Free Carbonel and Calidor by Barbara Sleigh Page B

‘That shed at the bottom of the garden!’ John and Rosemary exchanged anxious glances. ‘I went down there before getting breakfast, to see if that big old enamel bowl was there — for the biscuit mixture for the Sale. As soon as I opened the door they came pouring out. Hundreds of them! They nearly knocked me over. They went streaming up the garden in a sort of huddle. The queerest-looking rats you ever saw! Square they were, with great shining eyes, and not a tail amongst ’em. And squeaking! You never heard the like!’
    â€˜How extraordinary!’ said Uncle Zack. ‘What did you do?’
    â€˜I came over quite queer,’ replied Mrs Bodkin. ‘So I sat down on that broken old wheelbarrow, till I felt a bit better.’
    â€˜I’m very sorry you’ve had such a shock,’ said Uncle Zack. ‘Perhaps you’d better go and lie down for a little.’ Then he turned to John and Rosemary. ‘Come on, you youngsters. We’d better go and look into this straight away.’
    And leaving Mrs Bodkin protesting at the untouched scrambled egg cooling on their plates, they hurried away down the garden.
    The door of the shed was open, and swinging on its hinges. John and Rosemary, their curiosity overcoming their reluctance, followed close behind as Uncle Zack stooped to go inside. They looked anxiously round in silence while he poked into every corner, behind piles of empty flower-pots and rusty garden tools.
    â€˜Not a trace of a rat or a rat-hole,’ he said at last.
    Nor a Scrabble either! thought both John and Rosemary. They grinned at each other with relief.
    â€˜Curious,’ went on Uncle Zack. ‘Mrs Bodkin is a sensible woman. She can’t have imagined it; though she may have exaggerated the number of them, of course. “Squarish and not a tail between them”?’ He laughed. ‘A new kind of rat, perhaps? Sprules will be interested when I tell him.’
    â€˜Then we can’t have un-wished the Scrabbles after all,’ said John gloomily, when they had finished their breakfast of stone-cold scrambled egg and leathery toast, and Uncle Zack had gone off to the little room he called his office. ‘If it is a wishing ring, why didn’t it work this time?’
    â€˜P’raps I didn’t do the wishing properly,’ said Rosemary. ‘Or more likely it won’t unwish its own wishes.’
    â€˜Well, let’s hope when Mother Boddles saw them scuttle off up the garden they were making for their holes,’ said John, with more confidence than he really felt. They went and hung over the gate in front of the house and looked up and down the road. There was nothing to be seen of the Scrabbles. ‘What are you staring at?’ said John.
    â€˜I was watching that little cat limping along on the other side of the road,’ said Rosemary.

9. Dumpsie
    R OSEMARY crossed to where, in the shadow of the hedge opposite, a small, draggled-looking tabby cat, not much bigger than a kitten, was stumbling on three paws over the rough grass. The fourth paw it seemed unable to put to the ground. It shrank back when she came near and, with flattened ears, spat half-heartedly, as she bent over it.
    â€˜It’s all right, Puss,’ said Rosemary gently. ‘I’m not going to hurt you.’ She knelt on the grass, and with two careful fingers stroked the silky top of its head. ‘It looks as if its paw is cut quite badly,’ she went on to John, who had joined her. ‘I wonder how it happened? Let’s get out the Golden Gew-Gaw and find out.’ Under her stroking fingers Rosemary felt the little animal’s tense body begin to relax.
    â€˜Where do you come from, Puss?’ she asked, when she and John had both crooked little fingers through the ring.
    â€˜We’re Hearing Humans,’ added John, ‘so you can tell us.’
    â€˜I don’t care a whisker who you be!’ said the