20
I could see that Martin thought that I didn’t want Alain to reach the cloud-hunting boat, but that wasn’t so at all. I did. I was praying we’d get there before it finished with the compressors and took off. Why would I ever want to stop him being reunited with his family or getting news of them when I know what it’s like to lose people you love? I don’t know how Martin could have thought that. I’d never be like that. It’s his age still, I guess – just a bit callous, and judgemental.
But I forgot about it soon. Peggy took over at the wheel and I went and leaned on the rail of the boat, next to Angelica, and we watched the so-called Friendly Isles come into view. And when I saw them I soon lost all my worries, for they were the most beautiful places I had seen. But it wasn’t only that, they smelt wonderful too; a sweet scent of flowers came from them, fresh and clean, borne on the breeze, enticing and kind of beckoning you in.
‘Peggy, what’s the lovely smell?’
‘Not what you might think. It’s kelp.’
‘Kelp?’
‘Sky-weed. There. One of the rarer varieties. This is the only place it grows, far as I know. Never been found anywhere else. Won’t grow anywhere else, though people have taken cuttings and tried to transplant it. Only grows here. No one knows why. Something in the air, maybe – the climate, the rock …’
And there it was, fields of it, floating offshore. It didn’t look so attractive, but it did smell delicious. And when you inhaled its odour, it kind of went to your head, and made you feel refreshed and happy, and your worries looked far away.
‘Peggy, can we stop off and visit the Friendly Isles?’ I asked.
‘No, sorry. We can’t.’
‘Ah, Peggy –’
‘Please, Peggy –’ Angelica joined in.
‘Come on, Peggy –’ I pleaded.
Alain came back up on deck, and he wanted to visit them too.
‘No. We don’t have the time. We’ve wasted enough.’
‘But Peggy, just for an hour –’ I said.
‘Yeah, only it never is an hour. There’s people went to spend an hour on the Friendly Isles and they’re still there fifty years later.’
‘Why didn’t they leave?’
‘I’ll tell you one day. But right now we’re not landing to find out.’
‘But, Peggy –’
‘No. Answer’s no. What’s the answer?’
‘No?’
‘You got it.’
So we all lined the deck – except Peggy, who kept a firm hold of the wheel – and gazed at the stunning and magnificent Friendly Isles, whose cliffs were adorned with kelp blooms and flowers, and there was even a waterfall, trickling water out into the sky.
‘Peggy – they’ve got water to waste.’
‘It’s recycled. It just goes round and round.’
I felt that we were sailing past paradise. Why go to City Island, I thought, when there were places like the Friendly Isles, and you could tie your boat up there and rest a while, or even be happy there forever? Whereas studying might end up giving you troubling thoughts and making you unhappy.
‘Peggy –’
‘No, Gemma, and that’s final.’
So that was that. Or should have been.
Only it wasn’t.
‘Ahoy! Ahoy, please! Ahoy …’
Voices called to us from a stationary boat that we were approaching. The two people on board were running up a distress flag too – though it wasn’t exactly an emergency they had on their hands, not strictly speaking, not an oceanic one anyway.
‘What do they want?’ I heard Peggy muttering. ‘If we get any more interruptions, by the time we get to City Island the school’ll be shutting up for the next round of holidays.’
‘Could you help us, please?’ a voice cried.
‘Hell and damnation,’ Peggy said to herself.
‘Are we going to pull over, Peggy?’ I asked – knowing the answer.
‘I suppose … Let’s see what they want. Sky-cat overboard or something trivial like that, I wouldn’t be surprised.’
And she gave Botcher an evil look as he got under her feet, but he took the hint and scurried off out of the way.
‘Ahoy, there. What’s your problem?’
We drifted in. I threw a fender over so we didn’t bang into each other. The boat was a nice one, modern and sleek, and the couple on it looked affluent and prosperous. The sails were spotless and the solar panels gleamed as if brand new. But the boat wasn’t going anywhere. It had a couple of sky anchors out.
‘You broken down?’
‘No, no – we’re waiting. We don’t know what to do.’
‘What’s the matter?’
‘It’s the islands there –’
The man on the boat pointed towards the largest of the Friendly Isles.
‘It’s our son. We were headed for City Island, to take him to boarding school for the first time, to get educated –’
‘Small world, small sky,’ Peggy said. ‘Coincidences everywhere.’
‘And we were running early and we came past the islands here and decided to take a look –’
‘You went on land?’ Peggy said.
‘Yes – we just meant to stay an hour or so –’
‘OK. Did you eat the kelp?’
‘Sorry?’
‘The kelp. They cook it, and chew it, and put it into most of their food. Did you eat it?’
‘Well, no, we didn’t have anything. But our son, Leo –’
‘He had something to eat?’
‘He said he was hungry.’
‘Oh my,’ Peggy said. ‘Oh my.’
The man looked at her. The woman with him was getting tearful.
‘We can’t make him come back,’ she said.
‘No,’ Peggy said. ‘You wouldn’t.’
‘He just won’t come with us. Just refuses. He says he doesn’t care about anything any more. He just wants to stay where he is.’
‘Which is where?’
‘He’s sitting in the park there, with some others his age –’
‘And when you tried to make him go with you?’
‘The island people wouldn’t let us. They got outraged. Nobody can be forced to leave the island. They can leave of their own free will any time they choose. But they can’t be made to. Not even if they’re under age –’ the woman said.
‘Especially if they’re under age, so that policeman said, remember?’ the man interrupted.
‘Oh my,’ Peggy sighed. ‘Don’t you people read the International Sky Hazards documents before you start sailing places?’
‘Well, we did. Of course. I mean, we avoided the Islands of Night, and the Forbidden Isles and –’
‘Didn’t you read the advice about here?’
‘Well – this place is friendly. Isn’t it?’
‘Oh yeah,’ Peggy said, with an edge to her voice. ‘Real friendly. Too friendly.’ And she sighed again.
‘So what is it with this place?’ the man said. ‘It looks harmless. What’s the danger?’
‘The kelp,’ Peggy said. ‘That’s why no one leaves. They chew it all day long, and add it to their rice, and garnish their sky-fish with it.’
‘It’s a drug?’
‘Well, there’s something in it that makes you happy, all right. Makes you happy, knocks out whatever ambition and motivation you once had. All you want to do is lie in the sun and chill out with your friends and do as little work as possible.’
The man actually looked interested – tempted, even.
‘And what’s the downside?’
‘None, if you don’t mind being a mindless zombie the rest of your life,’ Peggy said.
‘James,’ the woman reminded her husband, ‘we are trying to get Leo to school. We want him off that island and on our way. We don’t want to be there with him.’
‘Yeah, well you do have a problem there, don’t you?’ Peggy said. ‘Because if he goes on eating the kelp – and he will – he won’t ever want to leave. And the islanders won’t let you make him. So all you’ve got is persuasion, far as I can see. That’s the only tool in the box.’
‘We spent hours talking to him. He just says, “Mum, Dad, chill out.’’’
‘Chill out?’
‘That’s right. We’ve tried everything. Nothing works.’
‘Tried abduction?’
‘Yes. We tried picking him up but he just starting kicking and everyone around came to help him – and we were told to leave him be or quit the island.’
‘Well, you’re lucky you didn’t eat the kelp too,’ Peggy said. ‘Or you’d all be living happy and brainless ever after.’
‘Might have been better if we had,’ the woman said ruefully. ‘At least I wouldn’t be worried sick right now. Is there anything you can do to help us?’
‘Would if we could, but I don’t see how we can,’ Peggy said.
And then the couple spotted Martin.
‘How about your boy there?’ the man said. ‘He looks our son’s age.’
‘And what about it?’
‘Maybe he could talk him round. He might listen to someone his own age. Or maybe he could persuade our Leo to take a walk with him down to the harbour, and then once he was on the jetty –’
‘Bundle him on board and away?’ Peggy said. ‘That the plan?’
‘What do you think?’
I thought it stank. Not nicely, like the kelp. Just stank full stop. What if something went wrong? What if Martin got into trouble? He might have annoyed me at times, but he was my brother and I didn’t want to lose him.
‘I think it’s a bad idea,’ I said. ‘I don’t think that –’
But I didn’t get to say any more. Martin was on the case.
‘I’ll rescue him,’ he said. ‘I’ll do it. Let me, Peggy. I’ll do it. Really. I know just what to say. I’ll ask him to come to the harbour to go sky-swimming – or to play football –’
‘Football?’ the woman said. ‘You can play?’
‘Yeah, sure,’ Martin said. ‘I know all about it.’
‘Don’t let him, Peggy,’ I said. ‘Don’t let him do it.’
‘I think Martin’s being really brave,’ Miss Speckles Angelica said admiringly – which didn’t really help, as it just fired Martin up to even greater and more reckless feats of would-be heroism and stupidity.
‘I might even be able to drag him to the harbour if he won’t come willingly. I can knock him out and put him on my back – fireman’s lift.’
Leo’s mother looked dismayed.
‘We don’t really want that …’
‘Only as a very last resort,’ Martin said. ‘Can I, Peggy? Can I?’
Peggy just sighed.
‘I’m getting too old for this,’ she said. ‘It’s a rock or a hard place every single day. Wrong if you do and wrong if you don’t. Gemma?’
‘I say no.’
‘Alain?’
‘I’m happy to go instead. But I’m older …’
‘I think someone Leo’s own age would persuade him better …’
‘Angelica?’
‘I think Martin’s really brave.’
‘OK,’ Peggy said. ‘Majority has it. Sorry, Gemma.’
‘Then I want to go with him.’
‘Martin?’
‘As long as she stays out of my hair and doesn’t interfere.’
‘OK. You go together then. And remember, once you’re on the island, whatever else you do –’
‘Don’t eat the kelp,’ I said. ‘Got that, Martin?’
‘Of course I have. I’m not stupid, you know. I’m hardly going to eat the kelp when I know what it does to you, am I?’
Which was true enough. And he didn’t eat the kelp either.
He went and did something else just as bad instead.