Carbonel and Calidor (17 page)

‘Help!' said John. ‘Well, we shall just have to hope we can go faster than she can, and escape her that way.'

The bicycle bell rang again, and it sounded much nearer. Rosemary clapped the handle of the broom with her knees, and made encouraging noises with her tongue, and for a short time it increased its pace, only to sink back again to the original speed.

‘We must be a pretty heavy load for it,' said John. ‘I suppose it's only meant to carry one person really.'

‘The noise of the bell is getting louder and louder,' said Rosemary. ‘It must be quite near!'

‘There's a dark shape coming towards us through the mist!' said John, who was looking over his shoulder. And as he spoke, through the cloud behind them came a strange sight: young Mrs Witherspoon on her tricycle, crouched low over the handlebars and pedalling fast. Her black hair was down and streaming behind her. She was not aware of the flying broom and its three passengers, until she was nearly on top of them; then she braked so sharply that the tricycle reared and she had to stand up on the pedals. Then, adjusting her pace to theirs, as it righted itself, she drew alongside. Gullion, immovable as ever, was sitting in the basket in front.

‘Well! Well! Well!' she said, laughing heartily as she shook back her long hair. ‘If it isn't Dorothy Dibdin, actually
flying
on her broom! Though I see someone else is in control. You there in front! Why, if it isn't one of those deceitful children! And bless me, you are the other!' she went on, turning to John. ‘Collecting for Orphan Children indeed! Well, you won't get your two pennies from me, that's certain! So the rooks were right. They warned me that something strange was flying overhead. So did Gullion, and something hard hit me on the forehead.' (Miss Dibdin beamed at this.) ‘And so I came up to see what it was, and it's only you! And where are you off to?'

‘That's our affair,' said John shortly.

‘We have no intention of telling you!' said Miss Dibdin haughtily.

‘As if I care,' said Mrs Witherspoon, with a toss of her head. ‘But wherever it is, I think ... yes, I think, I shall stop you from going there!'

‘Whatever for?' asked Rosemary. ‘We simply must get to Fallowhithe!' John's warning ‘Shut up, Rosie!' was too late.

‘So that's where you want to go!' the young witch replied, with a mocking laugh. ‘What a pity you will never get there! I shall stop you, just to show the power of my magic!'

‘You can't stop us,' said Miss Dibdin. ‘The besom is our servant, not yours!'

‘But I can muddle and confuse it, so that it doesn't know north from south, or up from down! And I can bewitch your young friend in front who seems to be in control; she is twice the witch that you are, Dorothy Dibdin. I can see that with half an eye.'

‘Don't you dare touch Rosie!' shouted John. But Mrs Witherspoon only laughed.

‘Look out and hold tight,' whispered Miss Dibdin. ‘I don't know what she's up to, but be ready for anything!'

As she spoke the young witch bent over her handlebars. Pedalling hard and fast, with twinkling knees, she dived under the broom, came up the other side and circled over them, so low that they had to duck to avoid a blow from her high-heeled shoes. They barely had time to look up again before she skimmed under and over once more, this time from head to tail. Over and under she went again and again, and as she circled round and round, she chanted something, the words of which were blown away by the speed of her going.

‘Something is happening!' said Rosemary anxiously. ‘It feels as though she is twisting an invisible thread round my arms and legs ... Help! It's binding me to the broom ... I can scarcely move! And the broom won't do as it's told any longer! What shall I do!' she cried desperately.

The broom, which had been flying as straight as an arrow, was faltering uncertainly now, as though it had lost its bearings. Under cover of Mrs Witherspoon's mocking laughter, Miss Dibdin said: ‘Keep your heads down and listen to me. I've got an idea. You remember I told you, it is the bundle of twigs at the end of a broom that give it its power to fly?'

‘There's a bundle of twigs tied on to the back of the tricycle, where the saddle bag usually is, I noticed,' said John. ‘It's sticking out like a turkey's tail-feathers.'

‘Exactly,' said Miss Dibdin. ‘Every time the tricycle swoops under the broom, John, do your best to pull out a few twigs. When it comes up the other side, I shall to the same. Cheer up, Rosemary, I think it's going to work.
Now
, John!'

With a ‘whoosh' Mrs Witherspoon dived beneath them once more, and as she went, John bent over and snatched a couple of twigs. As it came up the other side, Miss Dibdin pulled out a few more. The broom had now lost all sense of direction, heading first in one direction, then in another. Round went the tricycle again. This time John managed to pull out several twigs and Miss Dibdin, in her turn, a considerable handful.

‘That's loosened them nicely. It's beginning to work!' said Miss Dibdin with a chuckle. Mrs Witherspoon stopped chanting. The tricycle had begun to slow down. Loosened from the band that held them by the removal of the first twigs, the others began to slip away of their own accord, and as they fell out of sight into the mist below, the tricycle went slower and slower, although Mrs Witherspoon pedalled faster and faster.

‘Whatever is the matter with you?' she said to the tricycle, as it began to flounder, like a bather in deep water who can't swim. The more it faltered, the more the broom began to pick up speed and purpose.

‘Matter?' called Miss Dibdin triumphantly. ‘Look behind you, Dulcie dear! Look at your twigs! It was as easy as plucking a chicken!' Mrs Witherspoon looked.

‘No! No! Not that!' she screamed. ‘My power is ebbing away!' And as the last twig fell, and disappeared into the greyness below, she threw up her hands, and the tricycle plummeted down and down out of sight into the thick blanket of mist.

‘Who is the winner now?' Miss Dibdin shouted after her, with a triumphant laugh. From far away, as though in defiance, came the faint ringing of the bicycle bell ... and then ... silence.

‘Rosie! Are you all right?' asked John anxiously. Rosemary nodded.

‘The minute Mrs Witherspoon stopped that chanting, my arms and legs seemed to become unbound again. But poor thing, do you think she's hurt?'

‘Witches, like cats, have nine lives. That's why they work together. She will survive, no doubt,' said Miss Dibdin coldly.

‘Oughtn't we to go down and see?' asked John.

‘You can't,' she replied. ‘You commanded the broom to go to Fallowhithe, and to Fallowhithe it will go. Nothing will stop it, except more powerful magic.'

As she spoke, the mist round them began to dissolve. It became thinner and thinner, until at last they sailed out into radiant sunshine.

‘Thank goodness!' said Rosemary. She looked down. ‘Why we're right over the motorway to Fallowhithe and flying lower!'

‘I say,' went on John. ‘Look at the roundabout down there!'

Just below them was a circle of green grass. Round it flowed what looked like an unending stream of traffic. In the middle of the roundabout, they could just see a pink blob, and the crumpled shape of what might once have been a tricycle. As they flew over, it looked as though the pink blob shook its fist at them.

‘But however will she get away from there, with traffic swirling round all the time?' asked John.

‘It will do her no harm to cool her heels for a little,' said Miss Dibdin drily. ‘Besides, it might keep her out of mischief.'

‘I say, we're nearly over Fallowhithe,' said Rosemary, when once more she looked ahead. ‘We must have gone at a terrific pace through that cloud after all.'

Instead of the patchwork of fields and trees over which they had been flying, there was a scatter of houses, with the green spaces dividing them growing narrower the further they flew, until at last the buildings closed their ranks, and the greyness of the roof-tops was only broken here and there by a small back garden.

‘How in the world can the broom find Calidor?' said John, as he looked down on the sea of buildings below.

‘It will,' said Miss Dibdin calmly. ‘I think it is searching already.'

They had began to lose height and speed, at the same time making a wide circle. Suddenly, without warning, the broom dropped, so quickly that its three passengers felt as though their insides were not quite keeping pace with their outsides. ‘Like going down in a lift,' as John said later. They just had time to see that there was an open space of some sort beneath them, then they landed, with a deafening clanking and clonking, on a knobbly, uneven surface. They all sat up, a little shakily, and looked anxiously around. They were in the middle of a hollow, in a great mound of rusty old tin cans.

‘No wonder we made such a racket when we landed!' said John. ‘Wherever are we?'

At once, a voice John and Rosemary both recognized answered: ‘Fallowhithe Rubbish Dump!'

‘Calidor!' shouted John and Rosemary.

‘John and Rosemary!' cried Calidor, with just as much pleasure. ‘What in the world brings you here? And Miss Dibdin too!'

He stepped delicately down from the pile of tins on which he had been sitting, and joined them in their hollow, purring loudly.

‘Oh, well done, broom!' whispered Rosemary. ‘Well done, and thank you!' And as she gave it a pat the stick gave a little wriggle, as though in acknowledgement, and then lay still. Miss Dibdin had risen to her feet, with some difficulty, and a clatter of tins.

‘First, I should like to pay my respects to Prince Calidor, and to apologize for any lack of respect I may have shown in the past, before I was aware ...' She held out the skirts of her coat, and was in the middle of a rather wobbly curtsey as she spoke, when the tins gave way beneath her and she sat down abruptly. ‘And if I can be of any assistance to your Highness, I shall be only too honoured!' she went on breathlessly.

Calidor bowed his head graciously in reply, but he gave John and Rosemary an inquiring glance, which Miss Dibdin noticed. She added drily: ‘Oh, it's all right. I have not the pleasure of hearing cats talk, so you can say what you like to John and Rosemary. Don't mind me.'

‘Then she knows who I am?' inquired Calidor. John nodded.

‘But you have given up witchery, haven't you?' said Rosemary.

‘Totally and absolutely,' replied Miss Dibdin firmly. ‘I merely came for the ride. I have given these children my broom.'

‘I got it to fly properly,' said Rosemary. ‘And we flew here to tell you we've found Carbonel!'

‘Found my father?' exclaimed Calidor. ‘Wonderful news! Where is he?'

‘At Tucket Towers,' said John. ‘Mrs Witherspoon wants him to be her witch's cat!' and of course he won't.'

‘My
father
a witch's cat!' said Calidor in an outraged voice.

‘So she has shut him up in the little room at the top of the tower until he changes his mind ...' said Rosemary.

‘With the Scrabbles to keep guard,' interrupted John.

‘Scrabbles?' queried Calidor.

‘Queer creatures with eyes back and front, and iron paws,' said Rosemary. ‘They sit in a ring round him day and night, in case he should try to escape.'

‘But that's not all,' went on John. ‘Mrs Witherspoon is getting fed up with waiting for Carbonel to change his mind, and she has told Grisana and Melissa ...'

‘That wicked pair!' interrupted Calidor with a hiss. His back was bristling and his tail twitched angrily.

‘She has told Grisana that if Carbonel has not consented to be her witch's cat by moonrise tonight, she can have him, to do with him what she likes!' said Rosemary. ‘And we heard Grisana tell Melissa that she would take Carbonel captive back to Broomhurst. And then
you
would come to rescue him, and they would be lying in wait, all ready to scrodge the two of you.'

Calidor's tail was no longer just twitching, it was lashing angrily, while he made curious growling, cat noises in his throat: ‘How dare they! How dare they!' he hissed.

‘Melissa pretends she doesn't mind that you won't marry her, but she is furious really,' said Rosemary.

‘If only Mattins had held his tongue!' went on Calidor.

‘He did it because when Mrs Witherspoon found Carbonel, she didn't want him for her witch's cat any more,' said Rosemary.

‘And because you didn't trust him enough to tell him who you really were,' said John. ‘But he's sorry now. Mrs Witherspoon punished him because he told Grisana about Carbonel, without her permission. She plaited his whiskers. And once she said she would plait Carbonel's, if he wouldn't do what she wanted.'

‘What!' said Calidor, rising to his four paws. ‘Plait my father's whiskers? Never! Now listen to me! Grisana thinks that I shall go to his rescue ... and she is right. But not when she expects it! I shan't wait till he has been taken prisoner to Broomhurst. You say we have till moonrise tonight before Mrs Witherspoon plans to hand Carbonel over to Grisana?'