A pause. There was evidently another story to that. “Tell us,” said Mummy, more interested even than the children.
Big Nobby made model African villages out of twigs and suchlike nothings in the garden, and he brought down Joan and Peter boxes of Zulu warriors from London to inhabit them. Also he bought two boxes of “Egyptian camel corps.” One wet day he “made Africa” on the nursery floor. He made mountains out of books and wood blocks, and put a gold-mine of gold paper therein; he got in a lot of twigs of box from the garden and made the most lovely forest you can imagine; he built villages of bricks for the Zulus; he put out the animals of Peter’s Noah’s ark in the woods. “Here’s the lion,” he said, propping up the lion against the tree because of its broken leg.
“Gurr Woooooah!” said Joan.
“Exactly,” said Nobby, encouraging her.
“Waar-oooh. Waaaa!” said Joan, presuming on it.
“Bang!” said Peter. “You’re dead, Joan,” and stopped any more of that.
§ 4
Then one day an extraordinary thing happened. It was towards lunch-time, and Mary was bringing Joan and Peter home from a walk in the woods. Joan was tired, but Peter had been enterprising and had run on far ahead; he was trotting his fat legs down the rusty lane that ran through the bushes close to the garden fence when he saw Nobby’s lank form coming towards him from the house, walking slowly and as if he couldn’t see where he was going. Peter was for slipping into the bushes and jumping out at him and saying “Boo.” Then he saw Nobby stop and stand still and stare back at the house, and then, most wonderful and dreadful! this great big grown-up began to sob and cry. He said “Ooo-er!” just as Peter did sometimes when he felt unendurably ill-used. And he kept raising his clenched fists as if he was going to shake them—and not doing so.
“I will go to Hell,” said Nobby. “I will go to Hell.”
In a passion!