Iris and the Tiger

by Leanne Hall

  The night poured in, the starry sky swooped to meet them, and Iris was standing on the roof, gasping in the cold air. She knew it was the roof because there was nothing above her but a million stars.

  The roof was flat and shaped in an H. A short wrought-iron fence circled it.

  Iris stood on the middle bar of the H. The feet-boots shifted, taking a step towards the edge of the roof, then another.

  ‘Oh no,’ she said, already trying to crouch and tip herself over. ‘Oh no, you don’t.’

  She burned with the effort of stilling her feet, but to no effect. The boots walked her all the way to the iron fence, the only thing between her and a twenty-metre plummet to the ground. She beat her palms against her head with frustration. Her tummy pressed against the fence and the boot toes scraped the edge of the roof.

  The front garden lay below: the overgrown hedges, the patchy lawn and the roundabout. The marigolds around the fountain were bright orange against dark brown dirt.

  The orange dots broke free from the crumbly soil, forming lines and then letters, just like the mosaic tiles of the lobby.

  Iris leant out further as they arranged into the letters of her name I R I S, then a sketchy E R. She waited for the T I G to complete the message. But when the flowers settled, this is what they said:

  IRIS DANGER

  Immediately, the leather boots slackened and Iris shuffled away from the roof edge. She removed the boots as quickly as she could and then hurled them off the roof, out into the night.

  Iris took the stairs with wobbly legs and bare feet. She kept her hand on the wall while she made her way slowly back to the main part of the house. The hallway reeked of fresh paint.

  She stuck her face close to each painting as she passed it: they were all of Aunt Ursula as a young woman. Her clothes changed, sometimes the way she sat changed; sometimes she wore a faint smile. Each was signed simply with the familiar initials J.F.

  Iris traced the signature and felt tacky paint. She rubbed her fingertips together.

  The painting was still wet.

  There was no stopping Aunt Ursula entering the guestroom, even though Iris had used the god of thunder and lightning statue to barricade herself in.

  ‘You have a visitor downstairs,’ Aunt Ursula said.

  Iris lowered the book of Spanish fairytales she’d found in the upstairs library. Fairytales were the same wherever you were in the world: princesses, princes, dying kings, evil stepmothers, kind and cruel fairies.

  For a second, Iris assumed Aunt Ursula meant Willow Dangercroft, and her spirits lifted.

  ‘If young Jordi doesn’t pass his exams,’ Aunt Ursula continued, ‘I rather imagine it will be on your head. I’ll be surprised if he goes to school at all this week.’

  Iris raised the book again. ‘Well, I imagine it’s his own business if he wags school.’

  ‘Well said.’ Aunt Ursula laughed, not feeling the frost in the atmosphere. ‘He’s waiting on the porch, but he won’t come inside.’

  ‘I don’t want to speak to him.’

  ‘Well, I don’t have terribly much to do today if you wanted to help me in the vegetable garden. Or perhaps you’re interested in playing cards?’

  Iris grunted. She knew Jordi had come up with his stupid scheme himself, but she couldn’t help thinking that Aunt Ursula was to blame with all her talk of activism and protest.

  Aunt Ursula leant down to pat the statue on the head.

  ‘I’m glad you’ve made friends with Apocatequil,’ she said. ‘He’s a dear thing despite being a bit of a pest. He’s pre-Columbian. That makes him a thousand years old. I bought him when I lived in Mexico. Had to bargain very hard, as a matter of fact.’

  Aunt Ursula lingered in the doorway. Iris continued to pretend she was not there.

  ‘When I had to leave Europe, I went to Mexico instead of returning to Australia. I was there almost eight years. There was quite a group of us living there after the Second World War. I could show you photos…?’

  ‘Maybe.’ Iris did not lift her gaze from the page. Eventually Aunt Ursula left. Iris stared into the murky tunnel of the east wing, as if daring it to cough in her face. She couldn’t get the paintings hidden there—so many of them in the darkness—out of her mind. She checked the old family photos in the sitting room again, and the painting of Iris Freer and the five-legged dog. The shadowhound hadn’t shown itself for days. It seemed like a distant memory.

  Jordi’s right about the tiger, Iris realised, with queasy regret. There’s no evidence that it exists. Maybe I’ve been distracting myself and wasting time.

  In the ballroom, Iris recalled how Señor Garcia had walked to the end of the room and disappeared into thin air.

  When Iris pressed against the skinny ballroom window she saw Señor Garcia below, for real, bent over the open bonnet of Aunt Ursula’s cream-coloured car. It was the angelic version of the evil twin black car with feral feet.

  Jordi hadn’t read the newspaper article, so he didn’t know that the car had crashed into a tree with Iris Freer inside. And Aunt Ursula had no idea what plan Jordi might come up with to thwart the developers because she hadn’t seen the Beast Car.

  Señor Garcia looked up and waved his spanner. Iris swallowed past the lump in her throat. She had to go after Jordi.

  According to Señor Garcia’s sign language, the reservoir was easy to find. You turned right onto the main highway and kept going for 500 metres. A service road on the right wound through trees until it hit the big body of water.

  Señor Garcia wrote the word EMBALSE on the dusty car window. His hands were coated with grease.

  The bike ride to the reservoir was bumpy and Jordi’s seat was too low for Iris. She rode on the shoulder and kept an eye out for cars that drove on the wrong side of the road.

  Iris’s legs were powered by guilt and dread. If I hadn’t lost my temper, I could have persuaded Jordi instead of insulting him, she realised. I could have told him why he should avoid the Beast Car.

  She almost missed the white 0,8 EMBALSE sign half covered in shrubbery. The reservoir road wound gently downhill through light forest.

  At the bottom was a car park holding two white vans. A dirt road continued around the corner.

  Iris laid Jordi’s bike at the foot of a tree. The air was still, only interrupted by birdcalls and the distant hum of the highway.

  The reservoir curved below, a lovely kidney-shaped lake. It was fringed with fir trees and fishing spots. At the far end was a huge concrete wall.

  Iris couldn’t see anyone around. She’d expected to stumble on a scene of devastation: people screaming, and Jordi run over, with claw marks across his middle. Perhaps she was too early, or perhaps Jordi’s plan had failed from the start. Maybe the car couldn’t travel beyond the borders of magical Bosque de Nubes.

  The vans were identical, white with two logos on the side: a green wheel and a red dragon. The driver’s cabs were littered with drink cans and chip packets.

  Iris walked to the side of the road and discovered a curious object: a broomstick with a furry trapper hat taped crudely to the end. Iris stared. She’d just figured out that the broomstick was homemade car-bait when she heard a low buzz. It stopped, started, then got louder. A rough-edged chainsaw rumble broke the quiet, and the Beast Car hurtled into sight, galloping up the steep dirt road.

  It coughed dirty exhaust fumes and scrabbled its clawed feet on the sharp turn. The rear passenger door swung open as the car shunted across the road then slammed shut. Someone was inside, sliding across the back seat with flailing arms.

  ‘Jordi!’

  He plastered himself to the back window, only to slip out of view when the Beast Car spun on Iris, its metal grille bared. The air filled with a fury of revving—and then a long screech as the car zoomed off.

  Iris could barely see through her tears. Her nose ran and she didn’t care. The furry broomstick balanced across the handlebars precariously.

  Iris rode back towards Bosque de Nubes.
There were claw marks on the road but they disappeared at the highway. Her legs had nothing left in them, but she kept pushing until the iron cloud gates came into view.

  She didn’t have to wait too long for signs of the car. Two tracks cut through the grass, only a few hundred metres from the gates, near the old Sant Joan riding track. A horn blared, over and over again.

  Iris threw Jordi’s bike into a ditch and made her way towards the sound, carrying the broomstick like a magical talisman.

  The car ricocheted through the clearing, ripping up the wildflowers. Great clouds of steam spewed from its bonnet. Iris stood on the edges, unsure.

  Only when Iris saw Jordi wave at her frantically did she spur herself into action again. She held the broomstick out in front of her and advanced, slowly.

  ‘Hellooooo, over here!’

  She waved the broomstick through the air in what she hoped was a hypnotic fashion. The Beast Car flashed its cracked headlights.

  Iris crept forwards. If the car revved she was going to run for her life.

  ‘Look at me…what have I got?’ she called in a singsong voice. ‘Funny, furry stick!’

  Miraculously, the car lowered itself onto the ground, splaying its hairy feet on each corner. There was a heavy thump when its underside hit the dirt. Jordi had managed to wind a window down.

  The car coughed and buzzed again, but it was more of a purr now. Iris laid the broomstick in the grass at the bumper bar and backed away.

  ‘Nice car, nice car.’

  Jordi slid his head and shoulders out of the window.

  The car rumbled, a monstrous growl that built to a sound similar to a 747 jet taking off. Iris ran to Jordi and pulled him out of the Beast Car, milliseconds before it reared up on two paws, exposing its metal underbelly.

  Jordi and Iris flew backwards, slamming into the dirt and rolling. A shower of white paper fragments billowed around them.

  ‘Owww!’ Iris’s cheek hit gravel. She crawled aside as the Beast Car crashed down, gouging the dirt. Jordi yelped.

  The car squealed, shot smoke from its rear, and galloped off. Iris lay on her back, winded.

  ‘Iris, are you okay?’

  Iris crawled to Jordi. He was covered in dust and his T-shirt was torn. He lay in a bed of scattered white brochures.

  ‘You were right and I was wrong,’ he said. ‘I owe you my most humble apologies.’

  ‘Shut up. Are you okay? Are you hurt?’ Iris wheezed. He had alarming welts on his stomach. ‘Let me see those. Do they hurt?’

  Jordi brushed her hands off. ‘No, no, leave it, I’m fine. I want to say I am sorry. You saved my life, Iris. You saved me.’

  ‘Don’t be silly. I’m the one who should be sorry.’ Iris’s heart thumped unevenly. She picked up one of the scattered brochures. ‘What are these?’

  On the front was an artist’s impression of the theme park, nestled into the hills near Sant Joan. It was hard to tell which was the real photo and which bits were computer generated.

  ‘I took them from the developers’ van.’ Jordi coughed and rubbed his side. ‘I stuck a bunch down my shirt. It’s evidence.’

  There was Spanish text inside the brochure, a map, more drawings, even a person dressed up as the park mascot: a bizarre, bobbly figure with a lobster on its head.

  On the back of the brochures were rows of business logos. Iris recognised the wheel and the dragon at the very top, they were identical to the symbols on the vans at the reservoir. The other logos underneath were smaller, and then, in the bottom right corner, was something that made Iris stop breathing altogether.

  There was a C and an A and three arrows pointing diagonally up, towards the future. Her father’s business: Chen Architects.

  There was no hiding what had happened. Marcel spotted Iris and Jordi as they limped back to the main house, wheeling Jordi’s bike between them.

  After Marcel had ordered Jordi to the cottage, Iris slunk off as quickly as she could. She found herself retreating to the most unexpected place—the forgotten tennis court where all the madness had begun. The sunflowers were not in residence, so Iris had the court to herself.

  She lay on the clammy grass and stared at the sky. The field of yellow grass was visible through the tatty wire fence; so were the tangled trees. The court suited her mood.

  Her dad’s firm was involved in the theme park. How, she wasn’t sure. But if her dad was involved, then her mum was too. She would have convinced him to get involved in a big project with big money.

  I’m one of those marionette puppets on a string, Iris thought. I’ve been used. I thought I knew what I was involved in, but I don’t.

  It didn’t matter if Aunt Ursula held out against the developers, because her parents were looking to the future just like their logo. They wanted to destroy everything: magic, history and all.

  Iris felt sick. Every friendship she’d made here had been built on lies. She paced up and down the fence, looking at the midnight tangle of forest.

  How am I going to get out of helping my parents? And without Aunt Ursula or Jordi or Elna finding out what a traitor and fake I am?

  A twig cracked sharply close by. Iris stilled herself.

  There was light footfall in the dry leaves. Through the fence diamonds, Iris saw a thin figure dressed in plain dark clothes.

  Señor Reynaldo Torres Garcia.

  He wore his usual peaked cap but had added a grey trench coat over his navy uniform. He was carrying a familiar object: Jordi’s broom handle with the fur hat taped to the end.

  How did he get that? Iris stared. I was sure we left it out in the forest.

  She moved quickly, trying not to lose sight of him. After circling behind the tennis court, she cut diagonally through the bracken.

  Soon there were only twenty metres between them on the muddy track. There wasn’t any time to worry about being taken deeper into the forest. Iris focused on Señor Garcia’s bony shoulders. He had a peculiar way of walking: graceful and ungraceful at once, like someone on stilts.

  A camera flash went off in Iris’s mind, or maybe it was a bolt of lightning.

  Flash. Señor Garcia letting himself into the greenhouse studio, carrying props for his latest painting.

  Flash. Never seeing him without a hat.

  What if Uncle James had never died? Iris thought, with a quickening heart. What if he’d kept painting all these years, painting endless portraits of his sister, and insect portraits when he and Aunt Ursula needed more money?

  The path rose and fell over a series of small hills. The silvery birch trees were evenly spaced, the ferns bright splotches of green. The Shakespeare play they’d studied at school came to Iris’s mind.

  Over hill, over dale

  Through bush, through briar

  Over park, over pale,

  Through blood, through fire…

  Iris climbed the next rise.

  Señor Garcia had removed his trench coat and slung it over his arm. His steps quickened around the next corner. When the path straightened, he was nowhere to be seen.

  Iris stumbled into an outcrop of granite rocks shaped like marbles.

  Where has he gone?

  A fuzzy point of light hovered in the distance. It divided into two, then four. Soon there was a constellation of lemon-yellow lights bobbing in a large tree that rose among the rocks. A silhouetted Señor Garcia walked back and forth. Another light sprang up and Iris saw that he was lighting lanterns in the branches.

  Señor Garcia removed his cap and placed it carefully on a rock. Iris could only see the back of his head. The driver took off his jacket next, then unbuttoned his shirt.

  Uh-oh.

  Iris whipped behind a hollowed-out tree. What if Señor Garcia is a secret nudist? It explains why he’s walked so far from home. Or is it Uncle James, removing his disguise?

  Iris splayed her fingers over her eyes. Naked people were fine in paintings and statues, but real life was another matter.

  But the moment she saw Señor
Garcia for who he really was, the fact that he had taken off all his clothes wasn’t important at all.

  He wasn’t Uncle James in disguise.

  Señor Garcia had a bald head, huge eyes and twiggy arms and legs. He clambered first over rocks, then easily up the tree, using the sticky nubs at the end of his six legs for suction.

  Señor Garcia was a stick insect. A human-sized stick insect—the same one in Uncle James’s paintings.

  Iris crawled to the base of the tree. A collection of objects had been arranged at the foot, and in dark niches under the rocks: pine cones and pebbles, seashells and seed pods, cracked teapots, golf balls, bubble wrap tied in bows, a lampshade, a guitar with a broken neck, a fishing net and the fur-topped broom handle.

  Above her, Señor Garcia was a mass of lines in the branches. More specks of light appeared, high above.

  Iris was caught unawares when Señor Garcia the insect slid down the trunk and stood in front of her.

  ‘Oh.’ Iris had to remove her hand from her mouth to speak. ‘I’m very sorry, Señor Garcia. Sir.’

  She looked into his glistening black eyes. They took up half of his triangular head and were very beautiful, like bottomless pools of water.

  Iris’s brain struggled to keep up. Is this really the person who’s been driving me around all week?

  ‘I didn’t mean to snoop,’ Iris said, even though of course she had. She noticed Señor Garcia didn’t have much of a mouth to speak with. It explained a lot.

  ‘Nice tree,’ she said, fidgeting. ‘Your collection is amazing. The lanterns are…nice.’

  Señor Garcia tilted his head and chirped. It was difficult to tell what was going on behind those peepers.

  He moved his four non-standing legs, waving them from side to side, until his whole body swayed. Just like in the ballroom, his lanky frame moved with surprising rhythm.

  Señor Garcia closed his dark-water eyes and clicked. He appeared to be in a trance as he picked up a chalky rock and began to draw on the rock face.

  He drew a face, a man’s face, with wide-set eyes, a straight nose, thin lips and heavy eyebrows. He turned to Iris as his insect features changed. A mask tumbled over his brow, green shell transformed into pink flesh, and then he had his human face on—nose and eyebrows and all.