The sun rose on the weary travellers as they entered the outskirts of the city. Bozo had discovered a bag of dates in the camel’s saddlebag and they chewed these in silence. Theo’s head swam with fatigue, hunger and grief. With the swaying pace of the camel, each time he closed his eyes he met the image of Ali half-buried in the sand, awaiting his death with a stoic fatalism.
The first settlements they passed were little more than improvised huts put together with whatever spare materials could be found. Walls of clay, concrete or wood were roofed with cheap sheets of tin kept in place by large stones. The road was dust and gravel, and the wind blew debris into their eyes. Old men wheeled barrows of sorry-looking fruit around and bargained in the doorways of the houses with Egyptian mothers wrapped up in cloth.
Men on worn-out scooters rattled past, swinging dangerously close to the feet of the camel, which didn’t even blink. Children playing handstands against a wall laughed and called out in Arabic as Theo and Bozo passed.
‘They want to know where you have come from and why you are riding
Jamillah,’ Bozo whispered, to whom all languages were the same. ‘Jamillah?’ Theo repeated dumbly. ‘Who is Jamillah?’
‘She is the camel that has carried you so far to my city. Salaam Aleikum, my friend. A thousand welcomes. I am Omar, the nephew of Ali Aziz. Again, I say, a thousand welcomes.’
Theo looked down in search of the origin of this new voice. He saw a short, kind-looking man with clean-shaven cheeks and a balding head. Jamillah paused in recognition and Omar laid a comforting hand upon her ear.
‘I’m …I’m so sorry,’ Theo stammered, and fainted into Omar’s arms.
Theo awoke to the sight of Bozo wiping crumbs from his lips with his tail. He raised himself on his elbows. He was on a mattress on a dusty rooftop in the heart of Cairo. There were no clouds in the sky, but the air was thick and heavy because the sunlight and the pollution mixed to form a yellow stew. The distant drone of traffic punctuated with the shrill voices of car horns provided a constant background.
Theo returned his attention to Bozo, who was now licking a plate clean. His friend added it to a pile of others that had been treated in the same manner.
‘Where are we?’ the boy asked feebly, his voice barely crawling out of his throat. ‘What happened to me?’
‘You fainted,’ Bozo replied matter-of-factly, trying to pry loose a piece of tomato skin that was stuck between his yellow front teeth. ‘Frankly, it was very embarrassing. You fell into Omar’s arms, and he carried you into a taxi and brought you back here. I had to ride on the roof again, incidentally, and it’s not an experience I’d care to repeat. They drive like madmen here. I almost fell off three times.’
‘But where are we?’ Theo insisted, unmoved by these tales of hardship.
‘In the house of Omar’s family. They made you a bed here and Omar took from your front pocket the letter the Sandman gave you. He got this very serious look on his face and rushed off. Since then, his mother has been bringing you plates of food,’ Bozo concluded.
‘I see. Well, thanks for saving me some,’ Theo muttered.
Bozo glared back indignantly. ‘And how are you supposed to eat anything while you’re busy snoring? It would have spoilt in the sun. Anyway,’ he added with a smile, ‘you should see how happy she gets when she comes back and finds that it’s all gone.’
Theo shrugged and swung on to his feet. He felt better for a good nap but he was still exhausted from the adventures of the past few days. He made his way over to the edge of the rooftop and looked over the city. Hundreds of rooftops stretched as far as the eye could see – some higher, some lower, some saturated with junk and old furniture, others covered with lines of drying washing. It seemed like every inch of available space was in use. The next rooftop was only a few metres away and a narrow street lay below, where children skipped and played. Cries of laughter and light hearts echoed up. Theo longed to join them and lose himself in the innocence of play, but his heart weighed too heavy. None of them would be able to understand what he had been through and what weighty responsibilities lay on his young shoulders. In truth, he had felt a small piece of his childhood slip away for ever when he had gazed into the crystal ball back in Paris. It was as though all he had seen and learnt was dragging him towards a future he wasn’t ready to face.
Why me? he thought, and then remembered Simon’s answer back in London: Why anyone? We all have our missions in life. Yours is just a bit bigger than most people’s, is all.
He was shaken from this memory by the flutter of wings on his shoulder and a coo at his ear. He turned his head slowly and saw a grey, speckled pigeon perched on his shoulder. There was a small note tied to its forked foot. Theo undid the message string and unrolled the piece of paper. It was a picture drawn in pencil of a boy sleeping on a bed while a Bloon ate a very large breakfast. Theo gasped as the pigeon wheeled back off into the sky. ‘How could it have flown all the way from Paris?’ he said. ‘Lou isn’t the only pigeon-keeper in the world,’ Bozo smiled, pointing at the opposite rooftop. The pigeon swooped down to land on the shoulder of a rather fat Egyptian man standing shyly in the shade of a large pigeon coop. He smiled sheepishly in their direction and then turned his attention to feeding his faithful messenger, who perched on his elbow.
‘If he can see me, I guess he must be the next AO,’ Bozo proposed, eyeing up the portly man who seemed to have the expression of a child. ‘I don’t know,’ Theo responded uncertainly. With the other AOs I got a special feeling: everything somehow seemed more intense when I was with them. This guy looks a bit simple.’ He scratched his head in thought. ‘Do you remember what Simon told us? Basically, you’re invisible to all but seven of us, very small kids, mad people and animals.’
‘So you think he’s a bit potty, then?’ Bozo giggled.
‘I don’t know,’ Theo replied hesitantly. ‘But he does seem to be having a good dialogue with his birds.’
The man in question was whispering sweet nothings to his pigeons, perhaps asking them what they had seen during their morning flight around the city. He tickled them under the chin and fed them seeds from the palm of his hand. The smell of the pigeon house was thick and musty but their keeper was obviously quite used to it.
Before Theo and Bozo could reflect further on the man’s sanity, they heard the trapdoor open again. Omar’s mother climbed up the wooden stepladder on to the roof. She was a heavy woman in a long, dark gown. She had a white scarf wrapped around her hair. Her cheeks were full and rosy, and her smile showed that she was happy to have someone to take care of.
She brought with her a tray laden with sweet pastries and a jug of orange juice. When she saw Theo out of bed and the empty plates, she cried out in delight and began speaking rapidly in Arabic.
‘She wants to know how you can eat so much and still be so thin,’ Bozo translated.
‘Well, that’s no mystery,’ Theo muttered under his breath.
Omar’s mother hurried over and gave Theo his first hug in days. She straightened his unruly hair and then popped a pastry into his mouth.
‘She’s feeding you like a pigeon,’ Bozo cackled, lying down on the floor so that he could have a good laugh without hurting himself. Theo opened his mouth to reply but found another pistachio pastry shoved between his teeth. He started to protest but then reflected that it was, in fact, delicious – and he was ravenous.
Omar’s mother fussed over Theo for a while longer and then hurried off to answer a call from within the house. Before she did so, though, she drew from her gown a small circle of blue glass with white markings that hung on a black chord. She tied it around Theo’s neck while maintaining a flurry of words that seemed to praise, worry, tease and tell off all at the same time. A rustle of her gown down the trapdoor and she was gone.
‘She says it’s for protection against the Evil Eye,’ Bozo explained, eyeing the amulet curiously. ‘She says that it’s clear you’re in some kind of trouble and that you’re far too young to be wandering about in a foreign country.’
Theo shrugged. ‘I’m not sure I believe in any of this,’ he said. He slipped the charm off his neck and put it in his jacket pocket. ‘It was very nice of her, all the same.’
The stepladder creaked again and Omar’s balding head came into view. He smiled a little too broadly as he stepped out to greet them, and Theo got a funny feeling at the bottom of his stomach.
‘Good afternoon! Did you sleep well? I expect my mother has been force-feeding you since you’ve been awake? Forgive us – affection in Egypt is often expressed by overeating.’
Omar came and sat next to Theo on the small wall that lined the edge of the rooftop. ‘So it seems you’re a great friend of my uncle, Ali?’ he asked cheerfully, but his eyes seemed to scan Theo nervously.
A lump rose in Theo’s throat as he remembered the Sandman’s terrible fate. ‘Oh, Omar,’ he stammered. ‘I’m so sorry. The Sandma …I mean, Ali …he died in a sandstorm. He died to save our lives by putting us on Jamillah.’
‘Dead?’ Omar blinked and something inside him seemed to quiver. He pulled at his hair and shook with grief. He wailed out loud and beat his head with his fists. ‘Oh, Ali! Star of my sky! Oasis of my desert! My teacher! My guide! My uncle!’
‘Omar, I’m so sorry,’ Theo cried. ‘It should have been me. But Ali said he belonged to the desert and didn’t even try to escape.’
‘Oh, well.’ Omar brightened, letting his grief fall to the floor like a used dishcloth. ‘To be honest, I never really liked him that much. He was family, but he and I went our separate ways years ago. The desert has nothing to offer a young man, after all.’
Bozo stared at Omar in disbelief. ‘This guy is weird,’he said. ‘One minute he’s crying his eyes out and the next he’s all smiles again. I don’t trust him at all.’ Theo pretended not to hear but deep down he felt the same.
‘I last saw my uncle one week ago,’ Omar began. ‘And he warned me to be on the lookout for a special guest. In his letter he said that you’re here on very important business?’ Omar grinned, peering into Theo’s eyes, as though wondering what kind of business a child could possibly have in Cairo.
‘Um, yes. Very,’ Theo replied awkwardly. ‘Did he say anything else in his letter?’
‘Only that you are to be my guest and that I must assist you in your travel plans.’ He hesitated. ‘And that you are to be given this. I don’t know what you could possibly do with it – unless you happen to be a scholar in ancient languages?’
Omar handed Theo a large book bound in leather. Its cover was inscribed with gold lettering that seemed to dance across the page like a wave. Theo opened the book at random and was met with a deep, musty sense of history. There were no letters on the pages, but rather a language comprised of pictures and outlandish symbols.
Theo became aware that Omar was staring at him strangely and, feeling uncomfortable, he distracted his host’s attention by asking, ‘Please, who is the man over there?’ He pointed at the opposite rooftop.
Omar sighed, a wistful look settling in his eyes. ‘Ah, that is Mustafa. When we were children, we played together in the street like brothers. But humans are a cruel species, and we grow up.
‘Mustafa was born with six fingers on each hand, and every child in the neighbourhood made his life a misery. The ridicule and teasing was relentless, and one day he just cracked. He refused to talk or listen to anyone and retired to his rooftop to tend his pigeons.’ He stared at Mustafa sadly. ‘What a world we live in. Someone is born a little different, and we make his life hell.’
For a moment Theo thought he saw Omar in a new light and was touched by his concern for poor Mustafa. Omar noticed Theo watching him, though, and seemed to be gripped once more by a fidgety unease. ‘I expect you’ll want to rest a while longer?’ He ran his hand over Theo’s hair and Theo tried not to wince. ‘Meanwhile, I have some business of my own that I must attend to. If you’ll excuse me, we’ll catch up later.’ And with that he disappeared down the trapdoor, closing it behind him. A moment later they heard the sliding of a bolt.
Bozo ran over and pulled the door, but to no avail. ‘We’re trapped!’ he cried. ‘Boy, what a kook! I’ve never seen anyone so worked up. What do you suppose is going on?’
As if in answer, a pigeon landed beside Bozo on the trapdoor. The Bloon undid its message and, shrugging his shoulders, took it to Theo to interpret. The picture depicted a balding man clearly meant to be Omar. There was an arrow pointing towards his head and another pointing towards his heart, and a question mark beneath each.
‘What is that supposed to mean?’ Bozo asked, scratching his head.
Theo shrugged. ‘Maybe it’s saying that Omar is confused about something. Like he thinks he knows what he should do, but his heart tells him differently.’
‘So what has that got to do with us?’ said Bozo.
‘I don’t know. Maybe it has something to do with the book. Can you read it?’
Bozo squinted at the pages, scratched his head and grimaced. ‘Doesn’t make much sense to me. Looks more like a kid’s sketchpad than a book.’
‘Shame. I’m sure it holds some clues,’ Theo sighed, thumbing through the ornate pages. The words danced before him but refused to yield their meaning. He turned another page and came across an illustration of the Storyteller sat on a rock surrounded by Bloons. ‘Bozo, look!’ he gasped.
‘The old man gets everywhere!’ Bozo whooped. ‘From stamps to dreams to crystal balls and now to ancient books.’
‘I wish we knew what it said. Maybe it would give us an idea about how to cure him.’ Theo paused. ‘You know, we’ve met more than half of the AOs, and I still don’t feel closer to fulfilling my quest.’
‘Hoomans,’ Bozo sighed. ‘If you’re not fixated on the past, then you’re obsessing about the future.’ He grabbed the book from Theo’s hands and began thumbing through the pages at random. ‘Hey, look – there’s Michelle! And Simon! And Lou! And the Sandman!’
Theo looked over his friend’s shoulder and saw the portraits of the AOs. Each had their own page. They appeared in quite different guises to those he had known, but there was no doubting their identity. Michelle was dressed in the gown of a priestess and her hair was plaited with flowers. Dark blue symbols were painted on her forehead but she still had the mischievous look that had prompted Theo to seek his freedom.
Simon was barefoot in white robes. He was surrounded by disciples, half of whom looked on in adoration. The other half seemed to be arguing among themselves. Although dressed no finer than a beggar, Simon carried himself with the self-assured air of a king.
Lou was as pudgy and red-faced as ever. She was stirring a large cauldron which simmered with blue smoke. It seemed as though she was in the middle of potent magic, but her face wore the absent-minded look of someone wondering where the onions might be.
The Sandman was painted as a much younger man, and his hair and moustache were oiled. He was studying a book beneath a palm tree. There was a slight scowl on his lips, and his eyes trailed off into an indistinct distance.
Then came a portrait of a thin lady of indeterminate age but with shiny grey hair. She wore a long black dress that hung awkwardly on her skeletal body. She was depicted in the midst of heaps of books and manuscripts, stacked into erratic piles.
Next was a street magician who seemed to be demonstrating the Indian rope trick. A coil of rope ascended vertically from a basket and he was inviting members of the crowd to climb it. His eyes sparkled with magic and mischief.
Last, there was a street sweeper. It looked to Theo as though he were in some Asian city. Amid the rubbish and turmoil of the street, he leant upon his broom in silent contemplation. The passers-by appeared to hold him in contempt but he seemed to be in a universe entirely of his own.
‘If these are in order, I guess we have to go and see the old lady next,’ Theo concluded.
‘But how?’ Bozo demanded irritably. ‘I don’t see her address anywhere.’ He tossed the book carelessly over his shoulder.
Theo snorted in disbelief. ‘That is just so like a Bloon. You give up before you even start. You …hey! Look at this.’ The book had landed on its spine and had flopped open to reveal the inside cover. There, in the top right of the page was a small label that read in English:
Please return to the Milim Library of Rare and Ancient Scripts.
109 Levi Yehuda St, Jerusalem.
‘I think that’s what they call a clue. We need to get to Jerusalem,’ Theo laughed. Then his brow furrowed. ‘Bozo, do you know where Jerusalem is?’
‘Are you kidding? I have little enough idea where my tail is most of the time. You should have a look on one of those pieces of paper that stop the countries moving around.’
‘You mean a map?’ Theo asked, a little confused. ‘That’s a good idea, but I think they’re a picture of where countries actually are.’
‘You Hoomans.’ Bozo rolled his eyes. ‘You’re part of the Story and yet you know nothing about it. Look, in the old days, the islands and continents floated around all over the place. No one knew where to find them half the time, and occasionally they even crashed together and made mountains.
‘But then they invented maps and the countries had to stay put once and for all. Although, they do sneak a few inches each year when no one’s looking,’ he added with a wink.
Bozo’s explanations for things tended to give Theo a headache. He knew there was a grain of truth in there – he just wasn’t sure where exactly. All in all, it was easier to accept the Bloon’s version and not think about it any more.
He was saved from making any sense of Bozo’s ramblings by the arrival of another pigeon. He looked over to the other rooftop and saw Mustafa watching them with boyish anxiety. This time the message showed a picture of Theo putting something around his neck.
‘I think he wants me to put on the amulet against the Evil Eye. He must have been watching earlier,’ said Theo, and he withdrew the charm from his pocket. ‘I guess it can’t do any harm.’
He had just put it on when the trapdoor opened again and Omar emerged with a big, toothy grin. ‘Ah, there you are, Theo,’ he said.
‘How did you know my name?’ Theo asked sharply. ‘I never told you.’
‘The letter from my uncle mentioned…’
‘But he wrote it before he met me,’ Theo countered, backing away from Omar. A chill ran down his spine.
‘Ah, yes. To be honest, I confess I couldn’t help seeing your face on the TV news yesterday. It seems a lot of people are very worried about you.’ Omar moved towards him and Theo backed away towards the edge of the rooftop. ‘Don’t you think it would be better to go back home? After all, the Middle East is no place for a child alone.’
‘He’s not alone!’ Bozo shouted, but Omar couldn’t hear him.
‘But I have to go to Jerusalem,’ Theo cried.
‘Now come, Theo. We must all be realistic. I realise that you’re a friend of my late uncle, but he became a little mixed up in the head after all those years in the desert…’
‘How dare you speak about him like that!’ Theo yelled. ‘He gave his life for me and said that you would help us, not hand us in to the cops.’
Omar looked deeply uncomfortable and stared at his feet. ‘The guest is indeed “the face of God” in Egypt…. But you must understand – I must think about my family also. Times are hard and they are offering a large reward…’
‘He’s selling us out!’ Bozo screamed. ‘I knew he was up to something.’ He sprang to the edge of the rooftop and looked down. ‘There are police jeeps in the street. He’s betrayed us!’
Theo scanned the area but there was no way out. Mustafa’s rooftop was too far to jump and, even if it wasn’t, how would he find his way out of the neighbourhood? He glanced at Omar and saw a man torn between greed and guilt – his head and heart pulling in opposite directions, just as Mustafa had predicted.
‘Omar, please – look at me. I know it’s hard for you to understand, but it’s very, very important that I get to Jerusalem. Didn’t Ali in his letter ask you to help me in any way you can? Don’t the dying words of your uncle mean anything to you?’
Omar trembled at Theo’s words and focused on his feet again. Theo could hear heavy footsteps climbing the stairs of the building and the harsh shouts of the soldier’s voices.
‘Omar, please!’ Theo pleaded. ‘Look in your heart and ask yourself what you need to do.’
Omar looked up and, in doing so, caught sight of the amulet around Theo’s neck. He stared at it in wonder and seemed to awaken from a spell. The shifty air he’d worn all day dissolved and he raised his head high. ‘Theo, I am so sorry,’ he uttered, wiping the dust from his eyes. ‘I was possessed with greed. I could hear voices within me that spoke only of the reward and how I owed it to my family to provide for them. I was blind to my duty as a host and to a friend of my late uncle. Forgive me. I have let everyone down and have brought shame upon my family.’ A tear rolled down his cheek.
‘An Oscar for the speech but how are we going to get out of here?’ Bozo hissed. The head of a soldier appeared through the opening to the roof and Bozo slammed the trapdoor down on him. An enormous crash came from below, followed by a cry of pain. Omar turned in shock.
‘It was just the wind,’ Theo hastily explained. ‘Please, Omar, is there any way out of here?’
‘If we could just get to the street, no one would ever find me in this neighbourhood. No one trusts the police here and I have friends who could help you get across the border to Israel.’ Omar looked about desperately. ‘But how can we escape the rooftop? We do not have wings.’
In reply, a clack of wood came from behind them. They turned to see that Mustafa had laid a wooden ladder across the gap between the buildings. He stood on the other side with a big grin.
‘Let’s go!’ Bozo whooped, leaping across the makeshift bridge with ease. Theo approached the edge but made the mistake of looking down and his nerve failed. He began to tremble and his muscles froze. Omar ran up from behind and grabbed him by the waist. Hoisting Theo onto his back like a bundle of rags, he began to make his way across on all fours. At the same moment a soldier burst through the trapdoor and sprinted toward them. He was tall and athletic and, stretching out a long arm, he caught hold of Theo’s ankle.
‘Hey!’ Theo cried, unable to break free and terrified of falling. Bozo looked on helplessly as more soldiers appeared on the roof, hoisting rifles on to their shoulders. They yelled something at Omar and it seemed they were preparing to shoot.
That might have been the end of it but for one forgotten player in this rooftop drama. Mustafa gave a long, piercing whistle and waved his arms in a complicated series of movements. The soldiers laughed at him, imagining he was just another madman. They waved their arms back and shouted coarse insults.
But the runaways had the last laugh.
A hundred pigeons flew out of their coop, arced high in the air and then swooped down at the soldiers, scratching at their eyes. In a crazed blur of wings, beaks and claws, the soldiers dropped their guns and fell to the ground in agony. The man holding Theo’s ankle let go with a yelp, and Omar carried on to the other side. He pulled in the ladder and began to carry Theo downstairs.
But Theo fought his way free of Omar’s arms and ran back to give Mustafa a big hug. His arms barely reached around half of the man’s waist, but Theo could feel the pigeon-keeper’s warmth gently engulf him. Mustafa pushed the boy towards the stairs, gesturing that he must hurry. Theo ran after Omar with a backward wave, and Bozo walked up to Mustafa.
‘You know, I think you’re the sanest Hooman that I’ve met since I entered the Story,’ he said with a smile. ‘Your pigeons don’t know how lucky they are.’ He shook Mustafa’s six-fingered hand solemnly and his new friend beamed an ecstatic smile. Bozo gave a parting grin of shiny, yellow teeth and then dashed down the stairs in pursuit of his destiny.