Mr Bodkin called anxiously, ‘Take care! Take care! Fifteen shillings if you catch him now!’
It was then that Rosemary made the mistake of looking down. She saw the faces tilted up to watch her and the hard paving stones of the yard a long way below, and for the first time she realized how high she was. Hastily she looked away, but the damage was done. Her knees began to shake and her inside suddenly felt as though it was not there.
‘Cockie! I can’t!’ she said faintly. She could feel her feet slipping slowly on the tiles. She gave a frantic lurch, clutched with both hands, and found that one of them had gripped the ridge of the roof, and the other had caught the cockatoo’s broken chain. The crowd gasped and cheered as though they were at the circus, as, painfully, she pulled herself astride the ridge.
‘Not bad. Not bad at all. I didn’t think you had it in you,’ said Cockie from his perch on her shoulder. Then he bowed to the clapping crowd and screamed, ‘Put a sock in it!’
By this time Dora and her helpers had arrived with the ladder. They pushed it up on to the roof with the bottom end fixed against the gutter, and Rosemary thankfully clambered down. When she reached the edge of the roof, willing hands helped her to the ground. The crowd patted her on the back and told her how brave she was, and Rosemary wished they would go away. Presently they did, and Mr Bodkin and Dora took her into the shop by a side door. They put Cockie back on his perch and they bathed Rosemary’s scraped knees and let her wash her hands, which were quite black. Then Mr Bodkin said, ‘I can’t thank you enough, my dear. You are a very brave girl. Worth his weight in gold to me, that bird. Brings no end of people to the shop. Would you know what to do with a pound note if I gave it to you?’
‘Oh yes!’ said Rosemary. ‘I should buy the tortoise-shell kitten in the cage at the back of the shop.’
Mr Bodkin laughed, but he fetched Pergamond, and because Rosemary’s hands were full of purring, tortoise-shell kitten, he slipped a ten shilling note and two half crowns as well into the pocket of her gingham dress.
‘Take care of the kitten. It’s a good one,’ he said.
‘I will! Oh, I will!’ she answered feelingly. Cockie was sitting on his perch putting his feathers in order.
‘Good-bye!’ she said. ‘And thank you!’
‘Put a sock in it!’ said the bird, but unnoticed by Mr Bodkin one grey eye had come down in an unmistakable wink.
21
Dossy
When Rosemary reached home she took Pergamond straight upstairs.
‘Why, darling, where have you been? I was begining to grow anxious,’ said Mrs Brown.
‘I’ve found one of the kittens, Mother. It’s Pergamond.’
‘Rosie, I’m so glad!’ said her mother.
‘May I keep her upstairs with us, just for the night?’ begged Rosemary. ‘John said he didn’t think he’d be back until tomorrow, and she would be company for me. Besides, I shouldn’t sleep a wink if she was in the greenhouse. You see she was stolen and sold to a pet shop. I found her there!’
Mrs Brown listened with astonishment while Rosemary told her story, leaving out the magic bits and the complimentary remarks of Mr Bodkin and the crowd of people.
‘I’ve got a present for you,’ she ended. ‘A box of peppermint creams.’
‘My favourite!’ said Mrs Brown, and by a lucky chance they were Rosemary’s favourite, too.
‘I’m just going down to tell Woppit about Pergamond,’ she said rather indistinctly, because of course her mother had offered her a peppermint cream.
Mrs Brown laughed. ‘Don’t be long, dear, supper is nearly ready.’
Woppit was sitting brooding in the greenhouse, with her paws tucked in, so that she looked like a rather untidy foot warmer. She had never ceased to reproach herself for the loss of the kittens. When she heard that Pergamond was safe and that at least they knew where Calidor was, she became a different animal. Her purr was like tearing calico, and she rubbed herself against Rosemary’s legs with such force that she nearly knocked her over.
‘So I thought you had better go and tell Queen Blandamour straight away,’ ended Rosemary. ‘Or would you like your supper first?’
‘As if I’d let bite or sup pass my lips,’ said Woppit, ‘before I told Her Majesty the blessed news! Not that I couldn’t fancy something tasty when I get back, mind. A nice bit of liver, minced medium fine, wouldn’t come amiss.’
Rosemary watched the untidy old animal leap to the top of the garden wall with surprising ease, and run along it till she was out of sight. Then she went back to the flat.
‘All the same, I do wish I knew what was happening to John,’ she whispered to Pergamond, who was warming her overfull stomach by the fire, for the evening was chilly.
From the back seat of the car, John had looked through the window behind him at the dwindling figure of Rosemary, as she stood outside the pet shop. She looked rather forlorn standing there by herself on the edge of the pavement, so he waved, until he remembered that she could not see him.
‘It wouldn’t make any difference to her if I stood on my head!’ he said gloomily to himself.
He turned round and studied the backs of the three heads in front of him. There was Dossy’s father with a bowler and a red sort of neck that suggested he was not a very patient sort of person; there was Dossy’s mother with the carefully waved, blue hair under the very fashionable hat; there was Dossy’s own sleek, fair head in between with the kitten on her shoulder. Calidor was looking rather miserably over the back of the seat, unaware that help was so near. Very carefully John put his mouth as near to the kitten as he could and whispered, ‘Cheer up, it’s me, John! I’m in the back of the car. You can’t see me because I’m invisible!’
Calidor started, and to keep his balance stuck his claws into Dossy’s shoulder. Dossy shrieked.
‘For goodness’ sake!’ said her father irritably. He did not care for sudden squeals when he was driving through busy traffic.
‘He scratched me, Mother!’ said Dossy tearfully, and lifting the kitten on to her knee gave him a slap. It was not a hard slap, but it upset his balance again so that once more he had to dig in his claws to prevent himself from falling off.
Once more Dossy shrieked.
‘For mercy’s sake put that cat in the back where it can’t scratch you!’ said her father crossly.
‘It’s a horrible kitten!’ complained Dossy, dropping Calidor into the back of the car. ‘It scratched me twice! I wish I’d chosen the ginger one!’
‘I wish you’d chosen a goldfish. At least that couldn’t scratch,’ growled her father.
‘Now, Charlie!’ said Dossy’s mother. ‘The poor child must have something to amuse her while the television is out of order.’
John ignored the argument that seemed to be starting in the front seat, and putting Calidor on the rug which lay folded beside him, whispered, ‘It’s all right, Calidor, I’ll get you out of here somehow. You needn’t be afraid.’
‘I’m not afraid… exactly,’ said Calidor stoutly. ‘But it does make it easier to be brave, now you’re here.’
He snuggled up against John’s invisible grey flannel shorts, and after giving a few halfhearted licks to his shirt front to show how self-possessed he was, under John’s stroking fingers he fell asleep. The powerful car had slipped with surprising speed out of the town and into the kind of suburb which has big houses built in large gardens.