The Story of Doctor Dolittle / История Доктора Дулиттла. Уровень 1

And if they didn’t get sick fast enough, I could put something in the meat I sell ’em[3 - ’em = them] to make ’em sick, see?”

“Oh, no,” said the Doctor quickly. “You must not do that. That’s not right.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean real sick,” answered the meat seller. “Just a little something to make them look tired. But as you say, maybe it’s not quite fair on the animals. But they’ll get sick anyway, because the old women always give ’em too much to eat. And look, there are many farmers who have lame horses and weak lambs.

They would come too. Be an animal-doctor.”

When the meat seller left, the parrot flew on to the Doctor’s table and said,

“That man is right. That’s what you should do. Be an animal-doctor. Silly people don’t have enough brains to see you’re the best doctor in the world. Take care of animals instead—they’ll soon find it out. Be an animal-doctor.”

“Oh, there are plenty of animal-doctors,” said John Dolittle and put the flower-pots outside the window to get the rain.

“Yes, there are plenty,” said Polynesia. “But none of them are any good at all. Now listen, Doctor, and I’ll tell you something. Did you know that animals can talk?”

“I knew that parrots can talk,” said the Doctor.

“Oh, we parrots can talk in two languages—people’s language and bird-language,” said Polynesia proudly. “If I say, �Polly wants a snack,’ you understand me.

But hear this: Ka-ka oi-ee, fee-fee?”

“What does that mean?” asked the Doctor.

“That means, �Is the porridge hot yet?’—in bird-language.”

“My! You don’t say so!” said the Doctor. “You never talked that way to me before.”

“I never did.” said Polynesia, shaking some crumbs off her left wing. “Because I knew you wouldn’t understand me.”

“Tell me some more,” said the Doctor, all excited. Then he rushed over to the drawer and got himself a book and a pencil.

“Now don’t go too fast—and I’ll write it down. This is something quite new! Give me the letters A, B and C in the Birds’ first—slowly now.”

So that was the way the Doctor learned that animals had a language of their own and could talk to one another. And all that afternoon, while it was raining, Polynesia sat on the kitchen table and gave him bird words. The Doctor carefully put them down in the book.