Lionboy (19 page)

T
he next morning dawned misty and damp. While Charlie was out practicing with the acrobats, each of the electric lightbulbs that adorned the ship’s rigging and smokestacks was itself adorned with drips of misty rain, drops of water through which light shone and refracted, each reflecting off all the others and glowing in the mist. Charlie had not seen the lights illuminated before. The entire ship gleamed like a ghost. The raindrops flew, shattering rainbows, as the acrobats jumped and swung. Charlie felt like a ghost himself—a flying, silent ghost.

“Whaddaya think, Lionboy?” It was Major Tib, looming out of the mist in his green velvet jacket, tall and suave as Captain Hook.

“It’s gorgeous, sir,” said Charlie, coming down from a handstand on the edge of a smokestack, and wishing he were somewhere else. He didn’t want to look the major in the face when he was about to trick him out of his lions.

“Looking forward to the parade tonight?”

“Oh yes, sir,” said Charlie.

“And the show tomorrow?”

“Oh yes, sir.”

“Know what you’ve got to do?”

“Yes, sir, and looking forward to it!” said Charlie bravely.

“Mighty glad, mighty glad,” said Major Tib, but his attention had wandered and Charlie could escape.

He did know what he had to do—more than Major Tib could dream of. Not only did he know how to lower and raise the ring cage, and pin it in place, and let the lions in and out of the ring, he also knew how he was going to get the lions away from their life of captivity and tricks, off the boat and if necessary onto the train to Venice and freedom, en route to Africa. The night before he had sat late into the night with the lions, hatching their plan. Tonight he would be in the parade, and tomorrow would be his first and last day with the show, the day he would steal the lions.

 

“I wonder where we are,” murmured Aneba. He wished he had his phone, with its global tracking device, which would have told them immediately. Well, before Winner had taken the phone from him again they had been heading southeast, and they had been traveling, quite slowly he felt, for days. France, he thought, and river. The sea would be a rougher ride, and deeper.

Their door flung open. There was Winner, with a hat pulled down over his head.

“Put these on,” he snapped, throwing a pair of what looked like giant socks at them.

“Even
my
feet aren’t that big,” said Aneba. He liked annoying Winner with jokes.

“Shut up,” said Winner. “On your heads.”

Magdalen and Aneba pulled the socks over their heads (Magdalen giving Aneba a last beseeching look—a “Please can we wallop them and run?” look) and allowed themselves to be handcuffed and pushed out the door.

Darkness and stumbling. The giant socks smelled moldy and damp, but through them came an unmistakable smell of outdoors. It was cold, but they both breathed deeply, glad of the fresh air at last.

Winner tripped over something—they could hear him cursing.

Something brushed Magdalen’s legs.

A noise—“Mraow!”—and Winner complaining and standing up.

There was something under Magdalen’s hand—warm, furry.

She knew exactly what to do. The cat was moving into position beneath her bound hand.

No, wrong end—tail. Rather a bald tail, by the feel.

Head. She stroked it swiftly, wanting to convey kindness and gratitude. Neck. Collar. Yes! Piece of paper! Yes!

She whispered “Thank you!” under her breath and got a rough “Mraow!” in response, before the cat disappeared. She held tightly to the scrap of paper, as tightly as if it had been her son himself, rather than a letter from him.

Two hours later, in the back of a truck parked on the side of one of the few remaining European motorways, Magdalen and Aneba read the letter from Charlie. Magdalen managed to unfold it, and Aneba wriggled into a position where he could read it aloud. A lone streetlight sent its weak gleam in through the grubby window of the truck.

“It’s upside down,” Aneba said very quietly. He didn’t want Winner overhearing. “Turn it to the left a bit so it’s in the light.”

“Rita’s sister!” said Aneba. “What’s that about?”

“Rita’s sister is named Paris,” said Magdalen, smiling broadly in the dimness. “Clever little blighter.”

“So that’s where we’re heading. How does he know?”

“Cats,” said Magdalen. “It’s got to be. And the project on pet cats . . .”

“Yes,” said Aneba.

Magdalen folded the letter up again and held it firmly in her fist.

“He’s finding out about the whole thing, presumably,” she murmured.

“I suppose. I suppose the cats are telling him.”

“The Allergenies and everything?”

“I suppose,” said Aneba quietly.

“We were right not to tell him, though, weren’t we?”

“Of course. What do you think they’d do with him if they thought he knew about it? And if they knew what he can do?”

“I hate to think,” she said very quietly.

“Sorry,” said Aneba.

“Yeah,” she said.

They sat in silence for a moment.

“You know,” she said. “I wrote out the formula—the basic formula—and told him that if he ever had to go anywhere, he should take it with him.”

“You
WHAT!
” shouted Aneba, so loud that Winner wondered for a moment what was up in the back. “You
what?
” More quietly and intently.

“I don’t know why. I suppose so that . . . if anything happened to us, at least one honest person would have that knowledge.”

“One honest
child,
” hissed Aneba. “One honest ignorant kid, who if they knew what he had would be totally at the mercy of these people. And if they knew what he can do as well . . .”

“Yes.” She sat miserably. “Should I not have?”

“No, you shouldn’t have,” he whispered furiously. “Now not only is he the only Cat-speaker, he’s also got the formula—did he take it with him when he set out into the world, all alone, totally unprepared? We don’t know, of course. Oh, God . . .”

Magdalen was crying, softly. Aneba didn’t hear because he was too angry.

“Keep your voice down,” she murmured. “Don’t tell everybody. It’s bad enough.”

“He’s out there, on his own, with the formula
and
the language, and he doesn’t have a clue about the Allergenies or how they came about, or anything.”

“No,” said Magdalen. “But
we
don’t know how they came about either. And he’s learning. Remember? His ‘project on pet cats’? He’s a clever kid, Aneba, and he’s finding out what he needs to know, and telling us he’s doing it. We must get a letter back to him telling him as much as we can. But how’s that cat going to find us again? And where
are
we?”

“Heading to Paris,” murmured Aneba. “If Charlie’s right.”

But they weren’t. They had passed Paris, and as soon as Winner had had his breakfast they would be moving on again. Not with Winner and Sid, though. Three large men from the Personnel Department arrived, punched Sid and Winner, just because they could, and then bound and gagged Aneba and Magdalen, who, being handcuffed, couldn’t fight back. Magdalen had hidden the note in her boot, so that was all right. Not much else was, though. “You have an appointment with the Chief Executive,” was all the men would say, and they said it with a sneer. “He’ll tell you all you need to know about the position.”

 

Rafi was getting very frustrated. He’d had no luck with the zoos. No luck with the waterways. No luck in the city.

He decided to go back to the fish stalls to bully Mr. Ubsworth. He felt like hitting someone, and in the absence of Charlie, Mr. Ubsworth would do.

 

By noon, the great crimson ship was swanning slowly along the Canal St. Martin in the warm sunshine. It would have been a graceful sight, but for the noise it was making: The Calliope was in full voice. What a racket! It had been loud enough the time before, on the river in London, but here, with the buildings all around, it blared and farted out like a troupe of carnivals on a summer’s day, a noise full of fun and nostalgia at the same time—an irresistible noise. Charlie noticed that a lot of the circusguys were down on the banks of the canal, handing out fliers with the details of the circus on them. The people were looking at the ship, laughing at the Calliope, reading the leaflets and putting them in their bags and pockets. They all wanted to come to the circus.

Then there were four more locks to negotiate on the Canal St. Martin. Charlie was again amazed by how snugly a ship fits into a lock: like a fat man in a bath, it’s a wonder there’s any room for the water. But there is—just enough to allow that curious, staggering, slightly nauseating motion as the boat tries to keep still and not bang against the edges. The locks sprayed their smelly foam as the water tumbled and flooded in and out, the metal bars set in the lock walls gleamed beneath their green weed, the lock-keepers called
Bonjour!
, and the lock bells rang. Pale green footbridges arched over the water, so high that the people who stopped at the top to admire the circusship seemed to be standing on the branches of the trees, in among their sweet green leaves.

Charlie was just getting used to it all, knowing that they were nearly at their destination, when the Calliope, which had been cranking away, suddenly wheezed and hiccuped to silence, and the ship drew into the Temple lock. The smell of her fumes wafted back over them as she drew to a halt and idled. It was here that a cat called out to Charlie from the bank.

“You’re to be told they’ve gone on!” she called.

“What?” called Charlie. “Come here—come on board!”

The cat shrugged. With a great rush and tumble the water began to flood out of the lock chamber, and the
Circe
began to sink down beneath him. Charlie rushed to the side nearest to the cat and cried back: “Gone on? When? Where to? Is it Venice?”

“Bof,” said the cat. “I suppose. Only you’re to be told they have gone on. I don’t know more.”

Ahead, the ship was facing a brick wall. At the top of it Charlie could see the back of a statue’s head, with a pigeon sitting on it, and a formally clipped dark green hedge. At the base, he noticed, way down beneath him when he peered over, a low stone arch.

“Come here,” he called to the cat urgently. “Please! Come and tell me more. When did they leave?” If only he knew how they were traveling and for how long, perhaps he could work out how to catch up with them.

“Please!” he called. Hissing, so that he wouldn’t be noticed.

“I don’t know nothing more,” said the cat, and as the ship sank down into the lock, she sauntered off.

Cursing the cat, Charlie spun on his heels. Julius was giving him a most peculiar look.

“Why were you yelling and spitting at that cat?” he asked.

“For luck,” said Charlie quickly. Then: “Oh, my—look! What’s going on?” He found himself looking down at the tiny arch ahead of them. They were heading right for it.

“We can’t go in there!” he cried. “It’s tiny!”

It wasn’t so much tiny as far away, far down. It looked like a manhole. Charlie had a moment of panic. It was too steep! How could they go down so far in such a short distance? They seemed to be tumbling and sinking into the bowels of the earth.

Even when the lock chamber was empty and the gates at the other end opened, the ship was still way too big and the arch still way too low. It would be like crawling into a small cave, a dark little entrance to the Underworld. But as they edged out of the lock chamber, he realized they were just entering another. This was a double lock, a steep set of watery stairs, and they were now going even deeper into this dark, wet hole. Charlie couldn’t help thinking about the story of Orpheus, who went down to the Underworld to get his wife, Eurydice, back from the land of the dead. But his parents weren’t here to get. They’d already left.

The damp, wet, dangerous hole matched his mood precisely.

Suddenly all the sunlight was gone. In place of the lovely spring day they had just been enjoying with its blue sky and fluffy clouds, its red geraniums on wrought-iron balconies, the white shutters and black lampposts of Paris, they were surrounded now by slimy green walls and foaming yellow water. Looking back, Charlie could see the beautiful day disappearing behind them. A few wet, green ferns framed it as it slid away through the curved arch astern. They were going into a huge, dark, damp tunnel.