“My pleasure, sweet’eart,” the handsome bulldog replied. “Would have taken you days to walk to London.”
“It was so lucky I came across you,” Petula said. “How often do you pick up flowers, erm, April showers for the flower market?”
“Well, it depends. My man drives out to the country dependin’ on what people are buyin’. They like their April showers in the Old Smoke.”
“The Old Smoke?”
“That’s Cockney rhymin’ slang for London.”
“So you come from London?”
“Oh, yeah. Born and bred. My man is a barrow boy.”
Petula frowned and put her nose up to the dark late-afternoon air to feel for Molly.
“Is the market in the center of London?” she asked.
“Not far. Near the ’ouses of Parliament. Just the other side of the river.” Stanley scratched his ear with his back paw.
“How long do you think it will take to get there?” Petula asked with a shiver.
“Oh, I dunno, we’ve covered quite a bit of ground already. I reckon it’ll only be another forty minutes. You look like you’re a bit taters in the mold.”
“Taters in the mold?”
“Potatoes in the mold. Cold.”
Petula nodded.
“I am. It’s a bit windy out here.”
“Wish you had told me, luv. Could ’ave easily helped you with that. Wait there.”
“Don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere,” Petula said. She watched as Stanley dragged an old sack from behind a crate and nudged it around her body. Petula smiled. “Thanks.”
The bulldog eyed her. Then he asked, “So these dustbin lids you know that are in trouble, you say you can feel where they are?”
“Dustbin lids?”
“Kids.”
“Oh, yes. Yes, I can. And the closer we get to them, the stronger the feeling of them gets.”
“You must have a strong connection with them, then. And this woman that you say has taken them, can you feel her?”
“No, I’ve only come across her once. Wish I’d bitten her ankles when I met her, and drawn blood. She smells of roses and thorns.”
“Well, she sounds a babbling brook,” Stanley commented.
“A babbling brook?”
“A crook. I mean, that’s downright wicked, stealin’ a couple of dustbin lids. But don’t you worry now, Petula. I’ve got a friend who’s joinin’ us when we get to the market. The arrangement was, we were going for a good ol’ sniff about. But now plans have changed. He knows central London like the back of his paw, and he’s got a nose like a hound on him. We’ll have a butcher’s with ’im.”
“A butcher’s?”
“A butcher’s hook, a look. We’ll have a look for your friends with him. Magglorian will help you find them.”
“I hope he can,” Petula said. “You see, it’s all a bit more complicated. Erm. Do you know what hypnotism is, Stanley?”
Eight
Miss Oakkton the ginger tomcat was out of breath. She watched the white cat that was Miss Hunroe as it slipped ahead, chasing Mr. Black, and she sidestepped into the entrance of a closed delicatessen. In a few seconds she had materialized back into her human self, this time in an olive-colored, ankle-length tweed coat with a hat and bag to match, carrying two baskets. The tomcat sat, dazed, by her feet. Miss Oakkton put down her baskets and put the ginger tom into one of them. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a tortoiseshell pipe and an ivory tobacco box. Packing the pipe with tobacco, she lit it. For a few minutes she stood smoking, enjoying the peace and quiet. Then her phone rang. Lazily, she pulled it from her bag.
“Thank you, Miss Teriyaki. Yes, I vill be zare in a few minutes…. No, I am not smoking my pipe! What an idea! I stopped because a voman picked me up…. Well, of course not! No vun has picked you up, Miss Teriyaki, because your cat is not as attractive as mine…. You don’t need to nag. I am coming.” Tutting, Miss Oakkton snapped her phone shut. “Interfering nag!” Then she refilled her pipe and lit it again. As she exhaled, a cloud of smelly smoke filling the shop alcove, a teenager drove his motorbike and sidecar into a parking space in front of her. Miss Oakkton stepped toward him.
“Excuse me, young man,” she began. The biker pulled his keys from the ignition slot and looked up. Immediately Miss Oakkton’s large eyes had a hold on him. He couldn’t look away, and for some reason, he felt he ought to do whatever this big muscley woman said. So, when she asked, he passed his motorbike keys to her.
“Now get off zat bike,” she said. The teenager did as he was told. Miss Oakkton put her two baskets, one with a cat in it, into the sidecar, and climbed onto the motorbike. It sank down under her weight. She started the engine. Then, laughing like a woman fresh out of the madhouse, she revved up the engine and drove away.
Flying along a London street on a blustery winter’s night as a ladybug is difficult, as the tiny Molly and Micky were discovering. Huge double-decker buses driving past them made cyclonelike swirls of air that buffeted and knocked them. Then one gust blew to their advantage. It caught them up and cast them forward, inches from Black. With a few sturdy flaps of their bug wings, the twins had soon landed on his right shoulder and were standing knee-deep in the fuzz of his camel-hair coat.
Underneath them, Black’s giant body parted the night air with ease. His massive feet thudded on the pavement.
Around, the streets were heavy with light. Beautifully designed shop windows, with dummies dressed in the latest fashions and photographs of glamorous people having fun in the same clothes behind, shone out into the night. Late-night shoppers passed Black, their arms laden with bags, some brushing shoulders with him, so that Molly and Micky had to grip the camel-hair strands with all their might.
Cafés glittered invitingly; cars with white headlights and red brake lights beamed brightly. Red, amber, and green traffic signals blinked. And everywhere the noise of engines hummed—buses, trucks, cars, motorbikes accompanied by the sound of bike bells. Clonk, clonk, shuffle, thud, tap went the people’s feet on the street.
“The human being certainly dominates the world!” Micky observed.
“I know. It’s frightening when you’re only four millimeters high, isn’t it?” Molly replied, wiggling her antennas.
As they settled down again, a mountainous building loomed up. Its stucco walls and pillars rose into the sky to a lofty gray slate roof. Dozens of windows punctuated each floor. They looked like eyes, and hanging underneath them were their balconies that looked like wrought-iron mouths. On the wall, in shiny gold, was the sign THE GLITZ RESTAURANT. Two torches with flames in their sockets burned on either side of it. A large window followed the corner of the building around so that the restaurant faced both the hat shop on one corner and a bus stop on the other.
Black paused before entering. He swung his bag off his left shoulder, tugged his coat from his arms, and seeing two ladybugs on his lapel, brushed them off with his hand. And then he entered the Glitz.
Molly felt like she had been charged at by an elephant. She tumbled through the air as light as a lentil and as helpless as a frog in a flood. She tried to flap her wings and regain her balance, but instead she flipped around and around so that the world was a blur. Then, finally, she hit the wall of the entrance. With crumpled wings, she fell to the ground and bounced from her back to her front legs. Dizzy and stunned, she lay still.
A few minutes passed as Molly’s senses slowly came back to her. She shook out her wings, then packed them into her shell-like outer layer, and she checked her body for injury. Surprisingly, she was fine—a bit shaken, but not hurt. Now she looked worriedly about for Micky.