The Kingdom of Carbonel

16

Invisible

‘Don’t be so silly!’ said John crossly.

‘It’s not silly, you are invisible!’ said Rosemary, and she put out her hand to see if she could feel him. To her relief she could. He felt reassuringly warm and solid.

‘Well, you needn’t put your finger in my eye!’ he said.

‘Oh, my dears, how exciting!’ said Miss Dibdin, her depression forgotten. ‘An invisible boy! Who would have thought I could do it!’

‘Well, I certainly wish you hadn’t!’ said John. ‘What on earth is going to happen to me now?’

‘It’s a pity I can’t make the counter-spell, of course,’ said Miss Dibdin, ‘but I expect you’ll soon get accustomed to it, dear. It may even have its uses, you know!’

‘I don’t want to get accustomed to it,’ said John, sulkily, and then he went on in quite a different voice, ‘But pr’aps you’re right! I may find it quite useful!’ His voice came from somewhere near the hearth rug, as though he was stooping to pick something up.

‘Now then,’ he went on. ‘Suppose you tell us where the royal kittens are hidden!’

This time his voice came, unexpectedly, a few inches from Miss Dibdin’s ear, and she started uncomfortably.

‘They aren’t hidden,’ she said, ‘and although I’m grateful to you for taking such an active part in my little experiment, it’s as much as my life is worth to tell you where the kittens are. Personally I’m thankful to be rid of them.’ She rubbed her scratched hands tenderly as she spoke.

‘Well, if you don’t tell us,’ said John, ‘I might have to make you invisible, too. There is just about enough of the mixture left at the bottom of the saucepan!’

Rosemary turned to where a paper-thin pale-green disc lay on the hearth rug. She supposed this was all that was left at the bottom of the invisible saucepan. Fascinated, she watched it rise from the floor and heard John’s voice keeping pace with it as it advanced toward the retreating figure of Miss Dibdin. The liquid frothed and winked in a hundred bubbles as John twirled the invisible pan. Miss Dibdin had her back against the wall now, and above her head the mixture had taken the shape of something that is just about to be poured.

‘No!’ she said, putting up her hands to ward it off. ‘No! No! I don’t want to be invisible.’

‘I expect you’d get accustomed to it!’ said John. ‘And it may even have its uses! That’s what you said to me, you know. But I won’t do it if you tell me what you’ve done with the kittens!’

‘All right! All right! I’ll tell all I know, if you’ll only put the saucepan down!’

Almost as anxiously as Miss Dibdin, Rosemary watched the green liquid right itself to a disc again and sink slowly on to the table. Miss Dibdin tottered across the room and sat heavily on the bed whose broken, but invisible springs jangled in protest.

‘I’ll tell you all I know, but it’s not very much,’ she said. ‘Katie went off to sell them both this afternoon, somewhere in Broomhurst, because she said no one was likely to look for them there, and she might as well make a bit of money out of them. When I asked her where she was taking them she just laughed and said something about two pins in a packet, and two peas in a peck. That’s all I know about it,’ she ended sulkily.

‘Thank you!’ said John. ‘Come on, Rosie.’

The handle of the door seemed to turn of its own accord, and the door itself swung open. Wide-eyed, Rosemary squeezed through as much as possible to one side. The door closed behind them.

‘You needn’t behave as though I had the plague!’ said John as they went down the uneven stairs. ‘Being invisible may have its uses, but it’s jolly unpleasant.’

‘Oh, John, I’m so sorry!’ Rosemary felt for his hand, and in the dimness of the little downstairs room she threw her arms around him and gave him a hug, a thing that ordinarily she would not have dreamed of doing.

‘All right! All right!’ said John uncomfortably. ‘You needn’t choke me!’ But he said it in a voice that sounded comforted. ‘Come on, you old Rosie!’

They opened the front door and went out into the sunlit street.

‘Let’s get home as quickly as possible,’ said Rosemary to the sound of John’s feet padding beside her. ‘I’m glad you didn’t do it, you know. I mean, I don’t like Miss Dibdin much when you can see her, but invisible –! You don’t think she’ll start brewing any more from that book of hers, do you?’

‘She won’t!’ said John cheerfully.

‘But if she can make it uninvisible again?’

‘It wouldn’t help her much if she could, because she hasn’t got it any longer. I picked it up from the hearth rug where it had fallen. But, of course, you couldn’t either of you see it. And, my good girl, if you used your eyes you’d see that I’ve got the remains of the invisible mixture, too! She’s done quite enough mischief with it already.’

Rosemary backed away nervously as the pale green circle floated toward her. ‘Here, you’d better carry the saucepan. This book needs both arms,’ said John. Rosemary felt gingerly for his arm and slid her fingers down on to the handle.

‘But can you read it and find the counter-spell so that you can stop being invisible?’ she persisted.

‘Of course I can! Let’s find somewhere quiet where we can sit down and I can have a look!’

‘I’d much rather go home,’ said Rosemary.

‘I dare say, but you aren’t invisible,’ said John tartly.

A man in a bowler hat, carrying a brief case, bumped heavily into him and looked after them in a puzzled way.

‘Oh, do come on!’ said Rosemary. ‘Poor man, it must be horrible to walk into an invisible boy.’

‘And it’s pretty horrible for an invisible boy to be walked into by a great hulking visible man. He trod on my foot, but I don’t get any sympathy. Oh, no!’

Rosemary began hotly, ‘Well anyway –’ and then she stopped. ‘Oh, don’t let’s squabble. If ever there was a time to stick together, it’s now. Come on. Let’s cross the road and go into the public gardens over there. We can sit on the steps of the statue.’

‘If somebody thought they were going to sit on a seat and found themselves sitting on an invisible me, I should think they’d go potty,’ said John gloomily.

Keeping close together they crossed the road. It was a small garden, bright with flower beds. In the centre was the statue of a departed benefactor of Fallowhithe. He stood forever leaning on a marble column. There were several mothers sitting on the wooden seats near by, knitting and gossiping in the sunshine, while their small children slept in prams or played around them.

‘How silly marble trousers look!’ said Rosemary.

‘Never mind the statue!’ said John, and pulled her down beside him on the top step. She put out her hand, and although she could not see it she felt the powdery leather of the book’s ancient binding and the little breeze made by the paper as John hurriedly flicked the pages over.

‘It’s terribly difficult to read,’ he said. ‘The writing is all cramped and spidery. Now then, “Iniquity, invective,”’ he read. ‘Ah, here it is. “Invisibility”.’

‘Go on, read it!’ said Rosemary, and John read out slowly. ‘“First take the pan or pipkin formerly used for the Brew of Invisibility, and scour it thoroughly. Put in it seven eggshells full of water, so clear that it doth appear not to be there, and in the water place some transparent substance that by boiling will consume itself. When the water is at the boil, then by the light of a dwindled candle, seethe it until it shall have disappeared, stirring the meantime widdershins, and intoning this incantation…”

‘Don’t let’s bother about the incantation now,’ went on John. ‘What does “widdershins” mean?’

‘Widdershins means counterclockwise, like this,’ said Rosemary, and she stirred an imaginary saucepan.

‘I don’t think it does,’ said John. ‘It means the other way.’

‘No, this way!’ said Rosemary impatiently.

‘I bet it doesn’t,’ said John. ‘And what does “intoning” mean?’

‘It means singing, like this,’ and she proceeded to show him. ‘More or less li-i-i-ke this, like they do in chur-ur-urch!’

She stood up the better to show what stirring widdershins meant and intoned. ‘And anyway, I thi-i-i-ink we’d better go home to di-i-i-inner!’

She broke off as a soothing voice behind her said, ‘Yes, dearie, I should. The very best thing you can do!’

She turned around. Looking up at her were three of the mothers.

‘Poor little thing! Talking to herself and waving her arms about,’ said one. ‘I noticed her when she came in, and I thought then she looked a bit queer,’ said another.

‘I don’t look queer!’ said Rosemary indignantly.

‘They ought not to let her out alone!’ said a little old woman with a bulging shopping basket. ‘They do say that talking to yourself is –’

‘But I wasn’t talking to myself,’ Rosemary broke in.

‘Then who were you talking to, dear?’ said the first woman, in a voice that was meant to soothe, but only maddened Rosemary.

‘Why, to John!’ she said unwarily. ‘He’s sitting beside me on the steps here, only you can’t see him, he’s invisible. Oh, don’t pull my skirt!’ she went on, ignoring John’s warning tweak, and pushing away the hand that no one could see.

A short fat woman nodded to her tall friend. ‘I thought so, poor kid,’ she said. ‘I’ll go and fetch a taxi, and you and Mrs Podbury see she doesn’t come to any harm while I’m gone. Look after baby, Ida!’ she called over her shoulder, and bustled off.

By this time a crowd of people had collected from nowhere, as crowds do, surrounding the statue and agreeing that it was a shame and that something ought to be done about it.

‘Now you’ve done it!’ said John under cover of the hum of discussion.

‘Whatever shall we do?’ said Rosemary desperately. Her face was red and her voice shook, but nothing would have made her give way to tears in front of so many people all oozing with unwanted sympathy.

‘I don’t know,’ whispered John. ‘But I’ll stand by you!’ and the hand he slipped into hers gave a heartening squeeze.

From their vantage point on the steps they could see over the heads of the crowd. A taxi had stopped just outside the entrance, and the short fat mother was hurrying toward them.

‘Somehow we’ve got to create a diversion!’ said John.

‘Whatever’s that?’ asked Rosemary.

‘You’ll soon see!’ answered John. ‘Here, give me the saucepan!’

‘For goodness’ sake, don’t make somebody else invisible!’ said Rosemary in alarm.

‘Not somebody, something!’ said John from between tight lips. ‘It’s the only way!’

Mrs Podbury was advancing from the crowd.

‘Now just tell me where you live, dear, and we’ll take you home in a nice taxi!’ she said in a cooing voice.

But Rosemary did not have to answer. With a twist of his wrist John tipped the remaining green liquid over the marble statue. There was a little hiss, and suddenly the steps were there, the pedestal was there, but the statue of Sir Bartle Boole, J.P., had vanished into thin air.

There was a moment’s pause and then a gasp rose from the crowd, which wavered and fell back.

‘I think it’s time we went home to dinner!’ said the short fat mother faintly, and seizing her pram in one hand and the protesting Ida in the other, hurried away.

It suddenly seemed that no one in the crowd wanted to meet the eye of anyone else.

‘Quick!’ said John as the crowd began to melt. ‘Now’s our chance! Scram!’

Together they ran for the gate. Rosemary looked back once. The knot of people had disappeared as completely as the statue of Sir Bartle Boole, J.P. They dashed past the taxi, whose driver was looking angrily around for his fare, down the road and around the corner as fast as they could go.

‘Let’s go home!’ panted John, ‘before anything else happens! What a morning!’