Chapter 21:
THE ATOLL
“Akkri, it’s beautiful!” Vonn stood gazing at the little wooden box which Akkri had finished carving just a few days before. “And you remembered my birthday! I was feeling a bit lonely but now you’ve made me feel happy again. Thank you. Thank you, dear Akkri,” and she put her arms round him and kissed him on the cheek. She had never done that before.
Akkri blushed with pleasure. He had spent many hours making the box and he was glad it had been so well received, but the kiss gave him a special sort of joy, a recognition of something he had always known but which he could now put into words: “We’ll always be friends, won’t we, Vonn?”
“Yes, we’ll always be friends, always and forever.” The memory of her grandmother came into her mind unbidden, and the desert sands and baby Mimo. No, nothing was always and forever. “Come in, Akkri. There’s something I want to show you.”
Akkri followed her back into her room. She went to the shelf by her bed. “You remember the woman I met in the desert, the one whose baby had died?”
Of course Akkri remembered. It was one of a number of things that were like a weight on his heart, a sad heaviness that had not been there before what they had once so light-heartedly referred to as a ‘visit’.
“She’s called Harambi,” Vonn went on, “and her baby was called Mimo. This was his little toy.” She shook the rattle and they listened to the sound baby Mimo would never hear. “She gave it to me. It was something very precious to her and now it’s very precious to me. I’ve been wanting to keep it somewhere special and I think this lovely box may be just the thing.” She opened the lid and the rattle fitted snugly into it. It was as if Akkri had known about it all along.
“Vonn, after breakfast, shall we go somewhere with Andrew and Vicky, so we can all celebrate your birthday together?”
Vonn was delighted. The lonely feeling of being far from home on her birthday had subsided and the idea of the four of them enjoying the day together was just what she needed. “Yes, what a good idea, but won’t they have to go to school?”
“No, they’ve got a day off, so I expect they’ll be able to come. By the way, I’ve got a present for you from Mrs Canadine and Andrew. We can collect it from my room on the way to breakfast.”
After breakfast, a skimmer took them in a long curving swoop straight down into Chichester Greenway, coming to a stop by the Canadines’ gate. Mrs Canadine opened the front door. “Hallo, dears. Come in.”
“Is Vicky coming round today?” Akkri asked.
“She’s already here. They’re in the other room.”
Andrew had woken up early that morning. He had been almost afraid to open the curtains of his bedroom. Had something wonderful happened the previous evening or was it just a dream? He peeped out of the window at the tiny back yard. It was hard to tell, for there was little colour there, but the three recycling boxes looked somehow more distinct, that one green, that one brown and that one grey. He rummaged in the drawer in his bedside cabinet and found his crayons. He took them over to the window. Yes, there was no doubt about it, he could tell the colour of each one with no difficulty at all. “Red, green, dark blue, orange, light blue, brown, grey, purple, yellow, black,” he whispered. It really was true! He could see colours properly for the first time in his life and he knew that it had something to do with the coming of his new friends.
Mrs Canadine opened the door to the other room where Vicky and Andrew were chatting on the sofa. “Mrs Canadine, could Andrew and Vicky come on an outing with us?” Vonn asked. “And by the way, thank you so much for the birthday cake. I’ve brought it with me so that we can all share it together.”
“What a nice idea! It’s only a small one, I’m afraid. I don’t think it will go very far, but happy birthday, Vonn!”
“Happy birthday, Vonn!” chorused Andrew and Vicky.
Mrs Canadine went and fetched a knife and some plates, and a white candle in a little pink candle holder. She had a feeling that Vonn did not understand about birthday cakes and candles, so she explained about making a wish and blowing out the candle. Akkri found the birthday song easy enough for him to join in; usually he left singing to others. Vonn blew out the candle and made a wish. It was more an impossible longing than a wish, but she made it all the same. She was glad she was not supposed to say what her wish had been. Mrs Canadine cut the cake into five slices. She found they were not nearly as small as she had feared they would be.
Vonn was glowing with pleasure. “Thank you all so much. I’m enjoying my birthday! And, Mrs Canadine, we’ve got a surprise for you. Akkri and I have been doing some research and we’ve found out why your road is called Chichester Greenway. The roads in this area were built about a hundred years ago and the people in …” She paused. “Is it called the Council?”
“Yes, the Borough Council,” said Andrew. He was pleased to be able to supply the information for this girl from another world. He admired her very much.
“Well, the people in the Borough Council were each allowed to choose the name of one road. A man called Alderman Hunt named this road Chichester Greenway because he used to live in a town called Chichester. He came from a very poor family. When he was fifteen he came to London and worked hard and eventually became quite rich, but he always missed the town where he had been born. He had been looking at the plans for the new roads and houses and he found that this road points straight towards Chichester. In those days, if you went in a straight line from here to Chichester you would be travelling through woods and fields practically the whole way, so he called it Chichester Greenway.”
“That’s wonderful!” Mrs Canadine exclaimed. “What a lovely story and how clever of you to find it out! Thank you! Now, shall I make some sandwiches for your outing?” She was happy that Andrew would, after all, be doing something special on his day off.
Akkri was not too keen on the food in Andrew’s house, so he quickly said, “No, thanks. Please don’t bother. We’ll be getting food when we arrive.”
Mrs Canadine was in the dreamy state that she seemed to enter whenever these friends of Andrew’s came round. Part of her mind knew that she had no idea where they lived or anything else about them, but it did not seem to matter. She stood on the front step and waved as the skimmer lifted off, then went into the kitchen to do some envelopes while Andrew was away. By the time they were laid out on the table the memory of the skimmer had evaporated from her mind and all that was left was a vague general idea that Andrew and Vicky were going out with their two friends.
The skimmer was slowly following the line of the Thames just a few feet above the tops of the bridges. “That’s the Houses of Parliament,” said Vicky.
“And that’s the London Eye,” said Andrew.
“So, where would you like to go?” Vonn asked.
“We’re doing atolls in Geography,” said Vicky. “Could we go and see an atoll? I think they’re a long way from England, though.”
“Yes, let’s go to an atoll,” said Vonn.
“Could we go down the Chichester Greenway to Chichester on the way there?” Andrew asked.
The skimmer hardly seemed to change direction, but now they were swooping down past Tommy’s house, past Andrew’s house, across the wall and the railway cutting and out over a grey expanse of roads and factories and houses that seemed to stretch on for ever.
“Not much of a Greenway now,” said Vicky.
A motorway came into sight, bigger than any of the roads they had yet seen and jam packed with cars and lorries. In one direction they did not seem to be moving at all. “I wonder if that’s the M25?” said Andrew.
They glided over the motorway and then, “Look, it’s starting to be a proper Greenway now,” said Vicky. She had never been outside London before and the trees and fields and winding lanes enchanted her. The sky had been a sullen grey but now the clouds were beginning to break and the sun shone out
across the gentle green landscape.
“It’s lovely,” said Vonn.
A long ridge loomed up ahead of them. The skimmer glided over it. Andrew noticed a footpath winding its way along the top. It would be nice to walk along that path, Andrew thought. A city came into view, a city with a cathedral with a tall spire. “That must be Chichester,” he said.
And then they were out over a shimmering silver expanse that disappeared into a white mist on the horizon. Vicky was trembling with excitement. “It’s the sea!” She turned to Vonn and whispered, “I’ve never seen the sea before, only on the telly and in pictures.” Vonn squeezed her hand.
The skimmer broke through the line of mist, gaining in height. Within the next few minutes they passed over a green landscape, a range of mountains, another sea, a desert, and then they were out over a vast ocean, gleaming in the sunshine.
The skimmer glided gently down through a few wispy clouds. Below them was a circle of white sand and green palm trees enclosing a turquoise lagoon. “It’s wonderful,” said Akkri. “I don’t think we’ve got anything like that on Vika.”
“It’s made of coral,” said Vicky.
As they sank lower they could see there were breaks in the circle where the sea rushed in, and round its perimeter an exciting welter of white surf.
“Wow!” said Andrew and Akkri together, and burst out laughing.
Hirri Tatembi was watching from his boat. He saw the skimmer float gently down, settling on the sand like a giant silver leaf. He did not know that he was one of the very few people who could actually see such a sight. He was trying a different part of the lagoon today, hoping it would bring him better luck.
It was exhausting work. It had taken over an hour to row from his own island, through the conflicting currents and the dangerous breakers, to the atoll. The pearl-bearing oysters lay at a considerable depth, at the very limit of his capacity. After each dive he collapsed in the bottom of his boat until his shaking body had recovered sufficiently for yet another dive. He had to go on, though. His little boy was ill and if he did not earn enough to buy some medicine he might die. He needed to find at least ten large pearls to earn enough money to buy the medicine. Yesterday he had found four. Today, so far, he had found only one.
The sight he was looking at was so strange, however, that despite the urgency of his search he decided to watch for a while. Perhaps if he rested for a few minutes he might be able to stay down a little bit longer on his next dive.
Vonn, Akkri, Andrew and Vicky stepped out onto the fine white sand. It was lucky a breeze was blowing off the sea or it would have been very hot indeed. Akkri noticed that the skimmer was staying where it had landed. Usually it would have vanished by now. It must be because of Vicky and Andrew, he thought. They might have been frightened if they could see no way of getting back home.
“Let’s have some lunch,” said Akkri.
Andrew had not noticed him unpacking any food, but there was a tablecloth laid out on the beach with plates of cooked meats, buttered rolls, salad, fruit and glasses of juice. The children tucked in hungrily.
Vicky was watching Vonn and Akkri closely. She knew no one had laid out the food. She knew it was just suddenly there. It was all part of the dream-like strangeness of being with their new friends. For the first time she really looked at them. She knew they would not mind if they noticed. That was one thing she was sure of – they were safe. They would not suddenly turn nasty or spiteful like so many people she knew.
She looked at Vonn’s hair, gleaming gold in the sunshine. It was not exactly like the hair of anyone she had ever seen, though it was hard to say what the difference was. A Swedish boy had come to their school for a few weeks. His hair was a little bit like it, but not as shiny and golden and silk-like. “Vonn, can I look at your eyes, please?”
“Of course you can.”
Vicky wriggled closer on the sand and looked into Vonn’s eyes and Vonn looked into hers. For a moment Vicky felt almost frightened. She glanced at Akkri. Yes, the eyes were the most different part of them. They looked as if they were constructed differently inside and no Earth person had golden irises. They were beautiful, but very, very strange. “Vonn, you really are human, aren’t you?”
“We Vikans think we are human, just as you Earth people do. We think and feel and walk and talk. You and Andrew are more like us than any of the other creatures that live on Vika, and from what I have seen, Akkri and I are more like you than any other creature that lives on Earth.”
“But how come we look so much the same?” Andrew asked. He was glad Vicky had started this conversation. He was longing to explore the atoll and run down to the water’s edge, but there was a host of unanswered questions in his mind, some clear and distinct, others just a vague perplexity.
“I’ll tell you what Annilex said,” said Vonn. “She used to be my mentor – that’s a kind of personal teacher. We were all puzzled by exactly the same question. We are such a long way from Vika and yet you people of Earth look so much like us. Annilex reminded us that all life is one.”
“All life is one,” said Andrew dreamily. It sounded very special, but he was not at all sure what it meant.
“She said that whatever develops in the onward flow of life is available throughout the universe,” Vonn continued. “It’s not just humans that are much the same here as they are on Vika. We have fish in our rivers and birds in the air and trees and flowers and forests and fruit.”
“I want to go there one day,” said Vicky.
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