Through the Tiger's Eye (28 page)
The acrid stench of smoke, much, much stronger than before, greeted them as they clambered out of the pit. The sky had a strange glow and the hot wind had swung around, gusting from the south, where the bushfire was. Great. That was all Lucy needed. But the knowledge broke through the grey skin of shock she was walking around in, and blood flowed in her veins again.
‘Listen, do you guys know about bushfires?’
Everyone shook their heads. The trouble was, Lucy did know about bushfires. She had lived in Kurrawong all her life, and every summer the smell of a bushfire was in the air. Once she had seen a whole swathe of the escarpment up in flames. She didn’t want to see it again.
‘You’re going to have to get up to the camp and get everything out of sight under the waterfall,’ she said urgently. ‘Dad’s going to come looking for Ricardo, so you won’t have much time. Make it look as though only Ricardo and I have been playing up there. If you can, get everyone back down into the tunnel. At least we know that’s safe. The Tiger-cat won’t let anyone else in.’
Lucy hoped that last bit was true. She was worried about the fire.
‘If you run out of time, just get under the waterfall,’ she warned. ‘You’ll be safe under there, even if a fire comes through, probably safer than our house. I’m going home now to stall Dad. I’ll tell him that Ricardo is having such a good time up here that he won’t come home. But when Dad can’t find him, he’ll call the police. You’ve got to be out of sight. Please try to get back to the tunnel.’
She waved goodbye and plunged off the stairs and down the hill, ready to tell the biggest lie of her life. She had no choice. No one would believe the truth. They’d lock her up and then she wouldn’t be around to help Ricardo. And in her bones, she knew she was the only one who could.
‘Hi, Dad,’ she called from the back door. But he wasn’t alone. Mum and Grandma were there, looking worried.
‘Lucy! Where have you been?’ said Mum. ‘They sent me home because they’re afraid the fire will cut the highway. I’ve been worried sick about you!’
‘I was trying to get Retardo to come down off the mountain. But he’s having such a good time that he won’t listen to me about the bushfires.’
Dad was hunched over the radio, listening to the news.
‘The wind’s swung. It’s not too strong right now, but they’re worried it will pick up and drive the fire this way. They’re trying to stop it at Rocky Pass. They think they have a good chance.’
‘I don’t care, I still want Ricardo off that mountain,’ Mum said. ‘You should have made him, Lucy. He does what you want if you really try. You know that. I’m disappointed in you.’
‘It’s not my fault,’ she began out of sheer habit and then gave up.
Grandma was more sensible.
‘Let’s just go up and get him, shall we?’ suggested Grandma. ‘Where did you say he was, Lucy?’
‘Mum knows where he is – at the waterfall.’
‘All the way up there! For goodness sake, anything could happen. I’ll go. Lucy, you go and start packing a bag in case we have to evacuate. Not much, just the essentials. Clothes, toothbrush, things you don’t want to lose.’
What about the tiger rug? Somehow Lucy didn’t think they’d let her roll that up and take it away.
She walked through the dragon vases standing guard at her door and stared at the wreckage on the floor. Morosely she began to tidy up. Somehow it didn’t matter any more if the grown-ups found out about the tiger rug. Maybe they would believe her about Ricardo if they could see what had happened to it. Mum and Grandma knew how old and crappy it was when they first found it. Maybe they wouldn’t think she was crazy after all. Suddenly enlivened, Lucy began clearing Lego and magazines and clothes as quickly as she could. Soon the whole menagerie was spread at her feet. The tiger in all its soft, rich fur, the monkey with its glamorous ruff, the python that still sent a tremble through her bones, the bat which was no longer a smudge but a distinct creature of delicate leather and fur, and the elephant, with that red jewel glowing like blood.
With a start Lucy realised there was something new, way over there, near the tail of the tiger. It looked like letters. Hang on, it
was
letters. Lucy sprang over the python and fell to her knees in luscious tiger fur to decipher the new addition. There, woven in golden thread, were the words:
I hav been a Retardo agin. From Ricardo
.
Lucy’s whoop of joy brought Dad and Grandma charging up the hall.
‘Look,’ she said triumphantly, pointing at the carpet scrawl, ‘Ricardo’s sent a message. We have to go and get him!’
She had abandoned all caution. This was evidence even Dad couldn’t ignore.
Dad and Grandma looked from the carpet to Lucy’s excited face, then at each other.
‘Now, calm down, Lucía,’ said Dad, soothingly, his face greyer than usual. ‘If we can’t find him we’ll call the police and the fire brigade. They’ll get him off the mountain.’
‘But he’s not on the mountain! He’s gone down a time tunnel and the Bull Commander captured him and he’s a prisoner in the jungle jail and he’s just woven a message to me in the carpet, look!’
She traced the letters in the carpet and recited Ricardo’s words.
‘I think,’ said Grandma in her sternest voice, ‘on the day when your little brother might be in serious danger you could stop calling him that dreadful name.’
‘I didn’t say it, he did,’ Lucy objected. Then she saw the looks on their faces.
‘How much sleep did she get last night?’ Grandma asked Dad accusingly, then lowered her voice. ‘I think she may have a fever.’
Turning back to Lucy, Grandma spoke in a bright, cheerful voice. ‘Pop back into bed, petal, and we’ll bring you a couple of aspirin. All this excitement has been too much for everyone. You’ll see, your mother will be back soon with Ricardo and we’ll all just listen to the radio and jump in the car if we have to. We get these scares every year, but I really don’t think we have anything to worry about. Now, you get some rest.’
Before Lucy knew what was happening, Dad was tucking her into bed, walking all over the animals as though they just weren’t there. It was only then she realised, with a sinking heart, that for him they weren’t. She was on her own. And it was going to take more than lying around in a sleeping bag to rescue Ricardo.
Grandma bustled back in with two aspirin and insisted that Lucy take them. Dad sat on her bed and read her a story. Lucy felt her arms and legs go heavy and her eyes start to close. Just as she drifted off to sleep she mumbled, ‘Mustn’t go to sleep,’ followed a minute later by, ‘They weren’t aspirin, were they?’ Then she was drifting in strange dreams of elephants and tigers, monkeys and bats, snakes and the Ponytail Zombie and the Bull Commander, smiling, smiling, smiling . . .
When Lucy finally woke, it was afternoon. That meant it was sunset, Telarian time. Time to get down that tunnel. But when she stepped out of her bed, her legs felt rubbery and her head was foggy. The house was terribly quiet. She walked down the hall and peered out the front door. Two police cars were parked out the front. Buzzing filled her head again. An insistent purr brought her back to earth. The Tiger-cat rubbed against her legs, gazing up at her. Lucy fell into that golden gaze and saw . . .
Ricardo, sitting with his back against a wooden wall, his plastic sword clutched in his right hand. Two Bull soldiers asleep on either side of him.
Lucy shivered back into her body. Her legs felt strong again and her head was clear. She looked directly at the Tiger-cat. ‘OK,’ she said. ‘Let’s go hunting.’
Lucy ran into the back yard. No sign of anyone. They must all be searching the waterfall. She darted up the path, T-Tongue and the Tiger-cat streaking ahead. Just as she got to the pit, she felt a familiar vibration. One, two, three, four people striding down the track above the pit. Without a moment to lose, she swung in and was relieved to see the tail of the Tiger-cat disappearing into the darkness. She ran to catch up and for the first time, the tunnel entrance closed behind her. The Tiger-cat was taking no chances. It was pitch-black instantly, but Lucy trotted confidently forward.
She reached the miners’ room quickly and found Rahel waiting at the door.
‘I felt you coming,’ Rahel said. ‘We hid everything under the waterfall and came down here, but we almost were caught. Someone came to the clearing and we had to hide. I felt someone walking and took everyone under the waterfall just in time.’
‘It was Mum,’ said Lucy. ‘They think I’m crazy. They gave me sleeping pills and called the police to look for Ricardo.’ Her words spilt out in a torrent. ‘And the Tiger-cat sent me that same vision she sent to Toro – Ricardo awake with his sword and two Bulls asleep. So the extra Bulls did arrive. But get this! Ricardo sent a message – he wove it into the carpet. That means he is in the other mermaid house. So let’s just go and get him.’
Lucy paused for breath. Through the open door, she saw Carlos with Angel on his knee, and Pablo and Toro at the candle-lit table. It seemed like forever since she had sat around the table, feeding a bunch of strange children Cocoa Puffs.
The others jumped to their feet, eager for action.
‘If Soella has done her work, then the guards will be asleep,’ said Carlos, excited.
Rahel spoke in Telarian to Toro and he sat down with Angel on the lounge.
‘We don’t want any more little brothers lost,’ Rahel explained to Lucy.
Lucy was the last to leave the candle-lit room.
‘Goodbye, Angel,’ she said gently.
It seemed important. She didn’t know what her connection to the little girl was, but she knew it was nothing she had ever experienced before. And Angel’s mother had told her to look after her, just as Lucy’s mum had told her to look after Ricardo.
‘See you, Toro. Thanks for looking after Angel!’
‘It’s OK. Bring back Ricardo.’ His little face looked pinched and serious in the candlelight.
Lucy caught up to the others just as they entered the Telarian night.
The scene that greeted them as they lay looking down on the jungle jail couldn’t have been better: six guards, three Bulls and three militia, slumbering around the blazing firepit, their meals half-eaten. There was no sign of the Commander.
‘He has gone back to Sarong Lady,’ Lucy whispered to the others.
Carlos took the keys from Rahel and crept to his feet. He ducked from tree to tree and made a dash for the gate. It was excruciating watching him try each key on the lock and fail.
‘The Commander must have changed the locks!’ Lucy hissed.
Carlos must have worked it out too. He looked desperately up to where the others lay hidden and shook his head. Then he padded carefully over to a sleeping Bull. The hair on the back of Lucy’s neck stood up. He chose one, carefully patting his pockets. Nothing. Then Carlos began undoing the buttons of his shirt, one by one. Lucy clearly saw the bunch of keys on a chain around his neck. Just then the Bull yawned and rolled over, flinging his arms wide open, whacking Carlos on the leg. Carlos jumped, and almost fell on another guard. Lucy held her breath until the guard began snoring again. Soella’s fish soup was something to be reckoned with. It was a delicate operation to get the chain over the guard’s head, but Carlos juggled ever so gently, cradling the snoring head first in one hand, and then the other. Gradually he worked the chain free!
Lucy reached the gate as Carlos unlocked it, then they were padding up the stairs towards the peeling door with its mermaid knocker. Suddenly, Lucy was overcome with the memory of the first time she had seen her own mermaid house, Ricardo finding the right key, the door swinging open to release musty air. It felt like a year ago.
Then the door to the jungle jail swung open to show two more drugged Bull soldiers lying on the threadbare mermaid carpet. The kids tiptoed past. Carlos went straight to unlock the ballroom where, until, a few days ago, he had been held prisoner. Lucy was dimly aware of a host of bodies lying on the floor, before Pablo stepped past her, whispering urgently in Telarian.
It was time to get her little brother out of here. Lucy padded up the hall and pushed open the door. A lamp burned in the corner. There, as before, was a litter of children chained to the tiger rug. Dark eyes wide open and frightened, the children stared in silent shock at Carlos, Lucy and Rahel. At the far end of the loom, Ricardo jumped to his feet, plastic sword outstretched. Silent shock was not in his repertoire.
‘What took you so long?’ he demanded, uncaring of the two Bull soldiers stretched out asleep at his feet, next to the remains of their fish soup. ‘The food’s disgusting here. Fish soup! No way was I eating that!’
‘Shhh,’ said Rahel urgently.
Carlos tried key after key on the chain around the children’s necks, but none worked. Lucy wanted to scream in frustration. They were running out of time. And she had a bad feeling about the Commander. What if he came back?
Pablo appeared at the door, with frightened shadowy faces peering over his shoulder.
‘We must hurry!’
‘But we don’t have the right keys!’
Then Lucy felt that familiar shaking: someone was coming. Rahel dashed for the front door, listened and then dived down the stairs. In a few seconds she was back.