Читать книгу The Magic Faraway Tree - Enid blyton - Страница 6

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Dick shot round down the inside of the Faraway Tree on his cushion. He came to the bottom. He shot out of the trap-door there, and landed on the soft green moss. He sat there for a moment, out of breath.

“That’s the loveliest slide I’ve ever had!” he thought to himself. “O-o-oh—wouldn’t I like to do that again!”

He had just got up from the moss when the trap-door at the bottom of the tree opened once again, and Fanny shot out on a yellow cushion. Then came Bessie, giggling, for she always thought it was a huge joke to slide down inside the tree like that.

“What do we do with the cushions?” asked Dick. “Does Moon-Face want them back?”

“Yes, he does,” said Fanny, picking them up. “The red squirrel always collects them and sends them back to him.”

As she spoke, a red squirrel, dressed in a jersey, popped out of a hole in the trunk.

“Here are the cushions,” said Fanny, and the squirrel took them. He looked up into the tree, and a rope came swinging down.

“Moon-Face always lets it down for his cushions,” said Bessie. Dick watched the squirrel tie the three cushions to the rope end. Then he gave three gentle tugs at the rope, and at once the rope was pulled up and the cushions went swinging up the tree to Moon-Face.

“I wish Jo was with us,” said Dick, as they all went home. “Do you suppose Aunt Polly will be worried about him?”

“Well, we’ll have to tell Mother,” said Fanny. “She is sure to ask where he is.”

Mother did ask, of course, and the girls told her what had happened.

“I find all this very difficult to believe,” said Mother, astonished. “I think Jo is just spending the night with Moon-Face for a treat. Well, he certainly must come back to-morrow, for there is work for him to do.”

Nobody said any more. The girls and Dick felt very tired, and after some hot cocoa and potatoes cooked in their jackets for supper, they all went to bed. Bessie wondered how Jo was getting on at Moon-Face’s.

He was getting on all right, though he was very tired of being upside down. It didn’t matter how hard he tried to get the right way up, he always swung back topsy-turvy again. The policeman had put a very strong spell on him!

“You had better try to sleep in my bed,” said Moon-Face. “I’ll sleep on my sofa.”

“I suppose I’ll have to stand on my head all night,” said poor Jo. And that’s just what he did have to do. It was most uncomfortable.

Once he lost his balance when he was asleep, and tipped off the bed. He almost fell down the slippery-slip, but Moon-Face who was awake, reached out a hand and caught his leg just in time.

“Gracious!” said Moon-Face. “Don’t go doing things like this in the middle of the night, Jo. It’s most upsetting.”

“Well, how can I help it?” said Jo, feeling rather frightened himself.

“I’ll tie your feet to a nail on my wall,” said Moon-Face. “Then you can’t topple over when you are asleep.”

So he did that, and Jo didn’t fall down any more. When morning came he was most astonished to find himself upside-down, for at first he didn’t remember what had happened.

“I’ll just peep up through the hole in the cloud and see if by any chance the Land of Spells is there yet,” said Moon-Face. “If it is, we’ll go up and see what we can do for you.”

So off he went up the little ladder and popped his head out of the hole in the cloud to see if the Land of Topsy-Turvy was still there, or if it had gone.

There was nothing there at all—only just the big white cloud, moving about like a thick mist. Moon-Face slipped down the ladder again.

“Topsy-Turvy has gone, but the next land hasn’t come yet,” he said. “We’ll have breakfast and then I’ll look again. Hallo—here’s Silky. Stay and have breakfast, Silky darling.”

“I came up to see how Jo was,” said Silky. “Yes, I’d love to have breakfast. It’s funny to watch Jo eating upside down. Hasn’t the Land of Spells come yet?”

“Not yet,” said Moon-Face, putting a kettle on his stove to boil. “There’s nothing there at all. But Topsy-Turvy is gone, thank goodness!”

They all had breakfast. Moon-Face cooked some porridge. “What do you want on your porridge?” he asked Jo. “Treacle—sugar—cream?”

Jo couldn’t see any treacle, sugar or cream on the table. “Treacle,” he said, “please, Moon-Face.” Moon-Face handed him a small jug that seemed to be quite empty.

“Treacle!” he said to the jug in a firm voice. And treacle came pouring out as soon as Jo tipped up the jug. Silky wanted cream—and cream came out when Moon-Face said “Cream!” to the jug. It was great fun.

“spell to grow blue daffodils!” cried the gnome.

Moon-Face went again to see if the Land of Spells had come. This time he came back excited.

“It’s there!” he said. “Come on! I’d better take some money with me, I think, in case we have to buy the spell we want.”

He took a big purse down from a shelf, and then he and Silky helped Jo to walk upside down up the branch that led through the hole in the cloud to the little ladder. Up he went with great difficulty, holding on tightly to the rungs of the ladder with his hands. At last he was up in the Land of Spells.

This land was like a big market-place. In it were all kinds of curious little shops and stalls. All kinds of people sold spells. In some of the shops sat tall wizards, famous for magic. In some of them were green-eyed witches, making spells as fast as they could. Outside, in the market-place, sat all kinds of fairy folk at their stalls—pixies, gnomes, goblins, elves—all crying their wares at the tops of their high voices.

“Spell to make a crooked nose straight!” cried one pixie, rattling a yellow box in which were magic pills.

“Spell to grow blue daffodils!” cried a gnome showing a bottle of blue juice.

“Spell to make cats sing!” cried another gnome. Jo could hardly believe his ears. How queer! Who would want to make cats sing?

“Now, we must just see if we can possibly find a spell to make you stand up straight again,” said Moon-Face, and he went into a little low shop in which sat a strange-goblin.

The goblin had blue, pointed ears, and his eyes sparkled as if they had fireworks in them.

“I want a spell,” said Moon-Face. “What for?” asked the goblin. “I’ve a spell for everything under the sun in my shop! Very powerful spells, too, some of them. Would you like a spell to send you travelling straight off to the moon?”

“Oh, no, thank you,” said Moon-Face at once. “I know I look like the man in the moon, with my big round face—but I’m nothing at all to do with the moon really.”

“Well, would you like a spell to make you as tall as a giant?” said the goblin, picking up a box and opening it. He showed Moon-Face a large blue pill inside. “Now, take that pill, and you’ll shoot up as high as a house! You’ll feel fine. It only costs one piece of gold.”

“silly!” cried the goblin, in a rage.

“No, thank you,” said Moon-Face. “If I grew as big as that I’d never get down the hole in the cloud back to the Faraway Tree. And if I did, I’d never be able to get in at the door of my tree-house. I don’t want silly spells like that.”

“Silly!” cried the goblin, in a rage. “You call my marvellous spells silly! Another word from you, stupid old Round-Face, and I’ll use a spell that will turn you into a big bouncing ball!”

Silky pulled Moon-Face out of the shop quickly. She was quite white. “Moon-Face, you know you shouldn’t make these people cross,” she whispered. “Why, you may find yourself nothing but a bouncing ball, or a black beetle, or something, if you are rude to them. For goodness sake, let me ask for the spell we want. Look—here’s a bigger shop—with a nice-looking witch inside.”

They all went in. The witch was knitting stockings from the green smoke that came from her fire. It was marvellous to watch her. Jo wished he wasn’t upside-down so that he might see her properly.

“Good morning,” said the witch. “Do you want a spell?”

“Yes, please,” said Silky in her most polite voice. “We want to make our friend Jo come the right way up again.”

“That’s easy,” said the witch, her green eyes looking in a kindly way at poor Jo. “I’ve only got to rub a Walking-Spell on to the soles of his feet—and he will be all right. The Walking-Spell will make his feet want to walk—and he will have to stand up the right way to walk on them—so he will be cured. Come here, boy!”

Jo walked over to the witch on his hands. She took down a jar from a shelf and opened it. It was full of purple ointment. The witch rubbed some on to the soles of Jo’s shoes.

“Rimminy-Romminy-Reet,

Stand on your own two feet!

Rimminy-Romminy-Ro,

The right way up you must go!”

And, of course, you can guess what happened! Jo swung right over, stood on his two feet again, and there he was, as upright as Moon-Face and Silky. Wasn’t he glad!