The Book of Brownies (The Enchanted World) (7 page)

So they went back.

‘Please let us out again, because

We find we cannot keep your laws,’

said Hop, after scratching his head and thinking hard for five minutes.

The bald-headed man shook his head.

‘Find rule number thirty-two,

And that will tell you what to do,’

he told them.

Hop found it and read it.

‘We can’t get out of the Land of Clever People until we think of something that their Very Wise Man cannot do,’ he told the others sadly. ‘There isn’t much hope for
us
, then.’

‘Stay here all our lives, I suppose,’ said Skip gloomily.

‘And be scolded every day,’ said Jump, still more gloomily.

The three brownies went sadly up the tunnel. They hadn’t gone very far before they saw daylight, and to their joy they found that they were once more above ground. They ran out of the
tunnel and danced about in the sunlight. Then they stopped and looked to see what sort of country they were in.

‘My!’ said Hop. ‘It’s rather peculiar, isn’t it? It all looks so proper!’

It certainly
did
look proper. The houses were set down in perfectly straight lines. All the windows were the same size, and all the doors. All the knockers were the same, and they all
shone brightly.

The people looked very proper too. They all wore spectacles, and had very large heads and all the men were bald. If everybody hadn’t been rather short and tubby, they would have looked
frightening, but as it was they looked rather funny.

Skip began to giggle.

‘They don’t look as if they ever smiled!’ he chuckled.

A fat little policeman came up to them. He put his hand heavily on Skip’s shoulder.

‘You mustn’t giggle here, you know,

Or else to prison you must go.

This is not the Land of Giggles . . .’

He stopped and looked at the brownies. The brownies looked back. Evidently he expected them to finish the rhyme.

‘Oh dear!’ thought Hop. ‘Whatever will make a rhyme for giggles? What an awful word!’

The policeman coughed and repeated his lines again. Then he took out his note-book.

Hop began to tremble.

‘This is not the Land of Giggles,’ said the policeman in an awful, this-is-the-last-time sort of voice.

‘How your little finger wiggles!’ said Hop suddenly.

The policeman looked at his little finger in surprise. It wasn’t wiggling. Still Hop had made a rhyme, so he closed up his notebook and marched solemnly off.

‘That was a narrow escape,’ said Hop in a whisper. ‘It’s a mean trick to leave someone to finish what you’re saying, in rhyme. Now, remember, for goodness’
sake, don’t giggle. We don’t want to be sent to prison, or to the Land of Giggles, do we?’

Night was falling. Lamps began to shine in the little streets.

‘We’d better find a place to sleep,’ said Skip, with a yawn. Another policeman suddenly appeared behind them. Hop saw him in time, and made a rhyme hastily, to fit his last
sentence.

‘Oh, look at that excited sheep!’ he said, pointing behind him.

There was no sheep, of course, and by the time the policeman had discovered that, the brownies had fled down the street.

They came to the neatest little house imaginable. In the window was a card. On it was printed:

STEP INSIDE AND YOU WILL SEE LODGINGS HERE FOR TWO OR THREE

‘
Just
the thing,’ said Hop. ‘Let us ring,’ he added hastily, as another policeman came round the corner and looked at them.

He rang. The door opened, and a kind-faced old woman looked out.

‘Would you let us stay with you?’ he asked, hoping that the old woman would finish the rhyme.

‘What can you pay me if you do?’ she asked, at once.

‘Would a silver coin be enough to pay?’ said Hop.

‘Oh, yes, it would. Please come this way,’ said the old woman, and led them inside.

The house was very neat inside. The room the old woman took them to was strange-looking. It had knobs here and there on the wall, and Hop longed to pull them and see what happened.

‘This is where you are to sleep,’ said their guide, and waited for Hop to finish the rhyme.

‘Always look before you leap,’ said Hop solemnly. The woman stared at him and went out.

‘This rhyming business is making me tired,’ said Hop, when the door closed. ‘I do hope we find some way of getting out of this land soon. What about pressing a few of these
knobs? Look, this one’s marked SOUP.’

He pressed it. A little door flew open in the wall, and there stood three mugs of steaming soup!

‘Goodness!’ said Skip. ‘
That’s
clever, if you like. Let’s have the soup!’

They soon finished it up, and began pressing more knobs. The one marked CHOCOLATE brought them three packets of chocolates, and the one marked APPLES a dish of apples. They thought it a very
good idea.

‘Now, if these Clever People had ideas like this
only
,’ said Hop, ‘and no silly nonsense about rhymes and riddles and things, this would be a pleasant place to live
in.’

He pressed a knob marked BED. Immediately a bed rose from the floor under them, and stood there ready to be slept in. The brownies rose with it, and found themselves sitting on it.

Skip gave a loud giggle.

At once the window flew up.

‘Was that a giggle that I heard?’ demanded a policeman, peering into the room.

‘No, just a cough. Don’t be absurd,’ shouted Hop. The window shut with a bang.

‘There are policemen everywhere here,’ whispered Hop. ‘For goodness’ sake, don’t giggle any more and only talk in whispers.’

At that moment there came a knock on their door. It opened, and in came a bright-eyed, prettily dressed little girl.

‘Hello,’ she said. ‘I heard one of you laughing. Are you from the Land of Giggles, by any chance?’

‘No, we’re not,’ said Hop in astonishment. ‘Why aren’t you talking in rhyme?’

‘I’m not one of the Clever People,’ said the little girl. ‘I can’t make up rhymes properly, so I usually don’t talk at all. I come from the Land of
Giggles.’

‘What are you here for, then?’ asked Skip.

The little girl hung her head.

‘I was discontented in my own land,’ she said, ‘and I thought I was too clever for my people. So I came here, and now I can’t get away, because I can’t think of
anything that the Very Wise Man can’t do. And I get scolded every single day because I can’t make up riddles or answer them.’

‘Who asks them?’ asked Hop.

‘Oh, everybody goes to the market-place and stands in a row for their examination each morning,’ explained the little girl. ‘Then the Very Wise Man comes along, and you have to
ask him your riddle and answer his. If you don’t, he sends you to be scolded. It’s to teach you to be clever.’

‘I don’t think it’s clever to do
that
sort of thing,’ said Skip, feeling sure he would be scolded every day.

‘If you can help me to get back to my own people, I’d be so grateful,’ said the little girl, nodding her brown curls.

‘We’ll help you,’ said Hop, wondering how they could.

When the little girl had gone the brownies jumped into bed and were soon fast asleep.

Their Adventure in the Land of Clever People (continued)

When morning came, the brownies woke up very hungry. They pressed a few knobs and got a simply lovely breakfast of porridge, honey and cocoa.

‘Now we’d better think of some riddles,’ said Hop. ‘All be quiet and think hard.’

So they thought hard. Hop thought of one first.

‘What pillar is never used in building?’ he asked.

‘Don’t know,’ said the others.

‘Why a
cater
pillar, of course,’ said Hop, with a chuckle.

‘Very good indeed!’ said Skip. ‘Listen, I’ve got one now. What walks on its head all day?’

‘Tell us!’ said the others.

‘The nail in your shoes!’ chuckled Skip. ‘Now, Jump!’

‘What lion is loose in the fields?’ asked Jump.

‘I know!’ cried Hop. ‘The
dande
lion!’

‘Right!’ said Jump. ‘Listen, what’s that?’

It was a bell ringing.

‘It must be to call us to the market-place,’ said Hop. ‘Come on.’

They all raced outside, and saw a great stream of solemn, fat little people going down the street. The brownies joined them, and soon came to a wide market-place. The people arranged themselves
in straight rows. A clock struck nine.

Trumpets blew, and down the steps of the Town Hall came the Very Wise Man. He had bigger spectacles than anyone else, and a very,
very
big head.

Then began the examination. First the Very Wise Man asked his riddle, and then a Clever Person answered it and asked his.

On went the Very Wise Man to the next person.

‘Everybody answers all right,’ whispered Hop. ‘No one’s getting scolded.’

Just then the Very Wise Man came to the little girl who had spoken to the brownies the night before. She couldn’t answer her riddle, and she was sent off to be scolded by the Ogre who
lived in a little house nearby.

Then came the brownies’ turn.

‘What pillar is never used in building?’ asked Hop, rather shaky at the knees.

‘Pooh – a caterpillar!’ said the Very Wise Man.

‘What walks on its head all day?’ asked Skip nervously.

‘Pooh – nail in your shoe,’ said the Very Wise Man.

‘Er-er – what lion is loose in the fields?’ asked Jump, almost forgetting his riddle, when he felt the Very Wise Man’s eyes on him.

‘Pooh – a dandelion,’ said the Very Wise Man. ‘Very feeble. Now answer me this – Why is a toasting-fork?’

‘Why is a toasting-fork?’ said Hop, puzzled. ‘It doesn’t make sense, does it?’

‘Off to the Ogre’s!’ roared the Very Wise Man. Poor Hop went off to join the little girl.

‘Now
you
,’ said the Very Wise Man to Skip. ‘Why is a garden-rake?’

‘But
that
doesn’t make sense either,’ said Skip. ‘It isn’t a proper riddle.’

‘Off to the Ogre’s!’ roared the Very Wise Man again. He turned to Jump.

‘Why is a porcupine?’ he asked.

‘
I
don’t know,’ said Jump.

‘Off to the Ogre’s!’ shouted the Very Wise Man, and went on asking the Clever People more riddles which they seemed to answer perfectly.

The brownies were well scolded by the Ogre, who was a solemn little man with soft eyes and a sharp voice.

They were very angry about it.

‘It’s all nonsense,’ said Hop crossly. ‘He didn’t ask fair riddles. I’ll jolly well ask him to do something he can’t do, and then we’ll get away
from here.’

‘Well, if you can do that,’ said the little girl, drying her tears, ‘don’t forget to take me with you.’

All that day the brownies wandered about the Land of Clever People with the little girl. It was a very solemn, proper land, and nobody laughed or skipped or ran.

Poor Skip and Jump were sent to the Ogre twice for not making a rhyme when they spoke. They felt sorrier than ever that they had left Fairyland. Little tubby policemen seemed to be everywhere,
and they soon began to feel that it was dangerous even to whisper.

Next morning they couldn’t think of any riddles, nor answer any, so off they went to be scolded again. Hop was getting very tired of it.

‘I’ll go and ask the Very Wise Man to do something he can’t do,’ he said. ‘Where do I go?’ he asked the little girl.

‘Go to the Town Hall at three o’clock in the afternoon,’ she said. ‘You’ll find him there, waiting.’

So off went the brownies. They marched up the steps and found the Very Wise Man sitting in a great red chair, studying an old, old book.

‘Good afternoon, O Very Wise Man,

Do what I ask you, if you can,’

began Hop.

‘Build a castle in half an hour,

With an entrance gate and one big tower.’

The Very Wise Man descended from his throne and walked out of the hall. He drew a wide circle in the market-place, muttered a few words, and waved his arms.

Immediately there sounded the noise of hammering and clattering, although nothing could be seen.

But lo and behold! At the end of half an hour, there stood in front of the astonished brownies a wonderful castle with an entrance gate and one big gleaming tower!

Hop, Skip and Jump were too amazed to say a word. Then, with a wave of his hand, the Very Wise Man caused the castle to vanish completely. After that he turned to Hop.

‘Off to the Ogre’s,’ he said.

So off Hop had to go.

‘I’ll think of something much more difficult
next
time,’ he decided.

For days Hop and the others tried to think of new riddles, and to puzzle out something difficult to ask the Very Wise Man to do. It didn’t seem any good at all. They always seemed to be
either going to or coming back from the Ogre’s.

At three o’clock each day the brownies always went to the Town Hall with something new and difficult to ask the Very Wise Man to perform, hoping that he wouldn’t be able to do
it.

Once they asked him if he could make a ladder that reached to the stars, and he made a lovely one out of a rainbow. Hop wanted to climb it, but the Very Wise Man wouldn’t let him.

‘You might escape and that would be,

A most annoying thing for me,’

he said.

Another afternoon the brownies asked him to make a cloak which, when he put it on, would make him invisible. He did it at once, popped on the cloak, and none of the brownies could see where he
was. He had disappeared!

‘Let us put it on as well,

And try the lovely magic spell,’

begged Hop, who thought that if only he could throw the cloak around himself and the other two, he might be able to escape unseen.

But the Very Wise Man wouldn’t let him. He sent them all off to the Ogre’s instead.

One evening the brownies were feeling very miserable indeed.

‘I believe we shall have to stay here for ever,’ groaned Hop.

‘So shall I,’ sighed the little girl, rumpling her curly head in despair.

‘Don’t rumple your hair like that,’ said Skip, ‘or you’ll be sent for a scolding again.’