Chapter 4

CAREFULLY DOG CARRIED the bird to the store room and put it on the table. It lay quietly while she lit a candle in a jar and fetched some fruit from the pets’ larder. Uncle wouldn’t notice if she used a few extra bits.

The sound of chopping attracted Esme’s attention. She sat staring at the bird, taking long sniffs of it with her wavering snout. But when Dog stopped her stealing slices of apple and banana, she snorted crossly and went back to bed.

Dog fed the macaw and dripped water into its beak. After it had eaten four and a half bananas and two apples, it sat up and wobbled a little back and forth.

“Sleeeeeep!” it said, then belched and closed its eyes.

Dog put a ring of jumbo cans of Happee Kittee around the bird to stop it falling over in the night, blew out the candle and went to bed.

She sat on the old blanket beside Esme, but Esme was still cross; she bristled her fur and turned her back. Dog shrugged and lay down anyway. Just as she closed her eyes and felt the warmth of sleep slipping over her … “C-c-c-cold!” said the bird from the table.

Dog got up and relit the candle. The parrot was shivering so much that the cans of cat food had begun to rattle.

It was cold in the storeroom where Dog and Esme slept. There wasn’t another blanket to wrap the bird in – she would have to improvise. Dog cut the bird a jacket of newspaper, found some string and wrapped it around its body, leaving its feet free. But still the bird shivered. It was so weak, Dog thought that it might die of cold without extra warmth to get it through the night.

She laid the parrot down gently in the middle of her own bed, where it could sleep between her and Esme and be warmer. This was not to Esme’s liking: she snorted, got up and went to curl in the corner, on a pile of newspapers.

Dog lay in the dark, trying to fit herself around the bird’s awkward long body, and listening to the sound of her friend’s angry paper-scrunching.

“C-c-c-cold,” whispered the bird. Dog was quite cold herself now with this spiky parcel of parrot to sleep with instead of nice, cosy Esme. She was just thinking she would never get to sleep when there was a tick-tack, tick-tack of coati claws on the concrete floor, and Esme’s nose pushed comfortably under her arm. Esme settled her warm body into the small of Dog’s back and sighed contentedly. Dear Esme, she never stayed cross for long. Dog pulled the parrot a little closer. It stopped shivering and rustled sleepily in its newsprint coat.

“Night night!” it said, and then, almost at once, began to snore.