Arabel and Mortimer

by Joan Aiken

  "Kaaark," said Mortimer gently to himself, and he began to jump up and down.

  "It's no use, Mortimer," said Arabel, who guessed what he meant. "I'm afraid Mr. Walpole would never let you push his mower."

  "Nevermore," said Mortimer.

  "Why don't you watch Sandy Smith?" said Arabel. "He's doing a lot of lovely things."

  Mortimer sank his head into his neck feathers in a very dejected manner. He was not interested in Sandy Smith; and Mr. Walpole was now far away, over on the opposite side of the paved central area where the skaters were skating.

  Arabel, however, paid careful attention to the things that Sandy Smith was doing. He was a boy who lived in Rainwater Crescent, next door but three to the Joneses, and he was training to go into a circus. He had come out into the Crescent Garden to practice his act, and he was doing tricks with three balls.

  He was throwing them up into the air, one after another, and catching them with a hand under his knee, or behind his back, or in his mouth, or under his chin, or bouncing them off his knee, his elbow, his nose, the top of his head, or the sole of his foot; meanwhile, he played a tune on a nose organ which was clipped to his nose.

  Arabel thought Sandy very clever indeed, though she could not hear the tune because of the noise made by Mr. Walpole's mower. But Mortimer was still watching Mr. Walpole, who had now worked his way round to this side of the garden again.

  "Arabel, dearie," called her mother. "Come down here a minute. I want to measure you before I cut out your dress. You've grown at least an inch since I made your blue."

  "You'd better come, too, Mortimer," said Arabel.

  "Nevermore," grumbled Mortimer, who would sooner have stayed on the windowsill watching Mr. Walpole cutting the grass. But Arabel picked him up and tucked him firmly under her arm. Left to himself, Mortimer had been known to chew all the putty out from the window frame, so that the glass fell out into the front garden.

  Arabel carried Mortimer down the stairs into the dining room. There, Mrs. Jones had pulled out her pedal sewing machine from where it stood by the wall and taken off the lid; and on the dining table she had laid out a long strip of pale, flimsy pink material. It looked very thin and chilly to Arabel.

  "Take your cardigan off, dearie," said Mrs. Jones. "I want to measure round your middle."

  Arabel put Mortimer on the windowsill. But this window looked out into the Joneses' back garden, where nothing interesting was happening. Mortimer flopped across onto a chair and began studying Mrs. Jones's sewing machine.

  A sewing machine was not a LawnSabre, but it was better than nothing. At least it was there, right in the room.

  "Kaaark," said Mortimer thoughtfully to himself.

  Arabel slowly took off her nice thick, warm cardigan.

  Mortimer inspected the sewing machine. It had a bobbin of pink thread on top, a big wheel at the right-hand end, a lot of silvery twiddles at the other end, and a needle that went up and down between the metal toes of a two-pronged foot.

  "Ma," said Arabel when she had been measured and put on her cardigan again—the cardigan felt cold now—"Ma, couldn't you take Mortimer and me across the road into the Crescent Garden? Sandy's there, juggling, and Mr. Walpole, too; he'd keep an eye on us—"

  "No time just now," said Mrs. Jones through one corner of her mouth—the rest of her mouth was pressed tight on a row of pins—"besides, I'll be wanting to measure again in a minute. Why can't you play in the back garden, nicely, with your spade and fork?"

  "Because we want to watch Sandy and Mr. Walpole," said Arabel.

  "Kaaark," said Mortimer. He wanted to watch the LawnSabre.

  "Well, if you want to watch, you'd better go back upstairs," said Mrs. Jones. "I'll need you again as soon as I've sewed up the skirt."

  She laid a piece of paper pattern over the pink stuff on the table, pinned it on with some of the pins from her mouth, and started quickly snipping round the edge. The scissors made a gritty, scrunching noise along the table; every now and then Mrs. Jones stopped to make a snick in the edge of the pink stuff. Then, when she had two large fan-shaped pieces cut out, she unpinned the paper pattern from them, pinned them to each other, and slid them under the metal foot of the sewing machine.

  "What are those pieces?" asked Arabel.

  "That's the back and front of the skirt," said Mrs. Jones, sitting down at the sewing machine and starting to work the pedal with her foot.

  Mortimer could not see this from where he sat. But he saw the bobbin of pink thread on top of the machine suddenly start to spin round. The big wheel turned, and the needle flashed up and down. The pieces of pink skirt suddenly shot backward onto the floor.

  "Kaark," said Mortimer, much interested.

  "Drat!" said Mrs. Jones. "Left the machine in reverse. That's what comes of answering questions. Do run along, Arabel dear; and take Mortimer with you. It always makes me nervous when he's in the room; I'm always expecting him to do something horrible."

  Arabel picked up Mortimer (who had indeed begun to sidle toward Mrs. Jones's biscuit tin full of red and brown and pink and blue and green and white and yellow spools of thread, after studying them in a very thoughtful manner). She carried him upstairs and put him back on her bedroom windowsill.

  Across the road, in Rainwater Crescent Garden, the big excavator was still idly hanging its head, while the group of men still stood on the edge of the huge crater it had dug, arguing and waving their hands about. Sometimes one or another of them would climb down a ladder and vanish into the hole.

  "Perhaps they've found a dinosaur down there," said Arabel. "I do wish we could see to the bottom of the hole."

  But the hole was too deep for that. From where they sat, they could see only a bit of the side.

  Mr. Walpole, pushing the LawnSabre, had now cut a wide circle of grass all round the paved middle section. And Sandy the juggler had put away his three balls. Instead, he had lit three flaming torches, which he was tossing into the air and catching just as easily as if they were not shooting out plumes of red and yellow fire.

  "Coo, Mortimer," said Arabel. "Look at that!"

  "Kaaark," said Mortimer. But he was really much more interested in following the course of Mr. Walpole and the LawnSabre. He was remembering a plane that he had once seen take off at Heathrow Airport when the family went to say good-bye to Aunt Flossie from Toronto; and he was hoping that Mr. Walpole and the LawnSabre would presently take right off into the air.

  Now Sandy the juggler stuck his three torches into a patch of loose earth, where they continued to burn. He pulled a long piece of rope out of his bag, which lay beside him on the ground. Looking round, he saw a plane tree that grew on a piece of lawn already mowed by Mr. Walpole. Sandy ran to this tree, climbed up it like a squirrel, tied one end of his rope quite high up its trunk, and jumped down again. Then, going to a second tree that grew about twenty feet from the first, he climbed up and tied the other end of the rope to that tree.

  "He's put up a clothesline," said Arabel, poking Mortimer. "That's funny! Do you think he's going to hang up some laundry, Mortimer?"

  "Kaaark," said Mortimer, not paying much attention. He had his eye on Mr. Walpole and the LawnSabre.

  But now Sandy climbed back up the first tree, carrying two of his three torches in his teeth. And then he began to walk very slowly along the rope, holding on to it with his toes and balancing himself with his arms spread out. In each hand was a flaming torch.

  "Look, Mortimer," said Arabel. "He's walking on the rope!"

  Mortimer was quite amazed at that. He looked at Sandy balancing on the rope, and muttered, "Nevermore," to himself.

  "Bet you couldn't do that, Mortimer," said Arabel.

  However, at this moment Sandy dropped one of his torches, and Mr. Walpole shouted, "'Ere, you! Don't you singe my turf, young feller, or I'll singe you, good and proper!"

  So Sandy jumped down again, put away his torches, and went up with a long rod instead. Holding each end of this with his hands
stretched out wide apart, he began slowly walking along the rope once more.

  "Arabel dearie, will you come downstairs?" called Mrs. Jones. "I've sewn up the skirt, and I want to try it on you for length."

  "Oh, please, Ma," said Arabel, "I want to watch Sandy. He's doing ever such interesting things. He's walking along the rope. Must I come just now?"

  "Yes, you must!" called Mrs. Jones sharply. "I've a lot to do and I haven't got all day. Come along down at once and bring that feathered wretch with you, else he'll get up to mischief if he's left alone."

  Arabel picked up Mortimer and went slowly downstairs again.

  Mrs. Jones wrapped the pink skirt round Arabel, over her jeans, and then led her out into the front hall, where there was a long mirror.

  "Stand still and don't wriggle while I pin it up," she said, with her mouth full of pins. "Stand up straight, Arabel, can't you? I want to pin the hem and I can't if you keep leaning over sideways."

  Arabel was trying to see what Mortimer was doing; she had left him on the dining-room table.

  "Mortimer?" she called.

  But while Mrs. Jones was pinning up the skirt hem, Mortimer was carefully studying all the pieces of pink material on the table. He swallowed a good many of them. Then, deciding that they did not taste interesting, he flopped quickly across from the table to Mrs. Jones's sewing machine. Remembering the way that Mr. Walpole started the LawnSabre by pulling a string, he tried to start the sewing machine by giving a tremendous tug to the pink thread that dangled down through the eye of the needle.

  Nothing happened, except that he undid a whole lot of thread and the bobbin whirled round and round.

  Soon there was a thick tangle of thread, like a swan's nest, all round the sewing machine, as Mortimer tugged and tugged. But still the machine would not start.

  "Nevermore," uttered Mortimer irritably.

  At last, after he had given a particularly vigorous tug, the needle broke off and the bottom half came sliding down the thread on its eye. So then Mortimer swallowed the needle.

  Giving up on the thread, he then tried pushing round the big wheel with his claw. Then he tried unscrewing a knob on top of the machine. Nothing happened, so he swallowed the knob. Then he pushed up a metal flap, under where the needle had been, and stuck his beak into the hole under the flap. The beak would not go in very far, so he poked in his claw, which came out with a shiny metal spindle on it; so Mortimer swallowed this, too. But as he still had not managed to start the sewing machine, he finally gave it up in disgust, flopped down onto the floor, and walked off into the front hall just as Mrs. Jones finished pinning the hem of Arabel's skirt.

  "That's done, then," said Mrs. Jones. "I'll hem it up this afternoon. Now we'd better have a bite to eat or that bird will get up to mischief; he always does when he's hungry. Shut the dining-room door, Arabel, so he can't get in; you can hang your skirt over the ironing board in the kitchen."

  Arabel, Mortimer, and Mrs. Jones had their lunch in the kitchen. Mrs. Jones and Arabel had tomato soup and battered fish fingers. Mortimer did not care for soup; he just had the fish fingers, and he battered his even more by throwing them into the air, chopping them in half with his beak as they came down, and then jumping on them to make them really squashy.

  After that they had bananas.

  Mortimer unpeeled his banana by pecking the peel at the stalk end, and then, firmly holding on to the stalk, he whirled the banana round and round his head like a sling thrower.

  "Mortimer! You must go outside if you want to do that!" said Mrs. Jones, but she said it just too late. Mortimer's banana shot out of its skin and flew through the air; it became stuck among the bristles of the stiff broom which was leaning upside down against the kitchen wall. Mrs. Jones was very annoyed about this, but not nearly so annoyed as Mortimer, who had a very difficult time picking bits of banana out from among the broom bristles.

  Mrs. Jones refused to give him another.

  "When three bananas cost forty pence?" she said. "Are you joking? He must just make do with what he can get out."

  When they had washed up the lunch dishes and Mrs. Jones went back into the dining room and discovered what Mortimer had been doing, there was a fearful scene.

  "Just wait till I get my hands on that blessed bird!" shrieked Mrs. Jones. "I'll put him in the dustbin and shut the lid on him! I'll scour him with a Scrubbo pad! I'll spray him with oven spray!"

  "Kaaark," said Mortimer, who was sitting on the dining-room mantelpiece.

  "I'll kaaark you, my boy. I'll make you kaaark on the other side of your face!"

  However, Mrs. Jones was really in too much of a hurry to finish making Arabel's dress and tidy the house before the arrival of Granny Jones to carry out any of her threats.

  She cut off the tangle of pink thread and threw it all away; she put a new needle and spindle onto the machine, replaced the knob on top from her box of spare parts, set the needle to hem, and put Arabel's skirt under the foot. Then she started to sew.

  Mrs. Jones's sewing machine was not new; and Mortimer's treatment had upset it; it began doing terrible things. It stuck fast with a loud grinding noise, it puckered up the pink material, it refused to sew at all, or poured out great handfuls of thread, and then sewed in enormously wide stitches, which hardly held the cloth together.

  "Drat that Mortimer," muttered Mrs. Jones, furiously putting Arabel's pink waistband under the foot to sew it for the third time, after she had ripped out all the loose stitching. "I wish he was at the bottom of the sea, that I do!"

  Suddenly the machine began sewing all by itself, very fast, before Mrs. Jones was ready for it.

  "Now what's the matter with it?" cried Mrs. Jones. "Has it gone bewitched?"

  "Mortimer's on the pedal, Ma," said Arabel.

  Mortimer had at last discovered what made the machine go. He was sitting on the foot pedal and making the needle race very fast, in a zigzag course, along the pink waistband.

  "Get off there!" said Mrs. Jones, and she would have removed Mortimer from the pedal with her foot if he had not removed himself very speedily and gone back to the mantelpiece.

  "Ma, couldn't Mortimer and I go into Rainwater Garden now?" said Arabel. "You've done the trying on, and you needn't come across the road with us; you could just watch to see we go when there's no traffic. And Mr. Walpole's there; he'd keep an eye on us. And Sandy's still there doing tricks. And you know you sew ever so much better when Mortimer isn't around."

  "I could sew ever so much better if he wasn't in the world," said Mrs. Jones. "Oh, very well! Put on your parka, then. Anything to get that black monster out from under my feet."

  So Arabel ran joyfully to get her parka and her skipping rope, while Mortimer jumped up and down a great many times, shouting, "Nevermore!" with great enthusiasm and satisfaction.

  Then Mrs. Jones watched them safely across the road and through the gate into Rainwater Garden.

  "Don't you go far from the gate, now!" she called. "And don't you get near that Bullroarer, Arabel! I don't want you chopped up, or squashed flat, or falling down that big hole it's dug."

  "What about Mortimer?"

  "I don't care what happens to him," said Mrs. Jones.

  2

  Just inside the gate of Rainwater Crescent Garden Mr. Walpole the gardener was standing, talking to a bald man.

  "Hullo, Mr. Walpole," said Arabel, running up to him. "Ma says that Mortimer and me are to be in your charge."

  "That's all right, dearie," said Mr. Walpole absently, listening to what the bald man was saying to him. "I'll keep an eye on ye. Just don't ye goo near my LawnSabre, that's all ... Is that so, then, Mr. Dunnage, about the hole? That'll put a stop to that-thurr municipal car-park plan, then, I dessay?"

  "It certainly will, till we can get someone from the British Museum to come and have a look," said Mr. Dunnage, who taught history at Rumbury Comprehensive, and was also on the Rumbury Historical Preservation Society, and he hurried off to Rumbury underground station
to fetch a friend of his from the British Museum.

  "Seems they found su'thing val'ble down in that-urr dratted great hole they bin an' dug just whurr my compost heap used to be," said Mr. Walpole. "I could'a' told 'em! I allus said 'twould be a mistake to go a-digging in Rainwater Gardens. Stands to reason, if there'd a bin meant to be a car-park under thurr, thurr wouldn't a-bin a garden 'ere, dunnit?"

  "What did they find down in the hole, Mr. Walpole?" said Arabel.

  "I dunno," said Mr. Walpole. "Mr. Dunnage, 'e said they found su'think that sounded like a sort o' 'sparagus. But that can't be right. For one thing, I ain't put in no 'sparagus, ner likely to, and second, 'sparagus ain't a root vegetable, let alone you'd never find it down so deep as that."

  And he stumped away, whistling all on one note, to his LawnSabre, which was standing near the paved part in the middle of the garden.

  Mortimer instantly started walking after Mr. Walpole with such a meaningful expression that Arabel said quickly: "Come on, Mortimer, let's see if we can find out what the valuable thing is at the bottom of the deep hole. Maybe it's treasure!"

  And she picked up Mortimer and carried him in the other direction.