‘But how will you know when it has come to its senses?’ asked Miss Dibdin.
‘Ah ha!’ said Mrs Witherspoon triumphantly. ‘It so happens that I have succeeded in making a magic by which I can hold a conversation with any cat I choose.’ There was a gasp from Miss Dibdin, but Mrs Witherspoon swept on. ‘The instructions were in the book. A special purple brew it was, chanting the right words while you mix it — in rhyme, of course.’
By this time John and Rosemary had quite forgotten that they had no business to be listening, and had pushed the door open wide enough to peer inside. It opened on to a large hall, which was high and raftered, with a number of doors leading from it, each with a pair of stag’s antlers above it. A wide staircase mounted to a gallery at the far end.
‘Dulcie, dear!’ pleaded Miss Dibdin in a wheedling voice. ‘Couldn’t you spare me a teeny weeny drop of the mixture for hearing cats? Just enough for one ear perhaps?’
‘Certainly not,’ said Mrs Witherspoon coldly. ‘Anyway it boiled over. There’s none left. Perhaps I should have brewed it in something bigger than the egg saucepan. You chose to experiment in secret in the Ladies’ Waiting Room at the station. Well, Gullion and I shall experiment in secret at Tucket Towers; and may the best witch win!’
‘Very well,’ said Miss Dibdin angrily. ‘When my parcel comes ..‘You and your parcel! I don’t believe the silly thing exists!’
Miss Dibdin drew herself up. ‘Well, there is something that even I have managed to do. I don’t think I can have got the proportions quite right, or else I stirred it in the wrong direction, so that the result is not quite perfect, but it nearly works. How do you think I came from the station just now?’
‘Walked by the field path as usual, I suppose,’ said Mrs Witherspoon impatiently.
‘That’s just where you’re wrong!’ said Miss Dibdin triumphantly. ‘I came by broom!’
‘You mean you flew by broomstick?’ Mrs Witherspoon laughed scornfully. ‘I shall believe that when I see it!’
‘Very well, you shall see it!’ said Miss Dibdin defiantly.
She strutted to the umbrella stand. In it, beside a very baggy old umbrella, was the broom they had seen in the station waiting room. She straddled the handle. Then, with her head held high, she cried in a shrill, sing-song voice: ‘To the Ladies’ Waiting Room. Kindly take me, faithful broom!’
For a moment nothing happened, then the broom gave a quiver, and very slowly rose from the floor. When it reached a height of about three feet it lurched sharply down again, and bumped on the ground with such force that she nearly fell off; then up it rose again, rising and falling, gaining no more height but gathering speed. Up and down, up and down it flew towards the door, in a series of hops — Miss Dibdin, hair coming down, tall black hat crooked and legs straight in front of her, laughing triumphantly. As the broom headed for the hall door John and Rosemary pushed it wide open, just in time for it to sweep through. As they watched it plummet down the steps, pick itself up and bounce towards the drive, they heard the sound of striding footsteps crossing the hall, and hurriedly flattened themselves against the outside wall, on either side of the door. Mrs Witherspoon, as many old people do who live by themselves, was talking aloud to herself.
‘Just what I should expect,’ she said with a sniff. ‘She’s muddled her magic!’
All three watched Miss Dibdin’s strange progress down the drive; the broom sending up a small bow wave of gravel every time it swished along the ground, until it disappeared among the shadows of the trees, and Miss Dibdin’s wild laughter faded into silence. The last thing they heard was her distant voice calling shrilly: ‘May the best witch win!’ Then there was silence.
‘Well,’ said Mrs Witherspoon. ‘This is the last time I let lodgings! I shall certainly give her notice to leave!’ She slammed the door, and there was the grinding, grating sound of the turning of a key in a rusty lock.
For a few moments John and Rosemary stood pressed against the wall, not daring to move, then John whispered: ‘I don’t think she saw us.’
‘Thank goodness!’ said Rosemary. ‘Let’s stick the leaflet in the letter-box and run!’
And that is exactly what they did. But as they slowed down before reaching the gate, John suddenly stopped dead.
‘I say, I’ve suddenly thought of something. Do you think that cat Mrs Witherspoon has made a prisoner could possibly be Carbonel? She said it was “black as ebony” ...’
‘And would do credit to any broomstick turn-out ...’ went on Rosemary. ‘With exceptionally fine whiskers.’
‘That describes him exactly!’
‘And explains why he hasn’t shown up as he said he would.’
‘John, how awful!’ said Rosemary. ‘What are we to do?’
‘First we’d better make quite sure it really is Carbonel, and find out where he is hidden. But we’ve got to pick up Dumpsie from the station, then let’s go home and think like mad.’
But when they reached Roundels at last they had something else to think about.
.’
12. Light As Air
THERE was no sign of Miss Dibdin on the platform of the station when John and Rosemary peered cautiously round the corner. Dumpsie was sitting on the bench, licking her already spotless shirt front.
‘Quick!’ whispered Rosemary. ‘Let’s put the ring on!’
‘Hi, Dumpsie,’ hissed John when they had both slipped a finger through the golden band. ‘Is she inside?’
‘It’s all right,’ said the little cat. ‘I’m all alone. The witch woman has gone hopping over the fields on her broom to look for some plants she wants, to add to a special strong spell she’s got on the boil. I heard her mumbling to herself about it.’
‘I wonder what she’s up to?’ said John. ‘Let’s have a quick peek into her precious Ladies’ Waiting Room. We can open the door and just look.’
But the door was locked.
‘And we can’t look through the window because it’s made of frosted glass,’ said Rosemary. ‘What about pushing the bench underneath? If we stood on it, we might just be able to reach that strip of plain glass at the top.’
‘Stand on that old thing? It’d fall to bits if we so much as looked at it,’ said John. ‘Tell you what. If you made a back, so that I could stand on it, I think I could just reach the plain bit.’
‘What about you making a back and me standing on it?’ said Rosemary, with some warmth.
‘No good. I’m taller than you.’
Grumbling under her breath, Rosemary bent over with her hands on her knees. John slipped off his Wellington boots, and climbed up on to her back, steadying himself with hands outstretched against the frosted glass.
‘What can you see?’ said Rosemary.
‘Not much. The fire is burning quite brightly, and the red fire-bucket is balanced on it, with masses of steam billowing out. That’s funny, the steam is green! I’ve never seen coloured steam before. What with the steam and the dirty window it’s hard to see anything. Wait a sec, and I’ll see if I can clean it up a bit.’
He breathed hard on the glass and rubbed it vigorously with his sleeve.
‘Look out!’ said Rosemary in a muffled voice. ‘Don’t wriggle and jiggle like that, it makes you twice as heavy!’
‘Sorry!’ said John. ‘I bet Miss Dibdin’s up to something. I wish I could see inside more clearly. It needs a bit of light and air. Green steam’s a warning. Crumbs! I wonder ...’ he began, but Rosemary interrupted.
Now, with her shoulders hunched, and hair and coat collar round her ears, she could not hear John plainly. Repeating what she thought he had said, she went on crossly: ‘Light as air? I wish you were, till morning comes. You weigh ten tons! That’s better,’ she went on, because suddenly she no longer felt the pressure of John’s feet on her shoulders. She pushed aside the lock of hair a little breeze had blown across her face but when she looked round he was nowhere to be seen.
‘John!’ she called anxiously. ‘John! Wher
e are you?’
A distant voice above her head called out: ‘Help! Help! I’m up here!’
She looked up. John was spread-eagled, arms outstretched, with his back against the glass roof of the platform.
‘What are you doing up there? Don’t be so silly!’ said Rosemary crossly. ‘Come down!’
‘I’m not being silly, it’s you. I can’t come down,’ said John, in an exasperated voice. ‘When you said you wished I was as light as air, I suddenly floated up here. I couldn’t stop myself. How on earth am I going to get down again?’
‘Try kicking with your feet,’ said Rosemary, trying desperately not to panic. ‘You know, like you do when you’re swimming.’
John kicked with his feet. There was a tinkle of broken glass, and Rosemary ducked as a shower of splinters pattered down, missing her by inches.
‘It’s no good,’ said John. ‘I bet it’s that ring again. Are you wearing it?’
Rosemary looked at her hands. The Golden Gew-Gaw was on her forefinger.
‘The beastly thing has done it again,’ said John gloomily. ‘And we know it won’t un-wish its own wishes. I can see its red stone winking from up here, almost as though it’s making fun of us. I daren’t move. If I break another pane of glass in the roof I might float out through the hole and goodness knows where I’d get to. There’s quite a wind. Can’t you hook me down with something?’
‘I’ll see what I can find,’ said Rosemary doubtfully. She looked about her. Sticking out from the bottom of the pile of firewood waiting to be broken up, was a long branch. ‘Hold on,’ she called to John. ‘I think I’ve found something that will do!’
She held it up with both hands directly below him. ‘Bother, it isn’t long enough, but it might be if I stand on something. I shall have to climb on the seat. I can’t help it if it is rotten.’
‘Do be careful!’ called John. But Rosemary was already pushing the ramshackle bench into position. ‘Hurry!’ shouted John. ‘I can see over the fields to Tucket Towers. Miss Dibdin has just come out of the clump of trees, and I think she’s carrying the broom!’
Rosemary climbed on to the bench, holding the branch in one hand, and steadying herself with the other against the window of the waiting room. Using the slats of the back of the seat as a ladder, she mounted on to the wide band of wood at ‘I can’t look ... up!’ she panted. ‘The seat’s too near the wall ... And I can’t ... hold the branch up for long ... it’s too heavy.’
‘And I just can’t reach it. Oh help!’ said John in a despairing voice. ‘Miss Dibdin has got on to her broom and she’s swooping up the field! Hold the branch a bit to the left, Rosie. No, the other way, and a bit higher!’
The branch was so heavy that Rosemary had great difficulty in controlling it at all, and in her agitation, forgetting she might lose her balance if she moved her hand from the window, she clutched the branch with both fists, and, making a desperate attempt to reach John, pushed it as high in the air as she possibly could.
‘Got it!’ cried John triumphantly. ‘Hooray! Now I’ll hold on tight while you pull me down!’
But the sudden thrust of Rosemary’s feet against the top of the bench when she made her final attempt to reach John had been too much for the rotten wood. Just as he spoke, there was a sharp crack, the bench gave a lurch, the back collapsed, and John, Rosemary, branch and broken bench fell in a heap on the platform.
‘Are you all right, John?’ asked Rosemary anxiously.
‘I think I am,’ said John in a muffled voice, for he was at the bottom of the pile.
Rosemary began to stand up, just as a little breeze wafted across the platform, and immediately, still lying down, John started to rise from the ground. ‘Look out!’ he yelled. She was just in time to turn and clutch his flapping arm and pull him down again.
‘You’d better sit on me. That ought to keep me down to earth. You’ve no idea how beastly it was up there. Why did you have to go and wish anything so asinine as me being “light as air”?’
‘Well, you were so beastly heavy,’ said Rosemary, who was wondering which bruise to rub first. ‘Besides, you said it first.’
‘I didn’t say anything of the sort!’ said John crossly. ‘I said Miss Dibdin’s room needed “light and air”. What on earth am I to do? I can’t spend the rest of my life with someone sitting on me!’
‘You might find it useful for something. Get a job as an astronaut or something. They float about, don’t they?’
‘Oh, be your age, Rosie! That’s not because ... Oh, don’t let’s waste time scrapping.’
Rosemary picked up the magic ring, which had fallen from her finger when she fell, and absently slipped it on again, and at once she heard Dumpsie say: ‘Eeh, what a fedaddle! Real interesting it was, seeing you float up in the air, like a bit of burnt paper on the Rubbish Dump! But what a fuss you’re making, when it’s only going to last till morning.’
‘Till morning?’ exclaimed Rosemary. John struggled up to a half-sitting position as she held out her hand so that he could slip his finger through the ring as well.
Dumpsie had started licking her snow-white ruff as calmly as though nothing unusual had happened, but she paused in her licking to say:
‘Well, that’s what she sez,’ waving her bandaged paw at Rosemary. ‘Trust me. Best memory on the Dump. She sez:
“Light as air?
I wish you were
Till morning comes.
You weigh ten tons!” ’
‘A sort of rhyme,’ said Rosemary.
‘A pretty rotten rhyme!’ grumbled John.
‘Then all we’ve got to do is to find some way of keeping you down to earth till tomorrow morning!’ said Rosemary.
‘Well, that’s something, I suppose. But I can’t spend all night lying here with you sitting on top of me! Wait a minute, though. I’ve got an idea. You remember you said something about me being an astronaut? Well, you know how they wear great thick soles to their space suits? Well, if we could make my feet heavy ...’
‘Of course!’ Rosemary broke in. ‘We could stuff your Wellingtons with sand and earth!’
‘And stones in my pockets!’
‘I’ll go and get some!’ she said, and jumped to her feet. John gave a warning shout. She whipped round. A sudden breeze had already wafted him shoulder high. She was just in time to pull him down again.
‘Phew! That was a near thing!’ said John. ‘You’d better pile the broken bits of seat on top of me, and any other old rubbish you can find.’
With a couple of brick-ends, two rusty iron wheels that might have once belonged to a porter’s truck, and a dented fire-bucket with a hole in it, balanced on top of him, as well as the broken seat, Rosemary felt he should be safe.
‘It would take a typhoon to shift me, with this lot on top,’ he said. ‘Talk about uncomfortable!’
Dumpsie had added her small weight by clambering on to the upturned bucket. Luckily John was not wearing the ring, so he did not hear her say wistfully as she looked at the pile of rubbish beneath her: ‘Just like a bit of the dear old Dump!’ Oddly enough, he felt comforted to see her sitting there, unconcernedly licking her undamaged front paw.
In the meantime, Rosemary was frantically scooping up sand and stones with one hand, and anything heavy she could find on the track, while she held up her skirt, in which to carry it, with the other; for, halfway across the field, and heading straight for the station, she had seen Miss Dibdin. There was no time to lose. She scrambled back on to the platform, and, pushing John’s feet so that their soles were flat on the ground and his knees were up, she shovelled as much of her load as she could push into his Wellington boots.
‘Now, can you stand up?’ she said breathlessly. ‘Hurry, Miss Dibdin is nearly here.’
John sat up cautiously. With a clatter the collection of rubbish slid off him on to the platform. He stuffed the brick-ends into his mackintosh pockets on either side, together with as much of the remaining earth and stones as they would h
old: then, very gingerly, he got to his feet. For a moment he stood there quite firmly, with Rosemary hovering near with outstretched hands to grab him back if he began to drift up into the air again. A slow grin spread over his face.
‘It’s all right. Come on, let’s go!’
As he spoke they heard Miss Dibdin’s shrill voice urging on her broom.
‘Up! Up! Come up, my beauty! One more bound and we shall be home!’
They did not wait to hear more. With Rosemary clutching on to one arm, while she clasped Dumpsie with the other, they hurried for the hole in the hedge. They were only just in time. There was a clatter as the broom collapsed on the platform.
‘Crumpet! Crumpet!’ they heard Miss Dibdin’s shrill cry. With rising irritation she went on: ‘Why don’t you come when I call you?’
John and Rosemary knew why there was no answer, but they thought it better not to wait till Miss Dibdin found out.
the top.
13. ‘Clumping As Ever’
IF you have ever tried to hurry, wearing Wellington boots filled with earth, mixed with as many pebbles as there are currants in a plum pudding, you will understand why John and Rosemary made such slow progress on their way home.
There had been no time to balance the extra weight in John’s pockets evenly, so that he walked in a slightly lopsided way, bent uncomfortably at the knees: but he did not dare to leave any of the extra weight behind. Away from the shelter of the station there was quite a strong breeze.
When Rosemary suggested, as tactfully as she could, that perhaps it would be better to go home the long way, round the village, so that they should attract as little attention as possible, he replied with some heat: ‘I don’t care how silly I look, I’m not walking one step further than I’ve got to. My feet are killing me!’ So that was that.
Carbonel and Calidor (New York Review Children's Collection) Page 8