I nodded and started looking around the tent; then came the horrible moment when I began to realise Ferret was not there. Thalia and Soterichus continued their meeting. It involved a tense conversation about the giraffe. They were pretending it was all trading banter, but I could tell they were just saying routine things, not meaning anything real. He claimed he would persuade her to have the crocodile eventually, because he knew she wanted it really. She said he was smooching as usual but he could forget it. Crocs were lethal. She did not have the staff or the facilities. He said yes but the public adored them. She called him a rude word.
I had not heard that word before; it was obviously very bad. I would have to write it down.
While Soterichus was spluttering in surprise, I said loudly, ‘My ferret’s gone!’
‘Cough up, Soterichus,’ Thalia ordered him. ‘The giraffe was piss poorly from the off and you bloody well know it. You pulled a fast one when you passed him off, more fool me for believing you … Postumus, dearie, I shall help you to look. He can’t have gone far. He must have burrowed in somewhere.’
She jumped up, pretending to help me, though I could tell it was only to show she would definitely have no more to do with Soterichus’ offer of the crocodile. She still believed nothing had happened to Ferret.
As Jason slid off her when she leapt to her feet, I felt a terrible premonition creeping over me, like when you have accidentally stood in a very cold pond. I looked at the python. He smirked back at me. He was the kind of guilty criminal who stands there and dares you to accuse him, saying ha, ha, you can’t prove anything, while he’s laughing.
I said, in a quiet voice, ‘I wonder if Jason has eaten my ferret.’
‘No, Postumus darling, of course he hasn’t. Jason had a rat two days ago, he won’t be hungry again yet.’
‘He has eaten Ferret! I know he has.’
‘Don’t get yourself worked up.’
I wanted to scream and create like a very little boy, but I was twelve, or more likely eleven as Helena would say, so I knew better. I wanted to cry big tears, because I had lost my friend Ferret and also I was afraid he must have had a frightening experience when the snake attacked him. I hated to think of him in that predicament. He must have been horribly surprised. I always looked after him as nicely as I could, so he was not used to anything bad happening. I hated to think of him slowly going down inside the python, at first perhaps still alive. I wondered what that must have felt like.
I wished we had never come here. I wanted to go home. Sometimes I imagined that if I could just run home, I might find Ferret sitting up on his normal bed there and it could be as if none of this had happened to us. But I knew that was no good.
I went back to searching, madly throwing things aside while I looked everywhere again.
Thalia went out to Soterichus in the round part of the tent. I heard her say in a low tone, ‘You had better go. I need to see to him. His pet is lost and you can see his poor little heart is broken.’
I did not say goodbye or watch Soterichus leave. Even if he was my father I had no interest in him now.
Thalia helped me hunt for Ferret. She was very methodical. She said she had had to hunt for lost creatures before. I bet she meant Jason. Our searching made him agitated, so Thalia wound him up and fastened him in a huge basket. She didn’t think I noticed, but as she fed his coils into it, she ran her hands over his body, which I guessed was to check if she could feel Ferret inside him. After she tied down the lid of the basket, we could hear Jason thumping about and trying to break the container so he could escape and cause havoc.
I had once thought a python would be an interesting pet to have, but now I just hated Jason. He was a killer. I hid my feelings, which I am very good at, but I was already deciding I would prove what had happened to Ferret. If I could find any bits of him, I would hold a proper funeral. And then I would make those responsible pay for his death.
5
Thalia kept refusing to admit that Jason must have killed Ferret. We searched the whole tent and even went to those next door, asking if anyone had seen him. Nobody had.
I didn’t want any dinner. I went to bed. I was pretending not to mind as much as I did. Thalia tried to soften me up but I stayed quiet and private. My father and sister say you should never consent to be drawn in by people you need to investigate. Trust nobody. People are all devious. Suspect them all. So I played the brave boy and agreed whatever was said to me. However, I was not talking. I kept my thoughts to myself.
In the morning Thalia sat down with me saying, as if she cared, that we would keep searching when we had time. I was not to worry about it. He was bound to turn up again.
She knew nothing. Well, she wouldn’t admit it. Classic, as Falco would say. She would be found out. I would do it.
At least now Ferret was officially designated a missing person, so I was allowed to write up posters in order to describe him and to seek information.
LOST: Sable ferret, guard hairs dark, mask white, tail dark, paws dark, eyes black, nose pink, expression sweet, character lively, answers to Ferret. Useful info to MDA Postumus care of Thalia, finder’s fee. No timewasters, please.
Thalia had offered to pay a small reward for anything that led to his return. That was easy for her to say. She knew she would never have to cough up.
I wanted to go to the vigiles and make a report, but Thalia would not let me. In the Transtiberina I didn’t know where the cohort lived so I couldn’t just go by myself. She claimed they had better things to do, saving peoples’ lives in fires, letting burglars run away and harassing innocent performers about their entertainment licenses.
When someone goes missing you have to consider whether they have recently been anxious over anything. I supposed Ferret might be worried that he had come to a strange new place. I didn’t think so, because I was here with him. In the past he had visited the coast with me and came along if anybody ever took me on an outing. Albia took me with her to Nemi to bring me out of myself, though it didn’t. It never bothered Ferret. He just wriggled inside my tunic during the journey and became madly excited when he could explore a new place.
Lysias said if Ferret was a dog or some other kind of animal he might run off and try to find his own way back to what he thought was his real home. I should send a message to Falco and Helena in case he turned up. I didn’t know who would carry a message for me, but if Ferret appeared at our house on the Aventine, they would know I needed to hear he was safe and to have him back immediately. My parents have thoughtful natures. But I couldn’t see how he would travel through the streets to their house without some other boy deciding to grab him to have as a pet of his own.
Hermes and Sizon asked if Ferret had a girlfriend he might have eloped with. They were giggling about their suggestion, trying to annoy me. ‘Has he run off to have a fling, or is he unlucky in love and has gone into hiding to get drunk and mope? Ooh, you don’t think he could be suicidal, do you, Postumus?’ I ignored them.
On my own I thought about that. The menagerie had plenty of animals but no female ferrets he could have fallen for. Anyway, he was loyal to me. Or, as Helena Justina would announce to nobody in particular in her special voice, as a male, he knew when he was well off.
The next question was, did he have any enemies? Only Jason. Normally, when they belong to a responsible boy, captive ferrets have nothing to be afraid of.
I could not remember who told me this but I knew in the wild ferrets are attacked by large birds of prey, badgers and foxes. If he had gone into the lion’s cage to look at Thalia’s half-grown lion, Roar, that might have had fatal consequences but nobody I spoke to had seen him heading towards the menagerie, let alone Roar’s cage. In any case, I had been at the menagerie myself all that morning and much of the afternoon, so he would have seen me there and come joyfully to jump down my tunic-top as usual. He could have poked his head out and looked at the lion from there.