by Enid Blyton
“Nasty little polite creature!” said Chinky. “My goodness—we nearly lost the chair, children! Now we’ve got to find a way of making it visible again. It’s no fun having a chair and not knowing if it’s really there or not! I don’t like feeling I’m sitting on nothing! I like to see what I’m sitting on!”
They flew home. They got out of the chair and looked at one another.
“Well, we do have adventures!” said Peter, grinning.
The Spinning House
IT was most annoying not being able to see the wishing-chair. The children kept forgetting where it was and falling over it.
“Oh dear!” groaned Peter, picking himself up for the fourth time, “I really can’t bear this chair being invisible. I keep walking into it and bumping myself.”
“I’ll tie a ribbon on it!” said Mollie. “Then we shall see the ribbon in the air, and we’ll know the chair is there!”
“That’s a good idea,” said Chinky. “Girls always think of good ideas.”
“So do boys,” said Peter. “I say! How queer that ribbon looks all by itself in the air! We can see it, but we can’t see the chair it’s tied on! People would stare if they came in here and saw it!”
It certainly did look funny. It stuck there in mid-air— and it did act as a warning to the children and Chinky that they must be careful not to walk into the invisible chair. It saved them many a bump.
“I’ve been asking the fairies how we can get the chair made visible again,” said Chinky the next day. “They say there is a funny old witch who lives in a little spinning house in Jiffy Wood, who is very, very clever at making things invisible or visible! So if we fly there next time the chair grows wings, we may be able to have it put right.”
“But how shall we know when it grows its wings if we can’t see them?” said Mollie.
“I never thought of that!” said Chinky.
“I know!” said Peter. “Let’s tear up little bits of paper and put them round the legs of the chair on the floor! Then, when its wings grow, the bits will all fly about in the draught the wings make with their flapping —and we shall see them and know the chair is ready to go off adventuring again!”
The children tore up the bits of paper and put them on the floor near the legs of the chair.
“Really, it does look funny!” said Mollie. “A ribbon balanced in mid-air—and bits of paper below, on the floor! Mother would think us very untidy if she came in.”
“Let’s play tiddly-winks now,” said Peter. “I’ll get out the cup and the counters.”
Soon the three of them were playing tiddly-winks on the floor. Mollie flipped her counters into the cup very cleverly, and had just won, when Chinky gave a shout:
“Look! Those bits of paper are fluttering into the air! The chair must have grown its wings!”
Mollie and Peter turned to look. Sure enough, the scraps of paper they had put on the floor were all dancing up and down as if a wind was blowing them. The children could feel a draught too, and knew that the wishing-chair had once again grown its red wings.
“That was a good idea of yours. Peter,” said Chinky. “Boys have good ideas as well as girls, I can see! Come on, let’s get into the chair and see if it will fly to Jiffy Wood to the old witch’s.”
They climbed on to the chair. It was really very strange climbing on to something they couldn’t see, but could only feel. Chinky sat on the back, as usual, and the children squeezed into the seat.
“Go to Jiffy Wood, to the little Spinning House,” Chinky said to the chair. It rose up into the air, flew out of the door, and was up high before the children could say another word! They must have looked very queer, sitting in a chair that couldn’t be seen!
It was raining. Mollie wished they had brought an umbrella. “Tell the chair to fly above the clouds, Chinky,” she said. “It’s the clouds that drop the rain on to us. If we fly beyond them, we shan’t get wet because there won’t be any rain.”
“Fly higher than the clouds, chair,” said Chinky. The chair rose higher and higher. It flew right through the misty grey clouds and came out above them. The sun was shining brightly! It made the other side of the clouds quite dazzling to look at!
“This is better,” said Mollie. “The sun will dry our clothes.”
They flew on and on in the sunshine, above the great white clouds. Then they suddenly flew downwards again, and the children saw that they were over a thick wood.
“Jiffy Wood!” said Chinky, peering down. “We shall soon be there!”
Down they flew and down, and at last came to a little clearing. The chair flew down to it, and came to rest on some grass. A little way off was a most peculiar house. It had one leg, like a short pole, and it spun round and round and round on this leg! It did not go very fast, and the children could see that it had a door on one side and a window on each of the other three sides. It had one chimney which was smoking away merrily—but the smoke was green, a sign that a witch lived in the house.
“Well, here we are,” said Chinky, getting out of the chair. “I’d better carry the chair, I think. I don’t like leaving it about here when we can’t see it. We shouldn’t know where it was if anyone came along and untied the ribbon.”
“Is the old witch a fierce sort of person?” asked Mollie.
“No, she’s a good sort,” said Chinky. “She will do all she can to help us, I know. You needn’t be afraid. She won’t harm us. My grandmother knew her very well.”
“How are we going to get into the house?” asked Peter, looking at the strange house going round and round and round. “It’s like getting on a roundabout that’s going! Our mother always says that’s a dangerous thing to do.”
“Well, we’ll try and get the witch to stop the house spinning round for a minute, so that we can hop in with the chair,” said Chinky. “Come on. I’ve got the chair.”
Off they went towards the queer little house. As it went round the smoke went round too, and made green rings. It was very peculiar.
“Witch Snippit, Witch Snippit!” called Chinky. “Stop your house and let us in!”
Someone opened a window and looked out. It was an old woman with a red shawl on and a pretty white cap. She had a hooky nose and a pair of large spectacles over her eyes. She seemed surprised to see them.
“Wait a minute!” she. called. “I’ll stop the house. But you’ll have to be very quick getting in at the door because it won’t stop for long!”
The house slowed down—it went round more and more slowly—and at last it stopped. The door was facing the children, and the witch opened it and beckoned to them. Mollie shot inside, and so did Peter. Chinky was trying to get in, with the chair too, when suddenly the house began to spin round fast again! Poor Chinky fell out of the doorway with the chair!
Mollie and Peter really couldn’t help laughing, he looked so funny! The witch stopped the house again, and then Peter helped Chinky in quickly. They put the wishing-chair down and then turned to greet the witch.
“Good-morning,” she said, with a nice smile. “And what can I do for you?”
Witch Snippit
THE children and Chinky looked at the smiling witch. They liked her very much. She had kind blue eyes, as bright as forget-me-nots. At first they felt rather giddy, for the house they were in spun round and round all the time—but they soon got used to it.
“We’ve brought our wishing-chair to you,” said Chinky. “We went to the cloud-goblin’s castle the other day, and he made our chair invisible. It’s such a nuisance to have a chair we can’t see—so, as we knew you were clever at all kinds of visible and invisible spells, we thought we would bring it to you. Could you make our chair seeable, please?”
“Certainly,” said Witch Snippit. “I have some very strong magic paint. If you use it, you will make your chair easily seen.”
She went to a cupboard. The children stared round the room. It was a very strange room indeed. The clock on the mantelpiece had legs, and for every tick it gave, it walked a step along
the mantelpiece. When it got to the end it turned and walked back again. Then it suddenly disappeared!
“Ooh!” said Mollie, surprised. “Your clock’s gone, Witch Snippit!”
“Oh, don’t take any notice of that,” said the witch. “It’s just showing off!”
The clock said “Urrrrnrrr!” and came back again. Up and down it walked, and the children thought it was the strangest one they had ever seen.
Other things in the cottage were most peculiar too. There was a chair that had four legs and a back, but no seat. Mollie wondered if it really that couldn’t be seen. She went to sit down on it and found that it had got a seat, but it was quite invisible. There was a table, too, that had a top but no legs.
On the dresser there were cups with no handles, and lids balanced in the air but no dishes below. Mollie put out her hand and felt the dishes, but she couldn’t see them. She turned round to Witch Snippit.
“You have got a funny home,” she began—and then she stopped in surprise. Witch Snippit was all there except her middle! Oh dear, she did look so funny!
“Don’t be worried,” she said to Mollie. “I’m quite all right. My middle is really there, but it’s vanished for a few minutes. You can’t meddle about with visible and invisible magic without having things like this happen to you at times.”
As she spoke, her middle came back again, and, oh dear, her hands and feet went! Mollie began to laugh. “Whatever will go next!” she said,
All of the witch disappeared then—and the children and Chinky couldn’t see her anywhere! They knew she was in the room, because they could hear her laughing.
“Don’t look so surprised,” she said. “You should never be astonished at anything that happens in a witch’s house.”
“I say! The floor’s gone!” said Peter, in alarm, looking down at his feet. “Oooh! I feel as if I’m falling! Where’s the floor?”
“Oh, it’s there all the time,” said Witch Snippit, coming back in bits. “It’s only disappeared from sight. Don’t worry, it’s there!”
She put a tin of paint on the table. “Would you like to paint your chair and get it right again?” she asked. “It’s quite easy. There are three brushes for you. It’s good paint. It will make invisible things visible, or visible things invisible. I’m rather busy today, so if you’ll do the job yourself, I’ll be glad.”
“We’d love to!” said Chinky. He took off the lid of the paint tin and picked up a brush. “It’s going to be funny painting something you can’t see!” he said.
He felt for the legs of the chair and dipped his brush into the paint, which was a queer silvery colour and seemed as thin as smoke. He painted along one of the chair’s invisible legs—and hey, presto! it came into sight as brown and solid as ever!
“I’ve got a leg back!” said Chinky, in excitement, and waved his brush in the air. A drop of paint flew on to Peter’s nose.
“Don’t,” said Peter. Mollie stared at him in horror. His nose had disappeared!
“Peter, your nose has gone!” she said. “A drop of the paint went on to it! Oh, whatever shall we do?
“Get it back again, of course,” said Chinky. “Didn’t you hear Witch Snippit say that this paint acted either way? It makes things seen that can’t be seen, and it makes things that are seeable unseeable! Come here, Peter—I’ll paint where your nose should be, and it’ll come back again!”
He dabbed some paint where he thought Peter’s nose should be—and sure enough, it did come back again! Mollie was so glad. Peter looked horrid without a nose.
“I’ll teach you to make my nose disappear!” said Peter to Chinky. He dipped his brush in the paint and dabbed at Chinky’s pointed ears. They vanished in a trice!
“Don’t!” said Chinky crossly. He threw some paint at Peter’s feet and they disappeared at once!
“Oh!” said Peter, surprised. “I don’t like having no feet. I shall paint them back! There they are! Stop it, Chinky. I don’t like this game. It would be awful if something didn’t come back!”
Chinky was naughty. He dipped his brush in the magic paint, and ran it round Mollie’s neck. How queer she looked with a head and a body but no neck! Peter couldn’t bear it. He painted her neck in again at once, and frowned at Chinky.
“If you’re not careful I’ll paint you from top to toe and then take away the tin of paint!” he said.
“Now listen to me,” suddenly said Witch Snippit’s voice above them. “I didn’t give you that paint to waste. If you are not careful there will not be enough to finish painting your wishing-chair, and then you will find there is a bit still left invisible, that you cannot see. So be sensible.”
Chinky and Peter went red. They began to paint the chair busily, and Mollie joined them. The clock on the mantelpiece was so interested in what they were doing that it walked right off the mantelpiece and fell into the coal-scuttle.
“It can stay there,” said the witch. “It is much too curious—always poking its nose where it isn’t wanted.”
“Urrrrrrrrr!” said the clock, and disappeared. Mollie was glad her clock at home didn’t behave like that.
In an hour’s time the wishing-chair was itself again, and all the paint in the tin was finished. There it stood before them, their same old wishing-chair. It had been very strange to see it gradually becoming visible to their eyes.
“There’s a bit at the back here that can’t be seen,” said Mollie, pointing to a bit that hadn’t come back again. But there was no paint to finish that bit, and the children didn’t like to ask for any more. So that tiny piece of the chair had to remain invisible. It looked like a hole!
“Thank you very much, Witch Snippit,” said Chinky politely. “We’ve finished now, and had better be getting home. Could you stop your house spinning and let us go out?”
“Very well,” said Witch Snippit. She called out a magic word and the spinning house slowed down. “Goodbye,” she said to Chinky and the children. “Come and see me again another time. Hurry, now, or the house will start spinning again!”
The three squeezed into the wishing-chair. The house stopped and the witch opened the door.
“Home, wishing-chair!” shouted Chinky—and the chair flew straight out of the door and up into the air.
“Goodbye, goodbye!” called Mollie and Peter, looking down at the house, which was already spinning fast again. “I say, that was a pretty good adventure, wasn’t it!”
“I wish we’d got some of that magic paint with us,” said Chinky. “We could have some fun with it!”
“I’m glad we haven’t!” said Mollie. “I don’t know what mischief you’d get into, Chinky!”
The Silly Boy
THE children were cross because Mother had said that the painters were to paint the walls of the playroom and mend a window—and this meant that they couldn’t play there for some time.
Their playroom was built right at the bottom of the garden, and it was quite safe for their friend, Chinky, the pixie, to live there, for no one ever went to the garden playroom except themselves. But now the painters would be there for a week. How tiresome!
“It’s a good thing it’s summer-time, Chinky, so that you can live in the garden for a bit,” said Mollie.
“Oh, don’t worry about me,” said Chinky. “I’ve a nice cosy place in the hollow of an oak tree. It’s the chair I’m thinking about. Where shall we keep that? We can’t have it flying about whilst the painters are there.”
“We’d better put it in the boxroom, indoors,” said Peter. “That room’s just been repainted, so I don’t expect Mother or anyone will think it must be turned out just yet. It will be safe there.”
So, when no one was looking, Peter and Mollie carried the wishing-chair up to the boxroom and stood it safely in a corner. They shut the window up tightly, so that it couldn’t fly out if its wings grew suddenly.
They couldn’t have Chinky to play with them in the house, because he didn’t want anyone to know about him. So they asked Thomas, t
he little boy over the road, to come and play soldiers, on a rainy afternoon. They didn’t like him very much, but he was better than nobody.
Thomas came. He soon got tired of playing soldiers. He began turning head-over-heels down the nursery floor. He could do it very well.
“I can make awful faces, too,” he said to Mollie and Peter—and he began to pull such dreadful faces that the two children gazed at him in surprise and horror.
“Our mother says that if you pull faces and the wind happens to change you may get stuck like that,” said Mollie. “Do stop it, Thomas.”
But Thomas wouldn’t. He wrinkled up his nose and his forehead and blew out his cheeks—and do you know, the wind changed that very minute!
And poor Thomas couldn’t get his face right again!
He tried and he tried, but he couldn’t. It was dreadful! Whatever was he to do?
“Oh, Thomas, the wind changed—I saw the weathercock swing round that very moment!” cried Mollie. “I did warn you! I do think you’re silly.”
“He can’t go home like that,” said Peter. “Let’s wash his face in hot water—then perhaps it will go right again.”
So they washed Thomas’s face well—but it was as bad as ever when they had finished! Screwed-up nose and forehead and blown-out cheeks... oh dear!
“Do you suppose Chinky would know what to do?” said Peter at last.
“Who’s Chinky?” asked Thomas.
“Never you mind,” said Mollie. “Peter, go and find Chinky and see what he says. I’ll stay here with Thomas. He mustn’t go out of the nursery, because if he meets Mother or Jane, they will think he’s making faces at them and will be ever so cross.”
Peter ran downstairs. He went into the garden and whistled a little tune that Chinky had taught him. He had to whistle this whenever he wanted the pixie.
Chinky whistled back. Peter saw him under a big hawthorn bush, mending a hole in his coat.