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‘Very well,’ he said with dignity. ‘I will travel in the cauldron, but have the goodness to clean out the remains of the Rainbow Magic. Even SHE used to wash up properly afterwards.’

It was no use, thought Rosemary. He always had the last word.

‘Dear Carbonel!’ She laughed and, greatly daring, kissed him on the top of his sleek black head. He did not seem displeased.

Mrs Brown did not have to go to Tussocks next morning, and during a delightfully leisurely lunch Rosemary said:

‘Mummy, wouldn’t it be a good idea to take the old rug off the foot of my bed this afternoon, so that we could sit on the grass even if it is damp? We don’t want to catch cold, do we?’ she added virtuously. Her mother laughed.

‘I’ve never known you bother about whether the grass is damp or not before. But it would be a good idea, all the same.’

‘Well, it wouldn’t do to use Mrs Parker’s beautiful fur car rug, would it?’ said Rosemary.

Rosemary was ready a good hour before the car was due to fetch them. She was wearing her best summer frock with blue smocking on the front and two blue hair ribbons. She had cleaned out the cauldron. The remains of the wishing spell did smell rather nasty, and she had black-leaded its sides and polished the copper band. She felt that it ought to be looking its best, as this was its final magic, and somehow she knew that the battered old thing was grateful. She even contemplated tying a red hair ribbon on the handle of the broom, but decided against it because John would undoubtedly laugh at her. Finally she oiled the handles of the cauldron so that they should make as little noise as possible when she smuggled everything down. Even Carbonel had to admit that she had made a good job of it.

When at last it was time to expect Jeffries with the car, everything was ready. Just as she heard the distant ring of the front doorbell her mother called out:

‘What are you doing, Rosie?’

‘I’ve just made a cup of tea for you and Jeffries, a sort of stirrup cup,’ she said. And without waiting for a reply she ran downstairs with Carbonel in the cauldron covered with the old rug, and the broom under her arm. She did not run far, because it was so heavy, but she got safely to the hall at last. She placed the precious things so that when she opened the door they would be out of sight behind it, and then she flung the door back. There was John on the doorstep – an unfamiliar John with neatly brushed hair, socks, and a long-sleeved shirt with a tie.

‘What an age you have been,’ he said. ‘I thought you were never coming. What are you pulling faces for?’ he began. Rosemary interrupted hurriedly.

‘I promised Mrs Walker that I would open the door because of her poor feet, you know.’ And turning to Jeffries she said, ‘Would you like a cup of tea? I’ve just made one for you.’

‘But we’ve only just finished dinner,’ said John, who seemed determined to make things as difficult as possible.

‘Not you, silly! Mr Jeffries. It’s all ready upstairs.’

‘Very kind of you, I’m sure,’ said the chauffeur. ‘I can always do with a cuppa.’

Rosemary waited until his gleaming leggings had disappeared up the first flight of stairs; then she said to John, who was looking extremely puzzled:

‘You are stupid! I only did that so that we could get the things in the car without being seen.’ And she closed the door.

‘All right, keep your hair on!’ said John cheerfully. ‘How was I to know that?’

‘I didn’t mean to be cross, but it was horrid when Jeffries thought I was being kind, and really I only wanted to get him out of the way, like Mummy thinking I was being thoughtful when I suggested taking the rug to cover the things.’

Rosemary moved the door so that they could see the cauldron behind it. Carbonel poked a ruffled head out from under the rug and said crossly:

‘I do not like being referred to as “Things”!’ and disappeared suddenly as they thought they heard Mrs Walker coming up from the basement.

The children put the cauldron on the floor in the back of the car, with the broom beside it, and the rug arranged carefully on top.

‘It doesn’t show too much,’ said John.

‘Have you got the book?’ asked Rosemary anxiously. He nodded.

‘About the only advantage of this silly get-up is that there is more room to hide things.’

‘To think we have got everything except the Hat!’ said Rosemary happily.

There was no time to discuss things any further, because just at that moment Jeffries opened the door of the car for Mrs Brown to get into the front seat.

‘Are you all right there?’ said the chauffeur. The two children nodded. He pressed the starter, and they were off to Walsingham Court.

22

The F?te

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Walsingham Court was one of the show places of the neighbourhood. The gardens where the f?te was held were magnificent. I am not going to describe them to you, any more than I am going to describe the f?te, because if you think of the most beautiful rose gardens and yew walks, and rock gardens and herbaceous borders and orangeries that you have ever seen, you will know exactly what it was like. Just as you will know what the f?te was like, with stalls and hoop-las, and tombolas and raffles, and Punch and Judy shows and fortune-tellers. It was hot and sunny, and the children and Mrs Brown wandered round enjoying every bit of it. They spent all their money within the first half-hour, but it did not seem to matter, because there was so much to look at.

Presently Mrs Brown said:

‘I simply must sit down! I think I shall watch the dancing display from a deck chair. Would you two like to go off on your own?’

This was the moment they had been waiting for. Rosemary nodded.

‘All right, dears. But be back by quarter to four because we have got tickets for the first tea.’

There was no time to reply, because the enclosure reserved for the dancers had already been invaded by a dozen little girls in very pink crinolines and poke bonnets. They were apparently showing their unwillingness to go walking with an equal number of little girls dressed as boys.

‘And I don’t blame them,’ said John. ‘Why can’t they just say, “Not likely!” or something, instead of this silly dumb crambo business? Come on. I saw where the Netherley Players are doing their stuff.’

Secretly Rosemary would like to have watched the dancing, but she knew that they had a great deal to do and not much time in which to do it. There was a series of notices which pointed the way to the Netherley Players. It seemed that they were giving three performances. The one at two-thirty was over and the next was at five, with a final one at seven. The arrows led to a green, grassy amphitheatre which sloped gently down to a broad paved terrace, behind which was a mass of flowering shrubs and trees.

‘What a lovely place for acting!’ said Rosemary. ‘And look, there is a summer-house over there. I expect that is where they change their clothes. Let’s go and see.’

They made their way down the aisle between the rows of empty chairs towards the summer-house. It was a wooden building with two low storeys and a thatched roof. Both children silently thought that it would be first-rate for playing in. When they reached the three shallow steps which led to the door, they became aware that someone was arguing inside.

‘I told you it was ridiculous to agree to do two plays,’ said a girl’s voice crossly.

‘And I told you that we should not have got the engagement if we hadn’t. Lady Soffit was sure that the same people would come twice if the second performance was something different,’ said a man’s voice. A third person said something that they could not hear and the man replied:

‘Well, now we’ve got to. The tickets and bills are all distributed. Wemust put on the Dream at five o’clock, if we have to do it in flannel bags. I know you didn’t mean to leave half the tunics behind, but can’t you make some more? You have got an hour and a half. There are those old curtains in the van you could cut up. I suppose you didn’t leave the sewing machine behind as well?’

‘Don’t rub it in, Bill. I am most terribly sorry. Of course I haven’t left the sewing machine behind. I’ll try. But I don’t see how I can do it all in time single-handed,’ said the girl’s voice.

‘Good heavens!’ replied the man. ‘Surely, with three women in the company, you can turn out something?’

‘You know quite well that Megs and Sara are completely ham-handed,’ said the first voice. ‘Nobody would dare to sit down in anything they had made!’

John and Rosemary on the step outside suddenly realized that they were eavesdropping, so John knocked on the door, which swung open as he did so. A man stood with his back to them, but hearing the knock he turned. It was the Occupier. His hair was standing on end as though he had just been running his hands through it, and he said ungraciously:

‘What do you want?’

‘It’s us, sir!’ said John.

‘Who on earth is “Us”? Good heavens, if it isn’t the Lathero twins! Now run away, there’s good children. We’re in a frightful jam. We’ve left half the clothes behind. There isn’t time to fetch them, and these useless women don’t seem capable of making any more in time!’ And he ran his fingers through his hair again so that it looked even wilder than before.

‘I know. We heard. We didn’t mean to listen, but you were talking so loudly that we couldn’t help it,’ said John. But Rosemary interrupted.

‘Well, I know who could make them for you if anyone could, and that is my mother. She is a real dressmaker.’

‘Well, that is not much use to us,’ said the Occupier irritably.

‘Don’t be cross with them, Bill,’ said the girl. It was their friend Molly. ‘Where is your mother, dear? Do you think we could possibly persuade her to help us? I feel so desperate that I could brave asking anybody!’

‘She is watching the dancing display. I’m sure she would help,’ said Rosemary. ‘Let’s go and ask her.’

She and Molly went off together in the direction of the sound of the tinny piano, and John was left standing awkwardly with the actors. Three men who had been sitting disconsolately on a couple of dress baskets, got up and sauntered off, and the two girls who were presumably the ham-handed Megs and Sara went on sorting clothes in the corner.

John followed the Occupier on to the little porch, where they both looked anxiously after Molly and Rosemary.

‘I say,’ said John. ‘You have still got the witch’s hat, haven’t you?’

‘Good heavens!’ said the Occupier, whose name was really Bill. ‘You’re not going to start that again, are you?’

‘You did say we could have it, you know,’ said John desperately, ‘when we had collected everything else for the Magic, and we have. Everything. The broom, the cauldron, the book of spells, and a high old time we had getting them, I can tell you!’

There was an awkward silence, during which Bill lit a cigarette. They were both relieved when Molly and Rosemary arrived accompanied by Mrs Brown.

Molly was talking volubly, and Rosemary was grinning from ear to ear, and her mother was saying‘I see’, and ‘I think I could’.

‘It’s all right!’ called Rosemary. ‘Mummy is going to help! I knew she would,’ she added confidently. ‘Now you won’t have to worry.’

The Occupier shook Mrs Brown warmly by the hand.‘My dear Mrs Lathero…’

‘Brown!’ whispered John hurriedly.

‘… Mrs Brown. I can’t thank you enough…’

‘Thank me when we have got it done,’ smiled Mrs Brown. ‘We shall need every minute we can get.’ Then, turning to Molly, ‘Perhaps it would be quicker if I could cut out the clothes on the people who are going to wear them. We needn’t bother about such refinements as hems.’

‘What can I do?’ asked the Occupier humbly.

‘Go away and leave us alone,’ said Molly firmly. ‘Your clothes were not left behind, thank goodness, so we shan’t need you. We have exactly one hour and twenty minutes in which to do it all in! Come on Megs, fetch Harry and Adrian to be fitted. Sara, help us to carry these things upstairs to the upper floor. We had better do it up there.’

Rosemary nudged John.‘Have you asked him?’ she whispered. But the Occupier’s sharp ears heard her.

‘What persistent youngsters you are! Yes, he has asked me.’

‘Look here, sir,’ said John. ‘We know that you bought the hat, and that it is a jolly rare thing. We don’t expect you to give it us. But won’t you lend it just for half an hour, so that we can do the spell now? Then we would never bother you again.’

They waited breathlessly. The young man blew out a cloud of smoke; then he stubbed out his cigarette.

‘All right,’ he said at last. ‘You win. I’ll lend you the hat for half an hour, but you must let me come with you to see fair play. I shan’t be needed here for a bit, so let’s go and fetch it. It isn’t being used today, so it is in the property van behind the greenhouses. Lead on, my young Witch of Endor!’

‘Right,’ said John. ‘You go with him and get the hat, Rosie, and I’ll go to the car and fetch the things. Meet you behind the glasshouses as soon as I can.’

‘What things?’ asked Bill.

This was better, thought Rosemary, and, tucking her hand in his arm, she told him the whole story: how they had searched for the cauldron, about the Wishing Magic and the china, and how they had found the Book of Spells and so nearly lost the withered plait of creepers. She had only just finished by the time they had reached the van. The young man disappeared inside it. Presently he called down,‘Catch!’ Rosemary held out her arms and something black and furry landed in them. It was the Hat at last!

‘The moths have had a regular banquet off some of it,’ he said cheerfully as he jumped down again. ‘Pretty indigestible, I should think, witch’s hat. Hallo, here is John!’ Coming down the path was John with the cauldron in one hand and the broom in the other, and Carbonel trotting sedately beside him. When the cat saw the dilapidated Hat he gave a little ‘Purrup!’

‘Well,’ said Bill, ‘he is certainly a splendid animal. But I can’t hear him talking.’ And he laughed in a bless-your-little-fancies way.

‘That is because you aren’t holding the broomstick. Here you are, sir,’ said John, and he pushed the wooden handle towards the young man so that he, too, could hold it.

‘Do him good,’ said Carbonel. ‘Too cocky by far, he is.’

The Occupier started violently.

‘Do you know, I really did think I heard the cat speak!’ he said.

‘I did,’ said Carbonel drily. ‘I said, you are too cocky by far.’

‘Good heavens!’

‘It is a bit upsetting at first,’ said Rosemary kindly, ‘but you soon get used to it. I dare say it is harder for you, being grownup, I mean.’

‘Well, we aren’t here to make polite conversation,’ said Carbonel. ‘I noticed a small enclosure behind that asparagus bed, with a bonfire burning there already, and no one about. Follow me.’

They all followed, the Occupier, as though in a dream, clutching the broom, and unable to take his eyes off the black cat.

The enclosure was made by a privet hedge which hid a small tool shed, a heap of grass cuttings, and a small, smouldering bonfire.

Rosemary removed the precious withered plait from between the pages of the book of spells. Then she propped the book up against a wheelbarrow.

‘You can read it if you like,’ she said to the young man. ‘But not aloud, because it is a Silent Magic.’

With a dazed expression he turned his fascinated eyes from Carbonel.

‘I say, what about a pipkin?’ said Rosemary. ‘It says “fill the cauldron with seven pipkins of puddle water”.’

‘What is a pipkin?’ asked John.

‘A small earthenware jar,’ said Carbonel. ‘A flower pot with the hole stopped up will do. Rosemary, you can see to that, while someone else gets the fire going.’ He turned to the dazed young man. ‘That may as well be your job.’

‘Yes, yes, of course!’ said the Occupier, and at once feverishly began to collect twigs and sticks which he pushed into the smouldering fire, while John got down on his knees and blew on the embers. Rosemary rolled up her handkerchief and pushed it into the hole at the bottom of a flower pot. It took rather a long time to find enough puddle water to fill the flower pot seven times, but by then the fire had been coaxed into blazing quite merrily. At last the three legs of the cauldron were supported above the flames on two large stones and an old brick, and Rosemary put on the Hat. It was much too big, and only by bending her ears down could she keep it up at all. They removed the shoe-bag from the end of the broom. In spite of their care a number of twigs had fallen off inside the bag. In silence they knelt in a ring, waiting for the cauldron to boil. The sounds of the f?te driftedin to them, very faint and far away. A great bumble bee buzzed heavily by, intent on his own business, and a thrush was tapping a snail shell insistently on the brick path outside the enclosure. Then the water began to bubble. Rosemary took a deep breath.

‘Stand back!’ said Carbonel to the others. ‘And remember, if you love me, do not make a sound. Rosemary, whatever happens, I implore you not to cry out!’

She nodded. The young man sat down heavily on the wheelbarrow. Rosemary straddled the broom. Although her mouth had been dry with nervousness before, now she was wearing the Hat she felt quite calm and mistress of the situation. The broom quivered expectantly beneath her, and she patted it softly.

‘Now!’ said Carbonel, and she leant over and dropped the plait into the centre of the swirling water, which rose up to meet it in a froth of winking bubbles. Without thinking twice she said aloud:

While the mixture’s boiling hot,

Bear me round the reeking pot.

Widdershins, please fly designedly,

Seven times round. And thank you kindly.

The broom shook itself and rose slowly from the ground. At the same time a swirl of steam rose from the cauldron, so that she only caught glimpses of her friends below as she whirled round; John and the Occupier on the wheelbarrow and gazing upwards open-mouthed, and Carbonel sitting tense and upright on an upturned bucket. The broom was making wide circles at some speed, so that Rosemary’s pigtails flew out from beneath the witch’s hat, and what with keeping her balance and stopping the hat from slipping over her face like an extinguisher, she had her work cut out.

At the fifth time round, the steam from the cauldron began to sink, by the sixth it had become a mere trickle, and when the broom deposited her gently by the fire after the seventh circle there was no steam at all. Although the fire still burned brightly, the water in the cauldron was placid and still. Rosemary looked eagerly at its unmoving surface, and there, breaking the reflection of her own face, floated a garland made of seven different climbing plants. Very gingerly Rosemary bent over, and with the handle of the broom hooked it out, and lo and behold, there were flowers of wild rose and bryony. There were white trumpets of bindweed, delicately touched with pink, sweet-smelling clusters of honeysuckle, and little purple vetch, and the leaves and tendrils were as green and delicate as the day on which they were picked seven years ago.

As Rosemary knelt down with the garland on her lap, there fell a silence that seemed as though everything was listening, the sounds of the f?te died away, the birds stopped their twittering, even the thrush stopped hammering his snail shell and stood motionless with his head on one side. Very carefully, very carefully, so that not one strand of the garland should break, Rosemary began to unravel the plait. And while she unravelled, quite silently in her head she said the spell that she had learnt by heart. (If you do not know how she could say it silently, remember the times you have repeated your homework to yourself quite clearly, without making a sound.) The vetch twined its pale green tendrils round her fingers as though to hinder her, the juice from the crushed berries of the bittersweet made the strands slip from between her feverish fingers, but she went on. And this is the spell she said:

Fingle fangle, warp and wind,

Weeds that strangle, climb, and bind,

Plants that trip unwary feet,

Bramble, vetch, and bittersweet.

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… and with the handle of the broom hooked it out.

The scent from the honeysuckle rose sweet and sickly, and so strong that her head began to swim and she felt faint and drowsy, and when she shook off the drowsiness the thorns tore her fingers, but she closed her lips tightly so that no sound should escape, and went on untwisting, untwining.

Fangle, jingle, mickle muckle,

Bindweed, ivy, honeysuckle,

Climbing bramble, tendrilled vine,

Loose your hold, untwist, untwine

Silently, without a sound

Free the Slave and loose the Bound.

The scent from the honeysuckle was so strong that only by a tremendous effort was Rosemary able to finish. But with the last word of the spell the last twist unravelled itself beneath her torn and bleeding fingers, and fell to the ground. For a minute the seven strands lay there, strong and green in the sunlight, and then beneath her eyes they wilted and shrank, the flowers dropped their shrivelled petals and the leaves became dull, the glossy green gave way to dusty brown. And as a balloon withers and shrinks when the air escapes, so the strand of creepers diminished and shrank. And when Rosemary bent down to pick up the withered twig that had once been honeysuckle, it fell to powder between her fingers. A little breeze sprang up, and it was scattered and gone.

The fire was nearly out. The cauldron had boiled dry, and in the bottom was a hole the size of her fist. Rosemary gave a great sigh. She was aware that the thrush was once more tapping with his snail shell. The noise of the f?te sounded cheerfully on the breeze again. She stood up with the broom in her hand. Carbonel was still sitting on the far side of the enclosure.

‘Say the Summoning Words!’ he said harshly. ‘If I am still bound I must come to you.’

Rosemary said them rather faintly. She felt strangely tired.

By squeak of bat

And brown owl’s hoot,

By hellebore,

And mandrake root,

Come swift and silent

As the tomb,

Dark minion

Of the twiggy broom.

Nothing happened. Carbonel still sat unmoved upon the bucket. There was a long, long pause. Then very deliberately he stepped down and came towards her.

‘Little mistress!’ he said.

‘You never called me that before, and now I’m no longer your mistress,’ said Rosemary, and her eyes filled with tears. ‘You didn’t have to come this time when I summoned you!’ Carbonel was purring deeply.

‘I came in gratitude. That will be a stronger bond than any spell.’ And his warm tongue licked her scratched hands.

There was a movement on the other side of the enclosure. The young man got up from the wheelbarrow. He yawned and stretched.

‘Extraordinary thing,’ he said cheerfully. ‘I must have dropped off to sleep, sitting here bolt upright! I had a pretty rum dream, too. I’ll tell you about it sometime.’

Rosemary looked inquiringly at Carbonel, who shook his head.

‘It is just as well he should think he dreamt it. It will save awkward questions.’ But only Rosemary heard him, because only she had the broom.

‘It has been a warm day,’ she said. ‘Thank you very much for the Hat. We shan’t need it any more.’

‘Not at all. I hope you had a good game with it. I say, it’s five o’clock! I must fly. Look here, will you and young John put it back in the van? I will give you the key, then you can bring it back to the summer-house when you have locked it up. Here you are. See you later!’

The children listened in silence to his receding footsteps. Then Rosemary said:‘I know what I am going to do.’

She removed the cauldron, and bent down and blew up the fire again, and then she took the Book of Spells and poked it deep into the smouldering heart of the ashes.

‘Stand back!’ warned Carbonel, and she jumped away just in time. With a swish, a green flame edged with purple shot up ten feet into the air. For a moment it flashed and flickered, then it wavered and sank. There was nothing to be seen of the book in the bonfire, nothing but a trickle of sluggish, oily-looking smoke.

‘You are wise, little mistress!’ said Carbonel.

‘Well, I think it was just silly of her,’ said John. ‘Think what fun we could have had with it on wet days.’

‘Nothing but evil ever came of that book.’

In silence they put away the flower pot in the toolshed, then, taking the Broom and the Cauldron with them, they went to replace the Hat in the van.

‘Before you put the Broom in the car, I shall say good-bye,’ said Carbonel gravely.

‘But shan’t we see you again ever any more? Must you go?’ asked Rosemary.

‘I must go. I have work to do. I shall never forget what you and John have done. You will see me at the Full Moon!’ he said. He gave Rosemary’s hand a little lick, then he turned, and they watched him grow smaller and smaller as he trotted with head and tail erect down a long path bordered oneither side with tiger-lilies. Then he turned a corner and was gone.

‘How simply beastly,’ said John. ‘Everything is over now. We’ve even missed tea. I’m starving.’ Silently he passed Rosemary his handkerchief.

‘We ought to feel as pleased as anything, because we have done what we set out to do. But I don’t feel as though I shall ever be pleased again.’ She blew her nose very hard.

They left the cauldron and the broom in the car suitably hidden under the rug, and then they returned to the summer-house. But it was not possible to feel miserable there for long. To John’s relief there was tea, which they ate sitting on the steps. Mrs Brown and Molly, and even Megs and Sara, were still sewing between mouthfuls. The Occupier and the other men teased the children in a friendly sort of way. It was all very jolly and cheerful, and by the time they had started on thesecond plate of cakes, they felt they knew everyone quite well. The last tunic was nearly done, and Rosemary could see by her mother’s smiling face that she was enjoying herself.

‘I must admit,’ she said to her daughter later, ‘that my heart sank when I thought I had got to sew this afternoon, just when I was off for a holiday. But it has been such fun sewing unusual sorts of clothes, and everyone is so friendly that it has not seemed like work at all.’

‘Your mother is a wonder,’ said the Occupier, and Rosemary flushed with pride. ‘I gather from Molly that not only can she work at twice everybody else’s speed, but that by some mystic process of hers called “cutting on the cross” she has transformed Oberon’s sleeves.’

‘And saved yards of stuff into the bargain,’ said Molly.

The children and Mrs Brown, as guests of honour, sat in the front row for the next performance. They were acting the fairy part ofA Midsummer Night’s Dream, and even John, who usually thought of Shakespeare as somebody invented by masters to harass school-boys, admitted that it was‘smashing’. They were transported by the fairy part, and they laughed and laughed at Bottom and his friends. When it was all over the Occupier took them all round the f?te again, and John won two coconuts and Rosemary a china kitten in a boot which she decided to give to Mrs Walker. And when it was time at last to meet Jeffries and the car, they were both so tired they could hardly keep their eyes open.

‘What a day!’ said John, as he and Rosemary flopped into the back seat.

‘Did you enjoy it, dears?’ asked Mrs Brown.

‘We shall never have such a day again!’ said Rosemary. ‘I wonder what Carbonel meant when he said he would see us at the full moon?’ she whispered to John.

‘I don’t suppose we shall know till tomorrow,’ he whispered back.

23

The Full Moon

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The next day Rosemary was looking pale.

‘Too much excitement,’ said Mrs Brown. ‘I wonder if perhaps you had better stay at home today, instead of coming with me to Tussocks?’

‘Oh, Mummy, please!’ begged Rosemary. ‘If you have nearly finished the sewing I shall hardly have any more time to play with John, and I have got such heaps to talk to him about. Besides, I think I ought to say “Thank you” to Mrs Pendlebury Parker, don’t you?’

Her mother smiled.‘Very well, Poppet. But it must be a really early bed for you tonight!’

Although Rosemary felt there was so much she wanted to talk over with John, when she reached Tussocks she found that by common consent they both avoided any reference to Carbonel or Mrs Cantrip, or anything magic at all. They played good, solid games like Cowboys and Indians all morning, and in the afternoon they built a tree house, which was fun, until Mrs Pendlebury Parker decided that it was not safe and made them take it down again.

When Rosemary and her mother reached home in the evening, Mrs Brown said, firmly:

‘Now, we will have supper straight away; scrambled eggs and jam tart, and then you can have your bath and hop into bed. You may take a book with you if you like.’

Rosemary had her bath in the usual bower of other people’s drying stockings, then she choseThe Wind in the Willows, kissed her mother good night and got into bed. But she could not read. She sat propped against the pillows with the book open before her, but her mind was not on the adventures of Toad and Mole and Rat. It would keep going over the events of the past three weeks. What fun it had all been. What would become of Mrs Cantrip? How would Carbonel win back his place at the head of his kingdom? She closed her eyes to think the better, but she must have fallen asleep, for when she opened them again it was dusk, and the book had slipped to the floor. Something dark and furry leapt on to her bed, and licked her cheek with a familiar rough tongue. She was wide awake at once.

‘Carbonel! I did so hope you would come! What are you going to do? Is it the Law Giving tonight?’

Carbonel was kneading the blanket with his front paws and purring rhythmically.‘Oh, wait a minute while I fetch the broom!’ She jumped out of bed and ran to the wardrobe. ‘Now then!’

‘It is, as you say, the Law Giving tonight. Would you like to come?’

‘Oh, may I? How lovely! Where is it? And how? And what about John? He would be terribly disappointed if he missed it!’

‘Patience, Rosemary. As to where, it will be on the roof of the Town Hall, where it has been at every full moon for four hundred years. And how? By Broom. The fact that the moon is full tonight will give it temporary life, and by Broom we will fetch John from Tussocks. But we must wait for the moon to rise. In the meantime you had better be composing instructions, and mind they are accurate,’ he went on in his old manner. ‘You can’t afford to make mistakes when you are flying high.’

Rosemary put on her old red dressing gown and her slippers with the bobbles on them; then she knelt on the chair by the window, with Carbonel on the sill beside her. The sky was darkening, and the vista of roofs stretched dim and shadowy, away into the distance. Down below she could see countless moving shapes.

‘Carbonel, look! Running along the top of the wall… hundreds of cats!’

‘My people!’ he said. ‘This is a night they will never forget. As yet they know nothing of my return. I thought it best to descend on an unsuspecting enemy. Only Malkin, my father’s friend and adviser, has seen me. He is an old, old animal.’

‘But I have never seen so many cats! Look at them! All running along the garden wall!’

There was a steady stream of animals, black, white, grey, and tabby, silently but purposefully trotting along the garden wall in the same direction, continually joined by other cats where other walls intersected.

‘This is one of the main roads from the outlying parts,’ said Carbonel.

The sky behind the rooftops was becoming lighter.

‘Look!’ said Carbonel. ‘The moon!’

As he spoke, a tiny segment of silver rose from a bank of clouds low on the horizon. Rosemary’s hand lay on the cat’s sleek back, and she felt him stiffen. He was making low, crooning, cat noises in his throat. As the moon rose majestically in sight – a superb moon, round as a pumpkin and golden as honey, filling the rooftop world with light, and deep, mysterious shadow – Carbonelrose to his feet, lifted his head and sniffed the air, and the crooning noise turned to a bubbling wail, which rose and fell, and rose again to a wild, high note which struck the ear like a trumpet call. Then it sank once again to silence. When the moon was sailing high above the cloud rack, he spoke.

‘To Broom, Rosemary!’

And Rosemary strode the quivering Broom with Carbonel balanced on the sadly diminished twigs behind her.

‘Go on, say it!’ he said. She took a deep breath and said:

If you please, my gallant Broom,

Take us straight to John’s bedroom.

And the Broom, which had been giving little hops under her, as though it longed to take the air, rose smoothly and silently, circled once round the room and was away through the window. Rosemary gripped with her knees, and screwed up her eyes and her toes. But the motion was smooth and pleasant, and soon she dared to open her eyes and look around her. They were flying high. They skimmed the weather-cock of All Saints’ Church, where she went on Sundays with her mother, they flew over the shopping centre, now empty and silent, with only here and there a lighted square of window, over the new housing estate and out over the moonlit country beyond. She was so fascinated by the shifting shapes beneath that she forgot to be frightened. The road wandered idly along, like a pale grey ribbon tossed there by some careless giant. Away to the south the river gleamed, a silver streak, and woods and houses, barns and ricks crouched like sleeping animals on the crazy paving that was the fields and meadows. Rosemary was so interested in watching it slip away from beneath her that she was quite surprised when Carbonel said, ‘We’re nearly there. Duck your head when we go in!’

She looked up, and there was Tussocks, apparently rising up to meet them with such speed that Rosemary had a queer feeling in her stomach. How on earth, of all those windows, could the broom be expected to know which was John’s? But it sped on without any hesitation, and as it seemed that they must crash head on into the great castellated wall that rose in front of her, she flung herself flat along the broom and shut her eyes. But it was only by the light touch of a curtain brushing against her cheek that she knew they had passed into the room. There she was, actually on John’s bed, with the broom beneath her. John shot up from the bedclothes, wide awake, with his hair standing up in spikes all over his head.

‘Quick!’ said Rosemary. ‘Mount the broom behind me. We’re going to the Law Giving to see Carbonel take possession of his kingdom!’ To John’s credit, he did not stop to ask questions. He tumbled out of bed, and all he said was:

‘Whacko, budge up!’

Rosemary budged. It was rather a squash, but he bundled up behind her.

‘Make haste!’ said Carbonel. ‘Now, the Town Hall roof, Rosemary.’

After a moment’s thought she said:

On the Town Hall roof put us gently down,

And oblige John, Carbonel, and Rosemary Brown.

She was rather pleased with this, as being both polite and businesslike.

‘Duck!’ shouted Carbonel.

And as they ducked the Broom swooshed through the window, and once more they were sailing through the night air back towards the town. They were not flying so high this time. John was bouncing up and down with excitement.

‘Boy, oh boy! This is terrific! There’s the Lodge and the gardener’s cottage! That must be the railway by Spinnaker’s wood!’

A train, like a jewelled snake, was threading its way through the darkness. A bat blundered into them and squeaked something.

‘Don’t mention it!’ said Carbonel. And the bat flew off again. Soon they were over the first huddle of houses, and as they flew above the town the broom rose heavily. It was travelling more slowly now. The extra weight of John was telling on it. It skirted a tower here and a block of flats there, as though it was conserving its energy. As they drew nearer to the Town Hall they could see the stream of cats below them, still silently crowding in the same direction.

‘It’s a funny thing,’ said Rosemary. ‘Sometimes it looks like slates and bricks and roofs and chimneys, and sometimes like hills with grass and flowers and trees. It’s difficult to see with the moon going behind the clouds every now and then.’

‘I noticed that,’ said John. ‘Queer. But how could it be grass and trees, when we know it isn’t?’

‘How do you know it isn’t?’ asked Carbonel.

‘Just look at the Town Hall roof!’ interrupted John. They looked. It was a strange sight. The roof of the building in which Queen Elizabeth I had slept was covered with a thatch, not of straw, but of cats, and still more were pushing their way on from the surrounding buildings. So intent were the animals that they did not see the dark shape above them which was the broom.

‘Where shall we land?’ said Rosemary.

‘What about behind that chimney?’ said John.

The moon had gone behind a cloud again, and in the dim light they could not quite make out if it was a chimney stack with half a dozen different cowls and chimney pots, or a tree stump, with gnarled and twisted branches. But tree or chimney, behind it they could see and not be seen. The Broom alighted gently, and they found they were standing with their bare feet, not on cold slates, but on short, soft grass. Rosemary had lost her slippers some time ago. Before them a grassy slope fell steeply down towards a small flat valley, and both slope and valley were covered with cats.

‘Look, they are all staring up at the clock!’

In the centre of the Town Hall roof was a four-sided clock. At each corner was a pillar which supported a small golden dome. Beneath the dome had once hung a bell which warned the town of fire and disaster and great happenings, both glad and sorry. The bell was now in the Fairfax Museum.

‘Ithought it was the clock,’ said Rosemary in a puzzled way, ‘but it can’t be. It is a sort of little temple.’

‘The throne of my fathers!’ said Carbonel with emotion.

‘Then you ought to be sitting there!’ said John. ‘Not that great cat that is there now!’

‘A usurper!’ hissed Carbonel. ‘But he shall not remain there much longer!’

Sitting proudly under the golden dome was a huge ginger cat with a rabble of disreputable animals behind him.

‘I say!’ said John excitedly. ‘I do believe…’

‘Hush, he’s talking!’ said Rosemary.

‘Listen to me!’ said the ginger cat.

There was a sighing murmur from the animals gazing up at him, and the rabble behind him pushed and jostled.

‘Have you all brought your offerings, every cat and kitten among you?’

There was a murmur from the assembled cats.

‘But sir,’ said a voice from the front rank below, ‘it is not possible for all cats to bring an offering. Many are poor and old…’

‘Silence!’ spat the ginger cat, in a voice that made half the listening animals step back. ‘If you are poor, others are not. There are larders and shop counters, are there not? Now, don’t tell me you are going to be so simple as to tell me that you have no money, as though you are merely humans. A pounce, a spring when their backs are turned and the herring, the chicken, or whatever it is is yours!

‘My Court,’ he turned and indicated the grinning animals behind him, ‘my Court and I shall not ask where you bring the offerings from, so long as they are there. But bring them you must!’

‘This is frightful!’ muttered Carbonel. ‘Far worse than I ever dreamed. Here at the Law Giving to incite them to rob and steal!’

‘But look here!’ said John again. ‘I am quite sure it is…’

But the ginger cat was speaking again, and Carbonel said,‘Hush!’

‘Come forward any animal who has been foolish enough to come without an offering!’ went on the ginger animal in a voice that was soft, but so wicked that it froze the marrow in their bones.

A dozen cats cringed forward. Most of them were very old or very young.

‘So many?’ went on their tormentor, with mock sympathy. ‘What a pity. Well, you know what to expect. Or is this perhaps a gesture of defiance? Is there anyone here foolish enough to dispute my right to be a leader among you?’ He was standing now, looking down on them, a magnificent animal.

There was a sound from the assembled cats, half sigh and half murmur, but not one of them spoke. For a brief second Carbonel waited. Then, mounting one of the gnarled branches of the tree… or was it a chimney cowl?… his challenge rang out over the rooftops.

‘I do!’

There was a pause and a stir while every animal turned to look towards the voice that had hurled defiance. Hundreds of pairs of yellow eyes gazed up at them.

‘And who are you?’ sneered the ginger cat when he had recovered from his surprise.

‘I am Carbonel X, your king by right of birth.’

There was an excited murmur among the assembled animals.

‘Silence, you rabble!’ hissed the ginger cat, and the murmur died.

‘So you are Carbonel X. You lie; seven years ago he disappeared into thin air, and has never been heard of since.’

‘My Lord!’ said the old voice that had spoken up before. ‘My Lord, there is an ancient prophecy among our people:

A kit among the stars shall sit,

Beyond the aid of feline wit.

Empty Royal throne and mat

Till three Queens save a princely cat.

John and Rosemary could see the speaker now, a gaunt old tabby cat.

‘It is Malkin, my father’s faithful adviser and friend,’ whispered Carbonel.

‘Still harping on that foolish nursery rhyme, my good Malkin!’

The ginger cat laughed a horrid, jeering laugh, and the disreputable mob he called his Court nudged one another and joined in.

‘If it is the Prince, my Lord, he can prove it,’ went on Malkin anxiously. ‘He will have the three royal, snow-white hairs in the end of his tail.’

Rosemary forgot that she was supposed to be keeping out of sight. She jumped up from behind the tree… or chimney stack… and, waving the broom to attract attention, she called out:

‘He really has got three white hairs at the end of his tail – I’ve often noticed them!’

‘So, ho! You have brought your young witch with you!’ jeered the ginger cat. ‘Or are you still tied to her apron strings?’

‘I’m not a witch,’ said Rosemary indignantly, ‘and I never wear an apron, except to wash up! He is absolutely free. I bought him with my three Queens, and then I undid the Silent Magic, and set him free for ever!’

‘It is perfectly true – I saw it all happen!’ John shouted, popping out from the other side of the chimney… or tree.

The cats below raised a murmur that the ginger tyrant could not quell this time. Rosemary saw their glowing eyes switch backwards and forwards from them to the ginger cat, as each spoke in turn. She could see the enemy cat was sitting down once more, motionless except for the twitching at the end of his tail. John suddenly whispered urgently to her:

‘I say, where have the Alley Cats gone to? There were dozens of them standing behind the little temple, and now I can only see about half a dozen of them.’ But Carbonel had eyes for no one but the ginger cat, who had risen to his feet. ‘Keep watch behind you,’ he said quietly, then his voice rang out over the rooftops: ‘Who is for Carbonel the King? For law and order? For peace and plenty?’

Someone shouted‘Carbonel for ever!’ and the mass of cats heaved uncertainly for a minute, then half of them surged towards Carbonel, some of the others slunk towards the ginger cat, and the remainder hovered uncertainly between. The ginger cat stood motionless, but his flattened ears showed how angry he was. The six remaining Alley Cats closed in behind him.

‘Listen to me!’ he snarled, ‘common, black witch’s cat! I am Leader here by right of conquest. If anyone dares to dispute my leadership, let him fight for it!’ He arched his bristling back and hurled a wailing challenge to the stars. Carbonel yawned deliberately. Then he stepped delicately down, his silky body gleaming in the moonlight. Some of the cats closed in behind him, but without taking his eyes off his enemy he said: ‘Stand back, my people. This is between the two of us alone.’ He moved slowly and deliberately into the little arena at the foot of the slope.

24

The Battle

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As Carbonel made his way towards his enemy the animals drew back and made way for him to pass. The ginger cat was waiting for him. They stood facing each other, backs arched and bristling, hurling strange, bloodcurdling taunts at each other.

John was jumping up and down and shouting,‘Go it, Carbonel!’ and ‘Oh boy, oh boy!’

Rosemary felt something furry rub against her bare ankle. It was Malkin.

‘Dear Madam!’ he said. ‘Can you do nothing to help with your magic arts? If only the tyrant would disappear there would be an end to our troubles. The Alley Cats can do nothing without a leader. Can’t you make him vanish in a puff of smoke, or turn him into a toad, or perhaps a mouse?’

‘But I have no magic arts!’ said Rosemary. The old cat sighed.

‘What a pity. Then all we can do is to try to see fair play. I do not trust that ginger fiend. He will stop at nothing to gain his ends.’

‘Couldn’t we stop them fighting somehow?’ said Rosemary anxiously.

‘No. That would do no good, even if we could,’ said Malkin. ‘It would only put off the battle to another time… and blood is as red tomorrow as today’

‘Besides, I’m sure Carbonel would hate us to interfere,’ said John. ‘Look at him now!’

The two cats were stalking round each other very slowly with bristling backs, hurling strange cat insults at each other. Then they stood motionless, nose to nose, spitting defiance.

‘Go it, Carbonel!’ shouted John. ‘Don’t you see, Rosie? He has got to beat that ginger brute in single combat. Though what Aunt Amabel would say, I can’t imagine.’

‘But why should Mrs Pendlebury Parker say anything?’ asked Rosemary absently. The cats were sparring and hissing at each other, as John described it, ‘like a couple of pressure cookers’.

‘Why should Aunt Amabel mind? Well, after all, it is her long lost Popsey Dinkums.’

‘What!’ gasped Rosemary, ‘are you sure? Good gracious, why didn’t you tell me?’

‘I’m absolutely certain. I’d know him anywhere. And I did try to tell you, but you wouldn’t listen.’

Her attention had left the fight for a minute, but at that moment the two cats sprang at each other, rolling over and over, locked together.

‘Oh dear,’ said Rosemary miserably, ‘I do wish they did not have to do it!’ And she covered her eyes with her hands.

The cats were rolling over and over now, biting and thrusting with their hind claws. They parted, and once more stood, noses almost touching.

‘Oh, poor Carbonel. He is bleeding!’ Although Rosemary had covered her eyes with her hands, she could not resist separating her fingers, so that she could see what was going on. Carbonel had a great gash on his flank.

‘Look at your King now!’jeered the ginger cat. ‘Bleeding like every animal who dares to defy me; bleeding and limping into the bargain! Come on, my witch’s cat!’ and he danced triumphantly round Carbonel, who stood his ground, motionless except for his threshing tail. Five times they sprang at each other, rolling over and over in a flurry of fur, sometimes one uppermost and sometimes the other. The watching cats surged silently backwards and forwards as the fighters shifted their battle-ground. The sixth time, a cloud covered the moon so that the children could only see a dark, tumbling mass. John leapt up and down with anxiety, and Rosemary chewed the end of one of her pigtails, a thing she had not done since she was a little girl.

‘Oh dear, what is happening?’ she said in an agony of suspense. It seemed hours before the moon came out again, but when at last the rooftops were flooded once more with pale light, Carbonel was standing, panting, over the prostrate body of the ginger cat. It was true he was standing on three legs, but there was no doubt at all who was the victor. Carbonel threw up his scratched and bleeding head and called:

‘Who is your leader now by right of conquest?’ And the great assembly sent up a wailing cry:

‘You are, O Carbonel! You are!’

The defeated ginger cat said nothing, but he moved his head restlessly from side to side.

‘Oh, be careful, master!’ called Malkin. ‘Do not trust him!’ But his frail old voice was blown away by the little breeze that had sprung up.

Carbonel had turned his back on his enemy, shaking each paw in turn, and as he made his way, limping, up the slope to the little temple, the animals drew respectfully back to let him pass. All eyes were on Carbonel, and nobody noticed that the little knot of Alley Cats had disappeared, but just as the black cat was about to mount the steps at the base of the throne, John suddenly yelled:

‘Look behind you!’

And as he shouted the Alley Cats flung themselves on the unsuspecting Carbonel. Had he not had that second’s warning he would have had no chance at all, but he whipped round just in time to present the oncoming animals with bared teeth and claws. At the same moment from behind the ridge yet another knot of animals leapt on him from behind.

‘You cowards!’ yelled Rosemary.

‘Yes, by gum you are!’ shouted John. ‘Carbonel won his battle, and he is leader by right of conquest!’

‘He can’t fight all those Alley Cats single-pawed,’ said Malkin. ‘Look where the ginger tyrant is egging them on!’

But Carbonel was not alone. Pandemonium had broken loose as more and more animals hurled themselves into the battle, on one side or the other, while from the vantage point of the far ridge the ginger cat urged them on. Carbonel had disappeared under an avalanche of struggling cats.

‘Can nobody remove that ginger fiend?’ wailed Malkin.

‘John,’ said Rosemary. ‘Do you think the broom could take us all three to Tussocks? If only we could manage it, of course.’

‘It’s worth trying,’ said John.

‘Darling broom!’ said Rosemary. ‘I simply can’t say it all in rhyme this time, but when this is all over I will make it into a real poem, a saga, the sort of thing that is told to your children and their children’s children, I promise faithfully. But we must do something quickly to save Carbonel, or it will be too late. Please take us up, John and me, and circle over the battle…’John interrupted:

‘You had better give me your dressing gown, Rosie.’

‘And when I say “Down”, drop like a stone, and John will throw the dressing gown over the ginger cat and scoop him up.’

‘And when she says “Up!” rise at once and circle again.’

And then we had better see what happens next. If you will do all this I will never ask you to do anything again!’

‘Hurry!’ said Malkin. ‘My poor young master!’

Below them was a swaying mass of cats. Only a few, too old or too infirm, or too young, were not engaged in the battle. Rosemary was pulling off her dressing gown. Then she straddled the broom with John behind her. It was not easy to mount because the broom hopped so impatiently up and down.

‘Heaven prosper you!’ said Malkin, as they rose slowly from the roof.

‘Goodbye!’ called Rosemary. ‘Look after Carbonel! Now, Broom, circle round where the battle is fiercest. I can’t see the ginger cat anywhere, John, and it’s all very well to talk about “scooping” him up, but I don’t see how it’s to be done!’

The children peered anxiously into the writhing mass beneath them, made even more indistinct by a haze of flying fur. There was no sign of either Carbonel or the ginger cat.

‘Look there!’ said John, and he pointed to the little temple; and there, by the side of it, sat the ginger tyrant, licking his hurts and grinning at the boiling mass of fighting animals below. John gripped the broom handle with his knees and held the dressing gown with both hands.

‘I’m ready, Rosie! Look out for the lurch when we pick him up!’

Rosemary nodded.

‘One, two, three, down!’ she said, and swiftly and silently the broom swooped. John dropped the thick folds of the dressing gown over the unsuspecting cat. Caught entirely unawares, it fought and struggled in the hampering folds, but John held grimly on.

‘I’ve got him, Rosie. We had better get away as quickly as possible. I’ll tie him up with the dressing gown cord as we go along, for safety’

‘Up, Broom!’ called Rosemary, and nearly shot over the handle as, with a sickening lurch, the overloaded broom rose heavily into the sky.

‘Look up, you Alley Cats!’ called John. ‘Look at your proud leader now!’

The moon had gone behind a cloud again, and as first one and then another pair of jewelled eyes peered up at them from the darkness, the sound of fighting faltered and died. And when the moon came out again there was not a sound to be heard, and every animal in that great assembly was staring up at them, where John held up the ginger cat for them to see, trussed like a chicken with the dressing gown cord.

‘Who is your Leader by right of birth and conquest?’ And the cats below cried, ‘Carbonel, Carbonel is our leader!’

‘That’s all very well,’ whispered Rosemary, ‘but where is Carbonel?’

‘Don’t worry, Rosie, I saw him throw off a pile of cats just now. He looked shaky but determined. I say, look at the temple!’

Rosemary looked. Underneath the golden dome, sitting on the throne of his fathers, was Carbonel. The broom circled round the temple, and he gazed up.

‘Goodbye, Carbonel! We are taking him back where he belongs!’ called Rosemary.

‘He could never hold up his head here again in any case, and Aunt Amabel will be thrilled to have him back again!’

Carbonel gazed up at them with his great golden eyes.

‘Farewell! Farewell, my faithful friends! And the gratitude of a king go with you!’

And as the broom turned and headed towards the country, they heard a triumphant cry which grew fainter and fainter as the Town Hall faded into the distance.

‘Long live King Carbonel! Long live King Carbonel!’

25

The End

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The broom skimmed off obediently at Rosemary’s request.

‘Oh, no you don’t, my Popsey Dinkum!’ said John, as the ginger cat renewed his struggles. ‘And that is not at all the sort of language that Aunt Amabel likes to hear!’

At the mention of Mrs Pendlebury Parker the animal mewed pitifully.

‘Well, thank goodness he is able to struggle so hard,’ said Rosemary. ‘It shows that he can’t be very badly hurt. I say, John, we’re flying awfully low.’

John had been so busy with his bundle of cat and dressing gown that he had had no time for anything else. They were flying over the new building estate at the edge of the town now, barely skimming the chimney pots. Once Rosemary banged her leg on a lightning conductor.

‘I’ve noticed that when the moon is shining clearly, it seems to gain height.’

‘I should think that the poor thing is completely worn out. It has been tremendously plucky all evening, and now it has got this hefty great weight to carry’

Rosemary patted the broom gently. It was warm and damp beneath her fingers like an over-ridden horse.

‘Please do your best, dear Broom! You have been so splendid, but I know the last bus has gone, and we couldn’t walk all these miles, not with bare feet we couldn’t.’

The broom seemed to shake itself; then it rose a little higher. Luckily the moon came out again, and it seemed to take fresh heart. They made steady progress for some distance, but by the time they had reached the Lodge of Tussocks the broom had barely strength enough to clear the gate. The trees on either side of the drive were thick and tall and very little moonlight found its way beneath them. It struggled bravely on, but beneath her anxious fingers Rosemary could feel its pulse beat uncertainly, and several times John, who was fully occupied with his bundle, felt his bare feet drag painfully on the gravelled drive. When they came to a bend in the drive the broom seemed uncertain of its direction and went blindly on towards the rhododendrons. If it had not been for Rosemary’s guiding hand it would have blundered into the shrubbery.

‘Shall we get off and walk?’ asked Rosemary. ‘We’re nearly there.’

Indeed, Tussocks was in sight, huge and dark except for one single light. But the gallant broom shook itself once more. They could feel it gather itself together for one last effort. Steadily it sped on over the final hundred yards, head up and its few remaining twigs only occasionally dragging on the ground, to fall with a clatter on the top step of the broad flight that led to the front door.

‘Good old Broom!’ said John, and stooped to pat it as it lay panting on the ground.

‘I say, Rosie,’ said John suddenly. ‘What on earth are we going to say to Aunt Amabel?’

But Rosemary was already hanging on to the great wrought-iron doorbell and ringing with all her might. Not until she heard it clanging in the distance did she realize that arriving in the middle of the night in their night things with the missing cat rolled up in a dressing gown, would need a great deal of explaining.

‘You owl!’ said John.

‘Owl yourself!’ said Rosemary. But there was no time for a ‘you’re another’ kind of argument, for the light above the door was switched on, and after the bolts had been shot back the door was cautiously opened, and there stood Chambers, the butler, in a purple dressing gown.

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‘Farewell! Farewell, my faithfulfriends!’

‘H… hallo, Chambers!’ said John, as airily as he could. ‘It’s me and Rosemary Brown. Do let us in. It’s a bit cold out here in nothing but pyjamas.’

‘Master Lancelot, you naughty boy! Whatever are you doing out at this time of night, and in your night things, too?’

‘Well,’ said John slowly. ‘It’s like this…’ But a voice from the stairs interrupted. It was Mrs Pendlebury Parker.

‘What is it Chambers?’ she asked, and then she saw John. ‘Lancelot, come here at once! Out at one o’clock in the morning and not even properly dressed! And Rosemary in her nightdress! What is the meaning of this?’

‘I am very sorry we are out so late,’ said Rosemary, ‘but we have brought back your Popsey Dinkums. We rescued him from a fight. He is wrapped up in my dressing gown.’

John was already undoing the cord, and unceremoniously unrolling the cat.

‘My Popsey Dinkums!’ shrieked Mrs Pendlebury Parker, as the battle-scarred animal emerged. ‘What have the nasty rough cats been doing to you?’ And she fell on her knees and hugged the dishevelled animal to her pink satin dressing gown. Then she looked up at the children. ‘My dear Lancelot, I don’t know what you have been up to, but if you have brought me back my darling Popsey Dinkums I cannot be cross. But what about Mrs Brown? Rosemary, I cannot believe that your mother knows anything about this!’

‘No, I’m afraid she doesn’t. I’m afraid I didn’t think. I just…’ She broke off. Suddenly she felt that the only thing that mattered was that she should be able to lie down and go to sleep.

‘Well, we can’t disturb her at one o’clock in the morning. It would frighten her out of her wits. We must ring her up first thing before she has time to discover you are not there. What time does she usually get up?’

‘About seven, as a rule,’ said Rosemary faintly.

‘Good gracious me! The child is falling asleep on her feet. Chambers, you had better put her in the pink room, and we will discuss it in the morning. And my darling Dinkums shall have his very own blue cushion to sleep on, and some chicken, he shall! Chopped up very fine, Chambers, don’t forget.’

‘Very good, madam,’ said Chambers, with disapproval of the whole affair oozing from him.

Rosemary had a dim memory afterwards of having been carried upstairs and put into a huge bed, and the next thing she knew it was broad daylight, and John was shaking her arm.

‘Wake up, Rosie! It’s after eight o’clock. Look here, what did we do with the broom last night?’ Rosemary sat up.

‘Goodness, I forgot all about it. We must have left it on the doorstep. How could we have been so ungrateful?’

‘Well, come on, let’s go and look.’

She was just going to jump out of bed when she suddenly remembered something.

‘But John, I’ve no clothes to put on. I can’t go about in my nightie!’

‘It’s all right. I’ve brought you a pair of shorts of mine and a shirt… Buck up and put them on and I’ll tell you what has been going on. You know, Aunt Amabel is a good sort, really. She rang up your mother before she had time to discover that you were not there, and she got her to promise that she would not be angry with you because we brought back her beastly Dinkums.’ Rosemary felt a great wave of relief, because how could she possibly explain it all even to the most understanding of mothers? ‘And that isn’t all,’ went on John. ‘She says that you and I must share the reward she offered!’

‘Gracious!’ said Rosemary. ‘I had forgotten that there was a reward.’ She had put on the shirt and shorts and was watching with interest the three different views of herself brushing her hair that she could see in the great three-sided mirror. The brushes had gleaming silver backs with initials on them.

‘It will be twenty-five pounds each,’ said John. Rosemary dropped the brushes and gasped. ‘I can see you with your mouth open three times over in that looking glass – you do look funny! Buck up, we have just time to look for the broom before breakfast.’

They ran downstairs together and out of the front door, but there was no sign of the broom where they had left it on the doorstep. An old man in a green apron was sweeping up some leaves from the drive. John hailed him.

‘I say, Wilson. Did you see an old broom here on the steps this morning?’

‘No, Master Lance, there weren’t no broom. Only an old stick that might have been the handle of one.’

‘What did you do with it?’

‘Bless you, I put it on the bonfire behind the tool shed, not ten minutes ago.’

‘Quick!’ said John. ‘We might be in time to save it!’

They ran faster than they had ever run before, round to the other side of the house, along the terrace, through the rose garden to the tool shed, which was at the far end of the kitchen garden. But they were too late. As they reached the bonfire a shower of sparks of every colour of the rainbow shot up from the glowing heart, but there was no sign of the broom handle, only a handful of glowing wood ash.

‘Goodbye, Broom!’ said Rosemary softly, ‘and thank you.’ And as if in reply a little puff of smoke wreathed its way up and was gone. The children walked in silence back to the house.

‘There is a letter for you, Master Lance,’ said the maid who brought in their breakfast. It was scrambled egg and sausages, which was the nicest breakfast that Rosemary could have chosen. But she sat looking at her plate with unseeing eyes. It was all over. Even if she ever saw Carbonel again, without the broom she could never hear him talking to her. She felt she ought to be feeling pleased at the success of all their plans, but all she could feel was that everything had gone flat and dull. John would be going home and there would be no more Tussocks. Her gloomy thoughts were interruptedby John, who was reading his letter.

‘I say, Rosie. My mother says that when I go home next week we are going to the sea, because of my sister being peaky after measles, and she says would you like to come home with me and go with us? Would your mother let you?’

‘Would you let me, Mummy?’ said Rosemary, when a bewildered Mrs Brown arrived, ‘or would you be too lonely?’

Her mother smiled.‘I shall be far too busy to be lonely.’

‘More sides to middling?’ asked Rosemary sympathetically.

‘Not this time, darling – moving house!’

‘Moving house? Are we leaving Tottenham Grove?’

Her mother smiled again.‘You are not the only person to spring surprises! I had a letter this morning from Mr Featherstone, the man that for some reason you and John call the Occupier. He has offered us a flat in his house, unfurnished, so that we can have all our own furniture again.’

‘But Mummy, can we afford it?’

‘I think we can, because instead of paying him rent he wants me to be Wardrobe Mistress of the Netherley Players. That will still leave me plenty of time to do my own work as well. What do you think of that?’

I am sure I need not tell you what Rosemary thought, because if you have read her adventures as far as this I am quite sure you will know.

When she returned from her holiday with John and his family, looking so brown that her mother barely knew her, it was to their new home, with all their own familiar furniture to welcome them like old friends. One of the first visitors they had was a magnificent black cat with three white hairs at the end of his tail. Of course it was Carbonel, and although she could no longer hear him talking he purred so loudly that there was not much doubt what he meant.

Rosemary kept her promise to the broom, and wrote the whole story as a ballad, which she had accepted for the school magazine. As for Mrs Cantrip, without her book of magic she became quite clean and respectable. Rosemary persuaded Miss Maggie to give her a job as washer-up. The last time I had tea at the Copper Kettle, that thriving teashop, she was still there, and giving every satisfaction.

2. THE KINGDOM OF CARBONEL

1

The Green Cave

Rosemary Brown picked a stick of rhubarb from the end of the garden, and taking care not to spill the sugar in the saucer she was carrying, bent herself double and crept between the currant bushes. Then she sat down in the green cave made by the unpruned branches which met over her head. The ground was covered with coarse grass, and it made a very comfortable secret place.

She dipped the rhubarb into the saucer and bit off the sweetened end with a crunch. In spite of the sugar, it was so sour that it made her nose wrinkle, so she licked the end of her finger, pressed it in the saucer and finished the sugar that way instead. When it was all gone, she lay flat on her back with her hands under her head and stared up at the summer sky which showed through the shifting chinks between the leaves.

There was half an hour before she would need to get ready to meet her friend John at the station, and the whole summer lay ahead. It was nearly a year since she had seen him, but what a full year it had been! First of all there had been moving. Life was very pleasant now that she and her mother lived in the top flat at 101 Cranshaw Road, instead of in uncomfortable furnished rooms. Then there had been the fun of playing in the big, pleasantly neglected garden. Lessons, too, had gone so much better. She had worked very hard and, as a result, had won a scholarship and next term was going to the high school. Being between two schools gave her a pleasantly suspended feeling, like treading water.

Rosemary gently prodded a ladybird which had been walking over the gingham mountain of her chest. She wanted it to climb on to her finger.

‘I hope it will be as much fun playing with John this holiday as it was last summer,’ she said aloud to the little creature. After being headed off twice, it had obligingly clambered on to her fingernail.

‘We had some glorious games,’ she went on thoughtfully. ‘Of course we had the garden at Tussocks to play in then.’ Tussocks was the grand home of John’s aunt who lived outside the town. ‘But it’s a funny thing, Ladybird, I can’t remember what it was that was such fun when John came to play with me! It was something to do with a black cat. He was called Carbonel. And then there was an old woman whose name was Mrs Cantrip. I think,’ she added slowly, ‘she was a witch, and there was magic. Or did I dream that part?’

Rosemary frowned. She had a vague idea that magic and high school girls did not go together, so she shook her head in a puzzled way.‘I’m sure there was something else.’

The ladybird was now plodding laboriously up the slope of her finger. When it reached the back of her hand, it sat quite still for a moment in one of the little dapples of sunlight that filtered through the leaves, then, without any warning, spread its spotted wings and flew away.

‘Of course! Flying!’ said Rosemary, sitting up suddenly. ‘That’s what we did, and on a broomstick! Now I wonder if –’

But she never said what she wondered, for sitting at her feet, quite motionless, with his eyes closed as though he was waiting for something, was the most magnificent black cat she had ever seen. The golden flecks of sunshine gleamed on his glossy coat and the magnificent span of his whiskers. He opened his great yellow eyes as Rosemary sat up, but he did not move.

‘Why,’ said Rosemary, ‘I was just that minute thinking of a black cat I knew once… or I think I did… or perhaps I dreamed about…’ She tailed off lamely. The feeling that the creature had been sitting there for some time without her knowledge, combined with his unwinking golden stare, made her feel a little uncomfortable.

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‘Anyway,’ she went on, ‘you are almost as beautiful as the cat in my dream, and he was a royal cat, so you need not be offended,’ she added hurriedly, almost to herself.

The animal had lifted its head in a disdainful way.

‘May I stroke you?’ she asked a little shyly, putting out her hand. But before she could touch him she heard her mother calling from the house.

‘Rosie! Time to get ready, dear!’

Rosemary turned to the sound of her mother’s voice. When she looked back again, the black cat had disappeared.

‘Rosie!’ called her mother faintly, but more urgently this time.

Rosemary crawled out on hands and knees, but she did not answer her mother until she reached the lawn, because she wanted to keep the Green Cave a secret.

‘Coming, Mummy!’ she called.

She looked back as she reached the house, and she was just in time to see a black cat leap up on to the garden wall, trot along the top and disappear behind the tool shed.

John’s train was late. When it came in at last and hissed itself to a standstill, the doors burst open and people poured out in every direction. Rosemary and her mother looked anxiously up and down the busy platform, but they could not see him.

‘That looks like John over there,’ said Rosemary, ‘but it couldn’t be – he’s too tall!’

But the boy came up to them, grinned and said,‘How are you, Mrs Brown? Hello, Rosie!’

He refused any help with his suitcase and walked to the gate with Mrs Brown. The two of them talked together about the journey, about John’s father and mother and about how hot it was. Rosemary followed, carrying John’s raincoat. Studying his back as she walked behind, she realized that she had to look up to the tuft of hair that still stood up at the back of his head. Last summer it had been level with the top of her own fair hair. He was talking to her mother in a rather grownup way. Rosemary’s heart sank.

‘Well, at least his hairdoes still stick up,’ she thought to herself. ‘That’s something, I suppose. He’s come for three whole weeks, and if he’s gone all grownup since last year, whatever shall we do all the time?’

They had tea as soon as they reached home. It was a special tea, with watercress, strawberry jam and brandy snaps which Rosemary had made herself. A lot of them had broken, but she had thought it did not matter, because she and John could eat the bits afterward in the Green Cave. Now, she did not feel sure that John was the sort of person who would enjoy the Green Cave at all.

It was a quiet meal, with Mrs Brown making most of the conversation. Afterward, John politely offered to help wash up.

‘Not when you have only just arrived, dear,’ said Mrs Brown. ‘But you can help Rosie clear away, then I expect you would like to run and play in the garden. I’ll see to the tea things.’ She watched a little anxiously while they both stood with loaded trays, each standing back politely to let the other through the door.

When they had stacked the plates, they ran down the four flights of stairs into the garden.

‘It really belongs to all the flats. The garden, I mean,’ explained Rosemary. ‘But the grownups hardly use it. There are no other children, so the garden is practically mine. Would you like to see my flower bed?’

They walked sedately down the path, while Rosemary tried to think of something to say.

‘Did you have a good term – at school, I mean?’

‘Not bad,’ said John.

‘Oh good!’ said Rosemary. ‘I’m going to the high school next term. I expect I shall have a ponytail.’

‘Sally’s got one. You remember, my elder sister? It was perfectly sickening. One minute she was decent – sandals and plaits, like you, and the next she wore a ponytail and slip-on shoes, and wouldn’t play anything sensible.’

Rosemary only half listened; the other half was thinking:‘This just can’t be the same John I played with last summer who had all those glorious adventures with me! Perhaps this proves that I did dream the magic part, and the flying, and the black cat that talked.’

‘Goodness!’ she said aloud. ‘Talking of black cats, there he is again!’

‘I wasn’t talking about black cats,’ said John.

‘That’s the second time today,’ said Rosemary excitedly. ‘Look on the garden wall!’

John looked. Then he said in a matter-of-fact voice,‘I expect it’s Carbonel.’

‘John!’ said Rosemary, and she turned to look at him, beaming from ear to ear. ‘Then it did happen! You remember the magic, and the flying and everything?’

‘Of course it happened!’ said John in astonishment. ‘Good old Carbonel! Come on, Rosie, let’s see if we can catch him!’

They ran to the garden wall and looked along it both ways, but there was no sign of the cat. John stood on the rusty old garden roller and tried to look along the top, but the roller moved when he stood on tiptoe, and he fell off on to a rubbish heap. When he sat up with leaves in his hair, Rosemary began to giggle, and presently John joined her. The invisible wall of shyness between them melted as though it had never been.

‘Come on, come and see my Green Cave!’ said Rosemary, as she pulled John to his feet.

They crawled in on hands and knees.

‘What a glorious place!’ said John, as he tucked his feet under him. There was not much room for two.

‘Let’s make this our headquarters!’

It was going to be all right after all, thought Rosemary, and she ferreted happily under a pile of leaves and brought out the broken brandy snaps in a biscuit tin. They sat and munched happily together.

‘I’m not really going to have a ponytail,’ said Rosemary suddenly.

‘You are an owl, Rosie!’ said John, and tweaked one of her plaits in a friendly way. ‘Come on, let’s go and play something!’

2

Carbonel Again

Mrs Brown was a widow. She added to her small pension by dressmaking. The house in Cranshaw Road belonged to Mr Featherstone, who ran a travelling Repertory Company called the Netherley Players. Instead of paying rent for the flat, Rosemary’s mother looked after the costumes of the Company. These were kept in the old stables of the house.

After breakfast next morning, Mrs Brown said,‘Rosie, dear, I’ve got to get on with those Roman togas in the costume room this morning – simply miles of machining, so will you and John do some shopping for me?’

They fetched a basket. With the shopping list on the outside of an old envelope and a pound note inside, they ran downstairs.

‘Good heavens!’ said John, as they closed the front door behind them. ‘There he is again!’

Sure enough, on top of one of the stone balls that stood on each gatepost, sat Carbonel. As soon as John and Rosemary reached the gate, he dropped silently down beside them.

‘Good morning!’ said Rosemary politely. ‘We’re going shopping, but we shan’t be long.’

‘It’s a funny thing,’ said John, ‘but he makes me feel I ought to bow to him. Hallo! He’s following.’

Carbonel was trotting quietly at their heels. He went with them to the baker’s, and the fishmonger’s, and the grocer’s and the little shop that sold newspapers and sweets and ices.

Once, they tried to see if they could shake him off by running quickly around a corner and diving down a little alley. But when they came out of the alleyway, after waiting for several minutes, there the black cat was sitting at the entrance, quietly washing his paws, which made them feel rather silly. The only difference was that from that moment on he walked beside instead of behind them, as though he intended that they should not escape.

On the way home, they sat down on a seat by the side of a quiet road to eat the ice creams they had bought at the little shop. They licked in silence, and Carbonel sat at their feet and stared and stared at them.

‘He’s beginning to make me feel uncomfortable,’ said John.

‘Do you think he’s hungry?’ suggested Rosemary.

‘Doesn’t… look… like it. Fat… as butter,’ replied John in the jerky way of someone whose tongue is occupied with capturing escaping ice cream.

‘Now you’ve offended him!’ said Rosemary reproachfully. Carbonel had turned his back on John and was gazing up at Rosemary. ‘Are you hungry, Carbonel?’

She held out the packet of fish. It was one of those very fishy parcels. Carbonel’s nose quivered slightly at the enticing smell, but he closed his eyes resolutely and opened his mouth in a disdainful yawn.

‘Well, it’s clearly not that,’ said John. ‘Listen, Carbonel –’ he went on. But the animal continued to sit with his back turned, as though John did not exist.

‘I expect you’d better apologize, John,’ said Rosemary.

John muttered something under his breath and then thought better of it.

‘I’m sorry, Carbonel, honestly I am. I forgot how touchy you are. But I do wish to goodness we knew what was the matter!’

‘Do you want to tell us something?’ said Rosemary.

Carbonel turned and, putting his front paws on Rosemary’s knee, licked the back of her hand with a warm, rasping tongue.

‘But how can you tell us?’ asked John.

Greatly daring, Rosemary stooped down and gathered the black cat into her arms, because she felt he needed comforting. He was so heavy that it was quite an effort. She put him on her knee. He no longer fitted into the hollow of her lap, and she had to hold him with both arms or he would have overflowed on to the wooden seat.

‘We’d do anything we could to help you, Carbonel. Wouldn’t we, John?’

John nodded.‘But how can we tell what is the matter if you can’t talk to us? What can we do?’

‘Why don’t we consult Mrs Cantrip?’ suggested John. ‘I know she is supposed to have retired from being a witch, but perhaps we could persuade her to tell us if there is anything we could do. Hi! Carbonel!’ he protested.

At the mention of Mrs Cantrip, Carbonel stood up on Rosemary’s knee and, with a deep, bass purr, thrust the top of his sleek head against her chin again and again. Then he jumped on to John’s lap, upsetting the shopping basket so that fish, biscuits, bacon and sugar went rolling on to the ground. They stuffed them back into the basket and set off home, Carbonel with tail erect, trotting before them.

‘The last time I saw Mrs Cantrip she was washing dishes at the Copper Kettle tea room,’ said Rosemary. ‘I don’t know if she is still there.’

‘Let’s go and see,’ said John.

They set out for the Copper Kettle early after lunch. Carbonel was waiting for them on the gatepost. They explained where they were going, but, instead of coming with them, the black cat showed complete indifference. He sat down in the middle of the pavement and began to wash his tail. John and Rosemary walked past, but Carbonel caught up with them and calmly placed himself in front of them again. This time he transferred his attention to his left hind leg.

‘Well,’ said John, ‘you’d better hurry if you want us to go and find Mrs Cantrip, Carbonel, because I’m not going without you and that’s final.’

Carbonel gave him a withering glance, then trotted ahead, keeping pointedly to Rosemary’s side of the pavement. Having decided to go with them, he set off at such a speed that they could barely keep up, and when they finally reached the Copper Kettle, which was some distance away, they were hot and footsore.

Miss Maggie and her sister Florrie, who owned the teashop, were old friends. They welcomed the two children with cries of pleasure. Carbonel waited outside.

‘Why, if it isn’t John! And how you’ve grown!’ said Miss Maggie with upraised hands. As everyone of a still-growing age knows, there is no answer to this, so John merely grinned sheepishly.

‘Now, come into the kitchen, dears. We’re just putting away the lunch things. Choose whatever you’d like to eat. How about some nice fruit salad?’

John winked at Rosie as they followed Miss Maggie. Fruit salad was always welcome, and Mrs Cantrip would probably be found in the kitchen.

But, standing at the sink in a cloud of steam, was not Mrs Cantrip, but a square, vigorous young woman who was accompanying her saucepan cleaning by singing a rather doleful hymn tune. This was a thing that Mrs Cantrip would certainly not have done.

‘To tell the truth, dear,’ said Miss Maggie in reply to Rosemary’s inquiries, ‘I was quite glad when the funny old thing left of her own accord. Want some more cream on your fruit, dear?’

Rosemary nodded. She finished the last of the pineapple, which she did not really like, and prepared to enjoy the pears and peaches.

‘I’m always saying to Florrie,’ went on Miss Maggie. ‘Florrie, I say, if there’s one thing I hate it’s unpleasantness! And really she was so very queer that I never knew quite how she’d take it if I told her to leave.’

‘So it wasn’t you who fired her?’ asked John.

‘Would you believe it? She went off one evening in the middle of the week. Put her shoes and apron in the cupboard under the sink, just as usual, and never turned up again, and with half a week’s wages to come!’

‘We’d send it on to her if we knew the address,’ said Miss Florrie, who had come in while her sister was talking. ‘But she never would tell us where she lived.’

‘Not that she did her work badly, mind you,’ continued Miss Maggie. ‘I will say that. Now it’s no good for you to sniff like that, Doris,’ she said to the new girl. ‘Fair’s fair. But her washing-up water! I do like it clean! She always seemed to get hers not exactly dirty but coloured, somehow – bright red or yellow or green. I can’t imagine how she did it.’

John and Rosemary looked at one another.

‘And when I spoke to her about it once,’ went on Miss Maggie, ‘she said something about clean water being so dull. Did you ever hear of such a thing?’

Conversation became general after this. Presently Rosemary said,‘If you like, John and I could take Mrs Cantrip’s money to her, and her shoes. She used to keep a little shop in Fairfax Market.’

‘Well, that would be kind of you, dears!’ said Miss Maggie.

She rummaged in the cupboard under the sink and brought out an enormous pair of buckled shoes of a very expensive make, but very down at the heel. The apron had a vivid pattern of flowers and tropical fruit. As Miss Maggie shook it out, a little screw of paper fell from the pocket on to the floor. By the time Rosemary had picked it up, the shoes and the apron had already been made into a neat roll, so she put the paper in her pocket. As soon as they could, John and Rosemary said good-bye.

Carbonel paused in his restless pacing as soon as he saw them.

‘Well, if we can find her in her own house, it will really be much better than trying to talk to her at the Copper Kettle with Miss Maggie buzzing around,’ John said, when they had explained the situation.

But Carbonel did not wait for him to finish. He bounded off in the direction of Fairfax Market so quickly that the children did not attempt to keep up with him.

‘Well!’ said Rosemary.

‘If he isn’t at Mrs Cantrip’s house when we get there, I vote we just go away and do nothing more about it,’ said John.

‘I almost hope he won’t be!’ said Rosemary.

But he was. When they reached the little shop that had been Mrs Cantrip’s last year, the black cat was sitting beside the door with what John called his ‘waiting expression’.

‘Supposing Mrs Cantrip doesn’t live here any more,’ said Rosemary hopefully.

‘She lives here all right!’ said John. ‘Look at the curtains!’

There was no longer any trace of a shop. The grimy window was hung with two odd lengths of lace, looped up in an attempt at elegance. One was tied with a bootlace, and the other with a piece of purple ribbon that looked as though it had come off a chocolate box.

‘They aren’t very clean,’ said Rosemary.

Someone had started to paint the battered front door scarlet, but had lost interest halfway down.

‘I say! Look at that notice!’ said John.

Propped against the window was a card which said, in wobbly capital letters,

APARTMENTS

H. and C. in all rooms.

R.S.V.P.

As they looked at it in silence, a bony hand appeared between the dusty curtains and took away the card. John squared his shoulders.‘She’s at home all right. Here goes!’ he said, and he knocked loudly on the door.

In reply to his second knock, the door opened a crack and a voice that was unmistakably Mrs Cantrip’s said, ‘Apartments is let! Go away!’ And the door was firmly slammed in their faces.

When John knocked again, there was no answer, so he pushed open the flap of the letter box and called through,‘Do let us in, Mrs Cantrip, we’ve got something for you!’ But he backed away suddenly when he saw a pair of piercing eyes staring at him from the other side of the letterbox.

Rosemary, who had been trying to see, too, nearly fell over when the door was suddenly flung open.

‘Got something for me, have you?’ said Mrs Cantrip. ‘That’s different, that is! Come inside!’

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She stood blinking and bobbing at the open door while the children waited uncertainly on the step. A furry pressure on the back of the knees from Carbonel, which might have been affection, or even a plain shove, sent John stumbling down the step into the house, which was below the level of the road. Of course Rosemary followed.

3

Prism Powder

Mrs Cantrip led the way into an inner room. There was very little furniture, but it was tidy, and on the rickety table was a jam jar which held a bunch of nettles and dandelions. The familiar golden flower faces made Rosemary feel a little braver.

The old woman sat down in a rocking chair by the smouldering fire.

‘Well,’ she said eagerly, ‘hand it over!’

‘It’s from Miss Maggie at The Copper Kettle,’ said Rosemary. ‘She asked us to give you the shoes and the apron you left behind, and the money she owes you.’

As she spoke she put them on the table. Mrs Cantrip hardly bothered to look.

‘Do you mean to say that’s all?’ she snorted. ‘Coming into my house under false pretences, I call it. I could have fetched them for myself any day.’ She started to rock herself violently in the rocking chair, pushing herself off with her big feet.

‘Miss Maggie wondered why you didn’t,’ said Rosemary.

‘Why did you leave?’ asked John.

‘Because the sight of her stirring away at her pots and saucepans made my fingers itch! Hours she spent over her magic books and her mixtures, and never so much as a puff of coloured smoke to show for it! Let alone turning anyone into anything satisfactory, like a blowfly or a spider!’

‘But of course she didn’t,’ said Rosemary indignantly. ‘She wasn’t trying to. That isn’t how you run a teashop! She was making nice things to eat out of cookery books, not magic!’

Mrs Cantrip snorted again.

‘Incompetent I call it. And anyway, I’m letting apartments instead. H. and C. in all rooms.’ She nodded with satisfaction. ‘R.S.V.P.’

‘Have you really got hot and cold water?’ asked John.

‘Who said anything about water?’

‘Well, that’s what it usually means,’ said Rosemary.

‘Not when I use it, it doesn’t,’ snapped Mrs Cantrip rocking with renewed vigour. ‘It means air. Cold when the window is open, hot when it’s shut – if you build up a good fire. It’s up to you. The postman taught me a tidy bit of magic to get a lodger.’

‘The postman?’ said Rosemary in surprise.

‘That’s what I said! He brought me an invitation to a ball once, by mistake. But a bit of cardboard always comes in handy, so I kept it.’

‘But you shouldn’t –’ began Rosemary.

Mrs Cantrip ignored her.‘At the bottom of the card it said R.S.V.P. I asked the postman what it meant, and he said it was foreign for ‘You’ve got to answer.’ A magic rune, you see. That’s what I call practical. So I put R.S.V.P. on my card in the window, and it worked. In half an hour I got a lodger and then, because I didn’t undo the R.S.V.P. straight away, you two came along.’

‘But we don’t –’ began John.

‘That’s a good thing, because you can’t. There’s no room. Apartments I said, and I’m not having togetherments, not with nobody.’

Rosemary looked hopelessly at John. They seemed no nearer to the real object of their visit.

‘Mrs Cantrip,’ interrupted John firmly. ‘We want to ask you something. It’s about Carbonel!’

Mrs Cantrip ceased speaking in mid-sentence and stopped rocking the chair. For a minute, there was complete silence in the dark little kitchen.

‘That animal again!’ said Mrs Cantrip, in a hoarse whisper. ‘Who are you?’

‘We are John and Rosemary. Don’t you remember?

When you retired from being a witch last summer, you sold me your old broom and your cat, Carbonel, and John and I set him free from your spell to be King of the Cats again. We want you to help us.’

The knuckles of Mrs Cantrip’s bony hands showed white where she held the arms of the rocking chair, and her small eyes bored into them like needles.

‘Oh, ah! I remember the pair of you now. Interfering busybodying children. What do you want?’

‘Carbonel is in trouble,’ said Rosemary. ‘At least I’m pretty sure he is, and he can’t make us understand. Won’t you help us?’

‘Why should I help Carbonel?’ said the old woman, in a voice as cold as steel. ‘Did he ever help me? Not him. He hampered me at every turn! Besides,’ she added sulkily, ‘I’ve gone out of business, you know that. Broom, books, cauldron – all gone, and everything as dull as puddle water.’

‘What about the dishwater at The Copper Kettle? How did you make it turn red and green?’ said John accusingly.

Mrs Cantrip’s eyes wavered.

‘That wasn’t what you’d call magic. Not real magic,’ she muttered. ‘Just using up odds and ends of spells I’d got left over. You wouldn’t have me be wasteful, now would you?’ she said virtuously. ‘I couldn’t throw them away. Some dear little child might have picked them up, and then what would have happened to it?’ She grinned wickedly. ‘It’s nearly all gone. I just use a pinch here and a spoonful there, to liven things up a bit. And that reminds me, where’s that apron?’

She pounced on the bundle that was lying on the table, shook out the apron, and felt feverishly in the pocket.

‘It’s gone! It isn’t here! My last little bit of Prism Powder! What have you done with it?’

Rosemary felt hurriedly in her own pocket. The little ball of paper she had picked up from the floor of The Copper Kettle was still there.

‘If I give you back your Prism Powder, will you tell us what we can do to understand Carbonel when he talks to us?’

There was a pause.

‘All right, I’ll tell you! I’ll tell you and willing!’ said Mrs Cantrip, eagerly holding out her hand.

‘Wait a minute,’ said John. ‘You shall have it when you have told us what to do and not before!’

Mrs Cantrip pursed her mouth to the size of a keyhole and rubbed the side of her great nose with a bony finger.

‘I can’t do it myself, not now. That would never do. I know. I’ll give you a prescription and you must have it made up at the chemist.’

‘At the chemist!’ said John.

Mrs Cantrip ignored him. She was ferreting round in the drawer of the table, among bits of string and candle ends. Presently she fished out a crumpled bit of paper, and fetching a bottle of ink and a rather moth-eaten quill pen from the mantelpiece, sat down at the table. For a minute she sucked the end of her pen, then she chuckled, smoothed out the paper, and began writing with great speed. When she had finished, she folded the paper and handed it to Rosemary.

Both children were craning over to see what she was writing, and they were quite unprepared for the pounce that the old woman made on the screw of paper that Rosemary had brought out of her pocket. They unfolded the note she had given them and stared at it.

‘But it isn’t writing! It looks like nonsense!’ said Rosemary.

Mrs Cantrip took no notice. She was undoing the paper. Inside was about a saltspoonful of what looked like tiny grains of hundreds and thousands.

‘Take it to Hedgem and Fudge to have it made up. Now go away. I’m busy.’

As she spoke she dropped a single grain of the powder into the ink bottle. There was a slight hiss, and the muddy-looking ink turned a brilliant scarlet. She dropped another grain into the bottle and the ink changed to pure yellow. Her grim face softened.

‘Good heavens!’ said John with interest.

‘Go away,’ said Mrs Cantrip fiercely, shielding the bottle with her hands.

There seemed nothing else to do, so they went.

4

Hedgem and Fudge

John and Rosemary closed the front door behind them and stood blinking in the sunlight. It was like coming out of a cave. Carbonel stopped his restless pacing and ran to them with an anxious little‘Prrt!’

‘She’s given us a prescription, and we’ve got to get it made up at a chemist’s called Hedgem and Fudge. It looks like nothing but a lot of squiggles to me,’ said John.

‘But so do the prescriptions that doctors write,’ said Rosemary. ‘What’s the matter, Carbonel?’

‘I think he wants to read it,’ said John.

Rosemary bent down and laid the piece of paper on the pavement. Carbonel held it down with one paw and stared at it with unblinking yellow eyes. They waited anxiously while he examined it. First he sniffed it with delicately twitching whiskers. Then he sneezed violently. Finally, he removed his paw and shook it with distaste. But he purred loudly, and gave each of the children an approving lick on a bare leg, and set off at a gallop in the direction of the High Street, looking back from time to time to see that they were following.

‘It’s all so strange,’ said John breathlessly, as they hurried after him. ‘Such a mixture of queerness and commonsense!’

‘I know,’ said Rosemary. ‘And whoever could be going as a lodger to Mrs Cantrip? Oh, goodness! I believe Hedgem and Fudge is that big chemist near the Cathedral!’

‘We shall look pretty silly if we hand over a page of gibberish and say “I want this made up, please!”’ said John gloomily.

But no one can be gloomy for long if he is running, so Rosemary and John stopped talking because they needed all their breath to keep up with Carbonel. Once, in the High Street full of afternoon shoppers, they thought they had lost him, and several times they bumped into people and had to stop and apologize. When Carbonel reached the top of the High Street where the road widens in front of the Cathedral, he waited for them to catch up.

‘There it is!’ said Rosemary. ‘That’s the shop on the other side of the road!’

It was a large, old-fashioned building. Above the cars that honked and hurried, they could see the name in gold letters, as well as two great glass bottles full of glowing red and green liquid that have been the sign of a dispenser of medicine since the days when few people could read.

There was a screeching of brakes as Carbonel stepped without warning on to the pedestrian crossing and with great dignity, tail erect, swept across the road. The drivers who were not angry grinned.

Very red about the ears, John and Rosemary crossed the road behind him.

Although the building was clearly an old one, the shop had been brought up to date inside. Behind the counter, there were rows of little mahogany drawers with cut-glass handles which sparkled in the strip lighting. There were steel chairs to sit on, and one counter, which displayed face powder and lipsticks and shampoos, with a yellow-haired young lady behind it. A smaller counter displayed castor oil, cough medicines and headache pills, with a pink young man behind it. On this counter was a notice which said, PRESCRIPTIONS, so Rosemary handed the piece of paper to the young man.

He took it and glanced casually at the writing. Then suddenly his eyebrows shot up and his neck seemed to lengthen as he peered at the paper.

‘Wait for it!’ said John under his breath to Rosemary.

But far from being angry, the young man said,‘Excuse me one minute!’ and went to consult an older man who was busy in a glass-partitioned dispensary at the back of the shop. They whispered together for a while, and then the older man came over to the counter. First he read the prescription again through his spectacles, then he peered overthem at John and Rosemary.

‘This is most unusual,’ he said. ‘I have never been asked for it before. However, it is not for me to question a prescription.’

He turned to the young man.‘You’d better fetch the steps from the back, Mr Flackett.’

‘What is he going to do?’ Rosemary asked John anxiously.

‘Ask me another! I only hope Mrs Cantrip hasn’t double-crossed us!’ said John.

The young man put the steps against the mahogany partition that divided the window from the shop, and mounted them gingerly, while the older man held them steady. Then he put both arms round the huge glass bottle of red liquid that they had seen from the other side of the road, and breathing heavily with the effort, tottered dangerously down the steps with it into the dispensary.

John and Rosemary stood and listened to the fair-haired young lady serving a customer until the young man returned with a small medicine bottle full of red liquid. There was a pink mark down the front of his white jacket which he was rubbing with his handkerchief.

‘Such an awkward thing to pour from,’ he said to Rosemary, who noticed that his fingers were stained with the liquid. He wrapped up the bottle in white paper which he fastened at each end with a little blob of sealing wax.

‘Excuse me while I look it up in the price list,’ he said, flicking over the leaves of a catalogue. He licked his pink-stained thumb several times the better to turn the pages.

Now this is a horrible habit as everyone knows, but what followed may have cured him forever. He turned to speak to John and Rosemary, and suddenly started. His mouth fell open and all the pink ebbed from his face, leaving it a curious greenish white.

‘Are you all right?’ asked Rosemary sympathetically.

The young man swallowed hard.

‘It’s a funny thing,’ he said faintly, ‘but I distinctly thought I heard that black cat beside you speak! There is a black cat, isn’t there?’ he asked anxiously.

John and Rosemary looked down. There was indeed. It was Carbonel. Tired of waiting outside, he had followed an old lady through the swinging door into the shop. The children looked at each other.

‘What did you think he said?’ John asked tactfully.

The now pale young man swallowed hard again.

‘He said, in a cross voice, “Royalty, and left outside to wait like an old umbrella!” It doesn’t even make sense,’ said the young man unhappily.

‘That sounds like Carbonel all right!’ said John to Rosemary. The black cat stood between them, his ears slightly flattened and his tail twitching. The young man stared fascinated at the cat, and his colour began to come back, but he started violently once more.

‘He’s done it again!’ he said miserably. ‘He says – the cat I mean – to tell you not to take all day about it. Couldn’t you hear him, too?’ he pleaded.

‘No!’ said John and Rosemary. ‘We couldn’t, truthfully.’

‘But a cat talking! Whatever does it mean?’ asked the young man anxiously.

‘I expect it means that you’ve eaten something that has disagreed with you,’ said Rosemary truthfully.

‘I should take some Peterson’s Pink Pills,’ said John. They were the first thing that caught his eye. ‘And go to bed early. Good afternoon! Come on, Rosie!’

He picked up the bottle from the counter and hurried Rosemary from the shop, Carbonel trotting at their heels.

‘But the poor young man! Shouldn’t we try to do something for him?’ Rosemary said.

‘My good girl, what can we do?’ said John. ‘I expect it will wear off in time, and if Carbonel had gone on talking in there, the poor man might have gone completely off his rocker. I suggest we don’t open this bottle till we get back to the Green Cave. We don’t want any more complications. Come on, let’s run!’

5

The Red Mixture

It was long past teatime when John and Rosemary reached home. Mrs Brown was not there. In her place was a plate with some crumbs on it, and a note propped against the sugar basin which said, COULDN’T WAIT. WON’T HANG. GET YOUR OWN.

Rosemary explained that this meant her mother had gone back to the sewing-room because the dress she was making would not fall in the folds she wanted, and that they were to see about tea for themselves.

‘I’m terribly hungry,’ said John. ‘Let’s take it with us to the Green Cave.’

They put a plate of buns and two pieces of cake on a tray. Rosemary added cups of tea, and a saucer of milk for Carbonel; then they carried it into the garden.

The black cat was waiting for them on the path by the currant bushes. As soon as he saw them, he disappeared among the leaves, and when John and Rosemary wriggled after him, with some difficulty because of the tea tray, they found him in the Green Cave sitting serenely on the rusty biscuit tin which had held the brandy snaps. Looking up at him from the kneeling position that was necessary in the cramped space between the bushes, they were a little awed by his quiet dignity. He was looking fixedly at the bottle which they had put on the tray.

‘Come on! Let’s see what the directions say,’ said John, as he tore off the wrapping paper. ‘It has an ordinary chemist’s label. “The Mixture,”’ he read. ‘“Half a teaspoon to be taken after meals as required.” Well, I’m always requiring meals. I’m requiring my tea like billy-oh!’

‘I don’t think it means “meals as required”,’ said Rosemary, ‘but “the mixture as required – after meals”.’

‘Oh,’ said John. ‘Well, let’s hurry up and have our tea now. I’m starving!’

They each took a currant bun which they polished off with not much politeness but with great speed. Carbonel ignored the saucer of milk which Rosemary had poured for him. He sat staring expectantly at the children with wide, golden eyes.

‘We’d better eat the cake, too, to make it a meal,’ said John. ‘One bun is just a snack.’

They finished the cake and drank the tea. What had not slopped in the saucers was cold and rather nasty, but Rosemary swallowed every drop of hers very slowly, because she found herself wanting to put off the moment of drinking the strange, red mixture. John was clearly feeling the same way.

‘Look here,’ he said. ‘There can’t be anything to be afraid of. The chemist’s assistant could hear Carbonel talking, when he licked his thumb with the red liquid on it, so we know it does what we want it to do. Let’s drink at exactly the same minute, then whatever it is will happen to us both at the same time.’

Rosemary nodded, Carbonel came down from the tin, and purring encouragement, rubbed his head against her shoulder. They took their teaspoons and half filled them with the liquid, which fell sluggishly from the bottle. It had a strange, heady smell, rather like crushed chrysanthemum leaves. They knelt together with spoons raised.

‘I’ll say “One, two, three, go!”’ said John.

Rosemary nodded again. She became aware that, except for John’s voice, it was very still in the Green Cave. Even the canopy of leaves above them had ceased its restless stirring. The only moving things were two fat caterpillars with tufted backs, making their way slowly along a twig on a level with Rosemary’s nose. She stared at them unheedingly while John said, ‘One! Two! Three! Go!’

Rosemary took a deep breath, swallowed the spoonful quickly, and shut her eyes.

Behind the red darkness of her tightly closed lids, she felt the liquid fizzing slightly on her tongue. It tasted sharp, but not unpleasant, and glowed comfortingly as it slipped down her throat. There was a tickling in her nose and a tight, uncomfortable feeling in her ears. She felt an enormous sneeze welling up inside her, the father and mother of all sneezes. She tried to fight it down, but it was no good. Suddenly she shattered the silence with three violent sneezes, each one echoed closely by another from John. The two children looked at each other with startled eyes.

The silence was gone. They were surrounded by what at first sounded like a humming noise. Then the hum seemed to break up into innumerable little voices, some high and shrill, some soft and purring, some abrupt as the plucking of a violin string. Rosemary was startled to distinguish a small, singsong voice quite close to her ear saying over and over again,‘Up we go! Up we go!’

She looked around, and saw with astonishment that it was the second of the two caterpillars.

‘Where are you going?’ she asked.

The second caterpillar halted for a moment, waved its front half about uncertainly, and then hurried after its companion.

‘Don’t look round now,’ it said breathlessly, ‘but I think we’re being spoken to – by a human! What a mercy the great blundering things can’t hear us talking!’

‘But Ican hear you talking!’ said Rosemary, a little nettled at being called ‘blundering’.

Both the caterpillars turned around in astonishment, lost their balance and fell off the twig on to the grass below in two tightly rolled coils from which they refused to budge.

‘Rosie!’ said John. ‘There’s a super beetle here, all green and blue, and he says –’

‘John and Rosemary, will you kindly pay attention!’

They turned to where Carbonel sat enthroned on the biscuit tin, the end of his tail twitching in irritation.

‘That is, of course, unless you find the conversation of beetles and caterpillars more worth while than mine!’

‘Carbonel! How glorious!’ said Rosemary happily. ‘We can hear you talking, too!’

‘Which is not much use unless you’re prepared to listen. After all the trouble I’ve taken with you!’

‘The troubleyou’ve taken withus!’ said John.

But Carbonel swept on.‘I thought I should never get you to understand what I wanted, and when at last you did realize you had to find Mrs Cantrip, and I tried to stop you from wasting your time by going off to the Copper Kettle, would you take any notice? Oh, dear me, no!’

‘Don’t let’s waste time now by being cross!’ said Rosemary. ‘We did the best we could, and we never expected to be able to hear beetles and caterpillars talking as well as you. It is rather exciting, you know!’

She put out her hand, and laid it gently over the angry, twitching end of Carbonel’s tail. For a moment she could feel it stirring beneath her palm. Then, gradually, the furry movement slowed down and ceased altogether.

‘Oh, come off it, Carbonel!’ said John affectionately.

The black cat took him at his word and stepped down from the box.

‘Very well,’ he said. ‘I have no doubt you did do your best, and I am grateful. And I must say, you were very quick witted to bargain withher for the prescription. Now, pay attention, both of you, because I don’t have much time. I have not gone to all this trouble for the pleasure of a merechat, though I won’t deny I am pleased to see you both again. Very pleased. I need your help.’

‘Of course we’ll help you! Won’t we, John?’ said Rosemary.

‘Tomorrow I must go away,’ Carbonel said.

‘Go away!’ said Rosemary in dismay. ‘Where to?’

‘And when we’ve just found out how to talk to you!’ said John.

‘There you go again! Listen, and I will explain. You know that I am a royal cat, and that my people have their own laws and customs. After dark, the wall tops are our highways and the roofs our mountains and our plains. The Town Hall has been the royal seat of my ancestors for two hundred years, and there I hope my descendants will rule after me. Now that is where I need your help. My royal children –’

‘Kittens! Your kittens!’ said Rosemary excitedly. ‘Carbonel, how lovely! How many have you got? And why didn’t you tell us? We should –’

‘I am trying to tell you now!’ said Carbonel severely.

‘But –’

‘Shut up, Rosie!’ said John under his breath.

‘You may not know,’ went on Carbonel, ‘that it is our custom for each cat to select a human family to look after.’

‘Don’t you mean the humans choose a cat?’ said John.

‘Certainly not!’ said Carbonel coldly. ‘The humans, of course, repay a little of their debt to us with a place by the fire, a saucer of milk, little offerings of fish and meat according to their humble means.’

‘But besides catching mice, what –’ began John. It was Rosemary’s turn to give a warning nudge.

‘Our great gift to the human race is our example.’

‘Example?’

‘That is what I said. You fuss and flurry and rush about all day, and for what? In the midst of it all, we sit calm and unruffled, meditating on the mystery of Life and Eternity.’

‘But your kittens,’ said Rosemary. ‘Do tell us about them! How many are there? And are they like you? Oh, I must see them!’

‘There are two of them, a boy and a girl,’ said Carbonel. ‘They are said to be remarkably handsome – but whether they are like me you must judge for yourselves,’ he added modestly.

‘Then we can see them?’

‘Certainly. I have chosen you to look after them while I am away.’

‘Of course we’ll look after them for you! We’d love to, wouldn’t we, John? I shall have to ask Mother, of course, but I’m sure she will say yes.’

‘Guard them faithfully till I come back.’

‘When will that be?’ asked John.

‘Three days? Three weeks? Three months? Who can tell?’

‘But why must you go?’ persisted John.

‘Once every seven years I and my royal brothers are summoned to the presence of the Great Cat.’

‘But who are your royal brothers?’ asked Rosemary.

‘You must not think that I am the only cat king,’ explained Carbonel. ‘Every city in the world where there are cats has a king to rule over them, just as I rule over the cats of Fallowhithe. When the Summons comes, we must all obey. There will be lean, blue-eyed cats from Siam, long-haired cats from Persia, great tawny jungle cats, and thin, big-boned cats from Egypt. Cats of every colour – black as coal, white as milk, grey as woodsmoke. Whatever the colour, whatever the kind, when the Summons comes we all must answer.’

‘But who will look after your kingdom for you while you are away?’ asked John.

‘My beautiful Queen, my lovely Blandamour, will rule with the help of my cousin Merbeck. Blandamour is wise and good, but I cannot answer for all the queens of the neighbouring towns. Queen Grisana of Broomhurst is ambitious, and her husband is old. Do not let my kittens stray.

They are a little–’ There was a pause, as though Carbonel were searching for the right word. ‘High spirited,’ he concluded. ‘Early tomorrow morning, before I go, I shall visit you again and bring my royal children with me.’

It was getting dark in the Green Cave, and the shadow that was Carbonel slipped silently down from the biscuit tin and rubbed against Rosemary, and his purring filled the little space under the currant bushes like an organ. A warm tongue licked her cheek.

‘Dear Carbonel!’ said Rosemary, putting her arms round him for a minute. ‘Of course we’ll do our best to take care of your kittens, but do you think –’

She broke off. The black cat had slipped from her and melted into the other shadows.

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6

The Royal Kittens

They did not ask that night if they might have the kittens after all. Rosemary felt that her mother was not in a‘yes-of-course-darling’ mood. She was still having trouble with a dress she was making, and only looked in to tell them to take the sausages on the cracked plate for supper.

‘Never mind,’ said John. ‘You can ask at breakfast tomorrow. Don’t forget, Carbonel said he was coming early.’

But Carbonel’s idea of early was rather different from theirs.

Rosemary was awakened next morning by a fly which buzzed persistently around her pillow. She brushed it away with a sleepy hand once or twice, and turned over; but the fly continued to buzz. Presently she became aware that it was not just buzzing. It was saying over and over again in a shrill, angry voice,‘For goodness’ sake, wake up!’

Rosemary opened one eye sleepily, and saw the fly a few inches away on the curve of her pillow. It was jumping up and down angrily on all of its six legs.

‘I am awake,’ said Rosemary sleepily, and gave a cavernous yawn.

The fly made a noise that sounded like an outraged squeak, and braced itself.

‘Don’t do that,’ it said in an agitated voice. ‘I once knew a fly who was swallowed by a yawn!’

‘How horrible!’ said Rosemary, thinking more of the yawner than the fly. She was wide awake now and sitting up.

‘Here am I, simply come to deliver a message to oblige, and my very life is threatened! First you go flapping like a windmill, and then –’

‘I’m so sorry,’ said Rosemary humbly.

‘And you should be,’ said the fly a little more calmly. ‘Many people would just have flown off without delivering the message. But not me. I’m not that kind of fly. Luckily for you, I have a weakness for royalty.’

‘Royalty?’ interrupted Rosemary. ‘Is it from Carbonel? The message, I mean.’

The fly nodded importantly.

‘I was just to tell you, “We are here.” Kings talk like that, you know,’ it added condescendingly.

‘But where is “here”?’ asked Rosemary.

‘The greenhouse at the bottom of the garden. Oh! There you go again!’

Without warning, Rosemary had flung back the bedclothes and jumped out of bed. Buzzing angrily, the fly circled round her as she dressed.

‘I am sorry!’ she said again, ‘and of course I’m very grateful to you, but I must go and tell John at once. I think I’ve got some sugar somewhere.’

She felt in the pocket of her school blazer and brought out a rather dusty sugar lump, which she put on the dressing table. Then, in one movement, she pushed her toes into her slippers and her arms into her dressing gown.

John and Rosemary did not waste time dressing. They crept downstairs into the shining, early morning garden. It was so early that the shadows were still long and narrow, and the dew from the grass, which needed cutting, was cold on their bare ankles.

The birds and the small daylight creatures were all awake. The faint hum that Rosemary and John had noticed after drinking the red mixture was all around them, like the hum of a busy market place, but fainter and on a higher note. If they stood still, they could distinguish the little voices of which it was made. Only the birds sang loudly and excitedly of all the things they hoped to do on such a glorious day. Rosemary wanted to stop and listen, but John pulled her on.

The greenhouse was quite small. It had not been used for some time. The lock was broken, and several of the panes were cracked. The coloured tiles patterning the floor had come loose from their moorings and rocked beneath Rosemary’s and John’s feet when they walked on them. The greenhouse no longer held rows of pots, full of delicate flowers. There was only one remaining climbing plant which had run riot over the walls and roof. Mrs Brown called it plumbago. It was flowering now, and great trusses of pale blue blossoms hung among the dark green leaves. John and Rosemary ran down the path and opened the door.

On the shelf which had once housed pots of geraniums and primulas and lacy ferns, before a curtain of blue flowers, sat Carbonel. Beside him was a snow-white Persian, and between them were two kittens, one coal-black with white paws and the other tortoise-shell. All four sat quite still with their tails wrapped neatly around their front paws from left to right. The children hesitated by the open door. A blue flower fell silently between the kittens, and the black one raised a paw as if to pat it.

‘Calidor!’ said Carbonel sternly, and the kitten instantly wrapped his tail round his paws again, as if that would keep them out of mischief.

‘Good morning, Rosemary. Good morning, John.’

‘Good morning,’ said the children together, and John, to his surprise, found himself adding, ‘Sir.’

‘My dear,’ said Carbonel, turning to the white cat. ‘I have great pleasure in presenting my two friends, John and Rosemary.’

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The white cat gazed at them with wide, faraway blue eyes and bowed her head graciously.‘My husband has often spoken of you. His friends will always be mine.’

‘Thank you,’ said John rather lamely.

‘Present the children, my love,’ said Blandamour. Carbonel bent his head in acknowledgement.

‘My son, Prince Calidor, and my daughter, Princess Pergamond. Make your bows, my children.’

The two kittens stood up, and with back legs splayed out and small tails erect, made rather wobbly bows. John bobbed his head, and Rosemary lifted the skirt of her nightdress and made a little curtsy.

‘I give my children into your care,’ said Carbonel. ‘Protect their nine lives as if they were your own. And you, my children, repeat the royal rules each day and put them into practice.’

‘Yes, Father,’ said the kittens in shrill chorus.

‘And obey John and Rosemary in all things.’

‘Yes, Father.’

‘Remember, they are in your charge and you are in theirs.’

‘Yes, Father.’

‘And when I come back, let me hear nothing to your discredit.’

The black kitten, whose eyes had wandered to the drifting blue flowers again, began to say‘Yes, Father,’ and hastily changed it to ‘No.’

Carbonel turned to Blandamour.‘My love, it is time for me to go. Come with me to the crossroads and see me on my way.’

The black cat jumped silently to the tiled floor and went out into the sunlit garden, and Blandamour followed. John and Rosemary, watching them leap to the top of the garden wall, ran to wave good-bye. Standing on the garden roller, their chins level with the top of the wall, they could see Carbonel and Blandamour growing smaller and smaller as they trotted along the wall. It skirted the end of the gardens of number one hundred, number ninety-nine and number ninety-eight. At number ninety-seven, the wall curved, and the two cats disappeared from view.

‘Well, that’s that!’ said John, jumping down from the roller and wiping the moss from his hands on to his pyjamas.

‘Come on. Let’s get back to the kittens. Aren’t they gorgeous!’ said Rosemary.

They ran back to the greenhouse. To their surprise, only the tortoise-shell kitten was to be seen. She was standing on her hind paws on a flower pot, peering into an old watering can.

‘Where’s the other one? Where’s Calidor?’ asked Rosemary, looking round anxiously.

‘He’s in here,’ said Pergamond in a muffled voice, because she was still peering into the can. ‘It sounds as though he’s paddling. Why don’t you answer, Calidor?’

There was a splash and a faint mew. John rushed to the watering can and, putting in his hand, lifted out a bedraggled kitten, dripping with dirty water and mewing pitifully.

‘You poor little thing!’ said Rosemary, trying to wipe off the slime with her nightdress.

But the kitten only whimpered,‘Where’s Woppit? Want Woppit!’

‘What on earth is Woppit?’ asked John.

‘Here be old Woppit, my pretty dears!’ said a voice behind them, and there in the doorway was a dusty, dishevelled, elderly tabby cat.

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‘Bother!’ said Pergamond crossly.

‘As if they could keep old Woppit away! “Too big for a nurse now,” they said. But I knows better! Me that’s looked after ’em since before their blessed blue eyes was open. They thought they’d hoodwinked old Woppit and whisked you away without her knowing. But I smells here, and I asks there, and sure enough, I’ve found my little furry sweetings! And where’s my precious princeling puss?’

All the time she was talking, Woppit was purring loudly and comfortably. But when she caught sight of Calidor, bedraggled and miserable in Rosemary’s lap, her untidy fur bristled with indignation.

‘What have the horrid humans been doing to you then, my pet? I knew it all along! I never did hold with humans!’

‘We aren’t wicked, even if we are humans!’ said John indignantly. ‘And we didn’t do anything!’

‘It was Calidor’s fault,’ said Pergamond virtuously. ‘We were hungry, and I only said I thought there might be sardines in the water at the bottom of the can, and he was looking to see, and he fell in. He was only doing this.’

She put her front paws on the rim of the can, and heaving her stumpy hind legs up the side, tried to stand on the rim. John’s hand shot out again just in time to stop her from falling in as her brother had done. He set her firmly down on the ground.

‘But there weren’t any sardines,’ said Calidor, who was beginning to revive. ‘Only a lot of smelly water.’ He sneezed violently. ‘I think I’ve lost a life,’ he went on with gloomy satisfaction. ‘You’ll catch it when Father hears!’

‘I’m hungry,’ mewed Pergamond. ‘I want my breakfast!’

‘Regular meals they’re used to, like any well brought-up kittens. There’s some people takes on a job without so much as knowing the first thing about it.’ Woppit looked sourly at John and Rosemary.

‘Look here,’ said John angrily, ‘are you suggesting that Rosie and I aren’t capable of looking after a couple of kittens?’

‘Well then, which of you is going to lick my little princeling clean? And no licking around the corners, mind!’

‘Lick him!’ said Rosemary in horror, looking at the kitten’s matted fur.

‘That’s what I said. You’ll never get him clean without. Either I licks, or you licks, and if I stays and licks, I stays for good!’ said Woppit. ‘Which is it to be?’

‘I should have thought a bath –’ began Rosemary. But at the word ‘bath’ the kittens set up such a mewing, and Woppit’s comforting was so noisy, that the children could not hear themselves speak. They slipped outside the greenhouse and shut the door behind them quite firmly.

‘Whew!’ said John. ‘I’m beginning to see what Carbonel means about the kittens being “high spirited”.’

‘Look here,’ interrupted Rosemary, ‘I think we should find Woppit very useful. After all, we can’t sit and hold their paws all day long.’

‘Yes, but I refuse to have an old tabby cat ordering me around,’ said John.

‘I don’t think she’ll try if we make her see that we only want to do our best for the kittens.’

‘Perhaps you’re right,’ said John. ‘Suppose I run back upstairs and get them some milk, and you see what you can do with old Woppit.’ John ran.

When Rosemary went back into the greenhouse, Woppit was already vigorously licking a sulky Calidor. She eyed Rosemary suspiciously, but she did not stop.

‘Please, Woppit,’ said Rosemary humbly, ‘John and I want you to stay and show us how to look after Prince Calidor and Princess Pergamond, if you will.’

With a practised paw, Woppit rolled over a protesting Calidor and went on licking. She said nothing, but there was the faint suggestion of a purr.

‘Please, Woppit!’ pleaded Rosemary.

‘I’ll think about it!’ said Woppit, as though it were a perfectly new idea of Rosemary’s. ‘I might do it, to oblige.’ But she went on licking the unhappy Calidor so vigorously that Rosemary felt quite sorry for him, and her purring settled down to a deep, contented hum.

At that moment, John burst in at the door.‘Here’s some milk, but I only just got out without being seen,’ he said. ‘I could hear your mother getting up. We’d better hurry.’

They put the saucer down, left Woppit in charge, closed the door of the greenhouse firmly and ran back to the house and breakfast.

7

Figg’s Bottom

‘Really, Rosie,’ said Mrs Brown. ‘It was naughty of you to say you would look after three cats without asking first!’

Breakfast had been reduced to eggshells and toast crumbs before they had brought up the subject.

‘I know, Mummy, I’m awfully sorry, but –’

‘It wasn’t Rosie’s fault,’ broke in John. ‘You see, the… the… person they belong to had to go away this morning urgently, and there wasn’t time.’

‘Butthree cats, dears!’

‘One cat and two kittens,’ pleaded Rosemary. ‘And if you would only come and see them, Mummy, you couldn’t say no!’

Mrs Brown tried to go on frowning, but the two pleading faces were too much for her, and presently she smiled.

‘All right,’ she said at last. ‘But if you want to keep them in the greenhouse, you must ask Mr Featherstone’s permission, and you must look after them yourselves.’

‘Of course we’ll look after them, won’t we, John? They are very special kittens, and we wouldn’t trust them to anyone else. May we go and ask permission this minute?’

The children ran downstairs to the ground floor flat, where they found Mr Featherstone shaving with an electric razor. When he heard them come in, he wheeled around, his razor buzzing in his hand like a wasp in a jam jar.

‘Good heavens, it’s young John! Rosemary told me you were coming. Glad to see you, my boy! Have a bull’s eye. You’ll find them somewhere about, on the bookcase I think. I’m afraid it’s a bit untidy.’

Rosemary felt that‘untidy’ hardly described it. They couldn’t find the bull’s eyes among the litter of things on the bookcase, but they ran them to earth at last behind the coal scuttle in a very sticky bag. Because of the bull’s eyes they explained the situation rather indistinctly. However, Mr Featherstone seemed to understand.

‘Three cats in the greenhouse?’ he said. ‘I don’t see why not. No geraniums, so why not kittens? I remember you always had a weakness for the creatures, Rosie. Listen, I’ve got to take the van into Broomhurst this afternoon. Suppose you and John come with me. I could drop you in the country at the end of the town somewhere, and pick you up on the way back. What do you say?’

John and Rosemary thought it was an excellent idea.

They spent the morning making the greenhouse comfortable for the kittens. Mrs Brown found them an old blanket and the lid of a cardboard box so they could make a bed. They stacked the old flower pots in a corner and swept the floor and dusted the shelves, to the indignation of a number of spiders and several wood lice. Woppit lay in the sun outside and slept, and the two kittens chased the broom and their own tails, until they, too, fell asleep.

‘I expect Blandamour will come to see them soon, and I should like it all to look its very nicest,’ said Rosemary, standing back to admire the effect.

‘Bless you, she wouldn’t notice!’ said Woppit from the doorway. ‘Them as lives in high places thinks high and is above such things. Not that it isn’t right and proper for the humble likes of you and me to do our best, for all that!’

John did not much care for being bracketed with Woppit as‘humble’, but, luckily, at that moment Mrs Brown arrived.

‘I thought that you and the cats might like some milk, and besides I want to be introduced,’ she said, setting down a tray. On it were two mugs, a saucer and a jug of milk.

‘The black one is Calidor and the other is Pergamond,’ said Rosemary, squatting down beside the ball that was two sleeping kittens.

‘The little dears!’ said her mother softly, stirring them gently with the toe of her shoe. Then she said, ‘I have your tea. I wanted to make some for Mr Featherstone – I’m sure he doesn’t look after himself properly – but he said he would get some in Broomhurst. If you ask him to put you down by the turning to Figg’s Bottom, you can go to Turley’s Farm and ask for some milk instead of carrying something to drink with you.’

‘Do you mean where we went last year after we picked wild daffodils, Mummy?’ asked Rosemary.

‘That’s it. I’m afraid the daffodil field has been built over now. There’s a new housing estate, but I think the farm is still there.’

‘It be!’ said Woppit unexpectedly, though of course only the children heard her. ‘I ought to know, seeing as my brother Tudge took on Turleys four years ago.’

When Mrs Brown had gone and both children and kittens were drinking their milk, she went on,‘Ah, if you should meet a cat with a torn ear and a walleye, it’ll be Tudge, sure enough. You can tell him he can come and see me if he likes,’ she went on graciously. ‘I dare say I shall be glad of a bit of company here.’

She looked rather disdainfully around the greenhouse as she spoke.

‘What colour is he?’ asked John.

‘Not to say one colour,’ said Woppit cautiously, ‘but a bit of most.’

‘We’ll look out for him,’ said Rosemary gravely.

‘I’ll pick you up about half past five,’ said Mr Featherstone, as they rattled cheerfully along in the van.

They passed the familiar outskirts of Fallowhithe and found themselves in the newly built housing estate. They passed the finished houses with new curtains at the windows and new babies asleep in new prams in the front gardens, and were soon in a road with half-built houses on either side.

‘Where shall we meet you?’ asked John.

‘The corner by the Figg’s Bottom signpost is as good a meeting place as any. It should be just around the bend when we leave the houses behind,’ said Mr Featherstone. But they did not leave the houses behind. A tide of new buildings seemed to be coming toward them.

‘Good heavens!’ said Mr Featherstone. ‘I’d no idea the Broomhurst houses had spread so far.’

‘It looks as though a couple more houses will join it up with Fallowhithe,’ said John.

Even as they looked, they saw a man pushing a wheelbarrow full of bricks along a plank over the remaining piece of open land, which they saw had the forlorn, naked look of all building sites before the work actually begins.

‘Anyway, there are still fields behind the houses on either side,’ said John.

The van slowed down and stopped at a turning which still had a country-lane look about it. There was a signpost at the corner which said: TO FIGG’S BOTTOM. The children got out.

John carried their tea in a knapsack.‘We’ll be waiting for you, and thank you for bringing us, sir!’ he said.

‘Enjoy yourselves!’ called Mr Featherstone as he let in the clutch, and they watched the van rattle off down the road.

John and Rosemary wandered off to the nearest half-built house and watched a man with no shirt and a very brown back carry a load of bricks up a ladder, and come down again with the empty hod. He stopped at the bottom.

‘Can you tell us if the houses will join up in the end?’ asked Rosemary. ‘I mean so that Fallowhithe and Broomhurst meet?’

The man looked up.‘Hallo, ducks!’ he said. ‘When we’ve finished they’ll join so neat as you won’t know where one begins and the other ends! Makes you think, don’t it?’

John agreed that it did.

‘If you ask me, the cats have moved in already,’ the man went on. ‘I’ve never seen so many. All over the place, they are!’

Even as he spoke, a great black animal with white paws padded silently across the half-built wall, gave them a searching look and disappeared the way it had come.

The man frowned.‘And it’s a funny thing,’ he went on, ‘but there’s a rubbish dump here already, even before anyone’s moved in. Beats me where it comes from. There’s even an old rocking chair.’ He jabbed his thumb over his shoulder.

‘Hey, Charlie!’ shouted a voice.

‘Okay, I’m coming,’ replied the man. ‘So long!’ he said. He winked cheerfully at Rosemary and went off whistling.

John and Rosemary turned and wandered off in the direction he had pointed out to them with his thumb. In a field, beyond a cement mixer, was a pile of old tins and some worn-out shoes, and beside it stood a rocking chair.

‘I wonder who put it there?’ said Rosemary. ‘It doesn’t look broken to me.’

‘Oh, never mind,’ said John impatiently. ‘We haven’t come all this way to examine old rubbish heaps! I’m hungry. I vote we go on down the lane and have our tea as soon as we find a good place. We can go on to Turley’s afterwards and get some milk.’

So they turned down the lane leading to Figg’s Bottom, but as it happened they never reached Turley’s Farm. They walked on in a leisurely way. With nothing but the winding road ahead and fields on either side, it was easy to forget the building behind them. They stopped to listen to two sparrows gossiping on the hedge. A snail was makingrude remarks to a blackbird from the safety of an overhanging stone. Once a rabbit popped its head through the bars of a stile.

‘Humans!’ it said in disgust, and popped back again. John stood on the stile to call to it, but said instead, ‘I’m sure I can hear a stream. Let’s go and find it.’ So they crossed the stile and followed a path through the meadow on the other side.

They found the stream without much difficulty. Its clear, cider-coloured water rippled gently over a pebbly bed. They took off their shoes and splashed about happily. Rosemary picked a bunch of water forget-me-nots and wild peppermint. They tried to dam a tiny tributary, and let the piled-up water join the main stream again with a whoosh!

It was not till some time later, with toes and fingers very pink and crinkly, that they sat down in the middle of a little plank bridge. With their legs dangling, they ate tomato sandwiches and homemade rock cakes. They were facing upstream, and when they had nearly finished, John said suddenly,‘Someone must be sailing toy boats higher up! Look, there’s a big one just coming around the corner.’

There certainly was a black thing, which looked like a toy boat, drifting toward them.

‘Let’s catch it when it gets to the bridge!’ said Rosemary.

They lowered themselves down into the stream in readiness. But it was not a boat. It was a shoe, a very large one with a brass buckle that needed sewing on again. They caught it as it drifted under the bridge.

‘Let’s wade upstream and see if we can find the owner. Whoever owns it must have enormous feet!’ said John.

They lifted the dripping shoe out of the water and started to wade upstream.

8

The Rocking Chair

They splashed their way along very pleasantly for some distance, until, coming out of a green tunnel made by the overhanging branches of willow and hazel, they were startled to find themselves in the sunshine again, and almost on top of the owner of the shoe.

‘Mrs Cantrip!’ said John and Rosemary together. For that is who it was. She was sitting on a rock with the remaining shoe beside her and with her large feet dangling in the water. Beside her, a little higher up the bank, was a small, neat, plump person. She had round cheeks, she wore a round felt hat and a neat tweed suit, and she sat very upright, with a bunch of what looked like green leaves in her lap.

‘It’s you, is it?’ said Mrs Cantrip sourly.

‘We rescued your shoe for you,’ said John politely, holding it out to her. ‘It was floating downstream.’

‘Interfering again!’ said the old woman. ‘It was floating lovely!’

‘But we thought whoever it belonged to would want it,’ said John in surprise.

‘And we didn’t even know it was yours,’ added Rosemary. ‘You couldn’t get home without it.’

‘That’s all you know. There’s more ways of getting about than walking,’ said Mrs Cantrip. ‘Besides, I know where there’s another lovely pair of shoes for the taking, and no questions asked.’

The little person leaned forward and said eagerly,‘If you mean the ones on the rubbish heap where we left the –’ She broke off suddenly and clapped her hand over her mouth.

At the same time, Mrs Cantrip deliberately threw her other shoe into the stream with a loud splash.‘You can fish that out, as you’re so fond of finding things,’ she said rudely.

Red with annoyance, John splashed over and pulled out the second shoe.

‘I think you are very ungrateful!’ said Rosemary hotly.

‘It was entirely my fault, dears!’ said the roundabout person. ‘I’m sure Katie is very grateful, really. Such a character! She was trying to stop me saying something when she threw her shoe into the stream. My foolish tongue, you know.’ Then, turning to Mrs Cantrip, ‘Such nicely spokenchildren. Do introduce me, please, Katie dear!’

Mrs Cantrip sniffed.

‘Boy nuisance!’ she said, nodding toward John. ‘And girl nuisance!’

Rosemary turned her back on Mrs Cantrip and said,‘I’m Rosemary, this is my friend John, and we aren’t a nuisance, at least not on purpose.’

‘And my name is Dibdin,’ said the little person, ‘Miss Dorothy Dibdin.’

‘You aren’t Mrs Cantrip’s new lodger, are you?’ asked Rosemary suddenly.

‘Why, how clever of you!’ said Miss Dibdin warily. ‘Just for the summer holidays, you know. Between you and me, it’s not very comfortable, but it has its advantages. It was such a stroke of luck finding it. I always like to have a hobby during the summer – I am a schoolteacher, you know – and Mrs Cantrip is teaching me to –’

She broke off again as Mrs Cantrip burst into a very loud, artificial cough.‘There I go again,’ she continued. ‘But no harm done. Such a lovely day! We came here to enjoy the country, to meet some friends and pick a bunch of flowers. You promised to show me where I could find that particularly damaging dodder, dear,’ she said to Mrs Cantrip, and at the same time she rose to her feet and dusted her skirt.

Mrs Cantrip grunted, but she heaved herself up, pushed her bare feet into her wet shoes with complete unconcern, and muttering something about‘Bogshott Wood’, started to climb the bank, with her shoes squelching at every step.

‘Good afternoon, children,’ said Miss Dibdin briskly, and followed her up the bank.

‘Exactly as though we were six-year-olds,’ said John, as they watched the two cross the field, the one so tall and untidy and the other so short and trim.

‘Whatever can Mrs Cantrip be teaching her?’ said Rosemary.

‘Search me,’ said John. ‘But you can bet she’s up to no good. Well, it’s nothing to do with us. Come on. We’ve left our picnic things and shoes by the bridge.’

Since they had reached the bridge earlier in the afternoon, all the little animal voices had been hidden by the chuckling of the stream. Standing on the top of the bank, they became aware of a bird sitting on a swaying twig and calling,‘No good! No good!’

‘Do you mean Mrs Cantrip?’ asked Rosemary.

‘Ugly pair! Ugly pair!’ sang the bird. Then, with a frightened whirr of wings, it darted off, just as a cat came dashing down the field with three others in hot pursuit. The frightened animal found himself in the loop of the stream. He paused, looking for some way to cross, but the hesitation lost him the advantage, and his pursuers were upon him. With a yowl and a screech, what had been four cats became one threshing, rolling ball.

‘The poor thing!’ cried Rosemary in distress. ‘It’s three against one! The great cowards! Oh, do be careful, John!’ she said, for John had taken off his coat, and with some idea of protecting his hands, flung it over the spitting threshing animals.

Whether it was the coat that was responsible or not, the rolling cats, who had been steering a zigzag course toward the stream, reached the edge of the bank, and cats, coat and all bounced down the bank and fell into the water with a splash. There was a screech from all four animals. Then three of them scrambled out and, even faster than they had come, dashed away in the direction of the road, leaving a trail of wet grass behind. The fourth cat stood shivering on the bank. John and Rosemary ran toward him.

‘You poor thing!’ said Rosemary.

‘Let’s rub him with my blazer,’ said John. ‘It’s so wet already that more water won’t hurt! Keep still old chap!’

‘Thank you kindly,’ said the cat, through the folds of John’s blazer. ‘If there’s one thing I can’t abide, it’s water.’ An untidy head emerged from the navy-blue flannel. ‘Me that was ship’s cat for two years on theMary Jane. Trawling, she was.’

John interrupted.‘Rosie! A walleye and a torn ear!’ He stood up with the coat in his hands. ‘And not one colour, but a bit of most! You must be Tudge!’

The strange cat shook his wet paws in turn.‘What if I be? Personal remarks is rude!’

‘I’m sorry!’ said John. ‘But Woppit told us about you.’

‘Her,’ said Tudge with great scorn. ‘So high and mighty since she took up with royalty, she is, I wonder she still remembers me.’

‘Oh, but she does!’ said Rosemary. ‘She asked us to give you a message if we met you. She said you could come and see her if you liked, and we should love you to. You see, she is helping us look after the two royal kittens. Why, what’s the matter?’

The cat looked furtively around and beckoned them down to the water’s edge.

‘It do be safer to talk here, though damp to the paws. The water makes such a swirligiggle we aren’t like to be overheard by them as means them precious kitlings no good. Listen here. For why do you think I were being chased, like as if I’d been caught with cream on my paws in the dairy?’

Tudge did not wait for them to answer.‘Me, Turley’s cat on Turley’s land, going about my lawful business! I’ll tell you for why. Because I challenged them Broomhurst animals, polite but firm, as is my job. Talking they was, to two more hearing humans.’

‘Hearing humans?’

‘Them as hears us animals talking, like you, of course. And I didn’t like the look of them two, neither. One tall, thin and untidy as a scarecrow, and the other round and plump, like a cat full of cream.’

John and Rosemary looked at one another.

‘Did you hear what they were talking about?’ asked John.

‘Well, I’m not a one to go poking into other people’s affairs. But as I comes up, the plump one says, “How thrilling! Do let’s go!” and claps her hands, and the skinny one says, “We may as well see what she’s up to!” And then one of them cats ups and says, “Her Royal Greyness says you must be there by midnight, and not a word to anyone.” “But how would we get there?” says Roundabout. “The way we came here of course!” says Skinny, sharp like. And then they sees me standing there, and I’d barely given the usual challenge when them animals were on me.’

‘Did you hear anything else?’ asked John.

‘Only Skinny cackling and Roundabout saying, “Dear me, dear me.” Then I broke away and she called after ’em, “Tell Her Royal Greyness we’ll be there!” and she cackled again. You know the rest, thanking you kindly,’ said Tudge.

‘What do you think they were talking about?’ said John curiously. ‘And who is Her Royal Greyness?’

‘Grisana, Queen of the Broomhurst cats, smoke-grey she is, and a proper fierce one, although she seems so gentle. Not like our lovely Blandamour. But when the Kings get the Summons, it’s the Queens who reign till they come home. It’s my belief there’s mischief brewing. So cock-a-hoop them Broomhurst animals is. Singing rude songs and shouting insults at honest, workaday Fallowhithe animals. When the last house goes up, then look out for trouble!’

‘What do you mean?’ Rosemary asked.

‘I think I know,’ said John. ‘You mean when the last house is built that joins Broomhurst with Fallowhithe.’

‘Ah,’ said Tudge. ‘No dividing line between the two there won’t be. And with King Castrum off to the Summoning, and no one to keep them Broomhurst cats in order, or his Queen who’s left in charge, there’ll be trouble right enough.’

‘Good heavens!’ said John. ‘Listen, Tudge, if you hear anything more, will you let us know?’

‘I will!’ promised Tudge. ‘And guard them precious kitlings as if they were gold. You can’t be too careful!’

‘Oh dear!’ said John. ‘I wish we hadn’t left them for so long.’

‘Don’t you think we ought to be going?’ said Rosemary anxiously.

‘Bother! My watch has stopped,’ said John. ‘I think I’ve got it wet. We musn’t be late for Mr Featherstone. We have to get our shoes from the bridge. Let’s get going.’

John and Rosemary said good-bye to Tudge and splashed their way back to the little bridge. As soon as they found their shoes, they hurried back to the signpost, but there was no sign of Mr Featherstone.

The builders had finished for the day and gone home, so they examined a half-built house and tried to imagine it being lived in.

‘Let’s go and look at the cement mixer,’ said John, so they went into the field. John found the cement mixer enthralling, but to Rosemary it was rather dull, so she wandered off, and found herself by the rubbish heap once again.

‘I can’t see Mrs Cantrip in any of those shoes,’ she thought. ‘Not with high heels and open toes.’ Then she looked at the rocking chair which was still standing beside it. ‘I wonder who left it here?’ she said to herself.

She rocked it idly with one toe. It did not seem broken, so she sat on the seat. She began rocking gently to and fro. It made a pleasant little breeze, and she went a little higher. As she rocked rhythmically to and fro, she said idly,‘Rocking chair, rocking chair,’ in time to the movement, and then thinking a little anxiously about the kittens, added, ‘I wish I was home. I wish I was there. Oh, that rhymes!’ And she said again, in time to the rocking,

‘Rocking chair, rocking chair.

I wish I was home, I wish I was there!’

And because the chant went so well with the movement of the chair, she said it a third time, rocking higher and higher, and then she gave the chair a tremendous push forward.

To her complete surprise, the chair rose steeply into the air, then banked sharply, nearly throwing her out. She held on firmly, too astonished to call out.

Down below, John suddenly looked up and saw Rosemary, her feet curled around the front legs of the rocking chair and plaits flapping wildly. The chair righted itself and seemed to be flying steadily in the direction of Fallowhithe. He thought he saw her lips moving as she turned to look back at him, but he was too far away to hear what she was saying. But he saw her point behind him toward Figg’s Bottom.

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‘Rosie, come back!’ he called, although he knew it was useless. He ran desperately in the direction the chair was taking, with some wild idea of keeping pace with it. But when he turned to look where Rosemary was pointing he stopped dead.

Mrs Cantrip and Miss Dibdin were panting up the hill from Figg’s Bottom. They looked up at the disappearing chair and waved angrily.

‘Stop thief! Stop thief!’ called Miss Dibdin shrilly.

They had not seen John, so he slipped back to the half-built house, and hid in what was going to be the kitchen. He held his breath as the hurrying feet came near. He could distinguish the flap, flap of Mrs Cantrip’s shoes and the click, click of Miss Dibdin’s neat, high heels. As they drew level with his hiding place, the footsteps stopped.

‘You must wait a minute, Katie. I’ve got a stone in my shoe, and if you think I’m going to run all the way home to Fairfax Market, you’re very much mistaken,’ Miss Dibdin said tartly. ‘You must admit it’s a pretty how-do-you-do. No rocking chair to take us home and no money for a bus,thanks to your saying witches don’t carry handbags.’

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‘It’s them children again, I’m sure of it!’ growled Mrs Cantrip. ‘I knew there’d be trouble the minute I set eyes on ’em.’

John could hear the sound of an approaching car, but did not dare to look up to see if it was Mr Featherstone.

‘And now how are we to get there tomorrow night, I should like to know?’ Miss Dibdin asked. ‘The highest building in Broomhurst you said it was. We shall just have to hurry up with that broom. Oh, I know you can’t do anything, but you can tell me how to finish it.’

‘What, both of us ride tandem on a young broom that’s not been broken in?’ said Mrs Cantrip. ‘Madness, I call it! You’d ruin its temper for life. But we’ll get there somehow, if it’s only to get even with those children. Not that it isn’t as nice a bit of mischief as I’ve seen in a month of wet Mondays. Don’t be all day with that shoe!’

‘Well, I suppose there’s nothing for it,’ said Miss Dibdin briskly. ‘We shall just have to walk the six miles home. You can teach me that handy little spell for turning milk sour as we go.’

As John listened to their retreating footsteps, a car passed his hiding place and drew up a little farther on. He looked cautiously over the wall. The two women had started off at a rapid pace. He saw with relief that Mr Featherstone was standing by the van. He raced up to him.

‘Hello!’ he said. ‘Where’s Rosie? Had a good time?’

‘Super!’ said John. ‘Rosie… er… was given a lift home by someone she knows,’ he said lamely.

‘Really? How very strange of her,’ said Mr Featherstone in a puzzled voice. ‘Have you two had a row? You sound rather gloomy. Well, if she gets back safely I suppose that’s all that matters.’

John most heartily agreed.

It was a silent drive home. John was far too busy with his thoughts for conversation. Quite clearly, Mrs Cantrip, although she had retired from being a witch herself, was instructing Miss Dibdin, and both of them were planning mischief with the cats of Broomhurst. Worse still was his anxiety about Rosemary.

When they reached home, John thanked Mr Featherstone and rushed to the greenhouse to see if the kittens were safe. He burst in at the door.

‘Are they safe, Woppit?’ he asked. ‘The kittens, I mean?’

‘They’re safe enough,’ said Woppit.

‘Look here, no matter what happens don’t let them out of your sight for a minute,’ said John. ‘There may be trouble brewing. I’ll come and explain as soon as I can, but I must go now. I know I can trust you!’

‘Trust me?’ said Woppit indignantly. ‘And who better, I’d like to know. To the last whisker!’

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9

The Walled Garden

Rosemary had seen Mrs Cantrip and Miss Dibdin burst into a run when they caught sight of the rocking chair climbing steeply into the air, but when she saw John hide himself in the half-built house, she gave a sigh of relief. It gave her something else to think about besides the dizzy feeling in her head and the sudden emptiness of her inside.

‘This must have been what Mrs Cantrip meant when she said, “There’s other ways than walking.”’ Rosemary said to herself. ‘I don’t expect I’ve anything to be frightened about,’ she went on severely, taking a firm grip of the arms of the chair. ‘I suppose because I said “I wish I was home,” and three times, too, that’s where the chair is taking me. How surprised Mum will be!’

By this time, she could bring herself to look down without feeling giddy. Behind, she could see the tip of the pink wedge that was the new houses leading from Broomhurst, and the thought that John was there gave her courage. Suddenly, roofs and chimneys swirled and dipped beneath her. Few people looked up, but those who did scarcely had time to rub their eyes and look again before the rocking chair was too far away to be distinguished.

The chair flew over the railway station where, such a short time ago, Rosemary and her mother had met John. A curious swallow swooped alongside.‘Flying humans! What next?’ it said, and swooped away again.

Then, Rosemary noticed with alarm that the chair was losing height.‘My goodness, we’re going down! Chair do be careful!’

The rows of crooked chimneys seemed to be coming straight up at her. She shut her eyes tightly, but even so, she had a sinking, going-down-in-a-lift feeling. Then there was a violent bump, and the chair overturned, throwing her in a heap on to a patch of long grass. She opened her eyes and sat up, surprised to find that, except for a few bruises, she was none the worse for her fall. She looked around cautiously.

She was in a little garden. It was very small and surrounded on three sides by a high wall, with broken glass along the top. The fourth side was the back of a very shabby, small house. She got up and looked at the flower beds which ran around the little patch of grass.‘It’s a very strange garden!’ Rosemary said. It was very neat, but there were no flowers, as she knew them.

‘Somebody has actually been growing weeds on purpose!’ There was a clump of stinging nettles carefully staked and tied, and another of hemlock, and there was a neat edging of dandelions. There were a great many plants that Rosemary did not recognize, nearly all of them with small, greenish flowers.

‘That bush is deadly nightshade! I know it is, because the berries are poisonous, and someone has put a net over it to keep off the birds, just as you do with raspberries!’ There was a clumsy garden seat made from packing cases. A seed box stood beside it with a label which said, MANDRAKE SEEDLINGS. SPARROWS KEEP OFF.

Rosemary watched a bee back clumsily out of a foxglove bell, and for the first time noticed the hum of a small thatched beehive. It stood in an angle of the garden wall. The bee hummed a little song which sounded like this:

‘Busycum, buzzycum,

Nectar and honeycomb.

Lilac and lime on the tree,

Roses and lilies

And daffydown dillies,

Are not for the likes of me.

Not for a witch’s bee!’

‘Excuse me,’ said Rosemary, ‘but can you tell me whose garden this is?’

The bee took no notice, but buzzing busily, pushed itself into the next foxglove bell. When it backed out again, it went on humming its song as though she had not spoken.

‘Busycum, buzzycum,

Pains in the tummy cum,

Sowthistle, poisonous pea,

Henbane and hellebore,

That’s what I’m looking for,

That’s for the likes of me,

Food for a witch’s bee!’

‘Of course I do like your song, butplease tell me where I am!’ said Rosemary once more.

The bee stood on the lip of the foxglove bell, which dipped with its weight, and paused to clean its back legs.

‘A hearing human, eh?’ it said. ‘I’ve heard of ’em of course, but never met one before. Full of surprises, this garden is. Whose is it? That’d be telling. Where are you? Where you’d much better not be!’ And it boomed off, still humming to itself, ‘Busycum, buzzycum.’

‘Oh, dear!’ said Rosemary. ‘That’s not much help. I expect I had better knock at the door. It’s going to be awfully difficult to explain how I got here.’

She tiptoed up to what was clearly the back door of the house and knocked. While she was waiting for an answer, she looked through the window beside it. There was a window box on the sill, full of brightly coloured toadstools. The room inside looked unpleasantly familiar. There was still no answer, so she tried the door and, finding it unlocked, tiptoed in.

‘Oh, dear!’ said Rosemary for a third time. ‘Itis Mrs Cantrip’s kitchen! How silly I have been! When I said “home”, the rocking chair took me to the only one it knew!

‘Is there anyone here?’ she called in a rather wobbly voice. There was no answer. ‘Well, there couldn’t be,’ she said with relief, ‘because it will take them a long time to walk all the way back from Figg’s Bottom.’

Rosemary looked around the kitchen curiously. It was much the same as the last time she had seen it. It was quite tidy. The hearth was swept and the fire banked up. Dandelions, which had decorated the table, had been changed for a bunch of dead nettles. On the rag rug by the hearth lay a long wooden stick and a pile of twigs. Then her eyes were caught by a small cupboard hanging on the wall by the fireplace.

The door was open, so she went over and looked in. On the top shelf were sugar and tea, cornflakes and nutmeg, and all the usual things found in a cupboard. But a screw of paper caught Rosemary’s eye on the lower shelf. ‘It looks like the Prism Powder Mrs Cantrip left in her apron pocket.’

Next to it was an old can, which had a label gummed crookedly on to the side which said, DISAPPEARING POTION, but it was empty. Next to that was a jam jar with some purple liquid at the bottom, labelled FLYING PHILTRE, USE SPARINGLY, and beside that was a pickle jar with a few grains of coarse powder at the bottom. The label on this said MINUSCULE MAGIC.

‘So Mrs Cantrip really did have some magic left over!’ said Rosemary.

As she spoke, she heard the Market Hall clock strike six o’clock. ‘I must start home. It will take me ages to walk to Cranshaw Road!’ She went through to the second room which opened on to the street and tried the door. To her horror it was locked! There was no key to be seen.

‘I expect Mrs Cantrip has taken it with her. Whatever shall I do?’ She ran to the window which looked on to the street, but it had been built as a shop window and it did not open. She walked back to the kitchen slowly as the situation dawned on her. There was no way out, and at any minute Mrs Cantrip and her companion might be back.

She looked out of the kitchen window which opened on to the little garden. The rocking chair was on the small square of grass. It looked rather forlorn, lying on its side by the skid marks it had made when it landed.

Rosemary ran out. She picked it up and dusted it with her handkerchief.‘Rocking chair,’ she pleaded, ‘it was very clever of you to bring me here. I expect it is your home, but I want desperately to get tomy home in Cranshaw Road. Please, will you take me there now? If you will, I’ll polish you up so beautifully that the Queen herself would be proud to sit in you!’

She was not sure if she imagined it, but she thought the chair gave a faint rock of its own accord.

‘Now I’ll try and do just what I did before. I said a rhyme, I remember, three times over, and all the while I was rocking.’

Rosemary sat herself in the chair and put her hands over her eyes to help her think, and began to rock. It was a little while before she could make her whirling thoughts obey her.‘It’s not a very good rhyme,’ she said at last, ‘but it will have to do. I can’t think of a better one.’

Anyone who has had to make up a rhyme with the words‘one hundred and one’ in it, will realize her difficulty. She rocked the chair steadily, and at last she gripped the arms firmly and said:

‘Please take me home to Cranshaw Road.

One hundred and one is my abode.

My bedroom window’s open wide,

So kindly take me right inside.’

As she got to the last line, she heard footsteps coming along the pavement on the other side of the wall. It sounded like two people, both of them limping a little.

‘It’s Mrs Cantrip! Someone must have given them a lift!’ said Rosemary to herself. ‘I must hurry!’

She rocked higher and faster, saying the rhyme for a second time. As she reached the last line, she heard a key grating in the lock. It made such a noise that it was clearly as large as a church key. The lock needed oiling.

She said the last line for the third time, and just as the door opened on its creaking hinge, the rocking chair rose from the ground with a swoop, spiralling steeply. She was just wondering if she ought to have added the postal number to the address when it straightened out. She opened her eyes and looked down. Already the little walled garden was no bigger than a green pocket handkerchief beneath her. Straight as an arrow, the chair headed for Cranshaw Road.

10

Making Plans

John and Mrs Brown ate a silent, uncomfortable supper by themselves. He was a truthful boy and, being unable to think of anything better to say, repeated his story of someone having given Rosemary an unexpected lift. The unexpected part was certainly true.

‘But who could it have been?’ asked Mrs Brown anxiously for the tenth time. ‘It’s so unlike Rosemary!’ She broke off, to John’s intense relief, startled by a crash from Rosemary’s bedroom. The room was not much larger than a cupboard, and its only door led into the sitting room. John dropped his pudding spoon and rushed in.

As Rosemary said later, the rocking chair was‘willing but not very good at landing’. When John flung the door open, the chair was lying on its side, and Rosemary, looking slightly dazed, was picking herself up from the floor. With great presence of mind, he pushed the chair behind the door, and stood so that, as far as possible, it was hidden from Mrs Brown. Then, winking violently in an effort to convey that she had better think up something quickly, he said loudly, ‘Hello, Rosie!’

For once Mrs Brown was extremely cross.

‘Rosemary! You are a very naughty girl! I can’t think why you should do something so childish as to hide in your bedroom while I have been so anxious. And what possessed you to leave Mr Featherstone and come home with someone else?’

‘I’m very sorry, Mummy,’ said Rosemary penitently. ‘I really didn’t mean you to be anxious. It was all a mistake, honestly. I promise I won’t ever do it again. Please, just this once,’ she went on earnestly, ‘will you trust me and not ask questions? It is a most particular secret!’

Mrs Brown looked at her daughter’s pleading face for an anxious moment. Then at last she said, ‘You promise the secret is not wrong?’

‘Promise faithfully!’ said Rosemary.

‘Very well, dear. I will trust you. But you must not be inconsiderate either. You have been rude to Mr Featherstone as well as making me anxious. But come and have your supper now, Rosie. It’s in the oven. You must be starving.’

‘Are the kittens all right?’ asked Rosemary, between mouthfuls of fish pie.

‘Right as rain,’ said John. ‘But I think we ought to feed them as soon as possible,’ he went on, winking violently again, hoping that Rosemary would understand that he wanted to talk to her privately.

They had to help wash up after supper, but as soon as the front door closed behind them, Rosemary told John her adventures. He listened open-mouthed.

‘I was in such a tizzy to get away from Mrs Cantrip’s garden that I forgot I wouldn’t be able to explain how I came to be in my bedroom without going through the sitting room. We shall have to think of some way to hide the chair, or Mum will want to know where it came from.’

‘Smuggle it down to the Green Cave for the moment, and cover it with leaves,’ John suggested. ‘ButI’ve got something to tellyou!’

When John described the conversation he had overheard when he was hiding in the half-built house, it was Rosemary’s turn to be impressed.

‘Thank goodness they didn’t catch you!’ she said. ‘Well, it’s quite clear that Mrs Cantrip and that Dibdin woman are hatching some plot with the Queen of the Broomhurst cats. Tudge said that trouble was brewing.’

‘And he thought it was against Fallowhithe!’

‘If they’re meeting tomorrow night on top of the tallest building in Broomhurst, it must be on that new ten-storey block of offices that Mr Featherstone told us about. I’d give my boots for us to be behind a chimney so that we could listen to what they’re up to.’

‘John!’ said Rosemary excitedly. ‘Why shouldn’t we go?’

‘But they’re meeting in the middle of the night. How could we get on to the roof ? The place would be locked up!’

‘Well, said Rosemary, ‘as Mrs Cantrip said, “there’s other ways than walking”!’

‘John whistled. ‘Do you mean the rocking chair? Do you think it could carry us both?’

‘We could ask it in the morning. I think it’s had enough for one day. Come on, let’s feed the kittens.’

It was growing dusk when they reached the greenhouse. When they opened the door an unexpected sight greeted them. Blandamour was sitting on an upturned flower pot, and at her feet were the two kittens, both sitting up as straight and still as their royal mother.

Woppit looked on with her head on one side and a doting expression on her brindled face.‘Hush!’ she said to John and Rosemary. ‘The little darlings is saying their lessons!’

In small, piping voices the kittens were repeating:

‘No paw or whisker in the dish,

Whether meat or fowl or fish…’

Calidor’s voice faltered when a delicious tendril of haddock smell wafted from the plate Rosemary held and tickled his nose.

‘Calidor, pay attention!’ said Blandamour. ‘Each awkward…’

The black kitten sighed, but went on:

‘Each awkward bone be sure to gnaw

Upon the plate, not on the floor.

Lap your milk from out the platter

From the edge, and do not scatter

Drops from either bowl or mug

On quarried floor or silken rug.

Steady lapping, rhythmic, quiet,

Is correct for milky diet.

After food, wash paws and face,

And don’t forget to purr your grace.’

‘Very good, my children. Now you may eat,’ said Blandamour. ‘But remember what you have repeated. Greetings to you, John and Rosemary. My children are well, and if they are closely confined, no doubt you have your reasons!’

‘We certainly have, Your Majesty!’ said John. ‘It’s like this…’

Blandamour listened in silence. Only once did she interrupt to summon a grizzled old tabby cat with four white stockings who was sitting in the shadow of the bushes outside.

‘Merbeck, my cousin and chief councillor,’ she said. ‘He too must hear your tale.’

When the children had finished, she bowed her beautiful white head.

‘You have done well and bravely, and I am grateful. But it will need more courage still to fly to Cat Country and overhear Grisana’s schemings. It may even be dangerous. Merbeck, should we not send a pair of animals instead?’

Merbeck shook his grizzled head.‘I think not, Your Majesty. Grisana is wily in her wickedness. Her sentry will be on the alert for foreign cats, but flying humans they will not expect.’

‘Couldn’t I go too, oh, couldn’t I?’ asked Calidor, standing with his short legs spread out and his tail waving angrily. ‘I’d show ’em!’

‘Me too!’ said Pergamond shrilly.

‘No, my son,’ said Blandamour. ‘One day when you are older you will have many chances to prove how brave you are. Until we find out Grisana’s plans, we do not know where the danger lies.’

‘Therefore, we must go warily and keep our eyes and ears open. Above all, guard the royal kittens!’ said Merbeck. ‘Tomorrow we will come again and hear what you have discovered, and may good luck go with you!’

11

Cat Country

Rosemary kept her promise to the chair the next morning. While John mended the lock of the greenhouse, she carried dusters and furniture polish down to the Green Cave. She rubbed away until her arms ached and the curves of the dark wood of the chair gleamed with little, bright reflections.

‘The Queen herself really would be proud to sit in you now, just as I promised,’ said Rosemary, sitting back on her heels to admire her handiwork.

The chair gave a little rock which seemed to show it was pleased. Or had she caught it with her duster?

‘And I know a real queen who might come and sit in you,’ went on Rosemary. There was another little rock. ‘A cat queen!’

The rocking stopped abruptly.

‘A beautiful, snow-white queen who needs your help,’ she went on hurriedly. ‘Dear rocking chair, you carried me home so splendidly, won’t you help us again? You see –’ Once more she explained about the meeting on the tallest building in Broomhurst.

‘Roofs and walls are Cat Country at night,’ she said. ‘The place will be locked. Our only way to get there is by flying, if only you will take us. I’ll make you –’ she thought quickly – ‘an antimacassar! You know, one of those things to hang over the back – an embroidered one. I promise!’

Rosemary held her breath. There was a moment’s pause, and then the chair gave another little rock.

‘I knew I could rely on you!’ she whispered, and ran back to the flat to get her nightdress case. It would make an excellent chair-back, she felt. Armed with needles and coloured thread, she went back to the greenhouse to tell John of her success.

It was beginning to rain. Woppit was asleep in a corner, her untidy whiskers twitching as she chased dream mice around a shadowy dream cellar. The kittens were playing with something that rolled obligingly round the floor, and John was whistling through his teeth and fiddling with the lock which he had taken to pieces.

‘Good!’ he said absently, when Rosemary told him that she thought the rocking chair would take them.

It was almost cosy in the greenhouse, with the raindrops plopping on the glass roof. They worked away in friendly silence. Rosemary was sewing‘R.C.’ for Rocking Chair in green chain stitch on the nightdress case. She looked up and bit off her thread. ‘Can you really put it together again?’

John looked with a puzzled frown at the bits of lock which he had laid out on the floor.

‘If two screws hadn’t vanished into thin air, I could,’ he snapped. ‘You might try to find them instead of sitting there doing nothing.’

‘I’ve been working twice as hard as you!’ said Rosemary. ‘I’ve been making up a flying rhyme for tonight all the time I’ve been sewing!’ But she put down her work and looked for the screws. ‘They can’t have vanished,’ she said. ‘Have you seen them, kittens?’

Pergamond and Calidor were staring with deep interest at a curled-up wood louse. They looked up, to the wood louse’s relief.

‘Screws?’ asked Calidor. ‘What’s screws?’

‘Do they roll?’ asked Pergamond.

Rosemary nodded.

‘Then they’re down there,’ said Calidor, peering through the pierced pattern of the iron grille covering the pipes under the floor which once had warmed the greenhouse.

‘We were pretending they were mice,’ said Pergamond, ‘so they had to go down a hole.’

Both kittens peered down into the darkness. They could see the hot water pipes, but not the screws.

‘Come on, Rosie, help me pull up the grille!’ said John. They pulled and pulled, but it would not budge.

‘Rusted in, I suppose,’ said John disgustedly. ‘Of all the stupid interfering animals!’

The kittens hung their heads. Rosemary scooped them up and put one on each shoulder. They were so very soft and light! She listened to the quick beating of their hearts.

‘Don’t be cross with them,’ she said, and two small rough tongues rasped her hands gratefully as she lifted them into her lap. ‘They didn’t mean to be a nuisance. I’ll hold them here and keep them out of mischief while you finish.’ The kittens quarrelled drowsily in the hollow of her skirt. John put the lock together again and screwed it to the door. The key turned silently in the newly-oiled works.

‘It looks splendid to me!’ said Rosemary hopefully.

‘My good girl, a lock on the door is not much use without the plate on the doorpost for it to fit into!’

They looked up as footsteps scrunched toward them on the gravel path. It was Mr Featherstone.

‘Hello! I thought I would find you here. Well, this makes a very snug little kitten garden. I’ve been suggesting to your mother that, as it’s wet, we might all four of us go to the pictures this afternoon. There’s a very funny film at the Parthenon, I’m told. What do you say?’

Of course they both said yes.

‘Good. Can’t stop now, see you later,’ said Mr Featherstone, who went whistling down the path. Both John and Rosemary were glad for something to fill in the time before their perilous adventure that night. It seemed to grow more perilous the more they thought about it.

‘We can buy a couple more screws on our way home,’ said John.

‘Come on, it’s time we got cleaned up,’ said Rosemary, looking at his oily hands. ‘We can wedge the door shut till this evening.’

The film was so funny that they saw it twice, quite forgetting about the screws, and when they came blinking out into the daylight with their cheeks still creased with laughter, the shops had closed.

‘Well, the door will just have to stay wedged until tomorrow,’ said John. ‘I expect it’ll be all right.’

‘I hope so,’ said Rosemary anxiously. ‘Don’t forget, eleven thirty sharp in my bedroom.’

Rosemary decided to undress as usual that evening. When Mrs Brown came to say good night, she would notice if her daughter’s clothes were not folded at the foot of the bed.

‘Mother, I do like Mr Featherstone, don’t you?’ asked Rosemary, as her mother tucked her in. ‘It was nice this afternoon when we all had tea together.’

Mrs Brown smoothed the bedspread with unusual care. She laughed, but she did not answer.

‘Go to sleep now, poppet,’ was all she said as she bent to kiss her daughter good night.

Rosemary was determined to do nothing of the sort. Both she and John had decided that, rather than take the risk of oversleeping, it would be wiser to stay awake. But one minute she was going over the rhyme that she had made up for the flying spell, and the next, John was shaking her by the shoulder.

‘Wake up, you owl! It’s twenty to twelve!’ he whispered.

Rosemary shot up from the bedclothes.‘Why ever didn’t you wake me sooner?’

‘I couldn’t,’ said John. ‘Your mother was pottering about in the sitting room for ages, so I couldn’t get through. And then I had to wait till I was pretty certain she was asleep. You haven’t time to dress. Come on, you’ll just have to put on your dressing gown.’

Rosemary tied the cord of her old red dressing gown around her waist and pushed her toes into her shoes. Then she picked up the newly embroidered antimacassar.

‘Let’s go!’ she whispered.

The house was full of small night noises as they crept out. Boards creaked and the curtains stirred in a little breeze. Once John fell over a stool, but Mrs Brown did not seem to wake. They tiptoed down the stairs and out into the moonlit garden.

It was strangely transformed by the pale light, with a magic that had nothing to do with Mrs Cantrip and her kind. The familiar back of the house had become a mysterious palace, with gleaming, moon-touched windows. The blues and purples of the garden had disappeared. Only the pale flowers gleamed silver in the strange light. The tobacco plants raised their white trumpets to the sky and, together with the clumps of white stock, filled the air with a heavy perfume. Jasmine starred the shadowy porch, and the Mermaid rose dropped slow, pale petals on the weedy path. A moth fluttered by, sighing something that Rosemary could not quite hear.

‘John!’ she said. ‘Anything could happen on a night like this!’

‘Well, I’ll tell you whatwill happen if we don’t hurry up,’ said John. ‘We won’t get to that rooftop place until the meeting is over. We should look pretty silly turning up there when they’ve all gone home again.’

He seized Rosemary’s hand, and together they ran down the path, in and out of light and shadow.

‘It’s us, chair! John and me!’ called Rosemary softly when they reached the Green Cave.

They dived into the moon-chequered darkness under the currant bushes.

‘I’ve brought it. I promised I would! The antimacassar, I mean,’ said Rosemary. ‘I embroidered your initials on it specially,’ she said proudly, as she tied it on to the back of the chair with two hair ribbons. The chair seemed to give a pleased little jump as Rosemary fluffed out the bows.

‘For goodness’ sake!’ said John impatiently. ‘I bet that rocking chair is a female the way it carries on about its appearance,’ he growled. ‘No male chair would be so soppy!’

‘Hush,’ said Rosemary quickly. The chair had stopped rocking abruptly. ‘I hope you haven’t hurt its feelings.’

John was not listening.

‘You sit on the seat,’ he said, as they carried it from the shelter of the bushes and stood it on the garden path. ‘I’ll stand on the rockers behind and hold on to the back.’

Rosemary opened her mouth to say something, but John said,‘Do hurry! There’s no time to argue.’

She sat cautiously in the chair and held firmly on to the arms. It was lucky she did. Neither of them knew quite how it happened, but no sooner had John balanced on the rockers behind her than the chair gave a lurch and overbalanced. Rosemary had not far to fall, but John picked himself up ruefully with a grazed knee.

‘I thought you’d offended it!’ said Rosemary. ‘Do say you’re sorry and then we can get on. It must be growing awfully late.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry!’ growled John. ‘I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings!’

The chair bridled slightly. John dabbed at his knee with a handkerchief, which even in the moonlight looked grubby. Then, very gingerly, he squashed into the seat beside Rosemary. They could just manage it.

‘Now then, we must rock with our feet and hope for the best!’ said Rosemary. ‘Together! One! Two!’ The chair rocked, reluctantly at first, then, as Rosemary repeated the rhyme she had prepared, settled into a steady, swinging motion.

‘In Broomhurst Town we want to find

The tallest roof, if you don’t mind.

We’ll sit as quiet as anything,

And ever more your praises sing.’

Higher and higher swung the chair, and as Rosemary repeated the rhyme for the third time, it rose smoothly from the ground, up into the moon-washed air. It spiralled high above Cranshaw Road, then turned sharply in the direction of Broomhurst.

‘Yoicks! Tally ho!’ shouted John, bouncing up and down on the seat. ‘This is simply wonderful!’

Rosemary’s plaits streamed behind with their speed. Below them lay the sleeping town, a huddle of silver roofs. Or were they roofs? The sharp angles of gables and chimneys seemed softened in the moonlight.

‘If I didn’t know they were roofs I should think they were hills and valleys,’ shouted John above the wind.

‘So would I!’ agreed Rosemary. ‘Those moving dots must be cats!’

They were flying high now, following the string of pale green street lights that lit the main road to Broomhurst like a string of precious stones. As if uncertain of its way the chair swooped down, casting uncomfortably this way and that at the edge of the town.

‘That’s the way!’ said John pointing to the left. ‘I can see the lane leading to Figg’s Bottom, and there are the newly built houses! That’s the one I hid in! Good heavens, they’ve built a lot since yesterday! Good old rocking chair!’

The chair had risen sharply again after turning obediently in the direction of John’s pointing finger.

‘What if we can’t find which is the tallest building?’ called John. ‘We can’t measure them!’

Far away, a clock chimed midnight.

‘Oh, do hurry,dear chair!’ said Rosemary, and the chair redoubled its speed.

Fortunately there was no mistaking the tallest building. Until recently, Broomhurst had been a sleepy, old-fashioned little town like Fallowhithe. The coming of new industries had brought new life and new ways. So far, only a small section near the railway station had been modernized. There was a department store and a hospital, as well as flats and office buildings. The old-fashioned roof tops which looked like foothills huddled around the base of the mountainous new buildings, the tallest of which was undoubtedly a block of offices. A breeze had sprung up, and little clouds were scudding across the face of the moon.

‘Bother!’ said Rosemary. ‘Now we can’t see properly!’

‘It’s not a bad thing really,’ said John. ‘It may give us more chance of landing without being spotted. The old chair ought to –’

Rosemary nudged him sharply.

He added hastily,‘I mean if thedear rocking chair wouldkindly circle around so we can spot a good landing place, when the moon is covered, we could land without being seen. It’s after twelve, so Mrs Cantrip will have arrived. Even if they have posted cats as sentries, they will be off their guard because they won’t expect anyone else.’

Already the chair was circling the building.

‘That looks like a good place!’ said John. ‘Behind that ventilator shaft. The moon is just going behind a cloud. Now!’

The chair rose sharply, then with a sickening swoop dropped toward the ventilator shaft, which seemed to spin up toward them as they swung down.

‘We will make such a clatter when we land that everyone will hear for miles!’ thought Rosemary desperately, and she closed her eyes, waiting for the shock.

The chair landed fair and square on its rockers, with a jolt that shook the teeth in their heads. Oddly enough, it was a silent landing. The two children climbed out rather shakily. The rocking chair still swayed slightly, as if it were out of breath. The moonlight flooded the sky once more and illuminated the roof top.

‘But these aren’t slates and chimneys!’ said John looking at the soft grass at his feet. ‘I thought this was a ventilator shaft, but it’s nothing of the sort. It’s a tree!’

‘Cat Country!’ said Rosemary softly. ‘That’s what Carbonel called it. Hush! I can hear someone talking!’

12

Conspiracy

John put a restraining hand on Rosemary’s arm.

‘It may be Cat Country, but they are enemy cats. We can’t rush in without spying out the land first!’

Rosemary nodded. Then she turned to the rocking chair.

‘Chair, dear! Thank you for bringing us so splendidly!’ she whispered.

‘Yes, rather!’ said John. ‘Almost as good as a jet.’

‘And much, much more quietly!’ added Rosemary quickly. ‘Wait for us, chair. I don’t think anyone will see you tucked away here. We won’t be long, at least I hope not.’

‘Come on!’ said John. ‘Bother, it’s gone dark again.’

They waited till the trailing wisp of cloud had drifted across the face of the moon and the silver light flooded out. The tree they had thought was a ventilator shaft seemed to have redoubled its size. The trunk was wide and strong and scored with the claw sharpenings of innumerable cats. Crouching on the little bank where the tree grew, they peered through tall grass and catnip which grew thickly along the top. On the other side, the bank sloped steeply down to a little hollow from which a stream bubbled. It chuckled along, winding and weed-fringed, toward a thicket of slender trees, where it disappeared underground, still talking to itself.

‘It doesn’t look like water. It’s white,’ said Rosemary.

But John was not listening.‘If this is Cat Country, it’s funny there isn’t a cat to be seen!’ he said.

‘There are the voices again!’ whispered Rosemary.

‘Cross voices they sound, too!’ said John. ‘That’s where they come from, that little clump of trees. Come on. We’d better not take any risks, even if we can’t see any cats. Keep your head down and follow me!’

The ground was broken by low patches of undergrowth. Crouching low, they crept down the bank and made their way in a series of little runs from bush to bush. When they reached the last one large enough to hide behind, they were within easy reach of the trees. Rosemary was just going to stretch her cramped back when John pulled her down again.

‘Look at that rock a few feet away!’ he breathed. Rosemary looked. On the top, sitting so still that he might have been part of it, was a cat. His eyes were the merest slits of emerald green. As they looked, the slits disappeared altogether. His eyes were closed. At the same time, a second cat leaped up on to the rock beside him. Instantly the green eyes opened wide.

‘It’s all right, Noggin!’ said the first cat hurriedly. ‘I was only having a little think, and I can always do it better with my eyes closed.’

‘No good sentrythinks,’ growled Noggin. ‘I suppose, like all the others I’ve just inspected, you were thinking there’s no need to keep your eyes open because the Flying Women are here. Well, you’re wrong! There may be two more about, enemy ones, a Flying Boy and a Flying Girl.’ John nudged Rosemary. ‘Her Royal Greyness has just sent word.’

‘I don’t hold with humans in Cat Country,’ said Swabber sulkily. ‘It’s never been done before, and I don’t like it.’

‘No more than I do,’ said Noggin. ‘But orders is orders. And if the next sentry is “thinking”, I’ll just pull his whiskers for him!’

Still grumbling, Noggin slipped silently off the rock and loped away across the moonlit grass.

Swabber waited until he was out of sight, and muttering something about‘a lot of fuss’, curled up and promptly went to sleep.

‘Now!’ whispered John with his mouth so close to Rosemary’s ear that it tickled.

They crept from the shadow of the bush, thankful for the covering noise of the little stream, and once around the rock they ran to the shelter of the thicket. Just as they reached it, Rosemary stumbled.

‘Ow!’ she exclaimed.

‘Shut up!’ hissed John.

‘It’s all very well!’ whispered Rosemary indignantly, hopping up and down and holding her shin. ‘I stepped on something crackly, and it bit me!’

They looked down. There on the grass was a broom. It was made from a bundle of twigs bound on to a handle, the sort that is used by gardeners– and witches. It was tethered to one of the little trees.

‘It must be the new broom Miss Dibdin made, and they must have both ridden on it after all!’ said Rosemary.

The voices sounded very close now. John and Rosemary crept from tree to tree, hardly daring to breathe, until John put out a warning hand. Looking over his shoulder, Rosemary saw a small open space in the middle of the thicket. In the centre was a tree stump, and on it sat what was clearly Her Royal Greyness. She was a beautiful, grey Persian cat with brilliant green eyes. There were several other animals grouped around her, sitting among the plants which grew thickly in the little clearing. The green eyes turned restlessly from one to the other of the two women seated on a low rock in front of her.

Mrs Cantrip and Miss Dibdin, quite undisturbed by their royal company, were arguing hotly. Mrs Cantrip had lost a shoe again, and her lank hair had escaped from the very large pins which usually kept it fairly tidy, but she seemed quite unruffled. Miss Dibdin, on the other hand, was clearly in a bad temper. Her hat was crooked and her trim suit was rumpled and untidy. While the children watched, she took off her hat and tried to readjust her bun.

‘If you didn’t enjoy it, it’s your own fault,’ Mrs Cantrip was saying. ‘You would come, though I warned you, and you made the broom yourself, so I don’t see you’ve anything to grumble about. As I told you, it takes years to train a broomstick to fly smooth and obedient with only one person up, let alone two!’

Miss Dibdin muttered something indistinctly because her mouth was full of hairpins.

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‘Ah, I’ve known some broomsticks in my time,’ said Mrs Cantrip. ‘I had one once – McShuttle it was called – made of the best Scottish heather. A beautiful, smooth movement it had.’ Her eyes had a faraway look in them, and she went on in a singsong voice, ‘From Pole to Pole we went once, in a single night, without so much as a jolt or jar, and obedient –’

‘Oh, I know!’ interrupted Miss Dibdin crossly. ‘It singed its tail in the Northern Lights, and you never knew till you got home again. You’ve told me dozens of times. I’m sure I said all the things over my broom you told me to, when I bound the twigs on, and I used all the Flying Philtre there was. There’s not a drop left. Now if only the rocking chair –’

‘The rocking chair!’ said Mrs Cantrip with withering scorn. ‘Armchair flying! Soft, all you young witches nowadays! Do you think I’d be seen dead in it if I had not gone out of business? Not I! Now, when I was young –!’

‘Ladies, ladies!’ broke in the voice of Queen Grisana. It was a soft languid voice. ‘Let us have no unpleasantness! There is nothing I dislike so much. Now let us have a cosy little chat together and I will tell you why I have summoned you.’

The voice seemed always to have a slight purr behind it, but the green eyes flashed hard and brilliant from one to the other.

‘It seemed to me that we might strike a bargain. I can be frank, because there is no danger of our being overheard. I have forbidden my people to use this high place tonight. It can be reached only by two paths which are closely guarded. My sentries will give instant warning if they see anything unusual. These children you mentioned, have you any reason to suspect that they know anything of our meeting?’

‘The meddlesome brats are the only ones who could get here. They’ve stolen my Flying Chair. I’m uneasy in my bones. Reliable my bones is, as a rule,’ said Mrs Cantrip.

‘Then let us be quick in what we have to say,’ purred the grey cat. She lowered her voice, so that the children had to lean forward to hear her. ‘And what we say must never go further than this clump of trees. Now listen carefully!’