Aaaargh! Decide!

The young lion looked quizzically at him. Charlie gave him a grin, which he hoped was convincing. The others, thank goodness, were all still asleep.

There was no time to decide.

A knock came at the door.

"His Majesty would like to see you," came Edward's voice from outside, as calm and polite as always.

Charlie wiped the steam off the little mirror and took a look at his sooty, pale, and frightened face. White people go even whiter when they are scared, or perhaps scarlet. Charlie went a sort of greenish yellow.

"One moment!" he called, as if he were just finishing on the toilet and washing his hands, rather than trying to gather himself together having been up on a train roof in a storm with a gang of half-frozen lions only to find himself-and them-in danger of either arrest or a s...o...b..und attempt at flight. He washed his face and his hands, dried himself off, rubbed at his growing-in hair, and tried his best to look respectable.

Here goes, he thought, and stepped out of the door, closing it swiftly and tightly behind him.

He smiled brightly at Edward.

"Your friends can stay in the bathroom," Edward said politely.

Charlie gulped. What did he mean?

Edward bowed and gestured him along the corridor. It was a chastened and nervous Charlie who went in to explain himself to the King of Bulgaria.

CHAPTER 21.

In the great freeze of 1929," said King Boris, sitting on a velvet cushion in his high-backed, elegant chair, "the Danube froze solid from Budapest to Belgrade, Yugoslavia was thirty degrees below freezing day and night, and there were thousands of cases of frostbite throughout the East. Frost and snow closed roads as far south as Beirut and Damascus-the palm trees had snow on them, in the desert. Can you imagine? The Orient Express was snowed in for seven days. No news could get through from the Balkans to Western Europe, so n.o.body knew where it was . . ."

Charlie stood silently in front of him, his head cast down, like a naughty boy in the princ.i.p.al's office.

"They didn't know how long they would be stuck there, so food was rationed, three-course meals instead of five. The wolves howled all around them in the night, and n.o.body knew for sure that they wouldn't get into the train and eat the pa.s.sengers. n.o.body knew where they were, or how close. Then late at night would come sounds like pistol shots, as the ice cracked . . ."

Charlie shivered. It was impossible now to see out the windows: The layer of ice made them opaque and greenish like a frozen river, and let only dim light come in.

"The train ran on coal then, and the coal soon froze . . . it made a tremendous hissing sound. Soon enough it ran out and the train grew gradually colder, the floors and the walls . . . the heating pipes froze. The train was in an enormous snowdrift, with nothing but brandy and crackers to eat. The lines were down; they could only wait. In the end they soaked rags in kerosene, wrapped them around the brakes, and set fire to them to thaw the brakes out. The walls of snow towered higher than the train itself on either side."

"Were you there?" asked Charlie. He couldn't not.

"Of course not, it was years ago," said the king. "But you know it wouldn't have been made any easier by having a pride of lions asleep in one's bathroom."

Charlie gasped.

"Small boys do not deceive the Bulgarian security police," he said. "Edward is the most efficient security officer in Eastern Europe. Now what on earth are you up to, and what do you intend to do?"

"They're good lions!" cried Charlie. "Please don't turn them over to the Chef du Train, please don't be scared of them!"

The king looked at him in some amazement.

"Do I look like the kind of king who would hand stowaway lions over to a railway functionary?" he said. "You insult me."

"No no, Your Majesty," cried Charlie in horror. "I don't mean to, it's just I am very scared for them, and I am responsible for them, and if anything were to happen to them, I don't know what I would do. They're my friends . . . They're my friends," he finished up. That said it all, really.

"Just tell me your story," said the king. "Edward! Hot chocolate! With cream and curly chocolate shavings on top!"

So while the hailstones rattled the window, in the green icy light, the king drank coffee laced with brandy, and Charlie drank hot chocolate and told him the whole story. Well-almost all.

When he had finished, the king's eyes were shining and his mouth was curved in a smile, but there was a wariness in his face as well, as if he could foresee some danger.

"You are a very brave and foolish child," he said.

Charlie could not disagree.

"And why do they obey you? Why don't they try to eat you, and run off?"

One detail Charlie had kept from the king: the talking to cats bit. He was always reluctant to speak of it-fearful, to be honest, that people would want to exploit it, to use him in some way, and perhaps make him do things that he didn't want to do.

But he could trust this kind king, surely? Couldn't he?

"They are circus lions," said Charlie after a moment. "They're used to me, and they're used to doing what they're told." In his head he apologized to the lions for this bit of misrepresentation. Used to doing what they're told, indeed! He was glad they weren't there to hear him say it.

"I'd like to meet them," said King Boris. "Can I?"

"Um," said Charlie.

"Later," said the king. "First-what do you intend to do with the lions in Venice?"

"We're going to hide, Your Majesty, and we're going to find my parents and rescue them, and then the lions are going to stow away on a boat to Africa."

The king just looked at him.

"They want to go home," Charlie explained.

The king kept on looking.

"To Africa," said Charlie.

The king sighed.

"It's not your motives or intentions that I'm worried about," he said. "It's your methods. How on earth are seven lions going to hide in Venice? Or stow away on a boat? They haven't a chance of success. And you and your parents . . . I'm very worried, Charlie. I don't see how you can succeed in any of this. You will sneak from my car and go off into the night, no idea where you're going, with hope in your heart and danger on your heels . . . I don't like it, Charlie."

Put that way, Charlie didn't like it very much either. They would be hiding in a city they didn't know, and they had already been very lucky in escaping from potentially dangerous situations.

"Charlie," said the king, "they're lions, not little mice you can put in your pocket. People notice lions. Especially Venetians! They're crazy about them."

The king rubbed his nose. "Charlie," he said. "You leave me with no choice." He stood up.

Charlie's heart sank. He knew what was going to happen. King Boris was going to take charge, and send him home, and send the lions back to the circus, where Maccomo would drug them again. Everything would be safe and sensible with grown-ups in charge, and Charlie would have betrayed Major Tib and Julius and all his circus friends for nothing, and they would all hate him, and he would have to just keep going to his lessons and staying who knows where until maybe, one day, his parents might come back, and the lions would never get back to Africa, and as for the strange new creature, who knows what would happen to him . . .

"No!" shouted Charlie, jumping to his feet. "I won't! I'd rather we all just ran away shouted Charlie, jumping to his feet. "I won't! I'd rather we all just ran away now! now! We'll take our chances in the snow rather than go back, we're never going back, never never never!!" We'll take our chances in the snow rather than go back, we're never going back, never never never!!"

"Be quiet," said the king. "And sit down. Of course I'm not going to send you back. You wouldn't go even if I did. I'd like to know how you intend to find your parents when you don't even know who has them, or why."

Charlie sat down. He couldn't make heads or tails of this kind, bossy, pessimistic king. Could he trust him? Tell him how the lions and the cats were going to help him?

Charlie was chewing his lower lip as he looked over at King Boris.

"I have some friends who are very good at finding things out," he said at last.

"So do I!" cried the king. "Edward!"

The pale quiet Englishman came back into the car and stood by his master.

King Boris said to him: "Why have two British scientists, a married couple, been kidnapped in London and brought to Venice?"

Edward raised an eyebrow and looked at Charlie. "Ah," he said. "This would be that that boy then. I wondered." boy then. I wondered."

Charlie didn't appreciate it. That That boy, again. It was what the French ca.n.a.l cat had said. boy, again. It was what the French ca.n.a.l cat had said.

"What boy?" he said, a little rudely, imitating Edward's intonation. boy?" he said, a little rudely, imitating Edward's intonation.

"The boy whose parents are missing, who is missing too," said Edward.

"Am I missing?" said Charlie, in some surprise.

"You were last seen stowing away in a policeboat on the Thames. You are feared drowned."

"Oh!" said Charlie. "So where are my parents then?"

"En route," said Edward. "They have been traveling south, and when they arrive, we will know their whereabouts."

"And who has them, Edward?" asked the king. "And why?"

Edward looked a little blank. "It isn't clear whether in the full process of-" he began. The king stopped him.

"Edward," he said. "Charlie deserves to know everything that we know."

Edward tightened his mouth a little. It seemed he didn't agree.

"The likelihood demonstrated by current investigations-" he started again.

"Edward," said the king warningly.

Edward blinked, and gave in.

"Your parents were working on a cure for asthma, weren't they?" he said.

"They were always working on cures for everything," said Charlie. He spoke cautiously, but inside him a light went on. This was the first human information he had had yet. Was he about to be proved right? Was it for their knowledge that they had been taken?

"It seems that they were working on asthma prevention, and furthermore they have found something quite important," said Edward. He looked at the king. It was clear he didn't want to tell Charlie.

King Boris sighed. He thought for a moment and then he took over. "There are people in this world, Charlie, who make a great deal of money from selling medicine," he said.

Charlie didn't understand.

"Asthma in particular has been a problem. Though automobiles now hardly exist, there remain many allergies, to cats and so on. People-especially children-need a lot of asthma medicine. If, however, everybody were to be inoculated against asthma, or if the asthma gene could be identified-do you know about genes, Charlie?"

"Yes," said Charlie. "They're the building blocks of human beings. We all have a different pattern of genes, which make us who we are. We get a mix from our parents."

"Exactly," said King Boris. "So if the gene that makes a person susceptible to the allergies that cause asthma could be identified-are you following me, Charlie?"

"Yes," said Charlie. But for a moment he heard another word in his head. Allergies, genes. Allergenies. Were they something to do with this? Were they drugs? Or people? Or genes? Or what?

King Boris was still speaking. "If the gene were identified, it could be modified or changed or removed, and people would no longer need asthma medicine, and the people who made money from asthma medicine would stop making money."

Charlie shook the Allergenies from his mind, and concentrated on what the king was saying.

"But everybody would be happy if asthma were prevented!" he said.

"Not people who put money above the ability to breathe clearly," said King Boris.

Charlie frowned. "Couldn't they make money out of modifying the genes or something?" he asked.

"If they had the imagination, perhaps," said the king.

Charlie was staring very hard at the floor.

"So somebody took my mum and dad because they have invented something that would help everybody?" His voice sounded thick and tight, even to himself.

"We believe so," said the king gently.

Charlie stared and stared at the floor, holding his face straight with determination.

"But it can't be!" he burst out. "Rafi doesn't have anything to do with-" He was confused.

"Rafi?" said Edward.

"Rafi Sadler is the name of the boy who kidnapped them initially," said King Boris.

"Ah," said Edward, pocketing the name for future reference. "Charlie-big groups would employ lesser characters to, as it were, perform those functions not considered appropriate to an inst.i.tution interested in maintaining a facade of respectability."