Lionboy (2 page)

Charlie’s dad, you ought to know, was huge. Not just a big man, but huge. He wasn’t technically a giant, but Charlie thought he might have giant blood, and this worried him sometimes because if his dad had giant blood, then so did he, and that made the whole thing of “you’re a big boy now, growing nice and big like your dad” a different ball game. Charlie was proud and happy to be brown—both black like his dad and white like his mum, he said—but he wasn’t sure he wanted to be giant as well.

Once, in a museum, Charlie had seen some armor from ancient Greek times, a breastplate made in the shape of a man’s body, with all the muscles and even the belly button molded in beaten bronze. That’s what Charlie’s dad looked like with his shirt off. Like he was still wearing armor. He had huge arms, and the veins on them looked like rivers on a map, only they stood out; he had huge legs, and shoulders as wide as a small shed, and a neck like a tree, and he walked straight and tall and smiling, and everyone got out of his way and turned to look at him after he had passed. When he closed down the smile in his eyes, and let his mouth lie stern, he was the most frightening-looking man. Then when his smile burst through and his white teeth shone and his eyes crinkled up and his cheeks went into little apple shapes, he was like the god of happiness.

“We’re in the kitchen,” called Mum.

“She’s broken,” called Charlie.

“No I’m not,” said Mum, finally dripping the Bloodstopper Lotion onto her cuts, and the evening descended into a sweet time of Mum lying around telling jokes, Dad cooking dinner, Charlie watching
The Simpsons
and staying up late because there are no lessons on Sunday. He forgot all about the parchment written in blood, and didn’t think of it again until six months later, when he came home to find that his parents had disappeared.

CHAPTER 2

H
e’d been at his lessons with Brother Jerome: Arabic, Latin, mathematics, music, and the history of human flight, and his head was aching from the amount of studying he had done. Mum said he learned more being on his own with a tutor and no doubt it was true, but sometimes he just wanted to fool around a bit during his lessons, like he’d read about in stories, and how could you do that on your own? So after his lessons on that day he headed down to the fountain to play football with the schoolkids. Steve Ubsworth might be there, or Lolo and Jake, or Becks and Joe Lockhart.

None of them were around. But Rafi Sadler was. He was leaning against the tree and calling younger boys to him with a flick of his head, and whispering to them. Rafi certainly wasn’t a schoolkid, and he was too old to be called a boy, but he wasn’t really an adult either. Everybody knew Rafi. He was tall and handsome with sleek shaved black hair, and he gazed at you from big brown eyes with the thickest lashes—almost girly lashes, but no one would say that. He wore a long leather jacket and had a funny little light beard, shaved into shape. He wasn’t really old enough to have a beard and it wasn’t a very good one. He always had money and adults sometimes wondered where it came from.

Today Rafi deigned to join in the football for a minute or two. People let him through, and didn’t tackle him, and not just because he was strong. Soon he went back to leaning, and talking on his cell phone. Part of Charlie longed for Rafi to call him over, but Rafi had never taken much notice of Charlie.

The football had made them hot, so they all got some cherry sherbet off the guy with his white wooden cart piled high with crimson cherries and jugs of sugar-cane syrup, and drank it frothy and cool from his tall glasses. One of Rafi’s boys took him a glass, but he didn’t touch it. Instead, he strolled over to where Charlie was.

“Nice haircut,” he said. Charlie’s mum had shaved his head the day before. This time she’d cut in a design of two crocodiles with one belly—each had a head and a tail and four legs, but they were set like an X, and the center of the X was their shared belly. It was an Adinkra symbol from Ghana: It was about how, though we all eat with different mouths, we have only one belly between us.

“Thanks,” said Charlie, surprised. Rafi never talked to him. Charlie’s parents used to know his mum, Martha, and Charlie knew that Rafi lived alone with her, and had left school years ago and had been in trouble, and he knew that Rafi was not the kind of guy who would talk to him. That’s all he knew.

Charlie couldn’t think of anything else more interesting to say. He smiled again, and then kind of nodded. Then Rafi had strolled away again, and Charlie was so embarrassed that he went home.

The sun was heading west, and as he got back toward his street he could smell the evening river smell rising up cool and damp to meet the evening cooking smell of woodsmoke and garlic. The flowers hung heavy on the trees in the front gardens as he turned into his street. He was wondering what was for supper and hoping there would be some cherries left over from breakfast. He’d be sorry when the cherry glut was over—but soon the gardens would be full of strawberries, so there was that to look forward to. And who knows, maybe a ship full of fruit would come up from the south. As he approached his house, he was fantasizing about the old days, when you got all different kinds of fruit at all different times of year, coming in airplanes from far, far away . . . Ah, well. Cherries would do for now.

When he got to his front garden, the door was closed. There were no lights on, and there was no good smell seeping out. He banged on the door: nothing. He peered through the window: He couldn’t make out much in the dim light, but he could see there was no movement, no sign of life.

Charlie went around to the back. Back door shut, no lights. He banged on that door. Nothing. Turning to the wall to see if there were any cats around, whom he could ask if they’d seen anyone, he saw something that clutched his heart. The door of his mother’s lab was open. Not just unlocked—open.

He stared at it for a moment. Then he went over and peered in. If there is anyone in there who shouldn’t be, they would have closed the door to hide themselves, he reasoned, therefore no one is in there who shouldn’t be. Therefore maybe someone is in there who should be, i.e., Mum. So he looked in.

Nobody. Everything was just as it should be—except that it was open and empty, which it really, really shouldn’t be.

Stepping back into the yard Charlie closed the door carefully and quietly behind him. At least it looked right now. As right as an empty, dark, locked-up house can look when you’ve come in for your parents and your supper.

He felt a strong twining furry thing around his ankle and looked down. It was one of the skinny, tough, big-eared cats from the ruins. He bent down to talk to her, because you don’t pick those cats up. Cuddly they’re not.

“Hey, Petra,” he said.

“She’s gorn,” said the cat in her scrowly voice.

“Gone where?” said Charlie immediately.

“Dunno,” she said, her yellow eyes large in the dimming light. “Gorn orf downriver. It was some of them half-wits saw it. Least they arksed the river cats to keep an eye out for ’em. Ain’t ’eard nuffin yet.”

The cats were always having feuds, so Charlie wasn’t concerned about the “half-wits.”

“Who’s ‘them’?” he asked.

The cat stared at him unblinking.

“Your mum,” she said. “And some humans.” And she leaped up onto the wall out of Charlie’s reach, a gray arc flying through the dusk. Her tail flicked. “Humans,” she hissed again, and disappeared.

Charlie sat down on the back step and felt sick. Why would his mother go off with people the cats didn’t recognize?

Marshall your thoughts, he told himself. Marshall. Charlie couldn’t even get his thoughts to line up and keep still, let alone stand to attention so he could inspect them. Only two thoughts stood out: One, he didn’t like this one little bit, and two, Dad would know.

Charlie reached down into his tutorbag, and as he rummaged his little phone lit up, clear and turquoise like the sea in summer. He pulled it out and dialed his dad’s number. A computer voice with an Empire accent answered: “The apparatus is not functioning. Please try later. The apparatus is not functioning. Please try—” Charlie cut it off and huddled down into the step. It wasn’t that warm either.

Dad’s probably on the train and that’s why his phone’s not answering. That’ll be it. I’ll go up to the station and probably meet him on the way. Otherwise I can wait for him, and he’ll know what’s going on.

Charlie leaped up before the comfort of this version of things deserted him, and raced around to the front of the house, out of the yard and onto the street. There were a lot of people, all coming the opposite way from him: a tide of people returning from work, coming down from the station. He forced his way against the tide up to the marketplace, where the stalls and tents were still up and open, festooned with fairy lights, selling last-minute treats to tired commuters. A handful of sheep were still in the pen beyond the fountain, and their plaintive cries added sadness to the bustle. In this darkness everything familiar was different, and he didn’t really like it. He hoped he wouldn’t bump into any alcoholguys—the loud lurching ones who made no sense and smelled so bad, and could appear at any time.

Up by the station he parked himself in a pool of yellow light under a lamppost. People flowed around him: all sizes, all colors, but no Dad. Charlie didn’t want to try phoning again because someone might see his phone and steal it, like the big schoolkids do off the little schoolkids, even though it’s useless because as soon as the little kids’ parents find out they cancel the phones anyway so they can’t be used. Pathetic, Charlie thought: people trying to prove how cool they are by stealing something useless off a tiny kid.

Come on, Dad.

Perhaps he came by bus. The bus stop is over at the other side of the market.

Perhaps I missed him in the crowd and he’s gone home and found neither Mum nor me.

Or maybe he’s working late—maybe I could go to his office at the university. But Charlie knew that was dumb because he had no idea where Dad’s office was, except that it was by the river, a long way from here. Up there, across the city, the river was twice the size it was here. There were huge ships and warehouses, and great shiny buildings full of people making money, and it smelled of the sea because the sea tide came flooding up, bringing wet fogs and gulls and the heavy salt smell. Here, the riversides had only the ruins and the cats and the fisherguys with their small painted boats, and it smelled of frogs and slimy weeds. Perhaps I should just go to the riverside and walk along until I get to where Dad’s office is, he thought. I’d probably recognize it. Probably.

No, that’s foolish. Dad wouldn’t be there at this hour. Better to go on home.

Charlie dived into the flow of people and let them sweep him back to where the houses were, and peeled off at his street. He didn’t look forward to seeing his house still dark and silent and empty . . . but maybe Dad would be there and the lights on and dinner on the stove.

 

The lights were on, but Dad was not there. Instead, framed in the lit-up doorway, stood Rafi Sadler.

He held the door and invited Charlie in, for all the world as if it were his house and Charlie were the guest.

“Hey, Charlie boy,” said Rafi. “Come on in.”

Charlie was surprised. “Hi,” he said warily. And went in.

He looked swiftly around the kitchen. Mum’s lab keys were not hanging in the small tree where they normally lived. Rafi’s big gray dog, Troy, was panting at his feet. Troy’s tongue always hung out of his mouth, wet and slathery like a flat pink slug.

“Where’s my dad?” asked Charlie.

“There’s been a change of plan,” said Rafi.

“What plan?” said Charlie. “Mum—” But he didn’t finish the sentence because he suddenly caught sight of a flash of yellow eyes outside the kitchen window, and a clear warning in them as a dark arc flicked beyond range of the light, and Petra was again invisible in the gloom. Perhaps she’d heard something.