“Does it?” said Dodo. “Don’t I?”
“But Dodo, you do exist,” said Tilly. “You’re here, and I can see you, so that must mean that you exist!” And she was so excited and pleased about it all that she jumped off the leaf-pile and flung her arms round her. The dodo bird squashed up like cotton wool and fluttered free, gasping for air.
“Don’t do that!” she squawked. “You’ll smother me!”
“I was trying to hug you,” said Tilly. “Because I’m so happy to see you.”
The dodo clucked deep in her throat, pleased, looking a bit pink for a bird. “People don’t usually hug dodos, Tilly,” she said shyly. “They hunt us, and they shoot us. Or they stuff us. They eat us, usually. But they never hug us. Never.”
“They hunt you, Dodo? Why? Why would they do that?”
“I don’t know,” said Dodo sadly. “They don’t really seem to like us very much. We must be very ugly birds, I suppose.”
She held out her stunted wings so Tilly could see her properly – her plump body, as grey as a pigeon; her shaggy feathers; her crooked, overgrown beak. Her stalky legs . . .
Tilly nodded.
“But we never did anybody any harm, you know.”
“No,” said Tilly. “I’m sure you didn’t.”
Dodo folded her wings down and put her head to one side, watching Tilly. “They’ve probably eaten us all by now, you know. That’s what bothers me.”
“But, Dodo, I don’t understand. You’re still here. I can see you.” Tilly stroked the spiny feathers on Dodo’s back, trying to comfort her.
“No, you don’t understand, do you? I might be the only one left, you see. What’s the good of being the only dodo in the world?” The dodo scrunched across the fragments of her shell, trying to sweep them up with her wing. It was as if she was trying to make an egg out of them again, so she could climb back in her shell and disappear.
She clucked unhappily. “I don’t even know where I’ve hatched out. I want to go home!”
“Home!” said Tilly. “Where’s that? I’ve no idea where your home is. It must be very far away.”
“Over the hills and far away,” agreed Dodo sadly. “Over the seas and through the skies. Into the wind and down the rain . . .”
“What do you mean, Dodo?” asked Tilly, puzzled.
“Back to the land of yesterday. Just to see if I can find any more dodos. Oh, Tilly, take me home.”
“If only I could,” said Tilly. “Back to the land of yesterday . . . because you’re a bird of long ago. What a long, long way we’d have to go to get there, Dodo.”
“It’s all my fault,” said the dodo. “Don’t you worry about it, please. If I could fly, it might help. But I can’t, you see . . .” She lifted her stubby wings out as far as they would go, and flapped them feebly. They didn’t even lift her onto her toes. “Look at that!” she said. “I can’t tell you how embarrassed I am about that, Tilly Mint. What’s the good of being a bird if you can’t even fly! What a mess!”
But Tilly was staring at her, trying to remember what Mrs Hardcastle had said to her . . . “They’re a bit like you, really. They don’t know how to fly . . .”
“But I can!” said Tilly. “Dodo, I can! I know how to fly! Mrs Hardcastle taught me! That’s what the balloon and the feather were for, in her basket of special things. But she’s asleep . . . If only I knew where she’d put them.” She ran round in despair, looking under leaves and stones, and Dodo ran round after her, though she’d no idea what they were looking for, and at last, tired and fed up, Tilly put her hands deep into her pockets, and there they were.
“Here you are, Dodo,” she said. “A balloon. And a feather.”
Dodo cocked her head to one side to look at them, and then she cocked her head to the other side to get a better look, and pecked at them gently, and then she said, in a disappointed voice, “Yes, Tilly. Very nice.”
“Mrs Hardcastle gave me this special feather, long ago, and I flew to the other side of the world with it,” said Tilly. “And one day she gave me this balloon, and she said that only people who believed in magic could fly away with this.”
“I’ve never even heard of magic,” Dodo said.
Tilly slowly blew up the balloon.
“It’s a sort of egg,” said Dodo wistfully. She tried to peck it, but Tilly jerked it away from her just in time.
“You mustn’t pop it, whatever happens, or we’ll never get going. Are you ready, Dodo?”
Dodo nodded.
“Right,” said Tilly. “You’d better have the feather, because you’re the bird.’ She lifted up Dodo’s wing and tucked the little blue feather under her armpit. “Don’t drop it!” she warned. “Now. Hold onto my hand.”
Dodo stretched her feathers out and placed them in Tilly’s hand. Something of Tilly’s excitement started to run through her, like zig-zaggings of lightning.
“I’m a bit scared, Tilly,” she croaked.
“No, you’re not,” said Tilly. She held up her free hand, and the yellow balloon bobbed over her head on its piece of string.
“Where are we going?” asked Dodo.
“Up, I hope!” said Tilly. “Hold tight, Dodo! It’s happening!”
The string grew taut, and Tilly and Dodo both rose up, wobbling, onto the tips of their toes.
“I think I’m going to be sick!” said Dodo faintly.
“No, you’re not, Dodo!” shouted Tilly. “You’re going to FLYYYYYYYYYY!”
The bats opened their eyes and stared as they bobbed slowly towards them. The spiders ate up their webs in surprise. The barn owl in her nest turned her head right round and back again.
“A flying dodo!” squawked Dodo. “If only my mother could see me now!”
And a sudden wind rushed down the tall chimney of Mrs Hardcastle’s tree house, swirling the swaying curtain leaves, whisking up the dusty pine needles, floating up the feathers on the downy bed, and with a huge Whooooosh! it lifted Tilly and Dodo up, up, to the very top of the tree.
And out they swung, all in a swirling rush, out above the tangle of high branches, up, up, and up, into the blue skies of the land of yesterday.
Chapter Four
Home Again, and Hunted
THEY LANDED ALMOST straight away. It was a soft landing on sandy earth, and they were in brilliant sunshine. They stood up carefully, gazing round. They were surrounded by palm trees with tall scaly trunks and long-fingered palm leaves waving high above their heads.
“Hey! It’s all different,” Tilly said slowly. “This doesn’t look right to me.”
“It does to me,” said Dodo happily. “It looks just right to me. It looks just the place to find dodos.” She scurried round bushes that were vivid with deep red and purple flowers. “Have you seen the dodos?” she clucked to the little creatures that seemed to be nesting deep in the green heart of the bushes. “Have you seen anyone who looks like me?”
She stopped suddenly and lifted up first one wing and then the other, and peered into her armpits, and then clapped her wings across her beak. “Tilly! I’ve lost it! I’ve dropped your feather!”
“Don’t worry, Dodo.” Tilly was much too excited about finding the far-away land of the dodos to be worried about that. “I’ve still got the balloon, remember. We’ll be all right.”
She tied the balloon to a knobble on the tree trunk, where it bobbed like a reflection of the huge yellow sun. A chattering in the branches above her head startled her. She looked up to see a bird as bright as flames peering down at her.
“Look and see!” it shrieked. “Come and see and look at this!”
More birds fluttered down to join it. The air buzzed with the hum of their wings and flashed with the lights of their jewel colours. Monkeys swung along the branches to join them, and dangled by their long arms, jabbering to each other and pointing. A striped snake coiled itself like a spring unwinding round a log, and lay, quiet as secrets, with its quick tongue flickering.
“Well!” said Dodo. “Loo
k at this! Look at this, Tilly Mint! All my friends have come to meet me.”
The fire-bird floated down and circled above Dodo’s head. Then it flew right up to her and pecked her on her fat cheek.
“Oi!” squawked Dodo. “That hurt!”
The red bird flew up and up again until it had lifted itself right over the palm trees.
“They’re dodos!” it screeched. “The dodos are back! The dodos are back!”
The cry was taken up by all the other birds, and by the monkeys, and by the hissing snake, and by the buzzing insects and all the other little creatures in the bushes. “The dodos are back!”
Dodo smiled her beaky smile. She darted from one bush to another, reaching up and crouching down to peck and nuzzle the creatures there.
“The dodos are back!” she sang. “Hurray! The dodos are back!”
Tilly felt herself being nudged forward until she stood right in the middle of the dancing ring, and then one of her hands was taken by a monkey and the other by a black boar and without being able to stop herself she was lifting up her feet and dancing to the whistles of the birds.
“I’m not a dodo, you know,” she kept saying. “I’m really Tilly Mint.” But it didn’t seem to matter. They all seemed just as pleased to see her as they were to see the dodo. Dodo stood in the middle of it all and tilted back her head and crowed with joy to be home again.
But it was the fire-bird who put an end to the dancing. He’d been circling high over their heads, and his shrill alarm call froze them as if winter clouds had blotted out their sun.
“Hide away! Hide away! The hunters, the hunters, the hunters are here!”
Up the birds flew, and away the animals scampered, and all the brilliant bushes trembled into quietness again.
“Oh dear!” said Dodo. “Where’ve they all gone?”
“I think they’re hiding,” said Tilly.
“What a shame. I was enjoying myself then, Tilly. Weren’t they nice!”
“They were very nice,” Tilly agreed. “But I didn’t see any dodos with them.”
“No, neither did I,” Dodo sighed. “But I’m sure they’ll be around somewhere. Perhaps they’ve gone somewhere. To sleep, I should think. That’ll be where they’ve gone. Dodos love dozing. I’ll go and find them, shall I? You stay here and hide and I’ll go and find all my dodo friends and bring them to see you. I know you’ll like them.”
“Be careful!” Tilly begged her.
Dodo scurried away from her, too excited to listen, and calling out to anything that might happen to be within hearing distance. “Have you seen any dodos? Have you seen anyone round here who looks like me? Quite a nice bird, tall, you know, and rather charming actually . . .”
“Caw! Caw! Caution!” A huge grey bird with yellow eyes and a hooded head swooped down and lifted Dodo up between its talons.
“Help me! I’ve fallen off the world!” screamed Dodo.
The grey bird clapped its wing across her beak. “Don’t you dodos ever learn!” it hissed. “There’s danger down there. Danger!” It perched her among the fronds at the top of the palm tree.
Tilly tried to climb after them, but her arms were aching after all that flying, and she couldn’t seem to lift them up high enough. She scrabbled frantically at the sides of the tree. She was alone, and the sounds of danger were growing closer.
“Hide!” the grey bird screeched.
Tilly looked round wildly. She could hear the stealthy movements of the hunter. She could just see him now as he crouched through the bushes holding a net out on a long stick in front of him. Insects throbbed round her ears.
“Dizguize yourzel,” they buzzed.
She backed into a low, sprawling bush that was heavy with hanging flowers, and bright with butterflies.
“Be zafe! Dizguize!” the insects sizzled.
If I was a butterfly I’d be safe! she thought. I know I would. No one would harm a butterfly.
The zizzing of the insects grew louder in her head. A hazy cloud of pale blue butterflies flittered round her. She felt the strange sensation of growing down and down till she was tiny, and light as air. Her arms stretched up over her head, and felt as if they were spreading out like fans, and lifting her up with slow beats. She was drifting up from the ground. Air rippled round her like water . . .
A rich, heavy perfume rose up and she realized that she had landed on the silky petals of a flower, and that her beating arms had come to rest. She could just turn her head enough to see that she had wings of vivid gold with flashes and swirls of crimson, and that they were as delicate as painted silk. And she saw something else. She saw the huge pale pink face of the hunter peering down at her.
“I’ve never seen a butterfly like this before!” he said. “I must have it for my collection.”
“I’m not a butterfly!” Tilly tried to shout. “I’m only Tilly Mint!” But her voice made no sound at all.
She flickered her wings anxiously, trying to lift herself away from the flower and the looming face. But she was too late, and too tiny. The man swung his net over her as she fluttered up. She was trapped.
Chapter Five
The Spell of the Lizard
“SAVE HER! SAVE her!” the grey bird screamed. “Save Dodo’s friend!”
The buzzing of the insects rose to a high, angry howl, and they swarmed like a black cloud round the man and his net. He flapped his arms to try to fan them away from his face. Tilly felt herself being buffeted about in the net, and somersaulting upside down, so that her breath bumped out of her and her wings felt bruised and shredded. Every time she managed to crawl to the top of the net she tumbled down again.
“Save her!” the bird cried.
Then the insects with stings in their tails closed round the hunter. They landed on his skin and jabbed at him angrily, so that his flesh came up in big red bumps. They fizzed round his eyes and his ears, and dive-bombed at his nose. They swarmed along the sweat-sticky edges of his shirt collar and his cuffs. And at last he dropped his net and ran for cover, his arms across his face and the black cloud buzzing round his head.
Pieces of wing like flower petals drifted down to the ground. Tilly, bruised and breathless, crawled out of the net. She would never fly now, with broken wings. Someone could tread on her, easily.
“You had a lucky escape there.” A papery voice crackled, close to her ear.
“Hide!” the grey bird screeched again. “More hunters! Hide!”
Tilly tried to hop up the trunk of the palm tree.
“That isn’t the way to hide!” the papery voice crackled again. “You can be seen a mile off, with all those colours.”
“I wish I could turn into Tilly again,” Tilly sighed. “But I don’t know how to.”
“Don’t do that,” said the voice. “Tillys are much too big to hide.”
“Then how can I hide?” Tilly could hear the snapping of twigs that meant that more hunters were coming.
The paper voice tickled her ear. “Like me!” it said. “Look like me, Tilly! That’s best.”
Tilly looked round the tree in the direction of the voice, but all she could see was knobbly trunk, and scaly brown bark, and nothing at all that could speak.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t see you!” she whispered back. “I can’t tell where you are!”
“That’s the idea,” the voice scratched. “Look again, on your left.”
Tilly looked. The tree seemed to slit its bark a tiny way, and something like a brown eye glinted out, and then closed up again. The crackle laughed. “Saw me then, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” said Tilly. “I can see where you are, but I can’t see what you are! You’re not a talking tree, are you? A talking, winking sort of tree?”
The cackle laughed again. “Look again, and you’d better be quick, or you’ll miss me.”
Tilly looked again, just to her left, and this time she saw the tiny crack again, and the gleam of an eye, then another crack, and the gleam of another eye; a quick flick that s
howed a tail, and a tiny dart forward, and then stillness again, and nothing to see but tree trunk.
“I think I saw something,” she said. “I think I saw something like a lizard, just for a second.”
“So you did,” the papery voice crinkled, disappointed. “You must have better eyesight than I thought. Or maybe I’m getting old, Tilly. I used to be very good at disguises.”
It opened its eyes again, and very clearly was a lizard, scaly-skinned and flick-tailed, and then it closed them and turned back to tree bark.
“You do it, Tilly,” he said. “It’s the best way to hide.”
“But how did you do it?” asked Tilly.
“Ah, that’s my secret. Lizards are like wizards. Didn’t you know that?”
“No,” said Tilly, feeling weak and trembly. Her skin was growing tight and stretched. Her broken butterfly wings had floated down to the ground, and her arms were tucking up under her body. “What’s happening to me, Lizard?”
“Something wizardy,” the dry voice scratched. “Don’t even think about it. Just close your eyes, Tilly Lizard, and listen to the chant:
“Lizards are like wizards,
We’re as old
As magic spell.
We’re flickery and tricksy
and whispery and wise
We’re firelight and waterfall
And lightning in disguise
We’re the keepers
Of the secrets
In holes of shell and bone
Where moles creep
Where owls sleep
In crack of tree and stone
Lizards are like wizards,
We’re as old
As magic spell.
Never told
Never tell.”
“Quiet down there!” hissed the grey bird. “Hunters!”
Tilly breathed in and squeezed herself flat against the tree, and now she could hear a quiet rustling in the bushes, a creak and snap of twigs as two hunters came pushing through a tangle of bushes and stopped for a rest in the shade of the very tree that she was clinging to. They leaned against it. She breathed softly, knowing that she was in disguise now; hidden, and safe.
Tilly Mint Tales Page 7