‘I want a white kitten!’ announced Dossy.
‘I’m afraid it just happens that we haven’t one in the shop,’ said the assistant with weary politeness. ‘Not one.’
‘Oh, please!’ said Rosemary, who felt she could not wait a minute longer. ‘May I have the black kitten? How much is it?’
But this was all that was needed to get Dossy to make up her mind.
‘You can’t have it!’ she said. ‘I’m buying it.’
‘But you said you wanted a white one, and I must have it for a special reason!’ said Rosemary desperately. ‘It’s a very special kitten!’
‘Well then, if it’s so very special, it’s all the more reason why I should have it,’ said Dossy tartly.
‘I think my little girl must have first choice,’ said the woman. ‘We’ll take the little black fellow after all!’ She turned to the assistant and paid over the money.
‘Please, may I hold him, just one minute?’ said Rosemary unhappily. She took the little animal in both hands and held him to her cheek. He felt very small beneath his fluff of coal black fur.
‘You’ll have to go with her,’ she whispered.
‘I don’t want to, I don’t like her!’ said Calidor.
‘We’ll rescue you somehow. John is outside. You won’t be able to see him because he is invisible. But I know he’ll think of something.’
Calidor gave a sad little mew.
‘Cheer up,’ said Rosemary. ‘Remember you are a royal kitten and you must be brave. Couldn’t you manage a little purr? That’s better! Where is Pergamond?’
‘In a cage at the back of the shop by herself. I’m so glad to see you, Rosie!’ he said. Calidor gave her cheek a little lick.
Dossy was looking on curiously.
‘Mother!’ she said in an aggrieved voice. ‘That girl’s talking to my kitten!’
‘Take him to the car, darling, and show him to Daddy. I shan’t be a minute.’
Rosemary handed Calidor over and followed Dossy’s beautifully tailored but irritating back out of the shop.
‘All right, I’m here!’ whispered John’s voice beside her.
‘She’s bought him!’ said Rosemary. ‘And now they’re going off in a car and we don’t know where to!’
‘We’ll soon find out!’ said John.
‘But how?’
‘I’m going too! No one will see me! What a gorgeous car! I’ve always wanted to go in one of those high-powered things, and now’s my chance!’
‘I must stay here,’ said Rosemary. ‘Pergamond’s at the back of the shop. Good luck, John!’
‘Good luck, Rosie!’
The plump woman was getting into the front seat of the car. There was plenty of room for three. Rosemary saw the door at the back open and close noiselessly. She waved as the car slid smoothly into the traffic.
‘Miss Dibdin was right. Being invisible has got its uses,’ said Rosemary, and turned and went back into the pet shop.
19
The Pet Shop
At any other time Rosemary felt she could have spent a long while quite happily looking round the shop. She went past the tanks of tropical fish which lined the side opposite the counter. Out of the corner of her eye she could see their jewelled shapes dart and hover in each small, watery world, but she walked resolutely by and pushed through the bead curtain which divided the shop from the animal cages. The noise here was deafening. It reminded her of Fairfax Market on Saturday night with all the stall-holders shouting their wares: only here each animal was trying to sell itself. Only the birds sang and gossiped to each other. It mattered little to them in what house their cages stood.
‘Buy me! Buy me!’ shouted a corgi puppy.
‘Only ten shillings! Come along, come along!’ called a pair of guinea pigs.
A case of hamsters squeaked, ‘Buy! Buy! Buy!’ and a large, buck rabbit wrinkled its nose in disdain at having to announce that it was going for fifteen and six.
A cockatoo whistled shrilly, ‘All hands to the pump! How de do! How de do! How de do!’ and rocked himself violently from side to side.
‘Very well, thank you!’ said Rosemary politely.
‘Put a sock in it!’ said the cockatoo rudely, and made clicking noises with its tongue.
Rosemary ignored him and searched the cages anxiously for Pergamond. She asked two Siamese cats if they had seen her. They stared insolently, and said something which she could not understand, presumably in Siamese. The few people who were looking at the animals as well, were unlikely to hear her whispered inquiries in the general hubbub.
Next she asked a tortoise. He looked up heavily from a lettuce leaf and said in a slow, deep voice, ‘I don’t know nothing about no kittens. But if it’s tortoise-shell you want, why not have a tortoise in it? Have me!’ And she realized by the curious jerking of its shell that the creature was laughing at what it thought was a joke. Rosemary shook her head.
‘Pity,’ said the tortoise, and went on eating lettuce.
She turned to a cage of white mice. But at the word ‘kitten’ there was a flick of tails and whiskers, and they all disappeared into a round hole in a wooden box at the back of the cage.
‘Polly put the kettle on,’ shrieked the cockatoo, and rattled its beak on the perch.
‘A tortoise-shell kitten!’ yapped a fox terrier puppy. ‘Kittens? Yah! You want a puppy!’ and he turned to bowl over his companion who had nipped him in the leg.
‘But I keep telling you!’ said Rosemary desperately. ‘All I want is a kitten, and you won’t listen!’
For a moment she was alone in the shop.
‘Second from the left, top row!’ said a voice. It was the cockatoo. He was standing motionless, his yellow crest thrust forward. Rosemary went up to his perch. When she first saw him she had thought he was rather like a clown at a circus. Now he looked suddenly very wise and very dignified.
‘If I’d known you were a hearing human I should never have tried that “Polly-put-the-kettle-on” stuff on you. That’s just in the way of business. I must give my public what it wants, you know. They put a tortoise-shell kitten up there in a cage by herself, because of her markings. Quite rare, apparently.’
‘Oh, thank you!’ said Rosemary gratefully and ran to look.
‘Don’t mention it!’ said the cockatoo, and as an old lady with a small boy came in through the bead curtain he shrieked, ‘All hands to the pump! How de do! How de do! How de do!’ to the small boy’s delight.
At the back of the second cage from the left, in the top row, was a small, furry, tortoise-shell ball.
‘Pergamond! It’s me, Rosemary! Do wake up, Pergamond!’
The kitten uncurled herself, and yawned so wide that Rosemary could see the little pink wrinkles on the roof of her mouth.
‘What a long time you’ve been,’ she said sleepily. ‘But I knew you’d come!’ and she got up and rubbed herself against the cage door. Rosemary stroked her with a single finger, which was all she could poke through.
‘How much are you, Pergamond dear?’
‘Six shillings,’ she said proudly.
‘Oh no!’ said Rosemary in dismay. ‘I’ve only got four and elevenpence and an Irish halfpenny!’
‘Well, you can’t expect me to go for tuppence,’ said the kitten grandly. ‘Not rare markings and royalty!’
‘Ssh!’ said Rosemary, looking around nervously. ‘Don’t let anyone know who you are!’
‘Well, I don’t see –’ began Pergamond, and broke off as the corgi puppy next door hurled himself at the dividing wire netting, yapping defiance at all kittens. Undaunted, Pergamond advanced on him, spitting and swearing.
‘Pergamond!’ said Rosemary in a shocked voice. ‘What would Woppit say?’
‘You can’t expect anything else,’ said the cockatoo. ‘A very mixed lot here! They pick up all sorts of expressions. I suppose,’ he went on, sidling toward her, ‘as well as a kitten you wouldn’t be wanting a cockatoo? Thirty pounds and cheap at the price.’