The Chickens of Atlantis and Other Foul and Filthy Fiends

  Darwin remembered the chickens of ancient Egypt.

  ‘Thoth is generally depicted as an ibis,’ said Ki Vi, informatively, ‘but sometimes disguises himself as an ape when bringing his wisdom to Men.’

  ‘I told you apes were wise,’ said Darwin, sticking his tongue out at Jack.

  ‘The Ape of Thoth is known by other names,’ the kiwi bird went on. ‘Djehuty, Dhouti, Djhuty, Dah-Wyn. He is the God of medicine, magic and the moon. Of justice, wisdom and writing. Of science and speech. Thoth is credited with inventing the Egyptian hieroglyphic system. Thoth means “thought” and “time”. He is the Lord of the Past and the Future.’

  ‘You think that I am a God?’ said Darwin.

  ‘We know that you are, Dah-Wyn,’ said Ki Vi the kiwi bird.

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  ‘e is not a God,’ said Jack with a laugh. ‘He's just a silly monkey.’

  The silly monkey bit the boy called Jack.

  ‘Quite right, too,’ said the kiwi bird. ‘He's a horrid little boy.’

  ‘And do stop calling me horrid!’ Jack took once more to hopping about, now holding his other ankle.

  ‘But he is right,’ said Darwin. ‘I am really not a God.’

  ‘There is a Hindu monkey God named Hanuman,’ the kiwi said. ‘He is the devoted helper of Rama.’

  ‘I have heard of him,’ said Darwin. ‘But what is he to me?’

  ‘You are an aspect of Hanuman and your partner Cameron Bell is an aspect of Rama.’

  ‘Rather unlikely,’ said Darwin.

  ‘Much is in the words,’ explained the kiwi bird. ‘Take Hanuman, for instance. If one removes the first “a” and the first “n”, one finds that “Hanuman” becomes “Human”. And given that the original Celtic for Cameron is Camaron, one finds that by removing the capital “C”, the first “a” and the “on”, we have the word “amar”, which of course spells “Rama” when reversed.’

  ‘I want to go now,’ said Jack. ‘I find all this rather dull.’

  ‘The word Jack has many meanings,’ said the knowledgeable kiwi bird. ‘A male donkey, of course, is known as a jackass.’

  ‘I will not be insulted by a foolish kiwi bird,’ said Jack.

  ‘Jack is also a knave in a pack of playing cards – which is to say, a prince.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Jack, and he preened at his sooty lapels. ‘Although I consider it unlikely that the monkey here is a God, I will warm to the idea that I am of royal blood. I have always suspected such a thing. Possibly born on the wrong side of the blanket, as it were, and—’

  ‘Do be quiet, please,’ cried the kiwi bird. ‘You rattle on as a jackdaw will and jackdaws are well known as thieves.’

  ‘Did you lay that egg?’ asked the ape of a sudden.

  Ki Vi nodded. ‘Indeed.’

  ‘But it is bigger than you are.’

  ‘Such is the case with kiwis and eggs, but you are changing the subject.’

  ‘I do not believe that I am a God,’ said Darwin.

  ‘Nor me,’ agreed Jack. ‘But I probably am a real prince.’

  ‘You are both what you are,’ said the kiwi. ‘And you have been brought here because you are needed.’

  ‘Nobody brought us here but me,’ said Jack.

  Ki Vi the kiwi shook her head, her beak describing very graceful arcs. ‘You are here because we want you here. We need you here. We let you see the clouds for what they are. We knew you would yearn to come here. And how do you think you ended up on the roof of the Flying Swan in the first place?’

  ‘I got blown out of a chimney,’ said Jack. ‘Which is why my princely robes are smutted with soot.’

  Ki Vi said to Darwin the monkey, ‘He really is a quite obnoxious boy.’ And then went on to explain exactly what had happened.

  ‘Lord Brentford owns a kiwi bird,’ said Ki Vi. ‘Jack was very cruel to it. He cemented down its feet and stuck its beak into the air.’

  ‘I turned it into a sundial!’ said Jack. ‘Rather enterprising of me, I thought.’

  ‘The kiwi got its own back when it pressed the button on Lord Brentford's pneumatic chimney-sweeper whilst Jack was up the chimney.’

  ‘I will do for that bird,’ said the sooty boy.

  ‘And one thing led to another as it should and now you both are here.’ Ki Vi nodded her head to Darwin. Darwin nodded back.

  ‘So why have you gone to all this effort?’ Darwin asked.

  ‘Because the Kingdom of the Sky is in peril,’ Ki Vi said. ‘And who better to sort things out than a God and a prince?’

  ‘Is there any treasure?’ asked Jack. ‘Because kingdoms have kings and kings have treasure and a prince should have some treasure, too.’

  ‘There is plenty of treasure,’ said Ki Vi. ‘You can have as much as you want, when all is said and done.’

  ‘Then count me in,’ said Prince Jack. ‘I'll need a sword and brand-new boots and brand-new clothes as well.’

  Darwin shook his head sadly, but Ki Vi nodded her beak.

  ‘So, then,’ said Jack, ‘I am up for the fight.’ And then he clutched at his stomach. ‘Oh no,’ he said, and then he backed away.

  Jack returned in a little while looking rather pale.

  ‘Those bananas gave me the runs,’ said Jack.

  Then Jack said, ‘Now, where did they come from?’ as he perused the clothes.

  They were neatly stacked, of noble stuff, with polished boots and a sword.

  ‘Go and wash yourself in the waterfall and throw your other clothes away,’ said Ki Vi.

  Jack really did look rather princely upon his eventual return. He swaggered in his brand-new boots and flourished his sword. ‘Let us go and see that treasure,’ said Jack.

  ‘First things first,’ said Ki Vi. ‘You must take the magic egg.’

  ‘The big one there?’ asked Jack, and his thoughts turned once more towards omelettes.

  ‘This big one here. Which you must take to the castle of Skia the Sky Whale.’

  ‘Where the treasure is kept?’ asked Jack.

  Ki Vi the kiwi made sighing sounds. ‘Just take the egg,’ said she.

  Darwin gave himself a bit of a scratching.

  ‘Do you have fleas?’ the kiwi asked the ape.

  ‘Yes, I do,’ said Darwin, ‘and I am keeping them. Is there anything else you could tell us? It all sounds rather vague.’

  ‘I have sat upon this egg,’ said Ki Vi, ‘whilst the Earth has circled the Sun one hundred times.’

  ‘Your bum must be numb,’ said Jack, with a silly laugh.

  ‘I waited,’ said Ki Vi, ‘as was my job, to pass the egg to you.’

  ‘Darwin can carry the egg,’ said Jack. ‘I will carry my sword.’

  ‘It looks like a rather heavy egg,’ said Darwin.

  The kiwi beckoned Darwin with her beak.

  Darwin joined the kiwi, who whispered into his ear.

  At length, Darwin said, ‘Surely we cannot do that!’

  ‘It is the only way,’ said Ki Vi. ‘For it is a magic egg.’

  ‘Well,’ said Darwin, and a big smile spread all across his face. ‘Jack,’ he called, ‘come over here, if you will.’

  ‘Aaaaaaarooooh!’ went Jack, and cough cough cough and choke.

  He and Darwin were once more alone in the jungle. They were marching back to the boat. Though Jack was hardly marching.

  ‘You monster!’ howled Jack. ‘You tricked me,’ howled Jack. ‘I am poisoned and will die,’ howled Jack as well.

  ‘It is only an egg,’ said Darwin. ‘And you were thinking to have it as an omelette, were you not?’

  ‘I never was.’ Jack clutched at his throat. ‘I don't feel right inside.’

  ‘It is a magic egg,’ said Darwin. ‘As Ki Vi explained to you, this is the best way to carry it.’

  ‘She explained it to me after you had held me down and she had rammed it right down my throat.’

  ‘She magicked it small when she did so,’ said Darwin, skipping along out of reach of the young
prince's sword.

  ‘It might swell up inside me. I might die.’ Jack grew quite red in the face.

  ‘She said to me that it will only grow big again when it is being—’ Darwin paused in speech but not in motion.

  ‘When it is being what?’

  ‘Laid,’ said Darwin.

  ‘Laid was the word, I believe.’

  ‘Laid?’ Jack now clutched at other places. ‘Do you mean that I must lay a kiwi bird's egg?’

  Darwin made a very pained expression. ‘I am sure it will all turn out for the best in the end.’

  ‘I'll sick it up,’ threatened Jack. ‘I don't want an egg coming out of my bu—’

  ‘Ah,’ said Darwin. ‘We have reached the beach.’

  ‘I want my mum,’ said Jack, and he began to cry.

  Darwin felt suddenly guilty. It had seemed quite funny at the time, because Jack was a rather horrid boy. But now he was clearly a very scared boy and not without good cause.

  ‘Think of the treasure,’ Darwin said. ‘And think about being a prince.’

  ‘I'm thinking of my poor bottom,’ grumbled Prince Jack.

  ‘Let us think of jollier things. This is a very big adventure indeed.’

  ‘It is all right for you,’ sulked Jack. ‘You don't have a bird's egg in your belly, waiting to burst out of your ars—’

  ‘Look,’ said Darwin and pointed. ‘Is that not a sky whale drifting there?’

  Jack made an even grumpier face.

  ‘What is done is done,’ said Darwin.

  ‘You've done a wicked thing to me,’ said Jack. ‘And let me tell you this. If I don't get my treasure, I'll use my sword and hollow you out and wear you on my head as a hairy hat.’

  Darwin felt less guilty now. What a really horrible boy, he thought.

  Sulking and grumping and grumbling, too, Jack pushed the cloud-boat away from the beach and jumped into it. Darwin followed Jack into the boat and sat himself down in the prow.

  ‘You look very princely indeed, Prince Jack,’ he said. ‘Those royal robes and fine boots really suit you.’

  ‘Don't try to get around me,’ said Jack as he took up the oars.

  ‘You were clearly born to wear such finery,’ said Darwin. ‘I could not carry off a look like that myself.’

  ‘That's because you are a monkey,’ said Jack, ‘and I a noble prince.’ And Jack laughed. ‘A God, indeed!’ he said, and he laughed some more.

  ‘As you are wise beyond your years,’ said Darwin, ‘and brave and noble, too, you must lead us to the castle of Skia the Sky Whale.’

  ‘Obviously so,’ agreed Jack.

  ‘So which way do you think we should go?’

  Jack made the face of perplexity. Then pointed. ‘That way, obviously,’ he said.

  ‘Obviously,’ said Darwin, and Jack rowed that way.

  It was very idyllic up there in the sky. Little cloudy fish swam by and cloudy mermaids, too. The mermaids were beautiful creatures that put Darwin in mind of angels he had seen painted upon the ceiling of St Paul's Cathedral.

  And thoughts of St Paul's Cathedral put thoughts of London and Mr Bell and the Crystal Palace and Queen Victoria into the head of Darwin. Who wondered now whether he was likely to be back at the Flying Swan by nine o'clock tomorrow morning.

  A sense of urgency now impinged upon Darwin's thoughts, and as it was quite clear to Darwin that Jack had been rowing about in circles for a while now, the ape spoke up.

  ‘Do you think we should ask directions, your royal highness?’

  Jack, who had been affecting what he considered to be ‘regal poses’ whilst rowing, which probably accounted for the going around in circles, said, ‘That was what we thought.’

  ‘We.’ Darwin sighed. ‘The royal we, I suppose.’

  ‘You make enquiries,’ said Jack. ‘It would not be fitting for one such as I to confer with humble folk.’

  ‘Jack,’ said Darwin. ‘You might have a sword. But I have very sharp teeth.’

  But then Darwin found himself struck suddenly speechless. Unable to do anything but point.

  ‘It is rude to point,’ said Jack. ‘You are a very rude monkey.’

  Darwin, open-mouthed, just pointed on.

  ‘Stop it now.’ But Jack glanced into the direction of Darwin's pointings.

  Then found that he, too, was lost for words.

  He found two words at last and shouted . . .

  ‘SKY SHARK!’

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  he great white shark swept down from above, its ghastly jaws wide open.

  ‘Abandon ship!’ cried Jack, all of a sudden loquacious. ‘Every man for himself. Princes first. God bless my soul,’ and, ‘Help!’

  Darwin clung to the cloud-boat as Jack leapt into the blue.

  Down and down rushed the dreadful shark and Darwin, now clasping his hands in prayer, begged God to be let into Heaven.

  An awful crunch and a munching of jaws, a ripping and mashing of boat. Shredded planks dissolved to wisps of cloud. Darwin viewed that yawning maw a-feared by every seaman. There was a great, black swallowing gulp and Darwin the monkey was gone.

  Then up flew Darwin, up from the jaws of death.

  Up on a hook and a line and a sinker.

  Up to the tall ship above.

  The adventurous ape gained fleeting impressions of Jack being similarly hauled. Of the cloud-boat gone into nothingness. Of the great white shark stuck through by a mighty harpoon.

  All this within seconds, then Darwin's eyes crossed and he fainted dead away.

  A strange dream came to visit Darwin, causing him unrest.

  He stood with Mr Cameron Bell upon a blasted landscape. Smoke curled from a distant township, the grass beneath their feet scorched to black. From above came sounds of groaning metal, cries of fear and other monstrous noises.

  Cameron Bell was shouting to Darwin, but his words could not be heard. The groaning, grinding-metal din was deafening.

  For above, they swung upon their three tall armoured legs, jointed tentacles whipping wildly, flames rushing out to sear and destroy. Steely-scaled and terrible, the Martian engines of death.

  Folk were running now across the blackened sward, wide-eyed in frenzy, through flames and grasping tentacles and horror borne upon horror.

  Whilst Darwin stood in silence and scratched and scratched at himself.

  Scratched and scratched and scratched and scratched and scratched.

  ‘Wake yourself up, matey boy.’ Water splashed on Darwin's face. The ape became awake.

  It was all in confusion, of course, with lots of thrashing about, but Darwin heard the voice of Jack, saying, ‘It's all right.’

  So Darwin awoke to find himself upon the deck of a ship. Many faces grinned at him and some went, ‘Ooooh,’ and others, ‘Arrrrh,’ whilst others belched bad breath.

  Darwin drew himself up to a-sitting and found a pewter tankard being thrust into his hands.

  ‘Drink well, me hearty,’ someone said, whilst others ‘oooohed’ and ‘arrrrhed’ again.

  ‘Pirates,’ came the voice of Jack. ‘We're on a pirate ship.’ And then he said something that later many would say, but not for at least one hundred years.

  ‘How cool is that?’ said Jack.

  Darwin sipped grog from the pewter tankard. ‘Very cool,’ said he, and looking all around and about beheld the pirate vessel.

  It looked to Darwin's mind the way a pirate ship should look. The wooden deck, the ship's wheel and the masts. The barrel for storing limes to stave off scurvy. The cannon and the powder kegs, the sails above, the Jolly Roger flying.

  The pirates were as pirates should be, have been, would be, ought to be the wide world over. Or at least around the Spanish Main and places such as that.

  Tricorns naturally found favour, broad belts tucked with cutlasses and flintlocks. Ragged frock coats, lacy shirts, sea-faring boots and bandanas. Each and all covered in a layer of grime, for pirates are rebels and cannot be made to wash.

  Grizz
led beards were to be observed, and various body parts generally considered if not essential, then at least favourable to retain, were notably absent. Hence the proliferation of eyepatches, hook-hands and carved wooden legs.

  And as it is generally agreed that most, if not all, pirates originated in the West Country, they spoke with that glorious Cornishy and mellowy twang that has made National Talk Like a Pirate Day the twenty-first-century institution that it has so rightly become.

  ‘Cool,’ said Jack. ‘So very cool. And they have parrots and everything.’

  A parrot said, ‘Hello,’ to Darwin, then added, ‘Pieces of eight.’

  ‘So,’ said Darwin, rising to his feet, ‘we have been rescued by pirates.’

  ‘Ooooh,’ and, ‘Aaaarh,’ went the pirates bold, taking a single step back as one. ‘A talking ape, well, shiver me timbers,’ and things of that nature generally.

  And then one bigger than the rest stepped forward, thrusting others aside. ‘A talking ape?’ he bellowed. ‘What demon-spawn is this?’

  ‘No demon-spawn, I,’ explained Darwin, ‘but a monkey butler, schooled in man-speech by a visionary with an evolutionary hypotheses that—’

  ‘He has fine words about him,’ bellowed the pirate chief, for such was this overlarge fellow. ‘He can serve a while as me cabin boy, before we sell him on.’

  ‘Ah, no,’ said Jack, stepping forward. ‘This ape belongs to me.’

  The pirates now fell into laughter, as pirates will do at the drop of a three-cornered hat.

  ‘Are you challenging Black Jack MacJackblack, captain of the good ship Venus?’

  ‘Not as such,’ said Jack. ‘And my name's Jack, too, by the way. But he's still my monkey.’

  Darwin made a certain face towards Jack. ‘We should just thank the nice gentlemen for saving our lives,’ he suggested. ‘Matters of ownership regarding myself might perhaps be postponed until I—’

  ‘Don't he go on a fine treat?’ Black Jack MacJackblack laughed and the pirate crew took to great laughter with him.

  Then, ‘Hold on there,’ said Jack. ‘Did you say the good ship Venus?’

  ‘As I took in sky battle over Plymouth,’ quoth Black Jack.

  ‘I know the song,’ said young Jack.

  Darwin chewed upon his knuckles, for he knew that song, too.