The Tiger's Egg (17 page)

L
ittle Sky Beetle, mountain-bound and sun-striped, poured thick coffee from a dented silver pot in the cluttered wagon of the Bolsillo brothers. The wagon shook and swayed on the bumpy road, but Little swayed with it and did not spill a drop. Baltinglass had stayed at the circus overnight, and in the morning Miles and Little had walked him to the door of his whitewashed house. “Tell me this,” he had yelled, turning to Miles and Little as the door swung open, “did my little bedtime story give you nightmares?”

“A few,” said Miles, “but they were good ones.”

Baltinglass chuckled. “It didn't take the wheels
off your wanderlust, then.”

“It didn't stop you exploring, and you were the one with the crocodile chewing your leg,” said Miles.

“You've got a point there, and that reminds me . . .” He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “I don't know what you did to my old leg last night, Master Miles, but the pain that's dogged me for forty years has vanished without a trace.”

“I didn't do anything, really,” said Miles, although he knew the Bolsillo brothers believed otherwise.

“Have it your own way,” said Baltinglass, “but I've got the leg of a twenty-year-old, and it will have to take many a step to catch up with the rest of my old bones. In fact I'm starting to think I might have one last trip left in me. Maybe we'll all take to the road together once you're finished gallivanting with the circus, eh?”

“I'd like that,” said Miles.

“You might even take a look at these old eyes sometime,” the old man said. A worried look crossed his wrinkled face. “On second thought, maybe not,” he added. “I'd be afraid I might come across a mirror.”

Miles sat now in silence, lulled by the rocking of the wagon on its iron springs, and thought about
the touch that he had inherited from his mother. The words of the Shriveled Fella came back to him: “
The bright hands are on you,
buhall.” That must have been what he meant. He wondered if it was possible to lend someone so much of his life that there was none left for himself, and he shivered at the thought. The weather was turning colder now, and for the first time since they left he found himself looking forward to the soft beds and warm food that awaited them in Partridge Manor. “Not long now,” he whispered to Tangerine, and felt his little head nod silently in the warmth of his jacket pocket.

The circus rolled on through the hills and wound its way slowly up the mountain slopes. Miles had taken over the reins while Fabio dozed in his bunk. He sat in the box seat, trying to imitate the soft clucks and whistles that Fabio used to speak to the horses. They reached the mountaintop in the late afternoon, and Miles realized that it was nearly a year since he and Little had traveled this road the other way in search of Silverpoint and Tangerine. He could see below them the stepped vineyards and the yellow sea of sunflowers through which they had ridden on the tiger's back, and beyond that the dark green of the forest that stretched back along
the road to the hamlet of Hay. He wondered if the tiger was somewhere in that landscape, pacing silently through the shade of the trees, or standing in the clear waters of the stream waiting for a fat fish to swim by.

Fabio and Gila joined him on the box seat and they started down the mountainside with the evening sun shining in their eyes. From time to time they passed small groups of farmers in the fields, fanned out and carrying pitchforks and stout sticks, and marching through the vines and the sunflowers with a purposeful air.

“A lot of farmers abroad this evening,” remarked Fabio.

“What do you expect,” said Gila, “bank clerks?”

“Scarecrows,” said Fabio. “Farmers should be at their dinner.”

The road snaked through terraced vineyards that gave way to sunflower fields, and the circus ambled between the ranks of enormous flowers, their heads drooping like tattered grandmothers nodding off in the fading light. Ahead of them the dark line of trees grew gradually nearer, and at length the sunflowers ended and a small pasture opened out to their left, just before the start of the woods.

“This is where we stop for the night,” said Fabio.

“Good,” said Umor. “The horses are tired.”

“And the tires are hoarse,” said Gila.

They pulled into the field, and the other wagons and trucks followed, arranging themselves in a ragged circle. The circus people dropped down into the soft grass, yawning and stretching the journey from their tired bones, and the cart horses sighed deeply and flicked at swarming midges with their tails. Little sang like a blackbird, and Tangerine wriggled in his sleep, dreaming whatever stuffed bears in warm pockets dream. Umor lit a small fire in a circle of stones, while Fabio uncoupled the horses and Gila filled their nosebags from the hay wagon.

“I wonder what all those farmers were searching for,” said Miles, bending down and blowing on the fire while Umor added more kindling.

“Their lost childhood,” suggested Umor.

“Or a lost potato,” said Gila.

“Why don't you ask them?” said Fabio.

Miles turned to see a knot of men approaching them warily, bristling with farm implements.

“Identify yourselves,” said a squat bald man, holding a pitchfork longer than himself.

“If you wouldn't mind,” added a taller man behind him.

Fabio looked pointedly at the words
THE INCOMPARABLE CIRCUS BOLSILLO
spelled out in enormous colored letters on the wagon beside him.

“I am Fabio Bolsillo,” he said, “and this is the incomparable Circus Bolsillo.”

The man with the pitchfork grunted. “There's a devil on the loose,” he said. “Have you seen it on your travels?”

“It's not a devil, it's a giant baboon,” said his tall companion. He had tangled orange hair and a beaky nose.

“I heard it was a yeti,” said a third man. The others turned and glared at him. “Or something,” he mumbled.

“What does it look like?” asked Miles apprehensively. He had a feeling he already knew the answer.

“We've not seen it,” said the beaky man, “but they say it's big and hairy with teeth like fence posts.”

Miles cleared his throat loudly. “Where was it last seen?” he asked.

The squat bald man turned to look at him. “Ate a whole coop of chickens in Hay this afternoon, then took off into the trees. They say it's headed this way,” he said. “If it shows up in our fields it'll be sorry.” His companions didn't look so sure as to who would end up the sorrier.

“It's just scared,” said Miles. There was only one creature he knew of that fit the nervous farmers' description, and he was worried that they would provoke it into doing something terrible. He was sure that if The Null hurt someone else he would not be able to save it a second time.

“Wasn't too scared of the chickens, was it?” said the tall beaky man. “If you don't mind me saying so,” he added.

“What do you know about it anyway?” asked the bald man, scowling suspiciously at Miles.

“It used to be with our circus,” said Fabio.

“But it took early retirement,” said Gila.

The bald man surveyed the brightly colored trailers that filled the field, as though he was obliged—as chief pitchfork-carrier—to check that it was indeed a circus. His inspection was interrupted by the rumble of an approaching engine, and he turned around irritably. A battered blue police van came barreling along the road and screeched to a halt in a cloud of beige dust. The dust was so thick on the windshield that it was hard to imagine how anyone could see through it. The driver leaned out of his side window, and Miles recognized him at once. It was Sergeant Bramley, and he wore an official police frown that put the bald
man's petulant scowl in the shade.

“Now then,” said Sergeant Bramley, addressing the farmers. “Aren't you supposed to be combing the fields and ditches?” He spotted Miles and raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Master Wednesday,” he said, giving him a curt nod. He ducked back into the dusted cab, and reappeared a moment later. “Lady P. would like a word with you, young man,” he said. A ginger cat poked his head out from below the sergeant's double chin. Miles ran around to the other side of the van and there, sure enough, was the monumental figure of Lady Partridge, beaming down at him from the battered cab as though she were in a gilded carriage. She wore the same Chinese dressing gown she had lived in for years, but since moving back into her stately home she had taken to wearing ornate hats that would once have snagged in the tangled branches and bric-a-brac of her cluttered tree house. The one she wore now was crested with peacock feathers, making her look like some kind of prehistoric tree decorated with red dragons.

“Hello, Lady Partridge,” grinned Miles.

“I'm
so
glad to see you, Miles!” boomed Lady Partridge. “You look quite the part! You must tell me all your adventures as soon as we have the chance to
sit down together, but I'm afraid we have a more pressing matter at hand. I suppose you've heard that our hirsute guest has escaped?”

“You mean The Null?” said Miles. He was sure he should know what “hirsute” meant, having reached the letter “Q” in Lady Partridge's encyclopedia, but it seemed that much of his book learning had been pushed out of his head to make room for the kind of education gained from running through pitch darkness with cave dwellers and having knives thrown at you by a man who never washed.

“I'm afraid so,” said Lady Partridge. “The creature went missing sometime in the night, and I very much hope we are the ones to find it. There's no knowing what damage a scared man with a pitchfork might cause, especially to himself.”

“Can I come with you?” asked Miles.

“By all means,” said Lady Partridge. “If we do find the creature there's a chance it might recognize your voice, if it has any memory at all. We shall have to be very careful, of course, but there are several sturdy policemen in the back of the van, and they may come in useful if they have managed to disentangle themselves from their net on the way here.”

“I'll just get Little,” said Miles.

“Don't be too long,” said Lady Partridge. “Night will be falling soon, and we should press on.”

Miles ran back through the field, looking for Little. He could not see where the Toki sisters had parked their trailer, but as he passed Doctor Tau-Tau's wagon he was startled by the red-faced fortune-teller himself, who stepped out from the wagon's shadow like a dressing-gowned jack-in-the-box. Miles had not seen Tau-Tau since they had left Cnoc, and had assumed that the fortune-teller had returned to skulking in his wagon as they approached his home turf. “Ah, Master Wednesday!” said Tau-Tau in a strained voice, “a quick word, if you please.”

“It'll have to wait, I'm afraid,” said Miles. “I'm in a hurry. Have you seen Little?”

“Never mind Little!” said Doctor Tau-Tau, grabbing Miles's arm. “You
must
show me where the Tiger's Egg is hidden.”

Miles shook himself free. Doctor Tau-Tau was acting even more strangely than usual. “You know I don't know anything about it,” he said. “I only have your word that it even exists!”

“It will be better for you if you tell me,” said Tau-Tau. “It will be better for both of us.” He sat down suddenly on the wagon steps and put his head in his
hands. “My head hurts,” he said despondently. “I need to lie down.”

“You do that,” said Miles. He had spotted Little walking along the top of the wire fence that separated the field from the forest, and he turned on his heel and ran toward her. “I can't tell you what I don't know,” he shouted over his shoulder as he crossed the field.

When he returned with Little, Sergeant Bramley had just finished discussing search strategy with the pitchfork platoon. It was decided that the farmers should retrace their steps, as their homes lay in the direction from which the circus had come, and that Sergeant Bramley and his men would turn back toward Hay and make another sweep of the road that ran alongside the forest.

“You take care, both of you,” said Fabio, his ears wagging as he placed more firewood on the campfire.

“That beast's no teddy bear,” said Umor.

“As you well know, Master Miles.”

“We'll be okay,” said Little.

The sergeant stubbed out his cigarette and sent the farmers on their way, and the police van took off once more along the road, with Little and Miles wedged on the bench seat between Lady Partridge
and Sergeant Bramley. The sergeant squinted through the dusty windshield and drove as though he were being chased by a pack of starving wolves, while Miles searched the trees as best he could through the open side window and Little listened to sounds that no one else could hear above the roar of the engine. They had not gone far when Little laid her hand on the sergeant's arm. Without further signal he stood on the brakes and the van screeched to a halt with the sound of several half-entangled policemen piling up against the bulkhead behind the cab.

“What is it, my dear?” asked Lady Partridge.

“Listen,” said Little.

The cloud of beige dust gradually settled around them, and they could all hear a sound that the roar of the engine had hidden moments before. It was a sort of terrified bleating, coming from somewhere in the woods. Sergeant Bramley straightened his cap and took his truncheon from its clip above the windshield. “Sounds like it's got itself a sheep,” he said.