Danny the Champion of the World

'You don't think Mr Rabbetts might have sneaked back again just to make sure?'

'Never,' my father said. 'He's gone home to his supper.'

I couldn't help thinking that if I had been Mr Rabbetts, and if I had seen two suspicious-looking characters lurking just outside my precious pheasant wood, I certainly would not have gone home to my supper. My father must have sensed my fears because once again he reached out and took my hand in his, folding his long warm fingers around mine.

Hand in hand, we threaded our way through the trees towards the clearing. In a few minutes we were there. 'Here's where we threw the raisins,' my father said.

I peered through the bushes. The clearing lay pale and milky in the moonlight.

'What do we do next?' I asked.

'We stay here and wait,' my father said. I could just make out his face under the peak of his cap, the lips pale, the cheeks flushed, the eyes shining bright.

'Are they all roosting, Dad?'

'Yes. They're all around us. They don't go far.'

'Could I see them if I shone my light up into the branches?'

'No,' he said. 'They go up pretty high and they hide in among the leaves.'

We stood waiting for something to happen.

Nothing happened. It was very quiet there in the wood.

'Danny,' my father said.

'Yes, Dad?'

'I've been wondering how a bird manages to keep its balance sitting on a branch when it's asleep.'

'I don't know,' I said. 'Why?'

'It's very peculiar,' he said.

'

What's peculiar?'

'It's peculiar that a bird doesn't topple off its perch as soon as it goes to sleep. After all, if we were sitting on a branch and we went to sleep, we would fall off at once, wouldn't we?'

'Birds have claws and long toes, Dad. I expect they hold on with those.'

'I know that, Danny. But I still don't understand why the toes keep gripping the perch once the bird is asleep. Surely everything goes limp when you fall asleep.'

I waited for him to go on.

'I was just thinking', he said, 'that if a bird can keep its balance when it's asleep, then surely there isn't any reason why the pills should make it fall down.'

'It's doped,' I said. 'Surely it will fall down if it's doped.'

'But isn't that simply a deeper sort of sleep?' he said. 'Why should we expect it to fall down just because it's in a deeper sleep?'

There was a gloomy silence.

'I should have tested it with roosters,' my father added. Suddenly the blood seemed to have drained right out of his cheeks. His face was so pale I thought he might be going to faint. 'My dad would have tested it with roosters before he did anything else,' he said.

At that moment there came a soft thump from the wood behind us.