Iris and the Tiger Read online

  That must be my room.

  The guestroom was far from poky: it was at least four times as big as her bedroom at home. It had white walls and a curved ceiling, a fat armchair in the corner, a set of drawers, a round coffee table with a vase of flowers in the middle, and a door leading to a small bathroom.

  Iris dragged her luggage in. Her boring grey suitcase bore the logo of her dad’s firm—Chen Architects. She’d secretly hoped for her own luggage, a purple suitcase on wheels to match her backpack, but this was all she’d been given.

  Iris knelt on the enormous bed and looked out the window to the same view from the back patio, only from an even higher vantage point. From here she saw a patchwork of mottled greens. An eagle wheeled high above the garden, and there were hazy mountains in the distance. No roads, no cars, no people, no skyscrapers, trams or shops.

  Iris reclined on the bed and remembered the last conversation she’d had with her parents before leaving for Spain. It had been confusing, to say the least.

  ‘Now, we all know I had absolutely no luck getting along with that nut—with the delightfully different Ursula,’ Iris’s mum had said, smiling tensely. ‘But you are much cuter than I was, Iris. Aunt Ursula must like you so much that she puts you first in her will. Spend every moment you can with her. Never disagree. Pretend you like all the things she likes. You should concentrate all your efforts on making yourself into the person you think she wants you to be.’

  Iris wasn’t sure she agreed with her mum’s approach. Shouldn’t people be liked for who they are, not who they pretend to be?

  It soon become clear that her dad also disagreed, although for different reasons.

  ‘The best use of your time,’ he said, ‘would be on information-gathering: finding out who else might be in your great-aunt’s favour.’

  Iris’s mum had glared at him. Iris decided it might be a good moment to open her notebook and share her own ideas about information-gathering.

  ‘Who does Aunt Ursula get along with best?’ Iris read from her brainstorming list. ‘Who does she talk to the most? Who makes her laugh, and who does she tell her secrets to? Who doesn’t have much money and wants more? Who has a lot and still wants more?’

  Iris glanced up. Her dad’s mouth had fallen open. He was impressed, as he should be. It had taken her all morning to draw up this list. She continued.

  ‘Who spends the most time at the house? Who uses the garden? Who owns the houses nearby and how long have they been there?’

  Iris finished off with the statement of which she was most proud.

  ‘The most important tool of a good spy is very simple—it’s the eyes,’ she said. ‘So I will pack both my eyes, and a pair of binoculars as well.’

  This was a little joke, which her parents clearly did not understand. Their expressions hadn’t changed at all. Eventually her dad spoke.

  ‘That was very good, Iris, but I need to correct you on a few points. I wouldn’t bother with the neighbours. The answers will be inside the house. Also, we’re not asking you to spy.’

  ‘Not exactly,’ added her mum.

  ‘Spying sounds as if we have something to hide.’ Her father stroked his chin with a worried look. ‘We only have Aunt Ursula’s best interests at heart.’

  ‘We don’t want someone else to slink in at the last minute and grab the lot,’ her mum said. ‘Someone with no taste, and no sense of history.’

  ‘Imagine if they tore everything down and put in a tacky resort.’

  Iris’s dad thought all buildings designed by anyone other than himself were tacky. He was also obsessed with inheritances, which was understandable after he’d been frozen out of his own family’s will.

  Iris knew their reasoning well. ‘It would be a dishonour to the friendship between Nanna and Aunt Ursula,’ she said in a robot voice. No one ever noticed how good her robot voice was—it was seriously good.

  ‘Exactly!’ cried her mum. ‘Win her heart, inherit the lot.’

  Her dad finished up. ‘And we’ll be the perfect guardians until you come of age.’

  After she’d showered and unpacked, Iris set out from the guestroom with her spy notebook tucked into her pocket. She had no plan about where she should go, and her stomach was hollow with hunger—what time was it? Her last meal had been hours ago, on the plane.

  To the left of the guestroom was an unlit corridor blocked off by gold posts and velvet rope, as if people might sometimes queue there to watch a movie. Iris pushed against the rope and tried to see what was down the hallway, but it was too dark.

  Imagine having a home so big you can forget about whole bits of it, she thought.

  She leant over the balcony to get a better look at the paintings hanging in the more out-of-reach places. She could already see why her parents wanted to preserve Aunt Ursula’s house and the gardens and one day turn the whole place into a museum. It looked like a museum already.

  Ursula’s brother, James Freer, had been a famous painter, so there would be lots of interest. Uncle James was the one who’d first come to Spain, after the war, and bought Bosque de Nubes. His paintings were worth millions of dollars, especially now he was dead.

  Iris felt the faintest stir of excitement, right down deep at the pit of her stomach. It was cool to be in Spain, no matter how daunting and unfamiliar it was. And maybe the house would be interesting to explore, despite the impossibility of the task her parents had set her.

  The paintings hanging around the lobby walls were all ordinary portraits. Probably not painted by Uncle James, Iris noted. Her mum had told her that she’d recognise Uncle James’s paintings because they would be ‘weird’. These weren’t weird at all.

  Somewhere on the same floor, a piano started up a cascade of rolling notes. Whoever was playing knew what they were doing. Iris forgot her stomach and the paintings, and went to investigate.

  An open door on the far side of the balcony spilled out light and noise. Iris squeezed past a cleaning cart loaded with spray bottles and sponges.

  The door led to a crimson room, full of couches and armchairs, tables and lamps, statues and glass-fronted cabinets. More paintings and photos decorated the walls, and another chandelier hung from the ceiling.

  If this was the lounge room, it was pretty spectacular. Iris had always wondered why her mum complained about their home, but maybe she’d been comparing it to Bosque de Nubes.

  The piano was the big, glossy concert sort with a propped-up lid. A young woman was bent so far over its keys she appeared to have no head. Sheets of music were spread out in front of her—and there were black specks swarming all over the cream paper.

  Iris took two steps forward, her mouth agape. What, what, what? The music notes were moving!

  As she got closer, Iris saw that they weren’t notes at all but ants almost as big as her hand. Six of them, seven, eight—no, more than that, dozens. Iris closed her eyes.

  This isn’t happening, she told herself. It can’t be happening.

  When she opened her eyes again, the ants had turned back into ordinary notes.

  The young woman stopped playing and swivelled to face Iris. She was wearing figure-hugging gym gear and had her hair pulled into a high ponytail. She didn’t seem to have noticed the ants, even though they had almost crawled all over her hands and fingers.

  ‘You must not tell Señorita Freer about this,’ she said in heavily accented English. She closed the piano lid and stood up. ‘She is jealous of me, as I am young and pretty and play piano better than her.’

  The pretty part was true. The woman was around nineteen and gorgeous.

  Maybe she’s a model, or a dancer. Iris shook the thought off. There were more important things than Aunt Ursula’s jealousy at hand.

  ‘Where did the ants go?’ she said.

  The young woman blinked, then smiled disarmingly. But Iris would not be put off.

  ‘I know what I saw,’ she insisted. Then she remembered the jet lag. Could it be making me see things that aren’t r
eally there?

  ‘I am Elna. You must be the Australian.’

  Elna stepped behind a couch and pulled out a vacuum cleaner.

  She’s the maid, Iris realised with surprise. She’d been expecting someone older, not a girl in leopard-print tights and gold sneakers.

  ‘What is your name again, little Australian?’

  When she told her, Elna’s mascara-coated eyes grew big. ‘Iris? Same as the old man’s wife.’

  She dropped the vacuum hose and beckoned. Iris followed her, even though she suspected she was being distracted from the piano ants.

  Together they looked at a large painting above one of the fireplaces. It showed a woman with wavy blonde hair and freckles standing in a paddock with a fawn greyhound by her side.

  ‘Did Uncle James paint this?’

  ‘Sí. You are named after his wife, Señora Iris Freer. I never met them, of course. They are dead many years.’

  Elna wore hot-pink lipstick and may or may not have drawn a beauty spot above her lip.

  ‘You have same name as dead woman.’

  ‘Cool?’ said Iris, unsure about whether this was good or creepy. Her parents had never said anything about being named after Uncle James’s wife, but she supposed it could be true.

  Iris Freer wore a woollen cape and khaki pants and a beret. She shielded her face from the bright sun with one hand. Long, dark shadows slanted away from her and the greyhound.

  ‘She was a war hero,’ said Elna. ‘A nurse during the civil war. Very brave, at only seventeen. People still talk about her. This is not the only painting about her. The other painting is much better, actually very famous. The one with the tiger. You know this?’

  ‘What other painting?’ Iris said, distracted. She’d noticed something unusual about Iris Freer’s dog and stood on tiptoes to see better. The dog had—wait, yes—the dog had five legs.

  A sort of gentle thrill took hold of Iris, imagining some of Iris Freer’s mystique could rub off on her by sharing a name. It was, of course, very unlikely that she would grow up to be someone interesting enough to paint.

  Iris only realised that Elna was no longer standing beside her when she heard the vacuum cleaner start in another part of the room. Elna, like Señor Garcia the chauffeur, could move as quietly as a cat.

  It was with a sense of relief that Iris stepped out of the front door and into the day. The house was creeping her out. It was so gloomy in there, and she was already struggling to stay awake.

  At the side of the house was a falling-down gate, a tangle of vines and a birdbath popular with sparrows. The sun warmed the back of Iris’s neck, but it was softer than the Australian sun. She squinted up. It was just after noon, maybe. In Australia, with the time difference, it would almost be her bedtime.

  How will I stay awake all day?

  The garden appeared normal, but Iris still felt rattled. She couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something deeply strange about Bosque de Nubes.

  She followed a raggedy brick path through a patch of tomato plants, holding out her hand when she saw a butterfly. It landed on her finger, before fluttering away at the sound of a man’s voice.

  Iris ducked back into the tomatoes. The voice was nearby—and getting closer. The man was speaking Spanish and he sounded angry. A leaf tickled Iris’s nose but she didn’t move. Two legs stopped a few metres off.

  Iris peered through the vines. The man was a giant with a mobile phone—it was Marcel, she realised, who had waved at Aunt Ursula earlier. Words were spewing from him: fast, roaring words.

  Marcel’s face was almost completely taken up with a beard and eyebrows, and he looked as if he could rip trees out of the ground with his bare fists. Iris felt sorry for the person on the other end of the line.

  When he turned away from her, Iris took the opportunity to reverse out of the veggie patch on hands and knees.

  Not wanting to meet anyone else new, Iris parked herself up a tree, using a wooden crate to reach the first foothold. She settled with her back against the trunk, one leg dangling down, and pulled out her notebook.

  On the inside cover she’d glued a photo of herself and her best friend Violet, taken on their first day of high school. Iris gazed at the photo, frowning. She was blinking, while Violet had a dazzling smile, thanks to two years of braces. Violet had always been pretty (they’d known each other since kindergarten), but Iris had realised recently that pretty counted for a lot in high school. And Violet always managed to keep her eyes open in photos.

  Iris turned a fresh page. She went to write the date, but couldn’t remember what day it was, with all the time zones and flying.

  Potential toy boy, she wrote. Marcel…mad at someone—accomplice?

  Iris capped her pen and sighed. She couldn’t remember if Aunt Ursula had said what Marcel’s job was at Bosque de Nubes. Her head was full of strangeness: the banister, the five-legged dog, the yelling, the poems. Everything in Spain was turning out to be so much harder than she’d expected it to be, and her parents should have warned her that jet lag could make you hallucinate.

  Iris let her head fall against the tree and closed her eyes.

  The memory of ants marched across her eyelids. From the moment she’d arrived, she’d sensed something not quite right with the estate.

  She was so deep in thought that she shrieked when someone tugged on her ankle and came close to falling from the tree.

  ‘Hello?’ said a voice.

  ‘You nearly killed me!’ Iris’s heart thumped sickeningly.

  ‘No, you kill me!’

  A boy stood at the foot of the tree, holding her notebook. He acted out getting hit in the head with it.

  Iris was unmoved. ‘You can’t go about grabbing people!’

  The boy was very tanned and wore his hair long, almost to his shoulders. He looked about the same age as Iris, but none of the boys at her school would dare wear their hair like that.

  ‘My name is Jordi and I am very pleased to meet you.’

  He held out his hand. Iris leant down to shake it grudgingly.

  ‘Iris.’

  Jordi’s hand felt clammy and his fingernails were dirty. What kind of kid shook hands? Maybe it was a Spanish thing.

  ‘You meet my father? His name is Marcel.’

  Even though Iris preferred the tree, it felt rude bellowing at Jordi from up there. She slid down the trunk and grabbed her notebook back, hoping he hadn’t read any of it.

  ‘Have you met my friends?’

  Jordi pointed at a nearby shed. Two horses peered over the gate, one light brown and one dark.

  ‘His names are Turrón and Miró.’

  ‘Their names,’ corrected Iris under her breath. The dark horse rolled his eyes and snorted. Iris could already tell that he didn’t like her.

  Jordi pulled something out of his shirt pocket and handed it to her.

  ‘Miss Ursula ask me to give.’

  It was a cream card, embossed with gold letters that said ‘You are cordially invited to—’ Ursula had written in elaborate calligraphy underneath:

  A Surreal Dinner Party

  The Ground Floor Dining Room, 8 o’clock.

  Dress As Your Dreams.

  ‘What’s this?’

  Iris had no idea what the word ‘Surreal’ meant.

  Jordi shrugged, plunged his hands in his pockets. ‘There is never a reason at Bosque de Nubes.’ He smiled then, which seemed to multiply his freckles. ‘Your aunt has a party if the weather is good.’

  Iris found it hard not to smile. She’d forgiven Jordi for startling her. ‘Are you coming to dinner too?’

  ‘I would not miss it for all of the worlds.’

  Jordi kept standing there and smiling, as if he expected more from her. Eventually he said, ‘I know a lot about this place. Maybe you need someone who can lead you around?’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Iris. She knew the grounds were big, but surely she couldn’t be a spy with Jordi in tow? He might report back to Aunt Ursula if she as
ked too many curious questions.

  ‘It is a deal, okay?’ Jordi shook her hand again, and Iris had the uncomfortable feeling that she’d just made an unbreakable agreement.

  ‘I must go back to school now. Lunch is nearly closed. It was very nice meeting you.’

  Jordi picked up a bike that was lying on the ground. His schoolbag was lashed to the rear rack with an octopus strap.

  ‘Wait! Can you tell me, how far away is the town?’

  Jordi made a face. ‘Town? You can call it a village. Sant Joan is fifteen minutes this way. There is not much excitement there.’

  Iris wasn’t hoping for excitement, just an internet café. She should probably wait a few days before asking to be driven to town, in case she offended Aunt Ursula. Asking to be taken out was the same thing as saying Bosque de Nubes was boring.

  ‘Oh. Well…thanks then.’

  ‘How do you think my English is, Iris?’ Jordi swung his leg over the bike. ‘I try to use new sentences, but I think my accent is not so good.’

  ‘No, it’s great. Your English is three thousand per cent better than my Spanish.’

  Jordi smiled and pedalled off. Iris watched him joggle across the lawns. The horses turned their heads as well. Jordi was likeable, that much was obvious.

  Maybe he’s Aunt Ursula’s favourite, Iris thought. Just my luck I’ll have to make an enemy of the nicest person here. Still, the friendly conversation with Jordi had made her feel normal again.

  She read the invitation again. ‘Dress As Your Dreams’—what could that possibly mean? No one had told her she should bring clothes for a party.

  Iris tucked the fancy card inside her notebook and shoved the notebook into her pocket.

  When she turned back, she saw a pair of battered leather boots lined up at the base of the tree. They hadn’t been there a minute ago, and she would have noticed if Jordi had left them.

  The tops of the boots were regular brown leather, with laces all the way to the ankle. But then, below the ankle, the boots became…strange. The leather blended into pink skin and toes: the boots became feet.