TIGER LILLY and the PRINCESS
By
Eric Thomas
Tiger Lilly lives in a country called Mandredela which is a long way from here and a long way from there. But close your eyes, you’ll find it anywhere.
CHAPTER 1
Tiger Lilly was upset. Today she was nine and quite old enough to go with them. Not only that, they had promised. Promised they would take her and yet here she was, and here they were not. And double not only that, but they had been excited about going to the circus for days and days and never once had they said they would ever think to go without her. Never once. They had even counted the days with her, counted them out and helped her tick them carefully on her calendar. She loved her sisters, really she did, but sometimes they made her angry. Very angry. At least they did at times like this.
She could hardly believe it when she woke up to find their beds not even warm, so no telling what time they had left the house. How could they do this to her, especially on her birthday! One thing for certain: she would never speak to them again. Never ever! She would simply turn her back whenever they tried to talk to her, would pretend they simply weren’t there. For ever!
Suddenly she had a brilliant idea, knew exactly what she would do. There was no point whatsoever in asking her Mum or Dad if she could go on her own; they would simply say no and say she had to go with them later in the day, but that meant waiting until the afternoon and there was no way she could bear to wait that long.
What she would do was hide under her bed until either her Mum or Dad came upstairs, found that she was missing and straight ways think she was at the circus with her sisters. Then – and this was the clever part – when they had left the house to work in the fields, she would sneak through the side door, hurry through the woods that bordered on the back of the farm, push through the gate and on to the lane that led to Yeltsin Town. Brilliant! She’d be on her way in no time. She had never been to Yeltsin on her own, but she had been with her Dad often enough and was sure she knew every step of the way. Well, nearly sure. Anyway, it was only a mile or two. Three maybe. Perhaps four.
Tiger Lilly lived with her family on one of the many farms that had squeezed themselves into every inch of the sprawling hills and valleys that stretched from Yeltsin Town to the high and forbidding Madre Mountains that marked the border of their tiny country. Mandredela was the name of their country and Yeltsin was the second largest town. That did not mean Yeltsin was large. Truth to tell, it was little more than a village, but it had a three-storey town hall with a steeple and a huge bell that sounded for miles and that was enough to make Yeltsin feel grand enough to call itself a town. Even the capital, Suchno City, ten miles away, was small, but what to expect of a country that was often forgotten by the rest of the world. Forgotten or given some silly, made-up name by those know-nothing people who drew the maps. Probably never moved more than a mile from home any one of them. There were even some – and more than a few, truth to tell - who liked to say Mandredela was a magic country. Well maybe it was and, then again, maybe it wasn’t.
Like most of their neighbours, Tiger Lilly’s family was poor and though her father owned a large section of land, he had to work from first light until it was too dark to see so that there could be enough food to feed his family. They kept a few chickens and goats on the farm, but cabbage and beans and rice were mostly all they had to eat except for the years when the harvest was good. Wonderful they were, those rare years of plenty, for they were the times when they were able to sell enough of their vegetables to one of the merchants in the town and forget all about being hungry. At least for a while. Last year had been one of the best harvests ever and they’d had juicy chunks of sweet pork and dumplings with their rice at least once a week. Once a week for certain and sometimes even twice and Tiger Lilly could remember every mouthful and could still taste every taste. Most of all she could remember her eighth birthday and the special tea that the good harvest had made possible that year.
Not so this year. Oh, there was no shortage of clouds passing over their valley, but they were grey, puffed up clouds that liked to tease with the meanest spits of rain and that, of course, meant another bad harvest with no food to spare and no hope of a special birthday tea for Tiger Lilly. Nor for her sisters.
And it was not only their father who had to work hard and long each day. Each member of the family - except baby Mattie of course – was expected to help in the field for their land was poor and full of stones, with crops that needed their constant care. Not a single stalk of a weed was allowed to poke its head above the ground to steal what little goodness there was in that harsh, unforgiving soil.
Tiger Lilly had three sisters and two brothers. The two boys were the eldest: Binnie who was nineteen and Taz aged seventeen. After that came the girls: Pearl who was sixteen, Lilac who was fourteen and baby Mattie, two years old. Least he would be in two weeks time .
Truth was, Tiger Lilly hardly knew her older brothers for they were away most of the year working on a rich man’s farm which lay two day’s hard walk away. Even so, when they were home, they liked to act like snooty, nose-in-the- air strangers, seldom speaking to their sisters except when they happened to be in need of something - usually when their boots could do with a shine, or they had an errand to run or simply because they felt like being extra bossy brothers. Pearl said to pay no heed, said they were far too busy trying to be grown up men to notice they had sisters. Not that Tiger Lilly cared a thread or a button: she had her sisters and, between them, they could talk enough for anyone. How often would she hear her daddy say his daughters were the champion talkers of the world and that Tiger Lilly was far and away the talkiest champion of all time? Most days for sure, and always in his loudest voice.
Suddenly there was warning creak on the stairs and Tiger Lilly immediately threw herself to the floor and rolled under her bed. Truth was she gave her elbow quite a hard knock on a corner of the bed, but she gritted her teeth, gave it a rub, held her breath, and waited. Next minute the door made the creaking noise it always liked to make and, as she turned her head, Tiger Lilly could see her father’s boots standing in the doorway.
Quicker than quick, Tiger Lilly squeezed a hand over her mouth to make double sure not a single, solitary sound escaped and, as she watched, the boots began to rock to and fro, back and forth like Grandma’s old chair. Rockety rock, rockety rock. Then, after the longest of whiles, the boots took a single step forward and stood perfectly still. Still as stone with not so much as a twitch, and Tiger Lilly had to give the hardest of bites on her lips to make sure she didn’t make even the smallest of small noises. And, so she waited and she waited, and held her breath. Then waited again.
But, how much longer? Another minute and her chest would surely burst! The boots stayed still. Still as frogs in a winter ditch. Then, just as her insides were about to explode into a thousand pieces, the boots took a sudden turn-about step. Oh, heavens no! Oh crikey bobs! Her dad was now sitting on the bed and talking to himself!
It was not that her Dad’s talking to himself was anything of a surprise. Truth is, it was something he did quite often, but her bed had somehow become a lot more rickety lately, and her Dad had somehow become more and more fidgety than she ever known him to be. Not only that, but her nose was being squashed flatter with each of his fidgets and her bed was not just a bit rickety; it was a lot rickety.
‘Oh dear,’ she heard him say. ‘Oh dear, dear me!’ Well, that was absolutely enough of holding her breath and so Tiger Lilly pulled her hand from her mouth and was just about to gasp the biggest gasp ever known to man, when her father gave a sudden leap from the bed and, before she knew he was clattering down the stairs and shouti
ng the loudest shout she had ever heard him shout: ‘Tiger Lilly’s gone!’ he cried. ‘She’s not in her room!’
Immediately there was another shout, this time from her mother – more of a shriek really - but Tiger Lilly was too busy taking in deep breaths, rubbing her nose and scrambling from under the bed to make sense of anything being said. Or shouted.
Best thing, she decided, was to wait a while, to have a good think and see what would happen next. This Tiger Lilly did, and when she had finished thinking all she could think and of waiting to see what would happen next, she realised the shouting had stopped. But it was not just the shouting that had stopped: everything had stopped! Silence everywhere. And not just the ordinary, every-day kind of silence that sometimes happens, but a strange kind of all-around and in every-corner kind of silence with not a sound anywhere. Not a creak, not a crack. Nothing! This was strange! Seldom, if ever in all her life, could Tiger Lilly remember a time when the Santino house was not filled with noise, with the loudest of laughter and with their Dad yelling for quiet. at the top of his voice,
Even on nights when she found it hard to sleep, there was always something she could hear: a field mouse scampering across the room; a moth bob-bobbing on the ceiling; a branch of the old ivy tapping at the window. Always something! But this was different and, yes, best to admit, a little bit scary. So, slowly as could be and with one foot placed carefully in front of the other, Tiger Lilly made her way to the top of the stairs. Nothing! Not a sound! She leaned over the banister. Still nothing. Well no point denying, this whole thing looked like it was beginning to turn into something of a puzzle.
‘Very well,’ said Tiger Lilly to herself, squaring her shoulders. ‘The best thing would not to be scared, to be brave and lie on her bed and have another think about what to do next. Should she go down and tell her parents she had been hiding under her bed all along, or would it be better to wait and see what happened? She decided to wait. After all, her dad was always saying it was best to be patient and not rush at things; and so Tiger Lily lay on her bed and waited. And, as she waited and didn’t rush at things, she fell fast, fast asleep.
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