Part 22 (1/2)

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 finis.h.i.+ng on the toilet and was.h.i.+ng 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 cus.h.i.+on 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 s.h.i.+vered. 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 s.h.i.+ning 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.