by Zizou Corder
He scurried on.
There was no light at the end of the tunnel but he could tell when he emerged. The space seemed enormous. Sergei had said Charlie was in here – but where in here?
Ninu stayed close to the wall, and listened carefully.
Under the hard rushing sound of the sea, two lots of breathing. One over there, one over here. Ninu waited. His eyes had adjusted to the dark (chameleons see much better than most lizards, and they are the only reptile that can focus on one spot). But he couldn’t see which person was Charlie, and he didn’t at all want to approach any person who was not Charlie.
He waited.
And he waited.
(Up in the corridor Sergei waited too, in a state of increasing agitation.)
And he waited some more.
He was not a reptile for nothing. Nobody can wait like a reptile.
After an hour and a half, one of the sets of breathing rolled its head and muttered the words, ‘Sergei, you idiot …’
Ninu zipped across the floor to the source of the sound, and gently with his little fingers he took hold of Charlie’s thumb and squeezed.
Charlie woke in confusion, from very deep sleep. But he had spent enough time in trouble to keep his mouth shut in moments of confusion. He blinked and stared at the thumb that was being pinched. As his vision settled, he took in the sight of Ninu, pale in the darkness, his huge eyes rolling, and his face in a grin.
‘Ninu!’ Charlie whispered delightedly. ‘Ninu!’ He kept his voice as tiny as he could but his pleasure was immense and almost burst out. ‘What are you doing here? Fantastic!’ He put his face close to the chameleon and automatically spoke in Cat, because he was talking to an animal. ‘Fantastic!’ he whispered again. Ninu gave him two little squeezes more, and crept up on to his hand.
‘Sergei is upstairs,’ said Ninu quietly. ‘We jumped on board when you were grabbed. Sergei told your friend from Venice, and he was going to tell your parents, and everybody is telling everybody. Everybody is chasing you!’
Charlie’s grin was as wide as it could be. Then he realized what he’d heard. ‘What friend from Venice?’ he asked.
‘A tall blond person,’ said Ninu. ‘Talks Italian. His name is …’ But Ninu couldn’t remember the name.
‘Claudio?’ said Charlie, bewildered.
‘Yes!’ Ninu replied. ‘Claudio. I met him in the café after you’d gone ahead. Very nice. Asking about you. Then Sergei rushed up saying the Lioncatcher had pushed you into a trolley, and we all rushed down to the quay and Sergei and I ended up on the boat and Claudio was still on the shore.’
Charlie was confused by this. What was Claudio doing in Essaouira? He was supposed to be in Venice, looking after Primo.
‘Did you hear any news of the Lions, Ninu?’ Charlie asked. ‘Because the guy in charge of pushing me into the trolley is Maccomo, the Liontrainer, and he was the Lions’ prisoner. He’s escaped – he’s on this boat now. But I don’t know if the Lions are all right.’
Charlie couldn’t imagine how the Lions could have let Maccomo escape. Unless – had someone come with guns?
He didn’t want to think about it.
But however it had happened, it was true: Maccomo was free.
‘No news of Lions,’ said Ninu sadly. ‘But no bad news of Lions either. So that’s good.’ He rolled one eye over towards the other sleeping shape. ‘Who’s that?’
‘Oh dear, Ninu,’ whispered Charlie. ‘It’s all a very long story that you’ve got yourself involved in here. It’s not quite the jolly overland trip to Ghana I mentioned.’
‘Plenty of insects on a boat,’ said Ninu. ‘I don’t mind. Who is that?’
‘That’s my cousin,’ said Charlie.
‘Nice!’ said Ninu.
‘Well,’ said Charlie, ‘he’s also the guy who took my parents in the first place …’ Quietly he told Ninu the story.
By the end Ninu looked quite shocked – at least, Charlie thought he did, but it’s hard to read a chameleon’s expression under the best of circumstances. Also Ninu always looked a bit shocked, with his frilled head and bug eyes.
‘So now Maccomo has kidnapped both of you?’ he asked.
‘Yup,’ said Charlie.
‘I’d better tell Sergei,’ said Ninu.
‘Can he come down here?’ Charlie asked keenly. He longed for his friend’s sarky good sense and also, although Sergei was not at all a cuddly cat, he would sometimes lean against Charlie’s leg in a way that was both warm and comforting, and Charlie could really do with some of that now.
‘Too big,’ said Ninu. ‘Only I am small enough to go down the rat holes.’
‘Ninu,’ said Charlie. ‘Did you go down a rat hole?’
‘Yes,’ said Ninu proudly, very glad now that he had.
‘Thank you,’ said Charlie, from the bottom of his heart.
Across the room, Rafi stirred in his sleep.
‘Ninu,’ whispered Charlie, ‘go back to Sergei and tell him I’m really, really glad you’re both here. Tell him I’ve rung both my parents and my mum’s rung back but I haven’t been able to talk to her yet.’ (He said ‘yet’, but in his heart he feared he would not be able to now: he had heard her message and taken comfort from it, but his phone had no signal and they were getting further from land all the time. He hadn’t let himself think about how sad this made him.) ‘Tell him Rafi’s here. Tell him I’m pretty sure Maccomo must be taking both of us to the Corporacy – after all, he was thinking of selling me to them before, and Rafi was working for them but kept getting everything wrong. Tell him to think about where a Corporacy place might be. Ask him if he can keep an eye on what direction we’re travelling, and –’ Charlie was thinking quickly – ‘see if he can eavesdrop at all, pick up any information from the humans on board. Ask him to find out who is on board, how many, where they are, what they do …’
‘All right,’ said Ninu.
‘Sorry,’ said Charlie. ‘Getting a bit carried away. I am so glad you’re here. Come back again soon.’ And Ninu squeezed his finger again, and scuttled bravely back up the rat hole.
And then Rafi’s voice came from across the hold.
‘So who’s yer friend? Some bliddy cat? Can’t you get him to go and do something useful, like bite Maccomo’s neck for us so he bleeds to death in his sleep, instead of waking me up in the middle of the night with your chatting? It’s hard enough to sleep here, for crike sake.’
Drat.
Well, at least he hadn’t understood what they were saying.
It was hard to sleep.
But Charlie’s friends were here and, despite everything, that made him happy.
The sack he had been stuffed in had been abandoned nearby, so he reached out for it with his foot, rolled it into a makeshift pillow, and curled himself up. Sergei and Ninu. Claudio! Mum and Dad … He wasn’t alone.
Chapter Eight
So it was that the Old Yeller sailed westward across the Atlantic, and Suleiman’s Joy followed her, and El Baraka followed Suleiman’s Joy.
Or so it was, until about four o’clock that morning, when Old Yeller changed course for the south, and nobody aboard Suleiman’s Joy could see that she had, so Suleiman’s Joy continued westward across the Atlantic, and El Baraka continued to follow Suleiman’s Joy, and Charlie was, after all, more alone than he thought.
After sundown, Charlie was eating a bowl of rather unpleasant slop, his back still turned to Rafi.
‘Bliddy ’orrible bliddy food,’ Rafi sneered bad-temperedly. ‘This is probably like what your mum makes, eh, Charlie?’
‘Yeah, exactly,’ Charlie replied cheerfully. ‘Boiled worms is her best, with slug sauce. You should come over one time and try it, when we’re back home. You’d probably love it.’
‘I don’t go round visiting for little tea parties, Charlie Dumbhead,’ said Rafi wearily.
‘No, of course you don’t – no one invites you, do they? Cos you’ve got no friends, have you, Rafi?’ Charlie responded. �
��Rafi No-mates, Rafi Never-had-no-mates …’
Underneath the banter, however, was something strange. Charlie had, for example, nearly said, ‘Yeah, well, at least I have a mum’; or ‘At least I know who my mum is’; or ‘You don’t even know who your mum is – and I do!’ Danger lurked in every swapped insult, but of one thing Charlie was sure. He did not want Rafi knowing that they were related. So, he had to guard his words, watch his lip, keep his trap shut under provocation.
Later, Ninu appeared, with the news that they were heading south.
‘Down the coast of Africa,’ Charlie mused to Ninu. ‘Where can we be going?’
‘I can tell you!’ squeaked the little creature, full of pride. ‘Sergei overheard the sailors talking. They are going to –’ and here he took a breath and concentrated hard, because he wanted to get it right – ‘A krar.’
‘A krar?’ said Charlie, mystified. ‘What …? Accra! But – oh, that’s good news, that’s really good.’
Accra was the capital of Ghana. Accra was where Aneba came from. Accra was where Grandma lived! Charlie had friends and family, aunts and uncles – Accra was where he and his parents had been planning to go anyway! Accra was just the place to jump ship!
‘But why?’ he asked suddenly. ‘Why is Maccomo going to Accra?’
‘Sergei says,’ said Ninu carefully, ‘that they’re not staying there. They have to pick something up, then they’re heading on somewhere else.’
‘Then tell Sergei that we must make a plan to jump ship at Accra,’ whispered Charlie. ‘However we can do it. I can’t risk trying to get out of here before we get there, so it’s up to you. You and Sergei must think of something.’
Ninu smiled his long, flat smile. ‘OK,’ he said, and he ran up Charlie’s arm and rubbed his head on Charlie’s chin, which was the only bit he could reach. ‘Don’t worry. We’ll make a brilliant plan.’
Charlie spent the rest of the evening practising his Twi under his breath. Accra!
On board Suleiman’s Joy, Magdalen and Aneba were quietly frustrated. When they had woken from a scrappy night’s sleep, there had been no sign of Old Yeller in front of them. They went to see Suleiman, but he said it didn’t matter, God led and man followed, and such was the way of the virtuous man.
‘So what do we do now?’ asked Aneba, peering through Suleiman’s telescope.
‘We carry on,’ said Magdalen. ‘I really think we have no choice. We’ll carry on, and we’ll catch up with them.’
‘Talking of which,’ said Aneba, handing the telescope over, ‘have you noticed the ship behind us? I spotted it last night, and it’s still with us.’
Magdalen looked. Yes, there was a dot far behind them.
‘Is it following us?’ she asked.
‘Well, I think so,’ he mused. ‘Suleiman?’
Suleiman observed that many men followed the same path, yet each man’s path is his own. At this Aneba buried his face in his hands, whether to laugh or to weep Magdalen couldn’t tell. Suleiman relented: ‘She is a ship from Essaouira,’ he said. ‘She has been with us since we left, and she is with us now. It is not for me to know why.’
‘Claudio?’ suggested Magdalen.
‘That would be nice,’ her husband said. ‘That would be great.’
Things were not going well on board El Baraka. Younus very much wanted to catch up with Suleiman, overtake him, shout things over the rails – what, he hadn’t quite thought, but something dashing. And he still wanted to know where they were going.
‘Your question is not unreasonable,’ said King Boris politely. ‘And may I assure you that if I knew, I would tell you. But I don’t. Nor does Claudio. So we must come follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow them, whither shall we follow, follow, follow, whither shall we follow, follow them? To the greenwood, to the greenwood, to-oo-oo the greenwood, greenwood tree …’
He had started singing.
‘What?’ said Younus.
‘What?’ said Claudio.
What? wondered Elsina and the Young Lion, as they lay in Claudio and King Boris’s cabin, into which they had snuck in the dead of night, and hidden under a blanket.
Younus sighed. ‘Please,’ he said. ‘When you know, can you tell me?’
Claudio was more worried. How was he going to tell King Boris that there were two Lions in his hammock?
Seven days later, Sergei saw something most extraordinary through the ship’s rail.
The day was calm, and the sea lay like a great dark mirror. The sailors, melting slightly in the southern heat, were snoozing while the solar-powered autopilot drove the ship onward. Maccomo, in the cabin, was brooding. Charlie was counting to a hundred and back again, in Twi. Rafi was gnawing his nails, having dreadful nightmares about what was going to be done to him. And Sergei was lying, as usual, in the shade of a lifeboat on deck, catching a light breeze and enjoying the generally fishy smell of Old Yeller. As he lay he mused quietly on how to manufacture some kind of safe shipwreck from which Charlie, Ninu and he could safely and swiftly escape, while everybody else either drowned (Maccomo and Majid) or were held up so long that they couldn’t possibly get in Charlie and Sergei’s way. It was a tall order, and Sergei wasn’t sure he could pull it off.
And then he saw the extraordinary thing.
It was a fountain, in the middle of the otherwise rather calm sea. It just appeared, beside him. He opened one eye, saw it, blinked, and then jumped up in a muffled squawk when it squirted him.
He stared.
It was moving away from the ship.
Cautiously, Sergei peeked over the edge.
It was coming back.
He stepped back and looked swiftly around to see if anyone else had noticed. They hadn’t. Then he stepped forward again, because he couldn’t resist it. What was this?
The fountain disappeared.
In its place was an enormous …
Well, it looked a bit like an eye.
‘I think it’s an eye,’ whispered Ninu, from between Sergei’s knees.
‘Whose eye?’ whispered Sergei.
It disappeared again, sinking slowly downward.
Together, bravely, Sergei and Ninu peered over the edge, just in time to see a great dark shadow slip under the water.
‘I know what it is!’ cried Ninu. ‘I have seen her before, in the ocean beyond Essaouira! She is the water-fountain-giant-not-fish! Her name is Madame Baleine! She’s – she’s a whale!’
And he started to make a curious keening sound, a sort of whistling creaking wailing – the kind of sound, indeed, that whales make when they sing to each other in the depths of the ocean.
Madame Baleine stopped sinking. She rose up.
She was enormous – even the amount of her that they could see was enormous. She looked like a gigantic aubergine, gleaming and dark and smooth. Sergei backed away a little nervously.
She too was singing.
Ninu raised his tiny voice in whale song.
She was answering.
Ninu broke for a second to listen.
‘She thinks it’s the boat singing to her!’ he whispered to Sergei.
Sergei’s head whipped up. ‘Oh does she?’ he murmured, thinking quickly. ‘Oh does she? Well, keep chattin’ with her while I think.’
This had to be useful. A whale!
‘What are you tellin’ her?’ he hissed to Ninu.
‘She wanted to know why my voice is so tiny although I am quite a big boat. I told her it’s because there is a frog in my throat,’ whispered Ninu.
‘Oh, for crike sake,’ said Sergei, but then he stopped. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘Does she like you?’
‘She thinks I’m very strong and handsome,’ said Ninu, stifling a giggle.
‘My word,’ said Sergei. ‘Steady on, or you’ll ’ave yerself a girlfriend.’
Ninu started to go green at the idea.
‘Stay brown!’ hissed Sergei. ‘You don’t want her seein’ that yer a tiddly little reptile. Now listen.’
&
nbsp; Ninu continued to whistle and keen, but he was listening.
‘Tell her – tell her that when we get in near land, near the harbour, you’ll need a big slap on the back to clear yer throat. Can you tell her that? Ask her if she’ll give you a big wallop.’
‘Okey-doke,’ said Ninu.
‘Not yet!’ hissed Sergei. ‘When we’re close enough in to land.’
Ninu stopped for a moment. ‘Sergei,’ he said. ‘You are really, really clever.’
Sergei smiled in his ratty whiskers. ‘Well, it’s a less than transcendently perfect plan, but it might do.’
Ninu started to sing again. He sang and clicked and whistled, and the whale sang back, and before the sailors had woken from their siestas Ninu’s new girlfriend had promised that she would indeed come and give him a big thwack, just as soon as they were near the harbour.
Meanwhile, miles away in the Mediterranean, another ship was sailing. The beautiful Circe, with her Circus on board, had come down from Paris, reclaimed her masts at Port St Louis and headed out to sea. On board Mabel was sitting in Major Tib’s elegant cabin deep in conversation with him. She was telling him almost everything. He was fascinated and rather cross.
‘That boy!’ he said. ‘That boy! I shoulda just throwed him overboard in the first place like I said. Pirouette! Somebody get Pirouette in here.’
The tough trapeze artiste was with them in moments, wearing her practice clothes, and slightly out of breath.
‘Pirouette,’ said Major Tib. ‘That boy Charlie, that Lionboy …’
‘Yes?’ said Pirouette.
‘Mabel here says he took Maccomo’s Lions, and that they all went to Africa – whaddaya make a-that?’
‘Very laklee,’ said Pirouette. ‘He’s a brave boy.’
‘Says he found his parents again all right, in Morocco someplace, and says – says now he’s disappeared, and maybe Maccomo has taken him.’
‘Maccomo would be very angry. Of course.’
Major Tib was shaking his head. ‘That Maccomo! That boy! No respect for the show, either of ’em … How ’bout you, Mabel? You headin’ off on a wild goose chase too?’
