‘You want a ride?’
Lali looked back at him and barked.
‘Teik hai, let’s go!’
Lali sat up the front showing Jehan the way she wanted to go. If she turned her body, Jehan changed direction. She gave little yips whenever he said, ‘Left. Right.’ Jehan felt a mounting excitement. ‘What have you found, Lali?’
She barked. Maybe it was someone to help them.
They travelled a lot further than Jehan had ever gone before and his arms ached. Just when he didn’t think he could paddle across the current much longer, he saw a brick kiln chimney in front of them.
Without warning, Lali jumped out of the bath. Splash! The bath rocked.
‘Where are you going?’ Jehan madly paddled to follow her. ‘Ao! Come back!’
Lali swam toward a cement roof protruding from the floodwater. As soon as she climbed onto it, she stood, panting, until Jehan arrived, then raced across to the other side.
Jehan tied the bath to a rail. He followed Lali to a shelter under which a metal box was bolted to the cement.
She was whimpering.
‘What is it, girl?’ He looked over Lali’s head and his pulse quickened.
‘Pups! You’ve got babies!’ Jehan picked up one, then another. They were still warm, but they didn’t move. Jehan bit his lip. Their stomachs were so hollow. He hoped they would live.
‘Ao, we’ll take them home. Hurry. Let’s get back in the bath.’
Lali lay on the bottom and Jehan put the pups close to her chest. He put his little finger in the bigger pup’s mouth until she stirred, then he put Lali’s teat in its mouth. He’d seen his father do this with baby goats who wouldn’t suckle at birth. He kneaded Lali’s middle to draw out the milk, and eventually the pup began to suck. The male took longer to latch on, but Jehan persisted until it did. Then Lali flopped her head back and gave a huge sigh.
Tears ran down Jehan’s cheeks. ‘You did it, Lali. You found your family!’
If only he could find his family.
Over the next week Lali stayed on the platform with her pups until she finally decided they would survive. The two-legger boy shared his chapatti, but she hadn’t smelled a tough-tail in the tree for days. It was a pity she couldn’t eat the winger, but the boy gave Lali an egg. That made her happy, but they still needed more food or they would starve.
She had to find Beti.
The sun was high in the sky, and her pups and the boy slept, so she left the tree. In the water, she let the current carry her south.
Lali saw no two-leggers, just a house on a rise with a humped four-legger keeping its feet dry close by. Another four-legged creature with a long mane stood in the water swatting little-wingers with its tail. Lali couldn’t smell Beti, so she kept swimming.
After some hours, she emerged from the water, shook herself dry, and sniffed the air. Beti wasn’t here either, but Lali was too exhausted to swim anymore. She slumped on the bank and fell asleep.
Lali heard noises.
She opened her eyes and lifted her head. They were two-legger noises like Beti made. Happy squeals, but not like the boy.
She crawled higher up the bank to see. One girl had dark hair like Beti, but the other was strange. She was the same size as the boy, but her hair was pale as if she were old.
The two-leggers saw Lali and crept closer.
Lali whimpered. Would they be kind?
The girls crouched. One pointed at Lali’s collar.
‘Lali,’ the dark-haired girl said.
The pale one whispered, ‘Lali.’
The boy knew her name, too. Lali sat up and watched them. She sensed their kindness.
Pale Hair gave Lali bread and egg. She wolfed it down. Then the girl took a string from her hair and tied it to Lali’s collar.
Lali opened her mouth and grinned at the girls. She would bring the boy and they would feed him.
The two-leggers stood, beckoning for Lali to come.
Lali knew there would be more food. But she couldn’t leave her pups or the boy. She looked with longing at the girls.
Then she ran down the bank and plunged into the big-water.
Jehan wished Lali would return. She’d been gone longer than usual. If he still had the charpai to mark the passing days he’d have over twenty-five scratches by now.
The pups had woken and were crawling, crying for food. He had wired planks to the platform to make sides so they wouldn’t fall into the water since they were beginning to walk. They were cute, reddish-brown now like Lali, and their eyes were blue. Jehan had named the boy Lal for red, and the girl Nala like the lioness in The Lion King movie he saw on TV. He stroked them gently. He would have to feed them.
He shook one of the cans, popped the ring and pulled the lid off. It smelled sweet. Then he dipped his finger in and tasted it.
‘Coconut milk. That should do.’
He put some in a pomegranate cup and tried to pour it into the pups’ mouths.
‘Here, Nala. Here, Lal.’
Some spilled on the razai until they learned it was food. Then they lapped it up. Jehan drank some, too. It tasted good. He was now so skinny his blue shalwar had slipped to his hips.
‘Coconut milk should fatten us all up,’ he said to the pups. They stopped their squeaking and curled up together.
Jehan heard a splash and looked down in surprise. A boat glided near the tree. It didn’t have a motor but he heard the swish of a pole being pulled in and out of the water. Jehan covered the pups with a corner of his torn razai and whispered to Kooki to be quiet. She clucked.
‘Shh!’ he warned.
The boat circumnavigated the tree and stopped beneath the platform. The water was low enough that the man steering the boat didn’t at first notice Jehan. The man was older than the one who had given Jehan bread and bananas. He wore a white cap and had a pointy nose. He glanced greedily about like a crow. Jehan shivered. In the stories his mother told, crows were never the good guys.
Crowman dug his pole into the branches under the water to hold his boat steady. Kooki squawked and he stared up at Jehan in surprise. Then another look came over his face that Jehan didn’t like. The man watched him as if he were something to eat. Jehan leaned back, out of reach.
‘So, you are living in a tree, boy?’
Jehan stayed silent.
‘I can take you to a big town where you can get a job and lots of money.’
Still Jehan said nothing.
‘You will have as much food as you can eat. Every day.’
Jehan’s stomach rumbled. It sounded good. Maybe he could find his family. But he couldn’t leave yet. Lali wouldn’t know where he’d gone. Jehan shook his head.
‘You’ll regret it, kid. No point in waiting for your parents to find you. Everyone from around here drowned.’
Jehan gasped.
Crowman regarded Jehan. ‘There’s only you and me. No one else is around to help.’
Tears filled Jehan’s eyes. He didn’t want it to be true, but he’d only met one other man and no other helicopters had flown past. He burst out, ‘You’re lying!’ Kooki flapped in the cage.
‘As you wish.’ The man stared at Kooki. Jehan moved in front of her cage. Crowman could probably hit them both with his pole.
‘No matter. I know where you live now. If you change your mind …’ he let his words hang as he threw Jehan a chapatti, ‘… there’ll be a lot more of that.’ He pulled his pole up and glided into the flood.
Jehan clutched the chapatti and watched the boat disappear, making sure Crowman didn’t hide behind a tree. When he was out of sight, Jehan blew out a breath. Then the tears came.
He had always hoped his parents and Amir were safe. But what if they weren’t? Maybe Crowman was right – they were the last people alive. Would the flood ever subside? What if he’d gi
ven up his last chance of survival by letting Crowman go?
‘Woof!’
Suddenly Lali was there on the first branch. She jumped up to the platform. Jehan hugged her even though she was wet through.
‘I’m glad you’re back, Lali. A man came, but I don’t think he’s good. He said mean things.’ Jehan buried his face in her neck.
When his tears stopped she licked his face and he noticed a red string caught on her collar. No, not a string – a ribbon like Badil’s sister used to wear in her hair. And it was tied onto her collar. Lali couldn’t have done that! A sudden hope surged through him. Crowman had to be lying – there must be other survivors.
‘Did you meet someone, Lali?’
She panted at him happily.
He undid the ribbon and stretched it out in his palm. Then he saw the English letters. They were embroidered into the material like his mum used to do on her razais. He spelled out the letters: ‘K, E, L, S, E, Y.’
What did it mean? He had never heard of anything called Kelsey. Maybe it was a place. He tied the ribbon around his neck and kept touching it with his finger. It gave him faith. Maybe there was someone out there to help him.
‘Where did you go, Lali?’
Lali stood up. ‘Woof!’ She looked as if she wanted to set off straightaway.
‘Do you want to show me?’
Lali wagged her tail.
Jehan thought about Crowman saying he knew where Jehan lived. He hadn’t sounded friendly. He could return and force Jehan to go with him. And Jehan knew that Crowman wouldn’t help him find his family.
‘Teik hai. It will be too dangerous to stay here now. It’s time we left to search for my family.’
First he ate and gave Lali half the chapatti and the rest of the coconut milk. Then he knotted a few items in the tablecloth and placed it and Kooki’s cage at the back of the bath. Finally he laid Nala and Lal on his torn razai in front of the cage and hopped in beside them.
‘Woof. Woof.’ Lali looked as excited as when she had found her pups.
‘There won’t be room for you to lie down this time, Lali,’ Jehan said. ‘You’ll have to sit on my lap and navigate.’ Jehan was proud of his sailing terms. Mr Nadeem loved to talk about boats at school.
Lali jumped in, licked her pups and sat with her front paws on the rim of the bath.
Jehan looked up at the tree that had been his home for the past few weeks. He was eager to go, but he felt wistful too.
‘Khuda hafiz, monkeys. You can have your tree back now.’ He turned to the front and began rowing.
‘Let’s see what you’ve found, Lali.’
Jehan’s arms ached. He’d been paddling with the cricket bat for what felt like hours. Whenever Lali moved her nose to the left or the right, Jehan changed course.
‘Left. Right.’ He said the words under his breath to keep a rhythm. ‘Left. Right.’
The paddling was never as easy as it looked. The current helped carry them south, but Jehan needed a rest. There weren’t many trees in this part of the flood and he didn’t like being out in the middle where they could be seen by Crowman.
He looked all around and noticed a boat behind them in the distance. Maybe it was someone who could help them get to Kelsey. He stopped paddling to rest a moment.
When he checked again the boat was closer. Now he could see a man with a pole. He was wearing a white cap.
‘Crowman!’
Jehan frantically scanned the river, looking for a place to hide. ‘There.’ He paddled toward a mound of debris – mattresses, empty drums, chairs – his strokes keeping time with his racing heart.
Lali whimpered when he beached the bath on the other side.
‘I know this isn’t the way,’ Jehan said. ‘We just need to hide for a while.’
Kooki clucked as if she wanted to keep going. She seemed to like the movement of the bath.
‘Chup, quiet,’ Jehan said. ‘Lie down, Lali.’
Jehan crouched. Lali’s hackles rose and Jehan whispered, ‘Shh.’ His own breathing and Kooki’s croon sounded loud in his ears. He kept a hand on Lali’s collar until he heard the splash of Crowman’s boat floating past.
Only then did he push the bath away from the debris and paddle into the open.
He was met with a triumphant cry. ‘I thought I saw something disappear behind that pile of junk.’ Crowman leered at him.
Jehan’s heart sank. Lali growled.
‘A kutta? So you’re collecting a zoo?’ Crowman stood in his boat, holding his pole. ‘I’ve seen a dog like that.’
‘Leave us alone!’ Jehan tried to back paddle, but the current was drawing them closer to Crowman.
‘I have plenty of room for you all.’ His gaze rested on Kooki. ‘And I feel like chicken curry tonight.’
They both looked up as the growl of a motorboat started in the distance and grew louder.
Crowman reached for the bath. ‘Get in my boat,’ he hissed, grabbing Jehan’s arm.
Lali bared her teeth and snarled.
‘Nay! We won’t go with you.’ Jehan tried to pull out of Crowman’s grip. The bath tipped and Kooki’s cage slipped into the water.
‘Kooki!’ Jehan stretched out with his other arm but couldn’t reach her.
Lali spread her legs apart, balancing the bath while shielding her pups.
The motorboat roared up to them. ‘Hoi,’ a young man cried. ‘What is happening here?’
Crowman kept hold of Jehan. ‘My beta won’t come home.’ The young man cut the engine and stared at them both.
Jehan struggled against Crowman. His legs shook and he could hardly breathe. What if the men were friends? But he knew he had to tell the truth. He didn’t want to go with Crowman, and this young man could be his only hope. ‘Help me,’ he said. ‘I am not his son. He’s trying to take me away.’
‘My beta lies. I’m trying to keep him safe,’ Crowman said.
The young man looked undecided. He lifted Kooki’s cage out of the water, and she clucked and flapped about. Her feet were wet. ‘This chicken is yours?’ he asked Jehan.
Jehan tipped his head to the side. ‘Ji.’
‘Ao, beta,’ Crowman said as if he were Jehan’s father. ‘I won’t whip you when we reach home if you get in the boat now.’
Jehan shook his head and wrenched his wrist away from Crowman.
The young man eyed Jehan curiously. ‘I’ve heard about you. My friend said he saw a boy in a bath and to watch for you.’
Lali was whining now and the pups were scratching at the sides of the bath.
Jehan touched the ribbon at his neck and had a sudden idea. He had to try anything to get away from Crowman.
‘I need to find Kelsey.’ Jehan didn’t know where Kelsey was but he knew that was where Lali wanted to go.
‘I know a girl called Kelsey,’ said the young man, his eyes darting between Jehan and Crowman.
A flame lit up in Jehan, but died again. What if he were lying?
Suddenly the young man pulled out a mobile phone. ‘Leave the boy alone or I’ll call the police.’
Crowman scowled at Jehan. ‘You’ll keep. I know where your tree is.’ With a glare at the young man he poled his boat away. ‘You’ll be sorry.’
Jehan watched him glide away with relief.
The young man turned on his engine and the motorboat idled closer to Jehan. The boat had bright, colourful flowers, birds and fish painted on the sides. Jehan thought he’d like a boat like that. Yet Jehan still wasn’t sure. What did Crowman mean about being sorry?
‘Do not be afraid. My name is Izaak. I’ll take you to the tent camp. It is ten kilometres away.’ Izaak studied Jehan. ‘May I have your good name?’
Jehan tipped his head slightly. ‘Jehan.’
‘Do you have parents?’
‘Somewhere,
’ Jehan said.
Izaak said gently, ‘The people at the tent camp will help you.’
‘But I have pups and a dog. I have to stay in the bath with Lali, or she might jump out. I have to look after them, too.’
‘Throw me the rope you have tied to your bath.’ Izaak sounded like Jehan’s uncle, kind and helpful. ‘The dogs can come, also.’
Jehan had to make a decision. He couldn’t sit in the bath all day. He thought of Amir and his parents. He thought of the tent camp and how people must be there. Jehan picked up the rope and held it. ‘So, not everyone drowned in the flood, then?’ Jehan asked.
‘Of course not. Who told you that?’
Jehan didn’t answer. He just threw the rope. Izaak caught it and tied it to a bar at the back of his boat.
‘Hold on tight.’ Izaak moved to the front of his boat and gave Jehan a wink.
The motor roared as Izaak steered into the flood. White water surged back toward the bath. It was the fastest Jehan had travelled in his life. Spray covered his face. Lali barked and grinned. Then barked some more.
Jehan lifted his head to the sky and laughed.
The motor on Izaak’s boat cut out as they approached a riverbank. Thousands of white and grey tents flapped in the breeze. To Jehan, it looked like a tent city, with clothes out to dry and the spicy smells of the evening curries being cooked. He heard voices – the hum of a village like his. A cement house stood on top of a bank, surrounded by trees and grass. His heart lifted. Surely his parents and Amir would be in a huge camp like this.
Izaak steered the boat with an oar, then tied it to a post. ‘Jump out,’ he called.
Lali stood up, panting. Then she turned to Jehan and licked his face. He relaxed and hugged her neck. There couldn’t be any danger or Lali would growl. Suddenly Lali leaped out of the boat and landed on the bank without getting her paws wet.
Jehan wrapped up Lali’s pups in the torn razai, lifted them into his arms and grabbed his tied belongings. Izaak already had Kooki’s cage in his hand.
With a deep breath, Jehan scrambled out and stood next to Lali. His legs wobbled. It felt strange to be on solid ground again. His insides wobbled, too. What would he find?
Jehan and the Quest of the Lost Dog Page 4