Chapter 13

THE STREET ON the other side of the little iron door was empty, but Dog heard the wail of sirens arching over the top of the warehouse, like Uncle’s fingers reaching out to grab her. She ran, a little awkward in her new wellies, dodging the bin bags and trolleys, while Carlos flew on ahead. She fixed her eyes on him and tried to push away the feeling that Uncle was waiting at every corner with the black, black box in his hand, its lid gaping wide to swallow them all.

Once again Carlos flew down the quietest back streets. There were few people, and the only cars seemed to be parked; the three companions ducked behind them, trying to creep unnoticed past the old ladies and pram-pushing dads that they met.

Dog had never run so much in all her life. Just when she thought she couldn’t keep going for another second, Carlos stopped and landed on some tall iron railings.

He looked around, as if reminding himself of something, then rasped one word at Dog – “Wait!” – before flapping off over the railings into the garden beyond, where Dog and Esme could not follow.

For a moment Dog was too out of breath to worry about where Carlos had gone. She sank down, her chest still heaving, and peeled Esme from her aching shoulders.

They were in a wide road with rather grand houses on either side. Cars whizzed by in the distance where their road ran into another, but otherwise it was quiet, which meant they had outrun the sirens.

Dog got her breath back but still Carlos did not return. Every second he stayed away seemed longer and longer, and Dog grew anxious.

Then a large blue car with black windows pulled round the bend in the road and came towards them. To Dog’s horror, it slowed, then stopped right beside them. Dog was rooted to the spot with fear, sure that Uncle was about to climb out of it.

If she could scream now, Dog thought, Carlos would come and save them, but her throat was tight and dry with silence.

With a sinister, expensive buzz, the driver’s window slid down and a face looked out of the car. It wasn’t Uncle! It was a woman with shiny, whipped-up hair, her mouth pink as a mouse’s nose. Her eyelids were green like a lizard’s and her tongue darted slyly from between her teeth.

“You’re that child, aren’t you?” she said. “The one from the pet shop? It was all over the lunch-time news.”

The woman smiled a dazzling kind of smile, but her eyes looked at Dog just as a lizard looks at crickets the moment before it eats them. “I think,” she said, still smiling like a reptile, “you should come with me!”

Dog held Esme close and wondered how far she could run before Lizard Woman would catch them.

“Hhhhherrrr!” The most horrible wheezing noise came from the railings behind her. “Hhhhherrrr! Hhhhherrrr!” The sound was very loud and close now; Dog didn’t dare look round and see what was causing it. She felt caught between the wheezing and the smile, like a flea between two teeth.

There was a screeching sound of very unhappy metal, and a gate opened in the railings right beside Dog and Esme. Through it came a tall, orange gas canister on rickety wheels, with Carlos perched, wobbling slightly, on top. A small, very ancient lady in a green velvet coat was pushing the gas bottle, to which she was connected by a long tube that ran from it into each of her nostrils. She was as wrinkled as crumpled newspaper, with hair as orange as the canister, standing up from her head like a flame-coloured exclamation mark.

“Hhhhhherrrrrr!” she wheezed, breathing through the long tube to her nose. When she’d taken a truly enormous breath, she spoke to Lizard Woman.

“Juliette,” she said in a quiet, raspy voice, “these are guests of mine, so there is no need for you to mention this to anyone, is there?”

Lizard Woman’s smile had disappeared, and had been replaced by a vague frown, as if her face had been caught in a fog.

“And it might be rather good,” the old lady continued, “if you just had a little snooze in your car, right now.”

Her voice was papery and soft; it reminded Dog of dreaming, of being very cosy and falling asleep. It obviously reminded Lizard Woman of the same things because she had dropped her head to her steering wheel and was snoring gently.

“Hypnotism!” commented Carlos as he made a short glide to land on Dog’s shoulder and gently nibbled on her hair.

“Quite so, Carlos,” said the red-headed lady, smiling at the bird. “Still an awfully useful skill.”

Carlos flapped his wings and blew Dog’s hair about in the draught. “Marmalade!” he exclaimed. “Marmalade!”

“Of course!” wheezed the red-haired lady. “I haven’t introduced myself to your friends. I am Marmalade Zee, an old friend of Carlos. Now let’s get inside before my nosy neighbour wakes up.”

And with that, and another huge, wheezing gasp, she shuffled back through the gate, with her canister clanking and wobbling beside her, and a small girl, a parrot and a coati following behind.