by Justin D'Ath
‘NOW!’ I yelled to Kasime.
He let go of the big heavy tailgate.
Thump! Thump!
‘Aaaaah!’ went the crowd.
It was lucky the two men weren’t bare-headed, otherwise they might have ended up in hospital. The turban and the Pepsi hat cushioned the blow. But not enough to save their wearers from nasty headaches in two or three minutes when they woke up. In the meantime, they were out for the count.
The crowd didn’t know what was going on. They watched Kasime jump down and help me out from under the truck. They watched me give him one of the sacks that the truck drivers had been trying to take from us. They watched us start to walk away.
It must have looked like we were thieves.
Behind us, someone yelled loudly in Hindi.
‘What did he say, Kasime?’ I asked.
Kasime didn’t answer my question. He said something else instead.
‘We should run, Mr Samfox.’
14
MAD COW
For the second time in two days, a crowd of Indians was chasing me. But this time they weren’t fit young cricket fans like the ones last night. These looked like ordinary people – men and women out for a day’s shopping. Some had bulging woven bags or creaky bamboo baskets, others carried heavy loads on their heads, or hobbled along with walking sticks, like grandparents.
And this time someone was with me – a streetwise young pickpocket from Delhi who had probably been chased a thousand times. And who knew how to get away.
‘Stay close to me, Mr Samfox,’ Kasime puffed as we ran. ‘And do not be looking back.’
I didn’t realise until later why he didn’t want me to look back. It was because I have hair that’s almost black and I was wearing a loose white shirt with long sleeves. From behind, I must have looked like an Indian. And we were in a busy street crowded with men and boys dressed just like me. It was crowded with women and children, too. Both footpaths were lined with market stalls and people selling stuff from the backs of carts and wagons and trailers. The roadway was jammed with motor vehicles, all facing the same direction as Turban Man’s truck, none of them moving. It was a complete gridlock, even worse than Delhi. Between the stalled vehicles, hundreds of people on foot pushed in all directions – families going shopping, merchants loaded up with pots and pans and food and clothes and jewellery, people carrying ducks or chooks or little sparrow-like birds in bamboo cages, and farmers with sacks on their backs just like the ones Kasime and I carried. So it was easy to lose ourselves in the bustling crowd.
I took a chance and looked over my shoulder.
Big mistake. From behind I might have looked like an Indian, but from front-on I looked like what I was – a boy from Australia with a guilty look on my face.
‘Stop, mister!’ called a policeman, squeezing through the narrow gap between a stationary bus and a donkey cart. ‘Please be showing to me your passport.’
Kasime didn’t hesitate. ‘Challo!’ he cried, bolting in the other direction.
I suppose I could have stayed and told the policeman what was going on. I could have opened my sack and showed him Rani to back up my story. But the policeman was running towards me, waving his baton and shouting in a mixture of English and Hindi. He didn’t look like someone interested in any kind of discussion.
I turned and bolted after Kasime. He’d gone down a small side alley lined with tiny, open-fronted shops hardly bigger than telephone boxes. They were so small that most of the stuff for sale was out on the bumpy pavement. It was like an obstacle course. Kasime and I went charging down the alley, jumping over rolls of brightly coloured cloth and weaving between racks of leather goods and pewter cooking pots stacked in pyramids as high as our heads. I could hear the policeman’s boots on the cobblestones just behind us.
A motor scooter came flying the other way, beeping its horn. Kasime swerved to avoid it. I followed him through a gap between two shops. It was another alley, even narrower than the last one. This one had no shops. There were piles of rubbish on the damp cobblestones and the smoking embers of a fire. Halfway along, a bony grey cow was eating what looked like a wet cardboard box. It lifted its head when it heard us coming and I saw its long, curved horns. They were nearly as wide as the alley.
Kasime was eight or ten paces ahead of me. He ducked through the narrow space between the cow’s bumpy hip and the high concrete building beside it. The cow sniffed the air as he went past, gave a loud bellow, and spun around after him. I swerved to pass it on the other side, but the cow did a 360 and met me face-to-face. I slammed on the anchors, aware that the policeman was coming up behind me, but more worried about the cow. It mooed and rolled its eyes until only the whites showed. It looked like it had mad cow disease.
For about two seconds the cow and I faced each other. Then it charged.
I jumped to one side, trying to fend off its wicked-looking horns with my upraised arms. Dangling from one of my arms was the sack with Rani in it. That’s what saved me. Cows are sacred animals in India and they aren’t scared of anything. Except tigers. It was the smell of Raju in Kasime’s sack that had set the cow off in the first place. Now it smelt Rani in mine.
With another loud moo, the cow swung its head the other way and bolted past me. One of its horns scraped along the wall, leaving a long groove in the concrete, as the terrified animal went flying off down the alley, with the policeman running flat out ahead of it.
‘Thank you, Rani,’ i whispered.
Kasime said we should hide somewhere until it was dark, but I wanted to find a telephone and get in touch with my parents. Also, we both needed food and water. So did the cubs. But there was a problem. We had no money.
‘I will get some,’ Kasime grinned.
I had forgotten he was a pickpocket. ‘No stealing’, I said.
Kasime sighed in frustration. ‘Mr Samfox, we have come very far from Delhi. How will we –’
There was a rumbling sound in the distance. Kasime stopped what he was saying to listen. Slowly, a smile spread across his face.
‘Come,’ he beckoned.
He led me through a series of narrow streets until we were back on the main road.
It was still blocked with traffic. Nobody was moving a centimetre. Everyone sat patiently in their vehicles, staring straight ahead like people waiting for a red light to change. But there were no traffic lights that I could see. The rumble grew steadily louder. The ground started to shake. Then, with a very loud H000T, a train rumbled slowly across in front of the traffic. That’s why everyone had stopped.
Kasime switched Raju’s sack from one shoulder to the other. ‘We will get on the train,’ he said.
Before I could ask where the railway station was, or about buying tickets, I heard an angry shout. The policeman was wending his way through the stopped vehicles towards us.
He shouldn’t have shouted. Kasime and I were out of there. Fighting our way through the traffic, we got to the level crossing well ahead of the policeman. A long wooden barrier, like a picket fence on wheels, had been pulled across the road. It had orange flags along the top and a large red stop sign in the middle. A fat man in uniform sat on a wooden chair in front of it. He stood up and raised both hands when he saw Kasime and me racing towards him. We took no notice. Speeding past him, we swung our sacks over the barrier and clambered across after them. The crossing guard yelled at us in Hindi – probably ordering us to come back – but Kasime and I landed in the gap between the barrier and the moving train, and hit the gas, running along next to the big squealing wheels of one of its carriages.
The train must have slowed down to come through town. We were keeping pace with it. Just. People hung out of the windows above our heads, whistling and cheering. I hoped they were cheering for us, and not for the crossing guard and the policeman, who were hot on our heels.
I soon found out whose side the passengers were on. Near the front of the carriage, about three metres ahead of us, a door suddenly swung open and five o
r six grinning men poked their heads out. They madly beckoned Kasime and me to climb in. It was a good idea, but first we had to reach the door. Running fast when you’re carrying a seven or eight kilogram tiger cub in a sack isn’t easy. Especially if you’re small like Kasime. He began to lose ground. I grabbed his sack – the one with Raju in it – and yelled at him to go for it. Without the weight of the tiger cub to slow him down, Kasime put on a burst of speed and made it to the open door. There was a huge cheer from all along the carriage as the men dragged him inside.
Then it was my turn. But I had both sacks now – both heavy little tiger cubs – and I couldn’t run any faster. I was beginning to slow down.
With another loud H000000T from the diesel engine at the front of the train, the carriage jolted forwards and began to leave me behind. The men in the doorway, and all the passengers hanging out of the windows, were yelling and beckoning, frantically urging me on. But it was no good. I couldn’t go any faster.
Gradually the open door drew further and further ahead of me as the train gathered speed.
I glanced over my shoulder, hoping there was another open door at the rear of the carriage. But the door was closed. My eyes were drawn to the next carriage, the very last one on the train. It was smaller than the other carriages and painted white and blue and gold. There was a small round dome on its roof, shaped like the one on the Taj Mahal and decorated with bits of marble, tiny mirrors and chips of coloured glass, which flashed in the sun. It was the strangest carriage I’d ever seen. It looked more like a miniature palace with wheels.
Next to it, running alongside the train, like me, was the policeman. He’d left the crossing guard behind. Unlike me, the policeman didn’t have two heavy sacks to carry. He just had his baton, and he looked like he wanted to use it. He was gaining ground on me with every stride.
‘Mr Samfox! Mr Samfox!’
I glanced up. Kasime was hanging out of the carriage window directly above me, stretching down with one hand.
‘Give me Raju!’ he cried.
I passed up one of the sacks. He grabbed it and pulled it inside. Then he reached down for the other one.
Once both sacks were gone, I found my second wind. Putting on a desperate burst of speed, I just made it to the door before my legs gave out. A huge cheer went up as about twenty hands lifted me into the carriage.
The cheer was followed by a loud chorus of boos, jeers and hisses.
Looking back out through the open doorway, I glimpsed an angry, sweaty face bobbing along beside the train. Then someone hurled a half-eaten wedge of watermelon – splat! – and that was the last I saw of the policeman.
15
STRIPY PROBLEM
The train was packed. All the seats were full. Most were more than full. Up to six people crammed into rows meant for three. Those without seats had squeezed into every available space – they stood squashed together in the aisles, they hung out of windows, they balanced on the narrow stairs leading up from the door. There were even people lying on the luggage racks above our heads.
Nobody seemed to mind sharing their overcrowded carriage with two extra passengers. They were all very friendly. Many could speak English. I was worried someone would ask why the policeman was chasing us, or what was in our sacks, but nobody did. They wanted to know where I came from, and did I like India? I said it was a beautiful country and the people were nice, too. It was the right answer. A man wearing a white shirt like mine gave me a big wedge of watermelon. A woman with a little boy gave me a half-full bag of samosas – yummy little triangular pies filled with tasty vegetables. Someone else gave me a bottle of water. I shared everything with Kasime.
The train rattled and swayed along its tracks. We had left the town behind. Trees flashed past the windows. There were green forest-covered hills in the distance.
‘Excuse me,’ I said to the the man who’d given me the slice of watermelon. ‘Where’s this train going?’
He named a place I’d never heard of.
‘Is that near Delhi?’ I asked.
The man shook his head. ‘It is very far from Delhi. If you are wanting to go to Delhi, you must be changing trains at the next station.’
‘How far to the next station?’
‘We will be there in two hours.’
I looked at my watch. In two hours it would be one-thirty in the afternoon. We might not make it back to Delhi before nightfall. Provided we did make it back. We didn’t have any money to buy train tickets.
‘Ticket, please,’ said a voice behind me.
It was like someone had been reading my mind. I turned around slowly. A train conductor loomed over me, holding out his hand. ‘Ticket, please,’ he repeated.
I felt my face turning red. ‘I don’t actually –’
But before I could finish speaking, Kasime slipped around from behind the conductor and held up two small rectangles of paper. ‘Here our tickets are, sir,’ he said politely.
The conductor clipped both tickets and handed them back. ‘Thank you,’ he nodded, and turned to the next person. ‘Ticket, please.’
‘How did you manage that?’ I whispered in Kasime’s ear.
He showed me a book of unused train tickets. ‘I have found this in the conductor’s pocket,’ he said slyly.
Ohmygosh! ‘Put them back,’ I said.
‘But we might need them to be catching the Delhi train.’
He was right. The book of tickets might be helpful later on. But I wasn’t a thief.
‘Put them back, Kasime.’
I watched him sneak up behind the conductor and slip the book of tickets into his back pocket. The conductor didn’t feel a thing. Kasime was good, all right – a good pickpocket. I wished there was some way I could help him become a good citizen. But what could I do? I was just a fourteen-year-old kid from another country. And I had enough problems of my own. One of them – a stripy problem – was struggling to get out of its sack.
‘Calm down, Rani,’ i whispered, and lowered the sack nearly to the floor so nobody would notice something alive was inside it.
A phone rang. I saw a woman pull a small silver mobile from her shoulder bag. She had a brief conversation in Hindi, then put the phone away. It was the woman with the little boy who had given me the bag of samosas. Tucking Rani’s sack close to my legs where it wouldn’t trip anyone, I squeezed through the crush of people towards her.
‘Where are you going?’ Kasime asked behind me.
‘I’m going to ask that lady if I can borrow her phone so I can call my parents,’ I whispered.
‘Are you wanting me to steal it?’
I turned to face him. ‘No, Kasime. Don’t steal anything else. I’ll handle it.’
The woman let me use her phone. ‘But please do not be a long time,’ she said. ‘There isn’t much credit.’
So instead of calling Dad, I sent him a text message: Ring this number. Sam. And crossed my fingers, hoping he would call straight back.
I got my wish. Fifteen seconds later, Dad’s number flashed on the screen and the little silver phone starting ringing. Yay! I pressed Talk.
‘Hello, Dad.’
But it was Mum, not Dad, on the other end. ‘Sam, are you all right?’ she gasped. She sounded out of breath.
‘I’m fine.’
‘Thank heavens for that! Where are you?’
‘I’m on a train,’ I said. ‘It’s somewhere north of Delhi, but I’m not exactly sure where. In two hours we’ll be getting off at a place called …’
I turned to the woman who’d loaned me the phone. ‘What’s the name of the next place where we’re stopping?’
She told me what it was called, and I told Mum.
‘We’ll wait at the railway station,’ I said. ‘Can you or Dad come and get me in a hire car or something?’
‘We’ll both come,’ Mum said without a moment’s hesitation. ‘Sam, we’ve been worried sick. Can you tell us what’s going on?’
‘It’s complicated,’ I said, an
d lowered my voice. ‘You see, Mum, I had to rescue a couple of tiger cubs from some guys who were trying to smuggle them out of the country.’
‘Tiger cubs?’ Mum said.
‘That’s right,’ I answered. ‘I’ve got them here with me.’
‘THERE ARE WILD TIGERS WITH YOU ON THE TRAIN?’ Mum yelled in my ear. She almost deafened me. I hadn’t realised the phone was on speaker mode.
All the people around me stopped talking. Those who understood English looked at me with startled expressions. Then they looked at the two wriggling sacks on the floor next to Kasime’s and my feet.
The lady who’d loaned me her phone picked up her little boy and started backing away. And began screaming at the top of her voice:
‘BAAGH! BAAGH! BAAGH!’
16
SWORD
There used to be a lot of tigers in India. A lot of people were killed by them. Nowadays there aren’t many tigers left and hardly anyone gets killed. But in those parts of India where tigers are still found in the wild, people have to be careful. It’s like living in Australia, where there are deadly snakes. If you’re anywhere in Australia and someone yells ‘SNAKE!’, you don’t stick around to ask what type of snake it is. In India it’s like that with tigers. When someone yells ‘BAAGH!’, everyone runs.
Except we were on a train. There was nowhere to go. It was so crowded that people could hardly even move. They squeezed to the sides and the ends of our carriage. I was worried someone would get crushed.
‘They’re just babies,’ I said.
But there was so much yelling and screaming that nobody heard me.
Stuffing the mobile phone into my pocket, I lifted Rani out of her sack to show she wasn’t dangerous. That didn’t help, either. It must have looked like I was threatening everyone – like a terrorist holding up a bomb – and the yelling and screaming just got louder.
Then someone pulled the emergency stop cord.
There was a squeal of brakes, followed by a series of loud bangs, thumps and crashes as the carriage couplings bumped together. Everyone was thrown forward. None of the other passengers fell over – they were squashed too close together to move more than half a body-width – but Kasime and I went flying. I landed on my back with Rani on top of me. She squirmed and clawed to get free, but I wrapped my arms around her so she wouldn’t be trampled. The train had stopped and panicked people were leaping over us as they raced for the exits.
