“Aunt muthn’t know, becauth ’e thig I been out to tea—well, I haven’t—and I been where ’e told me not to go, and I theen it!” He was getting fearfully excited again.
“Seen what? Oh, do tell us,” said Molly.
“The ... he! he! he!...” Timothy giggled. “The ... Black Leaf!”
“Oh,” cried Jack and Molly together, their questions tumbling over each other in their eagerness. “Where is it? Where did you see it? Did you pick it? What did you do with it?”
“I didn’t pick it—I couldn’t get near it,” Timothy answered. “But I know where it ith....” He leant toward them and whispered hoarsely, his eyes round and bulging. “... In the Orange Wood.”
Timothy went on to tell them how he had happened to see it. It seemed that he had been forbidden by his aunt to go on to the Goblin’s Heath, or into the Orange Wood, because it was rumoured that the Pumpkin’s spies were in hiding in both these places—it was even said by some that the Pumpkin himself had been seen on the Heath yesterday. Although Timothy didn’t believe this, he said, he longed to explore both the wood and the heath, and to-day he had deceived his aunt, pretending he was going to tea with a friend and instead had slipped into the wood, which lay just beyond the village, and had wandered about there. He had come across Mr Papingay’s house in the wood—which he had often heard about, but never seen before. (Mr Papingay! Jack and Molly recognised the name, of course; it was Glan’s relation.) He was a funny old man, was Mr Papingay, said Timothy; and it was a funny house. And the Black Leaf was growing in a plant-pot, in the house! Only don’t tell his aunt he’d been in the wood, he pleaded, she would be angry with him, and perhaps send him away home to his father: and he didn’t want to go home yet.
“Wait till you’ve got the Leaf—then it won’t matter,” said Timothy.
He seemed so distressed at the idea of his aunt knowing of his disobedience (although she didn’t seem the kind of aunt to be too severe, Molly thought) that the children promised they would say nothing about it.
“Couldn’t you come with us, to-morrow, and show us the way?” said Jack.
But Timothy shook his head. “I rather you tell me about it afterwarth,” he said. “I had enough of the wood. Ith too full of crackly noith. I ran all the way home,” he confessed. “Oh, and thereth one thig. Don’t let Mr Papingay know you’ve come for the Leaf. He’th a funny old man, perapth he wouldn’t let you have it. Wait till you thee it. It wath on the kitchen window thill—inthide—when I thaw it.”