The Complete Polly and the Wolf

by Catherine Storr

  “I didn’t,” said Polly. “It’s an accident. I came over just to look at wolves. I never expected to find you here, Wolf.”

  “Oh, dear, oh dear,” said the wolf. Two large tears dropped from his eyes on to the straw on the floor of his cage, and Polly felt rather sorry for him.

  “How did you get here?” she asked. “Did you come here on purpose, or did they catch you like the other animals?”

  “The Other Animals!” the wolf said bitterly. His voice was choked with tears. “Would I have come on purpose, do you think? Is it likely that I’d choose to live in this beastly little cage, where I’ve hardly room to turn round, when I might be outside, walking about the country and chasing you?”

  “Well, I didn’t know,” said Polly reasonably. “You might have got tired of trying to catch little girls to eat and want to be fed for a change. They do feed you properly here, I suppose?” she added kindly.

  “Bones,” said the wolf, sounding very sad. “That’s all. Bones. Hardly any meat on them. And raw. Think of that, Polly, for a wolf like me, that’s been used to well-cooked meals, daintily served. Just bones, thrown into the cage, without so much as a sprig of parsley or a morsel of gravy with them. I could cry when I think of the meals you’ve cooked me, Polly, and I look at what they give you here—”

  “But how did you get here, then?” Polly asked, still curious to know.

  “There was an advertisement,” the wolf said. He sounded a little embarrassed. “ ‘Wolf wanted,’ the advertisement said. ‘Large black wolf welcomed by fellows of Zoo something Society. Every care taken and suitable diet provided.’ So I came. It was the word Welcome that attracted me,” he added sadly.

  “But didn’t they?” Polly asked.

  “If you call this Welcoming,” the wolf said, looking round his cage. “I’d hardly set foot in the grounds and spoken to one of the keepers before there was such a hullabaloo as you’ve never heard. Men fetching chains, and others fetching ropes, and a sort of cage thing on wheels and me pushed into it as if I was a wild animal. Welcome, indeed!” The wolf snorted. Then a tear dropped from his eye again. “If you knew how I want to be wanted,” he almost wept. “I thought someone really wanted me at last. I’m large, aren’t I? and black? and I’m a wolf. But if I’d been a—snake they couldn’t have been less welcoming.”

  “Oh, poor Wolf,” said Polly. She was very nearly crying herself at this pathetic story.

  “And if they think raw bones are a suitable diet, they’ve a lot to learn about wolves,” the wolf finished with a snarl.

  “I’ve got a treacle toffee in my pocket,” Polly suggested. “Would you like it?” She unwrapped it and pushed it through the bars. The wolf snapped it up so eagerly that Polly’s fingers nearly disappeared too.

  “No feeding the animals, Miss,” a friendly keeper advised her as he passed by. “It’s not safe. Treacherous beasts, wolves.”

  The wolf gave a growl that made the keeper more certain than ever that he was a bad-tempered, untrustworthy animal. But Polly understood that he was angry because he was miserable, and though she didn’t put her hand up to the bars again, she didn’t move away.

  “Wolf,” she whispered, when the keeper had passed out of sight. “Perhaps I could bring you something nice to eat. What would you like best in the world?”

  The wolf’s eyes glistened and his tongue began to drip.

  “A nice fresh juicy little girl,” he began. “Fried, I think, with mushrooms and onions and perhaps a little—”

  “Don’t be silly,” Polly said sharply. “You might know I’m not going to feed you on little girls. Can’t you think of something possible? Apple pie, for instance, or a Cornish pasty or fudge perhaps. Do you like fudge, Wolf?”

  “I’d rather have a little g–” began the wolf, but as he caught Polly’s eye he altered what he had been going to say.

  “I’d like almost anything,” he admitted. “Except bones. We get plenty of them here. But what I’d like best, Polly, if you could manage it, would be for you to get me out of here.”

  “Out of your cage?” asked Polly. She looked doubtfully at the strong bars and the lock on the door. “I don’t think I could. I’m not strong enough to break the cage open, and I haven’t got a key.”

  “Of course you couldn’t break it open,” said the wolf scornfully. “I can’t myself, so naturally you wouldn’t be able to. But you could get a key, couldn’t you? After all, you are Clever Polly, you know, so you ought to be able to think of some way of getting me out.”

  “I’ll think about it,” said Polly. She felt very sorry for the wolf, and yet rather suspicious of him. “But how would I know you wouldn’t start trying to eat me up again directly you came out?” she asked.

  “You wouldn’t know,” the wolf replied candidly. “I might or I might not. It would depend on how I felt. You’d just have to wait and see.”

  “Then I shan’t do anything about you,” Polly said indignantly. “I don’t know why you should expect me to help you out just to eat me up.”

  “Of course I should always be grateful,” the wolf assured her. “I might be so grateful that I wouldn’t want to eat you up. Please help me, Polly. If you don’t nobody will, and I shall stay here for ever and ever until I am dead.”

  Polly’s kind heart was touched and she promised that she would at any rate bring the wolf something to eat and if possible think of a way of getting him out.

  The next day Polly was very busy baking at home and the day after she brought the wolf a large Cornish pasty full of meat and onion and carrot and potato, nicely cooked and brown and shiny on top. She pushed it through the bars when the keeper was looking another way and watched anxiously to see what the wolf would do.

  “Ah!” said the wolf. “Pasty. My favourite first course.”

  He swallowed the whole pasty at one gulp. Polly turned a little pale.

  “Wolf,” she said, after a moment or two. “Do you feel quite all right inside?”

  “Better, thank you,” said the wolf. “Pasty’s a nice change after bones. Why?”

  “I didn’t mean you to eat it all in one gulp like that,” Polly began.

  “That’s all right, thank you, Polly. You don’t know what good digestions we wolves have got. Why, I could swallow down a tender little morsel like you in about three bites, I should say, and as for a little pasty like that one—why it just slipped down without any trouble.”

  “Yes, I daresay,” said Polly sadly. “But it wasn’t just an ordinary pasty.”

  “Excellent,” declared the wolf, licking his chops.

  “Yes, but it hadn’t just got meat and vegetables in it.”

  “A touch of garlic? A suspicion of chives?”

  “It had a key in it.”

  There was a short silence.

  “Would the key have fitted the lock on the door of my cage?” the wolf asked casually.

  “I think so,” Polly said. “I went specially to a shop and asked for the sort of key that opens cage doors, and it looked all right.”

  “So I should have been able to let myself out?”

  “That was what I thought,” said Polly.

  There was another short silence.

  “Wow,” said the wolf suddenly. “I’ve got an awful pain. In my—down here. It’s hard and knobbly. It’s got a sort of handle to it. I’ll have to go and lie down.”

  “I’ll try again,” Polly said as she prepared to leave. “But next time, Wolf, do for goodness’ sake look before you eat whatever I send.”

  Two days later a long thin parcel arrived for the wolf. He tore off the wrappings and inside was a stick of brightly coloured rock, with BRIGHTON written across the end. A suspicious keeper, who had come to make sure the parcel contained nothing contraband, smiled sourly as he saw the wolf studying the rock and left him with it, removing the brown paper and string.

  “It’s a message,” said the wolf to himself. “I shall eat it very slowly and read the message as I go, and then I
shall know how to escape.”

  He licked busily at one end of the stick. After some time he had got rid of about an inch of rock, but the writing still said BRIGHTON.

  “Funny,” thought the wolf. “I’d better get through some more.”

  But after half an hour’s serious work, when there was only a piece the size of a sixpence left, the rock still said nothing but BRIGHTON.

  “Maddening,” the wolf snarled, crunching the remaining bit up angrily. “I was as careful as careful and it didn’t make sense at all. At any rate, Polly can’t tell me there was a key inside that miserable piece of rock, and if there was supposed to be a message all I can say is her spelling is very queer.”

  When Polly arrived a week or so later she looked sadly at the wolf through the bars.

  “So it went wrong again,” she said. “I’d expected you to be out by now.”

  “How could I get out?” the wolf asked crossly.

  “I thought you’d have filed your way out. That stick of rock I sent you—”

  “It didn’t make sense,” the wolf grumbled. “BRIGHTON it said all the way through and what use that is to me, I don’t know.”

  “Oh, you stupid animal,” Polly said, exasperated. “The stick of rock was just to throw the keepers off the scent. The important thing in the parcel was the file—that was why it had to be a long thin parcel. I meant you to file through the bars to get out. I suppose you threw the file away with the paper and string.”

  The wolf didn’t answer this, but Polly could see that she had guessed right.

  “Here’s your last chance,” she said, handing over a small bottle with a closely printed label. “And this time don’t make any stupid mistakes, Wolf. I’ve got to go now, Mother’s waiting for me.”

  When she had gone the wolf considered the bottle carefully. It had no wrappings, so there couldn’t be a file concealed there. He drew out the cork with his teeth and smelt the contents. Then he stuck a long red tongue down the neck of the bottle and tasted.

  “Ah,” he said to himself. “Very good. Sweet and strong. I’ll drink it slowly, very slowly, and then I shall find out if it’s got anything hidden inside.”

  He drank.

  •

  When Polly saw the wolf walking quietly on a road near her home a few days later, she called out to him.

  “Wolf! So you got out all right this time?”

  “Yes,” said the wolf rather shortly, “I got out.”

  “You put the sleeping medicine in the keeper’s cup of tea, I suppose?”

  “No,” said the wolf uneasily. “I didn’t exactly do that.”

  “In his pot of beer?”

  “No.”

  “In his tonic water?”

  “As a matter of fact,” the wolf admitted, “I didn’t give it to him at all. I drank it myself.”

  “But it said on the label—”

  “I didn’t read the label. Last time you sent me something with writing on it it wasn’t any help, so this time I just drank the medicine to make sure there wasn’t anything hidden in the bottle.”

  “And what happened?”

  “Well, I went to sleep. And I slept and I slept and I slept. So they thought I was dead and after about a day they didn’t bother to lock the cage door. So I woke up and I came out. I just walked out, and here I am. And now,” said the wolf suddenly, “I’m very, very hungry and I’m going to eat you up.”

  But Polly ran. She ran like the wind, and the wolf, who was stiff from being cramped in his cage at the Zoo, and sleepy from his sleeping medicine, couldn’t run quickly enough to catch her. So Polly got safely home and the wolf didn’t get her that time.

  9. Polly Goes for a Walk

  THE WOLF, you know, was determined to get Polly somehow, by hook or by crook, and Polly was determined not to be got.

  One day, when Polly was out for a walk, she saw the wolf following her carefully and looking at every step she took.

  “Now what’s the matter, Wolf?” Polly asked impatiently. “Why do you keep looking at my feet? I haven’t got a hole in my socks, have I?”

  “I’m not looking at your socks,” the wolf replied. “I’m looking to see if you walk on one of the cracks in the pavement. As long as you walk on the squares you are safe, but if you walk on a line you are mine, and I shall gobble you up.”

  Polly took great care how she trod. She always planted her feet firmly in the middle of each square. But presently she came to a little knot of people all standing outside the post-office, and as she passed, one of them moved quickly and knocked her off her balance. One of her feet went on to a line.

  “Got you!” growled the wolf, coming up quickly behind her, ready to snatch her away.

  “Wait a moment, Wolf,” said Polly. “There must be two sides to an agreement. It’s all very well for you to say I belong to you if I step on a line, but what do I get when you step on a line?”

  “What do you mean?” asked the wolf uncomfortably. He hadn’t been looking at all where he put his paws.

  “Well,” said Polly, “if you are to get me to eat if I step on a line, I think it’s only fair that I should be allowed to eat you if you step on a line. Don’t you?”

  “Well yes, I suppose it is,” the wolf agreed reluctantly.

  “Well, I’ve stepped on one line, because I was pushed, but you’ve stepped on lots, and all because you were careless. Now how about it, Wolf?”

  “We’d better begin again,” the wolf said in a great hurry. “We’ll begin from when I say now. One, two, three . . . now!”

  But Polly was careful not to step on any more lines that day, and she reached home safely.

  The next day she went for a walk on the heath and presently she noticed the wolf following her again.

  “Touch wood,” the wolf called to her, between the trees. “As long as you are touching wood you are safe, but directly you aren’t, I can come and get you.”

  Polly ran from tree to tree; several times the wolf made a dash at her when she was between two trees, but she managed just to reach the next tree in time. All the time she was getting nearer and nearer home, but at last she had got to the edge of the heath and to reach home she had to go down the road where there weren’t any trees at all.

  “Aha!” said the wolf, “now I’ve got you. You can’t touch wood down that road so you will be mine.”

  Polly looked up and down the road, but she couldn’t see anyone in sight. It seemed as if she might have to stand holding on to the last tree for ever.

  Then she had a good idea. She broke a twig off the side of the tree and held it out to the wolf.

  “Animal, Vegetable or Mineral?” she asked him.

  “Vegetable, of course,” said the wolf, puzzled.

  “What’s it made of?” asked clever Polly.

  “Wood,” said the wolf, “silly!”

  “Well, I’m touching it,” said Polly, leaving the tree and walking slowly down the road towards her home, with the twig held firmly in her hand.

  For several days Polly was very cautious about going out by herself, but at last her mother asked her to go and post a letter in the pillar box at the end of the road, and Polly set off with the letter in her hand.

  She was just reaching up to put the letter through the slot, when the wolf jumped out from behind the pillar box.

  “Aha!” he said, his red tongue hanging out. “Now I’ve really got you.”

  Polly thought quickly. She had almost let the letter fall through the slot, but now she held on to it.

  “Listen, Wolf,” she said. “Why do you think I came out here?”

  “For a little breath of fresh air?” suggested the wolf.

  “No. Try again,” said Polly.

  “To meet me,” said the wolf, his eyes glistening.

  “Not even that,” said Polly. “Look at my hand. Not that one, silly, the one at the letter box.”

  “To post a letter!” said the wolf in surprise.

  “Right at last,” said
Polly. “And do you know who this letter is from and whom it’s to? It’s from my mother to the man who manages the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, and it’s telling him to come and fetch you and take you away and put you in a cage and lock you up for ever and ever because you’ve eaten me up. You won’t like that, will you, Wolf?”

  “No,” said the wolf, rather downcast. “I shan’t like it at all.”

  Then he cheered up.

  “But when I’ve eaten you up I’ll eat up the letter too and then no one will ever know,” he said.

  “But the letter is almost posted,” Polly said. “My hand is holding it inside the pillar box, and the moment you touch me I shall let go and it will be posted.”

  “Oh, please don’t post it, Polly,” the wolf begged. “Take it back and get your mother to alter it for me. Ask her to say that I’ve promised not to eat any other little girls, so I needn’t be locked up for more than a week or so.”

  “But how can I take it back, or get her to alter it if you’ve already eaten me up?” asked Polly.

  The wolf thought. Then he said sadly, “Perhaps I’d better not eat you this time, Polly, so that you can take the letter back and get it altered. But next time, Polly, you shan’t get away so easily, so look out.”

  But clever Polly smiled to herself, as she posted her mother’s letter to an aunt in the country in a different pillar box that afternoon. For she had beaten the wolf again.

  10. The Seventh Little Kid

  POLLY was alone in the house, not for the first time, when the front doorbell rang. Being, after her earlier experiences, rather cautious, she did not open the door straight away, but lifted the letter-box lid and tried to peep through.

  “Who is there?” she called out.

  “Your mother, my dear,” said a harsh and familiar voice. “Come back from shopping, with a present for you.”

  “You don’t sound at all like my mother,” Polly said suspiciously. She couldn’t see much through the letter box, and what she could see didn’t help. “Say that again.”