The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles (4 page)

"See!" She turned in triumph to her two brothers.

"But wait a minute." The professor held up his hand. "I have not yet said that you could go."

The children all spoke at once. "Oh, please, Professor, do let
us."

"We'd love to go."

"We'll do anything you say."

The professor deliberated a moment.

Finally he said, "All right. But there have to be conditions. First of all, I must be in complete charge. Secondly, you must tell your mother that we have met this evening and that I will be telephoning her to discuss your coming visits. I think that is correct and it will save your parents worry. The third condition is the one I have already mentioned. You must not talk of this to anyone. Is that quite clear?"

The children nodded.

"Then I see no reason why we should not try this experiment together. I should just add that, once committed, there can be no turning back for any of us." He turned to Tom and Ben. "Are you ready to take on that responsibility?"

Without a moment's hesitation, the boys nodded. The professor looked at Lindy.

"When can we get started?" she asked eagerly.

The professor walked to the study door and called for Mrs. Primrose. He said politely, "I'm afraid that I must leave you now. Ah, Mrs. Primrose, I would like you to jot down the telephone number of my friends here and then perhaps you'd show them out for me." He smiled at the children. "I shall expect you after school on Friday. Goodbye for the time being. Goodbye."

The children were left with the feeling that there were a thousand questions they would like to have asked. The evening had passed so rapidly. It was already late.

Professor Savant walked quickly up the wide staircase of his house until he came to the third landing. He passed through a draped archway and proceeded to climb a narrower flight of stairs until he reached a small white door. He took from his waistcoat pocket a key on a silver chain and, inserting it into the lock, he let himself into a most unusual room. At the far end, at the top of a spiral staircase, beneath a wide skylight, there stood a large telescope pointing to the heavens. Next to it was a large planetarium globe. A bench in the center of the room contained a most complicated series of beakers and flasks.

Against the right wall stood a pyramid of cages containing white mice, a hamster, a toad and one extraordinary, multicolored rabbit.

Hanging from the ceiling above the bench was an amazing structure. It resembled a finely wrought stepladder and it was made of different-colored plastic segments, all brightly illuminated. A high-backed wing chair faced away from the door.

The professor closed the door behind him and approached the chair, speaking in a quiet voice. "So sorry to keep you waiting, Prock. I had some unexpected visitors."

"So I gathered," said a distinctly unusual voice. A unique figure rose from the chair in one sinuous movement.

The visitor was tall and exceedingly thin. He had a long, narrow face which accentuated his large black eyes and prominent nose. He had a long body and very long arms. His legs seemed permanently bent at the knees and his shoulders hunched forward. His hands were limp, the fingers thin and tapered.

The stranger wore baggy pants and a loose turtleneck sweater which did not sit comfortably on his narrow shoulders. On his head a battered grey trilby hat was pulled down at a rakish angle.

"So, you're thinking of taking those three to Whangdoodleland, eh?" he said. His voice had a stretched, echoing quality—a rasping whisper that seemed to hang in the air long after he had spoken.

"I was considering it, yes," replied the professor easily.

"Well, you're a fool," said the Prock rudely. "Except for you, no one has ever reached Whangdoodleland, and no one ever will again. You're wasting your time, and you'll find yourself saddled with children who'll turn out to be a big nuisance."

"That's a possibility," said the professor. "But on the other hand, we could just make it, my friend."

"Hmph." The Prock looked bad-tempered. "It's a clever idea, I'll grant you that. One thing's for sure—you'd never reach the Whangdoodle on your own. And I'm going to do everything I can to stop you and the children. I'm not even going to mention this to His Majesty. He'd only fret."

"I wish you'd tell him that I mean no harm."

"I'll do no such thing." The Prock was highly indignant. "Can't see why you're so anxious to pursue this idea of yours anyway. Why don't you just leave us in peace?" he grumbled.

"But I've no intention of
disturbing
the peace. Can't you see that?" said the professor.

"It's not only you we're worried about," the Prock continued. "If you make it to Whangdoodleland with the children, what's to stop others from doing it? It's too big a risk to take and I won't allow it," he snapped.

"Nevertheless, I do intend to try this experiment." The professor was quietly adamant. "Right now, I don't think there's a thing you can do about it, Prock."

"Not now, no." The Prock was distinctly annoyed. "But I'll be waiting for you, and you won't get far." He wagged a spindly finger at the professor. "Those children won't be so easy to teach, although I'll enjoy watching you try. In fact, I'll be watching everything you do from now on."

He eased himself to the door with a slithering, sliding walk. "I'm going," he declared. "This whole conversation has given me a terrible headache."

Without even bothering to say goodbye, the Prock drew himself up to an immense height and then, as if being pulled by an invisible hand, he slid down to the floor in a single motion and disappeared through the crack under the door.

FIVE

Mrs. Potter was thrilled when the professor telephoned to ask if the children could come to tea. She asked them again and again for details of their visit. "What is the professor like? What did he say? What kind of house does he live in?" They told her all they could without once mentioning the Whangdoodle. It was hard on Lindy, for she was very excited and she desperately wanted to tell someone about their plans. But her brothers reminded her of the professor's warning and she remained silent. -

The following Friday after school, Ben, Tom and Lindy found themselves back at Stone House.

"The professor is out in the garden," Mrs. Primrose said cheerfully as she showed the children into the lounge. She opened the French windows and pointed to a small pavilion on the other side of the lawn. "He's over there."

"Hello, hello, hello." The professor's head popped up over the trellis. "Come and see what I've got."

The children ran across the grass. Professor Savant was kneeling on the floor of the summerhouse, playing with a large multicolored rabbit.

"Ohhh." Lindy dropped to her knees. "Isn't he beautiful."

"What's his name?" asked Tom.

"Sneezewort. He lives in my laboratory. I hate to see him in a cage all the time, so I bring him down for a walk as often as I can."

"Where did you get him?" Ben wanted to know.

"Sneezewort is the result of a study I did in crossbreeding," the professor said proudly. "His great-grandfather was a Belgian hare and his great-grandmother was a Himalayan black-and-white. I went on from there. You should have seen the combinations I produced." He chuckled.

Lindy held out a rolled piece of paper that she had been ca
rrying. "Here, Professor. I did
a drawing for you." She shyly handed it to him. "It's a Whangdoodle."

"Why, Lindy. How nice." The professor unrolled the paper. "But that's wonderful. That looks very much like a Whangdoodle. But you've left out his bedroom slippers."

"Bedroom slippers?" asked Tom.

"Yes. He always wears bedroom slippers. Actually he
grows
them, and each year he grows a different pair—a different color and a different style."

Lindy drew in her breath. "That's fantastic."

"It is, isn't it?" agreed the professor. "And what's more, the Whangdo
odle never knows what the slip
pers will look like until he has shed the old pair and grown the new. It's a surprise even to him."

The children hardly had time to digest this piece of information when the professor continued. "There's one other remarkable thing about the Whangdoodle. He can change color whenever he feels like it. It's a safety device. He can blend in with anything so no one can see him."

Lindy whispered, "What color is he normally?"

"Oh, a sort of warm grey-brown. Rather ordinary, really," the professor replied. "But of course if he's feeling cheerful he can turn Scotch plaid if he wants to."

The children laughed delightedly. "He sounds like such fun," said Lindy. "Does he have a beautiful palace?"

"Well, I've only seen it from a distance. But it is rather remarkable. Lots of turrets and things, you know."

"Does he live there alone?" Ben asked.

"Oh, yes. Totally."

Lindy was conc
erned. "Doesn't he get lonely?"

"I would think so."

"Why is the Whangdoodle a king?" asked Tom. "Because he's the best of all the creatures. I told you about that, remember?"

"So he's very smart?"

"Smart? I should say so," the professor replied emphatically. "Could you grow bedroom slippers? Or change color? Could you preserve peace? Yes, indeed—he is quite remarkable, and if we are ever going to see him we must get to work."

The children seated themselves beside the professor and he pointed to the garden.

"First of all, take a look around," he said. "A very good look. Now, I want you to tell me all the colors that you can see. Benjamin, I think you should begin."

Ben had the feeling that he was not going to be very good at this kind of exercise. "Well," he began hesitantly, "I see the grey house. Brown trees and a blue sky. Oh, and green grass, of course."

"Is that all?"

"Well, I see a dark-brown roof and the curtains at that window."

"Tom, what about you?"

"This white summerhouse," Tom began, "and I see Sneezewort. A green door. Er—that's all, except for what Ben said."

The professor turned to Lindy.

She took a deep breath. "There are little white clouds in the sky and those leaves are golden. There's a bird with a red-brown chest. Your logs over there are sort of yellow. Those flowers are orange and white."

"They're late chrysanthemums," said the professor. "We'll have a look at them in a moment. But first of all, look at the trees again. They're not just brown, are they? That one there is almost black. And the trunk of that one is copper and smooth, and that one is grey and rough. Those dead leaves are a russet color, aren't they? Now look under the hedge there. Do you see anything?"

The children looked. They saw nothing.

"Can't you see the cluster of red berries hanging up under the leaves?"

The children looked closer. Suddenly, as if the focus were being changed on a camera, the red berries came into their view.

"Why didn't I see them?" Tom was bewildered.

"Because you weren't looking," replied the professor. "There aren't many people in this world who really know how to look. Usually one glance is enough to register that grass is green and the sky is blue and so on. They can tell you if the sun is shining or if it looks like rain, but that's about all. It's such a pity, for there is texture to everything we see, and everything we do and hear. That's what I want today's lesson to be about. I want you to start
noticing
things. Once you get used to doing it you'll never be able to stop. It's the best game in the world."

The children found themselves beginning to share the professor's excitement; he spoke with such passion and enthusiasm.

"Every walk we take from now on, every place that we go," he continued, "I want you to tell me all that you see. Even this close to winter you'll be surprised how much color there is. In the town there'll be shops and rooftops, flags and curtains and bright lights, traffic signals, balloons, the colors of cars and the clothes people are wearing.

"In the country, there will be color in the leaves and flowers and trees, under the hedgerows, by the wayside, in the grass." He pointed to the ground. "Ben, look closely here. See the earth between the blades? See how rough and hard it is after the frost? Think of being as small as an ant down there. Look at it as if you were indeed a beetle or a worm. Wouldn't the earth be different to you then? Wouldn't it be a whole new countryside? The lumps of clay would be mountains and the blades of grass would be a forest."

Ben stared at the ground and to his amazement he saw what the professor meant. "I've never thought
to look at it that way before," he said. He was completely fascinated.

The professor slapped his knee. "Well, that's just my point. Nobody thinks to look."

He turned to Lindy. "Tell me what you see in the hedgerow there, Lindy. Do you see anything beyond that opening in the branches? Can you see how the shadow on the grass makes it look as though there's a path in there and that it might lead somewhere exciting?"

Lindy looked at the hedge carefully and concentrated hard. The light and shade played strange tricks on her eyes. There was a shimmering quality to the afternoon, and her head felt a little fuzzy. It seemed to her as though the hedge began to move, to twist into a different shape, like a tunnel. She leaned forward, mesmerized. For one second she was convinced that if she could just go through the tunnel she would come out into a new and unknown land. She was so excited that she looked up at the professor to tell him about it, and as she did so the spell was broken.

"What is it, Lindy?" The professor watched her keenly.

Lindy turned to look at the hedge once again. She frowned because the illusion wasn't there anymore.

All she could see was the green hedge in a perfectly plain winter garden.

"That's funny," she said, "I thought that . . ." She stopped, aware that the boys were staring at her. "Well—it's not important. I guess I let my imagination run away with me for a moment."

Professor Savant looked at her thoughtfully. Then he turned and walked onto the lawn.

"Come and look over here," he called. "I want to show you something." The children followed him. He moved to the small clump of chrysanthemums that Lindy had pointed out earlier. He picked a beautiful white one on a thick green stem. "Look at this. See how sturdy it is. A flower that blooms this close to winter has to be strong." He handed it to Lindy.

Ben shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "I think flowers are a bit sissy for a boy."

The professor moved to Sneezewort and picked him up. "Let's go inside and I'll show you something that just might change your mind, young man. Have you started science in school yet?"

"We began last semester, sir."

"Good. Bring that flower with you, Lindy," he commanded, and walked briskly into the warm house.

The children followed him as he climbed the three flights of stairs to the small white door.

"I'll have you know," he said as he unlocked it, "that I allow very few people in here. Very few, indeed." He stepped aside to let them through.

They gasped when they saw the room. Ben felt as if he had stepped into a small paradise.

"Look at that telescope," he said.

"What are all those lights?" Tom asked.

"That's a model of a problem I've been working on." The professor moved over to it. "It's made of special fiber-optic glass which allows the light to shine through in such an interesting way. It's good, isn't it?"

"It sure is." Tom sounded almost reverent.

The professor took the cover off a large microscope. "This is what I wanted to show you, Ben. This is called a binocular microscope because you look through it with both eyes. Give me that flower, Lindy."

She handed him the chrysanthemum. The professor carefully removed a single white petal and placed it under the lens.

"Look in here now," he said. "This should make flowers a little more interesting."

The children took turns and each saw something that resembled an aerial photograph of a river with many streams feeding into it, a latticework of tiny interconnecting tubes.

"Those veins, or tubes, carry energy to the cells in the petal," the professor explained. "See what happens if I put a drop of ink onto the stem of the petal? See how the blue circulates through every little vein? That's just how blood circulates through your bodies."

Lindy made a face. "I don't like blood. It's gross."

'Well, that's a silly remark. Blood carries nutrition and energy and food to every part of your body. So instead of saying 'gross' you should be saying 'How wonderful.' "

The professor turned to the boys. "I want to make a point and I want you to learn it well," he said. "I know there are times when things seem rather boring to you or not worth your interest. Like this flower today. Once you noticed its color and the fact that it was growing, you dismissed it; it was 'sissy.' A magnificent creation like a flower is definitely
not
`sissy.' When I showed you the flower under the microscope, you learned that there was a whole new dimension to it."

"What's a dimension?" Lindy asked.

"In this case it means going one step beyond what you already see or know. Finding another world, one that has been there all along, just waiting for you to discover it."

"Like Whangdoodleland," she said. "Is that a dimension?"

"In a way, yes," said the professor. "My point is this: I don't want you ever again to take something at face value—to take things for granted. Let your curiosity run away with you. Know that beyond every ordinary explanation there is a deeper and more exciting discovery to be made."

There was a knock on the door and Mrs. Primrose entered. "Tea is ready, sir."

"Fine," said the professor. "Then that will end our lesson for today. Tomorrow we are going to go on a picnic, so bring your bicycles. Also, you should dress in weatherproof clothes because it is going to rain."

"How on earth do you know that?" Tom asked. The professor rumpled the boy's hair.

"I'm a scientist, Thomas, and I also heard the weather forecast on the radio."

They all laughed and clattered downstairs to tea.

That evening the children were elated. Lindy, especially, was keyed up. Her powers of concentration had been put to good use that afternoon. By dinnertime she was so excited she was almost unable to eat.

Mrs. Potter tried not to show her concern. "Lindy dear, don't just stare at your plate. Eat your stew and dumplings."

"It's not stew and they're not dumplings," Lindy answered. "It's a brown land with mountains and the dumplings are sponges—white sponges that will suck you up if you go too near them."

"What's this? What are you talking about?" Mr. Potter gave his daughter a keen glance.

"No, not sponges." Lindy changed her mind. "They're giant boulders and I wish I were small enough to climb one."

Mrs. Potter said, "I think this afternoon has been a little too much for you. You're being very silly."

"It's not silly, Mom." Tom came to Lindy's defense. "Look at the peas on my plate. Don't they look like tiny green stones? Like when you're at the seaside and the beach is all pebbles?"

"They just look like peas to me," replied Mrs. Potter. "I think you all need an early night."

As Lindy was preparing for bed, Tom knocked on the door of her room.

"Lindy? Can I come in?"

"What do you want, Tom?"

"Here's the quarter that I owe you." He put it on her bedside table.

Lindy examined the twenty-five-cent piece.

"Thanks. But you don't really need to give this to me. Do you want it back?"

Tom was surprised and he thought about it for a moment. "No," he said. "You won it fairly and besides, if you hadn't gone up to Stone House, we'd never have met the professor."

She smiled at him. "Tell you what, I won't ever spend it. I'll just keep it to remind me of Halloween. It'll be my lucky piece from now on."

In a rare show of affection for his sister, Tom patted her on the shoulder. "Okay. Okay. Well, good night."

"Good night, Tom."

Lindy slowly removed her slippers and bathrobe. She pulled her curtains and brushed her teeth and then climbed into her comfortable brass bed. She lay back against the pillows and thought about the afternoon and how wonderful it had been. She thought about the professor and Sneezewort and the incredible microscope.

Soon, she began to drift into sleep. Through half-closed eyes she gazed at the curtains pulled across her windows. They were pretty curtains, printed with flowers of the countryside: red and orange poppies, white and yellow daisies, blue cornflowers. Lindy thought, as she often did, how nice it would be to walk in a field filled with flowers like that. The curtains moved very slightly. She stretched out a hand to touch the flowers, which seemed almost within her grasp.

When Mrs. Potter came upstairs to say good night to her daughter she found her already asleep, smiling peacefully, and with one hand open on the coverlet.