She let Peter take it from her and put it on her head, still staring incredulously about her. She took the sceptre limply. Peter was almost gentle with this strange, staring Joan.
§ 13
For some days Oswald regarded Joan as a grave and thoughtful child. She seemed to be what country people call “old-fashioned.” She might have been a changeling. He did not hear her laugh once. And she followed Peter about as if she was his shadow.
Then one day as he cycled over from Chastlands he heard a strange tumult proceeding from a little field on Master’s farm, a marvellous mixture of familiar and unfamiliar sounds, an uproar, wonderful as though a tinker’s van had met a school treat and the twain had got drunk together. The source of this row was hidden from him by a little coppice, and he dismounted and went through the wood to investigate. Joan and Peter had discovered a disused cowshed with a sloping roof of corrugated iron, and they had also happened upon an abandoned kettle and two or three tin cans. They were now engaged in hurling these latter objects on to the resonant roof, down which they rolled thunderously only to be immediately returned. Joan was no longer a slip of pensive dignity, Peter was no longer a marvel of intellectual curiosities. They were both shrieking their maximum. Oswald had never before suspected Joan of an exceptionally full voice, nor Peter of so vast a wealth of gurgling laughter. “Keep the Pot-A-boilin’” yelled Joan. “Keep the Pot-A-boilin’.”
“Hoo!” cried Peter. “Hoo! Go it, Joan. Wow!”
And then, to crown the glory, the kettle burst. It came into two pieces. That was too perfect! The two children staggered back. Each seized a half of the kettle and kicked it deliberately. Then they rolled away and fell on their stomachs amidst the grass, kicking their legs in the air.
But the spirit of rowdyism grows with what it feeds upon.
“Oh, let’s do something reely awful!” cried Joan. “Let’s do something reely awful, Petah!”
Peter’s legs became still and stiff with interrogation.
“Oh, Petah!” said Joan. “If I could only smash a window. Frow a brick frough a real window, a Big Glass Window. Just one Glass Window.”