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For the first time since the bad news from Greece had arrived, Barnabas was looking really happy.
‘Hothbrodd! Lola!’ he cried. ‘Now we know where we’re going!’
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
A Thousand Times One Thousand Islands
I just wish the world was twice as big
and half of it was still unexplored.
Sir David Attenborough
Me-Rah’s native land did indeed deserve to be described as a thousand times one thousand islands. Even for Twigleg, who had seen so much in his long life, the sight of the Indonesian archipelago turning into a mosaic of water and land below them was unforgettable. A thousand times one thousand islands, a thousand times one thousand worlds… some of them were so large that you could hardly call them islands at all, with cities on them that, from a height, looked like algae growing vigorously. But there were also islands with villages where the houses were built of bamboo and palm leaves, and they seemed to come from older, less turbulent times. Others rose from the blue-green water like the humps on a sea serpent’s back, or had huts and tea plantations dotted about on them. Ben was as fascinated as Twigleg by what they saw. Cone-shaped volcanic peaks cast their shadows on bays such as he had dreamed of when he still wanted to be a pirate. Their beaches were covered with the tracks of turtles, and their white sand bordered jungle in which, so Twigleg told him, tigers, rhinoceroses, orang-utans and red pandas lived.
‘So different from the world that we come from, isn’t it?’ said Barnabas. ‘And yet it’s on the same planet. Incredible!’
It was late afternoon when they reached the island group where Barnabas thought that Me-Rah’s home must lie. Hothbrodd flew so low that the fuselage of the plane almost touched the treetops, but Me-Rah only shook her head at the first three islands and uttered a disappointed squawk. The longing glance with which she searched for her home reminded Ben of his own broken heart. What place did he love in the same way? MÍMAMEIÐR, no doubt of that, but it didn’t change his yearning for Firedrake. What an infuriatingly complicated thing the heart was!
‘You look sad. Is there anything you want to talk about?’ Barnabas held out the box of cookies that he brought on every journey: walnut and chocolate.
‘No, I’m okay.’ Ben just couldn’t bring himself to tell Barnabas what he had decided. He felt like a traitor, and Barnabas did not insist, as usual when he sensed that one of his children wasn’t being perfectly straightforward with an answer. Vita and he left them time to work out their own thoughts. Ben couldn’t have said how many times he had been grateful for that.
Lola was standing on the map, ticking off the islands they had already flown over with a pen. Gilbert would probably have bitten off one of her ears for that. Barnabas looked at the part of the map that they would not be exploring.
‘What a pity,’ he murmured. ‘I’m afraid Me-Rah’s home is on an island where there are no orang-utans! They’re such an impressive species. As endangered as dragons and Pegasi, sad to say. And not half as good at hiding!’
Orang-utans, elephants, puffer fish, armadillos, tree-frogs and lemurs – to Ben, by now, every animal was a fabulous creature, and he often wished for magic he could use to protect them all. But for now he had to content himself with taking an abducted chattering lory home and rescuing a few winged horses. Better than nothing.
They flew over another island on which the Singing Flowers opened their deadly blooms, but even from a distance they could see that it was too small to match Me-Rah’s description, and the parrot chattered in disappointment again. Dusk was already coming on, but Hothbrodd assured Barnabas that they could still fly to two more islands before they had to find a place to come down for the night. Me-Rah had flown from her perch to the back of his pilot’s seat and kept chattering into his green ear, which annoyed the troll very much.
‘Rat!’ he called back, shooing Me-Rah over to Lola’s empty seat. ‘Come and take the controls! I can read Gilbert’s map as well as you can. And I certainly know how to bring this plane down better than you! After all, it needs more space than your crow-sized aircraft!’
‘Oh, really?’ Lola called back. ‘You don’t say so! How kind of you to remind me!’
Then, giggling, she bent over Gilbert’s map again. ‘You wait and see!’ she whispered to Barnabas. ‘That troll will bite Me-Rah’s head off before we’ve found the right island! A parrot pilot! Of all your crazy ideas this was certainly the craziest. I admit parrots are very entertaining, and they know a lot about upwinds and downwinds, but they get into such a panic! It’s a wonder all that fluttering and squawking hasn’t ditched us in the sea yet!’
As if to confirm it, such a penetrating whistle came from the cockpit that even Barnabas put his hands over his ears. The whistle was followed by a torrent of shrill parrot language and a very uncivilised troll curse.
‘What’s that dratted bird saying, Twigleg?’ asked Hothbrodd crossly, as Ben and the homunculus ran to the cabin.
‘She says she can see her island!’ Twigleg could barely make his thin manikin-voice heard above the noise that Me-Rah was making.
‘Which one is it?’ roared Hothbrodd. ‘Which one, bird?’
Me-Rah settled on the troll’s head and went on screeching. The plane swerved alarmingly as Hothbrodd tried to take the parrot out of his hair, and in return Me-Rah dug her beak into his bark-like fingers.
‘Hvilken øy? Which one? Stille tie, latterlig fugl!’ he shouted as he steered the plane with one hand and held on to the screeching parrot with the other. Exhausted, Me-Rah fell silent, and took her beak out of the troll’s hard skin. Then she chattered something that sounded as if she were both insulted and very excited.
‘She says it’s the island to the east of us,’ Twigleg quickly translated.
Hothbrodd let Me-Rah fly to her perch – after he had wiped white droppings off his instruments, with another curse – and turned the plane to the east.
Me-Rah cooed and croaked like clockwork gone wrong, and craned her neck as if she wanted to fly through the windscreen of the cockpit. Ben offered her a piece of mango. He had found that mango calmed her down.
‘What’s she saying now, Twigleg?’ Barnabas asked. In all the excitement, Me-Rah seemed to have forgotten her English.
‘She says she’s quite sure,’ translated Twigleg, as Me-Rah went on chattering breathlessly. ‘And she suggests landing in a bay on the southern shore. Although its name doesn’t sound very inviting!’
