The Fourth Pig (10 page)

And Minnie thought: “Serves Mum right if we
are
late—but she won't mind really, not when she sees this.” And she held tight onto her lovely, knobbly parcel, and her tongue kept on licking little bits of chocolate and stuff out from between her teeth, but she knew the box wasn't half finished yet. There was only one thing that seemed a bit funny, and that was the kind of nasty green light that there was all round the chauffeur's cap and shoulders; you could see the shape of his ears against it, and somehow she didn't think they were at all a nice shape. As it grew darker she could see this light clearer and clearer, but she couldn't say anything to Billy, because he was sitting in the other corner of the seat, with the old witch between her and him.

And then she heard a whispering and rustling at her ear, and she looked round quietly, and who should she see but the little
animal which made the collar of the beautiful fur coat, watching her out of its bright, golden-dusky eyes and twitching its pretty sensitive whiskers. “You're Minnie Mouse, aren't you?” said the little animal, and she saw the white of its pointed teeth show against the soft dark of its fur.

“Yes,” said Minnie, “but who ever are you?”

“I'm Sasha Sable,” said the little thing, “and I'm here to warn you.”

Minnie looked quickly up at the old lady's face. She was half turned away, towards Billy, and not noticing, and quite suddenly, and in spite of the work-basket and the chocolates, Minnie didn't like her at all. “What of?” whispered Minnie; “her?”

“Yes,” said Sasha Sable, “she's a horrible witch. She had me killed to make into the collar of her coat. I was caught by the foot in one of her traps while I and my friends were jumping and dancing along over the snow. My friends ran away from the smell of iron and my blood and I was there three days trying to get out of the trap, and all the time the trap was crushing my foot and the cold was biting at my wound. I tried to gnaw my foot off to get out of her trap, Minnie, but I couldn't; I stayed there squealing or dead-quiet till the fourth day, and then one of her slaves came and killed me, and skinned my fur off my poor body. But to-day I have been allowed to come alive and warn you against my mistress the witch.”

Minnie put up her hand softly and stroked the soft paw of Sasha Sable that had been crushed in the trap and whispered to him to go on.

“It was the same for the other animals in her coat,” said Sasha Sable, “we were all made to suffer pain and death for her. And the
fairy bird in her hat, he was snared between one flower and another, and his neck wrung. Do you know about the silk she's wearing, Minnie Mouse? There were little children out in China, and she trapped them like she trapped the rest of us, and every day they had to dip their hands into boiling water to fetch out the cocoons of the dead silk-worms to be spun into her dresses.”

“What ever happened to the children in the end?” said Minnie, going all shivery.

“They died, mostly. That's what witches do with children. They kill them and eat them and turn them into spiders or bake them into gingerbread. She's got slaves all over the world. She's got brown slaves who dive into the sea to pull Jane Oyster out of her bed and cut her open to steal her pearls, and sometimes they get caught by the great clams and octopuses and drowned; she's got black slaves who work in the hot diamond pits for her. And here too, she has her slaves at work the whole time, making things for her and carrying them to her house. The P.A.C. man is one of her slaves, Minnie; he's got to do it because she makes him. And now I've warned you so you'd better get away before she gets you too.”

“But—” said Minnie. Only just then the old witch turned her head and as she did so Sasha Sable flattened out, and his eyes were only beads and his paws went limp and dangled, and he was just the collar of the fur coat. The witch smiled at Minnie, but Minnie ducked her head over the parcel; she couldn't smile back. She was thinking of the fairy tales her Dad used to tell her on lucky nights, and what the witches in the fairy tales used to do to children. She remembered knives and cauldrons and fires waiting, and how the children in the stories were fattened up to be
eaten, and she wished she'd thought of that before starting to eat the chocolates, and she felt a bit sick.

Now the Rolls-Royce was sliding along a wide road, with big houses on each side, set far apart from one another in gardens, and by and bye they turned into a drive and the headlights of the car lighted up thick, spiky looking, dangerous bushes which parted in front of them, and they came to the stone steps and the wide front door of the witch's house. It was quite dark by now, but the headlights of the Rolls-Royce shining along the house showed Minnie that it was built of solid gold and silver, only both beautiful metals had been tarnished and dirtied over by the smoke of the Midlands, and ivy had been trained up the golden pillars to make them look more respectable. A butler in a black coat opened the great front door and the old witch walked in; and behind her came Billy and Minnie, hand in hand. Minnie hadn't yet had time to explain to Billy what Sasha Sable had told her, and he wanted to go in; he thought there would be more trains and chocolates and meccano sets. Inside, the gold and silver house was papered with pound notes and ten shilling notes, and the drawing-room with crossed cheques for a thousand pounds apiece. The kitchen and pantry were papered in stripes with sheets of stamps, and the passages with postal orders; the lamp-shades were made of Bank of England five-pound notes, and the thick rustling carpets of dollars and francs and marks and lire and pesetas and yen and I don't know what-all else. All that was the magic the old witch used when she wanted to bewitch people and kill them or enslave them or turn them into lizards and spiders and toads.

Suddenly Billy said: “I want to go home. Oo, I do want to go home to Dad and Mum!” But the old witch said: “Not to-night, my dear, too late for little boys to go out now. To-morrow perhaps.” And Minnie pinched him to stop him answering back, for she was afraid that if he did they would both get snapped up at once. Then the butler in the black coat took them into a room where they found a lovely supper of cake and milk and fruit, and Billy began to gobble it up, but Minnie didn't want to. They tried to talk to the butler, but it was no good; the witch had made him dumb with her enchantments.

At last he went away and then Minnie whispered to Billy just what Sasha Sable had told her. “Oh Min, whatever shall we do?” said Billy, and he began to cry, but Minnie had more sense than that. So when he stopped crying, they peeped out of the room and went creeping about the house, trying to find a way out. But all the doors and windows were fastened up by great heavy golden bars, that they couldn't begin to lift, and once or twice when they looked quietly round a corner, there'd be someone standing with his back to them at the end of a corridor, and he'd have that nasty green light round his head and shoulders, the same as the chauffeur had.

Once they came into the room where the old witch was sitting, playing Patience beside a nice warm fire. But when they looked, they saw that it wasn't good Derby brights on the fire, but a heap of blackened bones that the pretty flames were dancing about among. And they saw it wasn't a pussy-cat on the hearth-rug, but a small tiger that was watching them. And they saw she wasn't playing Patience with ordinary cards, because the clubs were fac-tories
and rows of little houses, and the spades were acres of land, and the diamonds were stocks and shares, and the hearts were people's lives, so whenever she discarded a heart it bled a little, and the blood dripped off the table, down its jade and ivory legs, and the cat that was really a tiger, only worse, lapped up the blood. And the witch looked up from her Patience and patted their heads, and seemed very satisfied, and then she told them to run along to bed.

So the dumb butler in the black coat took them to another beautiful room where there were two little beds with knobs of rubies and emeralds, and two little suits of pyjamas with a £ sign embroidered on the pocket. Neither of them had ever had a bed like that; it reminded Minnie of the week she'd been in hospital with her bad leg, only it was even grander, and the sheets whiter, and the blankets softer. So they got into the pyjamas, which were like what they'd seen in shop windows, and danced about in them a bit, only the embroidery on the pocket seemed to burn rather and gave them a pain over the heart. So they got into bed, but they were afraid to talk to one another, because they thought that the emerald and ruby knobs might be listening.

The next thing that happened was that they heard steps outside and in came the old witch to tuck them up and say good-night. She kissed Billy who was just lying staring at her, but Minnie was pretending to be asleep and had burrowed her face down under the blanket, so the witch couldn't get at her. When she went out, she put out all the lights, except for a little lamp that was made to look like a lighthouse, and on the very top of it was an old-fashioned golden sovereign, like I remember when I was a kid myself years and years ago, but you don't. And the horrid thing was
that every now and then a pretty pale moth would come fluttering up and bang against the light, and burn its wings. Not that moths don't do that anywhere where there's a light, let alone in witches' houses, but somehow there were more moths in that room than there'd any right to be in a city like Birmingham. And hearing the moth's wings sizzle and the soft plopping down of their silly little bodies as they fell and died, was more than Minnie could stand. She'd been wondering hard how to do in the witch, remembering the way the children in the fairy tales used to manage it, tipping her up into her own oven and turning her into gingerbread—only there didn't seem to be any oven here and she didn't know what else would do. So now, what with lying awake, and watching the nasty little lighthouse lamp and the glitter on the ruby and emerald knobs, and hearing the sizzle and drop of the burnt moths, one after the other, she began to call in a whisper for Sasha Sable to come and help her. But as to Billy, after the witch had kissed him he went to sleep and began to dream about more and better trains and model aeroplanes and parlour-games and baby cinema sets and small-scale jazz bands and all the other things that the witch had put into his head with her enchantments.

So now it was only Minnie Mouse who lay awake, biting her fingers and whispering for Sasha Sable and feeling the £ mark on her pyjama pocket burning and biting her. She was, as you might say, all alone, for that snoring little Billy wasn't any comfort. And first it struck the half hour and then it struck the hour, and then there came a pattering and rustling of little furry feet, and all of a sudden the lighthouse went out and the ruby and emerald knobs stopped glittering, and Minnie knew that Sasha Sable had come alive again.

“Minnie Mouse, Minnie Mouse!” said the little dusky beast, “did you let her kiss you?”

“No!” said Minnie. “Oh, where are you?” And she reached out in the dark till her fingers fell on and fondled his soft warm fur.

“Then you can get away,” said Sasha Sable. “You've only got to follow me and I'll show you the back door that they always forget to bolt.”

Minnie jumped out of bed; she was beginning to be able to see in the dark. She pulled off the pyjamas and got back as quick as she could into her old patched vest and her serge knickers and frock, and her socks that were more holes and darns than anything else, and her old black shoes that had come from the Church Jumble, the same as her mother's coat and about as bad a fit—but she didn't mind that now. Then she began to shake her brother. “Billy!” she said, “Wake up, can't you! Oh Billy, wake up!”

But it was no good. Billy slept like a log, and when she bent right over close to him she could see he was smiling in a silly sort of way. Sasha Sable jumped onto the bed. “There's only one thing to be done,” he said, “or else we'll never wake him.” And he bit Billy's finger with his sharp white teeth and then stuffed his tail into Billy's mouth to stop him making a noise crying. But that woke Billy up all right, though at first he didn't like being woke, for he'd been in the middle of dreaming that he'd got a bicycle and was riding it up and down an enormous shop full of toys and games, choosing things as he went along. Still, after he'd rubbed his eyes for a minute or two he began to see sense, and Minnie pulled off his pyjama jacket and helped him into his things. “Come along,” said Sasha Sable.

Minnie was just coming when she stumbled over her parcel. “Oh!” she said, “can I take my work-basket?”

Sasha Sable made a grumbling noise between his teeth. At last he said: “Very well. But mind, you can't take the chocolates, Minnie Mouse, and that silly brother of yours can't take his parcel; it's too big.” And he looked round over his shoulder and said: “If you whine, Billy, I'll bite you again. So there.”

Then Minnie opened the door of the room and they all three went out. Sasha Sable trotted in front of them down the passage, which was still lighted up, though there was no one about. Seeing him like that, so small and pretty and unafraid, made Minnie stop being frightened too. She bent down and whispered to him: “Can't Billy and me kill the old witch? The kids in the fairy tales always do.”

“Not yet,” said Sasha Sable, cocking up his muzzle and bright eyes at her. “Next time, perhaps. If you're a good girl and remember all about it and never let the witch get at you again.” And then he added: “You might as well take one of those lamp-shades away with you. Your Dad and Mum'll thank you, and perhaps it'll help you to remember.”

So Minnie and Billy stripped off the Bank of England notes that made the lamp-shade and put them into their pockets, and then they followed Sasha Sable down some steps and round a corner and so to a little door that seemed to be made of ordinary wood instead of gold or silver. They opened it quite easily. “Good-bye, Sasha Sable,” said Minnie, and held out her arms.