Chapter 8

JUST WHEN DOG imagined that things couldn’t get any worse, worse happened. She was dozing in the storeroom, near to closing time, when she heard a customer start to bargain with Uncle.

“I’ll give you a tenner,” he said, “for the funny-looking beast with the long nose.”

Dog felt herself go cold.

“I couldn’t possibly sell it,” said Uncle. “At least,” he added slyly, “not for as little as that.”

“No?” said the man. “What’s so special about it?”

Dog hated him already. His voice was cruel, like Uncle’s voice but thinner, sharper.

“Just some funny-looking mongrel, innit?”

Dog realized that Uncle was getting cross, but not too cross, because here was a chance to make more money.

“It is a rare coatimundi,” he said, in his poshest tones, “from” – he hesitated and looked up at his map: he really wasn’t sure where Esme was from – “from the forests of Timbuktu!”

“Oh yeah?” said the man. “I’ll give you twenty for it then.”

Uncle gave a pretend laugh. “Lowest I could consider is a hundred.”

The man laughed back nastily. “Thirty, tops,” he snapped.

“Seventy-five,” Uncle snapped back, and they began to exchange prices as if they were playing ping-pong.

“Thirty-five.”

“Seventy.”

“Forty.”

“Sixty.”

“Fifty.”

“Fifty-five?”

“Done.”

Dog couldn’t believe it. In less time than it took to feed a hamster, her friend and companion had been sold!

“Good,” said the sharp-voiced man. “Have it packed up and ready for tomorrow morning. I’ll pick it up as soon as you’re open.”

Of course, Esme had no idea what had happened. At bedtime Dog let her out of her cage and she curled up happily in Dog’s arms, closing her eyes as she popped the ripe grapes in her teeth. She didn’t understand why Dog was crying, and she snuffled at the salty tears and sneezed them away. Dog stroked her friend’s fur until the coati was snoring contentedly. Then she lay awake trying to think of a way to stop the man taking Esme away. Somehow she felt that Carlos was trying to think of a way too. He was whispering from the darkness of his locked cage, but his voice was so worn out after a day of mimicking that it was too quiet to hear. At last Dog fell asleep, her arms around Esme.

But Carlos was awake, rasping to himself over and over, like the creak of an open door. “Escape!” he said. “Escape!”