Animal Amulets (11) and final part
“Caw caw caw,” they suddenly heard. It was the crow and he was still in one of the cages. Molly plucked the strings of the banjo.
“It´s o.k, we can trust him this time, take the keys from the front desk, I´ve already unlocked it, then climb up there and release him. When you are finished hide the keys in my body and I´ll keep them safe.”
Molly scampered up the wall and let the crow out. The crow was overjoyed.
“Remember what the Pied Piper is famous for. If he suspects the cat won´t give him his reward we could buy him off by offering a greater reward, remember what he did in Hamlin,” suggested the crow.
No, no, we´re not taking any chances. It´s time to get tough. He could easily say we weren´t paying him enough and try to blackmail us, or worse use that formula to kill all my friends and family and me. We won´t take any chances,” responded Molly.
“Molly´s right,” vibrated the banjo.
Just then the steel door opened slowly. The crow hid under the table and put his two wings together as if he was praying and closed his eyes. Molly scampered up into the crows cage and closed it. The Pied piper was whistling to himself an extremely haunting melody that seemed to mesmerise Molly. He sat on his chair that was in front of the desk where the crow was hiding, Stretched out his legs, threw a plastic bag of what must of been his sandwiches on the table and put his hands behind his head. He leaned back on the hind legs of the chair. When he finally noticed all the cages with their doors swinging open he fell backwards. He started to shout like a madman. He searched his pockets. Then with a look that suggested he had left whatever it was he was looking for upstairs he left the room. Molly shouted at the crow.
“Now´s our chance, open his sandwiches and then open the banjo, you should find a bag with some blue pellets in it, don´t eat them but put them into his sandwiches and then get back into positions,” ordered Molly. The trembling crow did just that.
When the Pied Piper came back he was annoyed, he had spent a lifetime creating this laboratory. He ate one of the sandwiches angrily. It tasted horrible. The others waited and watched eventually he collapsed in a heap. The rat poison that Molly had found in the pipe had done the trick. The crow searched his pockets. He got the test tube with the formula out of one and wrapped it carefully in bubble wrap and hid it inside the banjo. Then he grabbed the keys, flew up to Molly, got her out and onto his back, grabbed the banjo´s strap and flew out the window.
“Now it´s Tiger´s turn,” he cackled.
They searched the house for him, he wasn´t anywhere to be seen. Then, concluding that cats love napping they decided that he had to be in bed asleep. There he was in the bedroom stretched out and snoring. Molly got off the crows back. The crow put the banjo down carefully and tried to unfasten the amulet. He couldn´t do it. He whispered to Molly to try.
“He´ll smell me,” she protested. “No he won´t,” encouraged the crow, “his senses are dulled as a human.”
Molly crept under Tiger´s neck and unfastened the amulet. Then the crow grabbed it. They put it carefully inside the banjo and all three flew out the window.
When Tiger finally woke up, he was amazed to find he was a cat again, and an amulet – less cat at that. He screamed in anger. He ran swiftly down to the basement. The Pied Piper wasn´t moving and the lab was empty. He searched the Pied Piper´s pockets, nothing, not even a few cents.
He was furious. Then it dawned on him that there were a lot of free rats and mice about, he could have fun hunting them but these were strange things that the Pied Piper had done experiments on. What if they wanted revenge. He decided to make a run for it. The last account we have of Tiger is from an old wasp, who saw him disappearing down a pipe that was left in the back of a shed.
Meanwhile Molly and the crow were returning the banjo to the hare, who was more than happy to be able to add their adventure to his list of ballads. The crow returned the amber amulet to the toad as molly was too afraid to do so. Molly decided to stay and live in this realm as there were no cats. So she moved in with the crow. The two cripples lived happily together and Molly eventually got to like jazz. A wasp told me the other day she was taking saxophone classes