LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
| Matilda swung her legs miserably | page [5] |
| He waved away the eightpence | [11] |
| The top part of Pridmore turned into painted iron and glass | [17] |
| The Princess was like a yard and a half of white tape | [21] |
| The King sent his army, and the enemy were crushed | [31] |
| The King had turned into a villa residence | [37] |
| Four men came wheeling a great red thing on a barrow | [43] |
| They bounced through the suburbs | [59] |
| The seal was very kind and convenient | [63] |
| Suddenly, out of nothing and nowhere, appeared a large, stern housemaid | [69] |
| A long, pointed thing came slowly up out of the sand | [73] |
| It is difficult to play when any one is watching you, especially a policeman | [79] |
| The people of Antioch were always in a hurry and generally angry | [89] |
| Off they all went, King, court, and men-at-arms | [99] |
| Tony was stamped on by the great seal, who was very fierce | [103] |
| The giant-little-girl | [107] |
| Tony among the rocks in the bread-and-milk basin | [115] |
| “Everything you say will be used against you” said the public persecutor | [121] |
| He was growing, growing, growing | [125] |
| Malevola’s dress was not at all the thing for a christening | [135] |
| There stood up a Prince and a Princess | [155] |
| Trains of Princes bringing nasty things in bottles and round wooden boxes | [173] |
| The Princess grew so big that she had to go and sit on the common | [181] |
| The Princess in one scale and her hair in the other | [189] |
| “Welcome! Welcome!” | [273] |
| “Poor benighted, oppressed people, follow me!” | [279] |
THE COCKATOUCAN
OR GREAT AUNT WILLOUGHBY
NINE UNLIKELY TALES
THE COCKATOUCAN
OR GREAT AUNT WILLOUGHBY
MATILDA’S ears were red and shiny. So were her cheeks. Her hands were red too. This was because Pridmore had washed her. It was not the usual washing, which makes you clean and comfortable, but the “thorough good wash,” which makes you burn and smart till you wish you could be like the poor little savages who do not know anything, and run about bare in the sun, and only go into the water when they are hot.
Matilda wished she could have been born in a savage tribe instead of at Brixton.
“Little savages,” she said, “don’t have their ears washed thoroughly, and they don’t have new dresses that are prickly in the insides round their arms, and cut them round the neck. Do they, Pridmore?”
But Pridmore only said, “Stuff and nonsense,” and then she said, “don’t wriggle so, child, for goodness’ sake.”
Pridmore was Matilda’s nursemaid. Matilda sometimes found her trying. Matilda was quite right in believing that savage children do not wear frocks that hurt. It is also true that savage children are not over-washed, over-brushed, over-combed, gloved, booted, and hatted and taken in an omnibus to Streatham to see their Great-aunt Willoughby. This was intended to be Matilda’s fate. Her mother had arranged it. Pridmore had prepared her for it. Matilda, knowing resistance to be vain, had submitted to it.
But Destiny had not been consulted, and Destiny had plans of its own for Matilda.
When the last button of Matilda’s boots had been fastened (the button-hook always had a nasty temper, especially when it was hurried, and that day it bit a little piece of Matilda’s leg quite spitefully) the wretched child was taken downstairs and put on a chair in the hall to wait while Pridmore popped her own things on.
“I shan’t be a minute,” said Pridmore. Matilda knew better. She seated herself to wait, and swung her legs miserably. She had been to her Great-aunt Willoughby’s before, and she knew exactly what to expect. She would be asked about her lessons, and how many marks she had, and whether she had been a good girl. I can’t think why grown-up people don’t see how impertinent these questions are. Suppose you were to answer, “I’m top of my class, Auntie, thank you, and I’m very good. And now let’s have a little talk about you. Aunt, dear, how much money have you got, and have you been scolding the servants again, or have you tried to be good and patient as a properly brought up aunt should be, eh, dear?”
MATILDA SWUNG HER LEGS MISERABLY.
Try this method with one of your aunts next time she begins asking you questions, and write and tell me what she says.
Matilda knew exactly what the Aunt Willoughby’s questions would be, and she knew how, when they were answered, her aunt would give her a small biscuit with carraway seeds in it, and then tell her to go with Pridmore and have her hands and face washed again.
Then she would be sent to walk in the garden—the garden had a gritty path, and geraniums and calceolarias and lobelias in the beds. You might not pick anything. There would be minced veal at dinner, with three-cornered bits of toast round the dish, and a tapioca pudding. Then the long afternoon with a book, a bound volume of the “Potterer’s Saturday Night”—nasty small print—and all the stories about children who died young because they were too good for this world.
Matilda wriggled wretchedly. If she had been a little less uncomfortable she would have cried, but her new frock was too tight and prickly to let her forget it for a moment, even in tears.
When Pridmore came down at last, she said, “Fie, for shame! What a sulky face!”
And Matilda said, “I’m not.”
“Oh, yes you are,” said Pridmore, “you know you are, you don’t appreciate your blessings.”
“I wish it was your Aunt Willoughby,” said Matilda.
“Nasty, spiteful little thing!” said Pridmore, and she shook Matilda.
Then Matilda tried to slap Pridmore, and the two went down the steps not at all pleased with each other. They went down the dull road to the dull omnibus, and Matilda was crying a little.
Now Pridmore was a very careful person, though cross, but even the most careful persons make mistakes sometimes—and she must have taken the wrong omnibus, or this story could never have happened, and where should we all have been then? This shows you that even mistakes are sometimes valuable, so do not be hard on grown-up people if they are wrong sometimes. You know after all, it hardly ever happens.
It was a very bright green and gold omnibus, and inside the cushions were green and very soft. Matilda and her nursemaid had it all to themselves, and Matilda began to feel more comfortable, especially as she had wriggled till she had burst one of her shoulder-seams and got more room for herself inside her frock.
So she said, “I’m sorry I was cross, Priddy dear.”
Pridmore said, “So you ought to be.” But she never said she was sorry for being cross. But you must not expect grown-up people to say that.
It was certainly the wrong omnibus because instead of jolting slowly along dusty streets, it went quickly and smoothly down a green lane, with flowers in the hedges, and green trees overhead. Matilda was so delighted that she sat quite still, a very rare thing with her. Pridmore was reading a penny story called “The Vengeance of the Lady Constantia,” so she did not notice anything.
“I don’t care. I shan’t tell her,” said Matilda, “she’d stop the ’bus as likely as not.”
At last the ’bus stopped of its own accord. Pridmore put her story in her pocket and began to get out.
“Well, I never!” she said, and got out very quickly and ran round to where the horses were. They were white horses with green harness, and their tails were very long indeed.
“Hi, young man!” said Pridmore to the omnibus driver, “you’ve brought us to the wrong place. This isn’t Streatham Common, this isn’t.”
The driver was the most beautiful omnibus driver you ever saw, and his clothes were like him in beauty. He had white silk stockings and a ruffled silk shirt of white, and his coat and breeches were green and gold. So was the three-cornered hat which he lifted very politely when Pridmore spoke to him.
HE WAVED AWAY THE EIGHTPENCE.
“I fear,” he said kindly, “that you must have taken, by some unfortunate misunderstanding, the wrong omnibus.”
“When does the next go back?”
“The omnibus does not go back. It runs from Brixton here once a month, but it doesn’t go back.”
“But how does it get to Brixton again, to start again, I mean,” asked Matilda.
“We start a new one every time,” said the driver, raising his three-cornered hat once more.
“And what becomes of the old ones?” Matilda asked.
“Ah,” said the driver, smiling, “that depends. One never knows beforehand, things change so nowadays. Good morning. Thank you so much for your patronage. No, on no account, Madam.”
He waved away the eightpence which Pridmore was trying to offer him for the fare from Brixton, and drove quickly off.
When they looked round them, no, this was certainly not Streatham Common. The wrong omnibus had brought them to a strange village—the neatest, sweetest, reddest, greenest, cleanest, prettiest village in the world. The houses were grouped round a village green, on which children in pretty loose frocks or smocks were playing happily.
Not a tight armhole was to be seen, or even imagined in that happy spot. Matilda swelled herself out and burst three hooks and a bit more of the shoulder seam.
The shops seemed a little queer, Matilda thought. The names somehow did not match the things that were to be sold. For instance, where it said “Elias Groves, Tinsmith,” there were loaves and buns in the window, and the shop that had “Baker” over the door, was full of perambulators—the grocer and the wheelwright seemed to have changed names, or shops, or something—and Miss Skimpling, Dressmaker or Milliner, had her shop window full of pork and sausage meat.
“What a funny, nice place,” said Matilda. “I am glad we took the wrong omnibus.”
A little boy in a yellow smock had come up close to them.
“I beg your pardon,” he said very politely, “but all strangers are brought before the king at once. Please follow me.”
“Well, of all the impudence,” said Pridmore. “Strangers, indeed! And who may you be, I should like to know?”
“I,” said the little boy, bowing very low, “am the Prime Minister. I know I do not look it, but appearances are deceitful. It’s only for a short time. I shall probably be myself again by to-morrow.”
Pridmore muttered something which the little boy did not hear. Matilda caught a few words. “Smacked,” “bed,” “bread and water”—familiar words all of them.
“If it’s a game,” said Matilda to the boy, “I should like to play.”
He frowned.
“I advise you to come at once,” he said, so sternly that even Pridmore was a little frightened. “His Majesty’s Palace is in this direction.” He walked away, and Matilda made a sudden jump, dragged her hand out of Pridmore’s, and ran after him. So Pridmore had to follow, still grumbling.
The Palace stood in a great green park dotted with white-flowered may-bushes. It was not at all like an English palace, St. James’s or Buckingham Palace, for instance, because it was very beautiful and very clean. When they got in they saw that the Palace was hung with green silk. The footmen had green and gold liveries, and all the courtiers’ clothes were the same colours.
Matilda and Pridmore had to wait a few moments while the King changed his sceptre and put on a clean crown, and then they were shown into the Audience Chamber. The King came to meet them.
“It is kind of you to have come so far,” he said. “Of course you’ll stay at the Palace?” He looked anxiously at Matilda.
“Are you quite comfortable, my dear?” he asked doubtfully.
Matilda was very truthful—for a girl.
“No,” she said, “my frock cuts me round the arms——”
“Ah,” said he, “and you brought no luggage—some of the Princess’s frocks—her old ones perhaps—yes—yes—this person—your maid, no doubt?”
A loud laugh rang suddenly through the hall. The King looked uneasily round, as though he expected something to happen. But nothing seemed likely to occur.
“Yes,” said Matilda, “Pridmore is—Oh, dear!”
For before her eyes she saw an awful change taking place in Pridmore. In an instant all that was left of the original Pridmore were the boots and the hem of her skirt—the top part of her had changed into painted iron and glass, and even as Matilda looked the bit of skirt that was left got flat and hard and square. The two feet turned into four feet, and they were iron feet, and there was no more Pridmore.
THE TOP PART OF PRIDMORE TURNED INTO PAINTED IRON AND GLASS.
“Oh, my poor child,” said the King, “your maid has turned into an Automatic Machine.”
It was too true. The maid had turned into a machine such as those which you see in a railway station—greedy, grasping things which take your pennies and give you next to nothing in chocolate and no change.
But there was no chocolate to be seen through the glass of the machine that once had been Pridmore. Only little rolls of paper.
The King silently handed some pennies to Matilda. She dropped one into the machine and pulled out the little drawer. There was a scroll of paper. Matilda opened it and read—
“Don’t be tiresome.”
She tried again. This time it was—
“If you don’t give over I’ll tell your Ma first thing when she comes home.”
The next was—
“Go along with you do—always worrying;” so then Matilda knew.
“Yes,” said the King sadly, “I fear there’s no doubt about it. Your maid has turned into an Automatic Nagging Machine. Never mind, my dear, she’ll be all right to-morrow.”
“I like her best like this, thank you,” said Matilda quickly. “I needn’t put in any more pennies, you see.”
“Oh, we mustn’t be unkind and neglectful,” said the King gently, and he dropped in a penny. He got—
“You tiresome boy, you. Leave me be this minute.”
“I can’t help it,” said the King wearily; “you’ve no idea how suddenly things change here. It’s because—but I’ll tell you all about it at tea-time. Go with nurse now, my dear, and see if any of the Princess’s frocks will fit you.”
Then a nice, kind, cuddly nurse led Matilda away to the Princess’s apartments, and took off the stiff frock that hurt, and put on a green silk gown, as soft as birds’ breasts, and Matilda kissed her for sheer joy at being so comfortable.
“And now, dearie,” said the nurse, “you’d like to see the Princess, wouldn’t you? Take care you don’t hurt yourself with her. She’s rather sharp.”
Matilda did not understand this then. Afterwards she did.
THE PRINCESS WAS LIKE A YARD AND A HALF OF WHITE TAPE.
The nurse took her through many marble corridors and up and down many marble steps, and at last they came to a garden full of white roses, and in the middle of it, on a green satin-covered eiderdown, as big as a feather bed, sat the Princess in a white gown.
She got up when Matilda came towards her, and it was like seeing a yard and a half of white tape stand up on one end and bow—a yard and a half of broad white tape, of course; but what is considered broad for tape is very narrow indeed for princesses.
“How are you?” said Matilda, who had been taught manners.
“Very slim indeed, thank you,” said the Princess. And she was. Her face was so white and thin that it looked as though it were made of an oyster-shell. Her hands were thin and white, and her fingers reminded Matilda of fish-bones. Her hair and eyes were black, and Matilda thought she might have been pretty if she had been fatter. When she shook hands with Matilda her bony fingers hurt quite hard.
The Princess seemed pleased to see her visitor, and invited her to sit with Her Highness on the satin cushion.
“I have to be very careful or I should break,” said she; “that’s why the cushion is so soft, and I can’t play many games for fear of accidents. Do you know any sitting-down games?”
The only thing Matilda could think of was Cat’s-cradle, so they played that with the Princess’s green hair-ribbon. Her fish-bony fingers were much cleverer than Matilda’s little fat, pink paws.
Matilda looked about her between the games and admired everything very much, and asked questions, of course. There was a very large bird chained to a perch in the middle of a very large cage. Indeed the cage was so big that it took up all one side of the rose-garden. The bird had a yellow crest like a cockatoo and a very large bill like a toucan. (If you do not know what a toucan is you do not deserve ever to go to the Zoological Gardens again.)
“What is that bird?” asked Matilda.
“Oh,” said the Princess, “that’s my pet Cockatoucan; he’s very valuable. If he were to die or be stolen the Green Land would wither up and grow like New Cross or Islington.”
“How horrible!” said Matilda.
“I’ve never been to those places, of course,” said the Princess, shuddering, “but I hope I know my geography.”
“All of it?” asked Matilda.
“Even the exports and imports,” said the Princess. “Goodbye, I’m so thin I have to rest a good deal or I should wear myself out. Nurse, take her away.”
So nurse took her away to a wonderful room, where she amused herself till tea-time with all the kind of toys that you see and want in the shop when some one is buying you a box of bricks or a puzzle map—the kind of toys you never get because they are so expensive.
Matilda had tea with the King. He was full of true politeness and treated Matilda exactly as though she had been grown up—so that she was extremely happy and behaved beautifully.
The King told her all his troubles.
“You see,” he began, “what a pretty place my Green Land was once. It has points even now. But things aren’t what they used to be. It’s that bird, that Cockatoucan. We daren’t kill it or give it away. And every time it laughs something changes. Look at my Prime Minister. He was a six-foot man. And look at him now. I could lift him with one hand. And then your poor maid. It’s all that bad bird.”
“Why does it laugh?” asked Matilda.
“I can’t think,” said the King; “I can’t see anything to laugh at.”
“Can’t you give it lessons, or something nasty to make it miserable?”
“I have, I do, I assure you, my dear child. The lessons that bird has to swallow would choke a Professor.”
“Does it eat anything else besides lessons?”
“Christmas pudding. But there—what’s the use of talking—that bird would laugh if it were fed on dog-biscuits.”
His Majesty sighed and passed the buttered toast.
“You can’t possibly,” he went on, “have any idea of the kind of things that happen. That bird laughed one day at a Cabinet Council, and all my ministers turned into little boys in yellow socks. And we can’t get any laws made till they come right again. It’s not their fault, and I must keep their situations open for them, of course, poor things.”
“Of course,” said Matilda.
“There was a Dragon, now,” said the King. “When he came I offered the Princess’s hand and half my kingdom to any one who would kill him. It’s an offer that is always made, you know.”
“Yes,” said Matilda.
“Well, a really respectable young Prince came along, and every one turned out to see him fight the Dragon. As much as ninepence each was paid for the front seats, I assure you. The trumpet sounded and the Dragon came hurrying up. A trumpet is like a dinner-bell to a Dragon, you know. And the Prince drew his bright sword and we all shouted, and then that wretched bird laughed and the Dragon turned into a pussy-cat, and the Prince killed it before he could stop himself. The populace was furious.”
“What happened then?” asked Matilda.
“Well, I did what I could. I said, ‘You shall marry the Princess just the same.’ So I brought the Prince home, and when we got there the Cockatoucan had just been laughing again, and the Princess had turned into a very old German governess. The Prince went home in a great hurry and an awful temper. The Princess was all right in a day or two. These are trying times, my dear.”
“I am so sorry for you,” said Matilda, going on with the preserved ginger.
“Well you may be,” said the miserable Monarch; “but if I were to try to tell you all that that bird has brought on my poor kingdom I should keep you up till long past your proper bedtime.”
“I don’t mind,” said Matilda kindly. “Do tell me some more.”
“Why,” the King went on, growing now more agitated, “why, at one titter from that revolting bird the long row of ancestors on my Palace wall grew red-faced and vulgar; they began to drop their H’s and to assert that their name was Smith from Clapham Junction.”
“How dreadful!”
“And once,” said the King in a whimper, “it laughed so loudly that two Sundays came together and next Thursday got lost, and went prowling away and hid itself on the other side of Christmas.”
“And now,” he said suddenly, “it’s bedtime.”
“Must I go?” asked Matilda.
“Yes please,” said the King. “I tell all strangers this tragic story because I always feel that perhaps some stranger might be clever enough to help me. You seem a very nice little girl. Do you think you are clever?”
It is very nice even to be asked if you are clever. Your Aunt Willoughby knows well enough that you are not. But kings do say nice things. Matilda was very pleased.
“I don’t think I am clever,” she was saying quite honestly, when suddenly the sound of a hoarse laugh rang through the banqueting hall. Matilda put her hands to her head.
“Oh, dear!” she cried, “I feel so different. Oh! wait a minute. Oh! whatever is it? Oh!”
Then she was silent for a moment. Then she looked at the King and said, “I was wrong, your Majesty, I am clever, and I know it is not good for me to sit up late. Good-night. Thank you so much for your nice party. In the morning I think I shall be clever enough to help you, unless the bird laughs me back into the other kind of Matilda.”
But in the morning Matilda’s head felt strangely clear; only when she came down to breakfast full of plans for helping the King, she found that the Cockatoucan must have laughed in the night, for the beautiful Palace had turned into a butcher’s shop, and the King, who was too wise to fight against Fate, had tucked up his royal robes, and was busy in the shop weighing out six ounces of the best mutton-chops for a child with a basket.
“I don’t know how ever you can help me now,” he said, despairingly; “as long as the Palace stays like this, it’s no use trying to go on with being a king, or anything. I can only try to be a good butcher. You shall keep the accounts if you like, till that bird laughs me back into my Palace again.”
So the King settled down to business, respected by his subjects, who had all, since the coming of the Cockatoucan, had their little ups and downs. And Matilda kept the books and wrote out the bills, and really they were both rather happy. Pridmore, disguised as the automatic machine, stood in the shop and attracted many customers. They used to bring their children, and make the poor innocents put their pennies in, and then read Pridmore’s good advice. Some parents are so harsh. And the Princess sat in the back garden with the Cockatoucan, and Matilda played with her every afternoon. But one day, as the King was driving through another kingdom, the King of that kingdom looked out of one of his Palace windows, and laughed as the King went by, and shouted, “Butcher!”
THE KING SENT HIS ARMY, AND THE ENEMY WERE CRUSHED.
The Butcher-King did not mind this, because it was true, however rude. But when the other King called out, “What price cat’s meat!” the King was very angry indeed, because the meat he sold was always of the best quality. When he told Matilda all about it, she said, “Send the Army to crush him.”
So the King sent his Army, and the enemy were crushed. The Bird laughed the King back into his throne, and laughed away the butcher’s shop just in time for his Majesty to proclaim a general holiday, and to organise a magnificent reception for the Army. Matilda now helped the King to manage everything. She wonderfully enjoyed the new delightful feeling of being clever, so that she felt it was indeed too bad when the Cockatoucan laughed just as the reception was beautifully arranged. It laughed, and the general holiday was turned into an income tax; the magnificent reception changed itself to a royal reprimand, and the Army itself suddenly became a discontented Sunday-school treat, and had to be fed with buns and brought home in brakes, crying.
“Something must be done,” said the King.
“Well,” said Matilda, “I’ve been thinking if you will make me the Princess’s governess, I’ll see what I can do. I’m quite clever enough.”
“I must open Parliament to do that,” said the King; “it’s a Constitutional change.”
So he hurried off down the road to open Parliament. But the bird put its head on one side and laughed at him as he went by. He hurried on, but his beautiful crown grew large and brassy, and was set with cheap glass in the worst possible taste. His robe turned from velvet and ermine to flannelette and rabbit’s fur. His sceptre grew twenty feet long and extremely awkward to carry. But he persevered, his royal blood was up.
“No bird,” said he, “shall keep me from my duty and my Parliament.”
But when he got there, he was so agitated that he could not remember which was the right key to open Parliament with, and in the end he hampered the lock and so could not open Parliament at all, and members of Parliament went about making speeches in the roads to the great hindrance of the traffic.
The poor King went home and burst into tears.
“Matilda,” he said, “this is too much. You have always been a comfort to me. You stood by me when I was a butcher; you kept the books; you booked the orders; you ordered the stock. If you really are clever enough, now is the time to help me. If you won’t, I’ll give up the business. I’ll leave off being a King. I’ll go and be a butcher in the Camberwell New Road, and I will get another little girl to keep my books, not you.”
This decided Matilda. She said, “Very well, your Majesty, then give me leave to prowl at night. Perhaps I shall find out what makes the Cockatoucan laugh; if I can do that, we can take care he never gets it, whatever it is.”
“Ah!” said the poor King, “if you could only do that.”
When Matilda went to bed that night, she did not go to sleep. She lay and waited till all the Palace was quiet, and then she crept softly, pussily, mousily to the garden, where the Cockatoucan’s cage was, and she hid behind a white rosebush, and looked and listened. Nothing happened till it was gray dawn, and then it was only the Cockatoucan who woke up. But when the sun was round and red over the Palace roof, something came creeping, creeping, pussily, mousily out of the Palace; and it looked like a yard and a half of white tape creeping along; and it was the Princess herself.
She came quietly up to the cage, and squeezed herself between the bars; they were very narrow bars, but a yard and a half of white tape can go through the bars of any birdcage I ever saw. And the Princess went up to the Cockatoucan and tickled him under his wings till he laughed aloud. Then, quick as thought, the Princess squeezed through the bars, and was back in her room before the bird had finished laughing. Matilda went back to bed. Next day all the sparrows had turned into cart horses, and the roads were impassable.
That day when she went, as usual, to play with the Princess, Matilda said to her suddenly, “Princess, what makes you so thin?”
The Princess caught Matilda’s hand and pressed it with warmth.
“Matilda,” she said simply, “you have a noble heart. No one else has ever asked me that, though they tried to cure it. And I couldn’t answer till I was asked, could I? It’s a sad, a tragic tale, Matilda. I was once as fat as you are.”
THE KING HAD TURNED INTO A VILLA RESIDENCE.
“I’m not so very fat,” said Matilda, indignantly.
“Well,” said the Princess impatiently, “I was quite fat enough anyhow. And then I got thin—”
“But how?”
“Because they would not let me have my favourite pudding every day.”
“What a shame!” said Matilda, “and what is your favourite pudding?”
“Bread and milk, of course, sprinkled with rose leaves—and with pear-drops in it.”
Of course, Matilda went at once to the King, and while she was on her way the Cockatoucan happened to laugh. When she reached the King, he was in no condition for ordering dinner, for he had turned into a villa-residence, replete with every modern improvement. Matilda only recognised him, as he stood sadly in the Park, by the crown that stuck crookedly on one of the chimney-pots, and the border of ermine along the garden path. So she ordered the Princess’s favourite pudding on her own responsibility, and the whole Court had it every day for dinner, till there was no single courtier but loathed the very sight of bread and milk, and there was hardly one who would not have run a mile rather than meet a pear-drop. Even Matilda herself got rather tired of it, though being clever, she knew how good bread and milk was for her.
But the Princess got fatter and fatter, and rosier and rosier. Her thread-paper gowns had to be let out, and let out, till there were no more turnings in left to be let out, and then she had to wear the old ones that Matilda had been wearing, and then to have new ones. And as she got fatter she got kinder, till Matilda grew quite fond of her.
And the Cockatoucan had not laughed for a month.
When the Princess was as fat as any Princess ought to be, Matilda went to her one day, and threw her arms round her and kissed her. The Princess kissed her back, and said, “Very well, I am sorry then, but I didn’t want to say so, but now I will. And the Cockatoucan never laughs except when he’s tickled. So there! He hates to laugh.”
“And you won’t do it again,” said Matilda, “will you?”
“No, of course not,” said the Princess, very much surprised, “why should I? I was spiteful when I was thin, but now I’m fat again I want every one to be happy.”
“But how can any one be happy?” asked Matilda, severely, “when every one is turned into something they weren’t meant to be? There’s your dear father—he’s a desirable villa—the Prime Minister was a little boy, and he got back again, and now he’s turned into a Comic Opera. Half the Palace housemaids are breakers, dashing themselves against the Palace crockery: the Navy, to a man, are changed to French poodles, and the Army to German sausages. Your favourite nurse is now a flourishing steam laundry, and I, alas! am too clever by half. Can’t that horrible bird do anything to put us all right again?”
“No,” said the Princess, dissolved in tears at this awful picture, “he told me once himself that when he laughed he could only change one or two things at once, and then, as often as not, it turned out to be something he didn’t expect. The only way to make everything come right again would be—but it can’t be done! If we could only make him laugh on the wrong side of his mouth. That’s the secret. He told me so. But I don’t know what it is, let alone being able to do it. Could you do it, Matilda?”
“No,” said Matilda, “but let me whisper. He’s listening. Pridmore could. She’s often told me she’d do it to me. But she never has. Oh, Princess, I’ve got an idea.”
The two were whispering so low that the Cockatoucan could not hear, though he tried his hardest. Matilda and the Princess left him listening.
Presently he heard a sound of wheels. Four men came into the rose-garden wheeling a great red thing in a barrow. They set it down in front of the Cockatoucan, who danced on his perch with rage.
“Oh,” he said, “if only some one would make me laugh, that horrible thing would be the one to change. I know it would. It would change into something much horrider than it is now. I feel it in all my feathers.”
The Princess opened the cage-door with the Prime Minister’s key, which a tenor singer had found at the beginning of his music. It was also the key of the comic opera. She crept up behind the Cockatoucan and tickled him under both wings. He fixed his baleful eye on the red Automatic Machine and laughed long and loud; he saw the red iron and glass change before his eyes into the form of Pridmore. Her cheeks were red with rage and her eyes shone like glass with fury.
FOUR MEN CAME WHEELING A GREAT RED THING ON A BARROW.
“Nice manners!” said she to the Cockatoucan, “what are you laughing at, I should like to know—I’ll make you laugh on the wrong side of your mouth, my fine fellow!”
She sprang into the cage, and then and there, before the astonished Court, she shook that Cockatoucan till he really and truly did laugh on the wrong side of his mouth. It was a terrible sight to witness, and the sound of that wrong-sided laughter was horrible to hear.
But instantly all the things changed back as if by magic to what they had been before. The laundry became a nurse, the villa became a king, the other people were just what they had been before, and all Matilda’s wonderful cleverness went out like the snuff of a candle.
The Cockatoucan himself fell in two—one half of him became a common, ordinary Toucan, such as you must have seen a hundred times at the Zoo, unless you are unworthy to visit that happy place, and the other half became a weathercock, which, as you know, is always changing and makes the wind change too. So he has not quite lost his old power. Only now he is in halves, any power he may have has to be used without laughing. The poor, broken Cockatoucan, like King you-know-who in English history, has never since that sad day smiled again.
The grateful King sent an escort of the whole Army, now no longer dressed in sausage skins, but in uniforms of dazzling beauty, with drums and banners, to see Matilda and Pridmore home. But Matilda was very sleepy. She had been clever for so long that she was quite tired out. It is indeed a very fatiguing thing, as no doubt you know. And the soldiers must have been sleepy too, for one by one the whole Army disappeared, and by the time Pridmore and Matilda reached home there was only one left, and he was the policeman at the corner.
The next day Matilda began to talk to Pridmore about the Green Land and the Cockatoucan and the Villa-residence-King, but Pridmore only said—
“Pack of nonsense! Hold your tongue, do!”
So Matilda naturally understood that Pridmore did not wish to be reminded of the time when she was an Automatic Nagging Machine, so of course, like a kind and polite little girl, she let the subject drop.
Matilda did not mention her adventures to the others at home because she saw that they believed her to have spent the time with her Great-aunt Willoughby.
And she knew if she had said that she had not been there she would be sent at once—and she did not wish this.
She has often tried to get Pridmore to take the wrong omnibus again, which is the only way she knows of getting to the Green Land; but only once has she been successful, and then the omnibus did not go to the Green Land at all, but to the Elephant and Castle.
But no little girl ought to expect to go to the Green Land more than once in a lifetime. Many of us indeed are not even so fortunate as to go there once.
WHEREYOUWANTOGOTO
OR THE BOUNCIBLE BALL
IT is very hard, when you have been accustomed to go to the seaside every summer ever since you were quite little, to be made to stay in London just because an aunt and an uncle choose to want to come and stay at your house to see the Royal Academy and go to the summer sales.
Selim and Thomasina felt that it was very hard indeed. And aunt and uncle were not the nice kind, either. If it had been Aunt Emma, who dressed dolls and told fairy-tales—or Uncle Reggie, who took you to the Crystal Palace, and gave you five bob at a time, and never even asked what you spent it on, it would have been different. But it was Uncle Thomas and Aunt Selina.
Aunt Selina was all beady, and sat bolt upright, and told you to mind what you were told, and Selim had been named after her—as near as they could get. And Uncle Thomas was the one Thomasina had been named after: he was deaf, and he always told you what the moral of everything was, and the housemaid said he was “near.”
“I know he is, worse luck,” said Thomasina.
“I mean, miss,” explained the housemaid, “he’s none too free with his chink.”
Selim groaned. “He never gave me but a shilling in his life,” said he, “and that turned out to be bad when I tried to change it at the ginger-beer shop.”
The children could not understand why this aunt and uncle were allowed to interfere with everything as they did: and they quite made up their minds that when they were grown up they would never allow an aunt or an uncle to cross their doorsteps. They never thought—poor, dear little things—that some day they would grow up to be aunts and uncles in their turn, or, at least, one of each.
It was very hot in London that year: the pavement was like hot pie, and the asphalt was like hot pudding, and there was a curious wind that collected dust and straw and dirty paper, and then got tired of its collection, and threw it away in respectable people’s areas and front gardens. The blind in the nursery had never been fixed up since the day when the children took it down to make a drop-scene for a play they were going to write and never did. So the hot afternoon sun came burning in through the window, and the children got hotter and hotter, and crosser and crosser, till at last Selim slapped Thomasina’s arms till she cried, and Thomasina kicked Selim’s legs till he screamed.
Then they sat down in different corners of the nursery and cried, and called each other names, and said they wished they were dead. This is very naughty indeed, as, of course, you know; but you must remember how hot it was.
When they had called each other all the names they could think of, Thomasina said, suddenly, “All right, Silly,” (that was Selim’s pet name)—“cheer up.”
“It’s too hot to cheer up,” said Selim, gloomily.
“We’ve been very naughty,” said Thomasina, rubbing her eyes with the paint rag, “but it’s all the heat. I heard Aunt Selina telling mother the weather wore her nerves to fiddle-strings. That just meant she was cross.”
“Then it’s not our fault,” said Selim. “People say be good and you’ll be happy. Uncle Reggy says, ‘Be happy, and perhaps you’ll be good.’ I could be good if I was happy.”
“So could I,” said Thomasina.
“What would make you happy?” said a thick, wheezy voice from the toy cupboard, and out rolled the big green and red india-rubber ball that Aunt Emma had sent them last week. They had not played with it much, because the garden was so hot and sunny—and when they wanted to play with it in the street, on the shady side, Aunt Selina had said it was not like respectable children, so they weren’t allowed.
Now the Ball rolled out very slowly—and the bright light on its new paint seemed to make it wink at them. You will think that they were surprised to hear a ball speak. Not at all. As you grow up, and more and more strange things happen to you, you will find that the more astonishing a thing is the less it surprises you. (I wonder why this is. Think it over, and write and tell me what you think.)
Selim stood up, and said, “Halloa”; but that was only out of politeness. Thomasina answered the Ball’s question.
“We want to be at the seaside—and no aunts—and none of the things we don’t like—and no uncles, of course,” she said.
“Well,” said the Ball, “if you think you can be good, why not set me bouncing?”
“We’re not allowed in here,” said Thomasina, “because of the crinkly ornaments people give me on my birthdays.”
“Well, the street then,” said the Ball; “the nice shady side.”
“It’s not like respectable children,” said Selim sadly.
The Ball laughed. If you have never heard an india-rubber ball laugh you won’t understand. It’s the sort of quicker, quicker, quicker, softer, softer, softer chuckle of a bounce that it gives when it’s settling down when you’re tired of bouncing it.
“The garden, then,” it said.
“I don’t mind, if you’ll go on talking,” said Selim kindly.
So they took the Ball down into the garden and began to bounce it in the sun, on the dry, yellowy grass of the lawn.
“Come on,” said the Ball. “You do like me!”
“What?” said the children.
“Why, do like I do—bounce!” said the Ball. “That’s right—higher, higher, higher!”
For then and there the two children had begun bouncing as if their feet were india-rubber balls, and you have no idea what a delicious sensation that gives you.
“Higher, higher,” cried the green and red ball, bouncing excitedly. “Now, follow me, higher, higher.” And off it bounced down the blackened gravel of the path, and the children bounced after it, shrieking with delight at the new feeling. They bounced over the wall—all three of them—and the children looked back just in time to see Uncle Thomas tapping at the window, and saying, “Don’t.”
You have not the least idea how glorious it is to feel full of bouncibleness; so that, instead of dragging one foot after the other, as you do when you feel tired or naughty, you bounce along, and every time your feet touch the ground you bounce higher, and all without taking any trouble or tiring yourself. You have, perhaps, heard of the Greek gentleman who got new strength every time he fell down. His name was Antæus, and I believe he was an india-rubber ball, green on one side where he touched the earth, and red on the other where he felt the sun. But enough of classical research.
Thomasina and Selim bounced away, following the Bouncible Ball. They went over fences and walls, and through parched, dry gardens and burning-hot streets; they passed the region where fields of cabbages and rows of yellow brick cottages mark the division between London and the suburbs. They bounced through the suburbs, dusty and neat, with geraniums in the front gardens, and all the blinds pulled half-way down; and then the lamp-posts in the road got fewer and fewer, and the fields got greener and the hedges thicker—it was real, true country—with lanes instead of roads; and down the lanes the green and red Ball went bouncing, bouncing, bouncing, and the children after it. Thomasina, in her white, starched frock, very prickly round the neck, and Selim, in his every-day sailor-suit, a little tight under the arms. His Sunday one was a size larger. No one seemed to notice them, but they noticed and pitied the children who were being “taken for a walk” in the gritty suburban roads.
“Where are we going?” they asked the Ball, and it answered, with a sparkling green and red smile—
“To the most delightful place in the world.”
“What’s it called?” asked Selim.
“It’s called Whereyouwantogoto,” the Ball answered, and on they went. It was a wonderful journey—up and down, looking through the hedges and over them, looking in at the doors of cottages, and then in at the top windows, up and down—bounce—bounce—bounce.
And at last they came to the sea. And the Bouncing Ball said, “Here you are! Now be good, for there’s nothing here but the things that make people happy.” And with that he curled himself up like a ball in the shadow of a wet sea-weedy rock, and went to sleep, for he was tired out with his long journey. The children stopped bouncing, and looked about them.
“Oh, Tommy;” said Selim.
THEY BOUNCED THROUGH THE SUBURBS.
“Oh, Silly!” said Thomasina. And well they might! In the place to which the Ball had brought them was all that your fancy can possibly paint, and a great deal more beside.
The children feel exactly as you do when you’ve had the long, hot, dirty train journey—and every one has been so cross about the boxes and the little brown portmanteau that was left behind at the junction—and then when you get to your lodgings you are told that you may run down and have a look at the sea if you’re back by tea time, and mother and nurse will unpack.
Only Thomasina and her brother had not had a tiresome journey—and there were no nasty, stuffy lodgings for them, and no tea with oily butter and a new pot of marmalade.
“There’s silver-sand,” said she—“miles of it.”
“And rocks,” said he.
“And cliffs.”
“And caves in the cliffs.”
“And how cool it is,” said Thomasina.
“And yet it’s nice and warm too,” said Selim.
“And what shells!”
“And seaweed.”
“And the downs behind!”
“And trees in the distance!”
“And here’s a dog, to go after sticks. Here, Rover, Rover.”
A big black dog answered at once to the name, because he was a retriever, and they are all called Rover.
“And spades!” said the girl.
“And pails!” said the boy.
“And what pretty sea-poppies,” said the girl.
“And a basket—and grub in it!” said the boy. So they sat down and had lunch.
It was a lovely lunch. Lobsters and ice-creams (strawberry and pine-apple), and toffee and hot buttered toast and ginger-beer. They ate and ate, and thought of the aunt and uncle at home, and the minced veal and sago pudding, and they were very happy indeed.
Just as they were finishing their lunch they saw a swirling, swishing, splashing commotion in the green sea a little way off, and they tore off their clothes and rushed into the water to see what it was. It was a seal. He was very kind and convenient. He showed them how to swim and dive.
“But won’t it make us ill to bathe so soon after meals? Isn’t it wrong?” asked Thomasina.
THE SEAL WAS VERY KIND AND CONVENIENT.
“Not at all,” said the seal. “Nothing is wrong here—as long as you’re good. Let me teach you water-leapfrog—a most glorious game, so cool, yet so exciting. You try it.”
At last the seal said: “I suppose you wear man-clothes. They’re very inconvenient. My two eldest have just outgrown their coats. If you’ll accept them——”
And it dived, and came up with two golden sealskin coats over its arm, and the children put them on.
“Thank you very much,” they said. “You are kind.”
I am almost sure that it has never been your luck to wear a fur coat that fitted you like a skin, and that could not be spoiled with sand or water, or jam, or bread and milk, or any of the things with which you mess up the nice new clothes your kind relations buy for you. But if you like, you may try to imagine how jolly the little coats were.
Thomasina and Selim played all day on the beach, and when they were tired then went into a cave, and found supper—salmon and cucumber, and welsh-rabbit and lemonade—and then they went to bed in a great heap of straw and grass and fern and dead leaves, and all the delightful things you have often wished to sleep in. Only you have never been allowed to.
In the morning there were plum-pudding for breakfast, and roast duck and lemon jelly, and the day passed like a happy dream, only broken by surprising and delightful meals. The Ball woke up and showed them how to play water-polo; and they bounced him on the sand, with shrieks of joy and pleasure. You know, a Ball likes to be bounced by people he is fond of—it is like slapping a friend on the shoulder.
There were no houses in “Whereyouwantogoto,” and no bathing machines or bands, no nursemaids or policemen or aunts or uncles. You could do exactly what you liked as long as you were good.
“What will happen if we’re naughty?” Selim asked. The Ball looked very grave, and answered—
“I must not tell you; and I very strongly advise you not to try to find out.”
“We won’t—indeed, we won’t,” said they, and went off to play rounders with the rabbits on the downs—who were friendly fellows, and very keen on the game.
On the third evening Thomasina was rather silent, and the Ball said, “What’s the matter, girl-bouncer? Out with it.”
So she said, “I was wondering how mother is, and whether she has one of her bad headaches.”
The Ball said, “Good little girl! Come with me and I’ll show you something.”
He bounced away, and they followed him, and he flopped into a rocky pool, frightening the limpets and sea-anemones dreadfully, though he did not mean to.
“Now look,” he called from under the water, and the children looked, and the pool was like a looking-glass, only it was not their own faces they saw in it.
They saw the drawing-room at home, and father and mother, who were both quite well, only they looked tired—and the aunt and uncle were there—and Uncle Thomas was saying, “What a blessing those children are away.”
“Then they know where we are?” said Selim to the Ball.
“They think they know,” said the Ball, “or you think they think they know. Anyway, they’re happy enough. Good-night.”
And he curled himself up like a ball in his favourite sleeping-place. The two children crept into their pleasant, soft, sweet nest of straw and leaves and fern and grass, and went to sleep. But Selim was vexed with Thomasina because she had thought of mother before he had, and he said she had taken all the fern—and they went to sleep rather cross. They woke crosser. So far they had both helped to make the bed every morning, but to-day neither wanted to.
“I don’t see why I should make the beds,” said he; “it’s a girl’s work, not a boy’s.”
“I don’t see why I should do it,” said Thomasina; “it’s a servant’s place, not a young lady’s.”
And then a very strange and terrible thing happened. Quite suddenly, out of nothing and out of nowhere, appeared a housemaid—large and stern and very neat indeed, and she said—
“You are quite right, miss; it is my place to make the beds. And I am instructed to see that you are both in bed by seven.”
Think how dreadful this must have been to children who had been going to bed just when they felt inclined. They went out on to the beach.
“You see what comes of being naughty,” said Thomasina; and Selim said, “Oh, shut up, do!”
SUDDENLY, OUT OF NOTHING AND NOWHERE, APPEARED A LARGE, STERN HOUSEMAID.
They cheered up towards dinner-time—it was roast pigeons that day and bread sauce, and whitebait and syllabubs—and for the rest of the day they were as good as gold, and very polite to the Ball. Selim told it all about the dreadful apparition of the housemaid, and it shook its head (I know you’ve never seen a ball do that, and very likely you never will) and said—
“My Bouncible Boy, you may be happy here for ever and ever if you’re contented and good. Otherwise—well, it’s a quarter to seven—you’ve got to go.”
And, sure enough, they had to. And the housemaid put them to bed, and washed them with yellow soap, and some of it got in their eyes. And she lit a night-light, and sat with them till they went to sleep, so that they couldn’t talk, and were ever so much longer getting to sleep than they would have been if she had not been there. And the beds were iron, with mattresses and hot, stuffy, fluffy sheets and many more new blankets than they wanted.
The next day they got out as early as they could and played water football with the seal and the Bouncible Ball, and when dinner-time came it was lobster and ices. But Thomasina was in a bad temper. She said, “I wish it was duck.” And before the words had left her lips it was cold mutton and rice-pudding, and they had to sit up to table and eat it properly too, and the housemaid came round to see that they didn’t leave any bits on the edges of their plates, or talk with their mouths full.
There were no more really nice meals after that, only the sort of things you get at home. But it is possible to be happy even without really nice meals. But you have to be very careful. The days went by pleasantly enough. All the sea and land creatures were most kind and attentive. The seal taught them all it knew, and was always ready to play with them. The star-fish taught them astronomy, and the jelly-fish taught them fancy cooking. The limpets taught them dancing as well as they could for their lameness. The sea-birds taught them to make nests—a knowledge they have never needed to apply—and if the oysters did not teach them anything it was only because oysters are so very stupid, and not from any lack of friendly feeling.
The children bathed every day in the sea, and if they had only been content with this all would have been well. But they weren’t.
A LONG, POINTED THING CAME SLOWLY UP OUT OF THE SAND.
“Let’s dig a bath,” said Selim, “and the sea will come in and fill it, and then we can bathe in it.”
So they fetched their spades and dug—and there was no harm in that, as you very properly remark.
But when the hole was finished, and the sea came creep, creep, creeping up—and at last a big wave thundered up the sand and swirled into the hole, Thomasina and Selim were struggling on the edge, fighting which should go in first, and the wave drew sandily back into the sea, and neither of them had bathed in the new bath. And now it was all wet and sandy, and its nice sharp edges rounded off, and much shallower. And as they looked at it angrily, the sandy bottom of the bath stirred and shifted and rose up, as if some great sea-beast were heaving underneath with his broad back. The wet sand slipped back in slabs at each side, and a long pointed thing like a thin cow’s back came slowly up. It showed broader and broader, and presently the flakes of wet sand were dropping heavily off the top of a brand-new bathing machine that stood on the sand over where their bath had been.
“Well,” said Selim, “we’ve done it this time.”
They certainly had, for on the door of the bathing machine was painted: “You must not bathe any more except through me.”
So there was no more running into the sea just when and how they liked. They had to use the bathing machine, and it smelt of stale salt water and other people’s wet towels.
After this the children did not seem to care so much about the seaside, and they played more on the downs, where the rabbits were very kind and hospitable, and in the woods, where all sorts of beautiful flowers grew wild—and there was nobody to say “Don’t” when you picked them. The children thought of what Uncle Thomas would have said if he had been there, and they were very, very happy.
But one day Thomasina had pulled a lot of white convolvulus and some pink geraniums and calceolarias—the kind you are never allowed to pick at home—and she had made a wreath of them and put it on her head.
Then Selim said, “You are silly! You look like a Bank Holiday.”
And his sister said, “I can’t help it. They’d look lovely on a hat, if they were only artificial. I wish I had a hat.”
And she had. A large stiff hat that hurt her head just where the elastic was sewn on, and she had her stiff white frock that scratched, her tiresome underclothing, all of it, and stockings and heavy boots; and Selim had his sailor suit—the every-day one that was too tight in the arms; and they had to wear them always, and their fur coats were taken away.
They went sadly, all stiff and uncomfortable, and told the Bouncible Ball. It looked very grave, and great tears of salt water rolled down its red and green cheeks as it sat by the wet, seaweed-covered rock.
“Oh, you silly children,” it said, “haven’t you been warned enough? You’ve everything a reasonable child could wish for. Can’t you be contented?”
“Of course we can,” they said—and so they were—for a day and a half. And then it wasn’t exactly discontent but real naughtiness that brought them to grief.
They were playing on the downs by the edge of the wood under the heliotrope tree. A hedge of camellia bushes cast a pleasant shadow, and out in the open sunlight on the downs the orchids grew like daisies, and the carnations like buttercups. All about was that kind of turf on which the gardener does not like you to play, and they had pulled armfuls of lemon verbena and made a bed of it. But Selim’s blouse was tight under the arms. So when Thomasina said—
“Oh, Silly dear, how beautiful it is, just like fairyland,” he said—
“Silly yourself. There’s no such thing as fairyland.”
Just then a fairy, with little bright wings the colour of a peacock’s tail, fluttered across the path, and settled on a magnolia flower.
“Oh! Silly darling,” cried Thomasina, “it is fairyland, and there’s a fairy, such a beautiful dear. Look—there she goes.”
But Selim would not look—he turned over and hid his eyes.
“There’s no such thing as fairyland, I tell you,” he grunted, “and I don’t believe in fairies.”
And then, quite suddenly and very horribly the fairy turned into a policeman—because every one knows there are such things as policemen, and any one can believe in them.
And all the rare and beautiful flowers withered up and disappeared, and only thorns and thistles were left, and the misty, twiny trim little grass path that led along the top of the cliffs turned into a parade, and the policeman walked up and down it incessantly, and watched the children at their play, and you know how difficult it is to play when any one is watching you, especially a policeman. Selim was extremely vexed: that was why, he said, there couldn’t possibly be glow-worms as big as bicycle lamps, which, of course, there were in “Whereyouwantogoto.” It was after that that the gas-lamps were put all along the parade, and a pier sprang up on purpose to be lighted with electricity, and a band played, because it is nonsense to have a pier without a band.
IT IS DIFFICULT TO PLAY WHEN ANY ONE IS WATCHING YOU, ESPECIALLY A POLICEMAN.
“Oh, you naughty, silly children,” said the Bouncible Ball, turning red with anger, except in the part where he was green with disgust; “it makes me bounce with rage to see how you’ve thrown away your chances, and what a seaside resort you’re making of ‘Whereyouwantogoto.’”
And he did bounce, angrily, up and down the beach till the housemaid looked out of the cave and told the children not to be so noisy, and the policeman called out—
“Now then, move along there, move along. You’re obstructing of the traffic.”
And now I have something to tell you which you will find it hard to make any excuses for. I can’t make any myself. I can only ask you to remember how hard it is to be even moderately good, and how easy it is to be extremely naughty.
When the Bouncible Ball stopped bouncing, Selim said—
“I wonder what makes him bounce.”
“Oh no, don’t!” cried Thomasina, for she had heard her brother wonder that about balls before, and she knew all too well what it ended in.
“Oh, don’t,” she said, “oh, Silly, he brought us here, he’s been so kind.” But Selim said, “Nonsense; balls can’t feel, and it will be almost as good to play with after I’ve looked inside it.”
And then, before Thomasina could prevent him, he pulled out the knife Uncle Reggy gave him last holiday but one, and catching the Ball up, he plunged the knife into its side. The Bouncible Ball uttered one whiffing squeak of pain and grief, then with a low, hissing sigh its kindly spirit fled, and it lay, a lifeless mass of paint and india-rubber in the hands of its assassin. Thomasina burst into tears—but the heartless Selim tore open the Ball, and looked inside. You know well enough what he found there. Emptiness; the little square patch of india-rubber that makes the hard lump on the outside of the ball which you feel with your fingers when the ball is alive and his own happy, bouncing, cheerful self.
The children stood looking at each other.
“I—I almost wish I hadn’t,” said Selim at last; but before Thomasina could answer he had caught her hand.
“Oh, look,” he cried, “look at the sea.”
It was, indeed, a dreadful sight. The beautiful dancing, sparkling blue sea was drying up before their eyes—in less than a moment it was quite flat and dusty. It hurriedly laid down a couple of railway lines, ran up a signal-box and telegraph-poles, and became the railway at the back of their house at home.
The children, gasping with horror, turned to the downs. From them tall, yellow brick houses were rising, as if drawn up by an invisible hand. Just as treacle does in cold weather if you put your five fingers in and pulled them up. But, of course, you are never allowed to do this. The beach got hard—it was a pavement. The green downs turned grey—they were slate roofs—and Thomasina and Selim found themselves at the iron gate of their own number in the terrace—and there was Uncle Thomas at the window knocking for them to come in, and Aunt Selina calling out to them how far from respectable it was to play in the streets.
They were sent to bed at once—that was Aunt Selina’s suggestion—and Uncle Thomas arranged that they should have only dry bread for tea.
Selim and Thomasina have never seen “Whereyouwantogoto” again, nor the Bouncible Ball—not even his poor body—and they don’t deserve to either. Of course, Thomasina was not so much to blame as Selim, but she was punished just the same. I can’t help that. This is really the worst of being naughty. You not only have to suffer for it yourself, but some one else always has to suffer too, generally the person who loves you best.
You are intelligent children, and I will not insult you with a moral. I am not Uncle Thomas. Nor will I ask you to remember what I have told you. I am not Aunt Selina.