‘It’s very good of you,’ said John hastily, putting the dish of congealed scraps on to the floor, ‘but I wouldn’t dream of taking any of it!’
‘I managed to bring you some apples and biscuits,’ said Rosemary.
‘Well, that’ll have to do,’ said John in a resigned voice. ‘Now look here, Rosie,’ he went on between bites of apple, ‘we can’t do the counter-spell until tonight when the moon is up. Luckily it’s on the wane. I’ve looked it up in my diary, so this afternoon let’s concentrate on finding the kittens.’
There was a low moan from Woppit.
‘Now all we know is that Mrs Cantrip sold them somewhere in Broomhurst this morning. Do shut up, Woppit. It’s no use moaning. The only clue we’ve got is what she said to Miss Dibdin, “Two pins in a packet, two peas in a peck.” Sounds nonsense to me.’
‘Look here, John,’ said Rosemary, ‘there is one thing we must do first, and that is to pay back Mrs Flackett. It’s a debt of honour.’
‘I’ve been thinking that, too,’ said John. ‘I keep feeling I’ve heard the name Flackett before somewhere. Suppose we find out where Adelaide Row is and go there straight away.’
‘And we can try to puzzle out what the “peas and pins” bit means as we go,’ said Rosemary.
They found Adelaide Row in a street guide, and John put the remains of the five shillings his father had given him in his pocket, and Rosemary asked Mr Featherstone if she might pick a bunch of flowers to give to Mrs Flackett. By the time they had reached Broomhurst and actually found the house, it was growing late in the afternoon. They had talked of nothing else, but they were no nearer to guessing what Mrs Cantrip had meant by ‘Two pins in a packet, two peas in a peck.’
Adelaide Row consisted of half a dozen houses so small that they might have been built for rather large dolls. At the back, the railway rushed and roared. The front gardens were overshadowed by the high blank wall of a warehouse, which was only the width of a narrow path away from the garden gates. But the houses had been freshly whitewashed, and most of the gardens, which were separated from one another by low green palings, managed to grow marigolds and nasturtiums and Virginia stock. In fact, they had the feeling of houses that had once been in the country and were surprised to find themselves in the middle of a town.
Mrs Flackett was sitting outside her front door on a kitchen chair, popping peas into a colander. Hanging from a hook in the little porch was a canary singing its head off.
‘Yes, dearie?’ said the old woman, as Rosemary walked up the path. ‘What do you want? Why it’s you, Rosemary, isn’t it? Changed out of your nightie yet?’
Rosemary laughed and nodded.
‘I’ve come to pay back the money you lent us. You were so awfully good to us, about the cocoa and not telling. We thought you might like a bunch of flowers. I was allowed to pick one of everything there was in the garden. The feathery stuff is parsley that’s gone to seed. I think it’s pretty.’
‘Well!’ said Mrs Flackett heartily. ‘Isn’t that kind of you, dear! There’s nothing I like better than a bunch of flowers from a real garden. Shop ones is never the same somehow.’
The flowers were beginning to wilt, but she buried her round nose in them and gave a long sniff.
‘I’ll put ’em in a vase straight away. They’ll soon perk up. Where’s your friend John?’
‘I’m meeting him… presently,’ said Rosemary truthfully. She had arranged to meet him by the garden gate on which, from its jerky way of opening and shutting, she guessed he must be swinging.
‘Be a love and go on with them peas, will you? Just while I put the flowers in water.’
Mrs Flackett rose heavily to her feet and disappeared through the small front door. Rosemary knelt on the grass and went on popping the peas into the colander. It did not take her long to finish, and it is worth mentioning that she did not eat one.
‘Two peas in a peck,’ she said thoughtfully, plunging her hand into the colander and letting the peas trickle through her fingers.
‘Peas in a peck! Peas in a peck!’ sang the canary, up and down the scale like an opera singer. Rosemary looked up.
‘There’s some chickweed among the pea pods. Would you like it?’ she said, standing on the chair and holding it up for the bird to see.
The canary stopped in mid trill, cocked its black eye and said, ‘You just try me!’
‘All right, here you are!’ said Rosemary and pushed it through the bars of the cage.
‘Very obliging of you, I’m sure,’ said the bird, making little stabbing pecks at the chickweed. ‘Quite common, hearing humans seem to be around here. But you aren’t like the one inside. He claps his hands over his ears and groans every time I say anything to him. Bad manners, I call it!’
‘Do you mean there is someone inside the house who understands you, too?’ asked Rosemary.
But before the canary could answer, Mrs Flackett was back with a large slice of homemade currant cake on a willow pattern plate.
‘Talking to my Joey, are you? He’s a rascal, he is!’ She looked up at the cage and whistled a tune and the bird whistled back.
‘She isn’t a hearing human,’ he sang. ‘But she as near understands what I say as makes no matter.’
‘I’ve brought you a bit of cake,’ went on Mrs Flackett. ‘You must be hungry coming all that way, and here’s a slice in a paper bag for your friend.’
‘Thank you!’ said Rosemary. ‘I’m very hungry. May I eat it now?’
‘I thought you didn’t like boys,’ she said presently. Mrs Flackett had lowered herself carefully into the chair.
‘Not in the way of business, I don’t,’ she said. ‘Messing up my nice clean stairs. Home’s different, and there’s boys and boys! Why bless me if you haven’t finished the peas for me! I thought a nice chump chop and new potatoes with them might tempt my poor Albert for his tea.’
She sighed.
‘Is he very ill?’ asked Rosemary.
‘Not to say ill in himself,’ said Mrs Flackett. ‘It’s just that he… well, he imagines things.’
‘What did I tell you?’ sang the canary up and down the scale. Rosemary gave him a quick look. She knew better than to answer aloud.
‘Stays in the house all day. He won’t even go to work, and him doing so well! Always good at his books he was since he was a lad. He won’t have the doctor; he won’t even speak to his young lady. Ever so upset she is. She works in the same business, in the perfumery. Me being a widow, and him all I’ve got, I worry terrible.’
‘But what does he imagine?’ asked Rosemary, brushing the last of the cake crumbs off her lap.
‘It all began when a black cat came into the shop, about a week ago. He says he distinctly heard it speak! Why you’ve dropped your plate, dearie!’
Rosemary picked it up, and her face was rather red.
‘He doesn’t work at Hedgem and Fudge, does he?’ she asked faintly.
‘Why, however did you guess?’
‘I… I think I’ve heard the name before,’ she answered lamely. ‘I must go now and meet John. Please, please don’t worry about Albert! I’m sure he’ll get well again!’
‘I’m sure I hope so, dear,’ said Mrs Flackett with a worried frown. Then she brightened. ‘But come again any time you’re passing!’ she called as Rosemary went down the path.
‘John! John! Where are you?’ Rosemary whispered cautiously when she reached the gate.
‘Here!’ he said just by her ear. ‘Where I said I’d be.’
‘Oh, John, it’s dreadful –!’
‘I know, I know. I heard it all,’ he said gloomily. ‘I got bored watching you stuffing currant cake, and the canary stuffing chickweed. It’s a funny thing, but wherever I look everyone is eating except me! Anyway, I came into the garden after a bit to see what was going on, and I heard. This magic is getting things in a mess!’
‘Mrs Flackett sent a piece of cake for you,’ said Rosemary, holding out the bag.
‘Oh, goo
d!’ said John more cheerfully.
‘All the same, I popped her peas for her and I’ve got an idea –’
‘Come on!’ said John. ‘Let’s find somewhere quiet where nobody will notice you talking to thin air, or me making currant cake disappear.’
18
Calidor
They turned the corner at the end of Adelaide Row and walked along the path that ran by the railway cutting. There was a wire fence on one side and a high wall on the other. Nobody was about, except two small boys with eyes for nothing but train spotting, so they sat down on a flight of steps which led up to the road.
‘I’ll tell you what I think,’ said Rosemary. ‘The pins in a packet and peas in a peck is quite simple really. I suddenly thought of it when I had finished popping Mrs Flackett’s peas, and I saw them all in the colander. I think it just means that one pea is very like another, so that the best way to hide one special pea would be to put it with a peck of others. The same way with pins. One pin would be very hard to pick out in a packet.’
‘Mm,’ said John, in the fluffy voice of someone whose mouth is very full. ‘That’s very clever of you, Rosie! Well, the only place I can think of where there might be a whole lot of kittens is a pet shop.’
‘I believe there’s quite a big one in the new building in the market square. Mr Featherstone was telling me about it the other day. Come on! What are we waiting for?’
‘Me, to finish my cake!’ said John obstinately. ‘It’s all very well for you with steak and kidney pie inside you as well. I think that invisible insides need more food than other people’s.’
‘Your visible one seemed to think much the same thing,’ said Rosemary.
‘Oh well, if you imagine I’m just greedy,’ said John, and trailed off into huffy silence. It was broken by the sound of voices behind them. Two cats were trotting down the steps.
‘Well, I’ll do my best, Fuggins,’ said one of them, a sleek, rangy tabby. ‘A lot of Broomhurst fellows have slipped in quietly already. The Fallowhithe animals don’t seem to suspect. Simple creatures they are. Fish heads for us and tails for them when it’s over, I think her Royal Greyness said?’
His huffiness forgotten, John whispered, ‘Don’t let on you understand!’
‘And the pick of the best hearthrugs for Broomhurst animals!’ said Fuggins. ‘Only a few days to wait now, my boy! There’s a gang of alley cats down here that I want to enroll. See you on… the night!’
Fuggins trotted purposefully away along the path, and the tabby, by means of a dustbin and a broken-down fence, leaped on to the wall and went along the top until he was out of sight.
‘There were cats running along the warehouse wall all the time you were talking to Mrs Flackett,’ said John. ‘Dozens of them.’
‘Don’t you remember? Carbonel told us that wall tops are the main roads of Cat Country.’
‘Things seem to be moving,’ said John.
Rosemary guessed that he had got up because of the shower of crumbs which suddenly fell at her feet.
‘Well, get on, girl!’ he said impatiently.
‘I like that!’ said Rosemary hotly.
‘That’s a good thing,’ said John maddeningly. ‘This way!’ and Rosemary swallowed her crossness and hurried after the sound of his retreating footsteps.
The pet shop was not difficult to find. It was in the new block of shops next to Mrs Flackett’s offices. They looked up as they passed. It was difficult by daylight to imagine its roof top was the same as the high place they had flown to with moon-flooded trees and milky stream. The shop they were looking for called itself ‘Chez Poodles’.
‘Oh, look! The whole of the window is full of kittens!’ said Rosemary.
They stared through the window. On the floor, which was covered with shavings, were kittens sleeping, kittens fighting, kittens playing. There were drifts and heaps of kittens, black, grey, tabby and tortoise-shell. From the roof hung a mobile, and as it swung, they jumped and patted the bells and balls that hung from the moving arms, to the delight of the little knot of people in the street outside.
‘But I can’t see Pergamond or Calidor!’ whispered John.
‘Look over there!’ said Rosemary.
Two kittens had begun a tussle in a corner, a black with white paws and a grey. It was not easy to distinguish them clearly as they rolled and tumbled, but there was something about the jaunty way in which the black one hurled himself on the grey which seemed familiar. By the time that John was looking in the right direction, half a dozen more kittens had thrown themselves into the fight, and the black cat was hidden beneath a pile of thrusting noses and kicking legs.
‘I’m sure it was Calidor!’ said Rosemary.
As she spoke, the black kitten crawled out from the bottom of the pile, and shaking each paw in turn, looked with interest at the mound of cats, still milling on top of one another.
‘Go in and buy him, now!’ said John, hurriedly pushing a handful of small change into Rosemary’s hand. ‘I’ll wait outside.’
But as he spoke a white-overalled arm leaned over the wire barrier at the back of the window, and a hand picked up the black kitten by the scruff of his neck, and lifted him out of sight.
‘Quick!’ said John.
Rosemary dashed into the shop. By the window stood the assistant still holding Calidor by the scruff of his neck, while on the other hand she rested his hind legs through which curled his short tail.
‘The three royal white hairs!’ said Rosemary to herself. ‘Calidor!’ she said softly. ‘It’s me, Rosemary!’
The kitten gave a little soundless mew, and the two people who had been examining him, looked round. One was a small plump woman in a very fashionable but extremely unbecoming hat, and very high heels. The other was a girl of about Rosemary’s age. But there the likeness ended, for she looked as though she had never been dirty in her life, and not one of the pale hairs of her ponytail was out of place. It must be admitted that one of Rosemary’s plaits was in the knotted condition that results from pushing up the bow when it gets loose, instead of re-tying it, and there was a smudge on her cheek.
‘Now do make up your mind, Dossy darling! First you want a grey kitten, and then a ginger, and now you want a black! Daddy said you could have one if you were good at the dentist’s, and really you weren’t very good so you shouldn’t have one at all. But I do so hate to see her little face cloud over!’ the woman went on to the assistant. But even with the prospect of a kitten that she did not deserve, Dossy’s ‘little face’ seemed clouded. Rosemary thought she looked down-right cross.
‘I want a white kitten!’ announced Dossy.
‘I’m afraid it just happens that we haven’t one in the shop,’ said the assistant with weary politeness. ‘Not one.’
‘Oh, please!’ said Rosemary, who felt she could not wait a minute longer. ‘May I have the black kitten? How much is it?’
But this was all that was needed to get Dossy to make up her mind.
‘You can’t have it!’ she said. ‘I’m buying it.’
‘But you said you wanted a white one, and I must have it for a special reason!’ said Rosemary desperately. ‘It’s a very special kitten!’
‘Well then, if it’s so very special, it’s all the more reason why I should have it,’ said Dossy tartly.
‘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.
19
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.
The Kingdom of Carbonel Page 11
