Three Read online

  ‘Watch out for crocodiles,’ someone called.

  Mbuti joined in the laughter. Then he said something to one of the other golfers and came walking across the fairway carrying his golf club.

  He was alone. It was perfect.

  All he had to do was find his own golf ball.

  But would he find it? I watched him walk right past the hollow where it had gone. What was wrong with his eyesight? It is down in the hollow! I almost cried out in frustration. Behind you, you fool! Under the big tree!

  Almost as if he could hear my thoughts, Mbuti turned and began walking slowly back towards the hollow. I was so wound up, so frightened and anxious and confused, that I could barely breathe by the time he reached the top of the slope. He stood there for a very long time, idly swinging his golf club, his big American hat turning this way and that as he searched for his missing golf ball.

  You must be able to see it! I thought. It is right there below you!

  Then I saw the man who had murdered my parents spot his golf ball and begin walking down the slope towards the tree that shadowed it.

  The tree where Three waited, a bomb strapped to his back, his long finger waiting to press the button that would blow them both up.

  But suddenly Mbuti was not the only person approaching the tree.

  He heard the other person coming and turned. His expression was puzzled at first, but quickly it became fearful when he saw who it was.

  ‘Sunday!’ he cried. ‘What are –?’

  Mbuti raised his golf club threateningly, but he was too slow. I slammed into him in a crashing, red-card foul and we both fell to the ground, fighting for possession of the golf club.

  He wanted it to strike me; I wanted it so he could not strike me. For I had not come to hurt Mbuti.

  I had come to save Three.

  In truth, I had not known what I was doing – or even that I was going to do anything – until my world famous feet had launched me from my place of concealment and brought me sprinting across the fairway like it was a football pitch and there was an unguarded goal ahead.

  My feet were not truly magic. But they were connected to my heart – and in my heart I knew right from wrong.

  Three might not have been in the Holy Book, he might not have been made by God, but he lived on this planet Earth the same as we humans and all other living things. It did not matter how Three had come to be, what mattered was that he was here and that he was alive.

  I had no right to take away that life!

  Just as I had no right to take away Mbuti’s life, no matter what murders and other bad things he had done.

  But now, because of my too-soft heart, General ‘the Lion’ Mbuti was about to commit another murder. He was much bigger and stronger than me, and truly more dangerous than the animal whose name he had taken. He had rolled on top of me. He held the golf club with both hands and he pressed its steel shaft hard down against my throat. There was a sharp-sharp pain in my neck; I could not breathe; my vision went very bright; and then everything slowly faded to blackness.

  40

  Friend

  ‘Sunday . . . Sunday . . .’

  I opened my eyes. Three crouched over me, holding Mbuti’s golf club in one hand. His other hand was touching the side of my face, gently patting my cheek.

  ‘Sunday hurt?’

  I tried to talk, but no sound would come. I was dizzy and my throat felt like it was filled with prickly camel tree thorns. But at least I could breathe. Looking up into Three’s worried blue eyes, I shook my head.

  ‘Can you sit up?’ he asked.

  I struggled up into a sitting position. Everything seemed too bright and I felt sick and dizzy. Mbuti’s big hat lay on the ground next to me. Its crown was squashed in. A little further away, sitting with his back against the tree, was Mbuti himself. He was clutching his shoulder. There was blood on his fingers and all over his yellow shirt. I pointed at him, because I could not talk.

  ‘Three bite him,’ the brid whispered, looking ashamed of himself.

  Mbuti was watching us with hate in his eyes. ‘You are dead!’ he snarled. ‘As soon as my man gets here, both of you are dead!’

  I had forgotten about the guardsman with the Uzi. It would not be long before he came looking for his boss. Three and I had to get away from there quickly. I staggered to my feet, still slightly dizzy and my neck very sore. But the rest of me seemed all right. I beckoned to Three, then pointed back in the direction of the native bushland where we had come from.

  The brid shook his head. ‘Three not go. Sunday go. Sunday run fast-fast!’

  What was he talking about? Both of us had to go. I made a hurry-up motion with my hand, but the brid did not move.

  ‘Three not can run.’

  He pointed at his hip, the one that had been dislocated. There was a big lump there again. It looked bigger than last time – I could see it plainly through the fur. The joint must have popped back out when he had jumped down from the tree, or mightbe when he and Mbuti had fought. I knew they had fought, because Three would not have bitten the general except as a last resort.

  He was not an animal.

  I crouched, beckoning Three to climb onto my back, but he shook his head.

  ‘Three not can climb fence no more.’

  I mimed that I would help him across the fence.

  Three shook his head. ‘No good. Three make Sunday too slow – both get shot.’

  Mbuti had been watching and listening. Now he recited part of a familiar folk tale, though not exactly as I remembered it:

  Run baby warthogs,

  As fast as you can,

  But you will not escape me,

  I am the Lion.

  ‘Lion dead soon!’ Three said to him.

  Mbuti scowled. ‘That is no way to speak to me, you smart-mouth creature! I paid $1.5 million US to bring you into this world.’

  I hoped some of that money would aid Holly’s recovery in America.

  Three turned his back on Mbuti. He looked into my eyes, then lightly touched the little red button on the shoulder strap of his backpack.

  ‘Bomb,’ he whispered, quietly-quietly.

  Sweet Paradise! Had he known all along? I truly hoped not. Mightbe he had only just worked it out, after what George Keita had said about baboons with bombs.

  I wished I could say I was sorry. I wished I could tell Three that I had come back to stop him from killing himself.

  I certainly was not going to let him do it now!

  Climb on my back, I signalled again, but again Three refused.

  ‘Go!’ he whispered.

  He was stubborn. But I was stubborn, also. If he would not climb onto my back, then I would have to carry him. I reached forward to pick him up.

  Whack!

  Three had hit me with the golf club. Aaaaee! I tried again and Three hit me again.

  ‘Next time Three bite!’ he said, baring his long, sharp teeth. ‘Go!’

  I stood there for a moment, rubbing my arm where he had hit me. There were so many things I wanted to say, but I could not speak a single word.

  A man shouted in the distance: ‘General! Where are you?’

  ‘Over here beneath the big oak tree!’ Mbuti shouted back. ‘Come quickly!’

  I looked where the other voice had come from, but I could see no further than the lip of the hollow.

  Whack!

  Three had struck me again, harder than the first two times.

  ‘Go Sunday!’ he said. There were tears in his talapipi-blue eyes – tears of sorrow, tears of goodbye. ‘Run!’

  There were tears in my eyes also. I raised my hand in a small, silent wave that tried to say to my friend all the things that were in my heart.

  I hoped he understood.

  Then I turned and ran.

  41

  Three National Park

  New Golden Age

  By Editor in Chief Poniso Ibori

  A new golden age of reform was heralded in the Capital yesterday
with the inauguration of Zantuga’s first democratically-elected leader, President Sunday Balewo.

  Mr Balewo, 21, is the son of the late President for Life Raphael Balewo and popular First Lady Mrs Marigold Balewo, assassinated in a coup d’état five years ago.

  Their murderer, disgraced general Lionel Mbuti, died in a bomb blast one week later.

  Following the death of his parents, Sunday Balewo gave up a promising career in football to move to Australia, where he studied Ethics, Human Rights and Political Science at the University of New South Wales.

  His return to Zantuga late last year was described as a ‘glorious homecoming’ by Mr Frederick Sekibo, leader of the caretaker government that had ruled in his absence.

  Mr Balewo’s election to president was supported by 99.5% of the voters in last week’s election, making him the most popular leader in world history.

  In his acceptance speech, President Balewo II pledged to reform this country’s allegedly corrupt oil industry and to share its profits with every citizen.

  He also announced plans to establish the Three National Park, to celebrate and protect Zantuga’s rich wildlife heritage and to promote this country as an international tourist destination. When asked to explain this choice of name, President Balewo said it was to honour the memory of a very dear friend.

  Another friend of the president, controversial American animal rights campaigner Holly Parr, was a special guest at yesterday’s inauguration.

  After the ceremony, the couple rode on the president’s motorcycle to the site of the proposed Three National Park – a former golf course – where they were observed holding hands as they watched the antics of the local baboons.