The Big Book of Classic Fantasy

by The Big Book of Classic Fantasy (retail) (epub)

  “The cats saw me,” he said, joining in, for he knew if he couldn’t be seen, he could be heard.

  “Of course they did,” said Noah, “because they can see in the dark when everything is invisible. That’s why they saw you. You needn’t think that you’re the only thing that is invisible. I suppose you think it’s grand to be invisible.”

  “When I was a little boy,” said Ham, “I was told that little boys should be seen and not heard. This one is heard and not seen. I call that a very poor imitation of a boy. I dare say he isn’t a real one.”

  “I’ve been quite ordinary up to now,” said David. “It seems to have come on all of a sudden. And I don’t think it’s at all grand to be invisible. I would be visible this minute if I knew how.”

  “I want to get down,” said Mrs. Noah, swaying backwards and forwards because her stand was broken.

  “You’ll get down whether you want to or not, ma,” said Shem irritably, “if you go swaying about like that. Don’t catch hold of me now. I’ve got quite enough to do with keeping my balance myself.”

  “Why don’t you get down?” asked David, who wanted to see what would happen next.

  “I haven’t seen the crow fly yet,” said Noah. “We can’t get down till the crow has flown.”

  “What did the crow do?” asked David.

  “It didn’t. That’s why we’re still here,” said Japheth.

  “Some people,” said Noah, “want everything explained to them. When the cock crows it shows it’s morning, and when the crow flies it shows it’s night. We can’t get down until.”

  “But what would happen if you did get down?” said David.

  “Nobody knows,” said Noah. “I knew once, and tied a knot in my handkerchief about it, so that I could remember, but the handkerchief went to the wash, and they took out the knot. So I forgot.”

  “If you tied another knot in another handkerchief, wouldn’t you remember again?” asked David.

  “No. That would not be the same knot. I should remember something quite different, which I might not like at all. That would never do.”

  “One, two, three,” said Mrs. Noah, beating time, and they all began to sing:

  “Never do, never do,

  Never, never, never do.”

  Most of the animals in the ark joined in, and they sang it to a quantity of different tunes. David found himself singing too, but the only tune he could remember was “Rule Britannia,” which didn’t fit the words very well. By degrees the others stopped singing, and David was left quite alone to finish his verse feeling rather shy, but knowing that he had to finish it whatever happened. When he had done, Noah heaved a deep sigh.

  “That is the loveliest thing I ever heard in my life,” he said. “Are you open to an engagement to sing in the ark every evening? Matinées of course, as well, for which you would have to pay extra.”

  This was a very gratifying proposal, but David did not quite understand about the paying.

  “I should have to pay?” he asked.

  “Why, of course. You’d have to pay a great deal for a voice like that. You mustn’t dream of singing like that for nothing. It would fill the ark.”

  “I should say it would empty it,” said Mrs. Noah snappishly.

  “I don’t know if I’m rich enough,” said David, not taking any notice of this rude woman.

  “Go away at once then,” said Mrs. Noah. “I never give to beggars.”

  Just then there was a tremendous rattle from the ark, as if somebody was shaking it.

  “It’s the crow,” shouted Ham. “The crow’s just going to fly. Get out of the way, boy.”

  The crow forced its way through the other animals, balanced itself for a moment on the edge of the ark, and flew off down the passage, squawking. The moment it left the ark it became ordinary crow-size again, and at the same moment David suddenly saw his one hand still holding up the lid of the ark, and knew that he had become visible. That was a great relief, but he had no time to think about it now, for so many interesting things began happening all at once. The Noah family jumped from the edge of the ark, and the moment their stands touched the ground, they shot up into full-sized human beings, with hats and ulsters on, and large flat faces with two dots for eyes, one dot for a nose, and a line for a mouth. They glided swiftly about on their stands, like people skating, and seemed to be rather bad at guiding themselves, for they kept running into each other with loud wooden crashes, and into the animals that were pouring out of the ark in such numbers that it really was difficult to avoid everybody. Occasionally they were knocked down, and then lay on their backs with their eyes winking very quickly, and their mouths opening and shutting, like fish out of water, till somebody picked them up.

  David got behind the cupboard door to be out of the way of the animals and all the other things that came trooping from the shelves. Luckily the nursery passage seemed to have grown much bigger, or it could never have held everybody, for the animals also shot up to their full size as soon as they left the ark. But they kept their colours and their varnish and though David had been several times to the Zoological Gardens, there was nothing there half so remarkable as the pale blue elephant or the spotted pigs, to take only a few examples. Every animal here was so much brighter in colour, and of course their conversation made them more interesting. On they trooped with the Noahs whirling in and out, towards the steps to the garden door, and when they were finished with, the “Happy Families,” all life-size, too, followed them. There were Mrs. Dose, the doctor’s wife, with her bottle, and Miss Bones, the butcher’s daughter, gnawing her bone in a very greedy manner, and Master Chip, the carpenter’s son, with his head supported in the pincers. He had no body, you will remember, and walked in a twisty manner, very upright and soldier-like, on the handles of them. The lead soldiers followed them with the band playing, and the cannons shooting peas in all directions, only the peas were as big as cannon-balls, and shot down whole regiments of their own men, and many of the hindmost of the happy families. But nobody seemed to mind, but picked themselves up again at once. Often the whole band was lying on their backs together, but they never ceased playing for a moment. The battledores and shuttlecocks came next, the shuttlecocks hitting the battledores in front of them, which flew down the passage high over the heads of the soldiers, and waited there, standing on their handles till the shuttlecocks came up and hit them again. After this came David’s clockwork train, which charged into everything that was in its way, and cut a lane for itself through soldiers, happy families, and animals alike. It had a cow-catcher in front of the engine, which occasionally picked people up, instead of running over them, and when David saw it last, before it plunged down the stairs, it had Mr. Soot, the chimney-sweep, and the Duke of Wellington, and the llama all lying on it, jumbled up together, and kicking furiously.

  While he was watching this extraordinary scene, the cupboard doors banged to again, and he saw that there was a large label on one of them:—

  NO ADMITTANCE EXCEPT BY PRESENTING YOUR CALLING-CARD AND VERY LITTLE THEN.

  And on the other was this:

  NO BOTTLES OR FOLLOWERS OR ANYTHING ELSE. RING ALSO.

  David studied this for a minute or two. He did not want to go in, but he wanted to know how. He hadn’t got a calling-card—at least he never had before he came through the blue door, but so many odd things had happened since, that he was not in the least surprised when he put his hand in his pocket to find it quite full of calling-cards, on which was printed his name, only it was upside down. So he naturally turned the card upside down to get the name un-upside-down, but, however he turned it, his name was still upside down. If he looked at it very closely as he turned it, he could see the letters spin round like wheels, and it always remained like this:

  The other trouser-pocket was also quite full of something, and he drew o
ut of it hundreds of other calling-cards. On one was printed “The Elegant Elephant, R.S.V.P.,” on another “Master Ham, P.P.C.,” on another “The Duke of Wellington, W.P.,” on another “The Engine Driver, R.A.M.C.,” on another “Miss Battledore, W.A.A.C.” Everybody had been calling on him.

  “Whatever am I to do?” thought David. “Shall I have to return all these calls? It will take me all my time, and I shall see nothing. Besides”—and he looked round and saw that the passage was completely empty, and had shrunk to its usual size again—“Besides, I don’t know where they’ve all gone.”

  He looked at the cupboard doors again, and found that they had changed while he had been looking at the cards. They were now exactly like the big front door at home, which opened in the middle, and had a hinge at each side. In front of it was a doormat, in the bristles of which was written

  GO AWAY.

  Now David was the sort of boy who often wanted to do something, chiefly because he was told not to, in order to see what happened, and this doormat made him quite determined to go in. It was no use trying the left-hand side of the door, partly because neither bottles nor followers nor anything was admitted, and partly because you had to ring also, and there wasn’t any bell. But there seemed just a chance of getting in by the right-hand part of the door, and he went up to it and knocked. To his great surprise he heard a bell ring inside as soon as he had knocked, which seemed to explain “ring also.” The bell did not sound like an electric bell, but was like the servants’ dinner bell. As soon as it had stopped, he heard a voice inside the door say very angrily:

  “Give me my tuffet at once.”

  There was a pause, and David heard the noise of some furniture being moved, and the door flew open.

  “What’s your name?” said the butler. “And have you got a calling-card?”

  David gave him one of his cards, and he looked at it and turned it upside down.

  “It’s one of them dratted upside-downers,” he said, “and it sends the blood to the head something awful.”

  He gave a heavy sigh, and bent down and stood on his head.

  “Now I can read it,” he said. “Are you David or Blaize? If David, where’s Blaize, and if Blaize, where’s David?”

  “I’m both,” said David.

  “You can’t be both of them,” said the butler. “And I expect you’re neither of them. And why didn’t you go away?”

  “You’ve given me too much curds,” said a voice behind the door. “I’ve told you before to find some way to weigh the whey. It’s a curd before. Take it away!”

  “That must be Miss Muffet,” thought David. “There’s a girl creeping into it after all. I wonder if she makes puns all the time. I wish I hadn’t knocked.”

  “No, I’m rationed about puns,” said Miss Muffet, as if he had spoken aloud, “and I’ve had my week’s allowance now. But a margin’s allowed for margarine. Butter—margarine,” she said in explanation.

  “I saw that,” said David.

  “No, you didn’t: you heard it. Now, come in and shut the door, because the tuffet’s blowing about. And the moment you’ve shut the door, shut your eyes too, because I’m not quite ready. I’ll sing to you my last ballad while you’re waiting. I shall make it up as I go along.”

  Accordingly David shut the door, and then his eyes, and Miss Muffet began to sing in a thin cracked voice:

  “As it fell out upon a day

  When margarine was cheap,

  It filled up all the grocers’ shops

  In buckets wide and deep.

  Ah, well-a-day! ah, ill-a-day!

  Matilda bought a heap.

  And it fell out upon a day

  When margarine was dear,

  Matilda bought a little more

  And made it into beer.

  Ah, well-a-day! ah, ill-a-day!

  It tasted rather queer.

  As it fell out upon a day

  There wasn’t any more;

  Matilda took her bottled beer

  And poured it on the floor.

  Ah, well-a-day! ah, ill-a-day!

  And that was all I saw.”

  “Poor thing!” said Miss Muffet. “Such a brief and mysterious career. Now you may open your eyes.”

  David did so, and found himself in a large room, with all the furniture covered up as if the family was away. The butler was still standing on his head, squinting horribly at David’s card, and muttering to himself, “He can’t be both, and he may be neither. He may be either, but he can’t be both.” In the middle of the room was a big round seat, covered with ribands which were still blowing about in the wind, and on it was seated a little old lady with horn spectacles, eating curds and whey out of a bowl that she held on her knees.

  “Come and sit on the tuffet at once,” she said, “and then we’ll pretend that there isn’t room for the spider. Won’t that be a good joke? I like a bit of chaff with my spider. I expect the tuffet will bear, won’t it? But I can’t promise you any curds.”

  “Thank you very much,” said David politely, “but I don’t like curds.”

  “No more do I,” said Miss Muffet. “I knew we should agree.”

  “Then why do you eat them?” asked David.

  “For fear the spider should get them. Don’t you adore my tuffet? It’s the only indoor tuffet in the world. All others are out-door tuffets. But they gave me this one because most spiders are out-of-door spiders. By the way, we haven’t been introduced yet. Where’s that silly butler?”

  “Here,” said the butler. He was lying down on the floor now, and staring at the ceiling.

  “Introduce us,” said Miss Muffet. “Say Miss Muffet, David Blaize—David Blaize, Miss Muffet. Then whichever way about it happens, you’re as comfortable as it is possible to be under the circumstances, or even above them, where it would naturally be colder.”

  “I don’t quite see,” said David.

  “Poor Mr. Blaize. Put a little curds and whey in your eyes. That’s the way. Dear me, there’s another pun.”

  “You made it before,” said David.

  “I know. It counts double this time. But as I was saying, a little curds and whey—oh! it’s tipped up again. What restless things curds are!”

  She had not been looking at her bowl, and for several minutes now a perfect stream of curds and whey had been pouring from it over her knees and along the floor, to where the butler lay. He was still repeating, “Miss Muffet, David Blaize—David Blaize, Miss Muffet.” Sometimes, by way of variety, he said, “Miss Blaize—David Muffet,” but as nobody attended, it made no difference what he said.

  “It always happens when I get talking,” she said. “And now we know each other, I may be permitted to express a hope that you didn’t expect to find me a little girl?”

  “No, I like you best as you are,” said David quickly.

  “It isn’t for want of being asked that I’ve remained Miss Muffet,” said she. “And it isn’t from want of being answered. But give me a little pleasant conversation now and then, and one good frightening away every night, and I’m sure I’ll have no quarrel with anybody; and I hope nobody hasn’t got none with me. How interesting it must be for you to meet me, when you’ve read about me so often. It’s not nearly so interesting for me, of course, because you’re not a public character.”

  “Does the spider come every night, or every day, whatever it is down here?” asked David.

  “Yes, sooner or later,” said Miss Muffet cheerfully, “but the sooner he comes, the sooner I get back again, and the later he comes the longer I have before he comes. So there we are.”

  She stopped suddenly, and looked at the ceiling.

  “Do my eyes deceive me?” she whispered, “or is that the s——? No; my eyes deceive me, and
I thought they would scorn the action, the naughty things. Perhaps you would like to peep at my furniture underneath the sheets. It will pass the time for you, but be ready to run back to the tuffet, when you hear the spider coming. Really, it’s very tiresome of him to be so late.”

  David thought he had never seen such an odd lot of furniture. Covered up in one sheet was a stuffed horse, in another a beehive, in another a mowing-machine. They were all priced in plain figures, and the prices seemed to him equally extraordinary, for while the horse was labelled “Two shillings a dozen,” and the mowing-machine “Half a crown a pair,” the beehive cost ninety-four pounds empty, and eleven and sixpence full. David supposed the reason for this was that if the beehive was full, there would be bees buzzing about everywhere, which would be a disadvantage.

  “When I give a party,” said Miss Muffet, “as I shall do pretty soon if the spider doesn’t come, and take all the coverings off my furniture, the effect is quite stupendous. Dazzling in fact, my dear. You must remember to put on your smoked spectacles.”

  David was peering into the sheet that covered the biggest piece of furniture of all. He could only make out that it was like an enormous box on wheels, and cost ninepence. Then the door in it swung open, and he saw that it was a bathing-machine. On the floor of it was sitting an enormous spider.

  “Does she expect me?” said the spider hoarsely. “I’m not feeling very well.”

  David remembered that he had to run back to the tuffet, but it seemed impolite not to ask the spider what was the matter with it. It had a smooth kind face, and was rather bald.

  “My web caught cold,” said the spider. “But I’ll come if she expects me.”

  David ran back to the tuffet.

  “He’s not very well,” he said, “but he’ll come if you expect him.”

  “The kind good thing!” said Miss Muffet. “Now I must begin to get frightened. Will you help me? Say “Bo!” and make faces with me in the looking-glass, and tell me a ghost story. Bring me the looking-glass, silly,” she shouted to the butler.