Three

by Justin D'Ath

  ‘Yes.’

  I studied the half-dead animal for a few moments. For my plan to work, I needed to keep it alive. ‘Back in a minute,’ I said.

  When I returned with the bloodstained bed sheet, Three was chewing on something.

  ‘What are you eating?’ I asked.

  The baboon opened its huge, toothy mouth to show me. Resting on its tongue was a brown, gooey blob with several wriggling black legs. I almost sicked up.

  ‘That is fully disgusting, Three!’

  ‘Just beetle,’ it said, spitting out a shiny, brown wing-casing.

  ‘That was a cockroach,’ I said. ‘They are filthy-filthy things! You should not eat them.’

  ‘Brids like.’

  That was the second time it had used that word. ‘I thought your name was Three.’

  ‘Is Three,’ it said.

  ‘But you just called yourself something else – Brid or something?’

  Three thought for a moment. Then it said, ‘You human, I brid.’

  ‘So brid means baboon?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Talking baboon?’ I tried.

  ‘Three not baboon,’ it said, sounding frustrated. Then, taking a deep breath, the talking whatever-it-was uttered a long string of sounds that were impossible to translate.

  ‘Could you say that again?’

  ‘Papio cynocephalus sapiens,’ Three repeated. Then it shook its head and sighed. ‘Science words too hard.’

  ‘Mightbe we should stick with brid,’ I said and began tearing the bed sheet into strips.

  10

  Return to Sender

  The ‘brid’ was beginning to resemble an Egyptian mummy – a very untidy one. It was bleeding from so many places that already I had ripped up half the bed sheet to use for bandages.

  I left its head until last. I had no idea what was wrong with the swollen eye and I did not want to know – eyes were too hard. But the bullet-hole-ear still dripped blood, despite the X of plaster, and the big head wound looked truly bad. A flap of skin and fur, almost the size of my palm, was loose from its scalp. To hold it in place – and to fix the ear, also – I looped an extra-long strip of torn bed sheet around the brid’s head several times, then began tying the two ends together beneath its chin.

  Three was not happy. ‘Like muzzle,’ it complained, forcing the words out between its clamped-together jaws.

  ‘It is only until the bleeding stops,’ I said.

  ‘How Three eat?’

  ‘I can loosen it if you find another cockroach.’

  The brid rolled its good eye. ‘Not too tight, then.’

  As soon as I had finished, Three lay its head back on the asphalt with a long, tired sigh, closed its good eye and lay still. Within thirty seconds, its breathing had settled into the slow, regular rhythm of sleep.

  Lying there in its bandages, it looked as innocent and as helpless as a human child. But I could not let my guard down. Papio cynocephalus sapiens, brid, or whatever it was, the peacefully sleeping creature next to me was a trained assassin. The fact that it did not know it was an assassin made it all the more dangerous.

  And all the more useful.

  I stood and fetched the backpack. Although the red-coated wire had been bitten in two, the break was not clean; several hair-thin strands of copper poked out at each end. It would be easy enough to twist them back together when I was ready. I glanced down at Three.

  When you are ready, I thought.

  And for the first time since Second Lesson that morning, I smiled.

  Return to sender.

  11

  The S-Word

  A baboon wearing a muzzle and a backpack peers down through an open skylight. Far below, in a private parlour where not even Palace Security are allowed, a distinguished-looking couple sits quietly with their morning coffee. They have not yet noticed the baboon.

  In one hand, it holds a photo. Its pale blue eyes narrow as they compare the face in the photo with that of the handsome brown man in the white silk dashiki sitting in the room below. After a few moments, it nods its strangely-shaped head.

  And its baboon mouth silently shapes a human word: Target.

  The couple looks up, surprised, as the unexpected intruder slides down one of the gold-threaded curtain ropes and lands soundlessly on the Persian carpet next to them.

  My mother lowers her cup; my father begins rising to his feet.

  And two kilometres away, at President Balewo Modern School, I hear a dull thump.

  My head jerked up. I had not meant to fall asleep and have bad dreams. What had woken me? I heard noises: a scrape of fabric on brick; a clink of metal; soft snoring.

  The snoring was Three. I gently shook it awake. ‘Shhhh! Someone is coming,’ I whispered. ‘I am going to pick you up.’

  We were still in the service alley behind the apartments. It was nearly dark. The other noises seemed to come from the narrow gap between the buildings where Three and I had hidden earlier.

  ‘Who come?’ the brid lisped through its bandaged-together jaws.

  I did not know. But I had a truly bad feeling about it. ‘The baboons from up on the roof,’ I lied.

  The noises grew louder. There were footsteps now – not the soft tread of baboon feet, but the sound of boots.

  Mightbe baboons would have been better, I thought.

  Gathering what remained of the torn bed sheet, I pulled it over my head and shoulders like the headdress of a tribal woman. Then I lifted the brid and positioned its head facing my left shoulder, where it could not see what I was doing when I stooped to pick up a second thing with my right hand.

  Three still did not know that I had dropped its backpack off the roof of the apartment building. Nor did it know that the backpack had been lying on the other side of the oil drum all the time we had been in the service alley. And I did not want it to know – it might ask questions. It might wonder why I was burdening myself with this extra thing to carry, when our lives might be in danger.

  But it was the life of someone else that I was thinking about as I threaded one of the backpack’s child-sized straps over my right wrist and carefully slid it down to my elbow: the life of General Mbuti.

  Or, more truly, the death of General Mbuti.

  Carrying both Mbuti’s unknowing suicide bomber and its defused bomb, I hurried down the darkened alley, away from the noises that had woken me. They sounded very close now – too close! Someone had emerged from the gap between the buildings. The scared part of my brain was screaming at me, Run, run! but the sensible part said, Walk.

  ‘Excuse me, ma’am!’ a man shouted.

  I did not turn my head. The sheet I wore had tricked him – in the poor light he thought I was a woman. But women were not called ma’am in my country. He was from another place – mightbe America, I thought.

  He called again: ‘Have you seen a monkey?’

  My body was between the shouting foreigner and Three, shielding the brid from his eyes. I continued walking away from him, telling myself with every step, Do not run, do not run! But it was truly difficult to obey this command. My heart already was running!

  Not far ahead, on the left side of the alley, a tall black line showed between the buildings. It looked like the entrance to another alley, and it pulled my feet faster, like a magnet to iron, until I almost was running.

  ‘Mah!’ shouted another man, speaking Zantugi, not English. ‘Mah! We are talking to you! Have you seen a baboon?’

  Why were they looking for Three? I wondered. Were they the men from the black van?

  ‘Stop!’ cried the Zantugi-speaker, his voice raised higher. ‘Stop or I will throw!’

  Our language is older than guns – throw can mean shoot. But would these men shoot a woman? (Or someone they thought was a woman?) Aaaaee! Truly I was terrified! I continued walking – faster and faster – towards the side-alley.

  ‘STOP!’

  I reached the alley and ducked into it, away from the eyes of the men who were followin
g me.

  Now it was safe to run!

  But how could I run with the heavy brid in my arms? It was like carrying a sackful of grain.

  ‘Hold onto me!’ I cried.

  Two hairy arms snaked up across my shoulders, a muscly leg wound itself around my hips. For a creature that was half-dead, all at once Three seemed very strong! Fear made me strong, also – strong and fast. There was not a man alive who could catch Magic Feet on a football pitch. But this was not a football pitch and I was slowed by the two things that I carried.

  Any second now, my pursuers would reach the corner. And not even my magic feet could outrun a spear or a bullet.

  BOP-BOP-BOP-BOP-BOP-BOP-BOP!

  So it was bullets.

  For a moment, I considered giving up the brid. It, not me, was what they wanted. If I dropped it on the ground, they might let me get away.

  But I had a score to settle. That he-goat Mbuti had murdered my parents. I was going to make him pay. And for that, I needed Three.

  BOP-BOP-BOP-BOP-BOP-BOP-BOP!

  Aaaaee! I thought, as bullets whistled past me like a hundred angry hornets. I am going to die!

  Was it the failing light that saved me? Was it bad shooting? Or did these men truly think that I was just a terrified woman, running from them in panic? Mightbe they were not firing to kill that woman, but only firing over her head to make her stop.

  But I was not that woman and I did not stop. Even when there was no more gunfire, even when there were no more shouts or thumping footsteps from behind me, I kept running. Fear gave me strength. I swerved left, I swerved right. Like a hunted gazelle, I charged through a maze of alleys, streets and laneways, some of them so dark that I could barely see one metre in front of me.

  It was in one of these dark places that I fell. I did not remember falling, but suddenly I lay belly-down on hard asphalt. There was grit in my mouth and dust in my eyes. The palms of my hands felt hot, where I used them to break my fall.

  ‘Was not baboons,’ said a husky voice, right next to my ear.

  I pulled back a bit. The bandage around the brid’s head had come loose, allowing it to talk. All I could see in the darkness were its long, pale fangs.

  ‘I think they were your friends from the van,’ I said. ‘Are you hurt?’

  ‘Hurt all everywhere,’ Three said.

  ‘Sorry.’

  I sat up and licked my grazed palms to stop the stinging. Then I looked around. We were in another narrow lane. There were tall buildings, like apartments or warehouses, on both sides. No electric lights shone. The only light came from a smear of hazy stars up between the high buildings. I touched my head and discovered that my pretend headdress was gone. It must have fallen off during the chase.

  ‘Why Sunday run?’ asked Three.

  ‘They were shooting at us.’

  ‘Say for Sunday stop.’

  ‘If I had stopped, they would have shot us,’ I said. ‘Or me, anyway.’

  ‘No,’ said the brid. ‘Three tell them not.’

  ‘I thought you were not supposed to talk to other people.’

  ‘Talk to Mustafa.’

  I caught my breath. ‘Was that Mustafa?’

  ‘Sound like.’

  I remembered the one who had spoken English, the foreigner. ‘He works for Mbuti, true?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then he would have shot me.’

  ‘Mustafa not shoot!’ the brid cried. ‘Mustafa friend for Three.’

  ‘Do you truly believe that?’ I shook my head in the dark. ‘He sent you on a suicide mission, Three.’

  That reminded me – where was the backpack? It was no longer hooked around my right arm. Or my left one, either – I checked, just in case. Rising stiffly to my feet, I spotted a dark shape on the ground on the other side of Three. I stepped quickly around the brid to collect it.

  ‘What mean suicide?’ Three asked.

  I should not have said that word. My plan would not work if Three found out it was going to die. I moved the backpack to the far side of my body. ‘It means doing something dangerous,’ I said.

  ‘Three get reward after.’

  I pitied it. Three was not human, so there would be no ‘after’. Animals did not go to Paradise.

  ‘You might have got hurt,’ I said.

  ‘Three did get hurt.’

  ‘True. But whose fault was that?’

  ‘Sunday fault.’

  ‘My fault?’ I could not believe my ears. ‘I saved you, Three! I carried you down from the roof when that man with the crowbar was going to bash your head in, I took Mustafa’s horrible muzzle off you and got you water. I even bandaged you up.’

  The brid snorted. ‘Sunday shoot Three!’

  Aaaaee! I had almost forgotten about that. Now I had to think fast.

  ‘I was only trying to scare you,’ I lied. But was it really a lie, since I was talking to an animal? Could you lie to an animal? ‘You were covering the car window. My driver could not see out. We might have crashed into something.

  ‘I am sorry,’ I added.

  Whether it believed me or not, whether it forgave me, the brid changed the subject. ‘Three bleed again.’

  I used the light from Sergeant Aguda’s phone. Truly Three was a mess. Not only had the long bandage around its head come loose, all its other bandages were falling off also. Strips of blood-soaked bed sheet hung from it like wait-a-bit vines. I had to undo and re-tie every single one, using only the weak light of the phone to see what I was doing. Again I left the head bandage until last.

  ‘I will leave this one loose,’ I said. ‘So you can talk.’

  Three’s good eye twinkled up at me in the soft light. ‘So Three can eat nother cockroach.’

  Was it making a joke? Did it understand humour? I could not tell.

  ‘Are you hungry?’

  ‘Not hungry,’ it said.

  ‘You should be hungry. It is two days since you have eaten. Apart from the cockroach,’ I added.

  ‘Three feel bit sick.’

  ‘Told you,’ I said.

  ‘What Sunday tol?’

  ‘That you should not eat cockroaches.’

  ‘Cockroach not make sick.’

  I did not bother arguing. It was only an animal.

  Before returning the phone to my pocket, I checked it once more for messages or missed calls. In truth, I did not expect to hear again from Mr Kimutai – something bad had happened to him – but I knew that Holly would call me or text me when there was a signal. We talked every night on the phone after the time we kissed – it was seven nights now. She was my secret girlfriend, although I had never said it. But still there was no signal and no new messages were waiting for me on Sergeant Aguda’s phone.

  I told myself it did not matter – I knew where Holly lived.

  12

  Guilty

  ‘Not so tight around my neck,’ I said.

  I was piggybacking Three. It was easier than carrying the heavy brid in my arms. But it was not comfortable. The creature’s hard, bony chin bump-bump-bumped on my shoulder. Its breath smelled bad. And worse than that, its arms were wrapped around my throat like two hairy boa constrictors.

  Three loosened them slightly when I asked.

  ‘Where going?’ it said.

  I wished I knew. With the city’s electricity supply off, there were no lights, just tall black buildings in every direction. I was lost. But I kept walking anyway – what else could I do? The backpack swung back and forth under my right elbow.

  ‘Somewhere safe,’ I answered.

  But was anywhere safe? My home was destroyed; my parents were dead; and their murderer – now the most powerful man in Zantuga – wanted me dead, also.

  Would Holly’s parents help me?

  I knew almost nothing about them. Only that her father was some sort of scientist and her mother worked for an international aid agency. And I had a feeling – although Holly had never really said this – that they had not approved of how my father r
an the country. Like the old lady in apartment twelve, I thought. Like my last teacher, who was teaching us one day and gone the next.

  Like that traitor Mbuti.

  But where else could I go for help, if not to Holly? Nobody else at school was my friend, except mightbe the Australian girl, Jessica. When your father is president, people are all-the-time polite, all-the-time respectful, but they are not friendly. Even your teachers treat you as if you are different from the other students.

  Holly was my only hope.

  Had it not been for the stars, I might never have found my way. Finally, I looked up and saw the unmistakable black shape of the President’s Arch crossing beneath the Milky Way. I was at the high end of Raphael Balewo Avenue. Turning left, I set off towards the suburb of Jullotoun. All the western people had their apartments there.

  Now the power blackout became my friend. Nobody would see me. But I stayed close to the shop fronts, where the shadows were deepest, just in case. Every time I reached an intersection, I checked carefully in all directions before hurrying across to the other side. I travelled several blocks like this, without seeing any sign of life other than a pair of jackals sniffing a tipped-over rubbish bin. It was strange that there were no other people. There were no cars, either.

  It was like a ghost city.

  Three put its lips to my ear. ‘Spoo!’

  ‘Could you say that again?’

  ‘Spoo,’ the brid repeated, struggling to be put down.

  Then I got it: Spew! Aaaaee! I nearly dropped Three in my hurry to put it down. Retreating a dozen paces along the footpath, I stood facing the other way while the brid sicked up loudly into the gutter behind me.

  Finally the choking noises stopped. ‘That will teach you for eating cockroaches,’ I said over my shoulder.

  ‘Not cockroach,’ it said. ‘Bad water.’

  ‘What bad water?’

  ‘Water in drum bad. Sunday make Three spew.’

  Sweet Paradise! Was the ungrateful creature blaming me for its upset stomach? After all I had done for it! After all the risks I had taken to rescue it from the apartment building and bring it here!

  ‘If you knew the water was bad,’ I said coldly, ‘why did you drink it?’