Return to Roar, page 4
“LET GO OF HIS HORN!” screams Win as the unicorn starts bucking around the clearing. “LET GO OF HIS HORN!”
But I can’t let go of his horn. It’s the only thing stopping me from being thrown off. With an enormous whinny and twist of his head, the unicorn finally tosses me off his back.
I shoot over his head and crash down on the ground. For a second stars dance in front of my eyes. I blink them away to see the unicorn bearing down on me, his horn pointing toward my chest like a spear.
“I’m sorry!” I yell, trying to scramble away from him, but the unicorn is too fast, and his horn is too long. There’s no escape.
“It could have been worse,” says Win, trying to cheer me up.
He’s right. I’d have lost an eye if I hadn’t twisted my head as the unicorn lunged at me. Instead he hooked my T-shirt on to the end of his horn, then ran around the clearing, tossing me from side to side before hanging me on a stubby branch.
And that’s where I am now, dangling a couple of meters off the ground, with Win stuck on a branch next to me. We’re not sure why the unicorn decided to hang Win up too, but it might have had something to do with him rolling around and laughing until he cried.
After eating the apples Win dropped, Ronaldo trotted off into the forest without a backward glance.
We could slip out of our T-shirts and fall to the ground, but just below us are some particularly jagged pieces of burnt wood—the remnants of the Lost Girls’ toolshed, according to Win—and we don’t want to get speared.
“Win, can you do some magic to get us down?” I say.
“Good thinking,” he says, then he squirms around until he’s pulled his wand out of his pocket.
He gives it a practice swish, then points it at the splinters of wood. “Zoo fog!” he shouts. A few flakes of snow flutter from the end of his wand and settle on the ground beneath us. “That’s not right,” he mutters. “Caribou log!”
This time he waves his wand with such enthusiasm that it slips out of his hand and falls to the ground. It lies there oozing pink goo.
“Whoops,” says Win.
“Never mind.”
For a while we just dangle and stare into the forest. “Hey, Arthur,” says Win, breaking the silence. “Do you remember when you massively disrespected that unicorn?”
“Yes,” I say, and we fall back into silence. If I wasn’t strung up on a branch I might be enjoying this. Beyond the entrance to Treetops the forest is looking dark and magical. The lit-up buds flicker, strange birds call to each other, and vines sway in an invisible breeze. Far away I can hear running water . . .
. . . and something else.
Twigs snapping. And footsteps.
My chest squeezes tight. “Win . . . can you hear that?”
He listens for a moment, then looks at me with big eyes and nods. Suddenly I feel very exposed dangling on this branch. “Maybe we should try jumping down,” I say. The footsteps have stopped, but I’ve got the overwhelming feeling that somewhere in the dark trees, someone or something is watching us.
“Yeah . . . maybe,” Win says.
But neither of us move. Those bits of wood below us really are very sharp. Instead we stay where we are and listen for the brush of feathers or the crackle of straw. And we look for a pair of blinking button eyes.
“There,” says Win, pointing into the gloom. “I can see someone!”
I follow his trembling finger. He’s right. Someone is standing in the shadows watching us! My legs start to shake. I’m about to wriggle out of my T-shirt when there is an explosion of movement and a black shape leaps out of the trees and hurtles toward us.
Win and I scream and start to twist wildly from side to side, but we stop when we hear laughter.
Orion is standing in the clearing, and sitting on his back with a massive grin on her face is Rose. She’s wearing a black fluffy jacket and has a satchel slung over her shoulder.
Orion trots toward us and I eye him cautiously. I’ve had enough of hooved creatures for one day. Orion might not have a horn, but he has a huge amount of muscles and great big teeth that look particularly bitey right now.
“Rose, how come you’re wearing some sort of Crowky disguise?” I say.
“What, this?” She plucks at the jacket. “I borrowed some of Mitch’s things. What happened to you two?”
“A unicorn is what happened to us,” I say.
“Arthur massively disrespected it,” adds Win.
After Win has told the story—slowly, and in detail—and Rose has laughed for quite a long time, she helps us down from the tree.
Orion agrees to let us climb onto his back, but his generosity doesn’t last long. The second we’re away from the splinters of wood he shakes us to the ground with a toss of his large sparkly bottom. The tip of his tail catches me on the arm and a jolt of pain shoots through me.
“Watch it,” says Rose. “His tail stings boys, remember?”
I nod as waves of pain radiate through my body. Win helps me stagger to my feet and I realize that if Rose is here, then she can’t have found Mitch.
“No sign of her, then?” I say.
Rose shakes her head, then rubs Orion’s neck. He begins a slow walk through the camp. “But I know she’s back,” she calls over her shoulder. “I can feel it.”
I watch as Orion and Rose blend into the darkness and then reappear again. Shadows stretch all around us and the air is cool. I shiver. It must be getting late. “Perhaps we should get out of here,” I say.
The others quickly agree and together we walk out of the Tangled Forest. Orion trots ahead of us with Rose still on his back, but there’s no hope of him giving me and Win a ride. He makes this clear by accidentally on purpose flicking his tail in our direction and giving us the odd sting.
“Rose, can’t you keep your horse under control?” I say after a particularly painful whip across the nose.
Flick goes Orion’s tail, catching me on my ear.
“Don’t be rude, Arthur,” says Rose, “he’s a stallion, not a horse.”
As Win and I scramble over trees and rocks and jog to keep up with Orion, Rose tells us about her trip to the Archie Playgo. “Even though Mitch wasn’t there, it was good hanging out at her hut. I swam in the lagoon and had a go in her hammock.”
She says this in such an offhand way that I know she’s trying to hide how upset she is not to have found Mitch waiting for her. I decide that the best thing I can do is distract her, so as we come out of the Tangled Forest I tell her all about our trip to Boulders and Waterfalls, with Win adding some wild exaggerations.
We’re hot, dirty, and exhausted by the time we get back to the cave. Well, Win and I are. Rose slips off Orion’s back with the energy of someone who hasn’t just walked for miles, then she starts bossing us around, making us build up the fire while she says an excessively long goodbye to Orion.
He gallops off into the forest, leaving the three of us to lounge around outside the cave, toasting bread and talking about how good it is to be back in Roar.
As we talk, the sun sets and Win finds us all sleeping bags. Then we lie by the fire, the flames crackling between us, watching the rainbow stars come out.
As usual, Win is the first to drop off. Across the glowing fire I notice that Rose has a wooden box on her lap. “What’s that?” I say.
“It’s Mitch’s tattoo kit. I found it at her hut.”
She opens the box and I get out of my sleeping bag to take a closer look. Inside are feathers and tiny bottles of ink. I take one out. It’s filled with amber liquid and the label says Bud Dust—Tangled Forest. I swish it from side to side and see flecks of gold swirling in the light of the fire.
Like all merfolk, Mitch was covered in tattoos. I remember being at her hut and watching her dip a feather into one of these bottles, then draw on her skin. The ink fizzed, smoke poured from the tip of the feather, and then, somehow, the picture was permanent. I don’t know if the ink was magic, or the feather. It was just one of Mitch’s many secrets.
Tucked under the bottles of ink is a leather-bound book. Rose flicks through its pages. “It’s her spell book,” she says.
In green ink, Mitch has written the ingredients and instructions for making a range of spells with names like “Whopping Big Storm,” “Frothy Waves,” and “Wet Cat Smell.” But it’s not just spells that Mitch has put in this book. She’s filled it with colorful drawings: fish, flowers, shells, and birds are entwined across the pages in complicated designs.
We look at them one by one until we reach a picture of mountains and a waterfall. Beneath it are the words “The End.” I guess this is the last picture in the book. “This looks familiar,” says Rose, her fingers tracing the strange pointed lines of the waterfall. Suddenly she gasps. “Arthur, this is one of Mitch’s tattoos!”
As soon as she says this we realize that all the pictures in the book are of Mitch’s tattoos, and we go back through them trying to remember where they were drawn on Mitch. “This was on her wrist,” says Rose, pointing at a blue wave. “And this starfish was on her shoulder . . . I think.” She turns to looks at me, worry written across her face. “Arthur, I can’t remember what Mitch’s voice sounded like!”
“Scary,” I say. “Loud.”
She smiles. “Yeah, you’re right.”
It’s getting late, so Rose packs everything away, then puts the box back in Mitch’s bag.
I get back into my sleeping bag, and across the fire, Rose lies back and frowns up at the sky. The smile that was there a moment ago has gone.
“We’ll go back to Mitch’s hut soon,” I say. “She’s got to come back sometime.”
“What?” she says, looking confused, then she goes back to frowning and staring at the stars. They turn her face orange, then blue. The stars do look beautiful, and soon I find that I’m drifting off to sleep, my mind full of waterfalls and rafts and one very angry unicorn.
I’m not sure what wakes me, but something pulls me out of my deep, heavy sleep.
For a moment I lie still, not sure where I am. Then I see green and pink stars and the glowing fire and I remember, I’m in Roar.
This thought should make me happy, but an uneasy feeling creeps through me. What just woke me up? I pull the sleeping bag tighter around my shoulders and glance at the trees that surround Win’s cave. My eyes linger on the branches as they shift and sway in the breeze. I turn back to the fire. It’s just embers now and hardly giving off any light. Beyond it I can make out the silhouettes of Rose and Win curled up in their sleeping bags . . . and something else.
Sitting between Rose and Win is a hunched shape.
Cold fear creeps through me. What is that?
I squint, not sure if I can trust my eyes. I’ve just woken up and it’s a dark night . . . but the shape really looks like a person. It must be a rock, I think as I blink into the darkness, or maybe Win’s cloak slung over a branch.
Then I hear a faint but distinct rustle of feathers and a harsh “Arthur . . .” whispered on the night air.
I squeeze my eyes shut and wriggle down in my sleeping bag. I must be dreaming or half asleep, I tell myself as I lie there, listening and hardly daring to breathe. The wind brushes through the trees and the fire crackles.
“Arthur, take me to Home!” The gravelly whisper is louder this time and close to my ear. I’m so terrified that I can’t bring myself to even peek out of the sleeping bag. Instead I bury myself farther down until my head is covered, and I think happy thoughts. I think of Win and his promise to take us to see the Lost Girls, and I think of swimming in the warm water of Mitch’s lagoon. I imagine every single thing we are going to do in Roar, one by one, and I don’t let my mind drift for a second to voices or the shape by the fire.
And amazingly this works.
Because the next thing I know, the sun is shining down and I can hear birds singing in the trees. I sit up and stretch my stiff body. Straight away my eyes go to Rose and Win, and the space between them. There’s nothing there. Not even a rock. I did imagine it! Relief runs through me as warm as the sunshine.
Just then Rose rolls over, yawns, and opens her eyes.
“Rose, I had the weirdest dream last night,” I say.
“Other people’s dreams are boring,” she mutters.
I shake my head. “Not this one.”
But she’s not listening. Instead she sits up and stares over my shoulder. “What is that?” she says.
“What?” I turn to look. At first I don’t know what she’s talking about. Then I see it. Painted on the wall outside Win’s cave, in big dripping letters:
WHAT’S IN THE BOX?
The words have an instant effect on me. My mouth goes dry and my skin prickles with fear. “The Box . . . ,” I whisper.
“I’d almost forgotten about the Box,” says Rose.
“Me too.”
Like so many things in Roar, the Box had slipped to the back of my mind. But just seeing the message brings back a jumble of unpleasant memories. I untangle myself from my sleeping bag and shake Win. “Wake up. Something’s happened!”
“What? Where?” He leaps to his feet. Then he sees the message.
The three of us approach the words as if they might leap off the wall and bite us. Up close we can see the black paint is dripping over the lumpy rock and the letters are jagged and messy.
“The Box is gone,” I say. “Right?”
Rose nods. “Mitch got rid of it years ago.”
“That writing was not there last night,” says Win, reaching up and running a finger through a drip of wet paint. “Who wrote it?”
“Who do you think?” I say. “Crowky.”
“No.” Rose shakes her head fiercely. “It can’t have been Crowky. He’s gone. Win said so.”
“Plus, he doesn’t know where my cave is,” says Win. “If he did, he’d have trashed it years ago.”
“Listen,” I say, “I know it was Crowky because I saw him. He was here during the night!”
They stare at me in disbelief. “Arthur, what are you talking about?” says Rose.
“In the middle of the night something woke me up and I saw this . . . shape sitting between you two.”
Rose shudders. “How can you be sure it was Crowky and not just some, I don’t know, tree shadow?”
“I heard rustling feathers, and he spoke to me. He said my name. Tree shadows don’t talk, Rose!”
The two of them continue to stare at me. “And that was it?” says Rose. “He just said, ‘Arthur?’”
I think about the other thing Crowky said, Take me to Home, but something stops me from mentioning it. “That was it,” I say.
Win puts a reassuring arm around my shoulder. “What did you do then?”
“I went back to sleep.”
Rose gasps. “Arthur, how could you possibly go back to sleep?”
“I thought I was dreaming!” I protest. “Win said Crowky was gone. You said he was gone. I thought I was having some freaky middle-of-the-night moment, so I hid in my sleeping bag and . . . went back to sleep.”
“Nice,” says Win, nodding. “Stealthy. That’s ninja-thinking, mate. If I’m ever scared, I pretend to be a rock. Works every time. So what should we do now?”
Rose drops her voice to a whisper. “We need to get out of here. That paint is still wet. Crowky couldn’t have finished writing it that long ago. He’s probably hiding nearby, watching us!”
We fall silent as we look around, our eyes jumping from Win’s cave to the tall trees.
“Where shall we go?” I say.
Win doesn’t hesitate. “The Crow’s Nest. It’s the safest place.”
He’s right. The Crow’s Nest is the perfect fortress: it’s strong, built high on sharp rocks and surrounded by a wild sea. Plus the Lost Girls are there and they’re fearless, and fearless is just what we need right now.
We leap into action.
While Rose whistles for a dragon, I pull on my sneakers, and Win dashes around his cave finding apples, his wand, a telescope, and a hefty-looking wooden sword. He stuffs it all in a rucksack.
“Ready?” says Rose, grabbing Mitch’s bag. Already I can hear the distant thud of dragon wings.
“Ready,” I say.
Then we take one last look at Crowky’s sinister message before jumping off the rock and running into the forest.
Rose’s dragon whistles all sound the same to me, but the dragons know who she’s calling, and this time, it’s Pickle and Vlad who appear in the sky.
At first they’re just blobs on the horizon—one red, and one blue—but then we can make out their wings and swinging tails. I glance back at the forest and Win’s cave, urging them to hurry up.
I needn’t worry. The dragons are so eager to see Rose that soon they’re diving toward us and landing with a crash. Win and I step backward, but Rose stays exactly where she is, still and calm, waiting for her dragons to come to her.
They race forward and nuzzle their snouts against her face. She strokes their necks and her touch turns them into overexcited puppies. They flop to the ground and stick out their legs so she can scratch their scaly stomachs.
Then she starts talking to them in her Obby Dobby language, making the dragons’ eyes half close and licks of fire roll from their happy gaping mouths. “Gobood boboys!” she says. “Gobood boboys!”
“That’s got to be hot,” says Win as Rose is enveloped in a cloud of smoke.
She reappears, wiping soot and sweat from her face. “I’ve told them that we need to go to the Crow’s Nest,” she says. “I’ll take Pickle and you two can have Vlad. Can you still remember how to fly a dragon, Arthur?”
I swallow. I want to get away from here, but right now Vlad is glaring at me through narrowed eyes. “Yep,” I say.
“So what are you waiting for?” says Rose. “Get on his back!”
“Come on,” says Win, pulling me forward.
We approach Vlad and try to climb his bulging side. But it’s hard, like scrambling up a roasting boulder, and we keep slipping down. Eventually, I manage to grab hold of a spike and pull myself up. Win does the same.
