Bedknob and Broomstick Page 4
"No," said Paul rather vaguely, "I like prisons like this."
"Well, it isn't even a prison. It's a police station."
"Oh," said Paul. He gazed about the room, but a little less happily.
"Paul," said Carey some time later, when they had drunk their tea and Mrs. Watkins had left them alone again, "I told you this was a stupid kind of wish. I tried to warn you. It would have been better to go back into the Middle Ages or anything than this. This is worse than anything that has ever happened to us. We've lost the bed. The policeman will ring up Mother. Mother will be terribly worried. The law may get her too. Aunt Beatrice will know. They'll make us explain everything. Miss Price will get into trouble. We shall have broken our promise. It will be the end of the magic bed-knob. And nobody will ever trust us again..."
Paul looked grave.
"Do you see, Paul?" Carey's voice sounded as if she were going to cry again. "And it's Charles and me who'll get the blame. They'll say we led you into it, that we're old enough to know better. Do you understand?"
Paul brightened perceptibly. "Yes," he said.
"We're locked in here. And there isn't anything we can do."
She broke off. Suddenly outside in the courtyard there was a screech of brakes. They heard the running engine of a car, and voices shouting.
"They're bringing someone else in!" exclaimed Paul excitedly.
Charles went up to the window, but he dared not disturb the blind. "They'll see us," he said.
"I know what," cried Carey. "Switch out this light!"
Charles switched off the light by the door. Then, in the darkness, he tugged a corner of the blind. It flew up with a rattle. A pinkish light, faint but clear, shone inward on the room.
"It's dawn," said Charles wonderingly. "Morning. We've been away all night." He stared down into the courtyard.
"I say, Carey—"
"What?"
"They're not bringing anyone in. It's—" He paused excitedly. "Carey, it's the bed!"
Carey leaped out of her chair, and Paul threw off the blanket. They raced to the window. They watched, in that dim early light, two policemen lift the bed from the van. They heard the legs scrape as it was dragged across the cobblestones. They saw the policemen push it up against the wall. Then both men stood, rubbing the strain out of their hands and staring at the bed. They laughed. "I could do with a nap meself," said one as they walked away indoors. Then the courtyard became silent.
"If we could get to it—" breathed Charles.
"If—" said Carey.
The pale light shone softly on their faces as, longingly, they stared out through the bars.
6. Magic in the Courtyard
At about nine o'clock next morning, the sergeant and the inspector faced each other across the inspector's desk. The sergeant was standing. His hat was in his hand and his face was very red.
"...and that's all I know, sir," the sergeant was saying.
"But how did they get away?" asked the inspector. "I'm afraid I don't follow you, Sergeant. How did they get into the yard to start with?"
"Well, Mrs. Watkins took 'em down, sir, to see my garden."
"To see your garden?" repeated the inspector in a surprised voice.
"Them dahlias, sir, in pots, at the end of the yard, sir. Mrs. Watkins calls 'em my garden. I got some sweet peas, sir, too—coming up nicely, the sweet peas are."
"I didn't know you were a horticulturist, Ser geant." The inspector spoke rather coldly. "And then?"
"Mrs. Watkins, she quite took to those kids, sir. She thought they'd like to see the bird, sir, too."
"The bird?"
"I got a canary down there, sir. I was putting it out, like, in the sun, early this morning."
"Have you got anything else down there in the yard?"
The sergeant shuffled his feet.
"Well, sir, only the silkworms."
The inspector glanced out of the window, pursing up his mouth in a rather peculiar way as if he were trying to keep it still.
"And you left the children alone in the yard?" he asked sternly.
"Well, sir, the gate was locked, sir. Roberts was on duty outside. I'd just slipped in the passage to sip a cup o' tea Mrs. Watkins 'ad there waiting."
"Well, go on. How long were you sipping this tea?"
"No time at all, sir. I just took the cup like from Mrs. Watkins, put in a bit of sugar, stirred it, and came right out to the door—"
"And then—?"
"Well, I couldn't see the children. I thought at first they was round be'ind the pillars." The sergeant wiped his face with his handkerchief. "But no," he added."
"They'd gone."
"Yes, sir, they'd gone."
"And the bed, too."
"Yes, sir, and the bed, too. We searched the premises. The yard gate was still padlocked. Roberts said he 'adn't seen nothing."
The inspector stared at his fingernails. "Very peculiar. Mrs. Watkins bears out your story?"
"Yes, sir."
"Mrs. Watkins took to them, you say?"
"Yes, sir. They were nice kids, sir, well brought up. I got sort of sore with 'em last night. 'Urt my leg on that there bed of theirs. But they weren't bad, not at 'eart they weren't."
The inspector leaned back in his chair. "You took to them yourself, in fact?"
"Not last night I didn't. But this morning—well, sir, they were so pleased like to see my little bird."
"You regretted perhaps," said the inspector slowly, fixing the sergeant with his eye, "having brought them in at all."
The sergeant stared back at the inspector. His eyes became very round and blue in his red face. He opened his mouth with a gasp. "You think I went and let them out, sir?" Then his fat face became stern and dignified. He swallowed. "I wouldn't do a thing like that. I know my duty, sir." He looked hurt and stared at a spot on the wall above the inspector's head.
The inspector smiled. "I'm sorry, Sergeant, if I've misjudged you. But you've told me a very tall story, you know. If the front gate is locked, there's absolutely no way out of the yard."
"I know, sir."
"And there's this business of the bed..."
"Yes, sir," said the sergeant.
"These children couldn't be considered in any way as delinquents. They were just having some prank, isn't that so?"
"Yes, sir." Suddenly a curious, half-shy look came into the sergeant's eyes. He twisted his hat round in his hands. He looked at the inspector as if he hardly dared put his thought into words.
"Something just occurred to me, sir." The sergeant was blushing.
"Well?"
"The little girl, when I asked 'er 'ow she brought the bed up from Bedfordshire..."
"Yes?"
The sergeant dropped his voice. "She said she brought it up by magic."
For a moment the inspector did not speak; then, "Really, Sergeant—" he said weakly.
The sergeant's blush became deeper. "I know, sir," he said humbly.
"Really, Sergeant," went on the inspector, standing up and beginning to gather together the papers he would need in court. "You're a grown man, now. You must curb these fancies."
7. Carey Has an Idea
It was with a feeling of great relief that the children found themselves back again in Paul's bedroom. Carey and Charles barely had time to wash themselves and to dress Paul before Elizabeth sounded the gong for breakfast. Paul nearly fell asleep over his porridge, and Carey and Charles felt guilty when, later on, Elizabeth thanked them for having made the beds they hadn't slept in. Their adventure did not seem like a dream, but it seemed as if they had been away for much longer than one night, and all of them felt very sleepy.
"Let's go down and see Miss Price this morning," suggested Carey, "and this afternoon let's go up to the hayloft and sleep till teatime."
They found Miss Price kneeling at her flower border, planting. She wore a large straw hat and a canvas apron with pockets. It was a lovely day, and the scented garden lay a-dream in the blazing w
armth of the sun.
"Well," said Miss Price, sitting back and staring anxiously at their flushed, perspiring faces, "did it work?"
"Yes," said Carey. "It worked like magic—I mean, like a charm—I mean ... Oh, Miss Price, it did work." She flung herself down on the grass beside Miss Price.
"Did you enjoy yourselves?" asked Miss Price rather anxiously. "Paul looks as though he can hardly keep his eyes open."
Carey pulled up a little tuft of the sweet-smelling lawn.
"Well, we didn't exactly enjoy ourselves," she admitted, and tried to push the tuft back again.
"You didn't!" exclaimed Miss Price. She looked worried.
Then out came the whole story. The children often interrupted each other, and sometimes they spoke in chorus, but gradually Miss Price pieced the pattern together. She became graver and graver as they described their adventures with the law and looked aghast when she heard they had actually been taken to the police station. She looked sad when Charles told her how the prison van had brought the bed into the yard and how they had stared at it through the barred window, but she brightened considerably when they got to the bit about the sergeant's garden. Carey copied Mrs. Watkins's voice saying, "Well, pop down and look at the bird, then, but don't you touch them dahlias." They didn't have to describe the rest. Miss Price knew too well what would happen once they were in reach of the bed. "Did anyone see you go?" she asked.
"No," said Carey, "that's when the sergeant went inside for his cup of tea."
"Did the bed go at once?"
"Yes, like a flash. The second that Paul wished. We'd hardly got on it."
"Well," said Miss Price thoughtfully, "let's hope they don't ring up your mother."
"Mother would say it couldn't have been us," pointed out Charles. "She'd know we couldn't have been in London."
"That's true, Charles," agreed Carey. "And Aunt Beatrice would say at once that we were here. We couldn't have been in London, possibly."
Paul looked bewildered. "Then where were we?" he asked.
"Oh, Paul!" exclaimed Carey impatiently. She turned her back on him and watched Miss Price, who had begun once more to dig holes with the trowel. "What are you planting, Miss Price?"
"Edelweiss," said Miss Price absently. She sighed. "Well, all's well that ends well. You were lucky. It might have been worse, a good deal worse."
Carey watched Miss Price insert a silvery plant in the hole, and Charles rolled over sleepily to observe a formation of Valiants against the peaceful sky.
"I thought edelweiss only grew above the snow line," Carey remarked wonderingly.
Miss Price became rather pink and pursed up her lips. "It grows quite well in my garden," she said shortly.
Carey was silent. After she had thought awhile, she said carelessly, "Are you showing anything in the flower show, Miss Price?"
Miss Price's color deepened. "I might show a rose."
"A new rose?" asked Carey interestedly.
"No, a big one," said Miss Price.
"Can we see it?" asked Carey.
"Well, it's still in bud," said Miss Price unwillingly.
"Could we see the bud?"
"Oh dear, Carey," cried Miss Price, suddenly exasperated, "I'm sure it's your lunchtime."
"Not till one o'clock," said Carey reassuringly. "Miss Price."
"Well?"
"If anyone was going for a flower show, would it be fair for them to use magic?"
Miss Price flattened out the earth round the plant with a trowel. She banged it rather hard. "Perfectly fair," she said.
Carey was silent. Paul lay on his face, watching an earwig in the grass. He held one eye open with his finger. He was very sleepy. Miss Price dug another hole.
"What about the people who can't do magic?" asked Carey after a while.
"What about the people who can buy special fertilizers?" retorted Miss Price, jamming the plant in the hole upside down, and then pulling it out again. "What about the people with hothouses?" She shook the plant savagely to get the earth off the leaves. "What about the people who can afford expensive gardeners?" She sat back on her heels and glared at Carey. "How am I to compete with Lady Warbuckle, for instance?"
Carey blinked her eyes. "I only wondered," she said timidly.
"I worked for my knowledge," said Miss Price grimly, starting on another hole. Her face was very red.
"Miss Price," began Carey again after a while.
"Well?"
"Why don't you make a whole lot of golden sovereigns?"
"Of golden sovereigns?"
"Yes, sacks and sacks of them. Then you could buy hothouses and fertilizers and things."
Miss Price sighed. She pushed her hat back a little from her forehead. "I have tried to explain to you, Carey, how difficult witchcraft is, but you still think I just have to wave a wand for anything to happen. Have you ever heard of a rich witch?"
"No," admitted Carey, "I can't say I have."
"Well, I'll tell you why. Money is the hardest thing of all to make. That's why most witches live in hovels. Not because they like it. I was fortunate enough," she added primly, "to have a little annuity left me by my dear mother."
"Aren't there any spells for making money?"
"Dozens. But you can't get the ingredients. What people don't realize," went on Miss Price, "is that there are very few spells that can be done without paraphernalia. You must, if you understand, have something to turn into something and something to turn it with."
"Yes," said Carey, "I see." And it was indeed as clear as daylight to her.
"And there axe very few spells I know by heart," admitted Miss Price. "I have to have time to look them up. And quiet. I can't be fussed." She took up her trowel again. "If I'm fussed, everything goes straight out of my head. Now you must wake up those boys. There's the church clock striking three-quarters."
Carey got up unwillingly. "I wish," she said, "you'd come with us on the next adventure."
"Well," said Miss Price, "it depends on where you go. If I came, I'd like it a good deal better arranged than last night was, for instance."
"We'd let you choose," offered Carey.
"Well," said Miss Price brightly. "We could all plan it together, couldn't we?" She seemed flustered and pleased at the same time. "But not tonight. Beauty sleep tonight..."
The South Sea island idea came to Carey in the hayloft. She had awakened first and lay sleepily staring at the patch of blue sky through the open door, breathing the sweet smell of the dried apples left over from last year.
"What a pity," she thought, as she stared at the sky, "that we have to go everywhere at night. There are heaps of places I'd like to see, but in daylight." Then slowly she remembered that daylight was not the same all over the world, that the earth was slowly turning, that if you could travel fast enough—in a magic bed, for instance—you might catch up with the sun. The idea gradually took shape and became such an unbearably exciting possibility that she had to wake Charles.
They discussed it at long length, all that evening between tea and bedtime, and the very next morning they tackled Miss Price. Apart from liking her, Carey thought she might perhaps feel safer if Miss Price came along too; a little extra magic couldn't come amiss, and the police station episode had had its frightening moments.
Miss Price was a little alarmed at first at the distance.
"Oh, I can't go gadding about the Pacific at my age, Carey. I like what I'm used to. You'd better go by yourselves."
"Oh, do come, Miss Price," Carey begged her. "You needn't gad about. You can just sit in the sun and rest your ankle. It would do you good."
"Oh, it would be wonderful, Miss Price. Just think—bananas, breadfruit, pineapples, mangoes! You could come on the broomstick."
"The broomstick can only do about five miles at a stretch," objected Miss Price, but her eyes lit up at the thought of a breadfruit cutting in a pot.
"Then you can come with us on the bed. There's heaps of room. Do, do, Miss Price!"
"Couldn't we go tonight?"
"Tonight!" Miss Price looked startled.
"Well, why not? We slept last night."
Miss Price succumbed. "Well," she said hesitatingly, "if you slept last night..."
Paul was a little mystified by the South Sea—island idea, but when Carey and Charles had explained to him the wonders of a coral reef, he, too, became agreeable but insisted on being allowed to take his bucket and spade.
Miss Price got out an atlas and an encyclopedia, and they searched for islands whose dawn would correspond with sunset in England, where European night became Pacific day. They did sums and calculations on the backs of envelopes, and at last they decided on an island called Ueepe. It was not marked on the map, but it was mentioned in the encyclopedia as an island yet to be explored. It had been sighted among others mentioned from the sailing ship Lucia Cavorta in 1809 and was spoken of by this name by natives on the island of Panu, four hundred and fifty miles distant, and was said to be uninhabited.
"We'll have the whole place to ourselves," exclaimed Carey delightedly. "We could even rename it."
As it would hardly be possible for Miss Price to sneak into Aunt Beatrice's house so late in the evening and make her way up to Paul's bedroom, it was decided that Miss Price was to come to the window on her broomstick when it began to grow dark and that the children would let her in.
Charles mended Paul's spade for him, and they also found a butterfly net, "which might do for shrimping or anything."
The children undressed and had their baths just as usual, because it was one of those nights when Elizabeth wanted to talk about her sister's little boy's operation. She followed them about from bathroom to bedroom, telling them the well-known details. They knew that later, when she served Aunt Beatrice's dinner, she would sigh and say that she was "worn out getting those children to bed."
But she went at last, stumping down the stairs, and Carey and Charles slipped from their room into Paul's. Paul was asleep, so they sat on his bed and talked in whispers until it began to grow dark. Then they went to the window and watched for Miss Price. Charles was the first to spy her, flying low in the shadows of the cedars. The broomstick had a slightly overloaded look and swayed against the windowsill as a dinghy bumps against a ship's side. It was difficult getting Miss Price in at the window. She was carrying a string bag, a book, and an umbrella, and she dared not let go of the broomstick until her legs were safely over the sill. She knocked her hat off on the lower part of the sash, and Carey, picking it up, found that it was a sun helmet. "My father's," explained Miss Price, in a loud whisper, panting after her exertions, "the one he had in Poona in '99. It has mosquito netting round the brim."