The Kingdom of Carbonel (6 page)

‘Perhaps you're right,' said John. ‘Suppose I run back upstairs and get them some milk, and you see what you can do with old Woppit.' John ran.

When Rosemary went back into the greenhouse, Woppit was already vigorously licking a sulky Calidor. She eyed Rosemary suspiciously, but she did not stop.

‘Please, Woppit,' said Rosemary humbly, ‘John and I want you to stay and show us how to look after Prince Calidor and Princess Pergamond, if you will.'

With a practised paw, Woppit rolled over a protesting Calidor and went on licking. She said nothing, but there was the faint suggestion of a purr.

‘Please, Woppit!' pleaded Rosemary.

‘I'll think about it!' said Woppit, as though it were a perfectly new idea of Rosemary's. ‘I might do it, to oblige.' But she went on licking the unhappy Calidor so vigorously that Rosemary felt quite sorry for him, and her purring settled down to a deep, contented hum.

At that moment, John burst in at the door. ‘Here's some milk, but I only just got out without being
seen,' he said. ‘I could hear your mother getting up. We'd better hurry.'

They put the saucer down, left Woppit in charge, closed the door of the greenhouse firmly and ran back to the house and breakfast.

‘Really, Rosie,' said Mrs Brown. ‘It was naughty of you to say you would look after three cats without asking first!'

Breakfast had been reduced to eggshells and toast crumbs before they had brought up the subject.

‘I know, Mummy, I'm awfully sorry, but –'

‘It wasn't Rosie's fault,' broke in John. ‘You see, the… the… person they belong to had to go away this morning urgently, and there wasn't time.'

‘But
three
cats, dears!'

‘One cat and two kittens,' pleaded Rosemary. ‘And if you would only come and see them, Mummy, you couldn't say no!'

Mrs Brown tried to go on frowning, but the two pleading faces were too much for her, and presently she smiled.

‘All right,' she said at last. ‘But if you want to
keep them in the greenhouse, you must ask Mr Featherstone's permission, and you must look after them yourselves.'

‘Of course we'll look after them, won't we, John? They are very special kittens, and we wouldn't trust them to anyone else. May we go and ask permission this minute?'

The children ran downstairs to the ground floor flat, where they found Mr Featherstone shaving with an electric razor. When he heard them come in, he wheeled around, his razor buzzing in his hand like a wasp in a jam jar.

‘Good heavens, it's young John! Rosemary told me you were coming. Glad to see you, my boy! Have a bull's eye. You'll find them somewhere about, on the bookcase I think. I'm afraid it's a bit untidy.'

Rosemary felt that ‘untidy' hardly described it. They couldn't find the bull's eyes among the litter of things on the bookcase, but they ran them to earth at last behind the coal scuttle in a very sticky bag. Because of the bull's eyes they explained the situation rather indistinctly. However, Mr Featherstone seemed to understand.

‘Three cats in the greenhouse?' he said. ‘I don't see why not. No geraniums, so why not kittens? I remember you always had a weakness for the creatures, Rosie. Listen, I've got to take the van into
Broomhurst this afternoon. Suppose you and John come with me. I could drop you in the country at the end of the town somewhere, and pick you up on the way back. What do you say?'

John and Rosemary thought it was an excellent idea.

They spent the morning making the greenhouse comfortable for the kittens. Mrs Brown found them an old blanket and the lid of a cardboard box so they could make a bed. They stacked the old flower pots in a corner and swept the floor and dusted the shelves, to the indignation of a number of spiders and several wood lice. Woppit lay in the sun outside and slept, and the two kittens chased the broom and their own tails, until they, too, fell asleep.

‘I expect Blandamour will come to see them soon, and I should like it all to look its very nicest,' said Rosemary, standing back to admire the effect.

‘Bless you, she wouldn't notice!' said Woppit from the doorway. ‘Them as lives in high places thinks high and is above such things. Not that it isn't right and proper for the humble likes of you and me to do our best, for all that!'

John did not much care for being bracketed with Woppit as ‘humble', but, luckily, at that moment Mrs Brown arrived.

‘I thought that you and the cats might like some milk, and besides I want to be introduced,' she said, setting down a tray. On it were two mugs, a saucer and a jug of milk.

‘The black one is Calidor and the other is Pergamond,' said Rosemary, squatting down beside the ball that was two sleeping kittens.

‘The little dears!' said her mother softly, stirring them gently with the toe of her shoe. Then she said, ‘I have your tea. I wanted to make some for Mr Featherstone – I'm sure he doesn't look after himself properly – but he said he would get some in Broomhurst. If you ask him to put you down by the turning to Figg's Bottom, you can go to Turley's Farm and ask for some milk instead of carrying something to drink with you.'

‘Do you mean where we went last year after we picked wild daffodils, Mummy?' asked Rosemary.

‘That's it. I'm afraid the daffodil field has been built over now. There's a new housing estate, but I think the farm is still there.'

‘It be!' said Woppit unexpectedly, though of course only the children heard her. ‘I ought to know, seeing as my brother Tudge took on Turleys four years ago.'

When Mrs Brown had gone and both children and kittens were drinking their milk, she went on, ‘Ah, if you should meet a cat with a torn ear and
a walleye, it'll be Tudge, sure enough. You can tell him he can come and see me if he likes,' she went on graciously. ‘I dare say I shall be glad of a bit of company here.'

She looked rather disdainfully around the greenhouse as she spoke.

‘What colour is he?' asked John.

‘Not to say one colour,' said Woppit cautiously, ‘but a bit of most.'

‘We'll look out for him,' said Rosemary gravely.

‘I'll pick you up about half past five,' said Mr Featherstone, as they rattled cheerfully along in the van.

They passed the familiar outskirts of Fallowhithe and found themselves in the newly built housing estate. They passed the finished houses with new curtains at the windows and new babies asleep in new prams in the front gardens, and were soon in a road with half-built houses on either side.

‘Where shall we meet you?' asked John.

‘The corner by the Figg's Bottom signpost is as good a meeting place as any. It should be just around the bend when we leave the houses behind,' said Mr Featherstone. But they did not leave the houses behind. A tide of new buildings seemed to be coming toward them.

‘Good heavens!' said Mr Featherstone. ‘I'd no
idea the Broomhurst houses had spread so far.'

‘It looks as though a couple more houses will join it up with Fallowhithe,' said John.

Even as they looked, they saw a man pushing a wheelbarrow full of bricks along a plank over the remaining piece of open land, which they saw had the forlorn, naked look of all building sites before the work actually begins.

‘Anyway, there are still fields behind the houses on either side,' said John.

The van slowed down and stopped at a turning which still had a country-lane look about it. There was a signpost at the corner which said:
TO FIGG'S BOTTOM
. The children got out.

John carried their tea in a knapsack. ‘We'll be waiting for you, and thank you for bringing us, sir!' he said.

‘Enjoy yourselves!' called Mr Featherstone as he let in the clutch, and they watched the van rattle off down the road.

John and Rosemary wandered off to the nearest half-built house and watched a man with no shirt and a very brown back carry a load of bricks up a ladder, and come down again with the empty hod. He stopped at the bottom.

‘Can you tell us if the houses will join up in the end?' asked Rosemary. ‘I mean so that Fallowhithe and Broomhurst meet?'

The man looked up. ‘Hallo, ducks!' he said. ‘When we've finished they'll join so neat as you won't know where one begins and the other ends! Makes you think, don't it?'

John agreed that it did.

‘If you ask me, the cats have moved in already,' the man went on. ‘I've never seen so many. All over the place, they are!'

Even as he spoke, a great black animal with white paws padded silently across the half-built wall, gave them a searching look and disappeared the way it had come.

The man frowned. ‘And it's a funny thing,' he went on, ‘but there's a rubbish dump here already, even before anyone's moved in. Beats me where it comes from. There's even an old rocking chair.' He jabbed his thumb over his shoulder.

‘Hey, Charlie!' shouted a voice.

‘Okay, I'm coming,' replied the man. ‘So long!' he said. He winked cheerfully at Rosemary and went off whistling.

John and Rosemary turned and wandered off in the direction he had pointed out to them with his thumb. In a field, beyond a cement mixer, was a pile of old tins and some worn-out shoes, and beside it stood a rocking chair.

‘I wonder who put it there?' said Rosemary. ‘It doesn't look broken to me.'

‘Oh, never mind,' said John impatiently. ‘We haven't come all this way to examine old rubbish heaps! I'm hungry. I vote we go on down the lane and have our tea as soon as we find a good place. We can go on to Turley's afterwards and get some milk.'

So they turned down the lane leading to Figg's Bottom, but as it happened they never reached Turley's Farm. They walked on in a leisurely way. With nothing but the winding road ahead and fields on either side, it was easy to forget the building behind them. They stopped to listen to two sparrows gossiping on the hedge. A snail was making rude remarks to a blackbird from the safety of an overhanging stone. Once a rabbit popped its head through the bars of a stile.

‘Humans!' it said in disgust, and popped back again. John stood on the stile to call to it, but said instead, ‘I'm sure I can hear a stream. Let's go and find it.' So they crossed the stile and followed a path through the meadow on the other side.

They found the stream without much difficulty. Its clear, cider-coloured water rippled gently over a pebbly bed. They took off their shoes and splashed about happily. Rosemary picked a bunch of water forget-me-nots and wild peppermint. They tried to dam a tiny tributary, and let the
piled-up water join the main stream again with a whoosh!

It was not till some time later, with toes and fingers very pink and crinkly, that they sat down in the middle of a little plank bridge. With their legs dangling, they ate tomato sandwiches and homemade rock cakes. They were facing upstream, and when they had nearly finished, John said suddenly, ‘Someone must be sailing toy boats higher up! Look, there's a big one just coming around the corner.'

There certainly was a black thing, which looked like a toy boat, drifting toward them.

‘Let's catch it when it gets to the bridge!' said Rosemary.

They lowered themselves down into the stream in readiness. But it was not a boat. It was a shoe, a very large one with a brass buckle that needed sewing on again. They caught it as it drifted under the bridge.

‘Let's wade upstream and see if we can find the owner. Whoever owns it must have enormous feet!' said John.

They lifted the dripping shoe out of the water and started to wade upstream.

They splashed their way along very pleasantly for some distance, until, coming out of a green tunnel made by the overhanging branches of willow and hazel, they were startled to find themselves in the sunshine again, and almost on top of the owner of the shoe.

‘Mrs Cantrip!' said John and Rosemary together. For that is who it was. She was sitting on a rock with the remaining shoe beside her and with her large feet dangling in the water. Beside her, a little higher up the bank, was a small, neat, plump person. She had round cheeks, she wore a round felt hat and a neat tweed suit, and she sat very upright, with a bunch of what looked like green leaves in her lap.

‘It's you, is it?' said Mrs Cantrip sourly.

‘We rescued your shoe for you,' said John politely, holding it out to her. ‘It was floating downstream.'

‘Interfering again!' said the old woman. ‘It was floating lovely!'

‘But we thought whoever it belonged to would want it,' said John in surprise.

‘And we didn't even know it was yours,' added Rosemary. ‘You couldn't get home without it.'

‘That's all you know. There's more ways of getting about than walking,' said Mrs Cantrip. ‘Besides, I know where there's another lovely pair of shoes for the taking, and no questions asked.'

The little person leaned forward and said eagerly, ‘If you mean the ones on the rubbish heap where we left the –' She broke off suddenly and clapped her hand over her mouth.

At the same time, Mrs Cantrip deliberately threw her other shoe into the stream with a loud splash. ‘You can fish that out, as you're so fond of finding things,' she said rudely.

Red with annoyance, John splashed over and pulled out the second shoe.

‘I think you are very ungrateful!' said Rosemary hotly.

‘It was entirely my fault, dears!' said the round-about person. ‘I'm sure Katie is very grateful, really. Such a character! She was trying to stop me saying something when she threw her shoe into the stream. My foolish tongue, you know.' Then,
turning to Mrs Cantrip, ‘Such nicely spoken children. Do introduce me, please, Katie dear!'

Mrs Cantrip sniffed.

‘Boy nuisance!' she said, nodding toward John. ‘And girl nuisance!'