Zizou Corder Read online

  Charlie found Hans covered in mud as usual, sitting in the Learned Pig’s pigsty. He was eating cake and playing with a kitten and looking sad.

  “What’s the matter?” asked Charlie.

  “The Learned Pig is not learned enough,” said Hans. “There is a Learned Little Horse in France who is doing algebra, but the Learned Pig only does addition and subtraction and multiplication and division.”

  “But how can a pig possibly do that?” Charlie burst out. “Or a horse, I mean . . . it’s hard enough for human kids. How can animals do it?”

  Hans looked up, and for once he seemed happy. He was delighted that Charlie didn’t know. “Oh,” he said mysteriously. “I can’t possibly tell you. Couldn’t possibly. You’ll have to wait and see—see the show, I mean, and then you’ll see that he just is very learned.”

  Charlie looked at the big, solid, tubular pig that lay snoozing at Hans’s feet, his white eyelashes resting on his hairy pink cheek. He looked about as clever as a piece of lard: i.e., about as dumb as a dumb animal can get.

  But then, most people don’t know that cats talk.

  Charlie wondered about the pig. Could he talk? He really didn’t look as if he would have anything very interesting to say. Hans leaned forward and scratched him between the ears and he snuffled in his sleep, in a rather endearing way.

  Charlie sighed.

  “Tell me about the music, Hans,” he said. “When I was brought on board there was the most wonderful music going on. Sort of wheezing and droning and pumping and singing, all at once. Like an accordion, only not.”

  “Ah,” said Hans. “That’s the Calliope.”

  “Ca-what-appy?” said Charlie.

  “Calliope,” said Hans.

  “Ah,” said Charlie, none the wiser.

  “She’s a sort of organ,” said Hans. “She’s fantastic. Do you want to see her? Let’s go and look.” And in a second, both boys were off down the deck, Hans still clutching the kitten and Charlie hurtling behind, not wanting to lose him.

  “Steady on, you two,” cried a sailor as they skidded past him, not quite knocking over the elegant coils of rope that he had been laying out.

  “Sorreee!” they shouted, and dipped down a hatch on the other side of the stern.

  This companionway was not like the others Charlie had seen so far. It was not wide and paneled and elegant, for members of the public to come down on their way to the big top. It was not dark and cramped like the low passages leading to the storage areas in the hold, nor slightly smelly of warmth and hay like the ones leading to the animals’ quarters. It was quite narrow all right, but it smelled of coal and engine oil, and it was getting noisier and hotter with every step.

  “We’re right above the engines,” said Hans, shouting to make himself heard above the rushing hiss and roar of engine noise, clanging beams and thumping steam.

  “Why?” yelled Charlie. “How can they hear the music with all this racket?”

  “The music is part of the racket!” shouted Hans, and stopping quickly in the passageway, he banged on a small door, as loudly as so small a boy could. There was no reply, and Hans flung open the door and hauled Charlie inside, slamming the door closed again behind him.

  Inside was just as hot but only about half as noisy—which was still, Charlie thought, noisy enough. The room was long but narrow, and the whole length of the long wall was taken up with three great keyboards—like a piano, but longer, and deeper, and colored green and pink instead of the normal black and white. Below were three great pedals of polished iron; above, and in little sections to the side, were a number of curious pegs and handles, each with a label written in old-fashioned writing on a piece of what looked like ivory. Rising above the whole setup were rows of what looked like metal tubes or pipes; the bases visible and the rest disappearing up through the ceiling and goodness knows where.

  “What on earth is it?” cried Charlie.

  “She’s a kind of organ,” said Hans. “Those tubes”—he pointed upward—“are her pipes—like whistles—and the steam from the steam engine plays her. Like when a kettle whistles. Then all these handles and pedals make different kinds of noise come out, and the keyboard is for playing the tune.”

  “Can I try it?” cried Charlie, who quite enjoyed playing the piano, and had once seen a church organ when a cousin got married.

  “No way,” said Hans. “Major Tib would kill you. It’s the loudest thing you ever heard. You’ll see when we get to Paris. We always play it so that people can hear that we’ve arrived—like an ice cream truck. The sound goes for miles. But you know what? It’s a horrible noise.”

  “I heard it on the river,” said Charlie. “I remember it.” He didn’t think it was a horrible noise. He thought it was incredibly exciting. He longed to hear it again.

  When Maccomo went to bathe after lunch, Charlie was finally able to speak to the young lion. He pulled up a bale of hay close to the side of the young lion’s cage, and they spoke quietly and intently.

  “So,” said Charlie, “tell me everything.”

  “There’s two things,” said the young lion, his yellow eyes aglow. “First, what you want to hear. At Greenwich, before we set sail, one of the dockyard cats came sniffing around and ended up in here. He was looking for you. I didn’t realize because I hadn’t met you then—but he was talking about the Cat-speaking boy and the missing parents whom all cats love, and saying they were being taken to Paris and the boy must be told. So that’s great for you because we are going to Paris. So you’re on track. Are you pleased?”

  Charlie had such a smile on his face. The lion could see that his news had made Charlie so happy that he needed a moment to let it sink in.

  “They’re on board the SharkHawk,” he continued. “The SharkHawk cat was telling everybody, apparently—he was desperate for the news to get through. His girlfriend’s cousin is a Ruins Cat, and was very firm that these humans shouldn’t be lost.”

  Charlie smiled. Good for the Ruins Cats.

  “So they’re probably just ahead of us,” he said. “Do you think?”

  “Yes,” said the lion. “They can’t be far ahead.”

  “So if I keep my eyes open,” said Charlie, “I might see the ship! The SharkHawk! Then in Paris will we—”

  But the young lion interrupted. “You won’t see her,” he said.

  “Why not?” said Charlie.

  “The SharkHawk is a submarine.”

  A submarine! Charlie felt his stomach wobble for a moment. Knowing that his mum and dad were going to the same place as he was great. Knowing they were going by a submarine, under water, with the entire cold, dark sea echoing around them and tons of water on top of them, and perhaps strange pale sea creatures staring in through the submarine’s portholes at them with baleful, scary eyes . . . that was . . . not great. But they were nearby: That was good. And they were going to Paris and so was Charlie, and that was the best news in days.

  The young lion asked, “Why were they taken, Charlie? Do you know who has them?” He had a warm sympathy in his eyes, and in a rush of understanding Charlie knew why: Because the lions too had been stolen away from their liberty, from their families, from their own lives.

  “I believe they were taken because they know something,” said Charlie simply. “They are scientists. I think they must have made a discovery, and somebody else wants it, or . . . I don’t know. But it must be something like that.”

  “And what is the discovery?”

  “I don’t know,” said Charlie. “They were working on lots of things.”

  “Do you miss them a lot?” said the young lion. “I have heard that humans have strong emotions . . .”

  Charlie blinked. “Very strong,” he said shortly, and lifted his chin.

  The young lion watched him thoughtfully. Then he said: “And the other thing . . .” Perhaps he had noticed Charlie’s embarrassment.

  Charlie turned back to him, meeting his eyes between the thick iron bars of the cage. “Y
es, the other thing,” he said.

  “You have to help us,” said the young lion simply. “I have to trust you. If you betray us, then—I don’t know. But we can’t go on like this. You saw how”—here he said the name of the oldest lion, which I can’t write. I shall just say “the oldest lion” when any lion says the name in Cat. Of course they were talking in Cat throughout—“the oldest lion is. How tired and sad. He always used to be planning and dreaming about escape. But now—I don’t know. It’s as if he’s given up. The mothers mostly just follow him—they’re so used to obeying him, and not making him angry, that they’ve forgotten how to think for themselves. Elsina—the girl—she’s brave but she’s young. So I have to do something. And you have to help.”

  “Okay,” said Charlie. He didn’t even ask what help was needed, or what the lion wanted him to do. He just said okay. This could have been very foolish of him. There are a great many stories about what happens when people promise to do something before checking what it is they’re promising, and it always turns out to be “Kill your friend” or “Give me your kingdom,” and then it’s too late to turn back. But Charlie trusted the lion. He remembered the look in the lion’s eyes when he first spoke Cat to him. He trusted the lion, and he liked him. If he could, he would help him.

  “We need a plan to escape,” said the young lion. “We need a human who can help us get off the ship. We need to trick Maccomo and Major Thibaudet. We need help to hide us on our journey. We’re going back to Africa.”

  “Africa!” said Charlie. “Wow.”

  “Are you African?” asked the lion.

  “Yes—my dad is. From West Africa, by the sea.”

  “We are West African too!” said the lion. “From Morocco, where the desert and the mountains come to the sea. That’s where we are going.”

  “Dad’s from farther south,” said Charlie. “From Ghana.”

  “We are brothers,” said the lion. “African brothers. You speak our language. You don’t have to come all the way home with us. We’ll see where your people are being taken, we’ll find a route that works for both of us. We’ll help you too.”

  Charlie liked the sound of that. He liked it very much. It had crossed his mind, the question of how a single boy could rescue grown-ups from other grown-ups—from whoever it was Rafi had hired, or whoever had hired Rafi. He hadn’t wanted to think about it, but he wasn’t stupid. If the kidnappers had been easy to beat, his parents would have beaten them and escaped already, wouldn’t they? (For a moment his heart jumped—perhaps they have! Perhaps they were on their way to rescue him, right now!) But a single boy with a group of lions could surely scare off kidnappers, however tough they were. A single boy with a group of lions could give Rafi Sadler the shock of his life . . .

  In exchange for helping the lions to escape, Charlie would get them to help his parents escape. Simple and brilliant.

  Charlie had an idea.

  “Would you do something for me now?” he said to the young lion.

  The lion inclined his head to suggest yes, of course.

  Charlie smiled to himself as he fished his phone out of his pocket.

  He looked up Cocky Slimy Git in the address book and dialed the number.

  “When I tell you, roar!” he said to the young lion. “It’s the guy who stole my parents!”

  The young lion’s eyes gleamed.

  Charlie had assumed he would get Rafi’s voice mail. He didn’t—he got Rafi.

  For a moment he was shocked into silence. Rafi on the street, at the fountain, with his mum . . . with Charlie’s mum, maybe. Then as Rafi said “Yeah? Charlieboy?” he launched into action.

  “Yeah, you know who I am,” he shouted. “You don’t know where I am, though, do you? You don’t know what I’m doing. You know nothing and I couldn’t be less scared of you! If anything I’ll be coming to get you soon, Mr. Swanky I’m-so-cool jerk! So you’d better watch out, and you had better leave me alone!” He made a frantic face at the young lion, and held the phone out to him.

  The young lion, grinning, uttered a low, threatening, echoing, blood-curdling roar. Charlie knew it was a roar of laughing and being naughty; he knew too that Rafi would hear it as any normal human would—absolutely terrifying.

  He swiftly pressed the disconnect button and collapsed in laughter. Yes!

  Five sailors banged on the door of the lionchamber.

  “What’s going on?” they shouted. “Are you okay in there?”

  Charlie opened the door, still giggling.

  “It’s fine,” he said. “Fine. No trouble. Sorry. Lion’s a bit boisterous, that’s all. Sorry.”

  They went away.

  Charlie felt good.

  Rafi did not.

  “You sniking, cheeky little graspole,” he said. “What the—how the—what was that!”

  He was scared by it. It curdled his stomach. He didn’t understand.

  “You little . . .” he yelled, and dialed his phone.

  Charlie’s phone rang.

  He stared at it, sitting in his hand. COCKY SLIMY GIT lit up the face.

  The young lion stared at it.

  Charlie said, “Roar again,” and pressed the button.

  The young lion really let it rip.

  The sailors came back.

  The phone didn’t ring again after that.

  Charlie felt good.

  Rafi dropped the phone.

  “I don’t understand,” he whispered. He was shaking now. Fear and anger make a dangerous combination.

  “So how about the others?” Charlie said, growing serious again. “Do they agree?”

  The young lion flicked his whiskers. “Elsina will agree. She is ready and impatient for the day. The mothers will do what the oldest lion does. And the oldest lion . . . he will agree, if his spirit is not too low.”

  “So how can we raise his spirit?” asked Charlie, getting straight to the point.

  The young lion gave a kind of lionish smile, lifting his whiskers and showing his delicate, ferocious teeth.

  “The spirit of an old lion is not for bossing,” he said. “But there are ways. And there is something that must be done first of all, and we must start to do it now.” Then he drew Charlie closer still to the bars, and whispered in his ear, and Charlie nodded, taking it all in, and together they worked out how Charlie would start the process of raising the oldest lion’s spirit and saving the lions from captivity. After that, Charlie went back to his ropeshelf and thought about his parents, and Rafi, and planned ways of righting what was wrong.

  Ahead of them, approaching Le Havre, the marmalade cat on board the SharkHawk had managed to swipe a pen from Winner’s jacket pocket, and was attempting to push it under the door of the cabin in which Aneba and Magdalen were incarcerated. The paper had been easy—he had ripped it from Winner’s ship’s logbook, with one vicious swipe of his claws, and carried it in his teeth. The pen was a little harder. It was difficult to get a grip on, and kept rolling away when he dropped it. Plus now it didn’t want to fit under the door.

  The cat thought. The cat had an idea. The cat took the pen in his mouth, and crunched down on it with his sharp, strong little teeth. The plastic casing split and shattered, and the little central cartridge full of ink fell away. Quickly, with his paw, like a kitten batting a ball of wool, the cat batted the ink cartridge under the door. Then he started up a horrible yowling and meowing, aimed through the same crack.

  It was Magdalen, who liked the cat, who woke, and stretched, and said: “Oh shut up, puss.” And when he didn’t, it was Magdalen who said: “I can’t let you in, sweets, the door is locked, as you may have noticed.” It was Magdalen who came to the door, to speak kindly to the distraught-seeming cat, and it was Magdalen who stepped on the ink cartridge, noticed the piece of paper, picked them both up, and set to wondering.

  The next morning, when Sid brought in the prisoners’ breakfast, and the cat swerved in swiftly between his legs, it was Magdalen whom the cat started bothering, pus
hing the pen toward her, rolling on the paper in a meaningful fashion, and saying “Meow! Meow! Meow!” over and over again, and, it must be said, rather irritatingly . At least, that’s what Magdalen heard. Actually, the cat was saying: “Write. The. Letter. Write. The. Letter. Oh for goodness’ sake, woman, get a move on. How hard is it to work out? Pen. Paper. Write the letter!”

  And Magdalen murmured: “This cat’s trying to tell me something.” (“Yes dear, bravo,” sighed the cat.) Which made her think of Charlie, not that she ever wasn’t thinking about him, but it made her think about cats telling him things, and him telling cats things, and she looked at the marmalade cat’s face, staring at her so intently, as if willing her to understand . . .

  And she understood. Sitting with her back to the two-way mirror, she wrote: Dear Charles,

  (How proud she had been of his telephone message! How cleverly he had picked up the clues she had left in her first letter, how cleverly he had left his own clues!)

  I’m sorry to hear you are out sailing all the time instead of being in class: You know too much sea air is bad for you. Daddy and I are enjoying our boat trip, though it’s still a bit of a mystery tour. The food is good and there’s a lovely marmalade cat who is very friendly. I hope this gets through to you. Will let you know where we’ll be staying when we get there; please also tell me which field trips Brother Jerome is planning for you. Love you so much and miss you. Be a good little boy! I know you will.

  Your ever-loving mummy

  Aneba was looking over her shoulder.

  “That’s good,” he said. “But how are you going to get it to him?”

  The marmalade cat leaped onto her lap and stretched out his furry orange neck with its little purple flea collar. Magdalen folded the scrap of paper small, and tucked it firmly into the buckle, held in place by the pin.