Heckle ruffled her feathers, then muttered, ‘The one with the red hair has some very strange ideas about being a hero.’
Sensing that Heckle was veering into trouble again, Iggy carried on. ‘Thunderberries aren’t like ordinary berries. They’ve always been sacred because thunderberry bushes are the most magical plant in all of Jungledrop.’
He took a few steps into the undergrowth and pulled back the foliage to reveal a shrivelled blue plant.
‘We used to have thousands of them – blue bushes bursting with berries – before Morg sent her Midnights out across the kingdom to steal as many as they could so that she could take their magic. Thunderberries are so wild that our usual magic spells couldn’t protect them, and now all the thunderberry bushes are –’ Iggy swallowed – ‘dead.’
‘But what does it matter if a bunch of stupid berries get eaten?’ Fibber snapped.
Fox was relieved to see that, now Fibber was well and truly out of his comfort zone, his churlish nature was slipping back out again.
‘Because these berries give us dye that we mix with rain from Rumblestar to make ink,’ Iggy replied. ‘And that ink is used to paint rain scrolls – the very ones we send to your world to give you water – and we haven’t had enough berries to make ink for eight years. I can’t even remember seeing a thunderberry in real life!’
Fox thought back to the timekeeper plants on the train. If one year in her world was almost thirty years in the Unmapped Kingdoms, then eight years here would mean… She racked her brain, but she was hopeless at maths.
Conveniently, though, Heckle had been reading her thoughts again. ‘The one with the red hair is struggling with its arithmetic and would probably like to know that eight years in the Unmapped Kingdoms is just over three months in the Faraway.’
Fox shifted. If the parrot was right, those timings tallied, exactly, with when the last of the rain fell in her world…
Iggy sighed. ‘We thought the raids would stop after the thunderberries vanished. But then Morg turned her attention to our animals. Hundreds of them have gone missing over the last few years. It’s as if the jungle is slowly being emptied of life! And we think somehow Morg has been using these animals to increase her power. Every day, a little more of Jungledrop is lost because, when the Midnights come for the animals, their dark magic causes a chunk of our rainforest to die. Omnifruit trees are now nearly extinct and many of our rivers have dried up – our main sources of food and water are vanishing before our eyes as the jungle shrinks around us! Beyond these parts, the rainforest is a wasteland and the Lofty Husks have said we’ve only got a few weeks left before the magic here fades away, too. Your world and ours are doomed if you don’t find the Forever Fern fast because the Unmapped Kingdoms only stand if we pass on our magic to the Faraway!’
Fox felt a niggle twist inside her. This kingdom really did seem to be in charge of sending rain to her world, so if she found the Forever Fern she could be the one to put an end to the water crisis back home. She’d be crowned a hero! She’d be valued and noticed at long last – possibly even loved! Her heart wobbled at the idea. And yet… She thought of Casper Tock. He had saved the world and what had become of him? Absolutely nothing. He’d ended up in a musty old antiques shop in the back end of nowhere. So, if Fox gave up her plan and planted the pearl from the Forever Fern in Jungledrop, no one would know that their lives had been saved because of her. And what good was that?
Fibber, meanwhile, was eyeing Iggy distrustfully. ‘If you’ve had eight years of Morg causing chaos here, why hasn’t anyone stepped up to sort things out?’
‘We’re doing all we can,’ Iggy replied. ‘The Lofty Husks are patrolling the kingdom for Morg’s stronghold so that they can find a way to stop the Midnights. Everyone else is searching for another method of making ink for the rain scrolls. And the dragons are scattering moondust from their wings to keep what’s left of the phoenix magic in each of the four kingdoms turning. But the candletree prophecy says only someone from the Faraway can find the Forever Fern and stop Morg.’
Fibber smoothed his tie. ‘I’d like to speak with these Lofty Husks.’
Fox elbowed Fibber out of the way. ‘Forget the Husks. And all this talk about thunderberries and Midnights. I want to know more about this Forever Fern: how big is it supposed to be? What colour do people reckon it is? Does it bite? There’ll be no need to face Morg and her followers at all if this fern is found first.’
Iggy reddened. ‘Sorry, I talk a lot when I’m nervous. Or excited. Or happy. Or sad. Or overwhelmed. Or underwhelmed. Or…’ He bit his lip. ‘I talk a lot.’
‘We hadn’t noticed,’ Fox muttered.
Iggy’s face crumpled and for a second Fox felt a little bad for upsetting him. But her parents had got to the top by being horrid to other people, and not caring about the consequences, and so Fox assumed, as a businesswoman-in-the-making, that she would have to do the same. She wondered briefly whether most businesswomen had training in being horrid to others to guarantee their success, because there were so many things to consider when stamping on people’s feelings: tone of voice, the words themselves and what on earth you were supposed to do with your hands. Fox settled for balling them up into fists and wedging them, aggressively, on her hips.
Heckle glided down from her branch and nuzzled into Iggy’s shoulder.
‘I should have known that heroes like to get cracking right away,’ Iggy mumbled. Then he drew himself up. ‘It’s definitely best
