The Diddakoi
Page 12
‘But Admiral Twiss did the gilding.’
‘My dad put on bicycle tyres so the wagon could go easier on the road.’ That was Susan from the garage.
‘Mine got the bulbs, little daffodils for the window boxes,’ said Jennifer from the market garden.
‘The little mirror’s from me.’
‘We gave the carpet.’
The babel went on until Nat came, bringing Joey at a trot; Joey was wearing harness, and what harness! His forelock and his bridle were tied with coloured ribbons: his bridle and collar were red with black facings, as was the saddle holding the rein guards. Bridle and reins were studded with tiny brass hearts and diamonds, ‘flashings’, Nat called them. ‘Real gypsy!’ and he had tied a ribbon on the whip. There was a tense silence while Nat and Admiral Twiss lowered the shafts, backed Joey between them, buckled the breechings and hooked the traces. Then, ‘He fits!’ the shout went up. ‘He fits.’
‘There’s a girl,’ the newest child at Amberhurst School said to her mother three months later, ‘a girl who’s a gypsy – at least, she’s half a gypsy She has rings in her ears and she sometimes comes to school in a little wagon. It’s her own wagon, a real gypsy one, and she leads the pony herself. The pony is called Joey and his harness is red and black and sparkling.’
‘Sparkling?’
‘It has little bits of polished brass. She unharnesses the pony and turns him into a field while we have lessons and sometimes Mrs Blount lets her ask two boys or girls to go in the wagon and eat their lunch with her – not me, of course, big girls like Mary Jo, Elizabeth or Prue, but perhaps one day she might ask me. In the afternoon, she harnesses the pony and leads him home. Sometimes she just rides him without the wagon. I wish I was a gypsy,’ and the new child began to sing, with love and longing, ‘Gypsy, gypsy joker, get a red hot poker,’ and, ‘ Tinker Tinkety-tink. Diddakoi.’
The Diddakoi
RUMER GODDEN was one of the UK’s most distinguished authors. She wrote many well-known and much-loved books for both adults and children, including The Dolls’ House and The Story of Holly & Ivy. The Diddakoi won the Whitbread Children’s Book Award in 1972.
She was awarded the OBE in 1993 and died in 1998, aged ninety.
Also by Rumer Godden
The Story of Holly & Ivy
The Dolls’ House
The Fairy Doll
Miss Happiness and Miss Flower
Little Plum
For older readers
The Greengage Summer
The Peacock Spring
Pippa Passes
The River
In This House of Brede
Episode of Sparrows
Black Narcissus
Breakfast with Nikolides
Kingfishers Catch Fire
First published 1972 by Macmillan Children’s Books
This edition published 2007 by Macmillan Children’s Books
This electronic edition published 2011 by Macmillan Children’s Books
a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
Pan Macmillan, 20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR
Basingstoke and Oxford
Associated companies throughout the world
www.panmacmillan.com
ISBN 978-1-447-20633-0
Copyright © Rumer Godden Literary Trust 1972
The right of Rumer Godden to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
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