Figaro and Rumba and the Crocodile Cafe

by Anna Fienberg

  ‘Oh yes, yes!’ yelped Figaro suddenly. ‘Touch my paw again! Yes, ooh it hurts, it feels so funny!’ And he leapt up from the couch, falling over his other three feet.

  ‘It will feel odd for a few more minutes, until everything is flowing normally again.’

  When they got home, Figaro practised walking outside on the veranda. Then he went for a long run down to the river, up the hill, and around the cricket field. On the way back he passed Nate’s treehouse. Nate and his cousin Nancy were sitting outside on a branch, catching the afternoon breeze. Nate had the stereo on very loud and his cousin was dancing.

  ‘Come up and have a drink!’ called Nate.

  ‘Look at my new dance I invented!’ yelled Nancy. ‘It’s called the Dead Paw.’

  ‘No, thanks,’ Figaro called back. ‘I want to keep moving, now that I can.’

  That night, Figaro was very tired. But he was scared of having bad dreams again. ‘What if I sleep the wrong way?’ he asked Rumba. ‘What if that thing kills my paw again?’

  Rumba gave him The Little Ghost Cat to read. Then Figaro tried humming and listening to his iPod. But nothing worked. He couldn’t fall asleep.

  ‘Do you want me to tell you a story?’ said Rumba.

  ‘Yes, please,’ said Figaro.

  ‘Well, it’s a story my uncle told me, and he says it’s true. One day, he was going for a swim in the sea.’

  ‘Can’t he be going for a walk in the country?’

  ‘No. This is the only story I know. So, as I was saying, it was a very hot day and Uncle swam out far. Soon he’d gone such a long way that he couldn’t see the shore anymore. The sky grew dark and the wind came up. He tried to turn around and head back to land but the waves rose higher and higher, until they were big as houses. And then suddenly everything went terribly, dreadfully dark.’

  ‘Ooh, Rumba, hurry up and get to the good bit. Is there a good bit?’

  ‘Not yet. There was only black all around him and he thought there must be a storm overhead, or else he had died. But then he felt himself being whooshed along a tunnel, and running off the tunnel were all these different rooms. He was whooshed into one and thrown up against a wall.

  ‘“Hello,” said a voice. “Nice to meet you.”

  ‘“Who’s that?” said Uncle.

  ‘In a minute his eyes got used to the dark and he saw that he was talking to a crab. Then he looked around and saw hundreds of strange little creatures – sea cucumbers and sea snails and jellyfish and things with eight legs or eyes on stalks.

  ‘“Where am I?” asked Uncle. “What happened?”

  ‘“You’ve been swallowed by a whale,” said the crab. “Gloomy, isn’t it?”

  ‘“How do I get out of here?” asked my uncle.

  ‘“You can’t,” said the crab.

  “We’ve been here for years. This is the ballroom. We hold dances in here when we get bored.”’

  ‘“But I don’t like the dark!” cried Uncle.

  ‘“Well, you’ll just have to get used to it like we did. Soon Eric the electric eel will be along and he makes enough light for anyone. You can play cards instead if you like.”

  ‘My uncle thought he’d go mad. It was worse than any nightmare. He gave a long yowl of fear that echoed around the ballroom.

  ‘“Hey, listen to that!” said the thing with its eyes on stalks. “He can sing!” Stalk-Eyes crawled over to my uncle and said, “A prawn once told me that the only way to get out of the whale’s stomach was to sing a very high note called Sea.”

  ‘“How would that help?” asked Uncle.

  ‘“Well, the prawn reckoned this note tickles the whale so badly that his insides shiver and he vomits up his entire stomach. I suppose that means us. Do you think you could do it? Frankly, I’m over this ballroom.’

  ‘Well, my uncle got to thinking. As you know, my family is very musical and we have all had singing lessons. Only my uncle is a baritone, which means he has a very low voice.

  He told Stalk-Eyes this – he was sorry, but he didn’t think a high Sea was in his singing range.

  ‘“Practise,” said Stalk-Eyes, “or you’ll be looking at me for the rest of your life.” Stalk-Eyes goggled at him and did something nasty with his behind.

  ‘So every day Uncle practised. And every day he climbed a higher note. Soon the ballroom was empty. Uncle’s singing got on everyone’s nerves. Except for Stalk-Eyes. His nerves were in his behind.

  ‘Well, it’s amazing what you can do if you practise. Because one day, Uncle hit that high note. “SEA-SEA-SEA!” And as soon as he did, the ballroom walls turned inside out and the ceiling fell down to the floor. Uncle felt himself being spurted along, back up the dark tunnel and out, out into the wide blue sky.

  ‘And that is the story Uncle told us kittens every time we said we didn’t want to practise our singing. “One day it may save your life,” he said. “Just like it did mine.”’

  Rumba looked at Figaro. His eyes were closed. So Rumba got up and turned him the right way, onto his side. Then he went to bed himself. It had been a long, tiring day.

  Chapter 4

  Mrs Foozy and the Motorbike

  Figaro and Rumba were going on the Very Fast Train.

  ‘This time it is really going to happen,’ said Figaro. ‘Everyone says it’s fabulous. Like a speeding bullet.’

  ‘That’s the hundreth time you’ve told me,’ said Rumba. ‘Soon we’ll see for ourselves.’

  Figaro thought Rumba was taking forever packing their bag. And they had to catch a bus to the station. Figaro knew that Ernie the bus driver hated waiting. Ernie had a temper like a flash storm, and any kind of dilly-dallying set him off.

  So Figaro ran ahead up the street. When he reached the bus stop, he saw Ernie and the bus were just leaving. Figaro waved wildly, but Ernie pretended not to see.

  ‘You’re too EARLY!’ shouted Figaro. ‘It’s not FAIR!’ But the bus just chugged away down the street.

  Figaro sat down in the middle of the footpath. Drool dripped onto his new red shirt. Rumba came hurrying up to him, juggling the heavy bag.

  ‘Now we’ll never catch the Very Fast Train,’ said Figaro.

  ‘We can walk to the station,’ said Rumba. ‘That’s if we get a move on and stop sitting on the footpath.’

  ‘No, it’s too far.’ Figaro watched a fly land on his leg. ‘All that stupid packing business.’

  Just then there was a loud BANG! and Mrs Foozy drove up on her motorbike.

  ‘Excuse me,’ she said. ‘My bike is always backfiring.’

  ‘Sounds like Figaro after bean stew,’ said Rumba. ‘That will be your exhaust pipe, Mrs Foozy. There’s a hole in it, I expect.’

  ‘Hello, Mrs Foozy!’ cried Figaro, his tail thumping. ‘Can we get a lift to the station with you?’

  ‘Why, yes, Figgy dear, I’m going that way myself. Forgot to buy the spinach.’

  ‘Spinach is easy to forget,’ said Figaro. ‘Can we go now?’

  Mrs Foozy started up the motorbike. Figaro and Rumba clung on behind her. Mrs Foozy always drove fast. ‘You ride like a wasp’s on your tail,’ Nate once told her. ‘You can’t talk,’ Mrs Foozy had said, and gave him one of her looks, so Nate shut up.

  But they had only gone two blocks when the bike gave another loud cough and stopped.

  ‘Oh, beetle bums in mud!’ said Figaro.

  Rumba got off to take a look at the long silver pipe sticking out of the back. ‘Don’t touch,’ he cried suddenly as Figaro reached over. ‘It’s boiling hot right now. Mrs Foozy, it’s just as I thought. There’s a large hole in the exhaust. You have a problem of compression. But if we wrap something tight around the hole we might just make it to the station.’

  ‘What can we use? Hey, what about my tail? I can fly off the end, like Superdog!’

  ‘You’d burn like a lamb chop, Fig! No, we’ll try the leather strap on this bag – that might hold.’

  Mrs Foozy was wringing her paws. ‘Oh, Rumba, you’ll ruin
that nice bag of yours. Didn’t you get it from that foreign place where music plays all night and the sea comes right up to your front door?’

  ‘Yes,’ sighed Rumba. ‘Cuba. Where I was born.’

  ‘That’s where we met,’ Figaro told Mrs Foozy while Rumba unpacked the bag. ‘I was on holidays. I was supposed to go to America but I went the wrong way. It didn’t matter because one day I was at this market and there was Rumba, all skinny and scared and hungry. I felt so sorry for him. He was looking at the fish fillets.’

  ‘I hadn’t eaten for two days. You see, I’d been in a spot of trouble –’

  ‘But let’s fix this exhausted thingy and go, go, go!’ cried Figaro. ‘I’ll find you another bag, Rumba. A red one. That’s my favourite colour,’ he told Mrs Foozy.

  ‘Have you got any scissors?’ Rumba asked her.

  Mrs Foozy took out a small pair of nail scissors and Rumba cut off the strap. Then he wound the leather tightly around the hole, tying a strong knot at the end.

  ‘And where did you learn so much about motorbikes?’ Mrs Foozy asked Rumba admiringly.

  ‘My father was a mechanic back in Cuba. All the people in our neighbourhood used to bring their bikes to my papa. There were engine parts lying around all over our front porch.’

  ‘Well,’ sniffed Mrs Foozy, as she tried starting up the engine, ‘you should be the mechanic in this town, instead of that lazy Nate. Do you know, once my bike was left lying in his shop for two weeks. “Nate Your Mate” he calls himself. Ha!’

  The engine made a loud BA-AAAF!

  sound like a bomb exploding. Figaro covered his ears. Rumba looked worried.

  There was dead silence.

  Mrs Foozy tried again.

  BANG! BA-BA-BA-BARRRR000MM! The engine began to purr like Rumba after a plateful of fish.

  ‘Let’s go go go!’ Figaro screamed into the wind.

  All the traffic lights were green and Figaro lifted his nose to the air. Rumba told him not to lean out too far because they might fall over. But Figaro didn’t hear.

  As they zoomed around the corner, Figaro leaned out to wave at Nate’s cousin Nancy.

  ‘No!’ screamed Rumba, but it was too late. Figaro and Rumba and Mrs Foozy fell in a terrible heap onto the curb.

  ‘Ouch!’ yelped Figaro. ‘Mrs Foozy, why are you so spiky?’

  ‘Figaro dear,’ groaned Mrs Foozy, ‘why are you so heavy?’

  Nancy dropped her bag of bananas and danced over.

  ‘How can you dance at a time like this?’ growled Rumba.

  ‘I was born that way,’ said Nancy, helping them up. ‘And I invent all my own steps. See, this is my new Mashed Bananas dance. I feel everything through my dancing. You should try it.’

  When they pulled up at the station, the train was there. A man with a cap and a loudspeaker boomed, ‘ALL ABOARD!’

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Foozy!’ Figaro called as he ran onto the platform.

  ‘That’s all right, Figgy dear,’ Mrs Foozy shouted back. ‘And thank you, Rumba.’

  ‘I’d go straight to Nate Your Mate after you get your spinach,’ nodded Rumba. ‘That leather won’t last long. The engine will stop idling and you’ll have to keep revving it to keep going – ’ ‘Come on, Rumba!’ called Figaro. ‘The train is about to leave!’

  Rumba sprinted towards the train, juggling the drink bottles and spicy sausages, just as the whistle blew.

  Chapter 5

  The Very Fast Train

  Rumba leapt onto the train. ‘Figaro?’ he called.

  ‘Up here!’ Figaro called back.

  Rumba made his way through the carriage doorway, into the aisle. He spotted Figaro at the very end.

  ‘Isn’t this fabulous?’ yelled Figaro. ‘It’s even better than the ad on TV.’

  Rumba made his way down the aisle.

  ‘You know,’ said Figaro, ‘this is a really good train. Even though it goes so fast it feels like we’re not moving at all.’

  ‘That’s because we’re not. The train hasn’t started yet.’

  ‘I knew that,’ said Figaro. ‘I was just testing to see if you did.’

  Figaro set off through the next pair of glass doors. Just then the train jolted forward and Rumba dropped his bag. When he caught up with Figaro he found him with his nose pressed up against a window.

  ‘Take a look at this, Rumba,’ he said. ‘See how all the houses and trees and kookaburras are flashing past? Just for a sec I saw Nate climbing a tree. He was all blurred. But now I can’t see anything because this beetle bum mist has come up outside.’

  ‘That’s not mist, Figaro,’ said Rumba. ‘That’s where you’ve breathed against the glass.’

  ‘Anyway,’ said Figaro. ‘Let’s go and find another compartment with no mist.’

  They padded down the aisle, looking into the compartments.

  ‘Let’s sit in here,’ said Figaro, stopping suddenly. ‘There’s plenty of room.’

  Rumba peeped in around Figaro. The compartment was empty except for a tall crocodile sitting near the window.

  ‘Good morning,’ said the crocodile. ‘Do make yourselves comfortable.’

  ‘Thanks!’ said Figaro. ‘Great day for it!’ And he sat down on the opposite seat.

  ‘Indeed,’ smiled the crocodile, showing a perfect set of sharp yellow teeth.

  Rumba stopped in the doorway. He waggled his eyebrows at Figaro.

  ‘Do come in,’ the crocodile said. ‘You’ll catch a chill standing there. I won’t bite you.’

  Rumba looked at him. He was a very elegant crocodile, no doubt about that. Rumba really liked his satin waistcoat. There were musical notes stitched all over it. And nestled between his short legs were two conga drums. Surely such a musical creature couldn’t be a villain?

  Rumba began to pile his things into the overhead locker.

  ‘Here, let me help you,’ said the crocodile, reaching up. ‘I am taller.’

  ‘Well,’ said Rumba. ‘Thank you.’

  When they were settled, Rumba turned politely to the crocodile. ‘Your accent is very familiar. Do you mind if I ask where you come from?’

  ‘Why not at all, amigo. I was born in Cuba,’ and he played a short salsa dance beat.

  ‘Cuba!’ Rumba’s eyes grew damp. But he couldn’t help his foot tapping against the seat. ‘I myself lived there. Such wonderful music. That explains your waistcoat. Very stylish, isn’t it, Figaro?’

  ‘Fabulous,’ nodded Figaro. ‘Look, see that big lake out there? And the white boats? Oh, Rumba, you have to look straight away because this train is so fast, everything whooshes by in a second. See? Now you missed out on that volcano type thing.’

  ‘That was a pile of dirt,’ said the crocodile.

  ‘I love dirt,’ Figaro said. ‘I just hope we don’t whoosh along so fast we drop off the edge of the world or something.’

  ‘The world is round like an orange, not flat, so there are no edges to drop off,’ the crocodile put in.

  ‘I knew that already,’ said Figaro. ‘I was just joking.’

  ‘And did you know, too, that you have drool dripping onto your shirt?’ The crocodile pointed to Figaro’s chest. ‘You’ve made a wet shape like the island of Cuba. Don’t you carry a handkerchief for that?’

  Figaro looked down at his chest. His eyes grew red.

  Rumba gave Figaro one of the towels. ‘I lived in a little town on the coast, just out of Havana.’ Rumba turned to Figaro. ‘Havana is the capital city of Cuba.’

  ‘I knew that,’ said Figaro. He glared at the crocodile. ‘And I know what Havana is in Spanish, it’s La Habana.’

  ‘Well,’ Rumba went on, ‘I used to love watching the boats come back at dusk. The smell of fresh fish and the gold in the water – it was as if the sun had just fallen plop right in – oh, it was heaven. Then, of course, the whole town came alive at night. The streets were full of music – guitars strumming, drums going wild. I remember how we would stay up until three in the morning, singing in the moonli
ght.’

  ‘So why did you leave?’ asked the crocodile.

  Rumba sighed. ‘It’s a very sad story. I don’t often tell it, but …Well, you see, one day I came home from singing lessons and my family was not there. I waited and waited but when night fell I went in to ask the neighbour, Juanita, if she knew what had happened.

  ‘“Your family must have been catnapped!” Juanita said. “There has been a lot of it about. You’ve got to be careful these days, especially if you’re a cat with a very good voice. They are the ones in danger. Me, personally, I am tone deaf.”

  ‘It was true – we had to close all our windows when Juanita sang in the shower. But my family sang in a salsa band downtown. I searched for them for two years. I looked all over Cuba, from Santa Clara to Trinidad. I was so sad I could hardly eat. But I couldn’t stop looking. Then I met Figaro. He bought me a bucketful of prawns and listened to my story. And when he had to leave, I decided to come too. I had found a best friend. Dear Figaro, he became my new family.’

  The crocodile looked at Figaro. Figaro looked back.

  ‘I can count to ten in Spanish,’ said Figaro. And he did.

  The crocodile smiled. ‘Congratulations.’

  Figaro studied the crocodile’s wide mouth. He didn’t trust his smile. And his voice was too smooth. It was sugary and sweet like Mrs Foozy’s chocolate icing, but with nothing solid underneath. It was a voice that left you feeling empty, with sore teeth.

  At midday, lunch was served in the Dining Car. At each little table there was a basket of hot bread rolls. And there were sausages and lamb cutlets and nachos. Rumba looked down at the package of food he’d brought from home.