‘Locked you up there? You poor little things. You ought to be ashamed of getting your little sister into trouble like this!’ the old woman said to John.
John opened his mouth to protest, but thought better of it, and she went on, ‘Well, you’d better come down, the pair of you.’
She took Rosemary by the hand, not unkindly. ‘Why, you’re starved, love! I’ve got a kettle on downstairs for a cup of cocoa. You’d better have a drop to warm you up. You’ll have to walk down – the lift don’t work till nine.’
She shut the door and shot the bolts home. Thankfully, the children followed her. There were ten floors to pass. She went down in front of them, telling them over her shoulder that she was getting her work done early because her son had been ‘took bad’, and she wanted to get home to him, and about the battle she waged against dirty footmarks on the stairs, and boys in general, and that she could not understand how in the world they could have got up to the roof. John made a half-hearted attempt to defend ‘them boys’. After all, they were not to blame this time, but the old woman swept his explanation on one side with an indignant ‘Don’t you tell me!’
At last she led them down to a little room in the basement. Here they found a sink, a metal cupboard, a chair and a table. On the table stood an electric kettle which was already blowing steam through its spout like an angry dragon. She got a mug and two cups from the cupboard, a tin of cocoa and another of condensed milk, and in each mug she made a rich, dark brew. It was not cocoa as they knew it, but it was sweet and comforting, and put new courage into them. They drank while sitting on two upturned buckets.
‘Lucky for you I was early,’ the old woman said, between gulps of scalding cocoa. ‘Now then, suppose you tell me all about it!’ Her eyes were shrewd over the rim of the mug.
‘Well,’ said John slowly. ‘We can’t tell you all about it, because of the others. But we got on to the roof when they were there, and then… well, they left us up there, on purpose I think, and we couldn’t get down.’
‘Well, I must say, I like a lad who won’t tell on his pals, but you can tell them from me that next time I catch hair or hide of ’em lurking on my roof, there’ll be real trouble. You’re a nicely spoken pair of little things, I’ll say that, but let this be a lesson to you. Steer clear of them boys! And if ever I find you up there again –’ She blew noisily on the hot cocoa and left them to imagine the awfulness of the punishment that would be in store.
‘Then you won’t say anything to anyone this time?’ said Rosemary. ‘You are a darling! We’ll never do it again, and we shall never forget how kind you’ve been!’
The old woman’s eyes twinkled. ‘Well, I like a bit of fun myself. Always did! And believe it or not, I was young once myself. Where do you live?’
‘Fallowhithe,’ said Rosemary.
‘Fallow…?’
The old woman put down her mug with such a bump that the cocoa slopped over. She stared at Rosemary.
‘’Ere, don’t tell me you’re in your night things?’
Rosemary nodded.
‘You been up there all night?’
Rosemary nodded again.
‘Your poor ma will be frantic! Have you got your bus fares home? You haven’t? Well, I don’t know! ‘Ere you are.’ She took a worn black purse from her pocket and pushed a shilling into John’s hand. When they tried to thank her she seemed embarrassed.
‘All right, all right, you can send it back, dear. Flackett’s the name, Number 1 Adelaide Row. Now hop it, or I shan’t get my work done early after all.’
John and Rosemary did not have to be told twice. But before finally going out into the street, Rosemary tied up her nightdress with her dressing gown cord.
‘It’s a good thing your dressing gown has got too small,’ said John. ‘It looks like a coat.’
‘I hope everyone else will think so,’ said Rosemary doubtfully.
But people who travel on buses between seven and eight in the morning do not bother very much about what their fellow travellers are wearing. Apart from a wink and a ‘What’s this, the babes in the wood?’ from the driver, for there were no other children, they reached the end of Cranshaw Road without any more adventures.
As they turned into number 101, John said, ‘We never made any plans last night after all about keeping the kittens safe. Let’s look in before we go up to breakfast and tell Woppit to be specially careful.’
Rosemary nodded.
‘And we must get those screws for the lock straight away,’ she said as they ran across the lawn. They could see the greenhouse from the bottom of the path.
‘Oh!’ she said. ‘The door’s open! Come on!’
Together they raced down the path and looked inside. The flower pots they had stacked in one corner so neatly were upset and were scattered over the floor. The basket, in which the kittens slept, was on its side. The blanket was not there.
‘Calidor! Pergamond!’ called Rosemary sharply.
There was no reply. Only a plaintive squeak from the swinging door broke the silence. Frantically, they searched in every corner, they parted the strands of the creeper that grew up the sides of the greenhouse, they turned the watering can upside down, they even peered through the grating in the floor and as they searched they called. But there was no sign of the kittens.
‘It’s no use,’ said Rosemary. ‘They’ve gone!’
14
Gone!
John and Rosemary stood and looked at each other in horrified silence. And then the silence was broken.
‘What’s that?’ said Rosemary sharply. ‘Listen!’ It was a strangled ‘mew!’ which seemed to come from somewhere outside the greenhouse. The two children ran through the open door and looked around anxiously. Propped against the wall was a large, cracked, earthenware pot, the kind that gardeners sometimes use for forcing rhubarb. The hole at the top was covered with a brick, but it was from underneath that the sounds came.
‘Quick!’ said John. The mews were growing stronger.
They lifted the pot, but it was not the kittens they could hear. It was Woppit. The old cat was trying to free herself from the folds of the kittens’ blanket in which she had been rolled.
‘Woppit, dear!’ said Rosemary, as she unwound the struggling animal. ‘The kittens have gone! What has happened?’ But Woppit was too ruffled and woebegone to explain.
‘My little, kingly kittens!’ she wailed. ‘My furry darlings! They’ve gone! They’ve taken them away, and old Woppit still alive to tell! The shame of it!’
She rocked herself, moaning, from side to side. Rosemary lifted the rumpled animal on to her lap, but Woppit refused to be comforted.
‘I’m quite sure you did everything you could!’ said Rosemary. ‘But tell us what happened!’
‘They were sleeping in their bed,’ said Woppit, ‘so sweet and snug as two little sardines in a tin, and the moon was shining down on them so round and white as a bowl of milk, and there was me standing guard, and humming a little song and never dreaming –’ She broke off, lifted her untidy whiskers to the sky and wailed again.
‘Oh, do go on, Woppit!’ said John. ‘If only you’d tell us what happened, perhaps we could do something!’
‘Peaceful as a kitchen hearthrug it was,’ she continued. ‘And then suddenly the door opened, and there was them humans!’
‘What were they like?’ asked Rosemary.
‘There was a tall thin one with Persian fur that needed a deal of licking, and a short sleek one.’
‘Persian fur?’ repeated John.
‘I guessed as much,’ said Rosemary. ‘It must have been Mrs Cantrip. Her hair sticks out around her face when it’s untidy, rather like a Persian cat, and “sleek” is a very good description of Miss Dibdin. But how did they find out the kittens were here?’