by Justin D'Ath
Colt didn’t answer. They couldn’t see him from down there. But looking back through the branches, he could see the circus spread out across the wide, trampled paddock behind them. Or what remained of the circus. The Big Top was gone and so was The Menagerie. A team of men was loading folded sections of red-and-white canvas onto trucks.
‘Colt?’ called his mother.
He stayed silent. He was hiding. It was childish – they knew where he was – but he couldn’t face them right now. As well as his mother and Mr Busby, Captain Noah was down there, and Saffron and her mum, and Birdy. He wished they’d all go away.
‘Colt?’ his mother called again. ‘Are you all right, darling?’
‘Yes,’ he said in a small voice, just loud enough to be heard by those below.
‘Is Caruso there?’ she asked.
‘No.’
Captain Noah began speaking softly to his mother. Colt couldn’t hear what he was saying, but the circus boss didn’t sound angry.
His mother didn’t sound angry anymore, either. ‘Colt, are you coming down, darling?’
‘No, not just yet.’
‘Okay. But don’t be too long,’ she said. ‘Captain Noah would like you to help load Lucy onto her truck.’
He heard everyone start walking away. Well, not quite everyone. There was rustling in the branches below him, then a small face appeared.
‘Hey.’
‘Hey,’ he said back.
Birdy climbed up level with him. ‘Where do you think he is?’
Colt pointed wordlessly at the distant forest. There was a lump in his throat. It was hard to talk.
‘Will he be okay?’ Birdy asked softly.
‘I guess, without RatVax, he’ll (sniff) die.’
‘Poor Caruso.’
Colt wiped his eyes with a tissue Birdy gave him. ‘He could have stayed (sniff) if he wanted to – he had a choice. I think he’s (sniff) probably happy.’
The next few weeks were busy. The circus moved from town to town. It didn’t stop at any one place for more than three days. Each move took them a little further away from the little wheat-belt town where Caruso had disappeared.
Captain Noah, Mrs Wells and Mr Busby drove back several times looking for him, but they didn’t look in the right place. Only Colt and Birdy knew where they should have been hunting.
‘We should say something,’ Birdy whispered as they watched yet another search party return without Caruso.
Colt shook his head. ‘We’ve talked about it a zillion times, Birdy. Caruso is home now – he’s in the forest where he belongs. He doesn’t want to be found.’
‘But he’ll die!’
‘It’s his choice,’ Colt said stubbornly.
But was it really Caruso’s choice? Did he know he was going to catch rat flu and die? Wouldn’t it be better to be alive, even if it meant being locked in a cage?
These questions kept Colt awake at night. He was the one who had removed the hose clamps from Caruso’s cage door. It was his idea not to tell Captain Noah and Mrs Wells where to look.
Finally Colt’s guilt overcame him. It was now four weeks since Caruso had disappeared. Seven weeks since his last RatVax shot. He was no longer protected against the deadly virus.
Colt woke his mother at two o’clock one morning and told her everything.
‘You poor, sweet boy,’ Kristin said, giving him a hug. ‘Go back to bed, darling. As soon as it gets light, we’ll go looking for him.’
They left straight after breakfast. Nobody saw them go. It was Tuesday, always a quiet day at the circus, and everybody else had slept in.
‘I’ll miss school,’ Colt said as they drove out of Circus City in the big new Ford Appaloosa four-wheel drive his mother had bought to tow their caravan.
‘I’m sure Captain Noah will forgive you when he finds out why,’ said Kristin.
But what if they were too late and Caruso was already dead? Would Captain Noah forgive him then? Would Birdy?
It was a long drive back to the little town where Caruso had escaped. Then they had to find their way to the isolated patch of forest on the far side of the wheat fields. It wasn’t marked on the car’s satellite navigation computer. And they couldn’t see where they were going because the tall frames supporting the insect netting loomed on both sides of the narrow, zigzagging road. It was like driving through a maze. To make matters worse, the air was swarming with grasshoppers, butterflies, mosquitoes and huge praying mantises. Kristin had to stop three times to clean the windscreen.
‘This is all because of rat flu,’ she said grimly, as she and Colt used plastic bug scrapers to clear the soup of wings, legs, antennae and gooey yellow gunk from the splattered glass.
‘Rat flu doesn’t kill insects,’ said Colt.
‘But it killed all the birds that used to keep their numbers down,’ Kristin explained. ‘That’s why there are so many now. And why farmers have to put nets over everything they grow.’
Or everything they try to grow, Colt thought. There were millions of insects inside the nets, which were supposed to have kept them out. When he stopped and listened, he could hear a zillion busy little jaws crunching on the tattered crop.
‘Those guys who caused rat flu must feel so guilty,’ he said.
Kristin stepped back from the insect-graveyard that still covered much of the windscreen. The expression on her face made her look guilty.
‘Get in,’ she said, sounding irritable. ‘We’ve wasted too much time already.’
It was a pine plantation. Row upon row of tall, straight-trunked trees stood behind a three-metre-high fence. There was a gate across the road. And a big green sign.
DEPARTMENT OF FORESTS
KEEP OUT
Kristin drove right up to the gate. There was a chain and a big brass padlock. ‘Any ideas?’ she asked.
Colt shrugged. He did have an idea, but it wasn’t one he could mention to his mother.
‘He might come if we call,’ he suggested.
They climbed out of the car and cupped their hands around their mouths. ‘CARUSO! CARUSO! CARUUUSOOO!’
They soon gave up. The plantation was massive. Even if he was in there somewhere, the chances of Caruso hearing them were pretty slim.
He might even be dead, Colt thought.
His mother must have been having similar thoughts, but neither of them spoke their fears aloud.
‘We’ll have to go in,’ Colt said.
Kristin looked doubtfully up at the gate. It was the same height as the fence. ‘I don’t think I could climb over.’
‘You wait here, then,’ said Colt, taking a step forward.
‘Don’t even think about it,’ said his mother. ‘I won’t have you going in there on your own. You might get lost.’
‘I won’t get lost.’
‘Or bitten by a rat.’
‘I’ve already been bitten by a rat,’ Colt said.
‘But I wouldn’t be there to save you this time,’ said his mother.
Colt examined the padlock and chain. ‘Can we have lunch, Mum?’
Kristin had packed food and drinks before they left.
‘Isn’t it a bit early for lunch?’ she asked.
‘We had a really early breakfast,’ Colt reminded her. ‘I’m starving.’
His mother smiled. She often teased him about his huge appetite. ‘Okay, let’s eat.’
Colt waited until she had disappeared behind the bug-smeared Appaloosa, then he gripped the chain firmly on either side of the padlock, took a deep breath, and pulled.
Snap!
‘What was that?’ Kristin called.
‘Nothing,’ Colt said, sagging in sudden exhaustion against the slowly opening gate. It was always like this after he used his super strength.
‘Hey Mum,’ he called. ‘I just noticed something – this padlock’s broken.’
After lunch, Colt felt a bit better. He wasn’t totally recovered – it would take twice as much food as his mother had packed, plus a sleep
, to fully recover from what he’d just done. But he was strong enough to climb into the four-wheel drive without Kristin noticing his wobbly legs.
Birdy was the only person, apart from Mr Busby, who knew about Colt’s amazing strength. And Mr Busby was too embarrassed to admit that a thirteen-year-old had got the better of him. But if Kristin found out, she would want to do tests to see what was going on. She was still a scientist at heart.
She was also a mother and a bit of a worrywart. She would probably think it was too dangerous for her son to do superhero stuff if it nearly wrecked him afterwards. She would tell him to stop.
But Colt liked having a superpower – even if there was a price to pay every time he used it. As long as he got lots of food and rest afterwards, he was okay.
The plantation was crisscrossed with fire trails that divided it into a huge grid pattern. Kristin and Colt worked systematically. They drove right around every block of trees, stopping at one-hundred-metre intervals to call through the open windows.
‘CARUSO! CARUSO! CARUUUSOOOO!’
In half an hour, they’d covered the whole plantation. Their throats were raw from shouting. But they still hadn’t found Caruso.
Finally, Kristin said what both of them were thinking: ‘He might not have survived this long.’
Colt looked up into the spiky trees that towered over them. He could see several gigantic spiders, identical to Webber, waiting patiently in webs the size of trampolines for their next meal to arrive. They, too, had been affected by rat flu. The explosion in insect numbers – especially flying insects that got caught in webs – had turned the world into a spider’s paradise.
But nobody really knew why they kept growing bigger.
Colt slapped a mosquito as it landed on his arm. Mosquitoes were one of the ways that rat flu spread. They bit rats, then carried the virus to other creatures. Gibbons, for example – when there were gibbons.
‘CARUSO!’ Colt yelled hoarsely. ‘CARUSO!’
His mother remained silent. She drove slowly back along the bumpy fire trail towards the gate. She had given up.
But Colt hadn’t. There was still a chance that Caruso was alive. They had to keep looking.
‘CARUUUUSOOOOOO!’ he yelled into the vast, silent forest that surrounded them.
But nothing heard him apart from a sleek, brown rat that scurried for cover beneath the pine needles as they drove past.
Kristin’s wrist-phone started ringing. She pulled over and glanced at the screen. ‘Hi, Philip. What’s up?’
Colt’s mum was the only person apart from Mr Busby who called their boss by his first name.
‘Where are you, Kristin?’
‘Looking for Caruso,’ she said.
‘Any luck?’
‘I’m afraid not.’
‘How soon can you get back here?’ the circus boss asked. ‘The media awaits you.’
‘Why did you say anything?’ Kristin asked, as they drove back through the net-shrouded wheat fields.
Colt told her what had happened on his first day at circus school – how Captain Noah had bullied him into telling everyone something they didn’t already know.
‘It was the only thing I could think of,’ he said, and shrugged. ‘Anyway, I don’t see why it’s such a big secret.’
It was no longer a secret. One of the other children must have told their parents, and now everybody knew.
Soon the whole world would know.
They both flinched as a huge insect, with silvery wings and spiky front legs, smashed against the windscreen. It was so big that the inside of the car turned a yellowy-green colour, like the water in a dirty aquarium. Kristin turned on the wipers, but they only made it worse.
‘What a mess!’ she muttered.
Colt wasn’t sure whether she meant the splattered praying mantis or the reason Captain Noah had called. In any case, he was too tired to worry about it. He slept most of the way home. And dreamed he was locked in a cage with about fifty giant spiders. The spiders all had mean, Officer-Katt faces and teeth like rats’.
Caruso was in the dream, too. It was in his cage that Colt was being held captive. The gibbon sat in his tyre swing just outside the cage, singing.
That’s what woke Colt. The singing. But it wasn’t Caruso. It was a siren.
‘I don’t need this!’ grumbled Kristin, pulling over to the side of the road.
The police car stopped behind them. Heavy footsteps approached and a policeman tapped on her window. Kristin buzzed it open.
‘I wasn’t speeding, Officer.’
‘I didn’t stop you for that, ma’am,’ he said. ‘It’s your windscreen. How can you see anything through all that carnage?’
‘Sorry,’ Kristin said, giving him an apologetic smile. ‘I’m usually more careful. It hasn’t been a very good day.’
The policeman leaned down and tried to look out through the filthy glass from a driver’s perspective. ‘I’m sorry to hear about your day,’ he said. ‘But it isn’t safe to drive like that. Do you have a bug scraper?’
He was friendly – not like a rat cop. He helped them clean the windscreen.
‘I have three children,’ he said, when Colt told him where they were going. ‘The two youngest are big fans of your circus. Jump back in and follow my car, guys – I’ll make sure you get there safely.’
He gave them a police escort for the rest of the journey. Kristin was embarrassed, but Colt found it kind of comforting. For as far back as he could remember, it had been just him and his mum. It was nice to have someone else looking out for them.
When his eyelids grew heavy and he drifted back into sleep, the wailing siren once again turned into Caruso singing.
‘No comment,’ Kristin repeated.
Every time a journalist asked her something, that’s all she would say. She sounded like a damaged sound byte.
No comment, no comment, no comment.
‘Dr Lawless, is it true that you worked at the CSIRO’s Clovane Laboratory at the time that the rat flu pandemic broke out?’
‘No comment.’
‘What do you have to say about reports that the rat flu virus originated in this country, Dr Lawless?’
‘No comment.’
‘Were you aware of any experiments being carried out on rats during the time you worked for the CSIRO in Clovane?’
‘No comment.’
‘Dr Lawless, what are your thoughts on the genetic engineering of animals?’
‘No comment.’
‘Why doesn’t she just answer them?’ whispered Birdy.
She and Colt were standing to one side of a huge, jostling crowd of photographers, journalists, reporters and HV crews gathered at the edge of the circus car park.
‘Because she’s not allowed to,’ Colt whispered. Kristin had explained it to him in the car coming home. Or tried to explain it – he’d been half asleep. And it was all so complicated. ‘The government made them sign a legal thingy promising to keep it secret.’
‘What’s the government got to do with it?’ Birdy asked.
‘They owned the laboratory,’ he whispered.
‘Why did they want to keep it secret?’
‘Because they were scared what would happen if everyone found out they’d caused rat flu.’
‘What would happen?’ asked Birdy.
Colt pointed at the big crowd of media people and curious onlookers. The policeman who had given him and his mother an escort was helping with crowd control. ‘This,’ he said.
Another HV van had just pulled in. And two news helicopters were circling overhead, getting aerial footage of what was going on. This was big news. Some of these journalists and their crews had travelled hundreds of kilometres to get here.
They weren’t going to leave without a story.
‘Dr Lawless,’ said a tall, grey-haired HV presenter Colt had seen on Your Current Affairs. ‘Is it true that your ex-husband worked in the same laboratory as you?’
Kristin lowered her head, b
ut not before Colt saw a shine of tears in her eyes.
‘No comment.’
‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ said Captain Noah, stepping in front of the microphones with his hands raised. ‘Let’s keep to the story at hand.’
‘We don’t have a story!’ complained one of the journalists.
But that was about to change.
BANG!
Nearly three hundred startled faces turned towards the noise. There was a massive phone tower on the hill behind the circus. One of the circling helicopters had flown too low and its rear rotor had clipped a jutting antenna.
Everyone watched in horror as the helicopter went into a spin, plummeting towards the ground.
What happened next must have taken only a few seconds. To Colt it seemed to take forever. It was as if time had slowed right down, but only Colt seemed to notice. Everyone else – even Birdy – just stood there, bug-eyed, with their mouths hanging open, as the helicopter came spinning towards them out of the sky.
Couldn’t they see what was about to happen?
Colt’s skin tingled and his muscles twinged as he watched the out-of-control helicopter getting bigger, bigger, bigger.
It was going to crash into the middle of the crowd, crushing people like bugs on a car windscreen and chopping the rest up with its flashing rotor blades!
It might even explode!
Why wasn’t everyone running?
Colt was running. He was running through the frozen crowd faster than seemed humanly possible, knocking people aside like they were skittles as he raced to meet the oncoming helicopter.
Cameras hit the ground, microphones flew, a pair of expensive sunglasses crunched under his feet.
Even though time had nearly stopped, the helicopter was still moving fast. Colt glimpsed the pale, startled faces of the pilot and the holocam operator as they flashed in and out of view each time the stricken aircraft did a three-sixty.
It was huge. It blocked out half the sky.
This is ridiculous! Colt thought as he raised his hands to stop it crashing. I’m only a thirteen-year-old kid!
