The Secret of Zanzibar (19 page)

‘Three,' said Tom. ‘I'm part of this mission too, now.'

Alice smiled. ‘Three sectors …'

They spent the following hours discussing how they would each comb the streets of their sector, trying to start discreet conversations with Gerandans, especially young Gerandans. When they'd exhausted the subject, they napped, and ate, and waited for Maxine to return. And waited. And waited. And waited …

It was nearly seven o'clock when the front door opened and Maxine, her face drawn and haggard, entered.

‘Did you see Solomon Honker?' Alice asked anxiously as soon as the grey mouse had closed the door. ‘Is he all right?'

The look the grey mouse gave her was distraught. ‘Solomon …' she began. ‘Solomon is dead.'

Tibby Rose held up the ends of Alistair's scarf as he ran towards her. ‘Did it work?' she cried.

‘Hansel and Gretel,' he called in reply.

The two ginger mice stood beaming at each other as Timmy the Winns joined them.

‘Am I glad to see you, little sister,' Timmy the Winns said, placing a hand on Tibby's shoulder.

‘What happened to you, Alistair?' Tibby asked. ‘I've been so worried.'

‘The Sourians,' Alistair said grimly. ‘They took me to the palace in Grouch. I met Queen Eugenia.' He shivered, remembering how he had knelt before her, anticipating the sword on his neck. ‘Timmy arrived just in time. What about you?'

‘The pamphlet,' Tibby said urgently. ‘Have you seen it? When the other editors all agreed to distribute it, we delayed its release till Sunday to give everyone involved
time to send their families to safety in case the Queen's Guards went after them.'

‘We did see it,' Alistair said. ‘And it's working! Timmy was disguised as a Queen's Guard and we were pretending I was his prisoner, and Sourians were throwing rocks at him and telling him to leave me alone!'

‘Hooray!' Tibby clapped her hands.

‘But, Tib, what are you doing here?' Alistair asked as they turned and strolled along the path towards the weathered stone cottage that had belonged to the grandparents of Zanzibar, Emmeline and Timmy the Winns. ‘Is it safe?' He looked around anxiously; the Queen's Guards often patrolled this area, he knew.

‘Oh yes,' said Tibby. ‘Emmeline arranged for mice from the nearest village to act as lookouts. You can't see them, but don't worry – they're keeping an eye on us. As for what I'm doing here, well, when you didn't come back to Granville's office I started to get worried. I went to the fountain and found your scarf, and knew that something must have happened to you. I figured you'd left the scarf there deliberately as a message to me.'

‘I did,' Alistair broke in.

‘So Granville and I decided that, rather than go out looking for you and risk being caught ourselves, we should finish the mission then I should leave Souris.' She gave him a troubled look. ‘It wasn't an easy decision,' she said. ‘I hope you understand.'

‘You did the right thing,' Alistair assured her. ‘That's exactly what I hoped you'd do.'

‘Anyway, Grandpa Nelson, Great-Aunt Harriet and I escaped into the Crankens, then I used the scarf to find the lake and the tubes. I thought if I could reach Gerander and find the others in Cornoliana we could organise a rescue mission together.'

That reminded Alistair of some good news he could share with his friend. ‘Speaking of rescue missions,' he said, ‘Slippers and Feast didn't need to rescue Zanzibar after all. It was Keaters who wrote the note – Zanzibar wasn't recaptured!'

‘I know,' said Tibby.

‘How do you –?' Alistair began, then stopped as the door to the stone cottage was flung open and his mother rushed out to throw her arms first around him, then her younger brother.

The next mouse out the door was Alistair's father, who pulled him into a tight hug, then Zanzibar, followed closely by Slippers Pink and Feast Thompson.

‘You're … you're all here,' said Alistair, almost lost for words.

‘We are,' Slippers said with a laugh. ‘Oswald brought us a message in Shetlock to say Tibby Rose was here in Gerander and then carried us back with him. We'll all leave for Cornoliana first thing tomorrow. Ebenezer and Beezer will meet us there. The mission to Shetlock was a great success: the president accepted Zanzibar as the
rightful leader of Gerander and agreed to form an alliance against Souris.'

‘And we've convinced mice all over Gerander to protest against the Sourian occupation,' Emmeline said. Then, with a pensive look, she added, ‘I just wish we had news of Alex and Alice.'

Stepping into the cottage felt, in a strange way, like coming home, Alistair thought. He walked into the parlour to see Grandpa Nelson sitting in an armchair. Through a doorway he could see Great-Aunt Harriet pulling something from the oven. It smelled distinctly of chocolate, Alistair noticed with pleasure.

The elderly mice each gave a cry of delight on seeing Alistair.

‘Tibby Rose was very worried about you, young man,' Great-Aunt Harriet said, but the smile she bestowed on him belied her stern words.

‘Did you really slide through the tubes?' Alistair asked the elderly mice in astonishment.

‘We certainly did,' Great-Aunt Harriet retorted. ‘And it's no laughing matter,' she added as Alistair tried unsuccessfully to stifle a giggle. ‘I was also carrying your rucksack.'

‘Wow, thanks!' said Alistair, who had been regretting its loss.

They all gathered in the parlour and Feast Thompson passed around slices of chocolate cake as Great-Aunt Harriet cut them.

‘Alistair's had a rather interesting time of it,' Timmy began. ‘Captured by the Sourians, locked in the dungeon of the palace in Grouch … and he had a couple of conversations with Queen Eugenia herself. Why don't you tell the others about it? I think it's time.'

Something in his uncle's tone made Alistair's heart quicken. Was he about to get some answers to the questions that had been troubling him? It wasn't his story to tell, Timmy had said. But whose story was it? Alistair looked around the room at the expectant faces. Someone here, he guessed.

He started by describing his encounter with Keaters, who had first shown an interest in the existence of another ginger mouse, and who, Alistair had suspected, had been spying on Grandpa Nelson and Great-Aunt Harriet. Then he related his exchanges with Queen Eugenia, her persistent questioning about ‘the other heir'. Looking down at the floor, he repeated her taunts about his parents and siblings, about his whole life being a lie.

When he looked up again, everyone was looking serious and uncomfortable – except Tibby Rose, who looked puzzled – but no one said anything.

Then Zanzibar gave a heavy sigh. ‘It
is
time, isn't it?' he said, and the rest of the adults nodded.

‘Alistair, Tibby Rose, let's take a walk.' Zanzibar stood up, walked to the back door and held it open.

The golden mouse said nothing as he led them through the overgrown garden, reaching to pluck a pink rose from a bush as he passed.

He sat in the middle of a worn wooden bench, its boards bleached grey. ‘Every evening after dinner, my grandparents would come and sit out here and watch the sun set,' he said. ‘Take a seat.'

Alistair sat on one side of him and Tibby on the other.

‘The story I'm going to tell you begins about fourteen years ago,' Zanzibar began.

‘Before I was born,' Tibby remarked.

‘Before either of you were born,' Zanzibar confirmed. ‘In those days FIG was in its infancy. I was living in hiding, constantly on the move – much as we've been doing the last few weeks, since we left Stetson. I was travelling around Souris and Shetlock, holding secret meetings with Gerandan sympathisers, and those Sourians and Shetlockers who felt strongly about the injustice of our country's occupation.'

‘Slippers told us about this,' Alistair remembered. ‘She went to one of the meetings and that's where she joined FIG.'

Zanzibar smiled, but there was sadness in his eyes as he said, ‘Did she tell you anything else about that time?'

‘She introduced you to her best friend,' Tibby said tentatively. ‘And you got married. But … but your wife died.'

For a long moment, Zanzibar didn't respond, as if
he was lost in some thoughts or memories of his own. Finally he cleared his throat and said, ‘Yes, my wife died. It should have been the happiest time of our lives. You see, she had given birth to twins only a few months before – a girl and a boy.'

Again he paused, and Alistair saw a look of pain flash across his face.

‘But a Sourian spy had infiltrated FIG,' he went on. ‘Keaters.' He nodded at Alistair's intake of breath. ‘Our first thought was to save our children. We couldn't be sure how much the Sourians knew – perhaps they didn't even know about the babies. We decided to separate the twins and send them into hiding, telling no one where we were taking them. Lucia took our daughter and fled back to her home in the north of Souris.'

‘Lucia …' Tibby gasped, putting her hands to her mouth. That was Tibby's mother's name, Alistair recalled. Could it be …?

Zanzibar inclined his head but continued talking. ‘Lucia took ill on the journey, and she died a few months later, leaving our daughter in the care of her father and aunt.'

Tibby made a small noise but said nothing, just stared at Zanzibar wide-eyed.

The golden mouse was staring at the rose he held, as if he was reciting his story to the flower.

‘Meanwhile, I had taken our boy. I had no childhood home to return to – my parents were long dead – but I
did have a family. My sister, Emmeline, had married and settled in Shetlock the year before.'

‘Mum and Dad,' Alistair quietly.

‘Only three months before our own children were born, Emmeline and Rebus had had children too. Also twins …'

‘You mean triplets,' Alistair corrected him.

Zanzibar shook his head. ‘Twins,' he repeated. ‘I fled with my son, my little ginger son, to my sister's house. And there I left him. Emmeline and Rebus moved to a new town and told everyone there they were the parents of triplets, and they brought up my son as their own.'

There was a roaring in Alistair's ears so loud that he couldn't speak, couldn't think, couldn't breathe. When it subsided, he heard Tibby Rose say, ‘You mean … you're my father?' Her voice was full of wonder.

Zanzibar handed her the flower. ‘Yes, Tibby Rose. I am your father.'

‘And Alistair …' Tibby's voice was trembling now. ‘Alistair is my brother?'

Zanzibar nodded.

Suddenly Alistair was on his feet, the roaring loud in his ears again.

‘No!' he shouted. He saw Zanzibar reach out a hand, heard Tibby cry, ‘Alistair, wait!', but he ignored them both and turned away, pushing through the overgrown garden until he reached the path by the river, and then he was running.

Alistair sank to his knees by the green pool and gazed into its cool depths. He'd thought somehow that the stillness of the pool would calm his whirling thoughts, but instead his mind darted this way and that, his thoughts as jumpy and disordered as his rapid heartbeat and ragged breathing. He'd always felt sorry for Tibby, growing up a virtual prisoner with her Grandpa Nelson and Great-Aunt Harriet. But now he saw that he, too, had been in a kind of prison. He hadn't lost his freedom, but he had lost his identity. And now everything he knew about himself had turned out to be a lie. Queen Eugenia had been telling the truth, he thought bitterly. He wasn't who he thought he was.

So many things made sense now. That was why Slippers and Feast had asked Oswald to take him to Tibby's house when they first knew he was in danger. And if he was really Zanzibar's son, that was why the Sourians had been after him in the first place. Alex wasn't the future king of Gerander: Alistair was!

He heard a soft footfall behind him and then someone spoke.

‘I thought you'd be here,' said Tibby.

Alistair, his eyes still on the pool, shrugged.

‘Zanzibar's really upset,' she said. She dropped to the grass beside him. ‘And … and so am I.' She sniffed, and Alistair could tell she was on the verge of tears.

After a few seconds he put his arm around her shoulders. ‘Tibby, I'm glad you're my sister. Really, I am. I feel like I always knew in a way. But they shouldn't have lied to us!'

Tibby shook her head. ‘They were trying to protect us, Alistair.'

‘Like Grandpa Nelson and Great-Aunt Harriet protected you?'

Tibby squirmed uncomfortably. ‘I don't know if they did the right thing or not,' she said.

‘They should have told us the truth!' Alistair insisted.

‘I think they always planned to,' said Tibby. ‘They were just waiting till we were older. But Zanzibar told me that Great-Aunt Harriet and Grandpa Nelson didn't know about you, though I think they must have suspected something. Only Slippers and Feast knew where each of us lived. Ebenezer and Beezer knew I existed, though they didn't know where I was – not until I turned up in Smiggins with you.'

Alistair shook his head. ‘When I think of all those years I mourned for my parents, and they weren't even my real parents.' Then he thought of his first eight years in the stone house in Stubbins. ‘But they will always be my parents,' he said slowly. ‘They have never treated me any differently to Alice and Alex, even though they knew I wasn't really their son. And Mum … I mean, Em–' He stopped. He just couldn't bring himself to call her ‘Emmeline'. ‘Mum gave me this scarf.' He tugged at the ends of the scarf, which was back around his neck once
more; the scarf he had worn every day for four years, except for the last few days. Even before he had known it contained a map of the secret paths of Gerander, he had treasured it because it had made him feel close to his mother.