Tiger Trouble Read online

  TIGER

  TROUBLE

  Tigers don’t normally attack people, but this tiger had been pushed over the edge.

  Rani and I had about five seconds to live.

  But I wasn’t going down without a fight …

  Puffin Books

  Extreme Adventures:

  (can be read in any order)

  Crocodile Attack

  Bushfire Rescue

  Shark Bait

  Scorpion Sting

  Spider Bite

  Man Eater

  Killer Whale

  Anaconda Ambush

  Grizzly Trap

  Devil Danger

  Monkey Mountain

  Also by Justin D’Ath

  Gold Fever

  Snowman Magic

  www.justindath.com

  Contents

  1 AUSTRALIA’S LAST HOPE

  2 GET HIM, SAM!

  3 YOU SHOULD RUN, MR SAMFOX

  4 FOX HUNT

  5 SURROUNDED

  6 NERVOUS

  7 BAAGH

  8 GO KASIME!

  9 COMPLETE CRAZINESS

  10 BYE-BYE BABY TIGERS

  11 VERY MUCH TROUBLE

  12 SPRUNG!

  13 OUT FOR THE COUNT

  14 MAD COW

  15 STRIPY PROBLEM

  16 SWORD

  17 BIG CHEESE

  18 BIG GAME HUNTER

  19 TIGER COUNTRY!

  20 BIG AND DANGEROUS

  21 SHISHKEBAB!

  22 HOWZAT!

  23 DEEP TROUBLE

  24 WHACK!

  25 TIGER TROUBLE

  1

  AUSTRALIA’S LAST HOPE

  A hush fell over the stadium. Sixty thousand excited Indian cricket supporters watched legendary fast bowler Prakash Shahid pause at the top of his run-up.

  Five nervous Australian supporters watched the batsman facing him.

  ‘Go Nathan!’ yelled my little brother Jordan.

  ‘Hit a six!’ yelled Harry, his twin.

  We were at the flood-lit Kotla Park Stadium in New Delhi, India. Shahid was about to bowl the final ball in the deciding match of the Tri Nations One-day Cricket Series. India was five runs ahead. Australia was nine wickets down.

  And that was our big brother holding the bat.

  Nathan Fox was Australia’s last hope.

  ‘I can’t watch,’ whispered Mum.

  Dad and I stayed silent. We were both as nervous as Mum. It was Nathan’s first time batting for Australia. It would probably be his last. Nathan was a wicket-keeper, not a batsman. He was only in the side because Australia’s regular wicket-keeper, Glen Hamilton, had been injured in the previous game – hit in the ribs by a lightning-fast Prakash Shahid rising ball.

  Shahid was the most feared bowler in international cricket.

  ‘He’ll bowl another bouncer,’ I said softly.

  It was a bouncer that had dismissed the Australian captain on the previous delivery.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Dad. ‘Shahid plays fair. He won’t bounce a tail ender. You watch – it’ll be a yorker.’

  A yorker isn’t dangerous like a bouncer. The ball hits the ground at the batsman’s feet, rather than landing ten metres in front of him and bouncing straight at his head at nearly 200 kilometres per hour.

  But you can’t hit a six off a yorker, because you can’t get the bat under the ball. And Australia needed a six to win.

  Shahid started his run-up. The crowd roared in excitement. India was about to win the series.

  A victory for Australia seemed impossible.

  I held my breath, remembering all the times Nathan and I had played backyard cricket when we were kids. Well, when I was a kid and Nathan was a teenager teaching me some of the tricks of the game. He wasn’t much of a batter, but I had never forgotten something he told me: Don’t be scared of the ball, Sam. You’re the one with the bat.

  Now Nathan was the one with the bat. And suddenly I knew what he was about to do.

  But Shahid didn’t. When you’re the fastest bowler in the world, you don’t expect a number eleven batsman to come charging down the pitch towards you.

  That’s exactly what Nathan did.

  Shahid was just stepping into his delivery stride when he saw Big Brother coming. He tried to change what was going to be a yorker into a short ball. But it wasn’t short enough. Nathan reached the ball just before it bounced, swinging his bat like a club.

  WHACK!

  But he miscalculated the ball’s speed. Instead of sailing off towards the cover boundary as Nathan intended, the ball glanced off the top of his bat and shot up into the starry night sky.

  Sixty thousand jubilant Indian cricket supporters clapped and cheered, expecting it to be caught.

  Four disappointed Australian cricket supporters shook our heads and sighed.

  But not Harry.

  ‘It’s a six!’ he yelled.

  Could he be right? The ball had flown so high that it was up in the strong easterly wind blowing across the top of the grandstands. That, in combination with the speed of Shahid’s delivery, carried it towards the deep-cover boundary.

  A deathly silence fell as the crowd realised what was happening. Everyone watched the tiny white ball begin its long, curving descent.

  Was it going to make it?

  Not if Ajit Pillay could help it. The Indian all-rounder had run across from deep fine leg, his eyes locked on the ball. I held my breath, hoping he’d misjudge it. But Pillay was one of the best fielders in the game. With a final heroic lunge, he leapt up and wrapped the fingers of his out-flung left hand around the ball.

  It was a glorious catch.

  The roar of the crowd was deafening. So I only heard part of what Dad said:

  ‘… over the rope …’

  Then I saw what he meant. After Pillay came down from taking the catch, he had accidentally stepped backwards over the boundary rope. The umpire raised both hands above his head.

  A six!

  Australia had won the game. And the series.

  Nathan was a hero!

  Only then did I remember my camera. Shishkebab! I’d been so nervous watching my big brother face his first ever ball in international cricket that I’d forgotten to take his photo. There was still time for a shot. As the rest of the Australian cricketers raced out onto the field to congratulate Nathan, I reached under my seat for my backpack.

  It wasn’t there.

  Huh? I bent down to look. There was nothing under my seat apart from an empty drink can and a couple of gum wrappers.

  Harry tugged my sleeve. ‘That boy’s got your bag,’ he said, pointing up into the stands behind us.

  Our seats were at the end of a row, so I had a clear view. A small boy wearing a purple beanie went racing up the stairs away from us. Slung across one bony shoulder was my sky-blue backpack.

  ‘HEY! STOP!’ I yelled.

  2

  GET HIM, SAM!

  We had been warned about pickpockets. The manager at our hotel told us to be very careful with our wallets, cameras and mobile phones, especially at the crowded markets and in the poorer areas of Delhi.

  But I hadn’t expected to be robbed at the one-day cricket final. And especially not during the most exciting moment of the game. Silly me. Because that was exactly where and when the little thief made his move. He timed it perfectly. When every other pair of eyes in the stadium was focused on Ajit Pillay taking his amazing catch, the boy in the purple beanie sneaked up behind my seat, grabbed my backpack and took off.

  But he made a mistake. Because not only did my backpack contain my camera, my wallet and a water bottle, there was a cricket ball in there as well – one that Nathan had brought up from the locker rooms just before the game. It was signed by the e
ntire Australian cricket team.

  No way in the world was I going to let a lousy pickpocket get away with that.

  I took off after him.

  Somewhere behind me, Dad was yelling at me to come back.

  Harry and Jordan were yelling too: ‘GO SAM! GET HIM, SAM!’

  Usually I obey my father and don’t take much notice of my little brothers. Not this time. Two minutes ago we’d all been cheering for Nathan; now the twins were cheering for me.

  It was my turn to be a hero.

  Look out, pickpocket! I thought, racing up the narrow concrete stairs three at a time.

  I expected to catch him easily. I was fourteen and the boy in the purple beanie looked no older than six or seven. There wasn’t a seven-year-old in the world who could beat me in a foot race. Plus, he was carrying a backpack, and I wasn’t carrying anything. It should have been no contest.

  But the boy had a thirty-metre head start, and people were beginning to move out of their seats into the aisle ahead of me.

  ‘Let me through! Let me through!’ I cried.

  Some people understood me and stepped aside. But most didn’t understand English. They just gave me blank looks and kept on coming, jostling against me from all sides as they squashed into the aisle. Soon I was part of a huge crush of cricket fans moving at a snail’s pace towards the stadium exits. I lost sight of the purple beanie. All I could see was a sea of dark-haired heads and turbans stretching into the distance.

  So much for getting my stuff back, I thought. I’d seen the last of my autographed cricket ball.

  Or had I?

  When I finally made it out onto the edge of the busy road outside the stadium, I glimpsed something through a gap in the traffic. Lit up by a streetlight on the other side, a small boy wearing a purple beanie was climbing into a big white car.

  You have to be crazy to cross a Delhi road on foot – there don’t seem to be any road rules and the traffic is mad. But the pickpocket had done it, and I wanted my stuff back. Ducking and weaving like a rugby quarterback going for glory, I shot out into the swirl of headlights. Horns honked. Tyres screeched. I leapt aside as a motor scooter zoomed by with four people on it – two adults and two children, none of them wearing helmets. Then I nearly got flattened by a speeding tractor. It was followed by a bicycle with no light (but a very loud bell), then a camel pulling a load of sugarcane. A set of huge headlights came roaring towards me from the other direction. There was a squeal of brakes. Blinded, I stepped backwards, tripped over something and sat down heavily on a flat concrete surface.

  It was a footpath. I’d made it across the road in one piece.

  Phew!

  A pair of high leather boots stopped next to me. I looked up at the frowning face of a policeman.

  ‘Are you wanting to be run over, Mr Fox?’ he asked sternly.

  For a second I wondered how he knew me. Then I remembered I was wearing a yellow-and-green Australian cricket top with Nathan’s name and number on the back.

  ‘A boy stole my backpack,’ I puffed. ‘I was chasing him.’

  ‘I am not seeing a boy,’ the policeman said, looking right and left.

  I pointed. ‘He’s in that car.’

  The car, an old-fashioned Ambassador sedan, was parked close to the kerb about twenty metres away. It was facing away from us. As the policeman and I started towards it, another small boy darted out of the traffic. From one hand dangled a big, expensive-looking camera, in the other hand he clutched a mobile phone. When he saw the policeman, the boy’s eyes bulged in fright and he raced towards the car. The passenger-side rear door popped open and the boy jumped in. With a squeal of tyres, the big white car lurched out onto the road.

  I still didn’t fully understand what was happening. But I knew my autographed cricket ball was in the car, and I wanted it back. Without thinking about the risks, I raced after the Ambassador.

  Things got noisy. About fifty car, truck and motorbike horns honked, blared and beeped, all at once. The policeman blew his whistle. I took no notice. Swerving around a man pushing a barrow-load of brass pots, I clambered across a donkey cart and ducked in front of a tooting truck. Then I was running along in the narrow gap between a bus and three taxis. All of us were travelling in the same direction and going at about the same speed. The Ambassador was two vehicles ahead. I could just see its roof over the top of the front taxi. When I drew level with the second taxi, its driver beeped his horn. I thought he was beeping at me until I saw the headlight. A moped was coming the other way – between the bus and the taxis. Straight at me! The rear door of the bus was just to my left, so I jumped up onto the bottom step and flattened myself against the rattly door as the moped flashed past. Then I jumped down and sprinted ahead, past the bus and the taxis, until I was right behind the Ambassador. Its driver must have seen me, because suddenly he tooted his horn in one long, wailing blast like a siren, turned hard right and barged across to the other side of the road. Everyone in front of him somehow got out of his way. And because they got out of his way, they got out of my way, too. I was right on his tail, running flat out.

  The Ambassador reached the side of the road about three metres ahead of me. And kept going. Straight into the kerb. CRUNCH! The big white car reared up like a surf boat hitting a wave, then bounced across the footpath, trailing a shower of sparks where its muffler scraped the concrete.

  Had the driver gone crazy?

  Then I saw where he was going. Beyond the footpath was a strip of grass and trees – like a narrow park – with another road running along the other side. The second road looked nearly deserted. If the Ambassador reached it before I caught up, I would never get my stuff back.

  But first it had to get there. There was a low stone wall on the other side of the park, partially hidden by the shadowy trees. The driver didn’t see it until the last moment. He slammed on the brakes.

  Too late.

  THUD!

  3

  YOU SHOULD RUN, MR SAMFOX

  The Ambassador stopped dead. There was a hissing sound. Its buckled white bonnet slowly opened like the mouth of a yawning hippo, releasing a cloud of white steam that drifted away on the warm night air.

  I stumbled to a standstill just behind the crashed car. Panting, out-of-breath, not quite believing what had happened.

  I caused this! said a little voice in my head.

  I knew it was the driver’s fault for trying to get away. And the boy’s fault for stealing my backpack. But still I felt guilty.

  I hoped no one was hurt.

  Creeeeeak!

  One of the rear doors swung open. I started forward to help the passengers get out. But just before I got there, a gruff command came from inside the car – a man speaking Hindi – and the door banged shut.

  Bending down next to it, I tried to peer in. It was pitch dark under the trees, so I couldn’t see anything. But I knew there was a man in the big silent car and at least two boys – the one who stole my backpack, and the one with the camera and the mobile phone.

  Two pickpockets, I guessed, and their father.

  Pickpockets or not, they’d just had a car accident.

  ‘Is everyone okay?’ I asked.

  There was no answer. I tried the door handle. Locked. I moved to the driver’s door, but it was locked, too. I tapped on the glass. ‘Are you okay in there?’

  ‘Nobody is hurt,’ a muffled voice said. ‘Please to go away, sir.’

  I was relieved nobody was hurt. But I wasn’t going to leave without taking what belonged to me. I banged on the glass again, harder this time. And raised my voice.

  ‘Give me my backpack!’

  The window rolled down about three centimetres. ‘I am telling you to go away, sir,’ the driver growled through the narrow gap. ‘We will be calling the police!’

  ‘Go ahead and call,’ I said. ‘Then I’ll tell them what happened and you’ll all be arrested.’

  The man didn’t say anything. I could see his eyes looking nervously out th
rough the gap. He and I both knew what had happened the last time a policeman had approached his car. It gave me an idea.

  ‘If you aren’t going to call the police,’ I said, ‘I will.’

  I walked off a couple of paces, turned my back and pretended to pull something from my pocket. To those in the car, it must have looked like I had a mobile phone. I punched in a few make-believe numbers, then raised the make-believe phone to my ear.

  ‘Hello!’ I said loudly. ‘Is that the police?’

  It was hardly an Oscar-winning performance, but it fooled at least one of the people in the car. A door on the far side swung open and a small shadowy figure went darting off into the trees.

  This time I was ready. And this time there wasn’t a huge crowd of cricket fans getting in my way. I caught up with the boy inside of fifty metres. Grabbing one skinny arm, I stopped him in his tracks.

  ‘Gotcha!’ I said, turning him around so I could see his face.

  Lit up by the flashing headlights from the busy road behind me was a small boy wearing a purple beanie. The same boy who’d stolen my backpack.

  ‘Do you speak English?’ I demanded.

  He nodded, but didn’t reply. Something glistened on his face – two wobbly silver lines that ran like snails’ tracks down his cheeks. Tears.

  ‘Are you hurt?’ I asked in a more gentle voice.

  The boy shook his head. ‘The police will be sending me to the orphanage, sir,’ he whispered.

  ‘Why would they do that?’ I said. ‘Isn’t that your father in the car?’

  ‘That one is Mr Gutta, sir,’ said the boy. ‘My father and my mother and all my families are being killed in the tsunami.’

  Ohmygosh! I thought. You poor kid. No wonder he was crying. I loosened my grip on his arm. ‘Who is Mr Gutta?’ ‘He is a most very bad man, sir. He makes us to steal from tourists and rich peoples their cameras and moneys and jewelleries.’

  ‘And their backpacks,’ I added, just to let the little thief know I still had a very good reason to be holding onto his arm. ‘Why do you do it? Nobody can make you steal stuff.’

  The boy wiped at his tears with the back of his free hand. ‘We have nowhere to go, sir,’ he snivelled. ‘Our parents are being killed and the tsunami has floated away our houses. Mr Gutta is bringing us to Delhi and giving us the home to live.’