Tigers weigh between 130–189 kgs, and most of this is muscle.
Tigers grow to about 90 cms tall.
Tigers prey on herbivores, especially spotted deer.
Tigers eat up to 5 kgs at one meal and up to 25 kgs each day.
Tigers usually kill every 3–4 days.
Tigers live from 15–20 years.
Tigers breed at the end of the monsoon season and into winter.
Tigers (female) gestate their cubs for about 105 days.
Tigers give birth to 3–6 cubs.
Tiger cubs often don’t survive, though.
While I was finishing it, Blinky came and read it over my shoulder in the way I wish teachers wouldn’t (it’s even worse when you’re doing a test, and they sneak up silently behind you). ‘Did you really have all that information in your head, Latin names and all,’ he asked me, ‘or have you got an encyclopaedia in your bag?’
‘Doesn’t need one,’ Brody told him. ‘He’s got an encyclopaedia for a brain.’
‘That’s quite amazing, Josh, and I wish I had your memory,’ Mr Baynton went on. ‘But it’s not very–well–poetic, is it? Perhaps you could–er–add something. Try to use your imagination.’
He’s basically OK, Mr Baynton, but that thing about using your imagination really gets me. I mean, how do you use it? Where do you keep it, and where does it go when you’re not using it?
I started again. Five minutes later, Blinky called out, ‘Time’s almost up! Let’s hear a couple of your poems. Who wants to go first? Octavia?’
Octavia Foskett wears sparkly hair-slides and very shiny shoes and keeps her pens and pencils in a fluffy pink pencil-case. She’s got a little-girly voice that you can hardly hear, and the way she read her poem made it sound like a nursery rhyme.
‘Tiger, tiger, fierce and strong,
Tiger, tiger, striped and bright,
Tiger, tiger, rare and special
Tiger, run with all your might.’
Mr Baynton nodded. ‘Thank you, Octavia, that’s very good indeed, and you’ve even made it rhyme. Who next?’
‘Dental’s got her hand up,’ pointed out Toby. ‘Ask her, she knows all about tigers. She’s from Sarth Effrica.’
‘Who?–er, oh yes. Florence, er, Floss. Thank you.’
Floss gave Toby a withering look. ‘Tigers don’t come from Africa. Don’t you know anything?’ Then she looked down at her draft book. ‘I’m still working on it, but this will give you the idea.’ She read out, very clearly:
‘Who can know a tiger’s mind?
Who can pace on tiger feet?
Who can see the forest shadows
Through a tiger’s fiery eyes?
Who can know a tiger’s heart?
Who can dream a tiger’s dreams?
‘And that’s as far as I’ve got,’ she said, in a different, more ordinary voice.
‘Well,’ said Mr Baynton, ‘that’s certainly an original approach. Thank you, er, Floss, for sharing that with us. I hope you all noticed how she used rhetorical questions, just like in Blake’s poem. Well, time’s up now! You can finish these off for homework, and we’ll look at them again next week.’
‘I’ve got one!’ Toby’s hand was up now.
‘Go on then,’ said Mr Baynton. Honestly, some teachers never learn.
Toby paused to make sure everyone was listening. Then he read out:
‘Tiger, tiger, tiger rug,
Staring with your ugly mug,
There’s not a lot that you can do
When people wipe their feet on you.’
There was an eruption of laughing. Chad overdid it, rocking back on his chair and clutching his stomach. He overbalanced, then grabbed at Toby one side and the radiator the other, just about saving himself. I turned round to Toby, and said, ‘Tiger rugs? Yuk! And ugly mug? Look who’s talking!’ Only I don’t think he heard me–he was too busy lapping up the attention.
‘Fine, well, that ends the lesson on a lighter note.’ Mr Baynton was collecting his books together. ‘See you for Geography. And I don’t want any excuses about homework this time, Chad.’
As we made our way down to the Old Building for Art, Floss tagged along with Noori and Brody and me.
‘That was a crap lesson,’ she said. ‘He does try, that Mr Baynton, but he’s not good with poetry.’
‘What, you’re an expert, I s’pose?’ Brody huffed.
‘No, I mean, he didn’t even ask us what the poem was about. What it said about tigers.’
‘Tell you what, you take the lesson next time!’
Floss gave up with Brody, and fell into step next to me. ‘How come you know so much?’
‘I’m into animals. Specially big cats,’ I told her. I put some what’s-it-to-you? into the way I said it, but she didn’t notice.
‘Me too!’ she said, like that instantly made us best friends. ‘We spent three weeks in the South Kruger last year. It was brilliant! We stayed in a safari lodge. We saw lions and leopards and a rhino there, and all kinds of things.’
‘What, exactly?’
‘Oh–elephants, zebra, waterbuck–and hyena, and loads of birds, like bee-eaters and hornbills and stuff, and klipspringer. You know what, you should go!’
‘Some chance!’ What, did she think we were millionaires or something? I had about as much chance of going to the South Kruger as I did of going on a space-shuttle holiday.
‘You can look up the website––’
‘Joshnfloss! Joshnfloss! Arr, how sweet are you two!’
I turned round to see Bex making kissy-kissy faces, and Toby pretending to put his fingers down his throat.
‘What is it with those two? Why are they so stupid?’ Floss asked me, quite seriously.
‘Because they are. Look, see you later. Er, your, you know…poem. I thought it was, you know, good.’
‘Hey, thanks!’ She looked delighted.
I hurried to catch up with Noori and Brody, and made sure I got the seat next to Brody in the Art room. Floss went to sit with Sophie Cheung and Katie Williams at a different table, and I ignored her for the rest of the day.
16
JUNGLE
We had PE last thing, so I was a bit later than usual getting to St Luke’s. Most of the mums and kids had gone, but through Jamie’s classroom window I saw two people in there, talking. Mr Rose, and Mum.
Brody nudged me. ‘Hey, look–I bet your brother’s gone mental again!’
‘Shut it, will you?’ I said, through clenched teeth.
Noori, the peacemaker, wasn’t with us today–he’d gone to the dentist. Brody looked surprised at how angry I’d sounded, and the truth was I’d surprised myself, too.
‘Hey, cool it,’ he said. ‘Just joshing.’
His idea of a joke, that is. I’ve only heard it about twenty million times.
I told him, ‘Well, don’t josh with me, OK? Not about that.’
Brody shrugged. His little sister, Angie, was waiting for him by the gate. ‘See you,’ he called, and went on home.
I couldn’t see Jamie. I went through the double doors to the corridor, then saw him sitting at the back of the cloakroom, zipped into his anorak with his woolly hat pulled down nearly over his eyes. He was kicking his feet, banging them against the bench.
‘Hi, Jamie!’ I said. He didn’t answer, of course, just looked at me from under the rolled brim of his hat, then down at his feet.
I could hear what Mr Rose was saying to Mum. ‘It’s completely unlike him, this kind of behaviour.’
‘Thank you for letting me know,’ Mum said. ‘Do phone me straight away tomorrow, if anything––’
‘I will,’ said Mr Rose. He came to the door while she pushed the buggy through, and gave a tight little smile when he saw me there with Jamie. ‘Bye, then. Have a good evening. See you tomorrow, Jamie.’
‘Oh, hello, Josh,’ Mum said to me. ‘Come on then, Jamie.’
Jamie looked at her sulkily and heaved himself to his feet. A happy gurgling s
ound came from Jennie’s buggy, but no one else looked cheerful.
‘What’s wrong?’ I asked Mum, when we were all outside.
‘Jamie’s been in trouble.’ She bent down to adjust the cover on the buggy. ‘He’s still not talking, but he seemed all right when I brought him back from the doctor’s. Now Mr Rose says he broke Arran’s new coloured pencils–snapped them in half, every one!–and he scratched Arran’s hand when he tried to get them back. And since then he’s been quite impossible. Behaving like a three-year-old.’
Jamie was trailing behind us. If he heard what Mum said, he showed no sign of it.
‘Oh.’ I wasn’t sure whether this was progress or not. Being naughty on purpose, scratching people–that wasn’t Jamie. He’d never done anything like that before. And Arran was his best friend.
This wasn’t Jamie. It was Leo. I had a weird feeling of something crawling under my skin.
‘What about the mask?’ I said. ‘He’s not wearing it today.’
‘No.’ Mum looked round to check he was keeping up. ‘He had it on at Dr Awan’s–it was the only way I could get him to talk to her. He told her that Leo was fine. And he had it on when I left him at school at lunchtime. But Mr Rose says he took it off when he was supposed to finish the play with Arran, and wouldn’t join in. Wouldn’t cooperate at all.’
‘He did yesterday,’ I said. ‘He talked yesterday. It’s like he’s frightened of what Leo might say.’
Mum shook her head. ‘I don’t know. I really don’t know. I’ll have another go at talking to him at home, with or without the mask. We’re going the long way round, by the shops, to buy new pencils for Arran, then we’re taking them to his house. You go on home, if you’d rather.’
The nearest shops are in the High Street. We went into Smith’s, and I bought two Pilot pens, and Mum chose a really nice set of pencils for Arran. I wondered if Jamie would have to pay for them out of his pocket money, or whether he’d get away with it, the way he seemed to be getting away with lots of things lately. He showed no interest, staring across the street, pushing out his lower lip. Half of me wanted to shake some sense into him, but the other half was really worried. What if we never got our normal Jamie back again? Where had he gone?
Mum had to buy a birthday card for her friend Claire. I knew she’d spend ages choosing, so I wandered over to look at the magazines. Jamie stayed with Mum, still with that babyish scowl on his face, just standing there looking at nothing. If he wanted attention, he wasn’t going to get it from me.
‘Hi, Josh,’ said a voice. ‘Thought it was you.’
I turned round, and there was Floss. We’re meant to wear plain coats for school, black or navy, but Floss had this patterned knitted thing with red zig-zags across it, and a bright red scarf and hat. I suppose, being new, she was allowed to wear it till she got a dull boring coat like everyone else’s.
‘Is that your mum?’ she asked me. ‘And your little brother? He looks cute.’
I scuffed my shoe against the bottom magazine shelf and gave a Kevin-like mumble in reply.
‘Are you going home now?’ Floss went on. ‘Cos I live quite near you, in Lansdowne Avenue. You’re in Lansdowne Crescent, aren’t you?’
Mum was at the checkout now, paying. She looked round for Jamie, and saw me with Floss. I started thinking about my Book of Cats, which is what I do when I don’t want to be somewhere. It’s like I can hide in it, just by thinking.
But Floss hadn’t finished yet. When we left the shop, she tagged along.
‘Hello!’ she said to Mum. ‘I’m Floss Darrow. I’m in Josh’s class.’ And she actually held out her hand to shake Mum’s.
Mum looked surprised, because Floss is taller and looks older than me, and wasn’t in proper school uniform, but they did the handshaking thing like business people at a meeting. ‘Hello, I’m Josh’s mum. This is Jamie, and baby Jennie.’
‘Hi there, Jamie,’ said Floss. Then she bent down to the buggy. ‘Hello there, Jennie, how are you?’ You’d have thought she seriously expected Jennie to answer. ‘She’s gorgeous, isn’t she? You’re so lucky, Josh. I’d love a baby brother or sister. I’m an only child, and I’m OK with that, but it’d be really cool to have a baby in the family.’
I could see that Mum was well impressed with Floss and her good manners. Mum’s always going on about Noori, how polite he is, how he always says thank you and please, and calls her Mrs Bowman, and whenever he’s going home from our house he thanks her and Mike for having him. ‘Such a nice boy, Noori is. I’m glad you’re friends with him.’ You’d think I was a total slob, compared. I knew she’d say, later on, ‘Such a nice girl, that Floss is. I’m glad you’re friends with her.’
We set off home, Floss with us. When we got to the corner of Harcourt Drive, where Arran lives, Mum and Jamie and the buggy turned right. Mum gave me the key, and I walked on with Floss. All I needed now was Bex or Toby to come by on the bus.
I was wondering how soon I could get rid of her, when she said, ‘See this.’ She took a screwed-up piece of paper out of her coat pocket, and handed it to me. I unfolded it, and read:
Dental, dental, dental Floss
We think U R total dross
What we see is what we get
UR such a teacher’s pet
Y don’t U shut your gr8 big mouth
Go back home to Africa (South)
‘Who gave you this?’ I asked, though I could guess.
‘No one gave it to me. I found it in my coat pocket after PE. It’s that Bex girl, isn’t it, and Toby?’
‘It’s just a joke, I expect,’ I said. ‘They’ll get tired of it soon.’
Floss frowned. ‘But why do they do it? I’ve tried to be friendly.’
‘It’s just–anyone who’s new, they’ll try to wind them up. Specially if there’s anything, well, different about you. With you it’s cos you talk different and there’s lots of stuff you don’t know about school yet. And it’s cos you’re, you know, quite brainy. Just ignore them.’
I sounded just like my dad. We’d had conversations like this.
Floss was striding along the pavement so fast that I had to scuttle to keep up, then wondered why I was bothering. ‘OK,’ she said, ‘so I’m brainy. So are you. So’s Noori. What’s wrong with that?’
‘It’s like, if you’re clever, you have to hide it a lot of the time,’ I told her. ‘You don’t have to keep putting your hand up. It helps if you sometimes act a bit thick. Noori’s OK, cos he’s quiet. No one bothers him. So’s Sophie Cheung, and she comes top in everything.’
‘I don’t get it! How come Bex and Toby get to decide what’s allowed and what’s not? There are what, twenty-eight other kids in the class?’
‘Right, but those two are the loudest. They make more noise than the other twenty-six.’
‘My mum warned me it might be hard,’ Floss said. ‘School’s a jungle, she said. She hated it, when she was my age. She got bullied. That’s why she taught me at home.’
‘So what made you want to start school, then?’ I still couldn’t get my head round this.
‘I wanted to meet other kids. And now I am. I’ll be OK. I can deal with it.’
‘Look––’ I didn’t quite know how to put this. What I really meant was, if she stopped acting like she thought she was better than everyone else, people might be friendlier. ‘Even Chad isn’t as thick as he pretends. It’s not cool to be all that interested in lessons. You could pretend to be bored sometimes. Here’s where I live.’
‘OK. Thanks. D’you want to come round, some time? To ours, I mean. We’re only round the corner.’
‘Dunno,’ I mumbled. ‘I’m a bit busy.’
I let myself in. It was a bit much, having to be Floss’s agony uncle. I’d got enough problems of my own.
At home, Jamie put on his Leo mask only briefly, told Mum what he wanted for tea, then took it off and didn’t speak all evening.
Something had got into the house, something that made me not want to be th
ere. Mum and Mike were obviously worried, but trying not to show it. Whenever Mum spoke to me, it was in a fake breezy way, like she wanted to pretend everything was normal. I did my Maths and Geography homework, then went up to the bedroom and spent some time on my Book of Cats. I stuck in the ‘Tiger’ poem (William Blake’s, not my unpoetic one) and drew a picture to put with it. Then I had an idea for a better poem of my own, so I wrote that down. I was quite pleased with it, so I copied it out and stuck it into the book as well.
When Mum brought Jamie up at bedtime, I’d had enough of the fake-cheerful stuff, so I went to the computer. It was in the spare room, the room that was going to be Jennie’s. It was wedged in near the door, on its little table, because the rest of the room was taken up with boxes and piles of stuff that need sorting. I was still there when I heard Mum talking to Dad on the phone, from her bedroom.
‘I’m taking him on Monday…yes…are you tied up? A-huh–I know–yes. Well, how about Saturday? Can you come over? A-huh. A-huh.’ (Mum always does a lot of this a-huhing on the phone.) ‘Right, yes. Oh, Josh is fine! He’s made friends with a girl from his class–yes, she’s new, from South Africa–It’s good Josh is helping her settle in–fine, I’ll give him a shout, hang on, I think he’s on the computer––’
She brought me the phone. Dad was doing it too, the fake-jolly ‘So, how’s things? What’s this about a girlfriend, hey?’
‘Dad! She’s not a girlfriend. Just someone in my class. We bumped into her on the way home. Don’t even know if I like her.’
‘Just winding you up,’ said Dad. ‘I’ll see you on Saturday. I’m coming over in the afternoon.’
‘What, with Kevin? And Kim?’ I didn’t want Kevin here, with his grumpy face and shifting eyes! Even saying his name made me bad-tempered.
‘No, no. Just me. Josh, I know you’re being a big help to Mum. Good boy. Big help to Jamie, too. You will understand, won’t you, if I spend a bit of time with Jamie on our own–maybe take him out somewhere? But we’ll have a chat, too.’
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