A Girl Called Dog Read online

  As Uncle came into the shop, she crouched over the sawdust and bits of string, trying to hide the fact that she hadn’t sorted it out. But Uncle saw. He came and stood right over her. Even without looking up, Dog knew how red his face was getting.

  “I thought I told you to sort that box out,” he said. Dog answered by sweeping the sawdust even faster than before, but Uncle kicked the brush out of her hands. Dog kept very still, staring at his big, heavy feet.

  “When I tell you to do something, I expect—” But Uncle didn’t get the chance to finish, because his own voice began to call loudly from the storeroom.

  “Dog! Dog!” said the voice, exactly the way Uncle had called out last night.

  Uncle turned angrily towards the sound. “What’s going on?” he growled.

  There, waddling carefully over the floor, trailing strands of newspaper and string behind it, was the macaw. “Delivery? Delivery?” it said with Uncle’s voice. “I’ll give you delivery!”

  Dog’s heart raced with fear. There was no way to protect the bird from Uncle’s anger, and surely this would make him very, very angry indeed.

  Uncle staggered back and sat down heavily on the sacks of Pussy Poo. The parrot stood at his feet, still speaking his words, in his voice. But instead of getting angry, Uncle just stared and stared at the bird. “You,” he told it at last, “are going to make me a fortune!”

  “A fortune!” said the parrot. “A fortune!”

  Chapter 7

  WORD SPREAD ABOUT the talking parrot that could imitate any voice or any sound the first time it heard it. People came from all over the city to see it, and to hear their own voices coming out of a bird’s beak. The pet shop got more customers in a day than it used to get in a year. People were pleased to buy pets from the shop with the amazing parrot. Very soon all the mice and rats, the rabbits and budgies were sold, and Uncle was making so much money from charging people to see the parrot that he didn’t bother to get any more animals.

  At the start of every day he made Dog tie the parrot’s feet to a perch at the front of the shop so it could only move one pace to each side. Dog hated this cruel confinement. One morning she tried to give the bird a longer leash so it could move about more freely, but when Uncle spotted that, he slapped Dog hard.

  That night, when Dog undid the parrot’s feet to return it to its cage, the big macaw leaned towards her ear and whispered, in its own raspy voice, “Carlos.”

  To begin with Dog didn’t understand, but then the bird fixed her first with one bright eye and then the other.

  “Carlos,” it whispered again, and Dog knew that it – he – was introducing himself to her. She nodded at him and smiled, knowing, with a strange little turn of her heart, that Esme was no longer her only friend.

  Uncle called the parrot Polly, but now Dog knew his real name. All day long “Polly” had to sit on his perch, while strings of gawping people queued up to say stupid things and hear the parrot say them right back.

  “Pretty Polly” was the favourite, of course, and Carlos had to repeat it a hundred times a day, in a hundred different tones and accents. He mimicked other sounds too – the ring of the shop doorbell, the sound of a wrapper being taken from a chocolate bar, a baby wailing. Dog felt sure Carlos was just trying not to get too bored with the endless “Pretty Polly”s.

  Hard-worked and bored though he was, Carlos was at least well fed. Customers didn’t like to see a thin, scruffy macaw, even if it could mirror their every sound. Uncle bought exotic fruits and nuts for Dog to feed him (although a few found their way to Esme). Soon the straggly feathers and the bare skin had disappeared and the bird was covered in beautiful plumage – deep turquoise blue over its back and a golden yellow on its belly.

  Dog was glad that Carlos was beautiful again, but otherwise life grew gloomy. Uncle extended his opening hours, and with so many customers, Dog spent most of her time hidden in the storeroom. In the few moments when the shop was empty, Uncle would call her out so she could clean up the crisp packets, sweet papers and drink cans that the trail of visitors had left behind. Worst of all, during the day Esme was put in a cage, because she had nipped the finger of a little boy who had pulled her tail. All day long, Uncle amused himself by poking her with pencils or rattling the bars of her cage.

  The only time life was bearable was after Uncle had gone upstairs to bed. Then Esme could come out of her cage, and Dog would groom her thin fur. Dog groomed Carlos too, scratching the top of his head as he closed his eyes with pleasure. Then the three of them would eat whatever was left of Carlos’s rations. Dog peeled the mangoes and gave them each a slice; Carlos cracked Brazil nuts in his beak and didn’t mind sharing. Esme seemed to forget that Carlos was a bird and began to treat him more like an odd kind of coati.

  Weeks turned into months. Each night, Uncle spent longer and longer counting more and more money. He bought an extra-strong cage and made Dog lock Carlos in it as soon as the shop was closed, then give the key back to Uncle. The three friends’ cosy evenings just weren’t the same with prison bars in the way.

  Esme’s fur began to come out in handfuls and Carlos looked more and more exhausted. At night none of them seemed to have the appetite for mangoes or Brazil nuts any more. Dog did what she could for her friends, but she was just as miserable as they were.

  Chapter 8

  JUST WHEN DOG imagined that things couldn’t get any worse, worse happened. She was dozing in the storeroom, near to closing time, when she heard a customer start to bargain with Uncle.

  “I’ll give you a tenner,” he said, “for the funny-looking beast with the long nose.”

  Dog felt herself go cold.

  “I couldn’t possibly sell it,” said Uncle. “At least,” he added slyly, “not for as little as that.”

  “No?” said the man. “What’s so special about it?”

  Dog hated him already. His voice was cruel, like Uncle’s voice but thinner, sharper.

  “Just some funny-looking mongrel, innit?”

  Dog realized that Uncle was getting cross, but not too cross, because here was a chance to make more money.

  “It is a rare coatimundi,” he said, in his poshest tones, “from” – he hesitated and looked up at his map: he really wasn’t sure where Esme was from – “from the forests of Timbuktu!”

  “Oh yeah?” said the man. “I’ll give you twenty for it then.”

  Uncle gave a pretend laugh. “Lowest I could consider is a hundred.”

  The man laughed back nastily. “Thirty, tops,” he snapped.

  “Seventy-five,” Uncle snapped back, and they began to exchange prices as if they were playing ping-pong.

  “Thirty-five.”

  “Seventy.”

  “Forty.”

  “Sixty.”

  “Fifty.”

  “Fifty-five?”

  “Done.”

  Dog couldn’t believe it. In less time than it took to feed a hamster, her friend and companion had been sold!

  “Good,” said the sharp-voiced man. “Have it packed up and ready for tomorrow morning. I’ll pick it up as soon as you’re open.”

  Of course, Esme had no idea what had happened. At bedtime Dog let her out of her cage and she curled up happily in Dog’s arms, closing her eyes as she popped the ripe grapes in her teeth. She didn’t understand why Dog was crying, and she snuffled at the salty tears and sneezed them away. Dog stroked her friend’s fur until the coati was snoring contentedly. Then she lay awake trying to think of a way to stop the man taking Esme away. Somehow she felt that Carlos was trying to think of a way too. He was whispering from the darkness of his locked cage, but his voice was so worn out after a day of mimicking that it was too quiet to hear. At last Dog fell asleep, her arms around Esme.

  But Carlos was awake, rasping to himself over and over, like the creak of an open door. “Escape!” he said. “Escape!”

  Chapter 9

  DOG DIDN’T WANT the morning to come, but it did. There was nothing she could d
o 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.

  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.

  Chapter 11

  ESME AND DOG clung to each other; it was wonderful to be free, but scary too. Above the high brick walls behind the shop, the sky showed wide and blue. The sight of all that space and light made Dog feel giddy; she wanted to gaze up at it, but there was no time to stop. Loud voices were calling from the broken wall, and running footsteps began to follow them. Dog ran with Esme perched on her shoulder, following the parrot as he flew ahead of them, twisting and turning down a maze of alleyways. He didn’t hesitate for a moment and seemed to know his way as well as he knew his own feathers.

  The voices and footsteps faded into the distance far behind them, but Dog felt certain that Uncle would search for them, so she was glad that the bird kept flying. On and on, between high walls, behind tall buildings and rows of little houses, down empty streets lined with rubble. Dog glimpsed bare winter gardens; lines of washing; prams and sheds and dustbins; a world of life she’d never seen before. Once, a flock of small dark birds passed low overhead; Dog heard the thrilling rush of their wings and h
er heart sang.

  At last Carlos stopped flying, and came to rest on Dog’s shoulder. “Here!” he said, but “here” didn’t feel like much of a destination.

  They stood at the bottom of a narrow dead-end street clogged with bulging bin bags; rusting supermarket trolleys toppled in a small sea of oily puddles. In front of them was the wall of a huge warehouse, and in that wall, one tiny corrugated-iron door with a little yellow knob. There were all sorts of noises coming through the wall – voices, bangs, crashes and shouts. Dog was frightened. Where there were people, there might be Uncle out to catch her. But Carlos made the sound of a creaky door opening and it was clear he wanted them to go inside. Dog turned the knob and the door opened with just the same sound as the parrot had made.

  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.