The Secret of Zanzibar (18 page)

He judged it was only fifty metres or so before he was pushing his way through a bush to find himself in a cool green glade. He stood up to gaze at the deep emerald pool at the glade's centre, feeling his heavy, tired, muddy body fill with lightness. He had reached the source of the Winns.

He looked around eagerly for Tibby Rose but the only sign of life came from the leaves stirring above his head, whispering in a light breeze.

‘She's not here,' Alistair said, disappointed, when Timmy had crawled from the bush. But Timmy didn't respond.

The midnight blue mouse walked forward to stand by the edge of the pool with his head tipped back so that the breeze ruffled the fur on his face. He took a deep breath then exhaled in a long sigh. When he turned to face his nephew, Alistair couldn't tell from the strange expression in his eyes if Timmy the Winns was happy or sad. He knelt by the pool and dipped his hand in the water, dabbed his head and then his heart.

‘I never thought I'd see this place again,' he said in a sombre voice. ‘I thought I'd lost the Winns forever.' Then he seemed to give himself a mental shake. ‘So, where's Miss Tibby Rose got to, eh?'

‘She'll be at the house,' Alistair guessed. ‘Your grandparents' house. Or if that's too dangerous, she'll be in the cavern at the start of the secret tunnels.'

He led the way down the path towards the river. They had just cleared the trees when he saw someone on the river bank. A slight ginger figure, wearing a scarf. For a moment he thought he was looking at a reflection of himself, but a hand to his throat reminded him that he was no longer wearing the scarf. Which meant … ‘Tibby!' he cried, waving. ‘Tibby Rose!'

‘You again?' Fiercely Jones's mouth dropped open in astonishment at the sight of the fugitives in his potting shed. ‘Didn't I help you escape a few weeks ago? What on earth are you doing back here?' He did a double take. ‘And this time there are three of you.'

‘We came back for Tom,' Alex told him. ‘He was in the dungeon.'

‘Is that right? I suppose that means you're responsible for all that fuss and bother yesterday. Guards trampling my petunias … and you should see the state of the pansies!' The gardener regarded them all sourly. ‘I don't care if you came back to rescue your friend or to wish Lester howdy-doody – what you're doing in my potting shed now is the question.'

Alex looked embarrassed. ‘Well, the thing is, we were hoping you might help us escape again. The same way as last time.'

The gardener pushed back his battered brown hat and scratched his forehead. ‘Do you kids have anything to do with that protest next week Cook was telling me about? Zanzibar's protest?'

‘She told you about it?' Alice said, her heart lifting at the thought that Cook was spreading the word, just as they'd asked her to in the note they'd left when they fled her house.

Fiercely Jones regarded her down the length of his tawny nose. ‘She did. And I told me brother.'

‘And you'll come?' Alice gave him her most imploring look.

The gardener looked unmoved, but he said, ‘Reckon I will.'

‘That's great!' said Alice. ‘But the thing is, we're supposed to be out there talking to people about it, trying to persuade them to come. So … we really need to get out of here.' She ended on a pleading note.

Fiercely Jones tugged at his hat brim and stared at the three of them. ‘Oh, all right,' he said at last. ‘I'll get the wheelbarrow. You know where the manure is.' He turned and stumped off across the garden.

Tom turned to his cousins with an expression of alarm. ‘Did he say
manure
?'

‘I said you wouldn't want to know,' Alice reminded him.

Alex was peeking out the door of the shed. ‘There's no one about,' he said. ‘We're lucky Fiercely starts work so much earlier than everyone else.'

They crept around to the back of shed where a giant heap of manure stood steaming in the early-morning sun, a few flies buzzing around it lazily.

Tom made a face and waved a hand in front of his nose. ‘That smells revolting,' he said. ‘Do we really have to stand right next to it?'

‘You might as well get used to the smell,' Alice said. ‘It's going to get much, much worse.'

‘How could it possibly be worse?' Tom demanded.

Before Alice could explain, they heard the squeak of Fiercely Jones's wheelbarrow. Alice and Alex exchanged resigned looks.

‘Let's be quick about it,' the gardener said gruffly as he parked the wheelbarrow next to the manure and picked up a shovel. ‘The less people see me trundling around town with a wheelbarrow full of manure and no good reason for it the better.'

Alice and Alex hugged their rucksacks to their chests and climbed into the wheelbarrow, followed by Tom, whose face reflected the awful understanding of what was about to happen.

There was a good deal of wriggling and jostling as the three mice tried to squeeze into a space that had barely been big enough for two.

‘Fiercely,' Alice asked, as the first shovelful of manure hit her legs, ‘do you know someone called Doffy Figleaf? We're trying to find him.'

The gardener paused. ‘I don't know no Figleaf, but I know Doffy right enough. Everyone does.'

‘They do? Who is he?'

‘He's a she. And who
was
she, more like. She's been dead for a hundred years. Doffy was a poet. Wrote the one about the Winns. You know:
me and the Winns will always flow free
.'

‘So we can't meet her then?'

‘'Course you can't meet her. Didn't I just tell you? She's dead. You can meet
at
her, though: she's a statue.'

Alice thought about this as the manure trickled between her toes. So Doffy was a statue and the gardener didn't know Figleaf. But it sounded like people used the statue of Doffy as a meeting place. Perhaps they were meant to meet Figleaf at the statue? But how would Figleaf know they were coming?

‘Where's the statue?' Alex asked.

Without looking up from his shovelling the gardener replied, ‘She's in a little square not far from the cathedral.'

‘I guess that's where we should go.'

The last thing Alice saw before the world became dark and moist and very, very smelly was Tom's surprised face as a shovelful of manure rained down on their heads.

Then she was sliding as the nose of the wheelbarrow tilted forward and they began to move.

It was smooth going at first, as they crossed the well-tended lawn, but things got distinctly more rattly when they reached the gravel driveway leading to the palace gates.

‘Ack,' said Tom. ‘I think I've got manure in my mouth.'

‘Actually, that might be my foot,' said Alex.

‘Shh,' Alice hushed them just as Fiercely Jones gave the wheelbarrow a shake.

‘Quiet,' he growled in an undertone. ‘Manure don't talk.'

They rolled on in a silence broken only by the squeaking of the one wonky wheel, and Alice tried not to wriggle as the manure settled into every crack and crevice it could find, from the crease behind her knees to her armpits to her nostrils. Even her ears were stopped up with manure, though she could just make out the muffled voices of Fiercely Jones and the sentries at the gate exchanging greetings.

From the gravel of the palace drive Alice was able to chart the course of their journey by the vibrations of the wheels, across the flagstones of the square outside the palace to the wooden boards of the bridge over the river to the cobblestoned boulevard. She and the boys were shunted from left to right as the gardener pushed the barrow through the tangle of narrow streets in the oldest part of the city.

And then they were tilting, sliding, landing in a jumble of limbs and shower of manure at the feet of a large, weathered statue of an earnest-looking mouse with a quill in one hand and a scroll of paper in the other, her eyes gazing out to the middle distance.

‘See you at the protest next Friday,' Fiercely Jones muttered, then hurried from the square, the squeaky wheel sounding unnaturally loud in the deserted streets.

Alice stood up and started brushing the manure from her fur, her eyes roaming over the houses clustered around the square, one side of which was bordered by a high stone wall – the city wall, Alice realised; the square must be right on the edge of town. The buildings seemed to be mostly apartment houses, three or four storeys high, interspersed with a few smaller single-storey dwellings like the one Cook and her family lived in. The faded orange and pale yellow facades seemed strangely subdued under the silvery sky. Doffy, too, seemed subdued; for good reason, Alice thought, since the poet who had written about the Winns flowing free was staring into the heart of an occupied city.

As her hands swept absently through the fur on her arms, she was alert for the twitch of a curtain or movement at a window that would mean they were being watched.

‘So what do you think?' said Alex, shaking his limbs vigorously to dislodge the bigger clumps of manure. ‘Do we wait for this Figleaf character to come and find us? How will we know what he looks like?'

‘Or she,' said Tom, causing Alice to think that her new cousin was really quite intelligent.

Alice was still scanning the square, examining balconies and roofs and doors. Her eyes ran over the door of one of the small houses to the vines twisting around the wrought-iron railings of the balcony next door. Then her eyes returned to the door. There was something about it …

‘See that door knocker over there in the shape of a leaf? What kind of leaf is it?'

Alex and Tom followed the direction of her finger.

‘Easy,' Alex said. ‘That's a fig leaf. Like on the cheese.'

Tom blinked. ‘Cheese?'

‘Yeah, there's a cheese Uncle Ebenezer likes – it smells like old socks. Apparently they wrap it in fig leaves and age it in damp caves. That's why it's so mouldy when you unwrap the fig leaves and … oh.' He stopped abruptly. ‘I see what you're getting at, sis. It's a fig leaf.'

Alice pointed to the statue and then the door knocker, her words tumbling out in excitement. ‘Doffy … fig leaf. That's it! And, Alex, I'm pretty sure that door knocker is the same as the one on the door at the side of the cathedral. Come on.'

She hurried across the square to the small house butting right up against the city wall, lifted the door knocker and rapped sharply three times.

At first nothing happened, then the door opened to reveal a tiny grey mouse, her forehead creased in a frown of irritation. ‘Yes? What is it?' The frown dissolved as she stared, clearly baffled, at the three manure-covered mice on her doorstep.

‘Solomon Honker sent us,' Alice said.

‘Sol–? Quick, come inside.' She ushered them across the threshold and closed the door. ‘Did anyone see you?'

‘I don't think so,' said Alice. ‘Most of the windows facing the square had their curtains drawn and there was no movement behind those that didn't.'

The grey mouse looked relieved. ‘Good. Now what's the message?'

Alice hesitated as her brother and cousin shifted awkwardly behind her.

‘He didn't really give us a message,' Alice said. ‘He was helping us to escape from Sophia in the palace dungeon, and as he pushed me through the door to the servants' stairs he said the words “Doffy” and “fig leaf” … so here we are.' Her fingers had strayed to the crust of dried blood on her wrist as she spoke. ‘I think,' she said, then took a deep breath to still the tremble in her voice. ‘I think Solomon might be hurt.'

The grey mouse's frown had returned. ‘If he's been tangling with Sophia, I wouldn't be surprised,' she said crisply. ‘Well, I suppose I'll hear all about it at work.'

‘Where do you work?' Alex asked.

‘The palace.'

‘The palace?' Alice started and stumbled backwards, colliding with Tom.

Her cousin grasped her by the shoulders and said, ‘Steady on there, Alice. I'm pretty sure Ms …' He raised an inquiring eyebrow at the grey mouse.

‘You can call me Maxine,' she said.

‘I'm pretty sure Maxine is on our side.'

‘I might be,' the grey mouse agreed. ‘It depends who you are and what you're doing banging on my door at six in the morning smelling of …' She wrinkled her nose in
distaste. ‘I don't know what you smell of, but it's vile. It's like you've been rolling in manure or something.'

‘That's pretty close to the truth,' Tom admitted.

Maxine took a step backwards. ‘Well, that explains it.' She tilted her head to look from Alex to Alice. ‘You two look familiar. Have we met before?'

Alice did have a sense of deja vu as she looked back at Maxine, but she couldn't imagine where she would have seen her.

Maxine sighed. ‘Look, I have to go; there's a meeting I have to attend before work. But if Solomon sent you, you'd better stay here. Keep a low profile, though, okay? No loud voices, no obvious coming and going; I'm sure you know what I mean. Help yourself to whatever you find in the kitchen – and to showers, too.' She looked at their grubby fur pointedly. ‘Fresh towels are in the linen cupboard in the hall.'

She turned to look in a gold-framed mirror over the hallstand and clipped on a pair of pearl earrings. When she turned back to face them, Alice let out a cry of recognition.

‘You're the Undersecretary for Flowers, aren't you?' she said, suddenly remembering where she'd seen Maxine before.

The grey mouse looked nonplussed. ‘I'm the Undersecretary Assisting the Head of Floral Arrangements in the Department for Banquets, to be precise. How did you know?'

‘We saw you when we worked at the palace.'

Maxine's eyes lit up. ‘You're the spies from FIG, aren't you? The ones they thought planted the flowers and wrote FIG on the cupcakes.'

‘But that was you, wasn't it?' Alice guessed.

Maxine smiled and raised her eyebrows, but didn't respond. ‘I'll see you tonight,' she said.

‘Bags first shower,' said Alice as the door closed behind the grey mouse. She found the linen cupboard in the hall and pulled three towels from the second shelf. She buried her face in the top towel, inhaling the lemony fragrance. Whoever would have thought something as simple as laundry powder could seem like such a luxury? she wondered. No to mention hot water and soap, she added, as she turned the taps on in the white-tiled shower and steam filled the air.

When she returned to the lounge room nearly half an hour later, her fur scrubbed clean and rubbed dry, she found that Alex and Tom had been in the kitchen. A platter of fresh fruit sat on the coffee table, along with some toast with lashings of butter.

‘You should see Maxine's pantry,' Alex enthused. ‘I can't believe she can get all that stuff on rations.'

‘She might be a member of FIG, but she's also Sourian,' Alice reminded him. ‘She probably isn't on rations.' She wondered if Maxine was one of those Sourians who left baskets of food outside the orphanage.

While Alice picked at the fruit platter, the boys showered.

‘Looks like we've got a day off,' said Alex when he returned from the bathroom. He threw himself onto the sofa.

‘Not a day off,' Alice said. ‘A planning day. We've only got just over a week till the protest. Even if we end up sleeping on the street, we still need to carry out our mission.'

Alex sat up. ‘So what are you thinking?' he said.

Alice pointed to a piece of toast. ‘Let's say this is Cornoliana,' she said. ‘What if we divide it into two sectors –'