Under the Weather Read online

  The bees raged as if they knew someone was about to disturb their home. Emmanuel lit one of the twists of grass and held it over the hole. The green leaves made a lot of smoke which Emmanuel blew into the hive. At first he didn’t think it was going to work and the smoke made him cough. After he had used four of the twists of grass, he saw that the smoke had calmed the bees and he reached in carefully for the honey. He should have used another twist. A bee stung his hand and he pulled it back quickly but he was so excited to have found the hive and to be so close to harvesting honey for his family that he didn’t care. He thrust his hand back again; another bee stung his arm as he tore the honeycomb apart and crammed it into the tin.

  Three huge trucks bumped along the track at the side of the orchard to the picnic area where the hives were brought every year. Bill Campbell climbed down from the first of them.

  Daisy liked Bill. He was a very large but gentle man who did everything slowly and steadily. He never rushed like her father. Bill brought his hives each year and he always called Daisy his California Flower. After Bill had lifted, twirled and put Daisy back on the ground again, he shook Frank’s hand.

  “I’ve brought you all I have, but it’s just over half the hives I had last year. Don’t understand it. The bees have vanished, except for a few that are dead.”

  “Disease?”

  “Could be or it could be pollution and the weather swings we’re having. It’s getting harder to say just when the blossom’s coming. The bees get confused, don’t know when winter’s finishing and spring’s starting. They’ve got to get their timing right and if they don’t, they’ve no food and no strength to fight diseases any more.”

  Bill pushed his hat back and scratched his head. Daisy noticed beads of sweat and a red line across his forehead. “And I’ll be honest with you, Frank. I don’t even know if there’s still bees in all these hives I’ve brought. Wouldn’t surprise me if we found more of them empty when we lift them down.”

  Bill’s crew started rapidly unloading the hundreds of hives. When they had finished and Bill and his trucks had left, Frank Brenkle walked to the nearest tree and looked up into the web of branches. Daisy was sitting on the lowest bough. She had placed a sprig of blossom in her long, brown hair. Usually, this would have made her father smile, but it didn’t and Daisy saw that he was worried.

  “I don’t think there’s enough,” he said. “Those bees won’t pollinate all our trees.”

  Daisy lay awake that night. The door to her room was open and her parents’ voices drifted upstairs to her. That noise had always comforted her through her childhood. It was a settling end to her day; her mother and father talking quietly about their day. That evening the voices didn’t help her settle. They were arguing, her father telling her mother that she was exaggerating and her mother telling her father that he wasn’t facing up to facts.

  “We could be ruined,” she said, “not this year, but next maybe.”

  “We’ll see,” said her father.

  The day following his honey-hunt was a very special one at Emmanuel’s school. It was the day the laptop computer arrived. Six months earlier, a teacher, Mrs Sanderson of Water Street School in England, had visited Chilabula School in order to establish links with her primary school in Britain. She had stayed for three weeks and had brought a lot of gifts from the children she taught. The laptop was another gift.

  Mr Mulenga, the head teacher, told the class at assembly that the laptop would be used to help them learn and also to communicate with the children of Water Street Primary in Britain. Emmanuel’s class was the top class in the school and it would have use of the laptop.

  Their assignment for that day was to write to Water Street School thanking everyone for this wonderful gift. Each child would be given the name of an English child in the top class in Water Street and they would e-mail that child. Emmanuel was given the name, Joseph Watson. When it was his turn, Emmanuel wrote to Joseph telling him about his family and about how, the day before, he had followed the bees and found the honey and, even though his parents had been angry because it was almost dark when he returned home, he was going to go back for more. Emmanuel liked writing English and wrote more than the other children in his class. He wondered if Joseph liked honey. Was there honey in England? Had Joseph ever hunted for honey? Were there birds in England that would show Joseph where the hives were? He, Emmanuel was going to find out about those birds because following them must be easier than releasing and following bees.

  “There is rain to the north, heavy rain, and it should come our way,” said Emmanuel’s father with a smile like a... What was the saying the class had learned in English today? Like a Cheshire cat! His father had a smile like a Cheshire cat.

  Emmanuel had a strange dream that night. He dreamt the rains had come but the forest was on fire. When he spoke of the dream, his father frowned.

  “That is not a good dream,” he said, and left home to work in the garden, shouting, “Next, I’ll be dreaming that a rat crosses my path! Now, that would bring bad luck!”

  Three days later, Chilabula village did not exist. The rains came suddenly in the hills to the west of the village and spread over the whole region, rains like people had never seen before, heavy, hard drops that hurt you. Everyone scurried for home but no one’s thatched roof kept out this rain totally. It penetrated, dampening everything and snuffing out fires. At first the people were happy. They laughed and joked with each other, shouting to make themselves heard over the din of the rain: “This will make the crops grow!”

  A sound, like a growl from a creature bigger than any that roamed the African forests, was the only warning the people were given before the deluge hit the village. Like a great brush, the river water swept everything in front of it, trees, houses, furniture, animals, people...

  The river had risen so high that it spilled well over its banks, and flooded the road into the village. The first police Land Rover coming to the disaster got stuck in mud. It wasn’t until the following morning that the police and army units that had rushed from the capital to Chilabula were able to see the extent of the destruction and estimate how many villagers had been killed or were missing. Emmanuel Chinunda was among those missing.

  “I know where Emmanuel is,” Joseph said after Miss Sanderson had told the children in her class what had happened.

  Miss Sanderson smiled. Joseph had a great imagination. He probably thought that one of those helicopters he’s always talking about had picked Emmanuel out of the flood.

  “He could be in the upside-down tree,” he said.

  “Joseph, this is very serious. You mustn’t joke about it.”

  One minute, the riverbed was quiet and almost empty of water; the next, a huge wave of water bullied its way along the channel, spilling over the great flat rocks at the edges and charging in all directions into the forest like a schoolyard emptying of children. It blundered among the trees, pushing, hitting, and quickly knocking over the smaller, younger ones, and trying to climb Isubilo Hill. The roots of the mature trees, like huge arms, flexed their muscles to halt the flow but it was in vain. Some trees stood firm but others were torn from the ground like flowers and carried swiftly in the flow.

  The flood reached the baobab and swirled about the base of the broad trunk. Emmanuel clung to a bough with arms and legs. The tree did not move. It had seen off bullies many times before in the thousand years of its existence and it wasn’t going to let this one get the better of it. Emmanuel sensed the tree’s confidence and knew he would survive. From his perch, he watched the swollen river, murky with soil and choked with debris, surging past him. He recognised parts of houses drifting by. He saw desks from his school; he saw plants that had been uprooted from gardens; he saw dead cattle and chickens; dead wild animals; he saw dead people.

  “They could try looking there, Miss.”

  Mr Mulenga, the head teacher of Chilabula School had sent an e-mail to say that all of the pupils were safe except for Emmanuel Chinunda who
was still missing. Miss Sanderson gave in and wrote back.

  “Can you give them directions, Joseph, on how to get to the tree?”

  Joseph could. Emmanuel had told him in detail how to get to the hive and when Joseph first read the words, he had piloted an Apache Attack helicopter behind the bees to the baobab tree.

  “If plants and insects and birds could speak, and if we listened, they would tell us hundreds of stories about how changes in our climate are affecting life all over the world.”

  Daisy’s father was walking with his old familiar quick, lengthy, confident stride inspecting the almond fruit forming on their trees. The harvest wasn’t bad and Bill Campbell was getting new bees from Australia for next spring. Daisy skipped to keep up with him.

  “We’ve got to start listening more. Things’re always changing. We’ll adapt. Cut down on pesticides and herbicides; find alternatives; breed new types of bees. You know, they reckon every third bite of food we eat depends on those little creatures. It may take a while but we’ll crack it. We have to.”

  Rescuers had found a cold, wet and hungry Emmanuel. Joseph’s directions were precise. Emmanuel had not found much honey that time, but what he had, he put in a jar. A month later, when Chilabula village was coming back to life, Emmanuel and his family sent the honey to Joseph as a thank you. It was the best Joseph had ever tasted.

  Tommo and the Bike Train

  by Miriam Halahmy

  As a teacher in Camden we studied floods in Bangladesh. People lost everything and that wasn’t the worst cruelty. Worldwide flooding will increase with global warming. In my story, inspired by those lessons, Tommo is a Camden schoolboy, suddenly whisked away to live by the sea. Terrible floods are coming, threatening Granny Marble next door, who is too old to run away. What will happen to all the grannies in the world if the sea levels rise? Tommo decides to stop climate change in his neighbourhood personally. Perhaps it will give you some ideas of what to do.

  “Frigging Biggin!” shouted Tommo to a passing seagull.

  There was no one to call him mad. The beach was completely empty. No buses, no tube trains, no kebab shops, no mates, no street lights. Biggin-on-Sea almost had no pavements!

  Deep would laugh like a drain if he could see this dump!

  Deep was his best mate. His real name was Deepak and his parents were from Bangladesh.

  He and Deep had just been chosen for the Year 7 football team, when Tommo’s parents announced they were moving to Suffolk on the east coast of England.

  “Out of London?” said Tommo, his voice rising in disbelief when they told him.

  “Your dad’s got a new job, caretaker in a school by the sea,” said his mum. “We love the seaside, don’t we?”

  “Not to live,” said Tommo, stunned. “Camden’s my home, I ain’t going nowhere.”

  Dad shook his head slowly, running a hand through his shock of red hair. “London’s gone rotten, Tommo. Gangs, stabbings, muggings...”

  “Gridlocked roads, pollution,” added his mum.

  “Pollution!” yelled Tommo angrily. “I don’t need clean air, and me and Deep know all the gangs. We keep well clear.”

  “We’re moving in two weeks,” snapped Dad.

  By the end of October, Tommo found himself stuck in a stone cottage at the end of a lane. There were no proper neighbours; just an old woman, who lived a few metres away and muttered to herself all day. The wind howled continuously on the flat, grey beach and the sea was like a ferocious dog off its lead.

  On the first school morning a mobile phone appeared on his breakfast plate. “What’s this for?” he said.

  “In case you get lost, love,” replied his mother.

  “What, in Frigging Biggin?” said Tommo, scornfully.

  But Deep had a phone. His dad sold mobiles, so he was always on the best network. He sent Deep a text as Dad drove him to school.

  Big sucks wots up T

  Deep rang him back.

  “All right, mate?” came Deep’s cheery, familiar voice.

  “Nothing to do here,” moaned Tommo. “It’s so boring.”

  “Sorry mate,” said Deep vaguely. “Find out about the football team. Gotta go now and meet Dax for school.”

  Disappointed, Tommo said goodbye and stared gloomily out of the car window at the huge empty fields.

  By the end of the week Tommo thought he would go insane. It was already November and dark before he got home. Outside the windows of the cottage nothing moved, except the wind and the sea.

  In London, he thought miserably, everyone would be getting ready for Bonfire Night. He missed playing football under the street lights, the neon sign of Ozman Kebabs flashing in the winter gloom.

  After dinner, while his parents watched TV, he texted Deep.

  Goin mad. Wots up. T

  Deep rang him. “Dax got your place on the team.”

  “What, that meathead? He’s a disaster zone!” I’ve been replaced, thought Tommo. Am I a Camden boy any more? “Deep, mate, I can’t stand it here. Come over, can’t you?”

  “Mate, how can I? Anyway, Auntie Mina is coming to stay from Bangladesh. Mum says I’m not allowed nowhere.”

  “School’s rubbish,” said Tommo, miserably. “The football team is full of fat nerds.”

  Tommo had asked Jeremy, a podgy boy in his form, if they needed a striker. “I’m good, Jez, mate.”

  “Actually, I prefer Jeremy and the team’s full. I play defence.”

  Tommo had stared at the other boy in astonishment as he adjusted his glasses. He only reached to Tommo’s collar.

  “There’s no tuck shop,” Tommo moaned, as Deep snickered down the phone, “no chips at school dinner, they’ve gone all healthy and Geography sucks.”

  Geography had always been Tommo’s favourite subject; he kept a map on his bedroom wall and marked all the places round the world where England played matches. But nothing felt the same in his new school.

  “All we do is pollution, pollution, pollution. The teacher’s mad. Honest! He thinks they should melt down all the cars in Britain. Then yesterday he started on about global warming and Bangladesh.”

  “Cool,” said Deep with interest. “Where’s he from?”

  “Frigging Biggin,” snorted Tommo. “But he says Bangladesh is always flooding, and cars make the planet hotter, which makes the sea levels rise and Bangladesh is gonna sink,” laughed Tommo. “I yelled out, ‘Rubbish!’” he finished proudly.

  Tommo had tried to explain that he knew all about Bangladesh. “My mate Deep comes from there,” he had said, glaring round the class. “And he never said anything about no floods.” But everyone just laughed at his London accent. Tommo had gone bright red and slumped back in his chair. That was the problem with Scottish genes. White skin, red hair, cheeks that let you down in a nanosecond.

  But to his amazement, Deep said, “Your teacher’s right.”

  “You what?” said Tommo, confused.

  “My dad says Bangladesh has always had floods. Usually everyone just copes with it. But it’s getting much worse because the planet’s heating up. He wants Auntie Mina to come to live with us.”

  “You never said nothing about no flooding!”

  “Not exactly Premier League news is it?” said Deep. “Last year when they had floods my grandma died.”

  “Drowned?” asked Tommo, shocked.

  “Snake bite.”

  There was a silence and then Deep said, “When there’s a flood, people escape on to the roofs. But the snakes also creep up there, they’ve got nowhere else left to go and they kill dozens of people. There’s lots of horrible ways to die in a flood.”

  Tommo couldn’t sleep that night, imagining snakes under the bed. He almost got up to check.

  In IT the next day he googled, Bangladesh, Floods, DEATH. He couldn’t believe it; people died from drowning, lightning, diseases, collapsed buildings and snake bites!

  “Going on your holidays?” asked Jeremy, leaning over with interest.

&nbs
p; Tommo just glared at him.

  The more he read, the more he felt his skin crawl. If the earth gets hotter and the sea levels rise, he thought, all the snakes in Bangladesh will be sneaking about looking for new homes. Millions of people will get bitten. Deep’s grandma hadn’t stood a chance. No wonder they wanted Auntie Mina to move to England, she had a two year old.

  At the weekend his mum and dad were still busy unpacking. Another rubbish day on the beach, thought Tommo, and took his bike from the shed. The sky was grey but at least it wasn’t raining. I should be playing football with Deep, he thought angrily, thudding the front wheel against a fence post.

  I could go over to Jeremy’s, he thought reluctantly, then he remembered there was a school match.

  “Come and watch,” Jeremy had said, cheerfully.

  I’d rather bang nails in my feet, thought Tommo.

  “Don’t just stand there, boy. Bring in the milk!”

  Tommo was startled by the voice of the old woman from the next cottage. She was standing in her front garden, wearing a red fleece, dark trousers and rubber ankle boots. A marmalade cat was weaving in and out of her legs. Short grey hair stood up at odd angles on her head and as she turned round and went into the cottage, Tommo could see she had a hump on her back. For a second he thought of witches.

  “Tea and cake, tea and cake, don’t be late,” came the woman’s reedy voice and he heard a strange whistling sound behind her.

  A bottle of milk stood on a brick just outside the garden gate. Might as well, thought Tommo, suddenly curious. He picked up the milk and walked up the path to the cottage.

  The front door opened straight into the downstairs room which was a kitchen and living room combined. It was sparsely furnished, with a small wooden table, two upright chairs and an armchair with the stuffing leaking out. An old-fashioned kettle whistled merrily on the stove.