Читать книгу Those Dreadful Children - Enid blyton - Страница 7

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The children felt very gloomy after Daddy had gone. They went up into the nursery and talked about things.

“Isn’t it bad luck?” said John. “To have to know those dreadful children. And how mean of Daddy to say I’m girlish. I’m not, am I?”

“Well—you don’t climb trees or anything like most boys do,” said Margery. “Of course—Mother doesn’t like us to. So you can’t very well help it.”

“It will be awful having those children here to tea,” said John. “You’ll have to put away your best dolls, Margery. That girl called Maureen will probably throw them about.”

“And you’d better put away your new aeroplane,” said Margery. “You never know what children like that will do with other people’s toys. I bet they haven’t a single unbroken toy!”

“I hope they won’t bring that dog here,” said Annette. “I shall hit him with a stick if they do.”

“He’ll bite you, then,” said Margery. “He’ll show his teeth—like this—and he’ll growl—like this, grrrrrr.”

Annette screwed up her face to howl. “It’s all right,” said John, hurriedly. “Margery doesn’t really mean it. I’ll see the dog doesn’t bite you. We’ll send it away if it comes.”

“I do hope Mother doesn’t ask them to tea,” said Margery. “Perhaps she won’t. Good gracious, can you hear those children playing now? What a noise they are making!”

It was rather an exciting noise. It sounded as if a big drum was being beaten. Boom-boom-boom, diddy-boom-boom-boom! Then there came what sounded like a trumpet noise.

“They’re having a band, or something,” said John. “Let’s go down and see.”

They went downstairs and out of the side door to the bottom of the garden. Yes, there was certainly a drum all right. Boom-boom-boom, diddy-boom-boom-boom.

John couldn’t resist putting his head over the wall. He saw Maureen, dressed up in a flowing red cloak, with a crown on her head, parading through the bushes. Behind her came Pat, banging a drum, and Biddy, blowing on a small trumpet.

“Here comes Her Majesty!” shouted Pat, banging the drum. “Fall down before her!”

An angry voice came through the trees, and then someone appeared in a hurry. It was Bridget, the mother’s help.

“Och, you naughty little ragamuffins, you, making all that din with the baby, bless his heart, just asleep after a bad tummyache. One more beat of that drum, Patrick, and I’ll take the stick from you and lay it about you till you boom like a drum yourself!”

The beating of the drum stopped at once. “Oh, sorry, Bridget,” said Pat. “I quite forgot about Michael. We’ll play Red Indians instead.”

“Indeed you won’t, not till the baby’s awake and happy,” said Bridget. “War-whoops and what-nots, and dancing round like mad things, scaring the baby into fits. And your mother with a headache, too!”

She turned and went. John ducked his head down, for he didn’t want to be seen. All was quiet for a few minutes, but then some other game started which had a lot of yelling in it.

“Aren’t they awful?” said Margery. “Their baby is asleep and their mother has a headache—and still they can’t be quiet. Most selfish children!”

“I’d like to have seen Bridget take the drum-stick and beat Pat like a drum,” said John.

On the next Tuesday, Mother went to call on Mrs. Taggerty. The children waited eagerly for her to come back.

They met her at their front gate. “Mother! What happened? Were all the children there? How did they behave?”

“I suppose they were on their best behaviour,” said Mother. “But I should be very sorry to think that any of you would behave as they do. Still, I suppose they can’t help it. They’ve just been brought up like that. Mrs. Taggerty is rather easy-going. The baby is lovely.”

“I’d like to see the baby,” said Margery. “I do so like babies. Mother, did you ask the Taggertys to tea?”

“Yes,” said Mother. “They are coming tomorrow. By themselves, without their mother. She says Bridget is out tomorrow, and she must stay with the baby. So the children will come alone, at half-past three. I do hope you will all get on together nicely.”

Margery, John and Annette looked gloomy. “Mother, will you be with us all the time?” asked Annette. “I’m afraid of Pat.”

“No, I can’t be with you all the time,” said Mother. “You must play in the garden by yourselves before tea, but I shall have tea with you, of course. And after tea I might have a game of snap or something with you.”

That evening, when Annette had gone to bed, Margery and John heard someone whistling at the bottom of the garden. They went down cautiously to see who it was.

Pat’s head stuck over the top of the wall. He beckoned to them. But when they came near he looked most astonished. “I say! So you are the children we caught here! I didn’t know you lived over the wall. Did you know we were coming to tea with you tomorrow?”

“Yes,” said John. “Don’t go and say anything about us being in your garden. We’ll get into a row if you do.”

Pat made a scornful noise. “Tell tales about you! What do you think I am? I wouldn’t dream of saying a word. Golly, fancy it being you we’re coming to tea with. I say, your mother came to call on ours this afternoon, and she was so awfully polite and well-dressed and—er—er—well, stuck-up a bit, you know, that we got quite scared. So we thought we’d whistle you tonight, and see what you were like. We hoped you wouldn’t be stuck-up too. We can’t bear stuck-up people.”

“Mother isn’t stuck-up,” said John stiffly.

“Well, we’ve heard people say she is,” said Maureen, her head popping up beside Pat’s. “I thought she was awfully pretty and I did like her dress. People say you children are rather awful too. Are you? Harry Lee told us you were prigs.”

Margery wasn’t sure what a prig was, but it sounded something horrid. She went red. John looked sulky.

“We’re not prigs. People think you’re pretty awful too. And so you are. We don’t want you to come to tea a bit.”

“And we don’t want to come,” said Maureen, her eyes shining angrily. “Horrible, having to dress up and wear gloves, and come in all polite and silly. And we shan’t play any decent games, I bet, or climb a tree, or even have a game at ‘he’. Just sit around and make polite conversation like your mother does.”

“You’re very rude,” said John. “If it wasn’t for our fathers knowing each other we wouldn’t have to know you at all. We think you’re an awful lot of children.”

“We think the same about you,” said Pat, his eyes shining angrily now too. “That’s what we call you—those dreadful children.”

“Oh—it’s exactly what we call you,” said John, surprised. “Well, don’t come to tea if it’s such a frightful bore.”

“We shall jolly well have to,” said Pat, gloomily. Then he brightened a little. “We might say we feel ill,” he said, turning to Maureen. “Do you remember how we got out of going to see that great-aunt of ours once? We both said we had awful sore throats, and Mummy got alarmed and wouldn’t let us stir out of the house.”

John and Margery were really shocked. “But that was a frightful untruth,” said Margery. “Do you really tell fibs like that? We never do.”

“Our father says it’s a cowardly thing to do, to tell untruths,” said John. “He says people only tell them when they’re too afraid to tell the truth. He says it’s better to tell the truth and take what’s coming to you than tell a fib to get out of it, because if you keep doing that you’ll always be a coward, and wriggle out of things.”

Pat and Maureen stared at him in silence. “We’re not cowards,” said Pat at last. “I can climb higher than any boy I know, and I can swim as fast as Daddy. Maureen’s brave for a girl, too.”

“All the same, you are cowards if you keep on telling fibs,” said Margery. “You ask your father and see what he says. Now, if we didn’t want to come to tea with you—which we don’t, of course—we wouldn’t be cowardly and go and tell Mother we’d got sore throats and worry her to death—we’d be brave and go and say we jolly well didn’t want to, and why. See?”

“I bet you wouldn’t!” said Pat, scornfully. “You’d just say, ‘Yes, Mother dear,’ and come. Pooh! I bet you’re all three of you little cowardy-custards.”

A bell rang. “That’s our bell,” said Margery, thankfully, for she didn’t want to argue with Pat any more. “Well, I suppose we’ll have to see you tomorrow.”

“Wait a bit,” said Maureen, urgently. “We wanted to ask you something. We know our father wants us to be friends with you because he likes yours so much—and we don’t want to let him down if we can help it. So for goodness sake tell us what to wear, and does your mother like to shake hands with us, or is she the kissy sort?”

“She won’t want to kiss you,” said John. “Wear what you like. We don’t care! But if you want our mother to think anything of you, come with clean hands and faces, and don’t shout at one another, or push one another like you do.”

Maureen sighed. “It’s going to be awful,” she said. “All right, we’ll do our best. Only for Daddy’s sake though! I don’t expect our mothers will like each other any more than we do—but Daddy’s such an old dear we’d like him to think we’re all friends together, so that he can have your father in whenever he likes.”

“We must go,” said John, as the bell rang again more urgently. “That’s Mother ringing for us.”

“I say! Wait! There’s one more thing,” called Maureen. “We can bring Dopey, can’t we?”

Margery and John stopped in their run back to the house and turned shocked faces to Pat and Maureen. “What, bring that awful mongrel!” cried John. “Of course not! Mother would have a fit.”

“But he always goes with us everywhere,” said Maureen. “And he isn’t an awful mongrel. He’s the best dog in the world. He’ll be heart-broken if he doesn’t come with us. He’ll bark the place down and keep Baby awake.”

“Let him!” said John, hard-heartedly. “I tell you, Mother will send him home if he does come, and Annette will scream till she’s blue in the face.”

“Does she really go blue in the face?” asked Maureen, with interest. “I should like to——”

But, as the bedtime bell was rung impatiently for the third time, John and Margery fled at top speed down the trimly-kept path to their house. Pat and Maureen gazed after them.

“What frightful kids! Goody-goody and namby-pamby and priggy-wiggy. I wish we hadn’t got to go to tea with them tomorrow. I liked their father awfully, didn’t you, when we saw him at the tea-shop? I thought he must have really decent children.”

“So did I. But you can never tell,” said Maureen. “Anyway, we’ve got to go tomorrow, and do let’s try to look tidy and clean, for Daddy’s sake. I hope I’ve got a clean frock. I bet Biddy hasn’t. She gets dirtier than any of us.”

“Oh, well. Tomorrow won’t last for ever,” said Pat, as they went indoors. “But just fancy having to go out to tea with those dreadful children.”