Through the Tiger's Eye (30 page)
‘We will take you to a doctor,’ said Larissa as though it would be the easiest thing in the world.
Carlos grinned at her gratefully.
Then Lucy realised what was happening.
‘I’m not ever going to see you again,’ she said to Rahel, Carlos, Pablo and Toro. ‘And Angel, I was supposed to keep her safe and take her back to her family in Telares City.’
Larissa shook her head sadly.
‘That will not be possible for a very long time. The Bulls have brought reinforcements into Telares City and no one is going in or out. Angel is safer with us in the mountains. We have a well-equipped base, with a school and doctors. One day, we will all return to Telares City.’
And that was that. Lucy didn’t know what to say. They just all stood about awkwardly and scuffed their feet in the dirt.
Then Ricardo made the supreme sacrifice. He walked up to Toro and looked him squarely in the eye.
‘You’re going to need this,’ he declared, and drew his sword from his scabbard with a ceremonial flourish. Toro’s eyes grew as big as saucers and he took it wordlessly.
Everyone burst out laughing, but suddenly Lucy felt like crying.
She gave Angel a big hug and passed her to Rahel.
‘Please, look after her for me – and for her mum.’
‘I will,’ said Rahel seriously. ‘I must thank you for your service to Telares.’
‘No probs,’ said Lucy, embarrassed. ‘Thanks for helping me get my little brother back.’
‘No probs,’ said a chorus of Telarian voices.
‘This time it was Carlos who had to say it: ‘Personal jinx!’
The last Telarian sound Lucy heard was their laughter. The last thing she saw when she turned back to wave was Angel. Her dark eyes were locked on Lucy’s and she raised a tiny hand and waved back.
When Lucy and Ricardo emerged from the pit, it was just on sunset. T-Tongue sniffed the air carefully and sneezed. Ricardo was too busy chattering about Larissa’s sword to notice the smoke in the air, and even when he clambered onto the stairs he didn’t see that the slopes above were black and charred. But Lucy did. It had come close, very close, to the pit. Who knows what had happened to the campground. And what about the
house
?
Lucy flew down the path, desperate to know if the mermaid house was still standing and everyone was safe. A shout went up and a man and a woman in orange overalls and hard hats burst from the trees nearby.
‘Hey! We’ve found them! Here they are.’
The next instant Ricardo and Lucy were locked in Mum and Dad and Grandma’s arms. A jumble of words came out, and all the grown-ups were crying.
‘Where have you been? We thought you were dead. The bushfire came through the top and we thought you must have been burnt.’
‘What bushfire?’ said Ricardo.
Then the emergency services team were checking them for injuries and giving them hot tea. The local TV station arrived to interview them and Mum said ‘No way!’, and the kids begged, and she said ‘OK’.
An hour later Lucy was watching herself on the news, and the next thing she knew, she was a hero. She had walked bravely into the teeth of the biggest bushfire in the area for years to save her little brother. The reporter used words like ‘just when all hope was lost’ and ‘miraculous rescue’ and ‘mystery surrounds just how the children survived their ordeal but they are in too much shock tonight to give details’.
For two kids in shock, Lucy and Ricardo ate rather a lot of pizza that night.
Then there was the difficult moment when Mum, Dad and Grandma wanted to know exactly what had happened.
So Lucy told them about a tunnel that opened up in the earth just when she thought the fire was upon them, and how they had gone down it and waited for the fire to pass. When they had climbed out and looked for the tunnel again, it was gone.
The adults exchanged significant glances and Grandma asked her if she wanted another aspirin. Then Dad started going on about the complex geological formations in this part of the coast until Mum told him to shut up. But she was smiling when she said it. Lucy liked that.
When they finally went to bed, Lucy lay for a long time looking at the tiger rug in her newly cleaned bedroom.
Her gaze fell on the monkey and the elephant.
‘We haven’t met them yet,’ she said to Ricardo, pointing.
‘We will,’ he said with absolute certainty.
‘How do you know?’
He opened his mouth but Lucy said it for him: ‘I know, the Tiger-cat told you.’
‘Yeah,’ said Ricardo. ‘He always tells me things.’
And for once, Lucy didn’t have the heart to argue.
In the still of that smoky summer night, no one noticed a handsome ginger cat wriggle through the kitchen window. The cat showed no interest in the remains of a peperoni pizza on the table, but padded purposefully across the hall, between two dragon vases, into the bedroom of a sleeping twelve-year-old girl with long dark hair. The cat leapt lightly onto the bed and gazed intently at the girl. She didn’t stir, nor did the puppy on the end of her bed.
But Lucy’s dream changed.
A crinkly smile and golden eyes.
Mrs Hawthorne!
‘You have done well, Lućia, very well.
Now, your task is to keep my pattern safe for me.
It matters more than you can know.
I cannot risk visiting you yet, but soon, Lućia, very soon, I will.
It has begun . . .’
Lucy slept on, dreaming deeply,
Angel is smiling right into her eyes.
She can hear the Tiger-cat purring loudly, and somehow she knows that Angel is speaking to her.
Angel speaking!!!
‘Angel wants to go home. Lucy take Angel home! Lucy will take Angel home!’
And in her dreams, Lucy knew it wasn’t over yet.