Fox felt an unexpected thrill at the thought of the map choosing her, and being unique – special, chosen – was enough to make her forget, just for a second, that she was unworthy of being loved.
The twins scampered out from behind the waterfall into the knotted undergrowth to find a yellow parrot perched on a low-hanging branch in front of them. They knew, at once, that this was Heckle because the bird took one look at Fibber’s briefcase and started muttering about handbags.
‘Scoot!’ Fibber hissed at the parrot. ‘This is an important mission.’
But Heckle stayed exactly where she was, her yellow feathers lit up by the glow-in-the-dark plants beneath.
Fox glowered at the bird. Seeing her brought back thoughts of Iggy and a prickle of guilt, which she quickly tried to squash. ‘Clear off, Heckle!’ she barked.
Heckle fixed the twins with beady eyes. ‘The girl and the boy are feeling ever so slightly guilty about my beloved Iggy going missing.’
‘Shut it, feather-mouth,’ Fox snarled.
Heckle squawked indignantly, but the flickertug map, it appeared, didn’t have time for conversations because it hauled Fox on again, past an orange plant with clam-like petals that sprang open as Fox brushed past them, then spat out a cluster of spotted frogs that had been sleeping inside. Fibber hastened after Fox and Heckle followed.
Fox threw a glance over her shoulder. ‘That parrot is not coming on this quest.’
Fibber nodded. ‘I’d rather face Morg than spend any more time with that bird.’
But Heckle – who harboured a wild hope that the twins might find Iggy as well as the Forever Fern – had decided that she very much was going with them.
The flickertug map led Fox on into the jungle. At first the trees looked exactly like those she had seen in documentaries about rainforests at school: evergreens, banana trees, cathedral figs and giant cedars. The only obvious difference was that they were all linked by the Hustleway high up in the understorey. Fox took in the vast network of turquoise creepers that zigzagged through the trees, connecting them all and providing a path through the knotted jungle. But there were no unicycles zipping back and forth and Fox found it hard to imagine a time when countless Dashers would have been racing along the creepers with satchels full of thunderberries.
Very soon the trees began to change, growing stranger and wilder with every step the twins took. One had hundreds of leaves that seemed to be blank sheets of paper. Another grew a single sock from its uppermost branch. The next one had small silver buds that Fox realised were silver-foil wrappers, only when the twins opened a few up they saw there were no sweets inside.
Heckle wheeled above the children. ‘The girl and the boy are puzzled by the trees in the Elderwood, but Heckle is used to such sorry sights. The leaves of the chapterbarks are now blank pages when they used to be filled with unpublishable stories. The left-behinders only grow one forgotten object a year when they used to grow everything from odd socks to house keys and reading glasses. And the gobblequick trees only produce sweets when you beg for several hours. Years ago, you just had to drift past one and it would shower you with toffees.’
But, now that they were outside the Boundary for Safe Keeping, Fox had noticed something altogether more sinister. Beyond the trees around them vast stretches of rainforest had been flattened, and plants and shrubs looked as if they’d been burned to the ground. Fibber, too, had seen the black undergrowth and the twins exchanged nervous glances. Morg’s dark magic had been in these parts, so what was to say her Midnights weren’t still here, looking for the twins?
The parrot flapped on above the children. ‘Heckle is missing Iggy dreadfully. It was that little Unmapper, after all, who found Heckle in the Elderwood a few months ago, unconscious after a tussle with Morg’s Midnights. He nursed Heckle back to health.’
Fibber groaned. ‘I didn’t realise the parrot would share her own thoughts as well as other people’s.’
Heckle flicked her tail feathers proudly. ‘Since her encounter with the Midnights, Heckle began repeating feelings instead of squawks and now she can relay the thoughts of all sorts of Unmappers, animals, magical creatures and, it would seem –’ she gave the twins a hard look – ‘rude children from the Faraway. The only minds that Heckle cannot read are those of wild beasts or those twisted by dark magic.’
The parrot swooped down towards Fox. ‘Heckle is tired and emotionally overwrought and is hoping she might be able to perch on the grumpy girl’s shoulder for a bit. It’s the least the girl can do after getting Iggy kidnapped…’
Fox batted Heckle away. ‘Shoulders are for barging, not perching on. And my name is Fox and that’s Fibber, so you can drop all the stupid chit-chat about grumps and handbags.’
Heckle flapped back upwards, then said cagily: ‘The tantrum tree ahead is considering which of you to wallop first. And Heckle doesn’t blame it.’
Fox’s ears pricked up. Tantrum tree. Hadn’t Goldpaw said something about navigating one of those?
The map led her closer and closer to a tall tree with thick, spiked branches that grew in large, swooping arcs. It was a bit like the monkey puzzle tree that grew in the park near Bickery Towers back home only this tree seemed to be bristling – despite the lack of wind – as if it might be slightly more alive than an ordinary tree.
Fox gave the first branch a wide berth and then
