The Promised One (6 page)

‘What on earth are you two up to?’ Grandma, hearing the commotion, came through from the kitchen and found the pair hiding like naughty children under the window. Then she looked out, and soon all three of them were giggling together on the floor.

Eventually Grandma returned to the kitchen to check on her cooking and Lucy went to the telephone. A few moments later Grandpa heard her peals of laughter as she told Clare and Sarah about Mr Whitehead. As he started to lay the table, he pondered over the extraordinary situation that had come about in which she was at one moment someone with apparently complete dominion over the animal kingdom, and the next, just a mischievous little girl.

The next day Lucy went off to the dolphinarium again. Grandma was going shopping and they set off together. As they left the house some workmen were repairing the drain in the road outside and Lucy was amused to see that Mr Whitehead’s shoe was still stuck in it. While she and
Grandpa were hiding he must have hopped home with one shoe missing, a sight she would have loved to have seen. She decided to arrange some further entertainment involving animals and Mr Whitehead before she went home and to borrow Grandpa’s camcorder so she could take a record of the fun back for her sisters.

Jonathan and his companions were overjoyed to see Lucy again and Catherine, still looking somewhat puzzled by the events of the previous day, reported that Clara had taken her tablet that morning without any fuss at all. Soon Lucy was able to sit down and chat in peace with Jonathan and tell him about her conversation with her grandparents.

‘The Sagacious Ones have said many wise things,’
said the dolphin when she had finished,
‘and it is well that you have spoken to them. It was never said that the Promised One would be a child and they are right that we should wait until the proper time before you fulfil your destiny; we have waited for many aeons hitherto and in comparison with the immensity of those ages you will become a woman in the flutter of a dolphin’s tail. Yet it would be good for us all if you could do something even now and it would be best if you chose to assist some animals that are close to your heart. It is said that there are two that you hold particularly dear: one is a marsupihop and the other is one of the Terrible Ones. These you keep at your side while the Brilliant One sleeps.’

Lucy gaped at him. He must be talking about her cuddly bedtime toys, Kanga Kangaroo and Jackie Jaguar.

‘How can you know of these things?’
she said at last.

‘We spoke yesterday of what you called the animanet,’
the dolphin replied.
‘This is only used in very special times but the
life and movements of the Promised One are special to all animals. There is nothing on earth that we value more highly than your well-being. We know about your home and your possessions and henceforth your whereabouts will always be known to us.’

‘So,’ thought Lucy, ‘blabbermouth Tibbles has been talking about my toys over the animanet.’

The dolphin continued.

‘I shall be speaking today to those who know the marsupihops to see if they need your help; I cannot, however, speak yet to the Terrible Ones for I know not what kind of Terrible One it is that you cherish. We know of the great manefang that lives south of the Great Sands on the plains where run the striped horse and the endless herds of clovenkin; the fleetfang that can outrun even the clovenkin, and the spotfang that hunts from the trees; then there is the stripedfang who lives where the Brilliant One rises, or there are the Terrible Ones over the Great Salt where the Brilliant One sleeps – the mountainfang in the north and the junglefang in the south. Which of these Terrible Ones is it your desire to assist?’

‘Hmmm,’ thought Lucy, ‘so clever-clogs Tibbles isn’t so hot on her big cats – she doesn’t know exactly what Jackie is.’ The dolphin obviously didn’t know whether Tibbles meant a lion, a cheetah, a leopard, a tiger, a cougar or a jaguar. She spoke to the dolphin.

‘I respect and admire all those Terrible Ones of which you speak, but the one that I have loved since I was very young is the junglefang.’

‘I shall speak to those who know the junglefang today,’
he replied.
‘My own kin live in the great river of the junglefang, and I shall speak with you again after the Brilliant One has slept.’
‘But how can you speak to those so far away? Is it with the fledgiquills you do this?’

‘No, O Promised One, the fledgiquills can fly at great speed – faster than any other living creature – but even they cannot reach us from the lands of the marsupihop or the junglefang in but a single sunsleep. No, it is through the Great Ones that we speak. They learn of matters far away through the Great Salt and when I swim in the Great Salt today I can speak to them.’

Lucy remembered that the dolphinarium was now connected to the sea, so Jonathan would be able to speak to wild dolphins and whales, but she had no idea how that was going to help him to communicate overnight with Australia and South America.

‘We will speak again when the Brilliant One rises once more,’
continued the dolphin,
‘but before you take your leave I have a question that has perplexed the Great Ones and all their kin since the beginning of time. Perhaps you would ask the Sagacious Ones, though I fear that even they may not know the answer to the mystery of which I speak.’
Lucy was fascinated.

‘What is the mystery?’
she asked.

‘The Great Ones that pass for league upon league through the Great Salt have discovered a secret that is known only to those that can journey for many moons across waters far from those that they know and love. It is said – and I only know what others have told me – that if a Great One follows the path of the Brilliant One, then after many, many leagues there are other lands – the lands where live the junglefang and the mountainfang.’

Lucy nodded; she had already noticed that the dolphin recognized her head movements for what they were.

‘The Great Salt flows around those lands, close to the Great Ice,’
the dolphin continued,
‘and if, beyond them, the Brilliant One is followed once more for an immense distance there are yet other lands which the Great Salt also passes. It is said – and here is the great mystery – that, when many such lands have been passed, the Great Salt once again becomes that part from which this great journey began. I know not if this can be true for it seems as if nothing could be so – yet my father, and my father’s father, told me that they had heard this from many Great Ones and I have also heard it tell that there are fledgiquills who say the same: if they fly always towards the Brilliant One and never turn back, then one day they arrive once more in the place whence they came. Do you think the Sagacious Ones will believe what I have told you?’

Lucy was in a quandary. Should she herself embark upon an explanation of the dolphin’s ‘mystery’ or should she pretend to consult her grandparents? The latter course seemed like a bit of a cop-out and she thought that it might be easier to do things first hand – it would in any case enhance the profile of the Promised One in the eyes of the animals for her to know the answer to such mysteries even when not yet grown to full womanhood. She went to the side of the pool where there was a netted pen containing rings and other inflatable playthings that Catherine used when the public came to see the dolphins performing. There was a large ball in the pen and Lucy brought this over to Jonathan.

‘The mystery of which you speak is known to us Tailless Ones,’
she said,
‘and in the houses we build to sail on the Great Salt
and the steel thunderquills that roar in the air we have found all that you have heard to be true. I can tell you why it is so, but I know not if you will understand.’
She then successfully explained the spherical nature of the earth using the ball, but Jonathan was unable to understand why the Great Salt didn’t fall off the bottom, despite his effortless use of gravity in his aquabatic and aerobatic feats. Finally he spoke:

‘It is said that the Tailless Ones know of many things that we can never know and I see that this is true – that, indeed, is why we need one of you to help us in our task. It is sufficient for me to know that the mysterious thing that Great Ones and their kin have told me is true, and I can now tell them that this has been said by the Promised One.’

Lucy then answered several more questions that he had obviously been saving up to ask her.

The time had passed so quickly while they were talking that Lucy was astonished when Grandma and Grandpa appeared to take her to lunch.

‘I’d no idea it was lunchtime already,’ she said. ‘We’ve talked about so many things – I can’t wait to tell you about them!’

They went to a pizza parlour on the seafront that Lucy had had her eye on for a couple of days and she wasn’t disappointed. Between mouthfuls of her favourite pizza combination, ham and pineapple, she told her grandparents about her morning and, as they listened to their granddaughter talking earnestly about the difficulty of explaining that the world wasn’t flat to a dolphin, they
had to keep reminding themselves that they weren’t in some bizarre dream. After lunch Grandma left to take the old lady next door to a hospital appointment, and Grandpa and Lucy went for a walk along the seafront.

‘I
’ve so much to tell you about today,’ started Lucy, ‘but first I must ask you about something Jonathan said a couple of days ago which I forgot during our chat yesterday.’

‘Go on,’ said Grandpa, his interest already aroused. He was finding these discussions with his granddaughter fascinating.

‘Well, when I asked him about the Promised One, he said something very strange. He said that there had been four others before me that the animals had thought to be The One. From what he said they were all men, but one of them, the most recent one, said that the real Promised One would be a woman – a
woman
, by the way, not a girl.’

‘Did he give you any details?’ Grandpa was beside himself with interest.

‘Yes, but I didn’t understand them. The first man lived what Jonathan called “long, long ago” and at a time when dolphins from the “Middle Salt” could swim across mountains rising from the sand. What on earth does that all mean?’

‘The Middle Salt must be the Mediterranean Sea,’ said
Grandpa excitedly. ‘The dolphins would have known even before man that it is almost completely enclosed by land – in the middle of the land – and the only way in and out before the Suez Canal was built was through the straits of Gibraltar. As for swimming over mountains that Mediterranean dolphins could get to – well, you know the answer to that one, Lucy!’

She thought for a moment.

‘Give me a clue.’

‘When you get home look in the Old Testament of the Bible. The Book of Genesis.’

‘Don’t be mean, Gramps. I can’t wait till we get home! Give me an easier clue.’

Grandpa grinned.

‘OK, who springs to your mind when you think about somebody who could get animals – lots of different animals – to do what he wanted? And who lived during a period when the waters covered the land so deep that dolphins could swim over mountains?’

‘Noah!’ exclaimed Lucy. ‘Of course, he must have been able to do things just the same as I can. How else could he have got the animals to go into the Ark – and not eat each other up during the voyage? No wonder the animals thought the Promised One had arrived! I should really’ve got that one myself, shouldn’t I?’

‘Never mind,’ said Grandpa. ‘It’s very difficult to connect what you are hearing in the reality of here and now with stories relating to things that happened thousands of years ago. What I’m totally amazed by is the fact that an ancient
legend that humans have passed down through the ages in the Bible has also been preserved in the animal kingdom solely by word of mouth. It’s all but incredible. Who’s next? This is just like a quiz show!’

‘The next sounded very interesting and I’m sure you’ll know the answer. He lived in the lands of sand from which the Brilliant One rises to warm the Middle Salt.’

‘So,’ said Grandpa. ‘He lived in the desert lands to the east of the Mediterranean. That narrows it down, but it still covers an awful lot of countries. Did he give any other clues?’

‘Well, he said something about a city on a great river in the sand with lots of flowers – oh yes, he said, “trees and flowers such as had never been seen before in those desolate places”.’

Grandpa strolled along, deep in thought.

‘“such as had never been seen”,’ he murmured, ‘Of course!’ His face lit up. ‘The Hanging Gardens of Babylon – one of the Seven Wonders of the World. This was the city built in the middle of the desert on the river Euphrates by a famous king called Nebuchadrezzar. But who on earth …? I’ve got it!’ he said in triumph. ‘It’s Daniel. Have you heard of Daniel?’ He turned to Lucy.

‘Do you mean the man in the story of Daniel and the Lions’ Den?’

‘Yes,’ said Grandpa. ‘Well done! Nebuchadrezzar had Daniel thrown into a den of lions expecting him to be torn to pieces, but he walked out completely unharmed. The power given to him to do that was presumably the
same power that you’ve been given. There’s no other explanation. Who’s next?’ he asked eagerly. They had come to a bench in a stone shelter facing the sea and they sat down as they talked.

‘I can’t believe how well you’re solving these puzzles,’ said Lucy. ‘I wasn’t sure if we’d get any, and now there’s only two to go. They both lived in the land of olives and the great mountain of fire – or something like that – and the first lived in the City of the Seven Hills.’

‘The Seven Hills is another name for Rome,’ said Grandpa, ‘and of course the mountain of fire must be the great volcano Vesuvius – we’re talking about Italy.’

‘Well, that’s all I know about him,’ said Lucy. ‘Any ideas?’

‘None at the moment; let’s leave him and come back to him. Who came last?’

‘Now, he’s
really
mysterious. He talked to lots of animals and – wait for this – he had a ring of fire round his head that stayed there till the day he died.’

Grandpa fell deep into thought once again.

‘I know who this is,’ he said after a few moments, ‘and so do you. But I can see why you didn’t understand the ring of fire. Pictures with rings of fire in them aren’t so much in fashion as they used to be and you probably haven’t seen many.’

‘Many? I don’t think I’ve seen any!’ said Lucy, mystified.

‘I think the “ring of fire” must be a halo,’ said Grandpa. ‘Does that help?’

‘A saint!’ exclaimed Lucy. ‘He was a saint. I know – it was St Francis of Assisi!’

‘Well done,’ said Grandpa. ‘I’m sure that’s who it must have been.’ He paused for a moment. ‘It’s fascinating that the animals could actually
see
his halo – they obviously do have some kind of sixth sense that enables them to detect things that are invisible to humans.’ They both fell silent for a few moments, marvelling at the thought of animals being able to perceive the halo of a saint.

‘Wasn’t there a story,’ said Lucy, returning to their discussion, ‘about someone who took a thorn out of a lion’s paw? It always seemed a bit unlikely to me that the lion would have let him get anywhere near a sore paw, never mind poke around at it!’

‘You’ve got it!’ exclaimed Grandpa. ‘Androcles and the lion. He was a Roman slave – so that fits perfectly with the Seven Hills story. Like you, I’ve always wondered about that
thorn-in-the-paw story. It makes so much more sense if we assume Androcles possessed your power.’

‘I’m really glad that we’ve solved these “mystery men”,’ said Lucy. ‘Knowing about these famous people and thinking that they had the same power as I have makes me feel less of an oddity and more part of a plan which is somehow going to end in something good.’

Grandpa was thrilled to hear her say this. He and Grandma had been very worried by the fact that her powers seemed to make her different from all other humans – even her own family. Yet now she could relate to other people, all of them apparently good or even saintly, who had shared her gifts, and this made her part of something she clearly believed would be of benefit to all creatures.
They sat thinking for a while, looking at the sea and the waves crashing endlessly on the shore.

‘Now,’ Grandpa said eventually, ‘what about today’s developments?’

‘Well, Jonathan seemed very comfortable with your idea of my only doing something I can cope with while I’m still at school. They’ve already asked Tibbles about my cuddly toys – can you believe it? – and he’s going to find out whether the kangaroos or the jaguars have any problems for me to think about. Now that’s something I need to ask you about; well, two things really. The first is that he said his own kin lived in the great river of the junglefangs – that’s jaguars by the way. I thought that dolphins only lived in the sea.’

‘The great river of the junglefangs has to be the Amazon and its tributaries,’ said Grandpa, ‘but I certainly didn’t know dolphins went up it. Let’s look it up after tea. What was the other thing?’

‘That’s even more intriguing. He says he’s going to check out things with the kangaroos and the jaguars and let me know
tomorrow
. When I asked him how he could do that, he said he did it through the whales; that they spoke
through
the Great Salt. What does that mean, and how can it possibly work faster than a bird can fly?’

Once more Grandpa became excited by what she had said.

‘Whale song,’ he said. ‘Of course! Whales can sing under water,’ he explained to Lucy, ‘and they use the special noises they make to communicate over thousands of miles.
Sound travels more than four times as fast under water as it does through the air, so it travels vast distances very quickly. Not only that, but there’s a special “sound channel” about one kilometre below the surface that’s something to do with the physics of seawater and temperature and all sorts of complicated things. Anyway this channel – I think the scientists call it the SOFAR channel – can transmit sounds for thousands and thousands of miles around the earth under the water and it’s thought that whales use this channel for their songs.’

‘What does SOFAR stand for?’ asked Lucy, fascinated. She wasn’t quite sure if she believed what Grandpa was telling her.

‘I’m not sure exactly – something like “sound fixing and ranging” – we can look it up on the internet when we get home. The physicists have known about it for ages and submarines used to use it if their radios didn’t work. Once, the noise of an underwater bomb set off in Australia was heard over three hours later in Bermuda; the noise had travelled round half the world under the sea. It’s thought that, before ships’ engines made so much noise, whales could use sound and infrasound to communicate over thousands of miles. Now it’s much more difficult for them because of all the noise generated by manmade things – another example of how man, even unconsciously, can mess up things that animals have taken millions of years of evolution to attain. Apparently whales can “shout”, however. A blue whale can generate more noise than a jet aeroplane, so we think they can still communicate over vast distances despite
man’s interference with their systems, and that, presumably, is how your Jonathan will find out overnight what’s happening in Australia and South America.’

Lucy was impressed. ‘That’s really spooky,’ she said at last, ‘and I’m just thinking how useful that’s going to be in the future.’

‘How do you mean?’ asked Grandpa.

‘Well, I don’t know exactly what I’m going to end up doing for the animals,’ said Lucy, ‘but whatever it is, it has to be a good thing for me to be able to use that kind of long-distance messaging service.’

Grandpa agreed and was struck by the fact that she was already thinking about the future possible use of her special powers. That evening he took down his big book on the River Amazon and gave it to Lucy.

‘Dolphins – here we are,’ said Lucy, running her finger down the index. She turned to the appropriate page and began to read. ‘Gosh,’ she said, ‘Jonathan was right. There are special river dolphins that go deep into the jungle along the river.’

Her eye wandered down the page which was full of interesting details of the many other creatures inhabiting the river: half of all the freshwater species of fish; giant otters and electric eels that could stun or even kill a man with a shock of several hundred volts. Fascinated, Lucy decided to read the book properly and turned to the beginning where she read about the Amazon itself. The river, the largest in the world, apparently carried one-fifth of all the running fresh water on the planet and was up to
sixty-five kilometres wide in places. The Amazon rainforest was by far the largest on earth and contained the greatest diversity of animal and plant species to be found anywhere. She read of the many different benefits that had come from the plants of the rainforest: rubber, which had changed the world in countless ways; hundreds of medicines including the first cure for malaria;
chicle
, the sap from which chewing gum was made; the
cacao
tree from which chocolate was made; and how there were vast numbers of unknown plants, fungi and insects that might produce new foods or medicines.

Lucy read on, utterly absorbed in the incredible world of the Amazon, but then she came to a new chapter and her enjoyment was shattered. For the chapter was about the destruction of the rainforest as it was cleared for timber, for ranching, for development, for access, for mining – much of it illegal – and many other reasons. Lucy stared at the page in disbelief; apparently an area of rainforest larger than the country of Wales was being destroyed every year. The book went on to say that, as the forest was destroyed, thousands of species, many of which were completely unknown, were being extinguished.

Scientists estimate,
she read with horror,
that across the world something between 20,000 and 80,000 species are driven into extinction every year – probably about 100 a day. As well over half the species on earth exist in the tropical rainforests, that is where most of the extinction is occurring. While you have been reading this chapter a species has become extinct.

Lucy took the book over to Grandpa.

‘How can this be true, Grandpa?’ she said, pointing to the terrible statistics. ‘If all those species are becoming extinct how can there possibly be any left?’

Grandpa read the page in detail before answering.

‘Don’t forget’, he said, ‘that they are talking about
all
species, including thousands of plants and thousands of different tiny mites and bugs, which make the figures seem much worse than you might at first think.’

Lucy was somewhat relieved by this but was still shaken by what she had learnt.

‘Can I take this book to bed, Grandpa?’ she asked. ‘In fact, can I take it home with me when I go?’

‘As long as you don’t read any more of that particular chapter tonight,’ said Grandpa. ‘You’re tired and it’s making you depressed. Read about all the wonderful animals and plants and remember that somebody, somehow, will make sure that most of them survive. Nothing really bad lasts for ever.’

Lucy went to bed and followed his advice. She read about the magnificent jaguar, lord of the jungle; the sloth, hanging upside down in the trees; the anteaters; the giant ten-metre-long anaconda, the largest snake in the world; the cayman – a type of crocodile – that grew over six metres long; the armour-plated armadillo; the amazing variety of monkeys ranging from spider monkeys using their prehensile tails as a fifth limb, down to the tiny pygmy marmoset, the size of a mouse and the smallest monkey in the world. She read about the herds of peccaries or wild pigs who could attack large snakes with their razor-sharp
hooves and long, sharp tusks; the tapir, looking like a bizarre cross between a small elephant, a rhino and a hippopotamus; and the coati mundi, a playful creature related to racoons and pandas with a long bushy tail and a delightful nature that made it popular as a pet in almost every village.