The Kingdom of Carbonel

by Barbara Sleigh

  ‘This must have been what Mrs Cantrip meant when she said, “There’s other ways than walking.”’ Rosemary said to herself. ‘I don’t expect I’ve anything to be frightened about,’ she went on severely, taking a firm grip of the arms of the chair. ‘I suppose because I said “I wish I was home,” and three times, too, that’s where the chair is taking me. How surprised Mum will be!’

  By this time, she could bring herself to look down without feeling giddy. Behind, she could see the tip of the pink wedge that was the new houses leading from Broomhurst, and the thought that John was there gave her courage. Suddenly, roofs and chimneys swirled and dipped beneath her. Few people looked up, but those who did scarcely had time to rub their eyes and look again before the rocking chair was too far away to be distinguished.

  The chair flew over the railway station where, such a short time ago, Rosemary and her mother had met John. A curious swallow swooped alongside. ‘Flying humans! What next?’ it said, and swooped away again.

  Then, Rosemary noticed with alarm that the chair was losing height. ‘My goodness, we’re going down! Chair do be careful!’

  The rows of crooked chimneys seemed to be coming straight up at her. She shut her eyes tightly, but even so, she had a sinking, going-down-in-a-lift feeling. Then there was a violent bump, and the chair overturned, throwing her in a heap on to a patch of long grass. She opened her eyes and sat up, surprised to find that, except for a few bruises, she was none the worse for her fall. She looked around cautiously.

  She was in a little garden. It was very small and surrounded on three sides by a high wall, with broken glass along the top. The fourth side was the back of a very shabby, small house. She got up and looked at the flower beds which ran around the little patch of grass. ‘It’s a very strange garden!’ Rosemary said. It was very neat, but there were no flowers, as she knew them.

  ‘Somebody has actually been growing weeds on purpose!’ There was a clump of stinging nettles carefully staked and tied, and another of hemlock, and there was a neat edging of dandelions. There were a great many plants that Rosemary did not recognize, nearly all of them with small, greenish flowers.

  ‘That bush is deadly nightshade! I know it is, because the berries are poisonous, and someone has put a net over it to keep off the birds, just as you do with raspberries!’ There was a clumsy garden seat made from packing cases. A seed box stood beside it with a label which said, MANDRAKE SEEDLINGS. SPARROWS KEEP OFF.

  Rosemary watched a bee back clumsily out of a foxglove bell, and for the first time noticed the hum of a small thatched beehive. It stood in an angle of the garden wall. The bee hummed a little song which sounded like this:

  ‘Busycum, buzzycum,

  Nectar and honeycomb.

  Lilac and lime on the tree,

  Roses and lilies

  And daffydown dillies,

  Are not for the likes of me.

  Not for a witch’s bee!’

  ‘Excuse me,’ said Rosemary, ‘but can you tell me whose garden this is?’

  The bee took no notice, but buzzing busily, pushed itself into the next foxglove bell. When it backed out again, it went on humming its song as though she had not spoken.

  ‘Busycum, buzzycum,

  Pains in the tummy cum,

  Sowthistle, poisonous pea,

  Henbane and hellebore,

  That’s what I’m looking for,

  That’s for the likes of me,

  Food for a witch’s bee!’

  ‘Of course I do like your song, but please tell me where I am!’ said Rosemary once more.

  The bee stood on the lip of the foxglove bell, which dipped with its weight, and paused to clean its back legs.

  ‘A hearing human, eh?’ it said. ‘I’ve heard of ’em of course, but never met one before. Full of surprises, this garden is. Whose is it? That’d be telling. Where are you? Where you’d much better not be!’ And it boomed off, still humming to itself, ‘Busycum, buzzycum.’

  ‘Oh, dear!’ said Rosemary. ‘That’s not much help. I expect I had better knock at the door. It’s going to be awfully difficult to explain how I got here.’

  She tiptoed up to what was clearly the back door of the house and knocked. While she was waiting for an answer, she looked through the window beside it. There was a window box on the sill, full of brightly coloured toadstools. The room inside looked unpleasantly familiar. There was still no answer, so she tried the door and, finding it unlocked, tiptoed in.

  ‘Oh, dear!’ said Rosemary for a third time. ‘It is Mrs Cantrip’s kitchen! How silly I have been! When I said “home”, the rocking chair took me to the only one it knew!

  ‘Is there anyone here?’ she called in a rather wobbly voice. There was no answer. ‘Well, there couldn’t be,’ she said with relief, ‘because it will take them a long time to walk all the way back from Figg’s Bottom.’

  Rosemary looked around the kitchen curiously. It was much the same as the last time she had seen it. It was quite tidy. The hearth was swept and the fire banked up. Dandelions, which had decorated the table, had been changed for a bunch of dead nettles. On the rag rug by the hearth lay a long wooden stick and a pile of twigs. Then her eyes were caught by a small cupboard hanging on the wall by the fireplace.

  The door was open, so she went over and looked in. On the top shelf were sugar and tea, cornflakes and nutmeg, and all the usual things found in a cupboard. But a screw of paper caught Rosemary’s eye on the lower shelf. ‘It looks like the Prism Powder Mrs Cantrip left in her apron pocket.’

  Next to it was an old can, which had a label gummed crookedly on to the side which said, DISAPPEARING POTION, but it was empty. Next to that was a jam jar with some purple liquid at the bottom, labelled FLYING PHILTRE, USE SPARINGLY, and beside that was a pickle jar with a few grains of coarse powder at the bottom. The label on this said MINUSCULE MAGIC.

  ‘So Mrs Cantrip really did have some magic left over!’ said Rosemary.

  As she spoke, she heard the Market Hall clock strike six o’clock. ‘I must start home. It will take me ages to walk to Cranshaw Road!’ She went through to the second room which opened on to the street and tried the door. To her horror it was locked! There was no key to be seen.

  ‘I expect Mrs Cantrip has taken it with her. Whatever shall I do?’ She ran to the window which looked on to the street, but it had been built as a shop window and it did not open. She walked back to the kitchen slowly as the situation dawned on her. There was no way out, and at any minute Mrs Cantrip and her companion might be back.

  She looked out of the kitchen window which opened on to the little garden. The rocking chair was on the small square of grass. It looked rather forlorn, lying on its side by the skid marks it had made when it landed.

  Rosemary ran out. She picked it up and dusted it with her handkerchief. ‘Rocking chair,’ she pleaded, ‘it was very clever of you to bring me here. I expect it is your home, but I want desperately to get to my home in Cranshaw Road. Please, will you take me there now? If you will, I’ll polish you up so beautifully that the Queen herself would be proud to sit in you!’

  She was not sure if she imagined it, but she thought the chair gave a faint rock of its own accord.

  ‘Now I’ll try and do just what I did before. I said a rhyme, I remember, three times over, and all the while I was rocking.’

  Rosemary sat herself in the chair and put her hands over her eyes to help her think, and began to rock. It was a little while before she could make her whirling thoughts obey her. ‘It’s not a very good rhyme,’ she said at last, ‘but it will have to do. I can’t think of a better one.’

  Anyone who has had to make up a rhyme with the words ‘one hundred and one’ in it, will realize her difficulty. She rocked the chair steadily, and at last she gripped the arms firmly and said:

  ‘Please take me home to Cranshaw Road.

  One hundred and one is my abode.

  My bedroom window’s open wide,

  So kindly take me right
inside.’

  As she got to the last line, she heard footsteps coming along the pavement on the other side of the wall. It sounded like two people, both of them limping a little.

  ‘It’s Mrs Cantrip! Someone must have given them a lift!’ said Rosemary to herself. ‘I must hurry!’

  She rocked higher and faster, saying the rhyme for a second time. As she reached the last line, she heard a key grating in the lock. It made such a noise that it was clearly as large as a church key. The lock needed oiling.

  She said the last line for the third time, and just as the door opened on its creaking hinge, the rocking chair rose from the ground with a swoop, spiralling steeply. She was just wondering if she ought to have added the postal number to the address when it straightened out. She opened her eyes and looked down. Already the little walled garden was no bigger than a green pocket handkerchief beneath her. Straight as an arrow, the chair headed for Cranshaw Road.

  10

  Making Plans

  John and Mrs Brown ate a silent, uncomfortable supper by themselves. He was a truthful boy and, being unable to think of anything better to say, repeated his story of someone having given Rosemary an unexpected lift. The unexpected part was certainly true.

  ‘But who could it have been?’ asked Mrs Brown anxiously for the tenth time. ‘It’s so unlike Rosemary!’ She broke off, to John’s intense relief, startled by a crash from Rosemary’s bedroom. The room was not much larger than a cupboard, and its only door led into the sitting room. John dropped his pudding spoon and rushed in.

  As Rosemary said later, the rocking chair was ‘willing but not very good at landing’. When John flung the door open, the chair was lying on its side, and Rosemary, looking slightly dazed, was picking herself up from the floor. With great presence of mind, he pushed the chair behind the door, and stood so that, as far as possible, it was hidden from Mrs Brown. Then, winking violently in an effort to convey that she had better think up something quickly, he said loudly, ‘Hello, Rosie!’

  For once Mrs Brown was extremely cross.

  ‘Rosemary! You are a very naughty girl! I can’t think why you should do something so childish as to hide in your bedroom while I have been so anxious. And what possessed you to leave Mr Featherstone and come home with someone else?’

  ‘I’m very sorry, Mummy,’ said Rosemary penitently. ‘I really didn’t mean you to be anxious. It was all a mistake, honestly. I promise I won’t ever do it again. Please, just this once,’ she went on earnestly, ‘will you trust me and not ask questions? It is a most particular secret!’

  Mrs Brown looked at her daughter’s pleading face for an anxious moment. Then at last she said, ‘You promise the secret is not wrong?’

  ‘Promise faithfully!’ said Rosemary.

  ‘Very well, dear. I will trust you. But you must not be inconsiderate either. You have been rude to Mr Featherstone as well as making me anxious. But come and have your supper now, Rosie. It’s in the oven. You must be starving.’

  ‘Are the kittens all right?’ asked Rosemary, between mouthfuls of fish pie.

  ‘Right as rain,’ said John. ‘But I think we ought to feed them as soon as possible,’ he went on, winking violently again, hoping that Rosemary would understand that he wanted to talk to her privately.

  They had to help wash up after supper, but as soon as the front door closed behind them, Rosemary told John her adventures. He listened open-mouthed.

  ‘I was in such a tizzy to get away from Mrs Cantrip’s garden that I forgot I wouldn’t be able to explain how I came to be in my bedroom without going through the sitting room. We shall have to think of some way to hide the chair, or Mum will want to know where it came from.’

  ‘Smuggle it down to the Green Cave for the moment, and cover it with leaves,’ John suggested. ‘But I’ve got something to tell you!’

  When John described the conversation he had overheard when he was hiding in the half-built house, it was Rosemary’s turn to be impressed.

  ‘Thank goodness they didn’t catch you!’ she said. ‘Well, it’s quite clear that Mrs Cantrip and that Dibdin woman are hatching some plot with the Queen of the Broomhurst cats. Tudge said that trouble was brewing.’

  ‘And he thought it was against Fallowhithe!’

  ‘If they’re meeting tomorrow night on top of the tallest building in Broomhurst, it must be on that new ten-storey block of offices that Mr Featherstone told us about. I’d give my boots for us to be behind a chimney so that we could listen to what they’re up to.’

  ‘John!’ said Rosemary excitedly. ‘Why shouldn’t we go?’

  ‘But they’re meeting in the middle of the night. How could we get on to the roof ? The place would be locked up!’

  ‘Well, said Rosemary, ‘as Mrs Cantrip said, “there’s other ways than walking”!’

  ‘John whistled. ‘Do you mean the rocking chair? Do you think it could carry us both?’

  ‘We could ask it in the morning. I think it’s had enough for one day. Come on, let’s feed the kittens.’

  It was growing dusk when they reached the greenhouse. When they opened the door an unexpected sight greeted them. Blandamour was sitting on an upturned flower pot, and at her feet were the two kittens, both sitting up as straight and still as their royal mother.

  Woppit looked on with her head on one side and a doting expression on her brindled face. ‘Hush!’ she said to John and Rosemary. ‘The little darlings is saying their lessons!’

  In small, piping voices the kittens were repeating:

  ‘No paw or whisker in the dish,

  Whether meat or fowl or fish…’

  Calidor’s voice faltered when a delicious tendril of haddock smell wafted from the plate Rosemary held and tickled his nose.

  ‘Calidor, pay attention!’ said Blandamour. ‘Each awkward…’

  The black kitten sighed, but went on:

  ‘Each awkward bone be sure to gnaw

  Upon the plate, not on the floor.

  Lap your milk from out the platter

  From the edge, and do not scatter

  Drops from either bowl or mug

  On quarried floor or silken rug.

  Steady lapping, rhythmic, quiet,

  Is correct for milky diet.

  After food, wash paws and face,

  And don’t forget to purr your grace.’

  ‘Very good, my children. Now you may eat,’ said Blandamour. ‘But remember what you have repeated. Greetings to you, John and Rosemary. My children are well, and if they are closely confined, no doubt you have your reasons!’

  ‘We certainly have, Your Majesty!’ said John. ‘It’s like this…’

  Blandamour listened in silence. Only once did she interrupt to summon a grizzled old tabby cat with four white stockings who was sitting in the shadow of the bushes outside.

  ‘Merbeck, my cousin and chief councillor,’ she said. ‘He too must hear your tale.’

  When the children had finished, she bowed her beautiful white head.

  ‘You have done well and bravely, and I am grateful. But it will need more courage still to fly to Cat Country and overhear Grisana’s schemings. It may even be dangerous. Merbeck, should we not send a pair of animals instead?’

  Merbeck shook his grizzled head. ‘I think not, Your Majesty. Grisana is wily in her wickedness. Her sentry will be on the alert for foreign cats, but flying humans they will not expect.’

  ‘Couldn’t I go too, oh, couldn’t I?’ asked Calidor, standing with his short legs spread out and his tail waving angrily. ‘I’d show ’em!’

  ‘Me too!’ said Pergamond shrilly.

  ‘No, my son,’ said Blandamour. ‘One day when you are older you will have many chances to prove how brave you are. Until we find out Grisana’s plans, we do not know where the danger lies.’

  ‘Therefore, we must go warily and keep our eyes and ears open. Above all, guard the royal kittens!’ said Merbeck. ‘Tomorrow we will come again and hear what you have discovered, and may
good luck go with you!’

  11

  Cat Country

  Rosemary kept her promise to the chair the next morning. While John mended the lock of the greenhouse, she carried dusters and furniture polish down to the Green Cave. She rubbed away until her arms ached and the curves of the dark wood of the chair gleamed with little, bright reflections.

  ‘The Queen herself really would be proud to sit in you now, just as I promised,’ said Rosemary, sitting back on her heels to admire her handiwork.

  The chair gave a little rock which seemed to show it was pleased. Or had she caught it with her duster?

  ‘And I know a real queen who might come and sit in you,’ went on Rosemary. There was another little rock. ‘A cat queen!’

  The rocking stopped abruptly.

  ‘A beautiful, snow-white queen who needs your help,’ she went on hurriedly. ‘Dear rocking chair, you carried me home so splendidly, won’t you help us again? You see –’ Once more she explained about the meeting on the tallest building in Broomhurst.

  ‘Roofs and walls are Cat Country at night,’ she said. ‘The place will be locked. Our only way to get there is by flying, if only you will take us. I’ll make you –’ she thought quickly – ‘an antimacassar! You know, one of those things to hang over the back – an embroidered one. I promise!’

  Rosemary held her breath. There was a moment’s pause, and then the chair gave another little rock.

  ‘I knew I could rely on you!’ she whispered, and ran back to the flat to get her nightdress case. It would make an excellent chair-back, she felt. Armed with needles and coloured thread, she went back to the greenhouse to tell John of her success.

  It was beginning to rain. Woppit was asleep in a corner, her untidy whiskers twitching as she chased dream mice around a shadowy dream cellar. The kittens were playing with something that rolled obligingly round the floor, and John was whistling through his teeth and fiddling with the lock which he had taken to pieces.