TEPHRAN

THE SECRET OF THE VOLCANO

TEPHRAN

THE SECRET OF THE VOLCANO

Fons Burger

#2125

ISBN 9789490077426

© All rights reserved Dif Books

Dif Books is part of Brighter World / Dif Books BV

Rotterdam, The Netherlands

www.difbooks.com

www.fonsburger.com

Cover design: Pieter Schol

Design: Yuri Jansen

Translated by: Nancy Forest-Flier

Original title: Tephran, het geheim van de vulkaan

Printed by: Zalsman, Zwolle

No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, scanning, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or hereafter invented, without permission in writing from the publisher. Inquiries should be addressed to:

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Authors and publisher of Dif Books support the Flying Pig Foundation

www.flying-pig-foundation.org

This book is dedicated to the more than 160 million children who must work every day in order to survive.

CONTENTS

THE BEGINNING

1. THE BIG FLOWER

2. A SUNNY SUNDAY

3. THE INDECIPHERABLE MESSAGE

4. THE FIRST DISCOVERY

5. THE RIDDLE OF THE BLUE LIGHT

6. THE JOURNEY THROUGH THE EARTH

7. THE BLUE POWER

8. THINGS CHANGE

9. THE REMARKABLE DREAM

10. THE TECHNIQUE OF FORGETTING

11. THE SECRET CAMP

12. THE NON-ACCIDENTAL ENCOUNTER

13. TARA’S FLIGHT

14. THE WARNING

15. THE GREAT CROSSING

16. THE TEMPLE

PART 2

1. KIDDO’S SECRET WEAPON

2. THE REMARKABLE ARREST

3. THE ENCLAVE

4. THE MISSION BEGINS

5. THE UNBELIEVING SCIENTIST

6. THE REUNION

7. KIDDO IS NOBODY’S FOOL

8. THE ATTACK OF THE CUDDLIES

9. THE MAGICAL DISAPPEARANCE

10. THE SCENE OF BATTLE

THE END

THE BEGINNING

The ocean is as smooth as glass. By the time the sun reaches its highest point of the day there’s hardly a breath of wind. At first glance, the island you see lying there in the vast ocean seems to be shaped like a giant mushroom. Tephran is the island’s name, a name that has something to do with the volcano that squeezed it out of the depths of the earth thousands of years ago.

In the stem of the mushroom, on the bank of a wide river, is the capital city of Pudra. It’s swarming with people: walking or riding around in cars, on bicycles or in buses. A few paved roads run from the city to the villages out in the flat, open countryside. Surrounding the villages are fields and woods where there are also lots of people, all of them working.

Farther north there’s not much trace of this hustle and bustle. A big strip runs through the landscape, and beyond that strip the land and the vegetation are growing wild. No fields or villages there. If you look carefully you can see a fence running down the middle of the strip. All the trees and bushes alongside it have been chopped down. The only thing to be seen in that savage part of the island is a small camp filled with white barracks, where men are walking around in white suits. They’re wearing helmets to protect their heads, and you can hear them shouting to each other to make themselves heard. There are a number of watchtowers with men posted at the top. They’re standing behind big machine guns mounted on pedestals, which can turn in any direction.

A truck comes driving up, spewing forth more men in white suits. Even from this great height you can see that something is about to happen in the camp.

But way up here in the sky is not where the story begins. It begins in a very different place: down there in Fasra, the village that lies about seven miles outside the capital, in the small house that’s built right up against the edge of the woods. The home of Tara Wentertee.

1. THE BIG FLOWER

Early in the morning, Father Wentertee got out of bed and went yawning through the little house. His wife Sala was already awake and had put a kettle of water to boil on the small wood stove.

“Get up, get up,” he shouted.

Not a sound could be heard from the bedroom where his four sons were lying asleep. Father went in, and with one jerk he pulled off the blanket that was covering them.

“Get up, I said, you pile of lazybones, lead bellies, lolly loppers, limp-legged loafers. I’ve got to repeat it four times every morning. Come on, get up. Time to go to work. Mr. Blackman doesn’t take kindly to latecomers. You’ll have to work two full hours for nothing. And that means no supper tonight.”

The boys crawled out of bed, grumbling. They didn’t have to put on their clothes since they hadn’t taken them off the night before. It was spring and the temperature at night could go down to forty degrees. And because there was only one blanket for the four of them, they snuggled up close at night to keep warm.

Tara did not sleep with the boys. She had her own little room at the far end of the landing, in a blind part of the hallway. She had screened off a little spot for herself using an old curtain.

Tara had a mirror, which actually was no more than a large shard she had found on the garbage dump near the city. The former owner of the mirror must have had seven years of bad luck. But for Tara, this pointed shard was a trophy that would bring her luck forever.

She had been awake for a long time, even before her mother had gone to the kitchen and before her father had filled the house with his daily shouting. So she had heard him shout her brothers out of bed − Peer, Roskar, Fobol and Bennabi.

Peer was the oldest, and he was also the one with the most sass. He got a beating from Father at least once a week, sometimes twice. Peer wasn’t punished for no reason at all. His smart-aleck attitude was simply more than Father could bear. When he came home all tired out and Peer was there shooting off his big mouth, Father Wentertee always blew his stack. He’d chase Peer around like a wild man.

Peer and Roskar worked for Mr. Blackman. He lived on an estate near his plantation, in a splendid big white house with pillars and wide front steps. There were two lions with human heads lying on either side of the front door.

Work on the plantation was hard, and you could really hurt yourself on the plants’ sharp leaves. The plants were chopped down with long knives called shavas. With one firm stroke of the shava you could easily cut someone’s leg off. Or your own. Because when you chopped the plants, you had to draw the knife down in the direction of your leg. And if your stroke was too fast or the plant was too weak, you’d have to jump aside just in time. Many people in the village had tried to do that and missed. Now they only had one leg and had to earn their living by doing things that required sitting. Jobs like that were few and far between for people from the village.

Fobol wasn’t exactly the smartest kid in the family. He worked in Blackman’s factory, where they made paper products, although he wasn’t allowed to go near the machines. He wasn’t allowed to go near the packing tables, either. Or the delivery trucks. And he was never allowed to go near the office.

Fobol cleaned the latrines. That’s where the men from the plantation and the factory went to the bathroom. And because there were so many men working all day long, there was a lot of pooping and peeing going on where Fobol worked. He had to make sure that the bottles of water next to the pooping holes were always full, because Mr. Blackman refused to provide his workers with any of his expensive paper products. They had to rinse their bottoms off with water.

Bennabi was the youngest of the four brothers. He had a job at the grocer’s. Bennabi delivered orders to the rich neighborhoods of Tephran. That’s where the Wikkadons lived, a very white sort of people who almost never went out in the sun because their skin couldn’t take it. The Wikkadons did not belong to the original population of the island of Tephran, yet they were in charge of everything. Most of the Wikkadons were very arrogant. They looked down on the rest of the people of Tephran.

Tara’s job was to draw water from the well. The well was in the center of the village, in the square, and every morning a friendly crowd gathered there to fetch fresh water. Staver, a tall, dark-skinned boy with kinky hair, was Tara’s assistant. Staver was eighteen − much too old to be her boyfriend. Even so, it pleased Tara that Staver did his best and made sure he was at the well every morning to help her.

“Have you got any interesting things lined up for today, Tara?” Staver asked.

“Oh, lots and lots of interesting things, Staver. I’m going to bake bread, I’m going to the river to wash clothes, I’m going to make supper and sweep the house, and when I’m finished with that, my father and my brothers will all come home to eat everything up and make everything dirty again.”

“Sounds like an exciting day,” Staver said, and he laughed loudly at his own joke.

“And you, Staver? Do you have an exciting day ahead of you?”

“Well,” said Staver, “actually my day is almost over. I went out to sea last night and I caught a lot of fish. Now I’m going to skin and clean them. And at noon I’m going to bed, because when midnight comes we’re going out again.”

“It’s such a shame to miss all the sunlight and sleep the day away.”

“You’re so beautiful, Tara,” said Staver. He filled her two buckets with water and noticed that his compliment made her blush. “I’m going to wait for a couple of years, then I’m going to ask your father for your hand.”

“Don’t wait too long, Staver, or all the nice boys will beat you to it.”

“There aren’t any nicer boys than me,” said Staver, laughing loudly.

Tara did know nicer boys, but they were more boyish boys − not the kind you fell in love with or wanted to kiss. Well, maybe you did, but you didn’t think about it because you did other things with those boys. Like going on secret expeditions on the slope of the volcano. They did that on Sundays, when everyone on Tephran had the day off.

The area around the volcano was off-limits. No one was allowed to go past the Big Green Fence, which stretched for miles from Yellow Bay to Crocodile Beach. It cut off the whole northern point of the island. On the slope of the volcano was the White Camp. People said there were scientists there who conducted research. But no one on the island knew what the research was about.

Climbing over the Fence was difficult, but trying to get around it was even more dangerous. The Fence ran all the way to the coast and even into the sea, to a spot that was popular with sharks. If anyone got it into his head to go for a swim there, those horrible creatures got a free meal. Many an adventurous islander had already served as a tasty tidbit, even if they happened to be swimming in the Yellow Bay and strayed too far from the beach.

Tara was no scaredy-cat. Despite the strict ruling, she and her friends had made a secret passageway in the Big Green Fence. They had cut through the screws on the back of a couple of the boards, using a hacksaw that one of the boys had found on the garbage dump. Then they had made some metal hooks so the boards they had cut free could be neatly hung back in place. The opening was behind a bush, and even if you looked closely you couldn’t see it.

No one knew why the Central Authority made such a big deal out of the area beyond the Big Green Fence. The overgrowth there was very special, with blossoms in hundreds of colors. There were bushes with wild fruit and flowers you couldn’t find anywhere else on the island. The trees looked as if they were at least a hundred years old. Some might easily have been even a thousand. In one gigantic tree Tara and her friends had made a tree hut from some branches and vines that had blown down. The tree hut was set high up against the slope of the volcano. You could peer out through the leaves and see the whole city of Pudra, but because the tree had so many leaves and was green all year round you couldn’t see the hut from the city.

Tara carried her two buckets of water back home. Her mother came out to meet her in the garden and complained about her taking so long.

“Probably gossiping with everyone,” she grumbled angrily.

“No, Mom. There was just a long line of people. They were all ahead of me.”

“Jibber jabber,” said Mother.

She always said that whenever Tara said anything. Mother jerked the buckets out of Tara’s hands and went inside, where she poured a little water into another bucket, along with a bit of green soap, and tossed in a scrub brush.

There was a knock at the door. Mother looked up with surprise. She stood up, walked to the window and looked out through a chink to see who was there. It was a big, tall man with broad shoulders. Beside him was someone more than a head shorter. He was carrying a wooden plate with a stack of papers on it. Mother went to the door and opened it.

“Are you Sala Wentertee?” the little man asked Tara’s mother.

“Yes, that’s my name. And who are you?”

“Rumbleton. From the Central Authority.”

“And what can I do for you, Mr. Rumbleton?” asked Mother, suddenly sounding more polite.

“We’re conducting an investigation. We’ve come to take a look inside your house.”

“I’d rather you didn’t, Rumbleton. We were just tidying up.”

“You have something to hide, Wentertee?” asked the big man. Apparently he was supposed to keep his mouth shut, because the little man turned around angrily and snarled.

“No, sir,” Tara’s mother said, “I wouldn’t know what that might be.”

“Then we’ll just come in and have a look. You realize you can’t refuse the Central Authority anything.”

“My house is my house,” said Mrs. Wentertee.

The little man chuckled. “Your house is your house. Yes, that’s right. What are you, a little soft in the head?”

He pushed Mother aside and barged in. He went into the living room, which was also the kitchen, and when he got to the table he stopped short. There were no chairs. Tara and her family ate standing up.

On the table was a magnificent flower in a vase. The flower was as big as the head of a goat. It featured seven different colors and it was a perfect combination of petals, pistil and stamens.

“Aha,” said the little man, snatching the flower from the vase. “And where does this flower come from?”

“I found it,” said Mother, a bit startled.

“Found it, eh? The flower was just lying there, nicely cut and waiting to be picked up?”

“Yes, waiting to be picked up, nicely cut,” said Mother.

“Look, Wentertee. You’ll have to come up with a better story than that.”

“The flower is mine,” said Tara, who had been listening from behind the door.

The beautiful flower in the vase came from beyond the Big Green Fence. Tara had brought it back from one of her expeditions.

“You keep out of this, little girl,” said Rumbleton.

“But I can’t. Because I found the flower. My mother really doesn’t know where you can find flowers like this.”

“She doesn’t, eh?” said the little man. “Eh” was apparently his favorite word. “And where did this little girl find this enormous flower?”

“First of all, the flower wasn’t already cut. I cut it myself. And second, the flower was just lying there, attached to a ball of soil near the Big Green Fence.”

“The Big Green Fence, eh? What were you doing around there?”

“It’s not against the law to walk there, is it?” Tara asked.

“It certainly is. You’re not supposed to be hanging around near the Fence. And nobody is going to believe any stories about flying flowers, insufferable child. We’ve discovered that people have been in the forbidden area, and as you know, the punishment for such things is very severe.”

“Yes, but what does that have to do with us?” asked Tara’s mother angrily.

“This is proof,” hissed the little man. “Proof that one of you has been over the Fence.”

“That’s nonsense. The Fence is several feet high.”

“Even so, even so,” protested the man, “we’re going to search the rest of the house.”

They went to work. They looked under the blanket in the boys’ room and in the living room where Father and Mother Wentertee slept on a mattress. The men turned everything upside down.

Tara had walked to the end of the hallway. She pulled a stone out from under her blanket and hid it in her apron. Just in time, for with one tug the men pulled down the curtain that closed off her room.

The stone was very special. At first glance it looked like an ordinary gray rock, but if you looked more closely you could see wisps of glistening gold running through it. Tara had found the stone on the slope of the volcano, beyond the Big Green Fence. If Rumbleton ever found it, she and her family would be in deep trouble.

The men looked at the mirror. The big man stroked his balding head with his hand, which made the little man laugh.

They didn’t find anything else in the house.

“We don’t believe your story about the flying flower, young lady.

We’ll be back. You can count on it. And heaven help you if more unusual flowers have flown over the Big Green Fence. We’ll lock you up for good. Everyone who climbs over the Big Green Fence goes to jail.”

Mother was still trembling with fear after the men left. They had pulled the flower out of the vase and crushed it underfoot on the cement floor in the living room. Then they looked in the pan on the fire, where the family’s pumpkin dinner was cooking. Apparently the men didn’t care for pumpkin. They hadn’t found anything to eat in the kitchen cupboards, either. The sugar pot, where the people of Tephran kept their money, was empty. There wasn’t even any sugar in it.

Tara tried to calm her mother by stroking her hair. But Mother was angry.

“Where did you get that flower, Tara?” she spat out.

“Found it. Near the Fence.”

“Jibber jabber. You’re going to get us all into a heap of trouble.”

“No, Mama, really. I would never do that.”

Her mother had stopped shivering by this time and gave Tara a resounding slap on the ear. “And I never want to see flowers in this house again.”

“But Mama, you thought the flower was so pretty.”

“Flowers that big bring bad luck.”

2. A SUNNY SUNDAY

It had been very damp that morning, but the first rays of sunlight had chased away the morning dew and seemed to have dried up the wet roofs and fields. A gentle wind was blowing the first warm breath of spring through the village streets. They weren’t really streets but hardened paths, not hardened by a bulldozer or a steamroller but just by all the footsteps tamping down the soft earth.

Harlo got up early. His three sisters and two brothers were still asleep. He looked to see if there was anything left to eat and broke off a bit of stale bread that was lying in the cupboard. Then he went outside. He had an appointment.

Harlo had a gift that everyone was slightly jealous of. He had an enormously rich imagination. Because of it he was able to close his eyes and be wherever he wanted to be, with whomever he wanted to be with. Harlo fantasized almost all the time: standing at the cutting machine in the leather factory, sitting at home on the porch, sleeping in his hammock or feeling bored when the cutting machine broke down again.

Usually he fantasized that he was as rich as a Wikkadon. That he owned a big house with eighty rooms, and his family and all his friends each had a room of their own. That he had horses that he rode and six cars in an enormous garage.

Just outside the village was the ball field. That’s where Harlo and his six friends got together every Sunday − very early, when the sun had chased the night away and the morning was bathed in red light. The first teams were already there. They were the teams of the Kids League, boys younger than eight, and they were warming up for their first game. The national sport was called touchball. You scored points by touching someone with the ball.

Harlo was the leader of a club that had its secret meeting place at the edge of Arman Forest. They called themselves the Secret Seven. No one was ever to know anything about this group. The Secret Seven had solemnly promised always to treat one another fairly, no matter what happened. They had just come through a rough week. Ever since Rumbleton and his investigators had arrived, things had suddenly become clear. The Central Authority didn’t regard their exciting expeditions beyond the Big Green Fence as mere child’s play. And it was thanks to Tara that Rumbleton’s investigation had run into a brick wall.

As soon as Rumbleton had moved on to the neighbors’ house to turn it inside out too, Tara had run to see Harlo. That was the tip of the message pyramid. Harlo would then warn Veder and Jawalla. Veder would warn Pert and Johrt, and Jawalla would pass the word on to Karam. In this way all the members of the Secret Seven would know within five minutes that Rumbleton was in their neighbor-hood looking for evidence − evidence that someone had been beyond the Fence. Jawalla had a collection of very unusual stones that she quickly buried in the little garden behind her house. Pert and Johrt still had some fruit from the Seed Tree that they hadn’t eaten yet. They didn’t know what the Seed Tree was really called, of course. But the round fruits that grew on it contained hundreds of tiny red seeds that were sweet-and-sour and tasted really delicious. These Seed Trees never grew on their side of the Big Green Fence, so the fruit would be proof of their secret expeditions.

Karam had a beautiful, glittering stone. If you looked at it you could see dozens of surfaces that flashed and flickered. Each had its own color, yet all were transparent. Even though the stone was no bigger than a large nut, it looked extremely valuable. Harlo said it was a treasure from the volcano. He knew there were shops in the city that sold rings with these glittering stones. Some of them cost as much as three annual salaries. The Wikkadon women walked around with them on their finger or hung the stones from a chain around their neck. Stones like that were of little use to the Secret Seven. They were pretty to look at, but if you tried to sell them you’d be arrested.

Tara didn’t believe that the Glitter Stones were the only reason the area near the volcano was off-limits. If that were true, why weren’t Wikkadons there all day long, searching for stones? Why didn’t anyone pick the delicious fruits from the Seed Trees? Or the beautiful flowers from the Spiral Bushes? These were bushes with fantastic arms that pointed every which way and twisted over and around each other, holding their flowers up to the sun − beautiful big flowers, like the one Rumbleton had crushed on the kitchen floor at Tara’s house.

It was still early. Tara was the only one at the meeting place. The others would probably be there soon.

“Or maybe that bully and his helper scared them off,” Tara said out loud.

“It’s possible,” said Harlo, and he looked at Tara. “You’re not scared at all?”

“Nope,” said Tara, who really was scared but didn’t want Harlo to know it. “That Rumbleton is such a jerk. He really thought the flower came flying over the Fence.”

“I don’t believe that. What I do believe is that he’s decided to keep an extra close eye on you. So we’ve got to be very careful.”

“Aren’t we going to the other side today, then?”

“I don’t know yet. Let’s talk about it with the others.”

“I want to go,” said Tara, because she was almost sure the others would be too frightened.

“Whatever we do, we can’t bring back anything with us.”

“No. But we can store our secret stones there.”

“That’s an idea,” said Harlo, looking at Tara again.

Actually Harlo had a bit of a crush on Tara, but he didn’t have the nerve to ask her to go steady. Tara wasn’t interested in Harlo, that was obvious. She wasn’t interested in boys at all, at least not the boys in the Secret Seven. Maybe she’d rather have been a boy herself. She wasn’t just brave − she was also very pretty. That’s why Harlo couldn’t take his eyes off her. And that’s why Harlo was willing to go to the tree hut beyond the Fence today, even if none of the others came along. In fact, he thought, that might be even better.

Jawalla was the first to arrive. She came to tell them that today she had to help her father on their hillside garden. After Jawalla left, Johrt and Pert arrived. They were brothers. Johrt wasn’t afraid of anything, and Pert was allowed to come along because Johrt never went anywhere without his little brother. Actually, Pert was the technical genius who had devised the brilliant passageway in the Big Green Fence. Unlike Johrt, he was very small and skinny. Johrt and Pert were always up for an expedition to the other side of the Fence. And because Johrt wasn’t afraid of anything, Pert wasn’t either.

Karam didn’t show up at all, which wasn’t unusual since his parents were very strict. Karam was a boy who could never keep his mouth shut. For instance, if his father said, “Karam, go pick some apples and be quick about it,” Karam would say, “Gosh, Father, I’m really busy with something else right now. Can’t you do it yourself?” − just to tease him.

“What?!” his father would exclaim. “Shake a leg and go pick some apples.”

“What exactly do you want me to do, shake a leg or pick some apples?”

“You ugly little cross-eyed monkey,” his father would say, grabbing Karam by the back of the pants and lifting him off the ground. Karam’s father was big and strong, and Karam was very light. He would swing him high in the air, which Karam thought was lots of fun. But then his father would throw him against the apple tree growing in the garden and spank him. “Go on, you ugly little loafer. Pick those apples.”

“Can I go flying again then?” Karam would ask, although he had to fight off the pain. At that his father would slap his head a few times and fling him against the tree so hard that it shook the apples loose.

“Look. Now nobody has to pick them.”

Veder was the last one to arrive. Like Karam he was very thin. He did have a little round tummy, but there was only air in it. Veder’s real name was Veder Already because he was born much earlier than his mother had expected. He had weighed little more than a chicken at birth and had looked very weak. But his head was big and strong, and everything turned out all right.

Veder also had a special gift. Strange things happened in his big head, just like with Harlo and his rich imagination. Veder didn’t have much of an imagination, but he could report things that were about to happen, and he did it in strange ways. Once, they were in the tree hut, for instance, and suddenly Veder broke into tears. He said his sister had fallen in the water and that she was in terrible trouble. They all ran home, but fortunately Jesra was all right.

The next day Jesra went to the river to wash clothes. She was horsing around with a girlfriend, who was also doing the laundry there. Suddenly Jesra fell in the water. She couldn’t swim and neither could her girlfriend. A boy who was in the bushes nearby heard Jesra screaming and saved her. He had to press down very hard on her chest until the water came spurting out of her mouth and she began to cough and breathe again.

It had happened just as Veder had said.

From that moment the villagers began asking Veder for advice. Usually people wanted to know what the weather would be like the next night. That information was crucial for the fishermen, who went far out to sea in their little boats. When storms arose, many fishermen never returned.

Veder was the only one of the group who went to school, although Harlo had learned a bit of reading and writing from his father. Veder had a book, and he taught the other members of the group everything he knew about the letters and words that were in it. So it was logical for everyone to turn to Veder when he joined the group.

“Do you feel anything, Veder?” asked Tara.

“What should I be feeling, Tara?” Veder asked in reply.

“Well, if it’s safe to go in today,” said Harlo, who felt that as leader of the group he ought to take over the discussion.

“I don’t feel anything,” said Veder, a little bewildered.

“And do you see anything?” asked Tara again.

“Yes, do you see anything about what’s going to happen today?” Harlo added.

“I see all of you,” said Veder.

“Well, sure,” said Harlo. “I see you too. But what’s going to happen if we go to the other side?”

“We’ll be scared out of our wits,” said Veder cheerfully.

“But we always are,” said Pert.

“Yes, but now it’s different because they know we’ve been there.”

“We know that too,” said Tara.

“But it really is different,” said Veder.

“Why?” asked Harlo.

“I don’t know,” said Veder.

3. THE INDECIPHERABLE MESSAGE

You couldn’t even see the place where a small opening had been made in the Big Green Fence. The gate that closed the opening was only three boards high and was located in an almost impenetrable patch of thorns. Most of the Secret Seven could easily crawl through it − except Johrt, who always scraped his back, and Veder, who wasn’t very good at slinking like a tiger.

Once they had hung the gate back up, they would seal the chinks in the boards with sand mixed with the leaf of a plant that contained green pigment. This made it almost impossible to tell that there was a passage going through to the other side.

Today they crept through the Big Green Fence one by one and hid in the thorn bush on the other side. Pert then closed the gate and smeared it shut. There was no path, and they didn’t want to make one, either. That’s why they took a different route every time they went to the tree hut, and they always discovered the strangest plants and trees along the way. The ground gradually ran uphill and they had to make sure they walked under the trees. Otherwise they might be seen by someone scanning the area with a telescope.

It was a half-hour walk to Murai, the name they had given to the big tree in which they had built their hut. They could see the crown of this great forest giant from far away. Because they didn’t wear shoes, they had to be careful about where they put their feet. Not a single expedition passed without someone coming back with a nasty thorn in his or her foot or a wound from a sharp stone.

But when they got to Murai they gasped in alarm. Where their hut once had been there was nothing. The branches that had formed the floor were gone, and so were the vines they had used for ropes to tie the branches together. Nothing was left.

Harlo climbed the tree and checked it carefully to make sure they hadn’t made a mistake and picked the wrong one. Maybe their hut was somewhere else. But there was no doubt about it: this was their tree, and their hut had disappeared into thin air.

“They discovered our hut,” said Tara from below, which everyone thought was more than obvious.

“We’ve got to see if they’re anywhere nearby. Who knows? They may be waiting for us,” said Veder.

Everyone took that remark very seriously because Veder had said it.

“Can you see that?” everyone asked in unison.

“No, no,” said Veder. “It just seems logical.”

“Look,” said Harlo, who had climbed back down and walked around the tree.

They all gathered round him. A large sign was hanging on the trunk of the tree from a big iron nail. There were words written on the sign. You could tell that it was a sign from the Central Authority because it was written with exactly the same colors and letters as the warnings that were hung on the Fence. Harlo and Veder stood right in front of the sign and tried to decipher it. But there was something strange about these words.

Geratska ver dortav deq nortast iritwa kolny werif serty ertub we resry qurer to. C.A.T.

“I haven’t gotten very far with reading,” said Harlo. “What does it say?”

“I don’t recognize a single word,” said Veder.

“It’s not so hard to guess what it says,” said Tara.

“What does it say then?” asked Veder and Harlo together.

“That we’re on very, very forbidden land and that we’ll be put in jail for ten years if we ever come back here again.”

“But how can you read that?” asked Veder.

“I can’t read it, Mr. Know-It-All. It’s just what I think,” said Tara, making a sweeping gesture with her hand as if she too were clairvoyant.

“But they must know that we can only read Tephrish and not this foreign language,” said Veder.

“What do you mean, foreign language?” exclaimed Tara.

“I mean this isn’t Tephrish. It’s a foreign language.”

“Yes, that’s what you said,” said Harlo. “Do you study foreign languages at school too?”

“No, not until the Further School, if I ever get there.”

“But those letters at the bottom,” said Tara. “I certainly know what they mean.”

“Oh yeah?” said Veder and Harlo skeptically.

“Gee, it sounds like you two are sharing the same voice.”

“So what does it mean?” asked Harlo.

“It means the Central Authority of Tephran. Look,” and she pointed to the letters as she repeated what she had said.

“Rats,” said Harlo. “So the Central Authority has hung up a sign with text on it that’s not meant for us.”

“But they don’t know that we can read, do they?” said Johrt, joining in the discussion.

“Yeah, that we can read,” said Pert, who always repeated what his brother said.

“What I think,” said Tara, “is that this message really isn’t meant for us.”

“Who is it meant for then?” asked Veder, shaking his big head back and forth as if that would help him find the answer. “And we have a visitor.”

“I don’t know that either,” said Tara.

No one had paid any attention to the last thing Veder had said. They all just stood there looking at the sign with the strange text.

“Maybe there are people living beyond the Big Green Fence,” said Harlo.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Tara. “They would have come to the beach or the village to have a look around. And what would they live on? Apples from the Seed Tree? Or flowers?”

“But do you actually know how big the rest of the island is beyond the Fence?” asked Harlo. “Have you ever seen a map of the whole island?”

“It so happens I have,” said Tara.

“So, how big is the rest of the island beyond the Fence?”

“I don’t know. The Fence wasn’t on the map.”

“Maybe that part is bigger than our side of the island. Maybe there are lots and lots of people on the other side,” said Harlo.

“Right. And there are monsters with four legs and eight arms who carry off little girls like Jawalla and me. And then you come to rescue us,” Tara said with a laugh. “You’re a storyteller, Harlo, and you know it.”

“But he’s nice,” said Veder.

“Of course he’s nice. Harlo is my best friend. But he’s still a storyteller,” said Tara.

A broad grin spread across Harlo’s face. He was glad to be called Tara’s best friend.

“No, I mean our visitor is nice,” said Veder.

“What visitor?”

“I really don’t know,” muttered Veder.

Everyone looked around with alarm. Was there a visitor? Where was he? They huddled close together and stared into the bushes. Then, without moving, they all turned and looked at Veder, who shrugged his shoulders and seemed a bit bewildered.

Nothing happened. They waited for about five minutes and finally decided that Veder was just talking through his hat. Then they walked into the woods, a bit uncertainly, and went farther up the hill. They never usually came to this spot because you could be seen here from the other side of the Fence. Tara walked faster and faster across the open field. She wanted to get to the edge of the woods that covered part of the slope of the volcano.

They didn’t turn around, as if not seeing anyone meant that no one else would be able to see them. It was nonsense, of course, but it worked. They reached the woods and looked at each other nervously.

“Why did you keep on walking, Tara?” asked Harlo, who felt he was losing control again.

“I had this feeling that I had to come here.”

“Oh, man, you starting in on that crazy talk again?” said Johrt.

“Yeah, you starting in on that crazy talk?” said Pert, by way of repetition.

“What crazy talk?” Tara asked Pert, to tease him.

“Yeah, what crazy talk?” Pert asked his brother without blinking an eye.

“I mean, you just shout something or do something and we’re supposed to come trotting along after you.” Veder frowned at Johrt.

Tara walked through the ferns that covered the forest floor. It was like walking through a green sea that opened up in front of her and closed behind her. There were bushes with flowers she had never seen before. And trees with four or five trunks as thick as human legs that seemed to be all woven together, with strange fruit hanging from the branches. The fruits were large and shaped like drops. When Johrt tore one open with his fingernails, liquid came spurting out. The pulp of the fruit was yellow and tasted delicious. No one was afraid that it might be poisonous because it looked so harmless.

“Look,” said Pert suddenly. “Those look like shoes.”

They all stared at the spot where Pert was pointing. Under a bush they saw the soles of two shoes, and above that a bit of a pair of pants. The shoes moved.

The friends were immediately on their guard. It was obvious that someone was attached to those shoes. They walked cautiously around the bush, and there they saw the face of a boy not much older than they were. His face was very white − at least as far as they could tell, since he was covering his eyes with his hands, as if he could make himself invisible by simply wishing it.

“Hey, who are you?” asked Tara.

“My name is Dado,” said Dado, and he lowered his hands. “Dado Palmeri. I was hiding. Usually you don’t come here.”

“What do you mean?” asked Harlo. “Have you been spying on us?”

“Sometimes,” said Dado. “When you play in your hut. I watch you from here.”

“The hut is gone,” said Johrt.

“Yeah, the hut is gone,” said Pert.

“Yes, I think the police have been here. There’s a sign there now,” said Dado.

“Can you read it?” asked Tara.

“No.” Dado looked at Tara and Tara looked at Dado.

Tara thought he was a nice boy for a Wikkadon, since that much was obvious: Dado was a Wikkadon. He was tall and his hair was almost white. He had a friendly look in his eyes. He wore a shirt with a jacket over it and long pants with creases you could see. He was also wearing a wide tie. The tie was bright green. All that came from an ironing press, a machine you only saw in the closets of very rich families.

“I also don’t think it’s a language from the Old World. It’s a strange language.”

“Do you study languages from the Old World at school?” asked Veder.

“Yes, I go to the Further School in the city. But this is a very strange language,” said Dado, and he looked at Tara.

She smiled, and when that happened Dado began to grin from ear to ear. It made Tara blush. She couldn’t remember ever having seen such a sweet grin. Dado became shy again and began fiddling with his tie.

“What are you doing here?” asked Harlo, who also had the feeling that something was happening between Tara and this new guy.

“I’m mapping out the area beyond the Big Green Fence.”

“What did you say?” said Harlo.

“I’m making a map of this whole area. I’m an explorer. Look ….”

He pulled a roll of double-folded paper from his inside pocket and rolled it out on the ground. Tara and the boys gathered around it. And sure enough, there on the paper was the beginning of a map. There were numbers written on it.

“That says how high it is here,” said Dado. “It’s just an estimate, of course, but it’s really quite accurate.”

“But why are you making this map?” asked Tara in an extremely friendly way. A little too friendly, in Harlo’s opinion.

“Yeah, what’s the point?”

“I …” Apparently Dado had to reveal something about himself and he didn’t want to blurt it out. So he took a deep breath and said, “It’s for the future.”

“Yes,” said Veder. “That map of yours is going to be very useful to us.”

Everyone looked at Veder with respect because he was a specialist when it came to the future. But Veder had no more to say. And everyone knew that at a moment like this it was pointless to keep asking him questions.

Johrt pointed to the map and tapped on a spot with his finger.

“That’s our tree, this is the open field and we’re sitting here near this bush. So if we keep on walking …?”

Pert wanted to repeat what his brother had said but it was too long.

“Then we get to a small lake and a little waterfall,” said Dado, and pointed to it on the map. “It’s dangerous there.”

“It’s dangerous there,” said Pert, and everyone was surprised. Not only because Pert had imitated Dado instead of his brother, but also because of what he had said.

“Why?” asked Johrt, and now Pert was completely confused.

“There are dadombos there.”

“Dadombos?!” they all cried out at once.

“Yes, animals, about this big.” Dado spread his arms out as far as he could and then reached one hand far above his head. “They have dangerous teeth and a very long tail. They look a little like a lizard, but super big. Not as flat as a crocodile. They have scales and they’re very fast.”

“Yikes. If only we had our tree hut again,” said Tara.

“That doesn’t help. They climb trees, faster than the fastest monkey.”

“Not bad. I’m glad we bumped into you,” said Tara.

“Yes, and that’s why it’s handy to have a map,” said Dado.

“But why are these animals called dadombos? They have the same name as you,” said Harlo.

“I discovered them, so I named them after me,” said Dado, sounding quite authoritative. “And there’s one other thing I forgot to tell you. They only eat leaves and grass.”

Everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

“But they can crush you with one slap of their tail.”

At that, everyone tensed up again.

“Shall we take a look? I’d really like to see them,” said Tara, who simply wasn’t the type that scared easily.

They all looked at one another and no one dared to object, knowing that if they did they’d be more frightened than the only girl in the group.

Dado went first, with Johrt right behind him. They were coming to a place they had never been to before. The vegetation grew thicker and thicker, yet Dado always managed to find a way through, or he made one by pushing the branches and bushes aside. This was something he was quite good at, and he was also very fast. The Secret Seven did their best to keep up with him − except for Johrt, perhaps, but he had his brother Pert in tow.

It was also getting darker. The forest closed in over their heads like a densely forming ceiling, which meant that there was much less growth on the ground.

Finally there were only ferns, and even they became thinner and thinner. They fluttered over the soft forest floor, which consisted of a kind of moss they had never seen before. It was so soft that you almost sank in up to your ankles, and it was deep purple instead of green. Ahead of them they suddenly saw a patch of light, and the closer they came the larger it grew.

It was an amazing place. At Dado’s instructions they made a detour, moving downwind from the light patch. This way the dadombos couldn’t smell them, Dado explained, since their sense of smell was very keen. The friends saw a lovely little lake pressed up against a rock, with a waterfall thundering into it from a height of over thirty feet.

Suddenly there they were: about ten dadombos jostling each other to get to the lake. It was easy to reach the water because it was edged by a narrow beach.

The dadombos looked terrifying. Two huge crooked teeth protruded from their mouths, and they had two big eyes that could turn in every direction. They were as tall as Johrt and twice his height in length. The skin of the dadombos was green and muddy, and their legs were as wide as the lower trunk of a tree.

“Eeeuw,” shouted Pert, and everyone turned to him in horror.