Madame Marmalade answered the phone before the second ring, ‘Rent-A-Pet, Madame Marmalade speaking.’
‘Er, um, is that Rent-A-Pet?’ growled the man on the other end of the phone. Madame Marmalade gave an impatient snort, did no-one listen properly?
‘As I said, this is Rent-A-Pet.
‘Good, good, I need to rent a dog’
the man sounded a bit more polite now, he wouldn’t be the first to feel as if he was standing outside the Head’s door when speaking to Madame Marmalade.
‘Excellent, you’ve come to the right place, your name please?’ Madame Marmalade picked up her pen and Marigold passed her a form.
‘Er, er, Big Tony, no! I mean Mr Smith, er Brown.’ Madame Marmalade raised her eyebrows and put the phone on speaker, Marigold put down her daisy painted mug and listened carefully.
The man rushed on, ‘er, it’s Smith-Brown, yes, double barrelled don’t you know.’
‘How very nice Mr Smith-Brown and what sort of dog are you looking for?’ Madame Marmalade couldn’t have sounded sweeter, which, if you knew Madame Marmalade, would have made you very, very nervous. However Mr Smith-Brown, or Big Tony, didn’t know Madame Marmalade.
Big Tony knew the answer to the question, ‘I’m looking for a real smart one, a clever one which can fetch things, it has to be small too, no bigger than 90 cms by 45cms.’ Madame Marmalade and Marigold were rather startled by the chunky dog these measurements conjured up in their minds and Madame Marmalade adjusted her hat so that the pointy end sat up straight before she asked him the next question.
He answered that one easily, ‘Oh just the one day, I’ll only need him for one day.’
Madame Marmalade and Marigold had less than hour before Big Tony turned up at the shop to look at some likely dogs, but that was quite long enough for Madame Marmalade to come with a plan. The normally polite ping of the shop door announced the arrival of Big Tony with an ear splitting clang as he swaggered in but he stopped short when he saw Madame Marmalade. He couldn’t stop himself from blurting out, ‘Isn’t that a witches’ hat?!’ ‘What nonsense!’, exclaimed Madame Marmalade forgetting that she had meant to be sweet, ‘Pointy hats are all the rage, Claire’s Accessories is full of them!’
She glared at him for a moment and then remembering that she had decided to be charming, she gave him a smile that was truly scary. Marigold gave him a dazzling smile to make up for it and guided him to a chair, he sat down a bit nervously. Madame Marmalade was brisk and efficient now, keeping up sweet and charming was such a strain.
‘We have several possibilities to meet your needs of a small and clever pet Mr Smith-Brown, shall we begin? First of all we have Ginger. Tex, could you please bring Ginger in?’ Big Tony looked on in amazement as a small brown monkey jumped down from the counter, pushed through the hanging crystal beads that led to the back room and returned moments later holding a large fluffy tom cat who didn’t look too pleased to be hauled about in such a manner.
‘Ginger – fetch that newspaper please’ Madame Marmalade appeared to be amazed as Ginger did no such thing, he just sat there licking a paw and giving his face a good wash with it before walking off with his tail in the air. ‘Well really, Ginger doesn’t seem to be on form this morning does he? Tex, could you bring in Sheila instead?’
A great deal of squawking and thumping erupted from the back room this time before Tex came back again. His normally jaunty red hat was hanging over one ear and under one arm he carried an indignant cockatoo, squawking loudly and shouting ‘Stupid monkey! Stupid Monkey!’ between squawks. ‘Marvellous Tex thank you’ said Madame Marmalade ‘Now Mr Smith-Brown, just you watch Sheila retrieve the newspaper. Big Tony was astonished to see Sheila the Cockatoo fly at the newspaper, wings flapping madly, still squawking ‘Stupid Monkey! Stupid Monkey!’ and rip the paper to shreds, flinging the pieces that annoyed her most highest into the air with triumphant squawks.
Big Tony was rarely silent, he had an opinion on most things, but he’d never had a morning like this before. His jaw dropped and his eyes popped as an array of assorted animals were brought in by Tex to do ever more startling deeds. At one point, just after the unfortunate incident with the python, he stuttered, ‘But none of these are dogs!’
and then fell silent again.
Madame Marmalade asked Tex to pop to the paper shop for a few more newspapers, the original ones were in a pretty sorry state- when the penny finally dropped. As Big Tony saw Tex hold out his hand for the money he shouted, ‘Him! The monkey – I want him!’
Madame Marmalade and Marigold felt that they had really earned the mugs of steaming hot chocolate topped with a little whipped cream and just a few marshmallows, that they treated themselves to after Big Tony had gone off with Tex. ‘Congratulations Auntie’ said Marigold as she raised her mug in a toast, ‘The first part of the plan worked perfectly. Now all we’ve got to do is wait.’
They decided to make some ‘current rentals’ phone calls to keep busy, they had only made three calls each (hello there, Rent-A-Pet here, just calling to see how Princess / Snoopy / Opal / Boris / Gerald / Shadow is getting on?) when a ‘bing bong’ announced a text on Madame Marmalade’s mobile phone.
‘Excellent’ she muttered and dialled a number. ‘Detective Inspector Farrant? It’s Madame Marmalade here. There’s a robbery in progress at the Jewellers in the High Street. Quick now, no time for questions, they’ve got my monkey in there!’
Madame Marmalade and Marigold raced out of the shop and jumped into the old ambulance that had rent-A-Pet written in brilliant scarlet on the side – you could still see the word EMRGENCY written there too, but as Madame Marmalade said, it often was.
They arrived just in time to see Big Tony and two other crooks being hauled away by four policeman and two policewomen. DI Farrant raced towards Madame Marmalade and Marigold and only Tex reached them faster, he swung down from the rafters in the roof and leapt up onto Marigold’s shoulder, chattering excitedly into her ear. DI Farrant soon realised that the crooks had forced poor Tex to get in through a small window and open the door for them. ‘Thank goodness you alerted us Madame Marmalade but I can’t figure out how you knew what was happening.’
‘Well DI Farrant, I’m sure that you’ve heard of animals rescuing owners from danger, as if they have a sixth sense? It was just the same with me only the other way round, I just knew that Tex was in danger and then I saw the words ‘Burglary -High St Jewellers’ in front of me just as if someone had written them down!’
DI Farrant looked at Madame Marmalade, ‘I think that we both know that you’re not telling me the whole story Madame Marmalade, but I’ll figure it out one day. In the meantime, I’m just glad that you’re on my side.’
They all watched DI Farrant drive off, they could just hear Big Tony shouting, ‘I want to call my Lawyer!’ as the car disappeared round the corner. Tex waited until they were all back in the Rent-A-Pet ambulance before he took off his hat and took his tiny mobile phone from beneath it, he chattered excitedly as Marigold told him what a clever chap he was.
His tiny brown fingers flew across the phone buttons and minutes later there was another ‘Bing-bong’ from Madame Marmalade’s phone, she laughed as she read it, ‘Fair enough Tex, definitely double bananas for you tonight!’
Perkins the parrot
‘‘Now Marigold, don’t look out of the window, I don’t want her to know that we’ve seen her – I said don’t look!’
Carefully not looking, Marigold could just see the little girl out of the corner of her eye. Madame Marmalade had a better view and kept up a running commentary…’She’s looking at Ginger I think – oh she looks so sad – no, no, now she’s looking at Fluffy – I wonder how old she is?’
‘About seven or eight I should think Auntie – shall I go out and ask her if she wants to come inside?’
‘I don’t know Marigold, I don’t want to frighten her, she looks a bit nervous.’
The little girl did look a bit nervous and a bit sad but then a smile suddenly lit up her whole face as Ginger batted at the glass between them with his paw.
Marigold looked at Madame Marmalade’s thoughtful expression, ‘Auntie, are you coming up with a plan?’
Madame Marmalade got everything ready later that day, it was just as well she had acted so quickly as first thing the following morning the little girl was outside the Rent-a-Pet shop again, smiling at Ginger through the window.
Madame Marmalade came out of the shop and reached into the back of the Rent-a-Pet ambulance to get a big cardboard box, it had once been a proper ambulance and still had EMERGENCY written on the side, which was just as well as you never knew when it would be!
The little girl had started to edge away from the shop window when all of a sudden Madame Marmalade gave a shriek! The cardboard box flew up into the air and the pavement was suddenly a multi coloured confusion of fluffy balls, rubber bones, squeaky hot dogs and furry toy mice – they were everywhere!
The little girl rushed forward to help and she chased after the balls that were rolling the fastest, her pony tail bobbed madly as she grabbed them.
Madame Marmalade was pleased! ‘Well done, well done. Can you bring them inside for me please?’ Madame Marmalade held open the shop door as she spoke and after a moment’s hesitation the little girl brought them in and plonked a whole armful of the fluffy, the furry and the squeaky on the counter.
Madame Marmalade dropped her box onto the counter and smiled, ‘Well that certainly deserves a thank you, would you like a chocolate biscuit?’
Two huge brown eyes looked up at Madame Marmalade and then the little girl shrugged and said ‘Karashnia?’
Madame Marmalade and Marigold looked started for less than half a millisecond, then they turned to each other and said, ‘Perkins!’
It took less than two minutes to bring Perkins through from the back of the shop. He was magnificent, with beautiful blue and red feathers and a very wise look in his eyes. He put his head on one side while he looked at the little girl who looked back in great admiration. Perkins waited a moment and then his very squawky voice said, ‘Bonjour?’, he waited for a response and when none came he followed this up with, ‘Dydd Da?’. Next he tried ‘Non Ho?’ and then ‘Tereh?’ Every time he spoke the little girl said ‘Karashnia’ again and looked a little sadder.
Then Perkins hit the jackpot, he looked carefully at her and squawked, ‘Quijan?’ The little girl erupted into speech, she waved her hands and chattered eagerly at Perkins who listened while nodding wisely and putting in the occasional word.
Madame Marmalade and Marigold could hardly bear it! Marigold was positively hopping about from foot to foot and even Madame Marmalade was looking as she might burst. ‘Well? Well? What does she say Perkins? What’s her name?’
Once you got used to the odd squawk once in a while, Perkins was quite easy to understand. ‘Her name is Anya and she’s eight squawk years old. She’s from Wisteria and she’s come to live squawk here in Begonia with her Mum. They don’t know if her Dad is OK as they had to leave because of the war in Wisteria and they squawk couldn’t find him. She’s very sad as she hasn’t got any friends at her new school as no-one speaks her language. There is one squawk girl who is being really mean to her, pushing her in the line up and ‘accidentally’ bumping into her all thesquawk time.’
Marigold’s eyes filled with big tears and even Madame Marmalade looked as if she might have a tear in her eye, but it must have been a trick of the light as Madame Marmalade never cried.
‘Perkins! Ask Anya if she wants two chocolate biscuits or three!’ As always, Madame Marmalade knew just what to do. Madame Marmalade, Marigold and Anya sat down for a good chat with their biscuits, with Perkins translating as fast as he could. If they went a bit too fast he got very squawky indeed and then everyone slowed down for a bit.
When Anya understood that you could rent pets from the shop, she looked longingly at Ginger, who was sitting on her lap, accepting strokes and head scratches with a rumbling purr while keeping a suspicious eye on Perkins. However Madame Marmalade had another plan in mind.
They all agreed that Anya needed to learn to speak Begonian as soon as possible. She also needed to make some friends and to put a stop to the mean girl’s antics. Madame Marmalade quite often got cross about things and bullying was top of her list!
‘Perkins, I think that you know that there’s only one parrot for this job!’ Perkins did know and puffed his feathers out very proudly, after all, how many multi lingual parrots did you come across? Not many! Perkins had travelled the world as a ship’s parrot and was fluent in 28 languages and could get by in quite a few more!
It was all agreed, Anya was to rent Perkins and she was going to pay the rent by popping in to Rent-a-Pet every day on the way home from school to brush Ginger!
The next day Madame Marmalade and Marigold parked the Rent-a-Pet ambulance at the side of the school playground. They could see Anya beaming as the other children crowded round begging to be allowed to hold Perkins. He wouldn’t allow this of course but they were allowed to scratch the top of his head gently if they asked very politely indeed. Perkins was helping Anya to learn the names of the other children and when a little girl with a very smiley face said that her name was Tanya, Perkins squawked, ‘ Anya-Tanya, Anya-Tanya’ very loudly and Anya and Tanya smiled at each other and giggled.
Just then, the bell went for everyone to line up and a girl with a sulky face that made her look as if she’d swallowed a wasp, stood right behind Anya in the line. Madame Marmalade and Marigold sat up straight as they noticed Anya’s happy smile disappearing and her little shoulders drooping.
Suddenly, everyone jumped as Perkins’s squawk stopped everyone in their tracks! ‘Miss! Miss! This girl is squawk kicking the back of Anya’s feet!’
‘Is this true Camilla?’ boomed Miss Camion, who was very nearly as loud as Perkins! ‘No Miss, she was kicking me!’ said the girl who was unfortunately very, very sneaky as well as mean.
Perkins feathers ruffled up so massively that he looked like a giant feathery cushion, ‘Liar, Liar! Pants on Fire!’ he screeched and one of the oldest girls put up her hand, ‘Camilla was kicking the new girl Miss, I saw it too,’
‘Everyone inside!’ Boomed Miss Camion, ‘Not you Camilla – I think that the Head would like a little word with you!’
Madame Marmalade started the Rent-a-Pet ambulance ‘I think that we can safely leave matters in Perkins hands Marigold – let’s head back and make sure that Ginger looks scruffy enough for an extra long brushing!’
The Search & Rescue Squad (March story)
The door to the Rent-A-Pet shop clanged open and two blurs of ginger and blue shot through it.
‘Hamster!’ panted the first blur, who now that he had come to a standstill, was seen to be a boy of about 7 or 8 with freckles, red hair and a very worried face. ‘Yes, Hamster!’ repeated the second boy who was absolutely identical to his brother.
‘Hamster’ said Madame Marmalade gravely. ‘First things first, Names?’
‘We don’t mind, it can be called anything but it has to be black and ginger.’ Two pairs of solemn blue eyes showed Madame Marmalade that the twins were very serious indeed.
‘I mean your names, gentlemen. Now, Mr…?’
‘Er, Billy Bennett’ muttered the first gentleman as he went rather pink, ‘er and Eddie Bennett’ added the second gentleman who was also rather taken aback at his new title. The twins had been called quite a few names before,
but never gentlemen!
‘Thank you Billy and Eddie’ Madame Marmalade continued filling in her form, ‘ let me see, pet required – hamster, black and Ginger. – and what do you want the hamster for?’ Madame Marmalade watched Billy and Eddie carefully as she waited for the answer.
Billy and Eddie looked at each other, looked at Madame Marmalade, looked at each other again, getting pinker and pinker all the time and then both exploded into speech at the same time.
‘The thing is Miss, it wasn’t our fault – we weren’t to know!’
‘And the next thing, the cage was empty!’
‘We’ve looked and looked and we can’t find him!’
‘Everywhere, we’ve looked everywhere!’
Madame Marmalade put her finger to her lips. ‘Marigold, two hot chocolates please – I think that this story needs to be carefully told and carefully listened to.’
Billy and Eddie sat on two upturned buckets and between big slurps of hot chocolate they told Madame Marmalade and Marigold the whole story.
They were always in trouble, even though they never meant to be; carrier bags split open and dropped all the shopping onto the pavement when they only looked at them; huge muddy puddles justappeared in front of them when they had their best shoes on; pots of paint splurged all over the desks at school if they only sat down at them and they had never managed to get through a day without collecting a cut knee or a bruised elbow along the way.
Next door had asked their Mum to look after their Hamster while they went to Blackpool for a few days and Billy and Eddie had begged to be allowed to take care of it. Mum was doubtful but she knew that they were very kind boys and that they were getting quite grown up now, perhaps it was time for them to have some important responsibilities.
Hamish the hamster thought that he’d gone to a luxury hamster hotel for a holiday, fresh water three times a day, a tempting array of hamster snacks and a spotlessly clean cage, Billy and Eddie had done a great job. Until today…..
Madame Marmalade summed it all up, ‘and so Hamish is missing, he could be anywhere in your garden or could have gone even further afield. Next door will be home from holidays tonight and you want to rent an identical hamster so that next door and your Mum will never know that you thought that a run round the lawn would do Hamish the world of good?’
Billy and Eddie were delighted, ‘That’s it Miss! And then we can carry on looking for Hamish, swap him back when we find him and give the rented Hamish back to you! What do you think?’ Billy was hoping, hoping, hoping, that Madame Marmalade would see it their way but she had a firm look on her face, he wasn’t sure if they were in for a telling off or a well done.
‘Let Madame Marmalade think boys, that’s her thinking face’ Marigold smiled at the boys, she knew that if anyone could sort out the problem it would be Madame Marmalade.
Billy and Eddie sat without fidgeting for a whole three minutes, a world record for them.
Madame Marmalade stood up, ‘Tex, bring me the hamsters! – All of them’ A few minutes later Tex the monkey wheeled in a big roomy cage, eight hamsters were inside, black and white hamsters mostly but there was one ginger and black one and Eddie and Billy looked at each other hopefully.
‘Marigold, help me get them into the ambulance please.’ Said Madame Marmalade as she started to wheel the cage towards the door.
‘All of them Madame Marmalade?’ said Billy in a puzzled voice. ‘All of them Billy’ said Madame Marmalade firmly.
Billy and Eddie pedalled furiously as they tried to get home before the Rent-A-Pet ambulance reached their house.
They were wondering whether they had a mistake by getting Madame Marmalade involved – you could never tell with grown ups – they were supposed to be sensible but they often seemed to be completely batty. Now Madame Marmalade was going to put eight hamsters in Hamish’s cage and think that no-one would notice. Billy and Eddie often hoped that no-one would notice things like broken vases and lost jumpers and they could have told Madame Marmalade that this never, ever, worked.
If the twins’ Mum had looked out of the window, she’s have been very surprised to see a stern faced lady in a pointy hat and a very pretty girl in pink jeans and a white top sitting on her lawn with Billy and Eddie and a big box of hamsters, very surprised indeed. Luckily she was on the phone to her sister telling her all about how responsible the twins were these days and how she felt sure that there would be no more phone calls from the school that started with the words, ‘Now Mrs Bennett I don’t want to alarm you but…’
Billy and Eddie brought Hamish’s cage and waited for Madame Marmalade to start stuffing all eight hamsters inside – it was too late to get out of it now – next door would be home in three hours time! They’d just have to send their Mum crazy again by shrugging their shoulders and saying ‘I dunno’ in unison; there wouldn’t be much point in telling the truth, no-one would believe them!
Madame Marmalade opened the door of the hamsters’ box and they all trooped out onto the lawn. The hamsters sat around Madame Marmalade in a semi circle – Billy and Eddie sat with their mouths open in amazement.
Madame Marmalade spoke quietly and firmly to the hamsters, she explained that Hamish was lost and was probably hungry and frightened. She told them they were the Search and Rescue party and that they had a very important job to do, Billy said afterwards that he could see some of the hamsters sitting up straight and looking very serious at that point!
Madame Marmalade finished up with, ‘I’m relying on you, good luck team’ and away they went. It was awesome to see how they moved off, there was no pushing or shoving and each hamster headed for a different part of the garden. One very young hamster, Troy, spent a lot of time exploring the sandpit but all the others got the idea and they scampered off into the long grass and under the bushes.
They waited for exactly seven minutes before a rustling in the grass announced the arrival of Theresa, a sturdy black and white hamster followed by a rather bedraggled black and ginger hamster. ‘Hamish!’ shouted both boys at once and they had to be stopped from thundering towards him by a stern look from Madame Marmalade. Madame Marmalade had stopped grown up detectives with that look and so it worked very well on two small boys.
Hamish ran for his cage at top speed (well, top hamster speed) and started nibbling away at his hamster treats as if he hadn’t eaten for days instead of hours. Madame Marmalade closed the cage door and allowed herself a smile which might have been just a tiny bit smug. ‘All’s well that ends well’ she said as each Search and Rescue hamster marched proudly back into the travelling box.
Next morning Madame Marmalade and Marigold found a paper bag and a card waiting for them on the mat when they opened up Rent-A-Pet. The card read:
NEXT DOOR GAVE US MUNEY FOR LOKKING AFTER HAMISH SO WE GOT YOU SOME PRESNTS.
XXXX
PS Eddie ate the best red snake not me!
Madame Marmalade and Marigold emptied out the pick’n’mix and enjoyed a white mouse and a jelly snake with their morning hot chocolate. As Marigold bit the head off her snake she said thoughtfully, ‘Do you know Auntie, we might just have the best jobs in the whole world.’
Come back next month for more amazing adventures with
Madame Marmalade!!
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