Lizard's Tale

by Weng Wai Chan

  Lizard was drenched with icy sweat in dread of the gun firing.

  The hooded man turned to Lizard, his head tilted as if thinking things over. ‘No. It is not possible for an ignorant boy like him to make such a story up. It would take too much knowledge, too much planning, for little gain. And how would he have got the book otherwise?’

  ‘He must have stolen it!’ snarled Katsu.

  Lizard quaked, for of course Katsu was right.

  ‘Impossible.’ The hooded man turned again to Lizard. ‘Are you sure this is the man who dropped the book?’

  Part of Lizard’s brain screamed No! Let him go, but the other part said, It’s him or me. And Lili. He probably killed Boss Man Beng.

  Lizard gulped, dropped his eyes, and nodded once, slowly.

  The hooded man sighed. ‘How much did you think you would get from the British, Katsu?’ He turned to the man with the gun. ‘Take him away.’

  ‘He’s lying!’ Katsu’s face was purple now. His maddened eyes bored into Lizard’s. ‘How can you do this to me? I’ll get you, you filthy liar! I will destroy you!’

  As the men wrenched him towards the door, Katsu spat at Lizard and got him full in the face. It burned like acid.

  The door slammed shut after them.

  Lizard could hear Katsu screaming his innocence. He wiped the spit off his face, guilt and horror twisting his heart.

  ‘You won’t…shoot him, will you?’ Lizard whispered.

  ‘Why do you care?’ said the hooded man.

  Lizard was silent. Then he said, ‘Can I go now?’

  ‘You haven’t asked for your reward yet,’ said the hooded man, a sarcastic sneer in his voice.

  ‘I just want to go.’ Lizard stared at the floor.

  ‘I don’t think I will let you go just yet. Not until I’m sure,’ said the hooded man. ‘Come, let’s go upstairs. And if you are thinking about trying to get away, let me just inform you, I too have a gun.’

  The man opened the door, gave a bow and swept his right hand in front of him to bid Lizard go ahead. They went up to the top floor. Lizard was relieved to see Georgina. She was in a cage, sweaty and tousled, but she was unhurt. She gasped when she saw Lizard, but she didn’t say anything.

  ‘Children! Why am I suddenly infested with children?’ the hooded man muttered, as he unlocked the cage door and pushed Lizard in. ‘Stay there and be quiet until I decide what to do with you.’ Then he locked the cage and left, closing the door behind him.

  ‘Dinesh!’ Georgina said, when the man had gone.

  ‘Missy! Are you all right?’ Lizard said. He was relieved to see her, though she was so dishevelled he almost didn’t recognise her.

  ‘Get me out of this cage!’ she hissed furiously. Her sweaty face was nearly as red as her hair.

  ‘Why do you call him Dinesh?’ asked Lili, slipping out from behind some boxes. She glared at Georgina.

  Lizard jumped. ‘Aiyah, you!’ he exclaimed. ‘Don’t sneak up like that!’

  Georgina looked at Lili and put her hand on Lizard’s arm. ‘I don’t believe we’ve been formally introduced. Dinesh, dear, would you please do the honours?’

  Lili looked at Georgina’s hand on Lizard’s arm, and her lips tightened.

  ‘Uh…Missy Georgina, this is Lili. Lili, this is Missy Georgina,’ Lizard said miserably. He wasn’t sure why, but there was more hostility in the room now than there was when the hooded man had been here.

  ‘So pleased to meet you,’ Georgina smiled sweetly at Lili, then turned to Lizard. ‘Dinesh, surely you can get me out of here?’

  ‘Ah,’ said Lizard, all too aware of Georgina’s hand on his sweaty forearm. ‘Yes?’ He looked at Lili, knowing that only Lili could unlock the cage.

  Lili rolled her eyes. She knelt down and started to pick at the lock again. ‘What happened?’ she asked.

  Lizard told her about the hooded man and Katsu, guilt still raw in his chest. ‘Do you think they’ll shoot him?’ he said to Lili.

  ‘You did what you had to do, Lizard. Don’t worry about Katsu, because right now we should be worrying about whether they are going to shoot us.’

  Georgina’s eyes were wide. ‘What’s going on? Why did they kidnap me?’

  ‘Because…’ Lizard started.

  ‘You don’t need to know,’ Lili interrupted, looking up from the lock to glare at Georgina through the bars.

  ‘Yes, I do need to know! It’s to do with that book you stole from my father, isn’t it? They asked me about it, but I only said that I had found it in the hotel. I didn’t say anything about you.’ She looked at Lizard. ‘I demand that you tell me everything!’

  ‘Yes, Missy,’ Lili said, her eyes cold. ‘I tell you what you want to know. Bad Japanese soldiers kidnap you for cheen.’

  ‘What’s cheen?’ asked Georgina, wrinkling her nose.

  ‘Money,’ Lizard said.

  ‘If you allow, your highness, I’ll get back to work now, getting you two out of this cage.’ Lili looked down at the lock. ‘You can demand all you like once we’ve escaped.’

  Georgina’s glare was like a tribal ritual mask, but she didn’t argue.

  Lizard could see that she was saving it for later. ‘Hush!’ he said. ‘Do you hear that? I think someone’s coming.’

  Lili slipped behind the boxes again.

  Boots clomped to the door, and it swung open to reveal one of the Japanese men, holding a large jug.

  He unlocked the cage door and put the jug on the floor inside, then he locked up and clomped out again, without a single word.

  Lizard was grateful as he saw what was in the jug. ‘Water,’ he said as Lili came out again.

  ‘That’s good, isn’t it?’ Georgina asked, with just a small tremble in her voice. ‘They wouldn’t give us water if they were going to…’

  Lili glanced at Georgina. ‘Here,’ she said gruffly. ‘You better drink now.’

  Georgina and Lizard drank, then poured some water through the bars into Lili’s cupped hands. Lili drank too, then went back to working at the lock with Georgina’s hairpins.

  The heat was stifling. Sweat trickled down Lizard’s face, no matter how often he wiped it. He wished he could take off his shirt, but Georgina’s presence made that unthinkable.

  Lizard and Georgina watched in silence as Lili make the tiniest movements in the lock with the hairpin. Their fear gave way to boredom as time dragged by.

  Lili was too busy thinking to be bored. As her hands got on with the task of picking the lock, her brain was analysing their situation. The hooded man and his thugs were obviously part of a well-organised group. In spite of their civilian clothes, everything about their behaviour, the way they stood, even their haircuts, announced one thing to Lili: gunjin. Spying gunjin.

  She remembered something she had seen two months ago, when Miss Adelia had taken the S-Stream girls to Fort Canning Hill to observe the layout of the town and the harbour. While all the other visitors had been looking at the pretty view of the sea, three Japanese men dressed in suits were only interested in the covered water reservoir to their right. Lili’s Japanese was good enough for her to pick up that the men were discussing the water supply. One of them took photographs of the reservoir. At the time Lili thought they must have been engineers or fanatical reservoir hobbyists. But now she had other thoughts.

  Lili had been trained to notice things and she had noticed those men. She understood now that they had been planning for war. War in Singapore. Invading armies need water, so best not to damage the water supply. Why hadn’t she alerted Miss Adelia? That was as bad as not noticing in the first place.

  What could damage a concrete-covered reservoir? Tanks? Bombs? Lili shivered at the thought of tanks and bombs in Singapore.

  ‘Dinesh,’ Georgina whispered. ‘Can you at least tell me where we are?’

  ‘We’re in Tanaka’s Emporium, in Middle Road. It sells silk cloth and stuff like that,’ Lizard whispered to Georgina.

  ‘Well, isn’t that just t
oo funny,’ said Georgina, not looking amused at all.

  ‘Why?’ asked Lizard.

  Georgina pointed to the boxes next to the cage. Lizard peered at them. Two of them had New British East India Co. stamped on them.

  ‘That’s the company my father works for,’ she said. ‘It exports silks and other things from India.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Lizard.

  ‘Anyway, that’s not important,’ Georgina said. ‘The Japanese—they kidnapped me because of that book, didn’t they? The one with the strange writing. It’s Japanese, isn’t it?’

  Lizard nodded.

  ‘Do you know what it is?’ she asked.

  Lili gave him a warning glance, and Lizard shook his head.

  Georgina frowned at Lizard. ‘Well, tell me how you met her, then.’ She tilted her head at Lili.

  Lizard gave a soft laugh. ‘She caught me stealing from her cousin.’

  ‘Oh!’ Georgina’s eyes opened wide. ‘Then she had you arrested?’

  ‘No. Then she bought me a plate of fried noodles.’ He grinned.

  ‘But why…’ Georgina started.

  ‘Stop asking so many questions!’ Lili said suddenly, her eyes lifting to catch Georgina’s. ‘Don’t you understand? You’re not our friend.’

  Georgina stared back, genuine astonishment and dismay on her face. ‘Don’t you understand?’ she said. ‘I know those thugs might kill me and I need…’

  ‘Ah! Got it!’ said Lili in triumph and she swung the cage door open. ‘Quick, let’s go. Through the window over there, behind those rolls of silk. We’ll have to move them out of the way quietly.’

  Lizard and Georgina got up, stiff from being still for so long, and began lifting the long bolts of silk stacked upright in front of the window and lying them down against the door.

  ‘Wait!’ said Georgina, stopping still. ‘I can hear something. They’re coming back!’

  Sure enough, Lili felt the vibrations through the wooden floors, vibrations that she knew would soon turn into the familiar thump of heavy boots.

  ‘To blazes with quietly!’ Lizard dropped the bolt he was carrying. ‘Get them all out of the way now!’

  They scrambled to the window, and Lili pushed the remaining rolls aside and swept back the curtains. The thud of boots got louder and louder.

  They all looked at the window. It was open, but it was barred. Lili grasped the bars and tried to shake them, but it was no use. They were still trapped.

  ‘No!’ Lili gasped, just as the boots clomped to a stop outside, and the door handle turned.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  A Bullet Hole

  There was a grunt of surprise as the door met resistance from the bolts of silk on the floor. Then the door was shoved open and Lizard was alarmed to recognise the man in the doorway as the one who had put the gun to Katsu’s head.

  He was not as big as Katsu, but his closely shaved head made him resemble him so much that Lizard found himself thinking of him as Little Katsu. The man stood there, staring at the empty cage and then at the three by the window until he recovered and yelled something over his shoulder.

  He turned back to look at them. ‘How you get out?’ he said.

  More loud steps thumped up the stairs, and the hooded man appeared in the doorway. He pointed at Lili. ‘You! Who are you? How did you get in here?’ He moved towards her menacingly.

  Lizard jumped in front of Lili. ‘Run!’ he gasped, pointing at the door.

  Lili dodged Lizard and snap-kicked Little Katsu in the stomach.

  ‘Oof!’ he grunted and grabbed at her, missing.

  Lili swung round with a sweeping kick and smacked Little Katsu in the face with her foot. He stumbled back and tripped over a bolt of silk, falling heavily on his back. Boxes crashed to the floor.

  Georgina jumped over the bolts and headed for the door, but the hooded man was in her way, and she stopped short. In a split second she picked up a skinny roll of silk and rammed it hard into his stomach. The hooded man doubled over. Georgina dropped the bolt and ran past him, but his arm shot out and he grabbed her around the waist, shoving her back into the room. The bolt she had dropped rolled under her foot and she tripped and fell. She sat there, gasping.

  Meanwhile, Lizard had picked up a box and smashed it over Little Katsu’s head. Dozens of colourful reels of cotton burst out and clattered across the floor. Little Katsu rose up with the inevitability of a tidal wave, and reached out for Lizard.

  ‘You dirty animal!’ he snarled, grabbing Lizard by his shirt front. He shook Lizard until the little bones in his ears rattled.

  Lizard was terrified. He knew this man could snap his neck as easily as a used satay stick if he wanted to, and he was pretty sure he wanted to.

  ‘Let him go!’ shouted Lili, as a loud blast shook the room. She turned to see the hooded man pointing a smoking hand gun at the ceiling and a newly created bullet hole in the plaster above him.

  ‘Amusing as it is to watch Nobu fighting little children, I must insist you all stop,’ said the hooded man. He dipped at the waist, and stretched his hand, gun still in it, towards the cage in a mock gesture of invitation. ‘Please enter this humble abode.’

  Little Katsu, whose name was actually Nobu, flung Lizard into the cage. Then he seized Lili and pushed her in. Georgina, not wanting to be touched by the brute, stumbled in by herself.

  Lizard lay on the floor, stunned and breathless. He was shocked at how quickly the rescue had become a disaster. Their secret weapon, ace girl spy Lili, had turned out to be no match for these gunjin thugs.

  Nobu slammed the cage door shut, took a ring of keys out of his pocket and locked the padlock.

  ‘Now this is an interesting situation,’ said the hooded man, putting his gun back in its holster and pulling his jacket flap over it. ‘Who are you, little girl, and how did you children manage to unlock the cage and make such a terrible mess in here?’

  ‘I come before,’ said Lili, putting on a street accent. ‘I want get…money…I hide. Wait for everybody go home.’

  Lizard was impressed that Lili hadn’t given up. Maybe things weren’t totally hopeless just yet.

  ‘Indeed?’ said the hooded man, sounding sceptical. ‘And how did you open the cage?’

  There was a silence.

  Nobu whacked the cage bars with his ring of keys, making everyone jump back. ‘Talk!’ he yelled.

  They flinched. Georgina stood taller, took a deep breath and moved to the front of the cage. ‘I demand you let us go!’ she said, her voice quavering.

  The hooded man moved forward. ‘You do, do you?’ He stared in through the bars at her. ‘Well I am not your subject, to order around as you please. You British! The people of Asia are finished with being slaves to the British. I tell you, Malaya and especially Singapore will be better with new masters. Why should the British take all the best parts of the world? Asia should be ruled by Asia’s people. We Japanese will expand our empire and make Asia supreme!’

  Lizard’s mind flashed back to what Fatty Dim Sum had said to him at the wet market. He sat up. ‘The British aren’t cruel to the Chinese,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, they are,’ the hooded man said. ‘Unfortunate things happen in a war, but the British—even in peace time their razors slice sharp and slow, so you don’t even know when you bleed.’

  ‘You’re mad!’ Georgina said, her voice trembling.

  ‘You British rob these people and you don’t even know it,’ the hooded man said.

  Even through the hood, his contempt for Georgina was obvious. He straightened and dusted himself off. ‘It does not matter. I have what I need now, and I must get rid of you. Nobody important will miss you two,’ he gestured at Lizard and Lili. ‘And, as for you,’ he looked at Georgina. ‘There will be trouble, but I cannot have you running loose and telling tales.’

  He barked something in Japanese to Nobu.

  ‘Hai!’ Nobu said, and he put his keys away and picked up a bolt of cream silk patterned with red and gold chrysa
nthemums and tore three long strips off it.

  Lizard gulped. ‘What are you doing?’

  Nobu nodded respectfully towards the hooded man who was still standing at the door. ‘I tie so you cannot see.’ He held up the three strips of silk. ‘Who is first?’

  There was a knocking sound from outside the room. The hooded man turned, and went out onto the landing. Suddenly, a hand reached out and yanked him out of view.

  Nobu dropped the three pieces of silk. They fluttered as they fell: cream, gold, red. Before they touched the floor, a yell tore through the air. A herd of teenage boys pounded into the room, knocking Nobu down.

  One of the boys came to a halt in front of the cage. Lizard looked up into the grinning face of Brylcreem. He was waving the hooded man’s gun. Lizard had never been so glad to see anybody in his life.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Does Silk Make Noise?

  Lizard looked past Brylcreem and saw Buck Tooth and a gang of teenage boys all carrying makeshift weapons and yelling threats in Hokkien. They piled on top of Nobu, who struggled, but he was outnumbered. In a few moments he was lying face-down, his arms twisted up his back, with four boys sitting on him.

  Lizard vowed to teach Brylcreem so much English that he’d pass the police proficiency test as easy as coconut pie.

  ‘Quiet!’ yelled Brylcreem.

  The noise settled, and Brylcreem peered through the bars of the cage. ‘Wei, you all right?’ he asked them.

  Lili pointed at Nobu. ‘He’s got the keys. Get us out!’

  Brylcreem bent over the man and rummaged in his pockets. He found the keys and a moment later Lizard, Lili and Georgina were out of the cage. Brylcreem gave Lizard a quick manly hug and patted Lili on the shoulder. He nodded at Georgina.

  ‘You kids all fine, huh?’ he said.

  ‘How did you find us?’ said Lili.

  ‘I didn’t know you two’—he pointed at Lizard and Lili—‘would be here. I came to find the English girl.’

  ‘But how did you know?’ said Lizard.

  ‘I go see the boys gambling in Smith Street, ask if anything strange happening with the Japanese,’ said Brylcreem. ‘Ah Keung, he say his brother selling poh piah in Middle Road, see funny things sometimes at night here. Big boxes with animals or something going in the back alley. To a silk shop? He think it’s strange.’