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Me-Rah began squawking angrily in Parrot. Once again, the excitement made her forget her English.
‘What’s she saying?’ Lola pulled a few more hairs off the tree trunk between whose roots she was standing. ‘I’m always afraid she’ll explode before our eyes one of these days, aren’t you? How can anyone get so worked up all the time?’
Me-Rah squawked, complaining that she was afraid Lola, like all rats, was inclined to be arrogant. Twigleg didn’t bother to translate that part of her remarks. But what came next was interesting. Interesting and extremely worrying.
‘Me-Rah says a griffin called Shrii has rebelled against the leader of the pride here. Shrii is also known on this island as the griffin who has bathed in the rainbow. The leader’s names are less poetic.’ Twigleg swallowed as he went on. ‘Kraa the Terrible. The Merciless. The Insatiable. The Eater of Hearts…’
Me-Rah enumerated a few more bloodthirsty epithets, but Twigleg spared himself and Lola those.
‘But anyway,’ he added, making a great effort to sound composed, ‘there are rumours that this Shrii is hiding in the jungle hereabouts, which is why Me-Rah thinks his monkeys took Ben and the others away, maybe because they thought they were…’ – and once again Twigleg’s voice almost failed him – ‘… thought they were poachers!’
‘Poachers? Well, thanks a million.’ Lola looked enquiringly up at Me-Rah. ‘What does this Shrii do to poachers?’
Baffled, Me-Rah shook her head and uttered a coo more like a growl, which seemed to bode no good.
‘Griffins on bad terms with each other.’ Lola nodded thoughtfully. ‘Yes, that makes sense. There’s nothing like jungle gossip! It also explains the skeletons and the wrecked nests. But how do we find these kidnappers?’
She looked doubtfully up at the treetops. ‘A gang of monkeys swinging from branch to branch! Even for me, following a track like that could be a challenge!’
Twigleg stroked Ben’s muddy button with trembling fingers. Suppose they didn’t find their friends? Suppose they never saw them again? How he hated this never-ending jungle, drenched with rain! How he hated this whole island!
‘There, there, humklumpulus!’ said Lola, as he wiped another tear off his pointed nose. ‘We’ll find them, won’t we, Me-Rah?’
Me-Rah’s squawk didn’t sound as confident as Lola’s voice, but she offered her help in following the trail, adding that parrots were more at home than rats in the treetops.
‘Thank you, Me-Rah,’ stammered Twigleg as he put Ben’s button in his backpack.
Lola was already trudging back to her plane. ‘Those rascally kidnapping monkeys haven’t reckoned with an airborne rat!’ she announced. ‘Oh no! They’re going to be very sorry they ever tangled with friends of Lola Greytail!’
So much determination cheered Twigleg a little. But soon the light of day falling through the trees turned to green twilight, making it very difficult for Me-Rah and Lola to find the trail left in the treetops by the monkeys. Me-Rah was just saying that it was about time to look for a place to spend the night in hiding, when Lola, with a shrill cry of triumph, pointed to a tree with only a few green lianas on its bare branches, and a wide gap high up in its trunk.
‘There!’ shouted Lola through the engine noise. ‘If that’s not the gang’s hideout, then my name is Gilbert from now on!’
She opened the cockpit window and raised her pointed nose to the wind. ‘Yes! There’s even a smell of troll still in the air! Hurrah! We’ll find them now, humklupuss!’
And before Twigleg and Lola could protest, she was steering the plane to the gap in the bark of the tree.
‘Lola! Let Me-Rah go ahead to find out what’s waiting for us in that tree!’ cried Twigleg.
The parrot favoured him with a glance that was far from enthusiastic, and Lola just shook her head scornfully.
‘Nonsense!’ she called back. ‘Do you think Me-Rah with her bright scarlet feathers will be less conspicuous than my plane? I’m switching to silent gliding mode!’
Twigleg ducked down in his seat, while Me-Rah flew after them as quietly as a breath of air. And with a very relieved expression on her face.
Silence.
That was all that met them when Lola’s plane glided through the huge opening in the bark of the tree, quiet as a falling leaf.
The hollow space inside was so high and wide that Twigleg could hardly make out its roof and walls in the darkness. But one thing was certain: the hollow tree was empty. Me-Rah came down in the air roots of a liana with a squawk of disappointment, and Lola landed the plane in the dead leaves that lined the hollow like cushions in a nest.
‘Where are they?’ moaned Twigleg. ‘The trail must lead on from here! Let’s go and see, Lola!’
Lola climbed up on one wing and looked around the empty hollow of the tree, frowning. ‘Too dark for that, humpelklumpel,’ she said. ‘We’d better spend the night here. We’ll go on searching as soon as it gets light.’
‘But it may be too late then!’ cried Twigleg. His fears for his master made even the danger of the plane’s crashing into a tree seem unimportant.
Lola jumped down from the wing and searched the dead leaves for tracks. ‘Me-Rah, tell him about all the animals who go hunting by night here.’
