Through the Tiger's Eye (12 page)
Rahel was undeterred. ‘What is a zombie?’
‘When someone dies but they can still walk,’ said Ricardo helpfully. ‘They’re all over the place. We’ve got two down the road at the graveyard.’
Toro looked horrified and Lucy promised herself she would never tell Ricardo really big lies ever again, no matter how much she wanted to scare him into submission. The trouble was, he didn’t seem to be scared. He held his Ninja sword in one hand, while stuffing his face with the other.
‘Zombies aren’t real, Retardo.’
‘Yeah, right!’
‘No they’re NOT,’ she blasted, then felt terrible when everyone froze.
The little kid stopped eating and her eyes got bigger and bigger in the candlelight.
‘Sorry,’ said Lucy quietly, and was grateful when Rahel saved her.
‘What is a ponytail?’
Lucy could answer that one. She flicked her own long, dark ponytail, and Rahel’s face brightened. She reached up and began fiddling with the dense pile of hair coiled on top of her head. In a few seconds she had unwound the longest plait Lucy had ever seen.
‘Wow! It must go down to your knees when it’s out!’
Rahel grinned at Lucy’s stunned face.
‘Undo it!’
Rahel shook her head.
‘We have had no water to wash in, or soap, and no brushes and combs. For the first few days I kept plaiting it to keep it neat but then I became too tired and just kept tying it in a knot. It is matted together like a carpet. I may have to cut it off.’
‘I’ll do it,’ said Ricardo enthusiastically.
Lucy glared at him. ‘What?’ he said, but Lucy turned to Rahel. ‘Don’t cut it. Come back to my place and we’ll wash it and put loads of conditioner on it and Grandma can comb . . .’ Lucy’s voice trailed off as she realised the impossibility of what she had just suggested. It was strange: after everything they had gone through this morning, why did Rahel’s hair seem such a tragedy? But it did.
‘Don’t worry. We’ll bring everything you need down here,’ Lucy heard herself assuring Rahel.
Suddenly she was struck by how weird their meeting was. Normally when she met a new girl they checked out each other’s hair and clothes
first
, not the next day. Then they talked about sport and what music they liked and their favourite foods. If they really liked each other, they stayed over at each other’s houses and watched videos and showed each other their special things and their Barbies (even if they
had
grown out of them) and if they
really
,
really
liked each other they talked about boys. But as for Rahel’s clothes, well, there wasn’t much to say about a ragged T-shirt and shorts, was there? And as far as Lucy could see Rahel owned only two ‘special things’: a box of matches and a stolen gun. Maybe she had a heavily armed Barbie somewhere, but Lucy didn’t think so.
Then she noticed something.
‘Where’s the gun?’
Rahel’s face went blank.
‘It has been disposed of,’ she said, expressionlessly.
So
that’s
why she had fallen behind in the bat cave . . .
‘Awww,’ from Ricardo was drowned out by a furious exclamation from the boy with the sharp face. Lucy was left in no doubt of his feelings, even if the speech he launched into was entirely in Telarian.
But all of a sudden, Lucy wasn’t listening. She felt falling-over tired; collapsing-on-the ground tired. The little girl must have felt the same, because she crawled into Lucy’s lap and went to sleep, thumb in mouth. Her hair, brushing under Lucy’s chin, was matted with dirt, and the scratchy sack toga was filthy. Baths. She would have to get the old lady’s big metal tub and the gas bottle down here. But what was she going to do about water? Run a hose from the back-yard tap all the way down the tunnel? Yeah, right!
Someone began coughing and Lucy realised how cold it was. At the jungle jail it had been warm before the sun came up. It was even warm when it was raining. The only reason those guards had a fire was because they hoped it would scare away the tiger. The kids were going to need clothes to replace the rags they were wearing, and blankets. And there was another problem: they couldn’t all stay down here. They wouldn’t all fit on the lounges.
Just then Rahel began speaking in her own language. The two new boys, who had been talking urgently but quietly, fell silent. Rahel gestured at Lucy and said her name, and did the same for Ricardo. Then she pointed at T-Tongue and then at the Tiger-cat, washing itself on one of the cupboards near the sink. She seemed to say a lot about the Tiger-cat and then began stroking its back and rubbing the wide velvet band above its nose. Lucy loved that bit. It was deep orange and soft, just before the black stripes on its head formed a sharp arrow shape. A magnificent rumbling purr filled the room. The new kids watched. The tallest boy was frowning and the other one looked worried. The tiny girl slept on, shuddering in Lucy’s arms now and again, and making little crying sounds. They were the first sounds Lucy had heard her make. Lucy remembered the other little kids, chained up to the second tiger rug. They had been so deeply asleep! As if they were dead.
The Tiger-cat leapt down and trotted over to the new boys and rubbed against their legs, purring loudly. They sat as though ready to catapult through the ceiling but slowly relaxed, even tentatively rubbing its head. Then it padded over to Lucy, gazing at the tiny sleeping child, its amber eyes unblinking. It reached up an insistent paw and touched her leg. The child sat up – and froze. The Tiger-cat’s burning eyes held her black ones – then Lucy heard the best sound of that long night: a tiny giggle, more like a splutter really, but definitely happy. Lucy didn’t know what picture it had beamed into the little girl’s mind, but it had worked. Maybe a cartoon. She fell asleep again, smiling, relaxing into the warm curve of Lucy’s body.
Rahel was talking to the new kids in her language. Lucy’s attention was drawn to the tallest boy, the one with the sharp face, the one who’d got angry about the missing gun. He had a strange face, half-sad, half-fierce. He had shoulder-length hair and was as tall as Lucy. His name was Carlos. Pablo had shorter hair, and he was a bit smaller than Lucy. He was thin too, but his face was rounder, and broke into a dimpled smile when he was talking to Rahel.
Pablo smiled at Lucy when Rahel introduced him, but sharp-featured Carlos just glanced at her and then looked away.
‘We have all known each other since we were small children,’ explained Rahel. ‘My papa taught them to speak English too.’
‘Is he a teacher?’ asked Lucy.
Once again Rahel’s eyes filled with tears. She just shook her head and pointed to the little girl.
‘This is Angel.’
‘I have dreamt about her,’ Lucy blurted out. ‘The smiling soldier told the others to take her mum away. And she had a beautiful dress but she never speaks . . .’ Lucy’s voice trailed away.
‘That is correct!’ Rahel sounded excited. ‘She has been with us for many weeks now, but she has never said a word – not in the daytime anyway. Sometimes she will cry in her sleep and call out for her mama and papa, but when she is awake – nothing. She has never smiled for us.’
‘How come she was awake and the other kids weren’t?’
‘Drugs,’ Rahel said simply, ‘the militia give them a drug to make them stop crying and sleep.’
‘What about Angel? Why wasn’t she sleepy?’
‘Sometimes she would spit it out without the guards seeing. She hated it . . . and maybe she knew something special would happen tonight.’
Lucy was about to ask why all the kids were chained up to the tiger rug, but Ricardo got in first.
‘If she can’t talk, how do you know her name is Angel?’ he asked.
‘When she came to the camp she had her pretty dress on and the guards stole it and left her naked. We tore up a rice sack and tied it on her. She had her hands like this . . .’ Rahel clenched her fists tightly, ‘and I noticed something the guards had not seen.’
Rahel opened her box of matches again and removed a tiny square of folded paper, about the size of a postage stamp. She handed it to Lucy, and then looked at her thoughtfully, head on one side. Lucy unfolded it gingerly. The paper was dirty and creased, as though many fingers had unfolded and refolded it.
‘I dreamed about this too,’ she breathed, and Rahel nodded slowly, as though this had confirmed something. Lucy moved closer to the candle and read aloud the words written in English: ‘I am Angel. I am four years old. My mama and papa love me very much. If you find me, take me to my grandpapa and grandmama at 15 Pasadena Square, Telares City’.
There was silence in the cubby. Lucy watched the candlelight flickering on the little girl’s sleeping face.
‘We can take Mum’s Mazda,’ said Ricardo.
When Lucy finally clambered out of the pit into the Kurrawong night, and turned to haul T-Tongue up, she couldn’t resist shining her torch back down into Ricardo’s face. Flabbergasted, he was gazing up, taking in the stars and the full moon, its belly just grazing the tallest cliff in the west. Not even a smidgen of light breached the eastern horizon. Stepping off the stairs, Lucy noticed that the ground was bone-dry. No way had it rained here.
They stumbled down the path and inside. Lucy’s watch said 4.30 a.m. So did the clock in the kitchen. They tiptoed in without disturbing Grandma’s snores and into their bedroom. Lucy shone her torch on the rug and noticed that the diamond-backed snake had grown, extending its reach around another corner of the rug. Its diamonds were a startling gold and its scales were almost black. Its head . . . well, Lucy still didn’t want to look too closely at its head but she could see it was much more distinct than before. Definitely the kind of snake you didn’t play with. She shuddered as she remembered the monster in the clearing, slithering over her feet. She’d hated that feeling of being turned to stone. But, on the other hand, she had definitely got a better deal than the Ponytail Zombie.
The sun was high in the sky by the time T-Tongue woke them up, whimpering to be let out to do doggie doings. Grandma had already finished one crossword, started another and drunk three cups of tea.
‘You two look like you danced the night away. You must have really needed that early night.’
‘We might have another early night tonight, Grandma,’ said Lucy, thinking on her feet. ‘I’m still tired.’
‘So am I,’ said Ricardo, yawning theatrically.
‘Well, your mum will be exhausted by the time she gets back. She’ll be going straight to bed herself. Probably hardly had any sleep after that trip. She’ll be a nervous wreck, and I wonder how that little girl she was looking after is? And by the way, Lucy, I couldn’t find any of those extra spuds you cooked last night. You cooked enough to feed half the town. I was looking forward to having some fried up with an egg on toast for breakfast. I had to make porridge. Where did you put them, dear? Maybe that rotten dog of yours . . .’
Lucy opened her mouth to defend T-Tongue but, luckily, Grandma broke off to concentrate on a tricky clue.
Lucy served a bowl of porridge from the steaming pot. Then she had an idea. She hurried into the hallway, where all their books were stacked in boxes. She was looking for the atlas Auntie Alice had given her for her tenth birthday. Auntie Alice was a teacher and always gave her educational presents. Lucy had thought at the time that it was the most boring present
ever
. She was about to open it for the first time in living history when the book under it caught her eye. It was deep green and when Lucy ran her finger along its spine it was smooth and shiny – old leather. Lucy was certain she had never seen it, even though it had been her job to pack up all the books from their old house.
Curious, she picked it up. Its leather cover was worn about the edges, as though many hands had opened it. It was embossed with an old-fashioned map of the world, in heavy gold. In one corner was a compass; in another an old sailing boat. On the first, yellowing page was one word in curly lettering:
ATLAS
. It must be Grandma’s.
Lucy took both books back to the kitchen table. In between mouthfuls of porridge she checked out the index of Auntie Alice’s atlas. How did you spell Telares again? She looked under everything starting with T, but couldn’t find it.
‘Grandma, have you heard of a place called Telares?’
‘Never heard of it, dear, is it that new housing estate out near the shopping centre? Beautiful houses out there, Beryl says . . .’
That settled it. If Grandma hadn’t heard about it, no one had. Except maybe Dad. Before he came to Australia he had travelled all over the world. Then a dog bit him while he was bushwalking and he showed up at Kurrawong Hospital. Mum had to give him a needle in his bum. That was how they had met. They never really explained how they had fallen in love and got married because everyone would always crack up at the beginning of the story and that was that. Mum and Dad used to laugh about it together, which felt nice.
These days, though, Mum made grim jokes to her friends about how she should have let him catch lockjaw, the old-fashioned name for tetanus, because it made your jaws lock like cement and you couldn’t talk about science, morning, noon and night. Lucy hated it when she said things like that. On the other hand, if Ricardo . . .