Through the Tiger's Eye (22 page)

‘Did you like it, kids?’ said Grandma as they walked, blinking, out into the sun.

‘It was great, Grandma, but what did you find out about the old lady?’ Lucy said all in a rush.

‘It was great, Grandma. What old lady?’ said Ricardo and then he remembered and said, ‘Yeah, tell us’.

But Grandma wouldn’t tell them until they were sitting on the bus.

‘Well, you were right, Ricardo, an old lady did live in that house. Still would if she hadn’t got sick a few months back. Remember that cold snap? It snowed up in the mountains and your mum got stuck trying to drive home from the hospital. Putrid weather and you kids refused to put jumpers on and . . .’

Lucy knew the signs. Grandma would be off chattering about horrible storms in history and children who died of pleurisy during World War II for the entire bus trip if she didn’t get her back on track.

‘Who was she, Grandma?’

‘Who
is
she, don’t you mean, dear? She’s not dead, you know, and she’s not haunting your house if that’s what you’re worried about. But she has been very sick. Her name’s Nina Hawthorne and she’s in one of those old people’s hospitals because she broke her leg and then she got pneumonia.’

Then Ricardo made a fatal mistake: he asked one question too many.

‘Which old people’s hospital?’

Grandma turned suddenly and stabbed them with her eyes and she didn’t look like an old lady any more, even though she still had soft pink cheeks and bright blue eyes and fluffy white hair. She looked just like Mum when she was onto something.

‘All right, Mr and Miss Curiosity: what’s with the questions?’

Oops. Lucy looked at Ricardo so she didn’t have to meet Grandma’s sharp eyes and put her foot on top of his, ready to crush it if he showed signs of contradicting her. Then she babbled the first thing in her head

‘We thought we’d visit her. You know, do a good deed. Visit a lonely old lady. I made a New Year’s resolution to do one good deed that I wouldn’t normally do, and this is it. Tell her the old house is OK and nice people are living in it . . .’ her voice trailed off and she risked a look at Grandma. Her eyes didn’t look stabby any more. They were kind of soft and satisfied.

‘I knew you had a kind heart, Lucy, but that’s lovely. Really lovely! I’ll get Beryl to find out where she is and see if she’s well enough for visitors. Poor old thing. Dying quietly on her own somewhere. I hope that doesn’t happen to me . . .’

Lucy couldn’t imagine Grandma doing anything quietly, not even dying. Right now she had launched into one of her incredibly long sentences that Lucy knew wouldn’t finish until they got to their bus stop and by that time she would be talking about something completely different.

Lucy didn’t mind. It gave her time to plan her next move. When they clambered off the bus Grandma was so out of breath she didn’t notice the ginger cat that stepped out of the bushes and wrapped itself purring around the kids’ legs . . . and then just disappeared into thin air. One minute purring and twisting, the next – gone. Lucy and Ricardo looked at each other.

‘We’ll go around the back way,’ Lucy said, as Grandma reached for the mermaid door knocker.

‘You can do what you like, I’m not walking another step. Where’s that daughter of mine? Oh there you are, Annie. Lucy’s had a lovely idea. A lovely idea.’

‘Hi, Mum,’ yelled the kids, racing up the side path, into the back yard and up the track. Sitting on the mossy steps was the Tiger-cat.

‘Grandma did know Mrs Nina, or Mrs Beryl did,’ blurted out Ricardo, ‘and we’re going to see her tomorrow, Mrs Nina I mean, and she’s not dead but she’s really old and she’s in a home for lost old ladies.’

‘Sick old ladies, Retardo,’ said Lucy, ‘and how many times do I have to tell you, the Tiger-cat doesn’t talk?’

34
The Old Lady

That afternoon, Lucy and Ricardo stood on the sweeping driveway of St Theresa’s Little Flower Nursing Home. Ahead, up sandstone steps, was a grand verandah with massive marble columns. Two ornately carved wooden doors, with brass handle rings as big as breakfast bowls, yawned open. Giant stone tubs brandishing spiky cacti swords stood either side. A startling red tongue of rug poked out.

‘It looks like a castle,’ said Ricardo.

‘Yeah, it’s a haunted one,’ said Lucy, forgetting her resolution not to tell him big lies.

Anyway, it was haunted – by someone very much alive. A robust matron in a dark blue uniform and red cardigan appeared at the doors demanding, ‘What are you young people doing in this vicinity? The park is in that direction. Go!’

She stood with hands on impressive hips, framed in the doorway, not exactly glaring but clearly difficult – no,
impossible –
to get past. She looked as if she could crush them against the door, if they were rash enough to try to sneak past, just by breathing out.

‘We’ve come to visit Mrs Hawthorne . . .’ Lucy’s voice trailed off.

Blue Uniform raised her eyebrows.

‘She’s – she’s our great-auntie.’

‘Mrs Hawthorne? Well, that’s unusual. She only gets one visitor.’

Blue Uniform looked the kids over: both were wearing Grandma’s Ninja pants, and Ricardo had his skateboard tucked under his arm.

‘I didn’t think Nina Hawthorne had any other relatives,’ she said, oozing suspicion, ‘apart from her nephew. You must be related to him too. Why didn’t you come with him? It’s very unusual to have children arriving here alone to visit
anyone
. She’s been very sick, you know’.

‘We’re from the other side of the family,’ Lucy squeaked.

‘Speak up! And give me that wheeled contraption, young man. You’re not careering around my establishment on that.’

Ricardo advanced obediently up the stairs and handed his precious deck over, which gave Lucy time to think up a good lie. She had to keep going now she’d started.

‘Great-Aunt Nina is Grandma’s cousin,’ she said and stood, mouth open, fresh out of ideas.

Ricardo got the hang of it, though, drawing on some ancient family skeleton Grandma had found out about someone else at bingo and had told Mum while he was slurping Cocoa Puffs. He remembered every word.

‘Our grandma was put in a home because she was a poor little illiterate bugger,’ he volunteered.

Lucy looked at Blue Uniform, hesitated, then finished in a rush, ‘so it’s been a big secret and Great-Auntie Nina doesn’t tell anyone.’

‘Well! That’s quite enough. Indeed! I don’t need to know any more. What your parents are thinking of, letting you wander all over the country on your own, I don’t know. You’d better follow me.’

Blue Uniform swept back inside, marching up the red rug, skateboard tucked firmly under her don’t-argue-with-me arm. Ricardo was suitably impressed.

‘Is she a guard? Has she got a gun under her cardie? Does she shoot the old people if they try to escape?’

‘Shut up!’ hissed Lucy, panicked at how far their lies were taking her.

They marched behind Blue Uniform to the end of the hall, where the red rug swung around a corner and they entered a room with a huge desk. Blue Uniform put the skateboard on top of a heavy safe with a combination lock and fixed the kids with a tough look.

‘Names and address?’

Lucy felt sick. Blue Uniform’s gold pen was poised over a big black book, filled with names and addresses.

‘Lucy and Ricardo,’ she stammered. ‘688 Old Mine Road, West Kurrawong.’

Blue Uniform examined her suspiciously a moment longer before thumbing through the book.

‘ABCDEFGH . . . here we are . . . Hawthorne: 688 Old Mine Road. Well, I suppose you must be related if you’re living in Mrs Hawthorne’s house,’ she said, smiling for the first time.

It was like the sun coming out in an iron-grey sky. The matron changed from a stern block of concrete in a blue uniform into . . . well,
a stern block of human being
in a blue uniform. Not so bad.

‘Don’t look so terrified. Your great-auntie isn’t feeling chirpy today, so she’ll welcome cheerful faces, but don’t disturb the other patients and you’re to stay half an hour
only
. If you had come yesterday I wouldn’t have let you in at all, but she’s much better today.’

She swept around the desk and steamed down the hallway with Ricardo trotting in her substantial wake. Lucy lagged behind, feeling slightly ill. In ten seconds Blue Uniform would know there weren’t any great-nieces or nephews and that they were impostors and she would call the Impostor Help Line and she had their address and then Mum would know they’d been telling lies – big ones.

Lucy stopped imagining herself in jail when she noticed that Blue Uniform was waiting for her outside a door with the number 33 on it. She saw a bed with a blue blanket, the same colour as Blue Uniform’s uniform, and a foot in a yellow-and-black striped football sock, pointing at the ceiling. It was attached to a leg in a white plaster cast, and the whole lot was held up in the air by a kind of hoist. Lucy heard Blue Uniform’s deep voice.

‘I’ve got a surprise for you, Mrs Hawthorne! Come on, children.’

Maybe it was the stripy sunlight streaming through slatted blinds, but when Lucy looked at the face of the old lady with soft, white plaited hair, propped up on the pillows, she
saw the face of a cat
. Then, just like the Tiger-cat’s video clips, the cat face and its stripes blurred and resolved into the wrinkles and laugh lines of a familiar old lady’s face.

‘Aren’t you going to say hello to your great-auntie,’ boomed Blue Uniform. ‘Cat got your tongue?’

Lucy couldn’t speak and Ricardo was frozen to the spot.

‘Well, they had plenty to say before, Mrs Hawthorne. Don’t let Lucy and Ricardo tire you out. I’ve told them only half an hour.’

Blue Uniform stomped out and Lucy and Ricardo and ‘Great-auntie Nina’ were left staring at each other as her footsteps reverberated down the corridor into silence. Ricardo turned to run, but Lucy grabbed his arm, and blurted out the first thing in her head.

‘The Tiger-cat sent us!’

35
Euphoria

Strange, but the old lady
didn’t
reach for the red alarm button next to her bed. With one jab, she could have brought twenty Blue Uniforms rushing back to see if she was having a heart attack. She began to laugh weakly, which brought on a fit of coughing.

‘Well! Look what the cat’s dragged in: a niece and nephew I didn’t know I had,’ she said when she could speak again.

Her voice was crinkly – kind of old and husky, but friendly. She put on a pair of glasses with funny winged corners that made her look even more like a cat and peered more closely at her guests.

‘Yes,’ said the crinkly voice. ‘I recognise you now. Euphoria did very well. Now, what are your names?’

‘Lucy.’

‘A lovely name. You can call me Nina. What about your brother?’

Something unintelligible from under the bed.

‘You can get up you know, young man. I’m much less fierce than Euphoria . . . or Matron. That’s better. What was your name?’

‘Ricardo – but we don’t know anyone called U-furrier.’

‘Euphoria, Ricardo, Euphoria. It means absolute happiness. You’re a child, so I know you know what I mean. When are you absolutely happy, Ricardo?’ ‘When he’s eating.’

Ricardo opened his mouth to argue, then he saw the jar of jellybeans on the bedside cabinet. Mrs Hawthorne followed his gaze and offered him the open jar, smiling a crinkly ginger smile at Lucy. Her skin was very pale but her eyes were bright, the same warm colour as toffee or ginger-nut cookies. Ricardo took six red jellybeans and put them all in his mouth at once. Lucy didn’t try to stop him. She preferred his jaws glued together.

Mrs Hawthorne lay back on the pillows and considered them carefully before speaking.

‘Euphoria is my cat. Well, she belongs to herself really, as I am sure you’ve realised. We have been friends for many years, since long before the Mermaid House was built, in fact. My nephew told me two children had moved in, and Euphoria made sure I knew what you looked like. But now,’ fixing Lucy with a penetrating look through those weirdo winged glasses, ‘you must tell me everything’.

No way!
Something about those smiling ginger eyes made Lucy want to tell Mrs Hawthorne everything, even the really wacky stuff, but she had promised Rahel not to tell anyone about the Telarian kids.