The shape in the shadows shifted again and then it walked on two dark, furred legs out of the antechamber and down a flight of stone steps into the crypt. And when the giant ape – for that is what this creature was – came back up, minutes later, a small glass bottle tucked into its palm, Morg’s wings twitched.
She rose up on her talons, her wings outstretched, then she snatched the little bottle containing Iggy’s tears and swallowed the liquid in one greedy gulp. The harpy sat back in her throne and smiled darkly. She could feel the magic of the Unmapper coursing through her veins.
‘Bring me more Unmappers, Screech.’ Morg’s wings shimmered as they drank in Iggy’s magic. ‘Bring me more.’
A cry from Fibber startled Fox awake.
There was a trunklet in the tree house. Or the arm of one, at least. And it was wriggling closer and closer to Fibber’s briefcase.
‘Oh, no you don’t!’ Fibber cried, seizing his briefcase and leaping up from his bunk.
The trunklet snatched back its arm, stuck out its tongue, then scampered away down the tree. Which is when the twins noticed what Heckle was up to. The parrot must have risen earlier than the children because she was now perched on the table, placing an omnifruit before each chair.
‘Heckle is still very cross with Fox and Fibber because of Iggy’s kidnap, but she is hoping tempers might improve if Faraway folk are fed first thing.’
Fibber sat down at the table. ‘Er – thanks, Heckle,’ he said, biting into one of the fruits.
Fox blinked. Had she misheard or had she just witnessed a Petty-Squabble saying thank you? Fox studied her brother. He seemed to be turning into a completely different person out here in Jungledrop! He’d been terrified on the Hustleway with Iggy, he’d very nearly fainted upon meeting Goldpaw, he wasn’t snapping at Fox half as much as usual and he’d taken to saying excuse me to trees and thank you to parrots. What had happened to the ruthlessly composed brother she’d known her whole life?
Fox wondered whether she was missing something important in how she was going about her mission and that maybe Fibber had found a better way of doing things. But Fibber’s strategy seemed to involve being kind, and that meant being weak, and being weak meant letting the wall around her heart down. Fox was far from ready to start dismantling walls. She thought of the snoozenut in her bag. She had a plan and she needed to pursue it with a clear head.
So she sat down at the table and ate the omnifruit – pancakes with maple syrup followed by a few scrummy mouthfuls of blueberry porridge – in stony silence, refusing to thank Heckle for her efforts in providing it.
A short while later, Fox opened the door of the tree house and peeked outside. Down on the ground, the rainforest was a wasteland of dead thunderberry bushes and shrivelled undergrowth. Nowhere, it seemed, was safe from Morg’s Midnights. But the understorey around the Hustleway here was stubbornly refusing to die: lining the branches were blue orchids, monkeybrush vines with flaming orange flowers and red-spotted rafflesias. And, in amongst this burst of colour, bees buzzed, hornbills squawked, snakes (wearing sun hats) hissed and a gibbon (holding a walking stick) barked.
Fox stepped out of the tree house, followed closely by her brother. In an instant, everything seemed to freeze. Leaves stiffened, ears flicked, eyes darted. Even the noise subsided. This was a rainforest living in fear. And it was only when the twins mounted their unicycles and sped off along the Hustleway that the animals and plants realised they meant no harm and came back to life.
With the map guiding Fox, the twins cycled on and on through the trees until eventually they came to a river that had not yet been drained of magic by the Midnights. It snaked through the jungle below, blue-green from the plants and trees lining it. For a while, the map spurred Fox further along the Hustleway above the water and she gasped as a pod of pink dolphins broke the surface, one after the other, before disappearing from sight. Then the Hustleway veered away from the river and the map slowed its tugging as they made their way down towards the banks of the water. And Fox knew what that meant: it was time to return to the jungle floor.
She and Fibber dismounted their unicycles and climbed down the tantrum tree the map had paused at, muttering ‘excuse me’ all the way. Then they resumed their quest for the Forever Fern on foot. They hurried along by the river, now and again catching sight of some strange fish or eel gliding through the water. But, when they came to a purple plant on the riverbank in the shape of an umbrella with dozens of newspapers hanging down from inside it, Fox slowed a fraction. These seemed to be newspapers recalling events in her own world!
She read the headline of the newspaper closest to her aloud: ‘DROUGHTS, DEATH AND DOOM!’ Then beneath this: ‘No hope for the Faraway unless rain falls imminently.’
Fox’s stomach twisted as she let the map pull her on. This time she couldn’t seem to shake the guilt off. Her world was in chaos, Jungledrop was dying, and she might be able to do something about it… But her chances of being loved by her parents depended on finding the Forever Fern and she couldn’t, no matter how guilty she felt, let go of that hope.
Burying her doubts as best she could, Fox ran on and on. She’d had no idea that being a successful businesswoman would involve so much rushing about. Perhaps she’d need to factor in hiring a secretary when she got home.
The river widened into a little pool, surrounded by trees, so that the sunlight that fell
