There was, of course, only one answer to this, and five minutes later the wolf had walked down the path through the garden to Polly’s front door and was ringing her bell.
‘I’ll talk to you from up here if you don’t mind,’ said Polly’s voice from the first-floor window. ‘Yes, Wolf, what can I do for you today?’
‘You can tell me what I have to take eleven away from.’
‘Eleven? Why eleven?’
‘Because that is how old I am.’
‘Why do you want to take how old you are away from anything?’
‘Because I want to know what year it was.’
‘What year what was?’
‘The year I was born in, of course. Silly!’ said the wolf triumphantly. ‘I said it was Silly Polly and you are! What do I take it away from?’
‘Nineteen fifty-seven.’
‘And what do I have to do with it?’ the wolf asked, now thoroughly muddled.
‘You take that away from it.’
‘What’s That?’
‘Eleven. Well, that’s what you said,’ Polly answered, a little confused herself.
‘Don’t go away,’ pleaded the wolf. ‘Let me get it straight in my head. I take eleven away from nineteen and then from fifty-seven and then –’
‘No, stupid. Not from nineteen, from nineteen hundred and fifty-seven; and then the answer is the year you were born in!’
‘Nineteen hundred!’ said the wolf, appalled.
‘And fifty-seven.’
‘Nineteen hundred and fifty-seven. I don’t think I’ve got enough beans,’ said the wolf gloomily.
‘I don’t see how beans come into it,’ Polly said. ‘It’s years you’re counting in, not beans.’
‘It’s beans while I’m actually counting,’ the wolf said firmly. ‘And you’re sure the answer is the year I was born?’
‘Certain.’
‘Thank you. Good morning,’ the wolf called over his shoulder, as he trotted away down the garden path. He went home, sat down at his kitchen table and began to count out beans.
‘A hundred and thirty-three, a hundred and thirty-four, a hundred and thirty-five … Bother.’
The hundred and thirty-sixth bean was a very highly polished one. It slipped out of the wolf’s paw, leapt nimbly into the air, fell on the floor, and rolled under the cooking stove.
‘Bother, bother, bother!’ the wolf said out loud. He looked into the canister. There were only seven or eight beans left: he could not afford to lose one. He got down from his chair and lay flat on his front on the floor to look for the missing bean. It lay out of reach, right at the back of the cooker, against the wall, in company with a burnt chestnut and a very dirty toasting fork.
‘My toasting fork!’ the wolf exclaimed, delighted to see it again; it had been missing for several months. He retrieved the fork, dusted it with his tail, and used it to poke out the bean.
The wolf dusted the bean, said solemnly out loud, ‘One hundred and thirty-six,’ and put it on the table.
He gave a triumphant wave of his useful tail. Several beans were swept off the table and disappeared under various pieces of furniture.
‘Oh —!’ cried the wolf, enraged. He sat down at the table, staring angrily at the remaining beans. He tipped up the canister and added the rest of the beans to the pile he had already counted.
‘A hundred and thirty-seven, a hundred and thirty-eight, a hundred and … What’s the use when I want nineteen hundred and something? I’ll never be able to count the whole lot!’
He absent-mindedly put the last bean in his mouth. It wasn’t too bad. He ate another.
‘Easier with a spoon,’ he murmured a minute or two later, and going to the dresser fetched a battered tablespoon. With its help he ate another two dozen beans fairly quickly.
‘That’s funny!’ he thought after the second spoonful. ‘I believe I generally eat these cooked. Very absent-minded I seem to be getting.’
He fetched a saucepan, filled it with water, and put it on the fire. When the water was boiling he tossed in the remaining beans, salt, pepper and herbs. He fried some rashers of bacon, an onion and a few mushrooms in a pan, and when everything was cooked he mixed it into a glorious mess together, added a tomato and, in a very few mouthfuls, swallowed the lot.
‘Ah,’ he said, wiping his mouth on the back of his paw, ‘that’s better. Now, let me see – What was I doing?’
He looked round the kitchen and his eye fell on the empty canister.
‘Oh!’ he said aloud. ‘Bother!’
‘Never mind,’ he said. ‘They tasted much better than they counted. Besides it would have taken me ages to get up to nineteen hundred and fifty-seven. I’d never have had time to write anything. After all what does it matter what year it was I was born? I’m here now, that’s the important thing.’
He picked up the last sheet of paper he had written on and tore it across several times. Then, sitting down, he pulled another towards him and wrote in a bolder hand:
THE CLEVER WOLF AND POOR STUPID POLLY
‘Fortunately,’ (the wolf wrote), ‘I was born.’
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First published by Faber and Faber 1955
Published in Puffin Books 1967
Reissued in this edition 2015
Text copyright © Catherine Storr, 1955
Illustrations copyright © Marjorie-Ann Watts, 1955, 1967
Illustrated by Lesley Barnes
All rights reserved
The moral right of the author and illustrator has been asserted
ISBN: 978-0-141-36024-9
Clever Polly and the Stupid Wolf Page 7
