by J. P. Martin
“Who are you?” she asked in a bitter voice. “I don’t think I know you.”
Uncle lashed himself with his trunk.
“I am Uncle, the owner of this castle, and I don’t remember having received any rent from you or any other member of your family.”
Uncle could see many wheels and levers in the summer-house, and it seemed clear that it was from here that the whole machinery of the Sinking Parade was controlled. But how?
“There’s a small lever there, sir!” whispered Goodman. “I can read the words ‘up’ and ‘down’ printed on ivory tablets.”
“Where?” asked Uncle.
As he followed Goodman’s pointing paw and peered into the summerhouse Miss Pointer’s hand moved on the lever, and the Sinking Parade began to wobble up and down. Renewed cries came from the holiday-makers who were just beginning to get dry.
“Take your hand from that lever!” roared Uncle, but the Parade went on sinking.
Goodman suddenly leapt through the little window of the summer-house and dashed Miss Pointer’s hand from the lever. She screamed but could do nothing.
“Thanks, Goodman,” said Uncle.
Then he turned to Miss Pointer.
“A woman as old as you,” he said severely, “ought to behave with more dignity and kindness.”
“I’m not old,” shouted Miss Jezebel angrily. “You ought to see my mother!”
An invalid chair, in which sat a very old woman, was just being wheeled up the path and they all turned to look at it.
“Wheel me right up to the summer-house,” the invalid was saying in a surprisingly strong voice. “Working the lever and hearing the waves sloshing and the people shouting is my little daily treat!”
“It’s a treat you will have to give up, madam,” said Uncle.
“Who is this person?” asked Miss Jezebel’s mother, staring at Uncle in a haughty way.
“He says he is the owner of this castle,” said Miss Jezebel, sarcastically.
“Nonsense! Snell, turn him out.”
Snell twisted his small fat hands together agitatedly.
“I’m afraid, Mrs Pointer,” he said, “that he is speaking the truth. I’ve seen pictures of him.”
“Well, I haven’t,” said Mrs Pointer, “and I don’t believe he’s the owner of anything.”
“You soon will, madam,” said Uncle firmly. “From today you and your family will live in one house!”
“One house, impossible!” screamed old Mrs Pointer.
“Your other dwellings will be used to ease the housing shortage in this part of my castle,” continued Uncle firmly. “You’ve had things your own way on this remote tower for far too long. I blame myself for not coming on a tour of inspection before this.”
These words so enraged Mrs Pointer that she jumped right out of her invalid chair, seized an iron dog that was used as a doorstop for the summer-house, and hurled it at Uncle.
It missed Uncle and struck a small marble statue of Miss Jezebel Pointer dressed as Mercy and holding two marble children by the hand. It cracked the statue from top to bottom.
“That display,” said Uncle, “has quite destroyed your claim to be a helpless invalid. Any person who can sling an iron dog with such energy is not very ill.”
“Hear, hear!” said the Old Monkey, his eyes shining with admiration as he gazed at Uncle.
Uncle instructed Cowgill to make the machinery in the summer-house temporarily unusable and went to tell the rest of the Pointers that their houses were about to be taken over for the use of the homeless people in the gallery.
Mr Friendship Pointer said he would rather die on his own threshold than allow one homeless person to cross it, so Uncle curled his trunk round him and skimmed him like a pebble along the surface of the lake. He bounced five times, and then sank. Then he rose to the surface and started swimming to shore. When last seen he was climbing on to the Parade, a woebegone object.
Uncle made his way back home again in a high state of satisfaction, and the Old Monkey assured him that he had never before enjoyed a birthday so much.
The Sinking Parade is still used, and on many a fine summer afternoon happy bathers enjoy the thrill of being suddenly submerged while they are sitting on benches. This is only done when they are in bathing costumes, and the machinery is under the careful supervision of Cowgill and his engineers.
SEVENTEEN
Little Liz
ONE EVENING WHEN Uncle was going to bed he heard a sort of shuffling noise at the front door and went to see what it was. Of course he was followed by the Old Monkey who never goes to bed till his master is safely stowed away.
When Uncle opened the door he saw a large bundle hanging from the handle. The handle is about the size of a small pumpkin, for the front door of Homeward is, of course, an elephant’s front door, and therefore extremely large.
The bundle, about three feet long, was suspended from the knob by a thick band of leather. Uncle took it down and carried it into the hall. There, under the glare of the golden lamp which burns all night, he saw at once that the bundle contained a living creature of some sort, for movement and muffled sound came from it.
Uncle and the Old Monkey soon had the bundle undone, and saw that it contained a very ugly little girl dressed in a cheap sack dress, and with a handkerchief tied tightly across her mouth. A blue card was pinned to her dress, and she pointed to it, rolling her eyes, while the Old Monkey untied the handkerchief.
This is what the note said:
Dear Kind Sir,
In despair I am leaving my daughter outside your door. A person called Beaver Hateman is trying to kidnap her. If he gets her you know the sort of ransom he will ask for. I could never pay it.
Please, sir, look after my daughter. We call her Little Liz and she is loved by all. She can wash plates and cups, and never breaks more than one at a time.
Will you please shelter her till the danger passes?
Yours in distress,
AMELIA CABLEY
“I’m hungry,” said Little Liz in rather a rasping voice.
“Give her some milk and a bun,” said Uncle.
“One bun is no good to me,” said Little Liz. “I said I was hungry.”
“I didn’t hear the word ‘please’,” said Uncle frowning. “It is late, and a heavy meal would not be good for you.”
While the little girl was wolfing a plate of buns and a quart of milk Uncle took the Old Monkey aside.
“To tell you the truth, I don’t much care for the look of this girl,” he said. “She reminds me of somebody I don’t like – I can’t think who.”
“Just what I was feeling,” said the Old Monkey.
“Well, we can hardly turn her adrift at this time of night. Put her to sleep in one of those disused pantries off the kitchen where you and Mig can keep an eye on her.”
Little Liz went to sleep the moment she lay down on her camp bed. The Old Monkey looked at her for a bit, and then put an extra rug over her and left her.
Whom did she remind him of? He went to bed much puzzled.
Next morning, when the Old Monkey was preparing Uncle’s bucket of cocoa, Little Liz bounced into the kitchen shouting:
“Any loin of pork for breakfast, Jacko?”
The Old Monkey flushed. He had never been called Jacko before, and he didn’t like it. The girl’s manners were really extremely bad. However, he always tried to be kind to little girls, so he said:
“Did you have a good night, my dear?”
“Rotten,” she shouted. “I was dreaming about lobsters. What’s for breakfast?”
Somehow the Old Monkey controlled himself.
“No loin of pork, anyway,” he said. “We have ham and cocoa.”
He carried the cocoa-bucket into the hall and the irritating little girl ran after him.
“Ham, goody good!” she screamed. “Who’s the cook in this place?”
“Never you mind,” said the Old Monkey.
As they got to the hall
Uncle came majestically down the stairs, and Goodman folded the morning paper neatly and ran to him with it.
“Oh, what a horrid cat!” said Little Liz. “Keep him away from me.”
Uncle put on his great horn-rimmed spectacles, and gave her a look before which even she seemed to wilt a little.
“Take her into her room, lock her in and give her a plain breakfast, and let her stay there till she becomes more polite,” he told the Old Monkey. “Gubbins, remove her.”
Gubbins had turned up to get his orders for the day, and at the sight of him Little Liz seemed to realize it was useless to rebel. She looked sulky, but she walked meekly with Gubbins to the kitchen.
“Very disagreeable girl, sir,” said the Old Monkey. He seldom allows himself to say anything as severe as this.
“I call her detestable,” said Uncle.
Goodman, who had run after Little Liz to make sure she wasn’t up to anything, now came rushing back.
“Oh, sir,” he said, “that’s not a proper little girl. I’ve seen little girls before and they don’t look like Little Liz. Don’t keep her, sir. Turn her out, sir. There are lots of young rats I like better than her, sir.”
Uncle looked at Goodman sternly.
“Now, Goodman,” he said, “you mustn’t let your worst feelings overcome you. This little girl is in danger from Beaver Hateman. We don’t know where Mrs Cabley – that’s her mother – lives, and until we do she must stay here.”
“I don’t believe she’s got a mother at all!” said Goodman.
“Goodman,” said Uncle even more sternly, “be merciful to the young and helpless. Remember you were once in a similar position and I—”
“I wasn’t a fraud!” interrupted Goodman beside himself. “I didn’t try to take you in! You’re just being stupid about this girl!”
“Oh, Goodman,” said the Old Monkey very shocked, “how can you speak like that?”
“You’d better go and wrap up some parcels,” said Uncle, “and cool down.”
Goodman went off looking upset and muttering to himself.
Uncle was busy most of the morning with cheques for maize and other correspondence, but towards the end of it the Old Monkey appeared with a twisted-up piece of paper in his hand.
“It’s from Little Liz, sir,” he said. “She pushed it under her door.”
“Let’s hope she has taken a turn for the better,” said Uncle.
Little Liz had written:
Revered and honourable Uncle,
I am afraid I upset you a little. The word Uncle is like music to my mother and me, and we often speak about you at dark times. Dear good sir, forgive me and let me ask you one favour. Do take me to your museum, and the dear good monkey as well. I have a feeling you don’t want me in your castle much, but if you take me to the museum you’ll learn where I live and I can go home.
Yours,
LITTLE LIZ
Uncle frowned as he read this.
“I don’t much like the tone of this letter,” he said. “It’s humble enough, and yet there’s a kind of cheek running through it. ‘You’ll learn where I live,’ it says. Perhaps her mother works there! But I tell you what, I’ve never been to the museum. I told Blenkinsop to stock it when I bought the castle, and it’s time we went to see it. I must say I look forward to the prospect of getting rid of this girl. She’s nothing but a nuisance.”
The Old Monkey jumped for joy. Two good things together, an interesting expedition and the hope of saying goodbye to Little Liz.
“Oh, sir, could Goodman come?” he asked. “I’m sure he’s sorry for being rude.”
“You can ask him,” said Uncle. “To tell you the truth, I well understand how he feels, but he went too far.”
The Old Monkey returned in a few minutes looking surprised.
“Goodman says thank you, sir, but if Little Liz is going he would rather stay at home.”
“What is wrong with that cat?” roared Uncle. “So much fuss about a bad-mannered girl! We’ll start after an early lunch – without him!”
“Very good, sir,” said the Old Monkey sadly.
Little Liz behaved very well during lunch and while they were getting ready. She had a notebook in her pocket and said she was going to put down as much as she could about the specimens in the museum.
“I see by the plan that there is a tea-room at the museum,” said Uncle, “so we need not take any provisions.”
They started off by going into a boot-cupboard just outside the dining-room door. All they had to do was to pull one of the shelves to one side, but it was important to do that with the main door of the cupboard shut. If you left it open the shelf wouldn’t move. It was crowded in the boot-cupboard with the door shut, but after a bit of shoving the shelf moved, and in front of them was a small railway siding with a very small train labelled MUSEUM.
They managed to squeeze into the carriage, though Uncle found it a tight fit, and they were wondering how to start it up when, to their surprise, Noddy Ninety appeared, wearing a train-driver’s cap.
“Hello, Ninety,” said Uncle. “I haven’t seen you since the visit to the treasury. Is Oldeboy still going to Dr Lyre’s school as I told him to?”
“Yes,” said Ninety, “he goes on Tuesdays and Fridays, and he’s dyed his hair grey now, silly chap.”
“What are you doing here? I thought you worked on the line between Biscuit Tower and Watercress Tower?”
“I go where there’s passengers, and the Museum Railway’s busy today,” said Ninety. “The fare’s sixpence, except for you, of course, sir.”
Uncle doesn’t pay fares in his own castle, so Ninety had nothing to collect. He soon got the engine started.
At the first stop, which was called Rhino Halt, a thin but very happy-looking man came running to the side of the train.
“Got my museum money at last, Ninety!” he said joyfully.
“Sorry, Needler,” said Ninety. “We can’t take you today. Full up.”
Needler burst into loud sobbing.
“After all I’ve done to save up! Done without lunch for nineteen days, and all to get into the museum!”
“Let him in,” said Uncle; “we’ll make room.”
Needler’s no-lunch habit had made him so thin that he slipped into a very small corner of Uncle’s carriage.
Little Liz put out her tongue at him, but Uncle saw her and said sternly:
“If you do that again you will be put off at the next station!”
“I’m sorry,” said Little Liz very quickly.
“Also, Needler,” said Uncle, “I will pay your fare.”
He handed sixpence to Ninety.
Needler burst into tears of joy. It really seemed unnatural for a man to cry so much. His tears overflowed his handkerchief and fell on to the floor in a stream.
“Thank you abundantly, sir,” he said. “I never thought I would see this day. The cost of living keeps going up so much. But now what joy I’ve got in front of me! A long lovely walk through all the museum rooms, tea – they do you well at the tea-room for a halfpenny – and then I’ll buy some picture postcards and take the rest of the money home, and live like a prince for a week!”
“I’m only glad you’ve cheered up,” said Uncle, who hates crying of any sort.
The next station was Museum Park. As soon as they got out of the train they saw a gigantic sign printed in gold:
Visitors to the Museum and Park are
warned that the sight of so many
marvels can be overwhelming.
We recommend, in case of faintness,
Gleamhound’s Smelling Salts for
Attacks by Burglars. 2s. 6d. per bottle.
“Luckily,” said Needler, “I have a bottle of the salts with me. I knew I’d need them as I’m so excited before I start. I’ll take a sniff right away.”
“Wait!” said Uncle, but he was too late.
Needler had taken out a small green bottle, taken a sniff, and immediately fallen down on the
platform.
“Oh dear, Mr Needler’s been taken ill!” said the Old Monkey, very distressed.
“Nonsense,” said Uncle. “Can’t you keep it fixed in your mind that Gleamhound’s remedies work backwards. Luckily I have with me some Gleamhound’s Paralysing Snuff for Bandits. ‘Sprinkle a little in the Bandit’s face and he falls flat.’ It’s a first-class tonic.”
Uncle sprinkled a little powder from the box on Needler’s face. The effect was immediate. He sat up and said:
“What happened?”
Uncle told him.
“Have the sign altered,” he said to Ninety. “It’s most misleading.”
“I don’t think it was there yesterday,” said Ninety, “but I’ll see to it.”
Outside the station was a motor-coach filling up with visitors to the museum. It was rather shabby and blotched with mud, and was labelled:
Roundabout Joyous Route to the
Museum. Visit Mud Ghost, Ezra
Lake and Snowstorm Volcano.
The Old Monkey said he would love to see these things, but Uncle was rather suspicious about the motor-coach as he saw in very small letters: Manager B. . . . . H.T . . . N. B. . F. . T. underneath the direction notice.
“Who runs this coach?” he asked Ninety.
“I don’t know,” said Ninety, puzzled. “It wasn’t here yesterday. Things seem different today. I can’t make it out.”
“It does look as though the Hateman crowd are somewhere about, sir,” said the Old Monkey.
“I certainly don’t like the look of that coach,” said Uncle.
“Oh, let’s go in the motor-coach!” shouted Little Liz, jumping up and down.
“We’ll walk,” said Uncle.
EIGHTEEN
Uncle’s Museum
WHEN THEY GOT outside the station, Museum Avenue stretched before them. It was called an avenue, though it was actually lined not with trees but with colossal elephants. Each was far bigger than Uncle and stood with trunk upraised.
At first it was rather impressive, but Uncle soon got tired of the long double line of elephants. One huge statue of yourself is all right, but to walk along an avenue of more than life-sized figures of yourself makes you feel small and tired.
