Читать книгу The Mystery of the Strange Bundle - Enid blyton - Страница 6

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Bets could hardly believe her ears. She stared at Fatty’s grinning face in amazement.

“But—but—was it you then, making that duck on the mantelpiece quack?” she said. “And that hen cluck, and the dog bark—and that old man ask for a cigarette? It can’t be you, Fatty!”

“It is, though,” said Fatty. “I’ve been working at it all last term. Gosh, the noises that have come from the corners of our dormy each night! And the noises in class too. Once I even got a master to open a cupboard to see if a cat was mewing there.”

“But, Fatty—how do you do it?” asked Bets, staring at him. “I’ve seen ventriloquists on the stage, of course—making their dolls speak—but how do you do it? Fatty, I didn’t like it!”

“Now don’t you be a silly,” said Fatty. “I wouldn’t have played the trick on you if I’d thought you were going to be scared. It just shows I must be jolly good. There’s no talking duck or hen or dog or old man in this room, Bets, you must know that. I wanted to try and see if I could puzzle you—I didn’t mean to frighten you. Gosh, I must be a better ventriloquist than I thought!”

A voice came from the wardrobe again—or at least Bets thought it did!

“A cigarette, please, sir—just a cigarette!”

Bets looked swiftly round at Fatty and this time she laughed. “Oh, Fatty—you’re clever—but I just saw your throat moving when you said that. How do you manage to throw your voice somewhere else, though? Fatty, it’s marvellous! Whatever will the others say!”

Fatty sat himself comfortably up in bed. “Well,” he began, “I’ll tell you a bit about it, Bets. A chap came down to our school last term to entertain us. He was a ventriloquist and he had a couple of idiotic-looking dolls, whose heads could turn from side to side. Their eyes could open and shut, and their mouths worked up and down. You’ve seen a ventriloquist, haven’t you? Well, he was absolutely super, this chap. I honestly couldn’t see either his mouth or his throat working in even the smallest movement—and yet it was his own voice that made those dolls seem to talk—and sing too!”

“Yes. I think ventriloquists are marvellous too,” said Bets. “I haven’t the faintest idea how they do it. But you must know, Fatty, because you can ventil—ventrilo....”

“Ventriloquise,” said Fatty. “Well, I do know a bit now. But I’ve had to get it out of books, because you can’t learn interesting and really useful things like ventriloquism—or conjuring—or disguising yourself—at school. Such a pity they don’t have things like that in the time-table. Wouldn’t I work at them!”

“Yes. So would I,” said Bets. “Did you have to practise ventriloquism yourself, then, Fatty, with nobody to help you?”

“Yes,” said Fatty. “But it’s difficult to be anywhere by yourself at school, you know, so I had to let a few of the boys into the secret. We’ve got about six ventriloquists at my school now.”

“But you’re the best, I bet you are, Fatty,” said Bets, at once.

Fatty wished he could say he was. But honesty compelled him to admit that another boy was better than he was.

“We’ve got a black boy at our school,” he said. “A Zulu Prince, or something. He’s the best. But that’s not to be wondered at, because apparently all his uncles and great uncles and grandfathers were able to throw their voices wherever they wanted to. It’s an old talent with Zulus, apparently. Anyway, when he knew I was trying to learn to throw my voice, he showed me a few tricks.”

“Tell me, Fatty,” begged Bets. “What tricks?”

“Well,” said Fatty, banging his pillows and settling himself comfortably, “first of all. I’ll explain the name ventriloquism. It comes from two words—venter, which means tummy, and loqui, which means to speak—in other words a ventriloquist was supposed to be a man who could speak by using his tummy in some way.”

“Do you use your tummy then?” asked Bets. “If so, you ought to have a jolly fine ventriloquist voice.”

“Don’t be rude,” said Fatty, with dignity. “As a matter of fact, the people who thought that, made a mistake. The tummy is not used.”

“Oh. What is, then?” asked Bets, intensely interested.

“Well,” said Fatty, “as far as I can see, a ventriloquist forms his words in the ordinary way—but he lets his breath escape very slowly indeed—and he closes up his glottis—his throat—as much as he can, and opens his mouth as little as possible—oh, and he only uses the tip of his tongue.”

Bets couldn’t follow this, but she didn’t much mind as she had no intention of becoming a ventriloquist herself. She was quite sure she would be no good at it at all. The whole thing sounded quite impossible to do. But Fatty, as usual, had tackled the impossible and done it!

“You are clever, Fatty,” she said. “Now do some more ventriloquism and let me see how you do it.”

But she couldn’t see, of course, except that Fatty’s throat moved a little, and once his lips moved too. “Just a cigarette, please, just a cigarette,” came a quavering voice which didn’t appear to be anywhere near Fatty at all. She instinctively looked over to the wardrobe again. Fatty was looking there too, as if somebody was really there.

“It’s queer,” said Bets. “Really queer. How do you throw your voice like that, Fatty?”

“I don’t really. You just think I do, and you look at the place where you imagine the voice is coming from, and hear it there,” said Fatty. “That’s just a trick, of course. Though this Zulu chap I was telling you about can really throw his voice, it seems to me. Anyway, one day it sounded to us as if there was somebody calling us from outside the classroom door—but when we went to see, there wasn’t any one in sight—and old Boobanti was sitting in his chair inside the room, grinning away like anything. ‘I fool English boys, I fool English,’ he kept saying.”

“I wish I went to your school,” said Bets. “You always make it sound so exciting, Fatty. Fancy you being a ventriloquist now—whatever will you be next?”

“Well, you just never know when things like that will help you,” said Fatty. “It might come in very useful with my detective work when I’m grown-up. It’s a jolly amusing trick, anyhow.”

There came the sound of excited barking, and the thump of leaping feet on the stairs.

“Buster,” said Fatty. “Gosh, in all this excitement about my ventriloquist act, we’d forgotten about poor old Buster. Bets, don’t say a word to mother about my ventriloquist stunt.”

Before Bets could assure Fatty that she certainly wouldn’t, the door opened and in came Mrs. Trotteville with a tremendously excited Buster rushing in front. He leapt straight on to the bed, of course, and flung himself on Fatty. He put his paws up on the boy’s shoulders and proceeded to lick him all over the face, barking loudly.

“Mercy, Buster, mercy!” begged Fatty, and disappeared completely under the bed-clothes to escape the excited dog. Buster followed at once, and a curious heaving earthquake formed itself in the bed, accompanied by yells and barks.

“Frederick! Buster must come out!” cried Mrs. Trotteville. “Oh, dear, neither of them can hear me. FATTY! BUSTER! FATTY!”

Fatty appeared eventually, his hair towsled, his eyes bright, holding Buster in such a tight grip that the dog couldn’t move even a leg.

“What do you do with mad dogs, Mother?” he asked. “Honestly, he’s quite dippy.”

“Oh, Frederick—put him down outside the bed,” said Mrs. Trotteville. “That’s right, Buster. If you dare to get on the bed again I’ll set the cat on you.”

“Wuff,” barked Buster rudely. “Wuff to that!”

“Frederick, listen,” said his mother. “It’s almost tea-time. You can get up, put on your dressing-gown, and stay up for two hours. You can have tea while you’re up. Bets can go and get it in ten minutes’ time.”

She went out of the room, and Buster immediately leapt up on to the bed again. But this time he was not so uproarious. He had given Fatty the welcome he had been saving up for him, now he was content to lie by him, licking his hand whenever it came near his black nose.

Bets got Fatty’s dressing-gown and slippers, and put the arm-chair in front of the fire. Fatty got out of bed. At first he meant to leap out, but somehow his legs failed to obey his orders. He found that his knees were still very shaky.

“Are you going to tell the others about your ventriloquism?” asked Bets. “Will you teach them too?”

“No, I shan’t teach them,” said Fatty. “The difficulty is not so much the learning, Bets, it’s the practising. You make all kinds of queer noises then, and people don’t like it.”

“No. I can’t see Mother being very pleased if Pip tried to learn,” said Bets. “She says he’s noisy enough already. Anyway, his school report wasn’t very good. She and Daddy would be sure to think it was messing about with ventriloquism that made him not work hard at his class subjects.”

“Pity,” said Fatty, beginning on the buttered toast. “Is there any honey to go with the toast? I always think hot, buttery toast and honey make a jolly good pair—but usually you get one without the other. No—there’s no honey. Be a pet and go and ask for some, Bets. Don’t be too long, or else the honey won’t be needed.”

“Why not?” said Bets, surprised.

“Because there won’t be any toast left to go with it,” said Fatty. “Go on, hurry!”

“You really are a greedy pig, Fatty,” said Bets. “Don’t dare to eat it all! I never in my life saw such lovely drippy toast—it’s just swimming in butter!”

She went out to get the honey. Fatty looked down at Buster, who was sitting beside him, looking up adoringly, his mouth open and his tongue hanging out because of the heat of the fire. Fatty tipped up a piece of buttery toast and let two or three drops of the melted butter drip down to Buster’s pink tongue. Buster was agreeably surprised. He swallowed twice and then held out his tongue again.

“Quark, quark, quark,” said Fatty, down in his throat. Buster looked at him inquiringly and wagged his tail.

“Cluck-cuk-cuk-cuk-cuk,” clucked Fatty. “Where’s that hen, Buster, where is it?”

Buster thumped his tail on the ground. But he didn’t go and look for either duck or hen.

“Too sensible, aren’t you?” said Fatty, with his mouth full. “No matter where I pretend the sounds come from, you jolly well know they’re made by me, don’t you? Quark, quark, quark!”