Jasper and the Green Marvel (3 page)

7 Rags and Bags Go Exploring

Rags and Bags climbed on to the table that stood conveniently near to the dumb-waiter, and Bags pushed the button on the wall. They were afraid that the loud
PING!
it made might wake Jasper but he went on snoring as the metal doors opened. Rags hopped in and then Bags pushed the button again. He just about managed to jump nimbly into the
dumb-waiter
beside Rags before the doors closed, almost nipping his tail.

Down, down, down went the dumb-waiter. ‘Hang on,’ Rags said suddenly. ‘What if we need someone on the outside to push the button
to let us out? What if we get stuck in here?’ It was a terrible thought. They imagined having to stay there all night until Mrs Knuttmegg opened the dumb-waiter in the morning to send Jasper up his breakfast. Then they would really be in trouble – big trouble.

It was an enormous relief therefore when the dumb-waiter came to a stop and the doors opened immediately. The two rats scampered out into a silent and deserted kitchen, where a single small lamp burned. What a delightful place it was! The heat of the stove made it cosy and snug and the air was full of delicious smells which the rats couldn’t recognise, but which made their mouths water.

On the kitchen table there was a pile of cherry scones on a plate left over from that morning, but unfortunately for Rags and Bags they were covered with a heavy glass dome. Try as the two rats might, they couldn’t get it shifted. They pushed hard and then they pulled even harder. They wound their tails around the
knob on top of the dome and tried to drag the thing over but it wouldn’t budge. It was really irritating because they so wanted to get at the scones. When they finally gave up they felt foolish to realise that sitting beside them, uncovered and there for the taking, was a bowl of stewed apples that they hadn’t even noticed.

It took no time at all to eat every last little scrap of the apples, which were exceptionally tasty. Mrs Knuttmegg, who was an excellent cook, had added cinnamon and cloves and even a handful of raisins. Never could the rats have imagined that anything could be so delicious. It more than made up for not being able to get at the scones. When the bowl was empty they looked around, but there was nothing else to eat. No matter: their bellies were full and they were happy. ‘Come on!’ Bags said. ‘Let’s go and see what the rest of this house is like.’

There were two doors, one at each end of the kitchen. They knew that one opened on to the wooden staircase that led back up to
Jasper’s room and they didn’t want that, and so they slipped through the other door. There was a long corridor, a flight of steps going up and then another door and then behind that …

What wonders met their eyes!
Haverford-Snuffley
Hall dazzled the two rats. They tiptoed down corridors where their feet sank deep into soft carpet, right up to their tummies. They crossed wooden floors so highly polished that they could see their own faces reflected back to them. High above them on the walls were beautiful paintings in golden frames, and the walls themselves were covered in silk, yellow and green and pale blue. In prison everything had been ugly and grey; here even the least little thing was special and bright.

They must have spent hours going from room to room, until at last they ended up in the front hall of the house, where there was a huge mirror and a curved, sweeping staircase made of white wood. They were just beginning to think that perhaps they should make their
way back to Jasper’s room and climb into their socks again when suddenly, just above their heads, someone spoke.

‘Who are you?’ asked a little voice.

8 Nelly

It was the tiny bat that usually hung from the feather on Mrs Haverford-Snuffley’s hat, but tonight it was hanging from the edge of a small table. It was upside down and was still wearing its own little bonnet, tied under its chin with a green ribbon.

‘Hello!’ Bags cried. ‘What’s your name then?’

‘Nelly,’ said the bat, and then it said again, ‘Who are you?’

‘That’s for us to know and for you to wonder,’ Rags said. ‘Snooky-ookums! Mummy’s little batty-watty! What are you doing here anyway?’

‘I’m going home,’ the bat said in a sulky voice.

‘What d’you mean, home? Don’t you live here?’ But before the bat could explain to Rags, Bags had jumped up and pulled Nelly’s bonnet off.

‘Stop that! That’s not fair!’ she cried, as the rat put the bonnet on its own head, letting the ribbons dangle. ‘I’m telling! Give it back to me!’

‘Diddy-widdy-snooky-wooky! Mummy’s
baby-waby
!
I’m telling
!
Give it back to me
!’ And Bags teased the bat, imitating it in a high, silly voice while Rags cackled with nasty laughter.

‘Give me my bonnet! I am going to tell on you!’ Nelly was struggling hard not to cry, as the rats took it in turn to try on her hat. They minced up and down the tiled floor of the hall, sniggering together and mocking her. When they were fed up with that, they threw the bonnet back. Nelly caught it and tied it on to her head immediately.

‘Who are you going to tell?’ they sneered.

‘Wouldn’t you like to know?’ Nelly replied coldly and there was something in her tone as
she said it that worried them slightly.

‘Mrs Haverford-Snuffley?’ they asked and she shook her head.

‘Who, then?’ But she didn’t reply, and said instead, ‘You’ll be sorry you did this. REALLY sorry.’ And then Nelly did something that absolutely astonished them.

She flew away!

Strange as it may seem, the rats hadn’t even noticed until then that Nelly had wings. When she was hanging from Mrs Haverford-Snuffley’s hat she always kept them neatly folded against her sides, and so it was a tremendous shock to them when she took off into juddering flight from the edge of the table. She flew high up and circled the chandelier twice on her wide, ribbed black wings, then cried again, ‘You’ll be really sorry! I am going to tell!’ before disappearing off up the hallway, into the darkness of the sleeping house.

The two rats stared after her. What a night! And now it was almost over, because through
the hall window they could see the first faint traces of dawn in the sky. ‘We’d better get back to the room before Jasper wakes up.’

It was easier said than done. They had wandered all over the house in the course of the night and although they thought they knew the way back, they quickly got lost. They trudged up and down for ages, arguing, blaming each other, both tired by now and beginning to get hungry again. It was a great relief when they finally found Jasper’s room. He was still snoring loudly in his brass bed as they crept back into their sock sleeping-bags, ready to nod off themselves, for they were worn out after all their adventures.

But to their dismay no sooner had they put their heads on the rolled-up vest and were about to drift off when Jasper’s alarm clock went off with a loud jangle of bells. Oh no!

‘Morning, lads! Shake a leg! Wakey-wakey!’

9 The Green Marvel

As Jasper was leaving the house to begin his first day’s work, he bumped into Mrs Knuttmegg at the bottom of the wooden stairs, and she glared at him.

‘Hungry during the night then, were you?’ she barked.

‘Yes, I was actually,’ Jasper replied. The dinner she had sent up to him the previous evening hadn’t been as mean and mingy as the scones, but it hadn’t been a particularly generous helping either. ‘I was very hungry indeed.’

Mrs Knuttmegg seemed astonished by this. ‘Well, you’re a cheeky fellow and no mistake.’
And then she announced, for no reason that Jasper could see, ‘There’s nothing Mrs Haverford-Snuffley likes more for her breakfast than stewed apples with cloves, cinnamon and raisins.’

‘Then why don’t you cook some for her?’ Jasper said. ‘That’s your job, isn’t it?’

‘You pup!’ she cried. ‘You cheeky pup! I’ll let you away with it this time but you watch yourself, mister, because I’ll be watching you. You mind your step.’ And she stumped off back to her kitchen.

Let me away with it this time? Jasper wondered. Let me away with what? I haven’t done anything. And that talk about stewed apples, what was that all about? The woman’s clearly mad as well as nasty.

He went out into the sunny garden to start work. Mrs Haverford-Snuffley had suggested he begin by cutting the lawn, which he thought would be easy enough. And it was, in so far as all that was required was to push the mower
up and down, stopping from time to time to empty the grass box into a barrow and then to wheel it away. The problem was that the lawns were so huge that it was tremendously hard work. Jasper pushed and cut and emptied and wheeled for hours and still he had made little progress.

Why didn’t that woman buy one of those nifty mowers with an engine and a seat, he wondered as he emptied the grass box for the umpteenth time. Then I could zoom up and down and get the job done in no time at all. Lunchtime seemed to take forever to come, and the knowledge that the rats were snoozing in his pockets didn’t improve his temper. Lazy creatures! They’ve got bone idle since we left prison. They’re always sleeping these days.

At last noon came and he settled down to eat the packed lunch that Mrs Knuttmegg had sent up to him in the dumb-waiter that morning. There were cheese sandwiches made on white bread – the most boring sandwiches in the
whole world as far as Jasper was concerned. Still, it could have been worse: at least they weren’t egg and onion. There were a couple of apples too and a flask of tea – no chocolate biscuits, in fact no treats at all.

As he sat there glumly eating his dull lunch Jasper thought to himself, Things really aren’t working out for me here the way I’d planned. I have to work hard, the food’s rubbish and my room is nothing special. The cook’s mad, she doesn’t like me, and my boss is a lulu. Surely a smart chap like me can do far better than this. I should move on and try my luck again elsewhere.

Just with that, he saw Mrs
Haverford-Snuffley
approach from the far side of the garden, with the little bat bouncing on the end of the feather.

‘Yoo-hoo! May I join you, Professor Orchid?’

Jasper smiled insincerely. ‘Why of course, dear lady.’
Lulu-in-chief
, he thought, as she trotted across the lawn towards him.
Queen Lulu
.

As she drew near, he could see that she was carrying a baby fox in her arms and that one of its paws was bandaged up.

‘Look at this poor little soldier, Professor Orchid. I found him down by the shrubbery. He’s hurt his foot.’

‘How heartbreaking,’ said Jasper.

‘Yes, isn’t it?’ she said, not hearing the sarcasm in his voice. ‘But I’ve washed it and strapped it up for him.’

‘So now what are you going to do with him?’

‘I’ll keep him in the house and look after him until he’s well enough to go back into the wild.’ She had settled herself beside Jasper on the bench and she cuddled the small fox to her.

‘Do you know what my dream is, Professor? To open an animal sanctuary right here at Haverford-Snuffley Hall. I’d take in all kinds of creatures: pets, farm animals, wild animals, the lot. Pigs, kittens, hedgehogs, and our little foxy friends. Any animal in need of help or care or
a new home would find a refuge here. It would be looked after until it was ready to be released back into the wild or to be settled with some kind people to begin a new life. I should like to help animals in this way more than anything else.’

‘So why don’t you do it?’ Jasper asked. Mrs Haverford-Snuffley gave a huge sigh.

‘Money, I’m afraid. It would take an absolute fortune. If I sold the house I could afford it, but then I would have nowhere to build the sanctuary. What I need is one single valuable thing that I could sell. For example, some years ago I had a very special painting and I was able to sell that to get the house fixed up. The place was in a dreadful state in those days, quite falling apart. So we got everything mended and improved and we also looked after my dear little batty-watty friends, didn’t we, possum? We did! We did! We made the bats comfy and snug!’

Mrs Haverford-Snuffley stood up and
stroked the fox between its pointed ears. ‘Yes, if only I had something of immense value to sell. It’s at times like this that I wish I knew where the Green Marvel was. Ah well, we can dream, can’t we? Anyway, I must stop chattering and let you get on with your work. Good afternoon, Professor Orchid!’