The Wishing-Chair Again (14 page)

“Pick a whole bunch if you like,” said Chinky. “They're growing wild.”

“Oh—just fancy jam tarts growing
wild,”
said Mollie, in wonder, and she picked two. “One's got a yellow middle—it's lemon curd—and the other's got a red middle—it's raspberry jam,” she said, tasting them.

“Better come and find my cousin Pipkin,” said Chinky. “We're not supposed to come to the Land of Goodies except by invitation, so we'd better find him, so that he can say we are his guests. We don't want to be turned out before we've picked a nice bunch of jam tarts, currant buns and chocolate biscuits!”

Chinky asked a passer-by where his cousin Pipkin lived. Luckily, it was very near. They hurried along, only picking a few currant buns on the way, till they came to a kind of bungalow. It was round and its roof was quite flat.

“Why, it's built the shape of a cake!” cried Mollie. “And look, it's got cherries sticking out of the walls— and aren't those nuts on the roof—sticking up like they do in some cakes? Oh, Chinky, I believe your cousin lives in a cake-house!”

“Well, he won't need to do much shopping then,” said Chinky, with a grin. “He can just stay indoors and nibble at his walls!”

They went in at a gate that looked as if it were made of barley sugar. Chinky knocked at the door. It was opened by a very, very fat pixie indeed! He fell on Chinky in delight, almost knocked him over, and kissed him soundly on his cheek.

“Cousin Chinky! You've come to see me after all!” he cried. “And who are these nice people with you?”

“Mollie and Peter and Winks,” said Chinky.

“Glad to meet you,” said Pipkin. “Now—how would you like to see my Biscuit Tree to begin with? And after that we'll go a nice hungry walk, and see what we can find!”

PIPKIN took them to see his Biscuit Tree. This was really marvellous. It had buds that opened out into brown biscuits—chocolate ones! There they hung on the tree, looking most delicious.

“Pick as many as you like,” said Pipkin, generously. “It goes on flowering for months.”

“Aren't you lucky to have a Chocolate Biscuit Tree,” said Mollie, picking two or three biscuits and eating them.

“Well—it's not so good when the sun is really hot,” said Pipkin. “The chocolate melts then, you know. It was most annoying the other afternoon. It was very hot and I sat down under my Biscuit Tree for shade— and I fell asleep. The sun melted the chocolate on the biscuits and it all dripped over me, from top to bottom. I
was
a sight when I got up!”

Everyone laughed. They ate a lot of the biscuits and then Mollie remembered something else.

“You said in your letter to Chinky that you had a jelly plant,” said Mollie. “Could we see that, too?”

Pipkin led the way round to his front door. Then the children saw something they had not noticed when they had first arrived. A climbing plant trailed over the door. It had curious big, flat flowers, shaped like white plates.

“The middle of the white flowers is full of coloured jelly! “ cried Mollie. “Gracious—you want to walk about with spoons and forks hanging at your belt in this land!”

“Well, we do, usually,” said Pipkin. “I'll get you a spoon each—then you can taste the jelly in my jelly plant.”

It was really lovely jelly. “I should like to eat two or three,” said Mollie, “but I do so want to leave room for something else. Can we go for a walk now, Pipkin?”

“Certainly,” said Pipkin. So off they went, each carrying a spoon. It was a most exciting walk. They picked bunches of boiled sweets growing on a hedge like grapes, they came to a stream that ran ginger beer instead of water and they actually found meat-pies growing on a bush.

The ginger beer was lovely, but as they had no glasses they had to lie down and lap like dogs. “I should have remembered to bring one or two enamel mugs,” said Pipkin. “We shall pass a lemonade stream soon.”

“Is any ice-cream growing anywhere?” asked Mollie longingly. “I expect that's a silly question, really, but I would so like an ice.”

“Oh, yes,” said Pipkin. “But you'll have to go down into the cool valley for that. It's too hot here in the sun—the ice-cream melts as soon as it comes into flower.”

“Where's the valley?” said Mollie. “Oh—down there. I'm going there, then.”

They all went down into the cool valley and, to Mollie's enormous delight, found a sturdy-stemmed plant with flat green leaves, in the middle of which grew pink, brown or yellow buds, shaped like cornets.

“Ice-creams!” cried Mollie, and picked one. “Oooh! This is a vanilla one. I shall pick a pink flower next and that will be strawberry.”

“I've got a chocolate ice,” said Peter. “So has Winks.”

Pipkin and Chinky ate as many as the others. Chinky could quite well see why his cousin had grown so fat. Anyone would, in the Land of Goodies. He felt rather fat himself!

“Now let's go to the village,” said Pipkin. “I'm sure you'd all like to see the food in the shops there, really delicious.”

“Is there tomato soup?” asked Peter. It was his very favourite soup.

“I'll take you to the soup shop,” said Pipkin, and he did. It was a most exciting shop. It had a row of taps in it, all marked with names—such as tomato, potato, chicken, onion, pea—and you chose which you wanted to turn, and out came soup—tomato, chicken, or whatever you wanted!

“There isn't the soup
I
like best,” said Winks, sadly.

“Why, what do you like?” asked Pipkin.

“I like Pepper soup,” said Winks, solemnly.

“You don't!” said Chinky. “It would be terribly, terribly hot.”

“Well, I like it—and there isn't any,” said Winks.

“There's a tap over there without any name,” said Pipkin. “It will produce whatever soup you want that isn't here.
I’ll
get some Pepper soup for you.”

He took a soup-plate and went to the tap without a name. “Pepper Soup,” he said, and a stream of hot soup came out, red in colour.

“There you are,
red,
pepper soup.” he said, and handed it to Winks. “Now we'll see if it really is your favourite soup or not!”

“'Course it is!” said Winks, and took a large spoonful. But, oh dear, oh dear, how he choked and how he spluttered! He had to be banged on the back, he had to be given a drink of cold water, and then he wanted a biscuit to take the taste of the pepper soup out of his mouth. So Mollie had to run out and find a Biscuit-tree and pick him one.

“It serves you right for saying what isn't true,” she said to Winks. “You didn't like Pepper soup, so you shouldn't have asked for any.”

“I was just being funny,” said poor Winks.

“Well,
we
thought it was all very funny, especially when you took that spoonful,” said Peter. “But it couldn't have been so funny to you. Now—can I get you a little Mustard soup, Winks?”

But Winks had had enough of soups. “Let's leave this soup shop,” he said. “What's in the next one?”

The next one was a baker's shop. There were iced cakes of all shapes and colours set in rows upon rows. How delicious they looked!

“Wouldn't you each like to take one home with you?” said Pipkin. “You don't have to pay for them, you know.”

That was one of the nice things about the Land of Goodies. Nobody paid anyone anything. Mollie looked at the cakes. There was a blue one there, with yellow trimmings of icing sugar. Mollie had never seen a blue cake before.

“Can I have this one, do you think?” she said.

The baker looked at her. He was as plump as Pipkin and had a little wife as plump as himself. Their dark eyes looked like currants in their round little faces.

“Yes, you can have that,” said the baker. “What is your name, please?”

“Mollie,” said Mollie. “Why do you want to know?”

“Well, it's to
be your
cake, isn't it?” said the baker. He dabbed the cake and suddenly, in the very middle of the icing, came the letters M 0 L L I E—Mollie! Now it really was Mollie's cake.

Peter had one with his name, and Pipkin had another. Chinky chose a pretty pink cake and his name came up in white icing sugar. He was very pleased.

Winks' name came up spelt wrongly. The letters were W I N X S, and Peter pointed out that that was not the right way to spell his name. Winks hadn't noticed. He was a very bad speller. But Peter noticed it, and Winks chose another cake on which his name appeared spelt rightly. It was all very queer indeed.

“Well, Pipkin, thank you very much for a most interesting and delicious afternoon,” said Chinky, when they each had a cake to take home. “How I'm going to eat this cake I really don't know. Actually I don't feel as if I could ever eat anything again.”

“Oh, my dear fellow, don't say that! “ said Pipkin, quite alarmed. “You have eaten very little today, very little indeed. Why, I usually eat three times as much as you have eaten.”

“Yes, I believe you,” said Chinky, looking at the plump Pipkin.

They came to Pipkin's house and said goodbye to him. Then they went off to find their Wishing-Chair. Winks lagged behind, nibbling his cake. The others hurried on. They knew exactly where they had left the chair.

Suddenly they heard Chinky give a loud cry of anger. “Look! Winks is doing JUST what I said nobody was to do! He's breaking off bits of gate-posts to chew— and look, he's taken a bit of window-sill—it's made of gingerbread! And now he's throwing currant buns at that marzipan chimney to try to break it off!”

So he was! Poor Winks—he simply couldn't change from a bad brownie to a good one all at once. He was tired of being good and now he was being thoroughly naughty.

Crash! Down came the chimney, and Winks ran to it to break off bits of marzipan. And round the corner came two policemen! They had heard the crash and come to see what it was. When they saw Winks actually breaking bits off the chimney they blew their whistles loudly and ran up to him.

“Well—he's really got himself into trouble again now,” said Chinky. “Isn't he silly?”

Winks was struggling hard with the two policemen. He called out to Chinky. “Save me, Chinky, save me! Mollie, Peter, come and help!”

“Oho!” said the bigger policeman of the two. “Are they your friends? We'll catch them, too! Birds of a feather flock together. No doubt they are as bad as you.”

“Quick! We must get in the Wishing-Chair and go!” said Chinky. “Winks will always get into trouble wherever he goes—but there's no need for us to as well. Where's the Wishing-Chair?”

They found it where they had left it, hidden well away under a bush. They climbed in, with Chinky at the back, just as the big policeman came pounding up.

“Hey! What's all this?” he called. “Is that chair yours?”

“YES!” shouted Chinky. “It is. Home, Chair, home. Goodbye, Winks. Say you're sorry for what you've done and maybe you'll be set free.”

Off went the chair, high into the air, leaving the big policeman gaping in surprise. He had never seen a Wishing-Chair before. They were soon out of sight. It began to rain as soon as they left the Land of Goodies, and they were glad of the big umbrella again. It was still wide open.

That night, when the three of them were playing Snap in the playroom, the door opened cautiously—and who should come in but Winks! The others exclaimed in surprise.

“Winks! You didn't get put into prison, then?”

“Yes,” said Winks. “But the walls were made of chocolate cake—so I just ate my way through and got out as easily as a rabbit. But, oh dear—I feel as if I never, never want to taste chocolate cake again!”

“Serves you right,” said Chinky, sternly. “You were bad and disobedient and I've a good mind not to let you share our supper.”

“What is for supper?” said Winks at once.

“CHOCOLATE CAKE,” roared everyone in delight, and Winks fled out into the night. No—he simply could not face chocolate cake again.

FOR a week Chinky didn't see the children because they had gone to the seaside. They gave him all kinds of advice before they went.

“Now you see that you keep an eye on the Wishing-Chair for us, won't you?” said Peter. “And if it grows its wings, don't you go on adventures without us.”

“No—it would be horrid to think of you going off alone,” said Mollie. “If the chair grows its wings whilst we're away you're to tell it to go to your mother's. Then you won't get into any difficulty or danger.”