‘Was that someone at the door? Do go and see, John.’
He looked out into the Market.
‘There’s nobody there,’ he said.
‘Oh bother your old parcel!’ said Mrs Cantrip cheerfully. ‘I suppose it’s to do with this mysterious hobby you’ve taken up. Surely you can tell us that much?’
Miss Dibdin frowned for a moment. At last she nodded. ‘Yes,’ she said slowly. ‘It is to do with my ... er ... hobby. Well, now I’ve retired I must have something to do. I can’t sit and twiddle my thumbs all day. I’ll tell you what I can about the parcel. Not what’s inside, because I don’t know.’
‘All this fuss, and you don’t even know what’s inside it!’ said Mrs Cantrip.
Miss Dibdin went on as though she had not heard.
‘I’ve been doing a correspondence course. You know, lessons by post. I shan’t tell you what in, because I know you’d disapprove, Katie. Well, I learned all I could about ... about my hobby, from books and so on, and was just ready to start on some practical work, when the correspondence course people wrote and said they were closing down. Not enough customers. So disappointing!’
‘Does that mean you can’t go on with it? Your hobby, I mean?’ asked Rosemary.
‘Certainly not,’ said Miss Dibdin, stirring her tea with vigour. ‘They went on to say they would tell a local shop to send me a Do-It-Yourself Kit instead, with instructions how to use it, if I would send the money and the postage. So of course I wrote off at once. But nothing has come.’
‘Why didn’t you go to the shop and make inquiries?’ said Mrs Cantrip.
‘I did,’ said Miss Dibdin shortly, ‘when a week had gone by. It was the other side of the town, in a queer little back street. “NOSTRADAMUS LTD. Fancy Goods” it said over the window, which was full of all kinds of rubbish. False noses and paper hats, and tricks to play on people, and the sort of thing that conjurers use: wands and top hats and so on. They were having a sale.’
‘I say, I like that kind of shop,’ said John. ‘Couldn’t Rosie and I go and fetch your parcel for you?’
Miss Dibdin didn’t answer at first. She was staring into her tea-cup as though it was something other than the dregs of tea she saw there.
‘It was dark and poky inside the shop,’ she went on at last, as though she hadn’t heard. ‘When I rapped on the counter, a queer little old man with a long beard came out from the back and said, yes, he had had the order, but he was short of staff, and had done nothing about it, and wouldn’t I take the parcel back with me instead, as I was there?’
‘Well, why didn’t you?’ asked Mrs Cantrip.
‘Because I’d got too much to carry already. All those groceries, and a box of crackers for the party. They were on the counter, marked down to half-price. I know there’s nothing inside them as a rule except rubbishy gew-gaws. But they do help to make a party go. Besides,’ went on Miss Dibdin in an aggrieved voice, ‘I’d paid for the postage. Quite cross with him I had to be. When at last I told him to stop arguing and pack up the box of crackers, and see that the other parcel was sent to Fairfax Market at once, he began to laugh. More of a cackle it was really. Then he took the cracker box to the back of the shop. Quite a long time he was over it.’
‘But didn’t you ask him when you could expect your precious parcel to arrive?’ asked Mrs Cantrip.
‘Of course I did,’ said Miss Dibdin, ‘and all he said was: “It’ll be there the minute you’re home yourself, ma’am.” His very words. And then he went off into such a fit of cackling I thought he’d do himself a mischief. So I came away and left him to it. But there was no sign of the parcel when I got home. So disappointing.’
‘How funny,’ said Rosemary. ‘Did you go back again and tell him?’
‘That’s the queer part,’ said Miss Dibdin slowly. ‘When I went the second time the shop wasn’t there. It was number thirteen. I distinctly remember seeing it written up over the door that first time. But there wasn’t a number thirteen any more. The neighbours said there never had been. But I’m still hoping that the parcel will come.’
‘Well, if you will only stop being mysterious, and tell me where you’re staying at Highdown, I’ll send it after you if it comes,’ said Mrs Cantrip. ‘Besides, you might arrange for John and Rosemary to come and see you there.’
‘I can’t tell you what I don’t know!’ snapped Miss Dibdin. ‘I am going to Highdown Station where I shall be met by ... by a friend. Besides, I shall be far too busy for callers. How you do badger a body, Katie! And another thing, I mean to take Crumpet with me.’
The cat, now quite recovered from his fright, was weaving round Miss Dibdin’s ankles. ‘He shall help me choose a house for us to live in. Shan’t he, my pussididdlums!’
‘Help you choose a house? Really, Dorothy, I never heard such nonsense!’ said Mrs Cantrip sharply. But clearly feeling it was time to change the subject, she turned to John and Rosemary. ‘How kind of your mother to let me have her favourite recipe! John, dear, do have another piece of cake.’
The rest of the tea-party passed quite pleasantly, though Miss Dibdin rose several times to answer imaginary knocks on the door.
3. The Purple Cracker
WHEN at last John and Rosemary got up to go, Mrs Cantrip said: ‘I tell you what, Dorothy! As these two can’t come to the party on Monday, don’t you think it would be a good idea if they chose a pretty cracker to take home instead?’
‘Splendid!’ said Miss Dibdin. ‘Why didn’t I think of it? Rosemary, you know which is my room? Run upstairs, dear, and take whichever one you fancy. They are in a brown paper parcel on my dressing-table.’
As she climbed the narrow stairs, Rosemary couldn’t help thinking that to pull crackers at a party was one thing, but to pull one without any jollification beforehand didn’t seem quite the right thing to do.
The small bedroom was dark and rather stuffy. The faint smell of stale flower water was stronger here, although she could see no flowers. Although the room was neat and tidy in every other way, on the hearth-rug, before the old-fashioned gas-fire, was a large untidy pile of twigs.
‘What a funny thing to have in your bedroom!’ said Rosemary to herself. ‘Ow!’ she went on. She had caught her ankle against a long stick which had been leaning against the wall. It fell with a clatter. Rosemary picked it up and looked at it curiously before propping it up again. It was about four feet long, rather crooked, with the twigs that had grown from it very roughly hacked off.
She found the brown paper parcel and undid the plastic ribbon that took the place of string. It had ‘NOSTRADAMUS LTD. Fancy Goods’ printed on it all the way along its length, so she knew it was what she was looking for. Rosemary took off the lid of the cardboard box inside. The crackers were fat and pink and spangled at the ends. Each one had a shiny picture of a flower stuck on in the middle. They were kept neatly in place by two strands of thread; but lying loose on top, slightly squashed, for there was not really room for it, was a single cracker, clearly of a different kind. It was made of dark purple, crinkled paper, and instead of a flower it had a plain shape glued to it, which looked like a five-pointed star. It seemed a pity to disturb the neat pink row, so she took the loose purple cracker and slipped it into her pocket. When she ran downstairs she found John already standing by the door and ready to go.
‘I say,’ he said as they walked down the street. ‘That was decent of you to let me off the party. What a ghastly idea, six girl prefects and me the only boy!’
‘Miss Dibdin didn’t seem very anxious to meet us at Highdown,’ said Rosemary. ‘I wonder what’s inside her mysterious parcel?’
‘Another funny thing,’ said John, ‘saying she was being met at Highdown Station. It’s been closed for donkey’s years. There aren’t any trains.’
‘Bother!’ said Rosemary when they reached the bus stop. ‘Nobody here. It looks as though we’ve just missed one. Now we shall have to wait for the next.’
‘Let’s pull that silly old cracke
r while we’re waiting,’ said John. Rosemary took it from her pocket and held it up. ‘What a crumby, squashed-looking thing!’ They both giggled. ‘Here give me an end. When I say “go” we both pull.’
The purple paper of the cracker was tough, and they had to tug really hard before it gave way at last, so suddenly, that Rosemary nearly fell over backwards, which set them off giggling once more.
‘What a great bang!’ she said. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever pulled such a noisy cracker. Did you see all those coloured sparks when it went off?’
John was peering down the torn end of the tube of paper.
‘Well, it looks as though coloured sparks is about all we’re going to get. I can’t see anything inside, though I expect there’s a motto. What a rotten cracker!’
Rosemary watched as he tore open the crumpled paper and pulled out a small printed slip. ‘Go on! What does the motto say?’
He was peering at the tiny print, for it was beginning to grow dusk. He cleared his throat and began to read:
‘Choose your wishes carefully
Seven steps to gramarye
Build each wish upon another ...’
He broke off. ‘Boring old grammar.’
‘But what on earth does it mean?’ said Rosemary.
‘Search me. Some silly grown-up joke, I suppose,’ said John. He passed her the slip of paper. She shrugged her shoulders, and pushed it into her coat pocket.
‘What’s that in the gutter?’ said John.
Rosemary stooped and picked up a small, neat packet. ‘A paper hat, I expect,’ she said, and breaking the band that held it together, undid the little roll of tissue paper inside, and smoothed it out.
‘What a funny-looking hat!’ said John. ‘Black and pointed!’
Rosemary did her best to make the crumpled point stick up, and then she put it on. It was a good deal too big, and half extinguished her face.
‘Good heavens!’ said John. ‘I believe it’s a witch’s hat! You do look a Charlie in it!’ he said, and collapsed into giggles again. Suddenly Rosemary didn’t want to laugh any more. She felt strangely solemn.
‘Let’s look round and see if anything else fell out,’ she said.
‘What was it Miss Dibdin said about crackers?’ said John.
‘That they only had “rubbishy gew-gaws inside”. I remember thinking what a funny word it was. Gew-gaws I mean.’
‘What’s that?’ interrupted John.
Rosemary looked where he was pointing. In a crack between the paving stones something glittered, redly. The street lamp above had been suddenly switched on, and whatever it was lit up like an unwinking red eye. John stooped and picked it up.
‘It’s a ring,’ he said. They peered at it for a moment as it lay on the palm of his hand, then Rosemary slipped it on to her forefinger and admired it at arm’s length. The broad gold band in which the stone was set was made for a much larger hand than hers.
‘What an enormous piece of glass for a stone!’ said John.
‘P’raps it isn’t glass,’ said Rosemary. ‘It seems to ... well, smoulder inside. How queer. I don’t think it’s “rubbishy”, whatever Miss Dibdin says.’ She looked at the shining band round her finger. ‘I think it’s a golden gew-gaw!’
‘I say, what a long time this bus is being,’ said John. ‘If I had a motor bike we shouldn’t have to wait. Or better still, I wish I had my own private aeroplane.’
‘So do I,’ said Rosemary, tapping her feet impatiently, and suddenly, she didn’t know why, she began to sing.
‘Oh so do I,
I wish I could fly
A little way up
And then I’d come down,
I’d be a bit scared
To fly over the town.’
As she sang, she began to dance in a circle. When she got to ‘over the town’ she made a great soaring leap in the air ...
And then she came down, smack, so that the soles of her feet tingled. At the same time, the ring, which was far too big for her finger, fell off and bounced on to the pavement.
John looked at her with surprise.
‘Whatever made me do that?’ said Rosemary in a puzzled voice.
‘I thought you were going to take off,’ said John. ‘It made me feel quite queer!’
Rosemary had picked up the ring again. She pushed up the paper hat so that she could see it better.
‘John, why did you say that, when I was dancing about?’ she asked suddenly.
‘Say what?’
‘Just before the ring fell off, you said “John and Rosemary, help”!’
‘I didn’t!’ said John indignantly.
‘You must have done!’ said Rosemary. ‘I heard you say it, twice, quite distinctly, in a funny sort of voice. It must have been you. There was nobody else here.’
‘But why on earth should I say “John and Rosemary, help”? You must be off your nut! You’ll be saying next it was that great black cat who’s been staring at us from the alleyway there! But look out, here comes the bus. Better take that silly thing off your head.’
Rosemary clutched the paper hat and crammed it into her pocket with the ring, and together they ran to the bus stop. (Searching for things out of the cracker, they had moved quite a long way down the pavement.)
Rosemary was the first to jump on the bus. She heard an exclamation from John behind her, but she had no time to look round. It was a double-decker, so they went upstairs.
‘We’ve got the whole of the top to ourselves,’ said John. ‘Super!’
With all the seats to choose from, of course they chose to sit in front.
‘Did you see that black cat?’ he went on. ‘The one that was staring at us? It nearly tripped me up just as I was going to jump on the bus!’
‘I was thinking about black cats,’ went on Rosemary thoughtfully. ‘You know, I believe last summer ... What are you poking me for?’
‘Shut up!’ said John in a whisper. ‘Talking of black cats, look over your shoulder.’
Rosemary turned. Sitting on the seat behind was a magnificent cat. It was coal black, from the top of its sleek head to the tip of its tail, with a wide span of snow-white whiskers curving on either side of its disdainfully raised nose. It sat calmly on the seat, paws neatly together, gazing fixedly at the two children with large amber eyes, as self-possessed as though it were quite used to travelling by bus, and had already paid its fare. John and Rosemary stared back, and then with one voice they shouted :
‘Carbonel!’
The black cat jumped down from the seat. After wreathing round their ankles for a moment, he jumped up, first on to Rosemary’s lap, and then on to John’s, stepping from one to the other, kneading their thighs with his front paws, and thrusting the firm silkiness of his head beneath the chin of each of them in turn, and all the time purring so loudly that they could hear the small warm waves of sound even above the noises of the bus.
‘Now I remember,’ said Rosemary. ‘It was Carbonel we had adventures with last year!’
‘Of course it was!’ said John, as he stroked the black cat, running his hand from head to tail, feeling the firm body beneath the soft fur. ‘Good old Carbonel!’
At that moment the bus stopped, and several passengers came clambering up the stairs. Carbonel jumped to the floor, and disappeared discreetly under the seat, until it was time for John and Rosemary to get off, when he slipped down behind them, a silent black shadow, padding beside them along the darkening street.
‘I wonder why he’s following us?’ said Rosemary.
‘If only he could tell us ...’ began John. ‘Look out, Carbonel!’ he went on. ‘That’s twice you’ve nearly tripped me up!’
‘Let’s take him home and give him a saucer of milk,’ said Rosemary. ‘That is, if he comes with us that far.’
4. Carbonel
SURE enough, the black cat was close on their heels when they reached home. He trotted straight into the kitchen, sat down in the middle of the floor and looked up at them expec
tantly.
Rosemary took off her jacket and dropped it on a chair; then she fetched some milk and poured it into a saucer and put it on the floor. Carbonel flashed a long look at them before settling down to a steady lap-lap, lap-lap, from the china rim. They watched the white circle of milk grow smaller and smaller.
‘He might have understood every word we said as we walked from the bus, the way he kept looking at us,’ said John.
‘I know,’ answered Rosemary. ‘Though I wouldn’t have thought all that talk about Highdown and Uncle Zack would have interested him. How funny that Miss Dibdin should be going there just when we are — even if she didn’t seem very pleased about it.’
‘And funnier still that she’s going to take that cat with her,’ went on John. ‘What was its name? Crumpet, wasn’t it?’
Rosemary laughed and nodded. ‘Whoever heard of a cat ...’ she began, and stopped abruptly as John nudged her sharply.
‘Look at Carbonel,’ he whispered.
There was still a small white disc of milk at the bottom of the saucer, but at the word ‘Crumpet’, he had raised his head with a jerk. He stood with splayed legs and flattened ears, the sleek fur along his back bristling as they watched. Suddenly he spat, viciously.
‘Hi! Steady on. Whatever is the matter?’ asked John.
‘It was the creamy top of the milk, and one of the best saucers with the flowery pattern!’ said Rosemary reproachfully. ‘What more do you want?’
For answer, Carbonel turned his back on them disdainfully, and with tail erect, padded towards the chair on which lay Rosemary’s coat. He began to pat a hanging sleeve, first on one side and then on the other, leaping and pouncing on its dangling end so that it swung from side to side.
‘Here! Look out!’ said Rosemary, as an extra-vigorous cuff brought it slithering to the ground.
As it fell, something red and glittering spun across the floor, till it came to rest against the table leg.
Carbonel and Calidor Page 2
