Journey to the River Sea

When they had done ‘Merry to the Right’ and ‘Merry to the Left’, they did ‘Wretched to the Right’ and ‘Wretched to the Left’ and their faces stopped being cheerful and became extremely sad.

Clovis had to join in with the others but whenever he could, he came over to talk to Maia and Miss Minton and asked them questions about England.

‘Do they still play conkers?’ he wanted to know, ‘and make a Guy on Bonfire Day? And what about snowmen? Has there been a lot of snow?’

‘Yes, it was good last year,’ said Maia. ‘We always run out when the first flakes fall and try to catch them on our tongues. The first snow tastes like nothing else in the world.’

Clovis agreed, but the thought of tasting things set him off on what he missed most from England: the food.

‘Did you have semolina bake for pudding? The kind with squelchy raisins in it? And what about jam roly-poly ... and plum duff with cornflour sauce?’

Maia said, yes, they had all those at school, but she couldn’t help being sorry for Clovis who was so homesick for the stodgy puddings she hoped never to eat again.

When they had finished their exercises, the company started rehearsing scenes from the plays they were going to do. One of these was the sleepwalking scene from Macbeth. Mrs Goodley was Lady Macbeth of course and Maia thought she was very stirring, tottering about all over the place and muttering ‘Out damned spot’ with a terrible leer. So she was rather hurt when Miss Minton, who had been reading, closed her book and got ready to go below.

‘Don’t you like Shakespeare?’ asked Maia.

Miss Minton gave her a look. ‘I rank Shakespeare as second only to God,’ she said. ‘Which is why I am going to my cabin.’

Clovis didn’t have much to do in Macbeth – Mr Goodley had cut most of the parts with children – but the next day they rehearsed Little Lord Fauntleroy. Maia had read the book. It was soppy, but a good story all the same, and she thought Clovis acted very well. He was the hero, of course, the little American boy who finds he is the heir to a great castle in England owned by his crusty old grandfather, the earl. The boy’s name was Cedric and he called his mother ‘Dearest’ and together they travelled to England and melted the heart of the earl and did good to the tenants and were loved by everyone.

‘I thought you were very good,’ said Maia. ‘It can’t be easy to call your mother “Dearest”.’

‘No, it isn’t. Especially when she’s Nancy Goodley who’d pinch you as soon as look at you.’

‘And your voice didn’t wobble in the least.’

Clovis looked worried again. ‘It had better not! Beastly Lord Fauntleroy is supposed to be seven years old.’

He told Maia that they were staying for two weeks in Belem, the first port on the Amazon and then going on to Manaus. ‘It’s a really good theatre there – usually we wouldn’t get a booking in a big place like that but the ballet company who were going to come had to cancel. We’re putting on a matinée of Fauntleroy every day. If it goes well we might be able to clear our debts but if not—’

‘Of course it’ll go well. And I’m so glad you’re going to play in Manaus because I’ll be able to come and see you.’

It seemed to her really sad that a boy should have to worry about getting spots – and that he shouldn’t be at all excited about travelling to the Amazon. They were sailing into warm waters now; the sun shone day after day and the sea was a brilliant blue, but Clovis hated the heat. When he wasn’t following Maia about and asking her about Yorkshire pudding and apple crumble, he lay under a fan and swatted flies and sighed. ‘I must get back to England,’ he said – and made them tell him about tobogganing and skating on frozen ponds, and muffins afterwards for tea. ‘My foster mother made the best muffins in the world,’ he said.

For Maia it was quite different. When she was small, her parents had taken her along when they went to dig up ancient ruins in Greece and Egypt; she remembered the happiness of being warm even at night and the freedom of the camp. And the closer she got to her destination, the more certain she became that what she had felt there on the ladder in the library was true and that this new country was for her.

‘I’m going to stay with twins,’ she told Clovis. ‘Twins are special, don’t you think? Like Romulus and Remus, though they were brought up by wolves, of course.’

‘If they’re nice it’ll be all right,’ said Clovis. ‘But if they’re nasty you’ll have a double dose.’

‘They won’t be nasty,’ said Maia.

When they had been at sea for nearly four weeks, they came on deck one morning to smell not only tar and engine oil, and the salt in the wind, but a warm, rich, mouldering smell. The smell not just of land but of the jungle – and within a few hours they saw a dark line of trees fringed by surf – and then they steamed into the mouth of the river and put down anchor at Belem.