Chapter 9
DOG DIDN’T WANT the morning to come, but it did. There was nothing she could do about it. She made a special breakfast for Esme, but Uncle came downstairs early, before she had time to enjoy it, and pushed Esme into her cage. Then, from behind the counter, he pulled out the box, the black, black box, just large enough to hold one old, fat coati. He left it waiting, open and gaping like a mouth, for Esme’s new owner to arrive. Dog wondered if she could somehow get into the box with Esme, so at least they would be together – the man couldn’t be any worse than Uncle. But even if she could, what would happen to Carlos?
When Esme saw the box, she began to chitter with fear. Dog sat by her cage, stroking her long nose through the wire and trying to make her feel better, but Uncle dragged her away.
“Get up. Stop your snivelling, you lazy, useless good-for-nothing,” he snarled. “Get to work! Get that bird sorted now! We’ll have customers in half an hour!”
Uncle kept the key to Carlos’s cage, but Dog was the only person Carlos allowed near. He’d even taken to snapping his beak menacingly at customers who came within a wing’s length. So Uncle kept clear as Dog let Carlos out of his cage and took him for his morning poo in the customer toilet. He liked to be left to poo in private and it took ages, which made Uncle very agitated. Did he imagine a bird was going to swim round the U-bend? Dog wondered to herself.
But this morning was different. Carlos was done in no time at all, and called to her softly from inside the WC! “Dog! Dog!”
Dog went in to find him clinging to the brickwork, halfway up the end wall.
“Look!” he said, sounding very excited. “Look!”
Dog looked. All she could see were the usual bare bricks. She shrugged at the parrot.
“Watch!” Carlos hissed, then pulled a bit of mortar out from between two bricks with his strong curved beak and, with a deft little flick, threw it into the toilet.
“Whoosh! All gone,” he said gleefully.
Dog looked at the bricks more closely. The mortar that held them in place was missing from an area about the size of a small door. One push, and that bit of wall would collapse. Dog was astonished. This was what Carlos had been doing every morning, not huge poos at all!
“Escape!” whispered the bird. “Escape!”
Dog wished that Esme was with her now, this minute, and that they could crash through the wall and get away together. But Esme was in her cage and Uncle was banging angrily on the WC door.
“Get that bird out here, you useless mongrel,” he shouted.
The parrot flapped calmly onto Dog’s shoulder. “Escape,” he said again, very quietly, “later!”
Dog’s heart beat wildly, with fear and excitement. If Esme was going to “escape” too, then there wasn’t very much “later” left.