Читать книгу The Enchanted Wood - Enid blyton - Страница 5

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The children did not tell their father and mother about the happenings in the Enchanted Wood, for they were so afraid that they might be forbidden to go there. But when they were alone they talked about nothing else.

“When do you suppose we could go up the Faraway Tree?” Fanny kept asking. “Oh, do let’s go, Jo.”

Jo wanted to go very badly—but he was a little afraid of what might happen, and he knew that he ought to look after his two sisters and see that no harm ever came to them. Just suppose they all went up the Faraway Tree and never came back!

Then he had an idea. “Listen,” he said. “I know what we’ll do! We’ll climb up the tree and just see what is at the top! We don’t need to go there—we can just look. We’ll wait till we have a whole day to ourselves, then we’ll go.”

The girls were so excited. They worked hard in the house hoping that their mother would say they could have a whole day to themselves. Jo worked hard in the garden, too, clearing away all the weeds. Their parents were very pleased.

“Would you like to go to the nearest town and have a day there?” asked Mother, at last.

“No, thank you,” said Jo, at once. “We’ve had enough of towns, Mother! What we’d really like is to go and have a whole-day picnic in the wood!”

“Very well,” said Mother. “You can go to-morrow. Father and I are going off for the day to buy some things we need. You can take your dinner and tea and go off by yourselves, if it is fine and sunny.”

How the children hoped the day would be fine! They woke early and jumped out of bed. They pulled their curtains and looked out. The sky was as blue as cornflowers. The sun shone between the trees, and the shadows lay long and dewy on the grass. The Enchanted Wood stood dark and mysterious behind their garden.

“Oh, lovely, lovely!” said Bessie and Fanny, as they flung on their clothes. “Are you ready, Jo?”

They all had breakfast, then Mother cut sandwiches, put cakes into a bag, and three biscuits each. She sent Jo to pick some plums from the garden, and told Bessie to take two bottles of lemonade. The children were most excited.

“WHO DO YOU WANT?” SAID THE RABBIT, IN A FURRY SORT OF VOICE.

Mother and Father set off to the town. The children waved good-bye from the gate. Then they tore indoors to get their hats and the bag in which their food had been put. They slammed the cottage door. Ah, adventures were in the air that morning!

“Up the Faraway Tree,

Jo, Bessie, and Me!”

sang Fanny loudly.

“Hush!” said Jo. “We are not far from the Enchanted Wood. We don’t want any one to know what we’re going to do.”

They ran down the back garden and out of the little gate at the end. They stood still in the overgrown, narrow lane and looked at one another. It was the first big adventure of their lives! What were they going to see? What were they going to do?

They jumped over the ditch into the wood. At once they felt different. Magic was round them. The birds’ songs sounded different. The trees once again whispered secretly to one another: “Wisha-wisha-wisha-wisha!”

“Ooooh!” said Fanny, shivering with delight. “It feels lovely!”

“Come on,” said Jo, going down the green path. “Let’s find the Faraway Tree.”

They followed him. He went on till he came to the oak tree under which they had sat before. There were the six toadstools too, on which the brownies had held their meeting, though the toadstools looked rather brown and old now.

“Which is the way now?” said Bessie, stopping.

None of them knew. They set off down a little path, but they soon stopped, for they came to a strange place where the trees stood so close together that they could go no farther. They went back to the oak tree.

“Let’s go this other way,” said Bessie, so they set off in a different direction. But this time they came to a curious pond, whose waters were pale yellow, and shone like butter. Bessie didn’t like the look of the pond at all, and they all three went back once more to the oak tree.

“This is too bad,” said Fanny, almost crying. “Just when we’ve got a whole day to ourselves we can’t find the tree!”

“I’ll tell you what we’ll do,” said Jo suddenly. “We’ll call those brownies. Don’t you remember how they said they would help us whenever we wanted them?”

“Of course!” said Fanny. “We had to stand under this oak tree and whistle seven times!”

“Go on, Jo, whistle,” said Bessie. So Jo stood beneath the thick green leaves of the old oak and whistled loudly, seven times—“Phooee, phooee, phooee, phooee, phooee, phooee, phooee!”

The children waited. In about half a minute a rabbit popped its head out of a nearby rabbit-hole and stared at them.

“Who do you want?” said the rabbit, in a furry sort of voice.

The children stared in surprise. They had never heard an animal speak before. The rabbit put its ears up and down and spoke again, rather crossly.

“Are you deaf? Who do you WANT? I said.”

“We want one of the brownies,” said Jo, finding his tongue at last.

The rabbit turned and called down his hole, “Mr. Whiskers! Mr. Whiskers! There’s some one wanting you!”

There came a voice shouting something in answer, and then one of the six brownies squeezed out of the rabbit-hole and stared at the children.

“Sorry to be so long,” he said. “One of the rabbit’s children has the measles, and I was down seeing to it.”

“GO UP IT YOURSELVES!” SAID MR. WHISKERS, IN HORROR.

“I didn’t think rabbits got the measles,” said Bessie, astonished.

“They more often get the weasels,” said Mr. Whiskers. “Weasels are even more catching than measles, as far as rabbits are concerned.”

He grinned as if he had made a huge joke, but as the children had no idea that weasels were savage little animals that caught rabbits, they didn’t laugh.

“We wanted to ask you the way to the Faraway Tree,” said Bessie. “We’ve forgotten it.”

“I’ll take you,” said Mr. Whiskers, whose name was really a very good one, for his beard reached his toes. Sometimes he trod on it, and this jerked his head downwards suddenly. Bessie kept wanting to laugh but she thought she had better not. She wondered why he didn’t tie it round his waist out of the way of his feet.

Mr. Whiskers led the way between the dark trees. At last he reached the trunk of the enormous Faraway Tree. “Here you are!” he said. “Are you expecting some one down it to-day?”

“Well, no,” said Jo. “We rather wanted to go up it ourselves.”

“Go up it yourselves!” said Mr. Whiskers, in horror. “Don’t be silly. It’s dangerous. You don’t know what might be at the top. There’s a different place almost every day!”

“Well, we’re going,” said Jo firmly, and he set his foot against the trunk of the tremendous tree and took hold of a branch above his head. “Come on, girls!”

“I shall fetch my brothers and get you down,” said Mr. Whiskers, in a fright, and he scuttled off, crying, “It’s so dangerous! It’s so dangerous!”

“Do you suppose it is all right to go?” asked Bessie, who was usually the sensible one.

“Come on, Bessie!” said Jo impatiently. “We’re only going to see what’s at the top! Don’t be a baby!”

“I’m not,” said Bessie, and she and Fanny hauled themselves up beside Jo. “It doesn’t look very difficult to climb. We’ll soon be at the top.”

But it wasn’t as easy as they thought, as you will see!