Carbonel and Calidor (7 page)

‘But if you're in danger here, why do you stay?' said Rosemary.

‘Come closer, and I'll tell you,' said Crumpet. He looked cautiously round while John and Rosemary knelt down beside the seat. Then he lifted his chin and said proudly: ‘I want to make my own way. Show the world I can stand on my own paws. Not because I'm Carbonel's son and a royal cat, but because I'm
me
, Calidor or Crumpet. Call me what you like. I have decided to become a witch's cat.' He dropped his voice again. ‘
She
is learning to be a witch.' He nodded sideways towards the Ladies' Waiting Room. ‘So we can both learn together.'

‘I don't think I should like to belong to Miss Dibdin,' said Rosemary.

‘Who said anything about “belonging”?' replied Calidor indignantly. ‘Mattins and I have our plans, I tell you. He has decided to be witch's cat to the other one at Tucket Towers. He knows nothing of my royal blood, of course. But keep out of this, Hearing Humans, for your own good! I must go. I have important things to see to.'

As he spoke, Calidor jumped down from the seat, slipped over the edge of the platform and crossed the weedy track below. When he reached the tangle of grass and cow-parsley the other side, he turned.

‘Keep out of this!' he called, and with a flick of his tail he disappeared. Without thinking, Rosemary slipped the ring into her pocket. When they could no longer follow Calidor's progress through the field by the waving of the long grass, John said crossly: ‘What cheek, telling us what we ought to do! He's as bad as Carbonel!'

As he spoke, there was a clatter behind them. They turned quickly. Someone or something had upset the two milk bottles.

‘Look!' said John. ‘That grey cat streaking down the platform!'

‘It must be Mattins!' said Rosemary.

‘Hi, Mattins!' called John. ‘Mattins!' But either the grey cat did not hear, or didn't want to hear. He disappeared round the corner of the station.

‘Oh well,' said John. ‘I suppose we ought to go and take that leaflet to Tucket Towers.'

‘Do we have to?' said Rosemary uneasily. ‘I don't think I want to meet this Mrs Witherspoon much. One witch is quite enough for today!'

‘I know,' said John. ‘But we promised Uncle Zack we would. We could go by Miss Dibdin's short cut.'

‘Don't let's!' said Rosemary. ‘We might meet her coming back.'

‘All right,' said John. ‘I shouldn't much like that either. We can go by the road, drop the leaflet through the letterbox, and run.'

They set off the way they had come, eating the remains of the sandwiches and the rock cakes as they went. When they reached the crossroads, the road-man had gone home to his tea. Four lamps, already lit, stood at the corners of the hole. Instead of taking the road back to the village they turned to the left towards Tucket Towers and crossed the bridge that spanned the old railway line.

The brief burst of sunshine was gone. The clouds were even darker than before. A chill little breeze had sprung up, and Rosemary pushed her cold hands deep into her pockets. The sky was so overcast that a car coming over the hump of the bridge had its lights on. They stood back as it passed.

‘Did you see how it made the cat's eyes in the road light up?' said John.

Rosemary nodded, and poked one of the small rubbery squares with the toe of her shoe. The glass ‘eyes' which had shone so brightly as the car approached were dull now, and lifeless.

‘It's a super idea!' said John, looking at the row of studs marking the middle of the road stretching ahead of them. ‘I mean having “eyes” back and front to reflect the light when a car comes either way.'

‘Yes, but what for?' said Rosemary.

‘To show where the middle of the road is when it's dark, of course,' said John. ‘Didn't you know? Really Rosie, you are a prize ass sometimes!'

Rosemary flushed. ‘Well anyway, I don't think they ought to be called cat's eyes,' she said. ‘They look more like a row of little crabs squatting down in the road.'

‘Don't be silly,' said John. ‘Crab's eyes don't light up in the dark like cat's eyes.'

‘But they only light up for a second when a car passes,' said Rosemary. ‘All the rest of the time they sit in their holes in the roads looking like little square crabs.'

‘Cats!' said John.

‘Crabs!' said Rosemary.

‘Cats!' said John with an infuriating grin, and quite suddenly Rosemary completely lost her temper.

‘Stop it!' she burst out. ‘Stop it! You're always being a know-all!' She stamped her feet in rage. ‘You don't like Carbonel and Crumpet bossing you. Well, I don't like you always bossing me! You go on making me shut up when I'm going to say something. I'm quite sore where you keep poking me with your bony great elbow. I say they're like crabs!'

‘All right. Keep your hair on!' began John. But Rosemary was thoroughly roused, and she swept on.

‘I wish they'd come alive. I do! I do! I do!' And each time she said ‘I do' she stamped her foot. ‘I wish they'd come alive, and that would just show you!'

She stopped suddenly, interrupted by a loud ‘pop'! It seemed to come from somewhere between her feet. She stepped back hurriedly.

‘Look at the stud,' said John. ‘It's moving!'

Rosemary looked.

It was the one she had poked with her foot. It had come loose from the metal rim which kept it in its place, and was moving up and down, of its own accord, in a jerky sort of way. Then, to Rosemary's astonishment, it tilted so that the glass ‘eyes' in front were looking up at her, and at the same time, two rather bandy legs unfolded themselves from the two front corners, waved wildly in the air, scrabbled for a second on the metal rim, then, helped by two more legs growing from the corners at the back, heaved the stud clean out of its square hole. For a minute it stood flexing its legs as though to get the stiffness out of them. Then it scuttled towards Rosemary, bouncing up and down at her feet and making little squeaks of what seemed like pleasure.

All this took much less time than it takes to describe, and before the little creature had reached her there was a second ‘pop'!

‘Crikey, there's another! And another!
And
another!' said John. ‘It's like a machine-gun going off “Pop! Pop! Pop!” ' One by one the line of studs running away down the middle of the road rose from their holes and scuttled up to Rosemary, till she was surrounded by a bouncing horde of them: their glass ‘eyes' glinting back and front as they all jumped up and down, as a dog does when it is pleased to see you, and all of them twittering, like a cage full of sparrows.

‘You see,' said Rosemary with lifted chin. ‘It proves I'm right. They aren't like cats!'

‘Or much like crabs either,' said John shortly.

‘I don't see why they have to be like anything,' went on Rosemary. ‘I think they are just themselves. I shall call them ...' She stopped and looked thoughtfully at the swarming mass at her feet. ‘I know. I shall call them the Scrabbles ... because they are a bit like crabs, and they ... sort of scrabble with their paws.'

‘All right. Call them what you like,' said John in an exasperated voice. ‘They hop about so, I can't count them, but there must be dozens of the things! I suppose you've made your point. P'raps they do look more like crabs than cats. But what are we going to do with them now?'

The first flush of Rosemary's triumph at having proved John wrong for once had begun to ebb away.

‘It's going to be a bit awkward if they are prancing about all over the place when it gets dark,' went on John. ‘How are cars to know where the middle of the road is? Can't you make them go back again?'

‘I suppose I can try,' replied Rosemary doubtfully. She thought for a moment, and then she said to the Scrabbles in her best polite voice: ‘Of course we are both very pleased to have met you, but hadn't you better be going home now? I mean back to your holes?' She made flapping go-away movements with her hands. The Scrabbles stopped bouncing, and shuffled together in a tight little group, and their twittering dropped to a sad little moan. Then, as if they had come to a decision among themselves, they sat firmly down where they were, their front eyes glinting up at Rosemary, and their back eyes, on which of course they were sitting, protected from the dust and dirt of the road by their back paws which they folded underneath them.

‘Well, that hasn't worked,' said John.

‘Could we pick them up one by one and put them back in their holes?' said Rosemary doubtfully. But she made no move to do it.

Reluctantly John stooped down, and gingerly stretched out his hand to the nearest Scrabble. Just as he was about to pick it up, quick as lightning, it turned and nipped him on the thumb.

‘Ow! That hurt!' he said.

The creatures were silent now, but very watchful.

‘Well,' said John. ‘I don't see what else we can do. Maybe they'll go back of their own accord if we leave them to it. Let's go home,' he went on. ‘I vote we put off going to Tucket Towers till tomorrow. It must be getting frightfully late.'

Rosemary agreed. They turned to go back to Highdown with a feeling of relief. But the relief was short lived. They had only gone a few yards before there was a shrill, excited twittering, and the Scrabbles came streaming after them, their feet pattering on the hard road with a sound like the keys of forty typewriters all typing together.

‘That's torn it!' said John. ‘If they want to follow I don't see how we can stop them.'

‘But if they come home with us, what shall we do with them? And what on earth will Uncle Zack and Mrs Bodkin say?' said Rosemary. ‘If we tell them they are road studs come alive, they'll have a fit. Isn't there somewhere we can hide them till we can think of some plan?'

‘There's probably some ghastly law about stealing road studs,' said John gloomily.

‘Let me think,' he went on desperately, his fists clenched against his forehead. ‘I know,' he said at last. ‘Once we've got them home, we can shut them in that old shed at the bottom of the garden, where Uncle Zack used to keep hens. Nobody ever goes there.'

‘But we can't go through the village with a pack of Scrabbles squeaking and squawking behind us!' said Rosemary.

‘Well then, we shall just have to go
round
the village. I think I can find the way. But it'll take much longer, so we'd better get going. Come on!'

They set off at a brisk pace, with the Scrabbles, twittering excitedly, streaming behind them.

I
T
was a weary, untidy pair who at last reached home. It took a great deal longer than they expected, to find their way round the village. Once, they got lost in a small wood, and had to crawl through a thicket to find the path again. Twice, they had to climb a wall. Rosemary's half-hope that they would lose the Scrabbles on the way came to nothing. As they reached each obstacle, their twittering grew a little agitated, but after some excited scurrying to and fro, they squeezed themselves over, under or through everything in their way, to join John and Rosemary the other side, squeaking with renewed vigour at their cleverness.

Once, when they were on a well-marked path, they heard someone coming towards them. The only way the Scrabbles could be persuaded to hide in a rather muddy ditch was to crouch down in it themselves, till the danger was past.

It was nearly dark when they reached home.

‘Just as well,' said John. ‘Uncle Zack wouldn't notice what we looked like anyway, but Mother Boddles will want to know exactly how we've got in such a mess if she spots us before we can clean up a bit.'

‘As soon as we've shut the Scrabbles up, we can sneak in through the side door,' said Rosemary.

It was easier said than done to persuade the creatures to go into the shed. When they tried to shoo them in, they stood stock still, muttering suspiciously.

‘It's no good,' said John. ‘It's you they always follow: you'll have to go in first, then nip out quickly when they are all inside and I'll slam the door behind you.'

It took quite a lot of courage for Rosemary to walk into the dark shed with the Scrabbles twittering round her feet. She could not see them clearly, but she could feel them tickling her ankles as they jostled their way in beside her. When a quick glance over her shoulder showed that the last one was through the opening, before they realized what she was doing, she turned, and with a flying leap escaped from the shed. Instantly John slammed the door behind her. Rosemary leaned against it with a sigh of relief.

‘Good old Rosie!' said John.

‘But I feel such a
pig
!' said Rosemary. ‘Tricking them like that when they were trusting us. Listen! They're squeaking so unhappily. Will they be all right? Do you think they're hungry?'