“Kiki only reads my thoughts, Aunt Allie,” laughed Jack. “I say — look here — here comes Rabbit-Mouth!”
The children giggled as they watched a tall, gangling boy come up the gangway. His mouth certainly was exactly like a rabbit’s. The front teeth stuck out, and his chin sloped backwards. He was about as old as Jack and Philip. He wore large, round glasses that magnified his eyes and made them look rather staring. He had a very amiable grin on his face as he came up the gangway.
He seemed very excited, and was talking in a mixture of English and some foreign language to a rather languid-looking lady behind him, and a short, burly man who wore dark sun-glasses that completely hid his eyes.
“Uncle, Aunt, we’re off at last! Oh, I say, what a magnificent ship! I’m sure I shan’t be seasick in her.” Then he went off into what sounded like a string of gibberish, but was really a foreign language. Kiki cocked her head when she hard this string of what sounded to her like complete nonsense.
As the boy passed she spoke to him in a conversational tone, pouring out the same kind of gibberish that she had heard. The boy looked at her in amazement.
“Oh, I say! A talking parrot. Oh, I say!”
“Oh, I say!” repeated Kiki immediately. “Oh, I say! Oh, I SAY!”
“Shut up, Kiki. Don’t be rude,” said Jack.
Micky leaned forward on Philip’s shoulder and sent out a stream of excited chattering to Kiki. The rabbit-mouthed boy stared in delight.
“Oh, I say! A talking monkey too! What’s he saying?”
“He says he thinks he’s seen you somewhere before, but he can’t remember where, and he wants to know if Kiki the parrot remembers,” said Philip solemnly. Lucy-Ann gave a delighted giggle. The boy stared open-mouthed, then he laughed, showing all his rabbit-teeth.
“Oh, you’re pulling my leg, aren’t you! But I say — what fun — a parrot that talks, and a tame monkey! Aren’t you lucky!”
“Get on, Lucian, get on,” said the burly man behind him, and gave the boy a push. Lucian went forward at a run, turning round to give the four children an apologetic grin for leaving them so abruptly. The man said something in an annoyed voice to the woman with him, but as he said it in a foreign language the children didn’t understand a word. They guessed at once, however, that Lucian was not very popular with his uncle!
“Well — if Rabbit-Mouth is the only boy to come on board here, I suppose he’ll pin himself on to us all day long,” said Philip. “What a weed!”
“Oh, I say!” said Kiki. Jack groaned.
“Now we shall have Kiki saying that day and night. It’s a good thing Micky can’t talk properly — we’d never get a word in edgeways!”
The ship sailed off again into waters bluer than ever. It was pleasant to go to the bow of the ship and feel the breeze. Both Kiki and Micky liked this too.
Just as Jack and Philip had feared, the rabbit-mouthed boy tagged himself on to them whenever he could. The children always knew when he was coming because Kiki invariably gave them warning.
“Oh, I say!” she would squawk and the four would sigh. Lucian again! He would come up grinning amiably, and settle himself beside them.
He told them all about himself immediately. He had no father or mother. His father had been English, but his mother was Greek, so he had plenty of Greek relations. He went to school in England, but spent most of his holidays with his relations. He was fourteen, nearly fifteen, he didn’t like games, he loved history, and he wished his name wasn’t Lucian.
“Why?” asked Dinah.
“Well — because the boys at my school change it to Lucy-Ann,” explained Lucian. “I mean — fancy having a name that’s as girlish as that.”
“It’s my name,” said Lucy-Ann. “I like it.”
“Well — it’s very nice for you,” said Lucian. “But awful for me. Especially when they shorten it and call me Lucy.”
“Juicy Lucy!” said Kiki at once in delight. “Juicy Lucy! Oh, I say!”
Everybody roared, even Lucian. Kiki cackled too.
“Juicy Lucy, goosey-Lucy, oh, I say!” caroled Kiki.
“Oh, I say really — that bird of yours is a regular comic, isn’t she?” said Lucian in admiration. “Gosh, I wish I could borrow her to take back to school. I say, do you take her to school with you?”
“I used to,” said Jack regretfully. “But she kept telling our form-master to wipe his feet and shut the door, and when she yelled out ‘Don’t sniff, use your hanky’ to the Head, well, that was about the end.”
“Do you remember how you put her in a cupboard once, to hide her in class — and she went off like fireworks, fizzling and popping and exploding?” said Philip, with a grin. “It was just after Guy Fawkes Day — she remembered the noises.”
Lucian listened in the greatest admiration, his rabbit-mouth open as if he listened with that as well as with his ears.
“Oh, I say! What happened?”
“Well — we exploded too!” said Philip. “And after that, the master did — in a different way, of course. We had to put Kiki out to live with someone in the village. We go to see her every day, of course, and have her on half-holidays and week-ends.”
“And she always goes to every school match and cheers like anything — doesn’t she, Jack?” said Lucy-Ann.
“She’s a wonder,” said Lucian. “Let me have her for a minute.”
“Look out — she won’t go to strangers,” warned Jack. But Lucian was already trying to get hold of the wonderful parrot. He soon let her go. She gave him a vicious nip with her curved beak, and he yelled. To Lucy-Ann’s amazement she saw tears in his eyes!
He turned and went off without a word, sucking his bleeding thumb. The others looked at one another.
“He was crying,” said Lucy-Ann, in sheer amazement that a boy of fourteen should do such a thing.
“He’s a nit-wit,” said Jack, trying to calm down Kiki, who had put up her crest tremendously, and was dancing angrily from one foot to another.
“Nit-wit,” said Kiki, pouncing on the word at once. “Nit-wit, wit-nit, tit-bit, bit-nit, oh, I say!”
“You’re a bad bird, nipping people like that,” scolded Jack. “That was a nasty nip.”
“Nip-wit,” announced Kiki.
“Yes, that’s about what you are — a nip-wit!” said Jack, with a chuckle. “Now don’t you start, Micky! We’ve had enough rudery from Kiki.”
Micky had started off on one of his long strings of excited gibberish. It was comical to see how seriously and solemnly Kiki listened to this, with her head on one side.
She answered the little monkey solemnly when he had finished his excited announcement, whatever it was.
“Rikky-likky-acky, icky, pop-pop-pop!” she said. The children roared. “She thinks she’s talking his language. Good old Kiki! You can’t get the better of her,” said Philip. “I’m glad she’s more friendly with Micky now. He’s such a dear.”
“He’s getting awfully mischievous though,” said Dinah, who now thought of the monkey much more kindly. “He went into a dozen cabins yesterday, and collected all the soaps out of the basins and put them in one of the armchairs in the lounge.”
“Gracious!” said Jack. “He’ll be getting into trouble soon.”
“You mean we shall,” said Philip. “I wish we could teach Kiki to keep an eye on Micky for us — but she encourages him. I’m sure it was Kiki who told the monkey to climb up the pole to the man in the crow’s-nest there and give him an awful fright.”
“Micky’s a dear,” said Lucy-Ann, and she tickled him under his furry chin. He looked at her with wise, sad eyes. Lucy-Ann knew he was very happy now, but she was always worried because he looked at her sorrowfully. She only half believed Philip when he told her that all monkeys looked sad.
“There’s the gong for lunch,” said Lucy-Ann thankfully. “I feel as if it’s about an hour late today, I’m so hungry. Come on, everybody!”
Chapter 6
THE TALE OF ANDRA’S TREASURE
THE Viking Star was now going off to cruise among the islands of the Aegean Sea. The water was a beautiful dark blue, and the children thought it was the nicest part of the trip, seeing the islands loom up out of the purple-blue sea.
Lucian proved himself quite useful here, because he knew that part of the sea very well. He was able to tell them about the different islands, and he was full of exciting stories of old pirates and robberies at sea, and the taking of treasure.
“See that island we’re coming to,” he said. “That’s Oupos. It’s only small, but it’s got an old castle on it with one of the biggest dungeons in the world. The old sailors used to take prisoners at sea, and sail to Oupos, and dump their prisoners in the dungeons. Sometimes they left them there for years — till they were old men.”