Return to Ribblestrop

  In Colombia, Andreas Sanchez was fast asleep because it was half-past one in the morning, but a servant was preparing fresh bread for the household and the nightingales sang to the fireflies.

  In the school’s west tower, as the sun rose over frosty lawns, the headmaster had Ryvita with Professor Worthington – she brought jam and he brought marmalade.

  It was going to be a very special day.

  Sam, Ruskin, Oli, and Millie helped Flavio feed the animals, distributing the last burgers as fairly as they could. They had phoned the school and Captain Routon had details of their location. It was just a question of waiting for him, so they were happy to explore the truck. There were two tigers, who seemed to get hungrier however many boxes they dispatched. Sushamila the lioness nibbled more gently, content to let Sam feed her. She gazed at him with loving, shortsighted eyes. Flavio unlocked a partition, took down various shutters, and then – to everyone’s amazement – produced a small camel, which he led down onto the tarmac. The camel looked utterly miserable and lapped at a puddle. It had thick brown hair, which rippled in the freezing wind. The children realised there were hidden chambers.

  ‘Flavio, there’s a fish-tank!’ said Millie. ‘What are you doing with a fish-tank?’

  ‘You wanna go careful, man. That’s the python.’

  ‘Wow, you’ve got a python?’ said Ruskin. ‘I’ve always wanted a snake.’

  ‘It’s not in the tank,’ said Millie. ‘One dead mouse, that’s all I can see.’

  ‘Oh boy,’ said Flavio, wearily. He pulled out his flash-light and played it from the tank to the floor. Sure enough, a large hole had been chewed in one corner, between the iron bars. ‘She did this last week,’ said Flavio. ‘She gets cold, I guess – so she goes down to the engine. Then she gets hot, then she gets cold . . . Crazy. Come with me.’

  He jumped down and crouched by a wheel. Sure enough, when he pointed the torch beam, they could see silver-grey skin. It was wrapped tight around the truck’s undercarriage and the head appeared to be jammed up in the gearbox.

  ‘Is it hungry?’ said Sam. ‘Shall I put some burger on its back?’

  ‘She’s not hungry. She’s greedy as a pig. Got a dog on Sunday she’s still digesting.’

  The children stared.

  ‘You gave her a dog?’ said Millie.

  Flavio shook his head.

  ‘No. We parked up in this nice quiet street – no problem, we’re minding our own business. Then this old lady comes by, walking this yappy little thing, and I’m just chatting away, being friendly . . . Next thing I knew, the dog’s under the truck doing its business, then . . . Pythons move quick when they want to.’

  ‘You seem to have a lot of bad luck,’ said Ruskin.

  ‘Ha!’ snorted Flavio. ‘Everywhere I go, is a problem. I think this is the end of the road, though – I don’t think we can go much further.’

  It had started to snow.

  ‘Shall we get the camel back in?’ said Oli.

  ‘No, he loves it. It’s a change from a desert, I guess. Let’s get in the cab. When’s this man coming to fetch you?’

  ‘Depends what time he left,’ said Millie. She pushed Violetta and managed to force her off the front seats. ‘Flavio . . . why are you driving round England with a truck full of animals? It doesn’t seem a very normal thing to be doing. I asked you last night, are you some kind of circus?”

  ‘Some kind of nothing,’ said Flavio.

  ‘Another thing,’ said Sam. ‘What you were doing at that hotel place?’

  Flavio sat back in his seat and pulled a face. ‘It’s a long story,’ he said.

  ‘Are you a zoo?’ said Sam.

  ‘Are you meeting someone?’ said Oli.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Are you part of a . . . fun-fair?’ said Ruskin.

  ‘Hang on,’ said Millie. ‘Why don’t we let him tell us?’

  ‘I will,’ said Flavio. ‘I’ll tell you everything – this is just a big load of trouble and it’s gonna put me in jail. I got all this lot cut-price, friend of a friend. Just a big problem rip-off, is what it is. It was a zoo, then it was going to be a safari park . . .’

  ‘So you’re an animal trainer?’ said Ruskin.

  ‘I’m nothing, no. No education, no qualifications – nothing. I was at school for two years, OK? Two years, I just about read an’ write. All they do at school is beat me up. I got out at eight years old, became an acrobat.’

  Millie laughed. ‘You ran away from school? To be an acrobat?’

  Flavio laughed as well. ‘Yeah. I ran away – best thing I ever did. This was a favela in São Paulo, OK? Little stinking place, seven brothers, three sisters. Anything, man, just to get out! I met these guys doing street work and I was small, so I do the trapeze, high-wire, pyramid stuff. They fire me out a gun, set me on fire up a rope—’

  ‘Out of a gun?’ said Sam. ‘Like a cannonball?’

  ‘Yeah, like a cannonball. They make a gun out of a sewer pipe, put some dynamite in a hole. I’m just a little kid, got a hard head. They shoot me out over the crowd, sometimes into a net, sometimes into the lake. That age, you just keep bouncing, yeah? We go all over Brazil, make a bit, lose a bit. I do motorbike stuff . . . fire. I been on fire so many times I don’t feel nothing! We go up to Rio, Brasilia – it’s a life, OK? Then I get to fourteen, some of us make a little show on our own, they bring us to Spain. There, we make proper money. For the first time.’

  ‘Wow,’ said Ruskin. ‘You were really a circus boy?’

  ‘Circus boy, stuntman for a little bit . . .’

  ‘Stunts!’ cried Sam. ‘Like in the films? Can you do stunts?’

  ‘I did a few movies, then I have a big bust-up with the boss over money – always money. I was dumb, I met some bad people, did a bank-job, and – they still looking for me in Spain, but I got out of there. We held up this bank, me and two guys. Some policeman starts shooting, everyone running. So I cross to Morocco, do some circus work. Then twenty-three, twenty-four: you get a bit old. You put on a bit of weight . . .’ He slapped his belly. ‘I can still do it, but . . . things are getting slow. Between you an’ me, the last few years, I had a few little bad accidents, OK? I’m doin’ a show in London. This is a few years ago, alright? There’s a little gang of us, go from Marrakech to England. We do this jump – I gotta do a jump over some people . . . big mess. I don’ make the jump.’

  ‘I’m lost,’ said Millie. ‘You had to jump over some people? Is this on a motorbike?’

  ‘No way, I can’t afford a bike any more! This is a new show; we do it in shopping malls.’ He closed his eyes. ‘This is bad, OK? We’re outside some big store. We get the people out of the crowd, all stand in a line. Long line, ten, fifteen, twenty people. All the mums and dads, little kids – my friend, the boss, saying, “Now, ladies and gentlemen! Presenting . . . Flavio Guamala! He’s gonna fly! He’s the birdman, yeah? Two somersaults, all the way from South America!” I take a run, the drum goes – all that rubbish. Little trampoline, and I go up and turn over two times, OK? Why are you laughing?’

  The boys were giggling. Millie was smiling broadly.

  ‘Go on!’ said Sam. ‘It sounds amazing!’

  ‘It was amazing when I get it right. I’m supposed to land in front o’ the lass person on the line. Big, amazing thing, everyone cheering. This time, I don’ know – maybe the trampoline was bad, I don’ know . . .’

  ‘Oh no,’ said Oli. He had stopped laughing. ‘You landed on someone?’

  ‘Wow . . .’

  ‘She go down hard, man.’

  ‘A woman?’ said Sam.

  ‘She was the last in the line. She’s OK; she’s in a wheelchair now. She’s gonna be fine, is her back a little busted.’

  Millie was open-mouthed. ‘Flavio . . . you must be jinxed. You have the worst luck I’ve ever heard of, apart from Sam.’

  ‘Yeah, well. I said it was bad.’ He nodded sadly. ‘That’s when I say, no more jumping, you’re no little boy no more. Is
getting dangerous and the police say how come I got no papers, no insure. So I move, get outta there, go up north, to the seaside. End up in this big house with a zoo, and the guy says we need someone to look after the cats. I did cat stuff in Brazil, so I took it on . . . and that’s how I come to meet all this lot.’

  ‘But why is the zoo in your lorry?’ said Ruskin, after a pause. ‘You said there was a big house?’

  ‘The zoo closed,’ said Flavio. ‘The house got sold, everything was sold. I tell you, the owner! Man, he’s just drinking hard, all the animals are dying. The place is closing, nobody coming. Winter: no tourists. Then we get inspected and it’s the same old thing, “Where’s the papers, where’s your insurance? Cruelty to animals!” Everyone’s leaving and me? I’m waiting to be paid. I got no money, nowhere to go. Story of my life, man! I say to the boss, “Where’s my money?” He says, “There is no money, everything’s broke.” He says, “Take the animals. Take the truck – it’s no good, but it’s somewhere to sleep.” ‘

  ‘This is very sad,’ said Ruskin.

  ‘We put the animals in the truck, ‘cause we got to leave – the council is closing us down, we got the Animal Rights people all over us. I wake up – the boss has gone. I got a truck of animals and just a little, tiny bit of cash.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘I didn’t know what to do! There was a brown bear. He got flu – died about two weeks ago. I had a seal. Got out of the tank, found him dead in a puddle. I got a scorpion – he hasn’t moved for three days, I think maybe he’s dead as well.’ He sighed. ‘Yes, so . . . Today. I was meeting a man, we were gonna make a film maybe, maybe not. He says he needs animals, maybe . . . he’s waiting for some money. But I phone last night, just before I met you. He’s doing six weeks in Paris. Gone. You know how much money I got?’ Flavio smiled bitterly and opened a thin wallet. A ten-pound note sat all on its own. ‘Enough for nothing.’ He leaned up to the back of the cab, where the panther was snoring gently. He patted her belly. ‘She’s ready to drop, and I don’t know what to do. I was going to buy half a bottle of whisky and find a police station. Oh man . . . look at this weather.’

  The snow had turned to a horizontal blizzard. The children would have been excited had it not been for Flavio’s tragic story. Snowflakes came down thick and hard, and within a minute the windscreen was white. They were sealed in.

  ‘But how will the animals survive the winter?’ said Ruskin. ‘They need sunshine.’

  ‘They need meat,’ said Millie.

  ‘They need exercise,’ said Sam. ‘You see them on wildlife programmes: they’re always running around hunting each other.’

  ‘They’re dying, man,’ said Flavio. ‘Had two parrots last week, happy and talking away. They in the back, got some kind of mange. Only that blasted camel likes the cold.’

  ‘Maybe you could drive to Africa,’ said Ruskin.

  ‘Maybe you should come to Ribblestrop,’ said Millie.

  ‘You know, the RSPCA might help,’ said Ruskin. ‘Oli and I found an injured frog once, outside our shed. Do you remember, Oli?’

  ‘She’d been half eaten by a cat,’ said Oli. ‘She only had one leg, so she was hopping in circles.’

  ‘We got a matchbox and put her inside with a bit of blotting paper. Then we took her to an RSPCA charity shop. The lady who ran it was very pleased and told us we’d done just the right thing. I could telephone my father and get her number.’

  ‘Why don’t you bring them all to Ribblestrop?’ said Millie. ‘We could look after them there and do projects on them. It’s supposed to be natural history this term. I bet the headmaster would love it.’

  There was a silence.

  ‘Did you say bring them to Ribblestrop?’ said Sam.

  Millie’s words hung, suspended in the air. The three boys stared at the white windscreen as if they hadn’t quite understood.

  ‘Ribblestrop’s a school?’ said Flavio.

  ‘Kind of,’ said Ruskin. ‘It’s trying to be.’

  ‘You know,’ said Oli, quietly. ‘If you brought them to Ribblestrop, we could make cages and exercise areas. We could put heaters into their stalls. We could get hay and bits of tree – you know, for the parrots. They’d be safe.’

  ‘Somewhere for Violetta to have her babies,’ said Millie. ‘She’d be safe.’

  ‘Hey!’ said Sam. ‘Professor Worthington said she was going to teach reproduction. We could study Violetta!’

  ‘We’d have panther-pups!’ cried Ruskin. ‘We could train them! We could tame them and teach them tricks . . . We could—’

  ‘A circus!’ whispered Oli. His lips had gone dry – his voice was small. He started to nod, then he started to rock. ‘This is the best idea ever!’ he hissed.

  Sam was standing up. ‘The orphans!’ he shouted. ‘I bet the orphans could do circus stuff! They’re amazing at everything – you should have seen them last term. And they can build and do stunts. We could have our own Ribblestrop circus!’

  ‘Hang on—’ shouted Flavio.

  But Oli had found his voice again and was babbling loudly, shaking Sam, who had gripped Millie’s arm.

  Millie was grinning wildly, as Ruskin cried, ‘A safari park! There’s so much space! The barns and the woods. We could be a zoo in the daytime and in the evening we’d learn tricks!’

  In the whooping and cheering, as ideas bubbled and burst, the hammering on the lorry-cab door went unnoticed. It was only when the cab started to rock that Violetta sensed an intruder and roared over the top of the din, silencing everyone. The hammering continued.

  ‘Oh man,’ said Flavio, softly. ‘I bet it’s the police.’

  ‘Start the engine!’ cried Oli. ‘Let’s just go! Drive to Ribblestrop!’

  Flavio gritted his teeth and swung the door open. Everyone peered out, and in the whirl of snowflakes a large bear-like figure swayed in and out of their vision. The blizzard had worsened.

  ‘Looking for some children . . .’ came a voice. Then it disappeared again. Two hands appeared and managed to grasp the lorry’s mudguard, and the figure hauled itself closer. Under a shawl that was laden with snow, an anxious red face was visible. The eyes focused and moved quickly from Sam to Millie to Oli to Ruskin – the eyes took in the panther and the driver and narrowed with astonishment. Then the face broke into a smile of sheer delight and relief, and whatever he said was drowned in a renewed frenzy of cheering.

  It was Captain Routon.

  Chapter Seven

  Millie had two bottles of very fine duty-free champagne in her bag, and had planned a serious midnight feast with the orphans. However, it was clear that this was the moment for a celebration.

  Captain Routon was hauled into the cab. The stories were told, back and forth – everything explained. Captain Routon moved from horror to laughter, from amazement to joy, as the children relived their experiences. Flavio went through his history again and they started the second bottle.

  ‘It’s the best idea I’ve heard in a very long time,’ declared the captain. ‘How much fuel have you got, sir?’

  ‘Next to nothing,’ said Flavio.

  The captain was pulling out his wallet. ‘So lucky our paths crossed, I would say. I was only talking to the headmaster the other day and he was saying how we needed some kind of project. Some kind of . . . focus for the term.’ He took a five-pound note and laid it on the dashboard. ‘He will be delighted! So will the orphans! Now – can you follow me? Might be best if the children stay here where it’s warm. Where it’s . . . warm.’

  He faltered suddenly. ‘Oh no,’ he said. ‘I’ve forgotten . . . The van.’

  The children stared at him. He seemed anxious.

  ‘What have you forgotten?’ said Sam. ‘What’s the problem?’

  ‘How long have I been sitting here?’ he said.

  ‘About an hour,’ said Ruskin.

  It was true. There had been so much to explain and plan that the time had shot past.

  ‘I’ve left those pri
ests in the van. They’ll be frozen stiff – there’s no heater! I said I’d only be a minute. Oh my word, they’ll be blocks of ice!’

  Captain Routon leaped out of the cab and the children followed him. The blizzard had eased, but visibility was still very poor. There was no sign of another vehicle.

  ‘Where did you park?’ shouted Millie.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said the captain. He had lost his sense of direction. Then, as they listened to the wind, they heard a forlorn hooting. It might have been the cry of a lonely sea-bird echoing over an Arctic wasteland. It came again, seemingly more distant than before, and the children set out towards it. At last, out of the swirling white, a grey igloo came into view.

  Sam found a handle and managed to get the door ajar. The rest of the party were soon helping, prising it open on its frozen hinges. The interior light came on and revealed two figures. One was moving; the other seemed unnaturally still. Millie recognised them both at once, of course. The old priest was seated, his face a rigid mask of suffering. His skin was deathly pale. The younger man – Brother Doonan – was kneeling on the seat next to him, rubbing the man’s hands, in a desperate attempt to keep his circulation going.

  ‘Oh my word,’ he said. ‘An answer to my prayers!’

  ‘It’s over, Doonan!’ said the old man, faintly.

  ‘It’s not, Father! Help is here – we’ve been found! I knew we’d be heard!’

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ cried Captain Routon. ‘I forgot all about you! Wait, I’ve got rum somewhere . . .’

  ‘Oh, I don’t think that’s wise,’ said Doonan. ‘Father O’Hanrahan never drinks—’

  ‘Nonsense, it will pull him round. I cannot begin to apologise, gentlemen.’ He heaved himself into the driver’s seat and rummaged in the glove compartment. Seconds later, he was administering the spirit to Father O’Hanrahan. ‘Boys. Millie. Go back to the truck and tell Flavio to put his lights on. I’ll come and find you in a moment . . .’