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, good!’ 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.