Читать книгу The Land of Far-Beyond - Enid blyton - Страница 5

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Once upon a time, in the great City of Turmoil, there lived three children. One was a boy called Peter, and his sisters were Anna and Patience.

The City of Turmoil was a great, noisy, dirty place, full of streets, houses, shops, and market-places. The children wandered about, looking at everything, playing games in the streets and the parks, and only going home when it was dark, or when they were hungry.

There were schools, of course, but the children went to school only when they thought of it. Their mother and father let them do exactly as they liked, just as most of the other children in the city did.

“Let’s go to school to-day, for a change!” said Peter to his sisters one day. “It’s story-time to-day. It is Wednesday, isn’t it?”

“Oh, don’t let’s go to school!” cried Anna. “I’ve thought of a lovely thing we can do. Let’s go down Twisty Street, and ring the bells there, and run away. Then people will come to the door—and nobody will be there!”

“Oh, yes!” said Patience, dancing round. “That would be fun. Come on! I don’t want to go to school.”

“You look very dirty,” said their mother. “Have you washed this morning? And Patience, you really must mend that hole in your dress.”

The children took no notice. Children hardly ever did take any notice of their parents in the City of Turmoil. They just grew up as they pleased and did what they liked.

They ran off. They came to Twisty Street and called to the other children they met.

“John! Lily! We’re going to ring bells. Come and see us!”

Two or three more children came along, giggling. “This is where Miss Crosspatch lives,” said Peter, running up the steps of a tall house. “Now, hide, you others!”

The children scattered behind a cart as Peter tugged at the bell. A peal sounded through the tall house. Peter fled down the steps and joined the other children.

The door opened and a thin, tall woman with spectacles on her nose looked out. She was astonished to see no one there.

“I feel sure I heard the bell,” she said to herself, and shut the door again. The children giggled, and Peter sped up the steps of the tall house again. He tugged hard at the bell—jangle-jangle, it could even be heard by the children hidden behind the cart.

Peter ran down the steps at top speed and crouched behind the cart, laughing. The door opened, and an angry face looked out. Still nobody there!

“It’s those children again!” said Miss Crosspatch, frowning. “Wait till I catch them; I’ll box their horrid little ears!”

She slammed the door. The milkman came up the street, whistling. He had some butter and eggs for Miss Crosspatch, and he rang the bell.

“Jangle-jangle!” Nobody came to open the door. The children hugged themselves for joy. Miss Crosspatch thought it was some naughty boy again, of course! The milkman rang again, and again—and then again. The door opened suddenly, and Miss Crosspatch appeared, quite certain that the bell was being rung by children. She smacked the milkman hard on the cheek, and he dropped the eggs and butter in amazement.

“Now look here!” he said, in a rage. “Now look here!”

“Oh!” said Miss Crosspatch, looking at the bag of broken eggs, and the packet of butter on the steps. “Oh—I thought you were some naughty children! Look, there they are, the tiresome wretches!”

The cart had suddenly moved away and Miss Crosspatch had caught sight of the live children who had been hiding behind it. She ran down the steps towards them. But they could run much faster than she could, and were away at the end of the street long before she had got half-way down.

“That was fun,” said Patience, stopping to do up her broken shoe-lace. “Really, that was fun!”

“Let’s ring one more bell!” said Anna. “I’ll do it this time!” So up the steps of another house she ran and pulled at the bell. She ran down the steps again and hid with the others behind a fence.

A maid came to the door, and looked angrily up and down the road. “The children are getting worse and worse!” they heard her say as she banged the door.

“What shall we do now?” said Peter. “I feel rather hungry.”

There was a shout from the next street, and the children turned to see some more boys and girls that they knew.

“Hie! Come along with us! There’s a barrow of fruit down here!”

“Good!” said the five, and tore off to join two bigger boys. They were bad boys, who stole from shops and barrows.

“You come and help us,” said Ron and William, the boys. “See that man with the barrow there? Well, we want two of you to help us, and we’ll be able to get as much fruit as we want to.”

“That’s stealing, and the policeman might get us,” said Patience.

“Pooh! Don’t be a coward!” said Ron. “Now listen—which of you are the fastest runners?”

“Peter and Anna,” said Patience. “They run like the wind.”

“Well, Peter and Anna, you must run up to the barrow and dance round it, calling out rude names to the man,” said Ron. “You must make him so angry that he’ll chase you. As soon as he’s gone we’ll run up and help ourselves to the fruit—and we’ll share it with you when you come back.”

“All right,” said Peter. “But I hope we don’t get caught! Come on!”

Peter and Anna ran up to the barrow. The other children hid behind the corner, watching, waiting for their chance. Peter began to dance round the barrow, keeping out of reach of the man in charge of it.

“Hallo, pie-face! Hallo, stick-in-the-mud! Hallo, slowcoach! Can’t catch me, can’t catch me!”

“Go away, rude boy,” said the man, and tried to slap Peter. But Peter dodged out of the way. Then it was Anna’s turn.

“Your apples are bad! Your pears are all maggotty! Your flowers are falling to bits—and so are you!” sang the rude little girl. The man ran round the barrow after her.

“I won’t have you children cheeking me like this!” he shouted. Peter put out a foot and the man tripped over and fell to the ground with a crash. His face was red with rage when he got up. “I’ll whip you both for this!” he cried.

“Can’t catch me, can’t catch me!” shouted Peter, rudely putting his tongue out. The man ran after him. Peter sped off down the street, in the opposite direction to that in which the other children had planned to run. Anna ran too, and the man, muttering to himself, tore after them, quite determined to catch them and punish them.

As soon as he was safely down the street the other children ran out from their hiding-place. But when they got to the barrow only Ron and William dared to take the fruit. The two boys crammed their pockets full, keeping an eye on the running man.

He had nearly caught Peter and Anna. They shouted to him, “Look what’s happening to your fruit!”

He turned—and when he saw the children round his barrow, with Ron and William helping themselves, he gave an angry shout and ran back up the street, leaving Anna and Peter to dance about in glee.

When Ron and William saw him coming they raced off with the others, and were soon safely round the corner. The poor man didn’t know what to do! If he chased them, he was afraid that Peter and Anna would run up and help themselves—so there was nothing for him to do but to stand by his barrow and say the rudest things he could think of about the children of the City of Turmoil!

Peter and Anna ran round another way and joined the other five children. They found a great quarrel going on. Ron and William would not share with any of the others!

“No!” said Ron. “We got the stuff. None of you others helped yourselves, you were such sillies. Well, you can’t expect us to give you any, then.”

“You are mean!” said Patience, fiercely. “You promised to share!”

“Well, why should we keep a promise?” asked William. “It’s only stupids who keep promises! Nobody keeps promises any more. You shouldn’t have believed us. We’re not giving you any of this fruit at all.”

Then there began such a fight! Patience slapped Ron on the cheek, and Lily scratched William on the hand. John and Peter gave both boys a hard punch, but the bigger boys soon sent all the children flying. Then off they went with their pockets crammed full of fruit, to eat it in a safe corner.

“The beasts!” said Anna, beginning to cry. “I shall have a bruise where Ron hit me.”

“Oh, don’t be a cry-baby,” said John. “What shall we do now? Look—there’s a dog nosing round that dustbin. Let’s throw something at it!”

The children picked up anything they could find and threw it at the thin, half-starved little dog. A stone hit him on the head, and he yelped in pain. Another hit him on the back and he turned to run. But the bad children had surrounded him, and he could not see any way of escape.

“POOR FELLOW,” SAID THE STRANGER, IN A DEEP, KIND VOICE. “POOR FELLOW! WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO YOU?”

A big clod of earth struck one of his back legs. He began to limp. He snapped at Peter and got away between the boy’s legs. He limped off down the road, yelping in pain.

And then the Stranger appeared. He came walking round the corner, and saw the limping dog at once. He called to it, and it ran to him on its three legs.

“Who’s that?” whispered Patience to Anna. “I’ve never seen him before. Isn’t he queer?”

The Stranger was only queer because he was so clean and neat and lovely to look at. He wore a short tunic of white, and his feet were shod with sandals. His legs were wound about with thongs of leather. He bent over the dog and lifted up the hurt leg. It was bleeding.

“Poor fellow,” said the Stranger, in a deep, kind voice. “Poor fellow! What has happened to you?”

The dog wagged its stump of a tail, and licked the Stranger’s hand. The man looked up at the children. “I must bathe this dog’s leg,” he said. “Where is there some water?”

“There’s a river down the end of that road,” said Peter. The boy wanted to run away before the man found out that it was he who had wounded the dog on the leg, but the Stranger seemed so extraordinary and mysterious that he felt he had to stay and watch him.

“Hasn’t he got a shining face?” said Anna.

“And what deep, gleaming eyes!” said Lily. “I like him. I wouldn’t run away from him as I would from most grown-ups here. And fancy him bothering about a dog! I’ve never seen any one fussing a dog before!”

“Come and show me the river,” said the tall Stranger, looking at the children with his deep eyes, that shone like a blue pool. And obediently the five children guided him down the street to where the big river flowed along.