Cosmic Camel

  “Hot hot hot hot!” it said. “Dig hole quick.” It began to scrape at the sand with its front paws.

  Ulan Nuur scrambled to his feet, sniffing the air eagerly. But Brola lay half-buried and unmoving.

  “Brola!” Donal crawled over to her, scooped away the hot sand that covered her and gently lifted her up. She weighed surprisingly little. The Greengrass that looked so bulky was as light as a coat of feathers; but now it was limp and lifeless, like Brola herself.

  Donal carried her carefully to the only shade he could see – that cast by Ulan Nuur. Rummaging in his rucksack, he sprinkled her with a little orange juice from his flask and fanned her with his clip-board.

  A ripple ran through Brola’s Greengrass. She groaned and opened her eyes. “Where am I?”

  “The desert,” replied the camel reverently. He gazed around with deep delight. “I have waited for this moment all my life. Behold the splendour of the Gobi’s sands! At last!”

  “Oh, no. I’ll die!” wailed Brola. “My Greengrass can’t live in the desert!”

  “You’re not dead yet,” said Donal, bracingly. “Come on! Sit up straight and take a deep breath.” He propped her against Ulan Nuur’s leg, and then turned to scan the black sand for any glint of silver. “I’d better search for the Skywheel. Maybe you’ll be able to repair it.”

  “I observed it just there,” said Ulan Nuur, “where that hole is.”

  “Oh no! It’s sunk!” Falling to his knees, Donal began to burrow frantically. Although he groped shoulder-deep in the warm sand, no Skywheel met his fingers.

  “It’s no good,” he sighed at last, pulling out his arm. “The sand’s too soft. It’s already buried itself too deep for me to reach.”

  He could have cried. If only he’d hunted for the Skywheel straight away, before looking after Brola… He’d done the wrong thing again.

  “Donkey-brain,” he muttered to himself. “Useless donkey-brain. Now the Skywheel’s sunk – and so are we!”

  The lemming emerged from the sand, sneezed and shook itself.

  “Too hot,” it said. “Shiny thing down there. Very down. Very broken. One, two, lots of bits.”

  “Our ship!” mourned Donal.

  The camel blew on his cheek. “Even if you could reach it, a broken ship would be useless. But you do not need it,” he said reprovingly, “when you have Me. Am I not called a Ship of the Desert?”

  Donal leaned dejectedly against his woolly shoulder. “We’re lost in the middle of nowhere, Ulan Nuur, in a baking desert with no water, and we don’t know the way home.”

  “Lost? I am not lost,” said the camel haughtily. “I know the way back to the green land of the Meerie. It lies away from the sun, in that direction.”

  “But that means going past the Gyzols!”

  “We shall go round them.”

  “That’s too far! We’ll never make it.”

  “Nevertheless, I shall walk that way,” said Ulan Nuur. He took deep, thirsty breaths of the desert air, stretching his long neck as he gazed around. “I long to observe my native home more closely. You may walk with me, if you wish.”

  “Walk?” squealed Brola. “I can’t walk!” She stood up, and promptly collapsed in a heap on the sand. “See?”

  “She’ll have to ride you,” Donal told Ulan Nuur.

  “Ride Me?” The camel arched his neck and spat indignantly. “No-one has ever ridden Me!”

  “There’s a first time for everything.” Helping Brola to her feet, Donal guided her towards the camel. Ulan Nuur bared his yellow teeth and kicked out with his long legs.

  “Please,” begged Donal. “It’s the only way! I’d carry her myself if I could. I thought people rode camels all the time in the desert?”

  “Not Me,” growled Ulan Nuur.

  But with much snorting and grunting, he reluctantly knelt down and allowed Donal to prop Brola up between his humps. She whimpered as he lurched back to his feet.

  “Huurgh!” complained Ulan Nuur. “She is not comfortable.”

  “No, I’m not at all comfortable,” moaned Brola, jerking to and fro as the camel started walking. “I’m going to fall off!”

  “Fear not. I will not let you fall,” answered Ulan Nuur, striding out confidently across the desert.

  The camel’s widely splayed feet barely sank into the sand – yet Donal floundered up to his ankles with every step. It was hard work, and soon he was struggling to keep up.

  He stumbled after the camel, wading through hot sand between darkly glittering dunes. They crossed wide, empty craters, and walked past smoking fissures whose fumes caught at his throat. The heat was so fierce it felt like a wall pushing Donal back. He grew thirsty. And his shoes were full of sand.

  The lemming didn’t help. It sat on Donal’s shoulder, out of the sun, and tickled his ear.

  “Can’t you walk?” Donal panted, as he trudged after the camel, ploughing across a dune. “I thought lemmings did lots of walking?”

  “Dunno.”

  “I thought lemmings migrated in enormous herds and all jumped off cliffs together?”

  “Dunno,” it said, sounding a little startled.

  “Well, have you ever jumped off a cliff?”

  The lemming scratched itself and thought about it. “Dunno,” it said at last.

  The furious sun beat down mercilessly. The air was full of bitter fumes that dried Donal’s mouth. He took small sips of orange juice from his flask, and had to force himself not to drain the lot.

  How could his mouth be so dry, he thought, when the rest of his body was dripping? Sweat glued his t-shirt to his body. He coughed and gasped as he struggled after Ulan Nuur. How far had they walked now? It felt like miles…

  “Jumped off a log once,” said the lemming close to his ear. “Fell in a bramble.”

  Donal staggered half-way up a sand-dune to survey the land. His heart sank. Wave after wave of black dunes stretched ahead of them, like ripples on an endless midnight sea.

  “Full of berries, it were,” said the lemming. “Lots of berries.”

  Donal mopped his brow. This journey felt like a nightmare from which he could not wake. He badly wanted a rest, but Ulan Nuur was striding on ahead, and he didn’t have the breath to shout.

  “Full of juice, they was,” reminisced the lemming on his shoulder. “Squishy squashy wet and drippy lots and lots of juicy juice.”

  Donal couldn’t reply. His mouth felt as dry as the desert. All he could think about was the orange juice sloshing about in his flask. If only he could sit down, and have a proper drink…

  The lemming’s voice rustled in his ear. “Like a nice swim now. In lots of nice cold water. Lots and lots and lots and lots and–”

  “Halt!” Ulan Nuur commanded. He stopped suddenly in his tracks. Brola slumped against his neck, moaning faintly. Donal staggered up to join them.

  “Water,” announced Ulan Nuur, his nostrils flaring. “I smell water.”

  “Are you sure?” Donal looked round doubtfully. He could see no sign of pool or stream, or even puddle, anywhere.

  “Quite certain. A camel is never mistaken about such things. This way, I believe.”

  Chapter Ten

  Ulan Nuur began to plod relentlessly up a slope. Rivulets of sand trickled from every footprint.

  “You won’t find water up a hill!” protested Donal. The camel ignored him and kept going.

  Reluctantly, Donal tried to follow, only to slide down in an avalanche of sand and be dumped at the dune’s foot. Two more attempts to climb it had the same result. At last, summoning his remaining strength, he made a huge effort and charged at the slope.

  This time he managed to catch up with the camel at the top. He found himself looking down over the rim of a deep, smoking crater.

  “That’s not smoke – it’s steam!” gasped Donal. “That means water!”

  Steam curled from the bottom of the crater, where a small yellow lake lay, its surface broken
by occasional bubbles. Yellow-white crystals encrusted its edges like clumps of dirty salt.

  Donal and Ulan Nuur slithered down together to the water’s brink. Ulan Nuur stooped, sucked up a noisy mouthful, and immediately spat it all out again, mostly over Donal.

  “Yuck,” said Donal, wrinkling his nose. “It smells like a stink-bomb.” He dipped a finger in the water, tasted it cautiously, and pulled a face. “We can’t drink that!”

  “Yuck,” echoed the lemming.

  “I am not thirsty in any case,” said the camel dismissively.

  “But I am,” wailed Brola, sliding off his back in a heap. “I’ve got to be watered! I’m wilting. The Greengrass has to drink, or it’ll die!” Her fur looked parched and withered. “I’ve got to have water – now!”

  “All right! Hang on.” Hurriedly Donal scooped up a double handful of foul-smelling water, and poured it over her.

  To his horror, the Greengrass began to shrivel and curl up wherever the water touched it. Brola squealed like a whistle.

  “I’m dying! I’m dying! Get it off me!” she shrieked.

  In a panic, Donal fumbled for his flask, and dashed his precious orange juice over her to rinse away the stinking water. The Greengrass stopped curling up, but Brola didn’t stop screeching.

  “My poor Greengrass! You nearly poisoned me, you stupid human!”

  “I was only trying to help,” said Donal unhappily. Now all his orange juice had gone, drained into the sand. He was a donkey. He should have known the rank yellow water would be poisonous.

  Miserably he sucked the last dribble of orange from his flask before filling it again from the yellow lake. Disgusting as the cloudy water was, he might be forced to drink it later on. Squatting at the brink, he paused to peer into the murky shallows.

  “There are things swimming in the water!” he said in amazement. “Little wriggly animals, and creatures like fat orange shrimps darting around!” They looked like satsuma segments with legs.

  “There can’t be,” said Brola crossly. “Nothing can live in the desert, stupid.”

  “But there are loads of them! And tiny jellyfish, the size of my thumbnail!” As Donal bent down to look closer, he made another discovery. “And there are little plants growing by the water’s edge. Sort of mossy. I didn’t see them at first because they’re yellow too. But they’re everywhere!”

  The camel’s head reached past him and crunched.

  “Not very good,” said Ulan Nuur with his mouth full. “I have certainly had better.” The lemming scampered over to nibble.

  “Pooh pooh,” it said. “Worse than camel droppings.”

  “Nothing lives in the desert,” repeated Brola emphatically.

  “Well, these do!” said Donal. “See for yourself! And there are tiny golden beetles here as well.”

  “They don’t count,” announced Brola, refusing to look. “None of them count. They’re not proper animals. I told you, nothing lives in the desert.”

  Donal sat back on his heels, puzzled. “What about the Gyzols? They’re animals, aren’t they? They live in the desert.”

  “They don’t count either. They’re horrible monsters. Get down,” Brola ordered the camel fretfully. “I want to climb on to your back. Take me away from this awful place! It stinks.”

  Ulan Nuur knelt down with a grunt, and let Brola clamber on to him.

  Donal turned away from the yellow lake reluctantly. Even if it wasn’t drinkable, the sulphurous pool with its tiny, busy inhabitants seemed more welcoming than the parched sand of the desert.

  Yet once they set off walking again, he saw life in the desert too. Now that he had noticed the first signs, he became aware of more and more with every step.

  Black, crinkly mosses grew almost invisibly against the ground; and twisted, grey plants like miniature heathers crackled faintly underfoot. Fleas (or something like them) hopped and burrowed in the sand.

  Now the wind moaning through the sand hills seemed to carry voices: whistling, rustling voices. Several times, he thought he heard clicking sounds behind him – yet when he turned round, there was nothing there.

  But there were tracks. Most of them were smaller than a mouse’s, although one set, crossing their path from dune to dune, had paw-prints as big as a cat’s. Donal called the others over.

  “Hey! Look at this! What do you think made these footprints?”

  “Fox,” whispered the lemming, and dived inside Donal’s shirt.

  “Marmot,” said Ulan Nuur. “Very common in the Gobi Desert.”

  “This isn’t the Gobi Desert!”

  But the camel appeared not to hear. He was sniffing the tracks, and nodding wisely. “Yes, definitely marmot.”

  “They’re not tracks at all! They’re marks made by the wind,” squealed Brola. “Get me out of here!”

  “We’re doing our best,” said Donal wearily. Despite the heat, a shiver ran through him. Would any of them ever get out of here alive?

  Then, as he shivered again, he realised that the temperature was dropping. A cool breeze had brushed against his skin.

  “Thank goodness!” Donal stood with arms outstretched to let the cooler air wash over him. It was almost as welcome as a shower.

  But the lemming huddled down inside his shirt, while Ulan Nuur shifted with unease, and stamped, and spat.

  “What’s wrong, Ulan Nuur?”

  “I do not care for this wind,” rumbled the camel. “Feel the sand that blows within it? And over there: observe.”

  Donal observed. A long brown cloud sat on the horizon like a frown, its top melting into the sky. Even as he watched it seemed to grow a little larger, a little closer.

  “What is it? Is it rain?” he asked, in sudden hope.

  “Smoke, of course, from the volcanoes,” said Brola decidedly.

  “Neither,” said Ulan Nuur. His voice was sombre. “Unless I am mistaken, that is the legendary Karaburan: the Black Sandstorm, scourge of the desert. And it is coming our way.”

  Chapter Eleven

  “A sandstorm?” croaked Donal, hoarse with thirst and fear. “Are you sure?”

  “I am positive. The Karaburan is famous in camel lore. It is a whirling wall of sand, so dark and dense that you can scarcely see beyond your nose – let alone walk through it.”

  “Have you been in a Karaburan before?”

  “Naturally. Dozens of times,” said the camel loftily. “I know exactly what to do.”

  “Oh, good.”

  “First you get down on all four knees, like this.” The camel knelt down to demonstrate. “Close your eyes. Then press your ears down flat – like so – and seal your nostrils, to keep out the sand. Just open them a crack to breathe.”

  “I can’t close my ears and nostrils!” protested Donal. “And I bet Brola can’t either.”

  Brola gave a wail, and toppled sideways off the camel onto the ground, where she lay waving her hands weakly. “My poor Greengrass! It can’t survive a sand-storm. We’re all going to die!”

  Ulan Nuur’s nostrils flared. “If you won’t take good advice, we’ll just have to walk through it,” he said huffily. He jerked to his feet and stalked off.

  “Come on, Brola!” cajoled Donal. “Try and get up. We’ve got to move. We can’t stop here, with that coming.”

  As he pointed to the dark cloud, he realised with a shock how much bigger and closer it already looked. And now he could hear it: a hissing drone like a den of angry snakes, growing louder by the minute.

  Biting his lip, he glanced around, searching for anywhere that might offer protection. Their best hope was a large sand-dune three or four hundred metres away.

  “Stand up, Brola! We’ll go and shelter behind that big dune over there till the storm’s passed by. You can walk that far, surely?”

  “I can’t walk at all,” she complained. Ignoring her protests, Donal heaved her up on to her feet and propelled her towards the dune.

  They were only half-way there w
hen the sun was blotted out. A shadow rushed across the ground – a shadow made of sand. It whirled round Donal like a cloak of barbed wire, tearing at his clothes, pummelling his body and stinging his face until he couldn’t keep his eyes open.

  He tried to wrap his arms around Brola to protect her. But he couldn’t protect himself. He could scarcely breathe, for the air was full of sand. Shrieking, roaring voices filled his ears – as if a whole zoo had suddenly awoken to scream abuse at him.

  Donal fell to his knees, with Brola a dead weight in his arms. Inside his shirt, he felt the lemming trying to burrow into his waistband, away from the searing wind. When he dared to open his eyes for a brief second, he could barely see the camel’s dim shape only a metre or two away.

  “I’ve got to move,” he thought desperately. “If we stop here, we’re done for.”

  He groped blindly in his rucksack and found his waterproof. The wind tried to whip it away as he clumsily wrapped it around Brola to keep out the worst of the storm. Lurching to his feet, he pulled Brola up, and battled on once more.

  But a minute later Brola collapsed again. This time she wouldn’t budge. She lay on the ground whimpering.

  “Ulan Nuur!” yelled Donal. His voice was lost in the many voices of the storm. Ulan Nuur had disappeared behind a veil of flying sand, and Donal could only guess in which direction he had gone.

  If I leave Brola, thought Donal, I might catch him up. He might be able to lead me out of this storm. At least I could shelter beside him! I’m sick of Brola moaning and not doing anything.

  Then he felt ashamed of himself. How could he abandon Brola? She would die without his help. He couldn’t just leave her here.

  So, bending over her, he tried to lift her. With her weight in his arms, though, he couldn’t take even one step against the wind. He had to set her down again.

  Then he crouched beside her, trying to shield her from the force of the storm, while the sand lashed him as if it wanted to wear him away. It was all he could do to stay upright.

  “Harumph,” said a voice up against his ear. “Don’t sit there. Not a good choice.”

  “Ulan Nuur! I can’t move her!” gasped Donal into the wind.

  “Hmph. I suppose you’ll both have to get up on my back.” The camel’s bulk became visible through the fog of sand, as he lowered himself to the ground.

  Brola made no protest as she was manhandled on to his back. Donal climbed up behind her, wrapped his arms around her and clung on tight to the camel’s shaggy wool.