The Tiger's Egg

by Jon Berkeley

  “See you later,” said Little. She fell into line between Etoile and Henna, and the band struck up a whirling tune as the three acrobats, heads up and backs straight, strode into the center of the ring, and the dark-haired sisters stepped out of their high-heeled shoes, ready to begin.

  Miles busied himself helping the tent boys to stack the rectangular sections of the lions’ cage, ready to be quickly assembled during the intermission. Countess Fontainbleau and her Savage Lions always opened the second half of the show, and the cage had to be built in the time it took the audience to buy a bag of popcorn and drop half of it down between the seats. The work helped to take his mind off the knot in his stomach, which began to form as the time approached for his own act with Stranski the Magician. The rise and fall of applause washed through the curtain like waves breaking on a beach, and when he glanced upward he could see the shadows of the acrobats curling gracefully across the canvas roof.

  On a final wave of applause Henna and Etoile came hurrying through the curtain, followed by Little, whose face glowed in the dim backstage light. Henna produced a cigarette from the sleeve of her costume and clamped it between her lips, and Papaya the clown lit it for her as he passed by on flapping shoes.

  “How was it?” Miles asked Little.

  “Good,” said Little. “I slipped a bit on the rope, but I think the audience finds it more exciting when that happens.”

  “There you are, Little,” said Countess Fontainbleau, the lion tamer, bringing the chill air with her as she strode in from the darkness. “Did you speak to my Perseus for me?”

  “Yes,” said Little, who had never lost her ear for the music of animal speech, “and you were right. He has a toothache.”

  The countess, dressed in an immaculate red coat with gold braiding, gold tights and pink fluffy bedroom slippers, sighed theatrically. “Then I will have to go on with just Nestor and Eunice,” she said, “and Nestor is so lazy when Perseus is not there to bite his backside.”

  “It’s okay,” said Little. “Perseus says he’ll perform tonight, as long as you get the dentist to look at him after the show.”

  Countess Fontainbleau’s face brightened up, and her haughty expression melted into a smile. “Thank you, Little, you’re a princess!” she said, and she blew her a kiss before turning and stalking out of the marquee.

  “Oh, Countess!” called Little.

  The countess stopped and turned, the lamplight picking out her long neck and high cheekbones. “Well?” she said.

  “Perseus said not to put your head in his mouth tonight, unless you want to finish the show without it.”

  The countess gave a whinnying laugh, and disappeared into the gloom.

  “Master Miles!” barked Fabio. “Where are you supposed to be?”

  Miles thought for a second. “Elephants,” he said. “Helping Umor and Gila.”

  “Then get moving, before you take root,” called Fabio, and he disappeared through the curtain.

  “I’ll come with you,” said Little. “I want a word with Mamba before she goes to sleep.”

  They walked quickly between the trailers, through the bustle of animals, performers and their props. Everyone was busy preparing for the second half of the show, or packing away their acts from the first. Miles and Little ducked the flailing tail of a crocodile as his trainer, Gina, wrestled him into a carved wooden box on wheels. The elephants were munching the last of their apples in the small enclosure that surrounded their wagon.

  “Here he is,” said Umor.

  “I thought there was something missing from this shovel,” said Gila.

  He held the handle of the shovel out to Miles. Miles attempted to tweak his nose, but the little man was far too quick for him, and skipped out of his reach.

  “No good, Master Miles,” he chuckled.

  “A snail could do better,” said Umor.

  “And they have no fingers.”

  Miles took the shovel with a sigh, and began to scoop up the elephant dung and tip it into the waiting wheelbarrow.

  “Did Doctor Tau-Tau find out who broke into his wagon?” asked Little. Miles opened his mouth to answer, but he was interrupted by Umor.

  “’Course he didn’t,” called the little man.

  “Nothing to tell,” said Gila.

  “Just the local kids,” said Umor.

  Miles shook his head. “They weren’t kids. I saw them. They were covered in hair.”

  Gila dunked a brush in a bucket of soapy water and began to scrub at Mamba’s wrinkly hide. “Kids are very hairy these days,” he said.

  “I blame the parents,” said Umor.

  “Me too,” said Gila. He paused for a moment in his scrubbing. “Why?”

  “Man with a beard. Woman with long hair,” said Umor, emptying his bucket in the corner. “Recipe for disaster.”

  “Either that,” said Gila, “or too many vitamins.”

  “Vitamin H,” called Umor. “That’s the culprit.”

  Miles pictured the strange little figure with the birdlike movements, perched for a second on the darkened sill. He shook his head. “They weren’t kids,” he repeated, “and they weren’t monkeys.”

  “There’s nothing between,” said Umor.

  “Kids or monkeys,” said Gila. “That’s all there is.”

  “Your barrow is full,” said Umor, “and there’s a man waiting to saw you in half.”

  Miles shrugged and picked up the heavy barrow. He pushed it with difficulty through the soft mud, heading for the manure truck. Little walked beside him, leaving no footprints.

  “They didn’t like that question, did they?” she said when they were out of earshot of the two little clowns.

  “It’s hard to tell with them,” said Miles. “Doctor Tau-Tau wouldn’t answer me either. He just kept changing the subject and asking me about the tiger.” He took a run at the wooden ramp that leaned against the manure truck, and heaved the contents of the barrow into the back.

  “You should be careful,” said Little.

  “I feel a bit sorry for Tau-Tau,” said Miles. “Lots of the other performers won’t talk to him.”

  “Maybe there’s a reason for that,” said Little, jumping over the rope by which K2 was dragging a brightly painted cannon toward the big top. Hector the monkey was perched on top of the cannon, and he jumped onto Miles’s shoulder as they passed, chattering softly in his ear.

  “What’s he saying?” asked Miles.

  Little laughed. “He says you should watch more carefully when he’s picking pockets tonight. Stranski relies on you to spot the ones he misses.”

  “Ask him why he always seems to pick people who smell of cheap cologne,” said Miles, scratching the monkey behind his ears. Hector and Little chattered back and forth for a minute, then the monkey dropped to the ground as they passed Stranski’s wagon and scampered up the steps.

  “He said that if you lived with someone who smells like Stranski,” said Little, “you’d seek out people who smell a bit nicer. He used to think Stranski might take the hint, but he never did. Now Hector just likes the smell of cologne from the wallets he borrows.”

  Miles rummaged for his keys as they approached the Bolsillo brothers’ wagon, where his costume was kept. “I don’t really think Tau-Tau means any harm,” he said.

  “Maybe not,” said Little. “His song is not a bad one; he just doesn’t seem able to hear anyone else’s. I can just hear Silverpoint saying, ‘Don’t trust that Doctor Tau-Tau. He has a nose for the wrong path.’”

  “By the seven hills of Hades!” came a voice from the darkness. “Have I made such a bad impression?” Doctor Tau-Tau appeared around the corner of the wagon, his faded red fez perched on his head and a smile stretched tightly across his face. He looked as though he were mastering his annoyance with difficulty. “And who might this Silverpoint be, who would think so ill of me?”

  Little turned her clear blue gaze on his brick-red face, and smiled. “Silverpoint’s a friend of ours. He’s not f
rom around here, and he never trusted anyone,” she said. “And it’s just that you’re so . . . mysterious.”

  Doctor Tau-Tau straightened up and tugged the creases from his jacket. “Well, yes,” he said. “I suppose I am.” The smile was gone, but he looked rather pleased with himself. “I am,” he repeated, “indeed very mysterious.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  PAJAMAS

  Miles Wednesday, sleep-wrapped and goose-pimpled, sat up suddenly in his foldaway bed, the remains of a dream clinging to him like a cobweb. The night was as black as a crow’s eye, and a bullying wind rocked the trailer on its springs. Stranski had been in his dream, his mouth opening and closing mutely as he tried to tell him something of great urgency. Miles was sure that the tiger had also passed silently through his sleep, just out of sight as always. He could hear horses whinnying, and the loud banging of their hooves on the doors of their mobile stable, and he realized that this was not a part of his receding dream. He pulled aside the curtain and looked out into the night, where he could just make out the tops of the trees lashing back and forth against the blue-black sky.

  The Zipplethorpes’ horses had taken fright, and it seemed to Miles as though they would soon kick their trailer to matchwood. He saw Darius Zipplethorpe and his son, Dulac, tumbling from their stately wagon in dressing gowns and slippers. Dulac was around the same age as Miles and a miniature copy of his father, short and stocky with a thatch of straw-colored hair and pale eyebrows that made his face hard to read. He could do a handstand on the back of a cantering horse, but Miles had never seen him smile.

  Dulac and his father ran to the trailer to calm the frightened horses. The lamp that usually glowed under its eaves had been blown out, and the brass wind chimes rang a crazy alarm. Miles strained his eyes to see. His breath was fogging the window, and as he wiped a clear arc with his sleeve he saw Delia Zipplethorpe emerging from the trailer too, holding a lantern, which she tried to shade with her shawl from the gusting wind.

  As the Zipplethorpes unbolted the half doors of the trailer in the fluttering light, Miles was distracted by a movement behind them. A piece of the wagon’s shadow broke away, then another, and a third. The hairy shapes of three tiny figures scurried off, stooping to run beneath the trailers that stood between them and the woods bordering the field, until moments later they had joined the shadows beneath the tossing trees and disappeared from sight.

  Miles stared after the tiny figures, holding his breath as if that might somehow draw them back into the open where he could see them. He recognized the quick little movements from the raiders of Doctor Tau-Tau’s wagon, and he had no doubt that these were the same creatures, or their close cousins at least. He wondered if he was still dreaming.

  A shout brought his attention back to the Zipplethorpes and their horses. One of the stable doors had flown open, and the piebald mare leaped out as though from the starting gate of a steeplechase. She was bucking like a rodeo horse, and as Dulac fought to calm her she reared and kicked out, sending him sprawling in the grass. His mother gave a cry and ran toward him, the lantern falling from her hand. The light flickered once and died. Miles leaped from his bed and pulled on his old overcoat, stumbling across the darkened wagon. The door whipped open before he reached it and a gust of wind barged in as Fabio Bolsillo slipped out into the night.

  Together they ran toward the place where Dulac Zipplethorpe lay motionless on the ground, his mother bending over him in the darkness. Her shawl stood out sideways, cracking like a whip in the breeze.

  “Is he all right?” shouted Miles. The wind whipped the words from his throat and left him gasping for breath.

  Delia Zipplethorpe turned. There were tears streaking her cheek. “Help him,” she said to Fabio. The little man bent to examine the gash on the forehead of the unconscious boy. A dark patch of blood matted his straw-colored hair. Darius joined them, having returned the frightened mare to her stall. “I’ll go for a doctor,” he bellowed, and he disappeared into the night.

  “Your coat, Master Miles!” shouted Fabio. “I’ll get some brandy.”

  Miles slipped Tangerine from his pocket and tucked him away inside his pajamas, then he struggled out of the heavy coat and laid it over Dulac, pulling the collar up to his chin. The boy’s face was deathly pale. Delia Zipplethorpe began to moan softly, grasping her son’s limp hand and rocking back and forth as though the wind had taken her over, and for the first time Miles realized that the boy might die. A panicky feeling spread from his stomach, and he wondered if he should run to get Little. He doubted there was anything she could do.

  “Wipe the blood from his eye, boy,” said a voice from behind him. He turned in surprise and saw Doctor Tau-Tau, wrapped in a dressing gown and staring at Miles with his bulging eyes as though he, and not Dulac, were the center of attention. “The blood!” repeated Tau-Tau. “Wipe it away.”

  Miles turned, puzzled, to Delia Zipplethorpe, but she seemed aware of nothing but her son’s fading spirit. He saw the trickle of blood that had made its way down Dulac’s pale forehead and into the corner of his eye, and reached out to wipe it away. The wind that had been gusting in his face dropped suddenly and the night became strangely still. Miles took a deep breath. He felt dizzy and light, as though he would blow away when the wind returned. His lungs seemed to have expanded to fill his entire body, and the cold clear air went right down into his fingertips. Dulac’s forehead felt surprisingly hot, and as Miles wiped the sticky blood away he thought he might faint. He closed his eyes and sat back suddenly in the cold grass, waiting for the weight to pour slowly back into his body.

  When he opened his eyes he was surprised to see that Dulac was sitting up, supported by his mother. Some of the color had come back to his face, and Fabio was kneeling in front of him, tipping a small glass to the boy’s lips. His eyes were open and he pulled a face as the brandy burned his throat.

  Dulac Zipplethorpe got shakily to his feet, helped by his mother and leaning on Fabio’s shoulder. As they turned toward the Zipplethorpes’ wagon, Fabio looked back at Miles. “Well done, Master Miles,” he said. He glanced over Miles’s head, and said, “Take him to the wagon, Tau-Tau. Umor will make him something hot to drink.”

  “No need, no need,” said Doctor Tau-Tau. “I have a pot already brewing. On your feet, lad.” He reached out a hand and beamed proudly at Miles, as though he had just knitted him from a ball of leftover wool.

  Miles Wednesday, breeze-blown and pajama-striped, sank gratefully into a beanbag in Doctor Tau-Tau’s warm wagon. His legs felt weak, and the short walk was as much as he could manage. Now the wind was shut outside and his shivering began to subside. A cup of hot masala tea was pressed into his hand by the still-beaming Tau-Tau, who stared and smiled, and smiled and stared as he bustled around amidst his clutter until Miles felt distinctly uncomfortable.

  “You feel disorientated, but it will pass,” said the fortune-teller, lighting a fistful of incense and placing it in a brass burner by the sink. “You have had a bit of a shock.”

  Miles nodded. “I thought he was going to die,” he said.

  “Nonsense,” said Doctor Tau-Tau. “It wasn’t his time. I would have seen it in the cards.” He picked up the stack of red and gold envelopes and shuffled them absentmindedly. Miles felt irritated by his certainty. He thought about the card that the bird had picked out after Tau-Tau’s wagon had been ransacked, and how the fortune-teller had refused to tell him what it said. A smile began to spread across his face, and he hid it with a yawn. “It’s all just for show though, isn’t it?” he said.

  Tau-Tau paused in his shuffling and frowned down at Miles. “What is?” he said.

  “All that stuff with the cards and the bird,” said Miles casually. “You just make it up as you go along, don’t you?”

  “Make it up?” spluttered Tau-Tau, his face darkening. “Certainly not! Clairvoyance is a rare gift, and it’s brought to a fine focus only by years of study and practice.”

  “Then the cards must hav
e shown you that Barty Fumble was my father,” said Miles.

  Doctor Tau-Tau looked at him blankly for a moment. “You? Barty Fumble’s son?” His eyes bulged and he cleared his throat hastily. “Of course, boy. I spotted that right away. The cards can hide nothing from me. Nothing except my own future, of course.” He lifted the birdcage down from a high shelf in the corner. “Try me,” he said. “Just ask me anything at all.”

  “What happened to Barty Fumble?” Miles asked.

  “What happened to . . .” A nervous look passed over Tau-Tau’s face for a moment. He busied himself spreading the cards in front of the birdcage. “We will have the answer for you in no time,” he said. “In no time at all, we will have an answer for you. Is that not so, my little feathered prognosticator?” Tau-Tau was mumbling to himself now, glancing at Miles from time to time as if he might disappear at any moment. “Now we shall see,” he muttered, “what our little oracle can tell us.” He opened the door of the birdcage. The little red-beaked bird hopped out onto the row of envelopes laid out in front of her, bent down and tugged one of them free. Tau-Tau took the envelope from the bird and slid the card out from inside it. His bushy eyebrows crept upward, and he glanced at Miles, and back at the card. “Then it’s true,” he muttered. He stroked his goatee in silence, while Miles watched him with growing curiosity.

  “Can I see the card?” he asked finally.

  Doctor Tau-Tau looked as though he was weighing this request carefully, then he held the creased card out between his thumb and forefinger for Miles to see. It was covered with a close pattern of little squiggles that looked like they had been painted with a brush. Miles was not sure what he had expected to see, but he felt slightly disappointed. “I can’t make anything out of that,” he said.

  “Of course not, my boy, and for two reasons,” said Tau-Tau. He slipped the card back into its envelope. “There are two reasons,” he repeated, “for that. First, the cards are written in Chinese, an ancient language with which you are unlikely to be familiar. And second, only someone with extraordinary skills such as mine can hope to divine their true meaning.”