The Serial Garden: The Complete Armitage Family Stories

by Joan Aiken

  Brekkfast Brikks for supper too

  Give peaceful sleep the whole night through."

  "Blimey,” thought Mark, sticking a cedar tree into the middle of the lawn and then bending a stone wall round at the dotted lines A, B, C, and D. “I wouldn't want anything for breakfast, lunch, tea, and supper, not even Christmas pudding. Certainly not Brekkfast Brikks."

  He propped a clump of gaudy scarlet flowers against the wall and stuck them in place.

  The words of the rhyme kept coming into his head as he worked, and presently he found that they went rather well to a tune that was running through his mind, and he began to hum, and then to sing; Mark often did this when he was alone and busy.

  "Brekkfast Brikks to sta-art the day,

  Ma-ake you fit in every way—

  "Blow, where did I put that little bit of sticky tape? Oh, there it is.

  "Children bang their pla-ates with glee

  At Brekkfast Brikks for lunch and tea

  "Slit gate with razor blade, it says, but it'll have to be a penknife.

  "Brekkfast Brikks for supper toohoo

  Give peaceful sleep the whole night throughoo....

  "Hullo. That's funny,” said Mark.

  It was funny. The openwork iron gate he had just stuck in position now suddenly towered above him. On either side, to right and left, ran the high stone wall, stretching away into foggy distance. Over the top of the wall he could see tall trees, yews and cypresses and others he didn't know.

  "Well, that's the neatest trick I ever saw,” said Mark. “I wonder if the gate will open?"

  He chuckled as he tried it, thinking of the larder door. The gate did open, and he went through into the garden.

  One of the things that had already struck him as he cut them out was that the flowers were not at all in the right proportions. But they were all the nicer for that. There were huge velvety violets and pansies the size of saucers; the hollyhocks were as big as dinner plates and the turf was sprinkled with enormous daisies. The roses, on the other hand, were miniature, no bigger than cuff buttons. There were real fish in the fountain, bright pink.

  "I made all this,” thought Mark, strolling along the mossy path to the yew arch. “Won't Harriet be surprised when she sees it. I wish she could see it now. I wonder what made it come alive like that?"

  He passed through the yew arch as he said this and discovered that on the other side there was nothing but gray, foggy blankness. This, of course, was where his cardboard garden had ended. He turned back through the archway and gazed with pride at a border of huge scarlet tropical flowers that were perhaps supposed to be geraniums but certainly hadn't turned out that way. “I know! Of course, it was the rhyme, the rhyme on the packet."

  He recited it. Nothing happened. “Perhaps you have to sing it,” he thought and (feeling a little foolish) he sang it through to the tune that fitted so well. At once, faster than blowing out a match, the garden drew itself together and shrank into its cardboard again, leaving Mark outside.

  "What a marvelous hiding place it'll make when I don't want people to come bothering,” he thought. He sang the spell once more, just to make sure that it worked, and there was the high mossy wall, the stately iron gate, and the treetops. He stepped in and looked back. No playroom to be seen, only gray blankness.

  At that moment he was startled by a tremendous clanging, the sort of sound the Trump of Doom would make if it was a dinner bell. “Blow,” he thought, “I suppose that's lunch.” He sang the spell for the fourth time; immediately he was in the playroom, and the garden was on the floor beside him, and Agnes was still ringing the dinner bell outside the door.

  "All right, I heard,” he shouted. “Just coming."

  He glanced hurriedly over the remains of the packet to see if it bore any mention of the fact that the cut-out garden had magic properties. It did not. He did, however, learn that this was Section Three of the Beautiful Brekkfast Brikk Garden Series, and that Sections One, Two, Four, Five, and Six would be found on other packets. In case of difficulty in obtaining supplies, please write to Fruhstucksgeschirrziegelsteinindustrie (Great Britain), Lily Road, Shepherds Bush.

  "Elevenpence a packet,” Mark murmured to himself, going to lunch with unwashed hands. “Five elevens are thirty-five. Thirty-five pennies are—no, that's wrong. Fifty-five pence are four-and-sevenpence. Father, if I mow the lawn and carry coal every day for a month, can I have four shillings and sevenpence?"

  "You don't want to buy another space gun, do you?” said Mr. Armitage looking at him suspiciously. “Because one is quite enough in this family."

  "No, it's not for a space gun, I swear."

  "Oh, very well."

  "And can I have the four-and-seven now?"

  Mr. Armitage gave it reluctantly. “But that lawn has to be like velvet, mind,” he said. “And if there's any falling off in the coal supply, I shall demand my money back."

  "No, no, there won't be,” Mark promised in reply. As soon as lunch was over, he dashed down to Miss Pride's. Was there a chance that she would have sections One, Two, Four, Five, and Six? He felt certain that no other shop had even heard of Brekkfast Brikks, so she was his only hope, apart from the address in Shepherds Bush.

  "Oh, I don't know, I'm sure,” Miss Pride said, sounding very doubtful—and more than a little surprised. “There might just be a couple on the bottom shelf—yes, here we are."

  They were sections Four and Five, bent and dusty, but intact, Mark saw with relief. “Don't you suppose you have any more anywhere?” he pleaded.

  "I'll look in the cellar but I can't promise. I haven't had deliveries of any of these for a long time. Made by some foreign firm they were; people didn't seem very keen on them,” Miss Pride said aggrievedly. She opened a door revealing a flight of damp stone stairs. Mark followed her down them like a bloodhound on the trail.

  The cellar was a fearful confusion of mildewed, tattered, and toppling cartons, some full, some empty. Mark was nearly knocked cold by a shower of pilchards in tins, which he dislodged on to himself from the top of a heap of boxes. At last Miss Pride, with a cry of triumph, unearthed a little cache of Brekkfast Brikks, three packets which turned out to be the remaining sections, Six, One, and Two.

  "There, isn't that a piece of luck now!” she said, looking quite faint with all the excitement. It was indeed rare for Miss Pride to sell as many as five packets of the same thing at one time.

  Mark galloped home with his booty and met his father on the porch. Mr. Armitage let out a groan of dismay.

  "I'd almost rather you'd bought a space gun,” he said. Mark chanted in reply:

  "Brekkfast Brikks for supper too

  Give peaceful sleep the whole night through."

  "I don't want peaceful sleep,” Mr. Armitage said. “I intend to spend tonight mouse-watching again. I'm tired of finding footprints in the Stilton."

  During the next few days Mark's parents watched anxiously to see, Mr. Armitage said, whether Mark would start to sprout esparto grass instead of hair. For he doggedly ate Brekkfast Brikks for lunch, with soup, or sprinkled over his pudding; for tea, with jam, and for supper lightly fried in dripping, not to mention, of course, the immense helpings he had for breakfast with sugar and milk. Mr. Armitage for his part soon gave out; he said he wouldn't taste another Brekkfast Brikk even if it were wrapped in an inch-thick layer of pâté de foie gras. Mark regretted that Harriet, who was a handy and uncritical eater, was still away, convalescing from her measles with an aunt.

  In two days, the second packet was finished (sundial, paved garden, and espaliers). Mark cut it out, fastened it together, and joined it onto Section Three with trembling hands. Would the spell work for this section, too? He sang the rhyme in rather a quavering voice, but luckily the playroom door was shut and there was no one to hear him. Yes! The gate grew again above him, and when he opened it and ran across the lawn through the yew arch, he found himself in a flagged garden full of flowers like huge blue cabbages.

  Ma
rk stood hugging himself with satisfaction, and then began to wander about smelling the flowers, which had a spicy perfume most unlike any flower he could think of. Suddenly he pricked up his ears. Had he caught a sound? There! It was like somebody crying and seemed to come from the other side of the hedge. He ran to the next opening and looked through. Nothing: only gray mist and emptiness. But, unless he had imagined it, just before he got there, he thought his eye had caught the flash of white-and-gold draperies swishing past the gateway.

  "Do you think Mark's all right?” Mrs. Armitage said to her husband next day. “He seems to be in such a dream all the time."

  "Boy's gone clean off his rocker if you ask me,” grumbled Mr. Armitage. “It's all these doormats he's eating. Can't be good to stuff your insides with moldy jute. Still I'm bound to say he's cut the lawn very decently and seems to be remembering the coal. I'd better take a day off from the office and drive you over to the shore for a picnic; sea air will do him good."

  Mrs. Armitage suggested to Mark that he should slack off on the Brekkfast Brikks, but he was so horrified that she had to abandon the idea. But, she said, he was to run four times round the garden every morning before breakfast. Mark almost said, “Which garden?” but stopped just in time. He had cut out and completed another large lawn, with a lake and weeping willows, and on the far side of the lake had a tantalizing glimpse of a figure dressed in white and gold who moved away and was lost before he could get there.

  After munching his way through the fourth packet, he was able to add on a broad grass walk bordered by curiously clipped trees. At the end of the walk he could see the white-and-gold person, but when he ran to the spot, no one was there—the walk ended in the usual gray mist.

  When he had finished and had cut out the fifth packet (an orchard), a terrible thing happened to him. For two days he could not remember the tune that worked the spell. He tried other tunes, but they were no use. He sat in the playroom singing till he was hoarse or silent with despair. Suppose he never remembered it again?

  His mother shook her head at him that evening and said he looked as if he needed a dose. “It's lucky we're going to Shinglemud Bay for the day tomorrow,” she said. “That ought to do you good."

  "Oh, blow. I'd forgotten about that,” Mark said. “Need I go?"

  His mother stared at him in utter astonishment.

  But in the middle of the night he remembered the right tune, leaped out of bed in a tremendous hurry, and ran down to the playroom without even waiting to put on his dressing gown and slippers.

  The orchard was most wonderful, for instead of mere apples its trees bore oranges, lemons, limes, and all sorts of tropical fruits whose names he did not know, and there were melons and pineapples growing and plantains and avocados. Better still, he saw the lady in her white and gold waiting at the end of an alley and was able to draw near enough to speak to her.

  "Who are you?” she asked. She seemed very much astonished at the sight of him.

  "My name's Mark Armitage,” he said politely. “Is this your garden?"

  Close to, he saw that she was really very grand indeed. Her dress was white satin embroidered with pearls, and swept the ground; she had a gold scarf and her hair, dressed high and powdered, was confined in a small gold-and-pearl tiara. Her face was rather plain, pink with a long nose, but she had a kind expression and beautiful gray eyes.

  "Indeed it is,” she announced with hauteur. “I am Princess Sophia Maria Louisa of Saxe-Hoffenpoffen-und-Hamster. What are you doing here, pray?"

  "Well,” Mark explained cautiously, “it seemed to come about through singing a tune."

  "Indeed. That is very interesting. Did the tune, perhaps, go like this?"

  The princess hummed a few bars.

  "That's it! How did you know?"

  "Why, you foolish boy, it was I who put that spell on the garden, to make it come alive when the tune is played or sung."

  "I say!” Mark was full of admiration. “Can you do spells as well as being a princess?"

  She drew herself up. “Naturally! At the court of Saxe-Hoffenpoffen, where I was educated, all princesses were taught a little magic, not so much as to be vulgar, just enough to get out of social difficulties."

  "Jolly useful,” Mark said. “How did you work the spell for the garden, then?"

  "Why, you see” (the princess was obviously delighted to have somebody to talk to; she sat on a stone seat and patted it, inviting Mark to do likewise), “I had the misfortune to fall in love with Herr Rudolf, the Court Kapellmeister, who taught me music. Oh, he was so kind and handsome! And he was most talented, but my father, of course, would not hear of my marrying him because he was only a common person."

  "So what did you do?"

  "I arranged to vanish, of course. Rudi had given me a beautiful book with many pictures of gardens. My father kept strict watch to see I did not run away, so I used to slip between the pages of the book when I wanted to be alone. Then, when we decided to marry, I asked my maid to take the book to Rudi. And I sent him a note telling him to play the tune when he received the book. But I believe that spiteful Gertrud must have played me false and never taken the book, for more than fifty years have now passed and I have been here all alone, waiting in the garden, and Rudi has never come. Oh, Rudi, Rudi,” she exclaimed, wringing her hands and crying a little, “where can you be? It is so long—so long!"

  "Fifty years,” Mark said kindly, reckoning that must make her nearly seventy. “I must say you don't look it."

  "Of course I do not, dumbhead. For me, I make it that time does not touch me. But tell me, how did you know the tune that works the spell? It was taught me by my dear Rudi."

  "I'm not sure where I picked it up,” Mark confessed. “For all I know it may be one of the Top Ten. I'll have to ask my music teacher, he's sure to know. Perhaps he'll have heard of your Rudolf, too."

  Privately Mark feared that Rudolf might very well have died by now, but he did not like to depress Princess Sophia Maria by such a suggestion, so he bade her a polite good night, promising to come back as soon as he could with another section of the garden and any news he could pick up.

  He planned to go and see Mr. Johansen, his music teacher, next morning, but he had forgotten the family trip to the beach. There was just time to scribble a hasty post card to the British office of Fruhstucksgeschirrziegelsteinindustrie, asking if they could inform him from what source they had obtained the pictures used on the packets of Brekkfast Brikks. Then Mr. Armitage drove his wife and son to Shinglemud Bay, gloomily prophesying wet weather.

  In fact, the weather turned out fine, and Mark found it quite restful to swim and play beach cricket and eat ham sandwiches and lie in the sun. For he had been struck by a horrid thought: suppose he should forget the tune again while he was inside the garden—would he be stuck there, like Father in the larder? It was a lovely place to go and wander at will, but somehow he didn't fancy spending the next fifty years there with Princess Sophia Maria. Would she oblige him by singing the spell if he forgot it, or would she be too keen on company to let him go? He was not inclined to take any chances.

  It was late when they arrived home, too late, Mark thought, to disturb Mr. Johansen, who was elderly and kept early hours. Mark ate a huge helping of Brekkfast Brikks for supper—he was dying to finish Section Six—but did not visit the garden that night.

  Next morning's breakfast (Brikks with hot milk, for a change) finished the last packet—and just as well, for the larder mouse, which Mr. Armitage still had not caught, was discovered to have nibbled the bottom left-hand corner of the packet, slightly damaging an ornamental grotto in a grove of lime trees. Rather worried about this, Mark decided to make up the last section straightaway, in case the magic had been affected. By now he was becoming very skilled at the tiny fiddling task of cutting out the little tabs and slipping them into the little slots; the job did not take long to finish. Mark attached Section Six to Section Five and then, drawing a deep breath, sang the incantation once
more. With immense relief he watched the mossy wall and rusty gate grow out of the playroom floor; all was well.

  He raced across the lawn, round the lake, along the avenue, through the orchard, and into the lime grove. The scent of the lime flowers was sweeter than a cake baking.

  Princess Sophia Maria came towards him from the grotto, looking slightly put out.

  "Good morning!” she greeted Mark. “Do you bring me any news?"

  "I haven't been to see my music teacher yet,” Mark confessed. “I was a bit anxious because there was a hole—"

  "Ach, yes, a hole in the grotto! I have just been looking. Some wild beast must have made its way in, and I am afraid it may come again. See, it has made tracks like those of a big bear.” She showed him some enormous footprints in the soft sand of the grotto floor. Mark stopped up the hole with prickly branches and promised to bring a dog when he next came, though he felt fairly sure the mouse would not return.

  "I can borrow a dog from my teacher—he has plenty. I'll be back in an hour or so—see you then,” he said.

  "Auf Wiedersehen, my dear young friend."

  Mark ran along the village street to Mr. Johansen's house, Houndshaven Cottage. He knew better than to knock at the door, because Mr. Johansen would be either practicing his violin or out in the barn at the back, and in any case the sound of barking was generally loud enough to drown any noise short of gunfire.

  Besides giving music lessons at Mark's school, Mr. Johansen kept a guest house for dogs whose owners were abroad or on holiday. He was extremely kind to the guests and did his best to make them feel at home in every way, finding out from their owners what were their favorite foods, and letting them sleep on his own bed, turn about. He spent all his spare time with them, talking to them and playing either his violin or long-playing records of domestic sounds likely to appeal to the canine fancy—such as knives being sharpened, cars starting up, and children playing ball games.

  Mark could hear Mr. Johansen playing Brahm's lullaby in the barn, so he went out there; the music was making some of the more susceptible inmates feel homesick: howls, sympathetic moans, and long, shuddering sighs came from the numerous comfortably carpeted cubicles all the way down the barn.