The Song of Lewis Carmichael Read online

  First published by Allen & Unwin in 2021

  Copyright © Text, Sofie Laguna 2021

  Copyright © Illustrations, Marc McBride 2021

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or ten per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to the Copyright Agency (Australia) under the Act.

  Allen & Unwin

  83 Alexander Street

  Crows Nest NSW 2065

  Australia

  Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100

  Email: [email protected]

  Web: www.allenandunwin.com

  ISBN 978 1 76087 857 3

  eISBN 978 1 76106 275 9

  For teaching resources, explore

  www.allenandunwin.com/resources/for-teachers

  Illustration technique: hand-drawn with 2B pencil in Adobe Photoshop

  Cover and text design by Sandra Nobes

  Cover artwork by Marc McBride

  Set by Sandra Nobes

  sofielaguna.com/index.php/books

  www.marcmcbride.com

  For Sonny and Milo

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter One

  MATTHEW ZAJAC lay in his bed in his room at the top of the stairs. He was surrounded by library books: Magnetic North, Into the Ice, Journey to the Farthest North, and Animals of the Arctic. He opened Animals of the Arctic at a double-page spread of the Arctic wolf. The white wolf was cut in half by the crease between the pages. Matthew smoothed his hands down over the animal’s golden eyes, its rough fur. The Arctic wolf lives in the boreal forests, Matthew read. As the frozen ground prevents the Arctic wolf from digging a den, it typically makes its home in a cave.

  He glanced up through the window above his bed, at the starless sky outside. The moon was full, and he could see rows of triangular rooftops belonging to the many other houses just like his. In the night skies of the Arctic, you could see the northern lights – clouds of pink and green and purple light that had come all the way from the sun, spiralling like the patterns on a shell. Matthew rolled onto his side and opened Magnetic North. When he read about the Arctic, he entered another world.

  He turned to a picture of wide grassy plains at the foot of a range of snow-capped mountains. The picture was labelled Arctic tundra in the summertime. Matthew ran his fingers over the words. Arctic winters are long and cold, while summers are short and cool. The average Arctic winter is minus thirty-four degrees.

  He lay back on his pillow. The northernmost point on the Earth was the North Pole – a place separate from the grassy plains, the mountains and the forests of the Arctic. The North Pole was a land made only of ice, which floated on the Arctic sea. Water that you could walk on! A land that never stopped moving!

  Matthew put down his books and switched off his reading lamp. Downstairs, he could hear his parents talking about him.

  It’s because you let Matthew...You don’t make him...

  But I have tried to make him … If there was some way, don’t you think I’d find it?

  Their anxious voices rose and fell in waves. How many nights had he fallen asleep to the sound?

  Matthew squeezed his eyes shut tight and saw the Arctic tundra filled with poppies and cotton grass and bearberries. He watched as the summer skies darkened and the snows began to fall, covering the trees of the boreal forests, the tall and jagged mountains.

  When winter was at its coldest, minus forty degrees in the North Pole, he would sleep.

  He was woken that night by tapping at the window. Matthew rubbed his eyes and sat up in his bed. Tap tap tap. He wiped the foggy glass with his hand and saw a bird on the ledge outside. A black bird. A crow.

  What was a bird doing here in the middle of the night? Tap tap tap. The bird was tapping at the glass with its beak. Did it want to come inside? Was it cold? Matthew opened the window.

  ‘At last!’ the bird said.

  Matthew shook his head. Was he dreaming?

  The bird said, ‘I didn’t think you were ever going to open the window.’

  Matthew couldn’t speak. What was happening?

  ‘Matthew?’

  ‘Wh, wh ...’ Was he really trying to talk to a bird?

  ‘I am Lewis. Lewis Carmichael,’ said the bird.

  ‘L ...Lewis?’

  ‘We met today. You shared your cake with me. You remember me, don’t you?’

  Matthew did remember. The bird from the park. The bird with the broken wing.

  Chapter Two

  EARLIER THAT DAY, Matthew’s mother had been waiting for him as he’d come down the stairs for breakfast, as usual. She’d been standing at the stove. ‘Good morning,’ she said. ‘Hungry?’

  ‘Need your strength, son. Growing boys need to eat,’ his father said, buttering toast at the kitchen table.

  ‘What would you like to do today, Matthew?’ his mother asked.

  Matthew had shrugged; had seen his mother glance at his father.

  ‘Why don’t you take your bike to the park and get some fresh air?’ his father asked. ‘There might be someone down there for you to play with. You know, kick the ball around?’

  ‘Yes, Dad.’

  ‘I’ll pack some muffins,’ his mother said, her smile hopeful.

  Matthew had listened to the creak of his bicycle wheels as he’d pedalled down the road to the park. If only a sister would come along, or a brother, he thought, pushing down on the pedals. Someone else to give his parents what they wanted. His bike bumped unsteadily over a pothole and he frowned. Matthew wobbled when he rode too slowly. That would drive his father crazy. Get some speed up, son! Come on, Matt! Straighten her up.

  When he came to the park, Matthew had leaned his bike against the bench, taken off his backpack, and sat. In the distance, he saw Mariel and Lee and Adam coming up from the slope that led to the river. They were in his class, and he often saw them together at school. He wondered what they did down there by the river. You weren’t allowed; the school said it wasn’t safe. His parents said it too. But Mariel and Lee and Adam were always going there. They seemed to be searching for things, and they were often muddy, climbing the rocks, the trees; looking up-close at things they found. Mariel carried a bucket. What went into it? Matthew wondered.

  Taking his book from his pack, Journey to the Farthest North, Matthew turned to a picture of a sailing ship with a woman at the helm. She was wearing a heavy padded coat with a hood and was looking through binoculars, out to sea. Matthew read the words underneath the picture: Dr Juliana Rossi travels to the North Pole.

  ‘Dr Juliana Rossi,’ Matthew whispered.

  He looked up and noticed Mariel watching him, and felt his face turn hot. Why was she looking? Lee too. What did they want?

  Matthew returned to his book. Dr Juliana Rossi has given us a new understanding of the Arctic with her magnificent pictures. He turned the page and saw a flock of snow geese in migr
ation. Snow geese migrate in large numbers, for over three thousand miles, to warmer shores, he read.

  At that moment, Matthew glanced up and was surprised to see a black crow sitting on the back of the bench beside him, as if it too was looking at the pages of Journey to the Farthest North.

  ‘Hello,’ said Matthew.

  The bird hopped from the back of the bench to the seat, and then onto the ground. As it pecked at the dirt Matthew noticed that one of its wings dragged, like it might be broken. He pulled the apple muffin his mother had made for him from his pack, tore it in half and tossed one half to the ground. The bird looked at him, its head angled quizzically, then came closer, pecking at the muffin.

  Matthew looked up to the monkey bars, where a group of kids were swinging from the parallel ladder, climbing the knot ropes, somersaulting over the rails. He turned back to the picture of Dr Juliana Rossi, binoculars in hand, in Journey to the Farthest North. What was it in Matthew’s body that stopped him swinging and somersaulting and climbing with the others? Why could they do it, but not him? He glanced down at the black crow bobbing about the bench. It had eaten all of the muffin.

  ‘More?’ Matthew asked, under his breath.

  The bird’s eyes glinted.

  Matthew had thrown the bird the second half of his apple muffin then stood up. ‘I’d better be going,’ he’d said.

  As much as his parents wanted him to improve his physical skills, they grew worried if he was gone too long.

  Chapter Three

  NOW, MATTHEW FROWNED at the black bird from the park sitting on his window ledge. Though he remembered the bird, he would never have believed it could speak. Was he hearing things?

  ‘I do remember, yes...but ...’

  ‘But what?’

  ‘Birds can’t talk.’

  ‘Can’t they?’ said the bird. ‘Well, I am a bird and I’m talking to you.’

  ‘Yes ...but ...’

  ‘Matthew, look up.’ The bird hopped around, and lifted its beak to the sky. ‘Up there.’

  Matthew leaned out of his window. There in the sky was an enormous balloon – as big as a house, it seemed to Matthew. Its colours were glowing so brightly that it was as if the moon itself was caught inside the balloon. Orange, green, pink, yellow, blue, purple – great glowing vertical stripes. The balloon was attached to a large wicker basket, which was sitting on Matthew’s roof.

  ‘Am I dreaming?’ he said aloud. Who was he asking? Was he asking the bird?

  ‘No, of course not.’ The bird gave him a short, sharp peck on the arm.

  ‘Ouch!’

  ‘You felt that?’ said the bird.

  ‘Yes ...yes ...’ Matthew rubbed his arm.

  ‘You wouldn’t feel it in a dream, would you?’

  Matthew didn’t know. He was confused. What was happening?

  ‘You showed me your book today, and I thought you might like to go on an adventure. The way your scientist did. Your Dr Juliana Rossi. A Journey to the Farthest North.’

  ‘That’s where you want to go?’ Matthew asked.

  ‘Don’t you?’

  ‘But it’s impossible.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘The North Pole is six thousand, nine hundred and twenty-two nautical miles from here.’

  ‘Two days in the balloon, by my calculations,’ said the bird.

  Two days to fly by balloon to the North Pole? Not possible. Matthew leaned out the window. The cold hit his face, burning his nose and cheeks, cutting through the fabric of his pyjama top. The balloon swayed in the sky.

  ‘Come on,’ said the bird. ‘We need some nautical miles underway before dawn.’ The balloon tugged on its ropes and the wicker basket moved upwards across the roof.

  Matthew rubbed his eyes.

  ‘Matthew, my name is Lewis Carmichael, and I have found us a way to travel to the Arctic. Come on.’ The bird sounded frustrated.

  Matthew thought, If I am dreaming, what does it matter if I say yes to the bird?

  ‘You want to see it, don’t you? The North Pole? Reindeer? Polar bears? All that?’

  ‘Yes ...but ...’

  ‘But what, Matthew? Boreas is waiting!’

  ‘Boreas?’

  ‘The North Wind!’

  Matthew thought of the boreal forests in his books, home of the Arctic wolf. Boreal – northern.

  ‘Matthew! Let’s go!’

  The basket lifted a little way off the roof and then landed again. It was slowly being dragged to the roof’s edge.

  ‘This is it, Matthew. Everything we need is on board. Hurry !’

  Matthew took a deep breath, put one foot out the window, and pulled himself through. The tiles felt rough under his bare feet. He took a step and one of them wobbled.

  If this was a dream it would be easy, wouldn’t it? thought Matthew. But nothing was ever easy for him, it seemed, even in dreams.

  ‘Matthew, we need to get across the roof before the balloon is pulled too far!’

  ‘All right!’ Matthew called back. As he took another step, the wind whipped at his hair and his eyes. He was very high up. At school, in the gym, he’d been the only one to refuse the climbing wall. When he’d tried to cross the swinging bridge, a teacher had to help him return to the starting platform.

  ‘Keep moving, Matthew,’ the bird said. Its wing dragged, almost touching the tiles, as it hopped unevenly along beside him towards the chimney. When Matthew looked down, he saw his street and the street lamps and the road. It was a long way to the ground. He turned to his window. Still open. He could just go back, pull down the glass. Climb under his warm blankets.

  The bird was ahead of him now, almost at the balloon. Matthew put out his arms and took another step. His heart was racing, and he was freezing. But he kept going, step after step, until at last he reached the basket. He grabbed its rim and felt it move forward as the balloon pulled on the ropes.

  ‘Can you help me into the basket?’ the bird asked him.

  Matthew bent down and placed his hands carefully over the bird’s back. As he lifted it into the basket, he was surprised to feel its body firm and alive underneath stiff, gleaming feathers. How strange it all was. A bird in his hands, a balloon on his roof. Yet things felt more real here, not less. He placed the bird onto the floor of the basket.

  At that moment, the balloon slid further across the roof.

  ‘Quick, Matthew, climb in. Quick!’

  Just as a huge gust of wind knocked the basket over the edge of the roof, Matthew toppled in, almost landing on top of the bird. They were off the roof.

  Chapter Four

  ‘NOW WHAT?’ MATTHEW said to the bird. He felt dizzy as he looked over the side of the basket. He could see the park in the moonlight, the glistening river. Even though he was out in the cold night air, wearing only his pyjamas, it was warm inside the basket; he hadn’t expected that.

  ‘Now we need to fly her above the thermals!’

  ‘The thermals? How do we do that?’ Matthew gripped the side of the basket as the balloon swayed.

  The bird hopped across the floor. ‘See here, the gas tank?’ Matthew saw a cylindrical tank in the centre of the basket floor, beneath the opening to the balloon above. The tank was just like the one attached to the barbeque at home.

  ‘I don’t know what to do with that,’ said Matthew, aghast.

  ‘The balloon won’t fly herself, Matthew! We need to release gas into the balloon, using the gas burner, to heat the air, to lift us to Boreas.’

  ‘Boreas?’

  ‘Yes! The North Wind, remember?’

  ‘Oh ...Boreas...yes.’ Matthew crossed the basket to the gas cylinder. At the top was a lever, with Open written on one side and Closed on the other. In the air above it, attached to the gas cylinder by a shiny silver tube, was a metal ring – the gas burner. It looked similar to the ones on the stove in his kitchen.

  Matthew was knocked to the basket floor as another burst of wind buffeted the balloon. Then he saw that not
only was the balloon being hurled about, but it was sinking too – it would soon be on the street outside his house. Was that what he wanted?

  ‘Quick, Matthew. Three seconds of the gas. No more, no less. Hurry!’

  Matthew could hardly think. He felt sick as the basket swung through the air.

  ‘Matthew, hurry!’

  Matthew stepped up, took the lever in his hand, and turned it to the left as hard as he could. Open. A great hot noisy blast of gas shot into the balloon from the gas burner above him, which lit up like a giant pilot light. Matthew was thrown back by the heat. No wonder the basket was so warm, underneath a balloon full of heated air!

  It was more than three seconds, Matthew was sure, before he leapt back up, a hand shielding his face, and turned off the gas. The balloon continued to sink.

  ‘We’re still going down, Lewis!’ he shouted. Any second now they would hit the concrete!

  ‘It’s all in the timing,’ the bird called back. ‘Just wait a little longer ...’

  Suddenly the balloon pulled upwards. Matthew was again knocked, dazed, onto the basket floor beside the bird.

  ‘Good work!’ said Lewis Carmichael.

  Matthew clambered to his feet, stunned. He had done it!

  The bird hopped to the basket’s edge. ‘Matthew, take a look at this.’

  Matthew saw that there was a dial connected to one of the four poles joining the basket to the balloon.

  ‘You see, the needle will point to either Falling or Rising. Between the two is Boreas. We need to work towards keeping the needle pointed to Boreas as much of the time as possible,’ said Lewis.

  ‘The North Wind.’

  ‘Yes. Boreas will take us all the way to the farthest north. The trick is staying with him. The balloon will inevitably rise too high, after you release the gas, then she will sink, and for a while we’ll ride Boreas before we fall beneath him again.’

  ‘Which is when I release the gas again.’