The Serial Garden: The Complete Armitage Family Stories (12 page)

He arrived exactly in time for the theatre and enjoyed it so much that he forgot all about his adventure until they were at home, making bacon and eggs. Then he told Aunt Hal about it and showed her the present. She whistled.

"Good gracious,” she said, “that's better luck than you deserve. What a marvelous one. Harriet will be knocked sideways."

Mark yawned frightfully, and said he thought he would go to bed. One of the best things about staying with Aunt Hal was that she let you go to bed when you liked, or stay up all night if you preferred.

"I'd better say good-bye now,” she said, “as I don't suppose you'll be awake when I go off in the morning. Give my love to the family and tell Harriet that she won't get
my
birthday present till the proper day."

"What is it?” he asked, but she only grinned at him and said, “Wait and see."

So Mark had a boiling bath, and, after carefully putting Harriet's wonderful present in the top left-hand drawer, where he would be sure to remember it, he climbed into bed and went to sleep.

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Mark sat in the train and wished that he could go to sleep. He had been to the dentist and had a local injection, and his cheek still felt most peculiar. He didn't like it at all. So he counted sheep earnestly, but the sheep were obstinate animals, and wouldn't do as they were told, and the train was an extremely rowdy one—he could hear it all the time saying to itself, “What-did-you-say? Stick-in-the-mud! That's-what-I-said. Stick-in-the-mud!” It was a slow little train, plodding along over the march from Cobchester to Tallant, and, try as Mark would, he could not make it go any faster. He urged it on under his breath and even tried reciting Horatius to it, but it only staggered along more sleepily, and stopped here and there at Oghan, and Naghan, and Liddle Halt, while Mark fumed and looked at his watch.

The fact of the matter was that it was a Monday. That may not mean much to you, but in the Armitage family, it meant a great deal. For on Mondays, very strange things were apt to happen at Wittsuns, the Armitage house, and no one could ever tell what would appear next. One Monday, for instance, they had had a plague of hippogriffs, and another time, coming home from a walk, Mark and his sister had found the whole place turned into a Pyramid, and their parents changed to mummies—a most inconvenient state of affairs. But luckily it did not last long.

So naturally Mark was in a hurry to get home in case Harriet had been having some amazing adventures while Mr. Leacock picked among his teeth. He wandered up and down the carriage, and hung out of the window, and read a magazine which he had already read twice before, and finally settled down and tried to go to sleep again.

This time the sheep were more obedient. They jumped over the stile, but Mark noticed that they found it harder and harder to get over, until they had to creep up one side, foot by foot, and then flock down the other. Were they very old sheep? Or what was it? Then he realized that it was the fault of the stile. It was getting higher and higher, like an elongated ladder, and each sheep had to climb almost out of sight before, with a gasp of relief, it began the descent. Finally the remaining sheep all sat down in a crowd on one side and looked at him reproachfully. The top of the stile was now invisible in the clouds, and it was no longer a stile, but a terribly thick, tangled, barbed-wire fence.

"Well, you certainly can't get over that,” said Mark to the sheep. “I suppose I'll have to find another way in for you. Come along."

And he set off, walking along the side of the fence, looking for some sort of gate. When he turned back to see if the sheep were following him, he saw that they were still sitting in a huddled group. Evidently they were waiting till he had found a gate before they took any more exercise. He decided that he did not blame them, and went on.

He was walking along the side of a flat, gray road which stretched away into the distance before and behind him, until both ends were lost in mist. Groundsel and ragwort grew along the edge and a cold wind was blowing. Mark shivered.

"I don't think much of this place,” he said to himself.

However, he pulled up his left sock and walked on, and the dust crept into his shoes. A very small tabby cat came walking towards him, and when it was near gave one plaintive:

"Prrrmp?"

"Well, what are you doing here?” he asked it.

The cat seemed rather doubtful itself, and he picked it up and carried it, quite glad of its warmth, for the wind was colder with every step.

The cat purred, and he talked to it and did not notice until he was nearly there a gate in the fence with a sentry-box beside it.

When a step sounded beside the box, a sentry popped out of it, saluted, and said:

"Good afternoon, sir. Will you go straight in, please?"

"How do you know me?” asked Mark in surprise.

"It's the Mascot,” explained the sentry, pointing to Ibbitts, who was washing his left ear. “'E always goes out ‘unting up our pilots. ‘E as a wonderful eye for them."

Mark thought this was rather odd, and would have liked to ask more questions, but the sentry said:

"Will you go straight along now, sir, please? You'll find them waiting for you up by the runway."

Mark, with Ibbitts perched on his shoulder, walked along the flat, narrow road that led across the field until in the distance he saw the gray-green of a aeroplane hangar.

A crowd of people were standing beside the tarmac runway, where a delightful little aeroplane waited.

When Mark came up to them they all rushed to him and shook him by the hand.

"So glad you were able to come,” said one.

"The plane's perfectly ready for you,” another told him. “We're really expecting you to go up at once, if you don't mind. It's rather urgent."

"I'm not very experienced,” said Mark, nervously, but they all pushed him toward the plane, assuring him that the Mascot never picked up an unsuitable person.

He climbed up, and once he was in the cockpit he found that he remembered perfectly how to manage the controls. Ibbitts settled down beside him and tucked his paws in comfortably.

Someone swung the propeller and kicked away the chocks, and he was moving, bumping gently over the ground. Then suddenly he heard a voice yelling:

"Stop!"

The plane slowed down, more or less of its own accord, and he leaned over the side. A couple of men were running along towards him.

"Do you know what you've got to look for?” they shouted breathlessly.

"No!” he answered. “What does it look like?"

"It's one of those Drumwhistle Dragons,” they told him. “You'll recognize it easily—retractable undercarriage, red tail, green wings, makes rather a high buzzing noise, and sends out a smokescreen in advance. You can't miss it."

Mark started once more, and this time took off without interruption. He soared up through a bank of cloud, and then he was in the blazing sunshine, still steadily climbing. He looked out ahead for another plane with a red tail and green wings, but could see nothing, and decided to go northeast and cruise around.

Everything was very quiet for a quarter of an hour. Mark flew, and Ibbitts dozed. But then all at once Ibbitts began to show definite signs of uneasiness, and finally he left the plane altogether, and began to fly round and round it in large circles.

"Ibbitts! Come here at once and don't be silly!” yelled Mark above the roar of the engine.

But Ibbitts evidently saw something ahead, for he was going forward ahead of the plane, craning his neck and staring as if he was tremendously excited.

By and by Mark thought he could see a little puff of cloud far away. He watched it until his eyes were sore, and gradually it grew bigger and bigger, as it came nearer. Ibbitts twittered with excitement and finally came back into the plane, but every few minutes he would leave for a little cruise ahead.

The cloud came extremely near, and then Mark distinguished two red lights gleaming through it.

"I wonder what those are?” he said aloud. There seemed to be no chance of getting a clear view of the Drumwhistle Dragon unless he changed his course, so he began to climb very steeply in the hope of getting above it. The Dragon also climbed, but left its screen behind, bit by bit until he could see it fairly plainly.

He was very much startled at what he saw, for he had expected a plane something like his own, and this was neither more nor less than an ordinary green-winged dragon, which glared at him with red eyes, and spat out, from time to time, a large mouthful of smoke.

Mark remembered something he had once heard about aerial combat with dragons, so he turned his back and flew away from the creature for a fair distance. When he swung the place round he saw that the dragon had done the same, and was hovering, waiting till he was ready. Then the two of them hurtled together at a frightful speed. But at the last minute the dragon cheated, for he turned aside and upwards, and spat out a jet of smoke and flame at Mark as he passed.

"The coward!” said Mark indignantly. “What's the use of having rules if you don't keep to them?"

He flew back, and turned. The dragon was waiting again, this time with a very sinister expression on its face. Its forked tongue was hanging out.

"I believe it's going to do something nasty,” he thought, and wondered what he ought to do. If his plane had a dose of dragon breath at close quarters, it would be all up with him.

When they rushed together again, Mark brought his plane up sharply at the critical moment. As he passed over the dragon, he leaned sideways and emptied the contents of his water flask over the great green scaly back.

There was a frightful explosion, which blew him up about forty feet. When he had control again he looked about, but the dragon was nowhere to be seen. Only some large fragments of what looked like burnt paper were floating slowly downwards.

Mark turned the plane and flew back toward the aerodrome. On the ground people were cheering and waving. He wondered how they knew the result of the battle already, and then he thought that perhaps Ibbitts had flown down and told them. At all events he was nowhere in the plane. The ground came nearer and he felt the wheels touch it slightly. Then suddenly the plane lurched as if something had tripped it. It staggered sideways, and rather deliberately turned over and flung Mark high in the air. It seemed a long time before he met the ground with a bump that dazed him.

He lay where he had fallen for a few minutes, until he knew which was up and which was down. Then he scrambled to his feet and looked about. But the airfield was gone, and he was in the meadow which lay next to the Armitage garden.

He would have thought that he had been dreaming, but for the fact that Ibbitts was sitting gravely beside him, washing his paw. And looking at Ibbitts closely, he saw a black collar round the cat's neck, on which was painted a tiny golden aeroplane.

"Poor Harriet,” said Mark to Ibbitts, “she will be sorry she's missed this. Still,
she
didn't have to go to the dentist.” He felt his cheek. It had almost recovered its normal shape.

He went into the garden by the back gate, with Ibbitts following him.

Harriet saw him and came running out.

"Do listen—” he began, but she cut him short.

"Oh,
why
weren't you back for tea? We've had such a lovely Monday. Do come and look."

She dragged Mark down onto the lawn, and he gasped at what he saw. For arranged all round the flowerbed in the centre were twenty-three duchesses, and at the far end was a large swimming pool, entirely filled with pink ice-cream.

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What's all this?” said Mr. Armitage, coming down one morning to find the dining room littered with collecting boxes and trays full of blue paper cornflowers.

"Cornflower day,” said Mrs. Armitage.

"So I had inferred,” replied her husband patiently. “But what's it in aid of?” He peered at some posters lying half unrolled on the floor, which showed a sweet, pathetic old face under a steeple-crowned hat.