The Tiger's Egg (12 page)

G
ila Bolsillo, full-fed and brandy-warmed, turned the corner of his brightly painted wagon and came face to face with Miles and his hairy companion. The little man froze on the spot. He had left the campfire to collect his knitted Himalayan hat from the wagon before his frozen ears dropped off the sides of his head, and the last thing he expected to see was the missing boy and a figure about his own size covered from head to toe in matted hair. His black eyes narrowed and he squinted nervously at Little. “Who's your friend?” he hissed to Miles, from the corner of his mouth.

Miles laughed. “Have a guess,” he said.

“I'd rather not,” said Gila. He looked so rattled by the appearance of the hairy stranger that Miles felt sorry for him.

“It's Little,” said Miles. “She used one of Doctor Tau-Tau's Untried Marvels. He says it will wear off soon.”

Gila's eyes widened, and he peered closely at Little's bearded face. “Well, coat me in custard!” he said. “It's you, all right. What are you doing in there, Sky Beetle?”

“It's a long story,” said Little, “and Miles is very hungry.”

“Of course,” said Gila. “Feed first, talk later.”

The sound of laughter and the
parp-parrump
of a tuba drifted over from the campfire, carried on the smell of roasting meat and chestnuts and making Miles feel faint with hunger. Gila put his arms around their shoulders and steered them toward the fire, but Little pulled back. “I'm not hungry,” she said. “I'll be in my wagon.”

“'Course you're hungry!” said Gila, taking her elbow with a firm grip. “And don't worry about the hair. Even a walking hearth rug doesn't stand out among this lot. No one will even notice.”

As they drew close to the campfire, Gila snapped
into ringmaster mode. He threw his head back, stuck out his chest and boomed, “Ladies and Gentlemen, you've heard of the Bearded Lady, but tonight we present, all the way from your darkest hour, the one and only Beeearded . . . Baaaabyyy!”

Little cringed. The tuba ceased its
parrump
ing, and twenty faces turned toward them in the firelight. Fabio rose slowly to his feet, staring at Little as though he had seen his long-dead grandmother wobbling past on a unicycle. Umor also stood transfixed, until the sausage he was toasting caught fire and he had to blow it out.

“It's all right,” said Gila, “It's just Sky Beetle.”

“Little?” said Fabio.

“She's been reupholstered,” said Gila.

“I don't understand it,” said Fabio.

“But I like it,” said Umor.

“She can't go on the wire like that.”

“She'd break her neck.”

“She can go on after the countess,” said Fabio, “and before Stranski.”

“The Human Gorilla,” suggested Umor.

“The Wolf-child of Cádiz.”

“The Pocket Yeti,” said Gila.

“I'm not going on as anything,” interrupted Little. “Doctor Tau-Tau says it will all fall out in a
couple of days. I used his Bearded Lady lotion.”

“Oh,” said Gila, sounding disappointed.

“Are you sure?” said Fabio.

“We could apply some more,” said Umor.

“I used the whole bottle,” said Little, “and I don't like being hairy. When it falls out I'll go back on the wire, as myself.”

“Well, you're turning your back on a long and hirsute career,” said Fabio.

“On your own head be it,” said Umor.

“And all over the rest of you,” said Gila.

Miles and Little took their place by the fire, and Umor passed them battered tin plates piled high with steaming food. The circus performers resumed their laughter and talk as though there was nothing remarkable about sharing their supper with a fur-covered four-hundred-year-old girl. Indeed it was no more remarkable than the lives that many of them had led, lives so rich and strange that they could fill a hundred books and still leave secrets untold. For the first time in days Miles began to feel warm, and content, and full.

“Well, Master Miles,” said Fabio quietly, when Miles had cleaned his plate, “are you going to tell us where you got to?”

“I went looking for my father,” said Miles.

“Your father,” repeated Fabio. He was silent for a while. “And what did you find?”

“Nothing, so far,” said Miles. He refused to allow the sinking feeling to overtake him again. “It was a false trail,” he said, “but I'll keep trying.”

“You went with Tau-Tau?” said Fabio. Miles nodded. It was on the tip of his tongue to tell Fabio about the Fir Bolg, but he was weary from his adventure and did not want to have to tell the entire story to the assembled company. Fabio did not ask him where they had gone, but instead he asked, “Did he come back with you?”

Miles suppressed a smile. “He'll be back anytime now,” he said.

“He fell behind,” laughed Little, and Fabio looked at her with curiosity in his hard black eyes.

A moment later the fortune-teller himself wandered in from the surrounding darkness and threw himself down on the nearest log with a theatrical groan. As no one paid him much attention, he groaned louder.

“I'm sure you're all wondering where I've been,” he announced to the company in general.

“Well?” said Etoile politely.

“I've been tramping around the countryside, looking after young Miles and his little friend.
Excitable kids, could have got into a lot of trouble if I hadn't been watching over them. They fell back a little on the road home, but my second sight tells me they'll be along shortly. The pace was too . . .” At that moment he spotted Miles and Little, sitting quietly on the far side of the fire, and his voice trailed off in midsentence. He sat forward on the log and rubbed his eyes with the back of his hands. “Well, well,” he said. “How did you . . . wait, don't tell me.” He closed his eyes and placed his fingers to his temple, as though waiting for a telephone call from the world next door. “Yes, I see now. You took the shortcut. Ingenious, I must say.”

“That's right,” said Little. “We took the shortcut you suggested.”

“Of course, of course,” said Doctor Tau-Tau doubtfully. A grin lit up his face suddenly, and he waved his hand proudly in Little's direction. “What do you think of the Bearded Lady, eh?” he asked the assembled audience. “One of my many potent preparations, that is. A brilliant disguise for traveling around the countryside unnoticed, wouldn't you say?”

“I think I'd notice,” said Umor.

“It all depends,” said Fabio.

“On what?” said Umor.

“On whether she's traveling with a herd of miniature bear-weasels,” suggested Gila.

“I never thought of that,” said Umor.

“I'm going to bed,” said Little, a yawn extending her matted beard.

“I'll walk with you,” said Miles. They set off between the trailers, their way lit by the occasional lamp hanging from the eaves. Miles felt as though he could sleep for days. They reached the Toki sisters' wagon and sat on the step for a while, their breath fogging the air, until Little broke the silence. “Do you think they really would have eaten Doctor Tau-Tau?”

“I don't know,” said Miles, “but I'm glad you got us out of there before they had a chance.”

“It was lucky I came across that fox,” said Little. She turned to Miles, and her clear blue eyes regarded him from the matted hair that surrounded them. “Remember when we heard the bees singing the flowers?” she said.

Miles nodded.

“The flowers would never open if they couldn't hear the bees,” she said, “and the bees would starve without the flowers. The One Song has tied us together too, Miles. We can't look after each other if
we keep secrets, can we?”

Miles shook his head. “I suppose not,” he said.

 

The Circus Bolsillo, flagged, bagged, horse-shoed and hobnailed, meandered slowly southward in the weeks that followed Miles's encounter with the Fir Bolg. The frost began to thaw and the days to lengthen as the circus brought the spring to each town it visited. In fields and on village greens they pitched their big top, and every night they filled the tent with people, and the people filled the tent with laughter and gasps of wonder as Little's music and the genius of the brothers Bolsillo worked their peculiar magic. In the mornings, as they packed up their show to take to the road again, Miles would see that the spring in the air was matched by a new spring in the step of the people passing by, and he would smile to himself as he hosed down the elephants, or fed enormous steaks to the haughty lions.

There was little time in the bustling rhythm of his traveling life for Miles to discuss his visit to the Fir Bolg with anyone, but he turned the strange adventure over and over in his mind as he worked. Doctor Tau-Tau would say nothing more on the subject, and he became so despondent whenever Miles
tried to bring it up that Miles would feel sorry for him, and let it drop. He wouldn't hear of Miles mentioning his meeting with the Great Cortado, pointing out only that the Bolsillo brothers had worked for Cortado at the Palace of Laughter for some time, a point with which Miles found it hard to argue.

The circus had not been raided again by the Fir Bolg since leaving Nape, and Miles wondered whether they were relying on him to find the Egg and fulfill his mother's promise, or simply living in fear of the stranger with the blinding light. He felt sure that the Bolsillo brothers knew more about the hairy little cavemen than they liked to admit, though he knew from experience that getting the brothers to talk could be like eating jelly with chopsticks.

On a fine spring afternoon Miles sat, weary from hard work and an early start, on the box seat of the Bolsillo brothers' wagon. Little sat beside him, humming to herself as she stitched sequins onto a new outfit with tiny, invisible stitches. She had indeed returned to her normal appearance, although it had taken longer than Doctor Tau-Tau had predicted. The hair had gradually fallen out in clumps, which had rolled around their various campsites and snagged themselves on corners and on ropes for
several weeks, while Little herself had hidden away during the daylight hours, looking like a small yak with a severe molting problem.

Miles looked at Fabio, who sat on the far side of Little, talking and chucking softly to the horses. The little ringmaster's mood was always lightest when the tent was packed away and they were on the open road, and it seemed a good opportunity to try and wring some information out of him.

“Fabio,” said Miles, “have you ever heard of the Fir Bolg?”

“Of course, Master Miles,” said Fabio.

“Furry fellas, live in old stories,” came Umor's voice from inside the wagon.

“Who's been telling you about them?” asked Fabio.

“I've met them,” said Miles, “that time when I went off with Doctor Tau-Tau, and Little grew her beard.”

“Is that so?” said Fabio, his gaze fixed on the road ahead.

“They kept us in a cave for two days,” said Miles, “and they said they were going to eat Doctor Tau-Tau.”

“Nobody could be
that
hungry,” said Fabio.

“Probably just those hairy kids again, playing at
cavemen,” said Umor.

“They let you go in the end, then,” said Fabio.

“Little helped us escape,” said Miles. “That's why she needed the Bearded Lady lotion.”

The great cart horses plodded on, their hooves thumping a soft tattoo on the dusty road. Eventually Fabio spoke. “What did they want with you?”

“They were looking for a Tiger's Egg,” said Miles. “Doctor Tau-Tau thought I had swallowed one.”

There was a loud crash from inside the van. Fabio reined in the horses, and the wagon came to a halt. He turned to Miles, leaning forward in his seat. “That fool has been filling your head with nonsense,” he said. “Tigers don't lay eggs.”

“And chickens don't hunt antelope,” said Umor from inside the wagon.

Fabio cracked the reins, and the wagon creaked as the horses ambled forward. He talked to them softly for a while. Little continued sewing, as though she had heard nothing. Miles sighed. The Bolsillo brothers' reaction made him almost certain that they had also heard of the Tiger's Egg, but he would have to choose his moment to find out what they knew. “There's something else that puzzles me,” he said after a moment.

Fabio rolled his eyes, but he gave Miles a look of faint amusement. “Life is a puzzle, Master Miles,” he said.

“And some of the important bits are lost under the sofa,” said Umor.

“Why did you say ‘well done' to me,” said Miles, “after Dulac had his accident?”

“Because it was you who set him back on his feet,” said Fabio.

“But I didn't do anything,” said Miles. “I felt dizzy and had to sit down.”

“You have the touch, Master Miles,” said Fabio.

“Your mother left it to you,” said Umor.

“Tau-Tau guessed it,” said Fabio.

“Must be the only thing he's ever got right,” chuckled Gila from inside the wagon.

“The boy's life had all but run out.”

“You lent him some of your own.”

“Which came as a surprise to us.”

“And to you, it seems.”

Miles thought about the feeling of hollowness that had come over him, as though he might have blown away like a dried leaf. It was not a very nice sensation, but with the Bolsillo brothers' explanation it seemed to make a certain sense. Little glanced up at him and smiled, then returned to her
stitching. Miles leaned his head back against the painted wood of the wagon, and as the sun created swirling patterns on his closed eyelids he slipped into a light doze.

“Have you ever seen the sea, Master Miles?” said Fabio, his voice coming from somewhere far away.

Miles opened his eyes. It seemed as if he had awakened into a new world, and for a moment he could not remember where he was. The wagon had stopped on the crest of a hill and there, spread out before them, was the sea. It was still and broad and blue, and it stretched to the very edge of the world. On the far horizon lay a pale suggestion of a distant coast. Miles had seen the sea in pictures, but they could no more paint the vastness of the ocean than they could bring to him the salt tang that hung on the air, or the unfamiliar cries of the seabirds, urgent and wild, that set his heart beating faster. He sat up straight and took in a deep breath, and though he did not know it at the time, that breath of sea air filled him with a wanderlust that would be with him to the end of his days.