‘I shall be too busy looking for the kittens, Mummy. We simply must find them,’ said Rosemary.
When she reached the greenhouse carrying the cracked dish, she found Woppit curled up asleep on John’s knee. She was getting used to seeing the things that he was holding floating in the air. It seemed that the old cat had accepted his invisibility quite calmly. To her it was just another example of the unaccountable way that humans behave. She opened her eyes and jumped down at the word ‘dinner’, wriggling and writhing in a way that Rosemary found quite alarming until she realized that the cat was only rubbing herself against John’s invisible ankles. She explained about the dinner.
‘I’m afraid you and Woppit will have to share it.’
‘If so be you can swallow into an invisible stomach,’ said Woppit, ‘you can have all mine and welcome. You’ve done your best for my little furry favourites, according to your lights. I’ll say that for you.’
‘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!’