The Tree that Sat Down

by Beverley Nichols

  ‘What now?’ gasped Judy.

  ‘Now you must recite a poem. And after you have recited it you must make one last effort to lift the branch and bring it down on the vacuum-cleaner with a great big bang. And then we will see what happens. Now, are you ready?’

  ‘I’m ready.’

  ‘Then this is what you must say …’

  Slowly, word by word, he told Judy the poem. Through the quiet, cold air of evening their two voices echoed – first the old tortoise, hoarse and croaking, and then Judy, sweet and clear. These were the words they chanted:

  Stick of broom, and broom of stick,

  Lit by candle’s weary wick,

  Come into the light of day,

  Come where children laugh and play,

  Come … and now … Away! Away!

  ‘Quick,’ shouted the tortoise. ‘Lift the branch! Aim it! Bring it down with a bang!’

  With a terrific effort Judy lifted the branch. She whirled it through the air. And it hit the vacuum-cleaner with a sickening thud.

  And then – the most extraordinary thing happened. Slowly the vacuum-cleaner changed colour. From a glistening silver it turned to a dirty brown. And, as its colour changed, so its handle began to split into dozens of little twigs. All the time that this was happening, it shivered and trembled violently, and a dreadful hiss came from it, like the hiss of a snake. The hiss grew louder and louder, until suddenly, it rose from the ground. It hovered for a few moments over their heads, a complete broomstick, twitching angrily backwards and forwards, as if it were seeking to attack somebody or hit something … and then, with a final hiss, like the noise made by a rocket when it takes the air, it soared through the trees, up into the darkening sky, and was lost to sight.

  *

  ‘Well,’ said the tortoise, when the broomstick had finally vanished, ‘that was a narrow escape.’ His legs were trembling and his shell had gone several shades paler. He turned to Mrs Judy, who had rushed out on hearing the noise. ‘I wonder, madam, if you would be so very kind as to give me a sip of your raspberry wine?’

  ‘I think we should all have a drop,’ cried Mrs Judy, ‘I feel quite upset myself.’

  When she had brought the wine and poured it out, Mr Tortoise raised his glass and gave them a toast.

  ‘To the damnation of the Witch,’ he proclaimed solemnly.

  ‘It’s a very serious toast,’ said Mrs Judy, ‘but I really think she deserves it.’

  ‘She certainly does,’ agreed the tortoise. ‘Do you realize, madam, that she and her toads have poisoned nearly everything in your shop?’

  ‘Poisoned?’ gasped Mrs Judy.

  The tortoise nodded. ‘There is poison everywhere … upstairs, downstairs, in my lady’s chamber. Miss Squirrel was poisoned. And Mrs Hare, and Miss Fox, and all the rest of them.’

  ‘So that explains it!’ cried Judy. ‘Whatever are we going to do?’

  ‘You know the Fairy Ring, beyond the old sycamore tree? Good! I want you to bring everything from the shop and place it in the Ring. Everything – bottles, lotions, nests, foods – everything that has been touched by Miss Smith or her toads. You see,’ he explained, ‘once the things are inside the Ring, the poison will begin to come out of them; some of it will sink into the ground and the rest of it will drift up into the air. But first I shall have to go ahead and recite the right spells and see that everything is in order; so let us get busy, because it must all be finished before midnight.’

  He waddled off in the direction of the Fairy Ring, and Judy and her grannie began to clear the things off the shelves. They had to make several journeys before everything was in the Ring, and when at last they had finished, the pile in the middle was as tall as a little house.

  All the while that they had been going backwards and forwards, Mr Tortoise had been waddling round and round the Ring, whispering to the toadstools one by one, and making mysterious signs to them. ‘It is all very queer,’ whispered Judy to her grannie. ‘I wish I knew what he was saying.’

  ‘You will soon know, my dear,’ chuckled the tortoise who had overheard her. ‘I am almost ready.’

  For a few more minutes he continued to whisper and make his mysterious signs. Then he stopped, nodded to himself, and exclaimed: ‘Now I am ready.’

  He turned to Judy and her grannie. ‘Step out of the Ring, my dears, if you please, otherwise you may get an electric shock.’

  They stepped out and sat on the grass, watching him with wide-open eyes.

  ‘I have to stay inside myself,’ he continued, ‘otherwise it would not work. Now I think we really can begin.’

  Judy and her grannie held their breaths.

  The wood was very silent; the only sound came from far, far away … the melancholy ‘Too-wit, Too-woe!’ of Mr Justice Owl, meditating on the follies of the world. The moonlight shone down on the Fairy Ring, lighting up the faces of the toadstools till you would have said they were laughing, and casting a bright sheen on the back of the tortoise, so that his shell looked like a silver shield.

  ‘Now!’ whispered the tortoise.

  He stepped forward to the first toadstool in the Ring, held an oak apple poised for a moment above it, and then touched it very gently on its head. As he touched it, a sweet chime rang out, like a silver bell, and at the same time the toadstool became luminous, and glowed like a tiny candle.

  Judy clutched her grannie’s hand in excitement.

  Mr Tortoise touched the next toadstool, and again there was the chime of a silver bell and the toadstool glowed and trembled. All round the Ring he went, touching them one by one, and soon there was a circle of soft, golden flame – like the rim that we sometimes see round the moon on summer nights, when rain is on the way. The tiny bells kept ringing, in the most delicate harmonies, up and down the scale, in tinkling sharps and trebles.

  Very softly, through the chime of the bells, they heard the voice of the tortoise, chanting a secret spell. This is what he was saying:

  Ring silver chime

  In magic rhyme

  And tinkle, tinkle bell.

  Glow golden star,

  Shine near and far.

  Your secret signal tell,

  And send these hosts

  Of ghouls and ghosts

  Down the long steps to hell!

  Little by little, the sound of the bells increased – growing sharper and more urgent; and the toadstools glowed more brightly, till they were so bright that all the undersides of the leaves in the trees high above were lit up as though by a bonfire.

  And then – then came the most wonderful thing of all. Out of the pile of goods in the centre of the Ring there slowly rose a damp curling mist of poison … grey and cold like the breath of a snake. It coiled and twisted – it seemed to be trying to escape from the magic circle, and small pointed tongues of it darted this way and that; but each time they touched the ring of light, they fell back and were forced higher up … up, up, through the branches of the trees. The leaves withered and turned brown as the mist touched them, as though they were being blighted by a strange and evil frost.

  And at the same time that the poison was being drawn up to the sky, high up towards the cleansing stars, so it was being sucked down, deep down into the earth. From all the little boxes and bottles and cases and tins there came trickles of poison, cold and grey; a grey that was the colour of all the world’s dirt and despair; the grey of bats’ wings, of filthy gutters … the grey of cowards’ faces, the grey of dirty windows in forgotten slums. As it trickled, it turned and twisted, as though it too were trying to escape, and it writhed in black streaks towards the Magic Ring of the toadstools. But as soon as it came in the circle of the light, it plunged into the earth with an angry hiss.

  The mist grew fainter and fainter, the streams of poison dried up one by one; at last the final wisp of grey floated through the branches, like a dirty rag, and the final trickle of poison vanished into the ground. Softer and softer sounded the chimes of the bells; the lights of the toadstools
flickered away one by one.

  And now there was only silence and the moon.

  The voice of Mr Tortoise recalled them to reality. It was hoarse and trembling, for he had used up all his strength in this great effort of magic. Yet he tried to sound light-hearted.

  ‘Well, my dears,’ he said. ‘I don’t think that was a bad job.’

  They were too overcome to speak.

  Mr Tortoise stepped slowly out of the Ring. ‘And now,’ he said, with a twinkle in his eye, ‘what about another glass of raspberry wine?’

  *

  It was nearly dawn before all the things were back in the shop again, and both Judy and her grannie were more tired than they had ever been before. But what did it matter? The poison had gone; the shop was clean and sweet; it seemed to feel utterly different – there was such a sense of kindness and goodness everywhere. The bottles sparkled so brightly in the moonlight that you would have said they were rejoicing, and the nests seemed to snuggle up together, warm and close, as though they knew that once again they would be a happy refuge for the birds. It was like the end of a bad dream.

  When Mr Tortoise said goodbye to Judy, he said: ‘I think that you need a protector.’

  She smiled. ‘I seem to have found one.’

  ‘Your grannie is old. And the Tree –’ he looked up into its branches – ‘the Tree is old, too.’

  ‘You must not say a word against the Tree,’ protested Judy.

  ‘I would not do so. The Tree is good and beautiful. But the Tree is old. And the Tree is tired.’

  Judy looked upwards. The sun was rising swiftly, and in the clean cold rays of morning the branches of the Tree were wrinkled and haggard. The leaves – they were as sprightly as ever – danced gaily in the breeze; but they hardly seemed to belong to the Tree at all. They were like a crowd of happy children frisking round an old man who sat gnarled and still, dreaming his dreams, scarcely conscious of the frolic all about him.

  The quiet voice of the tortoise spoke again.

  ‘I have not much power …’ he began.

  Judy bent down and touched him gently on his shell.

  ‘It seems to me that you have great power,’ she said.

  He shook his head. ‘Only … only now and then. Only if –’ he glanced at her with a strange expression in his little eye – ‘only if … I am working for somebody I … I like very much.’ He blinked at her and shuffled nervously on his tiny feet. In a gruff voice he continued: ‘But I have a certain gift of foretelling the future. And I see difficult times ahead.’

  ‘Difficult?’ whispered Judy.

  The tortoise nodded and pointed up to the Tree.

  ‘It is very tired,’ he murmured, almost to himself. ‘Have you ever thought that one day the Tree might be so tired – so very tired – that …’

  ‘That what?’

  The tortoise hesitated. Then he said: ‘That it might want to … sit down?’

  Judy started. The idea seemed so strange that she could not grasp it.

  ‘What would you do then?’ asked the tortoise. ‘Where would you go?’

  Judy shook her head. It was all so puzzling. And yet – the Tree did look tired.

  ‘Never mind,’ said the tortoise. ‘Do not let us meet trouble before it comes. In the meantime, you still have the bean I gave you?’

  Judy had forgotten all about it. She felt in her pocket. Yes, it was still there.

  ‘Do not lose it,’ he warned her. ‘There is more in it than you think. It is not just something to make you laugh. It will help you in many other ways.’

  ‘What ways?’

  ‘If ever you are in trouble – very serious trouble – take it out and rub it three times.’

  ‘But what will happen then?’

  ‘You will see.’

  Judy stared at him. But no, she did not stare at him – for he was no longer there! She rubbed her eyes. He had vanished.

  For a moment she stood there, waiting, listening, wondering if he was playing some trick on her, if he had just darted away into the long grass. But no. He had gone.

  From far away came the tinkle of bells. It grew fainter and fainter and finally vanished. And from high in the sky came the first call of the lark.

  Chapter Thirteen

  THE BOOK OF MAGIC

  THE WONDERFUL EVENTS in the Fairy Ring had given Mrs Judy an idea. When she came down to breakfast on the following morning, she said:

  ‘I shall be very busy for a few days, my dear.’

  ‘But, Grannie, what are you going to do?’

  ‘Never mind.’ She winked mysteriously. ‘You will know in good time.’

  Judy did not like the thought of her grannie working so hard. ‘Don’t you think you ought to have a rest?’ she asked.

  Mrs Judy shook her head. ‘No. What I have to do must be done quickly. It must be finished before the cold weather comes, and that may be here at any moment now; the Chief of the Swallows told me.’

  ‘Are the swallows leaving so soon?’

  ‘They are all packed, ready to go.’

  ‘Summer is so short,’ sighed Judy.

  ‘Never mind, my dear. There are still a few days left, and as you know, the last days of summer are more full of magic than any others. I must make the most of them.’

  ‘But are you going to work some magic, too?’

  ‘Perhaps I am, perhaps I’m not.’

  With which Judy had to be content. Her grannie would say no more on the subject, but climbed slowly back into the branches of the Tree, saying that she probably would not come down again for several days. With her she took a quill pen, three bottles of ink (one gold, one silver, and one purple), and a big bundle of writing paper.

  It was all very strange.

  Judy was wandering by the lake on the morning that the swallows flew, gathering driftwood for the fires that she would so soon be needing. She loved these early hours, when she could talk to herself without anybody overhearing her, when she was utterly alone, with the lake like a pale mirror sleeping with the weary mists upon it.

  And then, suddenly, she was no longer alone. Far off, she saw a gay black silhouette against the rising sun – a flock of wings dipping and darting and skimming and swooping in perfect harmony. ‘The swallows!’ she cried, and waved to them. They swept down towards her, so close that she could could almost touch them, in one swift line of black, and the sound of their wings was like the rustle of a silken dress. And then they were gone. But no – not quite gone. For she turned just in time to see the same lovely pattern repeating itself to the south, the same black, sweeping lines, rimmed with gold. Look! They are flying up, up … over the hills and far away … they are smaller and smaller … like leaves, like tiny specks … like … like nothing. The skies are empty.

  The lake turned in its sleep. The steel-grey of its surface warmed to a delicate blue. The mist joined hands, floated away, disappeared.

  ‘That was a beautiful dream,’ whispered the lake to itself.

  ‘Autumn has come,’ sighed Judy.

  She turned and made for home.

  When she arrived, she found that Mrs Judy had come down from the tree, and was sitting waiting for her, with a big parcel on her lap.

  ‘Why, Grannie!’ cried Judy, ‘whatever have you been doing in the last few days?’

  Mrs Judy pointed to the parcel. ‘This is what I have been doing,’ she said.

  ‘But what is it?’

  ‘It is my Book. And I have only just finished writing it.’

  Judy was quite astonished. ‘But I had no idea you could write a book.’

  ‘Neither, to be frank, had I,’ replied her grannie. ‘It was Mr Tortoise who gave me the idea. When he was working those wonderful spells in the Fairy Ring I began to remember all sorts of little scraps of magic which I had been taught when I was a girl. It seemed a great pity that they should be forgotten, and so I decided to put them down. And here they are …’

  She undid the parcel, and handed the book to Judy
.

  Judy exclaimed with delight when she saw the beautiful cover. She opened it very carefully, and turned to the title page. This is what she read:

  MRS JUDY’S LESSON BOOK

  by

  MRS JUDY

  author of

  Witches I Have Known

  Underneath was a little notice saying:

  Mrs Judy has also written the following books:

  VOYAGES ON A SEA-SERPENT’S TAIL

  MENUS FOR MIDDLE-AGED MAGICIANS

  GNOMES – THE TRUTH

  HOW TO TURN CROCODILES INTO STOCK-BROKERS

  SIX SIMPLE WAYS OF CURING CLOVEN HOOVES

  ELVES OF THE UNDERWORLD

  ETIQUETTE FOR DRAGONS

  ‘But, Grannie,’ cried Judy, ‘have you really written all these books?’

  ‘Not exactly,’ replied Mrs Judy. ‘But it looks well. All the best authors do it.’

  ‘But supposing somebody asked to see them?’

  ‘I should say they were out of print. All the best books are.’

  ‘Wouldn’t that be a little …’ Judy hesitated for the right word. She had been going to say ‘untruthful’, but it did not seem very polite to tell one’s grandmother that she was untruthful.

  ‘I know what you are thinking,’ said Mrs Judy. ‘You think it might not be quite honest to say I had written all those books when I hadn’t. Well, there’s a very simple way of getting out of that. I can just write on the title-page … “This page is all fiction. All the rest of the book is true.”’

  ‘Well that would be a clever idea,’ said Judy.

  ‘That’s what I thought.’ Mrs Judy smiled contentedly. ‘And perhaps if this book is a success I might write all those other books some day.’

  ‘I’m sure you could, if you really tried.’

  ‘Anyway,’ said Mrs Judy, ‘that can wait for the future. The first thing we have to do is to publish this book and see if we can make it a success. Now I am going for a walk and I shall leave you to read it. When I come back I shall want to know exactly what you think of it.’

  Whereupon she put on her hat, gave Judy a kiss, and wandered slowly off into the wood.