyone was quiet. Nobody interrupted when someone else was speaking and Mrs Warbloff seemed kind and gentle.”

  “I expect that’s because she is kind and gentle,” said Vonn.

  Neither Vicky nor Andrew felt like commenting on that. It seemed rather far-fetched to them.

  “Come on, Andrew,” said Akkri. “You have first go. First of all just push off through the water. Like this.” He crouched down so that his shoulders were just under the water then pushed off in a long smooth glide along the surface.

  Vicky thought she would join in, too. The water was so lovely and warm and she did not feel at all afraid with Vonn close beside her. While Andrew was still hesitating she bobbed her shoulders under the water, pushed her toes into the soft sand and, yes, she had managed to glide a short distance without even swallowing any water. Andrew, watching out of the corner of his eye, decided he’d better try, too. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes and pushed off. Yes, he could do it. He’d never managed it like that at the swimming baths.

  “I’m swi
mming!” Vicky shouted. Without anyone showing her, she was ploughing along in a sort of doggy paddle, laughing and crying with delight.

  “I could do that,” said Andrew, “I’m sure I could.” He pushed off, and the various things that had never worked in his swimming lessons all clicked together and there he was, paddling along beside Vicky.

  Suddenly both children felt it was enough. They let their toes sink back into the sand and sat down in the shallow water. Tears were streaming down Vicky’s face. Vonn swam over and put her arms round her. “What’s the matter, dear?” she asked.

  “I’m so happy,” she sobbed. Deep inside, she knew what the sobbing was about: all the long, long years of not really being cherished at home; long years, too, of having to be brave at school, with all its bewildering demands. Today was so different from all that. She could hardly bear it.

  Vonn held her until the sobbing subsided. “Shall we go back to the beach now?” she asked gently. Vicky nodded. “We’ll leave flying for some other day, shall we?” Vicky nodded again.

  Andrew felt relieved. Finding he could swim was quite enough for the time being. He was surprised that he had not felt awkward while Vicky was crying, but then, without being able to put any words to it, he knew he understood her so well: Vicky, his only real friend. And just being with Akkri and Vonn made many things feel different. Safe, somehow, as though he could say whatever he wanted to say without thinking about whether it was polite or appropriate or sensible. Sitting on the beach in the warm sunshine, he found he had yet another question he wanted to ask. He had been thinking of his plan to build a submarine. “Can skimmers go under water?” he asked.

  Vonn was taken aback. She had never heard of anyone on Vika travelling under water in a skimmer, but now that Andrew had asked the question it seemed such an obvious thing to do. She and Akkri always enjoyed swimming under water, looking at fish and crabs and seaweed, but you could not hold your breath for long or go very deep. She wondered what there might be, deep in the ocean back on Vika. Perhaps there were creatures no one had ever seen before.

  “Let’s find out,” said Akkri. He led the way over to the skimmer and stepped in. The other three climbed in after him. The skimmer floated gently over the sand and slowly sank into the water. The children, all feeling a bit nervous, watched the water climb up to the curved top of the skimmer and then they were fully beneath the surface which turned into a shiny, wrinkled expanse of silver.

  “Look! There’s a yellow fish!” Andrew exclaimed.

  “And there’s some blue ones, and look at that one with red and white stripes!” said Vicky.

  “We must try this when we get back to Vika!” said Akkri.

  More and more fish gathered around the skimmer, curious to investigate this new creature in their midst. As if to shake them off, the skimmer moved on, gradually sinking deeper.

  “That must be coral,” said Andrew. They were gliding past a huge bank of crinkly outcrops, pink and red and white and orange. A huge fish with bulging eyes came out from a forest of seaweed, inspected the new arrival, and with a flick of its tail disappeared back amongst the fronds.

  “I saw a fish just like that, when Akkri and I went to the beach together,” said Vonn. It seemed years ago. She wondered when they would be going back to Vika. Although everything on Earth was still so strange and new and interesting, she was beginning to miss the familiar sights of her own planet.

  “Look! An octopus!” said Vicky. Mrs Warbloff would have been pleased that she recognised it.

  “Can we go deeper still?” Andrew asked. This was even better than his imaginary journeys in his imaginary submarine.

  As if in obedience to his wishes, the skimmer sank vertically down through the water which was becoming noticeably darker. It settled on the floor of the atoll in a clutter of broken coral. Large brown crabs were scuttling away sideways, away from the cloud of particles that had been thrown up by the skimmer’s arrival. A huge flatfish with a spike on its tail flapped lazily by. And then, “Look! A shark!” Andrew whispered. A grey streamlined shape came close to the skimmer then shot off into the darkness. “Wow! We’ve seen a shark! A real shark!” It more than made up for not finding any frogs in the Serpentine or the Round Pond.

  “Shall we go back now?” asked Vonn. The others nodded. They all felt it was time to get back to the sunshine.

  The skimmer rose vertically upwards, scattering a shoal of tiny blue fish on its way, then drove through the water like a speedboat and up onto the sand. The children climbed out. “That was fantastic!” said Vicky.

  Andrew was delighted his idea had worked out so well. He wondered if the people on Vika would get to hear that he was the one who had thought of it.

  As they climbed out of the skimmer they found that a dark brown man was sitting cross-legged on the beach. He was wearing just a ragged pair of shorts. He rose to his feet and placed his hand on his heart. “Greetings,” he said. “I am Hirri Tatembi.”

  “Greetings!” said Vonn and Akkri, and they placed their hands on their hearts, too.

  For a brief moment Vicky and Andrew heard a language being spoken that they had never heard before, but then it was as if their brains had been stroked by a gentle hand and they could understand. “Greetings!” they said, and they too placed their hands on their hearts.

  “I’m Vicky and this is Andrew.”

  “And I’m Akkri and this is Vonn. Hirri Tatembi, we are glad to meet you.”

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