by Ros Asquith
“Don’t YOU start having a go at me,” I complained. “It’s bad enough getting it from Dinah.”
After two minutes of gloom I had another bright idea. “How about colours? Couldn’t we prove they understand stuff by signing, ‘Go get the red ball’?”
“I don’t want to be a wet blanket,” said Chloe in her best wet blanket voice, but I don’t think dogs can see colours the way we do.”
I was shocked. “Can’t they? You mean those poor little puppies can’t see that nice cosy red blanket I put in their basket?”
“They can see the blanket – I’m just not sure they can see it’s red. I remember reading that they mix up red and green, like colourblind people do, but I think they see blue and yellow OK.”
“What a shame,” I said. “So when Harpo and Lorenzo ran off into the bushes together, they couldn’t see all those nice green leaves around them.”
“Mmmm,” Chloe said slowly. “I don’t suppose they were looking, anyway. Really interesting, though, isn’t it? I’m definitely going to study science.”
“YOU are going to study everything Chloe. You have the brain of a mammoth. Sorry, I don’t mean it’s fossilised,” I added, seeing her hurt expression. “I mean it’s GIGANTIC.”
“And hairy. With tusks.”
“That’s much cooler than mine, which is a small wobbly, squidgy thing like a pink jelly.”
“What does Dinah’s brain look like, d’you think? Or Warty-Beak’s?”
“Dinah’s is a weird mixture of animal and cyborg,” I said. “The animal bit isn’t squidgy like mine, but firm – it doesn’t wobble, it kind of glides. But then it’s got this massive memory card wired into it, with samples of all the voices she can do. Warty-Beak’s is all wires and magnets and stuff, very old and out of date, so it keeps sparking and blowing up. There’s no nice warm pink bits with any feelings or emotions tucked up inside.”
“That’s it!” said Chloe. “The feeling bit! That’s what we really care about with the puppies. We may not be able to teach them stuff, but we know they can feel! We know they can be happy or frightened…”
“And we know they can feel hunger and pain,” I continued.
“Exactly. So that’s how we can persuade people they should be respected,” Chloe concluded.
“Chloe, it’s not enough; you know that. Everyone knows animals have feelings, but they still treat them like rubbish. I want to prove that they have a right to an education, like we do. I want to prove to the world that animals are people too. If I can’t do it, the puppies will be sold and we will have a sad empty house with just me and Mum and Dad and Tomato and Harpo.”
“Wish I had all those people in my house,” said Chloe sadly, opening her matchbox and looking lovingly at her ant.
“Chloe, do you think Anty needs some company? Wouldn’t it be better to release him into the wild so he could find happiness hanging out with a few million new friends, maybe raise a family – just him and Mrs Anty and 64,000 adorable Antykins?”
“He wouldn’t like it now. He’s too used to human beings,” said Chloe.
Judging by the way Anty made a beeline, or rather an ant-line, for the open air before Chloe snapped the matchbox shut, I wouldn’t have said he was quite as tame as she thought, but I didn’t want to hurt her feelings.
“He could use his wider knowledge of the world to help other ants,” I suggested.
“You’ve got it!”
“What?”
“Write an agony column for animals. You’ve heard of an Agony Aunt? Well, your magazine could have an Agony Ant!”
I sighed. “Yeah, yeah,” I said. “But it won’t save the puppies.”
“How do you know? You’re just not thinking it through.” I’d never heard Chloe this determined. It was almost scary. “S’pose you do your animals’ mag, make it really great, read some bits out at the parents’ evening so they all go, ‘Ooh, aah, how cute.’ Then make a speech right from the heart about how unfair we are to animals, and if we bothered, animals could benefit from all the stuff we benefit from. Then you go, ‘And here’s the proof – Rover, the dog who can do the Guardian crossword, or Benny, the budgie who wins pub quizzes, or whatever hairy brainbox wins the Great Genius Animal Contest.
“Then everybody will go up to your mum and say, ‘How wonderful, good old Trix really cares, what a girl, bet she must have got it from the example you set her. And by the way, how ARE those sweet little puppies you’ve got?’ Well, your mum’s not going to want to say, ‘Actually, I’ve flogged them to a dog-murderer’ then is she?”
“Chloe,” I said. “Be straight with me. Do you really think all this’ll happen?”
Chloe squeezed my arm. “Sure, Trixie,” she said. “Of course it will.”
I wasn’t giving up on my Animal Education mission. If the puppies couldn’t do sign language with their little fluffy paws, and they couldn’t learn colours, surely they could learn to count?
Next day I decided to do more research. I couldn’t find a lot about dogs counting. The experts seem to think they can tell the difference between a big pile of stuff and a small pile of stuff. You bet they can. Especially when the stuff is Fidoburgers. The science people who found out this amazingly uninteresting bit of news said they reckoned dogs had learnt it when they were wolves and needed to know which pack of enemies or friends was the biggest. Dogs were wolves 12,000 years ago, so they haven’t learned much since. But then, babies wouldn’t learn anything if we didn’t teach them, would they?
I was determined to teach the puppies to count. I decided it would be my Life’s Mission. I would be like that woman who went to live with the apes and made them members of her family. Her own real human family may have found it a bit strange, I suppose. Suppose Dad went off into the jungle for a few months, and brought back a couple of aardvarks and let them scoff Krispy Popsicles with us all in the mornings? Tomato would have trouble with it, that’s for sure. And I think I might too.
While I was thinking all this, I became aware of a strange noise behind me. A sort of scuffling, squeaky, squelchy sound.
I looked round to see Tomato scampering out of my room.
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” I bellowed.
“Nuffink,” he squeaked, or maybe squiggled, if that’s what a squeak and a giggle at the same time is. I could hear him galloping away down the stairs like a herd of horses.
I got up to run after him and fell flat on my face. While I was deep in thought about how to make a good future for OUR puppies, Tomato tied my legs together with string. But that wasn’t all. Hopping out of the door after him, I found myself ankle deep in a large pan of something Very Extremely disgustrous.
I didn’t dare look at it. I know the kind of stuff Tomato and his little fiends mix together in pans. One day you’ll probably be able to find the recipes for Tomato’s famous potions in the Chamber of Horrors or those police museums where they keep stuff about Famous Murderers of History.
I ripped off the string round my ankles and hurtled downstairs three at a time in my saturated socks. Tomato had hidden behind Mum, who was burning some sausages and cursing.
“What on earth is that smell?” she asked. When she saw me, her face changed from a scowl to a look of real horror. “Trixie! What have you been doing? What is that revolting stuff on your feet? Aaaaagh! And all over the floor?”
“ASK HIM!” I yelled, lunging at Tomato.
“Keep away from me, Smelly Bum,” squawked Tomato.
My DIY dad had actually finished the posh polished kitchen floor he’d been working on, give or take a few missing bits. I mention this because if he hadn’t I wouldn’t have slid flapping past my psycho brother and skidded on my socks straight into Mum and the frying pan. Fortunately, I wasn’t fried to a chip by the spilling contents of the pan, but the sausages did hit the floor and were swiftly pursued by the yapping puppies, squealing as their noses touched the black and still-sizzling morsels.
Tomato legged it and barricaded himself in hi
s room. But Mum eventually got him to admit the ingredients under a threat of no supper. Tomato’s disgustrous potion consisted of: flour, egg, green paint, mustard, washing-up liquid and bread.
He’d kept it in the back garden for a week, which explained the smell. But it could have been worse. At least he hadn’t included wee or dog poo.
‘Aren’t you going to punish him?” I wailed, after I’d used it as an excuse to lie in the bath for hours.
“Erm, yes. I’m thinking of the appropriate response,” said Mum vaguely while she burnt the next lot of sausages. “I’m sorry, Trix, but there aren’t any more veggie sausages. Can you make do with just beans on toast?”
That’s how it is when you are the oldest. You get tortured by your mad baby brother and then starved. “It’s so UNFAIR…” I started, but then the phone rang. It was Dinah.
“I’ve got something amazing to tell you,” she said. “Can I come round?”
“D’you fancy stopping at Mrs Chang’s chippie on the way?” I asked her, poking my tongue out at Mum.
Ten minutes later, Dinah was in my bedroom with Mrs Chang’s chips. We had to open the window and flap our arms about to get rid of the smell of Tomato’s potion.
“Yuck,” Dinah said. “I hope terrorists never get hold of the recipe. That’ll be it for all of us.”
“What’s this amazing piece of news?” I said in between chomping chips.
“You know I said I wanted to interview Vera the Vegetarian Vampire for our project?”
“Mmmm.”
“She’s coming to Bottomley and I’m going to talk to her.”
“NO!”
“YES!”
“When?”
“Tomorrow! At the bookshop. She’s doing a book signing.”
“That will take a long time, won’t it? A whole book?” I said doubtfully. My mind was still on sign language.
Dinah looked blank for a moment, then sighed. “I don’t mean she’s going to read out a whole book in sign language, dummy. I mean she’s going to write her signature in copies of books her fans have bought.”
“Oh, I didn’t know she’d written a book.”
“It’s an annual to go with the new series, but if it’s got ‘To Dinah, my friend in the struggle’ or something like that, written in her very own writing, it would be my most precious thing I’ve ever owned ever.”
“I wonder what she uses for ink,” I pondered. “Beetroot juice? Chlorophyll?”
“Anyway,” Dinah said impatiently, “I’m going to give her this.” And Dinah produced a letter she’d written.
Dear Vera,
I am your biggest fan. If you are very busy please skip most of this letter and just read the bit that says VITAL BIT below.
I am doing a school project on saving the animals of Bottomley and I would be very grateful if you could answer this short list of questions.
Do you agree that animals are people too?
Do you think animals could be taught language like human beings?
What do you think of the fur industry?
When did you first become a vegetarian?
Can I use the Vera the Veggie Vampire design for my animal rights project?
How much do you get paid for each episode of Vera?
VITAL BIT: There is another thing, and I know you can help us with it. You can do anything.
We are afraid that there is a lady in Bottomley RIGHT NOW who is kidnapping animals and turning them into fur coats. Lots of pets have disappeared to our certain knowledge and this lady, Venus Goodchild, has just offered to buy my friend’s puppies. ALL five of them!! What can she possibly want with five puppies unless she is going to skin them and turn them into fur collars for her horrible coats? Or could she be going to sell them for even MORE money to horrible scientists doing experiments?
Please please can you help save the puppies?
We believe that if animals had a proper education, like children do, that they would be able to learn all sorts of stuff that would be helpful to humanity and also stop people wanting to eat them.
PLEASE PLEASE answer. Either post it back to me (SAE enclosed) or email me the answer to [email protected].
Yours faithfully,
Dinah Dare-deVille
“You’ve packed a lot in,” I said, a bit overwhelmed.
“Well, how many times do you get a chance to have a real live superhero help out with your schoolwork?” Dinah said. “AND help you track down a gang of heartless villains at the same time?”
I couldn’t help agreeing.
So the next day, me and Dinah and Chloe ran out of school as soon as the bell went to get ahead of the queue at Vera’s book signing. But even so, it already seemed to stretch for miles from the door of Badger’s Books when we arrived, all the way down the High Street and almost to Mrs Chang’s.
“I didn’t know there were so many Vera fans in Bottomley,” I said. “It’s just like trying to get to see Jacqueline Wilson or JK Rowling.”
“Except they wouldn’t all be dressed as vampires and vegetables,” said Chloe, eyeing the fans.
“Some of these people are practically grown-ups,” I said, as a group of massive shouting boys dressed as Dracula barged past.
“Well, you know, Vera’s getting like Star Wars, or Dr Who. Something for everyone.”
And everyone was certainly there. Millions of kids in lettuce and carrot and broccoli costumes. There was a row of baked beans with a banner saying WE’RE VEGGIES TOO, and a couple of guys advertising the local burger joint in chip suits, which made them look as if they were walking about in golden-brown cardboard coffins, and made it impossible for them to sit down. “It’s disgusting,” I said. “They’re like double-agents, spying for the other side.”
“Some people’ll do anything for free publicity,” Chloe nodded.
A couple of people came as fruit salad, with little plates round their waists like ballet dancers’ tutus, and all kinds of stuff stuck all over them – balls painted the colours of grapes, lumps of polystyrene in the shape of pineapple slices, that kind of thing.
It made me quite hungry just looking at them.
“There’s so many fans,” Chloe said. “It might be difficult to get a chance to give her the letter.”
“We’ll queue all day if we have to,” Dinah said decisively. “She has to sign everybody’s book or it’s not fair.”
We squashed in behind two ladies in banana suits with four tiny Brussels sprouts and an even smaller toddler wearing a box. Dinah raised her eyebrows.
“He’s a veggie stock cube,” explained one of the bananas proudly. “He made it hisself.”
Me and Chloe and Dinah were the odd ones out, in our jeans and trainers. I should have brought Tomato along; he wouldn’t even have had to dress up.
Suddenly a fancy stretch limo painted in Vera’s colours of carrot orange and lettuce green swooshed up and screeched to a halt outside the book shop. The sunroof opened and Vera emerged through it so everyone could see her.
Dinah’s face went all dreamy and she cheered along with the rest of the vegetables.
The Brussels sprouts and the little stock cube started screaming as if Vera was in a boy band. Cameras flashed.
Vera picked up a microphone and began talking about how she’d always dreamed of acting and hoped her success would be an inspiration to a whole new generation. “I’m just an ordinary girl with an extraordinary talent,” she boomed through the loudspeakers on the car roof. “Living proof that you too can be strong and healthy with a good vegetarian diet.”
I nudged Dinah. “It hasn’t worked for you, has it? You never even look at a vegetable.”
“Shhh,” said Dinah, jabbing her elbow into me.
Vera was now droning on about diet “…that must of course include plenty of calcium for growing bones. This is especially important for girls…”
“I wasn’t expecting this,” Chloe whispered. “It’s like one of those boring lessons about what’s good for you. Food s
hould be fun.”
Then Vera went inside the shop to start the book signing. We waited for two hours in the queue, among the tiny vampires and vegetables, just to please Dinah.
“See? It’s not just me. This is really big,” said Dinah, all excited. “Everyone loves Vera the Veggie Vampire.”
We FINALLY got to Vera, but only long enough for her to flash a fake smile at us, and scribble
To Dinah, love and solidarity, from Vera
in Dinah’s book, then be whisked out of the way so she could move straight on to the adoring mob of Brussels sprouts. She didn’t even notice the letter Dinah was waving at her, but a woman with an even bigger fake smile, a clipboard and a green top hat with what looked like a leek growing out the top of it, took the letter and stuffed it into a bag.
“I’ll make sure Vera sees it, sweetie,” she said. Her grinning face looked so much like a joke-shop mask stuck to the top hat that I had to look at her twice to make sure it wasn’t.
We got ushered back towards the door. Behind a couple of onions and a few sticks of celery in the queue was a girl I recognised, but I wasn’t sure where from. She glanced over with a sad smile. Then we were outside again.
“She’ll never get that letter,” Chloe said despondently.
“Then I’ll tell her about it myself,” Dinah said. She’s great like that. When Dinah gets her teeth into something she doesn’t let go.
“But we’re outside now, in case you hadn’t noticed,” I pointed out.
“Well, I’ll get inside again then,” Dinah said. “There’s a back entrance down the alley beside the Rose and Crown.”
“We’re with you,” I said.
“We’ll get into trouble,” Chloe said. “They’ll catch us. Her bodyguard’s watching that alley.”
