Magic Faraway Tree (3 page)

 

   
"Good-bye, Jo," she said. "Don't be too unhappy. Pretend you are
a bat-they always sleep upside down, you know, and don't mind a bit! Come on,
Dick-we're going down the slippery-slip!"
Dick was excited. He took the red cushion that Moon-Face gave him and sat himself
at the top of the slide. Bessie gave him a push.

 

   
And off he went, round and round the inside of the enormous Faraway Tree, sitting
safely on his cushion. What a way to get down a tree!
4-The Land of Spells
Dick shot round down the inside of the Faraway Tree on his cushion. He came to
the bottom. He shot out of the trap-door there, and landed on the soft green moss.
He sat there for a moment, out of breath.

 

   
"That's the loveliest slide I've ever had!" he thought to himself. "O-o-oh
-wouldn't I like to do that again!"
He had just got up from the moss when the trap-door at the bottom of the tree
opened once again, and Fanny shot out on a yellow cushion. Then came Bessie, giggling,
for she always thought it was a huge joke to slide down inside the tree like that.

 

   
"What do we do with the cushions?" asked Dick. "Does Moon-Face
want them back?"
"Yes, he does," said Fanny, picking them up. "The red squirrel
always collects them and sends them back to him."
As she spoke, a red squirrel, dressed in a jersey, popped out of a hole in the
trunk.

 

   
"Here are the cushions," said Fanny, and the squirrel took them. He
looked up into the tree, and a rope came swinging down.

 

   
"Moon-Face always lets it down for his cushions," said Bessie. Dick
watched the squirrel tie the three cushions to the rope end. Then he gave three
gentle tugs at the rope, and at once the
rope was pulled up, and the cushions went swinging up the tree to Moon-Face.

 

   
"I wish Jo was with us," said Dick, as they all went home. "Do
you suppose Aunt Polly will be worried about him?"
"Well, we'll have to tell Mother," said Fanny. "She is sure to
ask where he is."
Mother did ask, of course, and the girls told her what had happened.

 

   
"I find all this very difficult to believe," said Mother, astonished.
"I think Jo is just spending the night with Moon-Face for a treat. Well,
he certainly must come back to-morrow, for there is work for him to do."
Nobody said any more. The girls and Dick felt very tired, and after some hot cocoa
and potatoes cooked in their jackets for supper, they all went to bed Bessie wondered
how Jo was getting on at Moon-Face's.

 

   
He was getting on all right, though he was very tired of being upside down. It
didn't matter how hard he tried to get the right way up, he always swung back
topsy-turvy again. The policeman had put a very strong spell on him!
"You had better try to sleep in my bed," said Moon-Face. "I'll
sleep on my sofa."
"I suppose I'll have to stand on my head all night," said poor Jo. And
that's just what he did have to do. It was most uncomfortable.

 

   
Once he lost his balance when he was asleep, and tipped off the bed. He almost
fell down the slippery-slip, but Moon-Face, who was awake,
reached out a hand and caught his leg just in time.

 

   
"Gracious!" said Moon-Face. "Don't go doing things like this in
the middle of the night, Jo. It's most upsetting."
"Well, how can I help it?" said Jo.

 

   
"I'll tie your feet to a nail on my wall," said Moon-Face. "Then
you can't topple over when you are asleep."
So he did that, and Jo didn't fall down any more. When morning came he was most
astonished to find himself upside-down, for at first he didn't remember what had
happened.

 

   
"I'll just peep up through the hole in the cloud and see if by any chance
the Land of Spells is there yet," said Moon-Face. "If it is, we'll go
up and see what we can do for you."
So off he went up the little ladder and popped his head out of the hole in the
cloud to see if the Land of Topsy-Turvy was still there, or if it had gone.

 

   
There was nothing there at all-only just the big white cloud, moving about like
a thick mist. Moon-Face slipped down the ladder again.

 

   
"Topsy-Turvy has gone, but the next land hasn't come yet," he said.
"We'll have breakfast and then I'll look again. Hallo -here's Silky. Stay
and have breakfast, Silky darling."
"I came up to see how Jo was," said Silky. "Yes, I'd love to have
breakfast. It's funny to watch Jo eating upside down. Hasn't the Land of Spells
come yet?"
"Not yet," said Moon-Face, putting a kettle on
his stove to boil. "There's nothing there at all. But Topsy-Turvy is gone,
thank goodness!"
They all had breakfast. Moon-Face cooked some porridge. "What do you want
on your porridge?" he asked Jo. "Treacle-sugar-cream?"
Jo couldn't see any treacle, sugar or cream on the table. "Treacle,"
he said, "please, Moon-Face." Moon-Face handed him a small jug that
seemed to be quite empty.

 

   
"Treacle!" he said to the jug in a firm voice. And treacle came pouring
out as soon as Jo tipped up the jug. Silky wanted cream-and cream came out when
Moon-Face said "Cream!" to the jug. It was great fun.

 

   
Moon-Face went again to see if the Land of Spells had come. This time he came
back excited.

 

   
"It's there!" he said. "Come on! I'd better take some money with
me, I think, in case we have to buy the spell we want."
He took a big purse down from a shelf, and then he and Silky helped Jo to walk
upside down up the branch that led through the hole in the cloud to the little
ladder. Up he went with great difficulty, holding on tightly to the rungs of the
ladder with his hands. At last he was up in the Land of Spells.

 

   
This land was like a big market-place. In it were all kinds of curious little
shops and stalls. All kinds of people sold spells. In some of the shops sat tall
wizards, famous for magic. In some of them were green-eyed witches, making spells
as fast as they could. Outside, in the marketplace, sat all kinds of fairy folk
at their stalls-pixies, gnomes, goblins, elves-all crying their wares at the tops
of their high voices.

 

   
"Spell to make a crooked nose straight!" cried one pixie, rattling a
yellow box in which were magic pills.

 

   
"Spell to grow blue daffodils!" cried a gnome, showing a bottle of blue
juice.

 

   
"Spell to make cats sing!" cried another gnome. Jo could hardly believe
his ears. How queer! Who would want to make cats sing?

 

   
"Now, we must just see if we can possibly find a spell to make you stand
up straight again," said Moon-Face, and he went into a little low shop in
which sat a strange goblin.

 

   
The goblin had blue, pointed ears, and his eyes sparkled as if they had fireworks
in them.

 

   
"I want a spell," said Moon-Face.

 

   
"What for?" asked the goblin. "I've a spell for everything under
the sun in my shop! Very powerful spells too, some of them. Would you like a spell
to send you travelling straight off to the moon?"
"Oh, no, thank you," said Moon-Face at once. "I know I look like
the man in the moon, with my big round face-but I'm nothing at all to do with
the moon really."
"Well, would you like a spell to make you as tall as a giant?" said
the goblin, picking up a box and opening it. He showed Moon-Face a large blue
pill inside. "Now, take that pill, and you'll shoot up as high as a house!
You'll feel fine. It only costs one piece of gold."
"No, thank you," said Moon-Face. "If I grew as big as that I'd
never get down the hole in the cloud back to the Faraway Tree. And if I did, I'd
never be able to get in at the door of my tree-house. I don't want silly spells
like that."
"Silly!" cried the goblin, in a rage. "You call my marvellous spells
silly! Another word from you, stupid old Round-Face, and I'll use a spell that
will turn you into a big bouncing ball!"
Silky pulled Moon-Face out of the shop quickly. She was quite white. "Moon-Face,
you know you shouldn't make these people cross," she whispered. "Why,
you may find yourself nothing but a bouncing ball, or a black beetle, or something,
if you are rude to them. For goodness' sake, let me ask for the spell we want.
Look-here's a bigger shop -with a nice-looking witch inside."
They all went in. The witch was knitting stockings from the green smoke that came
from her fire. It was marvellous to watch her. Jo wished he wasn't upside-down
so that he might see her properly.

 

   
"Good morning," said the witch. "Do you want a spell?"
"Yes, please," said Silky in her most polite voice. "We want to
make our friend Jo come the right way up again."
"That's easy," said the witch, her green eyes looking in a kindly way
at poor Jo. "I've only got to rub a Walking-Spell on to the soles of his
feet and he will be all right. The Walking-Spell will make his feet want to walk-and
he will have to
stand up the right way to walk on them-so he will be cured. Come here, boy!"
Jo walked over to the witch on his hands. She took down a jar from a shelf and
opened it. It was full of purple ointment. The witch rubbed some on to the soles
of Jo's shoes.

 

   
"Rimminy-Romminy-Reet, Stand on your own two feet! Rimminy-Romminy-Ro, The
right way up you must go!"
And, of course, you can guess what happened! Jo swung right over, stood on his
two feet again, and there he was, as upright as Moon-Face and Silky. Wasn't he
glad!
5-Saucepan Makes a Muddle.

 

   
Jo, Silky and Moon-Face were so very pleased that Jo was the right way up again.

 

   
"It feels funny," said Jo. "I feel quite giddy the right way up
after standing upside-down for so long. Thank you, witch. How much is the spell?"
"One piece of gold," said the witch. Moon-Face put his hand into his
large purse. He brought out a piece of gold. The witch threw it into the fire,
and at once bright golden smoke came out. She took up her knitting-needles and
began to knit the
yellow smoke into the stockings she was making.

 

   
"I wanted a yellow pattern," she said, pleased. "Your piece of
gold came just at the right moment."
"Golly, this is a very magic land, isn't it?" said Jo, as the three
of them walked out of the queer shop. "Fancy knitting stockings out of smoke!
Don't let's go home yet, Moon-Face. I want to see a few more things."
"All right," said Moon-Face, who wanted to explore a bit, too. "Come
on. I say, look at the gnome who is selling a spell to make cats sing! Somebody
has brought his cat to him-I wonder if the spell will really work!"
The servant of a witch had brought along a big black cat. He handed the gnome
two silver pieces of money. The gnome took the cat on his knee. He opened its
mouth and looked down it. Then he took a silver whistle and blew a tune softly
down the cat's pink throat. The cat swallowed once or twice and then jumped off
the gnome's knee.

 

   
"Will it sing now?" asked the witch's servant. "I daren't go back
to my mistress unless it does."
"It will sing whenever you pull its tail," said the gnome, turning to
another customer.

 

   
The witch's servant went off with the cat following behind. Jo took hold of Moon-Face's
arm and whispered to him:
"I'm going to pull the cat's tail. I do SO want to hear if it really will
sing!"
Moon-Face and Silky wanted to as well. They giggled to see Jo running softly after
the big black cat. He took hold of its tail. He gave it a gentle pull.

 

   
And then, oh, what a peculiar thing! The cat stopped, lifted up its head, and
sang in a very deep man's voice:
"Oh, once my whiskers grew so long I had to have a shave! The barber said:
'It's not the way for whiskers to behave, If you're not careful, my dear cat,
They'll grow into a beard, And then a billy-goat you'll be, Or something very
weird!'
"Oh, once my tail became so short It hadn't got a wag, The grocer said .
. ."
But what the grocer said about the cat's short tail nobody ever knew. The servant
of the witch turned round in surprise when he heard the cat singing, for he knew
that he hadn't pulled the cat's tail. He saw Jo and the others grinning away near
by, and he was very angry.

 

   
"How dare you use up the car's singing!" he cried. "You wait till
I tell the witch. She'll be after you. And you won't sing if she catches you!"
"Quick! Run!" said Moon-Face. "If he does fetch the witch we'll
get into trouble."
So they ran away fast, and were soon out of
sight of the cat and the servant. They sank down under a tree, laughing.

 

   
"Oh, dear! That cat did sing a funny song!" said Jo, wiping his eyes.
"And what a lovely deep voice it had. Do you suppose its whiskers really
did grow very long?"
Just then the three heard a loud noise coming along: "Clankily-clank, rattle,
bang, crash!"
"The Saucepan Man!" they all cried. "He's come up here, too!"
And sure enough, it was old Saucepan, grinning all over his funny face. He had
so many kettles and saucepans on that day that nothing could be seen of him except
his face and his feet.

 

   
"Hallo, hallo!" he said. "I guessed you were up here. Been having
fun?"
"Yes," said Jo. "I'm all right again-look! It's so nice to walk
the proper way up again. And oh, Saucepan, we've just heard a cat sing!"
Saucepan actually heard what Joe said but he couldn't believe that he had heard
right, so he put his hand behind his ear and said, "What did you say? I thought
you said you'd heard a cat sing -but I heard wrong, I know."
"No, you heard right," said Moon-Face. "We did hear a cat sing!"
"Let's go and explore a bit more," said Jo. So up they got and off they
went.

 

   
A witch was selling a spell to make ordinary broomsticks fly through the air.
The four watched in amazement as they saw her rubbing a pink ointment on to a
broomhandle belonging to an elf.
"Now get on it, say 'Whizz away!' and you can fly home," said the witch.
The elf got astride the broomstick, a smile on her pretty face.