The Bagthorpe Saga: Absolute Zero. Helen Cresswell

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СКАЧАТЬ one obvious method Jack could use for getting through to Zero. He had been keeping it as a last resort, because the only other occasion he had used it was one of his most painful memories. It was the most embarrassing moment of his life. Jack had been trying to get through to Zero how to fetch sticks, and in the end had himself dropped down on all fours, crawled after the stick and picked it up in his own teeth. Mr Bagthorpe had caught him in the act. It had been terrible. The only thing was, it had worked.

      And it could work again now, he thought. In fact, it’s probably the only way.

      Unfortunately the thing was not so simple as it seemed. He would need, he realised, an accomplice. Someone would have to hold up a biscuit for Jack to sit up and Beg for. It would, he was convinced, be no use his holding up a biscuit for himself. This would only confuse Zero more than ever.

      Jack slumped back into the grass.

      That’s it, then, he thought. He knew for a fact that none of his family was going to hold up a biscuit for Jack to Beg for. He also knew that he would never ask them. They were all genii, and he was ordinary. To ask them to hold up biscuits would be to invite the fate of being sub-ordinary. He half shut his eyes and squinted through the long, seeding grass and saw the light running like wires. He heard Zero’s steady panting by his ear, and was content. It was a shock to hear Uncle Parker’s voice.

      “Hallo, there. Having a kip?”

      Jack shot up and shaded his eyes against the low autumn sun to stare up at his uncle, six foot four above ground level, and looking amused in the friendly way he had. Jack and Uncle Parker were old conspirators. They understood one another.

      “Not kipping,” Jack told him. “Just having a bit of a think.”

      “Ah.” Uncle Parker sat down himself and pulled a grass to chew.

      Jack explained the problem.

      “Well,” said Uncle Parker when he had finished, “here’s your third party.”

      “You? Would you?”

      “No trouble. Nothing much to holding up biscuits. Got some handy?”

      Jack indicated the bag containing the remainder.

      “There’s just one thing you might do for me,” Uncle Parker said.

      “What?”

      “Go to the Bingo place with Grandma and Fozzy. I’ll give you a sub. Can’t let that pair loose on their own.”

      Jack saw his point. He knew that Grandma was going to cheat, and that when she was found out she would need protecting. Mrs Fosdyke was not the protecting type. She would probably scuttle, like a rat off a sinking ship the minute the police arrived. (Jack, like Mr Bagthorpe, felt sure that the kind of cheating Grandma would go in for would eventually involve the police.)

      “I’ll do it,” he said. “I’ll go. Might even win.”

      “Could easily,” agreed Uncle Parker. “Pure chance. No skill. No offence.”

      “Come on, then,” Jack said. “Let’s start the training. Here.”

      He handed up the bag of biscuits. He himself then crouched on all fours beside Zero, who was dozing.

      “Hey, Zero!”

      Zero opened his eyes and his ears pricked up slightly.

      “Now – watch me!”

      Zero yawned hugely and moved to a sitting position. He looked dazed.

      “Now,” whispered Jack to Uncle Parker, “you say ‘Up!’ and I’ll sit up and Beg. If I do it and he doesn’t, you say ‘Good boy!’ and pat my head, and give me the biscuit.”

      Uncle Parker nodded. He delved in the bag and came up with a chocolate digestive which he broke in half.

      “Right.”

      He held the biscuit aloft halfway between Jack and Zero.

      “Up. Sit up. Beg. Good boy – boys, rather.”

      Jack accordingly crouched on his legs and held his hands drooping forward in imitation of front paws.

      “Good boy!” exclaimed Uncle Parker. He patted Jack on the head and held out the biscuit. Jack opened his mouth and Uncle Parker pushed the half digestive into it. It nearly choked him. He looked sideways to see that Zero was looking distinctly interested. For one thing, his eyes were fixed soulfully on the piece of biscuit still protruding from Jack’s mouth, and for another, he was doing a kind of stamping movement with his front paws alternately, like a racehorse impatient to be loosed.

      “Look!” The exclamation came out with a shower of crumbs. “Look at his paws!”

      Uncle Parker nodded.

      “We’re on the right track. All we’ve got to do now is keep on reinforcing the message. How hungry are you?”

      “Not terribly,” Jack told him. “You could break the biscuits in quarters instead of halves. They’ll last longer that way.”

      The training session continued. It was going well. Uncle Parker and Jack became increasingly pleased with themselves and increasingly entertained by Zero’s efforts to raise himself with his front paws up. He had very big, furry paws – pudding-footed, Mr Bagthorpe called him – and he did not seem to have much control over them. Once or twice he toppled over sideways within an ace of success and rolled about growling with annoyance.

      “I wish we’d got a camera,” Jack said. “I’ve never seen anything so funny.” He then added immediately, for the benefit of Zero’s ears, “And it’s jolly good the way he’s catching on. You’re nearly there, old chap. Good old boy. Good boy.”

      He was the only Bagthorpe who ever praised Zero and he had to do a lot of it to keep his confidence and his ears up.

      Had Jack known it, a camera was in the offing. It was going to be used at any moment, just as soon as Rosie could stop stuffing her fists into her mouth to keep herself from giggling out loud, and use her hands to operate the camera instead.

      Rosie was behind a hawthorn bush not six feet from where the training was taking place. The reason why she was there was because she was out to get some shots for a Competition entitled “Me and My Pet”. At first she had passed it over, because she did not have a pet. She was too busy with her maths and violin and Portraits and swimming (which were the four main Strings to her Bow) to have time for a pet. She had then, however, thought of Jack and Zero. She turned back to the Competition and discovered that what was really wanted was something unusual.

      One of the most unusual things Rosie had ever heard of (she had, to her intense annoyance, missed actually seeing it) was Jack on all fours with a stick in his mouth to show Zero how to Fetch. She had afterwards begged him to repeat the performance so that she could photograph it with her new camera. Rosie had a passion for keeping records of things so strong that it could almost have been classed as a fifth String to her Bow. She had even offered Jack her spare pocket calculator to pose like this, but he always refused point-blank.

      “You do it,” he СКАЧАТЬ