Boy Versus Rat Dog

  This one’s for Alison, who needs a bigger bookcase.

  The fire started on the ground floor. It spread upwards from there. By the time the first fire engine arrived, angry yellow flames came boiling out of the first-, second- and third-floor windows.

  Three levels higher, barely visible through the smoke, two figures waved frantically from a top-floor balcony.

  Centenary Apartments was the tallest building in Abattoir. It offered great views of the town. Earlier that day, Jacinta Mills and her daughter, Harriet, had watched a long line of circus trucks arrive at Stockyards Park, next to the old abandoned slaughterhouse at the bottom of the hill.

  There were Lost World animals – giraffes, camels, lions in cages, even an elephant!

  Three-year-old Harriet had never laid eyes on real live animals before – much less Lost World animals – but what she really wanted to see were clowns. Her mother had promised they would go and see them tomorrow. But right now, clowns and animals were the last things on their minds.

  ‘Yucky smoke!’ Harriet said, coughing and rubbing her eyes.

  Jacinta led her inside. Wetting a tea towel, she showed her little daughter how to hold it over her mouth and nose. ‘Breathe through this, darling – it makes it easier. You can wipe your eyes with it, too.’

  ‘Bad fire!’ Harriet said through the wet fabric. ‘Make fire stop, Mummy!’

  ‘The firemen will put it out,’ Jacinta promised. ‘Then someone will come and get us.’

  She had phoned triple 0. The firemen knew they were up there. But their high-pressure hoses seemed to be having no effect. The lower half of the building was a blazing inferno. Up on the sixth-floor balcony, the air was almost too hot to breathe.

  ‘Heeeeeeelp!’ Jacinta yelled.

  Down in the street, a small crowd of shocked passers-by peered up through the smoke. Jacinta wished she was down there with them. Wished she and Harriet were safe behind the line of police keeping the onlookers back.

  Wished they weren’t going to die.

  Harriet tapped her leg. ‘Mummy . . .’

  ‘Go back inside!’ Jacinta snapped.

  Harriet wasn’t listening. The damp tea towel trailed, forgotten, from her left hand. Her other hand was pointing.

  ‘Clowns,’ she said.

  Her mother fought back tears. ‘Yes, darling. We’ll go and see the clowns tomorrow.’

  Scooping up her daughter, Jacinta carried her back inside.

  And missed seeing the two clowns.

  The people down below didn’t see the clowns, either. Their backs were turned. They were all watching the apartment fire on the other side of the street.

  ‘Get them to move!’ cried the larger of the two clowns. He wore a red-on-white polka dot suit and a frizzy red wig. He was eating a Power Bar, stuffing it down as if he’d had nothing to eat for a week.

  As if eating was important right now!

  ‘I don’t want to squash anyone,’ he said, with his mouth full.

  The second clown was dressed almost identically to her larger companion. Except her suit had white spots on a red background. And her wig was green. She raced into the crowd, yelling at them to stand clear. Nobody took any notice. When she got to the front, the girl clown grabbed a policeman by the sleeve and began speaking urgently to him.

  The policeman didn’t take her seriously at first. Nobody took clowns seriously – you weren’t supposed to. But the little green-haired clown wasn’t smiling. And she wouldn’t release the policeman’s sleeve. She kept talking and pointing behind them – away from the burning building – saying something about the tower. Something about the tower being about to fall over. It didn’t make sense. But she kept going on and on about it. Finally, with a sigh of exasperation, the policeman turned to look where she was pointing.

  His mouth dropped open. His eyes bugged out.

  ‘CLEAR THE STREET!’ he yelled.

  Centenary Apartments might have been the tallest building in town, but it wasn’t the tallest structure. That title went to the huge, rusty water tower on the other side of the street.

  Cow Tower was a famous local landmark. The giant black-and-white cow painted on its side was the first thing visitors to Abattoir saw as they came along the highway. Beneath the painted cow, in tall white letters faded by time, was written:

  BEEF CAPITAL OF THE SOUTH.

  Cow Tower had been built nearly a century ago to supply water to the old, cement-block slaughterhouse that had given the town its name. (Abattoir was another word for slaughterhouse, a factory where live animals were killed and turned into meat. Eew!)

  Standing 41 metres high, Cow Tower was 12 metres taller than the apartment building across the street.

  And the whole structure was creaking and trembling, as if it was about to collapse.

  The street below was in total chaos. Police and SES volunteers were yelling at the onlookers to stand back. Firemen were dragging tangled hoses out of the way. People ran this way and that like confused ants through the swirling smoke.

  On the other side of the tower, hidden behind one of the steel pylons that supported the huge, oval water tank 30 metres overhead, the red-haired clown was straining with every muscle in his body.

  Incredibly, the massive structure was slowly lifting free of its foundations. Cracks appeared in the 80-year-old concrete footings. Puffs of cement dust billowed like pale smoke around the clown’s feet. Rusty iron bolts, thicker than a man’s thumb, snapped with bangs like gunshots.

  Then, almost in slow motion, Cow Tower began to fall.

  The red-haired clown staggered clear. He was joined by the green-haired clown. She handed him a Power Bar. It was already unwrapped. He scoffed it down in three greedy bites as they watched the tower topple slowly towards the blazing apartment building on the other side of the street.

  SMASH!

  The ground shook. It felt like an earthquake. Glass and broken bricks came tumbling down. People cowered and covered their heads, but nothing landed near them.

  ‘Look!’ cried one of the firemen.

  The huge empty water tank had come to rest just below the top-storey balcony where the woman and her little daughter were trapped.

  Across the street, the two clowns exchanged high fives.

  ‘Follow me,’ said the little one.

  Picking up a coil of rope, she slung it over her shoulder and went flying up one of the sloping pylons. She moved with the speed and agility of a Lost World monkey. The larger clown followed. He wasn’t as nimble or as fast as her, and he seemed a bit tired. By the time he had reached the water tank, his little green-haired companion stood in the middle of the big painted cow, slinging one end of her rope up to the woman on the balcony four metres above.

  Jacinta tied the rope to the rail and the little clown came scrambling up.

  ‘How many of you are there?’ asked the clown.

  ‘Just me and my daughter,’ Jacinta said.

  ‘Hello, clown!’ cried Harriet, trapping their green-haired visitor in a huge hug.

  The clown smiled down at her. ‘Hi! What’s your name?’

  ‘Harriet.’

  By this time, the second clown had pulled himself up over the balcony rail. He was larger than the first clown, almost as tall as Harriet’s mum. He was badly out-of-breath and sweating beneath his white face-paint.

  ‘Have you got any food?’ he gasped.

  ‘What?’ cried Jacinta. She couldn’t believe it. Food?!! At a time like this!

  The red-haired clown supported himself against the railing. His legs were trembling. Smoke swirled and eddied around him. The roar of flames came up from below.

  ‘I know it sounds completely nuts,’ he said. ‘But I really need something to eat.’


  Jacinta shrugged. She waved a hand into her smoke-filled apartment. ‘Be my guest.’

  The little clown freed herself from Harriet’s arms and raced inside. When she reappeared, she was carrying three bananas, a tub of yoghurt and a half-empty packet of chocolate biscuits. The larger clown drank the yoghurt, ate the bananas and wolfed down the remaining biscuits, all in less than 30 seconds. It was disgusting to watch.

  ‘Thanks for the food,’ he said to Jacinta, wiping the chocolate off his red-painted lips with one baggy sleeve of his clown suit. ‘Climb on my back.’

  ‘But you’re just a boy!’

  ‘I’m strong,’ he said. ‘Trust me.’

  Jacinta climbed onto the red-haired clown’s back and wrapped her arms around his chest. There wasn’t much to him, but his muscles felt like iron.

  ‘But what about my daughter?’ she cried, when she realised what was about to happen (or thought she did).

  The other clown was tiny. Too small to climb down the rope with Harriet on her back.

  ‘I’ll come back for her in a minute,’ the boy clown promised. ‘My buddy’ll stay with her.’

  He turned towards the railing. ‘Are you scared of heights?’

  ‘A bit,’ Jacinta admitted.

  ‘You’d better close your eyes then. And hold on tight.’

  Jacinta did as she was told. She felt him climb up onto the rail. They wobbled for a moment, then there was a terrifying falling sensation, followed by a loud, hollow-sounding thump that rattled Jacinta’s teeth. She opened her eyes. She and the boy clown were standing on the huge, oval water tank four metres below her balcony.

  ‘Did you jump?’ she asked, amazed.

  ‘It was the quickest way,’ said the clown. Below them, the flames were getting bigger and closer. ‘Stay here. I’ll go up and get your little girl.’

  He scrambled up the rope and disappeared over the rail onto her balcony.

  A few seconds later – thump! – he was back beside her. This time he had Harriet on his back. The toddler’s eyes were wide with excitement and she was grinning from ear to ear.

  ‘Again!’ she cried, pointing up at the balcony. ‘Do it again, clown!’

  ‘There isn’t time,’ he said, panting to get his breath back. ‘We’ve got to get out of here.’

  The smaller clown came sliding down the rope. Her face-paint was bubbled with sweat and her ping-pong ball nose was crooked. The heat from the roaring flames made the air shimmer.

  ‘I’ll take Harriet,’ she said to her larger companion. ‘You take her mum.’

  Piggybacking Jacinta and her daughter, the two clowns went wobbling down the sloping tower legs like tight-rope walkers.

  There was so much smoke that nobody saw them until they reached the ground. The crowd cheered as a paramedic walked out of the smoke with Harriet in her arms. Another paramedic and a policewoman led Jacinta over to a waiting ambulance.

  Nobody noticed the two oddly-clad figures that went sneaking off in the other direction.

  ‘I’m worried about you,’ Kristin Lawless said. She was peering around the curtain that separated her son’s bedroom from the rest of the caravan. ‘I’ve never known anyone to sleep so much.’

  Colt checked the time on his wrist-phone. It was 8.25. Shashlik! ‘Mum, can you do me a favour, please, and give Lucy her breakfast?’

  ‘I’ve just come from there,’ she said. Lucy was the Lost World Circus elephant. Colt was supposed to feed her, but today he’d slept in. ‘Luckily, one of us takes our responsibilities to the animals seriously,’ said his mother.

  ‘Sorry,’ he mumbled.

  ‘Lucy’s the one you should apologise to.’

  Colt avoided his mother’s penetrating gaze. Did she know he talked to Lucy when nobody else was around? ‘I would,’ he said, ‘if I could speak elephant.’

  Kristin didn’t move as he rolled out of his bed. She wrinkled her nose. ‘There’s a smell in here. You haven’t been smoking, have you?’

  ‘I might sleep a lot, but I’m not a loser!’ Colt said. He yawned. ‘It’s probably from that fire yesterday. Birdy and I went to look, remember?’

  She nodded. ‘Did you see the clowns?’

  ‘What clowns?’

  ‘They think it’s that Superclown boy who helped out when all our animals escaped last week. And that girl clown was with him, too. You can read about it in the local VN.’

  Colt tried not to seem too interested in whatever was in the town’s virtual newspaper. ‘What did they do this time?’

  ‘Rescued a woman and her daughter who were trapped on the top floor,’ his mother said. ‘I thought you might have seen them.’

  ‘There was a lot of smoke.’ Colt pulled on a Lost World Circus T-shirt. ‘We saw an ambulance. Are the lady and girl okay?’

  ‘They’re fine,’ said Kristin. She was looking at him strangely. ‘The woman he rescued said the boy clown had muscles like iron.’

  Colt stretched his arms. He could touch the ceiling. ‘Superheroes aren’t real,’ he said.

  His mother hung around while he ate breakfast. She acted as if something else was on her mind. Not just superhero clowns.

  ‘Colt, are you feeling all right these days?’

  He nodded. His mouth was full. He was halfway through bowl number three, and still needed more. It was always like this afterwards. Lots of food and lots of sleep. His body needed to recover.

  ‘I got an eVox message from an old work colleague last night,’ Kristin said. ‘From back when I worked in a laboratory.’

  Colt nodded again to show he was listening. His mother used to be a scientist before she became a vet. It was years ago.

  ‘He wants to do some blood tests,’ she said.

  ‘On Lucy?’ asked Colt. The elephant had been sick a few months back. She’d had a suspected case of rat flu. Several lots of blood samples had been taken, even after she got better.

  ‘Not on Lucy, darling,’ his mother said. ‘On you.’

  He nearly choked. ‘On me! Why?’

  ‘Remember the first time you went to hospital?’ she asked. ‘When you were in a coma for three days?’

  It had happened a while ago – after Colt had used his superpowers for the first time. ‘I was just asleep,’ he said.

  His mother smiled. It was a smile that said, Normal people don’t sleep for three days. She didn’t know Colt’s secret.

  Normal people couldn’t push over water towers, either.

  ‘The hospital did some tests,’ she said. ‘They didn’t find anything – at least, nothing bad. They gave me a printout. There was something in your blood results that nobody had ever seen before.’

  ‘What was it?’ asked Colt, setting his spoon down.

  His mother reached across the table and lightly touched his hand. ‘I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about, darling. But I sent a copy of the results to my old work colleague and he wants to do some tests of his own.’

  ‘Is it far?’

  ‘You don’t have to go anywhere,’ Kristin said. She stood up and closed the curtains. Then she fetched her big medical kit and placed it on the table.

  Colt’s eyes widened. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Taking a blood sample,’ said his mother.

  ‘Now? ’

  ‘There’s no time like the present,’ she said briskly, unwrapping a large syringe. She caught his eye. ‘As long as it’s okay with you?’

  ‘I . . . guess so.’

  He watched her wipe his inner elbow with a sterile swab, then looked away as the needle went in.

  ‘You’re very brave,’ she said softly.

  Colt hardly felt a thing. He had a quick peek. The blood coming out of his arm was darker red than he’d expected. He knew why nobody had seen anything like it before – it was the blood of someone strong enough to push over the Abattoir water tower. Superhero blood. Colt wasn’t sure he wanted his mother or her scientist friend to find out his secret. But it was too late now. She had already filled t
wo small vials. He looked away again as she gently removed the needle and pressed a cotton ball against the punctured skin.

  ‘Hold it there for a couple of minutes, darling.’

  Colt watched her stow the blood samples carefully inside a small, self-sealing cooler-bag. ‘If they couldn’t work it out at the hospital,’ he said, ‘what makes you think your friend can?’

  ‘Because he has one of the most brilliant minds in the country,’ Kristin said. She took a deep breath. ‘But he’s certainly not my friend.’

  ‘Then why is he helping you?’

  ‘Because I asked.’

  It was obvious she didn’t want to talk about him. Whoever he was, the mysterious scientist belonged in Kristin’s laboratory days – a time in her past life that she wanted to forget. Because of rat flu. The terrible pandemic that had wiped out nearly all the animals and birds on the planet had started in the very laboratory where she’d worked. His mother wasn’t the one who’d created it, but Colt knew she still felt terrible.

  ‘Where does he live?’ he asked.

  ‘A loooong way from here,’ Kristin said, stretching out the word as if no distance could be far enough away.

  In a supermarket car park nearly a thousand kilometres away, a man wearing dark-framed glasses sat in a blue station wagon reading a VN. It wasn’t the small virtual newspaper that Colt’s mother had read, it was one of the big national dailies. The story about an apartment fire in a remote country town had only made screen five. Superhero Clowns Save Two, the 3D headline said.

  Beneath it were two columns of print, a holopic of a water tower leaning against an apartment building, and a drawing of two clowns. The man studied the face of the larger clown for several moments, then got out of his car and went into the supermarket to buy cheese.

  The circus had its own school. It was a big truck like a mobile library, fitted out as a classroom. At 13, Colt was the oldest student. It was weird being in class with kids who were just learning to read. Today the older students were helping the little ones learn their alphabet. It was hard work.