Gorilla City Read online

  Whatever it was that had been following me stayed hidden in the trees, and I knew that I was safe. ‘Phew!’ I gasped in relief. ‘That was close!’

  But as I stared across the empty savannah, I felt cold inside. I’d half-convinced myself that when the jungle ended, I’d find myself not too far from town. Perhaps just on the other side of the ring-road. But now, faced with grasslands almost as far as the eye could see, I was almost certain that I wouldn’t be back home in time for tea.

  ‘This is going to take some explaining!’ I muttered, reaching for my phone again.

  I was just about to dial the number when the ground started to rumble and shake. A terrific noise like an express train filled the air. I looked up and dropped my phone in fright. Charging at full speed towards me was a rampaging rhinoceros!

  All Steamed up

  I stood rooted to the spot as, head down, the rhino charged. His nostrils were spouting great clouds of steam that swirled around his body, so it seemed as if he was on fire. His skin was puckered and covered in a great eruption of boils, and his legs pumped back and forth with a thumping and swishing that sounded like huge pistons. Closer and closer the huffing, snorting beast stampeded. His horn, shining like polished silver, was pointing straight at me!

  ‘STOP!’ I managed to squeak, squeezing my eyes tight shut. And at that precise moment, with an explosion of steam, the rhinoceros ground to a halt just centimetres away.

  I opened my eyes, hardly daring to breathe, and waved away the fog of steam that coiled around me. The rhino stared back, nostrils bubbling like a boiling kettle, but didn’t move. Slowly I raised my arm and touched him on the nose. He was made of tin! I tapped him harder, but still he didn’t move. No matter how hard I rapped and banged he stayed as still as a statue!

  Carefully I circled the rhinoceros, all thoughts of phoning home forgotten. His body was a series of shaped and scalloped sheets of armour plating, fastened together with heavy bolts. What I had thought were boils were really great domed rivets as large as Ping-Pong balls. His neck and legs were made of chain-mail, which allowed them to move and bend, and his tail was formed from a series of interlocking joints ending in a large, diamond-shaped club. I’d never seen or heard of anything like him. Was he a beast or a machine? Whichever he was, he was absolutely magnificent.

  Completing a circuit of this remarkable beast, I was amazed to find what looked like a hatchway in his side. I gave the rhino another pat, just to make sure he wasn’t going to spring back into life, and his great body echoed like an empty oil drum. Then, using the screwdriver tool on my penknife, I unscrewed the bolts that held the hatch door in place. It opened with a rusty screech and I peered inside.

  As a cloud of steam dispersed, I could see a mass of pipes and dials. The rhino was a machine! A very complicated and sophisticated one.

  The pipes twisted and turned like metallic intestines, joining, separating and diverging from one another on their convoluted route inside the great barrel of the rhino’s belly. At their centre was a water tank, and on it was riveted an oval badge, which read: ‘Jakeman’s Works. The Steam-Powered Rhinoceros. Patent No. 102633.’ Brilliant, I thought. Steam-powered!

  Peering more closely to try to see how the rhino might work, I saw a slip of paper lodged in a spring clip on the inside of his belly-plate. Here’s what it looked like …

  (I’ll stick it in the next page of this journal so you can see how incredible it is too.)

  I studied the diagram for a few minutes, and then leaned inside the rhino again. A small pilot-light underneath the water tank was popping and flickering, but when I unscrewed the cap on the tank itself, I could see it was completely dry. Fetching the water bottle from my rucksack, I carefully filled the tank up. The main dial had flipped to ROARING HOT, which I guessed might have accounted for the rhino’s fiery disposition, so I turned the pointer down to COOL. Then I pressed RESET on the main panel, and sat back to see what would happen to this very, very rare steam-powered beast.

  Riding The Rhino

  The pilot-light fired the rhino’s burners and the water started to heat up. Soon it was bubbling merrily, and as the steam went coursing through his pipes and valves, the rhino turned his head and looked at me.

  ‘Good boy, good rhino,’ I said a bit nervously, patting his snout as he nudged me gently with his great head. Then, with a squirt of steam, the rhino harrumphed, dipped his head and started to tug and chew at the dry grasses, taking on fuel for his internal furnace. It was amazing! And the inventor had to be some kind of genius. So long as there was food and water around, this mechanical rhino could keep going for ever. But what was it doing out here, on the sun-drenched savannah?

  As I rubbed behind his ears, the rhino closed his eyes in ecstasy. ‘That’s it, stay cool, Rhino,’ I said calmly. Then I had a great idea. Maybe the rhino could help me cross the plain and find a pathway home. After all, there was no going back the way I had come.

  Reaching into my rucksack, I pulled out the ball of string. Cutting off a length, I looped it through the rhino’s mouth to act as reins, and cautiously climbed onto his back.

  ‘OK,’ I said, giving him a gentle kick, ‘let’s go!’

  With a few metallic squeaks and squeals, the rhinoceros lumbered into motion and trotted across the plain.

  ‘Faster,’ I cried, flicking the reins. ‘Faster!’

  The rhino broke into a canter, and we tore through the tall grasses and headed towards a distant green smudge that I thought might be more forest. I’d not even ridden a horse before, but here I was on the back of a huge metal rhino, screaming across a sun-drenched plain that glowed in the late-afternoon sun. The grasses swayed in the slight breeze, creating wave after wave that rippled across the savannah, making it look like a golden ocean. My rhino putt-putted across this sea like a little steamboat, leaving a trail of flattened grass in our wake. I stood up in the saddle, imagining how easy it would be to herd cattle with such a powerful steed.

  ‘Yee-hah!’ I whooped.

  But after hours of lumbering forwards I started to feel a bit disheartened. The plain truly was vast, and the forest just wasn’t getting any closer. I was starting to wish I’d had a bit more riding experience, too—bouncing up and down in the metal saddle was becoming a real pain in the bum. Every juddering, jolting stride the rhino took rattled my bones and bruised my behind!

  I’d been worried about missing tea, but now I didn’t think I’d even make it home before dark. It looked like I was going to have to camp out for the night in an unknown land, under a strange sky. Just like a real explorer. The thought made me feel a whole lot better. Until I remembered Mum. And imagined the look on her face when I told her I was planning to camp out—without a tent! Sighing, I reached for my mobile again …

  Very Late For Tea

  I couldn’t get a signal on my phone, but a few miles away I could see a lone palm tree climbing tall and straight from the middle of the plain. Maybe if I shinned up its trunk I could get a better signal, I thought. I turned the rhino towards it.

  But my plan was foiled. As we got closer, I could see that the trunk of the huge palm was as smooth as glass and impossible to climb. I slid down from the rhino’s back and sank into the tall grasses that waved above my head. I suddenly felt very lonely, stuck in the middle of this endless plain, in a strange land and with the sun starting to go down.

  There was nothing I could do but make camp for the night. I would have to phone Mum tomorrow, as soon as I could get a signal. But as I waded through the grasses, trying to flatten them into a bed, I tripped. Looking down, I saw a thin silver thread stretched between the stalks. Surely I couldn’t have tripped over that, I thought. Grabbing the strand, I tried to snap it in half, but I couldn’t. It was incredibly strong.

  Curious, I followed the thread through the grasses until it joined another thread, then another, and another, until my finger had traced its way to the centre of a huge, complicated spider’s web. A shiny, electric-blue spider, about
the size of a walnut, came out to see what it had caught and sat staring at me from halfway up a grass stalk. Not more spider’s webs, I thought.

  Feeling slightly shaken, I stood back and inspected the gem-bright creature. It didn’t seem worried that I had trampled through its home, and immediately started to make repairs.

  Whirring like a clockwork toy, the spider quickly spun metres of extra-strong thread. And as I sat watching the industrious little creature, I had an idea. It might be able to help me phone home!

  Plucking the spider from its web, I placed it on its back in the palm of my hand. A strand of silk thread poked from the tip of its abdomen. I pulled the thread gently, and a little more appeared. I tugged again, and more thread spooled into my hand. It was just like unravelling a cotton reel! I tested the strength of the thread once more and then tied the end to my right index finger. Then I took the spider in my right hand and threw it high into the air with all my might. Up it flew—five metres, ten metres, fifteen—right over the top of the palm tree!

  The spider arced through the air, spinning out a length of silky yarn all the way, until it fell unharmed into the grass on the far side. I untied the thread from my finger, tied it firmly to the rhino’s horn and then rushed to find the spider amongst the tangle of grasses.

  Following the thread as it zigzagged amongst the tall stems, I quickly caught up with the little blue web-maker. And before it had a chance to scuttle away, I bent down and snipped the thread from its abdomen with my penknife. Then, careful not to get myself tangled in the long sticky strand, I tied the end to the belt tab of my jeans. The spider-line was now in a great loose loop that went from my belt way up over the tree and down the other side to the rhino, and I was ready to put my idea into action.

  ‘Walk on, Rhino, walk on!’ I cried, slapping his tin flank with my palm. The friendly steam-powered rhinoceros lumbered slowly away, taking up the slack, and as the thread tightened, I was lifted off the ground!

  Once I’d reached the top of the tree, I hastily pulled the phone from my pocket.

  My plan had worked—I was high enough to get one bar of signal!

  Yelling for the rhino to stop, I quickly dialled home. I knew the thread was strong, but it wouldn’t hold my weight for long. I just hoped it would be long enough.

  Finally I heard a faint voice crackling through the receiver.

  ‘Mum!’ I cried, so relieved that I waved my free arm in the air, causing the thread to spin me from side to side. I yelped.

  ‘Charlie? Is that you? Is everything all right?’

  I tried not to look at the ground far below as I answered, ‘Yes, Mum. Sorry I missed tea, but… I fought a crocodile and then I was chased through the jungle and now I think I’m lost in some sort of secret valley! I don’t know where it is, but I’m sure it’s way beyond the business park!’

  ‘Sounds wonderful, dear,’ she replied. ‘Oh, wait a minute, Charlie. Here’s your dad just come in. Now remember, don’t be late for tea, and if you’re passing the shops on the way back, please pick up a pint of milk. Bye.’

  ‘Mum?’ I called, confused. But she had already hung up. Which was very strange! She hadn’t seemed worried at all. In fact, she’d said the exact same things as when I’d phoned from the river, hours and hours ago. It was as if she hadn’t heard a word I’d said. As if no time had passed at all.

  Where was I? Had the waterfall swept me into another part of the world? Had I found some sort of lost kingdom just round the corner from home? Or maybe I’d been blasted into a different time dimension by the lightning strike! They were all pretty scary thoughts, but at least I knew I hadn’t missed tea yet.

  A sudden gust of wind sent me spinning again, and I decided I’d better not waste any more time thinking until I was safely back on the ground. I called out to the steam-powered rhino, and as he backed up I was gently lowered down into the grass.

  My First Night under the Stars

  The sky has turned black and is glittering with stars, and I’ve just finished making camp. There are no boulders out here to shelter behind, and the palm tree is too tall and bendy to make a bed in, so I’m having to sleep down in the grass.

  By leading the rhino round and round in ever-increasing circles, I at least got the stalks stomped down enough to make a flattish patch to lie on. It’s sheltered from the wind, but now that the sun has gone down, it’s really cold.

  For a while I thought I might have to put my coat back on over my pyjamas, but as I was trying to get comfortable on the stubbled and prickly ground, the rhino stepped over and is now sheltering me beneath his bulging stomach. The heat from his furnace is making my grassy bed cosy and warm, and by opening the hatch in his side, I’ve enough light to write by.

  But even now I’ve written down everything that’s happened so far, I still can’t make head or tail of it.

  What exactly happened to bring me to this amazing place? Why, for Mum, is it still only nearly teatime, when for me it’s way past midnight? At least I don’t have to worry about her worrying about me. She has no idea what’s been happening to me!

  Wow! I’ve just realized … if Mum isn’t missing me, then no one will come looking for me. I’m going to have to rely on myself. This is for real! I’m actually in the great adventure I always dreamed of!

  Wherever this place is, whether I’m the first explorer to ever set foot in it or not I may never know. But as long as I’m here, I’m going to try to behave like a real explorer. I’m going to make as many entries in this journal as I can, and collect lots of evidence to prove it’s all true.

  Laughter in the Night

  Wow—how lucky was I to have made a friend of the metal rhino! In the middle of the night I woke up as a peal of laughter rang through the darkness. Who could it be? I wondered, my heart starting to pound.

  I sat up quickly, banging my head on the rhino’s belly and making it ring like a bell. The laughter stopped instantly, but as I peered across our makeshift campsite, I could see the grasses swaying and jerking to the movements of uninvited guests. Then the stalks stopped moving and the clang from the rhino faded into a tense silence. I waited.

  As my eyes grew accustomed to the dark, I could make out vague shapes in the grass. They slunk and slithered and crept around the perimeter of the camp, and I thought I could hear empty bellies rumbling with hunger. Then their low chuckles and sniggers rose again from all around the camp, and a burst of manic laughter echoed across the night sky. Suddenly I knew: hyenas!

  But why weren’t they attacking?

  I decided they must be wary of my metallic friend, the steam-powered rhinoceros. They hadn’t yet worked out that his repetitive gurgles and hisses were a sign that he was deep in mechanical slumber. I turned quickly to rap on his tummy, but at that moment one particularly brave animal broke cover and made a dash for me.

  Before I could do anything about it, the hyena’s jaws were clamped firmly around my ankle and I was being dragged from underneath the rhino! Saliva was drooling from the hungry beast’s mouth, and I could feel its sticky warmth seeping into my sock as its teeth dug into the thick rubber sole of my trainer.

  ‘Help!’ I yelled.

  The hyena began pulling me towards the wall of grasses, and I knew that the minute I disappeared amongst those tall, densely packed stems, I would be lost for ever.

  I yelled and squirmed and kicked at the hyena’s wide, bony head, but its mighty jaws gripped even tighter.

  It was at this precise moment that I remembered reading something about hyenas on one of my wild animal collector’s cards, and now that I’m writing up this adventure from the safety of a jungle tree, I will stick the card in my book:

  Interesting facts, certainly Interesting, but not very useful when your foot is stuck in a hyena’s mouth! My bones felt as if they were about to shatter like a sheet of glass and I screamed again.

  The rhino woke up suddenly, exhaling a great spout of steam. And, with a huge bellow, he charged. Immediately the hyena let me
go. Snarling and drooling, it turned to face the attack. But it didn’t stand a chance against the power of the rhinoceros, and the fight was over in an instant. Hooking his metal horn under the scavenger’s belly, the rhino sent it sailing through the air and off into the darkness.

  Moments later there was a dull thud, and a plaintive yelp. The rhino let out another huge hiss of steam, trotted back into the campsite, closed his eyes and went straight back to sleep. What a hero!

  I scuttled back under his belly, but I didn’t find it as easy to get to sleep as my metal friend. The hyenas didn’t try another raid, but they circled the camp for the rest of the night, and every time I closed my eyes I imagined my bones being crunched by ravenous predators.

  A Charliesmallicus

  Things looked better in the morning, despite my ankle feeling sore and bruised. Even though I only had grass shoots and a solitary mint for breakfast. (I wanted to scoff the lot, but I knew the packet might have to last me a very long time!)

  I climbed onto the rhino’s back and we set off for the line of trees that stretched across the horizon. I patted his neck and the rhino let out a joyful jet of steam. He was a good companion to have.

  The air smelled clean and fresh, the sun was warm on my back and the plain was alive with creatures both familiar and strange. I saw elephants and panthers and highly coloured paradise birds, and when we stopped for a drink at a watering hole, I could still hear the hyenas howling in the distance.