Chapter 12

INSIDE THE WAREHOUSE was a market, with stalls stretching out for as far as Dog could see – hundreds of them, selling every kind of fruit and vegetable. Dog, with Esme and Carlos perched on her shoulders, stepped through the narrow doorway and found herself at the shadowy back of one of these stalls, much to the surprise of the lady stallholder, who almost fell off her chair.

“Eady!” said Carlos loudly. “Eady!” And fluttered his wings at her.

“Oh my Lord!” said the lady, and her round face got even rounder. “We haven’t seen you in a long time!” For a moment Dog was confused: nobody apart from Uncle and the people in the shop had ever seen her; then she realized that this Eady woman was talking to Carlos.

“George, George!” Eady called to the man packing oranges into a box at the front of the stall. “Look who’s come to see us!”

George, who was tall as well as round, ducked under the awning and broke into a huge grin at the sight of the parrot. “Well, I’ll be—”

Before George had the chance to say any more, Carlos had flown onto his shoulder, squawking and flapping excitedly, exclaiming, “George, George, George!”

George reached up and scratched the bird on the back of his neck, just the way Dog did. Dog felt a little hurt that Carlos was greeting these strangers so warmly.

“I’m sure we’re very glad to see you too, Carlos, old boy,” George laughed. “Very glad indeed.”

Dog hung back, uncertain how to behave and afraid that she and Esme would be forgotten now that Carlos was with his old friends. She buried her nose in Esme’s fur and wished they could just go somewhere on their own.

But George and Eady were far too hospitable to ignore any guest in their stall.

“I think you’d better introduce us to your new mates, Carlos!” said George.

The parrot shuffled down George’s arm and hopped deftly onto the back of Eady’s chair. He inclined his head first to Esme, then to Dog. “Esme,” he said, and then, “Dog.”

“Dog?” said Eady and George together, and Carlos spoke in Uncle’s voice:

“Lazy, good-for-nothing Dog!”

Hearing Uncle’s voice, Esme put a paw over her eyes, and Dog shuddered. George and Eady exchanged a long look and a nod.

“Right!” said George, bending down to speak quietly to Dog. “We get the picture, love. Carlos is good at givin’ the picture, i’n’t you, boy?”

Eady looked carefully into Dog’s worried face. “Don’t you fret,” she said. “You’re safe as houses here. We’ll shut the stall up directly, then we’ll have something to eat, eh? Your little mate there looks like she might be partial to grapes.”

Esme took her paw away from her eyes and wiffled her nose hopefully in Eady’s direction; Esme didn’t have much of a vocabulary but she knew what “grapes” meant.

Dog huddled on a stool near the door, with Esme popping grapes on the floor beneath her, while Eady and George pulled down the shutters. Soon they were enclosed in a cosy little world of fruit and veg, singing kettles and rattling tin cups. Dog had no idea how to behave with humans. Even being looked at was strange and rather uncomfortable at first. She took food when it was offered to her, hardly daring to look up, but George and Eady didn’t seem to mind. They chatted to each other as if Dog, Esme and Carlos were the sort of guests they entertained every day of the week.

While Dog ate her tenth slice of bread and butter (something she’d never eaten before and was finding particularly delicious), Eady fussed around her with clothes pulled from an old case at the back of the shop.

“Here we are,” she said with satisfaction. “That’s what you need to keep the cold out, my girl.”

Dog knew about doing what she was told, so she let Eady manoeuvre her into a pair of trousers and a jersey. Both were far too big, but Eady soon had the sleeves and legs of both garments neatly rolled up to fit.

“Wish I had something better than this for your little tootsies,” she said as she helped Dog into a pair of red wellies.

Dog had never worn anything but an old sack before, so her new outfit felt strange. She liked the trousers and the jersey – they were both soft and fluffy inside; it was as if she had fur like Esme, she thought happily. But she wasn’t sure about the wellies. It was hard to move if you couldn’t feel the ground. Dog shuffled back to her stool by the door, and pulled her knees up to her chin.

George wrapped his big hands around a third mug of hot sweet tea and gave a deep sigh. “What are your plans then?” he asked.

There seemed to be a lull in the conversation. Eady poured tea, Esme munched more grapes and Carlos cracked another Brazil nut. George asked his question again, and Dog suddenly realized that he was looking at her. She peeped up at him from under the dark mat of her fringe. George’s eyes were resting on her, light and warm, the way sunlight used to rest on her skin, shining like a blessing through the old pet-shop window. Never before had Dog been asked a question that she wanted to reply to. She felt in her throat for her voice, like someone reaching into a dark cupboard that has been shut for a long time. But she couldn’t find it.

Carlos swallowed a piece of nut and spoke up for her. “Home,” he said.

“Home?” said George and Eady together.

Carlos flapped from the back of a chair to land on Dog’s shoulder. He tidied up a stray bit of her hair with his beak, then said again, more firmly, “Home.”

“Which home, Carlos?” asked George quietly. “You’ve had few of those over the years. And which of them would do for your new friends?”

“George is right, you know,” Eady chipped in, wagging her finger at the parrot now. “Which of your old homes would do for a little girl like Dog here? Doctor Alavarez? Mad as a hatter, and dead this long while besides. Madame Boursini’s? You couldn’t stand all that crystal-ball and Ouija-board nonsense yourself. What d’you think a child would make of it? And as for Miss Waspie! Well, you know perfectly well she isn’t a trapeze artist. You can’t take a child to any of those places.”

Eady rolled her eyes in disapproval, but Dog was fascinated; she had no idea what a hatter was, or a Ouija board or a trapeze artist, but they sounded exciting. What a life this bird had lived!

“Seems to me,” said George, “that you’ve got responsibilities now.”

Carlos ruffled his feathers so they stood out like a pile of raked leaves and brushed Dog’s cheek. He shut his eyes. There was a moment of awkward silence, then Carlos’s eyes snapped open and his feathers grew sleek; Eady and George smiled at each other and then at Carlos.

“You’ve got an idea, haven’t you, you crafty bird?” Eady laughed.

Carlos tipped his head to one side. “Marmalade,” he said. “Old Marmalade.”

“Well,” said George, “that’s going back a few years.”

“Do you still know where to find her, Carlos?” Eady asked.

But Carlos had no time to answer, because there was a sudden loud hammering on the closed metal blinds at the front of the stall.

“Open up, open up. Police!”

Dog leaped to her feet, sure that Uncle himself was outside waiting to catch her. In a second, Esme was in her arms, and Carlos flapping at the door, calling, “Out! Out! Out!”

George and Eady exchanged one of their deep looks.

“No time to get to the bottom of this, is there?” Eady said.

“No,” said George, and reached for the lock. “Take care of yourself, Carlos. I know you’ll take care of your friends. Don’t forget we’re always here to help!”

George pushed the door open, and the three companions rushed out into the frosty air.