in yet. Only Bulter, his feet on the desk, picking his teeth with a long fingernail.
‘Here, you two, out of here,’ he said.
Tim dragged me out into the lobby. He had tears in his eyes. Good. We ran through the silent bird room. ‘It was a joke,’ he said desperately. We were out in the yard again. I picked up my broom and ran at him like a jouster, chased him right up against the alligator pen.
‘You’re mad!’ he yelled.
I bashed him with it, hard as I could, over and over.
‘Stoppit! Ow!’
‘Pack it in, you two,’ growled Cobbe, ‘he’s here, I heard the carriage.’
I dropped the broom and ran for the door. Tim ran after, grabbing my arm. ‘Jaffy!’ His face was white. ‘Please,’ he said, ‘don’t tell. I’ll give you my telescope. I promise, I’ll give you my telescope if you don’t tell him.’
And there was the front door and the voice of Mr Jamrach cheerfully greeting Bulter.
‘Please!’
I wanted that telescope. Dan Rymer’s telescope had been all around the world twice and he had given it to Tim. Dan Rymer had first seen the great Patagonian condor soaring high above the blue sierras through that telescope, Tim said. Once, once only, I had been allowed to look through it, and only for a few seconds. I saw the world anew. I saw the querulous shadow in the eye of a starling.
‘Please!’ said Tim.
I worked till about ten, then I fainted. Or something. Just fell over.
We’d had in three small elephants. I suppose they were very young, one of them was no taller than the big mastiff that used to guard the tannery in Bermondsey. They were not happy. Each had a chain round its foot. Side to side, side to side, trunks curling and unfurling in time, great feet lifting and listlessly kicking, turn by turn they swayed together with no space to turn about, an endless dance. So hypnotic was their movement, so steady and slow, that it got in my head and made me dizzy, and the rake fell from my hands and I fell over. Next thing I knew I was in the office, lying down upon a scratchy coat, and Mr Jamrach was pouring water in my mouth from a jug. Bulter and Cobbe were there, and Tim’s gawky neck was sticking up, an anxious face peering over Jamrach’s shoulder.
‘What’s this? What’s this?’ Jamrach said. ‘Are you ill?’
‘I’m tired,’ I said, ‘and I haven’t had my breakfast.’
‘No breakfast! Why not?’
And then it all came out that I’d been up all night in the shop and missed my shift at Spoony’s.
‘Tim locked me in,’ I said.
‘I was going to go back but I forgot!’
I hated Tim at that moment. ‘He did it on purpose,’ I said.
His face went red. ‘I didn’t.’
‘He did.’
He started to cry.
‘Tim,’ said Jamrach sternly.
‘Please don’t sack me, Mr Jamrach,’ Tim said wretchedly. ‘I didn’t mean anything by it.’
‘Are you telling me,’ said Jamrach, ‘that you locked this boy overnight in the shop?’
‘It was a joke,’ said Tim.
And that was the only time I ever saw Jamrach lose his temper.
His thin lips went hard and quivered. He roared. He cried that Tim was a wicked boy, a vile, cruel boy who’d end up on the gallows and serve him right! He could get out now! And never come back! ‘Always have to be top dog, don’t you, Tim?’ he said. ‘Well, I’m finished with you!’ and lifted me up onto his knee.
And now I was sorry for Tim. He begged. He sobbed. His face was a wreck. He said he was sorry, he didn’t realise, he’d never ever do such a terrible thing again, never, never.
‘Go away, Tim.’ Jamrach touched the great lump on my forehead. ‘Where did this come from?’
‘I fell over in the dark,’ I said.
Tim stood by the door, hands hanging helpless, tears pouring down his face. ‘I’ll give you my telescope,’ he said in a watery way.
‘Don’t sack him, sir,’ I said.
Jamrach heaved a great sigh. ‘Why?’ he asked. ‘Why should I keep him after this?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said.
The soft snuffling of Tim crying was the only sound for a moment. Jamrach’s eyes were sad.
Bulter put his head round the door. ‘Mr Fledge’s man’s here,’ he said.
They come from all over. Russia, Vienna, Paris. Clever men. Jamrach cursed in German. ‘What’s he want this time?’ he said. ‘A unicorn? A hippogriff?’
Bulter sniggered.
‘Where is he?’
‘In the yard. Looking at the elephants.’
‘Tell him to wait,’ said Jamrach, and sighed again.
When Bulter had gone, Mr Jamrach put me down and stood up. He brushed his knees. ‘Tim,’ he said, ‘wipe your nose and stop whining. Make yourself presentable and go straight over to the Spoony Sailor and tell them there exactly what you did, tell them Master Jaffy is in no way to blame, and he will be back at work this evening. Tell them I sent you and that I vouch for Jaffy. Then you can get yourself back here as quickly as possible and get back to work.’
Tim ran.
Jamrach took me by the hand and led me out through the yard. ‘A moment!’ he called to a tall thin man standing by the elephants. There was a door at the side which he unlocked, and through this we passed into a narrow alleyway with high brick walls and weeds growing out of the cobbles. I had never walked like this, hand in hand with a man as I had seen others walk with fathers, and it made me feel peculiar. My own father’s name I didn’t know for sure. Sometimes Andre, sometimes Theo, you never could tell with Ma. A dark sailor with a glass to his eye. At the turn of the alley was a little house with an open brown door moulting paint. Jamrach rapped with his knuckles.
‘Mrs Linver!’ he called. ‘Patient for you!’
There appeared, wiping her steamed-up eye glasses on her apron, the wild-faced woman who had stood at the front of the crowd when Jamrach rescued me from the tiger. Her bulbous, unseeing eyes wavered over me with a look of startled and overdone emotion, then she put her glasses back on and focused. ‘The little tiger boy!’ she exclaimed, dropping to one knee in front of me and taking me by the shoulders. Mr Jamrach told her all that had happened and said she should give me a good feed and send me home to bed.
‘I’ll skin that boy!’ she cried when she heard of Tim’s crimes.
