Jungledrop Read online

  Fibber looked at Fox, and she thought he was going to give her one of his horribly smug grins, but then his face changed completely and he laughed. ‘That was close, wasn’t it? I’m not sure Goldpaw would’ve been too impressed if we’d been flattened by a tantrum tree this early on in the quest!’

  Unsure quite how to respond to this, Fox huffed. Then the flickertug map pulled her on once more and, abandoning all thoughts of a conversation, the twins hurried forward again. Heckle flew above them and this time neither Fox nor Fibber shouted at the parrot. Heckle had, through her insistence on speaking the tantrum tree’s feelings aloud, reminded Fox about Goldpaw’s words. And perhaps, if the twins could manage not to throttle the parrot as they journeyed on, they could use her as a guide on their quest.

  As they made their way through the Elderwood, Heckle sobbed every time they passed a drained riverbed, a blackened patch of rainforest or a drooping tree: she couldn’t bear it that the phoenix magic keeping Jungledrop alive was now slipping away and that those responsible were holding Iggy captive. But Fox blotted out the parrot’s weeping, focusing instead on moving as quickly as possible. She didn’t want to be stuck in this creepy place a moment longer than necessary. After a while, though, she slowed. She had a stitch, she was badly out of breath and she knew that if she didn’t eat something soon she’d probably keel over and faint. She glanced up at the tiny gaps between the trees to see glimpses of dark sky. They’d have to think about finding shelter for the night if they didn’t reach the Constant Whinge soon.

  Finally, the map eased its tugging until it came to a stop at the foot of a tree whose branches were laden with fruits the size and shape of apples but the colour of plums. Fox lifted the fablespoon out of her satchel, said ‘please’ (having been reminded to do so by Heckle) and held it up to one of the purple fruits. Words started to form inside the head of the spoon:

  NAME: OMNIFRUIT TREE

  CHARACTER: SAFE, STEADY AND SATISFYING

  RISKS UPON EATING AN OMNIFRUIT: NONE

  Fox reached out to pick one, but before she could Fibber blurted, ‘You know I don’t like heights, but we need to climb this tree and get up onto those unicycles on the Hustleway – now.’

  Fox glanced up. She’d been so focused on the fruits, she hadn’t noticed that the flickertug map had led them to transport, too. She looked at Fibber. ‘Why? What have you seen?’

  ‘A whole bunch of trunklets –’ he pointed into the distance – ‘and I’m not confident we can outrun them in moccasin boots.’

  Fox thought back to the trunklets on the train who, Tedious Niggle had said, could chew through stone. Chewing through eleven-year-olds was probably not beyond them. ‘Do you think they’ve spotted us?’

  Fibber shook his head. ‘They seem very focused on what they’re doing.’

  Fox craned her neck to get a better look, but her brother was taller than her and he could see more. ‘Which is?’

  Fibber shuddered. ‘Biting trees.’ He glanced at the fablespoon in Fox’s hand. ‘We can eat up in the branches. Come on. Let’s go.’

  He lifted an elbow to barge Fox out of the way, then seemed to think better of it and hung back, even though it was clear he was terrified of the trunklets nearby.

  Fox climbed on up the tree, her eyes peeled for Morg’s dreaded monkeys. Although she said nothing in reply to Fibber, she couldn’t help noticing that he was now talking as if he and Fox were on this quest together. Before meeting Goldpaw, she reckoned Fibber would have charged up the tree without warning her of the trunklets. It was almost as if he’d taken the panther’s words about working together on board… But then maybe he was only being nice because he realised that facing down jungle threats would be easier alongside another person. Fox felt sure that, as soon as the Forever Fern was in sight, her brother would be looking for a way to ditch her, so she shouldn’t let her guard down.

  There were two unicycles perched on the Hustleway in the uppermost branches of the tree and Heckle flew down onto the saddle of one of them as the twins climbed up to join her. ‘Fox is wondering whether climbing trees features on the agendas of most successful businesswomen,’ she clucked. ‘And Fibber is wondering whether he and Fox might become—’

  ‘That’s enough, Heckle,’ Fibber snapped, his cheeks reddening.

  But Fox wasn’t listening to the parrot or her brother; she was much more focused on finding something to eat. A quick brandish of the fablespoon showed her that the vines growing round the branches here, laden with green, grape-like fruits, were not to be eaten:

  NAME: ICKLESCRATCH VINE

  CHARACTER: SLY AND STEALTHY

  RISKS UPON EATING AN ICKLESCRATCH FRUIT: ITCHY EARLOBES THEN, 33 MINUTES LATER, CERTAIN DEATH

  So she reached for an omnifruit instead and took a bite. Fox wasn’t sure what she was expecting – she only knew that she was incredibly hungry. But the omnifruit was more delicious than anything Frau Longsüffer, the Petty-Squabbles’ personal chef, had ever rustled up. And more unusual. The first few bites were savoury rather than sweet, almost like munching on a deliciously warm and juicy burger topped with bacon and cheese. Fox carried on eating until she was nearing the end of the fruit. Why, this was banoffee pie now, her favourite pudding! Mouthful after mouthful of crumbled biscuits, toffee, bananas and cream.

  Fibber ate ravenously, too. Fox was curious as to whether his omnifruit tasted like hers or whether it was crammed full of his own favourite flavours, but she was too proud to ask. Which was a shame because, had she looked over at Fibber, she would have seen that again and again he tried to catch her eye as if, perhaps, he was on the brink of asking her the very same thing, but was too nervous to make the first move.

  When the twins had finished eating, the map urged Fox closer to the unicycles. So she clambered up onto the branch where they were, shoved Heckle off the saddle of the nearest one, mounted it and then – before she could give it a command – the flickertug map was off again. So strong was the magic hidden inside it that it pulled the unicycle full steam ahead along the Hustleway.

  Fibber threw himself onto the second unicycle, yelled, ‘Follow that girl!’ to it and hastened after his sister.

  The Hustleway wound on through the trees as the jungle grew denser, darker and wilder still. Fox’s eyes darted this way and that. Were the Midnights close? Could they sense that she and Fibber were racing through the Elderwood? There were still no Unmappers in sight – they were all safely back at Timbernook at this time of night – but, even though many of the trees around the Hustleway had collapsed and numerous plants had been destroyed by the Midnights, there were glimpses of life still. Fox saw a snake with mirrored skin curled round a tree, a gecko with a jewel-studded tail scamper along a branch and, down on the rainforest floor, several junglespooks clad in loincloths having an animated discussion about sensible bedtimes.

  The trees around them thinned even more until large gaps appeared in the canopy. Fox gasped as she gazed at the clouds in the midnight-blue sky: nestled into them were the swiftwings. Their horse-like bodies gleamed in the moonlight, and their tails hung down over the edge of the clouds.

  On seeing the sleeping creatures, Fox realised just how tired she was. So, when the map slowed its tugging and a small tree house came into view, wedged between the boughs of the tree ahead, she felt relieved that the map seemed to be guiding them to another stop. At first she hoped this might be the Constant Whinge, but when they reached the tree house and she stepped inside Fox realised this wasn’t the case.

  There were no Unmappers or magical creatures here. Just a bunk bed carved out of the tree itself, a trunk laden with blankets and a table with two chairs. Perhaps this was where Dashers used to sleep over when they were out collecting thunderberries? Whatever it had been used for, it was clear they should take advantage of the shelter because they weren’t going to find the Forever Fern that night.

  Fibber grabbed a blanket from the trunk, then, parking his briefcase under the bed, he threw himself
down on the bottom bunk. Heckle fluttered round the tree house a few times, muttering about missing Iggy, then made herself comfortable on the windowsill.

  Fox took another blanket from the trunk and dragged her weary legs up to the top bunk. Then she snuggled down, the satchel tucked beneath her pillow for safekeeping from her brother. The quiet of the night was broken only by the clanking of the tree frogs and Fox found her mind wandering to Morg and her Midnights. Was it safe to go to sleep? Or would she wake surrounded by monkeys conjured from dark magic or face to face with the harpy herself? Fox shivered at the thought and then told herself she was being stupid. How dangerous could these monkeys really be and surely Morg would leave the Midnights to deal with the twins while she sought out the Forever Fern?

  Heckle tucked her beak under her wing, although she couldn’t resist one last revelation of feelings before she nodded off to sleep. ‘Everyone in this tree house is feeling a little scared and very glad of each other’s company.’

  ‘SHUT UP!’ the twins chorused.

  But the parrot was right. Fox may have been trying to work out a plan to get rid of her brother as soon as she found the Forever Fern, but right now she felt glad that she wasn’t alone here in this strange world in the dead of night. She rolled over on her bunk and saw that a small branch had wound its way in through the window. It ran all the way along the ceiling before finishing, in a cluster of small, round nuts, above her bed.

  Fox eased the fablespoon out of her satchel. The tree certainly felt safe, and the Unmappers had even built a tree house in it branches, but who was to say that it didn’t have secret magical properties that might catch her off guard in her sleep? She whispered, ‘Please,’ very, very quietly, then held the spoon up to one of the nuts and read the following words inside it:

  NAME: SNOOZENUT TREE

  CHARACTER: LAZY

  RISKS UPON EATING A SNOOZENUT: IN MOST CASES, SENDS CONSUMER INTO AN ENCHANTED SLEEP FOR ONE MONTH. IN RARE CASES—

  ‘What are you doing up there?’ Fibber asked.

  His voice wasn’t cross and challenging, as it so often was. If anything, it sounded like he might just be making conversation. But Fox couldn’t find it in herself to trust her brother. He had lied to their mother back in the Neverwrinkle Hotel as calmly as if he’d been talking about the weather, so she knew how good he was at deceiving people if he needed to.

  Fox shoved the fablespoon back into her satchel. ‘Nothing,’ she snapped. ‘Mind your own business.’

  And just like that the conversation was closed.

  Fox tucked the satchel back under her pillow and pretended to go to sleep. But what she was really doing was waiting. Waiting for Fibber to drift off so that she could pluck a snoozenut from the branch. An idea had formed in her mind. She would use Fibber to help her find the Forever Fern and then, when the fern was in sight, she’d give her brother a snoozenut to eat and he’d fall into an enchanted sleep. Then the Forever Fern would be hers alone to bring back to their parents! Fibber would follow her back home, when he eventually woke up, but by then Fox would have handed the fern over and it would be Fibber off to Antarctica, not her!

  The plan was genius and so excited was Fox by its potential that when she did, eventually, pluck the snoozenut from the branch above her, and tuck it inside her satchel, she forgot that she hadn’t read the full description of the risks involved in eating it. She settled down to sleep, her fist closed round the flickertug map, smug in the knowledge that she had a snoozenut and a phoenix tear in her satchel now and the Forever Fern would soon be hers.

  Fox and Fibber might have been fast asleep, but beyond the Elderwood – over Fool’s Leap, through a grove of nightcreaks and up past a rotten swamp – in the heart of the Bonelands, a harpy was very much awake.

  Morg sat on a crumbling throne in the antechamber of a long-forgotten temple. Her new wings, built from a shadowspell that had taken nearly two thousand years to conjure in Everdark, after Casper Tock had destroyed her original pair, were folded by her sides. They had done what Morg had hoped they would: carry her from Everdark to Jungledrop. But that had been a long journey – she had crossed worlds to make it.

  The harpy’s strength was now restored and you could see it in the black feathers that covered her body and glistened like oil, in her eyes, which burned yellow through the sockets of the phoenix skull she wore over her head, and in her talons that shone like polished bone. All this was thanks to Jungledrop’s thunderberries and the tears of the animals her Midnights brought her.

  But Morg’s wings were paper-thin and ragged, like scraps of burnt paper. It would take more than berries and animal tears to restore them to their former glory. Her hopes rested on the Forever Fern renewing their power and, because a harpy’s wings hold her darkest magic, Morg vowed to stop at nothing until she found this fern.

  Finding it, though, was proving harder than she had bargained for.

  ‘Bring me the girl and the boy who have come from the Faraway,’ the harpy spat. ‘I cannot risk them finding the Forever Fern before me.’

  It wasn’t immediately clear who Morg was talking to. The ruined antechamber no longer had a roof, so the night’s darkness fell about it, filling every corner and covering the vines and weeds that grew over the flagstones.

  But at Morg’s words a shape shifted in the shadows and a gravelly voice answered. ‘I will send more Midnights over Fool’s Leap to hunt for the children.’ There was a pause. ‘But, if you listen now, you might be able to hear from our latest arrival down in the crypt, an arrival who, I hope, might provide you with even more power.’

  Beneath the flagstones, and the silence, the faintest sound could be heard: a rattling, clanking noise – that of two little fists shaking prison bars – and then sobbing as the child behind those bars begged again and again to be set free.

  ‘Your increase in strength has allowed the Midnights to break through the Lofty Husks’ protection charms and the ancient phoenix magic into Timbernook,’ the gravelly voice went on. ‘And now we have an Unmapper boy whose tears may possess even more magic than Jungledrop’s animals.’

  Morg leant forward. ‘Bring me the child Unmapper’s tears. For if I am to kill the Faraway children and find the Forever Fern, then my wings must contain some dark magic before the fern restores them to their full power.’

  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.