Lionboy: the Chase

by Zizou Corder

  He opened the bottle and sniffed it. His body had grown used to the medicine and liked the smell of it. He shivered, and poured a glass of water from the little basin, and scattered two or three drops of the medicine into it.

  Part of him knew that he shouldn’t take it – knew it would do him harm in the long run. But his body wanted it, and his mind was already too weak to resist.

  ‘It’s only a bit,’ he told himself.

  He drank it.

  He seemed to feel better.

  He sat back on the loo and closed his eyes, while the train rattled him south towards Spain.

  Where were they all now, he wondered, those foolish creatures who thought they could get the better of Maccomo?

  Rafi Sadler was lying on a narrow hard bed in a cold tiled room in the secure hospital. The ceiling was too high and the walls were pale green. A tough nurse had washed him and taken away his clothes, including his leather coat, which, although it was damp and scummy with green slime from the canal, was still his leather coat, and he criking well hoped he was going to get it back. An uninterested doctor had put on a pair of rubber gloves before coming over to treat him. She had taken one look at the circle of deep cuts around his shoulder, red against the yellow and grey bruising on his skin, and stepped back again.

  ‘Qu’est-ce que –!’ she had said.

  ‘Says he’s been bit by a Lion at the Gare d’Austerlitz,’ said the nurse, who was keen to end her shift and go home to bed.

  ‘Ugh,’ said the doctor, and poured some more antiseptic over the wounds. She lifted Rafi’s arm gently.

  Rafi screamed.

  ‘ L’épaule s’est cassé,’ she said. ‘Shoulder’s broken. You can set it, nurse, drain the wound and give him a rabies jab, HIV jab, smallpox and feline encephalitis, arnica, antibiotics …’

  ‘Can’t you talk English?’ said Rafi. ‘I need someone to talk English.’ His face was greyish-white and he was still cold, though they told him he had a fever. It’s true he was sweating. He looked hardly any better than when he had been yelling at Charlie through the carriage window as the train drew out.

  The doctor stared at him. Still these English people couldn’t be bothered to learn any language other than their own. Pathetic.

  ‘And painkillers,’ he said. ‘I’m in a lot of pain here. It hurts. IT HURTS. OK? Hurts. PAINKILLERS. Quelque chose pour le PAIN.’ He made a face of pain and tried to put on a French accent. Unfortunately for Rafi, ‘ pain’ in French means bread.

  The nurse, who, like the doctor, spoke perfect English, rolled her eyes.

  ‘And some mandrax,’ said the doctor.

  ‘Have they found the Lions yet? Did they stop the train?’ he said.

  The nurse was preparing the medicines.

  The doctor hummed a little tune.

  ‘That little sniking graspole!’ Rafi shouted. ‘That …’

  ‘Be quiet,’ said the doctor. ‘Tais-toi. You’re making a disturbance.’ She’d been working all night too.

  Rafi lay back. His head was swimming and his whole torso throbbed. The nurse sat him up again and started to feed him pills. Then she turned him over and gave him his injections. Rafi lay with his head in the thin pillow, muttering filthy threats against Charlie. After a while he fell asleep, a tossing, restless, sweaty sleep in which he dreamed that he was very small and everybody was laughing at him.

  Outside the hospital Rafi’s horrible big dog, Troy, lay thin and miserable on the dusty earth beneath a municipal shrub. Though Rafi was a mean owner, Troy was a loyal hound, and it didn’t occur to him to do anything but wait.

  Not far away, a mangy black and white cat with a bald bottom was having a dreadful fight with a bunch of bigger cats who had called him names. He had been lurking by his new den in the bins at the back of a restaurant, quietly enjoying the remains of a thrown-out lobster, when they had come up behind him, circling him, and making comments about how of course a scrawny bald-bottom like him would have to eat out of bins because no decent humans would keep such a horrible specimen …

  The mangy cat stared at the luscious morsel of lobster for a moment. He was a peaceable cat as a rule – gobby, given to insulting people and not known for saying nothing, but he was not violent. He detested violence.

  So he turned round and let rip in words. I’m afraid I can’t tell you what he said because it was mostly swearing, but it included a lot about their cathood, their lovability (or lack of it), their ignorance, and how they were a bunch of festering bliddy sniked-up graspoles whose own mothers would pay to have their whiskers minced. And worse. Luckily, because this was a North of England cat with a deep Northern English accent, these Parisian cats didn’t understand everything he said. But they got the gist of it. And they all jumped on him.

  Now the cat – his name was Sergei – may have detested violence, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t any good at it. He was, it has to be said, very good at it. He fought them off by all the dirtiest means – biting, scratching, leaping, coming up and under with his fangs agape. And he made the most appalling noise – caterwauling, shrieking, wailing like a banshee. Although there were four of them and they were bigger than he was, the Parisian cats really didn’t like the way he fought back, particularly when the chef, Anatole, stuck his head out of the kitchen door and joined in the shrieking. The Parisian cats ran off.

  As they ran, one turned back and shouted out something that was not a simple insult. He yelled, ‘Yeah, you think you’re so clever, but at least we know where your precious scientists really are, which is more than you do, nyaaah …’

  That stopped Sergei in his tracks.

  What exactly did he mean by that? The scientists were in Venice somewhere. That’s what he’d been told. Admittedly he’d got the information off a cat who hadn’t really wanted to talk to him (snobby twagglers, these Paris cats). He didn’t like the sound of ‘where they really were’.

  Sergei sighed.

  It didn’t take him long to catch the cats up. They’d stopped for some more scavenging beside a restaurant in the next street. Sergei waited, and after a while the group broke up and the cat who had yelled moseyed back up the street.

  It was the work of a moment to jump out, land on his back and pinion him to the ground, hissing in his ear, ‘OK, then, where are they?’

  The cat who had yelled yelled again. Sergei showed his claws, and described what exactly he would do with them if the cat yelled any more. The cat shut up.

  ‘OK, then,’ said Sergei again. ‘If they’re not in Venice, where are they?’

  The cat hiccuped. ‘Vence,’ he squeaked.

  ‘Vence?’ Vence! Sounds like Venice – had he just misheard? ‘Where the snike’s Vence?’

  ‘In France. South,’ said the cat. ‘Down – south.’

  Sergei was pretty sure he hadn’t misheard.

  ‘Why was I told Venice, then?’

  The cat was so scared that he blurted out his answer: ‘Proper cats don’t like Allergenies,’ he said.

  ‘Proper cats,’ said Sergei dangerously, ‘aren’t prejudiced bigots. Now – are you lying to me?’ With this he tweaked the cat’s ear.

  ‘No!’ squeaked the cat.

  ‘Because if you are,’ said Sergei, ‘I’ll get a gang of Allergenies to come and show you exactly how proper they are – you don’t mind fighting four to one, do you? No, I didn’t think so. Or do you mind when it’s them that’s the four and you are the one? It’s different then, int’it?’

  The cat agreed that it was, but by then Sergei was just fed up and rather sickened by the whole thing, and he let him go. The cat ran off with his tail down, looking back every now and then to see if Sergei was following him.

  He wasn’t. He headed back to his den outside Anatole’s and just sat there, still shivering a little from the exertion and feeling sick and cross with himself for having got into a fight, and cross with the cat for being so stupid and small-minded, and, above all, sick at heart that he might have sent Charlie to th
e wrong place.

  His piece of lobster was still lying there, greasy and pink in the gutter. He sniffed it, and ate it, but he didn’t enjoy it much.

  Ever since the Catspeaking boy had tucked that note into his collar, he had felt changed. It had taken a little time to find out where the Humans were, but he had found them, and got the letter to them. That had felt good. If only those big lugs hadn’t been there, carting the humans off, he could have hung around and got a reply off them to take to Charlie.

  He wouldn’t be feeling sick and cross if he’d managed to do that.

  Through the kitchen door, open and emitting delicious fish smells from the wood-grills, he could see Anatole in his white apron and check trousers, working hard.

  Sergei remembered how carefully Charlie had written his letter, almost in code, so no one but his parents would understand. He thought Charlie was very brave and tough. He thought his parents very clever. Their cure for asthma would help all cats, and above all it would help the Allergenies. And now he, Sergei, had loused things up for them.

  At that moment Anatole shouted at someone inside, and seconds later a bucketful of water came shooting out of the kitchen door into the street, right on top of Sergei, along with some concise French insults, along the lines of ‘Get out of here, you mangy useless cat’, only a lot ruder.

  Sergei spluttered, his whiskers frisking. He had had enough of being a mangy useless cat. In the time it took for that bucket of water to soak him, he made up his mind. He was no longer going to be the kind of cat who people throw water over.

  ‘All right,’ he said. ‘I get the message.’

  He couldn’t just go to Venice and tell Charlie – he might be sending him on a wild goose chase. He would go to Vence, and find out for himself.

  Back on the frozen train, stuck and swaddled in snow, deep in the mountains, Charlie and the Lions were approaching King Boris’s private carriage. This meant Charlie first smiling nervously at King Boris’s immense bodyguard (His Majesty had a constant fear of assassins) and then knocking smartly on the polished panelled door. (The Lions, of course, were not scared. They didn’t know how to be.) If the bodyguard was surprised to see six Lions arriving to visit his master, he was far too well trained to show it.

  ‘Come in, come in!’ cried an excited voice. The King was so looking forward to meeting the Lions that he didn’t even wait for Edward to get the door; he just bounced up and flung it open himself. And then bounced back into his seat with shock.

  ‘My word,’ he said.

  The Lions came trooping into his ornate and formal saloon carriage, their noble profiles high, their strong delicate feet pacing along his beautiful Persian carpet. Only a dim, greenish light made it through the iced-up windows. The effect was most peculiar.

  ‘Golly gosh,’ said the King. He was staring and staring. ‘Oh my. Magnificent. So quiet. Extraordinary. Extraordinary.’

  The Lionesses settled themselves on the floor, arranged around Charlie’s feet like the train of a queen’s long dress. The Young Lion and Elsina sat upright, one on either side, and the Oldest Lion stood by, proud and quiet like an old emperor. They stared at the King, at Edward, and then the Lionesses laid their heads on their huge paws and pretended to go to sleep. Charlie found himself rubbing the Young Lion behind his ears. Edward goggled. Charlie quickly removed his hand.

  King Boris was shaking his head.

  ‘Magnificent,’ he said again. And then something in Bulgarian. It took him a moment or two to compose himself. Edward, meanwhile, observed the scene from the corner of the carriage, watching quietly, looking from the Lions to Charlie with great, if well-disguised, interest, trying to maintain his mask of really not taking much notice of anything. He had had lots of practice at this over the years but never had he found it so difficult.

  ‘Why don’t they …’ said the King, searching for words and not finding them because they were a bit too scary.

  ‘They are trained,’ said Charlie. Though King Boris was largely in his confidence, and knew all about the escape from the Circus, and the kidnapped parents, there was one thing that Charlie had not revealed. He had not mentioned that he spoke fluent Cat. He had always, instinctively, kept this fact quiet. He just somehow knew that people might be odd about it. He mightn’t believe it himself if someone said they’d been scratched by a wounded leopard cub as a baby, and in the swapping of blood they’d somehow swapped languages too.

  So as King Boris didn’t know that Charlie and the Lions talked to each other, he couldn’t know that they were true friends who had been through a lot together and were travelling together now as allies and brothers, bound to help each other and loyal through thick and thin.

  ‘Very well trained,’ said King Boris faintly. ‘Are you sure it’s all right?’

  ‘It’s fine,’ said Charlie. ‘Honestly. They’re sensible creatures. They don’t eat their friends. Anyway, they’ve had their tea.’

  King Boris took in their smooth, tough skin, their long tails, their calm eyes. He looked at the Oldest Lion’s shaggy, wild mane, and the Lionesses’ long, strong bodies. The Lionesses, he realized, were slightly different colours: one silvery, one more bronze, and one definitely with a yellow sheen to her fur. He noted the determined flick and twist of the Young Lion’s ears, and Elsina’s big floppy paws. He knew that retracted inside those paws were claws the size of a man’s finger, sharp as knives.

  They were so beautiful. And whatever Charlie said, they were wild. King Boris was not stupid. He could see that they were wild.

  He breathed out a long, happy sigh.

  ‘I would be honoured,’ said the King, ‘to offer you the hospitality of my little pad on the Grand Canal, and the services of Edward and my staff there, for the duration of your stay. I think it’s fantastic. Look at them. Can I take a picture?’

  Edward was dispatched to get His Majesty’s camera and take some shots of the King with his arm, finally, after much nervousness and ‘Can I really?’ and ‘Are you sure?’, round the Young Lion’s neck.

  He was blushing with pleasure. The Lions, Charlie could see, thought it all rather foolish – at least the Oldest Lion and the Lionesses did, but the Young Lion and Elsina thought it was quite funny and got the giggles. Charlie could see that these two youngsters were itching to play around (they had been stuck on this train for a long time now), to tickle the King or do some other naughty thing. He gave the Young Lion a reproving look, and the Young Lion gave him a very cheeky look back. Then the Young Lion murmured, ‘I think – Yes, I think I’ll just flick this King’s bottom with my tail … Just a quick little flick …’

  Charlie snorted, but he couldn’t exactly say anything.

  ‘Go on, then, Charlie,’ said the Young Lion – to the other humans it just sounded like a little mrowling noise. ‘Go on, tell me off – ha ha, you can’t! Because they’d hear!’

  At this Elsina started rolling about and stuffing her paws in her mouth.

  ‘I’d better get them back, Your Majesty,’ Charlie said. ‘They’re still tired from being stuck on the roof in the storm.’ (As if! They’d perked up no end once they’d eaten and rested a little, and had some of Magdalen’s medicine.) Giving the Young Lion a very stern look behind the King’s back, Charlie ushered them out.

  Chapter Two

  You may have noticed that only six Lions went to visit the King. The immense sabre-toothed creature who had, in a mad rush, joined their escape from Paris, stayed behind. This creature, they all knew without even talking about it, was something too strong and strange to be just shown to people. Besides, he was very tired and needed to sleep.

  When Charlie and the Lions went back to the bathroom, Charlie found himself staring at him again. How very strange he is, thought Charlie.

  First there was the size: half as big again as the Oldest Lion. Then the flat-topped head, the massive shoulders and long flat neck. Then the strong short back legs, the feet small and stiff compared to the Lions’, with their long flexible
ankles and wide-spreading paws. The stumpy tail. And then there were the teeth. The Lions’ teeth were quite big enough, but these – these were astonishing: huge, gleaming, curved, sabre teeth.

  But he was clearly a Lion. Charlie found that he was shaking his head as he looked at him: he had never ever seen such a creature. What was he? Charlie wasn’t the only one to wonder. The Young Lion and Elsina, though they had spent more time with him, were wary too.

  As Charlie was staring, the creature looked up. His eyes, still sad, had a little gleam of pity in them.

  ‘Ask, boy,’ he said in his rough low voice, like old leather and tattered soot. ‘I will tell.’

  Charlie was immensely curious, but even with the creature’s permission he felt shy to ask. This creature had a story, he could see – reasons why he was the way he was. Charlie realized that he was still scared of him.

  Which is bigger, he wondered silently, my curiosity or my fear?

  ‘What are you?’ Charlie asked.

  And for a while time stood still, as the creature began to talk. In the steamy, misty, ornate bathroom, with its pink frills and shepherdesses, and the snow outside, the strange animal told its tale.

  ‘I am Smilodon fatalis,’ said the animal, in his smoky, leathery voice. ‘I have no reason to be here. Until I met my – cousins –’ he gestured to the Lions as he said this – ‘I did not know my name, or my purpose, or my nature. I did not know my family or my self.

  ‘I should be dead. I was dead. I have always been dead. Personally. Personally, I don’t exist. God did not make me. Nature did not make me. My mother did not bear me – I have no mother. I have no father. I am dead. And as a member of my family, I am – I am extinct.’

  He stopped for a moment. Charlie half-expected him to sigh, but he didn’t. He simply stopped for a moment, as if to consider the enormity of what he had just said. The Young Lion and Charlie glanced at each other.