Bas tilted his head. “We can look for them,” he said. “The best thing is to stay optimistic, and you mustn’t worry.” He paused and changed the subject. “You’ve probably acclimatized to the mountain air while you’ve been asleep. It’s really high up here where we are. Less oxygen in the air. Takes a bit of getting used to. Are you feeling okay?”
Molly nodded. She wondered how long he had lived in the Ecuadorian jungle.
“How come you’re here?” she asked.
“Oh, I’m writing a book. It’s been taking me years to research. Three years and four months so far, to be precise. It’s all about the precious herbs and plants in the cloud forest and how they can help cure people. It’s all about not letting the forest be chopped down. Because if we lose the trees and the unique plants and fungi here, we lose the wisdom of the place. There are amazing cures for human illnesses in this jungle.” Petula gave a little growl. “Okay, and for dog illnesses, too. How about cat illnesses?” Bas studied Petula’s face. “Can’t imagine you care so much about cats.”
Molly laughed.
“So I’m here,” Bas continued. “Eating what grows here and kinda getting away from it all. Hardly talk to anyone. My radio, you know, the type to communicate with people, is broken. Every so often I take a trip on my motorbike to the town, thirty miles away. I stock up with supplies of stuff that I can’t grow, like chocolate. And coffee, and matches and pasta. Stuff like that. I’m pretty self-sufficient. I have a little windmill that makes electricity, and some solar panels, too, that harvest energy from the sun. I collect rainwater…there’s a lot of water up here. And I grow things. Got a big vegetable patch. Just have to watch the naughty critters who come to nibble at it. Grow everything from garlic to soy—I’m a vegetarian, see, so need some protein.” He pointed to Petula. “Your dog seems to like the soy, too. Anyway, corn, salad, potatoes, tomatoes, pumpkins. Everything grows here. So fertile. And I keep chickens for their eggs. Got a natural loo. Full of sawdust and sprinkle bacteria on it and it all just rots away in an amazing way. It doesn’t even smell. And I got Canis here. Oh, where is he? Anyway, got my dog. And all the company of the forest, with its birds and monkeys, and I’ve got a good library, so lots to read, and occasionally I watch a movie on my computer. Got about fifty movies.”
Molly realized that Bas had been hit by a torrent of verbal diarrhea. He obviously hadn’t spoken to anyone for months. Then her mind changed gear.
“Erm, Bas,” Molly said. “My friends—I know you said not to worry, but…Do you think they’re all right?”
Bas looked Molly in the eye. “How many of you were there?”
“Four. Malcolm, the pilot, and my brother, Micky, and a girl called Lily. We were trying to find the Logan Stones. We’ve got to sort out a big problem.” Molly tried to swing her legs out of bed. Her head swam.
“You can’t move today,” Bas said. “But you can tell me your story. And maybe by tomorrow, you will feel better enough to start searching for your friends. They may have been lucky,” he added kindly. “There is lots to eat in the forest. I heard the plane come down. We can search for them. The dogs can help. But for now, see whether you can eat some more. And tell me about your problem. Maybe I can help.”
And so Molly ate a little more and told Bas everything.
The more she talked, the more anxious she grew about her friends and Micky, and the more worried she became about Miss Hunroe’s plan. Molly was the only person left in the world who might be able to stop Miss Hunroe. The weight of her responsibility sank in as Molly told Bas her story. The lush and peaceful forest rippled with birdsong as though refusing to believe that anything bad was happening. But Bas’s face dropped as he listened.
“You probably think I’m delirious or something,”
Molly concluded. “I mean, hypnotism, morphing, and all that must sound pretty far-fetched. Like I’ve gone funny in the head since being knocked out.”
“Well, I’m not sure,” said Bas. “I mean, you could hypnotize me to prove it, or even morph into me! But you might relapse and knock yourself out again with the effort.” Molly was too tired to read Bas’s mind to see whether he believed her. He went on talking. “No, the best thing, seems to me, is that tomorrow we ought to go to my viewing crane. I’ve got this crane that’s high up in the canopy that I normally use for inspecting plants and stuff. The views from it are expansive, to say the least. You never know what we might see from up there. And as far as the Logan Stones go, I know where they are.”
“You do?” Molly gulped as she spoke. She hadn’t expected this. Bas’s revelation had tripped off his tongue so lightly.
“Sure. They are quite a way from here. But I can show you.”
Twenty-five
Molly got stronger. She ate and ate, little bits here and there, and by the end of the day she had polished off a whole bowl of Bas’s sweet-potato soup in one sitting. By the evening Molly was walking about his encampment, admiring his vegetable garden. It was a fantastic mountain allotment fenced in with rabbit-proof wire mesh. Bas had a book called The Vegetable A to Z, and it seemed that he grew everything in it. From artichokes to zucchinis. Molly tried to feel optimistic, but she couldn’t help being dreadfully anxious. She sat on a rock and stared at a bean plant. And, as though her body could no longer take being strong, as though it could no longer contain the relief of being alive mixed with the worry for the others, she cried.
Petula was worried too, but in another way she had never felt happier. For when she’d been spinning down through the sky in the storm, she had realized she wasn’t ready to die yet. She wanted to live. Life was wonderful—full of life. Sucking a stone and sitting comfortably here on a warm rock, watching Molly as she walked through the vegetable garden, Petula sniffed the air to see what lovely things the cloud forest had to offer. Petula smelled a monkey nearby, and then she detected the scent of the mountain dog.
A mongrel with wolflike features and scruffy, tufty brown hair. This was the closest he’d come to her. It was as if he wanted to introduce himself, for he looked straight at her and sniffed at the air. Then he approached.
“Good evening,” he said, sitting down beside her. “I’ve been waiting for an opportunity to introduce myself. My name is Canis. I don’t think I’ve ever seen your breed before.” Petula was impressed. Most dogs couldn’t help having a close sniff before they introduced themselves. This dog had manners.
“I’m a pug,” she explained. “I come from a long way away. My name is Petula. It’s great to meet you—I haven’t spoken to another dog for days.”
“That makes two of us!” Canis replied.
He was one of the messiest-faced dogs Petula had ever met, but his eyes were wise and gentle.
“In fact,” he went on, “the last dog I spoke to was in the village down the mountain, and that was weeks ago. I met a couple of wild dogs a few months back, but usually they’re on a different mountainside. Occasionally I hear them howl at night.”
Molly heard the sound of a generator burrowing mechanical noise into the evening air. It was coming from a hut nearby. She knocked on the door.
“Come in!”
The door creaked as it swung open. The main room was small and very full. Its walls were lined with books, and the tables were laden with microscopes of varying sizes and pads with writing on them and white sheets of paper with drawings. Bas was working on a drawing now, under a bright light. The wind-powered generator provided the electricity for this light, and Bas obviously only turned it on when he really needed it.