Ollie shot a look at his father. What sort of an emergency? But before he could open his mouth, Zinzi chipped in, “For one thing, the boat might have holes. It could sink.”
His father smiled. “Thanks Zinzi. Glad I brought you along!”
Rodrigo decanted the fuel into the tank. Great plumes of smoke and fumes rose up as he tried to start the engine. The noise sent the monkeys jabbering and fleeing off through the trees. Finally it took, and they all squashed in between the equipment and sat on upturned tins or whatever they could find. There were no seats.
Rodrigo was wild at steering a truck, and even wilder at steering a boat. He accelerated, then overcorrected his turn. The boat went careering across the water straight into the opposite bank. It shook up the overhanging branches so violently that dark shapes started to rain down like leaves falling from a tree … except they weren’t leaves … they were tarantulas! The thick, dark, gingery kind! They went scurrying in all directions over the boat in a panic.
Rodrigo attempted to correct his steering. Oliver’s father tried to get his attention. “Slow down while we get rid of these spiders. At least they are not the bird-eating whoppers.”
Ollie had read about those. As big as dinner plates. These were whoppers enough!
“They won’t harm you. They’re probably terrified.” Zinzi said as she cupped her hand and tried to scoop one off the back of Ollie’s leg. “Just keep still.” She held it in the palm of her hand. Its front legs were up as if it might attack at any moment.
“Watch out, Zinzi! You’re about to be bitten.”
“Tarantulas are like elephants flapping their ears at you. It’s only a warning. They want you to see their fangs. Here, have a closer look.”
She passed her cupped hand under Ollie’s nose. He pushed it away. “I’ve seen. Now get rid of it.”
Zinzi grabbed an overhanging reed and transferred the spider onto it. “Some tarantulas shoot hairs that give you a rash like you get from nettles. But not this kind.”
There were some spiders drifting about on the water with their legs spread out, like strange ginger water lilies.
“It’s okay. They won’t drown. They can swim. The air pockets between their hairs keep them afloat like millions of tiny armbands.”
Even the idea of spiders with armbands didn’t cheer Ollie. He didn’t care if they all drowned.
Zinzi pointed to Oliver’s father. “You’ve one on your shoulder, Dr Strange. It looks if you’re wearing a buttonhole at a wedding.”
His father gave it a few light flicks so that the tarantula went running down his arm and fell into the water.
Rodrigo flashed his sunglasses at them. “Okay? Everyone ready?”
Oliver’s dad nodded. “Just keep to the middle. And go slowly. Lentamente. Lentamente. Do you understand? Slowly!”
Rodrigo’s idea of slow was to zigzag from bank to bank. He seemed incapable of going straight down the middle of the stream.
Ollie thought of Grandma’s list. Tarantulas hadn’t been on it. So he couldn’t tick them off. So what next? Alligators, piranhas and jaguars? And what about guerrilla fighters and drug dealers? He was keeping a lookout for men in camouflage. He was already slightly suspicious of Rodrigo in his camouflage and mirror glasses and always fidgeting with his gun.
Zinzi was trailing her fingers in the water as they went.
Ollie grabbed her hand. “Don’t do that. There could be another anaconda.”
She gave him a sidelong look. “You don’t find anacondas in moving water. They stick to pools. Everyone knows that.”
“Well, piranhas then. They’ll clean your fingers to the bone in seconds.”
He began to think his grandma had been right. This place was far too dangerous. Even trailing your hand in water could mean disaster.
5
Arrival
They looped along streams that joined up with other streams. Ollie was sure they were going around in circles, when a wooden pole jetty took him by surprise. Alongside it were two long wooden dugout canoes. Each canoe held a man leaning on a pole stuck into the water.
As the boat got closer, Ollie saw that the men were wearing only loincloths with plaited fibre ropes crossed over their chests. They had straight, shiny hair with pudding-bowl haircuts as if someone had put a basin over their heads to cut it. Patterns of red and black earth – or maybe they were tattoos – criss-crossed their cheeks and arms.
Ollie’s eyes flicked to the bottom of the boats. There were huge, curved machetes lying there but no AK-47s.
Rodrigo spoke to them in Spanish. Then his father and Rodrigo were speaking and his father was counting out money into his hand but Rodrigo seemed to be disagreeing.
His father shook his head. “You’ll get the rest when you come to fetch us in three weeks’ time. We’ll be at this landing on Monday in exactly two weeks. Make sure the boat is here and your truck has petrol.”
They transferred all the equipment into the dugout canoes, then Rodrigo backed the motorboat away in clouds of smoke. His mirror glasses flashed as he smiled and tipped his hand to his forehead. Ollie wasn’t sure it was a real smile.
The men untied the fibre ropes holding the canoes and pushed off from the jetty with their poles. In the deeper water they each picked up a long piece of wood shaped like an oar. They paddled standing up, thrusting from side to side with perfect balance as they negotiated the current.
The river was silky smooth and a deep emerald colour from the reflection of the trees. Foliage hung down in loops of thick green on either side. Around some bends, little pebbled banks appeared unexpectedly. There were bright flashes of birds, long tails streaming behind them, and strange monkey calls. In shafts of sunlight, butterflies wafted down like coloured flakes and flashes of sunlight sparked on the water and made it seem more jewel-like. He saw fish – too large to be piranhas but most of the time he spent ducking branches as the river narrowed.
The men stared straight ahead and answered briefly in Spanish when his father spoke to them. Ollie checked that the dictionary his grandma had given him was still in his pocket. He wished he’d spent more time learning Spanish.
“Let’s face it – we’re aliens here,” he whispered to Zinzi. It was odd how the silence was making him whisper.
She grinned back at him. “You look like an alien. You’re all green in this light and you’ve got reed stuff stuck in your hair.”
Ollie ruffled his hair. “At least it’s not a tarantula!” He studied the thick forest around them. “Looks impenetrable.”
His father nodded in the direction of the two men. “I bet they know every pathway. At the present rate of destruction, a third of this forest will be gone by the end of the century. Hundreds of acres of pristine forest are being lost in Colombia to coca cultivation and mining. Dozens of species which exist nowhere else in the world will vanish forever.”
His father was onto his pet subject and was peering around at the forest as if it had already disappeared. Ollie knew not to encourage him. “Do you think they know where they’re going?”
His father laughed. “As long as we’re going upstream, we’re heading in the right direction. Deeper into the forest. Further away from the coast.”
“But how much further?”
His