“Wait a moment,” Polly said, thinking very hard and very quickly, “I must count my cherry stones too.”
“Nonsense,” the wolf said, “I’m in a hurry. I’m not going to wait even half a moment. I’m going to carry you off and eat you up NOW.”
“Oh, Wolf,” said Polly reproachfully, “I don’t think you’re being very kind. After all I did give you the cherries whose stones you’ve been counting, and I could have eaten them all myself, you know. It’s only fair that I should be allowed to count my stones and see what they say about the situation.”
“All that stuff about marriage,” the wolf sneered, “I don’t see how that is going to help you.”
“They aren’t all about marriage,” Polly said, as firmly as she could. “This one’s about food too, like yours, but in a different way. It’s about oneself as food—how one tastes. It’s very important for a Polly,” she said desperately.
“Sounds interesting,” the wolf admitted. “What is it?”
“Well I’ll tell you,” Polly said, “if you’ll let me do it on my cherry stones.”
“And it will really tell us how you’ll taste?”
“It should,” Polly answered, hoping fervently that she had worked it out right in her mind.
“We’ll do it together,” the wolf promised. “Now say it.”
“I’m delightful,” began Polly.
“I’m delicious.
I’m ten times better than Jane.”
“Excellent,” said the wolf heartily. “I see we shan’t go far wrong on that. Let’s begin counting.”
“I haven’t finished,” Polly said quickly. “That’s only the first half.”
“Oh, is there more? Go on, then.”
“I’m as tough as old shoe,” Polly went on.
“Even steamed, I won’t do.
I’ll give you a terrible pain.”
The wolf snarled angrily.
“That’s all,” said Polly.
“I don’t believe a word of it,” the wolf said, “you look tender enough. Not a bit like an old shoe.”
“It’s only the rhyme,” Polly reminded him. “I wasn’t actually saying it about myself.”
The wolf looked more cheerful.
“There are the stones,” Polly said, pointing to the flagstone and hoping desperately that she had counted right while she made up her rhyme.
The wolf lay down on the grass, beside the flagstone.
“You count them out,” he said anxiously to Polly. “The suspense is almost too much for me. I can’t wait to know what you’re going to be like.”
Polly obediently squatted down beside the wolf and pointed to each stone in turn, as she recited her verse.
“I’m delightful,
I’m delicious,
I’m ten times better than Jane.
I’m as tough as old shoe,
Even steamed I won’t do,
I’ll give you a horrible pain.”
There were a good many cherry stones and Polly went through the rhyme several times. She was getting very nervous and the wolf was getting very impatient before she reached the final count.
“I’m delicious,” said Polly, trying to see out of the corner of her eye whether there were four or five stones left.
“I’m ten times better than Jane,
I’m as tough as old shoe (there are two more, I hope it isn’t three).
Even steamed I won’t do,
I’ll give you a horrible pain (thank goodness it really is the last one).”
“Go on,” said the wolf, who had shut his eyes during the last round.
“That’s all,” said Polly.
“It can’t be. There must be some more. Begin again, then.”
“There aren’t any more stones,” Polly explained.
“You mean to stand there, and tell me you’ll give me a pain?”
“That’s what the cherry stones say,” Polly said.
“But when I counted mine they said you’d be young, and in a meat patty and—”
“It doesn’t matter how you’d cook me, I’d still give you a pain.”
“Enough for three,” the wolf moaned.
“That just makes it a worse pain.”
“I might do it on my cherry stones. It might come out different,” the wolf suggested, suddenly hopeful.
“It wouldn’t show you how I’d taste,” Polly warned him, but the wolf was already over the further side of the hedge, counting busily. A triumphant roar came from him and his head appeared over the bushes.
“Ten times better than Jane!” he cried. “It’s all right, Polly, I can have you.”
“Oh, Wolf,” Polly sighed, “don’t be so stupid. What your cherry stones say is just about you, not about me. How you’ll taste when someone eats you.”
“I hadn’t thought of that.” The wolf hesitated. “Are you sure, Polly?”
“Quite sure. After all it says ‘I’ all the way through, doesn’t it? Not ‘You’re ten times better than Jane’, but I. Meaning you, Wolf, if you’re counting. See?”
“I see.”
“And,” said Polly, following up her advantage, “do your cherry stones really say you’re ten times better than Jane?”
“They certainly do,” the wolf said proudly.
“Then look out!” said Polly, taking a step towards him. “Because I don’t think, this time, I can resist trying to see if it’s true, and I know just what Jane is like.”
“Oh!” said the wolf. He didn’t look to see if Polly was coming any further after him. He ran as fast as he could down the road in case fierce Polly caught up with him and began to eat him. When at last he dared to slow down and finally to stop, he sat by the roadside, congratulating himself on his narrow escape, and licking the dust off his tail.
“At any rate,” he thought. “It was lucky for me I didn’t eat Polly today. Nice of her to warn me, because I don’t want to have a pain. Especially not a horrible one, of course.”
He got up and wandered along in the direction of his own house.
“Ten times better than Jane!” he ruminated. “I wonder! I bet I’m good to eat then. Jane looks tasty enough; I must be delicious! It’s a pity—”
But not even the wolf was stupid enough to consider for very long the possibility of eating himself.
7. Wolf into Fox
ONE MORNING Polly was shopping in Woolworths. She bought a packet of seeds for her garden, a red hair slide, a quarter of a pound of fruit jellies and a pencil. Finally she went to the counter where they sell soap and sponges and shampoos and scent to buy a shampoo for Jane who was having her hair washed that evening.
There was one other customer at the counter, and the salesgirl was having a little difficulty with him.
“Well, I don’t know about dyeing fur,” she was saying doubtfully. “I should think you’d better ask at the household counter.”
“Household?” said the customer.
“Down the other end of the store,” the salesgirl said, and she pointed. “They’ve got the dyes there for household articles like carpets and fur rugs.”
“It’s not for carpets or rugs, you stupid girl,” the customer said angrily. “It’s for me.”
“Well, I’m sorry, I’m sure,” the girl said, “but I distinctly heard you say fur, so if it isn’t a rug or a coat I don’t know what you want with fur.”
Polly caught the wolf by the elbow just as he opened his mouth to protest and led him towards the household counter.
“It’s no good getting angry,” she said soothingly. “She’ll never understand that it’s real fur and that you really are a wolf; and if she did she’d be so frightened she’d scream and then people would come and catch you and lock you up and all that, and then where should we be? You’d much better let her go on thinking it’s a fancy dress and come and buy your dye quietly. What colour do you want, Wolf?”
The wolf allowed himself to be led towards the dyes. They were set out on the household counter in a serie
s of attractive little bottles, each cork tied up with a rag of a different bright colour.
“Aren’t they pretty?” said Polly, admiring them. “What sort of colour, Wolf? Look, the bright red is lovely—and so is the jade green. Or, look, Wolf! Do have the purple.”
“Don’t be so silly,” the wolf said sharply. “How could I possibly go about with purple fur?”
“Oh,” said Polly. “I’d forgotten it was for you. I’m sorry. No, I suppose you couldn’t. Only it is such a gorgeous colour.”
“Not purple,” said the wolf firmly. “You’ve never seen a purple fox, have you?”
“No. I’ve hardly ever seen a fox at all,” Polly admitted.
“Well, then.”
“But why a fox? I mean, you’re a wolf. Why does it matter if foxes aren’t purple? You aren’t one.”
“Not yet,” said the wolf. He screwed up his eyes and looked hard at Polly.
“Why are you making a face like that?”
“It’s a mysterious face,” the wolf said, undoing it again. “It means I’m not going to tell you any more. At present,” he added, and made the face again.
Polly knew very well that if you want to get a secret out of someone who doesn’t mean to tell it to you, the best way of getting what you want is to pretend to be quite uninterested. Because anyone with a secret worth anything is almost as anxious to tell you about it as you are to hear. So she turned away and looked fixedly at the tins of biscuits on the next counter, and hummed a tune to herself.
“I’m not going to tell you any more,” the wolf said rather more loudly.
“Good! More about what?”
“About my turning into a fox.”
“Oh, are you? I hadn’t noticed,” Polly said, in what she hoped sounded a very casual way.
“No, you stupid little thing, I haven’t started it yet. When I’ve got the dye, I shall be the right colour for a fox and then you’ll see I’ll look exactly like one!”
“Why a fox?” Polly couldn’t help asking.
“Because they always win. Haven’t you noticed in fairy stories and all that sort of thing, the fox is always the clever one? I don’t know why,” the wolf said thoughtfully, “but whenever there’s any trouble between a wolf and a fox in those old stories, the fox always somehow turns out to be cleverer than the wolf.”
“Perhaps foxes are really cleverer than wolves,” Polly suggested.
“They’re certainly not,” the wolf said angrily.
“Then why try to be a fox?”
“I’m not exactly going to be one,” the wolf said. “I’m just going to look like one. Then when I’m in a story with you—I mean with anyone I might want to get the better of—I shall look right for being the cleverest of us. And if I look right, I’ll feel right. And if I feel right, I shall feel cleverer than you and then I shall eat you up.”
“It sounds easy,” Polly agreed.
“It is!” the wolf said simply. He turned to the counter and picked out a bottle of reddish-brown dye. “I’ll have this, please,” he said to the salesgirl, handing over a sixpenny bit. Then he dropped on to his four feet and ran quickly out of the shop.
For the next day or two Polly looked anxiously about to see the new Fox-Wolf. But as the days passed and there was no sign of him, she began to wonder if perhaps his plans hadn’t gone right, if he had had some sort of accident, or was ill. Every large dog of a black or brownish colour that she met, Polly scrutinized carefully, but they all turned out to be nothing but dogs, with no particular interest in Polly.
Ten days or so after her first encounter with the would-be-Fox, Polly was again in Woolworths. This time she was at the ribbon counter, buying two penn’orth of red ribbon, when she heard a well-known voice further down the shop. A shaggy-looking person, muffled in a mackintosh, was at the household counter, buying five little bottles of reddish-brown dye. When he had paid for them and was tucking the bottles into his pockets, Polly stepped up behind him.
“Wolf!” she said.
He gave a great jump, and looked round.
“You shouldn’t startle me so,” he said reproachfully. “I nearly dropped one of the bottles and there aren’t any more. These are the last five they’ve got. If I broke one of these I might have to wait ages to get any more!”
“But what do you need so many for?” Polly asked. “Wasn’t one enough?”
“No,” the wolf said. “One wasn’t enough. I had to come back the next week and buy two more!”
“Why a week?” Polly asked.
“I was waiting to see what happened.”
“What happened to what?”
“What happened to me after I’d taken it.”
“But you don’t have to wait. You just mix it with water and put the whatever it is you want to dye in, and then you hang it up to dry and then you see. It couldn’t take more than about a day.”
The wolf looked a little embarrassed.
“I didn’t do it quite like that,” he said.
“Didn’t you mix it with water?”
“Y-yes.”
“Perhaps you put in too much. Didn’t you read the instructions, Wolf?”
“No, as a matter of fact, I didn’t. You see, I sort of forgot to read what it said, and as it was in a bottle it seemed as if it ought to be—as if it was meant—well, in fact, Polly, I did mix it with water and then I drank it all up.”
“Oh, Wolf, how awful!” Polly said. “Didn’t it make you feel ill?”
“Yes, very ill.”
“You might have died, Wolf.”
“Yes,” said the wolf, looking more cheerful. “You’re quite right. But I didn’t. And the funny thing is, it didn’t turn me reddish-brown at all!”
“Not at all?”
“Not so much as a hair of me. So then I read the instructions and I saw I’d made a little mistake.”
“A very stupid mistake, Wolf!”
“Not at all. A very understandable mistake. Everyone knows that bottles have drinks in them. Well, anyhow!” he went on in a hurry. “Then I read the instructions and I saw I ought to have put myself into it, not it into me. So when I felt better I came to get some more. I got two bottles, but that wasn’t nearly enough, so I bought two more. And now if I have all these,” he jingled his pockets, “I shall have enough I should think.”
“Enough for what?” Polly asked.
“To finish me off.”
“Why do you need finishing off?”
They were out of Woolworths by this time and the wolf suddenly threw off his mackintosh and said, “Look, Stupid!”
Polly looked. Her once sleek black wolf was now a rather horrid sight. His head and front legs were a fine chestnut brown—they had taken the dye very well indeed—his back legs and tail were the old original black wolf colour, but round his waist he was a disagreeable mixture of both colours.
“You see?” the wolf said. “Even you can’t pretend it’s exactly a finished job, can you? Now do you understand why I need a few more bottles of dye?”
“You’ve done your front end awfully well,” Polly said consolingly.
“But what’s the good of being a fox one end when I’m still a wolf the other?” the wolf said reasonably. “And it’s so embarrassing looking like this. I can’t go out without a mackintosh and it’s just my luck that all this week the sun has gone on shining so I look almost as silly wearing a mackintosh as I would look if I didn’t wear it.”
“You might look as if you thought it was just going to rain,” Polly said comfortingly. “It often does, in England.”
“But it hasn’t lately. That’s just what’s so annoying,” the wolf said.
“Never mind,” Polly said quickly. “Now you can go and finish your back half with the rest of the bottles, and then you’ll be able to come out without your mackintosh, and looking like a fox!”
“And then you’d just better watch out, Polly,” said the wolf, quite cheered up. “Because I’ll be so clever then I’ll get you before you
can say Wolf Robinson!”
Polly went home and tied up her hair with her red ribbon. She wondered how the wolf was getting on with his dyeing, and she wondered if being fox colour and feeling cleverer would really make any difference to the wolf, or to Polly. She didn’t think he’d be much better at catching her, but she thought she had better be careful, and, if possible, clever. She also wondered, as she saw the sun shining brightly every day, whether the poor wolf was still having to wear his mackintosh. He certainly was not in luck: people said the spell of fine weather seemed as if it would go on for ever, and those who had gardens began to complain of drought and to wish for rain.
It was hot and thundery and still dry when Polly, out for a walk by herself, not far from home, suddenly saw a reddish-brown shape slink through the bushes at the side of the road, and a moment later a triumphant Fox stood before her: rather larger than life and full of cunning.
“Now, Polly,” said the fox-wolf, “this time I really have got you.”
Polly looked around. There was no one within call, and the fox-wolf really did look rather convincing. For almost the first time in history, her heart sank.
“You’ve done it awfully well,” she said, as admiringly as she could. “It’s beautifully even all over. Sometimes dyeing comes out a bit patchy.”
“I haven’t any patches at all,” the fox-wolf agreed, turning round so that Polly could see the whole of him. “But don’t try to take the chance to run away,” he added, turning back very quickly.
Polly, to whom the idea had occurred, stood very still. It seemed that this animal was really cleverer than he had been.
“So, you’ve been able to leave off your mackintosh,” she said, hoping to delay until she saw some chance of escape.
“Of course. I have nothing to hide,” the fox-wolf said in an insufferably self-satisfied tone. He looked down at himself approvingly. “And now, Polly—”
The Complete Polly and the Wolf Page 10
