Crack! All at once something flew past Dandelion’s head, missing her literally by a whisker. What was it? Crack! It happened again, this time almost hitting her ear. They looked towards the house and saw to their horror that Jasper was leaning out of his bedroom and pointing a gun straight at them. Crack! He was shooting at Dandelion! Terrified, she took off and raced zigzagging across the lawns, desperate to get away. ‘Attaboy, Cannibal!’ Jasper shouted as the two dogs ran after the cat. ‘Kill, Bruiser, kill!’ Panting and shocked, all the animals arrived at the high wall that enclosed Jasper’s land. In a single bound Dandelion leapt to the top of it, and sat there trembling with fear.
‘We’re sorry about this,’ the dogs thought, ‘So very sorry.’
‘I know it’s not your fault,’ Dandelion replied, ‘but I hope you’ll understand if I don’t come to visit you again. Will you come and visit me instead?’
‘But your owner doesn’t like us,’ thought Bruiser.
‘Yes, but the worst he’ll do is to shoo you away,’ the cat argued. ‘Barney would never try to shoot you. Oh please come, I’ll be so lonely if you don’t.’
‘We’ll visit you, Dandelion,’ the two dogs promised. ‘We won’t let you down.’
They kept their word the very next day, and Barney noticed them just as Wilf was wheeling in the trolley for lunch. ‘Those horrible dogs are back, they’re pestering the cat again.’
But when he moved to the window so that he could shout at them and scare them off Wilf said, ‘No, wait a minute. Look.’ Because something quite remarkable was taking place. Far from frightening or annoying the cat, they were all three quite happily playing together.
‘Well I never!’ exclaimed Barney softly as Dandelion chased her own tail, and then the two dogs, clearly copying her, began to do exactly the same thing. Round and round they spun, the little cat a black and white blur, until they collapsed together in a tangle of tails and paws and ears, and all fell fast asleep.
‘If I hadn’t seen it with my own two eyes, I’d never have believed it,’ said Wilf. ‘They’re clearly the best of friends.’
‘Boo hoo hoo! Waaugh! IwantitIwantitIwantit!’
On returning to their own house later that day, Cannibal and Bruiser heard a horrible howling noise coming from the cellar. It sounded like a very small child throwing a temper tantrum, but the voice was too loud and too deep, and they knew it meant trouble. They tried to sneak away but just as they were passing the cellar door, it flew open.
There stood Jasper. His face was purple and his eyes were bulging with rage, so that it looked as if they might pop clean out of his head at any moment and roll across the floor. ‘S’not fair!’ he screeched. ‘I wanted that one more than anything else and I didn’t get it. IwantitIwantitIwantIwantitIWANTIT!!!’ As he stopped to draw breath, he noticed Cannibal and Bruiser. ‘It’s all your fault, you stupid beasts,’ and he picked up a heavy glass paperweight from a nearby table and threw it at them. ‘I took you with me and you were worse than useless! You were supposed to help me and you didn’t!’ He looked around for something else to throw at them, but the two dogs got outside fast, and stayed hidden for the rest of that day.
Now if you own a cat or if you know someone who does, you will probably know that all cats like to hide in boxes. Dandelion, although a most delightful cat, was also quite ordinary and unexceptional in many ways. And so the following morning when she found on the lawn of Barney’s house a large empty cardboard box she did what any cat would have done: she hopped straight into it and sat there purring.
All of a sudden – Flop! Flop! Someone closed the flaps of the box over her head and the bright yellow sun disappeared. Was it Wilf? Was he teasing her? Dandelion sat quite still, waiting for him to open the box again so that she could tease him, and spring out unexpectedly like a furry jack-in-the-box. But instead of that, she heard the noise of sticky tape as the box was sealed shut and then someone picked it up and carried it off.
What on earth was happening? When the box was opened again, would she be in the surgery, face to face with that nasty vet holding an even bigger bottle of yellow pills and a red leather harness that was stronger and stouter and even more uncomfortable than the one Dandelion was already wearing? But when Wilf was taking her to the vet, he always told her so. ‘I’m sorry about this, my little friend,’ he would say as he set her gently in her travelling basket, ‘but it’s for your own good.’ Never once had he sneaked up on her and trapped her in a box, carried her off as she was now being carried off.
There was the sound of a car door opening and the box was set down so roughly that Dandelion fell over. It was pitch black and even though she could see in the dark it was no use, because there was absolutely nothing to see in the box. As the car moved off she started to wail and mew in fright.
After a short journey the car stopped. The box was picked up again and carried off. Still Dandelion had no idea where she was or what was happening, except that at last she was taken down a flight of steps. Riiiippppp! The tape was torn off and the box turned upside down. Dandelion fell out on her head. ‘Nasty little brute! That’ll teach you!’ screamed a voice. Then there was the sound of a heavy door being slammed shut and a key being turned in a lock.
The person who had captured Dandelion was clearly so unpleasant that she was happy now to be left alone. Picking herself up, she shook the dust from her fur. ‘Now let me see where I am,’ she thought, ‘and what is to be done.’
On looking around, the little cat discovered that she was in a dark, dank, cobwebby cellar. High above her was a tiny window with iron bars, and the cellar itself was cluttered and untidy. One side of it was full of big boxes, dozens of them. What was in them, Dandelion wondered, other stolen cats? She gave a little mew and listened, but there was no reply.
The other side of the cellar was full of things covered with old curtains. Curious, like all cats, she wondered what they were, and pulled one of the curtains back with her paw to have a peep. But she pulled too hard and the heavy fabric slipped and fell, revealing what was hidden.
Dandelion gasped. She rubbed her eyes with her paws and looked again. ‘Am I dreaming?’ she thought. ‘Did I fall asleep in the box in the garden and will I wake up at any moment?’ But she knew in her heart it was all real and yet still she could hardly believe what was sitting there, immense and beautiful, before her very eyes.
It was a painting. Not just any old painting: it was her favourite, the one of the fine fat silver salmon lying on a china plate. Staring at it, Dandelion didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Looking at it comforted her, reminding her of all the nights she had stood before it with her dear Barney, as they made their way peacefully through the house to the kitchen for their supper. How far off those days now seemed, and perhaps they would never come back again, now that Jasper had stolen all the paintings …
Jasper! Of course! So now she understood where she was. All these strange lumpy objects under the curtains were Barney’s paintings. It was Jasper who had kidnapped her and thrown her into the cellar of his house. She remembered the voice that had called her a ‘nasty little brute’ as he tumbled her out of the box. What would he do with her? The poor cat trembled to think, for she knew that there was no deed too dastardly for Jasper, that he was as mean as a man could be. There was one good thing in all of this, she realised; only one but it was no small point. For if she was trapped in Jasper’s house, then her two best friends couldn’t be far away. She hurried over and stood directly under the barred window so high above her head, opened her mouth as wide as she could and …
‘MEUURGHAWOOAGHHAEMAROO!’ It was a risk, she knew, but there was nothing else for it.
‘WAGHMMAAROOMEEEOOWWGH!’
‘Dandelion! Dandelion!’ Her own name popped up in her own mind like a stray thought and as her heart soared, she looked up to see two familiar snouted shadows at the barred windows. ‘Help me!’ she pleaded with them. ‘Jasper kidnapped me and locked me in here, oh please help me!’
‘What shall we do?’ asked Cannibal urgently.
‘I’m so hungry I can hardly tell you. Is there any way you could possibly find some food for me?’
‘It won’t be easy,’ cautioned Bruiser, ‘because Jasper gives us so little to eat, but we’ll find something. Don’t worry Dandelion, we’ll help you and we’ll be back as soon as we can.’
The two shadows disappeared from the window and the cat’s mind emptied of all thoughts except her own. Once again, curiosity got the better of her. If half the cellar was full of stolen paintings, then what was in the cardboard boxes? She decided to pass the time while waiting for the dogs to return by finding out.
The boxes at the very top of the heap seemed not to be firmly closed and so she set off, climbing nimbly from one carton to the next until she was at the very top of the heap. Gingerly she lifted back the open flaps with her paw, to reveal hundreds and hundreds of strange metal objects, shiny and quite small, pointed at one end and blunt at the other. What on earth were they? The cat had no idea and she turned to the next box, peeped into that too. But this time she recognised immediately the things they contained. Her fur stood all on end in fright and her eyes grew huge and round.
Guns! Dozens and dozens of long dark guns. All at once Dandelion realised that the little shiny things were bullets. Shocked and afraid, she felt very cold now. She had known that Jasper had a gun because he had tried to shoot her only yesterday, but she thought now of the other boxes beneath these two, and the boxes below that and below that again. What if they were all full of such things – guns and bullets and bombs and grenades? Dandelion scampered down the side of the cartons and hurried to the other side of the cellar, as far as possible from the wretched weapons and as close as could be to Barney’s beloved pictures.
She was sitting there with her ears down flat when – Plonk! A fish fell on her head. It was a very small fish, about the size of the last joint of Barney’s little finger, and she wolfed it down in a single gulp. Oh delicious it was, so delicious after her long hunger, so fishy and cool and fine. True, it was tiny, but look on the bright side, she thought as she licked her whiskers: it had fallen on her head and if it had been as big as the salmon in the painting, it would have knocked her out. Plonk! And another little fish fell, this time landing directly between her two paws, and again she gobbled it up. Plunk! Another! Plonk! Plunk! Plink! It was raining silver fish in the cellar now, they were falling like heavy drops of rain in the rays of the evening sun. There were so many of them and Dandelion laughed for pure pleasure as they piled up around her faster than she could eat them.
‘Whitebait. Chef’s suggestion,’ came a stray thought to her mind and she laughed again.
‘You darling dogs,’ she cried, ‘what would I ever do without you!’
Barney was surprised when Dandelion didn’t come home for her lunch, because it was her main meal of the day under the strict new regime. She was always on time and ate up every last scrap in a twinkling. ‘Where can she possibly be?’ he fretted.
‘That cat wants to teach you a lesson,’ said Wilf. ‘She’s been in a sulk ever since I took her to the vet. I bet she’s rubbed herself against someone’s ankles and charmed them into taking her home with them. Right this minute she’s probably sitting on a rug in front of a blazing fire, with children fussing over her and feeding her all kinds of tit-bits. She’ll be back here at tea time, you mark my words.’
But Wilf was wrong. The evening came and night began to fall and still there was no sign of the little cat. Barney wandered around the garden in the gathering dusk, calling her name and peering under rose bushes. ‘Puss, puss, puss! Where are you my love? Puss puss!’ But it was all in vain. The young couple who used to meet every night under the tree, to watch the lights flow in Barney’s windows and then go out again, were astonished this evening. The great house was in total darkness save for two little flames that wandered through the blackness of the garden, flickering gently, as Barney and Wilf searched by candlelight for the lost cat.
Eventually Wilf persuaded Barney to go to bed, but he was wakeful and miserable. He missed the familiar warmth and pressure of Dandelion, who always slept on top of the quilt, tucked into the crook of Barney’s folded knees. He was so lonely without her. Wilf himself had a clever plan, and he sat up all night at the kitchen table working on it. By the time dawn broke over Woodford, he had made twenty splendid posters, each one with a photograph of Dandelion glued to it.
‘LOST!’ it said at the top of each poster in big black letters and then under the photograph was written, ‘Small cat answering to the name of DANDELION. Black with white bib and socks and a white splodge over her nose. Last seen wearing a red leather harness. Much loved and much missed. If you see her, please ring Woodford 6082974.’ And then at the very bottom, again in big black letters: ‘HUGE REWARD!’
As he finished the last of the posters, Wilf rubbed his nose and hoped that they were all right. He hadn’t asked Barney about the reward, but he knew that Dandelion was far more important to him than money could ever be. Wilf wasn’t at all sure that Dandelion really would answer to her own name. He thought she was just as likely to come running if someone made soft ‘puss, puss, puss’ noises, but that was true of most cats, so it wouldn’t be helpful to put it on the poster, would it? he asked himself. But when at breakfast time he showed Barney what he had done, he was delighted.
‘What a good idea! I don’t know why I didn’t think of it myself.’
Wilf spent the morning going all over town, nailing some of the posters to trees and fastening others to lamp posts with sticky tape and string.
He asked the woman in the chocolate shop if she would put one of them in her window, where everyone could see it. ‘I will of course,’ she said. ‘Poor Mr Barrington, he must be so worried. Here, give him this box of Woodford Creams to cheer him up, and tell him I’m thinking about him.’ The baker was also very sympathetic and took a poster. The last shop Wilf called at was the butcher’s.
The Woodford butcher was a famously gloomy man. If you met him on a bright sunny day and said, ‘What lovely weather we’re having!’ he was likely to reply, ‘Yes, but I shouldn’t be surprised if it rains before long.’ If you asked him if he was keeping well, he would say something like, ‘Yes, but I hear there’s a nasty tummy bug going around that I might catch.’ When Wilf went in this morning, he was cutting pork chops, with the air of someone who had known the pig in question and had always thought it would come to a bad end. Slowly he wiped the blood from his hands onto his striped apron, and inspected the poster.
‘I’ll put one in the window if you want,’ he said, ‘but it won’t do any good. I mean, she’s a very ordinary-looking animal, isn’t she? There must be dozens of black and white cats in Woodford, so how are you going to tell which one is yours? Maybe she’s just run away. Treacherous animals, cats. Never liked ’em. Put your trust in them, and this is how they pay you back.’ He picked up his cleaver again and brought it down hard on the meat. Another chop fell away neatly. ‘If you ask me, you’ll never see her again.’
It wasn’t at all what Wilf wanted to hear, and as he trudged home he felt every bit as glum as the butcher. But there was worse to come. Barney was waiting for him at the door in a terrible state of agitation.
‘She isn’t lost, Wilf. She hasn’t simply wandered away. It’s worse than that, oh much worse! While you were out, someone put this through the letterbox.’
The sheet of paper Barney held up in his trembling hands looked very odd. Someone had cut letters from newspapers and magazines and glued them down to spell out what they wanted to say. There were capital letters in the middle of some words and lots of crazy spellings. Some of the letters were even stuck on upside down, but the message was clear enough and terrible for Barney and Wilf to see:
Unlike Barney, Dandelion had had quite a good night. Her belly full of small silver fish, she had fallen asleep curled up in an old curtain before her favourite painting. Thanks to
the dogs, she felt as much at home as it’s possible to feel when you’ve been kidnapped and locked up in a dank, cobwebby cellar. In the morning, Cannibal stole a carton of fresh cream from the doorstep immediately after the milkman had been, and pushed it along with his paw to the bars of the cellar window. He nudged it gently through, and it fell to the ground, where Dandelion quickly clawed it open and drank her fill. Bruiser pinched a string of sausages from the kitchen and lowered them down, link by link, to the cat. After she had eaten her breakfast, a thought came into her head. It was Cannibal.
‘Now what on earth are we going to do to set you free?’
‘Tell Barney,’ she replied. ‘As soon as he knows that I’m here he’ll come and get me.’
‘Easier said than done.’ This was true. Even Dandelion often found it difficult to get through to Barney, who realised she was trying to tell him something but didn’t know what it was. Thinking about it didn’t work as it did with the two dogs, and not for the first time she felt sorry that animals couldn’t simply talk.
‘If we can’t tell him, we need to find a way to show him,’ considered Bruiser.
‘What do you mean?’
‘If we could show him, say, a photograph of you with Jasper, then he’d know who had taken you away.’
‘That’s not very likely, is it?’ Cannibal replied. ‘She’s never had her picture taken with him and even if she had, how would we ever get hold of it?’
‘It was just an example.’ Bruiser sounded slightly huffy now. ‘It doesn’t have to be a photograph, it could be a drawing or better still, something belonging to Dandelion. I mean, he knows we’re Jasper’s dogs, so if we took her red leather harness and showed it to him then he’d be able to work out immediately where she is, wouldn’t he?’
Snakes' Elbows Page 9