The Kingdom of Carbonel (16 page)

‘I think my little girl must have first choice,' said the woman. ‘We'll take the little black fellow after
all!' She turned to the assistant and paid over the money.

‘Please, may I hold him, just one minute?' said Rosemary unhappily. She took the little animal in both hands and held him to her cheek. He felt very small beneath his fluff of coal black fur.

‘You'll have to go with her,' she whispered.

‘I don't want to, I don't like her!' said Calidor.

‘We'll rescue you somehow. John is outside. You won't be able to see him because he is invisible. But I know he'll think of something.'

Calidor gave a sad little mew.

‘Cheer up,' said Rosemary. ‘Remember you are a royal kitten and you must be brave. Couldn't you manage a little purr? That's better! Where is Pergamond?'

‘In a cage at the back of the shop by herself. I'm so glad to see you, Rosie!' he said. Calidor gave her cheek a little lick.

Dossy was looking on curiously.

‘Mother!' she said in an aggrieved voice. ‘That girl's talking to my kitten!'

‘Take him to the car, darling, and show him to Daddy. I shan't be a minute.'

Rosemary handed Calidor over and followed Dossy's beautifully tailored but irritating back out of the shop.

‘All right, I'm here!' whispered John's voice beside her.

‘She's bought him!' said Rosemary. ‘And now they're going off in a car and we don't know where to!'

‘We'll soon find out!' said John.

‘But how?'

‘I'm going too! No one will see me! What a gorgeous car! I've always wanted to go in one of those high-powered things, and now's my chance!'

‘I must stay here,' said Rosemary. ‘Pergamond's at the back of the shop. Good luck, John!'

‘Good luck, Rosie!'

The plump woman was getting into the front seat of the car. There was plenty of room for three. Rosemary saw the door at the back open and close noiselessly. She waved as the car slid smoothly into the traffic.

‘Miss Dibdin was right. Being invisible has got its uses,' said Rosemary, and turned and went back into the pet shop.

At any other time Rosemary felt she could have spent a long while quite happily looking round the shop. She went past the tanks of tropical fish which lined the side opposite the counter. Out of the corner of her eye she could see their jewelled shapes dart and hover in each small, watery world, but she walked resolutely by and pushed through the bead curtain which divided the shop from the animal cages. The noise here was deafening. It reminded her of Fairfax Market on Saturday night with all the stall-holders shouting their wares: only here each animal was trying to sell itself. Only the birds sang and gossiped to each other. It mattered little to them in what house their cages stood.

‘Buy me! Buy me!' shouted a corgi puppy.

‘Only ten shillings! Come along, come along!' called a pair of guinea pigs.

A case of hamsters squeaked, ‘Buy! Buy! Buy!' and a large, buck rabbit wrinkled its nose in disdain
at having to announce that it was going for fifteen and six.

A cockatoo whistled shrilly, ‘All hands to the pump! How de do! How de do! How de do!' and rocked himself violently from side to side.

‘Very well, thank you!' said Rosemary politely.

‘Put a sock in it!' said the cockatoo rudely, and made clicking noises with its tongue.

Rosemary ignored him and searched the cages anxiously for Pergamond. She asked two Siamese cats if they had seen her. They stared insolently, and said something which she could not understand, presumably in Siamese. The few people who were looking at the animals as well, were unlikely to hear her whispered inquiries in the general hubbub.

Next she asked a tortoise. He looked up heavily from a lettuce leaf and said in a slow, deep voice, ‘I don't know nothing about no kittens. But if it's tortoise-shell you want, why not have a tortoise in it? Have me!' And she realized by the curious jerking of its shell that the creature was laughing at what it thought was a joke. Rosemary shook her head.

‘Pity,' said the tortoise, and went on eating lettuce.

She turned to a cage of white mice. But at the word ‘kitten' there was a flick of tails and whiskers,
and they all disappeared into a round hole in a wooden box at the back of the cage.

‘Polly put the kettle on,' shrieked the cockatoo, and rattled its beak on the perch.

‘A tortoise-shell kitten!' yapped a fox terrier puppy. ‘Kittens? Yah! You want a puppy!' and he turned to bowl over his companion who had nipped him in the leg.

‘But I keep telling you!' said Rosemary desperately. ‘All I want is a kitten, and you won't listen!'

For a moment she was alone in the shop.

‘Second from the left, top row!' said a voice. It was the cockatoo. He was standing motionless, his yellow crest thrust forward. Rosemary went up to his perch. When she first saw him she had thought he was rather like a clown at a circus. Now he looked suddenly very wise and very dignified.

‘If I'd known you were a hearing human I should never have tried that “Polly-put-the-kettle-on” stuff on you. That's just in the way of business. I must give my public what it wants, you know. They put a tortoise-shell kitten up there in a cage by herself, because of her markings. Quite rare, apparently.'

‘Oh, thank you!' said Rosemary gratefully and ran to look.

‘Don't mention it!' said the cockatoo, and as an
old lady with a small boy came in through the bead curtain he shrieked, ‘All hands to the pump! How de do! How de do! How de do!' to the small boy's delight.

At the back of the second cage from the left, in the top row, was a small, furry, tortoise-shell ball.

‘Pergamond! It's me, Rosemary! Do wake up, Pergamond!'

The kitten uncurled herself, and yawned so wide that Rosemary could see the little pink wrinkles on the roof of her mouth.

‘What a long time you've been,' she said sleepily. ‘But I knew you'd come!' and she got up and rubbed herself against the cage door. Rosemary stroked her with a single finger, which was all she could poke through.

‘How much are you, Pergamond dear?'

‘Six shillings,' she said proudly.

‘Oh no!' said Rosemary in dismay. ‘I've only got four and elevenpence and an Irish halfpenny!'

‘Well, you can't expect me to go for tuppence,' said the kitten grandly. ‘Not rare markings
and
royalty!'

‘Ssh!' said Rosemary, looking around nervously. ‘Don't let anyone know who you are!'

‘Well, I don't see –' began Pergamond, and broke off as the corgi puppy next door hurled himself at the dividing wire netting, yapping defiance at all
kittens. Undaunted, Pergamond advanced on him, spitting and swearing.

‘Pergamond!' said Rosemary in a shocked voice. ‘What would Woppit say?'

‘You can't expect anything else,' said the cockatoo. ‘A very mixed lot here! They pick up all sorts of expressions. I suppose,' he went on, sidling toward her, ‘as well as a kitten you wouldn't be wanting a cockatoo? Thirty pounds and cheap at the price.'

‘Thirty pounds! Why I haven't even six shillings to buy my kitten. What can I do?'

‘Oh well!' said the cockatoo, and sighed deeply. Then he went on, ‘You might consult the boss, Bodkin is the name. Not a bad sort as a rule! But you're out of luck today, he's got toothache.'

Rosemary returned to the comparative quiet of the shop where a large man in a white overall was selling a guinea pig to a girl. She waited until the girl had gone and then she said, ‘Excuse me, but what do your customers usually do when they find they haven't got quite enough money to buy something?'

‘Go away until they can get it,' said Mr Bodkin shortly, and shut the drawer of the till with a snap.

Rosemary had to admit to herself that he was quite right.

Rosemary went back to the cockatoo. He was sitting hunched on his perch with his feathers fluffed out and his eyes closed.

‘Can you think of something I can do?' she asked him. ‘I must have that particular kitten most specially, and when you aren't, well, giving your public what it wants, you seem so wise.'

The cockatoo opened his eyes. He seemed not displeased. Then he said, ‘Excuse me!' sidled to the other end of his perch and made a popping noise like a cork being pulled out, followed by a sound like water coming out of a bottle. All this was for the benefit of a small girl with an elderly woman. Then he sidled back again.

‘So many demands on my time – that's the worst of being a public figure,' he said languidly, but keeping a sharp lookout for anyone else who might watch him perform. ‘Now then, your little problem. Let me think.'

His grey wrinkled lids lowered over his bright eyes, and Rosemary was afraid he was asleep. But he suddenly sat up, shrieked, ‘Whoops-a-daisy!' and hanging from his perch with his black beak, turned a somersault. Then, once more as grave as a professor, he said, ‘I've got it, and it will make a very touching performance. Now listen to me. Do you see the fifth link of the chain from the collar on my leg?' Rosemary looked.

‘It's very thin,' she said.

‘Precisely,' said the bird. ‘It took me six months to do it. Every twenty years or so I plan a little excursion.'

‘You mean you escape?'

‘Bless you, no! I always come back again, but it breaks the monotony. Do you think you could snap that link?'

The only people near were an old man with two children who were choosing a canary. They were far too occupied to notice Rosemary put up her hand to the chain. The link was so thin that it broke with hardly any pressure.

‘I was waiting for a really good audience,' said the cockatoo, ‘but I'm willing to oblige you this afternoon. You're not used to these public performances, I dare say, but I'm sure they'll make allowances. Now, go over there and talk to your kitten. You'd better not be near me. No one must
guess it's a double act, so watch out for the signal.'

Rosemary felt it was no use asking questions, though she would like to have asked what the signal would be. However, she did as she was told. She went across to Pergamond, and had barely explained what had happened to John and Calidor when there was a screech from the cockatoo.

‘Polly put the kettle on!' he screamed. ‘Oops-a-daisy!' And with a flutter of wings he left his perch and flew to the top of the highest cage in the shop, noisily clanking his broken chain. With his feathers fluffed up he bowed repeatedly, and demanded from the delighted audience below, ‘How de do? How de do? How de do?'

The animals set up an excited yapping, mewing, barking and twittering. Only the tortoise went on quietly eating his lettuce. A number of people had come in to see what the laughter was about, and Mr Bodkin poked his head through the bead curtain. When he saw the cockatoo he gasped, and, pushing his way through the crowd, said under his breath, ‘Please to keep quiet – a most valuable bird – no sudden movement please or you may startle it!' Then, raising a cautious hand, ‘Cockie! Cockie! Good Cockie!' he said anxiously.

‘Put a sock in it! Put a sock in it!' said Cockie, and emptied three imaginary bottles in quick succession.

Forgetting Mr Bodkin's warning, the little knot of people below shouted with laughter, and at the sudden noise the bird fluttered from the top of the cage to the top of the open window which looked over the yard. With yellow crest pushed forward he danced like a boxer waiting for an opening.

‘All hands to the pump!' he shrieked, and then in his professor voice that only the animals and Rosemary understood, ‘Well, what are you waiting for, girl? Get on with it. Turn right outside the shop and down the alley into the yard, and hurry up about it or someone else will catch me. What do you think I'm doing this for? No feeling for drama, you haven't!'

Rosemary had forgotten for a moment that she was anything but part of the audience which was rapidly swelling to a small crowd, but she pulled herself together, slipped out of the shop and down the alleyway into the yard. Through the window she was just in time to see Mr Bodkin give a sudden grab at the cockatoo's dangling chain. With an outraged squawk Cockie flew out into the yard.

He landed on top of a tall, empty crate a few feet away from Rosemary.

‘Perhaps it's just as well you didn't buy me,' he said. ‘I should probably moult in private life. Give me only a small audience and it goes to my head.'

There was the sound of running footsteps coming down the alley. ‘You see how it is? A sought-after public figure – can't call my life my own!' he went on in an affected voice.

Mr Bodkin, fired by some idea of climbing through the window, had stuck half way.

‘You there! Catch him! Don't let him escape!' he called to Rosemary. ‘Five shillings reward if you'll only get him!'

Rosemary made a grab and was within an ace of catching the chain, but Cockie whisked it away just in time.

‘Don't you dare!' he said, and squawked indignantly as he sidled away from her along the crate.

‘What do you mean?' asked Rosemary in bewilderment. ‘I thought you wanted me to catch you!'

‘At five shillings? Insulting I call it! Don't you dare do it until you've beaten him up to fifteen shillings at the very least.'

‘Oh dear!' thought Rosemary. The bird by this time was sitting on the gutter of the outhouse that stood in a corner of the yard, which by this time was full of people. The crowd laughed and chattered and offered advice.

‘Dora!' called Mr Bodkin to the overalled assistant who was also in the yard. ‘Fetch a ladder!'

Several people went off with her to find one. Cautiously, Cockie clambered first on to the roof, and then up on to the coping which edged the gable end.