Chapter 24 – The Fruitful Adventure (Part 2):
The girls trekked for a couple of hours, keeping their pace brisk and efficient. Annabelle found the map reading not too difficult; the orienteering lessons with her grandfather were certainly paying off! When the sun was at its highest they came across a large stream with a line of stepping-stones and a small waterfall. They both agreed that this was the ideal spot to stop for lunch and they sat under a large shady tree.
"What's for lunch Anna?" Keke asked as Annabelle pulled out the tin box and water canteen that her mother had given her that morning. As she opened the box, Annabelle saw that her mother had packed a delicious feast! Nestled inside were two thick wedges of bread and goat's cheese with some cherry tomatoes and small jars of homemade chutney and pickles made from the vegetables in the garden. She saw to her delight that her mother has also put in the last slice of fruitcake! It had been baked as a special treat after their last shopping trip to the port.
"Wow forget termites and fruit!" Keke managed to say through a mouthful of food, "but this 'cheese' and 'cake' are the best things I have ever tasted!" After sitting under the tree for a little while, Annabelle took off her boots and socks and paddled her feet in the cool and inviting stream.
"So what are you going to wish for?" she called to her friend as she filled up the canteen with fresh water.
Keke was now hanging on one of the tree's branches, practicing flips and tricks. "A lifetime supply of bananas! No a lifetime of mangoes, no a lifetime supply of mangoes and bananas!"
"Why don't you wish that you can swim? Then we can go swimming in the river together?"
"I never even thought of that!" Keke replied as she dropped down to the ground. "Gosh you are so smart Anna! So are you looking forward to wishing to be future leader of the gorillas?"
"I'm not wishing for that anymore. I'm going to wish for a baby brother or sister. Mama and Papa really want another baby but they can't have one so I am going to wish for one."
"Woah!" Keke gasped at her friend's selflessness, "Well I still think you will be a great leader Anna!" Annabelle grinned, her cheeks flushing slightly at her friend's compliment and left the stream to put her socks and boots back on.
"Why don't you wish for a brother or sister too?" Annabelle asked her cousin. Her Auntie Terk also didn't have any more children after Keke and she thought her cousin would want a sibling just like her.
"Are you kidding!" Keke laughed at the notion, "Share Mum and Dad's undivided attention? No way! Being the only child is the best Anna! You're underestimating it!"
Annabelle giggled at that. Keke was the clown of the two, always making her laugh with her wisecracking jokes, just like her mother!
"Besides," Keke continued, "I don't need a brother or sister when I have you Anna. You're more than a cousin, you're a sister to me." Annabelle beamed at that; she felt exactly the same way about Keke.
"Can you go up into the tree?" she asked Keke, "You might be able to see the mountains then I can figure out which direction we need to go."
"Why don't you go up into the tree?" Keke teased with an all-knowing smile.
"You know why!" Annabelle rolled her eyes in exasperation. Despite knowing to read a map and compass, knowing which plants and berries were safe to eat and being able to tie several types of knots, Annabelle was embarrassed that she still couldn't climb a tree. Jane wouldn't let her for fearing of her falling and hurting herself. Any play she did with Keke and her gorilla family was always done on the firm ground.
"Fine I'll go!" Keke laughed and climbed up the tree with no effort much to Annabelle's sheer envy. A minute or two later she came back down with a big grin on her face.
"The mountains are that way!" she pointed across the stream. Annabelle looked at the map and compass and figured out their bearings. The girls crossed the stream, jumping from one stone to the next. Once they reached the other side Keke found a large stick, the perfect length and thickness for a walking staff. They continued to trek their way through the jungle, laughing and chatting gaily, unaware of a pair of yellowy eyes in the bushes… watching them!
"Pee-eww Anna did you do that!" Keke exclaimed as they walked through some thick bushes. "You know it's polite to warn your friend before you let one go, especially one so stinky as that!"
"It's wasn't me! I didn't fart!"
"Well it weren't me either!"
Annabelle sniffed the air, the strong smell of rotting eggs mixed the scent of stagnant, muddy water almost made her gag. "It's the swamps, we must be close! We just need to cross them and then we're at the mountains!" She marched through the thick bushes with a renewed gusto, all the more determined to find the magical fruit.
"Yeah well you can say it weren't all you like Anna but what I smelt weren't no swamps!" Keke quipped before almost bumping into her best friend who had suddenly stopped, 'Hey why did you stop -" she demanded but her voice trailed off as she saw what Annabelle was staring at.
"Woah!" the girls gasped as they took in what to them seemed like a sea of brown sludgy water as far as the eye could see. A few bare, misshapen trees and writhing branches grew out of the water with many moss and lichen covered rocks acting as stepping-stones. A grey eerie mist weaved its way around the swamp like witch's fingers and sent a chill down Annabelle's spine. The girls jumped as a bird suddenly cawed and flew over them into the mist, its wings black and foreboding.
"May, may, maybe we should turn back?" Keke whispered as the bird landed on a branch, one beady yellow eye watching them with an intimidating stare.
"Why? Are you scared?!" Annabelle scoffed as she stepped towards the banks of the swamp.
"No! I just don't want to get swamp water in my hair!"
"Chicken!" Annabelle turned back and laughed, "Bwok bwok bwok bwak!" As she danced around and flapped her elbows like wings, Keke's face was a picture of complete bemusement!
"I don't get it!"
"It's an expression silly! It means you are being a coward!"
"I'm not a coward! I'm not!"
"Well come on then! Let's go!"
The girls jumped onto the nearest stones and then hopped onto the next one, slowly making their way across the fetid swamp. When they could see the bank through hazy mist, Keke looked at Annabelle with a wide cheeky grin that she instantly knew meant, "Wanna race!" Without hesitation Annabelle grinned back and a second later the girls were scrambling to be the first to reach the other side! It was clear that the children had both inherited Terk and Tarzan's competitive spirits. Annabelle laughed wildly as she jumped from rock to rock, Keke just a little bit behind on a line of rocks parallel to hers. She had never had so much fun in her life and she did not want this day to end.
"Anna!" Keke suddenly called out, her voice fearful, "I think my rock just moved!"
"It's just the water lapping against it Keke!" Annabelle exasperated, thinking that her friend was just trying to trick her so that she could overtake and win the race.
"No seriously! My rock is moving!" Keke cried as the rock rose up and back down. Annabelle looked down and saw that the rock that she was perched on was covered in bony scales with rows of sharp spikes! A cold wave of dread spread through her as she slowly turned her head back to see the water surrounding them was filled with crocodiles! One lifted its head out of the murky water and gave a loud, guttural hiss!
"AAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHH!" The girls screamed as they jumped over the crocodiles as the creatures scrambled over each other to get to their prey, their jaws snapping with a deadly and deafening force!
"Come on Anna!" Keke yelled as they leapt from one crocodile to another, "We're almost there!"
"Ahhhhh the bag!" Annabelle screamed as a crocodile clamped its jaws on it, pulling it with such force that the straps ripped off her shoulders! Thwack! Keke managed to hit the crocodile hard on the snout with her walking staff. The crocodile let go of the bag, sounding out a loud angry hiss! Annabelle grabbed it and jumped onto the next crocodile. A stitch burned in her side like fire and her heart was pounding in her throat but the bank was so, so, so close!
"Throw it!" Keke shouted at her, "Throw it onto the bank Anna!" Without hesitation Annabelle lobbed the bag towards the bank with all the strength that she had left in her arms. They couldn't not afford to loose that bag. Everything they needed to survive and get home with was in that bag! But as Annabelle threw it, she lost her balance and toppled into the brown, muddy shallow waters of the swamp!
"Anna!" Keke cried in horror from the bank as she saw her best friend tumble face first into the brown waters. Annabelle slowly pulled herself up, coughing up swallowed swamp water when suddenly a crocodile clamped its jaw furiously onto her boot! Annabelle screamed as she desperately tried to free herself as the scaly monster was beginning to drag her down to her watery grave!
TTTWWWWHHHAAACCCKKK! Keke made a war-like cry as she leapt into the swamp and whacked the crocodile with all her might on its snout with her big stick!
"Get off my friend you beast! Leave her alone!" she yelled as the animal refused to let go and so she beat its snout with even more force! The crocodile finally relented and released its grip on Annabelle's foot. Keke grabbed her best friend by the hands and dragged her onto the bank. Then she turned back round and bellowed a loud snarling roar just like her father. The crocodiles hissed as they conceded defeat and dived back down into the murky depths.
After she wiped the mud out of her eyes, Annabelle looked up to see Keke standing upright, the hair up to her navel caked in mud and holding onto her staff majestically like Moses in the Old Testament.
"Who's a chicken now!" Keke demanded proudly, the smile on her lips almost bordering on becoming a smirk. Annabelle rolled her eyes and smiled before her friend helped her up. She went to the bag and checked its contents. Everything, especially the map was safe and dry. She took out the canteen and glugged down a few mouthfuls of clean water, desperately wanting to rid of the vile taste of swamp water from her mouth.
"Let's go and get those fruit!" she nodded and strode off into the jungle, map and compass in hand. Her clothes and hair were soaked with the horrible muddy water of the swamp but she was past caring. All she wanted to do was to find the fruit and head back home before dark. They looked around for a little while before wandering into a grove at the foot of the mountains. There they were! The Unataka fruit! They were exactly as Moyo described, the size of a large apple, black with fearsome long spikes all over it. Annabelle couldn't help but think that they looked like the sea urchins her grandfather had collected for another of his studies.
"Are you sure we should pick these?" Keke's face was doubtful, "They look kinda poisonous."
"Relax Keke! Moyo told me what they look like and these are it!"
"Moyo?! Moyo told you about the fruit?"
"Yeah… why's that such a big deal?"
"It's just… it's Moyo! Moyo doesn't talk… to anyone!"
"Come on!" Annabelle ignored her friend and pulled out the spare sack from the bag. "Let's get collecting!"
Keke climbed up into the nearest tree and started to pick the fruit rather gingerly for fear of pricking herself on one of the spines. Once she loosened them from the tree she chucked them down to Annabelle who quickly scooped them into the sack.
"Sack's full!" Annabelle called up as she placed it back in the broken knapsack, "I guess we better head back."
"We're gonna be so much trouble when we get back you know that Anna," Keke replied once she jumped down from the tree.
"I know, but it'll be worth it. I'll have a baby brother or sister and you can swim with me!" Any concern that was once in Keke's eyes vanished. In the same way as Annabelle envied her being able to climb trees, she envied at her best friend being able to swim in the cool, refreshing river. The girls giggled and linked arms as they walked back towards the swamp with their precious loot.
As Keke pulled back a branch of a bush they stopped dead in their tracks, all the blood draining from their bodies! "Well well," Sheera purred as she silkily slinked out of the bush and began circling the two girls. "What do we have here? A gorilla and a man-cub, my, my what brings you here?"
"Oh, err, well, we, we were ju, just ga, ga, gathering some fruit," Keke stammered as Sheera's tail lightly brushed against her cheek.
"A bit far for you two to be picking fruit. Gorillas do not often venture into the eastern territories."
"A simple orienteering error," Keke gulped, "Annabelle must have read the map wrong, so we best be going." Keke took her friend's hand, hoping to make a run for it but Sheera was quicker and stood in front of them.
"Annabelle," she purred, "I know that name… you are Tarzan's cub aren't you."
"Err yes," Annabelle hesitated as she watched Sheera's topaz yellow eyes and her black pupils constrict in delight.
"Pleasure to meet you Annabelle. I am Sheera, Queen of the Leopards and I guess as your father is the King of the Jungle then you're Princess of the Jungle aren't you?"
"Umm I guess so."
"Unfortunately this part of the jungle doesn't come under your royal sovereignty. Do you know what we leopards do to princesses when they step outside of their sovereignty?
"Er, er, they help them find their way home?" Annabelle replied hopefully and Sheera let out an amused yet sinister chuckle.
"How amusing from a puny creature such as yourself," Sheera mused as she checked her sharp claws, "You know I think I will break tradition this time. I will give you two a head start. It will make it all the more enjoyable for me. 1… 2… 3…."
"Head start?" Annabelle interrupted Sheera's counting, "Head start for what?"
"Why princess," Sheera couldn't help but smirk at her prey's innocence, "for the hunt. I am hunting you! Now I guess you better get running! 5,6,7,8,9,10!" Sheera let out a huge roar and the girls ran as fast as they could with the leopard in hot pursuit!
The girls ran for the nearest tree and Keke started to climb desperately up the trunk. "Keke! Help!" Annabelle screamed as she tried to climb the tree with the broken bag in one hand but failed to grip the trunk and kept sliding down with Sheera right underneath her. Keke climbed down and grabbed her friend's hand and pulled her up onto the nearest branch.
As Keke turned to climb back up the trunk, Sheera's jaws clamped onto the hair on her back. Annabelle grabbed an Unataka fruit from the bag and threw it hard at Sheera's face! Sheera roared in pain as several thick black spines became embedded into her cheek. After failing to remove them with her paw, she looked up to see the children running along the branch. As her eyes filled with revenge, she growled menacingly and continued to pursue them.
"We need to jump!" Keke yelled as they ran towards the edge of the branch, the gap between their branch and one on the next tree was over 5ft in length.
"I can't jump that far!" Anna cried, the gap seemed as overwhelming to her as a chasm.
"You have to Anna," Keke replied, taking her friend's hand as they approached the end of the branch, "it's jump or your life!" The girls screamed as they leapt through the air and landed on the branch. But the branch couldn't take the sudden impact of their landing and snapped under them! The girls tumbled through the air and landed with an almighty crash on the jungle floor!
"There! I caught you!" Sheera smiled wickedly as the girls came to, Annabelle rubbing her dazed head. "Now which one shall I eat first I wonder…. I guess it will be you princess! I mean all that gorilla hair just gets in the damn way!"
With her heart pounding like a war drum, Annabelle dived into the bag and pulled out her father's whittling knife and held it out at Sheera's face. "Stay back!" she tried to sound brave but it came out all feeble and pathetic.
"You think that's going to frighten me princess," Sheera scoffed, "look at you, your little hand is trembling. Trying to be like your father, well your father isn't here to save you now princess!" Sheera raised her paw, claws out, ready to knock the knife out of her hand -
"Aaaaahhhahhahhhhhhhaaa hahahahhhaaaaaaaaa!" came a loud and deafening bellow and a second later Tarzan swung through the grove on a vine and kicking Sheera away from the children!
"Tantor!" he yelled as he started to wrestle with the leopard, "Get the kids out of here now!"
"Uncle Tantor!" Keke cried in delight as he charged his way into the grove and without saying a word scooped up the two girls in his trunk.
"Wait!" Annabelle wailed as she watched her father battling furiously with Sheera, "Papa!"
"Go now!" Tarzan bellowed back and without hesitation Tantor fled with the two girls to safety.
In the midst of fighting on both their hind legs, Tarzan backed Sheera up against a thick tree trunk, clamping his hand tightly around her throat. "Tarzan," she managed to say, "what a lovely surprise! How nice of you to drop by!"
"Silence!" Tarzan roared furiously, his grip tightening around her throat a little more, "if you ever come near my daughter again Sheera—"
"She was in my territory!" Sheera snarled back, "She was fair game!" This made the blood inside Tarzan's body boil with rage and quickly he pressed his rock knife into the soft fur of her belly.
"If you so much as touch one hair on her head," he seethed as he jabbed the knife a little further, threatening to break the skin, "I will skin the fur off your body whilst you breathe, gut you like a warthog and throw your steaming entrails to the wild dogs!" He pressed it a little further and the tip broke the skin, letting a little blood trickle down her belly. Sheera eventually nodded in defeat and when Tarzan could see that she was not going to trick him let her go.
"You know it's a shame Tarzan," she said nonchalantly, "I think we could have been good friends you and I."
"Friends?! Pah!" Tarzan spat in disbelief, "Leopards and gorillas can never be friends! Leopards have no loyalty for a start!"
"And I suppose that all gorillas are loyal and worth trusting?"
"Yes, we are. Family and friends are most important to gorillas. Leopards can never be trusted."
"Oh no Tarzan," Sheera tutted as she started to stalk off, "perhaps you shouldn't trust the gorillas!" Tarzan made a threatening lion like roar and ran in front of Sheera to confront her, rock knife at the ready!
"And what is that supposed to mean!" he demanded angrily whilst Sheera remained cool and calm.
"Tarzan, Tarzan the love that you have for your family has made you blind. It is not the enemy, but the friend you should fear!"
"What are you saying?!"
"You have a traitor in your ranks. Someone close to you wants you and your man-family gone… dead!"
"You're lying!" Tarzan seethed angrily, "I don't believe you! Leopards always lie!"
"Don't believe me all you like Tarzan," Sheera casually shrugged her shoulders, ignoring his rage. "But don't come crying to me when your friends and family betray you… now would you kindly let me pass?"
Despite the rage inside him, Tarzan lowered his knife and stepped aside for Sheera. Sheera nodded as a curt thanks and calmly slinked off into the bushes. Her words were still playing inside his head. A traitor? Who? Who would betray me? Who would want me dead? Who would want Jane, Annabelle and Archimedes dead? Tarzan shook his head in an attempt to shake out the poisonous words. As he placed his rock knife back into his loincloth, he conceded to himself that Sheera was just playing mind games with him and went to find the girls and Tantor. He found them a little distance from the grove, waiting on tenterhooks for his return.
"Papa-" Annabelle went to approach him but Tarzan gave her such a glowering look of contempt that she shrunk back and said no more.
"I can't believe you Keke!' he turned to her cousin, his face purple with rage. "I can't believe you could have been SO stupid! Disobeying me and Jane, tricking Tantor and taking Annabelle off into the jungle, into a DANGEROUS part of the jungle! You could have killed your cousin and yourself and—"
"Don't blame Keke Papa," Annabelle stepped forward, head bent, "it was all my idea. It was my idea to trick you and Mama, it was my idea for us to trick and escape from Uncle Tantor and come here. Don't blame Keke, blame me." Tarzan stared at his daughter in utter disbelief as she gave herself up in self-sacrifice. "I'm sorry Papa," Annabelle put out her hand next to his in the same way the gorillas did when they sought forgiveness, but her father drew his hand away.
"Home!" he snarled at her and looked to the others, "Now!" They all dare not say a word and followed behind him one by one, heads bowed in shame, the jungle becoming as dark and brooding as Tarzan's mood.