Читать книгу Oliver Strange and the Ghosts of Madagascar - Dianne Hofmeyr - Страница 5

A Letter and a Map

In his pocket was Zinzi’s letter. He knew it almost by heart. He’d read it so many times that the first part of it had torn off. Yet every time he opened it, the letter still had the hot, dry whiff of Botswana escaping from the pages like a puff of dust kicked up by an elephant.

The letter was typical Zinzi style. Breathless and fast. Criss-crossing backwards and forwards as quickly as a jumping spider eager to catch up with a grasshopper. Never staying on anything for long and talking in code.

He knew WWF stood for the World Wildlife Fund and the CR Red List was the list for critically endangered wildlife and that Zinzi meant lions when she wrote cats. But why did she write Madagascar with a dollar sign? Or was it a crossed-out spelling mistake? Snakes he could live without. At least Zinzi didn’t have the pet python she’d had in Botswana. The thought of it still gave him the shudders.

But a tree house in the middle of the forest? Pirates and treasure? That was something to get excited about. He’d found a map on the Internet with sailing ships that looked like pirate boats. It showed the Tropic of Capricorn as a red line going through the bottom of Madagascar with small dots of islands scattered around the coast and lots of rivers and bays.

He studied the map and the strange names through a magnifying glass. Lots that began with ‘M’ – Mahajanga, Maintirano, Miandrivazo and Morondava. And plenty that began with

‘A’ – Antsiranana, Ambatondrazaka, Ambatolampy, Antsirabe and Ambositra.

They were all long and complicated. How did anyone remember which town beginning with an ‘A’ they lived in?

He’d printed the map off and had brought it along – just in case. It was folded and waiting to be used along with his red Victorinox penknife and his compass. And when he went on to Google Earth, he’d found the island floating like a huge, grey-green whale in the Indian Ocean, lolling up against the east coast of southern Africa, in water the colour of blue ink. When he went in closer on Google Earth, the grey-green had turned into forest … lots of it!

At least he knew what he was heading for.