Through the Tiger's Eye (19 page)
‘They tell them we have rebel germs,’ sneered Carlos, ‘a sickness, so they will not answer if we do succeed in speaking to them’.
Rahel cut in before Lucy could respond.
‘Tonight we go scouting. We will follow the Bull Commander. He does not sleep at the jungle jail with the others. We must find out where he goes.’
‘Then we will ambush him,’ said Toro happily.
Lucy looked at her watch. ‘We’ve only got three hours before sunset, which means it’s almost dark in Telares.’
‘We must go now!’ Rahel jumped up.
‘We cannot all go,’ said Pablo slowly, nodding towards Angel.
He was right. But who should go?
‘Penalty shootout?’
Which was how Carlos and Lucy ended up going down the tunnel with only the Tiger-cat at their heels.
Once again, Lucy didn’t need a torch. She was definitely getting better at this. She strode confidently ahead of Carlos until her questing mind listened and
felt
the tunnel fork. A little later her mind stretched into space. The bat cave. They hurried towards the dim light at the end of the tunnel. Lucy felt a disturbance in the air as the Tiger-cat flew at the obstructing greenery. Carlos gasped as the creepers dissolved, and then he stood staring at the last light of a Telarian sunset.
In no time they were at the clearing. They crept around the back of the house, passing close to the fence where shiny strands of wire marked hasty repairs, and then Carlos turned into the jungle. After a few minutes, Lucy spied a clearing very like the one they had just left, but with a corrugated iron building. Carlos crept forward, too close for Lucy’s liking.
They heard a shout and dropped to the ground. Two huge doors at the front of the building swung open, as though a hungry metal beast had opened its metal mouth to eat. Instead, the beast poked out its tongue as two columns of marching children emerged, flanked by rifle-wielding guards. They kept coming and coming, endlessly. Lucy counted and was up to ninety when a voice cried out and the children froze. At another shout they swung right, and headed into the jungle. Lucy could see the exhaustion on their faces. Then she saw something unexpected: a gang of silent adults standing in the disappearing light at the edge of the clearing, as if waiting. They gathered the children close and disappeared into the gloom of the trees.
Another order was barked from the building and another group of children marched out of the metal mouth. Lucy counted seventeen. They were more frightened than the others. Cowed. They kept their heads down and scrambled quickly out under the accusing eyes of two guards.
Then in the last seconds of the day, another soldier stepped out: the Bull Commander. He stood alert as the children went by, eyes following every move, his mouth fixed in that gruesome smile. Then he glanced sharply up to where Lucy and Carlos lay hiding at the edge of the clearing.
Something about the Commander really chilled Lucy. There
was
something different about him. He wasn’t like the militia. He was looking up into the jungle as though he knew someone was there; as though he could smell them. Dad had told her that dogs smelled fear. The smiling soldier was poised and alert like a hunting dog.
Lucy held her breath. She prayed he couldn’t see them in the semi-darkness. Her prayers were answered. The Commander shut the doors of the building and jogged after the guards and the second sad, crooked line of children. Lucy could see them stumbling up the path, the little ones only just keeping up.
Lucy and Carlos waited a few minutes and then retraced their steps, creeping through the undergrowth back to the rickety old house and their vantage point overlooking the clearing.
Just as night fell, flashing torches and shouted orders signalled the arrival of the seventeen children. The small, weary figures were marched up the stairs and into the dark house.
The guards gathered around the fire pit and coaxed some coals into life, while the Commander stood apart, smoking.
Then a figure stepped into the firelight – a stooped old woman, carrying a stick over her shoulders, with two buckets hooked over each end. She lowered her burden, removed bowls from one of the buckets and filled them with some kind of food from the other. The Commander took his without a word.
The guards ate eagerly. The woman spoke to the Commander, pointing first at the old building and then at the bucket of food. He shook his head, making an angry, dismissive gesture. Lucy heard Carlos’ sharp intake of breath as the old woman hoisted the buckets back onto her shoulders and hobbled away,
Lucy knew what the scene below meant, without being told. Reprisal. These kids were not being fed because the others had escaped.
Lucy felt fury rise but then it turned to fear as a light swung towards her. The torch on the Commander’s helmet glared at her. He was walking straight towards her.
Lucy pressed her face into the ground, which shook with each heavy step.
Crunch
,
crunch
, closer and closer! A few more steps and he would be upon them. Lucy tensed, ready to run – then heard a distinctive splashing sound.
False alarm.
Even Bulls had to go!
Lucy dared to lift her head. Watching the Commander’s retreating back, she noticed she could still feel his steps with every muscle in her body. She felt the vibration, even as he reached the fire. Had fear made her senses sharper?
The Commander barked an order, the guards jumped to their feet and saluted, and then he marched out of the clearing, in the same direction as Bucket Lady, his rifle at the ready.
Carlos touched Lucy’s shoulder and they stood up and crept sideways. The Commander had a head start
and
a head torch.
Lucy loved the moonlight. That hunting feeling swept over her and she padded lightly after Carlos, all her senses stretching to find the way. When the workshop loomed in front, he led her around the back, and about thirty paces into the jungle.
Had the Commander slipped past? No. Lucy felt a vibration in the ground, swelling up through the soles of her feet; a steady excitement, like a beating heart. Then Carlos pointed. A light bobbed in the darkness. A minute later, she heard the stealthy crunch of boots, their rhythm matching the vibration under Lucy’s feet. Again, she had
felt
him coming before she saw or heard him!
He went past and they watched until night swallowed the beam of his torch. Carlos slipped among the trees, careful not to walk on the path itself, but staying close to it. All the time Lucy felt the Commander’s weight on the earth, shifting and shaking under her feet. She was following a tremor, not a soldier.
There was a sharp crack as Carlos stepped on a branch. Lucy felt the Commander stop dead. She grabbed Carlos’ hand and pulled him to the ground. With her chin in the dirt again, she felt a stronger shuddering under her body. He was coming back! A beam of light bounced off the trees above them. And then – the forest cracked open!
The thunder of his weapon brought branches crashing down around Carlos and Lucy. They huddled together, as the Commander’s helmet light swung crazily, ripping the shadows apart, and his gun blasted the trees to pieces.
In the stinging silence that followed, Lucy lay like a stone. She tasted dirt. The Commander shouted once, hoarsely, then she felt his stampeding feet heading away down the track.
‘The tiger . . . he is afraid. He thought we were the tiger.’ Carlos’ voice was shaking.
Lucy felt her pounding heart gradually slow. She concentrated. She could still feel the Commander’s feet, and even sense what direction he was heading.
‘I can feel him running,’ she breathed to Carlos. ‘Come on!’
She padded down the path, letting her feet do the listening. She would know if he stopped again. It was Carlos’ turn to follow.
The path swung to the right, onto a long flat stretch, before twisting downhill. Soon they saw the first lights of the village. Shouts wafted up. They crept closer and saw a circle of huts on stilts, spaced around a central clearing with a fire in the middle. Lucy smelt smoke and something else familiar . . . They were near the sea!
They went as close as they dared to the first round hut, clinging to the shadow of a mighty tree. The Commander barked harsh orders to a crowd gathered around the fire. Carlos translated.
‘He is saying a tiger is about, and is telling everyone to get inside their huts . . . but first they must make the fire bigger.’
Lucy saw, on the far side of the clearing, someone who didn’t seem to share the alarm: a young woman, squatting on the top step of her hut, wearing a bright sarong. Long dark hair fell over her shoulders. The Commander swaggered over to her.
‘What is he saying?’
‘He boasts he shot one tiger and wounded another.’
‘Liar, liar, pants on fire!’
‘I beg your pardon?’
But the Commander was speaking again and the young woman answered. She got up and went behind the curtain, the Commander following.
‘She asked where was the body if he had shot a tiger? He said he would bring the body tomorrow and make a rug for her bed.’
Lucy and Carlos crawled back to the path and began walking. Part way up, Lucy’s feet began to tingle. The sensation grew stronger.
‘There’s someone ahead,’ she hissed.
Carlos listened, then shook his head. Lucy lay flat on the ground. That was better. A rush of energy, then, not exactly a picture, but an impression formed. One person, creeping slowly as though they didn’t want to be heard. A guard disturbed by the gunfire?
They moved forward cautiously on the twisting track and along the flat stretch. Just before they reached the workshop Lucy grabbed Carlos’ hand and dropped to the ground.
‘He’s stopped,’ she whispered.
The moon sailed out from behind a cloud and Lucy suddenly had a clear view of the clearing – and the Ponytail Zombie! He was so close Lucy could see the expression on his face. He didn’t look like a zombie, he looked alert and watchful. He stood in the clearing for about a minute without moving.
Then Lucy felt a tremor in the ground from the other direction. Someone else was coming! Someone smaller and lighter than the Commander. Whoever it was gave a low whistle, and the Ponytail Zombie stiffened, and slipped into the jungle towards the sound. Lucy felt his steps and that of the stranger fade into the night.
It was nearly dusk when Lucy and Carlos climbed out of the pit. Lucy was relieved to see Ricardo step from behind a tree with T-Tongue. There was no sign of the other kids, thank goodness. It was dangerous near the house with Grandma around. She’d invite them in for chocolate cake and have their whole life story out of them in fifteen minutes flat, even if they pretended not to speak English.
Lucy swung out, checked Grandma wasn’t around and signalled all clear.
‘See you in the morning,’ she said to Carlos.
‘Yes, I will see you,’ he said, in that formal Telarian way.
Suddenly Lucy knew something had changed between them. They had barely talked to each other, but down there in the jungle, they’d been on the same side.
Carlos melted into the bush.
Ricardo woke up early and jumped on Lucy. He wanted to know again what had happened last night, even though she had told him up at the pit. He couldn’t believe the bit about the kids in the jungle jail not getting fed.
‘I’ll tell you again when we get up the mountain,’ she said, trying to smother him with her sleeping bag.
After breakfast, they hurried to the clearing. Pablo was making ten-year-old tea again. Lucy made a mental note to get fresh teabags. Angel was building a mud castle under a tree near the creek, Carlos was practising tricks with the soccer ball, and Toro was jumping up and down, trying to tell Ricardo about some mission he had been on early in the morning with Pablo. Rahel shushed him.
‘First we require a full report from Lucy and Carlos.’
‘You go first,’ said Lucy to Carlos. His face darkened as he described the old lady with her buckets and how she had gone away without feeding the children.
There was silence.