Secret Heart by David Almond Page A

tiger out, Joe Maloney. Wecarried it out of the darkness into the light. We carried it across the earth. We carried it across seas and over rivers and along tracks and roads. We brought it to the open spaces beside great cities, to tiny villages beyond high hills, we brought it to places like Helmouth. And how they rushed to see this wonder! How they hurried to the great blue tent that glowed between the sky and the earth! How they shuddered! How they gasped to see this thing of dreams that had become so real! How scared they were. How overjoyed.”
    Joe looked again toward the tunnel.
    “You're scared,” said Nanty.
    He nodded.
    “Y-yes.”
    “So was the tiger when it stepped out onto the path, Joe. So is the tiger now, now that it becomes once more a thing of dream and imagination and memory.”
    Her white eyes glowed in the candlelight.
    “The forests are almost empty of their tigers, Joe. Our secret hearts are almost empty.”
    The breath rattled in her throat.
    “We are paltry souls, Joe. Will we ever be able to imagine our tigers again and make them step out onto our path?”
    Her sightless gaze rested on him. No way of answering her. He stammered. She smiled. Her touch was gentle.
    “Don't worry,” she whispered. “Yours is the bravest soul of all. The tiger has chosen you to carry it out of the glowing blue tent and into the forest again.”
    Joe trembled.
    The clowns moved out of the tunnel toward the ring. They laid their burden on the sawdust and unrolled it.

Sixteen
    It was a tiger skin, huge and heavy and wonderful. It lay there spread out on the sawdust, the place where it had once leaped and roared and clawed the air.
    Hackenschmidt sighed.
    “Touch it, Joe,” he said.
    Joe touched. The fur was so dense. The skin itself felt leathery, ancient. He spread out his hand beneath the pelt and lifted and felt the great weight of it.
    “Isn't it beautiful?” said Corinna.
    Joe nodded.
    “It was the last of our tigers. Died long before I was born. We've carried it with us, always and everywhere.”
    “Put it on, Joe,” said Hackenschmidt.
    Joe flinched.
    “Go on. Put it on.”
    Joe looked up to the wheeling galaxy. He saw his mum in his room, looking down at his empty bed. Heheard the cruel triumphant yells of Joff and Stanny Mole. He looked at the tiger skin, and knew that somehow he had always known that he would put it on.
    Hackenschmidt lifted the skin from the floor as if it was a cape. Joe looked into the deep shadowed space between the skin and the sawdust.
    “Go in there,” said Hackenschmidt.
    Nanty Solo smiled. Wilfred and Charley Caruso nodded at him: Yes, go in. Corinna crouched at his side.
    “I'm here, Joe,” she said. “I won't leave you.”
    Joe closed his eyes. He crawled on all fours into the shadowed space. Hackenschmidt laid the tiger skin across his back. Joe sighed as his body took the weight. The pelt spread out around him, and Joe knew how puny he was compared with the creature that had once inhabited this space. The skin of the head fell down across his face. Through the eyeholes he saw the candles twinkling, Hackenschmidt looking in at him. He saw Wilfred, Charley and Nanty Solo leave the ring.
    Corinna's voice:
    “I'm here, Joe. I won't leave you.”
    “Just breathe,” whispered Hackenschmidt. “Just be yourself, Joe Maloney.”
    Joe breathed. He hung his head. He felt the skin draped over his own skin. He waited. No one spoke. No one moved. He waited. He waited.
    The tigerness swelled, as if from that chip of bone he'd eaten all those hours ago, as if from an ancient secret darkness in his heart. It came slowly, like a vague scent carried on a breeze blowing through him, like the echo of a roar inside some distant cavern. It came closer, closer, as if it had waited always for this moment. He felt fur breaking through his skin. He felt heavy paws and lethal claws. He felt the power of his muscles, his bones. His breathing deepened, sighed from deep new lungs. He felt