Through the Tiger's Eye (14 page)
2 Tip out all Lego.
3 Get all stuffed toys; stand in middle of room and throw in air.
4 Get all gaming magazines (see above).
5 Get all pyjamas. Place over elephant’s head and trunk (pyjama leg), tiger’s face, snake, bat and monkey.
6 Get all undies. Throw at big sister.
7 Run away from big sister, avoiding soccer balls and dirty clothes. Throw soccer balls at big sister if necessary.
Ricardo fled to the chook pen and safety with Grandma, with Lucy chasing him. Grandma was proudly displaying twelve chickens that looked like two-legged Persian cats. They had weird fluffy heads and some were black, some white and others tabby-coloured. Silky bantams. They were scratching around happily in the long grass and Grandma was telling them about the Great Depression when poor people who had chickens and vegie gardens in the back yard did OK and everyone else went hungry. The silky bantams didn’t seem to be listening, but then, they didn’t seem to have ears either.
Lucy picked up her favourite soccer ball, the one Dad had given her, and decided to get Ricardo back the best way she knew: beating him at soccer. They played until Mum’s Mazda sputtered into the driveway, sounding worse than ever. Mum looked tired but very pleased to see them and they couldn’t stop talking.
‘Mum, I went with Grandma and we’ve got fifty chickens . . .’
‘Did the little girl die . . .’
‘Did the aeroplane crash . . .’
‘We’ve run out of food . . .’
‘Grandma says they always crash . . .’
‘Grandma says we’re both having growth spurts and we need more food . . .’
‘Can we go to the movies after we buy more food?’
‘Grandma made us Ninja pants . . .’
‘And she made some for herself!’
Mum headed for the safety of the kitchen and a cup of tea before she tried to answer anything. No, the little girl hadn’t died, she was going to be OK, fifty chickens sounded a lot, but if Lucy and Ricardo were eating as much as Grandma said they were, then maybe they needed them . . . oh, it was really only twelve chickens . . . no, the aeroplane had not crashed and she’d been in lots of planes and they usually didn’t . . . and yes, they were both growing quickly and the movies did sound like a good idea, maybe this week . . . and we can’t possibly be out of everything . . . the cupboard was pretty full . . . how many spuds did you say they ate? . . . yes, I will come and look at the new chickens . . . yes, your pants are great, especially Grandma’s pink ones . . . T-Tongue, get off me . . . was it you who ate all those extra spuds?
Lucy was
going
to tell Mum about Nigel Scar-Skull’s visit, but she thought she would let her have a sleep first, and by the time Mum woke up later in the afternoon Lucy had other things on her mind.
When Grandma had caught the bus home and Mum had fallen asleep, Lucy, Ricardo and T-Tongue went back down the tunnel with the Tiger-cat, where they found all the kids wearing warm clothes and wrapped up in blankets, except Carlos. He was still wearing his ragged T-shirt and shorts, even though it was freezing. Lucy thought he looked more relaxed when she walked in but he began scowling again as soon as he saw her. Well, whatever his problem was, it wasn’t hers. She ignored him.
Angel was asleep again.
Rahel was shocked to know it was 2 p.m. She had completely lost track of time in the permanent night of the cubby. Then Lucy repeated her theory about time doing different things at each end of the tunnel.
‘I think the sun comes up earlier at your end,’ she said.
‘And I looked Telares up in an atlas – two atlases! I couldn’t even
find
it in one of them – well, I could, but it didn’t even have a name. It was just this weird blob, way out in the ocean. But then I found this other book – this really, really old book – and it had a map of Telares and . . . and . . . it was still really way, way out in the ocean . . .’
Lucy’s voice trailed away.
‘It is really way, way out in the ocean,’ said Carlos, as though she were really dumb, ‘but it is most definitely not a blob. It is our homeland’.
Rahel took in Carlos’ scowl and Lucy’s glare. Her next words cut them both off.
‘I have come to a decision. We go back tonight and fetch the others.’
There was a stunned silence.
Then Carlos said bitterly, ‘I agree. And on this occasion we do not give up until we have everyone’.
Lucy stepped forward.
‘What do you mean, give up? We didn’t give up – we just couldn’t carry them all. Anyway, how come you didn’t offer to help? And how are we supposed to wake those little kids up?’
‘There are more prisoners who will not be drugged,’ Rahel said calmly. Lucy remembered the long line of kids marching through the gates yesterday morning. But there’d been only five little ones chained to the tiger rug.
‘Where were the others last night?’ asked Lucy slowly.
The other boy, Pablo, spoke shyly.
‘After Rahel and Toro escaped, the Bull Commander was filled with fury. He did not realise Rahel and Toro had escaped until yesterday morning, when he brought the night shift back from the workshop.’
Lucy was completely lost. Workshop? Night shift?
Pablo went on, ‘When he saw two were missing, he went crazy. He took all the bigger children back to the workshop. But Carlos and myself were detained for questioning in the jungle house because he knew we were friends with Rahel’.
Pablo paused, and shot Carlos a strange look, almost like an apology, before turning back to Lucy.
‘It was fortunate you came for us when you did! He had just started the interrogation when his mobile phone rang. It must have been something important, because he left immediately for Telares City. He ordered the militia to question us but they consumed too much alcohol. But when he got back he would have beaten us very badly.’
‘That’s so slack!’ said Ricardo.
Pablo looked a bit puzzled, but carried on.
‘That’s why we were the only ones in the jungle house last night, apart from Angel and the little ones.’
‘Hang on!’ Lucy wanted to go back a step. ‘What workshop?’
‘Near the jungle house is a workshop. We work there. That is what we are engaged in from morning to night.’
‘You’re all engaged? Yuck! Who to?’
‘Ricardo, he means they work there. Engaged in work.’
‘Naa! He said they —’
Carlos’ bitter voice cut through the argument. ‘We make toys for rich children like you, and rugs for you to walk on.’
‘We’re not rich!’ exclaimed Lucy and Ricardo together.
As if! Not like Mandy, who had her own laptop and flew on aeroplanes all the time and owned every single Barbie that had ever been made. And Mandy’s mum piled on about seven necklaces and big earrings just to buy milk. Lucy’s family wasn’t like that.
Carlos’ brain had clearly died. He was a zombie!
There was an angry scrape as Carlos the Zombie moved his chair, but Rahel spoke to him sharply in Telarian before he could reply. He shrugged his shoulders but remained silent. Rahel turned to Lucy with the same empty expression she had worn in the carpet room with the little kids.
‘It is true,’ she said simply, holding Lucy’s eyes. Something in her gaze made it impossible for Lucy to turn away. ‘We do make things. We have small fingers.’ She said it as though that explained everything.
Lucy searched Rahel’s face and all of a sudden felt dizzy. She had a vivid picture of Angel’s little hands, grasping those brightly coloured threads. She suddenly felt as if she was a computer connected to the Internet. Rahel had just downloaded way too much information to her hard drive. Now it was Lucy who knew too much. Her system was about to crash.
With a deep breath, Lucy rebooted her brain.
‘You mean Angel and those little kids have been weaving the tiger rug? And you guys all work for the Bulls too? But why? Kids aren’t supposed to work until they’re fifteen.’
Pablo answered her: ‘They make us work for them so they can get rich,’ he said simply. ‘The Bull Commander’s friends, the ones with ribbons and medals on their uniforms, make all the money. The Bulls have factories for children all over Telares.’
He didn’t sound angry, just sad.
‘And they hate us because we are all children of rebels.’ Carlos hissed.
‘That is
so
slack!’ said Ricardo.
Lucy still didn’t understand.
‘But what about Angel and the other little kids? Why don’t they go to this workshop?’
Everyone started babbling until Carlos shouted over the top of the others, ‘I was in the camp the longest, I will tell her’.
Lucy watched his intense, gaunt face in the candlelight.
‘Before, the prisoners all stayed in the workshop. I heard the guards talking about it in the army truck when they drove me from Telares City the day I was arrested.’
Carlos’ voice dropped a register. ‘Everyone in the village said the house was haunted; they just left it to rot and the jungle took it over. But the Bull Commander forced his men to go inside, and when he found the tiger rug in the very back room, still on its loom but not finished, he grew very much excited and ordered that it be completed. From now on, he said, the prisoners would sleep in the jungle jail. But the guards are terrified. That is why they get drunk.’
It was as though Carlos could not stop once he had started talking. The story poured out of him.
‘But at first no one knew how to complete the rug because no one could find the old pattern. It was not in the house. Then the Bull Commander sent the militia to question the villagers but they said bad things would happen if they even spoke of it. Then the Bull Commander said bad things would happen if they
did not
speak of it. He would burn down a house a day until the pattern was found.
‘The next day, the pattern appeared mysteriously beside the rug – well, half of it. It had been torn in half. The Commander cursed about that, but at least there was enough to start making the rug again. Now, whenever the Bulls bring in a new truckload of children, he picks the smallest, because their fingers are tiny. He makes them follow the pattern exactly. Soon they will be finished and he will start looking for the second half of the pattern. He is very cruel to the children. He only lets them outside once a day. Otherwise, they are chained to the tiger loom, day and night. That is where they eat and sleep.’
‘. . . and dream,’ thought Lucy.
Rahel broke in. ‘Enough explanation of this. We must make a very good plan to rescue the others.’
‘But there must be about twenty of them,’ Lucy said, ‘We can’t fit anyone else in here. It’s hard enough feeding everyone as it is.’
Carlos didn’t seem to notice what Lucy had said.
‘Yes, Rahel, the Bull Commander will be very much angered because we have escaped. He will not let the militia drink wine. He may get extra guards. We will have to take them by surprise.’
‘Let’s ambush them,’ said Ricardo.
‘Yes. An ambush,’ said Pablo, as though Ricardo had just suggested a chocolate milkshake and a trip to the movies.
Rahel mused aloud: ‘We need a decoy . . .’
This was all going too fast. Lucy did not like the feeling that the whole world had begun taking Ricardo’s words much more seriously than her own.
‘Please listen,’ she pleaded. ‘Even if we
can
rescue everyone, how can we possibly fit everyone in here? And you can’t stay in the dark for very long. You’ll turn into bats . . .’ her voice faded out.
Carlos uttered a phrase in his own language which sounded suspiciously like ‘What a loser’. Lucy knew the bit about the bats wasn’t true, but she did remember reading something about how kids needed sunlight or they got sick. If you got too much you got skin cancer, but not enough and you got something else. Something about a vitamin you needed from the sun. Vitamin D, that was it.
Pablo’s soft voice broke her train of thought. ‘You will think of some way to keep them safe,’ he said simply. ‘You have to.’
Lucy felt her system was going to crash again. This was too much.
‘Look, we’ll talk about it later. Ricardo, we have to go. Mum will be looking for us. Here, T-Tongue!’
Trudging up the tunnel, Lucy was relieved to be gone. Maybe she wouldn’t go back. They were all crazy (except Angel)! And Carlos the Zombie was worse than crazy. He could make toys for the rest of his life for all she cared. They were probably really dumb toys that no one wanted to buy anyway.
She was so glad to be out of there, it was easy to ignore the little voice that said:
You made a promise.
