No one on the lifeboat got any sleep that night. Whether because of the turbulent seas or their personal sorrow, the passengers stared bleakly at the sky until the stars winked out of existence and gave way to a tropical sunrise. The sea calmed to a gentle swell and the sun burst out over an Indian coastline of palm-tree-lined beaches. Theo gazed into the turquoise waters and watched silently as they passed families of purple jellyfish, their tentacles trailing 12 feet behind them in the water.
The Indian sailors conferred among themselves and set a course straight for the mainland. They ignored the passengers, as though they were simply an inconvenient cargo.
‘They mean to land us on the beach,’ Buntee observed, sizing the men up. ‘That way they’ll be able to avoid any awkward questions about the captain and the ship. They can keep the lifeboat for themselves this way too.’
‘But we need to get the boy to a hospital,’ Parvati protested, as she stroked Theo’s thin hair.
Buntee shook his head. ‘No. He has no passport or visa. You know what the bureaucrats are like. They’ll smell the scent of baksheesh – ready cash – and he’ll be taken away from us.’
Parvati nodded. She had no illusions about corruption in her country. She thought for a moment and then declared, ‘We must go to my parents’ house. We can take care of the poor darling there.’
Buntee nodded uncertainly but in truth he had no other plan to suggest. In any case, there was no arguing with Parvati. Barely had they beached on the sand than she hopped off and marched into the palm trees in search of a telephone. She looked faintly ridiculous wearing her plastic yellow raincoat in the sweltering morning, but the look on her face was so stern than no one dared get in her way. By the time she returned to the lifeboat half an hour later, a small crowd of curious Indians in shorts and lunghis had gathered. They parted as she approached.
‘Everything’s arranged,’ she announced. ‘A taxi is coming to pick us up in ten minutes and we’ll go to our villa in Bombay.’
Theo did as he was told without a word. Losing Bozo to the elements like that had robbed him of the strength to go on. Not even the sight of Marv, Dr Bunsen and 100 policemen could have evoked a reaction at that moment.
The worst part was that he had to mourn alone. No one else had known Bozo, and his friends supposed that Theo was upset about losing the elephant. How could he possibly explain that he had lost his best friend in the world, a four-foot-high Bloon?
For all but a few hours since Theo had awoken in the Story, Bozo had been by his side. It had been Bozo who told him the truth about the Story and turned Theo’s world upside-down. The Bloon had been by his side through thick and thin, and Theo couldn’t imagine how he could go on alone.
He remembered how he had once suspected Bozo of being an alien or an escaped science project, and felt a pang of guilt. He wished he’d taken the time to express his fondness for the Bloon more often.
Buntee carried him to the taxi. Theo thought about all the things Bozo had told him about the Story, and how he’d fought so hard not to believe him: the Fones with teeth, the Flash-boxes that made you thin, the Hypnosis-box, the Eleckytrons and the Palabras. Not to mention the Giggles, the Maps and the Roses with bad attitude.
While Parvati arranged some fruit juice and biscuits for the journey, Theo replayed behind his eyelids the crazy stuff Bozo had done since they’d met: he’d eaten Theo’s flowers, smuggled him aboard a school bus into France and got into a fight with Pierre’s cat. Then he’d robbed Lou of her crystal ball, destroyed the flying carpet and knocked down half a library.
And yet, for all of the chaos that Bozo left in his wake, there was no one Theo had cared for more in the whole wide Story. Bozo had been the best friend he’d ever had: faithful as a shadow and ready to follow Theo anywhere.
Until last night. Theo felt a wave of bitterness and envy when he considered that Bozo had chosen the elephant above him. But his hard feelings soon melted when he thought of poor Raj trapped in the wooden cargo hold, destined for a watery grave.
‘Bozo, Bozo – why didn’t you come?’ Theo repeated sorrowfully to himself, but deep down he understood perfectly. The Bloon had too big a heart to leave a friend to die, even if that meant abandoning another to live.
The journey to Bombay should have been an amazing collage of foreign sights and sounds for Theo, but he was too immersed in his own sadness to appreciate it much. The taxi bumped along over the potholes in the road, and weaved in and out of large, colourful trucks that wore painted slogans like:
Please horn.
Speed thrills but kills.
Time flies but sweet memories remain to inspire.
They passed through winding hills and jungle. Every hour or so they drove past roadside restaurants with rope-beds set outside and multicoloured kiosks selling bottled water and snacks. The trees were old and gnarled, sprawling out into the sky, and crows sat in their boughs and cackled. The Indians they passed all stared at Theo behind the windows of the taxi with undisguised curiosity, and it was a relief to leave them behind.
The taxi itself seemed a classic relic of a car. It was decked out with all the superstitions and beliefs of the driver. Buntee tried to cheer up Theo by pointing them out. ‘See, there’s Ganesh, the elephant god – just like good old Raj,’ he said, indicating a small plastic altar of an elephant sat on his throne on the dashboard. But it only reminded Theo of the previous night and his head sank into his hands in despair.
Buntee frowned and attempted to distract him by pointing out the marigold flowers around the steering wheel. ‘See those? The driver buys fresh ones each day. They’re a natural barrier between a man and his machine, a reminder to remain independent of technology.’
‘Let the poor darling sleep, Buntee,’ Parvati complained, and the clown gave in without a fight. The driver wanted to talk about cricket and Buntee obliged him. If only to make the time pass.
To give in to sleep was to let go a little of the sadness, and Theo didn’t want to forget a thing. He was too exhausted to resist for long, though, and eventually the rocking motion of the car lulled him into a deep slumber.
He awoke early the next morning to the sounds of car horns in a traffic jam outside Bombay. Before his mind could remind him why, he felt the hole in his heart. Instinctively, he looked around for Bozo before the memories came flooding back. The grief wracked his body and stole all colour from the world.
Parvati saw his pain and wrapped her shawl around him. ‘There, there, young man. Don’t be afraid. You’re going to come and stay with me. It will be all right.’
Theo allowed her to console him and reflected that he had never known what it was to have a mother. Now he felt what a comfort it might be.
The taxi pulled up outside a villa in a wealthy suburb, where security guards patrolled the edges of green, leafy compounds. They pulled in through the main gates and Theo noticed that, while the roadside was littered and overgrown with weeds, inside the compound the gardens were kept in immaculate condition.
Parvati’s parents ran out of the villa to greet them. Her mother was a chubby woman in a bright purple sari. Her face showed a heady mixture of delight and worry. Her father seemed a little more severe and it was clear that he disapproved of the way his daughter chose to lead her life. Still, it emerged that, unusually for India, Parvati was the only child, and they were hardly likely to disown her.
‘Now, God willing, you will leave this circus nonsense behind and lead a normal life at home,’ her father growled, but he was clearly happy to see his daughter safe and sound.
Theo was welcomed heartily into the house. Parvati’s mother fussed over him until they had to beg her to give the boy a little room to breathe. Theo accepted whatever was brought to him and barely said a word. To smile or laugh seemed to him to be a betrayal of his sadness at losing Bozo. He wondered if the Bloon would have felt the same had it been the other way around.
But the most uncomfortable of all was Buntee. Parvati’s parents practically ignored him and, though he was given a room, they shot him dark glances whenever anything to do with the circus was mentioned. Buntee sat uneasily at the dinner table each day, unable to take part in the gossip of high society, and no one ever asked him any questions or invited him to speak. He felt altogether out of place amid such luxurious wealth, and winced at the offhand way Parvati and her family addressed the legions of servants, maids and cooks. He had worked such jobs himself in the past and it pained him to see how badly the staff were treated by their rich employers.
Parvati also sensed the distance between them now that she was home again. The democratic air of the circus had passed and, as she began to resuscitate her social circle, Buntee became something of an embarrassment to her. He didn’t know anyone, didn’t own anything and aspired to nothing. That wasn’t something Parvati’s film star and college friends could understand. They made fun of him and called him ‘our little clown from the country’.
The only reason that Buntee hung on at all was to keep an eye on Theo, who, though not as sparkling as he used to be, was recovering a little of his will to live. He had been confined to bed with flu after the ordeal of the storm and it was only after a week that the doctors pronounced him restored to health.
Parvati’s parents were good people, if a little prejudiced. They took Theo straight to their hearts – partly out of love and partly because they associated his arrival with the return of their rebellious daughter. When they found out that he had no known family, they investigated the possibility of adoption and spoke with a local school about enrolling Theo for the spring term.
Theo gave in to everything with hardly a word. He was lost in a world of private grief. Parvati’s family tried to lift his spirits with movies and new toys, encouraged him to use the cricket bat in the garden, and even hinted at a new computer when he started school. Theo accepted everything with a quiet ‘thank you’ and continued to keep his own company.
One morning, however, Theo woke to the sound of crows squabbling in the treetops. He looked out of his bedroom window and saw Buntee hoisting a knapsack over his shoulder. The clown threw a backward glance and met Theo’s reproachful stare. ‘I …I have to go,’ he stammered. ‘You’ve got a home here now, Theo. You …you don’t need me anymore.’
‘No way,’ Theo said. ‘You’re not going anywhere.’
Buntee shook his head. ‘You’re a good lad,’ he said. ‘But there are things you can’t hope to understand yet. These are not my kind of people. I belong in the street, not in some posh villa. They hold their noses when I’m around. I have to go.’
‘Then I’m coming with you,’ Theo said, and before Buntee could protest he leapt out of the first-storey window and into the clown’s arms. Buntee was caught so by surprise that he fell backwards and Theo was sent head first into a birdbath. Buntee pulled him out and set him on his feet. Drenched from head to toe, Theo met Buntee’s gaze and something happened: he felt a warmth stir in his belly, inflate his chest and come roaring out of his mouth.
Theo burst out laughing for the first time since the storm.
Buntee gazed at him in astonishment and then cracked up also. They leaned upon one another in hysterics and staggered down the garden path, possessed by the Giggles.
They found the security guard fast asleep at his station and they climbed over the garden gate, almost dying with the effort of muffling their laughter as they went. A moment later they were walking down the shady street, Theo leaving a trail of wet footprints behind him.
‘So where are we going?’ Buntee asked, now that his breathing had come back to normal.
‘Where else? To see your great uncle, Jadooji,’ Theo replied. He looked back at the villa that was beginning to show signs of life as the sun struck the roof. ‘Do you suppose they’ll understand? They were very kind to me, after all.’
‘Parvati will,’ Buntee assured him. ‘She’s become a Bombay snob again for the moment, but there’s too much of the circus performer in her to stay home for long.’
Buntee pulled an apple from his pocket, took a bite and passed it to Theo. They hitched a ride on a passing cart hauled by two strong bullocks, and set off in search of the sixth AO.