But was the humour to be relied on? Suppose he asked and she said no!
He decided not to risk asking, but just to take the whistle. It was only borrowing, after all. He could put it back in a minute.
Quick as a fish his hand darted, and the whistle was in his trouser pocket.
Round behind the bench he hurried, feeling the silver shape against him. He was just about to take it out when something small and bright ran past him.
“I believe that’s the cat I saw last night!” said Michael to himself.
And, indeed, it was one and the same. The same black-and-yellow coat shone in the sunny mist, more like dapples of light and shadow than ordinary fur. And about its neck was the same gold collar.
The cat glanced up invitingly, smiling the same mysterious smile, and padded lightly on.
Michael darted after it, in and out of the patches of mist that seemed to grow thicker as he ran.
Something fell with a chink at his feet.
“My shilling!” he cried, as he bent to retrieve it. He searched among the steaming grasses, turning over the wet blades, feeling under the clover. Not here! Not there! Where could it have gone?
“Come on!” said a soft, inviting voice. He looked round quickly. To his surprise there was nobody near – except the smiling cat.
“Hurry!” cried the voice again.
It was the cat who had spoken.
Michael sprang up. It was no use hunting, the shilling had gone. He hurried after the voice.
The cat smiled as he caught it up and rubbed against his legs. The steaming vapour rose up from the earth, wrapping them both around. And before them stood a wall of mist almost as thick as a cloud.
“Take hold of my collar,” the cat advised. Its voice was no more than a soft mew, but it held a note of command.
Michael felt a twinge of excitement. Something new was happening! He bent down obediently and clasped the band of gold.
“Now, jump!” the cat ordered. “Lift your feet!”
And holding the golden collar tightly, Michael sprang into the mist.
“Whee – ee – ee!” cried a rushing wind in his ears. The sunny cloud was sweeping past him and all around him was empty space. The only solid things in the world were the shining band round the cat’s neck and the hat on his own head.
“Where on earth are we going?” Michael gasped.
At the same moment the mist cleared. His feet touched something firm and shiny. And he saw that he stood on the steps of a palace – a palace made of gold.
“Nowhere on earth,” replied the cat, pressing a bell with its paw.
The doors of the palace opened slowly. Sweet music came to Michael’s ears and the sight he beheld quite dazzled him.
Before him lay a great gold hall, blazing with plumes of light. Never, in his richest dreams, had Michael imagined such splendour. But the grandeur of the palace was as nothing compared to the brilliance of its inhabitants. For the hall was full of cats.
These cats were playing fiddles, cats playing flutes, cats on trapezes, cats in hammocks; cats juggling with golden hoops, cats dancing on the tips of their toes; cats turning somersaults; cats chasing tails and cats merely lolling about daintily licking their paws.
Moreover, they were tortoiseshell cats, all of them dappled with yellow and black; and the light in the hall seemed to come from their coats, for each cat shone with its own brightness.
In the centre, before a golden curtain, lay a pair of golden cushions. And on these reclined two dazzling creatures, each wearing a crown of gold. They leant together, paw in paw, majestically surveying the scene.
“They must be the King and Queen,” thought Michael.
To one side of this lordly pair stood three very young cats. Their fur was as smooth and bright as sunlight, and each had a chaplet of yellow flowers perched between the ears. Round about them were other cats who looked like courtiers – for all were wearing golden collars and ceremoniously standing on their hind legs.
One of these turned and beckoned to Michael.
“Here he is, Your Majesty!” He bowed obsequiously.
“Ah,” said the King, with a stately nod. “So glad you’ve turned up at last! The Queen and I and our three daughters –” he waved his paw at the three young cats – “have been expecting you!”
Expecting him! How flattering! But, of course, no more than his due.
“May we offer you a little refreshment?” asked the Queen, with a gracious smile.
“Yes, please!” said Michael eagerly. In such a graceful environment there would surely be nothing less than jelly – and probably ice cream!
Immediately three courtier cats presented three golden platters. On one lay a dead mouse, on the second a bat, and the third held a small raw fish.
Michael felt his face fall. “Oh, no! thank you!” he said, with a shudder.
“First Yes Please and then No Thank You! Which do you mean?” the King demanded.
“Well, I don’t like mice!” protested Michael. “And I never eat bats or raw fish either.”
“Don’t like mice?” cried a hundred voices, as the cats all stared at each other.
“Fancy!” exclaimed the three Princesses.
“Then perhaps you would care for a little milk?” said the Queen, with a queenly smile.
At once a courtier stood before him with milk in a golden saucer.
Michael put out his hands to take it.
“Oh, not with your paws!” the Queen implored him. “Let him hold it while you lap!”
“But I can’t lap!” Michael protested. “I haven’t got that kind of tongue.”
“Can’t lap!” Again the cats regarded each other. They seemed quite scandalised.
“Fancy!” the three Princesses mewed.
“Well,” said the Queen hospitably, “a little rest after your journey!”
“Oh, it wasn’t much of a journey,” said Michael. “Just a big jump and here we were! It’s funny,” he went on thoughtfully, “I’ve never seen this palace before – and I’m always in the Park! It must have been hidden behind the trees.”
“In the Park?”
The King and Queen raised their eyebrows. So did all the courtiers. And the three Princesses were so overcome that they took three golden fans from their pockets and hid their smiles behind them.
“You’re not in the Park now, I assure you. Far from it!” the King informed him.
“Well, it can’t be very far,” said Michael. “It only took me a minute to get here.”
“Ah!” said the King. “But how long is a minute?”
“Sixty seconds!” Michael replied. Surely, he thought, a King should know that!
“Your minutes may be sixty seconds, but ours are about two hundred years.”
Michael smiled at him amiably. A King, he thought, must have his joke.
“Now tell me,” continued the King blandly, “did you ever hear of the Dog Star?”
“Yes,” said Michael, very surprised. What had the Dog Star to do with it? “His other name is Sirius.”
“Well, this,” said the King, “is the Cat Star. And its other name is a secret. A secret, may I further add, that is only known to cats.”
“But how did I get here?” Michael enquired. He was feeling more and more pleased with himself. Think of it – visiting a star! That didn’t happen to everyone.
“You wished,” replied the King calmly.
“Did I?” He couldn’t remember it.
“Of course you did!” the King retorted.
“Last night!” the Queen reminded him.
“Looking at the first star!” the courtiers added firmly.
“Which happened,” said the King, “to be ours. Read the Report, Lord Chamberlain!”
An elderly cat, in spectacles and a long gold wig, stepped forward with an enormous book.
“Last night,” he read out pompously, “Michael Banks, of Number Seventeen, Cherry Tree Lane – a little house on the planet Earth – gav
e expression to three wishes.”
“Three?” cried Michael. “I never did!”
“Shush!” warned the King. “Don’t interrupt.”
“Wish Number One,” the Lord Chamberlain read, “was that he could have some luck!”
A memory stirred in Michael’s mind. He saw himself on the window-seat, gazing up at the sky.
“Oh, now I remember!” he agreed. “But it wasn’t very important.”
“All wishes are important!” The Lord Chamberlain looked at him severely.
“Well – and what happened?” the King enquired. “I presume the wish came true?”
Michael reflected. It had been a most unusual day, full of all kinds of luck.
“Yes, it did!” he admitted cheerfully.
“In what way?” asked the King. “Do tell us!”
“Well,” began Michael, “I scraped the cake bowl—”
“Scraped the cake bowl?” the cats repeated. They stared as though he were out of his wits.
“Fancy!” the three Princesses purred.
The King wrinkled his nose in disgust. “Some people have strange ideas of luck! But do continue, please!”
Michael straightened his shoulders proudly. “And then – because it was hot, you know – the Admiral let me borrow his hat!” What would they say to that? he wondered. They would surely be green with envy.
But the cats merely flicked their tails and silently gazed at the skull-and-crossbones.
“Well, everyone to his own taste,” said the King after a pause. “The question is – is it comfortable?”
“Er – not exactly,” Michael admitted. For the hat did not fit him anywhere. “It’s rather heavy,” he added.
“H’m!” the King murmured. “Well, please go on!”
“Then Daddy gave me a shilling this morning. But I lost it in the grass.”
“How much use is a lost shilling?” The way the King put the question, it sounded like a conundrum.
Michael wished he had been more careful.
“Not much,” he said. Then he brightened up.
“Oh – and Aunt Flossie sent me a bar of chocolate.”
He felt for it in his trouser pocket and realised, as he fished it out, that he must have been sitting on it. For now it was only a flattened mass with bits of fluff all over it and a nail embedded among the nuts.
The cats eyed the object fastidiously.
“If you ask me,” said the King, looking squeamish, “I much prefer a bat to that!”
Michael also stared at the chocolate. How quickly all his luck had vanished! There was nothing left to show for it.
“Read on, Lord Chamberlain!” ordered the King.
The old cat gave his wig a pat.
“The second wish was—” he turned the page – “that the others would leave him alone.”
“It wasn’t!” cried Michael uncomfortably.
But he saw himself, even as he spoke, pushing the Twins away.
“Well,” he said lamely, “perhaps it was. But I didn’t really mean it!”
The King straightened up on his golden cushion.
“You made a wish that you didn’t mean? Wasn’t that rather dangerous?”
“And did they leave you alone?” asked the Queen. Her eyes were very inquisitive.
Michael considered. Now that he came to think of it, in spite of his luck, the day had been lonely. Jane had played her own games. The Twins had hardly been near him. And Mary Poppins, although she had treated him most politely, had certainly left him alone.
“Yes,” he admitted unwillingly.
“Of course they did!” the King declared. “If you wish on the first star, it always comes true, especially—” he twirled his whiskers – “if it happens to be ours. Well, what about the third wish?”
The Lord Chamberlain adjusted his glasses.
“He wished to be miles from everybody and somewhere where he could have all the fun.”
“But that was only a sort of joke! I didn’t even realise I was looking at a star. And I never thought of it coming true.”
“Exactly so! You never thought! That’s what all of them say.” The King regarded him quizzically.
“All?” echoed Michael. “Who else said it?”
“Dear me!” The King gave a dainty yawn. “You don’t think you’re the only child who has wished to be miles away! I assure you, it’s quite a common request. And one – when it’s wished on our star – that we find very useful. Very useful indeed!” he repeated. “Malkin!” He waved to a courtier. “Be good enough to draw the curtain!”
A young cat, whom Michael recognised as the one that had accompanied him from the Park, sprang to the back of the hall.
The golden curtain swung aside, disclosing the palace kitchens.
“Now, come along!” cried Malkin sternly. “Hurry up, all! No dawdling!”
“Yes, Malkin!”
“No, Malkin!”
“Coming, Malkin!”
A chorus of treble voices answered. And Michael saw, to his surprise, that the kitchen was full of children.
There were boys and girls of every size, all of them working frantically at different domestic tasks.
Some were washing up golden plates, others were shining the cats’ gold collars. One boy was skinning mice, another was boning bats, and two more were down on their knees busily scrubbing the floor. Two little girls in party dresses were sweeping up fishbones and sardine tins and putting them into a golden dustbin. Another was sitting under a table winding a skein of golden wool. They all looked very forlorn and harassed, and the child beneath the table was weeping.
The Lord Chamberlain looked at her and gave an impatient growl.
“Be quick with that wool, now, Arabella! The Princesses want to play cat’s-cradle!”
The Queen stretched out her hind leg to a boy in a sailor suit.
“Come, Robert,” she said in a fretful voice. “It’s time to polish my claws.”
“I’m hungry!” whined the eldest Princess.
“Matilda! Matilda!” Malkin thundered. “A haddock for Princess Tiger-Lily! And Princess Marigold’s sugared milk! And a rat for the Princess Crocus!”
A girl in plaits and a pinafore appeared with three golden bowls. The Princesses nibbled a morsel each and tossed the rest to the floor. And several children ran in and began to sweep up the scraps.
The King glanced slyly across at Michael and smiled at his astonishment.
“Our servants are very well trained, don’t you think? Malkin insists on them toeing the line. They keep the palace like a new pin. And they cost us practically nothing.”
“But,” began Michael in a very small voice. “Do the children do all the work?”
“Who else?” said the King, with the lift of an eyebrow. “You could hardly expect a cat to do it! Cats have other and better occupations. A cat in the kitchen – what an idea! Out duty is to be wise and handsome – isn’t that enough?”
Michael’s face was full of pity as he gazed at the luckless children.
“But how did they get here?” he wanted to know.
“Exactly as you did,” the King replied. “They wished they were miles from everywhere. So here they are, you see.”
“But that wasn’t what they really wanted!”
“I’m afraid that’s no affair of ours. All we can do is to grant their wishes. I’ll introduce you in a moment. They’re always glad to see a new face. And so are we, for that matter. ”The King’s face wore an expressive smile. “Many hands make light work, you know!”
“But I’m not going to work!” cried Michael. “That wasn’t what I wished for.”
“Ah! Then you should have been more careful. Wishes are tricky things. You must ask for exactly what you want or you never know where they will land you. Well, never mind. You’ll soon settle down.”
“Settle down?” echoed Michael uneasily.
“Certainly. Just as the others have done. Malkin will show you your duties presently,
when you’ve had the rest of your wish. We mustn’t be forgetting that. There are still the riddles, you know.”
“Riddles? I never mentioned riddles!” Michael was beginning to wonder if he were really enjoying this adventure.
“Didn’t you wish to have all the fun? Well, what is more fun than a riddle? Especially,” purred the King, “to a cat! Tell him the rules, Lord Chamberlain!”
The old cat peered over his glasses.
“It has always been our custom here, when any child wishes for all the fun, to let him have three guesses. If he answers them all – correctly, of course – he wins a third of the Cats’ kingdom and the hand of one of the Princesses in marriage.”
“And if he fails,” the King added, “we find him some other occupation.” He glanced significantly at the labouring children.
“I need hardly add,” he continued blandly, exchanging a smile with his three daughters, “that no one has guessed the riddles yet. Let the curtain be drawn for the – ahem! – time being. Silence in the hall, please! Lord Chamberlain, begin!”
Immediately, the music ceased. The dancers stood on the tips of their paws and the hoops hung motionless in the air.
Michael’s spirits rose again. Now that the children were out of sight, he felt a good deal better. Besides, he loved a guessing game.
The Lord Chamberlain opened his book and read:
“Round as a marble, blue as the sea,
Unless I am brown or grey, maybe!
Smile, and I shine my window-pane,
Frown at me and down comes my rain.
I see all things but nothing I hear,
Sing me to sleep and I disappear.”
Michael frowned. The cats were all watching him as if he were a mouse.
“A bit of a poser, I’m afraid!” The King leant back on his cushion.
“No, it isn’t!” cried Michael suddenly. “I’ve got it! An Eye!”
The cats glanced cornerwise at each other. The King’s wide gaze grew narrower.
“H’m,” he murmured. “Not bad, not bad! Well, now for the second riddle.”
“A-hurrrrum!” The Lord Chamberlain cleared his throat.
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