Three

by Justin D'Ath

  There was barely room to sit. I had to angle myself slantwise between the bricks of the facing walls. It was not comfortable. My knees pushed up under my chin. The ground felt damp through my shorts. At least I am safe here, I thought. Mbuti’s men will not find me.

  When was Mr Kimutai going to call back? I checked the phone. There was a new message! But it was not from the Chief of Police, it was from Holly.

  Are you ok baby? Please please call me when you can xx

  She always added those Xs. For a long time, I did not know what they meant. Finally, one week ago, in an empty corridor outside the science room at school, I asked her.

  And Holly had showed me.

  Im ok cant talk now will call when can, I wrote. My finger paused for a moment over the X button, then it moved up and pressed Send.

  It was wrong to have done what we did. This was not America. In my country, where our religion was strong, there were strict rules about kissing.

  Something touched my leg. I jumped, thinking it was a rat. But it was not a rat – it was a black leathery finger, with blood in the creases of its knuckles, gently tapping my leg. I jerked my leg away. I was no longer scared of the baboon, now that it did not have its bomb, but I did not want it touching me.

  When it saw me looking at it, the baboon brought its hand slowly up to its face. Tap, tap, tap, went the finger, this time against the brown leather muzzle that held its jaws together.

  ‘What?’ I said, feeling silly once again for talking to an animal.

  The baboon pinched one of the leather straps between its blood-scabbed thumb and forefinger, then it gave the muzzle a little sideways pull.

  Pretending it was not an animal and that we truly could understand each other, I asked, ‘Do you want me to take it off?’

  The baboon nodded.

  Aaaaee! That could not have happened! The baboon did not nod! Its head had just trembled in a way that had looked like a nod.

  But I felt lonely sitting there waiting for Mr Kimutai to call, so I continued our pretend conversation.

  ‘If I took the muzzle off you, you would bite me,’ I said.

  The baboon shook its head.

  My heart punched against my ribcage. First the nod, now the head shake. Was I imagining it? Glad that there was no one to witness me talking to a dumb animal, I asked, ‘Can you understand me?’

  The baboon nodded again.

  Was this possible? ‘Shake your head,’ I told it.

  It shook its head.

  ‘Nod.’

  The baboon nodded.

  I knew that some animals – dogs, donkeys, camels – could be taught to obey simple voice commands. Why not a monkey?

  ‘Hold up two fingers,’ I said, for who would teach it that?

  The baboon raised its hand and showed me two trembling fingers.

  My heart sped up. I had that d’lawo feeling again – like I was in a kind of dream. ‘Hold up three fingers.’

  It did.

  ‘Make a fist,’ I said.

  Its fingers bunched into a big, hairy-backed fist.

  Slowly I let out my breath. We had gone way past dogs and donkeys and camels now. This was not some trick – the baboon truly was responding to what I was saying.

  It understood me!

  ‘If I take the muzzle off you,’ I said, still feeling silly for talking to it like it was a human, ‘will you promise not to bite?’

  The baboon nodded weakly.

  But was it as weak as it looked? I wondered. Could I trust it? And of course I could not. It was a suicide bomber and I was its target! True, it no longer had its bomb, but I had seen the size of those other baboons’ fangs. One carefully aimed bite, even from a half-dead baboon like this one, would be enough to kill me.

  Mightbe I should have left it for the janitor and the vultures, I thought.

  Suddenly the phone came to life in my hand, vibrating and ringing. I got such a fright that I nearly dropped it. Flashing on the little blue screen was the name of the caller I had been waiting for: Solomon.

  ‘Hello,’ I said breathlessly. ‘This is Sun–’

  ‘Sunday, listen!’ Chief of Police Kimutai interrupted me. He lowered his voice. ‘I don’t have much time. You must get out of the country. Cross the border into . . .’

  Silence. The call had dropped out.

  I checked the screen again – there were five bars of signal – and tried returning Mr Kimutai’s call. Nothing happened. This time my call did not even go to his voicemail. I quickly hit the End button, in case he was trying to call me while I called him, but the phone remained silent.

  I was still staring at the blank screen, willing it to light up again with Mr Kimutai’s first name, when another strange thing happened – there was a dull thump in the distance, much like the one we had heard during Second Lesson, and instantly all five signal bars disappeared from the top of the screen. I had never seen such a thing happen before. I had seen five bars drop to three, or three bars go to one, but never before from five to nothing, all at once.

  Then there was another dull thump in the distance, and my skin prickled. Were they bombs? Was it more suicide bomber baboons? Had one of them just got Chief of Police Kimutai? I was still staring at the phone, my mind swirling with these and other frightening thoughts, when my suicide bomber baboon tapped me on the leg once again.

  ‘Bug off!’ I growled, slapping its hand away.

  ‘You must get out of the country’, Mr Kimutai had whispered in my ear. He wanted me to cross the border, but he had not said which border. My father had not been on friendly terms with any of our neighbouring countries and they might not welcome his son.

  It was all so hard to understand. My life had been changed like a garden trampled by elephants. One month ago, I had been named in Zantuga’s World Cup squad, the youngest player ever to represent my country, a hero! Now evil people were trying to kill me.

  Already they had killed my parents!

  Dropping the phone, I lowered my face into my hands and howled like a baby.

  Tap, tap, tap.

  ‘Bug off!’ I growled, embarrassed by my tears.

  The tapping stopped. But the hand did not go away. Instead, it moved slowly up my arm, then slid all the way around my back until the baboon’s long, hairy arm clasped me in a kind of hug.

  The thinking part of me warned: Get clear! This is a killer baboon! But the lonely part welcomed the touch of another living being.

  It felt nice to be held.

  8

  Thank You

  I still did not trust it. The baboon was not my friend, I reminded myself. It had been sent to kill me.

  And if it was smart enough to understand human talk, then mightbe it was tricking me – mightbe it was pretending to be kind, pretending to be more weak than it truly was, just so I would take off the leather muzzle.

  Then those wicked-sharp fangs mightbe would succeed where Mbuti’s bomb had failed.

  Pushing away the hairy arm, I climbed to my feet. I needed a weapon, in case the baboon tried something. My gaze fell on the wooden box, stencilled with the familiar elephant-head logo of the Elephant Cola brand. Climbing on top of it, I braced myself with one arm against each wall, then rocked slowly back and forth, back and forth, until the rickety old box collapsed beneath me in a prickly nest of splinters. And luck was with me – one of the splinters was shaped like a dagger. The baboon lay watching as I returned with my makeshift weapon.

  ‘Do not make me use it,’ I warned.

  Poking the wooden dagger into the back of my shorts, I gently rolled the baboon onto its side, so it faced away from me. Armed or not, I wanted to be behind it when its muzzle came off.

  But here was a problem. The muzzle’s thick leather straps were sewn together at the joins. There were no buckles, no press-studs and no Velcro fasteners. I could not see how to remove it. Nor could I understand how the complicated leather cage-work had been fitted onto the baboon in the first place. When I tried working the cont
raption forwards over its long, dog-like snout, I accidentally scraped the scab off a big bite wound on the top of its head. The poor creature whimpered in pain.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said.

  Blood rose out of the newly opened wound like sap from the cut stem of a redbush. Quickly I pushed the muzzle back into place. But now more blood came drip-dripping from the baboon’s right ear. A large medical plaster in the shape of an X had come loose when I moved the muzzle. Beneath it, like an ear piercing gone horribly wrong, was a big round hole in the flap of its ear.

  It was a bullet hole.

  Aaaaee! I did this, I realised. When I shot at the baboon through the windscreen of the Mercedes, my bullet had ripped through its ear.

  If the bullet had gone where it was supposed to go – through the animal’s brain and not through its ear – it would have died instantly. And I would not have found myself in the totally unfair situation of having to take care of my would-be killer.

  How many times had my father said that I should learn how to shoot a pistol? But I had only been interested in shooting football goals.

  O Baba!

  I picked up the dislodged dressing and wiped off some of the blood. Two pieces of medical plaster had been stuck together to make the X-shape, with a pad of blood-soaked cotton wool where they crossed. One of the men in the black van must have applied it when they stopped for the baboon on Adelo Road. Most of the stickiness was gone from the plasters, but by removing the cotton wool I uncovered a sticky section that still worked.

  With the worst of the bleeding stopped, I turned my attention back to the muzzle. There was an area of mismatched stitching where two of the larger straps met. All the other joins were sewn with black thread, but this seam had white thread (mostly pink now, because of the blood). Now I understood why there were no buckles, press-studs or fasteners – the muzzle had been incomplete when it was fitted onto the baboon’s head. Only once it was in place had the last two straps been sewn together.

  There was no way to take it off!

  How was the poor animal supposed to eat? I wondered. How did it drink?

  Then I remembered its mission – it was a suicide bomber. It was finished with eating and drinking. Once the muzzle went on, it never came off!

  But all that had changed when its mission failed. The baboon was still alive and I was responsible for it now, whether I liked it or not. I had to get the muzzle off it somehow.

  And there was a way to do it. While replacing the dressing on the baboon’s ear, I had noticed a half-moon divot cut out of the leather strap that ran around the back of its head. My bullet must have done that. As well as going through the ear, it had punched a long, crooked hole through the strap behind it. Only a thin sinew of leather held the two ends together.

  ‘Stay totally still,’ I said to the baboon.

  To get my teeth where they needed to go, I had to press my nose and mouth right into the stinky wet fur behind the baboon’s hurt ear. Aaaaee! It was all I could do not to sick up. Holding my breath so I would not have to smell it, I began gnawing at the blood-soaked leather like I was a rat. And how I wished my teeth were sharp like a rat’s! Soon I was running out of breath. But I kept gnawing, gnawing, gnawing. Finally – praise God! – my teeth bumped together and the two ends of leather came apart.

  I sat up, took a series of deep, shuddering breaths, spat a few times to get the disgusting baboon-taste out of my mouth and wiped my lips. Then I leaned over and carefully removed the broken muzzle from the animal’s head.

  And drew out my wooden dagger, just in case.

  The baboon lay still for a few moments, slowly opening and closing its jaws and flexing them from side to side. Then it rolled its head sideways until its good blue eye was looking up at me.

  ‘Thank you,’ it said.

  9

  Impossible!

  What it really said was: ‘Sank-oo.’

  But were my ears playing tricks on me? Was my brain playing tricks on me? This was a baboon – an animal!

  ‘Can you talk?’ I asked.

  ‘Not supposed to,’ it said. (Noh s’ffoze hoo.)

  I sat there fiddling with my silly wooden dagger.

  Was this really happening? An animal that could understand human language was surprising enough, but one that talked was . . . impossible!

  ‘Who taught you?’

  ‘M’saffa.’

  ‘Mustafa?’

  ‘M’saffa,’ the baboon repeated. ‘Wyh mhan.’

  It took me a moment to translate the creature’s sounds into words. It seemed to be saying that ‘Mustafa’ was a white man. I wondered if he was the one I had glimpsed in the rear of the black van. ‘Does he work for General Mbuti?

  ‘Fren.’

  ‘He is a friend of General Mbuti?’

  The baboon nodded. ‘Call Lionel.’

  I raised my eyebrows. Only a westerner would be bold enough to use the general’s first name. Yet Mustafa was a strange name for a westerner.

  ‘Did Mustafa send you to kill me?’ I asked.

  ‘Not kill!’ The baboon seemed horrified. ‘Just find target, push red button and earn reward.’

  A shiver ran through me. ‘Am I “target”?’

  ‘True,’ said my would-be killer.

  ‘I would prefer to be called Sunday.’

  ‘Sahn-hay.’

  Close enough, I thought. ‘Do you know what would have happened if you had pushed the red button?’ I asked.

  ‘Mustafa very happy. Give Chree reward.’

  ‘What was the reward you would have earned?’

  ‘Mustafa take off muzzle,’ the baboon said in its difficult-to-understand accent. ‘Let Chree drink and eat.’

  A bitter laugh escaped my lips. ‘Is that what Mustafa told you? That he would give you a reward after you found me and pressed the red button?’

  The baboon nodded.

  I wet my lips. ‘He did not say that anything else would happen?’

  ‘Just give Chree reward.’

  ‘Is Chree your name?’

  It counted off on its fingers. ‘Wun, too, chree. I Chree.’

  Not only could it talk, it could count! And its name was Three, like the number. Something occurred to me. ‘Are there others like you? Is there a One and a Two?’

  ‘There six,’ said the baboon named Three.

  My skin prickled. Which one of the other five had killed my parents? I took a deep breath to keep my voice calm. ‘Do you know what was in your backpack?’

  ‘Radio,’ it said.

  Not a radio, I thought. A bomb. But I went along with Mustafa’s lie. ‘Why was there a radio in your backpack?’

  Three rolled its good eye, as if it was growing tired of all my questions. And as if the answers were obvious. ‘So Mustafa know when Three press button.’

  Smart as it was, Three did not know the full story. Mustafa had lied to it. As far as Three understood, neither it nor its target would be hurt.

  It did not know it was a suicide bomber!

  ‘When did Mustafa put the muzzle on you?’ I asked.

  Three paused to count again on its fingers. ‘Two days.’

  ‘So it is two days since you have eaten?’

  ‘And since drink.’

  God in Heaven! The poor creature had gone forty-eight hours without a drink. And this was the hot season. I needed water, and it was only one hour since I had last had a drink. Three must have been burning up inside.

  I handed it my wooden dagger. ‘Use this if the rats bother you. I won’t be long.’

  As I had hoped, the gap where I had taken refuge with Three went all the way between the buildings to the service alley at the back, where I had seen the drum of water. Three’s backpack lay on the hard asphalt beside it. My aim was not good today. Luckily, the bomb had not exploded when it landed. I peered into the drum. It was not as full as it had looked from the roof, but that did not matter. The problem would be getting some water back to Three. I looked around for something to
carry it in – an empty can, a bottle, even an old shoe would have worked – but there was nothing I could use. So I went back to Three.

  ‘I have found some water,’ I said. ‘But it is in a big drum. I will have to carry you there.’

  Three said nothing. Its eye was closed. The wooden dagger had slipped from its fingers. It was not moving.

  ‘Three?’ I said anxiously. ‘Three, can you hear me?’

  The blue eye slitted open. ‘Was sleeping.’

  ‘I found some water,’ I repeated. ‘Is it all right if I carry you?’

  Three made a noise that might have been yes.

  When I hesitated, it said, ‘Brid will not bite.’

  Brid? I thought its name was Three. I gently lifted it and carried it out to the service alley. Our reflections stared up at us from the bright circle of water, right down near the bottom of the drum. Here was problem number two: how could we get the water out?

  ‘Put Three on ground,’ said the baboon. ‘Tip drum slow-slow so water come to Three.’

  Once again, I marvelled at the intelligence of the creature. Not only could it talk like a human, but it could think like a human.

  There was something deeply disturbing about that – it made me uncomfortable.

  The drum was not heavy. I tipped it nearly all the way to the ground and held it steady while Three put its head in and lapped up the water.

  ‘Thank you, Sunday,’ it said when it had finished.

  I lifted the drum upright again, pleased that it had thanked me. It had good manners. But that did not change the fact that it had been sent to kill me. Sent by that he-goat traitor, General Mbuti, who once I had called Uncle.

  And who had murdered my parents!

  I looked at the backpack lying on the other side of the drum, where the baboon could not see it, and a plan began forming in my head.

  ‘How are you feeling now, Three?’

  It lay on the ground at my feet, breathing slowly in and out. ‘Hurting.’

  ‘Have you ever met General Mbuti?’ I asked.

  ‘Seen him,’ it said.

  ‘Would you recognise him, if you saw him again?’