Carbonel and Calidor

3. The Purple Cracker

WHEN at last John and Rosemary got up to go, Mrs Cantrip said: ‘I tell you what, Dorothy! As these two can’t come to the party on Monday, don’t you think it would be a good idea if they chose a pretty cracker to take home instead?’

‘Splendid!’ said Miss Dibdin. ‘Why didn’t I think of it? Rosemary, you know which is my room? Run upstairs, dear, and take whichever one you fancy. They are in a brown paper parcel on my dressing-table.’

As she climbed the narrow stairs, Rosemary couldn’t help thinking that to pull crackers at a party was one thing, but to pull one without any jollification beforehand didn’t seem quite the right thing to do.

The small bedroom was dark and rather stuffy. The faint smell of stale flower water was stronger here, although she could see no flowers. Although the room was neat and tidy in every other way, on the hearth-rug, before the old-fashioned gas-fire, was a large untidy pile of twigs.

‘What a funny thing to have in your bedroom!’ said Rosemary to herself. ‘Ow!’ she went on. She had caught her ankle against a long stick which had been leaning against the wall. It fell with a clatter. Rosemary picked it up and looked at it curiously before propping it up again. It was about four feet long, rather crooked, with the twigs that had grown from it very roughly hacked off.

She found the brown paper parcel and undid the plastic ribbon that took the place of string. It had ‘NOSTRADAMUS LTD. Fancy Goods’ printed on it all the way along its length, so she knew it was what she was looking for. Rosemary took off the lid of the cardboard box inside. The crackers were fat and pink and spangled at the ends. Each one had a shiny picture of a flower stuck on in the middle. They were kept neatly in place by two strands of thread; but lying loose on top, slightly squashed, for there was not really room for it, was a single cracker, clearly of a different kind. It was made of dark purple, crinkled paper, and instead of a flower it had a plain shape glued to it, which looked like a five-pointed star. It seemed a pity to disturb the neat pink row, so she took the loose purple cracker and slipped it into her pocket. When she ran downstairs she found John already standing by the door and ready to go.

‘I say,’ he said as they walked down the street. ‘That was decent of you to let me off the party. What a ghastly idea, six girl prefects and me the only boy!’

‘Miss Dibdin didn’t seem very anxious to meet us at Highdown,’ said Rosemary. ‘I wonder what’s inside her mysterious parcel?’

‘Another funny thing,’ said John, ‘saying she was being met at Highdown Station. It’s been closed for donkey’s years. There aren’t any trains.’

‘Bother!’ said Rosemary when they reached the bus stop. ‘Nobody here. It looks as though we’ve just missed one. Now we shall have to wait for the next.’

‘Let’s pull that silly old cracker while we’re waiting,’ said John. Rosemary took it from her pocket and held it up. ‘What a crumby, squashed-looking thing!’ They both giggled. ‘Here give me an end. When I say “go” we both pull.’

The purple paper of the cracker was tough, and they had to tug really hard before it gave way at last, so suddenly, that Rosemary nearly fell over backwards, which set them off giggling once more.

‘What a great bang!’ she said. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever pulled such a noisy cracker. Did you see all those coloured sparks when it went off?’

John was peering down the torn end of the tube of paper.

‘Well, it looks as though coloured sparks is about all we’re going to get. I can’t see anything inside, though I expect there’s a motto. What a rotten cracker!’

Rosemary watched as he tore open the crumpled paper and pulled out a small printed slip. ‘Go on! What does the motto say?’

He was peering at the tiny print, for it was beginning to grow dusk. He cleared his throat and began to read:

‘Choose your wishes carefully

Seven steps to gramarye

Build each wish upon another ...’

He broke off. ‘Boring old grammar.’

‘But what on earth does it mean?’ said Rosemary.

‘Search me. Some silly grown-up joke, I suppose,’ said John. He passed her the slip of paper. She shrugged her shoulders, and pushed it into her coat pocket.

‘What’s that in the gutter?’ said John.

Rosemary stooped and picked up a small, neat packet. ‘A paper hat, I expect,’ she said, and breaking the band that held it together, undid the little roll of tissue paper inside, and smoothed it out.

‘What a funny-looking hat!’ said John. ‘Black and pointed!’

Rosemary did her best to make the crumpled point stick up, and then she put it on. It was a good deal too big, and half extinguished her face.

‘Good heavens!’ said John. ‘I believe it’s a witch’s hat! You do look a Charlie in it!’ he said, and collapsed into giggles again. Suddenly Rosemary didn’t want to laugh any more. She felt strangely solemn.

‘Let’s look round and see if anything else fell out,’ she said.

‘What was it Miss Dibdin said about crackers?’ said John.

‘That they only had “rubbishy gew-gaws inside”. I remember thinking what a funny word it was. Gew-gaws I mean.’

‘What’s that?’ interrupted John.

Rosemary looked where he was pointing. In a crack between the paving stones something glittered, redly. The street lamp above had been suddenly switched on, and whatever it was lit up like an unwinking red eye. John stooped and picked it up.

‘It’s a ring,’ he said. They peered at it for a moment as it lay on the palm of his hand, then Rosemary slipped it on to her forefinger and admired it at arm’s length. The broad gold band in which the stone was set was made for a much larger hand than hers.

‘What an enormous piece of glass for a stone!’ said John.

‘P’raps it isn’t glass,’ said Rosemary. ‘It seems to ... well, smoulder inside. How queer. I don’t think it’s “rubbishy”, whatever Miss Dibdin says.’ She looked at the shining band round her finger. ‘I think it’s a golden gew-gaw!’

‘I say, what a long time this bus is being,’ said John. ‘If I had a motor bike we shouldn’t have to wait. Or better still, I wish I had my own private aeroplane.’

‘So do I,’ said Rosemary, tapping her feet impatiently, and suddenly, she didn’t know why, she began to sing.

‘Oh so do I,

I wish I could fly

A little way up

And then I’d come down,

I’d be a bit scared

To fly over the town.’

As she sang, she began to dance in a circle. When she got to ‘over the town’ she made a great soaring leap in the air ...

And then she came down, smack, so that the soles of her feet tingled. At the same time, the ring, which was far too big for her finger, fell off and bounced on to the pavement.

John looked at her with surprise.

‘Whatever made me do that?’ said Rosemary in a puzzled voice.

‘I thought you were going to take off,’ said John. ‘It made me feel quite queer!’

Rosemary had picked up the ring again. She pushed up the paper hat so that she could see it better.

‘John, why did you say that, when I was dancing about?’ she asked suddenly.

‘Say what?’

‘Just before the ring fell off, you said “John and Rosemary, help”!’

‘I didn’t!’ said John indignantly.

‘You must have done!’ said Rosemary. ‘I heard you say it, twice, quite distinctly, in a funny sort of voice. It must have been you. There was nobody else here.’

‘But why on earth should I say “John and Rosemary, help”? You must be off your nut! You’ll be saying next it was that great black cat who’s been staring at us from the alleyway there! But look out, here comes the bus. Better take that silly thing off your head.’

Rosemary clutched the paper hat and crammed it into her pocket with the ring, and together they ran to the bus stop. (Searching for things out of the cracker, they had moved quite a long way down the pavement.)

Rosemary was the first to jump on the bus. She heard an exclamation from John behind her, but she had no time to look round. It was a double-decker, so they went upstairs.

‘We’ve got the whole of the top to ourselves,’ said John. ‘Super!’

With all the seats to choose from, of course they chose to sit in front.

‘Did you see that black cat?’ he went on. ‘The one that was staring at us? It nearly tripped me up just as I was going to jump on the bus!’

‘I was thinking about black cats,’ went on Rosemary thoughtfully. ‘You know, I believe last summer ... What are you poking me for?’

‘Shut up!’ said John in a whisper. ‘Talking of black cats, look over your shoulder.’

Rosemary turned. Sitting on the seat behind was a magnificent cat. It was coal black, from the top of its sleek head to the tip of its tail, with a wide span of snow-white whiskers curving on either side of its disdainfully raised nose. It sat calmly on the seat, paws neatly together, gazing fixedly at the two children with large amber eyes, as self-possessed as though it were quite used to travelling by bus, and had already paid its fare. John and Rosemary stared back, and then with one voice they shouted :

‘Carbonel!’

The black cat jumped down from the seat. After wreathing round their ankles for a moment, he jumped up, first on to Rosemary’s lap, and then on to John’s, stepping from one to the other, kneading their thighs with his front paws, and thrusting the firm silkiness of his head beneath the chin of each of them in turn, and all the time purring so loudly that they could hear the small warm waves of sound even above the noises of the bus.

‘Now I remember,’ said Rosemary. ‘It was Carbonel we had adventures with last year!’

‘Of course it was!’ said John, as he stroked the black cat, running his hand from head to tail, feeling the firm body beneath the soft fur. ‘Good old Carbonel!’

At that moment the bus stopped, and several passengers came clambering up the stairs. Carbonel jumped to the floor, and disappeared discreetly under the seat, until it was time for John and Rosemary to get off, when he slipped down behind them, a silent black shadow, padding beside them along the darkening street.

‘I wonder why he’s following us?’ said Rosemary.

‘If only he could tell us ...’ began John. ‘Look out, Carbonel!’ he went on. ‘That’s twice you’ve nearly tripped me up!’

‘Let’s take him home and give him a saucer of milk,’ said Rosemary. ‘That is, if he comes with us that far.’