The Secret of Zanzibar, page 3
Alice turned over, wincing as the twigs and pebbles on the hard ground dug into her side. No matter how carefully you chose a patch of earth to sleep on, she had found, twigs and pebbles would find their way to it during the night. She nudged her brother, who was still snoring beside her. ‘Alex, wake up. I think we’re going to leave soon.’
‘Huh? I’m awake.’ Alex sat up immediately, blinking.
Alice joined her mother and Ebenezer.
‘Hi, Mum,’ she said. ‘Hi, Uncle Ebenezer.’
Emmeline glanced up. ‘Hello, sleepyhead,’ she said.
‘Sleepyhead?’ Alice protested. ‘The sun’s not even up yet!’
Her mother smiled. ‘Just teasing.’
Emmeline, Alice was pleased to see, looked bright-eyed and well rested, despite the early hour. Perhaps having something definite to do had energised her. Alice herself felt a sense of anticipation about the mission ahead. She knew it would be dangerous, and she certainly didn’t expect to enjoy it, but it felt good to be doing something at last. And if they succeeded … she brushed some stray pebbles and twigs from her fur. If they succeeded she’d have a long sleep on a soft mattress with clean sheets. She went to wash her face in the cool spring water, squealing when her dad splashed her. A long sleep on a soft mattress with clean sheets after a long, hot shower with plenty of soap, she amended.
She went back to her mother. ‘Can I help?’
Emmeline looked around the clearing. ‘If you can find a branch with some leaves on it, you could use it to sweep away our footsteps. We want to erase all traces of ourselves.’
‘Why?’ asked Alice. ‘What does it matter once we’re gone?’
‘You never know if we might need to use this spot again,’ her mother replied. ‘If our enemies discover we were camped here, they’ll keep an eye on the place.’
‘I get it,’ Alice said. It still surprised her every time her mother came out with some piece of spycraft like this.
‘Beezer, Ebenezer.’ It was Zanzibar. ‘We’d better get going. Oswald wants to get to Shudders before sunrise.’
‘What about us?’ said Alex. ‘Will Oswald come back for us?’ Alice knew her brother was desperate to fly by owl. He couldn’t bear it that Alistair had flown many journeys while he hadn’t travelled by owl once.
Rebus put a hand on Alex’s shoulder. ‘Sorry, son,’ he said. ‘As soon as dawn breaks we’ll be hitting the trail.’
‘On foot?’ Alex said glumly.
His father nodded. ‘We’ll meet Solomon Honker in Sharman and cross the border into Gerander from there – though we’ll be going our separate ways, of course.’
‘I’ll bet Solomon has thought of a great way to travel,’ Alex said, cheering up. ‘He was the one who organised that hot-air balloon.’
‘I’d rather walk,’ muttered Alice, who hadn’t enjoyed the experience at all.
She watched without envy as her aunt and uncle and Zanzibar – who was also her uncle, she remembered, though he was virtually a stranger – walked into the middle of the clearing. They adjusted their rucksacks so that they were tight against their backs, then crossed their arms across their bodies so their hands rested on the opposite shoulders.
‘Okay, Os,’ said Zanzibar, and the giant owl dropped from the branch to hover above the three waiting mice. Carefully, he closed one talon around Zanzibar and the other around Ebenezer and Beezer. Then he beat his giant wings and rose into the air.
The downdraft ruffled Alice’s fur as she waved.
Ebenezer had his eyes open and though he couldn’t wave back he was smiling broadly and nodding his head at his family on the ground. Beezer, on the other hand, had her eyes closed tight.
‘See you in Cornoliana,’ Zanzibar called.
The group on the ground watched until the owl was just a speck in the distance, then Rebus said, ‘We’ll get going ourselves as soon as it’s light.’ He studied the sky. ‘We’ve got an hour or more to kill, I’d say.’ He walked over to a fallen log at the edge of the clearing and sat down, then patted the log on either side of him. ‘Let’s do some catching up,’ he suggested. ‘Why don’t you two tell me about all the birthdays you had while we were away.’
As they sat beside their father, Alex immediately launched into a detailed description of the different cakes Ebenezer had made them.
Emmeline, sitting on Alice’s other side, laughed aloud. The sound startled Alice; when had she last heard her mother laugh like that? She couldn’t remember.
‘Oh, Alex,’ said Emmeline affectionately, ‘I’ve missed you.’
Alex looked surprised at the unexpected declaration. ‘Uh, yeah, me too, Mum. Anyway, for our eleventh birthday Uncle Ebenezer made a triple-layer cheesy chocolate cake …’
When the first rays of sunlight broke over the horizon, they shouldered their rucksacks and, after a last look around, left the clearing. Alice brushed away their final footsteps. It was as if they had never been there.
‘I still don’t see why Oswald couldn’t at least have carried us some of the way,’ Alex complained as they picked their way carefully along a narrow path that skirted the gorge.
Alice didn’t answer. She was completely focused on the ground ahead, trying not to glance over the edge. She knew that if she saw how far the drop was, she probably wouldn’t be able to go on.
‘Really, if Oswald should be giving anyone special treatment it’s me,’ Alex continued. ‘I’m the one who’s going to be king.’
‘Oswald hasn’t been choosing to carry Alistair instead of you,’ Alice said. ‘It’s just worked out that way.’
‘When I’m king I’m going to get my own owl,’ Alex went on. ‘For my own exclusive use.’
‘I don’t think you can actually own an owl,’ said Alice. ‘No one owns Oswald. He’s helping FIG because he chooses to.’
After three hours of hiking, they at last left the gorge behind and joined the road heading north to Sharman. It was an easy walk through a valley, with rolling green hills on either side. Striding along with the sun on her shoulders, Alice realised that for the first time in ages she felt almost relaxed. Here in Shetlock, their home, there were no Queen’s Guards after them. And they were inconspicuous. She and her mother were both a deep chocolate brown (though Alice had a white patch on her left hip), while Alex and their dad were white (though Alex had a patch of brown on his right shoulder blade). There was no reason for anyone to look at them twice. Of course if Alistair or Tibby Rose had been with them it would have been a different matter: they stood out, being ginger. And Zanzibar, too, though Alice would have described Zanzibar’s fur as golden rather than ginger. And he would have stood out if his fur wasn’t golden. He just had some sort of presence. She couldn’t explain it even to herself. She just knew that he didn’t look ordinary.
Still, you could never judge a book by its cover, she reminded herself. A beautiful silvery grey mouse with a bell-like voice could be evil. And they were only inconspicuous among those who weren’t looking for them. But out there, somewhere, two mice were looking for Alice and her brother. She had last seen Sophia, the silvery grey Sourian spy with a sharp knife and a sharper tongue, and her morose coal-black companion, Horace, in Gerander. The two spies had fallen (helped along by some skilful piloting by Solomon Honker) from a hot-air balloon. They had landed in the Winns, and if Alice knew Sophia – which she did only too well – she would be furious. More than that, she would be out for revenge … The warmth seemed to drain from the sun as Alice considered the prospect of an enraged, vengeful Sophia.
No longer relaxed, she anxiously scrutinised the face of every mouse they saw. That light brown mouse sitting on the porch of the farmhouse … had he been watching them a little too intently? Had that young cream mouse they passed on the road earlier looked at them with more than ordinary interest?
‘Alex?’ Alice quickened her pace to catch up with her brother, who was walking a few metres ahead of her.
‘Huh?’ Alex started, as if she’d woken him from a doze. ‘Oh, it’s you. Hey, sis, do you think when I’m king I could make Uncle Ebenezer my personal chef? Every morning he’d come to see me in the throne room to consult about that day’s menu …’ He trailed off, and Alice guessed by the look of bliss on his face that he was imagining some of the dishes he might request.
‘I hate to interrupt your menu planning, Your Highness,’ she said sharply.
Alex started again. ‘What?’
‘Alex, where do you think Sophia and Horace are now?’
Alex’s face clouded over at the mention of the spies. ‘Did you really have to ruin my daydream by mentioning them?’ he grumbled.
‘You don’t think they’d be looking for us, do you?’ Alice asked. ‘You know, to take –’ she hesitated before saying the word aloud ‘– revenge?’
‘Does it make any difference? They were already planning to kill us,’ Alex pointed out. ‘We’re the heirs of Cornolius, and Queen Eugenia wants us dead.’
‘That’s true.’ Alice didn’t find her brother’s reasoning all that comforting though.
‘But in answer to your question,’ Alex continued, his voice serious, ‘I do think Sophia and Horace will be looking for us. And Sophia will definitely be out for revenge.’
They reached Sharman in time for a late lunch. Climbing the winding road up to the town, Alice saw more towns and villages dotting the hills and valleys. They seemed so peaceful, dozing in the sun. The mice they saw as they entered Sharman seemed peaceful too. For a moment Alice recalled the anxious-looking mice of Cornoliana, scurrying out of the path of the red-coated Queen’s Guards. What would life be like for the mice of Sharman if Queen Eugenia succeeded in taking over Shetlock? But it hardly seemed possible that life in this remote hilltop town could ever change. The baker she glimpsed through a shop window was probably using the same recipe her father had used before her; the family of the candlemaker next door had probably been making the town’s candles for generations.
With her parents strolling arm in arm ahead of her, Alice felt as if she’d stepped into a different world. After weeks of running and hiding, here they were, walking across a market square, sitting in a cafe, ordering lunch. Her mother, she noticed, was looking around in wonder. Had she ever imagined, locked in a cell on Atticus Island, that she would one day be sitting down to lunch in the sun-dappled square of a small, peaceful town in Shetlock?
Alice and her mother ordered cheese on toast, while Alex talked their father into trying the local specialty, a goat’s cheese and dandelion pie. ‘Uncle Ebenezer always liked to try a region’s delicacies,’ Alex explained.
‘It seems you and your uncle have a lot in common,’ Emmeline observed with a soft smile.
‘I guess,’ Alex muttered. As her brother ducked his head and busied himself arranging the serviette in his lap, Alice thought she saw a glimmer of a tear in her brother’s eyes. Was that even possible? No, when she looked again it was gone. But it was true, she realised; Alex and Ebenezer had grown very close in the years the triplets had lived with their aunt and uncle. Alice knew that Alex was as happy as she was to have their parents home safe, but was he sad, too, at the thought of saying goodbye to Uncle Ebenezer and Aunt Beezer? Of course they would see their aunt and uncle regularly, but it wouldn’t be the same as living with them. It would never be the same again. Unless King Alex could persuade Uncle Ebenezer to move into the palace as his personal chef.
They had just finished their meals when Alice spotted a tall mouse striding towards them across the square. The white fur on his top half seemed almost luminescent, but it was the ginger fur from his waist down that was drawing curious looks from the mice he passed.
‘Solomon’s here,’ Alice announced.
He looked pleased to see them, she thought, as their old teacher drew close. Those days in the classroom at FIG headquarters at the school in Stetson seemed so long ago, though it was really only a manner of weeks. Solomon had been a hard teacher, but he’d had to be. He had been preparing Alice and Alex for an undercover mission into the very heart of Sourian headquarters in Gerander. Alice just hoped the skills he had taught them would come back to her if she needed them on their next mission, when they would again be travelling to Cornoliana, though this time they’d be going as themselves, in hiding, rather than assuming other identities.
Solomon shook hands with Emmeline and Rebus then put a hand on Alice’s shoulder. ‘So, Alice, are you ready for your next mission?’
Before Alice could answer, her brother interrupted.
‘Hey, Solomon,’ said Alex, ‘how are we getting to Gerander this time? Have you got another balloon?’
‘You’ll see,’ said Solomon, who never gave away information before he had to.
As they stood to leave, Alice looked around the square. At the far side, partially obscured by the statue in the square’s centre, she thought she saw a flash of silvery grey and coal black. Despite the baking heat emanating from the cobblestones, she felt a chill run through her. It couldn’t be … could it? Swallowing, she peered again. No, she must have imagined it. Still, the unease didn’t leave her, and as she followed the others from the square she cast several nervous glances over her shoulder. But no one was following them.
They left Sharman via a different, smaller road at the top of the town. They passed a few cottages on the outskirts before they plunged into a forest of towering pines. The road climbed up for the next hour before it finished abruptly. Solomon led them to a path carpeted with pine needles and they continued their ascent through the trees.
‘Are we really going to walk all the way to Gerander?’ Alex grumbled. ‘I thought you’d have some really cool way to travel, Solomon.’ He kicked at a rock in his path and muttered under his breath, ‘I wish we’d gone by owl.’
The ache in Alice’s muscles from the morning’s downhill trek through the gorge was soon replaced by a burning in her legs from the relentless climb of the afternoon. But while the four mice he was leading struggled to keep up, Solomon seemed hardly to notice that the ascent was arduous; he maintained the same steady pace, allowing them occasional stops to rest and refresh themselves from their water bottles, but quickly urging them on.
‘We need to get there before dark,’ he said.
‘Get where?’ said Alex. ‘To Gerander?’
Solomon just shook his head mysteriously.
The light had turned golden when they cleared the tree line and, buffeted by the wind, slogged the final stretch of a steep bare hill, which ended in a sheer drop of hundreds of metres. When they squinted into the setting sun they could see for miles over a flat plain.
Solomon pointed. ‘See the river in the distance? That’s the Winns.’
So this was Gerander stretched out before them. But as far as Alice could see, there was no way to reach it from where they stood. The cliff was impossible to descend. Surely Solomon hadn’t made them climb all that way in the mistaken belief they’d be able to cross the border here? They couldn’t afford mistakes like that – they had no time to lose! Alice could have groaned out of sheer frustration.
Solomon didn’t seem at all disturbed by their predicament, though. Instead of looking at the view, he was pacing the cliff top, scanning the ground as if searching for something. Finally he said, ‘Aha!’ and, reaching into a hollow under the lip of a rock, pulled out a rucksack. ‘Alice, can you give me hand?’ he said when he saw her watching.
Alice hurried to take the backpack from him, and then a second. Soon they had five packs piled at their feet.
‘What are those for?’ Alex asked, coming over to join them.
Solomon looked at him, a small smile playing on his lips. ‘These are going to get us to Gerander.’
5
Trapped!
A shout echoed through the canyon and Alistair lifted his head to see two red-coated Queen’s Guards yelling and gesturing from the top of the rock the FIG members had just descended.
‘Right, playtime’s over,’ said Slippers abruptly. ‘Let’s go.’
They marched beside the stream in single file. The sun on the white pebbles was blinding yet Alistair had no choice but to stare at them. If he slipped or twisted an ankle they would lose precious time – time in which the pursuing guards could catch up to them. It was possible, too, that the Queen’s Guards knew this terrain well, that they knew shortcuts and paths which were invisible to the FIG operatives. And perhaps the two guards they had spotted weren’t the only guards in the vicinity. What if the guard at the top of the rock had been shouting and yelling to alert other guards to the presence of the intruders?
He glanced over his shoulder and saw two spots of red halfway down the rock; they were moving fast. At least the guards were easy to spot in their red coats. But so were he and his companions, Alistair realised – he and Tibby especially, with their ginger fur, would be quite distinct against the white pebbles.
As if she had had the same thought, Slippers said, ‘We’re like sitting ducks out here in the open. Anyone watching from above will have no trouble seeing us.’
She picked up the pace, till Alistair was half jogging, his rucksack bouncing awkwardly against his back. His pulse was racing from a combination of exertion and fear.
‘Are they gaining on us?’ Slippers demanded after some time.
Feast shot a look over his shoulder. ‘I can’t tell. But one thing’s for sure …’ His voice was grim. ‘We’re not losing them.’
‘We’ll keep going around that bend then look for a game-changer,’ Slippers said. ‘We need to disappear, try to confuse them.’
The bend was further away than it looked, and even though they kept up their fast pace Alistair reckoned it was fifteen minutes or more before they reached it. As they rounded the turn Alistair saw Slippers’ head moving left, right, up and down, scanning the landscape.
