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  Charlie actually did start giggling.

  “What is it?” said Hans, with a bit of sticky toffee sauce trickling down his chin.

  “Oh, I’m just happy,” said Charlie.

  “Really?” said Julius. “But what about your parents?”

  “Can’t be sad all the time,” said Charlie. “You get tired of it.”

  Julius looked at him consideringly, and Charlie wondered if he suspected something. But how could he?

  “What’s the swankiest restaurant in Paris?” Charlie asked.

  “Oh, it’s full of swanky restaurants. One of Dad’s favorites is Chez Billy in the Marais, but he can’t afford to go there—it’s very expensive and you always have to book . . .”

  Thinking about it, Charlie realized he was going to have to work fast. Get their phone numbers and text-message them, then there’d be no problems with either of them saying “But that’s not his/her handwriting.” Then he’d have to call the restaurant and book a table. What time does the show end? How long would it take them to get there from the ship? It would be good if it wasn’t too close, because that would give him and the lions more time. Charlie felt like a criminal, making sure all the details were right, and that he would not be suspected.

  “Is the Marais near where we dock?” Charlie asked innocently.

  “Why?” demanded Hans, and Charlie realized he’d better start asking his questions to different people, if he didn’t want to have questions asked of him.

  So—phone numbers. He could start that night.

  First he had to run the plan by the lions. It was easy because Maccomo was snoozing—the medicine must have been working. As the trainer snored on the floor in his crimson cloak, Charlie started to tell the young lion and Elsina what he planned. But before he could do so, the young lion hissed at him: “About time! Venice!”

  “What do you mean, Venice?” said Charlie.

  “A nasty-looking black cat turned up and said he was sorry he couldn’t stay—‘wasn’t able to delay his perusal of your business’ was his exact phrase—and to tell you Venice!”

  Sergei. Charlie smiled. Venice! He’d seen pictures. The streets were full of water. Venice was beautiful and strange.

  He thought quickly. So would his parents get his letter? Well, Sergei would take it to them.

  Would he? Yes, Charlie thought. He was rude and mangy, but Charlie was pretty sure he wasn’t dishonest, and he had really seemed to care about Charlie’s parents. Why else would he have taken the trouble to bring the first letter all this way?

  “Have they left yet?” he asked.

  “He didn’t say,” said the young lion.

  Well, thought Charlie, if I don’t get to them in time in Paris, I’ll just have to go to Venice. Which was south, more or less, and closer to Africa. So the lions could come with him. There was no point in wondering why Mum and Dad were being taken there. He only hoped they’d stay long enough for him to catch up.

  He was pretty sure you could get a train to Venice from Paris. In the old days there was one called the Orient Express that went from Paris to Venice to Istanbul.

  He made a note in his head: train from Paris to Venice?

  Then he told the lions his plan about Mabel. They were delighted.

  “It’s a great idea,” said the young lion.

  “Brilliant,” said Elsina.

  “And it may just work,” said a third voice. They all turned to look. It was the oldest lion, standing up in his cage and looking over at them. “He’s crazy about that woman, always was. He’d do anything for her. Certainly go and have dinner with her in a restaurant. And I think she would too.”

  Charlie and the young lion grinned at each other. Maccomo was dopey, the oldest lion had perked up, and the plan had his agreement.

  “Best get on the telephone then, Boy who speaks Cat!”

  Charlie’s brain was ticking away, thinking through all possibilities. He felt wonderful, intelligent, and in control. Details! That was what you needed. Knowing what was what. For example:

  “Where’s the key now?” he asked.

  The young lion nodded. “Over there,” he said.

  There it was. Big old key, on a hook. Plain, old-fashioned, couldn’t be simpler.

  “Well, that’s all right then,” said Charlie. “And we need to think about where we go next.”

  He had made a decision. He and the lions, once they’d escaped, could not hang around where the circus was. They’d be followed and caught. If he didn’t hear back from his parents, or a cat, telling him where they were in Paris, he would go straight on to Venice.

  In the back of his mind he heard Rafi’s tight, angry, violent voice: “Just stay there and I’ll be along to get you soon. Along. To get you. Soon.” He doesn’t know, Charlie told himself firmly. He couldn’t. But couldn’t and doesn’t are two different things.

  Worry about something you can do something about! he told himself. In a very short time he’d be standing on a French street corner with six lions to look after, and he’d need to know which way to turn. Plans in general had to become plans in particular.

  The oldest lion smiled down at him. “I have some ideas, boy. Go and telephone now.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Charlie. “By the way—does anyone know what an Allergeny is?”

  The lions all just gazed at him. “No,” they said. “What is it?”

  Huddled and stiff in the hold of a motorboat, Magdalen was whispering. “I think we have to try to escape,” she murmured. “In the submarine we couldn’t do anything, but next time we’re transferred, we should just knock them down and run. We can’t go on like this. Well. Maybe you can, but I can’t. Charlie’s out there somewhere, he needs us. He’s not safe if he has . . . And I’m going mad here, doing nothing. We must do something!”

  Aneba was sitting beside her, holding his knees. It was cramped in there; warmer than the sub, but hardly more comfortable. They couldn’t stand up, and were instead half-lying on sacks of something that felt like rice.

  “If we run,” he said, his voice strained by whispering and by trying to be patient—they seemed to have had this conversation many times before. “If we run, assuming we get away, how will we find out who hired these fools to kidnap us? How will we find out what they want? We couldn’t go home; they could just come back for us again—or for Charlie. We wouldn’t be safe. We have to stay, to find out what it’s all about. Assuming—let’s assume—that it’s about the asthma cure. Do we assume that?”

  “Yes,” said Magdalen in a small voice.

  “So who wants it? Who wants us? Or is scared of us?”

  “Or thinks us so important?” said Magdalen. “I know, love, but . . .” She was thinking about Charlie.

  “I know,” said Aneba. “But he’ll be no safer than us until this thing is sorted out. So that’s what we are going to do. Get there—wherever it is. Identify our enemy. Deal with it. Sort it out.”

  “Sort it out,” said Magdalen sadly. “Yes. If only.”

  Suddenly the boat jolted. Boxes fell on their heads—“Yow!” cried Magdalen as a crate of sardines fell against her.

  “Shut up in there,” came a voice from outside—Winner’s voice.

  The boat was docking.

  Charlie was extremely relieved to hear that the oldest lion had some ideas, because he didn’t. However, he did know what to do when short of them. His mum and dad had both drummed it into him: “When you don’t know what to do, get more information!” So after the lions’ afternoon rehearsal, and setting up and putting away the ring cage, and having a discussion with Maccomo about the final details of the performance, Charlie went to see Signor Lucidi, to find out exactly what would happen once they were in Paris.

  He found him lying on his stomach on the floor of his cabin, with the youngest of his children walking along his backbone.

  “Gosh!” cried Charlie. “Is this part of the act? Use your dad’s spine as a low-wire?”

  “Ah, no,” groaned th
e acrobat. “I wish it was, but it is not. It is for the pain of my back. Carrying so many of my family makes me hurt, and if I am to hold the Tukul for twenty seconds in Paris, then I must be strong and not aching . . . We are practicing too much and I hurt. That is all.”

  “What’s the Tukul?” asked Charlie.

  “Most difficult human pyramid,” said Sigi. “Everybody up on Daddy. On Daddy’s legs, four people, plus on Daddy’s shoulders, five people, plus on Daddy’s head, my bambino here. On Daddy’s head too—the pride of the family name, because if I don’t hold it twenty seconds at least, all Paris will laugh at the name of Lucidi.”

  “Gosh,” said Charlie again. Standing upright with ten people on top of you. That must be hard.

  “So tell me, what happens when we get to Paris?” Charlie asked.

  “Well, tomorrow morning we go into the Canal St. Denis, and we should get to our stopping place near the Bastille a few hours later,” said Sigi, between grunts of pleasure as his little boy’s heels dug in along his spine. “It’s convenient—the canal joins on to the river. We dock, we parade, we get everything ready, then the next day everybody comes, we perform, we all go out and get drunk to celebrate. We stay three weeks, then we are back to normal, following the canals down to the Mediterranean Sea, performing all the way. Then we perform the Italian coast, all the holiday towns and fishing villages down to Rome and Naples, then over to North Africa for the winter and up the Spanish coast and back to Marseilles, and who knows where—maybe around Britain again, maybe to the Caribbean and the Empire Homelands. We can go anywhere on this boat—anywhere Major Tib wants to take us.”

  Listening to this list of places, Charlie wished and wished that his parents were safely at home where parents ought to be, and that the lions could be happy in captivity, and that he could stay with the circus forever and ever.

  But he couldn’t.

  “Is the Bastille near the Marais?” asked Charlie.

  “Yes, it’s very close,” said Sigi. “It’s close to everywhere. The university, the station, the menagerie, the river, the canal, the police, the courts of justice . . .”

  Charlie ticked all these off in his head. Police and courts of justice—oh, dear. The station—aha!

  He was just about to ask Signor Lucidi if the train was the best way to Italy from Paris, when he realized that this would be a very stupid thing to do. After he and the lions were gone, Maccomo and Major Tib would ask everybody if they knew anything about it, and if Lucidi said that Charlie had been inquiring about routes to Italy, then everybody would know that’s where they’d gone. And they’d come after them, and they’d be extremely angry.

  Charlie resolved to get a map of the area.

  Back out on deck, the little envelope was flashing on his telephone.

  He pressed the button. COCKY SLIMY GIT.

  He took a breath, and retrieved the message.

  “You stupid little kid, Charlie. You’re on completely the wrong track. You haven’t got a clue, have you? I’m here with your parents now—your mum’s really ugly, isn’t she?—and you know what? You’re not going to find them. And you know what else? They don’t want you. Why do you think they left without you? ’Cause they don’t want you. Who would? Little squit like you. Uppity little squit at that. Stupid uppity little squit who couldn’t find his stupid uppity parents if they were squashed on the motorway under his nose. So as you’re obviously not going to get here on your own, I’ll be along to get you soon, like I said . . .”

  The voice was low and vicious and went on and on. Charlie listened in a frozen, horrified fascination, unable to hang up, for just a little too long.

  The next night they were due to enter Paris. They stopped early at a place called Chatou, found the dock, and rested up for an early start in the morning. Charlie went about his duties, chanting, “You don’t fool me, you don’t fool me, you don’t fool me” under his breath, trying to drown out the echo of Rafi’s nasty voice and nastier words. “I’ll beat you, Rafi,” he repeated over and over. “I’ve got lions. I’ve got six beautiful, strong, huge, killer lions, with massive teeth and sharp hard claws that could cut you in half. Have you seen how big a lion’s claw is, Rafi? Do you know how many they have? They’re like carving knives, Rafi, and they keep them tucked into their paws so they stay good and sharp! I’ve got lions, Rafi, and all you’ve got is a nasty tongue . . .”

  “What are you muttering?” demanded Maccomo. “I have a headache. Quiet down.”

  Charlie was glad he had a headache. He hoped the drugs had caused it.

  Later on, sitting on the deck with his sleeping bag around his shoulders and Pirouette’s old street map of Paris on his knee, Charlie discovered that the Canal St. Denis would take them to the Canal St. Martin, which would take them back to the Seine, in the center of Paris, at the Port de Plaisance de Paris Arsenal, Bastille for short because it was very close to where the old prison called the Bastille used to be, and the Marais, he saw, was close enough to be a sensible choice of area for Maccomo and Mabel to go out to dinner, but not so close as to make it risky. Also, it was in the opposite direction to the station. Things were beginning to fall into place.

  Above him the small, high moon sailed across the night sky. Below, it made a still, gleaming path toward him across the river’s waters. He tried hard to still his jumping mind. And for a few minutes he let himself wonder about what the barge cat had said. About the story, the Allergenies, his parents’ work—the great mystery.

  He couldn’t bear to look at the telephones. The possibility of more of Rafi’s threats, plus the inevitable emptiness of his mother’s phone—no, it was too depressing. Why wasn’t anyone calling his mum? Any of her colleagues or her friends? People to say “Come over and visit,” or Brother Jerome saying “Why isn’t Charlie coming to lessons?” Charlie didn’t know that Rafi had told all his family’s friends and relations that they had had to leave suddenly for Africa. He felt as if he and his family had dropped off the edge of the world, and nobody cared.

  Not that the circus people didn’t care, but . . . they were all new friends, and apart from the lions he couldn’t tell them what was on his mind. And he couldn’t tell the lions how scared he was, and how he wished he didn’t have to do this. Late in the evenings he wanted someone he had always known. Someone from home.

  He read his letter again. Thought of the friendly cats who had helped. Wondered again if he could trust Sergei—well, he had no choice. Wondered again about the Allergenies. Wondered for the thousandth time what his parents were working on that made them heroes to cats. Well, he was working to find them. So let’s get on with it, he said to himself toughly, before the moon started to look too sad, and the night grew too lonely. Get on with it.

  So he started to track down the phone numbers he needed—and very complicated it was too. Then the phone at the restaurant was constantly busy. Charlie really hoped he wouldn’t have to find another excuse to ask Julius about swanky restaurants. It was such an unlikely thing for someone like Charlie to need to know about.

  By the time he went to bed he’d sent two text messages, booked a restaurant reservation, and found out that trains to Venice left from the Gare d’Austerlitz, which was the station right across the river from the Bastille, and that the train left at half past midnight.

  Here are the messages he sent: MABEL, SUCH A LONG TIME PLS

  COME TO SHOW ON FRIDAY, AND

  AFTERWARD TO CHEZ BILLY, I WILL

  MEET YOU THERE. AFFECTUEUSEMENT,

  MACCOMO.

  And to Maccomo he sent: MACCOMO, SUCH A LONG TIME, I AM

  COMING TO SHOW ON FRIDAY, PLS

  JOIN ME AFTERWARD CHEZ BILLY.

  MABEL.

  He really hoped he had the tone right. Who knew what grown-ups wrote to each other? But he had seen invitations with things like “afterward” and “please join me” written on them. Oh, well. Either it would work or it wouldn’t. And if it didn’t, they’d just have to think of something e
lse. He felt a little sick at the thought.

  CHAPTER 14

  The next morning dawned misty and damp. While Charlie was out practicing with the acrobats, each of the electric lightbulbs that adorned the ship’s rigging and smokestacks was itself adorned with drips of misty rain, drops of water through which light shone and refracted, each reflecting off all the others and glowing in the mist. Charlie had not seen the lights illuminated before. The entire ship gleamed like a ghost. The raindrops flew, shattering rainbows, as the acrobats jumped and swung. Charlie felt like a ghost himself—a flying, silent ghost.

  “Whaddaya think, Lionboy?” It was Major Tib, looming out of the mist in his green velvet jacket, tall and suave as Captain Hook.

  “It’s gorgeous, sir,” said Charlie, coming down from a handstand on the edge of a smokestack, and wishing he were somewhere else. He didn’t want to look the major in the face when he was about to trick him out of his lions.

  “Looking forward to the parade tonight?”

  “Oh yes, sir,” said Charlie.

  “And the show tomorrow?”

  “Oh yes, sir.”

  “Know what you’ve got to do?”

  “Yes, sir, and looking forward to it!” said Charlie bravely.

  “Mighty glad, mighty glad,” said Major Tib, but his attention had wandered and Charlie could escape.

  He did know what he had to do—more than Major Tib could dream of. Not only did he know how to lower and raise the ring cage, and pin it in place, and let the lions in and out of the ring, he also knew how he was going to get the lions away from their life of captivity and tricks, off the boat and if necessary onto the train to Venice and freedom, en route to Africa. The night before he had sat late into the night with the lions, hatching their plan. Tonight he would be in the parade, and tomorrow would be his first and last day with the show, the day he would steal the lions.