‘We want another wish, that’s why,’ said Smash. ‘Go, Maudie!’
Maudie shuffled forward on her knees in the sand, grinning happily.
‘Hello, Monkey!’ she said.
‘I might look a little simian in a bad light, but I am a different species entirely,’ said the Psammead. ‘Oh dear. I am now the only one left of my species – and I fear I won’t last much longer if you children continue to harass me.’
‘Funny Monkey,’ Maudie said lovingly, clearly not understanding a word. She reached out to stroke him.
‘Careful!’ said the Psammead sharply.
Alice hadn’t been able to wipe all the ice-lolly stains off her, and she was still a little sticky.
‘Nice Monkey. Funny Monkey. Maudie’s Monkey,’ she said, squatting down right next to him, but taking care not to actually touch him. ‘Hey diddle diddle, Jack and Jill went up the hill, Atishoo atishoo, We’ll all have tea,’ Maudie sang to him.
The Psammead’s eyes swivelled on their stalks.
‘Maudie’s singing you her special song,’ I said.
‘So I hear,’ said the Psammead.
‘Wish, Maudie!’ said Smash.
‘I wish for the people,’ said Maudie.
‘What people?’ said Smash.
‘Jack and Jill and Polly and Sukey and funny cat and doggy and cow and dish and spoon and all the ring o’ rosies,’ said Maudie.
‘But they’re not real – they’re those silly nursery rhymes,’ said Smash. ‘You can’t wish that!’
‘Yes, she can,’ said the Psammead. It started puffing itself up until it was a great furry globe and then it suddenly collapsed into its own shape again. It peered around with its eyes on stalks, then twitched when it heard a dog barking in the distance. It scurried under the sand immediately, all four paws scrabbling hard.
We were left staring at the strangest assembly of creatures we had ever seen. A brown-and-white terrier dog careered madly around, obviously picking up the scent of the Psammead. The dog tried to dig, but Robbie caught him and hung on to him.
‘No! Bad dog! You leave the Psammead alone,’ said Robbie.
The dog went on barking, now trying to get at a cat in a scarlet dinner jacket and blue trousers who was sitting on a tussock, a tiny violin under his chin. He fiddled away while a strange metal plate and spoon capered about hand in hand. A large brown cow came trotting through the trees, mooing in time to the music. She kept lifting her head, looking up, her neck straining.
‘She’s looking for the moon so she can jump over it!’ said Smash, snorting with laughter.
‘Hey diddle diddle, hey diddle diddle!’ said Maudie, and she started jogging up and down to the cat’s music.
Then a boy and girl came trudging along, carrying a big pail between them. The boy had a red jersey and blue trousers, the girl a white dress with blue spots.
‘Jack and Jill!’ I said. They all looked wonderfully familiar. I remembered Lavender’s Blue, my long-ago nursery-rhyme book, and Mum reading it to me over and over again as she showed me all the pictures. ‘Look, Robbie, it’s Jack and Jill going up the hill to fetch a pail of water.’
‘Better tell them to watch out!’ said Smash.
‘I should be careful going up that hill if I were you,’ I said.
Jack and Jill looked at me.
‘Yes, we’re going up a hill,’ said Jack in a sing-song voice.
‘To fetch a pail of water,’ said Jill, staring vaguely into the distance.
‘Jack and Jill went up the hill!’ Maudie gabbled, clapping her hands. ‘Me go too!’
‘No, you’ll tumble down with them, sweetheart, and maybe hurt yourself,’ I said. ‘Look over there! Shall we join the ring-o’-roses people?’
There was a bunch of little girls and one boy circling the sandpit. Three girls had white dresses, two with red spots, and a third wore buttercup yellow, while the little boy had grey shorts and a blue jersey. They were only a little bit bigger than Maudie and they all had smiles on their faces, so I thought she was safe with them.
‘Atishoo atishoo?’ she said hopefully.
‘Atishoo atishoo!’ they all said, bobbing their heads.
Then they all sat down suddenly in the sand, giggling. Maudie sat down too, liking her new friends and their game so much she laughed uproariously.
‘Again! Atishoo again!’ she said.
They scrambled up and started the game from the beginning.
‘Ring a ring o’ roses –’
‘You’d better join in too, Rosy-Posy,’ said Smash.
‘Try to get them to play over there on the grass, Maudie,’ said Robbie. ‘The Psammead won’t like it at all if they keep on thumping down right over his head.’
He went over to them and bent down to their level, adopting the pose of a kindly uncle.
‘I think it would be better if you played over there,’ he said, pointing.
‘Ring a Ring o’ Roses,’ said the little boy, trying to take his hand.
‘Yes, I know you want to play Ring a Ring o’ Roses, but let’s play it over there,’ said Robbie, gently leading them.
‘A pocket full of posies!’ sang the little girls, swinging arms with Maudie.
‘ATISHOO! ATISHOO!’ she shouted, bobbing her head with them.
‘We all fall down,’ they sang, and collapsed on the grass, drumming their little legs.
Jack and Jill came tumbling down too, back out of the woods. Jack came first, landing on his front, spilling his pail of water, and Jill followed, her arms in the air, legs kicking, looking shocked.
‘Oh dear, oh dear,’ said Maudie, rushing to pick them up. ‘Plaster?’ she said to me. ‘Plaster to make it better?’
‘No, no,’ said Jill, getting up gingerly and patting her brother.
‘Jack must go to bed and mend his head with vinegar and brown paper,’ she said solemnly.
‘Yeah, I never did get that bit,’ said Smash. ‘Vinegar and brown paper? It’s like he’s a portion of fish and chips.’
‘I suppose they didn’t have disinfectant and plasters in those days,’ I said.
Maudie was still squatting beside Jack, looking anxious.
‘It’s all right, Maudie. He’ll be better soon,’ I said.
‘Ready to start all over again,’ said Smash. ‘This is quite a sweet wish, but I feel like I’m stuck in playschool. Who else is going to make an appearance?’
Two shadowy girls in grey and white came out of the woods, one of them holding a kettle.
‘What’s up with them?’ said Smash.
Their faces were white and they had hair in varying shades of grey. They walked over to a little fire in the clearing with its own cosy brick fireplace. The flames were grey and the bricks were off-white.
‘I know!’ I said, laughing. ‘It’s Polly and Sukey and they’re a black-and-white illustration in the nursery-rhyme book, not full colour like the others.’
They looked pretty eerie in real life and Maudie approached them warily, but Polly smiled at her.
‘We’ll all have tea?’ said Maudie, pointing to the kettle.
‘Look, there is the tea!’ said Robbie.
A grey table had materialized, with a grey-and-white checked cloth, a grey spotted teapot and a grey-and-white cottage loaf.
‘Polly put the kettle on,’ said Polly, balancing the kettle on the hob over the fire.
‘Me too, me too,’ said Maudie.
‘Careful! No, keep away from the fire, Maudie,’ I said. The flames might be black and white, but I could feel the heat from them and I was sure they could still burn.
‘Polly put the kettle on,’ Polly repeated, Maudie singing along with her.
‘Polly put the kettle on,’ Polly said a third time.
‘Oh, for pity’s sake, you’re worse than Gobby-Bird,’ said Smash.
‘We’ll all have tea!’ Polly and Maudie sang together, going to sit at the table.
‘Wait for it,’ said Smash, as Polly’s pal S
ukey went striding up to the table.
‘Sukey take it off again,’ Sukey sang, predictably enough. She repeated herself. Twice over. Then Polly took Maudie’s hand and they ran away from the table.
‘They’ve all gone away!’ Sukey sang.
Polly and Sukey and Maudie all burst out laughing.
‘Again! Again!’ Maudie begged.
‘No, no! How many times have we got to put up with this?’ said Smash.
‘Oh shut up, it’s quite sweet, really, and Maudie’s loving it,’ I said.
Robbie seemed to be enjoying himself too, trying to soothe the poor jumping cow and then stroking the little dog, who barked continuously. I hadn’t realized nursery rhymes would be so noisy. It wasn’t just the mooing cow and the barking dog. The cat played very loudly on its fiddle, the spoon clattered against the dish, Jack and Jill clanked their bucket and tumbled over with repeated thuds, the ring-o’-roses children sneezed explosively, and Polly and Sukey sang with great emphasis, right in our ears.
‘Again! Again!’ said Maudie.
‘I’m getting fed up with this lot,’ said Smash. ‘Where are all the other nursery rhymes? What about Humpty Dumpty? I want to see him getting smashed up! Then there’s that other one where the maid gets her nose pecked off –’
‘You and Marvel O’Kaye are clearly soulmates,’ I said. ‘I don’t think Maudie knows any other rhymes, just those four.’
‘So we’re stuck with them singing this stupid stuff again and again?’ said Smash.
‘Again! Again!’ Maudie agreed happily.
‘I think I’m going to burrow into the sand along with the Psammead,’ said Smash, putting her hands over her ears as all the characters started singing their rhymes simultaneously.
I tried to talk to Jack and Jill as they paraded up the hill with their pail. They listened politely, their little mouths smiling.
‘Jack and Jill, why not take your pail to the village pump and get your water that way? Then you won’t tumble down the hill and hurt yourselves,’ I suggested brightly.
‘Jack and Jill,’ said Jill, nodding.
‘Went up the hill,’ said Jack.
‘To fetch a pail of water,’ they said in unison, and went off to do just that.
I tried Polly and Sukey.
‘Polly put the kettle on,’ said Polly hospitably. ‘Polly put the kettle on. Polly put the kettle on.’
‘Yes, thank you, that would be lovely, but could we perhaps come to lunch instead?’ I asked.
‘We’ll all have tea,’ said Polly.
‘Sukey take it off again,’ said Sukey, doing just that. ‘Sukey take it off again. Sukey take it off again.’
‘But what if I don’t go away? What if I stay sitting at the table, saying “Please can I have a cup of tea. I’m really thirsty”?’ I said.
Sukey frowned at me.
‘They’ve all gone away,’ she said, stamping her foot.
‘You can’t have a proper conversation with them,’ said Smash. ‘It’s like trying to talk to Mickey Mouse and Pluto at Disneyland. Robbie, can’t you get that stupid dog to shut up?’
‘Sh, boy! Quiet! Be a good dog now,’ said Robbie, but the dog barked on and on as the little cat played his fiddle, the dish and spoon capered, and the cow kept trying to leap in the air, though the blue summer sky was entirely moonless.
Dad and Alice seemed entirely oblivious to this sudden nursery-land invasion of Oxshott woods. Our wish that they didn’t ever notice any Psammead magic was extraordinarily effective. The cat wandered over with his fiddle and serenaded them as they sat on the picnic blanket, the cow tried to leap right over them, the dog barked, Jack and Jill trudged past and tumbled back, the little children danced round them in a circle, sneezing, and black-and-white Polly and Sukey dashed backwards and forwards with their kettle.
Dad and Alice didn’t even blink. They smiled fondly at Maudie when she sang along with the nursery-rhyme people, but didn’t react in any other way.
We weren’t smiling fondly at Maudie by this time. We were getting heartily sick of all four rhymes.
‘It’s going to be ages and ages and ages till sunset,’ said Robbie, still trying hard to calm the barking dog.
‘Perhaps we can just go home?’ said Smash. ‘Maybe they won’t follow. They’ll just stay fiddling and barking and dancing and sneezing and falling over and shoving that silly kettle on and off to their hearts’ content deep in the woods, while I play on my computer and you read and Robbie mucks about with his plastic animals.’
‘I don’t muck,’ said Robbie. ‘I’m trying to develop a kindly zoo environment for wild animals.’
‘Which involves taking a lion for a walk up and down, going “Here, Lion, lovely Lion, be a good boy, Lion, and I’ll give you a lick of honey”?’ said Smash.
‘Maudie’s having such fun playing with the nursery-rhyme people here,’ I said as she shouted, ‘Again, again!’
‘Well, maybe she can persuade them to follow along behind us and they can all cavort about in the garden at home, while we shut ourselves in the house?’ Smash suggested.
It was a very tempting idea, especially as I hadn’t brought a book with me. Smash and I tried walking away from all of them. Immediately the dish and spoon clattered after us on their spindly little legs.
A woman walking her dog passed us, and stared in alarm at the capering crockery.
‘Whatever’s that?’ she gasped.
‘Oh, it’s just a clockwork toy,’ said Smash, seizing hold of the dish and spoon.
They didn’t like this at all and waved their legs in protest. The nursery-rhyme dog barked and the woman’s dog barked back, and she was momentarily distracted, trying hard to keep the two animals apart. Then the cow wandered along, looking up expectantly at the sky.
‘Good heavens! I didn’t know there were cattle in Oxshott woods,’ she said. ‘Have they started farming part of it?’
Then she spotted the cat striding along on his back paws, playing his fiddle. Her jaw gaped.
‘That’s a cat and it’s playing a violin!’ she whispered. She crept nearer to it and then reached out and touched the cat’s tail, which was swishing rhythmically sideways in time to his tune. ‘That’s not a toy. It’s real!’
‘It’s – it’s not a real real cat. It’s a very little person in a catsuit,’ said Smash, which again didn’t seem very likely.
Then Jack and Jill went by, seeking a new hill, swaying their pail and singing away. The ring-o’-roses children all sneezed together, circling nearer. Then black-and-white Polly and Sukey appeared.
The woman’s dog barked hysterically.
‘Run! Run away!’ she shrieked at us, and blundered back through the woods, her dog leaping around her.
‘Oh no, she’ll go and tell someone!’ I said.
‘Yes, like they’ll really believe her when she starts describing what she’s seen,’ said Smash. ‘Look, you dim nursery people, stay near the sandpit, please!’
They wouldn’t stay. They wandered wherever we went. It was clear they would follow us if we tried to go home. I thought what it would be like parading down Acacia Avenue with a troupe of nursery-rhyme characters, two of them in black and white.
‘Perhaps we’d better just stay here,’ I said. ‘I think it’s less complicated.’
So we stayed, while the cat fiddled, the cow ambled up and down, the dog barked, the dish danced with the spoon, Jack and Jill went up and down their hill, the children revolved round and round in their ring of roses, and Polly and Sukey put their kettle on and off a thousand times. We stayed until the sun slid down the sky and the cow spotted a pale crescent of moon at long long last. It leapt up in the air with a great joyful moo, soared right over it – and then disappeared.
Dad called Robbie and me into the living room after breakfast the next day. Robbie pulled a face at me.
‘What have we done now?’ he mouthed, looking scared.
‘We haven’t done anything, Robs,’ I said, sque
ezing his hand. ‘Don’t worry.’
But I was worried inside, wondering what was up. I never knew how to please Dad. I’d never felt quite relaxed with him even when he lived at home with us. Sometimes he seemed to want me to cuddle up and be his little girl, like Maudie. Sometimes he wanted me to grow up and act more sensibly. I sensed he’d like me to have more spirit like Smash – but if I dared cheek him and argue back he got furious. And, if I was floundering, poor Robbie was hopelessly out of his depth. He’d started to flinch nervously whenever Dad raised his voice – which made Dad even madder.
But now Dad was smiling at us in a slightly fierce way, teeth showing, rather like Robbie’s toy lion.
‘What’s up, Dad?’ I said, trying to sound bright and bouncy.
‘Nothing’s up, silly,’ he said.
‘Have I done something, Dad?’ Robbie whispered.
‘No, no. For goodness’ sake, kids, don’t look so scared. I want to have a little chat, that’s all, just us three.’
Alice was letting Maudie wash up her plastic dolly’s tea set along with the breakfast dishes, while Smash was emailing her dad.
Our dad sat down on the sofa and held both his arms out.
‘Come on, sit down, both of you,’ he said, gesturing.
We absolutely hated sitting down on that sofa, because it was where Dad and Alice cuddled up and it made us feel ill. We perched gingerly on the edge while Dad put his arms round us.
‘Now then, I just wanted you to know that I’m happy, happy, happy that you’re here,’ said Dad.
We smiled back at him.
‘I do miss you so when you’re at your mum’s,’ said Dad.
He waited for us to say something.
‘We miss you too, Dad,’ I said.
‘I just want to make sure you’re enjoying yourselves, kids,’ said Dad. ‘We don’t really seem to be doing very much. We seem to spend most days pottering off to the woods and having picnics.’
‘That’s what we like, Dad,’ I said.
‘You bet,’ Robbie added. ‘So long as it’s at the sandpit.’
‘Well, why don’t we try going somewhere a little more exciting?’ said Dad. ‘It’s very peaceful in the woods, I grant you.’
Four Children and It Page 16
