Free The Wind on the Moon by Eric Linklater

detective do? Nothing at all!’
    â€˜If you please,’ exclaimed Dinah, ‘I’ve got a note-book, and if you really want it, I’ll be glad to lend it to you.’
    Mr. Parker was almost frightened out of his skin. He had not known that anyone was listening to him, and to hear a strange kangaroo making so curious an offer was quite unnerving. In a single bound he leapt into his house, and though the door was ten feet high, he knocked his head on the lintel, and at once began to shout, ‘Oh, oh, somebody hit me! I’m sure somebody hit me!’
    Half a minute later, very cautiously, he poked out his long neck and asked, ‘Was it you who hit me?’
    â€˜Of course we didn’t,’ said Dinah.
    â€˜Then who did?’
    â€˜You hit yourself,’ said Dorinda.
    â€˜My mother often told me that I didn’t know my own strength,’ said Mr. Parker sadly, and bending his head very low, he rubbed the sore place with his right hind hoof. Then abruptly he demanded: ‘Who are you?’
    â€˜My name is Dinah Palfrey, and this is my sister Dorinda.’
    â€˜Then you are in disguise,’ said Mr. Parker.
    â€˜I suppose we are,’ said Dinah.
    â€˜Why?’ asked Mr. Parker.
    â€˜It’s rather hard to explain,’ said Dinah.
    â€˜A very suspicious circumstance,’ said Mr. Parker. ‘Very suspicious indeed. Are you fond of eggs?’
    â€˜Not ostrich eggs.’
    â€˜I wonder,’ said Mr. Parker. ‘I wonder very much indeed. I wonder, I wonder, I wonder!’
    And suddenly withdrawing his head, he shut his door with a bang.

Chapter Nine
    The morning was quiet. Dinah and Dorinda sat in their cage and nobody spoke to them till Sir Lankester came and said good-morning. ‘We are going to let you out in the park this afternoon,’ he said, ‘and I hope you will enjoy yourselves.’
    Mr. Parker walked up and down, and often looked at them with a very suspicious eye, but he said nothing, and they didn’t like to speak to him unless he spoke first. Bendigo slept in the sun.
    But in the afternoon, just before the animals were let out to play and take their exercise, Mr. Parker put his head over the bars of his cage and whispered to Dinah, ‘Bring your note-book!’
    Then Mr. Plum came round, opening doors, and said to Dinah and Dorinda, ‘Now see and behave yourselves, and if so you’ll have a good time like the others.’
    So they went out in a very quiet and modest way, though they were both excited by the thought of a little freedom and the prospect of meeting so many strange animals.
    Mr. Parker was waiting for them. ‘Follow me,’ he muttered, and led the way to some willow-trees that grew beside the river. No other animals were near them there.
    Mr. Parker looked at them very sternly and said, ‘Tell me why you are disguised as kangaroos.’
    So Dinah told him about Mrs. Grimble and the magic draught, but Mr. Parker interrupted her and said, ‘I don’t believe in magic.’
    â€˜Then how did we become kangaroos?’ asked Dorinda.
    â€˜A baffling question,’ said Mr. Parker. ‘Very baffling indeed. I have often wondered how I became a giraffe.’
    â€˜Weren’t you a giraffe when you were born?’ asked Dinah.
    â€˜Indeed I wasn’t,’ said Mr. Parker indignantly. ‘I was one of the most beautiful babies in England. I took first prize at a Baby Show! Then I grew up and became a detective. I was one of the best detectives in the world. I used to capture murderers by the dozen, forgers by the score, and hundreds of burglars. But one day when I was trying to look over a very high wall—craning up and up, stretching my legs and stretching my neck—a strange thing happened. Suddenly I found that I could see over it quite easily. I had become enormously tall! And there, on the other side of the wall, there was a burglar burying a lot of silver