by Joan Aiken
"Who rang up?” Harriet asked, as Mark came back from the front hall.
"I dunno,” he said. “I got there just too late. Milo had picked up the phone."
"Milo!” called Harriet. “You're a naughty boy! You know you aren't supposed to play with the phone."
"Hallo!” said Milo. It was his word this week. Last week his word had been “perhaps.” Milo used one word at a time.
"It's funny he's so fond of the phone,” said Mark. “Seeing he's so slow at learning to talk."
"Oh well,” said Harriet, “I expect whoever it was will phone again."
But the phone did not ring again, and soon Mr. and Mrs. Armitage came home, arguing about the village green.
"A ring of poplars would be nice."
"A ring of poplars would be silly."
When they were halfway through their scrambled eggs, the doorbell rang. “Who can it be, so late?” said Mrs. Armitage. “See who it is, Harriet, there's a love."
Harriet came back from the front hall, her eyes popping with excitement.
"It's a man who says he's from the Department of Security and Secrets."
"I suppose I'd better go,” said her father, sighing.
The man at the front door had silver-rimmed glasses, a short black beard, a soft black hat, and a long black umbrella. He looked very cross.
"It's a matter of extreme secrecy,” he said. “Half an hour ago a phone call was made to this house. It should not have been made. I must speak to whoever answered the phone."
"Oh, that's all right,” Harriet told him. “It was only our brother Milo."
"I must see him at once!"
Harriet looked at her father, who shrugged, and said, “Let the gentleman see Milo. Then he'll know there's nothing to worry about.” He explained to the caller, “Milo's only two, and a backward talker. He's much too young to understand government secrets."
Harriet went and fetched Milo. He was in his pyjamas, sucking a bedtime bottle of milk.
"You see,” said Mr. Armitage to the visitor. There's absolutely no cause for—"
His words came to a sudden stop. For the man in the doorway had pointed his umbrella at Milo, who turned gray, sprouted a trunk and tiny tusks, and slipped from Harriet's limp grip onto the floor.
"No cause to worry now,” snapped the visitor, turned on his heel, and strode away into the dark.
Harriet said to Mark, who came out of the kitchen, “That man has changed Milo into a baby elephant."
"Oh dear,” said Mr. Armitage. “I'm afraid your mother won't be pleased.
* * * *
Next morning, Harriet and her father went to ask the advice of Mr. Moondew, a retired alchemist who had lately come to live in the village, and was very friendly and useful in the Village Improvement Society.
Mark stayed at home, rigging up a harness for Milo. It had struck him that his brother, who seemed a very good-natured elephant, might be a great help in the garden.
Mrs. Armitage stayed at home because she was upset. She had been knitting a new blue sweater for Milo, and could not decide whether to go on with it.
Crossing the village green, Harriet and her father were surprised to see six red phone boxes standing in a row under the big lime tree.
"British Telecom's selling ‘em off,” explained Mr. Pulley, the street-cleaner, leaning on his broom. “A foreign gent, he made an offer for ‘em. Going to convert them to fancy bathroom showers, I heard. Paid a fancy price for ‘em. BT's going to put new plain-glass boxes in Station Road and Grove Lane and Mistletoe Crescent and Holly Ride and Copse Alley and Vicar's Way."
"Shame,” said Harriet, who liked the red phone boxes.
"I'd no idea there were so many call boxes in the village,” said her father.
They found Mr. Moondew clipping his front hedge. He was most interested to hear that Milo had been turned into an elephant. He asked a lot of questions.
"You say he had answered the telephone shortly before. You don't know who was calling?"
"No,” said Harriet, “but the man from the Department of Secrets seemed very cross about it."
"I'd like to come and take a look at your brother."
Crossing the green again, they saw two men by the phone boxes. One was their visitor of last night. They could hear him saying angrily, “Those boxes have got to be moved by Saturday."
"Well, guv,” said the other man, who was Mr. Miller, of Miller's Removals, “sorry and all that, but my trucks are busy ‘til then."
"Sir!” said Harriet's father to the man from the DOS. “You had no right to change my younger son into an elephant. I must insist that you reverse the process. At once!"
But the bearded man, without bothering to answer Mr. Armitage, took his hat off and flung it on the ground. It turned into a Rolls Royce, and he jumped into it and drove off.
"How rude of him!” said Mr. Armitage. But Mr. Moondew said, “You're lucky that he didn't change you into a toad. That man wasn't from any government department. I know him from college days. He is a powerful warlock from the ghost island of Eridu."
"Why,” cried Harriet, “that's where Uncle Claud was going for his holiday. He was supposed to come back yesterday."
"Now things are becoming clear,” said Mr. Moondew. “Perhaps it was your Uncle Claud who rang last night? And our bearded friend (his name is Logroth) wanted to prevent him. What is your brother's profession?” he asked Mr. Armitage.
"He's a professor of mathematics."
"Aha! The ghost island of Eridu is full of runes, and mathematical secrets—"
"And now the only person who knows the secret is Milo,” said Harriet. “And he certainly won't tell...."
"But the knowledge, the secret, is still there, stored inside his youthful mind,” said Mr. Moondew. “But this gives me an idea as to what can be done for him—"
They had reached the Armitage garden, where Milo, sturdy and good-natured, was pulling the big garden roller, encouraged by Mark, and watched anxiously by his mother, who was waiting to feed him a large dish-tub of bread and milk.
"Dear me, a most handsome small beast,” said Mr. Moondew. “You are quite certain you do not prefer to keep him like this?"
"Quite certain!” said Mrs. Armitage indignantly.
"So. What you must do is this. Each day at dusk, when the star Hesperus first shines in the sky, you must place him in one of those red phone boxes. Each night a different one. For from one of them was the secret message sent, only to be heard by Milo. Hearing it a second time will change him back. But he must be in the box just at that instant when the star shines. For so must it have been last night."
"Suppose it's raining."
"Makes no difference if the time is correct. But I must warn you—"
"Yes, what?” said Mrs. Armitage nervously, clasping Milo's little trunk, which had twined confidingly into her pocket.
"Standing in the right box, he will at once change back into your charming little son. But if it is not the right one, he will merely double in size."
"Lucky he's not very big now,” said Mark thoughtfully.
"Yes—but suppose we keep getting the wrong one—and he doubles again—and again—oh well, we'll just have to hope for the best.” Mr. Armitage measured the size of his son with a thoughtful eye. “Anyhow, most obliging of you, Moondew."
That evening, just at dusk, Mark and Harriet led their young brother out onto the village green. The sky was clear, and a pale duck-egg blue; their father had calculated that Hesperus was due to sparkle out in precisely four minutes’ time. But when they came to within a few metres of the call box at the end of the row of six, a large flock of savage magpies dropped down from the lime tree above, pecking and squawking and flapping, dashing fiercely into their faces.
"Hmn, yes, thought we might get a bit of interference,” said Mark.
He slipped a handful of firework sparklers from his pocket, lit them, and tossed them to the ground, where they fizzed and spat and hopped about, and flung up
showers of heat and glitter and puffs of yellow smoke. The magpies made off, screeching angrily.
"Now, quick, you hold open the door and I'll shove him in,” said Mark.
This done, they stood with their backs to the glass door and arms across their eyes, in case the magpies wanted to make a comeback. But the magpies had taken fright and were seen no more.
Sadly, it was not the right box. Hesperus flashed out in the sky, bright as the fireworks, the puzzled Milo was told that he could come out, but all that happened was that he had doubled in size. Now he was as big as a Shetland pony.
"Never mind, my duck. Better luck tomorrow, perhaps,” comforted Harriet, twining her arm into Milo's trunk. “Come on home. Muselix and buns for supper."
"He'll need quite a lot.” Mark looked anxiously from his brother to the row of phone booths, counting on his fingers. “Monday today. By Saturday—if we keep choosing the wrong box—it'll be no joke squeezing him in...."
* * * *
Next evening the interference was caused by snakes: large, thick, black ones as long as bean-poles, who appeared, hissing disagreeably, out of the village pond, and twined themselves all around the second phone box.
Elephants can't stand snakes. Milo trumpeted and reared, and seemed likely to panic and bolt into the next county. But Mark had been prepared for trouble. He had a large can of fixative, used for drawing classes at school. He sprayed the fixative over the snakes, who became quite stiff with disgust, and shot back into the pond.
"I'll never go near it again,” shuddered Harriet.
But—alas—today's box was still not the right one; Hesperus shone out, but Milo simply doubled in size, and could only just be dragged out of the booth, levered on each side by garden shovels.
Next evening, in front of the row of phone boxes, they found a dragon. But Harriet knew all about dragons; she ran to the village shop and returned dragging a laundry basket full of eggs. These the dragon was happy to eat, whipping them up one at a time with his long, forked tongue. He took no more notice of Mark, Harriet, or Milo.
They had brought a big flask of vegetable oil, and they poured it all over Milo before pushing him into the box. It made him very slippery.
"It's lucky he's so patient and good,” panted Harriet, wiping oil from her eyes, her arms, her hair, her jacket, her teeth, and her shoes, while the Evening Star came softly into the clear green sky.
That was their only luck. Milo did not change back into their young brother, but merely doubled in size, stretching and bending the phone box into a barrel shape.
"Having the box like this,” panted Mark, hauling on his brother's leg, “at least makes it easier to slide him out."
"I'm afraid the person who bought the boxes isn't going to be pleased. There, there, baby! All better now,” to Milo, who was a bit disgruntled.
On the fourth evening, rain poured down from a thick and soggy sky; Mark and Harriet, having carefully checked Hesperus's coming out time on their watches, were discouraged as they led the whimpering Milo across the green to see that the fourth phone box was all wrapped in cobwebs, and when they came up to it, a fat black spider, as big as a barrel, slid down on a line from the tree above, gnashed its teeth at them, pulled open the phone-box door with its pincers, and nipped inside.
"Oh dear. Now what'll we do? I hate spiders,” said Harriet, and Milo plainly shared her feelings, for he trumpeted dismally.
"But it's simple. There's no rule about which box we try,” said Mark. “The spider's welcome to that one, if he wants it. We'll put Milo in this one."
And he poured oil over his brother and stuffed him (with difficulty) into the fifth phone box.
At that very moment, a black cloud on the horizon drifted away. Hesperus blazed out as if sponged clean, and a whole lot of things happened all together.
Milo changed back from a medium-sized elephant into a small boy in blue-striped pyjamas, clutching a bottle of milk and covered head to toe in salad oil.
The huge spider exploded, shattering the phone box it occupied, as well as the ones on either side, with a tremendous, echoing clap of sound. Something fell heavily on Harriet from above, and she let out a yell, thinking it must be another spider.
But it turned out to be her Uncle Claud, who was in a dazed state.
Soon quite a large crowd of people had gathered on the green, including Mr. Moondew, Mr. and Mrs. Armitage, and the village policeman, Sergeant Frith.
"Milo! Milo! My own, precious, oily boy!” exclaimed Mrs. Armitage, and hugged the slippery Milo, who was wailing with fright at all these happenings.
"A most successful result of your efforts,” Mr. Moondew congratulated Mark and his sister.
"But where in the world did Uncle Claud come from?” wondered Harriet.
"That we shall perhaps know when your uncle recovers,” said Mr. Moondew.
But Uncle Claud was no help. When he recovered his wits, he could remember nothing of his trip to Eridu, nothing he learned there, nothing of what happened after he got home.
When Sergeant Frith went, rather gingerly, to inspect the exploded spider, he found that it seemed to have turned into the man from the Department of Security and Secrets—or, more properly, Logroth, the warlock from the ghost island of Eridu. He had fainted. But while they were waiting for an ambulance, he sat up, pulled off his black beard, flung it on the ground, where it became a Rolls Royce, and he drove away in it at top speed.
He was never seen again—except, presumably, in the ghost island of Eridu.
On the following day, the six battered red telephone boxes were found to have changed overnight into poplar trees, a ring of them, growing in the centre of the village green.
Mr. Armitage said they looked silly.
British Telecom announced that they were not prepared to replace all six phone boxes. A single plain glass one in Station Road would be quite sufficient, they said.
"But what about the secret mathematical message?” said Harriet to Mr. Moondew, who had called in and was playing chess with Uncle Claud. “What about the information, the important secret—whatever it was—that Uncle Claud brought back from the ghost island of Eridu?"
"We'll have to wait for that,” said Mr. Moondew. “That information is locked inside your young brother's head. Sooner or later—when he has learned to speak and knows the use of letters and numbers and decimals and logarithms—he will be able to tell us what it was. Won't you, Milo?"
Milo looked up from the carpet, where he was building a nuclear power station with telephone directories, and grinned.
"Elephant,” he said.
It was his new word.
* * * *
* * * *
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About the Author
Joan Aiken (1924—2004) was born in Rye, Sussex, England, into a literary family: her father was the poet and writer Conrad Aiken and her siblings the novelists Jane Aiken Hodge and John Aiken. After her parents’ divorce, her mother married the popular English writer Martin Armstrong.
Aiken began writing at the age of five and her first collection of stories, All You've Ever Wanted (which included the first Armitage family stories), was published when she was eighteen. After her first husband's death, Aiken supported her family by copyediting at Argosy and working at an advertising agency before turning full time to writing fiction. She went on to write for Vogue, Good Housekeeping, Vanity Fair, Women's Own, and many other magazines.
She wrote over a hundred books (including The Way to Write for Children) and was perhaps best known for the dozen novels in The Wolves of Willoughby Chase series. She received the Guardian and Edgar Allan Poe awards for fiction and in 1999 she was awarded an MBE for her contributions to children's literature.
Find out more about her at www.joanaiken.com.
[Back to Table of Contents]
The Armitage Family Stories
"Yes, but Today Is Tuesday,” “The Frozen Cuckoo,” “Sweet Singeing in The Choir,” “The Ghost
ly Governess,” “Harriet's Birthday Present,” “Dragon Monday"
All You've Ever Wanted (1953)
"Armitage, Armitage Fly Away Home,” “Rocket Full of Pie,” “Doll's House to Let, Mod. Con.,” “Tea at Ravensburgh"
More Than You Bargained For (1957)
"The Land of Trees and Heroes,” “Harriet's Hairloom,” “The Stolen Quince Tree,” “The Apple of Trouble,” “The Serial Garden"
Armitage, Armitage Fly Away Home (1968)
"Broomsticks and Sardines"
A Small Pinch of Weather (1969)
"Mrs. Nutti's Fireplace"
A Harp of Fishbones (1972)
"The Looking-Glass Tree"
The Faithless Lollybird (1977)
"Miss Hooting's Legacy"
Up the Chimney Down (1984)
"Milo's New Word"
Moon Cake and Other Stories (1998)
"Kitty Snickersnee,” “Goblin Music,” “The Chinese Dragon,” “Don't Go Fishing on Witches’ Day"
The Serial Garden: The Complete Armitage Family Stories (2008)
* * *
Visit www.lcrw.net for information on additional titles by this and other authors.
