There was a sudden heavy pounding over the ground. Three large animals came leaping over the hard sand on their big back feet. Bounce. BOUNCE. Bounce. BOUNCE.
“Kangaroos!” shouted the boy. “Look, Tilly. Boomer, Flyer and Joey. And look what Flyer has got in her pocket!”
Tilly knew all about pockets. That’s where you keep special things, she thought, feeling in her own, like conkers and shells, and maybe feathers? No. Not feathers.
But goodness knows what a kangaroo would keep in hers. Flyer held her pocket open, and Tilly peeped in and there, peering back up at her, were the bright eyes of . . . another kangaroo!
“A baby joey!” breathed the boy. “Beautiful!”
“Can I ride one of them?” Tilly asked.
The boy laughed. “You could try. Couldn’t she, Boomer?”
Boomer squatted down and Tilly put her arms round his neck and tried to swing her legs round his haunches. Instantly Boomer tucked his front arms in, stuck out his long tail, and BOUNCED and bounded AND bounced and TILLY clung ON to HIM as IF he WAS a ship AT SEA and CLOSED her EYES tight. OH!
She slid off and picked herself up shakily. “Thank you, Boomer,” she said.
She had landed back by Koala’s tree, and now she could hear a whistling and squawking in the branches above her.
“It’s all right for you, laughing!” she said.
Dozens of little birds, bright as flowers, were bobbing among the branches . . . yellow ones, green ones, white ones, and one blue one.
“Aren’t they . . . ?” Tilly began.
“Budgies,” said the boy, who had run after her and Boomer. “Pretty birds.”
The blue one fluttered off the branch onto Tilly’s shoulder, and looked at her knowingly.
“Aren’t you . . . you’re ever so like . . . Mr Feathers?” Tilly asked.
The blue budgie copied her. “Mr Feathers? Mr Feathers?” He flew back into the tree to join the others, and as he did so one blue feather floated to the ground.
Tilly picked it up. The branches of the tree whooshed above her.
“The wind is coming!” shouted the boy. “Shelter! Shelter from the wind!”
But Tilly had no intention of sheltering from the wind. She ran right out into it, while the great trees bowed and twisted and the sand fizzed in clouds along the ground. She held up the blue feather. She clung onto her bobble hat with the other hand, and the wind lifted her up, up, past Koala, past the tops of the trees.
“Bye, Tilly Mint!”
“Goodbye, Boy!” shouted Tilly, and up she went, over the top of the world.
When she looked down again, she saw a little brown blob far, far below her, and she knew what it was. It was Mrs Hardcastle, fast asleep and snoring on the seat by the bus shelter.
She could also see a tiny bright thing beetling along like a ladybird, and she thought, That’s a bus! Perhaps my mum’s on it, coming home for tea. And here am I, stuck up here! I hope she won’t be cross with Mrs Hardcastle for going to sleep and losing me like this!
Next minute, she started turning over in the air. She was floating down and down. Her tummy turned over inside her, all on its own. And then she felt her feet dragging on the ground, slower and slower and slower, and she stopped with a bump just by the bench where Mrs Hardcastle was having a doze.
Mrs Hardcastle opened her eyes with a jump.
“What’s happened to you, Tilly Mint? Where’ve you been?”
Tilly looked round her. Everything was still again, even her tummy.
“I’ve been flying, Mrs Hardcastle,” she said.
Mrs Hardcastle sighed. She still had her feather in her hand. She put it away in her handbag.
“I used to fly, long ago,” she said. “When I was a little girl.”
“Mrs Hardcastle, where do budgies come from?”
“Budgies? Like Mr Feathers? From Australia, Tilly. Pretty bird, that’s what budgerigar means. It’s the only Australian word I know, apart from koala, and kangaroo . . . why, what ever are you laughing at, Tilly Mint? You’re not going to tell me you flew to Australia, are you?”
But Tilly didn’t say a word, because the bus came up to the stop, and her mum got off, and they all went home for tea.
When the Cock Crows
MR PIG HAS slept in Tilly Mint’s bed, just under her head, for about six years. No wonder he’s a bit squashed. Tilly doesn’t very often take him out with her in case she loses him, but yesterday Mrs Hardcastle told Tilly to bring Mr Pig to her house, and to bring her wellies too.
“Are we going out somewhere?” Tilly asked.
“No,” said Mrs Hardcastle. “I’m going to make some coconut buns.”
Tilly loved Mrs Hardcastle’s coconut buns. They were all crunchy on the outside, and chewy in the middle, and sometimes they had a red-and-sticky cherry on the top.
“Why did I have to bring my wellies then?” asked Tilly, as Mrs Hardcastle hunted for her mixing bowl.
Mrs Hardcastle shook her head. “Can’t remember, Tilly,” she said. “I just thought they might come in useful.”
“And why did I have to bring Mr Pig?” asked Tilly. “He’d be much better off in bed, where it s warm.”
“I can’t remember that either,” said Mrs Hardcastle. “But I’m sure we’ll find out. Look, Tilly, I thought you might like to do some making, while I do my baking. I’ve put out some boxes, and some plasticine, and some paints. I should think you can make something with that lot.”
Tilly was a bit fed up. She wasn’t keen on making. She liked doing. And she’d rather go out somewhere than stay in, any day.
“Silly boxes!” she grumbled, as she cut a hole in the biggest one and stuck some paper over it for a door. “Stupid green paint!” she complained, as she painted three sheets of paper. “Smelly plasticine!” she moaned, as she rolled and moulded fifteen coloured shapes.
“Look, Mrs Hardcastle!” she said at last. “I’ve made a farm!”
Mrs Hardcastle came to have a look. She sat down on the floor with Tilly and looked at the green paper fields, and the cardboard farmhouse, and the barn, with its black-and-white blobby sheepdog.
She helped Tilly to stand the five plasticine cows up, as if they were waiting to be milked. She put the three pink, piggy blobs in a little carton, for a pig-sty. Then Tilly put five white sheep in the green field behind the barn. Mrs Hardcastle picked up the biggest plasticine shape.
“What’s this?” she asked. “It looks like a half-eaten sausage, Tilly Mint.”
“It’s the farmer,” said Tilly. “I can’t do farmers.”
Mrs Hardcastle shaped the sausage till it had two legs with black wellies on, and a white handkerchief hanging out of his pocket, and a smiling face.
“That’s Farmer Heyday!” she said.
“Is it?” asked Tilly.
“Here’s some matchsticks to make a gate,” said Mrs Hardcastle. “It’s nearly ready, Tilly.”
“Is it?” asked Tilly.
“Pull me up,” said Mrs Hardcastle. “I’m feeling right dozy. I’d better sit at the table and get this mixing done. Oh, don’t forget the cock!
“When the cock crows,
Everyone knows
Day has begun –
Bring out the sun!
“Good job I remembered that, Tilly Mint.”
She sat herself down at the table, and, with the last of the black plasticine, Tilly made a little black cock, and with a tiny bit of the red plasticine she made a little cresty comb for his head. She balanced the cock very carefully on its matchstick post, and as she was drawing her fingers away,
“Cock-a-doodle-doo!” He crowed!
“What?” said Tilly. She nearly dropped him, she was so surprised. She looked round for Mrs Hardcastle, but she was fast asleep and snoring, with her arms all covered in flour, and her hands in a bowl of coconut and sugar.
“I might have known!” said Tilly. “She’s off again!”
The cock crowed again, and this time Tilly saw him
stretch his neck and lift up the red comb on his head and open his beak as wide as it would go. He seemed to swell up with pride at the wonderful sound he was making.
“When the cock crows,
Everyone knows
Day has begun –
Bring out the sun!”
whispered Tilly Mint.
“Cock-a-doodle-doo!” The paper door that Tilly had stuck over the hole in the cardboard-box farmhouse opened, and out came Farmer Heyday. He stretched his brown plasticine arms, and whistled.
“Hey, Sheppa! Come on, Sheppa!” he called.
The black-and-white collie came out, stretching, from the barn, and barked hello to the farmer.
Tilly hardly dared breathe! She lay on her tummy with her nose pressed up against the matchstick gate, and Mr Pig snuggled up beside her. The farmer saw her, though. He strode across the paper yard, his plasticine knees bending just above the top of his black wellies, and Sheppa bounced on plasticine legs beside him.
“Well, are you coming in, or not?” Farmer Heyday shouted, peering through the bars of the matchstick gate. “You and that daft woolly pig?”
Tilly jumped. “Yes. No. If I can. I can’t though. I’m too big.”
Farmer Heyday snorted. “Suit yourself. But if you do come, put your wellies on!”
He strode off to the barn and led Tilly’s cows in, one by one, to be milked. Tilly could hear their low, dark voices as they talked to each other in the shadows.
How she wanted to follow them! She took her slippers off and put on her wellies, and when she bent down to pick up Mr Pig again, she felt a strange rushing in her tummy, as if she was going down a slide, very fast, and she stood up . . . to find that her head was no higher than the gate of the farm! She could smell the farm – the hot, sweet, sharp smell of the dung the cows had dropped! She could smell the grass! She could feel it under her feet, springy and oozing with mud as she pushed open the gate.
As soon as she was inside the farmyard, Mr Pig started behaving like a pig! He snorted and squealed in her arms, he wriggled and kicked, till she had to drop him. He ran to the wall of the pig-sty, jumped in, and there he rolled over on his back in the mud with the three other pigs, and lay, kicking his legs in the air and snorting with utter happiness.
“Mr Pig! You’ll be filthy!” said Tilly. “You needn’t think you’re getting in my bed tonight, looking like that!”
“Aren’t they beautiful!” said Farmer Heyday fondly, leaning over the pig-sty. “Prettier than babies, pigs are. Give me pigs any day.”
“Can I play in that field by the barn?” Tilly asked him. “I painted it myself!”
“Off you go then,” said Farmer Heyday, a bit puzzled. “But don’t be long – you’re wanted in the kitchen. And there’s new lambs in that field – fresh as daisies, mind!”
Lambs! Tilly could hear them, even as she was running to the stile, and she could see them, all her little white plasticine blobs, all turned into real, woolly, skippy, scuttery, chewing, wobbly, bouncing, shouting, coughing lambs. What a wonderful racket!
But the smell coming from the kitchen was even more wonderful. It was the warm, sweet, eggy smell of baking.
Mrs Heyday had her back turned as Tilly went in; she was bringing a tray of new buns from the oven.
“You’ll have to have one of these before you go,” she said, turning round. Tilly stared. She couldn’t help it. Mrs Heyday looked just like . . . but she couldn’t be. She had the same sort of remembery blue eyes as . . . but she couldn’t have.
“You’re like somebody I know,” Tilly said at last.
“Am I?” Mrs Heyday smiled. “Have a coconut bun, Tilly Mint.”
As Tilly was biting into her third coconut bun, all crunch on the outside, and chewy in the middle, with a red-and-sticky cherry on the top, she heard a jostling, rumbling, tumbling noise outside the window; a snorting, snuffling, scuffling sort of noise, full of squeaks and feet.
“What’s that?” she whispered, in a coconutty voice.
Mrs Heyday wiped her eyes on her pinny. “It’s the pigs,” she said sadly. “Poor Mr Heyday! He hates market day. He has to take all his lovely pigs to market today, and sell them, every one!”
“Oh no!” gasped Tilly. She dropped the cherry bit of her bun that she’d been saving for last, and ran out into the farmyard.
Farmer Heyday was standing by a cart, blowing his nose unhappily. Sheppa was leaping about and barking, and the pigs were running up a plank and into the cart that would take them off to market.
And right in the middle of them, covered in mud, was Mr Pig!
“Come back, Mr Pig!” Tilly shouted. “Don’t go to market! You’re not that sort of pig!”
She climbed into the cart, snatched up Mr Pig in both her arms, and ran out of the farmyard, through the gate – and onto Mrs Hardcastle’s carpet.
And there she was, as high as the table again, and looking down at the little cardboard farmhouse, and the painted paper fields, and the plasticine animals, as still and silent as statues.
“Come on, Mr Pig,” she whispered. “I’d better get these wellies off, and brush your mud away, before Mrs Hardcastle sees us.”
And as she tiptoed out of the kitchen to do just that, Mrs Hardcastle opened her eyes and smiled, and carried on making her coconut buns.
Wonderful Worms
THE DAY BEFORE yesterday, Tilly Mint and Mrs Hardcastle went down to the park to find some magic. They didn’t say there were going to find some magic, but that’s what Tilly thought. She felt it in her bones. The birds were singing brightly in the trees, and fetching and carrying things for their nests.
But all Mrs Hardcastle seemed to be interested in was worms.
“Just look at that worm, Tilly!” she said, when they walked past a bed of earth that had just been turned. “Just look at that blobby old worm!”
Tilly didn’t like worms. “Eugh!” she said. “I’m not going near a worm.”
Mrs Hardcastle was surprised. “I thought everyone liked worms, Tilly Mint,” she said. “Worms are wonderful.
“How they wibble, and they wobble,
and they wubble all around,
How they dibble, and they dabble,
And they double up and down.
How they’re pink, and how they’re pokey,
How they pull across the ground,
How they wind, and how they wander,
How they wiggle round and round!”
“Not to me, they’re not,” said Tilly. “That worm’s got nowhere to go. He looks bored. He’s like a piece of string without a parcel.”
“He’s like a shoelace looking for a shoe,” laughed Mrs Hardcastle.
“He’s like a piece of spaghetti that nobody wants to eat,” said Tilly Mint.
“Don’t you be so sure about that!” Mrs Hardcastle said. “Somebody wants to eat him. Look!”
Just above them, on the branch of a high tree, sat a little brown bird, singing his head off. His eyes were as bright as buttons. He was watching the worm. Suddenly he flew down from the branch, and he hopped across to where the worm was wriggling about with nowhere to go, looking bored.
“Look out!” shouted Mrs Hardcastle to the worm. But she was too late. The hoppity bird had put his beak right round the worm. The worm tried to wriggle back down into the earth. The brown bird dug his feet in, and pulled and pulled and pulled. The pink worm stretched and stretched and stretched.
And, POP! Out came the worm. The brown bird fell over; then he stood up, shook his feathers, and flew off with the worm waving helplessly in his beak.
“Hooray!” Mrs Hardcastle clapped her hands.
Now it was Tilly who was surprised. “I thought you liked worms, Mrs Hardcastle,” she said.
“So I do,” Mrs Hardcastle said. “But I like birds more. Just think of those little baby birds all snug and warm in their nest, waiting for their tea. They’ll be very pleased when they see that worm.”
I wouldn’t mind being a baby bird, all
snug and warm in a nest, thought Tilly. But I’d jump right out of it if anyone gave me worms for my tea. Fancy eating a worm!
“I nearly ate a worm once, Tilly Mint, when I was a little girl. But oh, that was so long ago. That was years and years and years ago. I’ve nearly forgotten all about it.”
And when Mrs Hardcastle said that, it was in her drowsy, far-away, remembery sort of voice, and her eyes seemed to be looking into long, long ago. Then she sat down on a park bench, and she fell asleep.
“Crumbs!” said Tilly. “I’m in for it now! Magic time!”
She closed her eyes, and when she opened them, she was in a dark, dark place. She seemed to be in a tiny, little, dark room, with hard, smooth, warm walls, and it was round.
“No, it isn’t!” said Tilly, after a bit. “It’s not round! It’s egg-shaped. I must be . . . inside . . . an egg!”
She pushed her head up against the top of her egg, and the shell began to crack. She pushed her arms out against the sides of her egg, and the shell began to crunch. She pushed her feet out through the bottom of her egg, and the shell began to crack, crunch, crumble.
And she was out into the air, into the sunshine, into the lovely blue light that was full of the song of birds.
Tilly took a deep breath and looked round her. Three fluffy birds were standing next to her, blinking in the sunlight. They were all standing on bits of shell. And underneath the bits of shell, there was straw, and grass, and twigs, and leaves, all plaited together like a warm, snug hat. They were in a nest!
Tilly hopped to the side of it and looked down. The nest seemed to be right at the top of the highest tree in the world. The branches began to sway in the wind.
“I’m hungry!” cheeped all the baby birds. “Very hungry.”
So am I! thought Tilly. Very, very hungry.
Just then, the brown bird hopped onto the side of the nest. Tilly recognized him by his eyes that were as bright as buttons, and by his dirty feet, and by the pink worm that was wriggling about in his beak. The baby birds pushed each other over in excitement.
Tilly Mint Tales Page 2
