“We’re going to hide, Your Majesty, and we’re going to find my parents and rescue them, and then the lions are going to stow away on a boat to Africa.”
The king just looked at him.
“They want to go home,” Charlie explained.
The king kept on looking.
“To Africa,” said Charlie.
The king sighed.
“It’s not your motives or intentions that I’m worried about,” he said. “It’s your methods. How on earth are seven lions going to hide in Venice? Or stow away on a boat? They haven’t a chance of success. And you and your parents . . . I’m very worried, Charlie. I don’t see how you can succeed in any of this. You will sneak from my car and go off into the night, no idea where you’re going, with hope in your heart and danger on your heels . . . I don’t like it, Charlie.”
Put that way, Charlie didn’t like it very much either. They would be hiding in a city they didn’t know, and they had already been very lucky in escaping from potentially dangerous situations.
“Charlie,” said the king, “they’re lions, not little mice you can put in your pocket. People notice lions. Especially Venetians! They’re crazy about them.”
The king rubbed his nose. “Charlie,” he said. “You leave me with no choice.” He stood up.
Charlie’s heart sank. He knew what was going to happen. King Boris was going to take charge, and send him home, and send the lions back to the circus, where Maccomo would drug them again. Everything would be safe and sensible with grown-ups in charge, and Charlie would have betrayed Major Tib and Julius and all his circus friends for nothing, and they would all hate him, and he would have to just keep going to his lessons and staying who knows where until maybe, one day, his parents might come back, and the lions would never get back to Africa, and as for the strange new creature, who knows what would happen to him . . .
“No!”
shouted Charlie, jumping to his feet. “I won’t! I’d rather we all just ran away
now!
We’ll take our chances in the snow rather than go back, we’re never going back, never never never!!”
“Be quiet,” said the king. “And sit down. Of course I’m not going to send you back. You wouldn’t go even if I did. I’d like to know how you intend to find your parents when you don’t even know who has them, or why.”
Charlie sat down. He couldn’t make heads or tails of this kind, bossy, pessimistic king. Could he trust him? Tell him how the lions and the cats were going to help him?
Charlie was chewing his lower lip as he looked over at King Boris.
“I have some friends who are very good at finding things out,” he said at last.
“So do I!” cried the king. “Edward!”
The pale quiet Englishman came back into the car and stood by his master.
King Boris said to him: “Why have two British scientists, a married couple, been kidnapped in London and brought to Venice?”
Edward raised an eyebrow and looked at Charlie. “Ah,” he said. “This would be
that
boy then. I wondered.”
Charlie didn’t appreciate it.
That
boy, again. It was what the French canal cat had said.
“
What
boy?” he said, a little rudely, imitating Edward’s intonation.
“The boy whose parents are missing, who is missing too,” said Edward.
“Am I missing?” said Charlie, in some surprise.
“You were last seen stowing away in a policeboat on the Thames. You are feared drowned.”
“Oh!” said Charlie. “So where are my parents then?”
“En route,” said Edward. “They have been traveling south, and when they arrive, we will know their whereabouts.”
“And who has them, Edward?” asked the king. “And why?”
Edward looked a little blank. “It isn’t clear whether in the full process of—” he began. The king stopped him.
“Edward,” he said. “Charlie deserves to know everything that we know.”
Edward tightened his mouth a little. It seemed he didn’t agree.
“The likelihood demonstrated by current investigations—” he started again.
“Edward,” said the king warningly.
Edward blinked, and gave in.
“Your parents were working on a cure for asthma, weren’t they?” he said.
“They were always working on cures for everything,” said Charlie. He spoke cautiously, but inside him a light went on. This was the first human information he had had yet. Was he about to be proved right? Was it for their knowledge that they had been taken?
“It seems that they were working on asthma prevention, and furthermore they have found something quite important,” said Edward. He looked at the king. It was clear he didn’t want to tell Charlie.
King Boris sighed. He thought for a moment and then he took over. “There are people in this world, Charlie, who make a great deal of money from selling medicine,” he said.
Charlie didn’t understand.
“Asthma in particular has been a problem. Though automobiles now hardly exist, there remain many allergies, to cats and so on. People—especially children—need a lot of asthma medicine. If, however, everybody were to be inoculated against asthma, or if the asthma gene could be identified—do you know about genes, Charlie?”
“Yes,” said Charlie. “They’re the building blocks of human beings. We all have a different pattern of genes, which make us who we are. We get a mix from our parents.”
“Exactly,” said King Boris. “So if the gene that makes a person susceptible to the allergies that cause asthma could be identified—are you following me, Charlie?”
“Yes,” said Charlie. But for a moment he heard another word in his head. Allergies, genes. Allergenies. Were they something to do with this? Were they drugs? Or people? Or genes? Or what?
King Boris was still speaking. “If the gene were identified, it could be modified or changed or removed, and people would no longer need asthma medicine, and the people who made money from asthma medicine would stop making money.”
Charlie shook the Allergenies from his mind, and concentrated on what the king was saying.
“But everybody would be happy if asthma were prevented!” he said.
“Not people who put money above the ability to breathe clearly,” said King Boris.
Charlie frowned. “Couldn’t they make money out of modifying the genes or something?” he asked.
“If they had the imagination, perhaps,” said the king.
Charlie was staring very hard at the floor.
“So somebody took my mum and dad because they have invented something that would help everybody?” His voice sounded thick and tight, even to himself.
“We believe so,” said the king gently.
Charlie stared and stared at the floor, holding his face straight with determination.
“But it can’t be!” he burst out. “Rafi doesn’t have anything to do with—” He was confused.
“Rafi?” said Edward.
“Rafi Sadler is the name of the boy who kidnapped them initially,” said King Boris.
“Ah,” said Edward, pocketing the name for future reference. “Charlie—big groups would employ lesser characters to, as it were, perform those functions not considered appropriate to an institution interested in maintaining a facade of respectability.”
“What?” said Charlie.
“A group big enough to use your parents’ information would pay villains to do their dirty work,” said King Boris. “Edward, do try and talk clearly. I am Bulgarian and my English is clearer than yours.”
Charlie was running through the scene in his head—Rafi saying to some faceless, powerful, greedy person: “Yeah, Ashanti and Start, I can get them. I know ’em. Make it worth my while and I’ll get ’em for you.” He felt a surge of hatred and incomprehension. He would no sooner kidnap Rafi’s mother than he would run over his own head with a steamroller.
“Does everyone know about all this?” he asked. “All grown-ups? Why do you know about it?”
“I know because I like to know everything,” said King Boris. “But no, very few people know about it, Charlie. It’s complicated.”
Charlie felt very young. Even if he asked about what made it so complicated, he probably wouldn’t understand the answer.
“Is anyone going to get them back?” he asked tightly.
“It did appear that there were intentions to set in motion the requisite preparations,” said Edward, “but budgetary obligations combined with some outstanding diplomatic issues—”
The king gave Edward a withering look, and interrupted. “Edward seems to be saying that the government of Britain thinks that it can’t afford a search,” he said. “And they don’t want to offend the medicine companies.”
Charlie was silent. He knew that the big companies were bigger than some governments: bigger, richer, stronger, more powerful. Some big companies had even bought small countries, so they could make up their own laws and do what they wanted. They ran them like the New Communities: Only certain types of people were allowed; you had to be rich, or working for the company, that kind of thing.
“So nobody cares about them,” he said. “Just me. You just said they were ‘traveling south.’ How come you don’t even know as much as I do? People can be stolen and nobody cares and only a kid does anything about it . . .” Charlie couldn’t tell if he was sad or angry. Or both. “It doesn’t—it doesn’t . . .” A phrase of his mum’s came into his mind. “It doesn’t fill me with confidence!” he burst out.
Edward and the king were staring at him.
Charlie felt sick.
“Excuse me,” he said politely. “I’d like to talk to you later if that’s okay.” Very quietly he stood up.
As Charlie reached the door, the king said, “Charlie—people do care. Your parents have been stolen precisely because they are valuable. That may seem small comfort, but if the people who stole them care about them, it means they won’t hurt them. They are safe, Charlie.”
Charlie paused for a moment, his head hanging down.
“Charlie,” said the king. “Much against my better judgment, I am going to help you.”
He sighed. “I know you’re upset. But listen—I have a little place in Venice. You and your lions can go there. Brave and foolish boy.”
King Boris’s black-olive eyes were filled with sadness as Charlie left.
“Find out all you can,” he said to Edward.
Edward bowed slightly, and retreated. The king sat a while in thought. Outside, the snow kept falling.
Charlie went back not to the bathroom but to his little cabin, where he sat on the bed with his head in his hands. He felt a million miles away from anything and anyone, far away and very small. He felt as if he might as well not exist. How stupid to be a small boy, powerless against these grown-up things! How stupid that stupid grown-ups should have all the power, when they do stupid things like take somebody just because they’ve thought up something really clever! A child wouldn’t do that. Any child would say, oh, great, they’ve done something really good, let’s give them a prize. They wouldn’t steal them away from their home and their son . . .
Charlie cried a bit. Though he was too big for toys, he got out his tiger and lay down for a while with it over his face. He thought about Rafi, stealing his parents to sell them for their knowledge and ability. He pictured Rafi in the canal, bitten by the lioness, and how worried and scared he had been, and now he thought, Good riddance, I hope you get blood poisoning. He thought about Maccomo, plotting with Rafi, planning to sell Charlie to him. He knew they were out there somewhere. He knew he was going to have to face them again sooner or later. The thought made him feel sick with anger.
He wished he knew where they were.
He wondered what was going on in Paris. What would Major Tib be saying about the lions having gone? He was sorry to have had to cheat him. One day perhaps he could find a way to make it up to him.
Then, as is so often the way after crying, he had a headache. He took his little bottle of Improve Everything Lotion from his bag and looked at it. Dear Mum. He didn’t need to take any, though. He’d be all right.
The piece of parchment lay there, tucked in the side of his bag.
Ah.
Charlie took it out, unfolded it. There it was—and Charlie was in no doubt this time about what it was. His mother’s blood, his parents’ knowledge: These numbers and letters were the cure for asthma.
And he had it.
Was the bag a safe enough place for it? He resolved to find something to wrap it in so he could keep it in the long pocket down the leg of his pants, and have it with him at all times. For now, he tucked it back where it was and took out his mum’s ball of lapis lazuli.
He lay down on the bed, holding it, listening to the silence of the snow, watching the curious reflections of light from the ball’s shiny surface on the ceiling of his little room. Powerless in so many ways, but actually not powerless at all. He fell asleep.
Charlie was awakened by a dark purring sound in his ear, and a whiskery tickle and a warm breath on his cheek. It was the young lion.
Charlie rolled over, and found himself face-to-face with the lion.
“Hello,” he said.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” said the young lion, “I didn’t mean to disturb your rest. But we must speak. Nobody has been into our strange chamber, so when all was silent I came to find you. Come to us? Are you all right? We heard you sobbing and we feared for you. The lionesses said that though you are brave and strong, we should remember you are just a cub . . .”
“I suppose I am a cub,” said Charlie. “Yes. I’m a cub.”
It made him smile.
“Pretty tough cub!” said the young lion, looking—yes, impressed. Charlie smiled again. He’d impressed a lion!
“Well, you must come and tell us what’s happening anyway,” said the young lion. He turned to the door of the compartment and for a moment held his head absolutely still, whiskers perked, ears twitching. He could have been on an African plain, listening out for the hoofbeats of a distant animal, alert for the chase . . . But he was in a snug little railway car in a snowdrift, listening out for guards and waiters.