by Joan Aiken
Another person who wasn't happy was Mike the steward. Miss Brandy Brown had sent for him and given him a terrible telling off; she accused him of letting the raven into her cabin when he went in to turn down the bed. "For how else could he have got the door open?" she said. "He must have been lurking in my cabin for hours."
It was no use Mike's protesting he had done no such thing. She wouldn't listen, and he felt very ill used.
After lunch the Queen of Bethnal Green anchored off the coast of Spain. Boats came out from the land; anybody who liked could go ashore in them. Lots of passengers went, including Miss Brandy Brown and Mr. and Mrs. Jones. But Arabel said she would prefer to stay on board.
"Don't you want to see Spain, dearie?" said Mrs. Jones, who in secret thought it sadly probable that Mortimer had been lost overboard.
"No," said Arabel. "I shall go on hunting. And they're going to take the cover off the swimming pool and Henry's father is going to teach Henry and me to swim."
With light hearts, feeling that their child could hardly be in better hands, Mr. and Mrs. Jones went off to look at Spain.
Henry and Arabel watched the cover taken off the pool. At one side of the deck there was a small crane which was used for hoisting heavy objects on board, and now, with one of the crew winding its handle, the crane leaned forward and tweaked the big lid off the pool.
Arabel had a secret hope that perhaps Mortimer would be underneath, but he wasn't.
However, they had a very enjoyable swim with Henry's father. But presently the water in the pool began to tip and slop about a good deal, and the sky turned gray, and Captain Mainbrace, glancing up at it, said: "Looks like dirty weather coming. It's a good thing that the shore boats are due back."
He hurried off to check his instruments and listen to the weather forecast.
Henry and Arabel got dressed and then watched the entertainment staff, who were making ready for an open-air concert to be held on deck that evening.
The crane dropped the lid back over the swimming pool, and then the Rumpus Lounge piano was rolled as far as the doorway leading to the open deck. There, a rope was tied round it, and then the crane hooked its hook into the rope and picked up the piano as easily as if it had been a basket of potatoes (although it was a concert grand almost as large as Mr. Jones's taxi) and gently dropped it down right on top of the swimming pool lid.
While this was happening, some members of the entertainment staff were setting out potted palms and orange trees and blooming roses in tubs, and others were painting a huge piece of hardboard with a beautiful sunset scene. This was to go behind the piano so that it would look as if Miss Brown and the Stepney Stepalives were performing in the middle of a Persian garden.
Arabel and Henry watched for a while and then they went off to hunt for Mortimer in all the places they hadn't tried yet. It was a great pity that they went away when they did, for not five minutes after they had gone below Mortimer himself came wandering out through the door from the games room, where he had been dozing behind a pile of deck chairs.
Just at that moment nobody was around. The scene painters had gone off to have their tea, and so had the piano shifters.
Mortimer meandered slowly along. A pot of lavender-colored paint had been knocked over, and he walked through a puddle of the stuff, leaving a trail of lavender footprints behind him. He was still fast asleep due to the powerful action of the green pill Mike had given him. He walked with his wings stretched out in front of him, as if he were feeling his way. When he came to the piano stool he climbed on it, and so on to the piano, and then, as if he had expected all along that it would be there waiting for him, got inside the open lid.
Then he lay down on the strings and went on sleeping.
It was just at this moment that Mike the steward came up on deck; he had finished his tea and wanted a breath of fresh air. The first thing he noticed was the trail of lavender footprints leading to the piano. Mike tiptoed up to the piano and looked inside. There was Mortimer, lying on his back on the strings, fast asleep, breathing peacefully, with his feet covered in lavender paint.
Quick as a flash, but very quietly, Mike shut the piano lid and locked it.
His first intention had been to find Arabel and tell her that her companion was safe. In fact, he did start off to look for her. But he did not find her at once (she was in the sauna room, right down at the bottom of the ship). In the meantime, as he hunted for Arabel, Mike couldn't help thinking to himself: "Wouldn't it be a lark to leave Mortimer inside the piano till Miss Brandy Brown starts to play in the concert this evening! I bet he'd kick up a rumpus! Maybe that would teach snooty Miss B not to make such a fuss over things people didn't even do."
Mike was still feeling very ruffled and sore at the things Miss Brown had said to him.
5
The shore boats were coming back, and only just in time, for the sky was covered with fat black clouds and the wind was getting up, and so were the waves, and there was also a low rumble of thunder every now and then. And big drops of rain had begun to fall.
Captain Mainbrace sent a message to Miss Brandy Brown that her outdoor concert had better be altered to an indoor one, since he was going to hoist up anchor and take the Queen of Bethnal Green out to sea until the storm had blown over, to avoid the danger of being washed against the rocky coast.
So Miss Brown, in her turn, sent a message to the scene shifters, asking them if they would move the things back into the Rumpus Lounge; and, wiping the tea from their mouths and stubbing out their cigarettes, they came back on deck. Once more the crane was swung out, the hook was lowered, and the rope was knotted around the grand piano. The hook was tucked into the rope, and the piano was hoisted up into the air.
But just at that moment several things happened simultaneously. The siren let out a blast—woooooooooooop—the Queen of Bethnal Green started turning round, moving toward the open sea—and a huge wave, piled up by a giant gust of wind, which had been rolling along toward the liner, met her head-on and caused her to bounce from end to end like a floating sponge when somebody jumps into the bath.
What happened? The grand piano, at the end of its rope, swung violently sideways, like a conker on a string—there it was, a piano in midair, everybody staring at it; next minute the rope broke, kertwang! and there was the piano flying off as if it had been catapulted.
Mike the steward happened to look out through the Rumpus Lounge window and see the piano land in the water—otherwise this story might have ended differently.
"Ohmygawd! What's that piano doing out there in the sea?" he gasped, and rushed out on deck, where, in the pouring rain, the crane operator was apologizing to Miss Brandy Brown and she was saying that playing on that piano was the next thing to playing on an old sardine can and she, for one, didn't care if it floated off to the Canary Islands; anyway, there must be another piano somewhere about the ship.
"B-b-b-b-b-b-but Miss B-b-b-b-b-b-b-brown! Mortimer the raven's inside that piano!" wailed Mike.
Arabel and Henry, who had heard the siren and felt the ship's violent lurch, and had come dashing up on deck to find out what was happening, arrived just in time to hear Mike say this and Miss Brandy Brown reply:
"Well, if that's so, I hope the perishing piano floats right over to Pernambuco with the blessed bird inside it."
But luckily for Mortimer, Mr. Fairbairn, the chief engineer, also happened to be passing just then. Henry grabbed his arm.
"Oh, Mr. Fairbairn! Arabel's raven is inside that piano!"
"Och, mairrcy, the puir bairrd—whit unchancy hirdumdirdum gar'd him loup intae sic an orra hauld at sic a gillravaging time? Yon corbie's randy cantrips aye fissell us a' frae yin carfuffle tae anither; forby he's no like tae win oot frae this splore the noo wi'oot sic a dose o' mirligoes as'll gar him gang mair kenspeckit frae noo on—bless us a', whit a clamjamfry!"
But while Mr. Fairbairn was grumbling and exclaiming in this manner, he was not wasting any time; he had raced along the deck an
d knocked out the pins that held one of the lifeboats, No. 16, in position; while he did so, Arabel, Mike, and Henry scrambled into it; Mr. Fairbairn jumped nimbly after them as the boat slid down from its davits and landed in the sea with a plunge and a bounce. Almost before they were in the water, Mike had started the boat's engine, which began to go chug-chug-chug in a reliable and comforting manner, and just as well, for, seen from down here, the waves looked as huge and black as a herd of elephants, while the sky was getting darker every minute, the thunder growled, the wind shrieked, and lightning, from time to time, silvered the tips of the wave crests.
"Where's the piano?" cried Arabel anxiously. "Can you see it, Mr. Fairbairn? Is it still floating?"
It was not easy to keep the piano in view now that they were down at its level. But back on the Queen of Bethnal Green Hamish McTavish had told Captain Mainbrace what was going on, and he helped them by having rockets fired in the direction of the black floating object—it now looked no larger than a matchbox—which was all that could be seen of Mortimer and Miss Brandy Brown's Broadwood.
But lifeboat No. 16 chugged reliably on its way; and at last they caught up with the piano. None too soon; it was settling lower and lower in the water as they overtook it.
"Suppose the water's got inside?" said Arabel.
"Ne'er fash yersel', lassie—I'm after hearing that yon Broadwood craftsmen do a grand watertight job o' cabinet-making."
The lifeboat was equipped with a hook for getting people out of the water, so while Mr. Fairbairn steered, Henry hung over the side and managed to hook the piano by the leg, while Arabel clung like grim death on to Henry's feet, and Mike leaned over until he was nearly cut in half by the edge of the boat and, with frightful difficulty, unlocked the lid of the piano—which, by great good fortune, was floating the right way up.
"Is Mortimer there?" Arabel asked faintly, who could see nothing as she was lying flat holding on to Henry's feet.
"He's there all right," said Mike, who had almost fractured his spine hoisting up Mortimer's very considerable weight from the sinking piano into the safety of the boat.
"Is—is—is he alive?"
"I reckon he's unconscious," Mike said. "We'd better give him a slug of brandy."
Mortimer lay flat on the bottom boards with his eyes shut and his lavender-colored feet sticking straight out; from underneath his wing fell Mike's key ring.
"So he's the pilfering so-and-so that stole my keys," said Mike. "I might have guessed it. Getting me into all that trouble!"
But then he thought how easily Mortimer might have drowned, due to his own idea for a practical joke, and he knelt down by the motionless raven with the brandy flask from the lifeboat's first-aid box.
Just at that moment Mortimer, lying on his back, gave a loud, unmistakable snore. Even over the sound of the engine and the storm they heard it.
"Och, havers, will ye look at that," said Mr. Fairbairn. "The sackless sumph is still sleeping. For a' sakes, let's gang oor ways back to the ship afore he wakes up."
It took them much longer to get back to the ship, for all the time they had been rescuing Mortimer the Queen of Bethnal Green had been steaming full speed ahead for the open sea, since she did not dare stay close to the dangerous cliffs.
Mr. and Mrs. Jones had just got back on board when all this excitement began, and had been horrified to see the line of lavender-colored footprints leading along the deck to nowhere, and to learn that their only child was out in a tiny boat on that black and wicked sea on such a perilous quest. In fact, Mrs. Jones fainted dead away and had to be revived with smelling salts and a hot-water bottle against the back of her neck.
By the time she had come to, lifeboat No. 16 had been hauled back on board, and Mrs. Jones clung to Arabel and hugged her and shook her and slapped her and laughed and cried and said that Arabel must promise never, never to go off again in a boat like that in the middle of such a storm.
"But I'd have to, Ma, if Mortimer was floating in the piano."
"I don't care! You shouldn't have gone, even if he was inside a harpsichord! Now go and have a hot bath this minute, and take that dratted bird with you!"
Luckily, all through this Mortimer went on sleeping. Arabel had a hot shower, and Mike brought her a delicious supper on a tray, and a whole lot of people came to congratulate her on the brave rescue, and on having Mortimer back safe and sound. All the previous events were forgiven and forgotten; Arabel, Mortimer, Henry, Mike, and Mr. Fairbairn were the most popular people on the ship.
And all this time Mortimer went on sleeping.
Then the best thing of all happened.
Mr. Fairbairn arrived, carrying a soggy, wet, nasty, messy, salty, sodden, draggled bit of dark green woolly material.
"Hoo are ye the noo, lassie?" he said. "No' the waur for yer boatie trip? When I was mekking a' siccar wi' the lifeboat I fund yon clout, an' for a' it's sae droukit an' towzled I bricht it along tae speer is't yon birdie's neck rag, that a' the blether's bin aboot?"
"Oh, Mr. Fairbairn, it is! It's Mortimer's tie!" cried Arabel joyfully. "Oh, thank you, thank you! It must have blown up, not down, and got tangled in the davits! Oh, Mortimer will be pleased. It's lovely and wet and cold, too—just the way he likes it."
At this moment Mortimer opened one eye. The first thing he saw was his dirty, soggy, wet, draggled, salt-encrusted, sodden, beloved green necktie.
Mortimer gave a huge sigh of relief, which made his feathers all stick out sideways like the petals of a French marigold. (They looked rather like petals, too, for they were still all curly with setting lotion activated by the salt water.)
Arabel laid the end of the tie by Mortimer's beak, and he took hold of it with a sudden quick snap. Then, shutting his eyes again, he stood up and turned round and round half a dozen times until he was nicely wound up. Then he dug his head under his wing, lay down, and went back to sleep.
But Mr. Fairbairn gave a party, and Arabel and Henry and Isabella went to it and stayed up till all hours.
The last seven days of the cruise passed quickly. The weather was fine. Miss Brandy Brown gave her concert with the Stepney Stepalives. Arabel and Henry played a lot more table tennis. The Queen of Bethnal Green steamed back across the Bay of Biscay, up the English Channel, round the corner of Kent, and along the Thames. All this time Mortimer stayed asleep. Just occasionally he would open one eye. If it could see water going past outside the porthole, he shut it again.
Then, at last, when he opened his eye, he saw the streets of Tilbury going past through Mr. Jones's taxi window.
"Kaaaark!" said Mortimer. He opened both eyes. The streets were still there—beautiful, gray, rainy streets with houses and shops and traffic lights—no sea anywhere. Mortimer sat bolt upright on Arabel's lap. His black eyes began to sparkle.
"He's so glad to be home again," said Arabel. "Didn't I say that going on a cruise to Spain would be a horrible mistake? Didn't I?" said Mr. Jones. He was driving his own taxi, which Mr. Murphy had kindly brought to the dock for him.
Just as they rolled to a stop in front of Number Six, Rainwater Crescent, Mortimer clambered onto the back of the front seat. He reached over Mr. Jones's shoulder and pulled the key out of the ignition. Then he flopped out through the taxi door (which Arabel had just opened) and made his way quite fast along the pavement.
"Stop him, stop him!" said Mr. Jones. "That bunch has the front-door key on it, too."
But before Arabel could get to him, Mortimer had reached up, tip-claw, and posted the whole bunch of keys into the open slot of the letter box that stood in front of Number Six.
Then he happily climbed up the front steps, dragging his tie behind him.
The Spiral Stair
1
"Excuse me. Are you two gentlemen going as far as Foxwell?" Mrs. Jones inquired nervously, having opened the railway carriage door and poked her head through. The hand that was not holding the door handle clasped the wrist of Mrs. Jones's daughter, Arabel, who was carrying a lar
ge canvas bag.
Mrs. Jones had been opening doors and asking this question all the way along the train when she thought the occupants of the carriage looked respectable. Some of them did not. Some weren't going as far as Foxwell.
But the two men in this carriage looked very respectable. Both had bowler hats. One was small and stout, one was large and pale. Their briefcases were in the rack, and they were talking to each other in low, confidential, businesslike voices.
Now they stopped and looked at Mrs. Jones as if they were rather put out at being interrupted. But one of them—the small fat one—said, "Yes, madam. We are getting out at Foxwell, as it happens."
The other man, the large pale one, frowned, as if he wished his friend had not been so helpful.
"Oh, are you, that's ever such a relief then," cried Mrs. Jones, "for you look like nice reliable gentlemen and I'm sure you won't mind seeing that my little girl, that's Arabel here, gets out at Foxwell where her uncle Urk will be meeting her and I know it looks ever so peculiar my not going with her myself, but I have to hurry back to Rumbury Hospital where my hubby, Mr. Jones, is having his various veins seen to and he likes me to visit him all the visiting hours and I couldn't leave poor little Arabel alone at home every day, let alone Mortimer, and my sister Brenda isn't a bit keen to have them, but luckily my hubby's brother Urk lives in the country and said he would oblige, leastways it was his wife, Effie, that wrote but Ben said Urk would know how to manage Mortimer on account of him being used to all kinds of wild—"
