‘Well, it wasn’t as brave as you were when you made me pour that purple stuff down your ear, and we weren’t sure what it would do to you,’ said John.
‘The Hearing Mixture?’ said Rosemary. John nodded, and shuffled his feet in an embarrassed way. ‘I was too scared to do it, but I let you. I’ve felt uncomfortable about it ever since,’ he mumbled.
‘And Dumpsie was as brave as a lion when she tripped up Mrs Witherspoon, so that we could escape,’ went on Rosemary.
‘It runs in the family,’ said Dumpsie airily. ‘Lions is second cousins to cats. Oh well, I suppose there’s different ways of being brave.’
‘Well, I bet we shall need them all tonight when we go to Tucket Towers,’ said John.
22. Councils of War
‘THERE hasn’t been a single second, since we left the Dump, to plan what we’re going to do tonight when we get to Tucket Towers,’ said John. ‘It’s half past nine already, and moonrise is at half past ten, I looked it up in my School Boy’s Diary.’
They were sitting on Rosemary’s bed, with Dumpsie washing her already spotless shirt front as she sat between them on the patchwork quilt. Supper had been late, after the clearing up and excitements of the day. Pleading tiredness, they had gone upstairs soon after.
‘I met Mrs Witherspoon again this evening,’ said Rosemary uneasily. John looked at her in surprise. ‘I wanted to tell you, but there hasn’t been a chance. It was in the drive when the Sale was over, and you were helping Mrs Bodkin collect the dirty tea things. I’d been helping a woman load up her pram with a dinner service. There wasn’t much room for the baby as well. It was queer. She seemed much more worried about the dinner service.’
‘I expect that was the magic,’ said John. ‘It seems to make people quite different somehow. I don’t think it really cares what happens to them. Like making a fool of me up against the station roof, and Mrs Bodkin having to do all that ironing. And imagine bringing poor old Mr Grimes to the Sale in his pyjamas! But what did Mrs Witherspoon say?’
‘She must have been hanging about in the bushes by the gate because she pounced on me as I was coming back,’ said Rosemary. ‘She said she couldn’t come inside without her shoes — she’d lost them in the flower-bed — and her pink frock was all muddy. She asked me to give you a message. She said: “Tell that boy I shall be even with him yet, in the way he will mind most and least expect!” And then she laughed, but it was a queer sort of laugh. I didn’t like it. And then she said ...’ Rosemary stopped, and shuffled uncomfortably on the patchwork quilt.
‘Well, go on! What did she say?’
‘She said,’ went on Rosemary slowly, ‘ “Have you ever thought of being a witch yourself? If you come to Tucket Towers, Gullion and I will teach you. You’d make a very pretty witchling”!’
‘She never said that!’ said John incredulously, and burst out laughing. Rosemary did not laugh. She sat with her chin in her hands, staring at the toes of her shoes. ‘A crumby old witch you’d make, Rosie! But what infernal cheek! What did she say when you turned her down?’
‘She just laughed that queer laugh again, and then she said: “Stranger things have happened”, and not to forget her message to you.’
‘ “Get even with me in the way I least expect”?’ repeated John more soberly.
In the thoughtful silence that followed, faint and far away they heard the church clock strike.
‘Gosh! Ten o’clock!’ said John. ‘And here we are talking nonsense, instead of making plans to rescue Carbonel. I’d better take my torch.’
‘There’s one more wish left in the Golden Gew-Gaw,’ said Rosemary. ‘Why don’t we use magic to clear the whole business up?’
John shook his head. ‘It’s too complicated. What should we actually wish for? We should only make a mess of it. Besides, I’m quite certain Carbonel and Calidor would want to win this battle by themselves, not because of any old wishing ring. Like me and football.’
‘I suppose so,’ said Rosemary doubtfully. At the mention of Calidor, Dumpsie had stopped washing herself. She sat up very straight, and pricked her ears.
‘Well how on earth do we get inside Tucket Towers for a start?’ went on Rosemary.
‘That bit’s easy,’ said John. ‘The latch of the scullery window is broken, you remember. We’re lucky that there isn’t any electric light any more. I suppose Mrs Witherspoon has to use candles instead.’
‘In all those grand silver candlesticks,’ added Rosemary.
‘It’ll make it easier to get to the tower without being spotted, said John.
‘But twice as creepy!’ added Rosemary. ‘And with Mrs Witherspoon keeping the key of Carbonel’s prison on a string round her neck, how on earth do we unlock the door? Calidor didn’t know what he was asking.’
‘If Calidor tells us to do something, we does it,’ said Dumpsie shortly. ‘What a pother you’m making over this business! If you want the turret door opened, why don’t you let this Witch-Woman do it for you? Is there anywhere you can hide by the door?’
‘I suppose we could squat behind some of that junk on the landing, outside,’ said John. ‘But how would that help us?’
‘See here,’ said Dumpsie in a patient voice. ‘The Witch-Woman comes up them twirly stairs you told me about, holding her candle. She’ll have to put it down somewheres while she hauls up the key, hand over hand. Then she puts the key in the lock, and as soon as you hear it turning you ups and blows out the light so as she can’t see what’s going on.’
‘But what about all those Scrabbles on guard in a ring round Carbonel? They will be able to see, each one with its four great eyes shining back and front,’ said Rosemary.
‘Wait a minute,’ interrupted John. ‘Mrs Witherspoon thinks the Scrabbles can see in the dark because they’re called cat’s eyes, but I don’t believe they can. When they are just cat’s eyes in the road, they only glow when the headlights of a car shine full on them. They just reflect light. Don’t you remember, Rosie, we saw it happen?’
‘Of course! Then if the candle is blown out and there is no light, their eyes aren’t any good and they won’t be able to see!’
‘Cat’s eyes!’ said Dumpsie scornfully. ‘Cats is cats, and Scrabbles is Scrabbles.’
‘But even if the Scrabbles can’t see in the dark, neither can we,’ said Rosemary obstinately.
‘Nor the Witch-Woman neither,’ said Dumpsie. ‘So humans start even. Only King Carbonel and me, true cats, will see near as plain as day without much light. It’ll all be easy as falling off a dustbin lid!’
‘I don’t know about that,’ said John soberly. ‘But at least we’ve got some sort of plan to start off with. We must be going. Come on, Rosie! You’re better at these magic rhymes than I am. Think one up quickly while I fish the broom out from under your bed. You’d better tell it to take us to the little wood. We’re less likely to be spotted landing there, and the rooks will be asleep.’
In no time at all they were sailing through Rosemary’s bedroom window, with John in the middle and Dumpsie up behind. The night was dark. Here and there, different coloured squares of light glowed where the inhabitants of Highdown sat behind their window curtains. Over the church they flew, so low that John gave the weather-cock on the steeple a flick with his toe and sent it twirling; over the fields, and the dark ribbon that was the railway cutting, with the station a dim shadow crouching away to their left, until they dived down into the gently-swaying black mass which was the wood, landing so neatly that not a twig or a leaf was disturbed.
‘Well done, broom!’ whispered Rosemary, ‘and thank you.’ She propped it up against a tree.