Enid Blyton (14 page)

XIV

The more the children looked at the three questions
on
the board, the more they felt certain they
could never answer them. Moon-Face turned to
Connie. "
Quick! Tell us the right answers. You
said you were good at lessons."

Connie read the first question. "Three black-birds sat on a cherry tree. They ate one hundred
and
twenty
-three
of the cherries. How many were
left?"

"Well, how can we say, unless we know how
many there were in the beginning?" said Connie,
out loud. "What a silly question!"

J
o read the next one out loud. "If there are a
hundred pages in a book, how many books would
there be on the shelf?"

"The questions are just nonsense," said Moon-Face, gloomily.

"They were before, when we were here," said
J
o.

The third question was very short.
J
o read it
out. "Why is a blackboard?"

"Why is a blackboard!" repeated Silky. "There
is no sense in that question either."

"Wel
l
—the questions are nonsense, so we
’
ll
put down answers that are nonsense," said
Jo
.

So they put down "none" about how many
cherries were left on the tree. Then they read the
book-question again. And again they put down
"none"

"We are not told that the shelf was a book-shelf," said
J
o. "It might be a shelf for ornaments,
or a bathroom shelf for glasses and tooth-brushes
and things. There wouldn
’
t be any books there."

The third question was a puzzler. "Why is a
blackboard?"

J
o ran out of his place and rubbed out the two
last words. He wrote them again-—and then the
question read "Why is a board black?"

"We can easily answer that," said
J
o, with a grin.
“Why is a bo
ard black? So that we can write
on
it with white chalk!"

So, when Dame Slap came back, the only
people who had answered all the questions were
J
o, Silky, Moon-Face and Connie! Dame Slap
beamed at them.

"Dear me, I have some clever children at last!"
she said. "You have written answers to all the
questions."

"Then they are right?" asked Silky, in wonder.

"I
don
’
t know," said Dame Slap. "But that
doesn
’
t matter. It
’
s
the answers I want. I don
’
t
care what
’
s in them, so long as you have written
answers. I don
’
t know the answers myself, so it
’
s
no good my reading them."

Then Moon-Face undid all the good they had
done by giving an extremely rude snort. "Pooh!
What a silly school this is! Fancy giving people
questions if you don
’
t know the answers! Pooh!"

"Don
’
t
'
pooh
'
at me like that!" said Dame Slap,
getting angry all of a sudden. "Go to bed! Off to
bed with you for the rest of the day!"

"But—but," began poor Moon-Face, in alarm,
wishing he had not spoken, "but . . ."

"You
’
ll turn into a goat in a minute, if you are
so full of
'
buts
'
," said Dame Slap, and she pushed
Moon-Face out of the door. She drove the others
out too, and took them to a small bedroom, in
which were four tiny beds, very hard and narrow.

"Now, into bed you get, and nothing but bread
and water for you all day long. I will not have
rudeness in my school
!
"

She shut the door and locked it. Moon-Face
looked at the others in dismay. "I
’
m sorry I made
her do this," he said. "Very sorry. But really,
she did make me feel so cross. Do you think we
’
d
better go to bed? She might smack us hard if we
don
’
t."

Connie leapt into bed at once, fully dressed
as she was. She wasn
’
t going to risk Dame Slap
coming back and slapping her! The others did the
same. They drew the sheets up to their chins
and lay there gloomily. This was a horrid
adventure—
just when they had so much looked
forward to coming out to tea too.

"I wonder what Bessie and Fanny are doing,"
said Moon-Face. "Cooking hard, I suppose. I do
think Saucepan might have warned us that his
mother had gone. It
’
s too bad."

J
ust then there came the sound of a song
fl
oating up from outside.

"Two worms for a sparrow,

Two slugs for a duck,

Two snails for a blackbird,

Two hens for a cluck!"

"Saucepan! It must be Saucepan!" cried
everyone, and jumped out of bed and ran to the
window. Outside, far down below, stood Saucepan,
and with him were Bessie and Fanny, giggling.

"Hi, Sauce
pan! Here we are!" cried
J
o. "W
e
’
re
locked in."

"Oh—we wondered where you were," said
Saucepan, grinning. "Dame Slap
’
s locked in, too—locked into the larder by sharp young Bessie
here. She was just doing it when I came along to
see if you had arrived."

"Arrived! We
’
ve been here ages," said
J
o,
indignantly. "W
hy didn
’
t you come to warn us?"

"My watch must be wrong again," said
Saucepan. He usually kept it in one of his kettles,
but as it shook about there every day, it wasn
’
t
a very goo
d time-keeper. "Never mind. I
’
ll
rescue
you now."

A terrific banging noise came from somewhere
downstairs. "That
’
s Dame Slap in the larder,"
said Saucepan. "She
’
s in a dreadful temper."

"Well, for goodness
’
s
ake, help us out of here,"
said Connie, alarmed. "How can we get out? The
door
’
s locked, and I heard Dame Slap taking the
key out the other side."

Crash! Bang! Clatter!

"Sounds as if Dame Slap is throwing a few pies
and things about," said
J
o. "Saucepan, how can
we get out of here?"

"I
’
l
l just undo the rope that hangs my things
round me," said Saucepan, and he began to untie
the rope round his waist. He undid it, and then,
to the children
’
s surprise, his kettles and saucepans
began to peel off him. They were each tied firmly
to the rope.

"Saucepan does look funny without his kettles
and pans round him," said Connie in surprise. "I
hardly know him!"

Saucepan took the end of the rope and tied a
stone to it. He threw it up to the window.
Jo
caught the stone and pulled on the rope. It came
up, laden here and there with kettles and
saucepans.

"Tie the rope-end to a bed," called Saucepan.
"Then come down the rope. You can use the
kettles and saucepans as steps. They are tied on
quite tightly."

So, very cautiously, Moon-Face,
J
o, Silky and
a very nervous Connie climbed down the rope,
using the saucepans and kettles as steps. They
were very glad to stand on firm ground again!

"W
ell, there we are," said Saucepan, pleased.
"Wasn
’
t that a good idea?"

"Yes—but how are we to get your stock of
kettles and saucepans back for you?" said
J
o.

"It doesn
’
t matter at all," said Saucepan. "I
can take as many as I can carry out of the kitchen
here. They are what I gave my mother each
birthday, you know, so they are hers."

He went into the kitchen and collected a great
array of kettles and saucepans. He tied them all
to a rope, and then once more became the old
Saucepan Man they knew so well, hung around
with pans of all shapes and sizes!

Crash! Smash! Clang!
Dame Slap was getting
angrier and angrier in the larder. She kicked and
she stamped.

"Dame Slap!" cried
Jo
, suddenly, and he stood
outside the locked larder door. "I will ask you a
question, and if you can tell me the answer, I
will set you free. Now, be quiet and listen."

There was a silence in the larder.
Jo
asked his
question.

"If Saucepan takes twelve kettles from your
kitchen, how long does it take to boil a cup of
tea on Friday?"

The others giggled. There came an angry cry
from the larder. "It
’
s a silly question, and there
’
s
no answer. Let me out at once
!
"

"It
’
s the same kind of question you asked
us
!"
said
J
o. "I
’
m sorry you can
’
t answer it. I can
’
t
either. So you must stay where you are, till one
of your school children is kind enough to let you
out. Good
bye, dear Dame S
l
ap!"

The children and the others went out giggling
into th
e garden. "Where are we going no
w?"
asked Bessie. "Where
’
s your mother, Saucepan?"

"She
’
s in the Land of Tea-Parties," said
Saucepan. "It
’
s not very far. I took her there
because it
’s
her birthday, you know, and I thought
she
’
d like to have a tea-party without going to
any trouble. Shall we go?"

So, hearing Dame Slap
’
s furious cries and bangs
gradually fading behind them, the little party set
off together, very glad to have escaped from Dame
Slap in safety.

"Come on—here
’
s the boundary between this
Land and the next.
J
ump!" said Saucepan.

They jumped—and over they went into the
Land
of Tea-Parties! What a fine time they meant
to have there!