Deadly Sky (ePub), The by Hill David

Author:Hill, David
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781743486085
Publisher: Penguin New Zealand
Published: 2013-03-04T05:00:00+00:00

FIFTEEN

What’s she on about now? Darryl wondered, as he and his mum ate lunch. The shutters were open, the dining room filled with quiet light. Is she planning a protest march here on Mangareva? Is that why she was talking to that Raoul guy? How come she knows him, anyway?

More likely she was just behaving like that to feel important. Anyway, he grinned to himself, it would be hard to have a protest march in a place where you’ve got hardly any roads.

As they left the dining room, Napoleon called after them. ‘Madame Day-vees! Monsieur Dah-reel! You like to visit the reef? Very beautiful; very many fish.’

Great, Darryl thought; he’d been hoping Napoleon would take them there. His mother nodded. ‘Merci bien. Thank you. I’ll come for a while, then I need to start writing my report. You want to go, don’t you, son?’ Darryl nodded. Too right he did.

Napoleon looked pleased. ‘You meet Alicia here … Oh, one hour.’

Alicia! Aw, no. ‘I help friend with his pearl farm, so I am busy,’ Napoleon went on. He held something out to Darryl. ‘You book is here. Alicia say to thank you.’

Mum can talk to her, Darryl decided, as he took Deadly Cloud. I’ll keep clear.

‘There is a visitor for dinner,’ Napoleon was saying now. ‘I must catch more fish after I help my friend. Au revoir.’ He moved off. A visitor, thought Darryl. Someone from the church, probably. Mum can talk to them, too.

Darryl sat in the shade of a tall shrub with red flowers while he waited for his mother and Alicia.

‘Dah-reel?’ He jerked as the girl spoke. She was wearing a blue and red dress with no sleeves. She smiled, and her teeth did that flashing thing again. ‘You will visit the reef?’

Darryl realised he was staring: the smile, the sudden friendliness, the dark hair and eyes. Quickly, he went: ‘Yeah. Yeah, sure. How do we get out there? By boat?’

The girl shook her head. ‘We walk. I will show.’

Mrs Davis came out of the lodge, holding her camera. ‘We’ve still got enough photos left. The reef sounds a good place to take some.’

She wore white shorts and a striped top. Alicia gazed at her. ‘You are pretty.’

Darryl’s mother touched the girl’s arm. ‘Thank you, dear. So are you.’

How about we stop all the soppy talk? Darryl went to himself.

But she was right: his mum did look pretty. Pretty and younger, somehow.

‘You have shoes?’ Alicia glanced down at their feet. ‘Good. The reef is sharp.’

‘How about you?’ Darryl’s mother peered at the bare brown toes. The girl giggled. ‘My uncle say my feet is – are – hard. Even harder than my head, he say.’

She led them along the beach, in the opposite direction from where he’d headed to climb Mount (Mount!) Duff. ‘We walk on reef there.’ She pointed towards the far end of the sand, where a dark line led out into the sea.

‘No sharks, I hope?’ asked Mrs Davis.

The girl nodded. ‘Sometime. Not now.’ As the other two stared, she said, ‘They swim north in winter, to warm parts.

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