Tiger Skin Rug by Joan Haig

Author:Joan Haig
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Europa Editions
Published: 2021-09-30T16:00:00+00:00

14

The Professor’s Note

It was early afternoon when we reached Coventry. Stuffy road fumes wrapped around us, but wild air from the flight still buzzed in our ears. Avoiding the busy centre and main roads, the tiger flew low to the ground behind supermarkets and metal warehouses. None of us uttered a word. As if we were on a haunted ride at a funfair, I half-expected a skeleton to spring out from behind a wheelie bin.

At the gates to a large post office depot we narrowly missed a horde of workers scattering out from their shifts. The tiger swerved and delved into a narrow street to avoid them. But halfway down the street, a postman was kneeling, rummaging in his parcel bag. Sharply, the tiger skidded into a tight alleyway, shrugging us off its back so we fell squarely and sorely on our bottoms.

The postman looked up in surprise. We jumped up and crowded together to block the alley where the tiger skin rug had parked itself. The postman, unlike the railway man at Waterloo, smiled kindly. His voice was nasal and clownish as if he were wearing a red rubber nose.

“Hello there. Are you alright? You look lost.”

“Yes, I mean, no. I mean, sort of.” I took a deep breath, like Joanna had told me to do, and tried again. “We’re on our way to Coventry Uni­versity. We’re, eh, visiting someone.” The postman smiled that way grown-ups sometimes do, secretly finding something amusing.

“Ah, well, perhaps I can help you. I’m going that way myself—it’s up this lane to the main road, and pretty much a straight walk west from there. Come with me and I’ll set you in the right direction.”

We knew the rule that you’re not to talk to strangers, never go along with them anywhere. I hesitated. There was no backing out of the street, otherwise the postman might see the rug. But we couldn’t go forwards either because that would be going with the postman, who, though in a tidy uniform and friendly, was still a stranger. We were stuck again.

I was waiting for the tiger to do something, willing it to do something, even disappear, so we could get out of this pickle, but the tiger did nothing. The postman stepped closer and I didn’t like him doing that, even though he was trying to be helpful. Why couldn’t Baba screech up now in his big red car and hoot its horn? Why couldn’t we be back in Granny’s kitchen eating pancakes and listening to stories?

“Don’t be scared,” said the postman, “I don’t bite. But I tell you what, I’ll give the community police officer a call. Lost children belong with police, not posties,” and he pulled a phone from his pocket. Jenny started poking me on the back.

“Do something, Lal.”

But I didn’t know what to do. I knew how to sort a Rubik’s Cube, I could recite huge chunks of the Bha­gavad Gita—a gigantic Hindu verse—and I’d recently hit the topmost level on my new computer game.

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