Lizard's Tale Read online

  About the Book

  It’s Singapore in 1940, war is just around the corner—but twelve-year-old Lizard doesn’t know that. He lives in Chinatown above a tailor’s shop, surviving on his wits and hustling for odd jobs. When he steals a small teak box containing a Japanese code book from a Raffles Hotel suite, he finds himself in a dangerous world of wartime espionage.

  Lizard doesn’t know who to trust. How is the mysterious book inside the box connected to his friend Lili, a girl full of secrets and fighting skills? Can he trust her, or will she betray him in the end?

  Lizard’s Tale is an action-packed adventure for middle-grade readers, set in a British colony in Asia as the Japanese invasion of Singapore looms.

  For my father, who grew up in Chinatown And for my mother, who taught me to love books

  CONTENTS

  Cover Page

  About the Book

  Title Page

  One: Suite Seventy at Raffles Hotel

  Two: Chinatown

  Three: The Box of Bad Luck

  Four: The Mission

  Five: Strange Behaviour at Fatty Dim Sum’s Coffee Shop

  Six: The Lazy Gardener

  Seven: The Bag, the Box and the Boy

  Eight: Maximum Operations Enterprise

  Nine: The No-brain Street Brat

  Ten: Tanaka’s Emporium

  Eleven: The Cage

  Twelve: A Bullet Hole

  Thirteen: Does Silk Make Noise?

  Fourteen: An Infestation of Children

  Fifteen: Friend or Enemy

  Sixteen: The Nightingale and the Gamekeeper

  Seventeen: The Party at Palm Court

  Eighteen: A Steaming Claypot of Fish-head Soup

  Nineteen: A Silent Scream

  Twenty: The Key to the Trapdoor

  Twenty-One: The Harbour

  Twenty-Two: Highly Useful Intelligence

  Twenty-Three: A Question of Freedom

  Twenty-Four: Curry Puffs

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Copyright page

  CHAPTER ONE

  Suite Seventy at Raffles Hotel

  Tropical rain drummed on the red clay roof tiles of Raffles Hotel in Singapore. A skinny boy watched from below the balcony, hidden in the shrubbery, as a white-jacketed waiter hovered over the tables on the covered verandah. Silverware gleamed in the lamplight.

  The boy beneath the balcony was called Lizard. The cool night rain soaked him right through, but he was used to that. At least it kept the mosquitoes away.

  He watched his friend Roshan standing nervously beside the waiter. Roshan had just been promoted to dining room junior waiter, and he was terrified of making a mistake. Lizard winced as the waiter smacked Roshan’s head.

  ‘No, no, stupid boy!’ said the waiter. ‘The dessert spoon goes above the cake fork! Always, no exceptions. How many times must I tell you? Tonight’s guests are very important—everything must be perfect!’

  ‘Sorry, sir. I’ll remember, sir,’ stammered Roshan.

  ‘Tchah! Go inside. I’ll do this table myself.’ The waiter gave Roshan a little push and Roshan scuttled off, past the large portrait of King George VI of England. It was 1940 and George VI had been king for three years.

  Lizard hunched his shoulders, blinked the raindrops from his eyelashes and settled down to wait. He tucked his satchel close to keep it as dry as possible. He was thinking about how much he could make if he took just one of those gleaming forks to the Thieves’ Market in Sungei Road, when finally he saw them come in and be shown to their table: Mr Sebastian Whitford Jones, general manager of the New British East India Company, and his wife, Jemima.

  Lizard knew who they were, because he’d seen them arrive in their chauffeur-driven motor car earlier that afternoon. He had been waiting for them to come to dinner so that he could be sure they were not in their hotel suite.

  ‘Jemima, darling, we’re not too close to the rain here, are we?’ asked Mr Whitford Jones, in a very loud, very English voice.

  ‘Oh, no, Sebastian. This rain is so refreshing after the heat of today,’ said Mrs Whitford Jones with a sigh.

  Lizard was up and off, sprinting through the splatting raindrops. He sped through the wet blackness of the garden on bare feet, to suite seventy in the Palm Court wing. The Palm Court wing was double storey, but luckily suite seventy was on the ground floor. He ducked under one of the arches to the covered walkway. In a shadowy corner, he took his shirt off and squeezed it out, then used it to dry himself as best as he could. He shivered as he put the clammy shirt back on.

  He peered through the half-opened window into an empty sitting room. Light filtered in from the overhead lamps of the passage way outside. His heart hammered as he opened the window further and slipped inside.

  The wooden floorboards were smooth underfoot. He waited a moment, listening. A steady thrumming of ceiling fans came from the bedroom beyond. After a few more steps, his feet sank into plush Turkish carpet. He rubbed them on the soft pile, and ran his fingertips along the top of the plump brocade sofa as he moved past it.

  He was looking for a bible-sized, plain teak box. Where could it be? Still in one of the leather- and brass-trimmed travelling trunks stacked up in the corner? He hoped not, because all three were padlocked. He tapped gently on their sides. They sounded hollow.

  The antique Chinese sideboard? He pulled out a few drawers. Empty.

  Maybe the writing desk? The drawers held only a fountain pen and some paper.

  He glanced into the bedroom and saw two beds, each draped with mosquito netting that trembled in the breeze from the fans.

  Lizard was about to creep in there to search when he remembered something. He looked back at the writing desk. Roshan had once shown him a secret drawer in a desk in a fancy suite just like this. Lizard crept to the desk, moved the heavy chair out of the way and crouched down. His nimble fingers explored the crevices under the desk, and he found it. He pressed the hidden catch and pulled out the drawer that appeared underneath. Here it was—a sturdy, oiled teak box. A thick metal ring held it shut.

  That was easy. Maybe too easy.

  Something nagged at him, telling him things weren’t quite right. Best to get out quick, then, he thought. He shoved the box into his satchel and closed the secret drawer.

  As he slipped out from under the desk and moved towards the open window, he realised what was wrong. The ceiling fans in the bedroom. Why would they be on if no one was in?

  He didn’t see the girl standing in the bedroom doorway watching him.

  ‘Dinesh?’ said the girl. ‘Is that you, Dinesh?’

  Lizard jumped. He whirled around just as she turned on the electric light. He blinked in the glare.

  ‘Oh,’ she said, looking at the skinny, soggy boy standing before her. ‘I thought you were my friend, Dinesh. But you’re not.’ She stared at Lizard, as though blaming him for not being Dinesh. She had long, wavy, copper-coloured hair, large blue eyes and smooth pale skin. Lizard had never seen anyone so marvellously…clean.

  ‘I’m terribly sorry,’ Lizard gulped, though he wasn’t quite sure what he was apologising for.

  The girl’s eyes widened, then narrowed. ‘Well, you certainly don’t sound like Dinesh, even though you dress like him,’ she said, tilting her head. ‘You sound more like…me.’

  Lizard looked down at his old wet shirt, his too-large shorts and his dirty feet. His satchel hung in front of him and he clutched it tight as shame at his shabbiness bloomed hot in his chest.

  ‘My friend Dinesh is Gujarati,’ the girl said. ‘He’s the gardener’s son back home in New Delhi. I’m not allowed to play with the servants’ children, but they’re the most fun. You’re not Ind
ian, though. What are you?’

  ‘I’m…I don’t know.’ Lizard stared at the polished dark wood floor. He was leaving drops of water on it.

  ‘You don’t know?’ The girl stifled a snort of laughter. ‘Well, Master You-Don’t-Know, how do you do? My name is Georgina Amelia Whitford Jones. I was just in bed saying my prayers and asking for a friend, preferably Dinesh. I suppose you will do.’ She drifted over to a leather armchair and settled into it, her long white nightgown puffing around her. ‘Why are you here?’

  ‘I came to find something to eat,’ said Lizard, the lie coming easily to him.

  ‘Oh?’ Georgina arched a sceptical eyebrow. ‘Don’t you have a home?’

  ‘I used to live with my uncle, but not anymore. I’ll go now,’ Lizard said, edging towards the window. ‘I’m sorry to disturb you.’

  ‘If you go, I’ll scream and scream and scream.’ Georgina twirled a lock of her copper hair around her finger.

  Lizard stopped.

  ‘Then my maid, Ruksana, will come running and, oh my goodness, the fuss there will be,’ said Georgina, eyes wide. She paused to let this sink in. ‘Come here, boy.’

  Lizard took an unwilling step forward.

  Georgina stood up and came closer. She was the same height as Lizard, and he was unnerved when she leaned in, staring at his face. He could smell her breath—sweet and clean. He held his own.

  ‘Your eyes are green,’ she said, ‘and shaped like a cat’s. Your hair is black and your skin is golden.’ He flinched when she patted his face. ‘You’re very pretty, for a boy.’

  Abruptly, she whirled round in a flurry of red hair and flounced back to her chair.

  Lizard blushed scarlet.

  ‘Tell me your name and where you live and what you do during the day. And,’ she stared at him with one eyebrow raised, ‘I insist on the truth.’

  ‘They call me Lizard,’ he said, reluctantly.

  Georgina frowned. ‘Why do they call you that? It’s not a very nice name.’

  Lizard shrugged. ‘My uncle always called me that.’

  ‘And where do you live?’

  ‘I live in Chinatown.’

  ‘So you’re a Chinatown lizard?’ Georgina’s eyes glinted with amusement. ‘Where in Chinatown do you live?’

  ‘Above a tailor’s shop.’ Lizard felt clever for being vague; after all, there were many tailor shops in Chinatown.

  ‘And during the day?’

  ‘Sometimes…I go to school.’

  ‘How can a boy who has to steal food at night pay to go to school during the day?’

  Before Lizard could think of a reply, he heard voices outside the front door.

  ‘Oh! They’re back much too early!’ said Georgina. ‘You’ll have to hide in the bedroom. Sneak out through the bathroom window when you have a chance.’

  Lizard was already dashing into the other room. ‘Thank you, Missy,’ he said as he dropped down beside one of the beds.

  A key turned in the front door and he heard two men speaking in urgent voices outside.

  Georgina ducked her head through the bedroom door.

  ‘I haven’t finished with you, boy,’ she whispered. ‘Come back tomorrow night or I shall make sure my father finds you.’

  ‘I can’t!’ spluttered Lizard, shocked.

  ‘How hard do you think it would be to find a green-eyed half-Chinese boy who lives above a tailor’s shop in Chinatown?’ She shot him a look of triumph, then turned back to the sitting room as the front door opened.

  ‘Why wasn’t I told it was so important, Commander Baxter?’ demanded a voice that Lizard recognised as Mr Sebastian Whitford Jones’s.

  ‘Well, you know, Navy top brass didn’t want too much attention drawn to the thing,’ said an unfamiliar voice. ‘But never fear, all will be well once you’ve handed it over.’

  ‘Yes, quite, but nevertheless I ought to have been told of the nature of the thing,’ grumbled Mr Whitford Jones.

  Lizard moved the mosquito net out of the way and peeped around the bed. The two men stood just inside the front door, with Mrs Whitford Jones behind them. Lizard saw Georgina turn to them.

  ‘Mother? Father?’ Her voice trembled. ‘Oh, Father, I had the most dreadful nightmare!’

  To Lizard’s admiration, she burst into loud and believable sobs. He was so impressed that he almost missed her hand waving at him behind her back, just before she pulled the door half closed. She ran and flung herself into her father’s arms. Lizard took that as his cue, and he darted to the other end of the bedroom and out the bathroom window.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Chinatown

  Lizard fled down the covered walkway and back into the Palm Court garden. He ducked behind the frangipani tree in the corner and waited while a couple strolled past laughing. The rain had stopped and the damp night air teemed with the sound of crickets chirping, frogs croaking and, in the distance, the Dan Hopkins Orchestra playing a swing tune.

  Lizard came to a palm tree next to the garden wall. Making sure there were no Raffles Hotel doormen in sight, Lizard climbed hand-over-hand up the trunk and onto the top of the wall. He crouched there, waiting for a chance to drop unnoticed to the street below. He was very good at climbing and hiding and, he was ashamed to admit, stealing.

  Beach Road bustled with activity at this time of the evening. A few motor cars roared past, taking European gentlemen and their wives to who knows where they went for fun, but mostly the street was full of pedestrians and bicycles and rickshaws pulled by leathery-skinned men with feet as bare as Lizard’s own. Beyond the road lay the beachfront and the rhythm of the breaking waves.

  Lizard landed on the road and became just another pedestrian in the crowd.

  As he walked to Chinatown, he wondered what was in the wooden box. He wanted to open it and see, but not out here where a would-be robber or curious friend might be lurking, sometimes both in the one person. Also, Boss Man Beng had warned him to be extra careful with this particular job.

  Lizard needed to pay for rent and food, and he ran errands and did any jobs someone would pay him to do. He did some letter writing on the side too. A lot of his work came from Boss Man Beng.

  Boss Man Beng was a petty local criminal who thought of himself as a Chinatown crime boss. In reality, he picked up the crumbs that fell beneath the notice of the big gangs. He had a few spies in Chinatown listening out for information that could be used to make money. Boss Man Beng spent a lot of time sitting in coffee shops talking big, sweating and plotting shady schemes.

  Yesterday, Boss Man Beng had called for Lizard, and they had met up at Sum’s Coffee Shop.

  ‘Eh, Lizard, this is the big job, really big. Think you can do it?’ Boss Man Beng said in Cantonese, a frosty Tiger beer bottle in his hand.

  ‘Do what, Boss?’ asked Lizard, his mouth full of the delicious wonton noodles that Boss Man Beng had bought him.

  They were sitting at one of the round marble-topped tables in the coffee shop. The sweltering afternoon glare and the rhythmic whirr of the ceiling fan sapped Lizard’s energy. Fatty Dim Sum, the proprietor, was humming along to the radio as he wiped the nearby tables.

  ‘I can trust you, eh, Lizard boy? You won’t tell anyone?’ Boss Man Beng gripped Lizard’s shoulder and stared into his eyes. ‘You cannot tell anyone or’—his voice dropped to a whisper and he glanced around nervously—‘we both could die!’

  Lizard was used to Boss Man Beng’s exaggerations, but this seemed rather extreme.

  ‘I’ll pay you fifty, no, one hundred dollars if you do it right!’ Boss Man said.

  Lizard had almost choked on his noodles. One hundred dollars! Nearly one year’s worth of rent and food. He nodded, swallowed, and said, ‘You can trust me, Boss. Whatever you want, I can do it, for sure.’

  Boss Man Beng let go of Lizard’s shoulder to wipe the sweat off his upper lip. ‘All right, boy. You know Raffles Hotel, right? On Beach Road?’

  ‘Yes, Boss. Got a friend who works there, I go the
re to see him sometimes.’

  Boss Man Beng seemed to relax a bit. ‘Really? Good, very good. This is what you do…’

  After giving Lizard detailed instructions, Boss Man Beng made him repeat them three times before he was satisfied. He took out ten dollars and gave it to Lizard. ‘I won’t lie to you, boy,’ he said, his eyes bulging. ‘This is really dangerous. The thing in the teak box is deadly and we need to get rid of it straight away, or…’ He drew his index finger across his throat. ‘But if things work out,’ he grinned fatly, ‘I’ll get a nice apartment in North Bridge Road and the ladies will…oh, never mind. Just don’t be late, understand? Not even one minute, got it?’

  Now Lizard had the box and he just needed to give it to Boss Man Beng. But he was unsettled. Not just because the girl Georgina had caught him, but because the way she talked reminded him of Uncle Archie. Lizard forced himself not to think about his uncle when he was on a job—Uncle Archie would be disappointed if he knew Lizard did jobs like this. Being reminded of his uncle so unexpectedly made his chest ache in a way that he couldn’t explain.

  Lizard walked down North Bridge Road past the Capitol Theatre, one of his favourite places to go when he had any money to spare. He had seen many pictures, but The Adventures of Robin Hood was his favourite.

  Finally, he turned into Tanjong Pagar Road. This was home now—Chinatown, with its poles of washing hung out of the windows, the fruity stench rising from the open drains on the sides of the road and the clamour of hawkers hustling in their dialects. The upper floors of the shop houses jutted out over the street, forming a covered walkway along the roadside. Sir Stamford Raffles had decreed that this walkway be five foot wide, and everyone called it the five-foot way.

  Lizard realised he was ravenous.

  ‘Eh, Lizard! You so late tonight? What you doing?’ the Indian hawker was already taking out the curry puffs as he spoke.

  ‘Eh, uncle, how?’ he greeted the hawker. The hawker was not actual family, but uncle was the respectful way to address any older man, even strangers. Curry puffs were Lizard’s favourite food, and he always silently dedicated the first bite to Uncle Archie. He could usually only afford two once a week, but today, he could have as many as he wanted.