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 told her, “and I’ll photograph you doing it.”
“No,” she said. “I’d look silly.”
“There you are, then. Anyway, it wasn’t silly, even if it looked it. It was a Serious Scientific Experiment, and it worked.”
Rosie was now poised ready to take a shot – more than one, if possible – of the present Serious Scientific Experiment, which was funnier, definitely, than the first could possibly have been. A 16mm movie camera complete with tripod, screen and projector, were as good as in the bag.
“Hold up half a digestive this time,” she heard Jack tell Uncle Parker. “He’s about there. I’m sure he is. They’re one of his favourites.”
Uncle Parker took the biscuit and poised it between the pair of them.
“Up!” he commanded. “Sit up! Beg!”
Jack went through his usual motions, turned his head sideways and saw that Zero too, though rocking alarmingly, was up, tongue dangling, eyes fixed on the digestive.
No one heard the click of Rosie’s shutter because of Zero’s panting. Solemnly Uncle Parker placed the biscuit in Zero’s jaws.
“Good boy,” he said, and Jack scrambled up and began patting Zero so vigorously that he spluttered crumbs. Behind her bush, Rosie secretly thanked them all.
“Oh, it worked, it worked!” Jack cried. “Oh thanks, Uncle Parker! I’d never’ve done it without you. Oh, wait till the rest of them see!”
Uncle Parker was looking more thoughtful than jubilant.
“Interesting…” he murmured.
He was thinking of Daisy, who needed training as much as Zero did – probably more. He was wondering whether he could adopt this kind of technique to deal with her and make her less of a public nuisance. It was true that she did not light fires any more, but Mr Bagthorpe had not been far short of the mark when he had suggested that she was now poisoning people. She was, among other things, going into the pantry and mixing all kinds of things together, like cocoa and gravy salt, for instance, and salt and sugar, and marmalade and chutney. The Parkers and their friends had been getting some truly horrible gastronomic shocks of late.
Aunt Celia did not take this very seriously, partly because she was a vegetarian and lived mainly on lettuce, carrots, wheatgerm and fresh orange juice. She said that it showed signs of creativity, Daisy’s mixing ingredients together.
“It is one of the early signs of creative genius,” she said, in an unusually long sentence for her, “to Reconcile the Seemingly Disparate.”
Uncle Parker did not dispute this. For one thing, he never argued with his wife because he thought she was perfect. Also, she had a very highly strung temperament and must not be crossed. He had put a padlock on the pantry door, however, saying that if Daisy were as creative as all that, she would find other Disparate objects to Reconcile.
The trouble was, she had. Daisy had embarked on a career of Reconciling the Seemingly Disparate that was shortly to drive the Bagthorpe household to the edge of their endurance while the Parkers were in the Caribbean. Anybody else would have gone right over the edge.
Meanwhile, Uncle Parker made a mental note to try the Zero technique on his daughter on his return, and dismissed the matter from his mind.
“I think we ought to do it again, once or twice,” Jack said. “Just to make absolutely sure he’s got it.”
Rosie, behind her hawthorn, hugged herself and wound her film on. All in all, she got five shots of the repeat beggings. As it turned out, her film and the supply of biscuits ran out together. She remained under cover while Uncle Parker and Jack sauntered over the meadow back towards the house.
Zero followed, his ears at an unusually jaunty angle. Perhaps he had a deep, canine intuition that before long he was going to be the most famous, most photographed, most sought-after dog in England, if not indeed the world.
Better still, he was about to show Mr Bagthorpe who was Zero and who was not.
The natural misgivings about Grandma setting off to Bingo with Mrs Fosdyke that evening were not so deeply felt as they might ordinarily have been. The Bagthorpes had something else to think about. They had nearly all added Competition Entering as an Extra String to their respective Bows, and were involved in it as obsessively and single-mindedly as only the Bagthorpes knew how to be. At this stage, each of them suspected what the others were up to but no one could be sure exactly what, so that there was a strong air of guerrilla warfare about the place too.
It was unlucky for Jack and Zero that the rest of the family were so preoccupied, because it meant that Zero’s new feat did not receive due recognition and applause.
“What? Oh, he can do that, can he?” was all Mr Bagthorpe had said at lunchtime. “Well, he needn’t do it at me.”
“I don’t think we want that at table, dear,” was Mrs Bagthorpe’s only contribution.
The only member of the family who seemed unstintedly happy and admiring was Rosie, gleeful in the knowledge that her camera held film of what must surely be the most unusual ‘Me and My Pet’ shots ever taken. So warm was she in her admiration, so many pieces of meat did she hold up for Zero to take, that Jack, had he been of a suspicious nature, must surely have been suspicious. The Bagthorpes respected one another’s achievements but did not usually wax lyrical about them. They saved the lyricism for their personal successes.
The one good thing about the lukewarm reception of Zero’s latest String to his Bow was that no one bothered to ask Jack how it had been achieved. He did not really want to describe how it had been done, and felt certain Uncle Parker would not want this information bandied about either.
Grandma had gone to