Polly took a step back. The fox-wolf came nearer. Polly opened her mouth to go on with the conversation, which she hoped still to keep on a polite level, when she felt a wet splash on her nose. She looked suspiciously at the fox-wolf and saw a splash arrive on his nose too. Drops as big as half crowns fell rapidly in the dusty path between and all around them. In the distance they heard a faint roll of thunder.
“It’s going to rain,” Polly said.
“It is raining,” the fox-wolf said.
“Hard.”
“Very hard.”
“You might need your mackintosh.”
“I’m not going to bother about that till I’ve dealt with you,” the fox-wolf replied threateningly. He stepped forward again, through what was now a drenching downpour, but hesitated when he saw Polly’s face. She was looking first at him and then at the rain and then at the ground round his feet as if she couldn’t believe her eyes.
“What is it?” he asked impatiently.
“Oh, Fox-Wolf—Oh, Wolf—oh, whatever you are, do look!”
“Look at what?”
“The puddle and your fur—oh, Wolf you aren’t fast dyed! Your colour’s all coming off in the rain. You’re only half a fox now, Wolf, and in a minute or two you’re going to be just Wolf again and as stupid as ever.”
The animal looked down at the reddish-brown puddle round his feet, getting bigger and more reddish-brown all the time: and then down at his streaked, spiky brown-black fur, getting blacker as quickly as the water on the ground got red.
“It’s coming off!” he muttered stupidly. “But it was supposed to be a fast dye!”
“Did you get right into the bath of dye?” Polly asked.
“Right in,” said the wolf dejectedly.
“And stayed there for twenty minutes?”
“An hour and a half to make sure!” said the wolf.
“Did you remember to put in a tablespoonful of salt?”
“I used pepper and mustard as well,” the wolf said. “The mustard stung my eyes!”
“And did you bring it to the boil!”
“Of course I did.”
“And keep it boiling?”
“Of course. I’m not such a fool,” the wolf said, “as to think you can get results if you don’t do what the instructions tell you to.”
“It must have hurt,” Polly said. “You must be awfully brave, Wolf.”
“Why?”
“To stay all that time in a bath of boiling dye!”
“Oh, I didn’t stay in it when it got too hot,” the wolf said cheerfully. “Naturally I got out before I boiled it. You don’t expect me to stay in boiling dye, Polly, surely? Not even a wolf—not even you,” he harshly corrected himself, “could be as stupid as that.”
“Well,” said Polly (she was soaked, but no longer at all frightened). “Now I understand what’s happening. Just look at yourself, Wolf.”
“Fox,” the wolf corrected her.
“Wolf,” said Polly firmly. “You’re as black as you ever were; the dye’s all gone. And I expect all the cleverness has gone too, hasn’t it?”
The wolf looked unhappily down at his dripping black fur. If a tear or two fell at the same time it was unnoticeable in so much rain. There was another roll of thunder, closer this time.
“I don’t feel my best,” he admitted.
“You’re very wet and cold, aren’t you, Wolf?” Polly urged. The wolf shivered violently for an answer.
“You feel pretty stupid, don’t you, Wolf?”
“I don’t understand. Fast dye,” the wolf murmured to himself.
“I should get home and have a warm bath and a nice drink of hot cocoa and go straight to bed,” Polly said kindly.
“I will,” the wolf said gratefully, turning to trot away.
“And next time you want to be a different colour, try boiling in it,” Polly called after him, as she began to run home herself.
“I may be stupid,” she heard the wolf say before the next peal of thunder overtook them; and as it died away, “but not as stupid as all that.”
8. The Riddlemaster
SITTING on one of the public benches in the High Street one warm Saturday morning, Polly licked all round the top of an ice-cream horn.
A large person sat down suddenly beside her. The bench swayed and creaked, and Polly looked round.
“Good morning, Wolf!”
“Good morning, Polly.”
“Nice day, Wolf.”
“Going to be hot, Polly.”
“Mmm,” Polly said. She was engaged in trying to save a useful bit of ice cream with her tongue before it dripped on to the pavement and was wasted.
“In fact it is hot now, Polly.”
“I’m not too hot,” Polly said.
“Perhaps that delicious looking ice is cooling you down,” the wolf said enviously.
“Perhaps it is,” Polly agreed.
“I’m absolutely boiling,” the wolf said.
Polly fished in the pocket of her cotton dress and pulled out a threepenny bit. It was more than half what she had left, but she was a kind girl, and in a way she was fond of the wolf, tiresome as he sometimes was.
“Here you are, Wolf,” she said, holding it out to him. “Go into Woolworths and get one for yourself.”
There was a scurry of feet, a flash of black fur, and a little cloud of white summer dust rose off the pavement near Polly’s feet. The wolf had gone.
Two minutes later he came back, a good deal more slowly. He was licking his ice-cream horn with a very long red tongue and it was disappearing extremely quickly. He sat down again beside Polly with a satisfied grunt.
“Mm! Just what I needed. Thank you very much, Polly.”
“Not at all, Wolf,” said Polly, who had thought that he might have said this before.
She went on licking her ice in a happy dream-like state, while the wolf did the same, but twice as fast.
Presently, in a slightly aggrieved voice, the wolf said, “Haven’t you nearly finished?”
“Well no, not nearly,” Polly said. She always enjoyed spinning out ices as long as possible. “Have you?”
“Ages ago.”
“I wish you wouldn’t look at me so hard, Wolf,” Polly said, wriggling. “It makes me feel uncomfortable when I’m eating.”
“I was only thinking,” the wolf said.
“You look sad, then, when you think,” Polly remarked.
“I generally am. It’s a very sad world, Polly.”
“Is it?” said Polly, in surprise.
“Yes. A lot of sad things happen.”
“What things?” asked Polly.
“Well, I finish up all my ice cream.”
“That’s fairly sad. But at any rate you did have it,” Polly said.
“I haven’t got it Now,” the wolf said. “And it’s Now that I want it. Now is the only time to eat ice cream.”
“When you are eating it, it is Now,” Polly remarked.
“But when I’m not, it isn’t. I wish it was always Now,” the wolf sighed.
“It sounds like a riddle,” Polly said.
“What does?”
“What you were saying. When is Now not Now or something like that. You know the sort I mean, when is a door not a door?”
“I love riddles,” said the wolf in a much more cheerful voice. “I know lots. Let’s ask each other riddles.”
“Yes, let’s,” said Polly.
“And I tell you what would make it really amusing. Let’s say that whoever wins can eat the other person up.”
“Wins how?” Polly asked cautiously.
“By asking three riddles the other person can’t answer.”
“Three in a row,” Polly insisted.
“Very well. Three in a row.”
“And I can stop whenever I want to.”
“All right,” the wolf agreed unwillingly. “And I’ll start,” he added quickly. “What made the penny stamp?”
Polly knew it was becaus
e the threepenny bit, and said so. Then she asked the wolf what made the apple turnover, and he knew the answer to that. Polly knew what was the longest word in the dictionary, and the wolf knew what has an eye but cannot see. This reminded him of the question of what has hands, but no fingers and a face, but no nose, to which Polly was able to reply that it was a clock.
“My turn,” she said, with relief. “Wolf, what gets bigger, the more you take away from it?”
The wolf looked puzzled.
“Are you sure you’ve got it right, Polly?” he asked at length. “You don’t mean it gets smaller the more you take away from it?”
“No, I don’t.”
“It gets bigger?”
“Yes.”
“No cake I ever saw did that,” the wolf said, thinking aloud. “Some special kind of pudding, perhaps?”
“It’s not a pudding,” Polly said.
“I know!” the wolf said triumphantly. “It’s the sort of pain you get when you’re hungry. And the more you don’t eat the worse the pain gets. That’s getting bigger the less you do about it.”
“No, you’re wrong,” Polly said. “It isn’t a pain or anything to eat, either. It’s a hole. The more you take away, the bigger it gets, don’t you see, Wolf?”
“Being hungry is a sort of hole in your inside,” the wolf said. “But anyhow it’s my turn now. I’m going to ask you a new riddle, so you won’t know the answer already, and I don’t suppose you’ll be able to guess it, either. What gets filled up three or four times a day, and yet can always hold more?”
“Do you mean it can hold more after it’s been filled?” Polly asked.
The wolf thought, and then said, “Yes.”
“But it couldn’t, Wolf! If it was really properly filled up it couldn’t hold any more.”
“It does though,” the wolf said triumphantly. “It seems to be quite bursting full and then you try very hard and it still holds a little more.”
Polly had her suspicions of what this might be, but she didn’t want to say in case she was wrong.
“I can’t guess.”
“It’s me!” the wolf cried in delight. “Got you, that time, Polly! However full up I am, I can always manage a little bit more. Your turn next, Polly.”
“What,” Polly said, “is the difference between an elephant and a pillar box?”
The wolf thought for some time.
“The elephant is bigger,” he said, at last.
“Yes. But that isn’t the right answer.”
“The pillar box is red. Bright red. And the elephant isn’t.”
“Ye-es. But that isn’t the right answer either.”
The wolf looked puzzled. He stared hard at the old-fashioned Victorian pillar box in the High Street. It had a crimped lid with a knob on top like a silver teapot. But it didn’t help him. After some time he said crossly, “I don’t know.”
“You mean you can’t tell the difference between an elephant and a pillar box?”
“No.”
“Then I shan’t send you to post my letters,” Polly said triumphantly. She thought this was a very funny riddle.
The wolf, however, didn’t.
“You don’t see the joke, Wolf?” Polly asked, a little disappointed that he was so unmoved.
“I see it, yes. But I don’t think it’s funny. It’s not a proper riddle at all. It’s just silly.”
“Now you ask me something,” Polly suggested. After a minute or two’s thought, the wolf said, “What is the difference between pea soup and a clean pocket handkerchief?”
“Pea soup is hot and a pocket handkerchief is cold,” said Polly.
“No. Anyhow you could have cold pea soup.”
“Pea soup is green,” said Polly.
“I expect a clean pocket handkerchief could be green too, if it tried,” said the wolf. “Do you give it up?”
“Well,” said Polly, “of course I do know the difference, but I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“I want you to say you don’t know the difference between them,” said the wolf crossly.
“But I do,” said Polly.
“But then I can’t say what I was going to say!” the wolf cried.
He looked so much disappointed that Polly relented.
“All right, then, you say it.”
“You don’t know the difference between pea soup and a clean pocket handkerchief?”
“I’ll pretend I don’t. No, then,” said Polly.
“You ought to be more careful what you keep in your pockets,” the wolf said. He laughed so much at this that he choked, and Polly had to beat him hard on the back before he recovered and could sit back comfortably on the seat again.
“Your turn,” he said, as soon as he could speak.
Polly thought carefully. She thought of a riddle about a man going to St Ives; of one about the man who showed a portrait to another man; of one about a candle; but she was not satisfied with any of them. With so many riddles it isn’t really so much a question of guessing the answers, as of knowing them or not knowing them already, and if the wolf were to invent a completely new riddle out of his head, he would be able to eat her, Polly, in no time at all.
“Hurry up,” said the wolf.
Perhaps it was seeing his long red tongue at such very close quarters, or it may have been the feeling that she had no time to lose, that made Polly say, before she had considered what she was going to say, “What is it that has teeth, but no mouth?”
“Grrrr,” said the wolf, showing all his teeth for a moment. “Are you quite sure he hasn’t a mouth, Polly?”
“Quite sure. And I’m supposed to be asking the questions, not you, Wolf.”
The wolf did not appear to hear this. He had now turned his back on Polly and was going through some sort of rapid repetition in a subdued gabble, through which Polly could hear only occasional words.
“. . . Grandma, so I said the better to see you with, gabble, gabble, gabble, Ears you’ve got, gabble gabble better to hear gabble gabble gabble gabble gabble TEETH gabble eat you all up.”
He turned round with a satisfied air.
“I’ve guessed it, Polly. It’s a GRANDMOTHER.”
“No,” said Polly, astonished.
“Well then, Red Riding Hood’s grandmother if you are so particular. The story mentions her eyes and her ears and her teeth, so I expect she hadn’t got anything else. No mouth anyhow.”
“It’s not anyone’s grandmother.”
“Not a grandmother,” said the wolf slowly. He shook his head. “It’s difficult. Tell me some more about it. Are they sharp teeth, Polly?”
“They can be,” Polly said.
“As sharp as mine?” asked the wolf, showing his for comparison.
“No,” said Polly, drawing back a little. “But more tidily arranged,” she added.
The wolf shut his jaws with a snap.
“I give up,” he said in a disagreeable tone. “There isn’t anything I know of that has teeth and no mouth. What use would the teeth be to anyone without a mouth? I mean, what is the point of taking a nice juicy bite out of something if you’ve got to find someone else’s mouth to swallow it for you? It doesn’t make sense.”
“It’s a comb,” said Polly, when she got a chance to speak.
“A what?” cried the wolf in disgust.
“A COMB. What you do your hair with. It’s got teeth, hasn’t it? But no mouth. A comb, Wolf.”
The wolf looked sulky. Then he said in a bright voice, “My turn now, and I’ll begin straight away. What is the difference between a nice fat young pink pig and a plate of sausages and bacon? You don’t know, of course, so I’ll tell you. It’s—”
“Wolf!” Polly interrupted.
“It’s a very good riddle, this one, and I can’t blame you for not having guessed it. The answer is—”
“WOLF!” Polly said, “I want to tell you something.”
“Not the answer?”
“No. Not the answer. Something
else.”
“Well, go on.”
“Look, Wolf, we made a bargain, didn’t we, that whoever lost three lives running by not being able to answer riddles, might be eaten up by the other person?”
“Yes,” the wolf agreed. “And you’ve lost two already, and now you’re not going to be able to answer the third and then I shall eat you up. Now I’ll tell you what the difference is between a nice fat little pink—”
“NO!” Polly shouted. “Listen, Wolf! I may have lost two lives already, but you have lost three!”
“I haven’t!”
“Yes, you have! You couldn’t answer the riddle about the hole, you didn’t know the difference between an elephant and a pillar box—”
“I do!” said the wolf indignantly.
“Well, you may now, but you didn’t when I asked you the riddle; and you didn’t know about the comb having teeth and no mouth. That was three you couldn’t answer in a row, so it isn’t you that is going to eat me up.”
“What is it then?” the wolf asked, shaken.
“It’s me that is going to eat you up!” said Polly.
The wolf moved rather further away.
“Are you really going to eat me up, Polly?”
“In a moment, Wolf. I’m just considering how I’ll have you cooked,” said Polly.
“I’m very tough, Polly.”
“That’s all right, Wolf. I can simmer you gently over a low flame until you are tender.”
“I don’t suppose I’d fit very nicely into any of your saucepans, Polly.”
“I can use the big one Mother has for making jam. That’s an enormous saucepan,” said Polly thoughtfully, measuring the wolf with her eyes.
The wolf began visibly to shake where he sat.
“Oh please, Polly, don’t eat me. Don’t eat me up this time,” he urged. “Let me off this once. I promise I’ll never do it again.”
“Never do what again?” Polly asked.
“I don’t know. What was I doing?” the wolf asked himself in despair.
“Trying to get me to eat,” Polly suggested.
“Well, of course, I’m always doing that,” the wolf agreed.
“And you would have eaten me?” Polly asked.
“Not if you’d asked very nicely, I wouldn’t,” the wolf said. “Like I’m asking now.”
The Complete Polly and the Wolf Page 11