The Wind on the Moon (10 page)

‘Do they never let you out of your cages?' asked Dinah.

‘Never,' said the Puma. ‘They don't trust us.'

The Falcon stood tiptoe on his rocky pinnacle and slowly stretched his lovely wings, as if to remind himself of his power. Then, folding them again, he looked at Dinah and Dorinda and said, ‘I suppose you are quite happy to be here? You cannot regret the loss of your freedom, because, having only been human children, you never knew what freedom was.'

‘Oh, I'm sure we did,' said Dinah. ‘We had to do lessons, of course, and be punctual for dinner, and go to bed at half-past seven, but in between times we had quite a lot of freedom. Hadn't we, Dorinda?'

‘Not nearly enough,' said Dorinda. ‘You remember how often Mother used to make us wash our hands, and how Miss Serendip made us wear shoes when we wanted to go barefoot. I think we had very little freedom.'

‘But we weren't locked up,' said Dinah.

‘No, we weren't locked up.'

‘So even you aren't contented with life in a zoo?' said the Puma.

‘It's interesting,' said Dinah, ‘but we don't mean to stay here.'

‘How are you going to get out?' asked the Puma.

‘We shall escape,' said Dorinda.

‘How?' demanded the Puma and the Falcon, both speaking together.

‘We haven't decided yet,' said Dinah, ‘but somehow or other we shall find a way. You said yourself that human beings were very enterprising, and Dorinda and I get more and more enterprising every day.'

‘Will you help us to escape?' asked the Falcon.

‘Of course we shall,' said Dorinda.

‘O great and glorious Kangaroos!' cried the Falcon, stretching his wings again as if tasting already the joy of flight. ‘You promise that? Ah, Greenland, Greenland! I shall see the snow again, and the pack-ice melting in the green, and the Arctic Sea. Do you hear that, Puma? We shall be free!'

‘Yes, I hear,' said the Puma. ‘But it is more difficult for me. You can fly to Greenland, but I cannot run to Brazil.'

‘There's a very large and beautiful forest not far from here,' said Dinah. ‘It's called the Forest of Weal. Couldn't you live there?'

‘Of course she could,' said the Falcon.

‘Is it a real forest?' asked the Puma.

‘Indeed it is,' said Dinah.

‘Miles and miles and miles of it,' said Dorinda. ‘You could easily get lost in it.'

‘And if I did,' asked the Puma, ‘would you come and look for me?'

‘We should love to!' cried Dinah and Dorinda.

Just then they heard Mr. Plum ringing a large bell, which was the signal for the animals to go back to their cages, so Dinah and Dorinda said good-bye, and presently, when they were alone together, Dinah said thoughtfully, ‘We seem to be in the very thick of exciting events. I never thought that life in a zoo would be so thrilling.'

‘We've certainly got plenty to do,' said Dorinda, ‘what with helping Mr. Parker to find the missing ostrich eggs, and arranging the escape of the Golden Puma and the Silver Falcon.'

‘We've got to arrange our own escape first,' said Dinah, ‘and I don't see how we are going to do that unless we can find the bottle I lost and drink what's left of the magic draught.'

‘Do you think Mr. Parker could find it? He is a detective.'

‘I wasn't thinking about Mr. Parker. I was thinking about the Silver Falcon. Do you remember his saying that in Greenland he could see a hundred miles on either side, and from a mile in the air he could aim at a ptarmigan almost on the ground? He must have marvellous eyes.'

‘You mean that if we could let him out of his cage, he might fly round and round, looking for the bottle, everywhere between here and Midmeddle-cum?'

‘Well, I must have dropped it somewhere,' said Dinah.

For a little while they sat without speaking, thinking of the tasks that awaited them, and of the difficult situation they were in. They had had a pleasant day, talking to the Falcon and the Puma, and helping Mr. Parker, and to both of them it seemed that being a kangaroo was quite a good sort of life so long as there was plenty to do. But merely to be a kangaroo in a cage, without books or a paintbox or a jigsaw puzzle, with nothing in the way of amusement but sitting and thinking, would be a very dreary existence indeed. They looked at each other, and each saw the same doubt and worry in the other's eyes.

Presently they heard, from the house next door where Mr. Parker lived, a noise like someone tearing linen sheets—
rrip, rrip, rrip
—and at the end of every three
rrips
there was a piercing whistle. Mr. Parker had fallen asleep in an uncomfortable position and was snoring loudly.

‘Shadowing Sir Bobadil must have made him very tired,' said Dinah.

‘We shall never get to sleep if he goes on like that,' said Dorinda.

The noise grew louder and louder, and then, with a tremendous whistle like a train going into a tunnel, Mr. Parker woke himself up. They could hear him tumbling and turning and rising clumsily to his feet. Then came a little cough, twice repeated.

‘He wants us to go and talk to him,' said Dinah.

‘Perhaps he's got a clue,' said Dorinda.

They went out, and there in the darkness was Mr. Parker's head leaning over the railing of his outer cage, and the small light of a star was reflected in his large and melancholy eyes.

‘Got your note-book?' he whispered.

‘Here it is,' answered Dinah.

‘Then take down a few items, will you? I'll dictate them quite slowly, and be careful, because every word is important.'

It was rather difficult to write in the dark, but Dinah did her best, and this is what Mr. Parker dictated:

At 2.30
p.m
. on 13th inst. began to shadow Sir Bobadil the Ostrich, whom I suspect of being the criminal. Shadowing successful. Didn't lose sight of him once.—
Query:
Did he know I was following him?
Answer:
Don't think so, because I was walking very quietly.—He proceeded to river, where there is sandy ground, and stopped. He stood as if thinking about something. Then quite suddenly he buried his head in the sand. I watched him intently, but he made no other movement. I sat down and waited. I waited for a long time. Nothing happened. Then I got hungry so I came home. When last seen Sir Bobadil was still there with his head in the sand. Had something to eat and thought about case.—
Query:
Was I baffled?
Answer:
Yes.—Thought harder and fell asleep. But when I woke up, everything was clear!!! Sir Bobadil is the criminal, as I suspected. He stole his wife's eggs and buried them. This afternoon (13th inst.) he meant to dig them up again. But he dug in the wrong place, hit his head on a rock, and stunned himself! That is why he stood so still.
N.B.
—This is only a theory, and will have to be proved before it becomes evidence.

‘I should think so, indeed,' said Dinah. ‘Don't you know that ostriches always bury their heads in the sand when they want to hide themselves?'

‘And how does that help?' asked Mr. Parker.

‘It doesn't,' said Dinah, ‘but they think it does.'

‘How do you know what they think?'

‘Because Miss Serendip told us so.'

‘And who is Miss Serendip?'

‘She's our governess,' said Dorinda gloomily, ‘and she knows everything.'

‘Does she know the whereabouts of the Missing Eggs?' asked Mr. Parker.

‘Of course she doesn't,' said Dinah. ‘How could she?'

‘Then she doesn't know everything,' said Mr. Parker sharply. ‘And if she doesn't know everything, we can't be sure that she knows anything. And if she doesn't know anything, she doesn't know what ostriches think. And you know less, because you only know what she tells you. That's called Logic, and it proves that what you said isn't evidence. And if a thing is not evidence, I'm not interested. N
ot interested
, do you hear?'

And Mr. Parker, whose voice had become louder and louder, went stamping into his house in such a temper that he forgot how tall he was, and once again hit his head on the lintel.

‘Who did that?' he cried.

‘You did!' said Dinah and Dorinda, and Mr. Parker, though extremely suspicious, couldn't prove they were wrong, and went to bed in a very bad mood.

Presently Dinah said, ‘I don't think he's a very good detective.'

‘He can't have had much practice since he became a giraffe, of course.'

Leaning close to Dorinda, Dinah whispered, ‘If I were a detective, I would watch Bendigo. He stole
The Times
from Sir Lankester, and therefore he's a thief. And if he's a thief, it's quite likely that he stole the eggs.'

‘Is that what Mr. Parker would call Logic?' asked Dorinda.

‘I think so,' said Dinah. ‘Anyway, if there's a light in Bendigo's house to-night, we ought to take turns to watch, and learn as much as we can about him.'

Dorinda agreed, and though they found it difficult not to fall asleep, they waited hopefully for a long time. After about an hour, Dorinda began to nod and doze, and to dream she was at home again, and Miss Serendip was talking over the breakfast-table about ostriches and ostrich feathers and ostrich farms. Then Dinah gave her a gentle pinch, and she woke up.

‘Look!' whispered Dinah.

It was so dark that the shape of their room was quite invisible, but in the darkness on one side there was a little patch of light like a glow-worm; Bendigo had lit his candle, and very faintly it was shining through the chink in their wall.

‘I'll watch first and you sleep,' whispered Dinah. ‘Then, when I'm sleepy, I'll wake you and it will be your turn.'

‘All right,' Dorinda answered, and in two minutes she was dreaming again about Miss Serendip. But Dinah, making no noise when she moved, was peeping through the hole in the wall.

Bendigo's candle was burning on the edge of his feeding-trough, and Bendigo was feeling and fumbling under the heap of straw that was his bed. The copy of
The Times
which he pulled out was by now rather dirty and crumpled, but with a grunt of satisfaction he made himself comfortable in a corner and began to read.

He was really behaving in quite a human way, thought Dinah. He didn't look like a bear pretending to be a man, but like a man who had become a bear without forgetting all the things that men like to do. ‘And that, I suppose,' said Dinah to herself, ‘is the real truth of the matter. Well, I never knew that human beings could be turned into animals so easily. But it makes life much more interesting, of course.'

Bendigo went on reading
The Times
. Then he turned to another page, looked up and down the columns, and began to grumble. He looked at the front page, and the back page, and all the inside pages, and grew more and more impatient. He was muttering to himself, and by listening very hard Dinah could hear most of what he said.

‘I've read that before,' Bendigo grumbled. ‘I've read that, and that, and that. And that and that. And the whole thing's a day old, anyway. What's the use of a paper that's a day old? Confound that man Lemon! Why didn't he have a
Times
in his pocket when he came round this morning? It's a nuisance not getting your paper every day. If I get one a week I'm lucky nowadays. Oh, I'm tired of being a bear!'

Bendigo folded
The Times
, which had become very untidy, and sat puffing and grunting. Then he began to mutter again: ‘Well, I'd better go out and get rid of it. Can't leave it lying about. Got to get rid of it in the usual way. Thank goodness it's a fine night.'

He suddenly turned his head and blew out the candle. Then Dinah could see nothing, but she heard him moving around. She heard him leaving his house and going into the cage in front of it. She followed his example, moving very quietly, and in the darkness she could see his great shadowy bulk at the door of the cage. He was stooping down. She heard a click. The door opened, and Bendigo walked out!