The Wind on the Moon (6 page)

‘I never did and I never shall!' cried Mrs. Taper, but no one paid any attention to her.

‘I shall say nothing, however,' proceeded the Judge, ‘to influence you in any way. The responsibility is yours. You have five minutes, ladies and gentlemen, five minutes and not a second more!'

The Judge took out his watch and laid it on the desk in front of him. Dr. Fosfar, who was sometimes absent-minded, put his glass eye in his waistcoat pocket and a piece of india-rubber where his eye should have been, and said to the Jury, ‘Now I'm going to ask each one of you in turn whether you think poor Mrs. Taper is Guilty or Not Guilty, and I shall write down your answers on this piece of paper. Now you, Mr. Leathercow: what is your opinion?'

‘Not Guilty,' said Mr. Leathercow.

‘Guilty,' said Mrs. Leathercow.

‘Guilty,' said Mrs. Fullalove.

‘Not Guilty,' said Mr. Fullalove.

‘Not Guilty,' said Mr. Crumb.

‘Guilty,' said Mrs. Crumb.

‘Guilty,' said Mrs. Wax.

‘Guilty,' said Mrs. Horrabin.

‘Not Guilty,' said Mr. Whitloe.

‘Guilty,' said Mrs. Steeple.

‘Not Guilty,' said Mr. Casimir Corvo.

‘And I,' said Dr. Fosfar, ‘also say Not Guilty. Now if we add up the Guiltys and the Not Guiltys, we shall quickly discover which side has won.'

But a moment later he exclaimed, ‘How very awkward! Six of us think she is Guilty, and six of us believe she is Not Guilty! Therefore neither side has won, and so we cannot deliver a verdict. I'm afraid the Judge is going to be rather angry about that.'

The Judge was.

‘I insist on having a verdict!' he shouted. ‘And you, sir!'—he meant Dr. Fosfar—‘take that piece of india-rubber out of your eye!'

‘Why?' asked Dr. Fosfar. ‘It's much more comfortable than my glass eye.'

‘Never mind why, do what I tell you. And I'll give your wretched Jury one more minute!'

But the Jury, of course, had all made up their minds a long time ago, and nothing could now change them. All the men were quite sure that Mrs. Taper was Not Guilty, because they were all sorry for her. And all the women were equally sure that she was Guilty, and ought to go to prison, because it was disgraceful, they thought, that a draper's wife, who could get stockings out of the shop without paying anything, should go about the country trying to steal them. So Dr. Fosfar had to give it up, and tell the Judge they would not agree, and therefore could not deliver a verdict.

‘Then,' shouted the Judge in a mighty temper, ‘I shall send you
all
to prison! What for? For Contempt of Court, sir! Six months in prison for the lot of you! That'll teach you to be sensible, and give me a verdict when I ask for one. Put the handcuffs on them, Constable Drum, and march 'em off. And as for Mrs. Taper, I remand her in custody, so she'll have to go to prison too. Off with the lot of them!'

The Members of the Jury were completely dismayed by this dreadful sentence, but before they could think of anything to say, Constable Drum had handcuffed them together, two by two, and was marching them away.

A large crowd of people were waiting outside. There were those who had been expelled from the court, and a lot of others who hadn't been able to get in. They were very much surprised, and many were indignant, when they saw the Jury all handcuffed together, and heard what was about to happen to them. There was a great deal of shouting and excitement, and Constable Drum looked rather worried. Everybody was trying to get closer and closer to the poor Jurymen and Jurywomen, to shake hands and offer them sympathy, and the Constable feared that half his prisoners would get lost in the crowd.

Then the Rev. Mr. Steeple, the Vicar, did a noble thing. Though his own wife was in handcuffs and on her way to prison, he climbed on to a cart, and from this commanding position he declared in a loud voice: ‘My dear people! It is very sad for us to see so many of our friends being taken from us, but we must be patient! We must not be cast down. We must remind ourselves of the many blessings that still remain to us. Let us be cheerful, let us face the future with brave hearts. And I think it would be a good idea to sing a song that we all know, which happens to suit the occasion very well indeed.'

So then, in a fine loud voice, the Vicar began to sing:

Before long the whole crowd was singing, and when that song was finished, they sang, with much feeling,
My Bonny Lies Over the Ocean
.

Then Constable Drum said that his prisoners would have to hurry, because in prison they always had dinner at twelve o'clock, and if they were late they wouldn't get any. So the Jurymen and Jurywomen, and Mrs. Taper too, set off at a great pace, their handcuffs clinking and clanking, and all the other people, in two big columns, marched on either side of them.

But scarcely had they gone a hundred yards when they were brought to a halt by the most extraordinary sight. Coming up the street towards them, leaping high in the air and going twenty feet at a time, were two large grey kangaroos!

Dorinda had been the first to wake that morning. She had dreamt that she was already a kangaroo, and she was disappointed to find herself still in human shape. She began to imagine, or try to imagine, what it would feel like to be enclosed in a furry hide, and to lean backwards, as if in a chair, against the support of a long strong tail. And from that position she would also be able to leap the length of quite a long room. Kangaroos were very lucky in some ways.

She slipped out of bed to practise a jumping position, and at that moment Dinah got quietly out of her bed with the same idea in her head. For she too, as soon as she woke, had started to think about the new experiences that were awaiting her. So she and Dorinda both began to practise kangaroo jumps on the bedroom floor, but found it difficult without tails to help them. They had to wait, it seemed, a very long time before breakfast was ready.

Then, as soon as they could get away, they left the house and ran without stopping to the nearest part of the Forest of Weal. That, they had decided, was the best place in which to drink the magic draught, because they did not want, of course, to turn into kangaroos in the nursery, where they might frighten their mother. And it might be difficult, added Dinah, to get downstairs. She did not think that kangaroos were very good on stairs.

So they hurried to the Forest, carrying the little box of plaited grass with Mrs. Grimble's medicine in it, and two small bundles that held all the things they wanted to take with them. When they came to a suitable place, they stopped and looked all around to make sure there was no one within sight. Then they opened the grass box, and read the directions on the bottle. This is what Mrs. Grimble had written on the label:

‘This is a solemn moment,' said Dinah, as she began to take off her shoes.

‘Very solemn,' said Dorinda. ‘I'm glad it's a warm day.'

‘There's a hole in that oak-tree,' said Dinah. ‘We can put our clothes away there.'

They packed their clothes into the hole in the oak-tree, and shook the bottle for the second time. There were just four doses in it, and Dinah had remembered to bring a tablespoon. She gave Dorinda the first dose, and quickly took her own.

They packed their clothes into the oak-tree

‘Oh!' cried Dorinda, turning quite pale.

‘I have never in all my life tasted anything so horrible,' said Dinah. But she put the cork back in the bottle, and in a firm voice said to Dorinda, ‘Now we must take a little walk. You go that way, and I'll go this.'

She wanted to be alone, because she thought she was going to be sick. But in a little while she felt much better, and curiously strong. She felt far stronger than she had ever been, or ever dreamt of being, and never, she thought, had all the leaves and the grass looked so nice. She put a few leaves in her mouth and chewed them, and to her surprise they tasted rather like bread-and-honey. Then, seeing a bush in front of her, she jumped over it, and thought: Well, I've never been able to jump as high as that before!

But then she got a terrible fright, because a few yards away she saw a wild animal. A tall grey kangaroo!

Her heart nearly stopped beating, for she had never expected to meet a real kangaroo, and she was just going to turn and run away as fast as she could when she remembered Dorinda. She must warn Dorinda.

So as loud as she could she shouted, ‘Dorinda, Dorinda! Take care, there's a kangaroo in the Forest!'

Her voice sounded curiously unlike anything she had heard before, but that, she supposed, was due to the fright she had had.

The kangaroo, it seemed, had also been on the point of running away. But it stopped when it heard Dinah, and then Dinah heard Dorinda's voice. At least, she supposed it was Dorinda's voice, though it wasn't like her ordinary voice, because it said: ‘Dinah, Dinah! Take care, I can see a kangaroo!'

And the voice, which was Dorinda's, came from the kangaroo of which Dinah had been frightened. The kangaroo
was
Dorinda!

And Dinah, feeling rather hot and quite embarrassed, looked down at her own great legs, and over her shoulder at her long powerful tail, and realised that she too had become a kangaroo, and that she had made Dorinda equally frightened. The medicine had worked!

‘Oh, Dorinda!' she exclaimed.

‘Oh, Dinah!' said Dorinda.

‘I got such a fright when I saw you,' said Dinah.

‘So did I when I saw you,' said Dorinda.

‘We certainly look exactly like real kangaroos,' said Dinah.

‘Mrs. Grimble must be a very good sort of witch,' said Dorinda.

‘I think it will be nice when we get used to it,' said Dinah. ‘I've done one or two marvellous jumps already.'

‘But it does feel strange to begin with,' said Dorinda.

In a few minutes, however, they felt perfectly at home in their new shape, and greatly pleased with themselves. They practised long jumping and standing on their tails, and found that their arms, though quite small in comparison with their great legs, were very useful. Almost as useful, indeed, as human arms and hands.

After practising running for about half an hour, they decided to go to the village. But first of all they returned to the place where they had drunk the magic draught, and carefully packed in their pouches the things they had brought from home.

Dinah had taken a note-book and a pencil and a rubber; two pocket-handkerchiefs and a toothbrush; the key of the back door and a slab of chocolate. She put them all into her pouch, and also the bottle of medicine and the tablespoon.

Dorinda had taken some milk chocolate and her new watch; a tooth-brush and a comb and a pencil-sharpener and a book called
Wild Life in Borneo
, which she thought might be useful, but it was too big to go into her pouch, and had to be left behind. She had forgotten to bring a handkerchief, but Dinah said she would lend her one if she needed it.

Then they set off for the village.

‘Now for revenge!' said Dinah.

‘Revenge!' said Dorinda, and jumped across a hedge and back again.

In the outer streets of the village they saw no one at all. The streets were deserted because everyone was waiting outside the Police Court to hear the result of the trial of Mrs. Taper. Not a soul was to be seen till they came into Elm Lane, and there, approaching them, was a great procession of people. All the people, indeed, who were escorting the Members of the Jury to Midmeddlecum Gaol. They were singing a very fine French song which the Vicar had taught them only a few weeks before. It was called
Avec mes Sabots
.

Seeing so many people all at once, and hearing such a great noise of singing, Dinah and Dorinda became slightly nervous, and stopped for a moment. It needed, they felt, a lot of courage to charge the whole population of Midmeddlecum. They had not expected to see them all together like this.

But the people of Midmeddlecum, seeing two tall grey kangaroos coming towards them, were far more frightened than Dinah and Dorinda. They also stopped, and their fine song died away.