Chapter 10

BY THE TIME the man with the sharp voice arrived, the shop was full of visitors. A class of school children and their teachers were standing around “Polly”, and Uncle was trying to sell them nasty cheap sweets and fizzy drinks. The man had to speak quite loudly to make himself heard over the squeals and giggles of the children.

“I said I wanted it all packed up and ready!” He sounded even sharper than before.

“I’m just about to do it!” said Uncle. “Just had a few little delays this morning.”

The truth was, Uncle was rather afraid that Esme would bite him, now that she understood what was happening.

“Hurry up!” said the man. “I haven’t got all day!”

Dog trembled behind the door of the storeroom. In a moment it would be too late, and Esme would be gone for ever. She didn’t know what she was going to do, but she had to do something. If Esme was gone, then it wouldn’t matter if she too was taken in a black, black box; it wouldn’t matter what Uncle did to her.

So Dog stepped out of the storeroom and into the shop, where the visitors could see her.

Everything went quiet as all eyes turned to look at her. Dog had no idea how she appeared to other people: a tiny, barefoot, starved-looking child, obviously bruised and battered, and dressed in an old sack, with hair and skin that had never been washed.

The sharp man, who was very clean and fastidiously neat, was shocked. “What is that?” he said, stepping back towards the door and clutching his wad of notes close to his chest.

Uncle laughed nervously, and began to go very, very red. “Get back in the storeroom, there’s a good Dog!” he said, trying to sound nice and managing to sound nastier than ever.

Dog was terrified by the sight of so many staring faces, and by the horrible, familiar threat in Uncle’s voice. But she wasn’t going to turn back now. She thought of the wall, just waiting to be broken, and shook her head.

Uncle was turning almost purple with rage. “Dog, I told you to get back!”

Again, Dog shook her head. With her hands shaking and her knees knocking, she went to Esme’s cage and opened the door. In a second Esme was wrapped around her shoulders, hugging her like a live shawl.

“You call your child Dog?” asked the bossiest-looking teacher.

“No, no, no,” said Uncle, trying to fake a laugh but sounding as if he was choking. “Just a nickname …” he blustered. “She’s nothing to do with me anyway. She’s a deaf-mute, poor little thing. Lives next door. Nothing to do with me, really—”

But Uncle’s voice interrupted the real Uncle.

“Dog, Dog!” said the parrot, in perfect imitation of the horrible way Uncle had spoken to Dog every day of her life. “Get out here!” The voice was so full of cruelty and malice that all the children and teachers gasped in horror.

“Stop your snivelling,” snarled Uncle’s voice, “you lazy, useless, good-for-nothing mongrel. Get to work!” Then Carlos imitated the unmistakable sound of a slap.

Everyone looked from the parrot to Uncle. They all knew that the parrot was the most honest of witnesses; a bird, after all, couldn’t really speak, only repeat exactly what it had heard. Hadn’t they all been watching it do just that before this little waif had appeared in the room?

Carlos snipped through the leather thongs that tied his feet to the perch, and in two flaps was sitting on Dog’s outstretched arm. All the while he kept on talking in Uncle’s voice, saying all the things that Uncle had said behind the closed doors of the pet shop.

“And you’d better hide in that storeroom,” Carlos said, “because if anyone – anyone at all – sees you, you’ll be taken away in a black, black box and that will be the end of you!”

Some of the younger children began to cry.

Uncle’s words fell all around him like bars as, stony-faced and silent, the children, the teachers and even the pointy, sharp-voiced man, closed in on him.

“Now!” rasped the parrot in its own voice.

Dog knew just what to do. With Esme holding on tight and Carlos flapping behind her, she sped through the door she knew said CUSTOMER WC on it and leaned on the weakened wall with all her might. The bricks collapsed with a crash as Dog, Esme and Carlos rushed out into the wide world.