Lionboy: the Chase

by Zizou Corder

  ‘Go away.’

  The fence rose another half-metre. The spears gathered a little closer together. Charlie might have been imagining it, but they seemed to be leaning slightly towards him.

  ‘That’s so unnecessary,’ he said, but more quietly. ‘We only want water …’

  On either side, the fence reached around the island as far as he could see.

  ‘That’s so …’

  The Lions, crouching down, aware and alert, growled softly.

  ‘Please, we only want water!’ Charlie shouted.

  The fence lurched towards them, an army of spears about to march.

  Charlie flung the tiller over and steered the solarboat full speed away from the island, his heart pounding.

  ‘Now what?’ he said to Sergei.

  ‘Look behind,’ said the cat.

  The fence had sunk back below the waves.

  For a moment, Charlie looked hopeful.

  ‘Don’t even think about it,’ said Sergei.

  ‘He’s right,’ said the Young Lion. ‘Don’t go back.’

  ‘But what can we do?’ said Charlie. ‘We’ve hardly any water left, and –’

  ‘We go on,’ said the Oldest Lion. ‘Quickly, and thirstily.’

  Charlie squeezed the dry insides of his mouth with his teeth, biting at them to make saliva. He knew they were right.

  ‘Only another few hundred kilometres to Tangier,’ he said cheerfully. ‘We can get water somewhere there. Or we could just go overland.’ His lips were dry as he powered the boat up: full speed to the Straits of Gibraltar. His mind was hard and dry too – why were human beings so horrible?

  Charlie woke early as they drew near to the Straits of Gibraltar. There was only enough water for breakfast, but he was happy. They had travelled swiftly and arrived well before dawn. They didn’t want to land in daylight and risk the Lions being seen. They had an hour or so before sunrise during which to come ashore somewhere quiet and find water.

  ‘Right,’ said Charlie, raising his eyes from the computer screen, where he had been studying their course, and looking out at the great spaghetti junction/continental security system of the Straits of Gibraltar. Even at this hour many boats of all sizes were toing and froing in the narrow stretch of water, trying to move into the right lane on the right aqueduct level to get from Spain or Portugal to Morocco, or out into the Atlantic heading north into the Gulf of Cadiz, south or west, or back into the Mediterranean going north or east. The overhead water-lanes were very crowded, and the little island of Gibraltar was gridlocked. This system was a nightmare to negotiate at the best of times.

  Charlie tapped the keyboard, his tongue between his teeth as he concentrated. He was pretty sure it was all in place. The computer had read its maps and identified a location for them to land on the north coast of Morocco, near Tetouan, and it would just navigate them straight there, as soon as Charlie told it to.

  He yawned. He hadn’t slept much. Then he pressed the keys, instructing the navigation system. The Lions lay low around him, still snoozing.

  The solarboat changed course a little, and sped up as the instructions went through.

  It was ten minutes before Charlie realized that something was wrong. They weren’t heading to the safe quiet landing place. They weren’t even heading for the shore. They were heading swiftly and unstoppably up on to one of the overhead waterlanes, and they were going fast – too fast.

  For a moment Charlie was about to panic – but he didn’t. Furious, he turned to the computer screen. What had gone wrong? Trying to stay calm (and finding it pretty difficult as they flew up into the dark night), he asked the computer what the boat was doing.

  Tap tap tap on the keyboard.

  The answer came up on screen almost immediately: ‘Heading south Atlantic Barbary Coast Essaouira non-stop as per instructions’, it read. It had reverted to the very first thing Charlie had told it to do, back in the Gulf of Venice.

  Charlie tried to gather his intelligence together. He glanced up at their surroundings. They were on a high one-way waterlane, being taken by the flow, surrounded by other boats.

  Was it worth asking the boat to take them back to Tetouan or Tangier? He stared out over the tangle of waterlanes and shipping channels that lay all around them, at all the seacraft moving to and fro, many under the instructions of their computer systems. They were at the heart of a great constantly moving web.

  Tetouan was already behind them. Tangier lay over to port. The stream of boat traffic going there was clearly visible many levels beneath the solarboat. God only knew how to get back and join that stream. Or how far they would have to go ahead before they would have a chance to turn back.

  Charlie made his decision. They would go on. Then he laughed to himself, because it was foolish to imagine that it was a decision. They had no choice. They were heading out into the mighty Atlantic Ocean in a boat designed for the Venetian lagoon and the mellow Adriatic, aiming non-stop for Essaouira.

  ‘What’s goin’ on?’ said Sergei, his voice coming up from the dim nightlit cabin. He sprang up to the deck, stretching. ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘Nothing,’ said Charlie shortly. He was not in the mood for explaining and, in truth, he didn’t know if he had made a dreadful mistake or if the computer had malfunctioned. And he wasn’t about to find out, because the boat was going so fast he could hardly keep his balance, let alone work out what had happened.

  Sergei glanced at him. He could see the situation all right. He curled himself back in a corner and started to lick his foot. None of his business.

  The waterlane was dividing. Most of the traffic seemed to be going north, heading up the Gulf of Cadiz towards the coast of Portugal. The little solarboat was flinging itself into the portside lane, heading south. It veered and swerved and only just got into position as the lanes forked apart. Charlie stared at the screen. He had no choice but to trust that the boat knew what it was doing.

  They were heading down now. The overhead waterlane began to glide back to sea level, and to the sea. Charlie looked up: there it was, spread out to starboard, silvery in the first shots of dawn light, huge, deep, stretching all the way to the Empire Homelands. The Atlantic. It didn’t look in too good a mood.

  Perhaps it was a wind rising with the sun. Perhaps it was an ocean tide. Perhaps it was a current surging forward. Perhaps it was a combination of all three. Anyway, the waves were big. That was straightforward enough. The wind was confusing – first this way, then that. The little boat, steering determinedly south – Essaouira non-stop! – was being buffeted. It was being carried faster than ever, in the right direction at least, but way too fast. The waves knocked it about. The sea was getting pretty rough.

  Charlie checked the fastenings on his life jacket. He had no idea how the Lions could snooze through this. He was glad, though. He didn’t want to have to say to them, ‘Yes, we’re in trouble.’ But he knew that they were. He could feel it.

  He wanted to ask the computer for a weathercheck. He wanted to ask it what it was doing, ask it to pull in now, at the next safe place. He wanted to kick it. He pushed the screen back into its cabin position, hunched himself over it and tapped at the keyboard.

  No response. It was jammed.

  Up on deck, a huge wave broke over the bow. To port, the sun started to rise out of Africa.

  A huge valley of sloping water opened up in front of them.

  There was nothing Charlie could do.

  Sergei followed Charlie when he went down the companionway – another big wave threw the boat up, and Charlie lurched on the steps. He secured the hatch tight – he didn’t think he would be going on deck again for a while. He sat himself on the edge of a bunk, first missing, then finding a gap between two of the Lionesses. Sea water was chucking itself over the portholes and the boat bucked and strained in its compulsion to make it south through these wild seas. On and on they surged, up each huge wave, and over. Up up up – pause – and over. Charlie was horribly aware of th
e deep dark cold water just below the boards under his feet, and of wishing it would stay there.

  Sergei licked his paw and wiped his nose with it.

  ‘Best leave the boat to do its job,’ he said mildly. ‘Either we’ll get there in one piece or we’ll not.’

  Little as he liked it, Charlie had to agree. In a sailing boat they could perhaps have done something, but here they were powerless.

  They surged terrifyingly for hours. The boat had gone mad and the sea was mad back. Charlie sat in his life jacket with his bag strapped to him, fantasizing about how to get life jackets on the Lions … At one stage he had unlocked the hatch again. Then locked it again. Then unlocked it again. Which was better? He left it closed but unlocked. He actually managed to sleep a bit – a tense, exhausted, buffeted sleep. He didn’t notice when the Lions woke – perhaps they had been awake for hours. One of the Lionesses had been seasick, and every now and again Elsina howled very quietly.

  ‘Charlie,’ came the Young Lion’s voice through the roar and the rush, ‘it’s not your fault.’

  Other than that, nobody spoke. They just stayed in the cabin for hours, praying, holding on tight, straining till their muscles ached, trying not to be bashed and thrown about.

  Elsina’s howls became little mewing noises. Charlie could hear them, above the roar and crack of the sea.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Later, Charlie could never describe how it happened, or even really what happened.

  Everything went crazy. The light went, the boat turned over, water filled the cabin. The Lions were just great presences around him in the water, everybody struggling, trying to breathe, the rush of bubbles, heavy bodies and slow flailing limbs. He pushed open the hatch, he remembered that. There was more water on the other side of it. He remembered coughing and spluttering, and that the light through the water reminded him of the frozen light through the windows of the Orient Express, and then he was in open water, big waves slooshing over him, punching him, trying to drown him. He remembered thinking, The sun can’t still be rising, when for a moment he saw it hovering, yellow and burnt-looking, over the horizon, and realizing that no, it was setting, and so land would be behind him. He remembered looking for the Lions, and seeing nothing but water. He remembered kicking and kicking and kicking his legs, fighting towards where he hoped land would be, for hours – was it hours? He couldn’t tell. He remembered mouthfuls of salt, and finally, miraculously, a feeling of rough sand under his face, warm against the cold sea still snatching at his legs. He remembered thinking, We’ve come so far and now, just as they are almost home, I have drowned them all. He remembered that his tears tasted sweeter than the sea.

  It was Sergei who recovered his senses first, looked round, and didn’t like what he saw. A long crescent of beach, wide and smooth, littered with bits of wood and ancient plastic, the sun setting and the surf pounding: that was all right. What was not all right were the four sodden piles of fur, and the figure of a young person way down the beach, carrying something, and approaching them.

  Sergei sneezed, winced and shivered. The still-warm sun was shining on him. He stretched uncomfortably, then leapt up and ran to each of the sodden piles in turn.

  Two Lionesses, the Oldest Lion and the Young Lion. They were all breathing. Where was Charlie? Where was the Silvery Lioness? And where was Elsina?

  Sergei warmed up quickly in the last rays of the sun. Help was needed.

  He raced down the beach towards the approaching figure.

  There was a smaller pile between him and the person.

  Sergei reached it swiftly. Yes!

  He checked Charlie’s breath. Yes! He licked his face.

  Wake up, boy!

  Giving a little snort, Sergei gave Charlie a swift, clean scratch. The shock of it worked.

  ‘Wake up,’ Sergei hissed. ‘No time for a kip now. Yer got to hide! Four Lions down thataway. Hide ’em! There’s someone coming!’

  Charlie was so dazed he couldn’t even pull himself up. So cold. He clutched at his bag and only half-heard what Sergei was saying.

  ‘Oh, for sniking crike …’ Sergei said. He hissed viciously at Charlie and turned on his heel. He needed local cats and he needed that bliddy sun to go down now so they’d be hidden by the darkness.

  He raced on along the beach. There was a town at the end. He could see the tops of things – some old-fashioned towers. The figure was still approaching, walking slowly. He – it was a he – seemed to have a bucket. Probably collecting shellfish or something, Sergei thought.

  Oh, well.

  Sergei raced up to him, gave him a scratch across his bare leg, and raced on. The guy cried out in surprise and pain, and sat down with a bump.

  ‘Sorry,’ muttered Sergei as he ran on. ‘Nothing personal.’ But at least the man had stopped.

  At that moment, Sergei got a whiff. Fish-stink!

  He smiled in his whiskers. Where there’s fish-stink, there’s cats.

  They were only a couple of hundred metres up the beach, at the base of an enormous wall that separated the town from the sea, scrabbling over a pile of fish-innards dumped, by the look of it, after the market had closed up for the evening.

  Sergei sauntered into the circle.

  They all looked up. There was a fair amount of food, but there was also a fair number of cats. Was this scrawny puss after their dinner? (They didn’t know he was an Allergenie – this was the Poor World, and so few people could afford medicine that nobody had bothered to send Allergenies here.)

  ‘There’s four half-drowned Lions and a Catspeaker flung up on the beach,’ Sergei announced. ‘Two more Lions missing. They’re cold and hungry and thirsty and on the run from the Circus. They’re in danger.’

  The cats looked at him. They looked at each other. They looked, in particular, at a big amber cat with pale-green eyes.

  ‘Where?’ said the amber cat.

  ‘Follow me,’ said Sergei.

  Fifteen cats ran swiftly down the beach to find the Silvery Lioness and Elsina. Forty-five followed Sergei past the young man nursing his scratched leg (he took one look at the gang of cats and ran in alarm back towards the town) to where Charlie and the other Lions were. They breathed on them, stroked them, patted them, warmed them up. They woke them, talked to them, told them they were all right but must move immediately. As the last rays of the sun filtered out of the deep blue sky, the Lions and Charlie were coaxed to their feet and brought along the edge of the sea, back towards the town, to what looked like a tumble of rocks at the end of the great thick wall.

  There was an entrance into the wall, an old doorway with rubble across it. Inside was a sort of room, damp, with whitewash peeling off the walls. Further in was another room, seemingly carved out of stone, with a high arched ceiling, stone benches built in round the walls and what looked like a broken fountain in the middle.

  ‘It is an old hammam,’ said the amber cat, whose name was Omar. ‘Bath-house. Inside the ramparts of the town, against the sea. Very strong, very quiet. No humans come now.’

  Charlie could hear the sea pounding against the outside wall. He had no desire to be anywhere near the sea. He wanted to be by a fire, drinking sweet fresh water, eating an enormous kebab. But he was glad to be there, in the damp, strong, quiet place. He sat on a stone bench, felt the cold come up through his body, and shivered. The Lions huddled close to him, their eyes wide with shock. He put his arms round the Young Lion’s neck and buried his head in his fur. It was different. Salty, cold, damp. How could he have put his friends through this?

  There was blood on the Young Lion’s head – he must have been hit by something.

  The other cats had left again – out looking.

  ‘I am sorry no fire is possible,’ said Omar. ‘But water, yes.’ He gestured to the fountain. ‘Move stone and sweet water will come.’

  Charlie moved the rock that blocked the end of the water-pipe. Clear clean water gushed out. They all bent their heads to drink from it, shivering with
thirsty anticipation.

  ‘Yuck!’ yelled Charlie, spitting and retching.

  The Lions were baffing at their mouths with their big paws, their lips curling back, their faces wrinkled with disgust.

  The water was salt.

  Omar was distraught. ‘I do not know how sea water got in!’ he cried. ‘Apologies, apologies, my friends. I do not know … We must find you sweet water.’

  Charlie, still spitting, opened his bag, and gave a drop of Improve Everything Lotion to each of his friends. It took the taste of the salt from their mouths, and they needed it anyway. Then he used the salt water to wash the Young Lion’s wound. ‘It’s good to be inside and hidden,’ he said. ‘Shukran. Thank you.’

  Omar smiled. ‘Catspeaker,’ he said. ‘A real Catspeaking boy. I am honoured. Welcome to Essaouira.’

  Essaouira! Charlie’s heart leapt and for a moment he forgot his thirst.

  ‘We’re in Essaouira, guys!’ he cried out.

  The Oldest Lion looked about him and sighed. ‘Not quite how we intended to get here,’ he murmured. ‘But here we are. At least most of us …’

  Charlie was incredibly happy to hear him speak. He rushed over and, before he could help himself, he had flung his arms round the Oldest Lion’s neck, rubbing his damp mane with his hands, hugging him, and saying, ‘I’m so sorry, sir, I’m so sorry, I nearly froze you on the train and I nearly drowned you now.’

  The Oldest Lion looked at him in astonishment. ‘On the contrary,’ he said. ‘You saved us from freezing on the train, and you have brought us to our homeland without drowning us. What on earth are you sorry about that for? And there is no time to be sorry – we must find our friends, and we must find water –’

  ‘Cannot, sir,’ said Omar. ‘Sorry. Not safe. Cats will find, and cats will bring back to their family.’

  For a moment the Oldest Lion looked as if he was going to object, magnificently, like a wounded king.

  Sergei cut in. ‘He’s not wrong, yer know,’ he murmured. ‘Best stay here, all o’ yer. For the duration.’

  ‘Essaouira cats know where the storms throw things,’ Omar said. ‘Cats know which wind throws things where. Cats will find them.’