The Explorer - Tapa dura

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Katherine Rundell is the author of Rooftoppers, Cartwheeling in Thunderstorms (a Boston Globe–Horn Book Award winner), The Wolf Wilder, The Explorer, The Good Thieves, and The Zebra’s Great Escape. She grew up in Zimbabwe, Brussels, and London, and is currently a Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford. She begins each day with a cartwheel and believes that reading is almost exactly the same as cartwheeling: it turns the world upside down and leaves you breathless. In her spare time, she enjoys walking on tightropes and trespassing on the rooftops of Oxford colleges.

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The Explorer

Flight

LIKE A MAN-MADE MAGIC wish, the Airplane began to rise.

The boy sitting in the cockpit gripped his seat and held his breath as the plane roared and climbed into the arms of the sky. Fred’s jaw was set with concentration, and his fingers followed the movements of the pilot beside him: fuel gauge, throttle, joystick.

The airplane vibrated as it flew faster, following the swerve of the Amazon River below them. Fred could see the reflection of the six-seater plane, a spot of black on the vast sweep of blue as it sped toward Manaus, the city on the water. He brushed his hair out of his eyes and pressed his forehead against the window.

Behind Fred sat a girl and her little brother. They had the same slanted eyebrows and the same brown skin, the same long eyelashes. The girl had been shy, hugging her parents until the last possible moment at the airfield; now she was staring down at the water, singing under her breath. Her brother was trying to eat his seat belt.

In the next row, on her own, sat a pale girl with blond hair down to her waist. Her blouse had a neck ruffle that came up to her chin, and she kept tugging it down and grimacing. She was determinedly not looking out the window.

The airfield they had just left had been dusty and almost deserted, just a strip of tarmac under the ferocious Brazilian sun. Fred’s cousin had insisted that he wear his school uniform, and now, inside the hot airless cabin, Fred felt like he was being gently cooked inside his own skin.

The engine gave a whine, and the pilot frowned and tapped the joystick. He was old and soldierly, with brisk nostril hair and a gray waxed mustache that seemed to reject the usual laws of gravity. He touched the throttle, and the plane soared upward, higher into the clouds.

It was almost dark when Fred first began to worry. The pilot began to belch, first quietly, then violently and repeatedly. His hand gave a sudden jerk, and the plane dipped drunkenly to the left. Someone screamed behind Fred. The plane lurched away from the river and over the canopy.

Fred stared at the man; he was turning the same shade of gray as his mustache. “Are you all right, sir?” he asked.

The pilot grunted, gasped, and wound back the throttle, slowing the engine. He gave a cough that sounded like a choke.

“Is there something I can do?” asked Fred.

Fighting for breath, the pilot shook his head. He reached over to the control panel and cut the engine. The roar ceased. The nose of the plane dipped downward. The trees rose up.

“What’s happening?” asked the blond girl sharply. “What’s he doing? Make him stop!”

The little boy in the back began to shriek. The pilot grasped Fred’s wrist, hard, for a single moment; then his head slumped against the dashboard.

And the sky, which had seconds before seemed so reliable, gave way.