The Secret Invasion of Port Isabel Read Online Free PDF

tail.
    She shivered
with cold as they marched. Her bare feet were like blocks of ice
and her breath misted. Every surface was black and shiny wet from
the rain.
    There were
shops bordering Town Square, mostly closed. Food and other goods
were displayed behind large, dull windows. The misty rain collected
overhead on colourful canvas awnings and fell into puddles on the
cobblestones. Two large, grey rhinos wearing body amour had taken
shelter under one such awning. They turned to watch her pass by,
snorting in misty plumes but saying nothing.
    The Square
itself was longer than it was wide, so it wasn’t really a square in
the strict definition of the word. At one end was the Stinging
Nettle, the entrance to Zigzag Road that led down to Curiosity
Quay, and the ruins of the museum. At the other, was an enormous,
wide-fronted building capped by a copper-green dome and fronted
with a grand staircase. This was probably their destination, as the
black boar was heading straight for it. Navy-blue flags hung limply
from tall, white flagpoles that stood either side of the staircase.
There was a small, old-looking domed structure in front but Flossy
couldn’t see it clearly through the misty rain.
    ‘Is that the
Heat Tree you were talking about, Harry?’ She pointed out a
leafless tree in the middle of the Square that glowed like embers
in a fire. It looked like the branching pieces of bleached coral
occasionally snagged in the Enterprise ’s fishing nets, just
much bigger and glowing. She could feel the warmth prickling her
wet cheeks.
    ‘Yes, that’s a
Heat Tree. You’ve not seen one before?’ said Harry.
    Three big
crocodiles lay on a low stone wall encircling the tree, basking in
the warmth. One of the crocodiles noticed her and lazily lifted its
head.
    Flossy rested
a hand on the pommel of her sword. ‘It’s hot,’ she said, keeping a
wary eye on the crocodile. It quickly lost interest and lay back
down.
    ‘Clever name,
then,’ said Harry, smiling.
    ‘What does,
“Curiosity has its own reason for existing” mean?’ Flossy asked.
The phrase was cut into the curving wall beneath the crocodiles and
was stained with age.
    Harry
shrugged. ‘I don’t know. It’s always puzzled me. The owls, they’re
the ones who built the wall and most of these buildings, had all
sorts of strange sayings—like the one about the dead cat over the
gateway at the quay. Curiosity was a big theme of theirs. Do you
know, Reginald?’
    ‘I’ve pondered
it for years,’ said Reginald. ‘You see, every day I would walk past
the Heat Tree on my way from the school to the museum or the other
way round. I think it means that curiosity exists for its own sake;
that it doesn’t need some reason other than itself to be . I
think the owls were saying that curiosity doesn’t come from some
problem that needs solving; neither does it need to result in some
solution. It just is , and that’s enough. What I mean is:
it’s good to be curious and you don’t need a reason.’
    ‘And now you
know why’s he’s the teacher,’ said Harry, laughing.
    ‘Are there
many Heat Trees?’ asked Flossy.
    ‘You don’t
have them in Australia, at all?’ asked Harry, surprised.
    ‘No. I’ve
never seen them before or even heard of them.’
    ‘They’re all
over, but usually grow in a reef rather than as single trees like
that one. There’s a really big reef cutting off Thompsons
Creek—that’s where I’ve been building the Serendipity —from
Port Isabel; a problem because it means I’ve always got to go
around. They hold back the glaciers in the North. They even grow
under the waters of the Gulf, keeping it ice-free, so they
say.’
    ‘How do you
keep them hot?’ she asked.
    ‘They just
stay hot. Reginald, do you know how?’
    Reginald
slowed so Flossy and Harry could catch up. The black boar was now
well ahead of them. He had almost reached the bottom of the wide
staircase. ‘We believe the roots go deep down into the ground and
bring the heat