Snakes' Elbows (7 page)

14 Picnic

The following day was hot with a clear blue sky and for once Barney didn't feel like playing his piano after breakfast. Instead he threw the window of his bedroom open wide and looked out into the garden where Wilf was working. There was a pleasant grassy smell because he was cutting the lawn. Dandelion was also there, sunning herself and chasing birds. Afterwards when Wilf moved on to the flowerbeds, he stopped from time to time to talk to people who were passing the house.

A couple wheeling their new baby in a pram paused so that Wilf could admire her. A short
while later the postman came by with his huge leather satchel. Some little children stopped and gave Wilf a boiled sweet out of a paper bag. In return he picked Dandelion up and held her so that they could stroke her head and tickle her tummy. Even from where he was, high up above the garden, Barney could hear the cat purring with delight. An extremely old lady came past and Wilf gave her a huge yellow rose.

When he brought the lunch up later he would tell Barney all the news he had heard from the passers-by, all the strange and funny things that were happening in Woodford. It was the same when Wilf went shopping, for he didn't just bring home loaves and potatoes and apples and eggs. He brought tales of how a long bright snake had been found in a box of pineapples at the greengrocer's and how everyone had run out into the street screaming. Without Wilf, Barney would never have known that the baker's granny was having her hundredth birthday, nor about her birthday
cake and how huge it had to be to hold all the candles. No one else would have told him about the single pink flamingo that appeared in the public park of Woodford one day, and disappeared the next. It was never seen in the town again and people would have thought they had imagined it, had it not been for the few pink feathers left behind.

Barney turned away from the window and looked at his room. There was his great piano, black and silent. The Haverford-Snuffley Angel hung nearby. There was the miniature tree, there were his many books. Barney loved these things and he realised how lucky he was to have them, together with all his other paintings and his beautiful house. But today he realised that it wasn't enough. Barney was lonely.

At lunchtime Wilf appeared wheeling the trolley. On the top level were two mushroom pizzas, on the bottom was a grilled mackerel for the cat. Whistling a little tune, he set the table and they all three settled down to eat,
because they always had their meals together now.

‘I saw you talking to all the passers-by. What did they say to you?' Barney asked.

‘The postman told me that someone wrote an address on a banana the other day, stuck a stamp on it and posted it. The new baby's only five days old and she's going to be called Minnie. The children are going on a school trip to the seaside next week. I gave a rose to the lady because she doesn't have a garden at her house and hasn't got enough money to buy herself flowers.

‘And you,' Wilf said, cutting himself a big wedge of pizza. ‘What news have you got for me?'

‘Why nothing,' Barney said.

‘It's a pity. There are lots of nice people in Woodford. It would be good if you made friends with some of them.'

‘Oh I couldn't, I just couldn't.'

‘Course you could,' Wilf said. ‘What about
that Philomena Phelan woman who works in the gallery. I bet she'd love to be your friend. She's a good person and you'd have lots to talk about because she likes paintings too.'

‘I couldn't,' Barney said again, and he went red and looked at his hands.

Wilf simply couldn't understand how anyone could be so shy. He thought it was silly. ‘You should get out more,' he said.

‘I do go out. I go out on my bike.'

‘But I bet you just whizz past people and never say hello, much less stop to talk to them. Am I right? Is that what he does, Pussens?'

Dandelion looked up from her mackerel and nodded her head.

Barney looked so sad that Wilf felt sorry for him. ‘Tell you what,' he suggested. ‘Because it's such a lovely day why don't we go for a picnic later, down by the river.'

‘Thank you, Wilf! I should like that very much indeed.'

And so in the late afternoon they set off
together, Barney carrying a rug for them to sit on and Wilf carrying the picnic hamper. Dandelion trotted ahead of them with her tail straight up in the air. They found a quiet spot near a bridge and settled themselves down on the sloping green bank of the river. Wilf unbuckled the hamper and opened it out. Inside there was a red and white checked tablecloth, white plates and napkins, glasses, knives and forks. There was a special plate for Dandelion, and a gammon steak. For Barney and Wilf there were sausage rolls and cheese sandwiches, oranges, crisps and a chocolate Swiss roll. Wilf tied a string to the neck of their bottle of lemonade and floated it in the river so that it would stay cool.

‘We should have invited some other people along,' he said. ‘One of the good things about having a picnic with your friends is that everyone brings along food. Then you can share it out and there are always lots of lovely surprises.'

‘If O-Haru came to a picnic she might bring some raw fish,' Barney said. ‘It's her favourite food. But I don't think anybody else would want to share that.'

Dandelion was listening to this. ‘I would like to share it,' she thought. ‘If O-Haru were here she could have some of our chocolate Swiss roll and I could have some of her raw fish.'

‘She's ever so nice,' Barney went on, ‘and so clever. She knows how to make animals out of folded paper, foxes and birds. It makes me sad to think that I'll never see her again. She lives so far away, right on the other side of the world.'

Just at that moment, Dandelion happened to glance up and was astonished by what she saw. For who was sitting on the bridge, gazing down at the little party? Only Cannibal and Bruiser!

‘Hello, Dandelion.'

‘Why hello! I was thinking only just this minute how much nicer it would be to have
friends along on a picnic, and here you are.'

‘We'd love to join you,' came Cannibal's wistful thought. ‘We'd bring our own food. We'd bring meat pies.'

‘If you wanted, we could swap them with you for some of those sausage rolls. They look very tasty,' Bruiser added.

The poor dogs were always hungry because Jasper never gave them enough to eat.

‘I wish I could give you a sausage roll each here and now,' she thought.

‘Don't worry. We know we can't join in with your picnic. Your master doesn't like us,' Cannibal thought.

‘Nobody likes us.'

‘That isn't true. I like you!' Dandelion thought. ‘I like you hugely.'

Barney had finished his cheese sandwiches and was eating a bag of crisps while Wilf tugged on the string of the lemonade bottle. Neither of them had noticed the dogs and the cat did her best not to draw attention to them.
Cannibal and Bruiser themselves sat quietly and took care not to bark. ‘But we didn't come today to have a picnic with you. We've come to warn you. Dandelion, you're in danger! You and everyone in your house!'

‘This very night!'

‘Beware, Dandelion! Beware!'

The poor creature was so shocked to hear this that she jumped up. All her fur was on end and her green eyes were open wide.

Immediately Barney saw that something was wrong. ‘What is it, my dear Puss?' he asked, and he followed the line of her gaze up to the bridge. ‘Oh no, it's those nasty, wicked dogs again. Shoo, shoo! Bad dogs, go home. Help me, Wilf. Frighten them off.'

Thinking to protect her, Barney picked Dandelion up and dropped her head first down the front of his buttoned-up cardigan. ‘Oh really, this man is silly sometimes, silly beyond belief,' the cat thought as she struggled to turn herself right-sides up again. ‘He means well but
he gets it wrong every time.' Her face now full of cardigan, now full of belly, she could hear Wilf chasing the dogs: ‘Scram! Go on, hoppit!'

The dogs had started to bark as soon as Barney shouted at them, but they sounded fainter and farther away at every moment. By the time Dandelion's cross little whiskered face popped out again above the top button of Barney's cardigan the dogs were nowhere to be seen.

But still their terrible warning rang in her ears. ‘Beware, Dandelion! Beware!'

15 A Shock in the Night

At a quarter to ten that night, Dandelion hopped on to Barney's knee and stared up at him. Her clear green eyes were wide and anxious. He kissed her between the ears and stroked her under the chin.

‘Oh my dear Dandelion,' he said. ‘If I were granted three wishes, one of them would be that you could talk to me. Often I look at you and I feel as if you're trying so hard to tell me something, but I don't know what it is.'

The problem tonight was that Dandelion didn't know either. She knew that something was going to happen because the dogs had
warned her, but she couldn't even begin to guess what it might be. Neither she nor Barney knew that as they sat together on the sofa something very strange indeed was taking place at the back door of the house. In the blackness of the night the word BOOM! suddenly and silently appeared in huge red letters, floating in the air beside the lock. The door flew open and the word crumbled away into coloured dust. Dressed all in black, Jasper Jellit slipped into the darkened house and started moving like a shadow from room to room.

Ding! The clock on Barney's mantelpiece chimed ten o'clock. ‘Come along, Puss. Cocoa time.'

When they stepped out into the long corridor and Barney switched on the first light, the cat's heart was beating so hard she thought he must surely hear it. But he simply stopped as usual to admire the painting of the man in the dark red robe and velvet hat, before passing by and switching on the second light. He glanced at
the picture of the bowl of wood strawberries but when he moved on to the salmon, the cat paid no heed even though it was her favourite painting. Feeling nervous, she turned and looked behind her, back down the corridor with the closed door of Barney's room at the far end.

As they moved on, all at once Dandelion felt the fur rise on the back of her neck. They weren't alone. There was someone else in the house tonight, she was sure of it, absolutely sure. She looked behind her again and got a tremendous shock, for there, standing in front of the painting of the young man, was Jasper!

She gave a loud wild mew and Barney jumped in surprise. ‘Goodness me, cat! Did I stand on your foot? Did I hurt you?' She mewed again but Jasper had already disappeared through the door between the picture of the man and the picture of the wood strawberries and was hiding there.

‘Come along, Dandelion.' They reached the
end of the first corridor and went down the spiral staircase to the second level.

‘I know Wilf has a point when he says I should have friends but I do so love my beautiful paintings,' said Barney as he plodded slowly along, admiring them and turning on the lights as he went.

Dandelion looked over her shoulder. There he was again! Jasper glared at the cat and put his finger to his lips, bidding her to be quiet. In response she mewed again, a long low horrible howl. Jasper stuck his tongue out at her, before darting into another doorway just as Barney turned around. ‘My little Dandelion, what is it? I simply don't know what's got into you tonight.'

He picked the cat up and carried her in his arms for the rest of the way, with her head looking over his shoulder, so she could see Jasper as he followed them down to the kitchen, sneaking in and out of the rooms between where the paintings hung.

‘Behind you!' Dandelion thought. If only this trick worked with human beings! If only she could plant an idea in Barney's mind as she could with Cannibal and Bruiser. ‘BEHIND YOU!'

At last they arrived in the kitchen, the whole house now ablaze with light.

‘Come in, my friends, come in!'

‘Hello Wilf. I'm really worried about the cat tonight. She's behaving very strangely. I know she got a fright with the dogs down by the river but that was hours ago and she's still so fidgety and nervous. You see? She's not drinking her milk.' And although her suppertime saucer was there as usual, Dandelion was too upset to touch it.

‘What's up with you Pussens, eh?' said Wilf as he prepared Barney's cocoa. ‘If you like I'll take her along to the vet in the morning.'

The vet! Oh no! Dandelion hated going to the vet. ‘Look, you see how restless she is,' Barney said as she crossed to the kitchen door
and went back out into the corridor.

The cheek of him! There was Jasper, walking up and down staring at all the paintings. When he saw that Dandelion was alone, he didn't hide. ‘Push off, cat,' he hissed. ‘Don't you know when you're not wanted?'

Suddenly Dandelion realised why he was there and what the dogs had wanted to tell her.

Jasper was going to steal the Haverford-Snuffley Angel.

He had wanted to buy it at the auction but hadn't been able to do so and now he was going to take it anyway. Stretching out his right leg he gave Dandelion a little kick. ‘Go on pussycat, get lost.'

In reply to this she opened her mouth as wide as she possibly could. From where Jasper was standing she seemed to disappear, leaving only a wet pink mouth ringed with a ferocious set of pointed teeth. From this mouth came a truly horrible sound.

‘MEEAUUGHOHURMARWAROOUU!'
It was extraordinary to think that so small and sweet a cat could make so loud and dreadful a noise. Appalled, Jasper stuck his fingers in his ears. Dandelion caught her breath and did it again.

‘WAAHHUUOMAAAWOAMMAROO!'

Barney shot out of the kitchen holding his mug of cocoa. ‘Stop that this very minute, Dandelion! I never heard such a racket in my life. Why are you being so naughty tonight? Come now, follow me and behave yourself.'

Jasper, of course, had disappeared again. Barney couldn't carry both the cat and the cocoa and so Dandelion trotted at his heels, turning around from time to time to see if Jasper was still following them. Yes, there he was, sneaking from one room to the next behind them in the darkness as Barney switched off each of the lights in turn. Dandelion knew that the Haverford-Snuffley Angel was in Barney's room. She was in a foul temper now with Jasper because he had kicked her and she was
determined not to let him get his hands on the painting. But how was she to stop him?

They reached the top floor of the house and moved slowly down the corridor. At the far end they could see the shut door of the bedroom. ‘I do hope you're going to settle down and sleep,' said Barney.

Suddenly Dandelion realised that, being a cat, she had one big advantage over the two men: she could see in the dark. She looked round just in time to see Jasper disappear into the room between the painting of the strawberries and the painting of the young man. Barney switched out the last light in the corridor. He had left on the lamps in the bedroom so that when he opened the door he would be able to see clearly again. But in that moment of total darkness, between his turning off the last light and opening the door, Dandelion knew that the moment had come to act!

She shot from his side and darted into the room where Jasper was hiding. It was pitch
black but she could see that he was standing in the middle of the floor, quite lost, not knowing where any of the furniture was. She gave a sharp, savage mew and leapt at him, landing on his face.

‘Arrgh! Uugh! I can't breathe!'

Dandelion wrapped her paws tightly around his head and held on as if her life depended on it while Jasper spun round and round the room, not knowing where he was and completely unable to shake her off. Dandelion remembered watching children on the
merry-go
-round at Woodford Fair and how she had wondered what it must be like to go round and round and round like that. ‘Now I know,' she thought as she saw the bookcase go past for the twentieth time, and she clung on to Jasper's head, as though it were the pole of a prancing wooden horse.

And then she lost her grip. She flew one way across the room while Jasper flew in the opposite direction. As she landed on the table
and slid along it like a cowboy's drink in a Wild West bar she heard the window breaking. There was a long wild cry. Then
Crump!
Something hit the ground outside. Then
Crash!
Dandelion skidded into a vase at the end of the table and it fell to the floor in a million bits. But the cat kept going, and slid right off the end of the table and into a bookcase that toppled over just as Barney opened the door and switched on the light.

What a sight met his eyes! The bookcase was falling forward like a great tree being cut down in a forest, and book after book tumbled to the floor. The window was broken and the vase was smashed, and sitting there in the middle of all this mess and destruction was Dandelion.

‘I saved your angel for you,' she thought, but she knew it was no use.

‘You bad cat! You naughty creature! You bad, bad cat!'