The Serial Garden: The Complete Armitage Family Stories (32 page)

"Gleep. Gleep. Thrackle, thrackle, thrackle. Gleep. GLEEP!"

"Oh heavens, he's starving! Just a minute, furry, hang on a tic, and we'll get you something to eat. Do you suppose he'll eat bread-and-milk?"

"We can try,” said Mark.

Bread-and-milk went down splendidly, when dolloped into the gaping red beak with a dessert spoon. One basinful was not enough, nor were two, nor were seven. But after the ninth bowlful, the baby griffin gave a great happy yawn, closed his beacon eyes simultaneously, clambered onto the lap of Harriet, who was kneeling on the floor beside him, tucked his head under a wing (from where it immediately slipped out again as the wing was not nearly big enough to cover it) and fell asleep.

After about three minutes, Harriet said,

"It's like having a cart-horse on one's lap. I'll have to shift him."

Struggling like a coal-heaver, she shifted the chick onto the hearthrug. He did not even blink.

Harriet and Mark sat thoughtfully regarding their new acquisition.

"He's going to be expensive to feed,” Mark said.

This proved an understatement.

After three weeks, Mrs. Armitage said, “Look, I don't want to seem mean, and I must admit your Furry does look better now that he isn't so bony and goose-pimply, but—thirty-six bowls of bread-and-milk a day!"

"Yes, it is a lot,” agreed Harriet sadly.

"Maybe Mr. Johansen could contribute towards his support?"

"Oh, no, he's awfully hard up,” Mark said. “I'll pay for the bread and Harriet can pay for the milk. I've some money saved from apple-picking."

"That still leaves the sugar and raisins."

Harriet decided that she would have to dispose of her dolls’ furniture.

Unfortunately, that was the day when Furry, tired of his newspaper nest, looked round for somewhere new to roost, and noticed the wicker hamper in which Harriet stored her finished products. He flapped his little wings, jumped up on top, turned round two or three times, digging his claws into the wicker, until he was comfortable, stuck his head under his wing (where it now fitted better; his wings were growing fast), and went to sleep. Slowly the hamper sagged beneath his weight; by the time Harriet found him it was completely flattened, like a wafer-ice that has been left in the sun.

"Oh,
Furry! Look
what you've done!"

"Gleep,” replied the baby griffin mournfully, stretching out first one hind leg and then the other.

He was hungry again.

"It's no use blaming him,” Harriet said, inspecting her ruined work. “He just doesn't know his own weight."

The next night was a chilly one, and in the middle of it, Furry, becoming fretful and shivery and lonesome, clambered onto Harriet's bed for warmth and company. Harriet, fast asleep, began to have strange dreams of avalanches and earthquakes; by the morning, three legs of her bed had buckled under Furry's weight; Furry and Harriet were huddled in a heap down at the southwest corner.

"It's queer,” said Mark, “considering how fast he's putting on weight, that he doesn't grow very much bigger."

"He's more condensed than we are,” Harriet said.

"Condensed!” said Mrs. Armitage. “From now on, that creature has got to live out of doors. Any day now, he'll go right through the floorboards. And your father says the same."

"Oh, Mother!"

"It's no use looking at me like that. Look at the playroom floor! It's sagging, and dented all over with claw marks. It looks like Southend Beach."

"I suppose he'll have to roost in the wood shed,” Harriet said sadly.

They fetched a load of hay and made him a snug nest. While he was investigating it, and burying himself up to his beak, they crept indoors and went to bed, feeling like the parents of Hansel and Gretel.

Next morning Furry was up on the woodshed roof, gleeping anxiously. The woodshed had tilted over at a forty-five degree angle.

"Oh, Furry! How did you ever get up there?"

"He must have flown,” said Mark.

"But he can't fly!"

"He was bound to start soon; his wings are nearly full grown. And proper feathers are sprouting all over them, and on his head, too."

If Furry had flown up to the roof of the shed, however, he showed no signs of remembering how to set about flying down again. He teetered about on the sloping roof, gleeping more and more desperately. At last, just in time, he managed to fly a few hasty, panic-stricken flaps, and coasted to earth as the shed collapsed behind him.

"You
clever
baby,” said Harriet, giving him a hug to show that nobody blamed him.

"Thrackle, thrackle. Gleep, cooroocooroo, gleep.” Furry leaned lovingly against Harriet. She managed to leap aside just before he flattened her; he now weighed as much as a well-nourished grizzly.

Harriet and Mark were extremely busy. In order to earn Furry's keep, they had taken jobs, delivering papers, selling petrol at the garage, and washing up at the Two-Door Café, but they were in a constant state of anxiety all the time as to what he might be doing while they were away from home.

"Do you think we ought to mention to Mr. Johansen that it's rather difficult with Furry?” Harriet suggested one day. “It isn't that I'm not
fond
of him—"

"It's rather difficult to get him to pay attention these days; Mr. Johansen, I mean."

Indeed, the music master seemed to be in a dream most of the time.

"Never haf I played such an instrument, never!” he declared. When he was not playing Mrs. Nutti's organ, he was leaning out of the spare-room window, gazing at the view, listening to the music across the square, rapt in a kind of trance. Mark was a little worried about him.

"Honestly, sir, don't you think you ought to get out for a bit of fresh air sometimes?"

"But you see, I have ze feeling zat from zis window I might someday see my lost Sophie."

"But even if you did, we still don't know how to get into the town."

Their experiment with rope had proved a failure. The rope had simply disappeared, as fast as they paid it out the window. Nor was it possible to attract the attention of the people down below and persuade them to fetch a ladder (which had been another of Harriet's suggestions). Neither shouts nor waves had the slightest effect. And Mr. Johansen had vetoed any notion of either Mark or Harriet climbing out.

"For you might disappear like ze rope, and zen what should I tell your dear muzzer?"

"So even if you did see your lost Sophie from the window, it wouldn't do you much good; it would be more of a worry than anything else,” Mark said with ruthless practicality.

"Ach—who knows—who knows?” sighed Mr. Johansen.

Several more weeks passed. Furry, measured by Mark, was now nearly as big as the marble griffin under the mantelpiece.

Then, one evening, when Mark was in the midst of his piano lesson, Harriet burst in.

"Oh—Mr. Johansen—I'm terribly sorry to interrupt—but it's Furry! He's flown up on top of the water-tower, and he's dreadfully scared, and gleeping away like mad, and I'm so afraid he might damage the tower!
Do
come, Mark, and see if you can talk him down, you're the one he trusts most. I've brought a pail of bread-and-milk."

They ran outside, Mr. Johansen following. It was the first time he had been out for days.

The village water-tower stood a couple of fields away from the music master's bungalow. It was a large metal cylinder supported on four metal legs, which looked slender to support the weight of who knows how many thousand gallons of water, but were apparently equal to the job. It did not, however, seem likely that they were equal to supporting a full-grown griffin as well, particularly since he was running back and forth on top of the cylinder, gleeping distractedly, opening and shutting his wings, leaning to look over the edge, and then jumping back with a tremendous clatter and scrape of toenails on galvanized iron.

"
Furry
!” shouted Mark. “Keep calm! Keep calm!"

"Gleep! Thrackle, thrackle, thrackle."

"Shut your wings and stand still,” ordered Mark.

With his eyes starting out as he looked at the awful drop below him, the griffin obeyed.

"Now, Harriet, swing the bucket of bread and-milk round a bit, so the smell rises up."

Harriet did so. Some bread-and-milk slopped out on the grass. The sweet and haunting fragrance steamed up through the evening air.

"Gleeeeeep!” A famished wail came from the top of the water-tower.

"You're very silly!” Harriet shouted scoldingly. “If you hadn't gotten yourself up there, you could be eating this nice bread-and-milk now."

"Furry,” called Mark, “watch me. Are you watching?"

Silence from up above. Then a faint thrackle.

"Right! Now, open your wings."

Mark had his arms by his sides; he now raised them to shoulder height.

Furry, after a moment or two, hesitantly did the same.

"Now lower them again. Do as I do. Just keep raising and lowering."

Following Mark's example, Furry did this half a dozen times. The tower shook a bit.

"Right, faster and faster. Faster still! Now—
jump
! KEEP FLAPPING!"

Furry jumped, and forgot to flap; he started falling like a stone.

"Gleep!"

"
Flap
, you fool!"

The onlookers leapt away; just in time, Furry began flapping again, and, when he was within eight feet of the ground, suddenly soared upwards once more.

"
Don't
land on the tower again. Flap with
both
wings—not just one. You're going ROUND AND ROUND,” Mark shouted, cupping hands about his mouth. “That's better. Don't flap so fast. Slower! Like this!"

He demonstrated.

Furry hurtled past, eyes tight shut, claws clenched, wings nothing but a blur. Then back again. It was like the progress of a balloon with the string taken off.

"Make your strokes
slower
."

"It's as bad as learning to swim,” Harriet said. “People get quick and frantic in just the same way. Still, he is doing better now. Just so long as he doesn't hit the tower. Or Mr. Johansen's roof."

Several times Furry had only just cleared the bungalow. At last, more or less in control, he flapped himself down to Mr. Johansen's front garden, shaving off all the front hedge on his way, and flattening a bed of Canterbury bells.

Mark and Harriet arrived at top speed, with the half-full bucket slopping between them, and set it down on the path. Furry, gleeping between mouthfuls, began frantically gobbling.

At this rather distracted moment, Mrs. Nutti arrived.

"What's this, then, what's this?” she snapped angrily, taking in the scene at a glance. “Who let him out? Should be
upstairs
, in room, not in garden. Burglars, burglars might come, might see him."

"Out?” said Harriet. “He's too heavy to keep indoors these days."

"All wrong—very bad,” said Mrs. Nutti furiously. “Why did I take room in country? To keep him out of way of griffin collectors. Town full of them. Come along, you!” she bawled at Furry. Before Mark or Harriet could protest, she had snapped a collar on his neck and dragged him indoors up Mr. Johansen's staircase.

They ran after her.

"Hey, stop!” shouted Mark. “What are you doing with him?"

Arriving in the spare room, they found Mrs. Nutti struggling to push Furry into the ragged hole under the mantelpiece.

"You don't mean,” gasped Harriet, outraged, “that you intend him to spend the rest of his life there, holding up that shelf?"

"Why else leave egg here to hatch?” panted Mrs. Nutti angrily, dragging on the collar.

But Furry, reared on freedom and bread-and-milk, was too strong for Mrs. Nutti.

With a loud snap, the collar parted as he strained away from her, and he shot across the room, breaking one of the bedposts like a stick of celery. The window splintered as he struck it, and then he was out and away, flapping strongly up into the blue, blue star-sprinkled sky over the foreign city.

One gleep came back to them, then a joyful burst of the full, glorious song of an adult griffin.

Then he dwindled to a speck and was gone.

"There!” said Harriet. “That just serves you right, Mrs. Nutti. Why, you haven't looked after him and you expected him to hold up your fireplace!"

She was almost crying with indignation.

Mrs. Nutti spoke to no one. With her lips angrily compressed, she snatched up the carpet-bag, cast a furious look round the room, and marched out, pulling the room together behind her as one might drag a counterpane.

By the time they heard the front door slam, they were back in Mr. Johansen's attic, with its brass bedstead and patchwork quilt.

Mr. Johansen walked slowly to the window and looked out, at the trampled garden and the empty bread-and-milk bucket, which still lay on the path.

"I suppose we'll never see Furry again,” Mark said, clearing his throat.

"Or I, my Sophie,” sighed Mr. Johansen.

"Oh, I don't know,” Harriet said. “I wouldn't be surprised if Furry found his way back sometime. He's awfully fond of us. And I'm
sure
you will find your Sophie someday, Mr. Johansen. I really am sure you will."

"We'll start looking for another room in town for you right away!” Mark called back as they walked out through the battered gate.

"It really is lucky Furry didn't hit the water-tower,” Harriet said. “I should think it would have taken years of pocket-money to pay for
that
damage. Now—as soon as we've fixed up the airing-cupboard door—"

"—And the fruit-ladder—"

"And the woodshed, and the legs of my bed, and Mr. Johansen's front gate—I can start saving up for a Himalayan bear."

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