He jumped to his feet and looked round, blinking, not knowing at first what had woken him up, and then with a terrible panicky dawning of dread he realized that he had been asleep, and that he’d lost Dodo.
“Dodo! Dodo!” he wailed. He ran frantically in larger and larger circles. His long life underground had given him very poor eyesight; he could only really follow smells, or very clear tracks when they were right under his nose. But the sand was all scuffed up, and the smells were everywhere. He could just trace his own pawmarks, and then the marks left by Tilly’s shoes, and at last, just when he’d given up hope and knew he’d have to go back down the tunnel for the queen’s punishment, he found clawmarks in the bank.
He lunged up the hill, crazy with guilt. Dodo’s tracks led him into the jungle, and then, as the undergrowth grew thicker, they disappeared. “Now what? Now what?” he shouted. His whiskers quivered. “I’m a stupid old mole-rat. I should never have been allowed to look after Dodo. I’m not fit to be given a job like that.” He rushed into the foliage, sniffing for any scent that might help him. “Think! Think, you old fool,” he told himself. He splayed his legs out and sank down, and almost immediately jumped up again. “The dodo’s nesting-place!” he shouted. “That’s where she’ll be.”
And that was where he found her, sitting with her head down and her beak tucked into her wing. Around her were scattered a few twigs and sticks, all that remained of the dodos’ nests. Tiny fragments of eggshell glinted in the earth.
Dodo didn’t look up when he tiptoed over to her.
“You won’t find any dodos nesting here,” he said to her gently. “They’ve all gone, Dodo. Really. They’ve all been killed.”
She was making a low, brooding, froofy sound in her throat. “I had to find out for myself, Mole-rat. Just to make sure.”
He nodded. “I know. Come on now. We’ll have to get back to Tilly. She’ll be terribly worried, you know.”
Tilly stood at the top of the bank, gazing down at the place where she’d last seen Dodo and Mole-rat.
I’ll never see them again, she thought. She felt a feather tickling her leg, and realized that they were standing right next to her.
“Where’ve you been?” she shouted.
“Oh, nowhere,” said Dodo. “I wanted to go for a little walk, and, naturally, Mole-rat came too.”
“I was worried about you, Dodo,” said Tilly, crouching down to her. “I thought something was after you.”
“There’s usually something after me,” Dodo agreed. “I’m very popular.”
“Don’t be silly, Dodo.” Tilly wasn’t in the mood for laughing at Dodo now. “Why can’t they leave you alone?”
“I don’t think they ever will.”
“Then it’s not fair,” said Tilly. “It’s just not fair. The world belongs to all of us.”
“The great of us, and the small of us,” Dodo agreed sadly. “But some people just don’t seem to want to share it.”
“But it’s your world too,” Tilly said.
“I know,” Dodo nodded. “And I like being here.” She patted Tilly’s hand with her wing. “One day,” she said. “One day, people might understand that.”
And it seemed to Tilly then that Dodo wasn’t a funny, stupid bird any more, or that she ever had been really, but that she was trying hard to shake away a real, deep sadness that only hunted animals know about.
“Tilly,” said Dodo. “I want you to listen very carefully. I’ve got a present for you. It’s a very special present. I want to give it to you very soon, and I want you to take it back home with you . . .” “What do you mean?” asked Tilly. She felt suddenly sick with dread.
“Just listen. I want you to take it home, all the way back to England, and I want you to show it to all the children there. And to all the people who love animals. Oh, and birds, and fishes, and flowers, and trees. All the people who want to share their world with them. Will you do that?”
“Of course I will, Dodo. But I don’t understand . . . I’m not going without you, Dodo. I’m not. I’m not!”
“I think you may have to.” Dodo turned away. “I’ll go and fetch it now.” She waddled away into the trees again.
“Dodo! Come back!” Tilly shouted.
“It’s all right, Tilly, I’ll watch her. She’ll be quite safe in the jungle,” Mole-rat promised. He twitched his nose up, as if he was sniffing for danger. “This is where she must be careful, by the shore. You keep guard here. This is where you’re needed.”
“What do you mean?” asked Tilly, but Mole-rat only sighed, and shook his head, and cleared his throat a few times. “Don’t set me off, Tilly,” he said sadly. “You know what I’m like.”
“But where’s she gone now?”
“She’s gone to a little clearing. A nesting-place. It’s just up there. It’s where . . . where . . .” He coughed and cleared his throat again. “Where the dodos used to lay their eggs. Only not now. Not now. None left, you see.”
Tilly stared after her. “Go with her, Mole-rat,” she begged. “Guard her. Please.”
Mole-rat scrabbled up the sandy bank and followed Dodo back into the jungle.
Tilly sat down wearily. It would be lovely to go to sleep, she thought. To go back home and sleep. It was very warm on the beach, and the sound of the waves lapping on the sand was soothing and gentle. She closed her eyes to listen to it. But she must keep guard. She must!
Suddenly she heard the sound of voices across the water, sharp, heavy men’s voices. She opened her eyes to see that it was beginning to grow cool and dark, and that there was a rowing boat pulling in to shore. Two men climbed out, one tall and one short; one old and one young. They hauled their boat onto the sand. One of the men held up a spyglass to his eye and peered round the island with it.
As soon as she saw their swarthy faces and rich clothing Tilly knew who they were. They were pirates. Never, never, had she felt so afraid.
Chapter Ten
The Song of the Dodo
THE TWO MEN heaved their boat up onto the shore. It rasped like sandpaper rubbing on stone. When they stood up Tilly could see the tallest one had a long, tufty black beard. He strode across the sand in an angry mood. The younger one, a lad, had to run to keep up with him. Tilly crouched down and crept backwards towards the cave. Keep away, Dodo, she thought. Keep away!
Blackbeard began to shout angrily over his shoulder. “What Godforsaken land is this, brother? I’m hungry!”
“Have some fish!” snarled Pirate Lad, handing him a raw steak of fish with a bite taken out of it. Blackbeard slapped it out of his hand.
“I think not, brother. I’ve had enough of that stuff.”
Tilly peered out at them from the shelter of the cave, hardly daring to breathe.
Pirate Lad stopped and sniffed, turning his head from side to side. He beckoned to Blackbeard. “D’you smell what I smell, brother? There’s dodo in the air!”
“Oh no!” gasped Tilly.
He dropped down onto his knees to examine the sand. “And look at this! Dodo tracks!”
Blackbeard leaned down over him, and nodded slowly.
“What wouldn’t I give, brother, for a dish of dodo stew! Swimming in gravy!”
Pirate Lad stood up and spat into the sand.
“Dodo stew’s like vomit, brother!”
Blackbeard thrust his face close up to Pirate Lad’s, his beard like a bristly brush scratching his cheek. They looked angry enough to fight each other.
“Best food on earth, is dodo . . .” he argued, and, very faint, very far away, almost as if it was in Tilly’s own head, came the sound of Dodo’s voice: “Oh, thank you, sir! Thank you!”
“Stay there, Dodo,” groaned Tilly. “Stay there, please!” The two pirates were standing stock still, straining to listen to the distant sound through all the stirrings of the jungle.
Then the first pirate said softly: “What sound would you say that was, brother? I haven’t heard that sound in months . . . but I’d bet you a purse
of guineas that it’s the cry of the dodo bird.”
“How can it be!” Pirate Lad scoffed. “There’s no dodos left. You’ve ate ’em all, I bet! They’re all dead now, brother. They’re extinct.”
And again, as tiny as if it was only in her head, Tilly heard Dodo’s voice. “They don’t stink.”
Completely forgetting her own fear of the pirates, Tilly stood up and shouted as hard as she could.
“Run, Dodo! Run! Run for your life!” And as she said that the beasts and the birds of the island sent up their clamour, a deafening roar like mountains breaking open. They flapped their wings and leapt into bushes and crashed through trees, all to hide the sound of Dodo coming back towards the shore, and to cover up the sight of her yellow feathers in the dusk.
“Go away, Dodo!” Tilly screamed, and all the creatures screamed it with her. “Run!”
Tilly started to run up the fine sand at the side of the bank that would take her up to Dodo. Blackbeard grabbed her and hauled her back down again. The pirates stood each side of her, and hissed at her, one down each ear, as if they were singing her a terrible mocking song:
“You know where that bird is!”
“You’re hiding it from us!”
“She’s the only one left! Leave her! Leave her alone!” Tilly begged.
“Then tell us where to find it—”
“Or we’ll spoil your face!”
“No!” shouted Tilly. “She’s the only dodo in the world.”
“I’m here,” came Dodo’s voice, calm and quiet behind them.
All the crying and clamour of the creatures died away to nothing. The pirates froze, with their arms held up to strike, like statues. Day had drained away into moonlight.
Dodo stepped forward. She held an egg in her folded wings, and she nodded to Tilly to come and take it from her. And in a voice that was as soft as a whisper, Dodo sang her the only song she knew; the song of the last dodo.
“This is the egg
The golden egg
The special egg from long ago.
Take it back to England
For children there to know.
For children who love animals
In air, on earth, in sea,
Who keep the forest places
For creatures to roam free
For children who let flowers grow,
And butterfly, and bee,
Who leave the fishes in their stream
And leave the spiders on their web
And leave the birds’ eggs in their nest
And leave the beetle on its log.
This lovely, living planet
Belongs to every thing
That moves and breathes upon it;
A song of life I sing.
So take this egg
This golden egg
This special egg from long ago
And keep it safe
In memory
Of the life
And death
Of the last dodo.”
Chapter Eleven
In Memory
TILLY KNEW THEN that this was the last time she would ever see Dodo.
She tried to rush forward to hug her but all the jungle creatures closed in a ring round Dodo and the pirates, keeping Tilly back so she couldn’t see what was happening.
All the mole-rats came up from their burrows, led by their red-eyed queen. The lizards slid out from under rocks and stones, and the snakes slithered through the grass. Monkeys swung across the branches, and flying squirrels leapt into the air after them, and grey hooded birds swooped down, and red fire-birds, and insects with starlight on their wings, and all kinds of creatures that Tilly had never seen before, all clustering round Dodo and the pirates, all bowing their heads in silence.
For that was a terrible day, when the last of the dodos was killed by pirates, and it really happened, a long time ago.
And when the animals moved away, the pirates had gone. So had Dodo. All that was left of her was a handful of yellow feathers on the ground, swirling in the evening wind, and a sudden gust took them up and up, away over the trees, away over the island, into the floating path of the moon, so that for a second they looked like a yellow-grey bird in flight.
“Goodbye, Dodo,” Tilly called.
And then they were gone.
But Tilly could hear the splash of oars on the dark sea, and the cruel laughter of the pirate brothers as they rowed back to their ship. Far out on the horizon she could see the pirate ship moored, with little lanterns swinging on it. She could hear the voices of men drifting across the water.
All the stars in the sky were reflected in the black, deep sea, and they were like the eyes of animals, cold and angry. Tilly was alone, and night was falling fast, fast all around her.
“I want to go home!” said Tilly. “Home! Home! I want to go home.”
Then the wind of the night came rushing up to her, and lifted her as if she had no weight at all, and. carried her like a leaf, or a balloon, or a bird’s feather, or a speck of dream-dust. Voices kept coming to her, in and out of her mind:
“Best food on earth is dodo.”
“Wait till I catch the dodo!”
“The world belongs to all of us.”
“All the poor dodos.”
“Dodos are like dinosaurs, they’re all dead now” . . . over and over again in her mind, and then one voice kept coming through, stronger than the others, and closer than them . . .
“It’s no good crying over dead dodos. Crying won’t bring them back.” She knew that voice.
“Mrs Hardcastle! Mrs Hardcastle!” she called.
Now she could see right down through treetops. She could see the surprised face of a badger peering up at her, and a hedgehog snuffling through leaves. She could see a mouse stretching out its back legs, and a rabbit nibbling lettuce leaves. Day was just starting. She was looking down inside the biggest tree in the forest, a huge chestnut tree with white flowers like Christmas-tree candles on its branches. And there was Mrs Hardcastle, yawning and rubbing her eyes as if she was just waking up from a sleep.
“Mrs Hardcastle, Mrs Hardcastle!” Tilly could hear her own voice, far away as if it was in a dream. “Oh, Mrs Hardcastle! I want to tell you . . . the island, and the big hunters . . . and the pirates came . . . oh . . . and the dodo, Mrs Hardcastle. The dodo. Did it really, really happen?”
And though she was whirling round so fast now that she couldn’t see Mrs Hardcastle any more, she could hear her voice, as close to her ear as if she was up in the sky next to her . . .
“Yes, it all really happened, Tilly. A long, long time ago. Tell the children, Tilly Mint. Tell the children . . . Captain Cloud will help you . . .”
And Mrs Hardcastle’s voice grew fainter and fainter, and the whirl of the wind tossed Tilly gently till she felt as if she was being rocked in a little boat on a lapping stream, and she could hear the sound of someone singing about jelly fish . . .”
“Proper little squelchy things
Blobs of slime
Pink and purple bubbles,
Like dancers in the brine . . .”
and she knew that any minute now the rocking would stop and she would come up with a bump against the wall of Captain Cloud’s boat shed.
The jolt made her open her eyes. It was her bedroom door being opened. She was lying in bed, with Mr Pig tucked under the pillow and the sun warm on her through her window.
“Awake at last!” Mum laughed. She sat on Tilly’s bed. “What a night it’s been, Tilly! All that wind! And you didn’t sleep very well, did you? I heard you shouting out for Mrs Hardcastle.”
Tilly stared out of the window. She was sure . . . sure . . .
“Tilly,” said Mum gently. “Mrs Hardcastle isn’t going to come back again. You know that, don’t you?”
Tilly nodded.
“I went round to her house last night,” Mum said. “I wanted to help her brother to clear out her attic. And we found something that we thought you’d like to keep. Yo
u were fast asleep when I brought it in, Tilly. So I put it there for you. Look. On your special shelf.”
“The egg! It’s my egg!” Tilly gasped. She jumped out of her bed and ran to her shelf. She kept all kinds of special things there, like a conker, and a blue feather, and a bag full of sparkling dream-dust. And in the middle now was an egg, big as a golden melon, and yellow with age. She picked it up carefully.
“Captain Cloud thought you’d like it,” said Mum. “I don’t know what it is though. Do you?”
“Yes,” said Tilly. “It’s a special egg. A magic egg from long ago.”
She put it back, very carefully, on her shelf.
I’ll keep it safe
In memory
Of the life
And death
Of the last dodo.
“Mum,” she said, “I want to tell all the children about the dodo. D’you think Captain Cloud would help me?”
“I’m sure he would,” said Mum.
After breakfast Tilly went to Captain Cloud’s house, and she told him the story of the last of the dodos.
“That’s a very important story, Tilly Lizard,” he told her when she’d finished. He stroked his beard thoughtfully. “I’ll tell you what. I’ll fetch you some paper and a pencil, and we’ll make it into a book, shall we?”
And this is it:
This is how Tilly Mint began. When I was a little girl, my mum and dad used to call me Tilly Mint. It wasn’t my real name, of course. We lived in a part of Liverpool called Knotty Ash, and all the other girls in the street were called Tilly Mint, too. We moved to the Wirral when I was four, and I still met Tilly Mints. I still do, but they always come from Liverpool. Years later, a Radio Sheffield producer called Dave Sheasby asked me to write some stories for young children, and I knew I wanted to write about a little girl called Tilly Mint. I used to tell my children stories about an old lady called Mrs Hardcastle, and I decided to put her in the Tilly Mint stories I was writing. It was only then that I discovered something wonderful about Mrs Hardcastle. She could make magic things happen.
The stories were broadcast many times on Radio Sheffield, and then published as my fourth book, Tilly Mint Tales. Then Ron Rose, who ran a theatre company called DAC, asked me to write a play about Tilly Mint to take around schools. I wrote a musical about Tilly Mint and Captain Cloud and the last dodo in the world. It was so popular that I made it into a short novel, Tilly Mint and the Dodo. It’s lovely to see both my books brought together in this way, with Tony Ross’s wonderful illustrations. I wonder if any little girls called Tilly Mint will read it!
Tilly Mint Tales Page 10
