The Secret Invasion of Port Isabel (7 page)

Harry sat high on
Stanley’s back and Sally Sloth hung beneath Stanley’s neck like a
scarf as they searched Port Isabel for pirates. He was wet to the
skin, his whiskers drooped and all four of his paws were cold. His
sunglasses were spotted with rain, but this was better the being
dazzled by the sun. His nocturnal eyes didn’t do daytime well, even
when the clouds were heavy and dark like today.

The three
animals inspected blind alleyways, empty warehouses and dozens of
narrow backstreets but there was no sign of pirates, sheep, dogs or
any combination thereof. There was plenty of water, mud and some
very deep puddles through which they sometimes had to wade. They
saw very few other animals, everyone wisely staying inside where it
was warm and dry.

‘You sure know
your way around. I always get lost in the old part of town. It’s so
tangled,’ said Harry.

‘When I first…
when I f-f-first got out of school I delivered mail. So I know all
the back ways,’ said Stanley, proudly. He tripped over some words
and stuttered others.

‘You didn’t
stick it out?’

‘I was only
relieving for a zebra postie who took some t-t-t, time off to be
with her newborn foal.’

‘Did you like
it?’ asked Harry as they passed through another crossroad, tall
buildings blotting out the sky on all four corners, drizzle running
down the walls. He looked left and right but could see no one.

‘It was better
than ploughing fields for Farmer Weasel. You meet more people and
its easier work, delivering mail. But it was a bit routine for
m-m-m… Always the same route, always walking, never galloping.’

Stanley
sloshed through a puddle that reached halfway up the lower part of
his legs. A nearby drain was blocked.

‘What would
you like to do, dear? For a living, I mean,’ asked Sally from
below.

Stanley was
silent for a time. ‘I can’t say, Mrs Sloth. I thought by now I’d
know, but I don’t. All I know is what I... All I know is what I
don’t want to do.’

‘What’s that?’
asked Harry.

‘Plough fields
for Farmer Weasel,’ Stanley replied without hesitation.

‘It can’t be
that bad, can it?’

‘Yes, Harry,
it can.’

‘Then why do
it?’

‘Because I’m a
farm horse and that’s what farm horses do.’ He said this as if it
should be self-evident. ‘It’s what m-m-m... It’s what m-m-my…’ One
eye jammed shut and no words came out. He took a steadying breath
and said slowly: ‘It’s what my family’s always done; it’s what we
were made for.’

‘That’s what
your dad said yesterday, that you were a farm horse. It’s true what
they say, then: a leopard can’t change its spots? Once a farm
horse, always a farm horse?’ Harry didn’t believe it himself, he
just wanted to provoke Stanley into considering he could do
something other than plough fields, if he wanted.

Stanley turned
a corner. There were deep gutters either side brimming with
rainwater. The overhanging balconies provided very little
protection from the rain. Not that it bothered Harry for he was
already wet through and couldn’t get any wetter. He looked up and
down the alley. There were no pirates and he was beginning to think
the whole thing was a wild goose chase.

‘What else did
he say?’ asked Stanley.

‘You dad? Oh,
that Elizabeth’s a superior breed. And that she shouldn’t go around
with a farm horse,’ said Harry.

‘Well I
suppose he-he’s right about that. You’d never see mud on her
hooves.’

‘Stanley,’
said Harry, leaning forward. ‘Don’t you think you’re old enough to
make your own decisions?’

‘You don’t
know m-m-m... You don’t know m-m… Dad,’ said Stanley.

The alleyway
opened onto a street tightly packed with narrow townhouses, each
identical to the next. Neatly trimmed rosebushes, with buds but no
flowers, pressed against the white picket fences of tiny gardens.
The doors were painted black with brass knockers, heavy curtains
were tightly drawn. They turned onto Zigzag Road that led down to
Curiosity Quay, Stanley slowing because the cobblestones were
slippery. This was the way he and Flossy had come last night,
before they were ambushed by the townspeople who believed Flossy a
pirate and him, her captive.

‘I shouldn’t
bring shame on our, on our family by thinking above m-m-m... beyond
my station,’ said Stanley as if reciting a lesson at school.

‘That sounds
like you father in all but voice,’ said Harry.

Stanley’s
father was a bulky black stallion, and every bit the farm horse.
Harry had met him briefly in Town Square yesterday, before chasing
after the pirates and tricking them into wrecking their ship, the
Interloper
, on Kidney Reef. He struck Harry as having high
standards for his son and a fierce pride in his family’s reputation
for hard work. Worthy qualities, but not the only ones worth
having.

‘Well it’s
true!’ said Stanley, adamant.

‘Your father
made his own decisions. You should too. I think it’s time for you
to break out a little. Tell him what you think. Tell him you
appreciate his advice but you’re not a foal anymore. He’ll come
round, you’ll see.’

‘You really
th-think so?’ Stanley said, brightening. He lifted his head and
turned back towards Harry.

There was mud
on his nose and a twig tangled in his mane. Harry pulled at it but
it didn’t come free.

‘Yes, I do,’
Harry said.

‘I agree,’
said Sally. ‘Your dad’s a decent sort of horse but he’s…’

‘…a farm
horse?’ Stanley said, grinning.

‘Well, yes.
And you’ll never be, really. And trying will just make you unhappy.
I think you were meant for other things.’

‘You really…
you really th-th-think that?’ said Stanley, surprised.

‘How do you
know Stanley’s family, Sally?’ asked Harry as they rounded a
switchback on Zigzag Road. Over a low wall on his left Harry could
see the whole of Gateway Quay. It looked deserted and was shrouded
in misty rain. The
Happy Trader
and many small fishing boats
bobbed about in the gentle swell. Few would be fishing following
yesterday’s scare and the fire. They were passing by a shop he had
often used to buy rope, when he could afford it. A
closed
sign hung on the door and a brown paper package wrapped with string
waited on the doormat for the return of the shopkeeper.

‘We’ll there’s
a whole story around that,’ answered Sally.

‘Do tell,’
said Harry, leaning forward to see Sally better. He loved a good
story.

‘Before
Stanley was born, and before I had tiny, little Elsie, my daughter,
and even before I met Cecil, my husband—it was so long ago when I
think about it, but it still feels like only yesterday—before Mayor
Lion was elected, before Reginald was a town councillor…’

‘I was still
in Treehaven then, at school, just a joey,’ said Harry.

‘Now you’re
making me feel old,’ said Sally, laughing.

Turning again,
Stanley descended the last hill before reaching the sprawling
docklands, hooves
clip-clopping
noisily on the cobblestones.
They passed a granary, its wide barn doors shut tight. They passed
a rusty anchor leaning against a pile of old lobster traps stacked
against the granary’s side wall. No one was about and there was
nothing to suggest pirates were in Port Isabel. There had also been
no sign of sheep or dogs of any description. The rain continued to
gently fall, causing water to spurt from a hole in a nearby rusty
downpipe.

‘Tell your
story, Sally. How did you come to know Stanley’s family?’ said
Harry.

‘Well then, it
happened twelve years ago. It seems so long! It was an unusually
hot summer and the escarpment above Twin Rivers…’

‘That’s an
elephant t-town, isn’t it?’ asked Stanley.

‘Yes, that’s
right. There a university there, at Twin Rivers,’ said Sally.

‘Reginald
studied there when he was young. It’s famous for its
ice-archaeology and they’ve got a big library,’ said Harry. They
had reached the bottom of the hill and were passing the first work
sheds.

Sally Sloth
returned to her story. ‘So the heat had melted the glaciers more
than usual and all the runoff ended up in the Rio Grande, which was
peaking downstream. I had the misfortune of finding myself clinging
to a plum tree after the Rio Grande burst its western bank, a mile
or two from the river mouth, and flooded the lower pastures.’

‘So there we
were, all ten of us or so, clinging for our lives as the waters
rose. Sloths are good at climbing and hanging about but none of us
were strong swimmers. My little sister was there too. She wasn’t
much older than my daughter Elsie is now. We had all been picking
field mushrooms. Stanley’s father was ploughing nearby when…’

Harry sat up,
suddenly alert. ‘I think I heard something, down there.’ He pointed
to a gap between an upturned fishing boat and the wall of a
shed.

Stanley turned
sharply towards the noise but was too late. A lasso landed around
his neck and two big dogs leapt from the shadows barking
ferociously. He rose up on his hindquarters and kicked wildly.

Harry was
caught off guard. He fell to the ground and landed on his back,
sunglasses bouncing free. Dogs pounced on him before he could stand
and pinned him down, jaws closing around his throat.

More dogs
poured from the gap like swarming ants. They quickly subdued
Stanley, tightening the lasso and fettering his legs. Then they
tied Harry’s arms behind his back and put a sack over his head so
that everything went dark.

The rope
binding Harry was tight and he knew by the wild look in the
pirate’s eyes that it would foolish to cry out.

When he last
saw Sally she was still clinging rigidly to Stanley’s neck. Now he
could hear her whimpering.

_{CHAPTER 8}

_{MEMORY OF VULTURES}

Larry Monkey was only a
baby when his parents disappeared. The last thing he remembered was
being tucked into bed on a windy night, the branches of a tree
swishing against his bedroom window like spidery fingers trying to
get in. His mother was smiling as she stroked his head fur and
scratched affectionately behind one large, pink ear. His father was
standing in the shadow of his bedroom door, arms crossed. He
couldn’t remember his father’s face but could remember his strong
hands.

At some time
during the night they left the house, or were taken. The search for
them lasted weeks but no trace was ever found, and so they joined
the ranks of the Lost Ones.

Larry was
nearly dead from dehydration when the neighbours finally broke a
window to get in. He bounced from one foster home to the next after
his parents disappeared; never staying long and unable to shake the
feeling he’d been abandoned because he wasn’t good enough. The
logical part of his mind told him they had been taken against their
will, like all the Lost Ones, but his devastated heart said
otherwise; that they’d left of their own free will because they
didn’t want him anymore.

After Larry
left the Stinging Nettle he wandered the dark backstreets and
alleyways oblivious to the rain. He didn’t really care that he was
wet or where he was going, he just wanted to be alone. Mention of
his parents always put him in a dark mood. And the news about Mr
Elephant leaving, and Harry and Flossy too, meant he would soon be
all alone again.

Larry’s black
arms were crossed against the cold and the brooding shadows seemed
to close around him like a fist. His chimpanzee feet sloshed
through deep puddles and his wet fur drooped sadly. He was vaguely
aware he was heading downhill towards Lunar Bay but didn’t much
care where he ended up.

There was a
flutter and he glimpsed something grey with wings flash
overhead.

He flattened
himself against the wall, heart thumping loudly. Some of the wall’s
rendering came away from the ancient brickwork and fell at his feet
then all was still.

He risked
looking up again. The shadows probably conjured the creature from
his imagination but it had moved like how he imaged a bird of
flight to move, and it was above him, on the roof.

Sharp claws
scratched on roof tiles and there was a flutter of feathers.

Pressure built
inside Larry’s skull as if his brain was swelling. He knew the
feeling and he knew it wasn’t anything he could easily stop. When
this happened, usually following a fright or sometimes during a
dream, things he had never seen or heard become known to him,
instantly, as if my magic. He couldn’t remember the first time it
happened but he remembered the last. Mr Elephant had asked him to
solve a maths problem using differential calculus. He had never
heard of differential calculus and the thought of standing in front
of the class made his heart hammer and his palms sweat. Then it
happened, the pressure built and the knowledge of differential
calculus tumbled in like someone else’s memories. Standing at the
chalkboard, he solved the math problem in three different ways and
raced back to the safety of his desk, refusing to make eye contact
with any of his classmates. Mr Elephant’s mouth had hung open as he
studied Larry’s solutions, then he brightened and said:
‘Remarkable! Elegant! Wonderful! Brilliant! I would never have
thought to solve it like that but I can see now how you… Well done,
Larry Monkey!’ Larry had smiled despite himself.