Magic Faraway Tree (16 page)

 

   
"Woodpecker! Come here a minute!"
The woodpecker stared round in surprise. He was cleaning his wing feathers by
running each one carefully through his beak. He was a lovely bird with his bright,
red-splashed head. He spread his wings and flew down.

 

   
"What's the matter?" he asked.

 

   
Jo told him. The bird listened with his head on one side and his bright eyes shining.

 

   
"Do you think you could possibly help us to rescue Silky and the others by
pecking a hole at the back of the Angry Pixie's house?" said Jo, when he
came to the end of his story. "You have such a strong beak."
"Yes, I know I have," said the woodpecker. "The only thing is I
generally only peck rotten wood-that's easy to peck away, you know. It just falls
to pieces. But good, growing wood like the trunk of the Faraway Tree-well, that's
different. That's very hard, indeed. It would take me ages to peck a large hole
through that."
"Oh, dear!" sighed Jo. "I'm so disappointed. We daren't let Silky
and the others stay in the Slippery-slip too long in case they starve. There's
nothing to eat down there, you know. Whatever are we to do?"
Everybody thought hard. It was the woodpecker who had an idea first.

 

   
"I know!" he said. "I could fetch my cousins who live in the Enchanted
Wood in another tree-and maybe if there were three or four of us all pecking hard
together we could make a good hole
quite quickly. I know I couldn't make one by myself without taking two or three
days-but a lot of us working together might do it easily."
"Oh, good!" cried everyone. "Go and get your cousins, there's a
dear. Hurry!"
The woodpecker flew off. Everyone waited impatiently. They heard the noise from
the inside of the Tree again. Boom, boom, boom! Knock, knock, knock!
"Poor things!" said Bessie, tears in her eyes. "It must be so dreadful
inside there in the dark, with nothing to eat or drink."
After about ten minutes the woodpecker carne back, and with him he brought five
others! They were all woodpeckers, with bright, red-splashed heads, strong-looking
birds with powerful beaks.

 

   
"Oh, splendid!" cried Jo, and he took them all into the Angry Pixie's
little house. "Peck away at the back, here."
The six birds stood in a row and began to peck as close to one another as they
could. Peck, peck, peck! They pecked so hard and so very fast that they made a
curious drumming noise that echoed through the little house. R-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r!
R-r-r-r-r-r-r! R-r-r-r-r-r-r-r!
They pecked hard for about an hour and then stopped for a rest. Jo pressed close
to see how they were getting on. To his joy he saw that a small hole had been
pecked right through into the Slippery-slip. He asked the Angry Pixie for a torch
and shone it through the hole. Yes- there was no doubt about it, the woodpeckers
had got
right through the tree trunk just there.

 

   
"Now you've only got to make the hole bigger!" cried Jo joyfully. "Peck
away, woodpeckers, peck away! You are doing marvellously!"
25.

 

   
Everything Comes Right.

 

   
After a good rest the six woodpeckers set to work again at the hole they had made.
R-r-r-r-r-r-r! went their strong beaks, drumming away at the wood. Everyone watched
to see the hole getting bigger and bigger. Then a voice floated up, singing a
mournful song:
"Two kettles for Silky, Two saucepans for me, Two dishes for Moon-Face, We're
sad as can be!"
"That's the old Saucepan Man!" said Jo in delight. "Did you hear
his silly song? That's to tell us they are all there. Move aside a bit, woodpeckers,
and let me call to them."
The woodpeckers made room for Jo by the hole. He stuck his head through it and
yelled loudly: "Silky! Moon-Face! Saucepan! We're going to rescue you. We'll
pull you through a hole we've made at the back of the Angry Pixie's room."
There was a squeal of delight from Silky, a
shout from Moon-Face, and a clatter of pans from Saucepan.

 

   
"We're coming, we're coming!" yelled Moon-Face. "We've got a rope
to come up by. We shan't be long. Is the hole big enough to squeeze through?"
"Not yet," shouted back Jo. "But the woodpeckers are just going
to set to work again, and they'll soon have made it bigger."
"R-r-r-r-r-r-r! R-r-r-r-r-r-r!" went the woodpeckers' strong beaks,
and the hole grew larger and larger. At last it really was big enough for anyone
to get through. Jo leaned through it, his torch shining into the Slippery-slip.
He saw a light gleaming a little way down, and noticed a rope shaking near by,
as if someone was holding on to it.

 

   
"They're coming up," he said to the others. "They've got a light
of some sort, too. Oh! It's a candle. I can see Moon-Face now. He's the first.
And he's helping Silky up. The old Saucepan Man is behind. They'll soon be here!
Angry Pixie, put on a kettle to boil some water. I expect they would like some
hot cocoa or something. And have you got anything to eat?" ' "I've got
Pop Biscuits and Google Buns," said the Angry Pixie, looking into a tin.
"They'll like those."
Moon-Face at last hauled himself right up to the hole. His round face looked white
and rather worried -but he gave Joe a grin as usual. "Help Silky through
first," he said.

 

   
Jo and Dick pulled Silky through the hole. She looked pale, too, but how glad
she was to see all her friends! She flung her arms round Bessie and Fanny, and
they all cried tears of joy down one another. Then Moon-Face squeezed through
the hole, and last of all the old Saucepan Man, though he had to take off a few
pans before he could get through!
"We never, never thought we'd be rescued!" said Moon-Face. "We'd
quite given up hope. We kept knocking and banging, hoping someone would hear us."
"Yes, we did hear you," said Jo. "That's what made us think you
might be trapped in the Slippery-slip. But Moon-Face, how did you get there? What
happened?"
"Wait a minute -let them have something to eat and drink first," said
Watzisname. "They must be terribly hungry, not having had anything to eat
and drink for so long."
"Oh, we had plenty," said Moon-Face. "We didn't starve. But I'll
tell you all about it."
Everyone settled down to hear his story.

 

   
"You see, one morning this week Silky, Saucepan and I were sitting up in
my house talking," began Moon-Face, "and suddenly we saw two people
from the Land of Tempers looking in at us."
"Yes-Sir Stamp-a-Lot and Lady Yell-Around!" said Jo. "'We know
them!"
"Well, they looked very fiercely at us," said Moon-Face, "and they
told us that they wanted to leave the Land of Tempers because the head-man was
very angry with them about something. I think they had broken his windows in a
temper. Well, they had escaped, and they meant to live in the Faraway Tree. They
had found out by accident that their Land was over it, you see."
"And they wanted your house!" cried Dick.

 

   
"Yes," said Moon-Face. "They had been down the tree and seen that
Silky's house was empty, because Silky was up here with me, and had taken that
for themselves. At least Yell-Around meant to have it for herself. And Stamp-a-Lot
meant to have mine."
"And they said they had stopped up the trapdoor at the bottom," said
Silky, "and they meant to push us down the Slippery-slip, and then stop up
the hole in Moon-Face's room, so that we would be prisoners in the slide!"
"Well, you can guess how frightened we were!" said Moon-Face. "Old
Saucepan heard it all because Stamp-a-Lot shouted so loudly. And the clever old
thing began to stuff his kettles and saucepans with food from my larder, and some
candles, too, and matches -and a rope. I couldn't think what he was doing!"
"So, of course, when we were pushed into the Slippery-slip we had plenty
of food!" said Silky, putting her arm round Saucepan and hugging him. "All
because Saucepan was so clever."
"He managed to tie the rope on to something so that we had that to climb
up and down on if we wanted to," said Moon-Face, "and we found a
little sort of cubby-hole half-way down where we could sit and eat and drink.
We lighted a candle, and then Silky thought of knocking and banging somewhere
near to the Angry Pixie's house just in case you might be there and heard it"
"Oh, we were so worried about you," said Jo. "We just simply didn't
know WHAT to do! I'm so glad we thought of the woodpeckers. So you're really not
very hungry or thirsty after all?"
"No, not very," said Moon-Face. "But some of the cake we brought
got rather stale. Woodpeckers, would you like it?"
It was a treat for the woodpeckers and they pecked up the stale cake eagerly before
they flew off. They had been very pleased to help.

 

   
"And now what are we going to do about turning Stamp-a-Lot and Yell-Around
out of our houses?" said Silky. "We can't all live with the Angry Pixie.
His house is too small."
Just as she said that there came the sound of shouting and yelling some way up
the tree. Everyone listened.

 

   
"That's Yell-Around, I'm sure," said Silky. "Let's go and see what's
happening."
Well, quite a lot was happening! About eight people from the Land of Tempers,
with the headman leading them, had come down the tree to capture Stamp-a-Lot and
Yell-Around! The head-man had remembered what Fanny had said, and had come to
find the two escaped people. They had easily found Stamp-a-Lot, for he was asleep
in Moon-Face's house, which was not far below the ladder leading up to the Land
of Tempers.

 

   
But Yell-Around had not been so easily captured. She had seen the head-man climbing
down the tree and had tried to escape. She had fallen, and had hung by one foot
from a branch, yelling and squealing, because she was so afraid of falling. And
the head-man picked her up by her foot and dragged her up the Tree like that,
bumping her as he went.

 

   
Everyone watched in silence. Yell-Around was squealing loudly in a terrible rage,
but nobody took any notice.

 

   
"I won't go back to the Land of Tempers!" she yelled. "I won't,
I won't!"
But she had to! Up the ladder she was carried, upside down, and Stamp-a-Lot was
pushed up, too.

 

   
"Serves them right," said Moon-Face. "Taking our houses from us
and trapping us in the Slippery-slip like that. Let's go up to my house."
They all went up. Moon-Face was sad to see his house so untidy and so many of
his things broken. Everyone helped him to put it right. Then they all looked at
the stuffed-up Slippery-slip.

 

   
"The spell put on it will be gone now that those two horrid people have gone,"
said Moon-Face. "We can pull everything out."
So it wasn't long before the hole was free of all the things that stuffed it up.
A4oon-Face shook out his cushions and grinned at the children.

 

   
"Well, everything's all right again," he said.

 

   
"I'm so happy, It's lovely to have good friends like you."
"We'd better get home now," said Jo. "We've been away a long time."
"We can't slide down the Slippery-slip because it's all stuffed up at the
bottom," said Fanny.

 

   
"Well, I'll send a message down to the red squirrel to clear it," said
Moon-Face. He whistled to a sparrow sitting on a nearby branch.

 

   
"Hey, little brown bird! Fly down to the red squirrel and tell him to open
the trap-door at the bottom of the tree, and clear the slide there, will you?'
he asked. "Tell him to do it at once."
The sparrow flew off. Moon-Face handed round a tin of Toffee-Shocks, and everyone
took one. "Just time to have one whilst the squirrel is clearing out the
mess," he said. "Hark! I can hear the Land of Tempers moving off."
Sure enough there came the noise of the Land moving away -the curious creaking,
groaning noise that the strange lands always made when they went.

 

   
"What Land will come next, I wonder?" said Jo.

 

   
"I know what it will be," said Watzisname. "I heard the head-man
of the Land of Tempers say that the Land of Presents was due to-morrow."
"Oooooh!" said Moon-Face, his eyes shining. "We must all go to
THAT! The Land of Presents! That's a marvellous land! We can all go and get as
many presents as we like -just as if it was our birthday! Come to-morrow, will
you? We'll all go! I can get some new carpets and things. Stamp-a-Lot spoilt so
many of my belongings."
"We'll come!" said Jo as he slid down the Slippery-slip on a yellow
cushion. "We'll all come! RATHER!"
26.

 

   
The Land of Presents.

 

   
Next day all the four children woke up feeling excited. It was so lovely when
a really nice Land was at the top of the Faraway Tree. They had been to the Land
of Birthdays before, and the Land of Take-What-You-Want. The Land of Goodies had
been nice, and the Land of Do-As-You-Please. The Land of Presents sounded just
as exciting!
"I wonder who gives the presents -and if you can choose them," said
Fanny. 'Td like a necklace of blue beads."
"And I'd like an enormous box of chocolates," said Dick.

 

   
"You would!" said Jo. "Anything to eat, and you're happy! I'd like
a toy aeroplane that would fly from my hands and come back to them."
"I shall bring something home for Mother," said Bessie. "She wants
a new purse. When can we start, Jo? I'm all ready."
They set off about eleven o'clock, when they had done all their work. They were
very excited.

 

   
It was so lovely to think that Silky, Moon-Face and Saucepan were safe again and
coming to enjoy the Land of Presents with them. Perhaps Watzisname, Saucepan and
the Angry Pixie would come, too.

 

   
Well, everyone in the Faraway Tree had heard that the Land of Presents was at
the top of the Tree that day; and, dear me, what a lot of people were steadily
climbing up that morning! Brownies from the wood below, pixies and elves, even
rabbits from their holes. The Angry Pixie's house was empty. He had gone already.
The owl had gone, too, for he was not asleep in his little house as usual. Dame
Washalot was gone, and no water came pouring down the Tree as the children climbed
up.