Lizard's Tale

by Weng Wai Chan

  Lili reappeared next to him, and he jumped.

  ‘Are you all right, Lizard?’ she asked, with a little frown.

  Lizard nodded.

  She handed him a cup. ‘Ovaltine. Not too hot,’ she said and she pressed a cold, wet cloth gently to his lip.

  Lizard started with the pain.

  ‘Hold it there when you’re not drinking,’ Lili said.

  Lizard took a sip of the Ovaltine, wincing as the cup touched his lip. The warm, sweet liquid was the best thing he had ever tasted. Lili put the lamp on the ground and pulled the crate closer to Lizard. As she sat down, her hair fell forward.

  ‘Your hair is so straight and shiny and black,’ Lizard said dreamily.

  Lili’s eyebrows shot up.

  ‘Have you ever seen red hair? A little gold, but mostly red? Shiny, wavy, red-gold hair.’ Lizard took another swallow of Ovaltine. ‘Red hair is very pretty. And blue eyes. Blue eyes are pretty too.’

  Lili stared at him.

  Lizard continued to gaze vaguely into space.

  Lili jumped up. ‘Finished?’ she snapped. Then she grabbed the cup, spilling the last of the Ovaltine.

  ‘What? No, I…’ Lizard mumbled, startled.

  Lili turned on her heel and vanished into the shop, and the grills slammed shut behind her.

  Lizard was left holding the damp cloth to his mouth. ‘What did I say?’ he asked the empty air where Lili had been a moment ago.

  He tucked the stool behind the crate and picked up the lamp that Lili had forgotten to take with her. It would come in useful tonight. He wanted to see what was in the teak box that was so important a man had been killed for it. He was sad for Boss Man Beng, and worried, but lurking at the back of his mind was the regret of ninety dollars that he was never going to get.

  Lizard made his way up the narrow wooden steps to the landing. A couple of knee-high kids ran past him, yelling at each other in Cantonese. He could hear the clash of metal against a wok as someone fried up their garlicky supper in the sooty communal kitchen. Nobody paid him any attention as he went down the narrow corridor to his dark, stuffy cubicle.

  He kept his tiny home as neat as he could. There was a shelf above his bed for his bowl, chopsticks and spoon. The dark blue trilby hat hung from a nail on the wall. On the nail next to it hung his school clothes. If you didn’t keep things orderly in tropical Singapore, vermin and decay soon ruined them. His other meagre belongings were stacked under his bed.

  Lizard sat on his bed, put the lamp on the floor and hung the damp cloth Lili had given him on the edge of his shelf. There were electric lights in the building, but they had cheap, low-powered light bulbs in them and there wasn’t one in his cubicle. He took the satchel off—finally!— and dumped it on his bed with a shrug to loosen his shoulders.

  Now to see what was in the box.

  ‘Wei, Lizard.’

  Lizard looked up with a sigh. ‘What, Ah Mok?’ he asked in Cantonese.

  ‘Wah, why your mouth all swell up?’ Ah Mok lived in the next cubicle. He waved a hand at Lizard’s face.

  ‘Never mind,’ Lizard grunted.

  ‘All right. Hey, I’ve got another customer for you.’ The boy grinned proudly at Lizard.

  ‘Maybe tomorrow. I’m busy,’ Lizard said, glancing at the satchel on his bed.

  ‘He waiting outside! He got money now! Five cents for you, five cents for me!’

  Lizard looked at the scrawny boy’s pleading face. With five cents Ah Mok could buy an egg with his rice for lunch tomorrow.

  ‘All right. Go get him.’ Lizard reached under his bunk and took out a large tin box. It used to hold Huntley and Palmers soda crackers but that was a long time ago. He took the lid off and lifted out his ink, brush and water jar. His paper was running low—he would need to get more.

  Ah Mok came back with a coolie from Collyer Quay. He was a gnarled brown branch of a man who looked sixty but was probably thirty.

  The man squinted suspiciously at Lizard. ‘Can write Chinese, ah? And so young…’ he said in a thick village Cantonese accent. He squatted on his haunches and dictated a letter to his wife in China. Lizard transformed his words into legible, if not particularly elegant, brush strokes. The man waited each time Lizard consulted his prized and battered dictionary. Finally, they were done.

  ‘Remember, it’s our little secret,’ Ah Mok said to the man as they left the cubicle. ‘Don’t tell anybody or the real letter writers will put us out of business.’

  Lizard stashed his writing things back under the bed.

  ‘See,’ said Ah Mok, tossing a coin to Lizard as he came back into the cubicle. ‘Good idea, right? We can use your high-class schooling to make money.’

  ‘We’re in trouble if the letter writers find out.’ Lizard said, and he flopped down on his bed, exhausted.

  ‘No, no, the worst maybe we have to give them protection money,’ said Ah Mok in a soothing tone.

  ‘No, the worst is the real letter writers pay a gang to kill us,’ Lizard said gloomily, death being very much on his mind. ‘They wouldn’t bother with the death houses in Sago Lane—they’d just drop us in a drain. Go away, Ah Mok.’

  Ah Mok shrugged and did as he was told, happily flipping his five-cent coin in the air as he went.

  Lizard wondered if his Chinese teacher at St Andrew’s Mission School would be disappointed if she knew that he was using calligraphy skills to make money like this. At least it was practical experience. No, he thought, the letter writing wasn’t wrong—not like the stealing.

  Lizard waited until he was certain that everybody around him was asleep before he turned up the lamp and took the teak box out of his satchel. He rested it on his lap and ran his fingers over the smooth, dark wood. The box had brass hinges and a brass catch, which was held together by a metal ring that had been soldered shut. He pulled on the ring. It felt pretty solid. Someone had taken a lot of trouble to stop anyone opening it. Now Lizard wanted even more to know what was inside.

  He couldn’t open the box—or could he? Grabbing his satchel, he slung it on and put the box in it. He turned the lamp down low and picked it up. All was dark and quiet in the building as he padded to the communal kitchen and found what he was looking for. Next to the brazier, secure in its folded newspaper sheath, was a heavy Chinese chopper. The metal ring on the box felt solid but Lizard was sure the chopper would win out. He sneaked out the back door, down the spiral staircase and into the back alley below.

  It was still noisy outside even at this time of night, with dogs barking, cats wailing, men stumbling home from opium dens, or still gambling and laughing and arguing and cooking and eating and hawking and spitting. From somewhere nearby, Lizard could hear the clatter of mah-jong tiles being expertly swirled as raucous Hokkien grandmothers gossiped and wagered their way through the sticky, sultry night.

  He put the lamp on the ground and turned it up. Then he took the box out of his satchel and arranged it so that the ring lay against a concrete step. He unsheathed the chopper and gave the ring a small whack. When there was absolutely no change to the night sounds around him, he took heart and began chopping at the ring with force. The rhythmic clank added to the night’s music.

  On the seventh whack, the ring split apart. Lizard grinned and wiped the sweat off his brow with the back of his forearm. He was careful to re-sheathe the chopper. A Chinese chopper always gets respect.

  He sat down and opened the box. Inside was a package wrapped in brown waxed paper and tied with string. Was it safer to open the package here in the alley or back in his cubicle? A familiar stink and the sound of buckets clonking from down the lane made his mind up for him. It was the night soil man, coming to change the full toilet buckets for empty ones all along the night soil ports of the back lane.

  Lizard slammed the box lid shut, shoved the box back into his satchel and hurried up the spiral stairs.

  Back in his cubicle, he put the lamp on the floor, sat on his bunk and took out the box. The string was tied in a knot
he knew well: the Zeppelin bend. His breath caught in his throat as he felt the string and found that it wasn’t string at all but parachute cord. The Zeppelin bend was one of the knots Uncle Archie had taught him to tie, and parachute cord was what Uncle Archie always used. Lizard brought the lamp closer. The cord was made of braided coloured strands: red, white and blue—exactly the same as the cord Uncle Archie used.

  Lizard’s heart squeezed tight as he stared at the knot. It was as if his uncle had sent a message to him.

  Now he really needed to know what was inside. He untied the knot and unwrapped the stiff brown paper. Inside was a book of some sort. Lizard brought it closer to the lamp and flipped through the pages. The whole thing was filled with columns of five-digit numbers alongside columns of Chinese—no, Japanese—characters. It was the type of script he had seen on the Japanese shops in Middle Road.

  Maybe it was a textbook for teaching mathematics to Japanese children. But surely nobody would kill a man for a textbook. What could this book possibly be? All Lizard knew was that the book meant trouble, whatever it was. The thought of going to the authorities crossed his mind, but only for a moment.

  The British owned and ran Singapore, or at least everyone let them think that they did. The British authorities didn’t understand anything and mostly didn’t care, as long as their house boys served the tea on time.

  Lizard carefully wrapped the book back in the waxed paper and tied it up again with a Zeppelin knot.

  The box haunted Lizard. Since it had come into his life, just a few hours ago, he had been caught stealing, been beaten up, seen Boss Man Beng murdered and made Lili mad at him. Lizard feared the box, but he also burned with curiosity. What was the book, and what was it for? And could it have something to do with his uncle’s disappearance?

  Lizard had to find out. He would go back to where he had got it—Raffles Hotel. His uncle had taught him scouting skills, and now he was going to use them. Also, he hadn’t forgotten the beautiful, yet horribly pushy Georgina Whitford Jones and her threat to set her father looking for him if he didn’t return.

  Lizard lay on his bunk, staring at a small, pale gecko on the underside of his shelf. It was missing its tail. It must have lost it in some sort of struggle. The tail would grow back, he knew, but it would never be the same as before.

  He turned his head and touched the sepia photo of his smiling uncle in uniform pinned up on the wall by his bed. ‘Goodnight, Uncle Archie. Wherever you are,’ he said.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The Mission

  ‘Uh!’ Lili grunted as she kicked open the locked door. A quick forward roll brought her into the middle of the room. She crouched, knife poised, as she swept the place with a glance. One window, open. A bulky man, sitting at a table strewn with papers. A meat safe, its doors open, showing stacks of plates and bowls inside. A wok to the left. A sack of rice on the floor.

  The man stood up, wielding his own knife. Lili exploded from her crouch and kicked his stomach. As he doubled over, her other foot smacked against his temple and he collapsed.

  Lili sheathed her knife and dashed to the meat safe. She yanked the stacks of plates and bowls and sent them crashing to the floor. Then she gathered all the papers on the table, rolled them up and shoved them into a deep pocket in the front of her tunic.

  With a grin, she turned to leave. She was certain that Lizard’s red-haired girl couldn’t down a man and acquire top-secret plans like she just had. But before she reached the door there was a pattering noise behind her and something whacked her hard in the back. She sprawled to the floor. Instinctively, she dodged, and a boot stomped right where her head had been a split second ago. Lili glanced up at her opponent, who was dressed just like her, all in black and wearing a face mask.

  She pushed up into a charge straight at her assailant, who sidestepped with a mocking snort and helped Lili on her way into the wall with a two-handed shove.

  Lili crashed head first into the wall and crumpled. Her opponent grabbed her shoulder, spun her around and reached into the front of her tunic to seize the papers. The black-clad figure then drew back and delivered a swift spear-hand thrust into Lili’s stomach.

  ‘Ha!’ Lili thought triumphantly as her adversary’s fingertips hit the metal plate she wore tucked under her tunic.

  Her opponent bent over with an agonised groan.

  Lili sat up, grabbed the papers and drew back to deliver an almighty punch.

  ‘Stop!’ yelled Miss Adelia. ‘Exercise over.’

  Lili dropped the papers and took her mask off, glad to get her sweaty face back into fresh air. Mr Bee, the bulky man, got up off the floor, lifted the padded helmet off his head and limped towards the other two. He pulled off Lili’s opponent’s mask.

  ‘Aw, Ying, what’s happened here?’ he asked in a broad New Zealand accent. Everyone called him Mr Bee—Lili didn’t know whether that was his actual surname, the initial of his surname, or a code name. Ying didn’t answer him. She just stared at Lili, her eyebrows pulled down in an angry V-shape.

  Ying held up her right hand. The index and ring fingers were oddly bent.

  ‘Broken, I’d say. Two fingers broken!’ said Mr Bee.

  Miss Adelia’s face was creased with frowning. She had bobbed hair that was silver in colour but a face that was young and usually unlined.

  ‘What happened, Lili?’ she snapped.

  Lili gulped, reached into her tunic and pulled out the small tin plate, hammered to fit snugly over her solar plexus.

  Miss Adelia’s lips flattened ominously. ‘Explanation, please.’

  ‘The sisters said to watch out for Ying. Her new move, the spear-hand thrust, made them feel like they’d never be able to breathe again, so I’ve been wearing this under my combat tunic ever since.’

  Lili saw the two scowling sisters Yun Meng and Yun Lai leaning through the window and well within earshot. Lili had managed to offend all her S-Stream classmates in two minutes.

  ‘Right, then. I’ll take Ying down to the nurse,’ said Mr Bee. ‘Looks like we’ll have to call the doctor again.’ Ying glared at Lili as she left.

  ‘Whatever possessed you, Lili?’ Miss Adelia said. ‘I need Ying in perfect condition for a mission.’ She closed her mouth with a snap. ‘Come with me.’

  Lili followed her out of the house into a wide, airy gymnasium. The house they had just left was fake. It could be set up to suit whatever training situation was required by Maximum Operations Enterprise, an intelligence organisation funded by the British government.

  A few years ago, Miss Adelia and her superior, Miss Neha, had pushed for the training of local children as spies, and the result was the top secret S-Stream Program, which was based at an all girls’ school. There were four girls in the training program: Lili and Ying and sisters Yun Meng and Yun Lai.

  All the other schoolgirls knew that the four S-Stream pupils were gifted and in a special class (the S in S-Stream stood for Special). What they didn’t know was that they were also learning to be spies for the British Empire.

  Miss Adelia waved at Lili to take a seat at the table in front of the fake house and dismissed the sisters—one of whom had a bandaged ankle and the other a bandaged knee. They limped out, scowling.

  ‘What were you thinking?’ Miss Adelia’s silver hair crackled with angry energy.

  Lili wondered once again how old Miss Adelia was. She guessed at twenty-eight, or maybe thirty. She had heard that English women didn’t like to tell their age so she’d never asked.

  ‘I was tired of Ying hurting us!’ Lili said. ‘She always wins the training fights, and we end up in pain, so when the sisters told me about her new spear-hand thrust—’

  ‘Ying always wins because she works hard. But she is also careful not to seriously hurt any of you. Your clever stunt has created a big problem. We had plans for Ying—’

  ‘But I found the papers!’ said Lili. ‘That was today’s mission, and I found the papers!’

  ‘No, you didn’t,’ Miss Ade
lia said. ‘More plans were taped behind the meat safe. Your search was not systematic, and you didn’t see that Ying was hiding in the rice sack. That was unacceptably careless. And noisy! Maximum Operations agents are stealthy. No smashing crockery. It’s a fact-gathering mission, Lili, not a Greek wedding.’ Miss Adelia’s shrewd hazel eyes assessed her. ‘What happened?’

  Lili shrugged, red-faced.

  ‘You must focus and not be distracted. Maximum Operations Enterprise is the best intelligence organisation in the British Empire. The Empire is already at war with Nazi Germany. And war is brewing all over the world, even here in Singapore. You will need all your training if you are to be useful to Maximum Ops.’

  Lili nodded, her face burning. Behind the meat safe? So easy, and she had missed them. Miss Adelia was right—she had been distracted, by Lizard, by red hair and by her envy of Ying.

  ‘Well, Yun Mei and Yun Lai are also injured, so it looks like you’ll be taking this job.’ The gym doors opened. ‘Here comes Miss Neha now with the mission brief.’

  Lili was excited to be getting her first real mission, but she felt guilty at robbing Ying of her chance.

  An elegant lady in her thirties wearing a pink sari approached, carrying a briefcase in one hand. School rumour was that Miss Neha was a rebellious princess of an Indian princely state who had run away in her youth.

  She put the briefcase on the table and looked around. ‘Good, no chance of being overheard,’ she said. ‘Everything in order, Miss Adelia?’

  ‘Actually, I need a word.’ Miss Adelia drew her aside and spoke in a low voice.

  Lili strained her ears and caught a few words. ‘Ying…fingers broken…can’t possibly…’ Miss Adelia waved her hands. ‘Both sisters hurt…’

  The two ladies headed back to the table. ‘Well, we have to do our best. I am sure Lili is up to the task,’ said Miss Neha.

  ‘As long as she isn’t distracted,’ said Miss Adelia, looking straight at Lili.

  ‘Please, give me a chance!’ Lili exclaimed, then sat back and composed herself. ‘I won’t lose concentration again.’