The Kensington Reptilarium

by N. J. Gemmell

  A feeble light ahead, a room, at last.

  ‘Pinny Pin!’ Scruff exclaims.

  At the saddest, sweetest sight. Our little man. Sitting on an upturned wooden crate, a towel around his neck like a Superman cape and a crooked crown, from the attic no doubt, on his head. In front of an attentive line of moth-eaten china dolls and dusty, ragged clowns and the baby croc in its glass jar and Pin’s trusty teddy, Banjo, who’s now swamped in a yellowing lace Christening gown, a tin hat and a vast array of military badges. Opened in front of him is Dad’s copy of The Jungle Book, the one thing from home I’d managed to pack. And he’s telling the story – pretending to read – in exactly Dad’s voice. Almost word for word because he’s learnt it off by heart. We all have, thanks to Dad.

  I drop down to him.

  ‘Friends, Kicky!’ Pin cries, beaming to see me. ‘I found them in the attic. We’re at school now. Sssh,’ he adds sternly. ‘It’s story time. The most important bit of the day. You know that.’

  ‘Oh you you you!’ I laugh through glittery tears. All that panic for a line of teddies!

  We glance around at a strange curved room. The walls and ceiling are covered in corrugated iron. Cages for children, my foot. All that’s in it are two narrow bunks, a steel table, an old crate and some discarded tins of food and gas masks. Bert tries one on for size, giggling. ‘Where are we?’

  ‘You are in what is known as an Anderson Shelter, Miss Albertina,’ booms a voice behind us. We shriek.

  Charlie Boo.

  Looming at the door. With two bright yellow snakes poking curiously and most delicately from his pockets.

  ‘You have chanced upon the shelter that your uncle would retreat to whenever a bombing raid was imminent. The neighbours tried endlessly to get him to the tube station at the start of the London Blitz, banging on his door and checking up on him, trying to lure him to safety, but he wouldn’t have a bar of it. He just wouldn’t leave the house, to their anguish. Little did they know he was all prepared down here. Quite cosy in fact.’

  ‘What about the neighbours – were they all right?’ Bert asks.

  ‘Lucinda next door was never here, thank goodness – she was travelling the length of the country documenting the war effort. She was always terribly worried about Basti but I set her right. She knew he was in good hands. The Bennett-Joneses on the other side, well, they lost everything. Not everyone was as lucky as us.’

  ‘Why did the Germans target the houses?’ I ask, horrified.

  ‘To break us, Miss Kick. To kill us. To crush England’s spirit and force us to surrender, but they did not. And this locality was heavily targeted because of the concentration of tube stations in it. This room is where I, also, would go if I happened to be in the vicinity. Along with the prized guests of the moment – Perdita, naturally, and a few others. If there was time. Sometimes there wasn’t. We were lucky. Very lucky. Someone, I think, was watching over us.’

  He glowers over Bert, still in her gas mask, breathing heavily.

  ‘It is not a place where young ladies are meant to be. Young ladies – and gentlemen – who do not know how to follow rules. Some. Rooms. Are strictly. Forbidden. Remember? This being one of them. Come along at once, the lot of you.’

  ‘But this is my school, Mr Charlie Boo,’ Pin says gravely. ‘It’s story time. These are my friends.’ The little boy pushes the man back firmly towards the sloping passage.

  ‘I see. What a shame. Because your uncle has kindly asked me to pop into each one of your deprived little desert mouths . . . one of these . . . when you are found.’ On Charlie Boo’s palm are four tiny, white, sugary Perditas.

  We gasp.

  ‘If you’re good. Oh yes. So thank you most fulsomely, Master Phineas. For I will now be indulging my good self, and self only. Four times over in fact. Thank you, indeed.’

  One of the sweets heads straight for Charlie Boo’s lips.

  ‘Friends, it’s holidays, school’s out!’ Pin yells.

  We all laugh.

  Now. Brother found, sister on side. Everything under control at last.

  Back to the task at hand: secret infiltration of Basti’s polar bear room. Priority: urgent.

  We must wait until Charlie Boo’s left for the day because he’s far too efficient for his own good.

  Then it’s quietly, quickly, to the carved door. I open it a sliver. Basti’s not there. No idea where he is. The house is quiet. He may be watching, may know exactly what we’re doing – but he may not. We’ll have to risk it. Pin’s on door watch, the rest of us scatter inside. Looking frantically under couches, flipping through books, throwing open drawers, ruffling through papers; looking for anything related to Dad.

  ‘He’s coming!’ Pin says. ‘Up the ladder, from the entrance hall.’

  Quick, quick. Nowhere to hide, not four of us. We’ll have to go outside, gather around a cage, pretend we’re absorbed in its inhabitant. Just as we’re going I spy a notebook under an address book. Yellow paper.

  My heart thuds.

  The yellow paper.

  That Dad’s last letter was written on.

  The notebook’s empty but I rip off the top pages and stuff them down my shirt. They’ll have to be examined. We’re on to something. I can feel it, taste it.

  Dad’s getting closer . . .

  ‘Quick, quick,’ Bert urges.

  Just in time to gather around the cage of an ambilobe panther chameleon.

  ‘Good grief, Kick, why are you panting?’ Basti exclaims.

  I clutch my chest, laugh. ‘I’m just so overwhelmed, Uncle Basti. At everything. It’s all so lovely, amazing. And family. So overwhelmed I think I need a rest . . . in the library.’

  ‘Why, I’ll come too. I haven’t seen you all day. I need to know what you desert creatures have been up to. A full report, no less.’

  Pin goes to joyfully blurt out everything; Scruff scoops him up and whizzes him around into silence.

  ‘The library!’ I laugh, my hands crossed at my shoulders.

  The yellow pages burning a hole in my chest.

  ‘Who exactly am I? Gosh, what a question. And you’re all awfully full of them this afternoon, aren’t you?’ Basti’s lying with legs in the air, balancing a fire-belly newt on his feet. ‘What peculiar things you ask, you lot. I’m not entirely convinced, you know, that children are raised to be proper children in that desert of yours.’

  ‘Maybe they’re more like kids over there than they’re ever allowed to be here.’ Scruff’s in full-on teasing mode, on the floor, copying exactly his uncle’s position. ‘Do you know how to hunt with spears, and climb water towers with bare feet, and dive to the bottom of billabongs and shoot jumping roos at fifty feet?’

  ‘I’m sure I could try,’ Basti says witheringly, sitting up and deftly catching the newt in his hands. ‘Now, what was the question? Who am I, yes.’ He raises an eyebrow at his nephew. ‘Young man, my full name is Sebastian Octavio Rollo Caddy, if you must know. And precisely who I am, I fear, is now dictated by the four new specimens who have suddenly appeared in my life. Childus Australis Desertus indeed. Whom I did not invite to share my world but who are here nonetheless. Most fulsomely.’

  He stands.

  ‘One is a chocoholic, just like yours truly. One, I am convinced, is going to take over my business one day and travel to the rivers of China as well as the jungles of the Amazon because she has it in her blood. One of them will be a world-famous fashion designer because she has quite a spectacular way with clothes, yes indeed.’ He stares admiringly at Bert’s outfit of the day (which consists mainly of the feathery horse’s plumes from a funeral procession). ‘And one of them, when he’s not disappearing and giving the lot of us heart attacks, just wants to cling to my knees for the rest of his life. Most contradictory and changeable, oh yes. Here, there, all over the place, quite a Caddy trait.’ He sighs, staring down at you know who. ‘And yes, he’ll be clinging forever, I can feel it in my bones.’

  The newt is placed on
his hat. ‘An amalgamation of the lot of you, I do believe, at this point. That is how you could describe who I am. Quite swampingly, it seems, right now.’

  ‘But why are we here?’ I ask in anguish. ‘Who sent us?’

  ‘It was your father’s wish. I’m sure. Wasn’t it?’

  I’m silent. Need time alone, to think, need to examine those yellow pages.

  ‘Did you love him?’

  A pause, as if Basti’s thinking very, very carefully about what to say next. ‘As much as anyone can love a brother, Kick.’

  ‘What was your favourite thing about him?’ If he doesn’t know who our dad was, this will snare him.

  ‘His tall tales, if you must know. His mad, crazy, unbelievable stories that never stopped.’

  I’m quiet. It was my favourite thing too. Wrestling anacondas in the Amazon, scaling the Sydney Harbour Bridge, helping pandas to give birth on the slopes of Tibet.

  ‘I’m sorry if I haven’t been quite what you expected, Kick,’ Basti adds softly. ‘I don’t believe any of us were prepared for this.’

  Everyone’s silent. Pin cuddles Basti furiously. Our uncle bends down and picks him up, literally prises him off his leg. ‘You know, sometimes in my darkest moments I’ve wondered if it might be rather interesting to have people around me – family, neighbours, something, anything. I don’t know. But you see, it’s so overwhelming . . . the change. From what I’m used to. Too much. It’s been so long since I’ve embraced the world.’ He looks at us as if he’s only just noticed us. ‘Temporary, this, isn’t it? Yes, yes.’

  A blanket of sadness falls over the room. Pin clings tighter still.

  ‘Now hurry off and play . . . or whatever it is children do these days. I’m expecting a shipment of extremely rare hippopotamus worms and there’s much to be done. They need absolute quiet while they settle. They’re quite my favourite animals in the world.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because of where they live.’

  ‘Where’s that?’

  ‘Inside the eyelids of hippopotami. And guess what they feed on?’

  ‘What?

  ‘Their tears.’ Basti smiles in wonder. ‘Can you believe it? How beautiful the world can be. Now run along, quick, there’s so little time and so much to be done.’

  ‘But – but it’s almost Christmas!’ Scruff wails, can’t contain himself any longer.

  The air is jangly with shock. The unmentionable . . . mentioned.

  It’s too much for Pin; his favourite thing, of course, is thrillingly unmentionable words. ‘Christmas! Christmas!’ he chants gleefully. Yep, he’s off.

  ‘Really? So soon?’ Basti murmurs vaguely, looking at his watch. ‘Good grief. Well, the sooner it’s gone the better. Dreadful time of year. Wouldn’t know where to begin. And it’s so difficult to get fresh mice . . . must start making contingency plans . . . good riddance to it.’ He shuffles off, oblivious, tapping his hat to remind himself.

  Pin is suddenly – extremely – still. In shock. Can’t even bring himself to say the thrillingly forbidden word any more. Scruff just stares after Basti, speechless. Because he now knows, with absolute certainty, that the closest we’ll be getting to Christmas is . . . an extra supply of mice.

  I pull the yellow pages from my shirt and hold them high. We need some distraction here, some forgetting. ‘Quick, come on. The Lumen Room!’

  ‘Why?’ Bert asks.

  ‘We need their light.’

  We sneak off to the magical room.

  It’s Basti’s favourite room in the building. It’s a risk. It’s dark, the worms are asleep.

  ‘We need them to know we’re here,’ I whisper. ‘They glow when they get a fright.’

  ‘But we’ve got to be quiet,’ Bert protests.

  I throw up my hands in despair. What to do?

  Pin grins wildly. He’s got it. He runs crazily around the room, arms flapping wildly, looking a right dill; we’re try to stop laughing but it’s hard and then wonderfully, magnificently the walls and the ceiling suddenly come alive, with light. Brighter and brighter, an incandescent glow.

  It’s worked!

  I take out the yellow pages, exactly like our dad’s last note. Hold them up to the wall, one by one, and gaze through them.

  First one, nothing.

  Second one, nothing.

  Third – ever so faint – something written on it, can’t make it out.

  ‘I need a pencil!’ I whisper urgently. We all scrabble in pockets. Nothing.

  ‘Hang on, around my neck!’ Bert’s wearing a silver chain that has a beautifully engraved cylinder on the end of it. ‘It might be . . .’

  I twist the top of it and slowly, slowly emerges a sliver of a tiny, ingenious, pencil. Trembling, I rub it across the centre of the paper. Trembling, hold it up to the light.

  Dad’s note. His very words. His writing. That convinced us to be here. My heart thuds, my mouth goes dry. But . . . how? What? Who? Is it his hand? Is it forged? Was he at the Reptilarium? I blink back tears, nodding to all of them, yes, yes, it’s Dad’s; the note came from here, England, from Basti’s room.

  ‘But I don’t know what it means,’ I wail. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Is he here?’

  ‘Did Daddy really write it?’

  ‘Did Basti? Do they have the same writing . . . brothers and all?’

  ‘Is it a trick?’

  ‘What’s going on? Are we safe?’

  ‘Tell us, Kicky, tell us what’s happening!’

  ‘I can’t work it out.’ I stare at three expectant, bewildered faces. Have never felt so helpless in my life.

  ‘Well then,’ Scruff says firmly, ‘we’ll just have to get to the bottom of this.’

  I nod. ‘But not alert Basti in the process. He’s not going to help us.’

  ‘How then?’ Bert asks.

  ‘We have to get out of here. Find a way back to Dinda. Ask her some more questions. And Charlie Boo. He could be the key to all this.’

  We spend a restless, sleepless night scouring hidden crooks and crannies, trying to find something – anything – in the way of more clues. But nothing. Operation Desert Tracker has to widen its scope. First things first: we have to escape. But how?

  I toss and turn on the couch in the library, too much in my head. And we have to act fast. Dad could be anywhere. Trapped, needing our help.

  The crack of dawn. Scruff in full battle mode: armour, sword, American Indian feathered hat, war paint in stripes across cheeks (lipstick from Bert’s bedroom).

  ‘You are staring at a tactical genius here,’ he announces, waking me up. ‘Dad’s going to be so proud of me. Just you wait.’

  He rests his piece of papyrus on an old book, dips a feathered pen into an inkwell, and begins to write. ‘Oh Miss K, oh Miss Kicky K,’ he chuckles. ‘We have to escape from here, right? I’ve been working on this all night.’

  When he’s finished he hands the papyrus across with a flourish. ‘Madam, the order of the day.’

  I take it with a grin, shaking my head. ‘Scruff to the rescue, eh?’ I murmur in doubt.

  I smile, nod. Dad’s favourite.

  Because Charlie Boo has told us there are constant rumours some will be arriving in England soon, after several long years of banana-drought, and the entire country’s waiting with bated breath.

  No escaping that one. This is Scruff after all.

  I look up. ‘My masterstoke,’ Scruff smiles. ‘It’ll get us out. I think I know Charlie Boo, I really do. It’s a man hunch.’

  ‘Well, boy hero, it’s worth a try.’

  We race downstairs and leave the order on the kitchen table. Scruff scrawls as an afterthought:

  Thinks, actually, that’s a bit forward for an old butler – I agree, far too obvious. He goes to scrub it out, then decides hang on, why not? In fact, scribbles something else:

  ‘The genius-ness! Adulation please,’ Scruff commands. ‘We’ll be out of here in no time.’

  ‘When we’v
e got to the bottom of this. And what makes you think Charlie Boo will agree to it? He might just hand over some snakes as our new mates.’

  ‘He hasn’t dealt with the Scruffter yet.’ He turns to the sheet of papyrus and adds just one thing –

  We go back to the library and wait.

  And wait.

  Charlie Boo must have started work by now.

  We hear nothing.

  The hours pass . . . the morning firms into day . . . pacing . . . wondering . . . despairing . . . nup, it hasn’t worked.

  DONG!

  The enormous sound of a Chinese gong, summoning us downstairs.

  We run.

  We race to the entrance hall and are met by the sternest of faces.

  Are we in trouble? Pin inches behind me.

  Charlie Boo takes out a large cane from behind his back. Holds it up to each of us and assesses, as if he’s measuring height and length to give us all a good old whipping, to see how much flesh can be covered by it. I bite my lip. Then he winks. Twirls the stick like a baton. Smiles.

  We gasp.

  ‘You have half an hour,’ he pronounces, stepping back. ‘Half an hour to assemble on this very spot with –’ his voice drops, he glares at Scruff ‘– your very cheeky brother.’

  Charlie Boo leans towards the four of us: as one we lean back.

  ‘Hmm. Yes. Lists.’

  Scruff smiles weakly.

  ‘Well, well, have I got a request for you.’ He rolls up his sleeves. ‘If you choose to accept it.’

  Scruff’s eyes dart to the door.

  ‘There’s no way out,’ the butler barks, ‘unless I say so. Which I think you’ve already worked out for yourself, haven’t you, young man?’

  ‘Possibly,’ Scruff squeaks.

  ‘Right. Caddys major, intermediate and minor. You will proceed to the attic immediately.’ We nod, wide-eyed. ‘You will find the warmest clothes imaginable. Coats, hats, mittens, Eskimo suits, diving suits, anything that takes your fancy.’ He looks specifically at Bert, a dry smile. ‘Black, yes, if you so desire.’ Peers at Pin. ‘Young ruffians from the desert do know what mittens are, don’t they?’