The Enchanted Castle, E. Nesbit [books to read fiction .txt] 📗

“There’s tea,” said Gerald, who had had no dinner.

“That’s just what there isn’t,” said Jimmy, who had had none either.

“Oh, you won’t desert me!” said Mabel. “Look here⁠—I’ll write to auntie. She’ll give you the things for a picnic, if she’s there and awake. If she isn’t, one of the maids will.”

So she wrote on a leaf of Gerald’s invaluable pocketbook:

Dearest Auntie,

Please may we have some things for a picnic? Gerald will bring them. I would come myself, but I am a little tired. I think I have been growing rather fast.

Your loving niece,

Mabel

P.S.⁠—Lots, please, because some of us are very hungry.

It was found difficult, but possible, for Mabel to creep along the tunnel in the yew-hedge. Possible, but slow, so that the three had hardly had time to settle themselves among the rhododendrons and to wonder bitterly what on earth Gerald was up to, to be such a time gone, when he returned, panting under the weight of a covered basket. He dumped it down on the fine grass carpet, groaned, and added, “But it’s worth it. Where’s our Mabel?”

The long, pale face of Mabel peered out from rhododendron leaves, very near the ground.

“I look just like anybody else like this, don’t I?” she asked anxiously; “all the rest of me’s miles away, under different bushes.”

“We’ve covered up the bits between the bushes with bracken and leaves,” said Kathleen, avoiding the question; “don’t wriggle, Mabel, or you’ll waggle them off.”

Jimmy was eagerly unpacking the basket. It was a generous tea. A long loaf, butter in a cabbage-leaf, a bottle of milk, a bottle of water, cake, and large, smooth, yellow gooseberries in a box that had once held an extra-sized bottle of somebody’s matchless something for the hair and moustache. Mabel cautiously advanced her incredible arms from the rhododendron and leaned on one of her spindly elbows, Gerald cut bread and butter, while Kathleen obligingly ran round, at Mabel’s request, to see that the green coverings had not dropped from any of the remoter parts of Mabel’s person. Then there was a happy, hungry silence, broken only by those brief, impassioned suggestions natural to such an occasion:

“More cake, please.”

“Milk ahoy, there.”

“Chuck us the goosegogs.”

Everyone grew calmer⁠—more contented with their lot. A pleasant feeling, half tiredness and half restfulness, crept to the extremities of the party. Even the unfortunate Mabel was conscious of it in her remote feet, that lay crossed under the third rhododendron to the north-north-west of the tea-party. Gerald did but voice the feelings of the others when he said, not without regret:

“Well, I’m a new man, but I couldn’t eat so much as another goosegog if you paid me.”

“I could,” said Mabel; “yes, I know they’re all gone, and I’ve had my share. But I could. It’s me being so long, I suppose.”

A delicious after-food peace filled the summer air. At a little distance the green-lichened grey of the vast stone dinosaurus showed through the shrubs. He, too, seemed peaceful and happy. Gerald caught his stone eye through a gap in the foliage. His glance seemed somehow sympathetic.

“I dare say he liked a good meal in his day,” said Gerald, stretching luxuriously.

“Who did?”

“The dino what’s-his-name,” said Gerald.

“He had a meal today,” said Kathleen, and giggled.

“Yes⁠—didn’t he?” said Mabel, giggling also.

“You mustn’t laugh lower than your chest,” said Kathleen anxiously, “or your green stuff will joggle off.”

“What do you mean⁠—a meal?” Jimmy asked suspiciously. “What are you sniggering about?”

“He had a meal. Things to put in his inside,” said Kathleen, still giggling.

“Oh, be funny if you want to,” said Jimmy, suddenly cross. “We don’t want to know⁠—do we, Jerry?”

“I do,” said Gerald witheringly; “I’m dying to know. Wake me, you girls, when you’ve finished pretending you’re not going to tell.”

He tilted his hat over his eyes, and lay back in the attitude of slumber.

“Oh, don’t be stupid!” said Kathleen hastily. “It’s only that we fed the dinosaurus through the hole in his stomach with the clothes the Ugly-Wuglies were made of!”

“We can take them home with us, then,” said Gerald, chewing the white end of a grass stalk, “so that’s all right.”

“Look here,” said Kathleen suddenly; “I’ve got an idea. Let me have the ring a bit. I won’t say what the idea is, in case it doesn’t come off, and then you’d say I was silly. I’ll give it back before we go.”

“Oh, but you aren’t going yet!” said Mabel, pleading. She pulled off the ring. “Of course,” she added earnestly, “I’m only too glad for you to try any idea, however silly it is.”

Now, Kathleen’s idea was quite simple. It was only that perhaps the ring would change its powers if someone else renamed it⁠—someone who was not under the power of its enchantment. So the moment it had passed from the long, pale hand of Mabel to one of her own fat, warm, red paws, she jumped up, crying, “Let’s go and empty the dinosaurus now,” and started to run swiftly towards that prehistoric monster. She had a good start. She wanted to say aloud, yet so that the others could not hear her, “This is a wishing-ring. It gives you any wish you choose.” And she did say it. And no one heard her, except the birds and a squirrel or two, and perhaps a stone faun, whose pretty face seemed to turn a laughing look on her as she raced past its pedestal.

The way was uphill; it was sunny, and Kathleen had run her hardest, though her brothers caught her up before she reached the great black shadow of the dinosaurus. So that when she did reach that shadow she was very hot indeed and not in any state to decide calmly on the best wish to ask for.

“I’ll get up and move the things down, because I know exactly where I put them,” she said.

Gerald made a back, Jimmy assisted her to climb up, and she disappeared through the hole into the dark