Saving Abbie Read online

  Dafida worked along her branch, causing it to dip towards the new orang. The orang shifted and Dafida stared at her. But this orang was missing one arm. Her feet were spread on a fork and a powerful right arm was locked on a branch above her head, but there was no left arm. It was as if there never had been one.

  Dafida tilted her head and squinted.

  Abbie clicked softly in her mouth. You know that look in Dafida. She is measuring this orang, like she had once measured Sadi. She must know she’d be able to overpower this one-armed orang, and the one-armed orang must realise that. But this orang wasn’t at all nervous. Nothing like Sadi.

  Dafida remained uncertain and stationary in the rippling sea of leaves with the one-armed orang hanging from the tree, waiting.

  ‘Bananas, bananas!’ Gadas was straight under the orangs now. He could not see them through the canopy, but he had heard Dafida moving towards him. He was lifting his stick.

  Dafida straightened a little. All she had to do was go down her tree. But she looked at the orang’s eyes and hesitated.

  ‘Bananas …’

  ‘Ho!’ Another man shouted through the jungle.

  Gadas dropped the bananas, jumped back and put both hands on the gleaming stick.

  ‘Who are you? What are you doing?’ Ki’s voice was clear. He was splashing through the fresh swamp created by the rains.

  Gadas shuffled backwards, turned and ran towards the river.

  After a few angry shouts Ki blundered below and found the bananas. He turned the bunch with the blade of his machete and frowned. Then he looked up. ‘Dafida? How are things going? Hey …’

  Ki ran sideways, peering at the canopy. ‘Cas? That’s you? Yes, Cas!’ Ki swept both arms out to the one-armed orang, as if to draw her down from the canopy. ‘I knew you’d make it. You look great!’

  Cas tilted her head and wrinkled her nose.

  ‘Come on, it’s me. The guy who gave you your bottle. Aren’t you going to throw down a twig at least?’

  Cas stared at Ki and stayed in her high canopy.

  Ki shifted his eyes to the glinting blade of his machete in his hand. ‘Oh, sorry …’ He looked down at the bananas at his feet, looked up again at Cas and Dafida and hissed in a breath, violently, as if something had burst.

  ‘Bastard!’ he swivelled towards the receding thrashing and drove the machete into the trunk of a thick tree.

  Abbie slid round her trunk in fright.

  Ki then shook his head in disgust, as if someone else had jammed the machete in the tree. He placed his foot on the trunk to work the blade free and followed the sound of Gadas’s frantic retreat.

  Dafida slid quickly to the base of her tree, grabbed the bananas and waved them at Cas in triumph. Cas flicked a stick towards Dafida, dismissing her.

  Abbie heard the distant sound of an engine – an engine with a shudder – in the direction Gadas had taken. She snapped a dead branch.

  Abbie frowned across at Cas and studied her for a long time. What happened to you?

  Cas finally moved away. Abbie rubbed the side of her face for a moment, then followed.

  Abbie swung through the canopy wearing a slightly puzzled frown. You could have stayed with Dafida. She might have been grouchy, but she was as safe as a lizard in the sun. And there was Einstein, big-eyes. Abbie had learned a lot from Dafida and she could teach her more. But Abbie had to go with a strange – a very strange – orang, with one arm, because she wanted to see how she could fly?

  Cas looked confident as she used her single arm to cross the canopy, but to Abbie she was just tumbling through the trees. She would grab a branch with her hand and swing harder and faster than any orang she’d ever seen, then lunge with a foot to grab another branch. She would let the hand go, causing her head to be dropped until the other foot snatched at the next branch, swinging her head and her arm up. Her head swivelled and bobbed, always trying to get her eyes fixed on the next branch or trunk before she reached for it. She had everything under control but she looked like she was being tossed around in a storm …

  Cas stopped at the top of a tree and plucked some leaves as she studied Abbie. Abbie hung to a close branch, dipped her head and munched. She was trying to look very harmless.

  Cas clicked her teeth and gave Abbie a leaf. All right, you don’t worry me.

  ‘It was okay, really,’ Becky patted Ian on the shoulder.

  ‘It wasn’t. You know it wasn’t.’ Ian shuddered. ‘There he was, Hamlet’s ghost, all green and misty, all ready to freak everyone. Then what do I do?’

  ‘Look, it happens.’

  ‘You see Mr Luce’s face? Purple, it was, and that yelling.’

  ‘He didn’t mean it. You’ll be able to come back when he cools off, you’ll see.’

  Ian put his hand over his face and groaned. ‘Never, never again. How can I do it? All I had to do was thump off from the battlements, that was all. But I had to trip over my feet, snag on my sandals … I could see it happening but I couldn’t do anything to stop it! Suddenly I’m charging across the stage with that spear. And the ghost has to jump out of the way. Well, wouldn’t you? And brought half the castle down. Crash, crash, crash!’

  ‘It wasn’t that bad. It was sort of funny.’

  Ian groaned. ‘I think I heard Tash shouting “Monkey Breath strikes again!” ’

  Becky sighed. ‘Forget it. Think about next year.’

  Abbie flowed through the forest with Cas, and through many rainstorms. She used different branches, different trees to avoid interfering with Cas’s erratic movement, but she always stayed close to her. At first she had gone with her for a mixture of curiosity and fading memories, but she learned very soon she needed Cas to survive.

  The constant rain was changing the jungle around them. In wide areas the shadowy forest floor became a dark pool with trees standing motionless in the water. A soft burr came from the surface as clouds of tiny insects drifted around the trunks, and pigs splashed across clearings. Sometimes the river surged over its banks, tearing bushes and bringing down a tilted stag. Often a low wave from a fast boat on the river curled through the deep jungle.

  In her first wet season Abbie was hungry, as the black berries dropped into the water and the soft leaves curled and died. But not this time. Cas kept eating from different plants and different places and Abbie followed her. So when Cas stopped to nibble at the slivers of young bark, or to pick a green berry, Abbie moved close enough to see what she was doing, and copied her.

  Cas moved from tolerating Abbie to welcoming her. Cas even shook Abbie’s nest in the morning before moving off for breakfast.

  Abbie ate from the same tree as Cas, the same branch, the same twig. As time passed, Cas slowly peeled a seed pod to show Abbie how it was done, and gave her a swollen seed. She used a rough glove of leaves to cling to a spiked tree while she peeled some bark with a foot and cut a trench in the soft wood with her teeth for the sap to flow. Cas allowed Abbie to taste her sap – rich and sweet – but then Abbie had to cut a trench for herself. When Cas found a nest of termites under the bark she allowed Abbie to join her. There was enough for two.

  But then the fruits and the leaves began to dry up and they had to separate.

  Ian stopped bouncing a basketball when he saw Mr Luce strolling towards him. Luce had called him the Walking Titanic and worse, so he passed the ball and waited with his shoulders slightly hunched.

  ‘I was looking for you, Ian.’

  ‘Yesss …’

  ‘You getting along with the basketball?’

  ‘Keeps my feet out of trouble, sort of. I’m not very good.’

  ‘That doesn’t matter much. Ah, you haven’t been around the stage for months …’

  ‘Well, after that … you know …’

  ‘What? My shouting? That’s nothing. You must have been yelled at before?’

  ‘But it was terrible …’

  ‘Now it wasn’t terrible at all. Just a bit of a disaster and we’re used to those. Drop round,
we can use you.’

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘Just don’t tell Shakespeare.’

  Abbie was eating a bunch of figs in the fork of a tree when a small orang crashed into her leafy cradle. Abbie pushed her lower jaw and chomped menacingly.

  The young orang flinched and shuffled back on the branch. His eyes stared in fright. But there was something … familiar …

  Dafida slid into Abbie’s tree and barked at the orang in annoyance. He climbed onto Dafida’s back and blinked at Abbie.

  Abbie shook her head. Einstein? It can’t be, so big.

  Dafida shrugged and pulled the small orang from her back sourly. He was too big to be carried around.

  Abbie wrinkled her nose.

  Yes, he is Einstein. The shock of hair was gone, those eyes didn’t look huge and staring but they were Einstein’s. The eyes hadn’t shrunk, it was that the rest of his head and body had grown around them.

  Abbie gave Einstein a fig and Einstein gave her a toothy smile.

  Dafida and Einstein stayed in the fig tree until the fruit was gone, and then Einstein swung away by himself. With a mixture of regret and relief, Dafida watched him go. When she left the fig tree she went a different way.

  Ian saw Becky walking towards him and for a moment he thought of running away. He didn’t, but he turned his face from her.

  ‘Hi,’ said Becky, and frowned.

  ‘Hi, yourself,’ said Ian, looking at a bird across the road.

  Becky glared at him. ‘What’s up with you? Is there something wrong about me?’

  ‘With you?’ Ian jerked his head around to her. ‘No, no, really! It’s just …’

  ‘Ah.’ Becky smiled at him. ‘You have a zit.’

  He slapped his hand to cover the bright red pimple on his nose.

  Becky waved him down. ‘Don’t worry about it, it’s only a little one. I thought you were getting embarrassed over me.’

  ‘What? Why?’

  Her face flushed as she pulled her sweater straight. ‘You know. The bumps.’

  ‘Oh. No, I wasn’t looking. I mean, I wasn’t thinking anything … I mean, they’re all right …’ Ian petered out. He knew that every time he tried to fix things they got worse. The only thing he could do was just stop.

  For a moment Becky’s eyes shifted uncertainly, then she grinned. ‘It’s a hard life, this growing up, hey? The things you have to wear!’

  He sighed in relief and grinned back. ‘Mum gets clothes for me two sizes larger, because she reckons I will grow into them in a week!’

  ‘And the gunk that you have to put on your face!’

  ‘And the shoes! I feel like a frog, slapping down my huge feet on the floor. No, no, I’m Frankenstein’s Monster. Thump, Thump!’

  ‘Yes, definitely. Did you know there was a female monster as well? Hello, Frank.’

  ‘Hello, Frankie …’

  Ian and Becky hunched their shoulders, grunted at each other and lurched away.

  Abbie was concentrating on a nest of termites when she was hit on the head by a couple of twigs. She brushed the twigs away and continued to draw the termites out with a stick, but more twigs continued to rain down on her. She looked up, past the twigs that were clattering over the branches, to a grinning Cas. With a very small baby.

  How do you like this? Cas was saying.

  Abbie raced up the tree with a stick of termites and presented them to Cas. She took the stick and sucked it as Abbie stared at the baby.

  It was like a brown berry. Like Einstein with big startled eyes, but far smaller. Even smaller than Einstein at the beginning, when Ian was around.

  Cas moved closer to Abbie so she could see her baby better. The baby reached out and tugged at the hairs on Abbie’s forearm. Abbie blinked. Brown Berry is like you! Like you when you clutched Mist, and wondered about everything. The baby kept on staring at her, bug-eyed.

  Cas and Abbie finished with the snack of termites and swung off together. Abbie watched Brown Berry closely.

  But this ride was different from the one Abbie remembered. Brown Berry had to grab hold of everything to stay with Cas, but with Mist Abbie was a butterfly, a bird gliding through the trees. Brown Berry seemed to be a very smart little orang – he was clinging to Cas’s side, the side without an arm.

  ‘I got a problem,’ said Dad, as he threw his fishing line from the boat.

  ‘I can’t do it,’ said Ian, feeling the weight of his line with a finger.

  ‘You don’t know what it is yet!’

  ‘I figure I should have a defence line ready.’

  ‘Ho, this is a very smart kid. I don’t know how I will stay up with you in Year Eleven.’

  ‘I’ll give you notes. What’s the problem, Dad?’

  ‘Dave Foster is asking us if we’d like to go back to Albatross Beach. Mum doesn’t know. Maybe it’s up to you.’

  ‘Albatross Beach,’ Ian stared at the still green water. ‘Last time I saw it the cyclone went through. Pieces of rubbish scattered over the dunes …’

  ‘That was a long time ago. It’s been rebuilt.’

  ‘The last time there was the wreck …’

  Dad sucked his lip. ‘Yes. Not a good thing to do. Scrap the idea.’

  ‘Will Reene be there?’

  ‘Probably.’

  ‘Yeah, let’s go.’

  As they wandered through the jungle Abbie began to notice that Brown Berry was growing and he was getting smarter. When he was as big as Cas’s belly he started passing leaves to Cas to protect them both from the rain. And Abbie remembered when she had done the same thing with Mist once.

  When Brown Berry’s weight began to slow Cas down in the trees she encouraged him to move a short way from her. He scampered about the nest like a monkey. He even climbed over Abbie as though she were a padded rock. That told Abbie just how much Brown Berry had grown in size and weight.

  But Abbie didn’t notice that she herself was growing up too.

  Ian looked back at Reene with a shrug. ‘Well, I’ve found it.’

  The tall girl panted up the dune, the breeze wafting her dark hair. ‘But?’

  He pointed at a low slit in a cliff. ‘It’s changed.’

  Reene reached him and laughed. ‘No, we’ve changed.’

  Ian touched the sun-warmed rock. He could remember the time he saw the slot in the rocks, when it was cold, streaked by horizontal rain and blasted by sand. When the world roared and darkened. Then they were two terrified kids tumbling through the slot to somehow survive the cyclone, but now they could not fit through any more. They were just too big.

  ‘Everything has changed.’ Ian smiled at Reene and turned to Albatross Beach.

  There was no sign of cyclone damage now. The torn houses had been replaced with bigger, better houses and a few more had been added. There was even a shop. And the sand of the beach had returned.

  ‘But I can still see the marks made by the ship.’ Reene pointed beyond the surf. From their high dune they could see into the water, where there was a scar in the green rock. That is, until the seaweed washed over it.

  ‘God, we were dumb.’

  ‘I think I’m going to work on marine biology.’

  Ian laughed lightly. ‘After that storm!’

  ‘Yeah, crazy. And you? Any plans?’

  ‘Zoology, I think.’

  ‘Figures.’ Reene frowned at the sea. ‘Funny, but that wreck is still affecting us.’

  Ian nodded. ‘It still frightens me. Right now.’

  ‘Yes. It is still there. There’s one thing, though. Nothing in the world is going to frighten us more than that. Things must get better.’

  ‘I guess so.’

  ‘We were the dumbest of kids, stupid, but …’ Reene hesitated for a moment, then she looked into Ian’s eyes. ‘But I’m glad we did it.’

  ‘You’re mad!’

  ‘Probably.’

  And then Ian sighed. ‘No you’re not. It’s there now, we’ve got it for ever – the storm, the ship diving
for the bottom of the sea, Abbie in the dark, and us. Everything. I tried to tell a friend how it was, how it is. But she couldn’t understand.’

  ‘No. I don’t even try. Maybe ocean yachties or racing drivers know what you’re talking about, but only a bit. So there’s you and me and that’s it. I think about you, Ian, and the ship. Relax, I’m not racing you off. It’s just that that bloody wreck has sort of locked us together for all time.’

  ‘Yeah. I guess.’

  ‘Friends?’ Reene squeezed Ian’s arm.

  ‘Always.’

  Ian lifted his eyes from the rock scar to the open sea. There was you, Reene, and me – and Abbie. And I have made a promise …

  One afternoon Cas turned towards the breeze and her nose twitched. Abbie stopped making faces at Brown Berry and picked up the faint scent of something rotting.

  Cas sat up in the tree and clicked her teeth, as if she was annoyed that she hadn’t picked up the smell before. Then Brown Berry had to jump to catch Cas’s moving back.

  Abbie had to work hard to keep up with Cas, too. She was travelling fast now, swinging from branch to branch, using high saplings and creaking stags to pole-vault long distances. She was travelling so fast that Abbie thought there might be something frightening chasing them. But when she looked back and down there was nothing there apart from swaying trees and thrashing leaves.

  So she stopped worrying about ghosts chasing her and began to enjoy the thrill of the hurtling pace. She was thirty metres above the ground. She had been living – moving about, eating, sleeping – for so long high over the ground that its painful hardness was as unreal to her now as the rare plane creeping across the sky above her. But she could remember the half-falls she had had after a branch or two cracked under her growing weight. She was choosing thicker branches than before, but she was also stretching further and faster. Now she rushed through the canopy with her mouth open, thinking so fast she could feel her ears burning. Take the branch to the left, it will dip under your weight, then get to the next tree, that sapling can carry your weight – no, take the stag instead …