* * *
On Rahimi Island, Riff, Raff, Afsoon, Hayley and Immigration Representative Major Pastor Paul Ragged Mann all also heard the distinct crack of freed electricity and the pained final objection of Terrible Bill. So too did Latifeh the goat, the two brown pigs and the ten chickens, all of which had been dozing in the yard. So too did the three white ducks on the pond. All the animals and Riff and Raff and ‘Soon and Hayley started up immediately.
“Afsoon, go in the house!” Riff whispered urgently. “Hayley! Please, you will go in also. Until we know what is this sound.”
His intensity at that moment brooked no argument and the girls both went, leaving him and Parisa and the visitor to round up and calm the animals. Before long, all were safely in the animal house - all but one duck which had fled to the middle of the pond and could not be coaxed ashore.
As they worked, a vagrant current in the cold front had brought them the rank smell of Terrible Bill’s burnt hair. It was a smell Riff and Parisa knew - the same - a little different but the same - from a burning church, full of screaming people. The same rank, acrid smell.
“Go see,” the visitor finally said and, indicating the fugitive duck. “I’ll fetch her in. I’ll pop out in the boat and get her.”
Nodding distractedly, Riff picked up the pitchfork, took Parisa’s hand and, like the two deeply wounded people they were, they moved fearfully into the banana palm forest.
Neville the Less Page 45
