Carbonel and Calidor (11 page)

Now, with her shoulders hunched, and hair and coat collar round her ears, she could not hear John plainly. Repeating what she
thought
he had said, she went on crossly: ‘Light as air? I wish you were, till morning comes. You weigh ten tons! That's better,' she went on, because suddenly she no longer felt the pressure of John's feet on her shoulders. She pushed aside the lock of hair a little breeze had blown across her face but when she looked round he was nowhere to be seen.

‘John!' she called anxiously. ‘John! Where are you?'

A distant voice above her head called out: ‘Help! Help! I'm up here!'

She looked up. John was spread-eagled, arms outstretched, with his back against the glass roof of the platform.

‘What are you doing up there? Don't be so silly!' said Rosemary crossly. ‘Come down!'

‘I'm
not being silly, it's
you
. I
can't
come down,' said John, in an exasperated voice. ‘When you said you wished I was as light as air, I suddenly floated up here. I couldn't stop myself. How on earth am I going to get down again?'

‘Try kicking with your feet,' said Rosemary, trying desperately not to panic. ‘You know, like you do when you're swimming.'

John kicked with his feet. There was a tinkle of broken glass, and Rosemary ducked as a shower of splinters pattered down, missing her by inches.

‘It's no good,' said John. ‘I bet it's that ring again. Are you wearing it?'

Rosemary looked at her hands. The Golden Gew-Gaw was on her forefinger.

‘The beastly thing has done it again,' said John gloomily. ‘And we know it won't un-wish its own wishes. I can see its red stone winking from up here, almost as though it's making fun of us. I daren't move. If I break another pane of glass in the roof I might float out through the hole and goodness knows where I'd get to. There's quite a wind. Can't you hook me down with something?'

‘I'll see what I can find,' said Rosemary doubtfully. She looked about her. Sticking out from the bottom of the pile of firewood waiting to be broken up, was a long branch. ‘Hold on,' she called to John. ‘I think I've found something that will do!'

She held it up with both hands directly below him. ‘Bother, it isn't long enough, but it might be if I stand on something. I shall have to climb on the seat. I can't help it if it is rotten.'

‘Do be careful!' called John. But Rosemary was already pushing the ramshackle bench into position. ‘Hurry!' shouted John. ‘I can see over the fields to Tucket Towers. Miss Dibdin has just come out of the clump of trees, and I think she's carrying the broom!'

Rosemary climbed on to the bench, holding the branch in one hand, and steadying herself with the other against the window of the waiting room. Using the slats of the back of the seat as a ladder, she mounted on to the wide band of wood at the top.

‘I can't look ... up!' she panted. ‘The seat's too near the wall ... And I can't ... hold the branch up for long ... it's too heavy.'

‘And I just can't reach it. Oh help!' said John in a despairing voice. ‘Miss Dibdin has got on to her broom and she's swooping up the field! Hold the branch a bit to the left, Rosie. No, the other way, and a bit higher!'

The branch was so heavy that Rosemary had great difficulty in controlling it at all, and in her agitation, forgetting she might lose her balance if she moved her hand from the window, she clutched the branch with both fists, and, making a desperate attempt to reach John, pushed it as high in the air as she possibly could.

‘Got it!' cried John triumphantly. ‘Hooray! Now I'll hold on tight while you pull me down!'

But the sudden thrust of Rosemary's feet against the top of the bench when she made her final attempt to reach John had been too much for the rotten wood. Just as he spoke, there was a sharp crack, the bench gave a lurch, the back collapsed, and John, Rosemary, branch and broken bench fell in a heap on the platform.

‘Are you all right, John?' asked Rosemary anxiously.

‘I think I am,' said John in a muffled voice, for he was at the bottom of the pile.

Rosemary began to stand up, just as a little breeze wafted across the platform, and immediately, still lying down, John started to rise from the ground. ‘Look out!' he yelled. She was just in time to turn and clutch his flapping arm and pull him down again.

‘You'd better sit on me. That ought to keep me down to earth. You've no idea how beastly it was up there. Why did you have to go and wish anything so asinine as me being “light as air”?'

‘Well, you were so beastly heavy,' said Rosemary, who was wondering which bruise to rub first. ‘Besides, you said it first.'

‘I didn't say anything of the sort!' said John crossly. ‘I said Miss Dibdin's room needed “light and air”. What on earth am I to do? I can't spend the rest of my life with someone sitting on me!'

‘You might find it useful for something. Get a job as an astronaut or something. They float about, don't they?'

‘Oh, be your age, Rosie! That's not because ... Oh, don't let's waste time scrapping.'

Rosemary picked up the magic ring, which had fallen from her finger when she fell, and absently slipped it on again, and at once she heard Dumpsie say: ‘Eeh, what a fedaddle! Real interesting it was, seeing you float up in the air, like a bit of burnt paper on the Rubbish Dump! But what a fuss you're making, when it's only going to last till morning.'

‘Till morning?' exclaimed Rosemary. John struggled up to a half-sitting position as she held out her hand so that he could slip his finger through the ring as well.

Dumpsie had started licking her snow-white ruff as calmly as though nothing unusual had happened, but she paused in her licking to say:

‘Well, that's what
she
sez,' waving her bandaged paw at Rosemary. ‘Trust me. Best memory on the Dump. She sez:

‘A sort of rhyme,' said Rosemary.

‘A pretty rotten rhyme!' grumbled John.

‘Then all we've got to do is to find some way of keeping you down to earth till tomorrow morning!' said Rosemary.

‘Well, that's something, I suppose. But I can't spend all night lying here with you sitting on top of me! Wait a minute, though. I've got an idea. You remember you said something about me being an astronaut? Well, you know how they wear great thick soles to their space suits? Well, if we could make my feet heavy ...'

‘Of course!' Rosemary broke in. ‘We could stuff your Wellingtons with sand and earth!'

‘And stones in my pockets!'

‘I'll go and get some!' she said, and jumped to her feet. John gave a warning shout. She whipped round. A sudden breeze had already wafted him shoulder high. She was just in time to pull him down again.

‘Phew! That was a near thing!' said John. ‘You'd better pile the broken bits of seat on top of me, and any other old rubbish you can find.'

With a couple of brick-ends, two rusty iron wheels that might have once belonged to a porter's truck, and a dented fire-bucket with a hole in it, balanced on top of him, as well as the broken seat, Rosemary felt he should be safe.

‘It would take a typhoon to shift me, with this lot on top,' he said. ‘Talk about uncomfortable!'

Dumpsie had added her small weight by clambering on to the upturned bucket. Luckily John was not wearing the ring, so he did not hear her say wistfully as she looked at the pile of rubbish beneath her: ‘Just like a bit of the dear old Dump!' Oddly enough, he felt comforted to see her sitting there, unconcernedly licking her undamaged front paw.

In the meantime, Rosemary was frantically scooping up sand and stones with one hand, and anything heavy she could find on the track, while she held up her skirt, in which to carry it, with the other; for, halfway across the field, and heading straight for the station, she had seen Miss Dibdin. There was no time to lose. She scrambled back on to the platform, and, pushing John's feet so that their soles were flat on the ground and his knees were up, she shovelled as much of her load as she could push into his Wellington boots.

‘Now, can you stand up?' she said breathlessly. ‘Hurry, Miss Dibdin is nearly here.'

John sat up cautiously. With a clatter the collection of rubbish slid off him on to the platform. He stuffed the brick-ends into his mackintosh pockets on either side, together with as much of the remaining earth and stones as they would hold: then, very gingerly, he got to his feet. For a moment he stood there quite firmly, with Rosemary hovering near with outstretched hands to grab him back if he began to drift up into the air again. A slow grin spread over his face.

‘It's all right. Come on, let's go!'

As he spoke they heard Miss Dibdin's shrill voice urging on her broom.

‘Up! Up! Come up, my beauty! One more bound and we shall be home!'

They did not wait to hear more. With Rosemary clutching on to one arm, while she clasped Dumpsie with the other, they hurried for the hole in the hedge. They were only just in time. There was a clatter as the broom collapsed on the platform.

‘Crumpet! Crumpet!' they heard Miss Dibdin's shrill cry. With rising irritation she went on: ‘Why don't you come when I call you?'

John and Rosemary knew why there was no answer, but they thought it better not to wait till Miss Dibdin found out.

I
F
you have ever tried to hurry, wearing Wellington boots filled with earth, mixed with as many pebbles as there are currants in a plum pudding, you will understand why John and Rosemary made such slow progress on their way home.

There had been no time to balance the extra weight in John's pockets evenly, so that he walked in a slightly lopsided way, bent uncomfortably at the knees: but he did not dare to leave any of the extra weight behind. Away from the shelter of the station there was quite a strong breeze.

When Rosemary suggested, as tactfully as she could, that perhaps it would be better to go home the long way, round the village, so that they should attract as little attention as possible, he replied with some heat: ‘I don't care how silly I look, I'm not walking one step further than I've got to. My feet are killing me!' So that was that.

As it happened, there were not many people about when they reached the village, and apart from two girls, who giggled and whispered behind their hands, and an old woman, who shook her head pityingly, they reached home without comment.

Never had they been so thankful to turn in to Uncle Zack's gate.

‘I can't wear gum-boots and a mac indoors,' said John anxiously. ‘The pockets in my jeans are too small to hold anything. I don't suppose Uncle Zack would notice, but Mrs Bodkin doesn't miss a thing. I bet she'd spot the brickends, and make me turn my pockets out. Do you think if I ate an enormous dinner that would hold me down?'

‘If you ate the weight of two brick-ends, I should think even Uncle Zack would notice,' said Rosemary. ‘I tell you what. Supposing you make some excuse to go straight to bed? You'd be safe from draughts if I piled my bed-clothes on top of yours, and tucked them well in all round. We're terribly late. The Post Office clock said half past three, so we've missed dinner, and it's nearly tea time.'

‘Help!' said John. ‘I'm starving!'

Mrs Bodkin's crossness at their late return evaporated as soon as John asked if he could go to bed. ‘I've got a splitting head-ache,' he said, which was perfectly true.

‘Go to bed?' repeated Mrs Bodkin. ‘I hope to goodness you aren't sickening for something! But it's the best place if you're feeling poorly. You go straight upstairs, and I'll come up presently and take your temperature.'

Getting undressed and between the sheets presented a good deal of difficulty; but with John clutching the bed-post with both hands, and Rosemary peeling off most of his clothes, it was managed at last. Rosemary tucked him hurriedly in and went to fetch her own blankets for extra weight. She was just returning with her arms full, when a gust of wind made a downstairs door slam, and she remembered she had forgotten to close John's bedroom door behind her. She hurried in, only to find that the window opposite was open too, and John, with bed-clothes still trailing, had wafted halfway up to the ceiling. ‘Shut the door!' he yelled. ‘There's a through draught!'

Rosemary dropped the bundle she was carrying, banged the door to behind her, dashed to the window, slammed it shut and latched it securely. There was a ‘flump' behind her, and she turned to find John once more lying on his bed. With no draught the blankets were heavy enough to bring him down again.

‘You'd only tucked the blankets in properly one side,' he said faintly. He lay, eyes closed, looking rather white. ‘I can't take much more of this,' he said. His eyes, when he opened them again, looked so worried that Rosemary put her hand over one of his which clutched the slipping blanket. He didn't seem to mind.