5. The Cub

His real name was Hans-Peter Neumaier, but those times were over for good. Of course, it still was his name in his passport and all other official documents, but most people he met these days had no idea that this was what he was called. He had chosen a new name for himself and had gladly left his home to start a new life.

To be exact, he had chosen the new name earlier on already. One day on the pier, under a grey sky, sitting on a coiled rope of enormous thickness and watching the boats with a pair of binoculars, dots of white on a dark sea, it had suddenly occurred to him that he could be Timon. And Timon was sitting in the sun, in white trousers, dark blue polo shirt with a white stripe along the collar – a proper sailor shirt –, and a pair of shiny new sneakers, and guarding a polished yacht for his parents – yes, unlike Hans-Peter, Timon had parents, parents who loved him and pampered him, and trusted him with their marvellous yacht. Timon had everything he wanted, but was content to be on the pier, because despite being something like a spoiled child, he was modest in his wishes, he knew what truly mattered… Still it had been Hans-Peter whose hair had been tousled by a sharp, cool breeze and moistened by the first drops of rain, but when he had closed his eyes, it had been Timon, and life had been good. Of course, the tenant of the sailing school, his guardian, had soon enough woken him from his pleasant daydream to send him over to the shipyard, but he could not banish him from his own happy little place forever. Whenever he was alone, Timon came back, and he came to stay.

It had been that same April when François had found him, and when Timon had truly come alive. Well, not exactly the way he had pictured him, but still it had been too good to be true.

As Timon now packed folded-up clothing into his suitcase, he decided that having parents was not exactly necessary when one had a Master. Of course, it was a lovely idea, but he was modest, after all. He would settle with his Master.

At first he had thought François would become a father figure to him, but this was not the case. An elder brother, perhaps, or a friend, but not a father, not the way Timon imagined a father would be. François was just far too playful. He played with everything and laughed everything away. Never before, as long as he could remember, had Timon encountered an adult who was quite like that. Of course he could handle his own affairs, and could do pretty much anything, in Timon's opinion, but all the same Timon found that François was just a big boy really.

Maybe this was why he liked him so much, more than anyone else he had ever met. But then again, of the people he had grown up with, he had never been truly close to anybody. For as long as he could remember, he had been passed along from home to home, from fisherman to ferryman to sailor, until he had come to consider the sea his sole home.

And this, to be honest, had been the hardest good-bye: bidding the North Sea farewell. That he would leave his guardian had not mattered much. The man had been friendly with him, more or less, as long as he had done his work well, but no more. Yet when he had stood on the pier the last time and gazed out over the innumerable waves, when he had realised that he was to leave this shore, one single tear had flowed down over his cheek, strangely warm against the chilly breeze.

But soon he had been looking after François's yacht, the white H-26, preparing it for transport and regatta. He had expected to be appointed spinnaker pole shifter, since he was small and practised in balancing on a slippery foredeck, but François had made him his skipper and had taken on this task himself, arguing that he had longer arms (which was correct, of course, but what good were long arms, Timon thought with amusement, when the man in question got his foot caught in the downhaul somehow at the same time and let go of the lines?). They had not won, but still, fourth place was pretty good… and their night-time burglary adventure had been even better.

And it seemed that there was an equally exciting adventure waiting for him now. Timon checked and double-checked his list of things he had to take along, and although he knew that he had packed or at least prepared everything on the list, he still went through it all again and again. The following morning, they were to take a plane to the United States, where he had never yet been, and he could hardly wait.

"Timon?" François called from somewhere out in the corridor, and at once the boy jumped to his feet and was at the door in two leaps. "As-tu fini faire tes bagages?"

"Almost," the boy replied, poking his head out of the room. "Give me another ten minutes." While he had come to understand a surprising lot of French and also Italian during those months they had known each other, he still preferred to answer in English, since this was the foreign language he was a lot more fluent in. In fact, Timon was proud of his level of English; back at Hamburg, not many boys his age had spoken it as well as he did.

"D'accord." François came strolling towards him in his normal casual saunter. As always, his short-sleeved shirt was partially unbuttoned. "Je crois que…" Here he broke off and then switched into English. "I believe that there is a lot more to this than meets the eye. Ocean, Ryan and their lot are clever, even if some of them don't look like it. You be careful with what you say and do."

"I will," Timon promised. "And thanks for saying that in English."

His mentor gave him a little smile. "I wanted to make sure you understand it. Ai portato la pigiama?"

"La pigiama l'ho portato." At least this was simple Italian.

"Portata."

"What?"

"It's portata, not portato."

"You said portato yourself. Just now."

"Yes, but since it's feminine, it becomes portata due to the syntax."

Timon groaned. "I'll stick with English. Stop confusing me, or I'll only answer in German." Moreover, he was convinced that François had done this on purpose; he did not address him in Italian normally, unless he had just been speaking to one of the Italian-speaking personnel before.

François shrugged. "I daresay I'll understand it, more or less, if you speak clearly and don't use any difficult vocabulary, but I won't be able to answer myself."

"Same as me with French and Italian, then." Thrusting his hands into his pockets, Timon returned to his room. "Can we take a… a… thingy." Sometimes he met his limits in English as well. "Something you blow up."

"Dynamite? T'es dingue?"

"No, duh! A thing you take along on a holiday. Luftmatratze," he prompted, throwing the German term at him. "Like, a mattress filled with air which you take to a pool."

"Ah, un matelas pneumatique. C'est air mattress en Anglais, ou inflatable mattress."

"Yes, right. Can we take it along?"

"Oui, bien sure."

"Thanks."

"Mais il a des trous, je crois."

"What does it have?"

"Holes," François translated.

"You could buy a new one, then," Timon suggested. "After all, I'm to play a spoiled brat, right? I'm supposed to have one."

"Why don't you ask Uncle Robert, eh?"

Timon rolled his eyes. "C'mon, don't pretend you can't afford it. Besides, if you make him buy me stuff, he'll make you buy his girl stuff, and that's bound to be way more expensive."

"Alright, alright," his mentor agreed. "We'll buy one when passing through Chiasso."

"Je t'aime. But why through Chiasso?"

"Because our flight leaves from Kloten, outside Zurich."

"Zürich," Timon corrected smugly. Take this for your Italian trap! "With a soft ch. Work on it."

François ruffled his hair playfully. "Little know-it-all. Now pack your things, and come down when you're done. There is something important I should teach you before we leave."