by Leanne Hall
Iris gasped. Señor Garcia chirped.
He threw away the rock and grabbed another object from his pile of sacred objects. It was a framed photo of Ursula, a portrait from her younger days. Señor Garcia held the photo forward and unleashed a series of emphatic clicks and chirps.
He talked and talked, pointing to the photo, tilting his head from side to side. A wave of heat rose from Iris’s ankles to her face. The more he chirped, the less she understood.
‘Yes,’ she said eventually, purely to make it stop. ‘I know what you mean.’
Señor Garcia gestured that they should go. They retraced their steps to the house. Iris was glad for their silence. She wanted to cry. She remembered Ursula’s dream of destruction and she couldn’t help imagining bulldozers moving through the forest, knocking over Señor Garcia’s precious tree.
Fortunately, it was Willow who opened the door to the Dangercroft mansion. She seemed happy to see Iris standing on the doorstep.
Iris was desperate to avoid everyone at Bosque de Nubes. On the walk to the Dangercrofts’ house she hadn’t been able to stop her mind racing.
My parents expect me to go along with whatever they do. They think I won’t dare disagree with them about the theme park. Or maybe they’ll keep lying to me, trying to keep it a secret. They must think I’m stupid. I have been stupid.
‘This is the best thing that’s happened all week, you’ve no idea,’ Willow said in a low voice as she let Iris in. She’d added red tips to the ends of her blue hair. Iris couldn’t think where she would have found hair dye in the middle of the Spanish countryside.
They weren’t quiet enough. Shirley Dangercroft swept in on a cloud of perfume.
‘Iris! What a delight!’
Iris mumbled hello while Willow pulled her towards the stairs.
‘Iris has promised to catch me up on Australian history, Mom,’ she said. ‘It’s a real weakness in my knowledge base. It might even be the difference between getting into college or not. We’re going to go to my room to concentrate, yeah?’
Shirley pouted. ‘Oh, honey, you’ve worked really hard this week. Don’t you want to kick your heels up a bit?’ She clapped with sudden inspiration, the jewels on her fingers sending speckles of light flying. ‘We could have a girlie party—watch a rom com, paint our nails…’
She pressed a button on the wall. A giant movie screen began its descent from the ceiling of the next room.
‘Maybe later, Mom…it’s a great idea…’
‘How about a sandwich? I’ll have Marisol make you one. I’ve trained her to make real American-style heroes, Iris.’
‘Do not look back, and above all do not show any fear,’ Willow said as they took the marble and gold stairs. ‘Dad is off playing golf and Mom is bored. She’s been driving me nuts all morning.’
Iris trailed Willow through the upper floor of the palace and tried to keep her mouth from gaping at all the gold, crystal and marble. The carpet was about a foot thick; walking on it felt like walking on pillows.
‘How long have you lived in Spain?’ she asked.
‘Just on three years now. Three long years. I still miss home.’
Willow took Iris left and then right. In her ripped black jeans and baggy black jumper, she looked like a ninja in the mostly pastel house.
They emerged onto another landing.
‘And here we have the Roman-themed portion of the house,’ Willow said. ‘Or Mom’s warped version of what ancient Rome might have been like.’
They paused to regard the replica Classical statues and the fake columns and the mural of an outdoor Roman bath.
‘Hideous, isn’t it? Mom’s take on life is more is more.’
‘Where did she put her new painting?’
‘I’ll show you.’
Willow led Iris into a bedroom that was the size of Iris’s whole house in Australia. The portrait hung at the foot of a king-sized waterbed.
‘So Mother can have sweet dreams about dashing insects,’ Willow said.
Now she knew it was Señor Garcia, Iris looked at the painting with greater interest. She touched the canvas. It was dry, but did smell of fresh paint, and despite some cracking on the canvas, it was still too bright to have been painted over twenty years ago. Not that she was an expert, but she had looked at a lot of paintings in the last week.
Someone at Bosque de Nubes is making these insect paintings, she thought, and it definitely isn’t Uncle James’s ghost.
‘I’d never admit this to Mom,’ said Willow, ‘but I actually like that twiggy little guy. Normally I hate her taste in art, but this one I could get used to.’ She walked to the door. ‘Let’s go. Being in the olds’ bedroom really creeps me out.’
Willow’s room was unlike anything else in the house. In fact, it resembled a cave more than a bedroom, with dark purple walls and ceiling.
Willow had a loft bed with a desk underneath, a big bay window filled with cushions and a windowsill crowded with succulents and terrariums.
‘Your bedroom is so cool,’ Iris couldn’t help saying.
Willow chucked a couple of beanbags on the floor. ‘Glad you approve. Basically no one is allowed to come in here, so you’re definitely a VIP.’
Stuck everywhere—to the walls, the bed, the windows, the vanity table—were drawings, pictures torn out of magazines and photographs. The underside of the loft was covered with dozens of hand-drawn comics.
‘Did you do these?’
Iris walked closer. There was a comic about a private-investigator cat, and another one set in a high school ruled by teens who were secretly fairy folk.
‘That’s why no one can come in here,’ Willow said from her beanbag. ‘They’ll realise that I’ve been drawing instead of studying.’
‘Is this what you want to do? I mean, as a career?’
‘That’s what I’m hoping.’
‘You should come to Bosque de Nubes, you’ll love it there,’ Iris blurted out. ‘There’s heaps more paintings to look at, and lots of things to draw…’ She trailed off.
Aunt Ursula might not be pleased with a visitor, even if Willow’s parents had been invited before. Willow would see things, for sure. She had all the imagination in the world, Iris could tell from her comics.
Iris sat down in the other beanbag.
‘You just got the frowniest look on your face,’ Willow remarked.
‘I’ve got a lot on my mind.’
‘Yeah, I hope you don’t mind me saying this, Iris, but when I opened the front door, I did wonder what had happened to you. You look like the future of the planet is on your shoulders.’
Willow was right, Iris did feel that way, but she wasn’t sure if she could confide in the older girl.
‘I’m not sure where to start,’ Iris murmured.
‘Start anywhere. I’m a great listener.’ Willow tugged on the ends of her red-tipped hair.
‘Well, first of all,’ Iris began, slowly, ‘what if you suspected that someone had sold a painting, saying it was one thing, when it was really another thing? Or might be.’
‘Oh, Mom is rolling in money, Iris. Her family is old, old money, and she’s happy with that bug, as am I. So it’s irrelevant whether it’s the real thing or not. NEXT.’
‘Oh.’ That had been easy. ‘Okay. Umm, I had a fight with my friend Jordi. I said some really mean things to him and then I wasn’t there when he needed me and he ended up in danger, and it was only luck that got him out of it. He thinks everything is fine with us now, but I don’t think it is. I mean, I shouldn’t have said those things in the first place.’
‘All right.’ Willow leant out of her beanbag to grab a purple highlighter from the desk. She began to colour in the ends of her hair, which was beginning to resemble a three-colours drink. ‘First question. Did Jordi also say mean things to you?’
‘I guess so.’
‘So it sounds as if he’s at fault too. Will it make you feel better if you say sorry again? And then do something nice for him? Af
ter that you have to take his word for it that everything’s okay. You’ve forgiven him, he’s forgiven you, now you need to forgive yourself.’
Willow was making Iris’s brain stretch.
‘Anything else?’
Iris faltered. There was the big thing.
‘You don’t have to.’ Willow struggled to get out of the beanbag and failed. ‘Let’s put some music on instead.’
‘There is something else! What would you do if your parents were doing something wrong and you knew about it, but you were too scared to talk to them about it?’
As soon as she’d spoken, Iris knew she’d made a big mistake. ‘Never mind,’ she said and stood up.
‘Iris, my mom and dad are tax fugitives. Do you know what that means?’
Iris sat down again. ‘Not really.’
Willow’s blue eyes were bright against the thick rims of dark eyeliner she wore. ‘It means my parents are greedy. They didn’t want to pay the government money that they owed, so we moved here instead. We’re in hiding and I doubt we’ll ever go home. I’ll have to go to college in Europe. So I understand exactly what you’re talking about.’
‘Will they go to prison?’
‘They could. If someone turns them in. At first I figured that person was going to be me. But if I turned them in, where would that leave me? So, I settled for telling them what I thought about what they’ve done.’
‘Oh.’
Iris ruminated for a few moments. My parents aren’t doing anything illegal, but things don’t have to be a crime for them to be wrong, do they?
‘The important thing is that I’ve worked out how I want to act,’ said Willow. ‘Like, I’ve got principles for myself, you know? And that’s separate from my parents’ ideas about right and wrong. But it sucks to be in that situation, Iris. It really sucks.’
Jordi zoomed up behind Iris on his bike during her walk back to Bosque de Nubes.
‘Where’ve you been?’ she asked. Jordi wore a grass-stained sports uniform and had a pair of shoes slung around his neck.
‘Football practice.’ Jordi hopped off his bike and wheeled it. ‘I am the best in the team.’
‘You’re so modest, too,’ said Iris.
‘Do you enjoy the ditch?’
It was true that Iris was walking in the ditch next to the road. She’d made a crown out of daisies to sit on her newly blue-tipped hair and was swinging a ziplock bag full of macarons that Shirley Dangercroft had forced on her. She climbed out so she could talk to Jordi better.
‘I need to say I’m sorry, and I need you to be quiet now because I have something important to tell you.’
She sounded like a character on one of Elna’s soap operas, but it didn’t matter. Her life was a melodrama—and her parents were the villains.
Jordi miraculously kept quiet as Iris told him why her parents had sent her to Spain. He was silent when she told of her doubts about her mission, how deceitful she’d felt, and how she hadn’t made friends with him for any other reason than that he was fun to spend time with. She listed all the ways in which he was a better friend than Violet. And he didn’t blink once when she told him about recognising her dad’s business logo on the brochure and had realised that she’d been lied to all along.
In fact, Jordi was quiet for so long that Iris started to panic.
‘Say something, Jordi! Anything. Do you think I’m a terrible person?’
‘No.’ He didn’t sound convincing and his brow was furrowed. ‘Your parents should be setting better example.’ And then, ‘This is a big worry.’
‘You’re telling me.’ Iris would have liked to say that she was going to stand up to her parents, make them change their minds, but she knew she couldn’t promise that.
They walked together in silence for quite a while after that.
‘I think my father and I should make plans to live somewhere else.’ Jordi was morose. ‘Maybe we can’t stop this from happening.’
‘I don’t think the Dangercrofts will sell,’ Iris said, remembering that Willow’s family had nowhere else to go. ‘And we know how Aunt Ursula feels about it. Maybe everything is going to be all right.’
But she didn’t really believe that.
Jordi kicked the ground as he walked. ‘Señorita Freer is going to die. I feel sad. Sad makes me hungry.’ He stared pointedly at the bag in Iris’s hand.
‘Oh no, you don’t want to go near these. Shirley Dangercroft made them. I should have thrown them away already.’
Jordi snatched the bag from Iris before she could stop him.
‘Seriously, Jordi, they smell the same as crayons. Willow told me to never eat her mum’s cooking.’
‘Who is Willow?’ Jordi spoke through macaron crumbs. He wasn’t fazed by their lumpy consistency.
‘She’s the Dangercrofts’ daughter. Oh! I almost forgot to tell you—I have another lead on the eyeball tree. Willow has seen it too. Well, she didn’t realise what she was looking at, but she says she knows where it is.’
Iris pulled the regional map from her pocket. Willow had marked a rough location for the tree with a Sharpie.
‘See? Aunt Ursula’s land ends here, and here’s the Dangercrofts’ property. Willow said she saw the tree near here, same as your dad. Just a bit further south.’
Jordi was already on the last macaron. When he’d swallowed his last mouthful, he turned to her.
‘You told this Willow everything?’
‘No, of course not. I kept our secret. She wanted to see the painting that’s named after me. We looked it up online.’
They’d reached the main gates, which Iris held open for Jordi to wheel his bike through. It had received a few new scratches during the Beast Car chase, but was otherwise fine.
‘But maybe it’s silly to keep looking for the tiger. There are other things to worry about,’ she said.
‘In 1589, a smuggling ship hit rocks off the coast near Segur de Calafell,’ Jordi said cryptically. ‘The ship was taking so much water and they were so far from land that the sailors decide to have a party instead of trying to save themself. So they drink all the rum and smoke all the opium instead.’
‘I don’t get it. You want to get drunk?’
Jordi scooted along on his bike. He had gained some of his usual pep.
‘It means tonight we forget all these worries and go looking for the tiger.’
Iris set her alarm for midnight but couldn’t sleep. She checked and double-checked the torch batteries, tucked the map and the catalogue into her backpack, along with a child’s fur coat she’d found in the walk-in wardrobe (Beast Car Lure & Protective Decoy), a coil of rope, a water bottle and a compass that she had no idea how to use. There was no end of useful things to be found in the cabinets and drawers of Bosque de Nubes.
When she’d finished packing, her backpack weighed a ton or two. The minutes ticked over to twelve.
Out in the moonlit backyard, Iris felt as if she was in a clumsy dream. Jordi was going to leave his bedroom window open a crack. She circled Marcel and Jordi’s cottage, trying not to step on any twigs that would snap.
There were two windows at the rear of the building. The window on the right had dinosaur decals stuck to the glass. It was ajar.
Iris tapped, softly at first, then louder. Eventually a tousled head appeared through the curtains.
‘Why aren’t you dressed yet?’
Jordi should have been ready to go, but he was still wearing pyjamas.
‘I am sick.’ He sounded like the Godfather from those movies that Iris’s dad loved. ‘I am doing nothing but vomit, and when I am not vomit, I am sitting on the toilet. Urghhh.’
He disappeared, and Iris pulled away from the window. When Jordi returned his forehead glistened with sweat. Even in the moonlight Iris saw his unhealthy pallor.
‘Maybe I die tonight,’ he said.
‘It was Shirley Dangercroft’s biscuits!’ Iris finally twigged. ‘I told you not to eat them, didn’t I?’
Jordi r
ested his face against the windowframe and groaned. He could barely keep upright, let alone stand or walk.
‘You can’t come, can you?’
He shook his head.
‘I won’t go then, either. I can’t go on my own.’
It was only a bit more than a kilometre to the supposed eyeball tree location, but it involved walking through dense forest.
‘I could be better tomorrow?’
‘Okay.’
Tomorrow was Saturday, and Iris was leaving on Sunday. Time was slipping away.
The tiger could be seen as just a small thing, but if she could figure out the puzzle of the painting, maybe she could be as brave as Iris Freer, who had risked her life on the battlefield. With bravery, maybe she could say something to her parents that could change their attitude to Aunt Ursula’s estate.
Iris said goodnight to Jordi and pretended that she didn’t mind that they weren’t able to look for the eyeball tree.
The shadowhound waited for her on the steps, its lines clear even in the moonlight. It sat, nose alert to the air, and wagged its tail when it saw Iris. Iris tried not to look pleased. When she tried to get past, the dog moved to block her.
‘I’ll use the other steps then.’
But the shadowhound was waiting on these steps too. It nudged her away from the patio and bounded to the side of the house.
‘I know what you’re doing. You can’t disappear for so long and then reappear and expect me to follow you.’
But Iris did follow, and the dog herded her to the front. The moon sat above the gardens, casting silver over the whole scene. The dog-shaped shadow crept up the driveway.
Iris pulled her coat around her tighter. The dog disappeared against a dark-green hedge. Iris studied her map. When she started to move, it trotted at her heels.
The path Iris needed to find was close to where she and Jordi had seen the Exquisite Corpse creature. She had to follow it into the forest until she found a low wall that divided the Dangercroft and Freer estates. The spot wasn’t that far from the aqueduct, where they had already searched, based on Marcel’s tip.