Arabel and Mortimer

by Joan Aiken

  But the noise made by Uncle Urk as he snored was so tremendous that neither he nor Effie (who was snoring a bit on her own account) could possibly hear Arabel's polite tones.

  "Oh dear, Mortimer," said Arabel then. "I wonder what we had better do."

  Mortimer plainly thought that they ought to let well enough alone. His expression suggested that if every giraffe in the zoo were hijacked, he, personally, would not raise any objection.

  "Perhaps we could wake up Lord Donisthorpe," Arabel said, and she went downstairs and into the garden, with Mortimer sitting on her shoulder.

  But when they were close to it, Lord Donisthorpe's castle looked very difficult to enter. There was a moat, and a drawbridge, which was raised, and a massive wooden door, which was shut.

  Then Arabel remembered that Chris slept in a wooden hut near the ostrich enclosure.

  "We'll wake Chris," she told Mortimer. "He'll know what to do."

  Mortimer was greatly enjoying the trip through the moonlit zoo. He did not mind where they went, or what they did, as long as they did not go back to bed too soon.

  Arabel walked quietly over the grass in her bedroom slippers. "Chris sleeps in the hut with red geraniums in the window boxes," she said. "He showed it to me while the doughnuts were cooking."

  "Kaaark," said Mortimer, thinking about doughnuts.

  Arabel walked up to the hut with the red geraniums and banged on the door.

  "Chris!" she called softly. "It's me—Arabel! Will you open the door, please?"

  It took a long time to wake Chris. Nobody had pumped any gas under his door; he was just naturally a very heavy sleeper. But at last he woke and came stumbling and yawning to open the door. He was very surprised to see Arabel.

  "Arabel! And Mortimer! Whatever are you doing up at this time of night? Your aunt Effie would blow her top!"

  "Shhh!" said Arabel. "Chris, Mortimer and I think there are thieves in the zoo. Can't you hear a kind of thumping and bumping coming from the zebra house?"

  Chris listened and thought he could. "I'd best set off the alarm," he said. "Lord Donisthorpe always tells us, 'Better ten false alarms than lose one animal.'"

  He pressed the alarm button, which ought to have let off tremendously loud sirens at different points all over the park, but nothing happened.

  "That's funny," Chris said, scratching his head and yawning some more. Then his eyes and his mouth opened wide, and he said, "Blimey! It must be thieves. They must have cut the wire. I'd best go on my bike and rouse Lord Donisthorpe. I know a back way into the castle, and then he can phone the police. You'd better stop here, Arabel, until I get back; you shouldn't be running about the zoo in your slippers if there's thieves around."

  Chris started off on his bike toward Lord Donisthorpe's castle. Arabel would have stayed in his hut, as he asked her, but Mortimer had other ideas. He hoisted himself off Arabel's shoulder and began flapping heavily along the ground in the direction of the giraffe house.

  "Mortimer!" called Arabel. "Come back!"

  But Mortimer took no notice, and so Arabel started in pursuit of him.

  To Arabel's horror, as she went after Mortimer, she saw a truck parked outside the zebra house. Men with black bowler hats, crammed so far down over their heads that their faces were invisible, stood by the truck, packing in limp zebras which seemed to be fast asleep.

  "Oh, how awful!" said Arabel. "Mortimer, stop! The thieves are stealing the zebras!"

  But Mortimer was not interested in zebra thieves. He had only one idea in his head and that was to get to the doughnut machine near the giraffe house. The thieves did not notice Arabel and Mortimer pass by, and Arabel caught up with Mortimer just as he perched on the machine.

  "Kaaark!" he said, giving the machine a hopeful kick.

  "If I get you a doughnut, Mortimer, will you come back with me quietly to Chris's hut?" said Arabel. She had the tenpenny piece that Lord Donisthorpe had given her in her dressing-gown pocket.

  Mortimer made no answer but jumped up and down on top of the machine.

  So Arabel put her coin in the slot, and Mortimer, almost standing on his head with interest and enthusiasm, watched the doughnut slide down into the oil to cook; then he watched the hook hoist it out and the puffer blow white crystals all over it; then he watched it tumble out into the paper cup; then he grabbed it, jumped down off the machine, and disappeared in the direction of the giraffe house.

  "Mortimer, come back!" called Arabel. "You promised—!"

  But that was all she said, for the next minute she found herself wrapped up as tightly as if twenty yards of oil pipeline had been wound round her, and she found herself staring, stiff with fright, straight into the thoughtful face of Noah the boa.

  4

  Meanwhile the thieves, working at top speed, had packed all the drugged zebras into their truck, with layers of foam rubber in between. Then they went on to the ostriches. It was easy to drug the ostriches; all they needed to do was sprinkle chloroform on the sand where the ostriches hid their heads, and then make an alarming noise; in five minutes all the ostriches were out flat.

  "D'you reckon we've time to take in a few camels as well as the giraffes?" asked Fred, the truck driver, when the ostriches were packed in. "Camels are fetching very fancy prices just now up Blackpool way."

  But the short fat man was looking toward Lord Donisthorpe's castle, where a light had come on in one of the windows high up.

  "That looks like trouble," he said. "Maybe the old geezer heard something. We better not fool around; go straight for the giraffes, get them packed in, and get away."

  At this moment Lord Donisthorpe was speaking on the phone to the local police. "Yes, Inspector; as I just told you, we have reason to believe that there are thieves on my estate, engaged in stealing animals—who told me so? I understand that a raven, of unusually acute hearing, informed a young person named Arabel Jones, who informed a youthful attendant at the zoo—who informed me—"

  At this moment also, Noah the boa, who had decided, after careful inspection of Arabel, that she looked as if she might be good to eat—probably not quite as good as a doughnut, but still much better than a rabbit—had thrown an extra loop of himself round both Arabel and the doughnut machine, to which he was hitched, and had begun to squeeze, at the same time opening his mouth wider and wider.

  But his squeezing had an unexpected effect. It started the doughnut machine working, just as if somebody had put in a coin.

  Arabel, doing her best to keep quite calm, said politely, "Excuse me, but if you wouldn't mind undoing the coil that is holding my hands, here, I would be able to press the lever and then I could get you a doughnut, if you'd like?"

  Noah was not very bright, but he did understand the word doughnut, and Arabel's wriggling of her hands indicated what she meant. He loosened one of his coils; Arabel pressed the lever twice; and the machine ever so quickly sugared a doughnut and tossed it out into a paper cup. Noah swallowed it in a flash and, as the machine was still working, Arabel pressed the lever again.

  Meanwhile the thieves had quietly moved their truck on to the giraffe house, parked, and gone inside.

  "Blimey," said Fred, "what, in the name of all that's 'orrible, 'as been going on 'ere?"

  For when they shone their flashlights around, a scene of perfectly hopeless confusion was revealed: all that could be seen was legs of giraffes at the bottom of the spiral stair, while their necks, like some dreadfully tangled piece of knitting, were all twined up inside the spiral.

  "Strewth!" said the short fat man. "How are we ever going to get them out of there?"

  Meanwhile Lord Donisthorpe and Chris, both riding bicycles, were dashing through the zoo, hunting for the malefactors. Chris was dreadfully worried about Arabel because he had found his hut empty; he kept calling, as he rode along, "Arabel? Mortimer? Where are you?"

  At this moment the thieves, feverishly trying to untangle the necks of the giraffes and drag them out of the spiral stair, heard the unmistakab
le gulping howl of a police-car siren coming fast.

  "Here, we better scram," said the fat man.

  "They got cops in helicopters?" said Fred. "The sound o' that siren seems to be coming from dead overhead."

  "It's the acoustics of this building, thickhead."

  "Never mind where the perishing sound's coming from," said the pale man. "We better hop it. At least we've got the ostriches and the zebras."

  They ran for their truck. But Chris, who reached it just before them, had taken the key out of the ignition. The thieves were obliged to abandon their van and escape on foot. And as they pounded toward the distant gate, something like an enormous tube traveling at thirty miles an hour caught up with them, flung a half hitch round each of them, and brought them to the ground.

  It was Noah, who, having for once in his life eaten as many doughnuts as he wanted, was now prepared to do his job of burglar catching.

  Chris went in search of Arabel and found her, rather pale and faint, sitting by the doughnut machine. Mortimer, looking very pleased with himself indeed, was perched on her shoulder, still giving his celebrated imitation of a police-car siren.

  When the real police turned up half an hour later, all they had to do was take the thieves off to jail. Then, greatly to Arabel's relief, Lord Donisthorpe took Noah back to his cage, wheeling him in a barrow.

  Chris and Lord Donisthorpe had already unpacked the ostriches and zebras and laid them out in the fresh air to sleep off the effects of the drug they had been given.

  But it took ever so much longer to untangle the giraffes from the spiral stair. In fact, they were obliged to dismantle the top part of their stair altogether.

  "I can't think how they ever got their necks in like this," said Lord Donisthorpe, panting. "Let alone why."

  Chris thought he could guess. He had found traces of doughnut on each step all the way up.

  "Perhaps it's not such a good idea to have a spiral stair in the giraffe house," murmured Lord Donisthorpe as the last captive—Wendy—was carefully pulled out, set upright on her spindly legs, and given a pail of giraffe food to revive her.

  "Well, I certainly am greatly obliged to you three," added Lord Donisthorpe to Arabel and Chris, who had helped to extract Wendy, and to Mortimer, who had been sitting on the stair rail and enjoying the spectacle. "If not for you, my zoo would have suffered severe losses tonight, and I hope I can do something for you in return."

  Chris said politely that he didn't think he wanted anything. He just liked working in the zoo.

  Mortimer didn't even bother to reply. He was remembering how enjoyable it had been to entice Wendy, Elsie, and Derek farther and farther up the spiral stair by holding the doughnut just in front of their noses.

  But Arabel said, "Oh, please, Lord Donisthorpe. Could you please ask Aunt Effie not to shut Mortimer up in the meat safe? He does hate it so."

  "Perhaps it would be best," said Lord Donisthorpe thoughtfully, "if Mortimer came to stay with me in my castle while you remain at Foxwell. I believe ravens are often to be found in castles. And there is really very little harm he can do there, if any."

  "Oh, yes," said Arabel. "He'd love to live in a castle, wouldn't you, Mortimer?"

  "Kaaark," said Mortimer.

  And so that is what happened.

  Aunt Effie and Uncle Urk were quite astonished when they woke up next morning and learned all that had been going on during the night. But Aunt Effie was not able to scold Arabel or Mortimer, as Lord Donisthorpe said they had been the means of saving all his ostriches and zebras, not to mention the giraffes.

  Arabel soon became very fond of Wendy, Derek, and Elsie; though she had continual trouble preventing Mortimer from teasing them.

  But she never did get to like Noah the boa.

  Mortimer and the Sword Excalibur

  1

  It was a fine spring morning in Rainwater Crescent, Rumbury Town, north London. Arabel Jones and Mortimer, Arabel's raven, were sitting on Arabel's bedroom windowsill, which was a very wide and comfortable one, with plenty of room for both of them and a cushion as well. They were both looking out of the window, watching the work that was going on across the road in Rainwater Crescent Garden.

  This garden, which was quite large, went most of the way along the inside of Rainwater Crescent, which curved round like a banana. So the garden was curved on one side and straight on the other, like a section from an enormous orange. In it there were ten trees, quite a wide lawn, some flower beds, six benches, two statues, a sandpit for children, and a flat paved bit in the middle, where a band sometimes played.

  Arabel liked spending the afternoon in Rainwater Garden, but she was not allowed to go there on her own, because of crossing the street. However, sometimes Mrs. Jones took her across and left her if Mr. Walpole, the Rumbury Town municipal gardener, was there to keep an eye on her.

  Today a whole lot of interesting things were happening in the garden directly across the road from the Joneses' house.

  Before breakfast a huge excavator with a long metal neck and a pair of grabbing jaws like a crocodile had come trundling along the road. And it had started in at once, very fast, digging a deep hole. This was to be the entrance to an underground parking garage, which was going to be right underneath Rainwater Crescent Garden. The excavator had dug its deep hole at the end of the garden where the children's sandpit used to be. Arabel was sorry about that; so was Mortimer. They had been fond of playing in the sandpit. Arabel liked building castles; Mortimer liked jumping on them and flattening them out. Also, he liked burrowing deep in the sand, working it in thoroughly among his feathers, and then waiting till he was home to shake himself out. But now there was a hole as deep as a house where the sandpit had been, and a lot of men standing round the edge of it, talking to one another and waving their arms in a very excited manner, while the excavator stood idly beside them, doing nothing, and hanging its head like a horse that wants its feedbag.

  While the excavator had been at work digging, a large crowd of people had collected to watch it. Now that it had stopped, they had all wandered off and were doing different things in the Crescent Garden. Some were flying kites. The kites were all kinds—like boats, like birds, like fish, and some that were just long silvery streamers which very easily got caught in trees and hung there flapping. Mr. Walpole the gardener hated that sort, because they looked untidy in the trees, and the owners were always climbing up to rescue them, and breaking branches. Other people were skipping with skipping ropes. Others were skating on skateboards along the paved bit in the middle of the lawn where the band sometimes played. This was just right for skateboards, as it sloped up slightly at each end, which gave the skaters a good start, and they were doing beautiful things, turning and gliding and whizzing and jumping up into the air, and weaving past each other very cleverly.

  Arabel specially loved watching the skaters.

  "Oh, please, Ma," she said to her mother, who came into the bedroom presently and started rummaging crossly about in Arabel's clothes cupboard. "Oh, please, Ma, couldn't Mortimer and I have a skateboard? I would like one ever so much, and so would Mortimer, wouldn't you, Mortimer?"

  But Mortimer was looking out of the window very intently and did not reply.

  "A skateboard?" said Mrs. Jones, who seemed put out about something. "In the name of goodness, what will you think of next. I should think not, indeed! Nasty, dangerous things, break your leg as soon as you look at them, ought to be banned by Act of Parking Lot, they should, banging into people's shins and shopping baskets in the High Street. Oh my dear cats alive, now what am I going to do? Granny Jones has just phoned to say she'll be coming tomorrow morning, and your blue velveteen pinafore at the cleaners' because of that time Mortimer got excited with the éclairs at Penny Conway's birthday party; and I haven't yet made you a dress out of that piece of pink georgette that Granny Jones brought for you the last time she came; I'll just have to run it up into a frock for you now; why ever in the world can't Granny Jones give us
a bit more notice before she comes on a visit, I'd like to ask? There's the best sheets at the laundry, too, oh dear, I don't know I'm sure—"

  And Mrs. Jones bustled off down the stairs again.

  Arabel wrapped her arms round her knees. She liked Granny Jones, but the pink georgette sounded very chilly; Arabel hated having new clothes tried on because of the drafts, and her mother's cold hands, and the pins that sometimes got stuck in her; besides, she would much rather have gone on wearing her jeans and sweater.

  Mortimer the raven had taken no notice of this conversation. He was sitting as quiet as a mushroom, watching Mr. Walpole the gardener, who had gone to the shed where he kept his tools, and wheeled out an enormous grass-cutting machine called a LawnSabre.

  Just now this LawnSabre was Mortimer's favorite thing in the whole world, and he spent a lot of every day hoping that he would see Mr. Walpole using it. What Mortimer wanted even more was to be allowed to drive the LawnSabre himself. It was not at all likely that he would be allowed; firstly, the LawnSabre was very dangerous, because it had two terribly sharp blades that whirled round and round underneath. It was covered all over with warning notices in large print: DO NOT USE THIS MACHINE UNLESS WEARING DOUBLE-THICK LEATHER BOOTS WITH METAL TOE CAPS. NEVER ALLOW THIS MACHINE NEAR CHILDREN. DO NOT RUN THIS MACHINE BACKWARDS OR SIDEWAYS OR UPHILL OR DOWNHILL. NEVER TRY TO LIFT THIS MACHINE UNTIL THE BLADES HAVE COMPLETELY STOPPED TURNING. Secondly, Mr. Walpole was very particular indeed about his machine and never let anybody else touch it, even humans, let alone ravens.

  Now Mr. Walpole was starting it up. First he turned a couple of switches. Then, very energetically, he pulled out a long string half a dozen times. At about the eighth or ninth pull the machine suddenly let out a loud chattering roar. Mortimer watched all this very closely; his head was stuck forward, and his black boot-button eyes were bright with interest. Next, Mr. Walpole wheeled the LawnSabre onto the grass, keeping his booted feet well out of its way. He pulled a lever and pushed the machine off across the lawn, leaving a long stripe of neat short grass behind, like a stair carpet, as the blades underneath whirled round, shooting out a shower of cut grass blades.