Jungle Tangle Page 8

  Merv looked at her in admiration. ‘Never thought of that.’

  ‘What was the other treasure?’ asked Perdita.

  Merv sighed. ‘I say treasure … horrible thing, really. But it meant a lot to me. It was inside the box.’ He shook his head. ‘Gets lonely in here, see. I used to chat to it, tell it about me day. Not that it could understand, of course. But there was something about it.’ He laughed sheepishly. ‘Oh, you’ll think I’m off me tiddly trolley.’

  ‘No we won’t,’ Abbie lied.

  ‘Well, I used to pretend it was … listening. Had this look on its face, see.’

  ‘Face?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Merv came out from behind the counter. He stood on tiptoe and whispered into the girls’ shoulders, ‘Promise you won’t tell? Apparently it’s illegal to sell ’em.’

  ‘Promise,’ whispered Abbie and Perdita.

  ‘It was one of those shrunken – BLIMEY O’REILLY!’

  Grandma’s bag leapt off Abbie’s arm and bounced on the floor. Abbie snatched it up. Before Merv had time to shriek in capitals again, she gabbled, ‘A shrunken head? Where did it come from?’

  ‘I, er, dunno.’ Merv was gaping like a goldfish. ‘Some bloke brought it in. Found it in the jungle somewhere east.’

  ‘What did it look like?’ asked Perdita, as Grandma’s bag whooped in Abbie’s arms.

  ‘Er …’ Merv backed towards the counter. ‘Black hair, small chin, stuck-up nose.’

  ‘Ah beautiful nose, ah cutieful snout,’ sang the handbag. ‘My Carmen, I esneeff you out!’ Merv shot behind the counter.

  Time for introductions, thought Abbie. ‘This …’ she opened Grandma’s bag, ‘is Fernando.’ She lifted him out by his hair. ‘Say hello to Mr, um …’

  ‘Peri–, Peri–’ stammered Merv.

  ‘Señor Periperi,’ said Fernando solemnly. ‘Four century ago I lose my life. Today I find again, thank to you.’ He made a kissy face at Merv. The tiny man whimpered behind the counter.

  Time for explanations. So Abbie told him the whole story: how Fernando had lost his wife and why they’d come to Ecuador.

  ‘Of course,’ said Perdita, ‘we can’t be sure that was Carmen’s head. There could be lots of them kicking round Ecuador.’

  ‘How they keeck?’ snapped Fernando, bouncing indignantly on Abbie’s palm. ‘Of course she my Carmen. Thees I know, because thees nose I know … no, thees nose I knows … no, I knows thees nose … no! Oh, thees Eenglish I no know, but thees nose I know.’

  Abbie stroked his hair. ‘We understand. But Perdita’s right. We can’t be sure it’s Carmen.’ She thought for a minute. ‘Mr Periperi, can you remember what the man who stole the head looked like?’

  Merv shuddered. ‘I’ll never forget him, Miss. Like I said, he wore a suit. White, it was. And he was fat as a football. Piggy little eyes. Pale skin, shiny like a sausage. Bright yellow hair. Strangest accent, too – wouldn’t tell me where he was from.’

  Abbie gulped.

  Perdita gulped.

  Fernando forgot he had no throat and gulped too.

  ‘You don’t remember how he parted his hair, by any chance?’ said Perdita in her smallest voice, which was medium-sized.

  ‘Right down the centre, Miss, straight as anything. It was the most memorable thing about him – apart from his clothes and his shape and his eyes and his skin and his accent.’

  Abbie scooped her voice from her stomach. ‘Do you know where he went?’

  ‘Didn’t leave his contact details.’ Merv looked hurt, as if that was the least a thief could do. ‘Just said he’d spill the beans on me keeping a shrunken head if I spilled the beans on him stealing it. Oh cripers.’ Merv clapped his tiddly hand over his diddly mouth. ‘I’ve just done that.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Mr P,’ cried Perdita, ‘your secret’s safe with us.’ Grabbing Abbie’s hand she ran out of the shop. Then she ran back in and bought twenty-four gift-wrapped Incan toothpicks.

  * * *

  ♪ ‘Forty-five go-hold rings,’ crooned Brag Swaggenham, even though Christmas was still two weeks away. ‘That’s what I’ll have on mah pinkies soon.’ He waved his bandaged hand at a young woman sitting at the hotel bar. She didn’t see him wince with pain. That was because she had a bandage round her eyes.

  ‘What’s with the headband?’ asked Brag.

  The woman fumbled for her drink. ‘Eye levelling,’ she said weakly. ‘My left eye’s always been higher. Dr Ecclescake says it’ll be level with my right when I take this off.’ She sighed with a quaint mixture of delight and agony. ‘Then the cops can’t prove I’m the Pittsburgh Pearl Pincher.’

  ‘Sure sounds sore,’ said Brag.

  ‘Sure is,’ said the woman.

  Dr Klench sidled up. ‘Pleasse not to mention pain,’ he hissed. ‘You vill upset uzzer customers who are now vaitink for treatments.’ He waved round the hotel lounge where tanned men and women chatted and sipped from crystal glasses.

  ‘Sure,’ chorused Brag and the woman. She tried to wink. He tried to thumbs-up. Then they tried it the other way round, which worked much better.

  Klench waddled off to the lobby. ‘Business is boomink, Mums,’ he murmured.

  ‘Not boomink enough, my pastry puff. Alvays ze clients complain about pain. Zat you must fix. And ziss too.’ She pinched the inside of his stomach. ‘Still fat as a vat.’

  A tear squeezed from Klench’s eye. Inner Mummy was never satisfied. Here they were offering a wonderful service to the criminal world and she was still nagging. When would she grasp that her dream of a slim son was pork pie in the sky? While she’d been snoozing in his brain, he’d visited the hotel psychiatrist. And Dr Squidgychocolatelog had told him that the problem was clear. Inner Mummy wanted to control him. No matter if he was thin or fat, she’d always put him down, ruin his confidence, so that she could rule in his brain. Until he stood up to her, he’d never be free.

  Klench gulped. He’d rather give money to a poor person than stand up to Mummy.

  * * *

  ‘What d’you mean it doesn’t grab you?’ A bead of spit flew from Terry Strode-Boylie’s mouth. It sailed across the desk and landed on the hard nose of Corky Shocka.

  Wiping it off, she pushed Marcus’s article about the Swimathon back across the desk. ‘It’s not juicy,’ she yawned. ‘Not spicy. Not vindaloo with extra chilli. It’s not news.’ Marcus grabbed the article and scrunched it into a ball, blushing madly.

  ‘News? You think this is news?’ Terry shoved the second Letter from the Equator into Corky’s face.

  ‘Absolutely. I’ve had phone calls, texts, emails. The readers love it.’

  ‘News indeed!’ Terry’s finger jabbed the air like a drunken woodpecker. ‘Well what about my news? Why haven’t you printed my letter of complaint about the zoo?’

  ‘Pompous, long-winded and boring. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to file my nose.’

  13 - On the Trail

  ‘It could be,’ said Coriander that evening.

  Fernando was insisting for the umpteenth time that the head stolen from Merv’s shop was Carmen. He was perched in the sink in Abbie and Perdita’s hotel room. The cold tap was running to calm him down.

  ‘It could be,’ she agreed when Abbie said that finding the head, whether Carmen or not, would be impossible.

  ‘It couldn’t be!’ she gasped when Perdita described the thief. Her hands flew to her face. ‘What’s he doing here?’

  Abbie thought back to their last news of Hubris Klench. After holding them hostage in the Platts’ Hair Museum last summer, the wicked wobbler had simply disappeared. The police had combed the country armed with charge upon charge against him. There was animal smuggling, weapons dealing and money laundering (trust Klench to wash his cash). There were armed robberies of banks, businesses and bakeries. And there were the thousands of Chinese burns he’d inflicted on small children and pensioners.

  But the police hunt had been fruitless. Klench had vanished in a puff of pastry. He
could have escaped anywhere. And Abbie had to admit that the Amazon jungle, dark and dense, was as good an anywhere as – well – anywhere.

  You could see that Coriander was admitting it too. Her peachy cheeks paled to potato. Her round face sagged to oval. Her double chin doubled. It was hardly surprising, considering that she was the one Klench had kidnapped last summer. She was the one who knew him best.

  There was a long silence. Abbie pictured a beach ball in a suit rolling through the jungle. A fight broke out in her stomach. Fear shouted rude things at Courage, who was cheering at the thought of chasing Klench and defeating him once and for all. Courage shouted rude things back. Fear burst into tears and wanted its mum. Courage said sorry, it had got carried away and needed time to think.

  Finally Abbie said, ‘Even if it was Klench and Carmen, we’ve no idea where they went.’

  Fernando gave a sob. A lonely tear squeezed from his eye. It met the tap water already streaming down his cheeks and was surrounded by friends for the rest of its journey to the sea, where it decided it couldn’t take crowds and evaporated.

  There was another long silence.

  Then Grandma leapt up – and we’re talking leapt. She boinged in the air like one of those little toys on springs that stick when you lick, then suddenly flick. ‘Course we can find out where they went! ’Ow many ways can a bod leave this town?’

  Coriander frowned. ‘Well, there’s no airport or train station. Bus or car, I s’pose.’

  ‘Or bicycle,’ said Perdita.

  Grandma rolled her eyes. Even they were more sprightly since her bridge-jumping. ‘As if Klench could ride a bike! No, we’ll start at the bus station. ’Oo could forget sellin’ a ticket to that lump o’ lard?’

  Abbie stared at Grandma. The brainy old boot was right. If Klench had caught a bus, someone would remember him.

  The question was: did they want someone to?

  Grandma clearly did, the way she was rubbing her hands. So did Fernando, who was grinning from ear to crumbly ear. Coriander clearly didn’t, the way she was twisting a plait round her finger. Nor did Perdita, who was scraping her chin with her teeth.

  And what about Abbie? In her stomach, Fear crept up and bonked Courage on the head. Courage fell over – and was caught in the arms of Anger. How dare Klench get the better of them again? How dare the very mention of him scare them off their quest? Courage and Anger took a deep breath … and punched Fear’s lights out.

  * * *

  Grandma was right. Someone did remember Klench. Someone with wobbly teeth that jiggled as he giggled in the ticket booth of Baños bus station next morning. ‘Si Señora.’ He nodded as Coriander ran out of Spanish trying to describe Klench. ‘I never forget thees belly on legs.’

  ‘Told you so!’ crowed Grandma, jiggling her own false teeth in triumph.

  ‘He buy two seat,’ the ticket man said. ‘One for each – how you say? – buttock.’

  ‘Where did he go?’ asked Abbie.

  ‘He go …’ The teeth went still. ‘Ah si! He go east. To Puyo.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ mumbled Coriander miserably. ‘Maybe you’ve remembered wrongly.’

  The man shook his head till his teeth rattled. ‘Puyo. For sure.’

  ‘What are we waitin’ for?’ bellowed Grandma. ‘Four tickets to Puyo, por favor, ducks.’

  * * *

  The bus growled down the mountain road. On the left rose a wall of grey rock, shiny-wet as if wrapped in cling film. Ferns and mosses crouched in its cracks while waterfalls flung spray through the window. Good job we sat on the right, thought Abbie. Though on second thoughts … Along the right side of the road ran a low wall. Beyond it was misty blankness. Anything could be out there – or nothing. For a terrifying moment Abbie felt as if she was in a drawing that God had forgotten to finish.

  Then the mist thinned. Abbie gulped. Beside her a canyon plunged downwards. Clouds pottered beneath her. A river rushed along the valley floor.

  ‘Wow!’ said Perdita, lunging across her to look out the window. ‘Cloud forest, river gorge – it’s like a Geography lesson.’

  Abbie clutched the seat in front and wished it was a Geography lesson. She pictured Mr Dabbings meandering between desks, being the middle course of a river. Snorty Poff was on sound effects and Jeremy boinged about like pebbles in the current.

  The bus was having a good old boing itself. And strangely enough that calmed Abbie’s fear. As they bounced round the mountain, breakfast bounced round her stomach. Panic gave way to sickness. She closed her eyes and dreamed of break-dancing omelettes.

  She was woken by Perdita’s elbow. ‘Or kids,’ it seemed to be saying.

  Yawning awake, Abbie realised it wasn’t Perdita’s elbow talking but her mouth. And it wasn’t children but flowers she was on about. Giant orchids lined the road, their brilliant petals lolling like tongues.

  ‘Welcome to the jungle,’ said Perdita. Abbie took off her jacket. The air in the bus had thickened and warmed.

  ‘Ooh me ’ead,’ said Grandma. ‘I’m sweatin’ like a sausage. You’ll ’ave to sit somewhere else, Chess.’

  ‘No, he won’t,’ said Coriander next to her. It was the first time she’d spoken since getting on the bus. After hearing about Klench in Baños she seemed to have deflated like a leaking tyre. ‘Just pop this on.’

  Abbie turned round to look. Chester jumped into Grandma’s lap.

  Coriander took a lumpy handkerchief from her pocket. She spread it over Grandma’s head. ‘Numbskull,’ she said.

  ‘There’s no need for insults,’ snapped Grandma.

  Coriander smiled. ‘Not you. The hanky. It numbs your skull with cold. You can put Chester on top. The Numbskull will cool you both down. Matt invented it for the Dazzle Ducks of Dubai.’

  ‘The what? Never ’eard of ’em.’

  ‘That’s not surprising.’ Coriander sighed. ‘Tragic story. They had these wonderful silver head feathers. They were the envy of the seabirds in the Persian Gulf. Sooty Gulls used to swoop down and peck them to death out of pure jealousy. There were fewer than a hundred Dazzlers left when I was called in.’

  ‘To do what?’ said Abbie.

  ‘Make wigs. To hide their feathers. But it didn’t work. My wigs made their heads overheat. So Matt invented Numbskulls. They’re just hankies with lumps of dry ice sewn in. He lined the wigs with them.’

  ‘So the ducks were cooled and the Sooty Gulls were fooled. What’s so tragic about that?’ said Grandma.

  Coriander shook her head. ‘The wigs looked like Kinky Kelp, a seaweed found only in the Persian Gulf. Which is exactly what Sooty Gulls use to line their nests. So the gulls pecked them off the ducks’ heads and – hey presto – it was back to square one. Or rather square none. The Dazzlers became extinct.’

  Grandma smacked Chester back onto her head. ‘Woe betide anyone ’oo tries to peck my pal.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Grandma,’ said Abbie. ‘Chester doesn’t look like seaweed.’ And I pity any gull who messes with you, she thought.

  The bus wheezed into Puyo. Bushes and flowers gave way to white houses with flat roofs. The sky was solid grey. The bus pulled into the station. Passengers stumbled off, fanning themselves. The hot air smelt of fumes and damp decay.

  ‘I’ll get the bags,’ said Grandma. ‘You check on Fernando. ’E slept all the way.’ She gave Abbie her handbag and went to the boot at the back of the bus.

  ‘Air,’ gasped a faint voice. Abbie opened the bag. She didn’t dare bring Fernando out with all the people milling around. Coriander came to the rescue with a second Numbskull, which she lowered into the bag to cool him down.

  ‘Aaah,’ sighed Fernando gazing up. ‘I thank you for hankyou. For hanky I thanky. Thanks for hanks. Now, where we are, and what we do?’ He looked at Coriander. Who looked at Perdita. Who looked at Abbie. Who looked at Grandma. Who returned with the bags and said, ‘What are you lookin’ at?’ She dumped three rucksacks on the ground and patted her own luggage, a shopping bag on whe
els. ‘I dunno what to do.’

  Nor did anyone else. Beyond getting to Puyo, no one had made any plans.

  Coriander kicked a stone. ‘Even if Klench did come here,’ she said, ‘how do we know he brought the shrunken head? And even if he did bring it, how do we know it was Carmen? And even if it was Carmen, how do we know where they went next? We’ll never find them.’

  A snarl came from Grandma’s bag. ‘Of course eet my Carmen! And of course you find her. You must. You lose her een first place.’

  Fair point, thought Abbie, remembering how Carmen had fallen out of Coriander’s bag almost a year ago.

  ‘But,’ Coriander bit her lip, ‘what if we find Klench too? He knows we’d hand him over to the police. He’d do anything – and I mean anything – to stop us.’

  True, thought Abbie. She knows better than anyone what he’s capable of.

  Grandma jumped to her feet. ‘You mean to say I’ve done me back in on a plane, swung from a bridge, sweated me wig off and missed me Bingo, just so you can all wimp out now?’

  Absolutely, thought Abbie. The old sprout’s come a long way.

  ‘But,’ Perdita scraped her chin with her teeth, ‘what if Klench kidnaps us again? It would kill Dad.’

  She’s right. Poor old Matt would be a gibbering jelly … or even worse, an un-gibbering one.

  Now what? Carry on searching or go home? The question hung in the air. It was two against two. Chester didn’t count because he always sided with Grandma. Time for the deciding vote.

  Everyone looked at Abbie.

  * * *

  Klench stood behind the reception desk of the Hotel Armadillo. He listened to the scribble of voices from the lounge. The chatter of new guests mingled pleasantly with the moans of those who’d been treated. Now and then a scream pierced the air. Klench looked down at his timetable. That must be the gangster who arrived yesterday, enjoying his neck-shortening session. Klench chuckled to himself.

  At least, he’d thought it was to himself. ‘Stop laughink!’ barked Inner Mummy. ‘Can’t you hear guests are in agonies? I tell you, trouble is brewink. Zey vill give you endless grief, unless you find zem pain relief.’