Through the Tiger's Eye (8 page)

‘See,’ he said when she gave up, ‘it’s missing’.

It was so frustrating. The chest was like a magnet.

‘It’s got Ninja swords in it,’ said Ricardo. ‘We could give them to Rahel and Toro.’

‘Crap. It’s got jewels. They could buy a whole new country!’

A loud knock on the front door almost caused Kurrawong’s first recorded dual heart attack. Grandma was early. Parrot poo! They stuffed the bedspread and pillows back inside and locked the door. Lucy sent Ricardo scooting into their bedroom with the backpack, while she let Grandma in.

Except it wasn’t Grandma. It was a man in a bright pink shirt and a shiny tie with pictures of smiling girls in the kind of swimmers that Grandma would
never
wear. Mr Nigel Adams, estate agent.

‘Hi there,’ he said, smiling.

Actually, he just stretched his lips so you could see his teeth. The girls on his tie were better at smiling.

‘Is Mummy home?’

‘I don’t know. Where does she live?’

His top lip stretched so wide Lucy thought it might split.

‘Very funny. Is
your
mummy home?’

‘No.’

‘Well, I have to pick something up for the owner, so if you don’t mind, I’ll just —’ Nigel Pink-Shirt put one foot on the first mermaid.

T-Tongue thought
not
. He charged up the hallway, with Ricardo in pursuit, doing his best imitation of a Rottweiler. The funny thing was that Nigel Pink-Shirt didn’t seem to notice he was being threatened by the canine equivalent of a rug rat. He jumped backwards, and his lips snapped back into a straight line like a piece of elastic.

‘Call it off!’ he said.

He sounded panicked. Lucy was impressed.

‘T-Tongue –
drop
!’

He did!

Nigel Pink-Shirt straightened up and fixed up his tie . . . and then he got nasty.

‘You’re not supposed to have a dog here. I was only doing your mother a favour because she said you – Linda, is it? – got it for your birthday. But if it bites anyone, the police will shoot it. And if it comes anywhere near me, I will.’

Ricardo bravely came to his sister’s defence. ‘Her name’s Lucy, and T-Tongue doesn’t bite people. He licks them.’

‘Well, he’d better not lick me. Now, I need to pick something up, so . . .’ He tried putting a foot on the mermaid again.

T-Tongue let out one of his Superdog growls.

‘Mum told us not to let anybody in while she’s not here,’ said Lucy loudly.

‘Very sensible, but I’m not just anyone. I’m the agent. Look, all I want is an old box. It’s got dragons carved on it. Have you seen it?’

‘No,’ said Lucy.

‘Nuh,’ said Ricardo.

‘Grrrow,’ said T-Tongue.

‘What the hell’s
that
?’ said Nigel Pink-Shirt, as something fierce and ginger clawed up his leg and onto his bald head.

Then he said things much worse than Mum ever said, even when she was really mad. The Tiger-cat, eyes blazing, made some impressive noises too, and then streaked across the shaky old verandah and around the side of the house.

‘Nobody said anything about a cat,’ screamed Nigel Pink-Shirt, then winced as he touched the blood-red clawmarks on his skull.

‘It’s not ours. It’s feral,’ said Lucy.

‘It’s a feral tiger,’ said Ricardo, then looked really worried.

‘GrrrFFF!’ said T-Tongue.

Nigel Pink-Shirt backed away down the stairs.

‘Tell your mother I’ll be back for that chest.’ He marched back to the car, muttering to himself. He slammed the door and began examining his scratches in the rear-vision mirror.

‘We’d better get the Ninja swords out of the chest,’ said Ricardo.

He had a one-track mind.

‘Grrrow,’ said T-Tongue. So did he.

Then Nigel Scar-Skull opened the window and yelled, ‘And I’m going to tell the Council to set poison baits for that feral cat before it claws someone’s eyes out’.

He drove off in a cloud of dust, revving the guts out of the engine, and the smell of burning rubber wafted onto the verandah.

12
The Octopus
Information Exchange

‘Yoohoo! I’ve made something delicious!’

Lucy and Ricardo had just had time to dump all the blankets and picnic gear into the pit before a familiar voice called out to them from the house. They walked panting into the kitchen. On the table was an enormous chocolate cake, a colour telly and a sewing machine. Grandma never travelled light, even on the bus.

It was a particularly huge chocolate cake with cream in the middle and about three hundred Smarties on top: a Grandma special. One piece was already gone because she’d made Joe, the bus driver, turn the engine off and have some.

Grandma had Joe wrapped around her little finger. She proudly told Lucy and Ricardo how he had kept the passengers waiting while he helped her aboard with her sewing machine, telly and chocolate cake.

‘Then he drove me all the way up here, even though the last bus stop is at the bottom of the hill.’

She lowered her voice: ‘I think he was breaking the rules, just quietly, but I was the last passenger, so no one will know. You won’t tell, will you, Ricky?’

Ricardo was on his second slice and by the time he could speak he had remembered there was something he had to ask Grandma.

‘Do you know the old lady who lived here before us?’

Grandma and her friends were like a secret society with X-ray vision and bionic tongues. Lucy remembered when Mandy Hoffman told everyone she was going to Disneyland and Lucy rushed home to ask if they could go too and Grandma already knew about it. She knew how much it had cost and which credit card the Hoffmans had used to pay for it and the strain it had put on the marriage because Mr Hoffman had wanted to go to Euro Disney instead of America.

Grandma’s old friends were
formidable
. Dad said Grandma and her gang added up to one giant old octopus. If you just tugged on one of its arms and asked a question, sooner or later one of the other arms would tickle you under the chin with the answer. What’s more, they’d tell you why you were asking in the first place. Dad called Grandma’s bingo club the Octopus Information Exchange.

Grandma acted all innocent at first.

‘How would I know? And how do you know it was an old lady?’

Ricardo looked at Lucy.

‘I don’t,’ he said slowly, looking as if he didn’t know what to say.

Then he did what he always did when he didn’t know what to say. He ran around the room, squealing the same word over and over again, ‘Lady, lady, lady,’ until Grandma told him to cease and desist.

Lucy thought she had better say something.

‘I think it was an old lady too,’ she said.

‘Why, Lucy love?’

‘Because of all the mermaids and it’s got an old lady’s garden, like your one, Grandma, with all those roses.’

‘Well, it was your grandpa, rest his soul, who planted all my roses, Lucy, but I think I know what you mean. I can ask at bingo, if you’re really curious. Beryl Shepherd used to live up this way when her Bill worked in the mines. I’m sure she’ll know. Now, show me this horrible old rug you’re all so excited about, and if you stop prancing about and look in my bag, Ricky, you’ll find something special for that dreadful dog.’

Ricardo’s eyes nearly popped out of his skull when he saw how bright the tiger was, but for once he kept his mouth shut. Luckily Grandma hadn’t seen the rug before, so she didn’t notice anything different. Lucy was caught between pride at hearing Grandma say how beautiful and exotic the tiger must have been when the rug was new, and really wanting her to get out of the room in case the rug decided to get even newer. Hang on, what was that between the tiger’s front paws? It looked like . . . oh no! Lucy quickly sat on the tiger’s head, covering its paws with her feet.

‘Get off him, stupid,’ said Ricardo, shoving her.

‘She’s a her, you idiot!’ and Lucy shoved him back.

‘Now, if you two are going to fight, I’m going to make a cup of tea.’

Lucy shoved Ricardo again and he tried to get her in a neck lock.

Grandma shook her head and walked out.

‘Look at this, you dingbat,’ said Lucy, wriggling easily out of Ricardo’s grasp and getting up to show him what she had been hiding.

‘Oh.’

It was very faint, but there was no doubt. The image of a snake was woven into the rug. Its disturbingly large head was between the tiger’s front paws. It certainly hadn’t been there before. Maybe it was a trick of the light, but as they stared, the snake seemed to get even clearer, its body twining along one entire side of the rug before tapering to a pointed tail.

Ricardo had gone pale.

‘First the tiger in the rug, then the Tiger-cat in the tunnel, and then the tiger in the jungle. Do you think . . . ?’

‘Yep,’ said Lucy.

‘Then I’m not going.’

‘We have to. They need more food!’

Silence.

‘How long does a packet of Cocoa Puffs last?’

13
Feline Flashback

Grandma had set up her sewing machine in the kitchen and said she was going to make them both a pair of cargo pants with lots of pockets. Ricardo asked her for a pouch to hold a Ninja sword. She said she’d see what she could do.

‘What’s a Ninja?’ she whispered to Lucy.

‘You know. Martial arts.’

‘Oh! The chaps in the white pyjamas.’

Grandma didn’t watch enough action videos. It didn’t matter. It meant Grandma had the afternoon sewn up and Lucy and Ricardo were free. Grandma thought it was great they wanted to go on a bush walk and said it was terrible that they hadn’t had lunch. She pulled heaps of food out of her bottomless bag – bread rolls, cheese, muesli bars, grapes. Grandma took food wherever she went, just in case war was declared or the stock market crashed while she was at the hairdresser or something.

They formed a production line in the kitchen, making cheese and salad rolls. Grandma cut them each another slice of chocolate cake and asked when they’d be back.

‘Midnight?’ she grinned. They nodded. Grandma cut them even more cake and said, ‘Actually, six o’clock would be better because I’ll have to try your new pants on you. If you leave me alone until then, they might be ready.’

OK, they said, and disappeared.

Charging up the hill, they met the Tiger-cat and, this time, Lucy abseiled into the pit even as the Tiger-cat was leaping at the solid wall. She landed like a professional and raced over the freshly materialised rubble and down the tunnel – until she remembered all the blankets and picnic gear. Oops.

Then she remembered the snake in the rug. When they finally arrived, both Lucy and Ricardo were thoroughly spooked and charged in the door without knocking. Rahel and Toro jumped.

‘Sorry! We’ve got some more food and blankets for you.’

‘Thank you,’ said Rahel, and shoved Toro.

He looked at them with big brown eyes and said, ‘Fank you’.

‘My grandma’s making me Ninja pants,’ Ricardo said importantly.

What could you say to that? Lucy handed Rahel and Toro a blanket each and began getting out the food. They all sat at the table, the Tiger-cat too, with Rahel and Toro wrapped up in their new blankets. T-Tongue sneaked onto the lounge.

Then Ricardo said the fateful words, ‘I have to go’.

‘You’ll just have to wait,’ said Lucy, exasperated. But Lucy realised she hadn’t thought of the most basic thing! Rahel and Toro couldn’t stay down here without a toilet.

Rahel’s announcement was even worse: ‘We must return to the jail’.

‘What? What about your auntie?’ exclaimed Lucy.

‘It is my duty to assist the other prisoners. Mama and Papa would expect it of me.’

Why did she always talk like that, as if she were giving a school speech? And she couldn’t be serious about going back!

‘How are you going to do it? The Bulls will shoot you!’

‘The four of us will sneak back under cover of darkness. Two of us will distract the guards and two will assist the children to escape one by one. We will deliver them here and then later trek across the mountain to my aunt.’

‘Cool,’ said Ricardo.

‘
Crap!
’ thought Lucy.

The Tiger-cat padded over, looked into Lucy’s eyes and . . .