The Time Traveller and the Tiger

by Tania Unsworth

  John waited for her to finish, his arms crossed.

  ‘If you come from the future,’ he said, ‘you must know what’s going to happen.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘In the world. All the stuff that’s going to happen.’

  ‘Not all of it,’ Elsie protested.

  ‘Well, the main things.’

  ‘Of course I know the main things.’

  ‘What are they, then?’

  Elsie opened her mouth and then closed it again. What had actually happened in the last seventy-four years? History was one of her better subjects at school, but so far, they’d only got up to the Tudors. She racked her brains, trying to recall what her parents talked about when they discussed the news. Wars in far-off places, how dreadful so-and-so was. But she didn’t know how to explain any of it.

  Then she thought of John’s earlier comment about girls. ‘Well,’ she said, a touch triumphantly. ‘You might be interested to know that a woman got to be prime minister ages ago, and then another one did, and women fight in the army and play professional football and run companies and… and all sorts of things.’ Elsie stopped, out of breath.

  ‘You expect me to believe that?’ John said with unconcealed scorn.

  ‘Also, there’s climate change,’ Elsie said, beginning to feel desperate. ‘That’s a big thing. The environment, endangered species, the ocean filling up with plastic…’

  ‘You’re talking gibberish,’ John said. ‘You’re throwing out random words.’

  Elsie twisted up her face in an effort to think of something – anything – that might convince him.

  ‘I know!’ she burst out. ‘Men landed on the moon! They walked around and planted a flag.’ Elsie remembered seeing the grainy picture on TV. ‘It was an American flag.’

  ‘You’re telling me America is going to own the moon?’

  ‘Because they planted a flag?’ Elsie felt confused. ‘I don’t think it works like that any more…’

  ‘If I was going to pretend to be from the future, I’d come up with much better stuff than that,’ John said.

  Elsie hesitated. She had remembered something else. Her mother had been talking about it on the drive to Great-Uncle John’s house. Elsie had been too busy writing about Kelsie Corvette’s latest exploits to pay much attention, although she’d got the basic facts.

  It related to John.

  Elsie didn’t want to upset him, but it might be the only way to make him see she was telling the truth.

  ‘You’re going to leave here,’ she said, speaking fast to get it over with. ‘India, I mean. I don’t know when it happens, but I think it’s soon. My mum told me about it. The British people left and went back to Britain because the Indians wanted their country back, which was fair enough, really.’

  Elsie’s mother had also told her that the British had no right being in India in the first place, but Elsie thought it probably wasn’t a good time to mention that.

  ‘You’ll be allowed to visit,’ she continued, in an effort to let him down lightly, ‘for holidays and stuff. My friend Matilda went last year. She sent me a photo of the Taj Mahal, only you couldn’t really see it because her head was in the way…’

  Elsie’s voice trailed off. John’s shoulders were down, and he was thumping his new stick on the ground, as if to test its strength.

  ‘You don’t need to come from the future to know that,’ he said, still thumping furiously. ‘My parents talk about it all the time. Everyone in the whole country knows about it!’

  ‘Oh,’ Elsie said, feeling deflated.

  ‘Are you finished jawing?’

  ‘No, I’m not!’ Elsie jumped to her feet in agitation. ‘I am from the future, and loads of things have happened, like the internet, for example, and smartphones. You can do everything with a smartphone, like instantly send messages and photos and links and look up stuff, and pay for things, and find your way when you’re lost…’

  John stopped thumping. ‘Interesting,’ he said. ‘Do you have one?’

  ‘Yes, I do!’

  ‘Where is it, then?’

  ‘I left it behind,’ Elsie admitted. ‘I wasn’t carrying it when—’

  ‘As I thought,’ John said. ‘I see your game. You think if you waste enough time telling ridiculous stories you’ll be able to distract me. Well, it won’t work.’

  Elsie shook her head, defeated. What was the point of being from the future if nobody believed a word you said? All she’d done was make John even more determined.

  ‘You coming?’ he said.

  ‘It’s too dangerous.’

  ‘Nonsense. Waist-deep at worst.’

  ‘Your waist, maybe.’

  ‘Suit yourself. If you follow the river, you’ll be able to find your way home easily enough.’

  He took off his shoes and single sock and looped them round his neck. Then, with solar topee on head, stick in hand, and a look of great resolve upon his face, he stepped into the water.

  Mandeep woke with a feeling of dread. He’d been away from home for two nights now. His parents were used to his disappearances, but even so, they must be getting frantic. It would make them all the angrier when he did return. His father was a quiet man who never raised his voice. Yet Mandeep knew what he would think.

  An idle, disobedient boy. Spoiled by his mother.

  Mandeep set off, pushing his troubles to the back of his mind. He had found a wild gooseberry tree, and ate the fruit for breakfast as he walked, listening to the secret drip of dew falling from leaf to leaf. The sun rose higher, sending vast columns of light pouring through the ancient, stately trees. It was a sight Mandeep had seen a thousand times before, but it never failed to inspire in him the same hushed awe that he imagined he might feel in the hall of some great temple or the palace of a king.

  He wandered slowly, pausing at everything that caught his attention. A trail of ants, the blue flash of a kingfisher, snake tracks in the dust. Every so often, he stopped to examine an item in more detail. A feather dropped by an owl, the tiny white skull of a vole. Mandeep’s jacket pockets were full of such treasures. He kept them for a while until new ones took their place. A few were too precious to discard, and these he stored in a special pocket, sewn into his jacket’s lining. There was a tiger’s canine tooth, and a scale from the armoured back of a pangolin, and a reddish, nut-like seed that Mandeep’s grandfather had once given him.

  The seed didn’t look like much, although his grandfather had held it in the palm of his hand as if it were a ruby.

  ‘Take it. For good luck.’

  His grandfather was ill, his mind scattered. He’d told Mandeep things that made no sense. The seed was from the rarest plant in the world, he said. He had seen the flower when he was young. He had seen it just a few years ago.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  His grandfather put the seed in Mandeep’s hand, curling his own hand around so that Mandeep made a fist. He began to talk again, even more strangely, as if he was half-dreaming.

  Mandeep didn’t understand, and his grandfather never had a chance to explain his words because he died soon afterwards, so soon that Mandeep was still holding the seed when he went.

  That made it a treasure.

  Mandeep crossed the river at a spot where the water ran shallow over flat, raised rocks. He climbed a ridge, meandering down the slope on the other side, heading in the direction of home, although he wasn’t sure how near he ought to go. It might be prudent to wait until nightfall before approaching the house. Just in case.

  As he arrived at the bank of a stream, something caught his eye. The remains of a fire. Mandeep ran the tip of his finger over the ashes. They were thickly layered, it must have burned for several hours.

  He stood up and looked around, saw a scattering of sticks and branches, a white scrap pinned beneath. He tugged it free. A sheet of paper, torn in half and heavily creased, as if it had been folded many times. Mandeep smoothed it out on his knee. Near the top he saw a line of t
ext, printed as if in a book. Underneath, someone had added two or three sentences in pencil. He could make out a few phrases: all linked… everything… or else… will die… But the writing was so crooked and misspelled that it was difficult to make much sense of it.

  He frowned. He was reasonably good at reading English. He had learned it in the village school. But there were words here that he didn’t understand. He folded the piece of paper carefully and put it in his bag to study later.

  Mandeep didn’t think the hunter had made the fire. He was a long way off, probably still on the other side of the river, or else had given up and returned to whatever place he’d come from. Perhaps it was John, although it was unusual for him to be so far from home, and he’d have told Mandeep if he’d been planning an expedition.

  Mandeep paused. Maybe not. They usually spent a lot of time together during John’s school holidays. This year, however, John had mostly kept to himself. Mandeep might have been hurt by this, although it was inevitable that they should grow apart, sooner or later. But in his heart, he knew John hadn’t changed.

  He was just unhappy.

  Mandeep walked across the clearing, studying the ground. There was a place where the bushes had been pushed aside. He followed in the same direction, moving cautiously, heading towards the river again.

  Elsie had no choice. She had to follow John. It was either that or be all by herself.

  In the middle of India. In 1946.

  There wasn’t any time to find a stick, but perhaps she wouldn’t need one. Further downstream, there was a big, flat rock in the middle of the river. The water looked slightly shallower there. Elsie decided to keep her trainers on. She might slip with bare feet, and her trainers would dry soon enough.

  The water was colder than she’d thought it would be, and after a few steps she was already up to her knees. She could feel the tug of the current, strong enough to knock her off balance unless she was careful. She paused and took another step, pebbles shifting beneath her feet, the white-water sound even louder than it had been before.

  She glanced to her left. John was already halfway across. He was up to his waist, holding the gun above his head, his stick planted at an angle, as if the water was trying to pull it away.

  It was a good thing she had cut the turn-ups off her jeans, Elsie thought. The weight of all that waterlogged fabric might have been fatal. She was up to her thighs now, although the rock was only a few steps away. A stone slipped against the side of her foot. She lurched forward, almost fell, clutched at the rock just in time and pulled herself up.

  She teetered across and looked down. Immediately, her heart sank. The water was far deeper on the other side of the rock. The riverbed had formed a hole there, she couldn’t even see the bottom.

  ‘John?’ she called.

  He was in exactly the same spot as before, only his stick was gone.

  ‘John!’

  He swayed, righted himself and took two or three struggling steps, the current rippling against his shirt. He reached a trapped branch sticking out of the water and hooked his gun over the end of it, followed by his bag and his shoes.

  He can’t carry them, Elsie thought. He’s frightened he’ll lose his balance.

  ‘Stop!’ she shrieked. ‘Go back!’

  John grasped the branch for a moment, as though hesitating. But the opposite bank was tantalisingly close, a few more steps would bring him there. He looked over his shoulder at the way he had come, and back at the bank again. Then he let go of the branch and made a wild lunge for solid ground, as if speed alone might save him.

  A second later he was down, the current sweeping him off his feet as effortlessly as if he were a twig. She saw his arms thrashing as he grabbed at the overhanging bushes on the far bank. He caught a leafy strand, held it for a split-second, then lost his grip and was carried away.

  Elsie screamed.

  There was someone next to her on the rock, she had no idea how or when he had got there. He was crouching low over the edge, his hands reaching for a fast-moving shape. She saw him grip the back of John’s shirt and pull him to the rock. Then she was crouching too, tugging on John’s arm as he hauled himself up, coughing and spitting and looking thinner than ever from his drenching.

  Elsie stared at John’s rescuer. He was about twelve or thirteen, not as tall as John, but stronger-looking, wearing a grubby shirt and jacket with a length of cloth wrapped around his waist like a skirt and a yellow feather sticking out of one of his pockets.

  But what struck Elsie most were his eyes. They had a bright intensity, as if the boy was searching the world with his gaze.

  ‘Mandeep!’ John gasped. He seized the boy’s arm, water dripping down his shocked face. ‘You saved my life!’

  They sat on the riverbank, John still wringing water from his shorts.

  ‘This is Kelsie, by the way,’ he told Mandeep. He paused. ‘What’s your surname again?’

  ‘Corvette.’

  ‘I still think that sounds made-up,’ John said.

  ‘It is very good to meet you,’ Mandeep said. Elsie liked the careful, almost formal way he spoke English. It made him sound kind.

  ‘But we have not solved the problem of the gun and the shoes,’ he said.

  ‘I forgot all about them!’ John said. ‘Jolly good thing I hung them on that branch. I’d have lost them otherwise. How on earth am I going to get them back?’

  Mandeep retrieved a coil of rope from his bag. John could wade into the river tied to the rope, he explained. He would be safer that way.

  ‘It’s not long enough,’ John said. ‘I say we find a forked stick, use that instead.’

  If she had been Kelsie Corvette, this would have been the perfect moment for her to demonstrate her lassoing skills, Elsie thought sadly. Compared to long-horned bulls, a pair of shoes hanging from a branch would have been child’s play.

  John and Mandeep were still debating the merits of stick versus rope.

  ‘I’m telling you,’ John said.

  ‘And I am telling you,’ Mandeep replied.

  They didn’t seem angry. Or even impatient. As if they were so used to arguing that it didn’t seem like arguing any more. They were both the same, Elsie thought. Each as stubborn as the other. No wonder they were friends.

  In the end, a compromise was reached. John waded out as far as he could, holding on to the rope, then used a stick to reach the rest of the way, unhooking his possessions with a triumphant flourish.

  ‘Shame about my topee, though,’ he remarked. ‘Must be five miles downriver by now.’

  Elsie produced it from behind her back. While the others had been rescuing John’s belongings, she had been pottering among the rocks further downstream. She’d spotted the solar topee bobbing in the shallows and had fished it out with a stick of her own. After removing the river debris and brushing it off, it looked almost as good as new. She handed it over, pleased with herself.

  He took it without a word. Elsie felt crushed. Saving someone’s hat wasn’t nearly as impressive as saving their life, but it was still something. He might have thanked her.

  He was too busy showing Mandeep the tiger prints in the mud, gesturing to the other side of the river, his face excited.

  Mandeep looked down and said something in a different language, his voice low. Elsie didn’t know what John said in reply because he began speaking the same language as Mandeep, his words coming fast, as if he was trying to convince him.

  Mandeep didn’t answer. He stood still, not looking at John.

  They were arguing, Elsie thought, although it was different than before.

  ‘What are you saying?’ she asked. ‘What language are you speaking?’

  ‘Hindi, of course,’ John said. ‘Mandeep says the tiger didn’t kill the child by the river yesterday morning, and I’m pointing out that was only because the women surprised it and drove it away.’

  He began to speak Hindi again, louder than ever, not seeming to notice that Mandeep was growing q
uieter and quieter.

  Elsie started to think perhaps she didn’t like John very much, after all.

  ‘So, it’s settled,’ he announced. ‘We’ll go upstream, find a safe place to cross the river, come back down on the other side and pick up the tiger’s trail.’

  Then he turned and marched off, without giving the others a chance to respond.

  They followed in silence, keeping a little way behind. After a couple of minutes, Mandeep fetched a handful of almonds from his bag.

  ‘Would you like some?’

  Elsie nodded.

  ‘You can crack them with your teeth,’ Mandeep said. ‘The shells are not so hard.’

  ‘Okay,’ Elsie said, feeling shy. ‘Thanks.’

  They chewed for a while, not saying anything, gazing at John striding ahead.

  ‘He shouldn’t be doing this,’ Elsie said at last.

  ‘Once he has made up his mind, it is not an easy job to change it,’ Mandeep said.

  ‘But you think it’s a bad idea, don’t you? You said the tiger hadn’t killed that child. It might not be a man-eater at all.’

  ‘Probably not.’

  ‘He’s only doing it to try and impress his parents.’

  ‘Yes,’ Mandeep agreed. ‘Because of Hugh.’

  Elsie stared crossly at John. He hadn’t turned to look back at them, not even once. ‘I don’t know why he’s being such a bully,’ she said.

  ‘It is because he knows he is in the wrong,’ Mandeep said simply.

  John’s hair had dried in a funny way, sticking up on the back of his head. Elsie suddenly felt sorry for him. He would have to give up sooner or later. The tiger must be far away by now. She doubted they would even find its tracks. And as it turned out, she was right.

  They found something much worse instead.

  By the time they reached a place where they could safely cross the river, after over an hour of walking, John had slowed enough for the others to catch up, although he still maintained an offended silence. He sat apart while they stopped for a rest and a drink of water, glancing at Elsie and Mandeep when he thought they weren’t looking and kicking a loose root in the ground.