Notso Hotso - Anne Fine [4]
And I was naked. My skin looked like plucked chicken.
They broke off for a teensy-weensy discussion about where to stop.
‘Are you going to shave all the way down his tail?’
‘Yes, I’ll just leave the tufty bit at the very end.’
‘What about his head?’
Cruella Massingpole inspects my head for more of whatever it is that
has landed me in her den of shame. ‘He’s clear from the neck up. So let’s leave the head, and see how he goes.’
See how he goes? Perhaps she means, see over which cliff he throws himself. Or see how, with all the stuffing knocked out of him, he takes to his dog bed and pines to death quietly.
See how he goes, indeed! He goes exactly how you’d expect him to go.
Dead fast!
I wasn’t going to let those nosy parkers in the waiting room get an eyeful of this spring’s new fake-o-la oven-ready retriever look. No, sirree! The minute she’d finished rubbing that disgusting yellow gloop all over my poor shaven body and lifted me down from the table, I shot off.
Taking the Maniac Massingpole utterly by surprise, I spun round and dashed between her legs, and out the back way, past all her shelves of fancy He-Won’t-Even-Notice-This-Needle-Going-in-Him syringes (Dream on! We’re not all half-dead like Old Nigel), past lines of cages stuffed with scowling cats busy licking their stitches, and out the back door to the car park.
And there I waited, lurking behind a large PATRONS ONLY sign, in case anyone saw me.
Finally, out she comes, all smiles and wheedling ‘Anthony! Anthoneeee!’
She thinks I’m stupid?
I give her a growl. Unlock the car! it means. Open the door! Let me in, out of sight, quick!
‘Oh, there you are, poppet!’ She’s smiling at me. Mrs Betrayal has the nerve to smile. ‘It’s all right, darling. You’re safe now. That nasty vet lady has finished upsetting you.’
I see. She thinks my memory’s been shaved off too. Well, I don’t think so! I
seem to remember two people bending over me, pinning me down.
Working as a team.
(And don’t think this doozie’ll be hurrying back for his boosters.)
All the way home, I’m planning my next sharp move. If she thinks I’m
going to pad up the garden path with my head held high, she has another think coming. For one thing, the gossip will get round this cul-de-sac like news in a rabbit warren…
I can see it now. Straight from the headlines of The Bun:
Huge, plucked, four-legged chicken sighted in Juniper Close.
In this issue:
Are We in Danger?
And Our Science Man asks:
‘Has G.M. Meddling Gone Too Far?’
See pages 2, 3, 4, 14 & 16.
plus!
Favourite chicken-leg recipes!
Snatched photos in our special pull-out supplement.
Completely FREE!
No, thanks. I’ll nip up the side of the house under cover of the lilacs, hide in the rucksack under the bed in the spare room, and wait till I grow out.
I’m ready. Like a highly trained member of some crack army team, I have my head down but I’m poised to fly. She flaps about a bit as usual, shovelling lipsticks back in her Parfumerie under the dashboard, and picking bits of used tissue off the floor.
And then she gets out, slams her door, and comes round the back to open mine.
I didn’t mean to shove her into the lobelias. That really wasn’t part of the plan. It’s just that, as we professionals so often say:
HE WHO DARES, WINS.
And only a greyhound could have come after me. I shot down that side entrance so fast, my slipstream very nearly set fire to the dustbin. I had my eye on cornering at Formula One speeds, jamming myself out of sight between the shed and the wall, and then, when she opened the back door and
started with her pathetic greasy wheedling –
‘Anthony! Oh, Anthoneeeee!’
– hurling myself past her so fast I’d look blurry.
Who’s there to ruin the Great Plan? What’s the first thing I see as I come out of the straight?
Why, next-door’s cat, of course,
idling its life away as usual in one of the sunspots on our wall.
That’s it, I’m thinking. Doomed. The whisper will get down the street so fast that