The Promised One Page 6

  Lucy never found out what he was going to say, because at that moment a car screeched to an emergency stop outside in the street and they both rushed to the window. A sour-faced man was standing in the road shaking his fist at a car that was just starting again, after obviously having stopped for him.

  ‘Isn’t he that horrid Mr Whitehead?’ asked Lucy.

  ‘Yes,’ said Grandpa. ‘I’m afraid he always just walks out into the road and expects the cars to stop for him.’ Mr Whitehead was the neighbourhood nuisance. He lived opposite Grandma and Grandpa and made it his life’s work to complain about everyone and everything in the road. In the previous summer he had crossed the road to shout at poor Sarah for making too much noise in the front garden on her birthday. She had been terribly upset and frightened and Lucy had never forgiven him for the incident.

  ‘Watch this, Gramps,’ she said, and he saw her looking at two seagulls sitting on the roof of the house opposite, Whitehead’s own house, in fact. Suddenly one of the gulls flew low across the road, and as it passed over Whitehead a white blob descended on to his head. It was a very large blob and it splashed all over his head and shoulders.

  ‘That’s from Sarah …’ Grandpa heard Lucy mutter under her breath. Whitehead, who was beside himself with rage, stamped his foot and looked up into the sky to give the bird a glare and a curse. This happened to be most unwise, for at that moment the second gull flew over and this time the droppings hit him full in the face.

  ‘… and that’s from me,’ Lucy added with great satisfaction. Grandpa had never seen the man looking so angry. The sash window was open a few inches, top and bottom, and they could clearly hear him shouting and swearing. His face was covered in white goo streaked with black and grey and he looked like a circus clown. He saw Grandpa and Lucy looking at him and Grandpa started back guiltily as though he had been found out. Then he remembered that what had happened couldn’t possibly be blamed on him or Lucy, and for the first time the truly awesome and anonymous nature of her power dawned on him.

  Lucy laughed in glee and clapped her hands.

  ‘Serves you right, you horrid old creep,’ she said, then stopped and looked at her grandfather.

  ‘Oh gosh,’ she said, ‘that was a really wicked thing to do, wasn’t it?’ She didn’t look in the slightest bit sorry, however, and though at first Grandpa pretended to be stern, he suddenly pointed out of the window and started to giggle.

  On their side of the road, to which Mr Whitehead was crossing, there was a drain with a damaged cover. The council had placed warning lanterns round it so that traffic would not drive over it until it had been repaired. Mr Whitehead had stumbled across the road, his face dripping, tripped over a lantern and got his foot stuck in the drain. He looked up again and, seeing Grandpa and Lucy still watching him, immediately stopped struggling to remove his foot and stood looking at his wrist watch, as though he regularly stood with one foot on the kerb and the other in a drain. At that moment a large grey rat appeared from the drain, jumped on to his trapped foot and started sniffing and nibbling at his shoe lace. Whitehead gave a cry of fear and disgust and tried to kick it off with his free foot, almost overbalancing as he did so. The rat then sprang on to his good foot and put its head under his trouser hem as if to run up inside his trouser leg. Whitehead shook his foot frantically to try to dislodge it. Then, just as quickly as it had arrived, the rat disappeared down the drain. Whitehead looked up to the window immediately and saw Grandpa and Lucy pretending to gaze up at the sky as though discussing the weather.

  Soon an old lady crossed the street pulling a small poodle behind her on a very long lead. Mr Whitehead was now pretending to read his newspaper, and she walked past him without taking any notice of him. When the dog came up to him, however, he sniffed eagerly at the drain and Whitehead’s feet – he could smell the rat. Having decided the rat had gone he then casually cocked his leg against Mr Whitehead’s trapped leg as though he routinely came across short, fat, trouser-covered lampposts on his evening walks. The old lady waited patiently for a while then tugged at the lead. Half-turning she called back over her shoulder:

  ‘Come along, Walter, it’s almost time for your tea. What a great big wee-wee for such a little doggy!’

  Lucy looked at Grandpa whose face was contorted with laughter.

  ‘I didn’t do that dog, Grandpa, honestly! But it was a really cool finish, wasn’t it?’ They were both convulsed with laughter and had to crouch down behind the windowsill so Mr Whitehead couldn’t see them. He looked up to check and heard muffled hoots and shrieks floating through the window.

  ‘What on earth are you two up to?’ Grandma, hearing the commotion, came through from the kitchen and found the pair hiding like naughty children under the window. Then she looked out, and soon all three of them were giggling together on the floor.

  Eventually Grandma returned to the kitchen to check on her cooking and Lucy went to the telephone. A few moments later Grandpa heard her peals of laughter as she told Clare and Sarah about Mr Whitehead. As he started to lay the table, he pondered over the extraordinary situation that had come about in which she was at one moment someone with apparently complete dominion over the animal kingdom, and the next, just a mischievous little girl.

  The next day Lucy went off to the dolphinarium again. Grandma was going shopping and they set off together. As they left the house some workmen were repairing the drain in the road outside and Lucy was amused to see that Mr Whitehead’s shoe was still stuck in it. While she and Grandpa were hiding he must have hopped home with one shoe missing, a sight she would have loved to have seen. She decided to arrange some further entertainment involving animals and Mr Whitehead before she went home and to borrow Grandpa’s camcorder so she could take a record of the fun back for her sisters.

  Jonathan and his companions were overjoyed to see Lucy again and Catherine, still looking somewhat puzzled by the events of the previous day, reported that Clara had taken her tablet that morning without any fuss at all. Soon Lucy was able to sit down and chat in peace with Jonathan and tell him about her conversation with her grandparents.

  ‘The Sagacious Ones have said many wise things,’ said the dolphin when she had finished, ‘and it is well that you have spoken to them. It was never said that the Promised One would be a child and they are right that we should wait until the proper time before you fulfil your destiny; we have waited for many aeons hitherto and in comparison with the immensity of those ages you will become a woman in the flutter of a dolphin’s tail. Yet it would be good for us all if you could do something even now and it would be best if you chose to assist some animals that are close to your heart. It is said that there are two that you hold particularly dear: one is a marsupihop and the other is one of the Terrible Ones. These you keep at your side while the Brilliant One sleeps.’

  Lucy gaped at him. He must be talking about her cuddly bedtime toys, Kanga Kangaroo and Jackie Jaguar.

  ‘How can you know of these things?’ she said at last.

  ‘We spoke yesterday of what you called the animanet,’ the dolphin replied. ‘This is only used in very special times but the life and movements of the Promised One are special to all animals. There is nothing on earth that we value more highly than your well-being. We know about your home and your possessions and henceforth your whereabouts will always be known to us.’

  ‘So,’ thought Lucy, ‘blabbermouth Tibbles has been talking about my toys over the animanet.’

  The dolphin continued.

  ‘I shall be speaking today to those who know the marsupihops to see if they need your help; I cannot, however, speak yet to the Terrible Ones for I know not what kind of Terrible One it is that you cherish. We know of the great manefang that lives south of the Great Sands on the plains where run the striped horse and the endless herds of clovenkin; the fleetfang that can outrun even the clovenkin, and the spotfang that hunts from the trees; then there is the stripedfang who lives where the Brilliant One rises, or there are the Terrib
le Ones over the Great Salt where the Brilliant One sleeps – the mountainfang in the north and the junglefang in the south. Which of these Terrible Ones is it your desire to assist?’

  ‘Hmmm,’ thought Lucy, ‘so clever-clogs Tibbles isn’t so hot on her big cats – she doesn’t know exactly what Jackie is.’ The dolphin obviously didn’t know whether Tibbles meant a lion, a cheetah, a leopard, a tiger, a cougar or a jaguar. She spoke to the dolphin.

  ‘I respect and admire all those Terrible Ones of which you speak, but the one that I have loved since I was very young is the junglefang.’

  ‘I shall speak to those who know the junglefang today,’ he replied. ‘My own kin live in the great river of the junglefang, and I shall speak with you again after the Brilliant One has slept.’ ‘But how can you speak to those so far away? Is it with the fledgiquills you do this?’

  ‘No, O Promised One, the fledgiquills can fly at great speed – faster than any other living creature – but even they cannot reach us from the lands of the marsupihop or the junglefang in but a single sunsleep. No, it is through the Great Ones that we speak. They learn of matters far away through the Great Salt and when I swim in the Great Salt today I can speak to them.’

  Lucy remembered that the dolphinarium was now connected to the sea, so Jonathan would be able to speak to wild dolphins and whales, but she had no idea how that was going to help him to communicate overnight with Australia and South America.

  ‘We will speak again when the Brilliant One rises once more,’ continued the dolphin, ‘but before you take your leave I have a question that has perplexed the Great Ones and all their kin since the beginning of time. Perhaps you would ask the Sagacious Ones, though I fear that even they may not know the answer to the mystery of which I speak.’ Lucy was fascinated.

  ‘What is the mystery?’ she asked.

  ‘The Great Ones that pass for league upon league through the Great Salt have discovered a secret that is known only to those that can journey for many moons across waters far from those that they know and love. It is said – and I only know what others have told me – that if a Great One follows the path of the Brilliant One, then after many, many leagues there are other lands – the lands where live the junglefang and the mountainfang.’

  Lucy nodded; she had already noticed that the dolphin recognized her head movements for what they were.

  ‘The Great Salt flows around those lands, close to the Great Ice,’ the dolphin continued, ‘and if, beyond them, the Brilliant One is followed once more for an immense distance there are yet other lands which the Great Salt also passes. It is said – and here is the great mystery – that, when many such lands have been passed, the Great Salt once again becomes that part from which this great journey began. I know not if this can be true for it seems as if nothing could be so – yet my father, and my father’s father, told me that they had heard this from many Great Ones and I have also heard it tell that there are fledgiquills who say the same: if they fly always towards the Brilliant One and never turn back, then one day they arrive once more in the place whence they came. Do you think the Sagacious Ones will believe what I have told you?’

  Lucy was in a quandary. Should she herself embark upon an explanation of the dolphin’s ‘mystery’ or should she pretend to consult her grandparents? The latter course seemed like a bit of a cop-out and she thought that it might be easier to do things first hand – it would in any case enhance the profile of the Promised One in the eyes of the animals for her to know the answer to such mysteries even when not yet grown to full womanhood. She went to the side of the pool where there was a netted pen containing rings and other inflatable playthings that Catherine used when the public came to see the dolphins performing. There was a large ball in the pen and Lucy brought this over to Jonathan.

  ‘The mystery of which you speak is known to us Tailless Ones,’ she said, ‘and in the houses we build to sail on the Great Salt and the steel thunderquills that roar in the air we have found all that you have heard to be true. I can tell you why it is so, but I know not if you will understand.’ She then successfully explained the spherical nature of the earth using the ball, but Jonathan was unable to understand why the Great Salt didn’t fall off the bottom, despite his effortless use of gravity in his aquabatic and aerobatic feats. Finally he spoke:

  ‘It is said that the Tailless Ones know of many things that we can never know and I see that this is true – that, indeed, is why we need one of you to help us in our task. It is sufficient for me to know that the mysterious thing that Great Ones and their kin have told me is true, and I can now tell them that this has been said by the Promised One.’

  Lucy then answered several more questions that he had obviously been saving up to ask her.

  The time had passed so quickly while they were talking that Lucy was astonished when Grandma and Grandpa appeared to take her to lunch.

  ‘I’d no idea it was lunchtime already,’ she said. ‘We’ve talked about so many things – I can’t wait to tell you about them!’

  They went to a pizza parlour on the seafront that Lucy had had her eye on for a couple of days and she wasn’t disappointed. Between mouthfuls of her favourite pizza combination, ham and pineapple, she told her grandparents about her morning and, as they listened to their granddaughter talking earnestly about the difficulty of explaining that the world wasn’t flat to a dolphin, they had to keep reminding themselves that they weren’t in some bizarre dream. After lunch Grandma left to take the old lady next door to a hospital appointment, and Grandpa and Lucy went for a walk along the seafront.

  5

  Some Lessons in History and Geography

  ‘I’ve so much to tell you about today,’ started Lucy, ‘but first I must ask you about something Jonathan said a couple of days ago which I forgot during our chat yesterday.’

  ‘Go on,’ said Grandpa, his interest already aroused. He was finding these discussions with his granddaughter fascinating.

  ‘Well, when I asked him about the Promised One, he said something very strange. He said that there had been four others before me that the animals had thought to be The One. From what he said they were all men, but one of them, the most recent one, said that the real Promised One would be a woman – a woman, by the way, not a girl.’

  ‘Did he give you any details?’ Grandpa was beside himself with interest.

  ‘Yes, but I didn’t understand them. The first man lived what Jonathan called “long, long ago” and at a time when dolphins from the “Middle Salt” could swim across mountains rising from the sand. What on earth does that all mean?’

  ‘The Middle Salt must be the Mediterranean Sea,’ said Grandpa excitedly. ‘The dolphins would have known even before man that it is almost completely enclosed by land – in the middle of the land – and the only way in and out before the Suez Canal was built was through the straits of Gibraltar. As for swimming over mountains that Mediterranean dolphins could get to – well, you know the answer to that one, Lucy!’

  She thought for a moment.

  ‘Give me a clue.’

  ‘When you get home look in the Old Testament of the Bible. The Book of Genesis.’

  ‘Don’t be mean, Gramps. I can’t wait till we get home! Give me an easier clue.’

  Grandpa grinned.

  ‘OK, who springs to your mind when you think about somebody who could get animals – lots of different animals – to do what he wanted? And who lived during a period when the waters covered the land so deep that dolphins could swim over mountains?’

  ‘Noah!’ exclaimed Lucy. ‘Of course, he must have been able to do things just the same as I can. How else could he have got the animals to go into the Ark – and not eat each other up during the voyage? No wonder the animals thought the Promised One had arrived! I should really’ve got that one myself, shouldn’t I?’

  ‘Never mind,’ said Grandpa. ‘It’s very difficult to connect what you are hearing in the reality of here and now with stories relating to things that
happened thousands of years ago. What I’m totally amazed by is the fact that an ancient legend that humans have passed down through the ages in the Bible has also been preserved in the animal kingdom solely by word of mouth. It’s all but incredible. Who’s next? This is just like a quiz show!’

  ‘The next sounded very interesting and I’m sure you’ll know the answer. He lived in the lands of sand from which the Brilliant One rises to warm the Middle Salt.’

  ‘So,’ said Grandpa. ‘He lived in the desert lands to the east of the Mediterranean. That narrows it down, but it still covers an awful lot of countries. Did he give any other clues?’

  ‘Well, he said something about a city on a great river in the sand with lots of flowers – oh yes, he said, “trees and flowers such as had never been seen before in those desolate places”.’

  Grandpa strolled along, deep in thought.

  ‘“such as had never been seen”,’ he murmured, ‘Of course!’ His face lit up. ‘The Hanging Gardens of Babylon – one of the Seven Wonders of the World. This was the city built in the middle of the desert on the river Euphrates by a famous king called Nebuchadrezzar. But who on earth …? I’ve got it!’ he said in triumph. ‘It’s Daniel. Have you heard of Daniel?’ He turned to Lucy.

  ‘Do you mean the man in the story of Daniel and the Lions’ Den?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Grandpa. ‘Well done! Nebuchadrezzar had Daniel thrown into a den of lions expecting him to be torn to pieces, but he walked out completely unharmed. The power given to him to do that was presumably the same power that you’ve been given. There’s no other explanation. Who’s next?’ he asked eagerly. They had come to a bench in a stone shelter facing the sea and they sat down as they talked.

  ‘I can’t believe how well you’re solving these puzzles,’ said Lucy. ‘I wasn’t sure if we’d get any, and now there’s only two to go. They both lived in the land of olives and the great mountain of fire – or something like that – and the first lived in the City of the Seven Hills.’