The Wind on the Moon (2 page)

The house where they lived was on the outskirts of a village called Midmeddlecum. At one end of the village was the Forest of Weal, and at the other a large estate, surrounded by a high wall, that belonged to the Squire, who had a private zoo. His name was Sir Lankester Lemon. There was a Square in the middle of the village, where the Doctor lived in a large house. His name was Dr. Fosfar, and he had a glass eye. He gave his patients bigger bottles of medicine than any other doctor they had ever heard of, and because of this he was very popular.

On the opposite side of the Square were a baker's shop, a grocer's shop, and a butcher's shop. The butcher was Mr. Leathercow, the grocer Mr. Fullalove, and the baker Mr. Crumb. Mr. Leathercow was a little fat man with a red face and no hair on his head. Mr. Fullalove was tall and thin, with a long neck and a sad expression. Mr. Crumb had a wooden leg. They all had wives who never stopped talking, and Mr. and Mrs. Leathercow had four sons, Mr. and Mrs. Crumb had three daughters, but Mr. and Mrs. Fullalove had no children at all.

A small river ran to the north of the village, and facing a bend of the stream were the Vicarage and a big house that belonged to Mr. Justice Rumple, who was one of His Majesty's Judges, and so fond of judging that he used to wear his wig even at the breakfast-table.

Mr. Steeple, the Vicar, who lived in the Vicarage, was a friendly man who loved to hear people singing, and gave all his money to the poor. His wife was more careful, and did not give him enough to eat. Her father had also been a vicar, and she had seven sisters, one of whom was governess to Dinah and Dorinda Palfrey. Her name was Miss Serendip.

Miss Serendip believed that knowledge was the most important thing on earth, and every hour of the day she did her best to make Dinah and Dorinda learn all manner of things, whether they were useful or not. Even at the breakfast-table, or the dinner-table, she would talk in this manner:

‘Will you pass me the pepper, Dorinda? Pepper, as I daresay you know, is a spice. There is black pepper, white pepper, and red pepper. Pepper used to be a monopoly of the King of Portugal. Much of it is now grown in Penang. Penang means the Island of Areca Nuts. At one time it was a penal settlement, or prison. The word prison is derived from the word
prehensio
. Our prisons used to be very badly conducted, but gradually reform was introduced. Newgate was a famous old prison, Sing Sing is a well-known modern prison. Thank you, dear. Put the pepper back in its proper place.'

One day, when she had been talking like this, Dinah said, ‘I know something that's far more important than knowledge.'

‘What is that?' asked Miss Serendip.

‘Food,' said Dinah. ‘Can I have some more pudding, please?'

‘I'm hungry too,' said Dorinda.

‘I think I must ask Dr. Fosfar to come and see you,' said their mother. ‘You're eating far more than you used to, and you're both getting so fat.'

Miss Serendip

‘We're fond of eating,' said Dinah.

‘Very fond,' said Dorinda.

‘Because food is the most important thing in the world,' said Dinah. ‘I love food.'

At the very moment of saying this, Dinah realised that she was about to be very naughty indeed. She and Dorinda had talked a good deal about the wind on the moon, that might have blown into their hearts, and both of them felt that the time was coming when they were going to be naughtier than ever before. They were very excited about it, because they expected to enjoy themselves thoroughly. And now Dinah suddenly perceived that one of the best ways of being naughty was to be utterly and shamelessly greedy. At the same time she felt marvellously hungry, so that to be greedy seemed the most natural thing in the world.

‘I
love
food,' she repeated.

‘So does Mrs. Grimble,' said Dorinda, and Dinah laughed when she heard that, because Mrs. Grimble was a person about whom they were forbidden to speak. So Dinah knew that Dorinda now meant to be as naughty as herself.

‘Children!' exclaimed their mother, ‘I have told you never to mention that name. I do not believe there is such a person as Mrs. Grimble.'

‘Yes, there is,' said Dinah.

‘You must never contradict your mother,' said Miss Serendip. ‘Every mother loves her children, and knows what is best for them. In ancient Greece there was a mother called Niobe who had no fewer than twelve children, six boys and six girls. None of them, I am sure, ever contradicted her.'

‘Mrs. Grimble lives in the Forest of Weal, and I went to see her yesterday,' said Dinah stubbornly. ‘Can I have some more pudding, please?'

Very few people had ever seen Mrs. Grimble, though many had heard of her. Dinah said she was an old woman with a hairy wart on her chin, and one eye bigger than the other. She lived all alone, said Dinah, in a little house, painted green with yellow blinds and a red door, in the darkest part of the Forest of Weal.

‘The first time I met her,' Dinah continued, ‘Mrs. Grimble was having a beautiful dinner. First of all she had an omelette made out of twelve partridge eggs that she had found. Then she ate the partridge itself, roasted, with bread sauce and cauliflower and fried potatoes. Then she had junket and cream, and a piece of birthday cake with almond icing on it.'

‘If there is such a person as Mrs. Grimble,' said Miss Serendip, ‘why have we never seen her?'

‘Because she knows a lot of magic,' said Dinah, ‘and she can make herself invisible to people whom she doesn't like.'

‘Now you are talking nonsense,' said her mother. ‘You are talking wicked nonsense, and if your father were here I would ask him to give you a thrashing.'

‘But he wouldn't do it,' said Dorinda. ‘He never did.'

‘Oh, how naughty you are!' said her mother. ‘You make me feel quite upset.'

Miss Serendip, still trying to be clever, said to Dinah, ‘I should very much like to meet Mrs. Grimble. Won't you take me with you the next time you go to see her?'

‘It wouldn't be any use,' said Dinah, ‘because you are one of the people whom she doesn't like.'

‘Then I am one of the people who must refuse to believe in her,' said Miss Serendip crossly. ‘Because neither you nor she, it appears, can give me any proof of her existence.'

‘Yes, we can,' said Dinah.

‘How?' asked her mother.

‘Give me some more pudding and I'll prove it.'

‘Me too,' cried Dorinda.

‘You've had far too much already,' said their mother, ‘but I suppose I must give in to you.' And she gave each of them a large helping of pudding.

‘And now for the proof of Mrs. Grimble's existence,' said Miss Serendip.

‘Wait till to-morrow,' said Dinah. ‘I'll prove it then.'

The following morning she and Dorinda went upstairs to Miss Serendip's room and knocked at the door. It was a pleasant room with a window facing south, a satinwood bed, a satinwood dressing-table, and a satinwood writing-desk at which Miss Serendip used to sit and write letters to her seven sisters. The walls had been newly papered with a paper of Miss Serendip's own choosing. The pattern was of small pink roses and large blue pigeons. The roses hung in wide loops, and in the middle of each loop sat a pigeon with a pink ribbon round its neck.

‘Come in,' cried Miss Serendip, who was sitting at her satinwood desk writing a letter to one of her sisters. ‘I suppose you have come to keep your promise,' she said, ‘and prove to me that Mrs. Grimble really exists.'

‘Yes,' said Dinah.

‘That will be very interesting,' said Miss Serendip coldly.

Dinah showed her a little box full of yellow seed.

‘This is pigeon-seed,' she said, ‘and Mrs. Grimble gave it to me. When I throw it on the floor, all the pigeons in your wallpaper will come to life and fly away. You had better open your window.'

‘I never heard such nonsense,' exclaimed Miss Serendip. ‘You are certainly not going to make a mess of my room by throwing bird-seed all over it.'

But Dinah, with a sudden movement, scattered the seed on the carpet, and immediately all the pigeons in the wallpaper began to move their heads about, and lift their wings, and fill the room with their soft voices.
Coo-coooo-roo, coo-roo
, they said.

Miss Serendip was very much surprised, and she went quite white when first one pigeon, and then another, undid the little pink bows on their necks and threw them to the floor.
Coo-coooo-roo
, they said, while they were untying the bows, and from the tone of their voices it was quite clear that they had disliked those foolish ornaments.

Then they flew down to the floor and ate the pigeon-seed. The floor was covered with them, and when they rose again, the beating of their wings made a great wind in the room. Miss Serendip's hair blew into her eyes, and Dinah's skirt flew up, and Dorinda was almost blown down.

‘Come in,' cried Miss Serendip

But Dinah opened the window, and all the pigeons flew out and away to the Forest of Weal.

‘Now do you believe in Mrs. Grimble?' asked Dinah triumphantly.

But Miss Serendip was quite overcome by her experience and did not know what to reply. Without even waiting to tidy her hair, she hurried downstairs and told Mrs. Palfrey exactly what had happened. Mrs. Palfrey did not believe her till she had seen for herself the wallpaper in Miss Serendip's room. The festoons of roses were still there, but all the pigeons had vanished, and on the floor lay the little pink bows they had torn from their necks. When she saw that, Mrs. Palfrey was very much upset, and had to lie down and rest for an hour.

For dinner that day the cook gave them tomato soup, cold tongue and salad, and gooseberry tart. Dinah had two plates of soup, three helpings of tongue, and three helpings of gooseberry tart. Dorinda had three plates of soup, one helping of tongue, and four helpings of tart. Their mother knew that this was far too much for them, but she had been so frightened by the flight of the pigeons that she dared not refuse to give them all they asked. Miss Serendip was still rather pale, and though she watched with dismay the enormous meal which the children ate, she hardly spoke. She did, however, say a few words about salads.

‘The word
salad
,' she said, ‘is derived from the Latin
salare
, which means to sprinkle with salt. For myself, I do not much care for salt, but Plato calls it a substance dear to the gods. In parts of Central Africa it is also much esteemed, and the use of it is confined to the rich. Few people realise the enormous size of the African continent. It covers nearly twelve million square miles, and from the north to Cape Agulhas in the south is a distance of five thousand miles. Among the most famous names associated with Africa are those of Cleopatra and Dr. Livingstone. . . .'

But nobody paid much attention to her, and after a little while she was silent.

As time went on, Dinah and Dorinda ate more and more. For breakfast they ate porridge and cream, fish and bacon and eggs and sausages and tomatoes, toast and marmalade, and rolls and honey. For dinner they ate roast beef and cold lamb, boiled mutton with caper sauce, Scotch broth and clear soup, hare soup and lentil soup, roast chicken with thyme and parsley stuffing, boiled fowl with oatmeal and onion stuffing, roast duck with apple sauce, apple-tart and cherry pie, Yorkshire pudding and plum pudding, trifle and jelly, potatoes and Brussels sprouts and cauliflower and French beans and green peas, and all sorts of cheese. For tea they had scones and pancakes, crumpets and pikelets, muffins and cream buns, plum cake and seed cake and cream cake and chocolate cake, and often some bread and butter as well. And for supper they had stewed fruit and fresh fruit, oranges and bananas and baked apples, and half a gallon of milk at the very least.

They got fatter and fatter. They got so fat, and quickly got fatter still, that every three or four days they burst their frocks and split their vests, and were quite unable to pull their stockings over their fat round legs. So every few days their mother had to buy new clothes for them. But if she bought them new dresses on a Tuesday, they were sure to burst the seams by Friday, or Saturday at the latest.