Shark Bait Read online

  Baldy filled a metal bowl and placed it in with the two frightened parrots. ‘Nobody’s going to catch me,’ he said.

  ‘I’ll tell them how the other man wanted to kill me but you wouldn’t let him.’

  ‘Nobody wants to kill anybody,’ Baldy said, going to the next cage.

  There was a movement in the trees behind him, and I nearly let out a gasp of surprise when Michi came staggering into the clearing. He stopped when he saw me. His jaw dropped slowly open. It must have really confused him to see me in a birdcage. My eyes darted to Baldy, who had his back to the trees as he carefully inserted a key into another padlock. Then I glanced at Bruce, still sitting outside Doris’s and my cage with his cruel yellow eyes fixed on me.

  ‘Kidnap is a very bad crime,’ I said loudly, catching Michi’s eye and trying to wave him back into the trees without Baldy noticing. ‘Very, VERY BAD!’ I said, even louder.

  Baldy frowned at me. ‘Keep your voice down.’

  Michi was frowning at me, too. He opened his mouth to speak.

  ‘VERY BAD!’ I cried, drowning him out.

  All along the line of cages, the semi-wild parrots began flapping and squawking and hurling themselves against the wire. But Michi just stood there with his mouth open.

  ‘VERY, VERY, VERY BAD!’ I shouted, desperate to get my message across.

  ‘Stop the racket!’ snarled Baldy. ‘You’re scaring the birds.’

  I wanted to stop. Doris was getting scared, too. If she panicked like the other birds, I’d be history. But I had to warn Michi to get out of sight before either the smuggler or his dog turned round and saw him. Bruce would tear him to shreds.

  Suddenly I had an idea. Pointing at the pit bull, I lowered my voice and said, ‘Bad Bruce.’

  Bruce was a name that Michi understood. To him it meant shark, and shark meant danger. I saw his expression change from confusion to fear. Clamping his mouth firmly shut, he began backing slowly towards the trees.

  He’d only gone two paces before he trod on a twig. Snap! The sound was barely audible above the squawking and fluttering of the parrots in the other cages, but the pit bull heard it. He whipped his ugly head round. I saw what was about to happen. Michi was ten metres away and the nearest tree was a further five metres back. He would never reach it in time.

  There was only one thing to do. I shot my hand through the wire and grabbed Bruce by the collar. Before the dog could swing round and bite me, I dragged him hard up against the side of the cage. He twisted and snarled and strained against his collar. His teeth clashed against the wire and showered me with saliva. But he couldn’t get me as long as I held on.

  ‘What the heck do you think you’re doing?’ yelled Baldy, pounding back along the line of cages.

  He reached in to grab me, but the pit bull was so blinded by rage that it snapped at its master’s wrist, slicing his stainless-steel watchstrap in two. The broken watch fell to the ground and Baldy leapt back out of the way.

  ‘You’ve asked for it now, kid!’ he raged, his face tomato-red and his fingers trembling as he fumbled with his big bunch of keys.

  I slid my left hand through Bruce’s collar to help take the strain. The dog was amazingly strong. I had to lower myself to the cage floor and apply my full weight to the heavy leather collar to stop him pulling free. It was a tug-of-war. I tried not to think about Doris behind me, nor about Baldy, who was fitting a key into the padlock. In a few seconds he would get the door open, then I would have to let go. But until that happened, I was determined to hang on. The longer I kept the killer dog from going after Michi, the more chance Michi had of getting away. Baldy still didn’t know he was there.

  Run Michi! I thought, straining against Bruce’s stretching, creaking collar.

  But when I looked past Baldy’s legs, I got a nasty shock. Michi hadn’t retreated any further than the edge of the trees. He stooped to pick up a fallen branch. What was he doing? He should be running away, not gathering firewood! I watched, dumbfounded, as Michi began breaking twigs and smaller branches off the main branch. He came to a big one and bent it back and forth, back and forth.

  Don’t break it! I thought, wishing I could somehow project my thoughts – in Japanese – into Michi’s head. Baldy will hear…

  Too late. The branch broke with a snap.

  Baldy looked round and saw Michi. ‘What the heck?’ he said.

  ‘Michi, run!’ I yelled.

  19

  DAVID AND GOLIATH

  Michi didn’t run. He calmly broke two more twigs off the branch. Then he hefted it in two hands and turned to face Baldy. He was crazy. What chance did a puny ten-year-old have against a full-grown man?

  Baldy must have been thinking the same thing. ‘Give me the stick, kid,’ he commanded, walking towards Michi with his hand outstretched.

  ‘He doesn’t understand English,’ I said.

  Baldy glanced over his shoulder. ‘Tell him to drop the stick.’

  I tried to catch Michi’s eye, but the Japanese boy was staring intently at Baldy, watching his every move. What could I say to warn him not to try anything stupid? Baldy was twice his size. He could snap Michi’s stick like a twig. He could probably snap Michi like a twig.

  ‘Very bad,’ I said. ‘Run!’

  Michi gave no indication that he’d heard me. Instead of running away from the smuggler, he bent at the waist and solemnly bowed to him.

  What did he think he was doing?

  I soon found out. And so did Baldy.

  In the time it takes for a normal person to blink, Michi darted forward and tripped the smuggler with his stick. Baldy landed flat on his backside on the leafy ground. ‘Oof!’ he grunted, as the wind was knocked out of him.

  When he saw what happened to his master, Bruce let out a fearsome growl and nearly wrenched his collar out of my sweaty hands. But I held on.

  The smuggler was back on his feet. ‘I don’t know how you did that,’ he said, advancing on Michi with his fists clenched. ‘But you’re going to be sorry.’

  Michi backed away from him, his stick held at the ready. He looked tiny compared to the smuggler. Even with the stick, he didn’t have a chance. I wanted to help him, but all I could do was hang on to Bruce and watch.

  Bruce was watching, too. And straining at his collar so hard that my fingers were going numb. But I had to hold on. If the pit bull got free now, Michi was dead.

  He was probably dead anyway, if the look on Baldy’s face was anything to go by. The smuggler’s eyes were narrowed. Veins stood out on his temples. His jaw was clenched. Suddenly he lunged. He moved fast for someone his size. But not fast enough. Michi skipped nimbly to one side, twirled his stick like a juggler, and Baldy crashed to the ground in a big cloud of dust.

  Bruce went totally berko at the sight of his master falling a second time. He nearly pulled my arms out of their sockets. But he could have saved his energy. No way was I letting him go.

  The smuggler climbed slowly back to his feet. He was breathing heavily. There was dust all over his clothes. He glared at Michi. Small as he was, the Japanese boy was obviously trained in martial arts. Baldy wasn’t taking any more chances. Turning, he limped over to the trees on the other side of the clearing and broke off a dead branch. It was longer than Michi’s and four times as thick. It looked like an oversized baseball bat. Baldy slapped it twice against his palm. Thwack, thwack!

  ‘Okay, kid, let’s see how good you are,’ he muttered.

  Slowly they circled each other. They looked like David and Goliath. It was frightening to watch. Michi might have been quick, but Baldy was much too big, much too strong. There was a cruel, predatory look on the smuggler’s face as he advanced on the boy. He meant business. Michi backed away from him, leading him in circles. He held his stick in two hands, like a jujitsu staff, but he wasn’t trying to use it. One blow from Baldy’s club would smash it to bits. One blow would crack Michi’s skull.

  All I could do was watch. I was locked in with the cassowary and m
y hands were locked around Bruce’s collar. There was nothing I could do to help.

  Suddenly Baldy swung his massive club. Whoosh! Michi skipped backwards. It passed within millimetres of his chest. Baldy came at him again. This time Michi jumped straight up like a kangaroo. The huge club swished harmlessly beneath him. Had it connected, it would have shattered both his legs. Michi landed, dainty as a cat in his brown leather shoes, and danced away from Baldy as the angry smuggler swung his club a third time. Whoosh! Missed again. Round and round they went, the man lunging, swinging, cursing each time he missed; the boy ducking, jumping, backpedalling, his own stick poised but never striking. All the time his eyes remained fixed on Baldy’s, reading his every move before it happened.

  Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

  Baldy was growing tired, and his swings were becoming less and less accurate. His chest heaved. His shirt was drenched with sweat. His face was red as a tomato and distorted with a mixture of rage and frustration. But still he followed Michi, swinging wildly now, barely taking the time to aim. No longer concentrating.

  It took Baldy completely by surprise. Michi moved with the speed of a striking taipan. For two minutes he’d been retreating, suddenly he attacked. Using his stick like a pole-vaulter, he launched himself high in the air, over Baldy’s swinging club, and lashed out with his right foot. In karate it’s called a flying side kick, but in karate there’s no staff so you don’t get so much air. And you don’t wear shoes in any of the martial arts, but Michi hadn’t had time to take his off. Which was bad luck for Baldy. The toe of Michi’s heavy leather shoe struck him squarely in the temple. Whop! Baldy went down like a sack of wet cement.

  I watched Michi pick up Baldy’s club and toss it into the trees. He bent to check that the unconscious man was breathing properly, then came walking warily towards the row of cages. He looked doubtfully at Bruce, who was growling at him like a lion and scrabbling his paws in the dirt in a renewed effort to break free of my grip.

  ‘Bad?’ he asked, pointing at the angry pit bull with his stick.

  ‘He’s called Bruce,’ I said, ‘same as the shark.’

  Michi nodded solemnly. ‘Very bad!’

  ‘Let him go,’ a deep voice commanded.

  We both looked in the direction of the trees. Leather-hat stood over Baldy’s motionless body. He held a diver’s spear gun in one hand. The spear’s deadly barbed point was aimed straight at Michi’s heart.

  20

  A MASTER AT WORK

  ‘Let go of the dog,’ Leather-hat said. ‘Or your Japanese friend gets it.’

  This time Leather-hat hadn’t bothered to disguise himself with a tea towel. Which could only mean one thing. He wasn’t afraid of us seeing his face because he had no intention of letting us go. Ever.

  I glanced at Michi. He had dropped his stick and raised both hands in the air. His face was expressionless, but I could see his eyes darting back and forth, assessing the situation.

  ‘He’s only a kid,’ I said. ‘The dog will rip him to shreds.’

  ‘Most likely,’ Leather-hat agreed with a smirk. He glanced down at Baldy, who groaned and rubbed the side of his head. ‘But from the way he handled Sebastian, I reckon he might put up a bit of a fight.’

  So Baldy’s name was Sebastian. I wondered if I would live long enough to tell the police.

  ‘He doesn’t understand English,’ I said, stalling for time. The spear gun was heavy, designed to be carried under water, not on land. I could see Leather-hat’s hand trembling from the strain of holding it. With every passing second, his aim was growing worse. ‘He’s got no idea who you are or what’s going on with the birds,’ I said. ‘Let him go.’

  Leather-hat shook his head and the spear wobbled all over the place. ‘No. You let the dog go.’

  ‘Make me,’ I said, deliberately provoking him.

  He narrowed his eyes and turned the spear gun in my direction. It was exactly what I wanted him to do.

  ‘On the count of three…’ he said.

  But I wasn’t waiting for any countdown. ‘Michi, run!’ I yelled.

  What happened next was almost too quick for the eye to see. Instead of running, Michi rolled forward in a lightning-fast somersault. He gathered his stick off the ground and, while still upside down, flicked it sideways.

  I had underestimated Leather-hat. His arm was tired and I’d thought his aim would be poor. But when he pulled the trigger, the spear was pointed exactly where he wanted it to go. Its stainless-steel shaft flashed across the clearing like a single pulse from a strobe light, coming straight at my chest at roughly three hundred kilometres per hour.

  There was no time to react, no time to get out of the way. There wasn’t even time to blink. So I saw exactly what happened.

  The spear and Michi’s stick collided two metres short of the cage. The stick wasn’t heavy enough to deflect the spear by more than a few degrees, but those few degrees were enough to save my life. Instead of burying itself in my chest, the spear’s hardened steel tip shot past my left hand, missing Bruce’s neck by a hair’s breadth. It passed harmlessly beneath my elbow, flew between Doris’s legs and out through the back of the cage.

  Apart from Michi’s stick, the spear touched only one thing on its way through the cage: Bruce’s collar. And sliced it cleanly in two.

  One moment I had been straining every muscle in my body against thirty kilos of angry pit bull terrier, next moment I was having a tug-of-war with nothing but a broken strip of studded leather. I shot backwards across the floor of the cage and slammed into Doris’s bony legs. She collapsed on top of me. For a few seconds everything went black. I was smothered in a dry waterfall of soft dark feathers, with a heavy warm body pressing down on top. I couldn’t breathe.

  Then Doris scrambled back to her feet. One of those feet was planted squarely on my chest. She was heavy. The tip of one long curved dagger claw pressed painfully against my racing heart. With one twist of her foot, the huge bird could have opened my ribcage like an eggshell. But the cassowary wasn’t aware she was standing on me. Her full attention was focused on something outside the cage. I raised my head to look.

  In the centre of a great cloud of dust, Bruce was chasing Michi in circles. Michi wasn’t trying to run away – nobody could outrun a charging pit bull – instead he was concentrating on twirling, jumping and sidestepping.

  I was watching a master at work.

  Martial arts is as much about defence as attack, and Michi was using all his skill to outwit his four-legged pursuer. He moved like a matador evading an angry bull. Again and again the dog swerved and attacked, but each time its jaws snapped closed around nothing but empty air. Michi seemed to be everywhere at once – in front of the dog, behind it, above its head. Never had I seen such speed, such fluid movements, such finely honed reactions – except in the movies.

  But Michi couldn’t keep it up. After fifteen seconds, he was tiring, and his reactions were slowing down. Bruce, on the other hand, seemed to be getting faster; his reactions were becoming sharper and quicker. Pit bulls are bred to fight. They are fighting machines, both physically and mentally. Much like a competitor in a karate competition, they size up their opponent quickly and learn their strengths and weaknesses. After twenty seconds, Bruce had learned enough about Michi to anticipate his next move. When Michi leapt in the air to avoid another charge, Bruce suddenly changed his line of attack and leapt as well. Michi saw the dog coming and twisted sideways, but he wasn’t quick enough. Snap! The pit bull had him by the ankle.

  I thought it was all over then, and the dog must have thought so, too. But Michi had fooled us both. In the short time that he and Bruce had been engaged in their frantic game of cat and mouse, Michi had led his pursuer slowly towards the edge of the forest. Now they were right underneath the low branch of a big pisonia tree. When Michi jumped into the air, he grabbed hold with both hands and dragged himself up.

  Bruce swung from his ankle like a pendulum.

  I wondered how long Michi
could hang on. His skinny arms were trembling from supporting both his weight and the dog’s. The pit bull looked nearly as big as him. It growled as it hung there. It was only ten centimetres off the ground, but it wasn’t going to let go until it pulled Michi down from the branch. And that would be the end of him.

  ‘Help him!’ I cried, lying helpless on the floor of the cage with the cassowary’s foot on my chest.

  Baldy was sitting up halfway across the clearing. There was blood on his ear and a cruel expression on his face as he watched Leather-hat walk towards the tree. Leather-hat prodded Michi in the stomach with the spear gun.

  ‘Get down,’ he said.

  ‘He can’t get down,’ I shouted. ‘The dog will kill him.’

  Leather-hat grinned in my direction. ‘You’re next,’ he promised.

  Then he whacked Michi on the legs with the spear gun. I saw tears gather in Michi’s eyes, but still he hung on.

  ‘I said get down!’ snarled the smuggler. And he drew back the spear gun to hit Michi again.

  21

  BOY VERSUS PIT BULL

  Michi watched me over the top of Leather-hat’s head. He saw me raise one foot towards the latch on the cage door. Moving slowly so as not to alarm the cassowary still standing on my chest, I poked my toes through a gap in the mesh.

  I’d just noticed something: Baldy had left the key in the padlock. Capturing it between my first two toes, I pulled the small brass padlock halfway into the cage and slowly twisted my foot sideways. The key jammed against one of the wires. It started turning. Click! The padlock popped open and fell to the ground with a clatter. I held my breath in case the smugglers heard it, but neither man looked round.

  Leather-hat raised the spear gun to hit Michi a second time.

  I had to act quickly. Jamming half my foot through the wire, I shoved the door latch sideways. It made a loud, metallic squeal. Both Leather-hat and Baldy turned startled faces in my direction.