Riding Icarus (16 page)

Masha looked down. Sure enough, a sprung mousetrap dangled from the hem of her T-shirt. She opened it carefully and dropped it on the grass.

“Don’t tell them anything,” she said. “Don’t tell anyone you’ve seen me. Not anyone. Especially Igor. Promise?”

“All right, I won’t tell Igor.” Gena was staring at her. “Promise. Is he looking for you?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.” You can’t trust anyone, Masha thought. Ira is throwing me out. She believes Igor. Granny doesn’t want me. Even Gena probably thinks I should go and live with Igor.

To be on the safe side, she set off into the allotments, in the opposite direction to the river. Then, when she was out of sight of Gena, she doubled back along a different path leading towards the river and the island. She noticed she’d lost the dog. Feeling lonelier than ever, she walked along the hot, airless path, between grasses tall enough to hide her from prying eyes. The pole of the dovecote was visible on her left, poking into a sky clotting over with dense grey clouds. Ahead, the thin trickle of smoke from the island spooled upwards.

How was she going to get across the water to her mother? Hopefully Nechipor would turn up, as he always did, opportunely. And then perhaps he would come with her in search of his treasure buried in the enchanted place, before it was too late to find her heart’s desire.

W
here on earth had Masha been on the rollerblades? Gena wondered. The wheels were completely clogged up with what looked like squashed fruit and eggshells and other less savoury things. He searched around for a stick and sat down to clean them, all the while thinking about what she might be doing now and why she was so worried about Igor and what he was supposed to tell his mother.

He scraped away absently. It was going to be boring here all summer without Masha. She made up such good games. Like this stuff about the trolleybus and the grave and everything. Gena still wasn’t sure if he really believed it all. But true or not, it was fun.

Maybe Masha had gone to look for the enchanted place. Wasn’t today her special day, her second birthday? That thing about the calendar was weird. Who would have thought something as mechanically real as the date could turn out to be so arbitrary? Gena felt enormously pleased with the knowledge somehow. It was as if something as solid as the grass and the sky had suddenly shifted, folded up into a piece of paper with a mathematical formula on it. It was just so interesting and satisfying to unravel in your mind.

A dog barked. It was a liver-brown stray, barking and growling furiously at something behind him. Gena looked round. Creeping silently along the sandy track was Igor’s sleek Mercedes. It eased imperceptibly to a halt, and a tinted back window rolled down. Igor’s head stuck out.

“Hello there, young man,” he said jovially. “What are you doing? You look bored.”

“Oh, well…” Gena shrugged. His eyes strayed to the long shiny lines of the car. He could see his face mirrored blackly in the door.

His reflection swayed and slid towards him as Igor opened the door and got out. “Want a ride?” he offered. “Move over, give the lad a turn,” he said to the driver, who emerged in his mirrored sunglasses smoking a cigarette, as always, and directed at Gena a sinister, eyeless smile.

Gena hesitated.

“You like cars, don’t you?” said Igor. “I’ve seen you admiring mine. Thought you might enjoy a go in the driving seat. See how it feels.”

“I would like that,” said Gena. He sat down slowly. The seat was bouncy and still warm, and gave off a rich dark smell of leather and smoke. The air in the car was metallic and cool. The dashboard had a walnut veneer and shiny silver fittings, and Igor’s array of talismans lined up incongruously along it. Gena found the buttons that slid the windows up and down. The driver silently showed him the air conditioning, the radio and CD player, the thing that squirted water at the windscreen.

“Enough to sell your soul for, eh? I dreamt about having a car like this for years,” Igor said tenderly. “It was what I always wanted. No one believed I’d ever be able to buy one. I’ll take you for a proper ride one of these days. Out on the highway, show you how fast she can go.”

“Oh, yes please,” said Gena. “What’s this?”

“Compass.”

“And this?”

“Horn. No – don’t try it.”

The driver leant in and gently took Gena’s hand away.

“Don’t want to go startling the birds,” said Igor. “Yes, we’ll make a day of it. My Anastasia, and Masha, we’ll all go on a trip.” He lit a fat cigar and sucked on it thoughtfully. “Does Masha like cars?”

“Not as much as me,” said Gena.

“But she’d enjoy a ride, a trip in the country, a picnic? Of course she would. Where is Masha, by the way?”

Gena looked at him pityingly. Did Igor really think a few minutes sitting in his fancy car was going to make him break his promise to Masha?

“I don’t know,” he said. “I haven’t seen her. What does this do?”

“Detects lies from dishonest small boys.” Igor puffed out blue smoke. “You must have seen her – how else have you got her rollerblades?”

“They aren’t hers; they’re mine.” Igor was sharp, thought Gena. Scarily sharp. “But yes, actually, she was here. Sorry, I forgot.” He climbed out of the coolness of the car, back into the other world of the stuffy afternoon. “Thanks a lot for letting me have a go. It was great.”

“My pleasure,” said Igor. “Don’t forget about that trip. Where did Masha go, do you know?”

“Oh, she didn’t say. But I think she went that way.” Gena pointed towards the river – the opposite direction to the one he had seen Masha take. “Yeah, that way.”

Igor dropped his cigar and lifted a foot to grind it out.
“Yowch!”
he shouted. A little silver object twinkled on the toe of his immaculately shined shoe. Igor had trodden on the mousetrap.

Gena giggled. Then he stopped, although no one had told him to. The driver turned a pair of mirrored sunglasses his way. Igor shook his foot furiously. It should have been funny, but it wasn’t. The mousetrap still on his toe, Igor got into the car and slammed the door. The driver followed suit, and the Mercedes started away with an angry spurt of sand. It drove silently down the track which led to the river.

The river was as grey as old metal and all the sunbathers had gone home. Masha sank down, disconsolate, in the hollow where she had found Nechipor with his boat last time. It was empty. She hugged her knees and thought fiercely about nice peaceful
boring
things, about Granny’s little cottage with its herby rafters, about picking gooseberries in her garden, about scratching the back of the neighbour’s pig with a sharp stick.

It’s my second birthday today! she told herself desperately. Something nice has to happen!

It was horribly still. Not a leaf, not a grain of sand stirred. It felt like the air had turned into some hideous thick woolly jelly – you can’t have woolly jelly, Masha told herself sternly. And not a sound. Not one single sound. All the crickets had fallen silent; it was as if the endless thread they had been winding in had knitted itself into a huge grey stuffy jumper and now the whole world was wearing it – you’re being very silly, Masha said to herself in Ira’s schoolteacher voice. Just sit here and Nechipor will come soon. Of course he will. She wondered if there was something wrong with her ears. Silence blocked them up painfully. She scratched in the sand with her finger,
scratch-scratch
. Oh, thank goodness, she could hear that; she hadn’t gone deaf. And now she heard too the soft
pad-pad
of huge paws away in the distance; it was the storm tiger, come to terrify her.

“Hello, Masha,” said Igor. He was standing at the edge of the hollow, holding out a hand to her. The driver was beside him, his sunglasses like grey holes in his face. “You’ve nowhere to run to now, have you? Except the island, and that’s where we’re all going.”

He took her hand and pulled her slowly to her feet. “Come along, it’s time.”

Pad-pad
came the paws, nearer and nearer. A big drop of warm water fell on Masha’s cheek. She wasn’t sure if it was rain, or if she was crying. She walked slowly up the sand bank, Igor on one side, the driver on the other. The black Mercedes was parked at the top. As Masha looked at it, it went white. The sand was black, the trees were white against an ink-black sky. The tiger opened its mouth and roared.

Out of the roar came something rattling and banging and crashing. It was Icarus the trolleybus, black with livid white stripes, and he drove right
smash
into the back of Igor’s Mercedes. The car buckled and howled. The trolleybus door scraped open.

“Next stop, Ivana Kupala,” bawled the tinny voice.

“
No!
” Igor shrieked. He was staring at his car in horror.

Bang!
came the rain.
Boom!
went the thunder. Masha pulled her hand free, ran forward and jumped through the open door of the trolleybus.

The door crashed closed. There were terrible crunching and groaning noises from the wrecked Mercedes. Icarus shuddered and heaved and with a final huge wrench drove forward into the storm.

I
won’t be scared, I won’t be scared. Oh no, oh no. Everything is fine – except the Mercedes. Oh yes, oh yes, Masha sang idiotically in her head. Icarus, thank you for saving me. Oh yes, oh yes. (
Crash!
) But, Icarus, where are you taking me? (
Ouch!
) Oh no.

It was more like being in a ship in a storm than a trolleybus. Icarus seemed to lurch up huge waves and smash down the other side of them and roll in the vast furrows in between. Masha pulled herself over to one of the beds. She crouched there, holding on to the frame for dear life and shivering with cold. Icy raindrops slid from her wet hair under her T-shirt and down her back. The curtains flapped like dim ghosts at the windows. Outside looked as black as night. The lightning illuminated floods of water and – wasn’t that a fish?

I won’t be scared, I won’t be scared, drummed the tune in Masha’s head. She dragged out the blanket from beneath her and wrapped herself up in it. It smelt of Granny. Masha closed her eyes so tightly she began to see green and blue lights. And then it all went sickeningly white, because the lightning got even here, inside her eyelids, inside her head.

When her fingers were stiff and aching from clinging to the bed frame, the trolleybus gave an extra-huge jolt and tipped her neatly onto the floor. Luckily the blanket softened her fall, but still, tears of pain started to her eyes. She was so entangled in the blanket she couldn’t get up. She rolled helplessly across to the door of the driver’s cabin, weeping furiously.

Something hit the window with a
smack!
and stuck there. It seemed to be wet and scaly, and from the middle of it a round, rolling red-veined eye stared in. Below it, a gleam of teeth appeared, grinning. Masha shot out of the blanket and into the driver’s cabin, slamming the door behind her. In front, through the wide watery windscreen, all was red. A burning brilliant red. It was raining fire and Icarus was driving right into the heart of it. Masha shut her mouth, closed her ears with her hands and screwed her eyes tight shut, because there was nothing else to do.

And inside her head, this time, it was warmly dark and peaceful.
Dum-dum
,
dum-dum
, said her blood – at least, she guessed that was what it was. She listened to its comforting rhythm for a while. Her hands slowly uncurled and dropped to her sides; her eyelids gently lifted. Her mouth fell open in wonder.

It wasn’t fire at all; it was the loveliest sunset, pink and orange, making her feel warm just looking at it. The sun basked high in it like a great glowing fruit, and its light furred the grass and the trees with gold velvet. Slowly, slowly, Masha backed away and opened the cabin door. The trolleybus stood still, the main door open, inviting her to step outside. The river murmured to itself through the trees. Mingled with it she heard a humming of contented, dreamy voices that floated through the evening air and drew her towards them.

A crowd of people was gathered on the riverbank, building wood into a big bonfire. Others were picking flowers and twisting them into crowns, or tying posies and ribbons to the branches of a young birch. The sun shone through the trees in long level beams; when Masha looked up into them she saw they were full of golden dust whizzing dizzily, silently, out from the warm meadow to the coolness of the river. The whole air was rushing away, and yet the meadow was still and fragrant and the colours of the grass and water were so rich she felt she could almost taste them.