Free City of Lies by Lian Tanner

white-haired boy did something that amazed Goldie. With the palm of his hand flat, and the three mice sitting there, unprotected, he squatted next to the cat.
    “I don’t think—” she began.
    But the boy wasn’t listening to her. He was explaining to the cat and the mice that they must be friends. At least, that was what it sounded like to Goldie, although the noise he made was nothing more than a humming croon.
    The cat’s ears flicked back and forth as if it was thinking unfamiliar thoughts. Slowly, its fierceness drained away. It took a step forward. For a moment the mice looked as if they were trying to be brave, but then their nerve broke and they ran up the boy’s arm and dived inside his jacket.
    The boy crooned a bit more. The cat sat down so close to his hand that its whiskers touched his fingertips. Its spotted limbs were as still as a statue of Great Wooden. Its eyes blinked sleepily.
    One by one, the mice poked their heads out from the boy’s jacket. One by one they crept back down his arm to the palm of his hand. They craned forward until they were almost touching the cat’s whiskers. Their noses crinkled. They shook their little heads and sneezed.
    Then they sat down and began to clean themselves, as if they were in the safest place in the world.
    Goldie let out her breath with a loud huff. “How did you
do
that?”
    The boy stood up, grinning, and put the mice back in the pram. The cat lounged amiably against his feet, looking as if it had never in its life thought of harming another creature.
    Very quickly and lightly, the boy put his hand on Goldie’s arm, then took it away again.
    “What?” said Goldie.
    The boy pointed at the pram.
    “You want me to wheel the pram? No. You want to
give
me the pram? No, I didn’t think so. Oh, you want to tell my fortune.”
    The boy nodded. Goldie swallowed, thinking of Toadspit and Bonnie. A fortune might tell her where to find them. Or at least give her some sort of clue. “I haven’t got any money,” she said.
    The boy shrugged and whistled.
    This time, when the mice scrambled up onto the board with their scraps of paper, Goldie knew what to expect. She waited impatiently while the boy shifted the scraps around, making a picture of shapes and colors that pleased him.
    By the time he had finished, there were only four bits of paper left. The first was a picture of a very high mountain. The second one simply said
danger
. The third said
friendshipis
. The fourth was two entire sentences that looked as if they had been torn from a book.
You are still here, Herro. Does this mean you will help me?
    Goldie’s heart sank. It didn’t seem to have anything to do with Bonnie and Toadspit, except perhaps for the bit about danger. But why was there a picture of a mountain?
    “Does it mean mountains are dangerous?” she said. “But we’re not near any. So maybe it’s not meant to be a
real
mountain. Just—just something rocky. No, something big. Look at it, it’s huge. So maybe it means, um,
huge
danger. No,
great
danger, that’s it.”
    A shiver ran down her spine.
Harrow …
    The boy touched her arm again, as light as a moth.
    “Sorry,” said Goldie, and she read the second half of her fortune out loud. The boy’s eyes widened. He tapped his chest, then pointed to the mice and the cat.
    “Friendship,” said Goldie. “And someone to help me. Do you think it means you?”
    The boy pointed to the mice and the cat again.
    “You think it means
all
of you?”
    He beamed at her. Then he grabbed the handle of the pram and set off across the plaza with the cat close at his heels. Goldie didn’t move.
    When he realized that she wasn’t following him, the boy turned and beckoned. Goldie was tempted to go with him.But she was heading into great danger, and did not want anyone else to be harmed because of it. So she waved instead and called out, “Thanks for the fortune.”
    The boy beckoned again. In the back of Goldie’s mind, the little voice