How the Whale Became (2 page)

Now God had a little back-garden. In this garden he grew carrots, onions, beans and whatever else he needed for his dinner. It was a fine little garden. The plants were in neat rows, and a tidy fence kept out the animals. God was pleased with it.

One day as he was weeding the carrots he saw a strange thing between the rows. It was no more than an inch long, and it was black. It was like a black shiny bean. At one end it had a little root going into the ground.

‘That’s very odd,’ said God. ‘I’ve never seen one of these before. I wonder what it will grow into.’

So he left it growing.

Next day, as he was gardening, he remembered the little shiny black thing. He went to see how it was getting on. He was surprised. During the night it had doubled its length. It was now two inches long, like a shiny black egg.

Every day God went to look at it, and every day it was bigger. Every morning, in fact, it was just twice as long as it had been the morning before.

When it was six feet long, God said:

‘It’s getting too big. I must pull it up and cook it.’

But he left it a day.

Next day it was twelve feet long and far too big to go into any of God’s pans.

God stood scratching his head and looking at it. Already it had crushed most of his carrots out of sight. If it went on growing at this rate it would soon be pushing his house over.

Suddenly, as he looked at it, it opened an eye and looked at him.

God was amazed.

The eye was quite small and round. It was near the thickest end, and farthest from the root. He walked round to the other side, and there was another eye, also looking at him.

‘Well!’ said God. ‘And how do you do?’

The round eye blinked, and the smooth glossy skin under it wrinkled slightly, as if the thing were smiling. But there was no mouth, so God wasn’t sure.

Next morning God rose early and went out into his garden.

Sure enough, during the night his new black plant with eyes had doubled its length again. It had pushed down part of his fence, so that its head was sticking out into the road, one eye looking up it, and one down. Its side was pressed against the kitchen wall.

God walked round to its front and looked it in the eye.

‘You are too big,’ he said sternly. ‘Please stop growing before you push my house down.’

To his surprise, the plant opened a mouth. A long slit of a mouth, which ran back on either side under the eyes.

‘I can’t,’ said the mouth.

God didn’t know what to say. At last he said:

‘Well then, can you tell me what sort of a thing you are? Do you know?’

‘I,’ said the thing, ‘am Whale-Wort. You have heard of Egg-Plant, and Buck-Wheat, and Dog-Daisy. Well, I am Whale-Wort.’

There was nothing God could do about that.

By next morning, Whale-Wort stretched right across the road, and his side had pushed the kitchen wall into the kitchen. He was now longer and fatter than a bus.

When God saw this, he called the creatures together.

‘Here’s a strange thing,’ he said. ‘Look at it. What are we going to do with it?’

The creatures walked round Whale-Wort, looking at him. His skin was so shiny they could see their faces in it.

‘Leave it,’ suggested Ostrich. ‘And wait till it dies down.’

‘But it might go on growing,’ said God. ‘Until it covers the whole earth. We shall have to live on its back. Think of that.’

‘I suggest,’ said Mouse, ‘that we throw it into the sea.’

God thought.

‘No,’ he said at last. ‘That’s too severe. Let’s just leave it for a few days.’

After three more days, God’s house was
completely
flat, and Whale-Wort was as long as a street.

‘Now,’ said Mouse, ‘it is too late to throw it into the sea. Whale-Wort is too big to move.’

But God fastened long thick ropes round him and called up all the creatures to help haul on the ends.

‘Hey!’ cried Whale-Wort. ‘Leave me alone.’

‘You are going into the sea,’ cried Mouse. ‘And it serves you right. Taking up all this space.’

‘But I’m happy!’ cried Whale-Wort again. ‘I’m happy just lying here. Leave me and let me sleep. I was made just to lie and sleep.’

‘Into the sea!’ cried Mouse.

‘No!’ cried Whale-Wort.

‘Into the sea!’ cried all the creatures. And they hauled on the ropes. With a great groan,
Whale-Wort’s
root came out of the ground. He began to thresh and twist, beating down houses and trees with his long root, as the creatures dragged him willy-nilly through the countryside.

At last they got him to the top of a high cliff. With a great shout they rolled him over the edge and into the sea.

‘Help! Help!’ cried Whale-Wort. ‘I shall drown! Please let me come back on land where I can sleep.’

‘Not until you’re smaller!’ shouted God. ‘Then you can come back.’

‘But how am I to get smaller?’ wept Whale-Wort, as he rolled to and fro in the sea. ‘Please show me how to get smaller so that I can live on land.’

God bent down from the high cliff and poked Whale-Wort on the top of his head with his finger.

‘Ow!’ cried Whale-Wort. ‘What was that for? You’ve made a hole. The water will come in.’

‘No it won’t,’ said God. ‘But some of you will come out. Now just you start blowing some of yourself out through that hole.’

Whale-Wort blew, and a a high jet of spray shot up out of the hole that God had made.

‘Now go on blowing,’ said God.

Whale-Wort blew and blew. Soon he was quite a bit smaller. As he shrunk, his skin, that had been so tight and glossy, became covered with tiny wrinkles. At last God said to him:

‘When you’re as small as a cucumber, just give a shout. Then you can come back into my garden. But until then, you shall stay in the sea.’

And God walked away with all his creatures,
leaving
Whale-Wort rolling and blowing in the sea.

Soon Whale-Wort was down to the size of a bus. But blowing was hard work, and by this time he felt like a sleep. He took a deep breath and sank down to the bottom of the sea for a sleep. Above all, he loved to sleep.

When he awoke he gave a roar of dismay. While he was asleep he had grown back to the length of a street and the fatness of a ship with two funnels.

He rose to the surface as fast as he could and began to blow. Soon he was back down to the size of a lorry. But soon, too, he felt like another sleep. He took a deep breath and sank to the bottom.

When he awoke he was back to the length of a street.

This went on for years. It is still going on.

As fast as Whale-Wort shrinks with blowing, he grows with sleeping. Sometimes, when he is feeling very strong, he gets himself down to the size of a motor-car. But always, before he gets himself down to the size of a cucumber, he remembers how nice it is to sleep. When he wakes, he has grown again.

He longs to come back on land and sleep in the sun, with his root in the earth. But instead of that, he must roll and blow, out on the wild sea. And until he is allowed to come back on land, the creatures call him just Whale.

Now there were two creatures that were very much alike. But one was rusty-red, with a thick tail, neat legs, and black pricking ears, while the other was just plain shaggy black and white. They were both rivals for the job of guarding Man’s farm from the other animals.

The shaggy black and white one was called
Foursquare
, and he wanted the job because he longed to lie beside Man’s fire on the cold nights. The
rusty-red
one was called Slylooking, and he wanted the job for a very different reason. He loved cabbages, and the only way to get near Man’s cabbages was by pretending to guard them.

This rivalry went on for a long time, and still neither of them had got the job. At last Man told them to settle the matter between themselves, within a week, or else he would have to employ a bird.

‘It is plain,’ said Slylooking, ‘that we must put our problem before a committee.’

‘Very well,’ said Foursquare. ‘I’m glad to see you so fair-minded. I suggest that we let the cows decide it. They ponder a great deal.’

‘But about what?’ cried Slylooking, pretending to be alarmed. ‘Scenery! That’s what they ponder about. They gaze at the scenery and it looks as if they’re pondering, and so they get a great name as thinkers. They’re no use for important, deep problems such as ours.’

‘Then whom do you suggest?’

Now Slylooking had a secret plan. ‘I suggest,’ he said with a sly look, ‘I suggest the hens. They sit on their perches, without a move, and in the dark and all night long – they have nothing else to do but think. They have no scenery to distract them. Besides, they have a fine chairman, the cock, who keeps them in very good order.’

‘Then hens it is,’ said Foursquare generously.

The hens listened carefully to the problem and promised to give their answer by eleven o’clock next morning.

Foursquare found a soft warm place between
hayricks
and settled down for the night. But Slylooking could not sleep. He had much too much to do.

First of all he went to Rabbit-becomer. He said that he had discovered a whole store of cabbages which, he knew, Rabbit loved as much as he himself did.

‘Where? Where?’ cried Rabbit, hopping from one leg to the other.

‘Well,’ said Slylooking with a sly look, ‘they’re in the garden inside Man’s farm. If only I could dig a hole as well as you can, I’d have them in a jiffy. Now if you…’

His voice sank to a whisper.

Away went Rabbit with Slylooking to dig the hole.
After an hour’s hard digging, under Slylooking’s directions, Rabbit burst up through the floor of the hen-house. In a flash, Slylooking slipped past him. The hens shouted and flapped in the darkness for a moment – then snickity-snackity! Fox had gobbled the lot.

‘These are lively cabbages,’ said Rabbit, blinking in the darkness.

‘They’re the wrong ones!’ cried Slylooking,
pretending
to be very alarmed. ‘Run for your life, they don’t taste like cabbages at all. I think they’re cocks and hens.’

At this, Rabbit ran, and behind him, laughing
silently
, ran Slylooking, away down the long burrow.

Next morning Slylooking roused Foursquare, and together they went along to the hen-house to hear the decision. Slylooking kept his head turned so that Foursquare should not see his smile. He knocked loudly on the hen-house door. When there was no answer, he pretended to look very surprised.

‘They must be still deep in thought,’ he said, as he knocked again. Still there was no answer, and with a puzzled frown at Foursquare, he opened the door.

And immediately jumped back.

‘Murder! Murder!’ he cried. ‘Oh, look at the poor hens!’

Foursquare ran in. Nothing was to be seen but piles of feathers and a fresh rabbit hole in the middle of the floor.

‘Who’s been here?’ cried Slylooking, pointing at the burrow.

‘Well, that looks like Rabbit’s work,’ said Foursquare.

‘The villain!’ cried Slylooking. ‘Does he hope to get away with this?’

And away he went down the long burrow, almost choking with laughter.

He found Rabbit crouched in the end of a
side-shoot
, still trembling, terrified by what Slylooking had persuaded him to do. Without a word, Slylooking bundled him into a sack and carried him back to Man.

‘Here’s the villain who murdered all your poor chickens,’ he said. ‘Put him in your pot.’

Man was delighted. He was so pleased, in fact, that he employed Slylooking on the spot to guard his farm, and told him to go and tell Foursquare the decision.

And so Slylooking became the sentry at the farm and was happy among the cabbages. But not for long. He could not get out of his head the way those hens had tasted. One night, as he patrolled the farm, chewing a cabbage leaf, he thought and thought of those hens until he could bear it no longer. There were new hens in the hen-house and Slylooking went straight there.

‘Good evening, ladies,’ he said as he entered. ‘Is everything all right?’ Once he had the door closed behind him he chose the fattest hen and snap! she was gone. The others looked at him in alarm.

‘What will Man say when we tell him?’ they cried.

Slylooking smiled, and snuppity, snippity,
snoppity,
snap! There was nothing left but a pile of feathers.

Next morning, Man just couldn’t understand it. But he put new hens in the hen-house. Slylooking swore he had never heard a thing.

That night he visited the hen-house again.

And so every night for a week. He couldn’t resist it. And each time he had to gobble up every single hen lest any be left to tell Man what he had been up to. He quite lost his taste for cabbage leaves.

One evening, as he was going for a stroll in the fields, he met Foursquare.

‘What are you doing, still snooping round here? Away with you!’ he cried. ‘I’ve to guard the farm against such creatures as you.’

Foursquare looked at him steadily and said, ‘You have a hen feather in the corner of your mouth.’

Slylooking was furious, but before he could say anything Foursquare had walked away.

Slylooking didn’t like Foursquare’s remark at all. It looked as if he suspected the truth. So Slylooking decided to play a trick on Foursquare and get rid of him. He went straight to Man.

‘I have an idea,’ he said, with a sly look, ‘that Foursquare is at the bottom of this hen mystery. He is taking his revenge on you for employing me instead of him.’

‘Why,’ said Man, ‘that seems very likely. Certainly he has very fierce teeth. But how are we to catch him?’

‘Leave it to me,’ said Slylooking. He had another plan already worked out.

Away he went, and finally he found Foursquare sitting on a green hill watching the river.

‘Someone is still eating Man’s hens,’ said
Slylooking
. ‘Will you help us to catch him?’

Now Foursquare was a very honest creature, and when he heard this he was quite ready to believe that Slylooking was not the culprit as he had suspected.

‘How are we to do it?’ he asked.

‘Well,’ said Slylooking, ‘it isn’t clear whether the murderer comes up through the floor of the
henhouse
, or whether he comes over the farmyard gate and in at the hen-house door. So tonight, while I watch the farm gate, I want you to hide in the
hen-house
and keep an eye on the floor.’

‘Well, that should catch him, whoever it is,’ said Foursquare. ‘What time shall I come?’

‘Come about midnight. I’ll let you in,’ said
Slylooking
with a sly look.

A quarter of an hour before midnight Slylooking slipped into the hen-house and had a banquet of hens. Then he went off to meet
Foursquare
. Foursquare was waiting under the hedge.

‘Quickly, quickly!’ said Slylooking. ‘The murderer may be here any minute. Hurry. Into the hen-house.’

As soon as Foursquare was in the hen-house with the pile of feathers, Slylooking bolted the door and ran for Man.

‘I’ve trapped the murderer!’ he cried. ‘I’ve got him!’

Man came running to see who it was.

‘Why it’s Foursquare. Just as you said. Well done, Slylooking.’ Man dragged Foursquare out of the
hen-house
,
tied him to the fence, and ran to fetch his gun.

Slylooking danced round poor Foursquare, looking at him merrily out of his eye-corner and singing: 

‘Oh, is that so!’ roared Man’s voice. He had returned more quickly than Slylooking had expected. Bang! went his gun, and Bang! But Slylooking was over the wall and three fields away and still running.

There and then Man untied Foursquare and led him into the farm kitchen. He gave him a great
bowlful
of food and after that a rug to stretch out on at the fireside.

But that night, and every night after it, Slylooking had to sleep in the wet wood. And whenever he came sneaking back to the farm, sniffing for hens, Foursquare would hear him. He would jump up from his rug, barking at the top of his voice, and Man would be out through the door with his gun.

But Slylooking was too foxy to be caught. In fact, he was so foxy that pretty soon nobody called him Slylooking any more. They called him what we call him – plain Fox.