The Tree that Sat Down

by Beverley Nichols

  Copyright

  First published in Great Britain by Jonathan Cape 1945

  First published in this abridged edition By Lions 1975

  Lions is an imprint of HarperCollins Children’s Books 2015

  This edition published by HarperCollins Children’s Books 2016

  HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd,

  1 London Bridge Street

  London SE1 9GF

  The HarperCollins Children’s Books website address is

  www.harpercollins.co.uk

  Copyright (abridged edition) © Beverley Nichols 1975

  Cover illustration © Nicola Kinner 2016

  Cover design © HarperCollins Publishers, Ltd 2016

  Beverley Nichols and Isobel and John Morton Sale assert the moral right to be identified as the author and illustrators of the work.

  A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

  Source ISBN: 9780006709930

  Ebook Edition © 2016 ISBN: 9780008199531

  Version: 2016-04-21

  For the PRRP

  Z

  Z

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter One – Judy Meets a Stranger

  Chapter Two – The Strangest Shop in the World

  Chapter Three – Plots and Plans

  Chapter Four – The Struggle Begins

  Chapter Five – Bruno Escapes

  Chapter Six – More About Bruno

  Chapter Seven – Bruno Recaptured

  Chapter Eight – A Peacock Spreads his Tail

  Chapter Nine – Queer Customers

  Chapter Ten – The Wickedness of Miss Smith

  Chapter Eleven – Witchcraft

  Chapter Twelve – A Tortoise to the Rescue

  Chapter Thirteen – The Book of Magic

  Chapter Fourteen – Judy in Danger

  Chapter Fifteen – Appeal to the Law

  Chapter Sixteen – The Night Before the Trial

  Chapter Seventeen – Justice is Done

  Chapter Eighteen – The Storm – and After

  Chapter Nineteen – Happy Ending

  Footnote

  Collins Modern Classics

  About the Publisher

  Chapter One

  JUDY MEETS A STRANGER

  JUDY WAS OUT in the wood, collecting Sleepo.

  In case you do not know about Sleepo, I will explain. It was one of the things which Judy’s grandmother sold in The Shop Under the Willow Tree. It was really her own invention, though other people in the wood had tried to copy it. But nobody’s Sleepo was as good as Mrs Judy’s; it did not send you to sleep nearly so quickly, and sometimes it gave you bad dreams. Mrs Judy’s Sleepo never gave you bad dreams … in fact, she had an extra special variety, which cost a penny an ounce more, which gave you the most beautiful dreams. She put a dream in each of these special boxes, which were tied up with green ribbon. Sometimes, if she thought you looked sad, she would pop in an extra dream for luck. The ordinary boxes, which had not got a dream in them, were only tied up with string. But even so, they were very good value for money.

  Now I will explain how to get Sleepo, because you might like to try to collect some yourself.

  *

  Whenever a cat or a dog or a dormouse or any other animal is sleeping, the air it breathes out through its mouth or its nose has got a little Sleepo in it. You cannot see it, any more than you can see the air itself, but it is there.

  Now if the animal just goes on sleeping, the Sleepo drifts away, like smoke, and goes up to the ceiling or flies out of the window. But if you take a glass jar, and hold it near its nose, a lot of Sleepo goes into the jar and settles down. And if you bottle it up and recite the right spells over the bottle, it will keep for a whole month; and when you pour it out of the bottle again, it will send you to sleep.

  Now that sounds very simple, but it isn’t really quite as simple as all that. First of all, the jar has to be specially treated before it will hold the Sleepo properly. It has to be put under the branches of a willow tree at midnight. And then you have to wait until three willow leaves have fallen into the jar. And they must fall in of their own accord; it is not the least use putting them in yourself, or shaking the branches of the tree.

  When the three leaves have fallen into the jar, you must carry it up to your bedroom, and put it as near as you can to your pillow. And every night, before you go to sleep, you must take the jar in your hands and look at the leaves and say:

  Sleepo, sleepo, three times three,

  Out of the branch of a willow tree;

  Sleepo come and make me wise.

  Give me rest and close my eyes.

  You do this for three nights running; and when you wake up on the third morning you find that something very exciting has happened. The leaves of the willow tree have flown away, and in their place are three pennies. You must take these pennies and buy something with them to give away … you must not spend any of it on yourself. When you have done this (which will be a very nice and kind thing to do) you will be able to collect as much Sleepo as you want. And perhaps you may be able to sell some of it for more than the three pennies that you gave away.

  *

  Now let us get back to Judy in the wood, and see how she is getting on.

  She had just been holding the jar in front of the nose of a baby leopard. It was lying fast asleep in the sun and a lot of Sleepo was coming from its nose. And then a fly settled on its tail, and the baby leopard began to twist and turn, and not so much Sleepo came. So she closed the jar and walked on.

  She came to a cornfield in a clearing and wondered if she should go in to look for dormice. They were always sleepy, and it was a very good quality of Sleepo which one collected from them, because they were such amiable animals, and always had the nicest thoughts. However, they were also very small, and it took a dreadfully long time to collect any quantity; you had to hold the jar in front of at least twenty dormice before you got more than half an ounce. What she really wanted was somebody like old Mr Sloth, who hung from a tree, with Sleepo pouring from him in bucketfuls.

  Then, through a gap in the trees, she saw something lying on the ground. It was covered with stripes, and at first she thought it must be a rug which somebody had left behind after a picnic. But when she looked more closely, her heart beat fast with excitement, because she saw it was a little zebra, sound asleep. And when zebras slept, they slept very heavily indeed. If she could only tiptoe across without waking him up, she would be able to fill her jar in no time, and go home to tea.

  Very cautiously she began to creep through the bushes. Now and then the branch of a wild rose caught in her skirt, and once she nearly stumbled over a stone. But step by step she drew nearer to the zebra. What a pretty little thing he was! He looked so tired – his front legs were crossed over each other, and his head was thrown back into a cluster of ferns; she could see the Sleepo rising regularly, in tiny puffs, through the ferns, like pale blue smoke.

  She was nearly on him now, and was just about to undo the lid of her jar, when suddenly the air was rent
with a shrill cry. Out of the shadows leapt a boy, with a ragged shirt and red hair. Over his head he waved a glass jar. With a single jump he landed on the zebra’s back and clamped the jar over its nose. For a second the poor little beast seemed stunned, then it jumped to its feet with a loud neigh. The boy was still holding the jar to its nose, but when the zebra leapt up, he was thrown from its back into a bramble bush. As he fell, he clutched his jar very closely to him.

  The zebra darted away into the woods and the boy scrambled to his feet. Judy wondered where she had seen him before; then she remembered … of course, it was Sam, whose grandfather had just bought the only other shop in the wood, which was called The Shop in the Ford. (We will tell you more about this shop later.)

  Judy did not like the look of Sam very much, but she was a polite little girl, so she said, ‘Good afternoon.’

  ‘What’s good about the afternoon?’ snapped Sam. ‘And who are you, anyway?’

  ‘I live in The Shop Under the Willow Tree.’

  ‘That old dump!’ Sam made a rude face. ‘I wouldn’t live in a place like that if you paid me a thousand pounds.’

  Judy was about to say that it was not very likely that anybody would want to pay him a thousand pounds, when she noticed that his knee was scratched.

  ‘Oh, you’ve hurt yourself!’ she cried.

  ‘It’s nothing,’ he retorted. ‘And anyway it’s none of your business.’

  ‘Really,’ thought Judy, ‘he is the rudest boy I ever met.’ However, she made another effort to be pleasant.

  ‘Were you collecting Sleepo?’ she asked.

  ‘Sleepo! That stuff! Of course not. I was collecting Wakeo.’

  ‘Wakeo? Whatever’s that?’

  ‘It wakes you up. Every time you startle an animal out of its sleep its breath has got a lot of Wakeo in it. Only don’t you go collecting it, because my grandfather’s going to patent it.’

  ‘I certainly shouldn’t dream of collecting such a thing,’ replied Judy indignantly.

  ‘You couldn’t even if you tried,’ sneered Sam, ‘because you have to have a magic jar, or it escapes. And anyway, you’d be too frightened.’

  ‘No I wouldn’t.’

  ‘Yes you would.’

  ‘No I wouldn’t.’ Judy stamped her foot. ‘It isn’t because I’d be frightened but because I think it’s very unkind to go jumping about on animals’ backs when they’re tired out and want to sleep.’

  ‘Pooh! Who cares about being kind to a lot of silly animals?’

  ‘I do. Besides, I’m quite sure it can’t be good for people to take Wakeo.’

  ‘Oh, yes it is! It makes them jump and sing and go on like mad. Old Mrs Parrot bought some the other day; she’s a hundred and eight; and after the first dose she climbed to the top of a tree and began to sing hymns.’

  ‘I don’t think people ought to sing hymns on the tops of trees, not if they’re a hundred and eight,’ replied Judy severely. ‘She might have fallen down and broken her neck.’

  ‘All the better,’ chuckled Sam. ‘Then we could have sold her some Necko to mend it again.’

  ‘Don’t you ever think of anything but selling things and making money?’ asked Judy.

  ‘Not very often. I’m going to be a millionaire. That’s more than you’ll ever be. In fact, if you don’t look out, you won’t have anything left at all. You’ll be turned out of that old shop of yours.’

  Judy felt a little cold shudder run down her spine, for her grannie was very poor, and was always afraid of being turned out of the shop.

  ‘How do you mean?’ she whispered.

  ‘I mean that all the animals are going to come to our shop. We’re going to sell all sorts of new things, and they’ll be much cheaper, and we’re going to advertise.’

  ‘Advertise? Whatever’s that?’

  ‘Of course you wouldn’t know. It means painting things on tree trunks and writing things on leaves.’

  ‘What sort of things?’

  ‘Things letting the animals know that we’ve got everything they want – telling them that we can cure them of all their illnesses.’

  ‘But can you?’

  ‘Of course not, but we shall say we can. What does it matter as long as we get their money?’

  ‘It sounds downright wicked!’ cried Judy.

  ‘You only say that because you didn’t think of it yourself.’

  ‘I should be ashamed if I did think of such things. It’s wicked … telling lies to poor animals.’

  ‘Oh, you are goody-goody!’ jeered Sam.

  ‘I don’t care if I am. I’d rather be goody-goody than a thief.’

  Sam shrugged his shoulders and grinned. ‘Have it your own way, goody-goody,’ he said.

  Judy could bear it no longer. She turned on her heel and ran rapidly through the wood. And after her came the harsh echo of Sam’s voice, growing fainter and fainter as she plunged deeper into the shadows:

  Goody-goody Judy

  Judy, Judy

  Goody-goody Judy

  Judy … Judy …

  Chapter Two

  THE STRANGEST SHOP IN THE WORLD

  THE SHOP UNDER the Willow Tree might just as well have been called The Shop In the Willow Tree, because it would have been impossible to say where the shop began and where the Tree ended. It was a very old tree indeed, so old that the trunk had split open, forming a sort of cave, in which there was always a candle burning at night. When it was cold, Mrs Judy slept in the cave; otherwise she slept in a hammock high up in the branches. She used to swing backwards and forwards in the wind, and if you had looked up through the branches, on a wild night when the clouds were scurrying across the moon, you would have thought that she was some strange bird that was resting there.

  The main business of the shop was conducted in what Mrs Judy called the ‘Extension’. This was really an immense branch which had sagged away from the trunk, through sheer age, and had come to rest on the ground, forming a sort of arch. The branch was not dead; it was just old, and it felt that it had earned the right to sit down. And so the arch was a living arch, pale green in spring, gold in autumn, bare in winter – but always strong and warm. Underneath the arch Mrs Judy had dragged an old log, and it was this log which served as a counter.

  Apart from the Tree itself and the ‘Extension’ there was another department which Mrs Judy called the ‘Bargain Basement’. This had originally been only a dip in the ground, but Mrs Judy had hollowed it out till it was about four feet deep, and cut some steps down to it, and scooped away the earth from the rocks, which were large and flat, and made excellent shelves. On these shelves were displayed an extraordinary variety of objects, ranging from coconuts for the tits to toy mice for the Manx children.

  It was really a wonderful shop, and there were hundreds of things that would have interested you, stored away in the hollows of the trunk or hanging from the branches. But we have not time to look at any more of them just now, because Judy is coming home and we must get on with our story.

  *

  When Judy had told her grandmother about Sam, Mrs Judy looked very grave.

  ‘I was afraid this would happen one day,’ she said. ‘We are faced with Competition.’

  ‘What is “competition”, Grannie?’

  ‘Some people call it “progress”, others call it “the survival of the fittest”; but whatever name they use, it is always cruel.’

  ‘Never mind. We shall pull through somehow.’

  ‘It will not be easy. I am very old.’

  ‘But the animals all love us.’

  ‘Yes – but animals are simple creatures. They are not as simple as humans, of course, who spend their whole lives being cheated and deceived. If a man wants to make up his mind about something, he has to read a book about it, and even then the book will often tell him lies. But an animal can sum up a man’s character in a single sniff; an animal can tell whether a man is a friend or an enemy simply by listening to his footfall on the grass. And that is reall
y the most important thing in life, to know who are our friends and who are our enemies.’

  ‘In that case, surely the animals will know that Sam and his grandfather are their enemies?’

  Mrs Judy sighed. ‘I wonder. Those two sound as if they are very cunning. And remember – they are going to give the animals something new, something from the outside world, of which they have no experience. For instance, you told me that they are going to use advertisements. Now human beings know that advertisements are often just another name for lies. Some advertisements are true, of course, some are half-true, but many are plain unvarnished lies. The animals will not know this, because the advertisements will be written up in print, and the only print the animals have ever seen has been in our own shop, and we have never printed anything that has not been true. So the animals will think that print and truth are the same, and if we tell them that print can tell a lie, they will only think that we are jealous.’

  ‘Oh, why did they ever come to the wood?’ cried Judy. ‘We were so happy here.’

  Mrs Judy stroked her hair. ‘We shall be happy again,’ said Mrs Judy. ‘But we shall have to think. We shall have to get some new ideas ourselves – better ideas than any that Sam can think of.’

  ‘But where shall we get them?’

  ‘From the Tree of course.’ Mrs Judy spoke quite sharply. She had lived so long under the old willow, climbing its great branches by day, sleeping snugly among its giant roots at night, that she had come to regard the Tree as almost human. More than human, in fact, for she felt that the Tree had some magical power to protect them both, that no harm could come to them as long as they dwelt in its shadow.

  ‘I don’t see how the Tree can give us any ideas,’ sighed Judy.

  ‘Ssh! Don’t say such things!’ Mrs Judy looked anxiously upwards; she was afraid that the Tree might hear, and be offended. And sure enough, at that moment there came a cold gust of wind that set the branches swaying and set up a thousand little whispers among the leaves, as though the Tree were murmuring to itself.

  But what was it saying? What was the message it was trying to give them?