The Tiger's Egg

by Jon Berkeley

  “It would be safer with you than it would be at the circus.”

  “But how to send it with you? That was the question.”

  “You were only three weeks old.”

  Gila grinned. “There was one thing you never let out of your grasp,” he said.

  “Had it with you day and night,” said Fabio.

  Miles’s hand reached instinctively into his pocket, and he felt the threadbare grip of his oldest friend. “Tangerine!” he said.

  “Tangerine.” Umor nodded. “I took the Egg from its hiding place again and sewed it into the stuffing of the bear’s head.”

  “It was a stroke of genius,” said Gila.

  “It was good stitching,” said Umor.

  “Then we wrapped you up in the dead of night and took you to the orphanage in Larde.”

  “We left you on the doorstep, with the bear tucked up in your arms.”

  “Afterward we told everyone that you had come down with a fever in the orphanage, and you had died in the night before the doctor could be found.”

  “But you were supposed to be looking after the Egg,” said Miles. “What did the Fir Bolg say?”

  Fabio gave Umor a sidelong glance. “Well . . . ,” he said.

  “We never actually told them, as such,” said Umor. “We just told them that it was safe.”

  “We meant to go back and fetch you, and the Tiger’s Egg, on your eleventh birthday.”

  “Which was when the Egg was due to be returned.”

  “But you came and found us instead,” said Umor.

  “Or the Egg did,” said Fabio.

  “But you didn’t return it to the Fir Bolg then, either,” said Miles.

  “That’s true, Master Miles.”

  “Returning the Tiger’s Egg is only half of the bargain.”

  “The other is the promise that Celeste made.”

  “And we still hadn’t found out what that was.”

  “A bargain half fulfilled would not go down well.”

  “Didn’t you know they’d come looking for it?” asked Miles.

  “We tried to delay them,” said Umor.

  “I went to the Crinnew,” said Gila, “and I asked them for more time.”

  “They agreed, and gave us another year.”

  “Then why were they raiding the circus?”

  “Some of the young lads are very keen on raiding parties,” said Fabio.

  “They would think it a fine thing to come back with the Tiger’s Egg.”

  “A Fir Bolg agreement is a flexible thing,” said Gila.

  “Everyone makes up their own mind.”

  “There are no leaders.”

  “Two hundred kings and twelve,” said Miles.

  “That’s right, Master Miles,” said Umor. “Two hundred kings and twelve.”

  “What we didn’t know,” said Fabio, giving Miles a sharp look, “was that you’d go looking for them.”

  “If we’d known where Doctor Tau-Tau was bringing you we’d have been after you like cheetahs on roller skates.”

  “You were lucky to escape with your life.”

  “You were lucky that Little was more awake than we were.”

  “But how can I ever return the Egg if we don’t know the other half of the bargain?” asked Miles.

  Fabio scratched his curly head and frowned. “You say you have your mother’s diaries?”

  “Yes,” said Miles, “two of them, anyway.”

  “Well that’s simple, then,” said Umor, standing up to coil a rope that dangled from the rigging.

  “The deal must be in the diaries,” said Fabio.

  “Otherwise what’s the point in keeping one?” agreed Gila.

  Miles reached into his pocket, which Tangerine now shared with two of his mother’s notebooks. They were still there, and beside them he felt the little bear’s sawdust-stuffed head. “It must be very small, the Tiger’s Egg,” said Miles. He had pictured something about the size of a hen’s egg, but it would certainly have to be smaller to fit comfortably inside Tangerine’s head.

  “It’s the size of a man’s thumb, from the last knuckle,” said Umor.

  “Then I suppose it’s not so ridiculous that Doctor Tau-Tau believed I’d swallowed it,” said Miles.

  “’Course it is!” said Fabio. “You have to talk to a Tiger’s Egg so that it accepts you as its master.”

  “You’d have to be talking to your stomach day and night,” said Gila.

  “What’s so odd about that?” said Umor.

  “Do you talk to that bear of yours?” said Fabio.

  Miles nodded. “All the time,” he said.

  “Then perhaps you’ve already made a start, Master Miles.”

  Little Sky Beetle, waist-deep and water-bound, sat in the hippo tank in Jules and Gina’s wagon, holding a newborn pygmy hippopotamus in her arms. The barrel-shaped infant slept peacefully, his belly full with his first feed, while his mother, Violet, lay in the shallows, now and then heaving an enormous sigh. Miles climbed into the darkened trailer and sat on a bench beside the tank. “So this is where you are,” he said to Little. “I didn’t even know Violet was expecting a baby.”

  “She’s been talking about it for weeks,” said Little. “Isn’t he cute? He was born just an hour ago.”

  Miles stood up and looked more closely at the sleeping hippo. He was about the size of a small pillow, the gray-black of his back fading to a delicate pink on his underside and his cheeks. “Has he got a name?” he asked.

  “Not yet,” said Little. “Gina asked me to look after him while she went to help Jules get the crocodiles ready. She said I could name him if I wanted. Have you any ideas?”

  Miles shrugged. He did not feel in the mood for baby naming.

  “It was a difficult birth,” Little whispered. “We though we would lose Violet at one point.”

  Miles looked at Violet sleeping in the shallows, her ribs heaving with each breath. “Fabio says it was his fault that my mother died,” he said.

  “Why does he say that?” asked Little.

  “Because they borrowed the Tiger’s Egg at the moment I was born,” said Miles. “There was a thunderstorm, and Gila was accidentally crushed by Tembo. They thought they could save him with the Tiger’s Egg. My mother died because she didn’t have the Egg to protect her.”

  Little shifted the heavy calf to a more comfortable position. He gave a wriggle and let out a quiet squeak. “Celeste died because her part in the One Song reached its end,” she said.

  “But the Egg has the power to protect your life, doesn’t it?” asked Miles.

  “It can be used to hide from the Sleep Angels,” said Little, “but that’s not the same thing as having a life. Once your part in the Song has been sung, you have no purpose to fulfill. That’s when you should rejoin the Song, otherwise you are just blowing around like a leaf in the wind.”

  “Then it wasn’t the Bolsillo brothers’ fault that she died?” said Miles. He felt a wave of relief wash over him.

  “No,” said Little, “and if they’ve believed that ever since, you should tell them that it’s not true.”

  “But what about Gila?” asked Miles. “Was it the Egg that saved his life?”

  Little smiled. “It’s hard to be sure. The Fir Bolg are not like other people. They are clever and wise, and they make their own bargains. I don’t think they’d have survived all this time otherwise.”

  The baby hippo began to struggle in her arms. “He’s hungry again already,” said Little, “and I think I’ll call him Puck.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  PLAYING WITH FIRE

  Miles Wednesday, thief-rumbler and Egg-successor, sat by the square hole in the floor of Lady Partridge’s tree house with his feet dangling out through the trapdoor. He had time to kill before the circus show, and had climbed the rope ladder to the tree house with his mother’s diaries in the pocket of his jacket. Now he was searching through them for any mention of the Fir Bolg, or indeed for anyth
ing he could make sense of at all. He was sure that some pages had been lost during the Fir Bolg’s search of Doctor Tau-Tau’s pockets, and he hoped that none of them were vital.

  He turned the thin pages carefully, but he could not concentrate on the dense writing and overlapping pictures, and eventually he gave up and put the diaries back in his pocket. He felt Tangerine cling onto his fingers, and he lifted the bear out carefully and placed him on the carpet, well away from the square hole and the fifteen-foot drop to the ground below. Miles leaned back on his elbow and watched Tangerine as he wandered about the uneven floor of the tree house, kicking at things in his path like a half-stuffed hooligan. The bear wandered back to the boy and flopped down on the carpet, leaning his head against Miles’s chest.

  “So,” said Miles, “there’s more to you than meets the eye, after all.” Tangerine kept a modest silence.

  Miles could feel his own heart beating, and he tried to picture the Tiger’s Egg inside Tangerine’s head. He closed his eyes and listened to the creaking of the twin beech trunks as the tree swayed gently. A picture of the tiger came into his mind’s eye. The magnificent animal was pacing in the distance, appearing and disappearing by turns, as though he were passing through a fog. Miles concentrated hard on the tiger’s image. Several times he had dreamed of performing with the tiger in the ring of the Circus Bolsillo, and he always awoke with the feeling that his dream could be pulled into the light and made real, if only he could learn how.

  The tiger in his picture turned away and began to fade into the grayness beyond. A sinking feeling caught hold of Miles. He felt as though he would never come close to mastering the Tiger’s Egg. He remembered when he and Little had watched the Council of Cats in the moonlit garden the year before, and how he had struggled to understand their speech. “You must stop trying to listen before you can hear,” Little had said to him. Maybe, he thought, catching hold of a tiger’s soul is a little like grasping a language that seems to have no meaning. He held on to the picture of the fading tiger, but he stopped trying to pull it toward him, and instead he opened his senses and waited.

  The heartbeat in his ears grew louder, and suddenly he was no longer sure if it was his heartbeat or that of the tiger. His nose filled with a musky odor, and all at once the tiger was rushing toward him, his mighty paws flashing white and his fearsome teeth bared. Miles gave a yelp of fright and opened his eyes, half expecting to find the mighty animal leaping at him across the tree house. The tree house was silent, however, and except for Tangerine he was alone. The wind had dropped and a stillness lay on the air. Miles’s heart thumped like a frightened rabbit. He picked up the little bear and slipped him into his jacket pocket, then he turned and put his foot on the top rung of the rope ladder. Excitement gripped his stomach as he descended into the garden. He was sure that the tiger would be waiting for him among the trees. He dropped the last few feet and turned to look. The trees around him stood as still as if they were painted onto the sky, and the stern rectangle of the manor house watched over the grounds. Over by the pond a small group of children launched a boat they had made, which left a perfect V behind it in the mirror-smooth water. There was not so much as the whisker of a tiger to be seen.

  Miles felt himself deflate as he turned and began to scuff his way through the fallen leaves toward the gate of Partridge Manor. He felt a fool for imagining that he could master the tiger’s soul all at once, just because he now knew that it lived in the stuffed head of a small bear in his pocket. He also felt a little relieved. He had certainly not felt in control of the charging tiger that still burned bright in his mind’s eye, and it was a sobering reminder that he was playing with fire trying to summon up such a powerful beast. “Maybe,” he said quietly to Tangerine, “I’ll never have the strength that my mother had. Maybe . . .”

  A deep voice sounded in his ear, making him jump. “So it is you, tub boy,” said the tiger. “I almost didn’t recognize you, since you weren’t bleating for help over something.”

  Miles turned as he walked, a broad smile spreading across his face and warmth rising through him as though the sun had just come out. “Why would I need your help?” he asked. “I’ve found my father—sort of—and helped to capture a pair of serial burglars since I saw you last.” He almost added, “And learned the whereabouts of a tiger’s soul,” but he bit his tongue in time. He had a feeling that the tiger was no more aware of the Tiger’s Egg than a shadow is aware of the tree that casts it.

  “I’m pleased to hear you’re learning to stand on your own two feet,” said the tiger.

  “Still, I was glad you turned up when you did, back in the forest,” said Miles.

  The tiger turned his head away, almost as though he were flinching from a blow. His reaction took Miles by surprise.

  “We did get The Null back safely, in the end,” he said cautiously. “It lives in Lady Partridge’s gazebo.”

  The tiger turned his gaze back to the boy, and there was something haunted in his expression. When he spoke it seemed to cost him a great effort.

  “There is a blackness in that—thing—that has no place in nature,” he said.

  “I know,” said Miles, “but . . . it’s important that it knows it has a friend.”

  The tiger was silent for a moment. “There is nothing in that darkness that could recognize a friendship,” he said at length. “My advice is to steer well clear of it, and a tiger’s advice is not something to be discarded lightly.”

  Miles had no wish to argue with the tiger on that point, so he hastily changed the subject. He was curious to know whether the tiger was even aware of any influence Miles might have over his comings and goings. “What brings you here anyway?” he asked, kicking at a pile of leaves and making his voice as casual as he could.

  “I was passing through on the lookout for a snack,” said the tiger. “I thought an orphan or two might serve the purpose, if I could find something better than pond water to wash them down with.”

  Miles looked at the tiger for a clue to what lay behind his answer, but the tiger’s face gave nothing away. They stopped short of the wrought-iron gates that led onto the road. “I do have a favor to ask you, as it happens,” said Miles.

  “Now there’s a surprise,” said the tiger.

  Miles searched for the words he needed. “Remember you told me once that you smelled the circus in me?”

  “Vaguely,” said the tiger.

  “You were right,” said Miles. His words came out all in a rush. “Both my parents were circus people and it’s a sort of family tradition to show a tiger, and the last performance of the season is tonight and I wondered if you would perform with me, together I mean, in the Circus Bolsillo, tonight, I mean.”

  The tiger stood in the warm light of the evening sun and fixed Miles with his amber gaze. He said nothing for some time, and the dying light seemed to turn the world to fire as Miles held the mighty animal’s stare. He knew somehow that if he looked away he would lose all the ground he had made since first they met, on the side of a hill on a blustery October night.

  “I have told you how I feel about the circus,” said the tiger.

  “You were talking about the Circus Oscuro,” said Miles. He was holding his breath. The tiger had not said no.

  “The Circus Bolsillo is different,” Miles continued. “It’s more like I would imagine Barty Fumble’s Big Top to be.”

  “And why would that make me more inclined to put myself on the playbill?” asked the tiger. His tail flicked behind him.

  “I think you used to perform in Barty Fumble’s Big Top,” said Miles, “as Varippuli.”

  “Varippuli was shot by the Great Cortado,” said the tiger.

  “His body was never found,” said Miles. “Maybe he just lost his memory. Maybe he just chose to be someone else.”

  A rumbling growl came from deep within the tiger. “Maybe he just had enough of performing before ranks of people he would rather have found on a bed of lettuce.”

  Miles
laughed. “He used to perform with Barty Fumble. You said so yourself.”

  “Barty Fumble is dead and gone,” said the tiger sadly.

  “Not completely,” said Miles, quietly glad that he had chosen not to mention The Null’s true nature. “Barty Fumble was my father, and I’m still here.”

  The tiger stepped closer until his nose was inches from Miles’s face. His whiskers lifted as his nostrils flared. Miles stood as still as he did when Stranski was throwing knives at him. “I have no reason to doubt that,” said the tiger at last. “But you never had the privilege of being his pupil. Have you ever performed with a tiger?”

  Miles shook his head. “I’ve watched Countess Fontainbleau show her lions, and I hoped you might be able to give me some direction if I need it. I don’t think anyone would notice. I’ll have to clear it with the Bolsillo brothers, of course.”

  “Very well,” said the tiger. “I will perform with you, just this once, and only because you are Barty Fumble’s boy.”

  Miles felt himself glow like a lightbulb. “Thank you,” he said. He opened the gate and turned back to the tiger. “Can I call you Varippuli?” he asked.

  “You can call me the queen of Sheba for all the difference it will make,” said the tiger.

  Miles stood back to let the tiger pass. A trickle of people was already passing the gate on the way to the big top, hoping to arrive before the best seats had sold out. The tiger stayed where he was. “I’m not well suited to mingling with the peasantry,” he said. “All that running and screaming makes me want to bite something.”

  “It’s all right,” said Miles. “You’ll be with me. I’m sort of well-known in this town.”

  Miles stepped out through the gates, and after a moment the tiger followed. They set off down the road toward the glowing lights of the circus. “I hope you’re not thinking of asking to ride on my back,” said the tiger.

  “Of course not,” said Miles. He placed his hand on the tiger’s shoulder and they walked along in silence. The Lardespeople stared at them as they passed. Some jumped back in fear, but most seemed to have reached the point where they would not be surprised to hear that the Boy from the Barrel had brought the dinosaurs back from extinction and taught them table manners. They whispered to each other about the capture of The Null and the discovery of the Pinchbuckets’ hoard, and Miles smiled quietly to himself, marching through his home-town with a walking, dancing bear in a secret pocket and a Bengal tiger by his side.