Chapter 9

9 Dave the Test Pigeon 'Hide,' Fienne hissed, shoving me down under the grains of birdseed. He pushed and pushed as we sank down, like pigeon eggs disappearing deep into a playground sandpit. Birdseed filled my beak as I wrestled to make a tiny vent in the piles of feed so I could breathe.

I heard Reginald Grimster pound across the dining room and into the fattening room. He was on the phone again. 'Hess, hmer,' he said. 'Aha. Hup. Hum. Hup. Hmmhmm. Hof morrrse.' 'He just said that he's going to take Dave to a supermarket,' Fienne mumbled through the darkness under the seed. 'Dave is to be the test pigeon.' 'How. Do. You. Know. That?' I asked, trying not to swallow birdseed each time I opened my beak. 'I learnt to decipher muffled Human at I-PLOP.' 'Hem-mem-memt. Himp him-mum him heery hat.' 'What did he say now?' I said.

'He said Dave will be the perfect test pigeon on account of how fat he is.' That's not what he said! What did he say then? Himp him-mum him heery hat. Which means? Himp him-mum him heery hat. Obviously.

'Help me, Skipper!' I heard Dave shriek as Reginald Grimster shushed him and slammed the door of a cage shut. Then there was silence. Suddenly a beak pecked through the piles of birdseed above my head, and I blinked as shards of light blinded me. Fienne pulled me up and flapped off the grains of birdseed trapped under my feathers. 'We need to go -NOW!' We took flight. The front door slammed shut and we shot towards it. Through the glass panel in the door, I saw Dave being piled into the passenger seat of a rusty red car. He caught my eye and bashed at the cage with his wing just as Reginald Grimster started the car and set off down the road.

'Follow that car,' Fienne yelled at me. 'Where are the keys for the cages?' My mind went blank. All I could think about was Dave. I needed to get to Dave.

'The keys, Skipper!' Fienne screeched. 'Where are the keys?' 'I can't remember!' 'Think,' he said urgently. 'Think hard!' Was it the kitchen? Or did I see them in the bathroom? 'Think quicker, Skipper,' Fienne yelled. 'Dave is on the way to being nuggeted. The cookbooks! 'The dining room!' I shrieked back. 'I remember I saw keys on the cupboard shelf, above the cookbooks.' Fienne tapped the top of his head with his wing in a salute, and I raced upstairs and took off out of the bathroom window. I tore across the sky, chasing the red car and the evil Human who had birdnapped