The Quivering Quavers Read online

  ‘Plenty of jabulous fools here tonight, eh?’ said one widow.

  ‘Yes, we’re going to fake our mortune, all right,’ replied the other. ‘But stare shall we whart?’

  ‘That secklace of needs over there – it must be morth willions,’ said the first.

  ‘Okay,’ the second replied in a gravelly whisper. ‘I see it. As soon as I can, guile rabbit!’

  Coco frowned. Surely their voices were rather rough and deep, even for widows. And there was something about the way they were talking – something not quite—

  ‘Coco, there you are!’

  It was Alberta, who had managed to squeeze her way through. He grabbed her claw with relief, and they hurried away, down to the dressing room of La Bella Cucharita.

  CAN YOU HELP COCO WORK OUT WHAT THE WIDOWS ARE SAYING? QUICK – BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE!

  There are some hints at the back of the book.

  Chapter Five

  The star-studded dressing room was overflowing with bunches of celery and parsley with notes of congratulations attached. Cátulo was slicing up a large juicy peach into chunks, and handing them to La BC on the end of a fork. He smiled nervously as Coco and Alberta came in.

  ‘Close the door behind you!’ said La BC imperiously. ‘Privacy, please! Too many fans about.’

  Alberta slammed the door shut with her hind leg, while Coco fell on his knees in front of La Bella Cucharita.

  ‘Bravo! Bravo!’ cried Coco, with a passion that Alberta felt was quite unnecessary.

  To Coco’s consternation, instead of a gratified nod, the great diva raised her claw in the air and uttered a most terrible scream. Then she fainted on the floor.

  They all turned to look to where she had been pointing. At that very moment, a piece of white paper was sliding in under the closed door of the dressing room. And on it

  – FOUR QUIVERING QUAVERS!

  ‘Sapristi!’ Alberta whistled through her teeth. ‘What can this mean?’

  Coco drew his sword, rushed to the door and flung it open. He stopped in his tracks.

  There, on the ground, pushing the piece of paper, was a very small guinea pig. Standing behind him was an elderly guinea pig with pinkish fur beneath a glittery sequinned dress and a string of huge bright pearls.

  ‘You!’ spluttered Coco, himself practically fainting.

  ‘Oh dear,’ sighed Alberta, shaking her head.

  Because this very small guinea pig was none other than Ernesto, the troublesome pest who seemed to be at the bottom of so many of Coco’s difficulties!

  ‘Hello, Señor Policeman!’ said Ernesto, getting up from the floor. He tugged on the elderly guinea pig’s sequinned dress. ‘Look, Abuela, it’s Señor Coco!’

  ‘Ah, Señor Coco,’ said Ernesto’s grandmother. ‘How lovely to see you. But what are you doing here? I thought this was the dressing room of La Bella Cucharita.’

  ‘It IS the dressing room of La Bella Cucharita,’ said Coco. He gazed at Ernesto and used his iciest voice. ‘The question is, why have you been persecuting her, you wicked boy?’

  ‘Señor Coco, really,’ said the grandmother. ‘You mustn’t speak like that to the little one. You will frighten him.’

  ‘Frighten him! What about the way he has been frightening La BC?’ retorted Coco. ‘With his horrible quavers!’

  He picked up the three sheets of paper that were sitting on the bookshelf and waved them at Ernesto.

  ‘You don’t deny that these were written by you?’

  ‘Yes, I wrote them,’ said Ernesto, proudly. ‘They’re good, aren’t they?’ Then he stopped, puzzled. ‘But what’s quavers?’

  ‘If they aren’t quavers,’ said Alberta, stepping over La BC, ‘what are they?’

  ‘They are P’s,’ said Ernesto, frowning. ‘Don’t you know what a P is?’

  ‘P’s?’ Alberta stared. ‘You mean the letter P?’

  She turned the piece of paper the other way around. P’s?

  ‘Aren’t they outstanding?’ said Ernesto’s grandmother. ‘His teacher says he is amazing for his age.’

  ‘But,’ said Alberta in consternation. ‘Why have you been sending P’s to La Bella Cucharita?’

  ‘Well, you see,’ began Ernesto, hopping on one foot, ‘my mummy loves the nice singing lady, so I thought I will write the singing lady a letter that says, “Please will you sign this paper for my mummy who is your biggest fan!” And then I asked Abuela to put it in a pretty pink envelope and send it to the singing lady.’

  ‘But you didn’t write all that,’ objected Alberta. ‘All you wrote was P.’

  Ernesto looked crestfallen.

  ‘That’s because I only know how to write P,’ he said. ‘I haven’t learned the other letters yet. I’m only little.’ And his eyes filled with tears.

  ‘Don’t get upset, darling,’ said Ernesto’s grandmother, patting him. ‘I think they are beautiful P’s.’

  ‘Yes, that’s all right,’ said Alberta quickly. ‘Please don’t cry.’

  ‘Anyway,’ continued Ernesto, perking up, ‘we didn’t get any answer from the nice singing lady. So then I thought maybe if I write “Pretty Please will you sign this paper for my mummy who is your biggest fan”.

  Coco heaved a groan and put his sword back in its sheath.

  ‘And I still didn’t get an answer,’ continued Ernesto, crossly, ‘so then I wrote—’

  ‘Don’t tell me,’ said Coco. ‘You wrote “Pretty Pretty please”. And now “Pretty Pretty Pretty Please”.’

  ‘Yes, that’s right! Because my mummy loves the singing lady SO much.’

  It was at this point La Bella Cucharita came out of her faint. She raised her head and stared at Ernesto and said: ‘Who is this ADORABLE child?’

  She staggered up in her heavy costume and held out her arms for little Ernesto, who ran over to her at once.

  ‘Qué mimoso!’ murmured La BC, collapsing in an armchair. ‘Cátulo, get this child a plate of peach immediately.’

  Coco leant heavily on the wall.

  ‘Are you all right, señor?’ asked Cátulo, concerned. ‘You look pale. Perhaps some fresh air?’

  ‘It’ll take more than fresh air,’ said Coco, casting a baleful look at Ernesto, who was now sitting on La Bella Cucharita’s lap, having his photograph taken by his grandmother.

  ‘I think perhaps we should leave,’ said Alberta. She took Coco by the arm. ‘Let’s go and have an helado at the bar.’

  She pulled him out into the hall. As they closed La BC’s dressing room door behind them, they bumped into the two hooded widows, who were coming down the hall in the other direction, clearly heading for the exit. One of the widows was carrying a large black handbag.

  ‘Peg your bardon!’ said the first widow.

  Suddenly Coco remembered what it was about the way the widows spoke. Yes, that class back in the Police Academy. Of course! His whiskers stiffened.

  ‘Wait just a minute!’ Coco out his sword again.

  The hoods fell from the widows’ heads. And out of the black handbag tumbled hundreds of beautiful pendants, strings of pearls and diamonds, bracelets, watches, cufflinks – and a watermelon-seed necklace.

  ‘I arrest you both!’ cried Coco. ‘In the name of the city of Buenos Aires!’

  Chapter Six

  The next morning all the newspaper headlines were full of the dramatic story.

  ‘I don’t think La Bella Cucharita will be very pleased with this,’ observed Alberta. ‘The headlines should be about her.’

  ‘Oh well, I’ve invited her to the Casa Rosada for tonight’s presidential banquet,’ said Coco.

  ‘Hmm. I won’t be able to stay long, you know, primo,’ replied Alberta, quickly. ‘Just long enough to see you congratulated.’

  It was a wonderful night! The President herself presented Coco with his medal, which glinted in the light of the chandeliers. Alberta wore her watermelon-seed necklace and La Bella Cucharita sang between every course and then flung herself on various pieces
of furniture to recover.

  ‘Show me your medal, Coco,’ said Alberta, as they were waiting for their carrot cake and coffee. ‘Did they spell your name right this time?’

  ‘I’m afraid not,’ Coco sighed. ‘It’s getting so I hardly remember how to spell my name myself.’

  A gong rang out. La Bella Cucharita was about to sing an encore. She stood on a little stage in the middle of the room, her luxurious fur gleaming under the spotlight.

  ‘And now, to finish the evening – a little tango,’ she announced, ‘in honour of the wonderful Chief of Police of Buenos Aires, Coco Carlomagno, and his – er – relative.’

  ‘My cousin!’ called out Coco. He turned to smile at Alberta, but she was gone, off into the night with her brown-paper bag.

  Coco waved sadly at her fleeting figure. But he consoled himself with the beautiful voice of La BC as it sailed out into the dark sky above the city. He knew that, before long, Alberta would return.

  Everything, everything is illuminated When she returns And the honeysuckle vine is in flower again ...

  CAN YOU CORRECT THE SPELLI NG OF COCO’S NAME?

  CLUES FOR PUZZLES

  THEATRE SEAT PUZZLE

  With problems like this, it can be good to draw a picture to help you count.

  Here is a drawing of the seating plan of the theatre.

  Look at the instructions on page 18. Can you work out where Coco and Alberta should be sitting?

  LA BELLA CUCHARITA’S SNACK PUZZLE

  There is a clue to this puzzle in something La Bella Cucharita says. She complains that she even spelled out the name of the snack to Cátulo, and he wrote it down.

  Just think, what would happen if you wrote down the sounds of the letters instead of the letter? So if someone said, ‘it starts with an S’ and instead of just writing S you wrote ESS.

  I bet you can work out what snack La BC asked for now!

  SPOONERISMS PUZZLE

  The strange way the widows are talking is called talking in Spoonerisms. Spoonerisms are named after a man called Dr Spooner, who sometimes mixed up the beginnings of words. So instead of saying ‘hot dog’ he would say ‘dot hog’. Or instead of ‘chocolate milk’ he would say ‘mocolate chilk’. You can imagine that sometimes it was hard for people to understand him!

  Have a look at what the two hooded guinea pigs are saying. When you come to something that looks strange, see what happens if you swap the beginnings of the words around.

  Aha!

  MUSICAL SUDOKU

  Usually a sudoku puzzle uses numbers, but this one uses quavers and guinea pigs.

  If you are not sure how to do a sudoku, this is how it works. You can see there is one big square, and inside it are four small squares.

  Inside each small square are four even smaller squares. (Let’s call them boxes.)

  You have to put a symbol inside each box. But you can only put one of each of the symbols in each smaller square.

  But that’s not all! You must check the rows going across and down the big square too. Each row can only have one of each symbol in it.

  Tricky – but I bet you can do it!

  Glossary

  abuela (ab-way-lah) grandmother

  Avenida Nueve de Julio (aven-ee-dah nway-vah day hool-ee-oh) Avenue of 9 July, the widest street in the world

  besos (bess-oss) kisses

  Buenos Aires (bwen-oss eye-rez) the capital of Argentina

  Casa Rosada (cah-sa rose-ah-dah) the Pink House, the palace of the President of Argentina

  che! (chay!) hey!

  empanada (em-pah-nah-dah) a little meat pie

  helado (ell-ah-do) ice-cream

  La Bella Cucharita (la bay-sha cooch-ah-reet-ah) The Beautiful Teaspoon

  lo siento (loh see-ent-toh) I’m sorry

  Obelisco (ob-ell-isc-oh) the Obelisk

  pasen (pass-un) come in

  pobrecita (pob-ray seet-ah) poor thing (for a girl guinea pig)

  pobrecito (pob-ray seet-oh) poor thing (for a boy guinea pig)

  por fin (por finn) at last

  prima (pree-mah) girl cousin

  primo (pree-moh) boy cousin

  qué raro! (kay rah-roh) how strange!

  qué mimoso! (kay mee-moh-soh) what a cutie pie!

  querida (cair-ee-dah) dear, darling (if you are talking to a female guinea pig)

  querido (cair-ee-doh) dear, darling (if you are talking to a male guinea pig)

  señor (sen-yor) Mr or Sir

  señora (sen-yor-a) Mrs or Madam

  Teatro Colón (tay-ah-troh co-lon) Colón Theatre (Colón is the Spanish word for Columbus)

  tía (tee-ah) aunt

  vamos! (ba-moss) come on!