Bed-Knob and Broomstick (10 page)

   
"Ssh-" said Carey again. "She's in the kitchen. Making macaroni
cheese. Come on."
He followed her up the stairs.

   
"It's in here," said Carey, "where Paul sleeps." She threw
open a door.

   
It was Miss Price's bedroom. Very clean, very neat, very fragrant. A large photograph
of a military gentleman hung over the mantel. There were silver brushes on the
dressing table and a porcelain "tree" for rings. Paul was tucked up
in a bed on the sofa, a small Victorian couch with a curved back that just fitted
him.

   
"Well, it's all right," said Charles, staring at Paul, who looked
unusually clean and round-eyed.

   
"What's all right?" asked Carey.

   
"Paul's bed."
"I wasn't looking at Paul's bed," said Carey.

   
Charles followed the direction of her eyes. Miss Price's bed had a white embroidered
spread, and a black silk nightdress case lay on the pillow. It was an exciting
nightdress case, closely related to a tea cozy, trimmed with satin blobs like
colored fruit.

   
"You are dense," said Carey. "The bed itself!"
Charles stared.

   
It was a very ordinary brass bed-a bed like a hundred others. But where at its
head there should have been a second bed-knob, the right-hand post ended in
a piece of rusty screw.

   
"Yes," said Charles. He sat down rather suddenly on the foot of Paul's
sofa.

   
"Is it, do you think?" asked Carey anxiously.

   
Charles cleared his throat. "Yes," he said soberly, "yes, it
must be!"
"There are hundreds of beds like that. She may have had it for years. She
may have bought it at the same time as Aunt Beatrice bought hers."
"Yes," said Charles. He seemed dazed. "But the screw. I think
it is. It must be it. She must have bought it at the sale." He turned to
Carey. "We can easily tell. Go and get the bed-knob."
"That's just it," said Carey. "The bed-knob's gone!"
"Gone?"
"Yes. When I'd finished bathing Paul, Miss Price had done the unpacking.
I've been through everything. You can look yourself. It's gone."
"She's taken it," said Charles.

   
"Yes, she's taken it."
"Oh, gosh!" said Charles. There was a world of disillusion and sadness
in his voice.

   
Paul lay staring at them glumly over his neatly turned-down sheet.

   
3 IN FOR A PENNY
Yes, now they were there "the cupboard was bare!" Oh, it wasn't that
she wasn't glad to see them; it wasn't that she wasn't very kind and had made
up that lovely bed for Paul on the sofa in her room. It wasn't that she didn't
plan delightful picnics to Pepperinge Eye and Lowbody Farm, and the Roman Remains;
and read to them at night, and teach them croquet. It was just that she had
given up magic. She seemed to have given up for good and all. She seemed to
have forgotten that she ever knew it. Right behind the bottled fruits in the
larder Paul did once see some pink and blue, which he thought might be the chart
of the Zodiac, but he didn't get a chance to look properly as the door was nearly
always kept locked.

   
All their excitement, all their planning, seemed to have gone for nothing until
one day-
It was Carey's job to put the cleaned shoes by each person's bed at night all
ready for morning. About a week after they had arrived, when she had forgotten
them the night before, she had to creep down before breakfast to fetch Paul's
shoes from the scullery. As Paul slept on the sofa in Miss Price's room, it
meant that Carey had to open that door very, very quietly so she could slip
in without awaking Miss Price. Well, that was the morning when she found Miss
Price's bed had gone.

   
A faint (the very faintest) film of dust and a pair of quilted slippers marked
the place where it had stood. The coverlet was neatly folded on the chest of
drawers, and not another thing was out of place. Paul's clothes lay tidily upon
his chair, his sofa stood in its usual corner, but Paul himself was nowhere
to be seen.

   
Carey ran down to the passage to call Charles, and he came with her, slowly
and sleepily, to see the empty room. They talked it over. They could hardly
believe it.

   
"I told you it was the bed," Charles reminded Carey. "I knew
it by that piece of rusty screw."
"But behind our backs!" exclaimed Carey. "To have pretended to
have given up magic, and then to go and do a thing like this-behind our backs."
As Carey dressed, she grew angrier and angrier. She cleaned her teeth so viciously
that she made the gums bleed. She nearly exploded when she heard the bump in
Miss Price's room, and Paul's cheerful voice asking if there were raspberries
for breakfast.

   
But barely had she and Charles sat down at table when Miss Price appeared, followed
by Paul. Miss Price, looking brisk and neat, and not at all out of the ordinary,
went straight to the sideboard to serve the porridge. Paul, who looked as if
he had dressed hurriedly, sidled into his place. Except for his unbrushed hair
and pullover back to front, he, too, looked quite normal. When Miss Price came
to the table with the porridge, there was a look of exhilaration about her as
if she had had a cold bath. "A lovely day," she said cheerfully as
she poured out the coffee. She smiled round the table at the children. "What
are we going to do with it?"
Carey's face became wooden. "We haven't thought," she said coldly.

   
"What about a picnic lunch on the Roman Remains?" suggested Miss Price,
undaunted.

   
"I don't think people should picnic on Roman remains," said Carey.

   
Miss Price gave her a curious look, and then she turned to Charles. "Have
you any suggestions, Charles?"
"What is Paul going to do?" asked Charles suspiciously.

   
Miss Price looked a little taken aback. "Why, go with you. Unless, perhaps,
you go to the Roman Remains. That is a little far-"
"I think," said Charles, "we should go somewhere where Paul can
come too."
Miss Price looked surprised. "Well, of course, that would be nicer. I just
thought-that sometimes you and Carey like to do things on your own-"
"No," said Carey firmly, "we like Paul with us. Always."
Miss Price looked really surprised at this. And so did Paul. He sat with his
porridge spoon aslant, dripping milk down the front of his jersey.

   
"Paul!" said Miss Price sharply. Paul came to and swallowed the porridge,
and Miss Price wiped off the drips.

   
"Well, children," said Miss Price at the end of breakfast, "you
must make your own plans. I have my music lessons, but I shall be free by lunch
time. Go to the bathroom, please, Paul."
Carey and Charles went out in the garden to wait for Paul.

   
He emerged with a burst almost immediately, his voice raised in a tuneless rendering
of "Hark the Herald Angels Sing." Quickly and silently Charles and
Carey took him each by an arm and pulled him through the hedge into the meadow.
They walked him out of earshot of the house, and then they sat him down in the
long grass, still holding him.

   
"Paul," said Carey sternly, in a fair imitation of Aunt Beatrice's
voice, "it's no good hedging. Charles and I know all."
Paul looked bewildered and tried to pull his arms free.

   
"You and Miss Price," went on Carey, "have been off on the bed.
It's no good lying. Charles and I saw."
Paul looked unperturbed. "Did you see us go?" he asked.

   
"Never mind," said Carey darkly.

   
Paul, sensing their mood, sat still. He just looked bored like a pony tied to
a stall.

   
"Well?" said Carey. "What have you to say?"
It seemed Paul had nothing to say. He fidgeted with his feet and did not look
even interested.

   
"Have you been often?"
"No," said Paul, making a not very determined effort to pull his wrist
free, "we were only trying it."
"Is this the first time you've tried it?"
"Yes."
"Did it work all right?" asked Charles. He sounded more friendly suddenly.

   
"Yes."
Carey let go Paul's wrist. "Where did you go, Paul?"
Paul smiled.

   
"Tell us, Paul," urged Carey. "We're sure to find out."
"Guess," said Paul.

   
"All right. You must answer 'yes' or 'no,' and you can say 'sort of.'"
"Was it in the western hemisphere?" asked Charles.

   
"No," said Paul.

   
"Was it the eastern hemisphere?" asked Carey.

   
"No," said Paul.

   
"Then it wasn't in the world!" exclaimed Charles.

   
"Yes. It was in the world," said Paul.

   
"Well, then it must have been in the western or the eastern hemisphere."
"No," said Paul. "It wasn't anywhere like that."
"He doesn't know what hemisphere means," Charles suggested.

   
Paul looked stubborn. "Yes, I know what it means."
"What does it mean?"
"Well-it means- It doesn't mean Blowditch."
"Is that where you went?"
"Yes."
"You only went as far as Blowditch?"
"Yes."
"Why, you could walk there," exclaimed Charles.

   
"It was only to see if it worked," explained Paul.

   
"Did you ask Miss Price if you could try it?"
"No. She asked me. She said: 'Let's give it a little twist. I don't suppose
it still works.' "
"Spells don't wear out," said Carey.

   
"How do you know?" asked Charles.

   
"Well, it stands to reason," replied Carey.

   
They were silent awhile. Then Carey said tolerantly: "I can understand
how it happened. But I don't think it's at all fair. And I never have thought
it fair that Paul was the only one who could work it."
"Well, it was his knob," said Charles. "We mustn't grumble. There
are people who would give anything for a magic bed-knob, whoever had to work
it."
"Yes," agreed Carey, "I know. But, as they've had a turn, I think
we ought to have a turn too. Miss Price can do as she likes for herself, but
we never said we'd give up magic."
"I don't see how we could manage it," said Charles, "not with
the bed in Miss Price's room."
Carey tossed back her braids. "I shall just go to Miss Price in a straightforward
way and ask her right out."
Charles, slightly awed, was silent.

   
"And there's another thing," Carey went on. "Do you remember
that when Miss Price gave us the spell, she said that if we turned the knob
backwards the bed would take us into the past? Well, I think she ought to let
us have one go at the past. After that, we could give it up-for a bit,"
she added, "though I don't see what all this giving up of magic does for
anybody. You'd think it might be used for the defense scheme or something."
"Carey!" exclaimed Charles, deeply shocked.

   
Carey, a little subdued, broke off a stalk of sorrel and chewed it pensively.
"I suppose you're right," she admitted after a moment. She had sudden
visions of dragons breathing fire and mustard gas and whole armies turning into
white mice. It would be terrible, unthinkable, to have one's brother, say, invalided
out of the army as a white mouse, kept for the rest of his life in a cage on
the drawing room table. And where would you pin the medals on a mouse?

   
"You see," said Charles, "Miss Price is quite right in some ways.
You can overdo things."
"I know," Carey admitted. "But I don't see how it would hurt
anybody if we just had a little trip into the past."
"Well, there's no harm in asking," said Charles.

   
They cornered Miss Price after supper. She listened to their argument; she saw
the justice of what they said; but she threw up her hands and said: "Oh
dear, oh dear!"
They tried to reassure her; they were very reasonable and very moderate. "Just
one more go, Miss Price, and after that we'll give it up. It's a pity to waste
the past."
"I don't like it," Miss Price kept saying. "I don't like it.
If you were stuck or anything, I couldn't get you out. I've burnt the books."
"Oh, no-" cried Carey, aghast.

   
"Yes, yes, I burnt them," cried poor Miss Price. "They were very
confidential."
"Can't you remember anything by heart?"
"Nothing to speak of. One or two little things. . . . Oh dear, this is
all my fault. I just wanted to see-out of simple curiosity-if spells wore out.
I never dreamed it would start all this up again-"
"Please let us try, Miss Price," urged Carey. "Just this once,
and we'll never ask again. We did keep our word, and you're not really keeping
yours if you don't let us just try the past. We never told anyone about your
being a witch, and now, if you won't let us use the spell again anyway, it wouldn't
matter if we did tell-"
"Carey!" exclaimed Miss Price. She stood up. Her eyes gleamed strangely.
Her long thin nose suddenly seemed longer and thinner. Her chin looked sharper.
Carey drew away alarmed.

   
"Oh, Miss Price," she muttered nervously.

   
"If I thought-" went on Miss Price, leaning her face closer as Carey
backed away-"if, for a minute, I thought-"
"You needn't think," cried Carey agitatedly. "We wouldn't ever
tell. Ever. Because we promised and we like ou. But," she added bravely,
"fair's fair."
Miss Price stared at Carey a moment or two longer; then, limply, she sat down
again in her chair. Her hands lay open on her lap. Tired, she seemed suddenly,
and sad. "Professionally speaking," she said, "I'm no good. I
should have put a rattling good spell on all three of you and shut you up once
and for all." She sighed. "Now it's too late."
Nervously Carey took Miss Price's limp hand in hers. "You needn't worry
about us," she said reassuringly, "you really needn't."
"And you were wonderful," exclaimed Charles warmly, "professionally
speaking."
"Do you really think so?" asked Miss Price uncertainly.

   
"Yes, Miss Price, we do," affirmed Carey. "Don't be discouraged.
You'll pick it all up again, easy as pie, once you set your mind to it."
'
"You think I will?" asked Miss Price wanly. "You're not just
saying that?"
"I know it," said Carey, nodding her head.

   
Miss Price patted her hair as if she felt it had come out of place. "I
hope you're right," she said, in her usual voice. "And in the meantime,
as you have had some experience, and providing you went somewhere really educational
and took every precaution and were very, very careful, I don't see"- she
looked at them gravely, almost speculatively, and she drew in her breath- "how
one little trip into the past could hurt anyone."
THE "PAST"
In London, during the reign of King Charles II, there lived a necromancer. (******
These six stars are to give you time to ask what is a necromancer. Now you know,
we will go on.) He lived in a little house in Cripplegate in a largish room
at the top of a narrow flight of stairs. He was a very nervous man and disliked
the light of day. There were two good reasons for this; I will tell you the
first.