The Extraordinary Voyage of Katy Willacott by Sharon Gosling

Author:Sharon Gosling
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Stripes Publishing
Published: 2022-04-15T00:00:00+00:00

Later, they all went back into Grandfather’s hut to eat the food that Theo had prepared. The old man wanted to hear all about the city and their journey. Between them they told the tale, with Katy joining in to detail the return trip upriver and through the rainforest. Then Grandfather told Theo that he wanted to hear Katy’s story of how she came to the jungle in the first place.

“Oh,” Katy said a little awkwardly, because even though the version of the truth she could tell them was eventful enough, she still wouldn’t be telling them the whole story. “Well, I came on a boat.”

“A canoe, like ours?” Celia piped up.

“No, it was much bigger. Big enough to cross an ocean.”

Theo relayed this to Grandfather, who wanted to know more. “He wants to know everything,” Theo said. “In the same way we told him about the trip into the city and back. Come on, William. Start right at the beginning, when you were still at home.”

There was that name again. Katy shifted uncomfortably because she didn’t like the idea of telling her new friends a lie, and yet she had been living one since she met them, and could not tell the whole story of how she had ended up in Salvador without revealing her truth. She thought about how to start. As she looked up she noticed that Grandfather seemed to be watching her very carefully. Did he know? Had he seen through her disguise in a way Theo and Celia – and everyone else she’d met on this journey – hadn’t?

“All right,” Katy said eventually. “Well, I live in a place called Kew, in a botanical garden…”

She told them as much as she could without giving herself away completely. She described how she got the job aboard the Alerte, because Derby was coming to Brazil to find a meteorite, just like Katy wanted to herself. When she got to the storm, Celia gasped. Theo looked at her with a new sort of respect.

“Did you really do all that?” Celia whispered.

“Yes,” Katy said. “Now I’m here with you and more than anything I want to find a meteorite to take back with me for the museum. Do you think your grandfather would be able to help me?”

Theo relayed Katy’s question and then frowned at his grandfather’s answer, asking more questions before finally turning to Katy.

“He says one fell in the Old Place,” Theo says. “I think he just means the rainforest, but he’s never called it that before.”

Katy’s heart sank. “He doesn’t know where exactly?”

Theo shrugged. “You’ve seen the rainforest. What do you think?”

The old man seemed to understand their discussion, because he got up and went to the door. The three of them followed him outside. It was dark now and above the little clearing where the village stood, the stars shone brightly. Grandfather walked a few paces and then pointed into the dense wall of jungle to the east, speaking as he did so.

“He’s saying the Old Place again,” Theo said.

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