The Wishing-Chair Again (4 page)

“What a queer, round room,” said Peter, surprised.

“Oh—I know why it's round. It's inside the trunk of a tree! I've been in a tree-house before!”

“Guessed right first time! “said the elf. “This is where I live. I'd ask you to stop and have a cup of tea with me, but I think we'd better get on and see those chairs before anything happens to them.”

“Yes. So do I,” said Peter. “Where's the door out of the tree?”

It was fitted in so cunningly that it was impossible to see it unless you knew where it was. The elf went to it at once, of course, and opened it. They all stepped out into a wood. The elf shut the door. The children looked back at it. No—they couldn't possibly, possibly tell where it was now— it was so much part of the tree!

“Come along,” said the elf and they followed him through the wood. They came to a lane and then to a very neat village, all the houses set in tiny rows, with a little square green in the middle, and four white ducks looking very clean on a round pond in the centre of the green.

“How very proper!” said Peter. “Not a grass out of place.”

“This is Pin Village,” said the elf. “You've heard the saying, 'As neat as a pin,' I suppose? Well, this is Pin—always very neat and tidy and the people of the village, the Pins, never have a button missing or a hair blowing loose.”

The children saw that it was just as the elf said—the people were so tidy and neat that the children felt dirty and untidy at once. “They all look a bit like pins dressed up and walking about,” said Mollie with a giggle. “Well, I'm glad I know what 'neat as a pin' really means. I don't want to be a Pin of Pin Village though. Do they ever run, or make a noise, or laugh?”

“Sh! Don't laugh at them,” said the elf. “Now look—do you see that shop at the corner? It isn't kept by a Pin, it's kept by Mr. Polish. He sells furniture.”

“And he's called Polish because he's always polishing it, I suppose,” said Mollie with a laugh.

“Don't be too clever! “ said the elf. “He doesn't do any polishing at all—his daughter Polly does that.”

“Polly Polish,” said Peter, and giggled. The Pins walking primly nearby looked at him in disgust.

“Here's the shop,” said Mollie, and they stood and looked at it. She nudged Peter. “Look,” she whispered, “six chairs—all exactly alike. How are we to tell which is ours?”

“Come and have a look,” said Peter, and they went inside with the elf. A brownie girl was busy polishing away at the chairs, making them shine and gleam.

“There's Polly Polish,” said Mollie to Peter. She must have heard what they said and looked up. She smiled. She was a nice little thing, with pointed ears like Chinky, and very green eyes.

“Hallo,” she said. “How nice to see people who aren't as neat as a Pin!”

Mollie smiled back. “These are nice chairs, aren't they?” she said. “You've got a whole set of them!”

“Yes—my father, Mr. Polish, was very pleased,” said Polly. “He's only had five for a long time, and people want to buy chairs in sixes, you know.”

“How did he manage to get the sixth one?” asked Peter.

“It was a great bit of luck,” said Polly. “There's a goblin called Tricky who came along and said he wanted to sell an old chair that had once belonged to his grandmother—and when he showed it to us, lo and behold, it was the missing sixth chair of our set! So we bought it from him, and there it is. I expect now we shall be able to sell the whole set. Someone is sure to come along and buy it.”

“Which chair did the goblin bring you?” asked Peter, looking hard at them all.

“I don't know now,” said Polly, putting more polish on her duster and rubbing very hard at a chair. “I've been cleaning them and moving them about, you know —and they're all mixed up.”

The children stared at them in despair. They all looked exactly alike to them! Oh, dear—how could they possibly tell which was their chair?

Then Polly said something very helpful, though she didn't know it! “You know,” she said, “there's something queer about one of these chairs. I've polished and polished the back of it, but it seems to have a little hole there, or something. Anyway, I can't make that little bit come bright and shining.”

The children pricked up their ears at once. “Which chair?” said Peter. Polly showed them the one. It certainly seemed as if it had a hole in the back of it. Peter put his finger there—but the hole wasn't a hole! He could feel quite solid wood there!

And then he knew it was their own chair. He whispered to Mollie.

“Do you remember last year, when somebody made our Wishing-Chair invisible?” he whispered. “And we had to get some paint to make it visible again?”

“Oh, yes! “ whispered back Mollie. “I do remember —and we hadn't enough paint to make one little bit at the back of the chair become visible again—we had to miss it out—so it always looked as if there was a hole there, though there wasn't really!”

“Yes—and that's the place that poor Polly has been polishing and polishing,” said Peter. “Well—now we know that this is our chair all right! If only it would grow its wings we could sit on it straight away and wish ourselves home again!” He ran his fingers down the legs of the chairs to see if by any chance there were some bumps growing, that would mean wings were coming once more. But there weren't.

“Perhaps the wings will grow again this evening,” said Mollie. “Let's go and have tea with the elf in his tree-house and then come back here again and see if the chair has grown its wings.”

The elf was very pleased to think they would come back to tea with him. Before they went Peter looked hard at the chairs. “You know,” he said to Mollie, “I think we'd better just tie a ribbon round our own chair, so that if by any chance we decided to take it and go home with it quickly before anyone could stop us, we'd know immediately which it was.”

“That's a good idea,” said Mollie. She had no hair-ribbon, so she took her little blue handkerchief and knotted it round the right arm of the chair.

“What are you doing that for?” asked Polly Polish in surprise.

“We'll tell you some other time, Polly,” said Mollie. “Don't untie it, will you? It's to remind us of something. We'll come back again after tea.”

They went off with the elf. He asked them to see if they could find his door-handle and turn it to get into his tree-house—but, however much they looked and felt about, neither of them could make out where the closely-fitting door was! It's no wonder nobody ever knows which the tree-houses are!

The elf had to open the door for them himself, and in they went. He got them a lovely tea, with pink jellies that shone like a sunset, and blancmange that he had made in the shape of a little castle.

“I do wonder if Chinky's woken up yet,” said Mollie, at last. “No, thank you, elf, I can't possibly eat any more. It was a really lovely tea.”

“Now what about going back to the shop and seeing if we can't take our chair away?” said Peter. “We'll send Chinky to explain about it later—the thing is, we really must take it quickly, or that goblin called Tricky will send someone to buy all the set—and our chair with it!”

So off they went to the shop—and will you believe it, there were no chairs there! They were all gone from the window! The children stared in dismay.

They went into the shop. “What's happened to the chairs?” they asked Polly.

“Oh, we had such a bit of luck just after you had gone,” said Polly. “Somebody came by, noticed the chairs, said that the goblin Tricky had advised him to buy them—and paid us for them straight away!”

“Who was he?” asked Peter, his heart sinking.

“Let me see—his name was Mr. Spells,” said Polly, looking in a book. “And his address is Wizard Cottage. He seemed very nice indeed.”

“Oh dear,” said Peter, leading Mollie out of the shop. “Now we've
really
lost our dear old chair.”

“Don't give up!” said Mollie. “We'll go back to Chinky and tell him the whole story—and maybe he will know something about this Mr. Spells and be able to get our chair back for us. Chinky's very clever.”

“Yes—but before we can get it back from Mr. Spells, that wretched goblin Tricky will be after it again,” said Peter. “He's sure to go and take it from Mr. Spells.”

The elf took them home again. They went into the playroom. Chinky wasn't there! There was a note on the table.

It said

‘Fancy you going off without me! I've gone to look for you—Chinky.’

“Bother!” said Mollie. “How annoying! Here we've come back to look for him and
he's
gone to look for us. Now we'll have to wait till tomorrow!”

MOLLIE and Peter certainly could do no more that day, because their mother was already wondering where they were and why they hadn't been in to tea. They heard her calling them as they read Chinky's note saying he had gone to look for them.

“It's a pity Chinky didn't wait for us,” said Peter. “We could have sent him to Mr. Spells to keep guard on the chair. Come on, Mollie—we'll have to go in. We've hardly seen Mother all day!”

Their mother didn't know anything about the Wishing-Chair at all, of course, because the children kept it a strict secret.

“If we tell anyone, the grown-ups will come and take our precious chair, and put it into a museum or something,” said Peter. “I couldn't bear to think of the Wishing-Chair growing its wings in a museum and not being able to get out of a glass case.”

So they hadn't said a word to anyone. Now they ran indoors, and offered to help their mother shell peas. They sat and wondered where Chinky was. They felt very sleepy, and Mollie suddenly gave an enormous yawn.

“You look very tired, Mollie,” said Mother, looking at her pale face. “Didn't you sleep well last night?”

“Well—I didn't sleep a
lot,”
said Mollie truthfully, remembering her long flight in the Wishing-Chair and the strange bus ride afterwards.

"I think you had both better get off early to bed,” said Mother. “I'll bring your suppers up to you in bed for a treat—raspberries and cream, and bread and butter—would you like that?”

In the ordinary way the children would have said no thank you to any idea of going to bed early—but they really were so sleepy that they both yawned together and said yes, that sounded nice, thank you, Mother!

So upstairs they went and fell asleep immediately after the raspberries and cream. Mother was really very surprised when she peeped in to see them.

“Poor children—I expect all the excitement of coming home from school has tired them out,” she said. “I'll make them up sandwiches tomorrow and send them out on a picnic.”

They woke up early the next morning and their first thought was about the Wishing-Chair.

“Let's go down and see Chinky,” said Mollie. “We've got time before breakfast.”

So they dressed quickly and ran down to their playroom. But no Chinky was there—and no note either. He hadn't been back, then.

Wherever could he be?

“Oh dear, first the Wishing-Chair goes, and now Chinky,” said Mollie. “What's happened to him? I think we'd better go and ask that elf if he's seen him, Peter.”

“We shan't have time before breakfast,” said Peter. “We'll come down as soon as we've done any jobs Mother wants us to do.”

They were both delighted when Mother suggested that they should take their lunch with them and go out for a day's picnicking. Why—that would be just right! They could go and hunt out the elf—and find Chinky—and perhaps go to Mr. Spells with him. Splendid!

So they eagerly took the packets of sandwiches, cake and chocolate that Mother made up for them, and Peter put them into a little satchel to carry. Off they went. They peeped into their playroom just to make sure that Chinky still hadn't come back.

No, he hadn't. “Better leave a note for him, then!” said Peter.

“What have you said?” asked Mollie, glancing over her shoulder.

“I've said 'Why didn't you wait for us, silly? Now we've got to go and look for you whilst you're still looking for us!' ”

Mollie laughed. “Oh dear—this really is getting ridiculous. Come on—let's go to the tree-house and see if the elf is in.”

So off they went, down the garden, through the hedge, and across the field to where the dark patch of grass was—the ‘fairy-ring.’ They sat down in the middle of it and Mollie felt about for the button to press. She found something that felt rather like a little knob of earth and pressed it. Yes—it was the right button!

Down they went, not nearly as fast as the day before, because Mollie didn't press the button so hard. Then along the passage, past the queer bright little doors, and up the spiral stairway. They knocked on the door.

“It's us—Mollie and Peter. Can we come in?”

The door flew open and there stood the elf. He looked very pleased. “Well, this is really friendly of you. Come in.”

“We've come to ask you something,” said Mollie. “Have you seen Chinky?”

“Oh, yes—he came to me yesterday, after I'd said goodbye to you, and I told him all you'd told me—and off he went to find Polly Polish and get the latest news,” said the elf.

“Well, he hasn't come back yet.” said Mollie. “Where do you suppose he is?”