‘That’s loosened them nicely. It’s beginning to work!’ said Miss Dibdin with a chuckle. Mrs Witherspoon stopped chanting. The tricycle had begun to slow down. Loosened from the band that held them by the removal of the first twigs, the others began to slip away of their own accord, and as they fell out of sight into the mist below, the tricycle went slower and slower, although Mrs Witherspoon pedalled faster and faster.
‘Whatever is the matter with you?’ she said to the tricycle, as it began to flounder, like a bather in deep water who can’t swim. The more it faltered, the more the broom began to pick up speed and purpose.
‘Matter?’ called Miss Dibdin triumphantly. ‘Look behind you, Dulcie dear! Look at your twigs! It was as easy as plucking a chicken!’ Mrs Witherspoon looked.
‘No! No! Not that!’ she screamed. ‘My power is ebbing away!’ And as the last twig fell, and disappeared into the greyness below, she threw up her hands, and the tricycle plummeted down and down out of sight into the thick blanket of mist.
‘Who is the winner now?’ Miss Dibdin shouted after her, with a triumphant laugh. From far away, as though in defiance, came the faint ringing of the bicycle bell ... and then ... silence.
‘Rosie! Are you all right?’ asked John anxiously. Rosemary nodded.
‘The minute Mrs Witherspoon stopped that chanting, my arms and legs seemed to become unbound again. But poor thing, do you think she’s hurt?’
‘Witches, like cats, have nine lives. That’s why they work together. She will survive, no doubt,’ said Miss Dibdin coldly.
‘Oughtn’t we to go down and see?’ asked John.
‘You can’t,’ she replied. ‘You commanded the broom to go to Fallowhithe, and to Fallowhithe it will go. Nothing will stop it, except more powerful magic.’
As she spoke, the mist round them began to dissolve. It became thinner and thinner, until at last they sailed out into radiant sunshine.
‘Thank goodness!’ said Rosemary. She looked down. ‘Why we’re right over the motorway to Fallowhithe and flying lower!’
‘I say,’ went on John. ‘Look at the roundabout down there!’
Just below them was a circle of green grass. Round it flowed what looked like an unending stream of traffic. In the middle of the roundabout, they could just see a pink blob, and the crumpled shape of what might once have been a tricycle. As they flew over, it looked as though the pink blob shook its fist at them.
‘But however will she get away from there, with traffic swirling round all the time?’ asked John.
‘It will do her no harm to cool her heels for a little,’ said Miss Dibdin drily. ‘Besides, it might keep her out of mischief.’
19. The Dump
‘I say, we’re nearly over Fallowhithe,’ said Rosemary, when once more she looked ahead. ‘We must have gone at a terrific pace through that cloud after all.’
Instead of the patchwork of fields and trees over which they had been flying, there was a scatter of houses, with the green spaces dividing them growing narrower the further they flew, until at last the buildings closed their ranks, and the greyness of the roof-tops was only broken here and there by a small back garden.
‘How in the world can the broom find Calidor?’ said John, as he looked down on the sea of buildings below.
‘It will,’ said Miss Dibdin calmly. ‘I think it is searching already.’
They had began to lose height and speed, at the same time making a wide circle. Suddenly, without warning, the broom dropped, so quickly that its three passengers felt as though their insides were not quite keeping pace with their outsides. ‘Like going down in a lift,’ as John said later. They just had time to see that there was an open space of some sort beneath them, then they landed, with a deafening clanking and clonking, on a knobbly, uneven surface. They all sat up, a little shakily, and looked anxiously around. They were in the middle of a hollow, in a great mound of rusty old tin cans.
‘No wonder we made such a racket when we landed!’ said John. ‘Wherever are we?’
At once, a voice John and Rosemary both recognized answered: ‘Fallowhithe Rubbish Dump!’
‘Calidor!’ shouted John and Rosemary.
‘John and Rosemary!’ cried Calidor, with just as much pleasure. ‘What in the world brings you here? And Miss Dibdin too!’
He stepped delicately down from the pile of tins on which he had been sitting, and joined them in their hollow, purring loudly.
‘Oh, well done, broom!’ whispered Rosemary. ‘Well done, and thank you!’ And as she gave it a pat the stick gave a little wriggle, as though in acknowledgement, and then lay still. Miss Dibdin had risen to her feet, with some difficulty, and a clatter of tins.
‘First, I should like to pay my respects to Prince Calidor, and to apologize for any lack of respect I may have shown in the past, before I was aware ...’ She held out the skirts of her coat, and was in the middle of a rather wobbly curtsey as she spoke, when the tins gave way beneath her and she sat down abruptly. ‘And if I can be of any assistance to your Highness, I shall be only too honoured!’ she went on breathlessly.
Calidor bowed his head graciously in reply, but he gave John and Rosemary an inquiring glance, which Miss Dibdin noticed. She added drily: ‘Oh, it’s all right. I have not the pleasure of hearing cats talk, so you can say what you like to John and Rosemary. Don’t mind me.’
‘Then she knows who I am?’ inquired Calidor. John nodded.
‘But you have given up witchery, haven’t you?’ said Rosemary.
‘Totally and absolutely,’ replied Miss Dibdin firmly. ‘I merely came for the ride. I have given these children my broom.’
‘I got it to fly properly,’ said Rosemary. ‘And we flew here to tell you we’ve found Carbonel!’
‘Found my father?’ exclaimed Calidor. ‘Wonderful news! Where is he?’
‘At Tucket Towers,’ said John. ‘Mrs Witherspoon wants him to be her witch’s cat!’ and of course he won’t.’
‘My father a witch’s cat!’ said Calidor in an outraged voice.
‘So she has shut him up in the little room at the top of the tower until he changes his mind ...’ said Rosemary.
‘With the Scrabbles to keep guard,’ interrupted John.
‘Scrabbles?’ queried Calidor.
‘Queer creatures with eyes back and front, and iron paws,’ said Rosemary. ‘They sit in a ring round him day and night, in case he should try to escape.’
‘But that’s not all,’ went on John. ‘Mrs Witherspoon is getting fed up with waiting for Carbonel to change his mind, and she has told Grisana and Melissa ...’
‘That wicked pair!’ interrupted Calidor with a hiss. His back was bristling and his tail twitched angrily.
‘She has told Grisana that if Carbonel has not consented to be her witch’s cat by moonrise tonight, she can have him, to do with him what she likes!’ said Rosemary. ‘And we heard Grisana tell Melissa that she would take Carbonel captive back to Broomhurst. And then you would come to rescue him, and they would be lying in wait, all ready to scrodge the two of you.’
Calidor’s tail was no longer just twitching, it was lashing angrily, while he made curious growling, cat noises in his throat: ‘How dare they! How dare they!’ he hissed.
‘Melissa pretends she doesn’t mind that you won’t marry her, but she is furious really,’ said Rosemary.
‘If only Mattins had held his tongue!’ went on Calidor.
‘He did it because when Mrs Witherspoon found Carbonel, she didn’t want him for her witch’s cat any more,’ said Rosemary.