by Jon Walter
Malik blinked in the bright sun. He saw the shoes of an elderly woman who had stopped to inspect him. ‘Are you all right, dear?’
Booty was behind her, looking scared and indignant. Malik jumped to his feet. He said ‘Excuse me,’ then reached past her for his cat and walked away.
He heard Oskar jump out of the boat behind him – Malik didn’t need to look back to know who it was. Oskar ran alongside Malik as he made for the stairs. ‘What was that all about? He’s just a kid. All he wanted was to hold the cat.’
Malik kept up his pace. ‘I don’t like them.’
‘You don’t even know them. I can’t see the problem.’ Oskar put a hand on Malik’s shoulder. ‘You let all the other kids play with Booty.’
‘Not any more.’ Malik held Booty tightly to his chest. ‘He’s my cat and they can’t have him.’
Oskar cut across his path, forcing him to stop. ‘If you won’t come back, then let me borrow the cat. I can pay you for it. They’ve got money to burn, those two. You wouldn’t believe it. It’s just the little one – Sonny – he’s crazy about animals. He had to leave behind a dog, two cats and a hutch full of guinea pigs and he’s really missing them, so I sort of promised …’
‘How much did he pay you?’
Oskar paused. ‘I can cut you in. I would’ve, anyway.’
Malik pushed past him, but Oskar gripped the front of his shirt and wouldn’t let him go. He swung him round by the shoulder. He was taller than Malik. Heavier too. He brought his face up close. ‘I could take him. I could just take him and you couldn’t stop me.’
Booty squirmed and tried to jump free of the two of them.
‘Just you try.’ Malik’s lip curled upward in a snarl. ‘You wouldn’t dare.’
Oskar faltered. ‘OK. You’re right, I wouldn’t.’ He let go of Malik’s shirt and Malik walked away from him towards the stairs.
Oskar followed two steps behind him saying, ‘Listen, I’m just trying to understand. Because this doesn’t make any sense. I’d give you half the money. No, wait a minute. That’s not fair. More than half.’
Malik walked down the stairs to the dorm, past a group of running girls who wore blue school pinafores.
Oskar stood at the top. ‘We could do a seventy–thirty split,’ he shouted after him.
Malik found himself alone in the dormitory and he went through his rucksack, checking his possessions were all in order – it was the sort of thing Papa would have done. He laid out the screwdriver, the hammer and pliers and the roll of black gaffer tape with its end turned into a tab so you could find where it began. He opened out the blade from the handle of his penknife and slid it back again. Then he moved onto his spare clothes, unfolding them, shaking them out and folding them again.
The boys drifted back to their bunks. Oskar returned, full of spite, as he climbed up above Malik. ‘You know they’ll take that cat away from you, don’t you?’
‘I’m not listening.’
Oskar hung his head under the top bunk. ‘They’ll take him away from you as soon as we land. People don’t want to adopt cats. He’ll spoil your chances of getting a family. They’ll put him in a sack and throw him in the water.’
Alex was lying on his bunk. He stood up and said for Oskar to ‘leave him alone’, and Malik had to say, ‘It’s all right, Alex, he doesn’t mean it,’ and Oskar said, ‘Yes I do. You people need to wise up if you’re going to survive this.’
Miss Price came down to take them to supper. She lined them up by the door with Oskar and Steffan at the front. Malik didn’t want to leave Booty, so he stayed where he was in his bunk.
‘Why aren’t you lining up with the others?’ Miss Price asked.
‘I don’t feel too well,’ Malik lied.
Miss Price put her hand to his forehead. ‘How do you mean?’
‘I think I might be seasick. Really, I couldn’t eat a thing even if I wanted to.’
Miss Price agreed. ‘I shall come back with a bowl, but you must tell me if it gets any worse.’
After supper, Alex brought back a plate of fish ends for Booty. He took a bread roll from his pocket, which Malik ate when no one was watching.
That night, Malik attached Booty’s piece of string to his finger, so he would wake up if anyone tried to take his cat, but in the morning when he woke, Booty was there on the edge of his bed, still asleep.
Oskar appeared to have forgotten their falling out. ‘Are you going to help with the shuffleboard?’ he asked when everyone was up and dressed. ‘It’s the knockout stages this afternoon.’
Malik touched the large stainless steel bowl that Miss Price had given him to be sick in. ‘I’m still not feeling too good,’ he said. ‘But thanks for asking.’
Miss Price looked at him suspiciously. ‘You look better this morning. You really should try something to eat. Won’t you come to the canteen?’
Malik shook his head. ‘I really don’t think I could.’
When the other boys left for breakfast, he untied Booty and let him roam about on the floor, then he borrowed one of Alex’s comics and sat back on his bunk to read it. When he heard someone walk into the dorm and cough, he thought it was Alex, returning with a bowl of porridge that he’d sneaked from the canteen.
Malik looked up and saw Sonny Vex standing at the dormitory entrance, watching him from across the rows of bunk beds. His eyes were puffed and red from crying and he picked at the skin around the nail of his thumb.
Malik stood up and walked to the end of the row of bunk beds so he could see Sonny more clearly. He waited for him to speak, but Sonny just stood there and looked at him. Booty suddenly appeared from under a bunk, walking out into the space between them, and Malik ran and snatched him up. He raised his voice. ‘Go away. I don’t want you here. Do you hear me?’
Sonny locked his fingers together to make spires. He twisted his hands. ‘Please …’ he begged.
‘No. You can’t play with my cat. I don’t want you to. Go and find something else to do.’
Sonny’s face collapsed and he bowed his head. He wept silently, his chest rising and falling as he took in gulps of air, and Malik could see the tears that rolled from the small boy’s face and landed on his polished shoes.
Well, so what? He was glad Sonny was upset. This boy had always been given everything he wanted but he wouldn’t get to play with Booty. Not if Malik didn’t want him to. Malik enjoyed seeing him cry.
But then he started to feel uneasy. He felt sorry for Sonny – he just couldn’t help himself. ‘Go away,’ he told him quickly, to get it over with. ‘You shouldn’t be down here. It’s private.’
Booty licked Malik’s neck as though he were hurting and in need of comfort. And in a way he was. He was hurting for Sonny. He felt the hurt get bigger till it was the only thing inside him and then he couldn’t remember why he was angry.
He reminded himself he was angry at Vex and what he did to Papa. But it wasn’t fair to be angry with Sonny – he didn’t even know about the diamond. Sonny had no idea who Papa was. He was just a little kid. Malik felt guilty, and knew he couldn’t simply ignore him.
‘Oskar says you like animals?’ He said it out of nothing. He didn’t want to start a conversation, it just popped out and even though he had a tone in his voice like he didn’t care whether the boy answered him or not, he’d still said it.
Sonny nodded.
‘He says you had a cat at home.’
The boy sniffed loudly. ‘I had two cats.’
‘And did they look like mine? Is that why you like Booty?’
‘No.’ The boy shook his head. ‘They were prettier. Bits of brown and black and white, all mixed in. Your cat’s not pretty.’ Sonny became aware that he might have said something rude and he panicked. ‘But I think he’s a very brave cat to be smuggled onto a ship. Has he got a patch of white under his chin? I can’t remember.’ He took a small step forward and stared at Booty.
Malik thought Sonny was funny – he was still at an age when he sa
id something without thinking about the effect of his words, and though Malik didn’t do that any more, he could remember how it felt.
‘Come and see.’ Malik led Sonny back to his bunk, but he wouldn’t let him come too close. ‘You stand there.’ He pointed to a spot that was the length of a bunk bed from him, then held the cat up so Sonny could see the patch of white under his chin.
Sonny could barely contain himself. He so wanted to touch Booty that he couldn’t stay still on his feet. ‘I was right,’ he said. ‘He isn’t pretty, but I bet he’s clever, and even if he’s not it doesn’t matter. I still want to swap.’
‘What do you mean you want to swap?’ Malik stepped back. ‘You can’t swap anything. He’s my cat.’
‘I can pay you then.’ Sonny looked at Booty with big wet eyes and he twisted the fingers of his hands together again.
Malik was almost speechless. Almost. But not quite. ‘I don’t want your money! I’ve got money of my own. You’ve got nothing that I want to swap. Do you understand?’
Sonny didn’t seem to mind Malik shouting at him. He looked like he hadn’t heard a thing that Malik had said as he took a step closer and put a shaking hand out to touch the cat. Malik shouted, ‘Don’t you touch him!’ He made his voice quiet and threatening: ‘He’s mine. Do you understand?’
Sonny stopped, unnerved by Malik’s tone. He put his hand down the front of his shorts and stepped from side to side. ‘But …’
‘No, Sonny. Now that’s enough. I really do want you to go away and leave me alone. I expect your dad will buy you a new cat once the ship arrives. I expect he’ll buy you a whole herd of cats.’
But Sonny didn’t leave. He pursed his lips and appeared more determined than ever. He took a step closer, then another, and Malik stepped back till he had his back to the bunk and found he couldn’t retreat any further. The boy was right there, only a few steps away, his eyes fixed on the cat.
‘I’ve got treasure,’ Sonny whispered. ‘I’ve got real treasure, better than anything you’ve ever seen. Better than a cat.’ He took a black leather box from the pocket of his shorts; it was the same size as a ring box. He held it in the palm of his hand and thrust it out toward Malik, and Malik reached out to lift the lid and see what was inside but Sonny drew his hand back and stepped away. ‘You can’t touch it,’ he said quickly. ‘Not unless I can touch the cat.’
‘What have you got?’ asked Malik quietly. ‘Tell me what’s inside the box.’
Sonny closed his fingers over the lid. He held it tightly to his chest, just as Malik was doing with the cat. ‘It’s special,’ he said. ‘It’s a treasure tooth. Maybe from a shark or something, a shark who found a treasure chest and bit on a jewel so hard it got stuck in its tooth.’
Malik had to remember to breathe. He could hear his own heartbeat. He bent down on one knee so that his eyes were level with the boy and he put Booty down on the floor in front of him, holding him in place by the collar on his neck. He stretched his other hand out to the boy. ‘Let me see.’
Sonny knelt down slowly, just as Malik had done, and he put a hand on Booty’s head as he delivered the box into Malik’s palm. Booty purred loudly as Malik let go of his collar and opened the lid of the box.
There was the diamond, lying on its side in the satin pillow, still attached to Papa’s old yellow tooth, which had been broken from his jaw by Sonny’s father.
Malik picked it up and the jewel sparkled in his fingers. It glistened, even though the light in the dormitory was dim. ‘How did you get this?’ he whispered.
Sonny was kneeling on the floor with both his hands in Booty’s fur. He had pulled the cat close up against his bare thighs. ‘I found it,’ he said. ‘It’s mine. I can swap it if I want to.’
‘You stole it, didn’t you? You stole it from your father.’
‘No I didn’t,’ said Sonny quickly. ‘I found it and it’s mine to swap.’
Malik took a deep breath. ‘And do you want to swap? The treasure tooth for my cat?’
Sonny picked up Booty and cuddled him close to his face. He wiped his nose along his fur and then he nodded.
Malik’s heart skipped a beat. He tried to think straight, but he couldn’t while Sonny was there with his cat, so he looked away and his eye found an old sticker on a brown suitcase that lay on a nearby bed, half peeled and curling from the leather, showing fragments of a bright yellow sun and a deep blue sky.
The diamond for his cat.
Malik swallowed hard. He remembered what Papa had said about the jewel and how it would make everything all right. That was what he’d said, that it would mean a new start for all of them, that it would make life easier. Perhaps it would mean he could afford a ticket for the boat once it was safe to come back.
Or perhaps Mama would come and find him before then. He imagined them meeting, maybe in front of a ship or at a new house. Malik would see his mother smile. He could see it very clearly, like she was real, right there in front of his eyes, his mother breaking into a big wide smile when he opened his fingers and she saw the diamond.
Malik thought he wanted to go to the toilet. His mouth was dry and he swallowed hard as he put the tooth back into the box and quickly shut the lid.
‘If I do this there’s no going back.’
Sonny didn’t even look up from Booty’s fur.
‘Hey! Are you listening to me?’
Sonny glanced up and nodded.
‘This would be for keeps.’ Malik met his eye and held it. ‘A deal’s a deal. Fair and square. Isn’t that right?’
Sonny said, ‘Fair’s fair,’ but he wasn’t really listening.
‘And you don’t tell your father. Do you understand? You don’t tell a soul about this or I’ll find you. I’ll find you and I’ll take the cat back.’
Sonny breathed in deeply. He nodded again, his eyes wide and eager. ‘So can I keep him? Is that what you mean? Is it a swap?’
Malik’s fingers curled around the top of the box so that it disappeared into the palm of his hand. He quickly put it in the pocket of his trousers. ‘Go on then,’ he said abruptly. ‘Go away and take the cat with you.’ He sat down on his bunk and closed his eyes, unable to look at Sonny and Booty any longer. ‘Just go! Go quickly or I’ll change my mind.’
Malik heard Sonny run four or five paces, then come to a stop. He opened his eyes and saw Sonny looking back to see if he really meant it, and when Malik said nothing Sonny laughed out loud and he squeezed Booty hard, a look of glee across his face as he turned and ran from the room, and the heels of his shoes tapped quickly on the wooden boards till he reached the staircase and was gone.
Malik’s hands were shaking. He couldn’t think, couldn’t believe what he had just done. He wanted to run and find Sonny, but he couldn’t move because in his head was the image of his mother’s face, smiling at him as she opened the lid of the box and saw the diamond.
Malik put a finger on the box in his pocket, then took it away again.
He felt guilty even thinking about it. He was going to scream. Any moment now he would have to scream. If he didn’t then his head might burst.
He ran fast up the wooden stairs and out across the open deck, unable to hold himself together any longer, running blindly across a shuffleboard court with tears on his face, kicking a disc with his foot so that a man shouted after him, but he was already gone, heading through the door that led to the wide wooden staircase and down to the ballroom. He slipped his screwdriver under the latch of the glass doors, flipped it up, then locked the door behind him.
He leaned against the frosted glass and his breath came in gulps and the tears wouldn’t stop. He let the waves roll through him, great shudders that shook his ribs and made the air quiver in his throat.
What had he just done? It felt so big he couldn’t fit it in his head. He had just made an orphan of his cat. He had given Booty away. And for what? For a diamond. Just a little sparkling stone that everyone believed would make them happy.
But the diamond
didn’t make Malik happy. His cat had made him happy. Booty had been with him when he was alone and scared. They had looked after each other until now. He must be heartless to have done a thing like that.
Malik took the box from his trouser pocket and opened the lid. The diamond glistened on its satin bed. It seemed to wink at him. He threw the box onto the dance floor and the diamond came loose and rattled across the polished wood, and he saw it come to a stop under the chandelier.
He wiped his nose on the back of his forearm and tried to take a deep breath. He needed to think this through. What would Papa have done? In the same situation, Papa would have done the same thing, Malik was sure. He would have done it for the same reason he had tricked Malik onto the ship. But Malik didn’t want to be on the ship. So had Papa been wrong?
He stamped the sole of his Wellington boot on the ballroom floor. This was too hard! And it wasn’t fair because none of this was his fault. It wasn’t. Not the war or the soldiers. Not the diamond or the tooth. Not Mama and Papa getting left behind.
And it was his diamond anyway! He should have just taken it from Sonny. No talk of a swap. He should have snatched it away. Stolen it back like Vex stole it in the first place. He could have done it easily.
Malik walked out across the ballroom till he stood under the chandelier. The tooth lay at his feet. He prodded it with his toe, and then he kicked it properly so that it skidded away across the ballroom floor.
He didn’t even want it.
But he watched where it stopped.
He walked over to the tooth and picked it up. The stone was hard and cold. Booty had been warm when he slept next to him at night. Booty had purred for him. Malik turned the treasure tooth around in his fingers. There was still a speck of Papa’s blood on the broken root that curved down from the gemstone.