Anaconda Ambush Read online

  ANACONDA

  AMBUSH

  Swish-slosh!

  This time the swirl was close. A long, scaly shadow came sliding through the water towards me. There were light scales and dark scales, arranged in a diamond pattern that kept repeating itself, over and over, like the windows of a speeding train.

  Shishkebab! Suddenly the lake’s surface broke open and a big, ugly dinosaur-like head rose out of the water. And it kept rising, up and up and up, until it towered over me.

  I’d walked into an anaconda ambush.

  Puffin Books

  Also by Justin D’Ath

  Extreme Adventures:

  (can be read in any order)

  Crocodile Attack

  Bushfire Rescue

  Shark Bait

  Scorpion Sting

  Spider Bite

  Man Eater

  Killer Whale

  Grizzly Trap

  The Skyflower

  Gold Fever

  Topsy Turvy

  Snowman Magic

  www.justindath.com

  Puffin Books

  For Arielle Suhr and Tyler Postle, the two newest

  members of the October 4 Club

  PUFFIN BOOKS

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (Australia)

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  (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

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  Penguin Group (Canada)

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  (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

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  Penguin Group (NZ)

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  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd

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  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  First published by Penguin Group (Australia), 2008

  Text copyright © Justin D’Ath, 2008

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  puffin.com.au

  ISBN: 978-1-74-228394-4

  1

  PIRANHAS!

  The animal was perfectly camouflaged in the leafy wall of jungle that pressed right down to the river’s edge. Even Caesar, our Brazilian boatman, didn’t see it. But Uncle Shaun had spent most of his life studying plants – a five-kilogram herbivore pretending to be a clump of leaves didn’t fool him for one second.

  ‘Look, Sam – a sloth.’

  All I saw was jungle.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘In that big kapok tree leaning out over the water.’

  ‘Which one’s that?’ I asked. The trees all looked the same to me.

  Uncle Shaun turned to the boatman. ‘Can you take us over there, Caesar?’

  It wasn’t until we were right underneath the tree that I finally spotted the sloth. It dangled upside down from a branch about three metres above our peke-peke, the long motorised canoe that had brought us all the way up the Matatoro River from the Amazon. Now I understood why I hadn’t seen it earlier.

  ‘It’s green!’ I said.

  Uncle Shaun nodded. ‘At certain times of year they get algae – kind of like moss – growing in their fur. Want to get a photo?’

  I pulled my new camera out of its waterproof carry case. It was an early birthday present from my parents, who thought it would come in handy on this trip with my world-famous botanist uncle. So far we’d seen caimans (a type of alligator), capybaras (rodents the size of sheep), freshwater dolphins, giant otters, four kinds of monkey and about a million birds – but this was my first sloth. I tried to find it on the LCD screen.

  ‘Can we go forwards a bit? There are too many leaves in the way.’

  Caesar hauled sideways on the outboard motor. It had a really long propeller shaft and was hard to steer.

  Bump!

  The front of the peke-peke hit a submerged log and began to spin around in the current. Uncle Shaun grasped an overhead branch to steady us. But the branch was hollow; it snapped off in his hand. And out of its honeycombed interior came a shower of squirming brown insects.

  ‘Fire ants!’ cried Caesar. ‘Look out, Mr Shaun!’

  His warning came too late. Already Uncle Shaun was covered from head to foot in a blanket of fire ants. Their stings are worse than bees.

  Caesar didn’t hesitate. Scrambling forward, he grabbed Uncle Shaun around the middle, lifted him out of his seat and rolled over the side with a huge, two-man splash.

  It all happened really quickly. One moment three of us were in the canoe, next moment there was just me and a swarm of fire ants. They looked pretty revved up. Now that Uncle Shaun was gone, the big, angry ants were rushing about looking for something else to attack.

  Me.

  I’m allergic to insect stings. One jab from their venomous stingers sends me into anaphylactic shock: my throat swells up, my heart slows down, I can’t breathe. That’s why I always have an EpiPen with me. I’d brought three on this trip (Mum insisted), but they were in my pack. And it was in the middle of the canoe. Covered in fire ants.

  ‘Mr Sam! Mr Sam!’

  Two heads bobbed in the milky brown water about thirty metres away. It surprised me how far the peke-peke had drifted in the few seconds I’d been distracted by the ants. Caesar was waving madly at me as he and Uncle Shaun struggled towards the riverbank.

  ‘Stop the boat, Mr Sam!’

  I switched my gaze to the rear of the canoe. The motor was still running and the peke-peke was pointed downstream. No wonder it was moving so fast.

  ‘Do a U-turn!’ yelled Uncle Shaun.

  It was a good plan. But the motor was at one end of the peke-peke and I was at the other. Between us was Fire Ant Central.

  What was that tickling sensation?

  I looked down.

  Shishekbab! A fire ant had sneaked down my end of the canoe and climbed into my sandal. Too scared to move, I watched it scurry across my bare ankle, crawl onto the heel strap of my sandal and plunge its venomous stinger into the leather.

  I quickly raised my foot and shook it over the side.

  ‘Hasta la vista!’ I called as the current swept the ant away.

  I’d been lucky – the ant had stung my sandal, not me. But how much longer was my luck going to last? About a hundred more fire ants were closing in.

  It was time to abandon ship.

  ‘Sam, what are you doing?’ Uncle Shaun yelled as I rose to my feet.

  ‘The boat’s full of fire ants,’ I called back. ‘If they sting me, I’m cactus!’

  Uncle Shaun was scrambling onto the riverbank about sixty metres away. By the time his next words reached me, I’d already jumped.

  ‘Watch out for piranhas!’

  2

  BLOOD AND BONES

  There were piranhas in the Matatoro River. We’d seen h
eaps of them over the past four days. Caesar had caught one on a wire fishing line the previous evening. When he took the piranha off the hook, it bit the handle of his fishing knife so hard it left teeth marks in the wood.

  I imagined what those teeth would do to human flesh.

  Piranhas have the worst reputation of any freshwater fish. If a shoal goes into a feeding frenzy, they can strip the carcass of a deer or a capybara in a matter of minutes. All that’s left is a patch of bloody water and a pile of bones on the river bottom.

  But unless they’re starving or there’s already blood in the water, piranhas rarely attack humans.

  I’d be okay.

  Or so I thought until the river closed over my head.

  Thwop, thwop, thwop …

  That’s what a boat’s propeller sounds like underwater. I’d heard it once before (when I was nearly run down by smugglers in the Coral Sea) so I recognised the sound even though I couldn’t see the propeller in the murky brown water.

  It’ll go past me, I told myself as I bobbed back to the surface.

  I was wrong.

  When I’d jumped off the peke-peke, my feet had pushed the low, rudderless craft into a spin. It spun out of control, swinging its extended propeller like an under-water brush-cutter.

  Straight towards me!

  There wasn’t time to dive. There wasn’t time to get out of the way. All I could do was put my hands up to protect my head and chest.

  Thwop, thwop, thwop …

  BUMP!

  I half expected to lose all my fingers. But instead of striking the propeller, my hands hit a smooth iron bar. And grabbed hold.

  Peke-pekes are designed for rivers where there are lots of underwater snags and sandbars. The propeller doesn’t hang below the stern like in a normal boat, it sticks out behind on the end of a three-metre shaft. The turning part of the shaft is housed inside a hollow metal bar, like a pipe. That’s what I grabbed.

  I didn’t lose any fingers, but now my toes were in danger. The whirling propeller blades created suction, dragging my feet towards them.

  Thwop, thwop, thwop …

  In two seconds I’d be chopped-up piranha bait! Drawing my knees up against my chest, I hauled myself, hand over hand, along the metal bar until I was almost under the peke-peke’s stern. Now I was safe from the propeller, but I was still in a fix. The peke-peke was heading downriver again. I couldn’t let go because I’d be sucked back into the propeller. And I couldn’t climb aboard because it was overrun with deadly fire ants.

  Okay, I would just have to hang on until the peke-peke either ran out of petrol, or ran aground.

  But there was a third possibility. One that I hadn’t considered. I should have thought of it, but when Uncle Shaun first spotted the sloth, everything else completely slipped from my mind.

  Including how we’d spent the previous three hours.

  That’s how long it took to haul the peke-peke out of the river, take all our gear out of it, carry everything (including the peke-peke) up a steep, slippery, vine-entangled cliff face, then reload the peke-peke and slide it back into the river.

  Why had we gone to all this bother?

  Because a peke-peke won’t go up a waterfall.

  But it will go down one. As I was about to find out.

  3

  THE BIG BEAST

  The Matatoro River, or the Rio Matatoro as the Brazilians call it, flows down from the Guiana Highlands on the northern edge of the Amazon basin. It takes a three-hundred-kilometre journey through some of the most remote and inhospitable jungle on the planet. In the wet season it’s impossible to travel up the Matatoro because the current is too strong. In the dry season – when Uncle Shaun and I visited – you can get most of the way up in a peke-peke or a dugout canoe. But few people make the journey because you spend half your time steering your boat around rapids or hauling it, and your supplies, up waterfalls.

  So far we had struggled up three small waterfalls – ranging in height from about four to six metres – and one large one of about twelve metres. It was the twelve-metre waterfall that had kept us busy for most of the morning. According to Caesar, the local Indians called it the Big Beast. I can understand why. Getting up it had been a major pain.

  But what took three hours to go up, took only three seconds to go down.

  It seemed longer. Time has way of slowing down when you think you are about to die. Your whole life flashes before your eyes.

  And if your eyes are open, you see other stuff, too.

  Here’s what I saw: a wall of brown water, like a cliff, right next to me. A swarm of ants – flying ants, yet they didn’t have wings – all around me. And an upside-down, flying peke-peke, right above me.

  And here’s what I heard: a thunderous roar so loud that I could no longer hear the flying peke-peke’s motor.

  And here’s what I felt at the end of those three slowed-down seconds:

  SMAAAAAAAAAAAACK!

  Every summer back at our local pool there’s a dive-bomb competition. Competitors jump off the one-metre diving board and try to make the biggest splash. There’s a three-metre board, but you have to be over eighteen and sign a release form to use it.

  I wonder what sort of form you would have to sign before they’d let you do a dive-bomb off the Big Beast? Probably a last will and testament. Because hitting the water from a height of twelve metres feels like landing on concrete. All the wind was knocked out of me and I blacked out.

  At least, I thought I’d blacked out, until I bumped my head on something and saw stars. You don’t see stars if you’re unconscious. I was lying on my back on a lumpy bed of cold rocks and something was on top of me. Something too heavy to move. A deep, dull roar filled my ears and strong currents tugged at my clothing. Most of me was underwater – and under the heavy thing that was pinning me down – but my face wasn’t. I could breathe. I could even move my head around. But I couldn’t see anything. It was totally dark.

  Perhaps I had been knocked out, and I’d lain unconscious all day and now it was night-time.

  I started to panic. Where were Uncle Shaun and Caesar? I knew they would come downriver looking for me, but they’d never find me in the dark. They didn’t have torches. All our gear was in the peke-peke, and the peke-peke had gone over the waterfall with me.

  ‘Help!’ I shouted. But I was wasting my breath. The roar of falling water was so loud, I could barely hear my own voice.

  But I could feel my voice. Each time I shouted, my breath blew back in my face. As if it was bouncing off something.

  Curiously, I raised my head. And bumped my nose and forehead against a damp arc of wood. Suddenly I worked it out. I was under the peke-peke! It must have landed upside down on the river bottom, trapping me underneath.

  I freed one arm and pushed upwards. The canoe wouldn’t budge. But I could feel its thin hull trembling like the skin of a drum. Something was pummelling it from the other side. It sounded like a high-pressure hose.

  Shishkebab! The peke-peke wasn’t just underwater, it was under the waterfall! The whole weight of the Matatoro River was crashing down on its upturned hull, pressing it against the rocks. No wonder I couldn’t lift it.

  I tried freeing my other arm, but it was pinned down like the rest of me. One of the packs sat squarely on my chest, jammed between me and the hull of the peke-peke. I was at the bottom of the pile, with all that weight on top of me, squashed down like one of Uncle Shaun’s botanical specimens in a leaf press. I was only alive thanks to a tiny pocket of air trapped in the narrow wedge of floor-space above my mouth and nose. Already the air was growing stale. I was running out of oxygen.

  ‘Gotta get out!’ I muttered, straining to wriggle free.

  It was useless. The more I struggled, the quicker I was using up the small amount of oxygen I had left. I had to stay calm.

  Think, Sam, think!

  But it’s hard to stay calm and think clearly when you’re nearly suffocating. The problem was partly lack of oxygen, and par
tly the weight of Uncle Shaun’s pack pressing down on my chest. I knew the pack was his because it was so big and heavy – filled with scientific equipment. It took up so much space that I couldn’t expand my lungs more than halfway.

  Hang on a minute! said a little voice in my head. If it’s Uncle Shaun’s pack, then …

  I fumbled with my free hand, trying to find the clips that held it closed. But the pack was lying the wrong way – the opening was at the other end. And it was wedged in so tightly that I couldn’t get my hand between it and the hull of the peke-peke to reach the clips.

  Then I had an idea. Sucking in as much air as would fit inside my constricted lungs, I held it there for a couple of seconds to get maximum effect, then breathed out and out, AND OUT! – until it felt like my chest was going to cave in.

  It worked. By fully deflating my lungs, I allowed the pack to drop a couple of centimetres, easing the pressure between it and the shell of the peke-peke above me. Squeezing my fingers into the gap, I wormed my hand down the side of the pack until I felt one of the square plastic clips. But I couldn’t get it undone!

  By now I was nearly passing out from lack of oxygen. I had to take another gulp of musty air. My chest expanded, squeezing the pack hard against my arm. But I could still move my fingers. Trying not to panic, I fumbled with the clip. Where was the release mechanism? Again I forced all the air out of my lungs. When the pressure eased on my hand, I twisted the clip around and located the release-button with my thumb.

  Click! I was in.

  I’d opened one of the pack’s outer compartments, where Uncle Shaun kept his soil sampling tools. At the top was a little sharp-nosed trowel. I dragged it out, turned it around so the blade was pointing down and began frantically digging into the stony riverbed beneath my right hip.

  Or trying to dig. Scrape, scrape, scrape. The rocks were like iron.

  After about a minute of useless scratching and scraping, I had to stop for a rest. I was dizzy from lack of oxygen and puffing like a marathon runner. But worse than that, my chest was caving in. I’d completely run out of air!

  That was when I remembered something my big brother once told me. Nathan is a tour guide with an outback adventure company in Australia. He’s a survival expert and his advice had got me out of tight situations in the past. Here’s what he said: