Oliver Strange and the Journey to the Swamps - Dianne Hofmeyr

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      The setting sun made a fire across the sky that leapt into their compartment as they ate at the small fold-out table. He was hungrier than he thought even though the chicken seemed to have pieces of orange pumpkin mixed in with it. Then just as quickly the fire went out of the sky and the trees turned into dark silhouettes.

      Ollie climbed onto his bunk and lay up close to the window and stared out through his reflection into the greenish light. The moon was coming up already: a huge round mother-of-pearl button stuck on a pale velvet coat against an outline of trees with flat tops and even stranger ones that seemed to be growing upside down with their roots in the air.

      It was odd. Here he was in Africa watching the moon and Grandma was watching the same moon rising over the rooftops in Tooting.

      Tooting suddenly seemed a zillion, million miles away.

      Everything was odd.

      It was odd his aunt hadn’t been there to meet him.

      It was odd to be hurtling across Africa on a train.

      And odd to be sharing a compartment with a girl.

      Zinzi had already settled down with her earphones glued to her ears. He took out his notebook and his torch, then discovered there was a little overhead reading light, so he slipped his torch into his shirt pocket.

      It probably wasn’t a good idea to tell Grandma about the python or baboon spiders or that Aunt Hortense hadn’t been at the airport to meet him.

      He nibbled his pencil and then began writing.

      He tore the page from his notebook, folded it and stuffed it into an envelope he had brought along. Then without bothering to get undressed or brush his teeth he switched off the light and lay back and listened to the wheels of the train singing …

      We’re going to I-la-la. We’re going to find your fa-ther.

      We’re going to I-la-la. We’re going to find your fa-ther.

      Zinzi was right. The top bunk was exactly like being up in a tree.

      He snuggled deeper into his sleeping bag.

      He woke with a start as something landed on his stomach. He lay dead still, not even moving an eyelid, and waited. It wasn’t heavy enough to be a python.

      He sat up and bumped his head on the ceiling.

      “Ouch!”

      There was a squeal and a small shape went flying up into the luggage rack above him.

      He felt for his torch in his pocket. Two luminous yellow eyes reflected back at him in the dark like two bright torch lights.

      “Bobo!” he hissed as she leapt to the rack on the opposite side of the compartment. The splint on her leg didn’t seem to bother her in the least.

      Ollie leant down from his bunk. “Zinzi! Wake up!”

      The lump on the bunk below stirred. “What?”

      “Bobo’s jumping about.”

      “That’s what bushbabies do at night.”

      “All night?”

      “Go to sleep, Ollie,” Zinzi mumbled.

      “I can’t. Not with her flying about.”

      “She’ll settle down when the sun comes up.”

      Ollie peered out through the window into the night. “That’s not for ages.”

      “If you sing her a lemur lullaby, she’ll quieten down.”

      A lemur lullaby? This girl was weird. “I don’t know any lemur lullabies!”

      He could hear Zinzi already breathing deeply again. He lay back in his bunk. “Rock-a-Bye Baby” might be a good one for a lemur. At least it had trees in it. He began singing. Sure enough, Bobo sat still and watched from the bottom of his bunk.

      The lullaby must have put him to sleep too, because he woke with Zinzi shaking him. “Wake up, Ollie! We’re here.”

      The compartment was flooded with bright sunshine. He’d slept in his clothes and by the looks of Zinzi so had she. He glanced out the window. “Is this Kasane?”

      “No. The Victoria Falls. We have to catch a bus to Kasane. But if we hurry there’s time to see the Zambezi and the Falls – Mosi-oa-Tunya – the smoke that thunders.”

      3

      Mosi-oa-Tunya

      The Victoria Falls station was hardly a train station at all. There was no platform. Just a strip of gritty cement that was a long jump down from the last step on the train.

      As Ollie jumped, his train ticket fell from his pocket into the dirt. Printed in large capitals he saw the name … OLIVIA STRANGE.

      Olivia! No wonder he had been put in a compartment with a girl. His aunt or whoever had issued the ticket wasn’t a very good speller.

      OLIVIA!

      He snatched up the ticket before Zinzi could see.

      The air was hot and steamy with an earthy smell of growing things. A hot, mouldering, jungle odour of mango and manure and something sweet-smelling like vanilla ice cream.

      Ollie sniffed deeply.

      “Frangipani flowers,” Zinzi said.

      Women in bright wraps sat under umbrellas on straw mats that were piled high with pyramids of corn cobs, peanuts, oranges, mangoes and watermelons as fat and round as babies. Monkeys kept jumping down from the trees to steal oranges and peanuts. The women shooed them away with their umbrellas. Under a palm-leaf awning, some were selling woven baskets. Crocheted white tablecloths hung like giant snowflakes from thorn trees. A sharp tang of oil came from a man polishing some hippo carvings. They glowed and gleamed so that when Ollie touched one, it felt as if energy was pushing right out from under his fingers.

      “Don’t waste time!” Zinzi was dragging an old, rusted supermarket trolley across the dust. “We have to be quick. Load up our things and let’s get them to the bus.” She pointed in the direction of an ancient vehicle belching smoke.

      Sweat was pouring off Ollie by the time they had crammed all the crates and bags into the luggage space under the bus.

      At least there was a floor between him and the python now. With any luck, the thick, black fumes would make the snake sleepier.

      Zinzi handed him a can of Coke. It was warm and the bubbles caught at Ollie’s throat.

      She bought some mangoes and a few cobs of corn from a vendor’s roasting drum and gave Ollie a quick look. “Your pale skin’s a giveaway. Don’t act English.”

      “Why?”

      “You’ll be charged the tourists’ entrance fee into the rain­forest. Locals get in cheaper.” Zinzi laughed. “Your neck’s going red already! Hang a hanky from the back of your cap so you don’t burn. Red necks are a sure sign that you’re a tourist.”

      At the entrance gate to the rainforest, Zinzi handed in the exact amount of money for two local tickets.

      Ollie heard a booming, thundering sound and there were tremors running beneath the earth under his feet. Through dripping trees he saw huge clouds of smoke billowing into the air.

      Except it wasn’t smoke. It was water vapour.

      A boy tried to sell them some plastic garbage bags with holes cut for the arms and neck, but Zinzi found a few discarded ones which they pulled on.

      A man in a raincoat, sheltering under a big black umbrella,

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