'Don't be horrible said Margo; 'the poor little thing.'
'Well, I think it's a perfectly ridiculous situation, allowing yourself to be chained to a chair by a dog.'
'It's my dog, and if I want to sit here I shall, said Mother firmly.
'But for how long? This might go on for months.'
'I shall think of something,' said Mother with dignity.
The solution to the problem that Mother eventually thought of was simple. She hired the maid's youngest daughter to carry the puppy for Dodo. This arrangement seemed to satisfy Dodo very well, and once more Mother was able to move about the house. She pottered from room to room like .some Eastern potentate, Dodo pattering at her heels, and young Sophia bringing up the end of the line, tongue protruding and eyes squinting with the effort, bearing in her arms a large cushion on which reposed Dodo's strange offspring. When Mother was going to be in one spot for any length of time Sophia would place the cushion reverently on the ground, and Dodo would surge on to it and sigh deeply. As soon as Mother was ready to go to another part of the house, Dodo would get off her cushion, shake herself, and take up her position in the cavalcade, while Sophia lifted the cushion aloft as though it carried a crown. Mother would peer over her spectacles to make sure the column was ready, giving a little nod, and they would wind their way off to the next job.
Every evening Mother would go for a walk with the dogs, and the family would derive much amusement from watching her progress down the hill. Roger, as senior dog, would lead the procession, followed by Widdle and Puke. Then came Mother, wearing an enormous straw hat, which made her look like an animated mushroom, clutching in one hand a large trowel with which to dig any interesting wild plants she found. Dodo would waddle behind, eyes protruding and tongue flapping, and Sophia would bring up the rear, pacing along solemnly, carrying the imperial puppy on its cushion. Mother's Circus, Larry called it, and would irritate her by bellowing out of the window:
'Oi! Lady, wot time does the big top go up, hay?
He purchased a bottle of hair restorer for her so that, as he explained, she could conduct experiments on Sophia and try to turn her into a bearded lady.
'That's wot your show needs, lady,' he assured her in a hoarse voice - 'a bit of clarse, see? Nothing like a bearded lady for bringin' a bit o' clarse to a show.'
But in spite of all this Mother continued to lead her strange caravan off into the olive-groves at five o'clock every evening.
Up in the north of the island lay a large lake with the pleasant, jingling name of Antiniotissa, and this place was one of our favourite haunts. It was about a mile long, an elongated sheet of shallow water surrounded by a thick mane of cane and reed, and separated from the sea at one end by a wide, gently curving dune of fine white sand. Theodore always accompanied us when we paid our visits to the lake, for he and I would find a rich field of exploration in the ponds, ditches, and marshy pot-holes that lay around the shore of the lake. Leslie invariably took a battery of guns with him, since the cane forest rustled with game, while Larry insisted on taking an enormous harpoon, and would stand for hours in the stream that marked the lake's entry into the sea, endeavouring to spear the large fish that swam there. Mother would be laden with baskets full of food, empty baskets for plants, and various gardening implements for digging up her finds. Margo was perhaps the most simply equipped, with a bathing-costume, a large towel, and a bottle of sun-tan lotion. With all this equipment our trips to Antiniotissa were something in the nature of major expeditions.
There was, however, a certain time of the year when the lake was at its best, and that was the season of lilies. The smooth curve of the dune that ran between the bay and the lake was the only place on the island where these sand lilies grew, strange, misshapen bulbs buried in the sand, that once a year sent up thick green leaves and white flowers above the surface, so that the dune became a glacier of flowers. We always visited the lake at this time, for the experience was a memorable one. Not long after Dodo had become a mother, Theodore informed us that the time of the lilies was at hand, and we started to make preparations for our trip to Antiniotissa. We soon found that having a nursing mother in our midst was going to complicate matters considerably.
'We'll have to go by boat this time,' Mother said, frowning at a complicated, jigsaw-like jersey she was knitting.
'Why, by boat it takes twice as long,' said Larry.
'We can't go by car, dear, because Dodo will be sick, and anyway there wouldn't be room for all of us.'
'You're not going to take that animal, are you?' asked Larry in horror.
'But I have to, dear .. . purl two, cast off one.... I can't leave her behind... purl three... you know what she's like.'
'Well, hire a special car for her then. I'm damned if I'm going to drive about the countryside looking as though I've just burgled Battersea Dogs' Home.'
'She can't travel by car. That's what I'm explaining to you. You know she gets car-sick. Now be quiet a minute, dear, I'm counting.'
'Its ridiculous. ..' began Larry exasperatedly.
'Seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty,' said Mother loudly and fiercely.
'It's ridiculous that we should have to go the longest way round just because Dodo vomits every time she sees a car.'
'There!' said Mother irritably, 'you've made me lose count. I do wish you wouldn't argue with me when I'm knitting.'
'How d'you know she won't be sea-sick?' inquired Leslie interestedly.
'People who are car-sick are never sea-sick,' explained Mother.
'I don't believe it,' said Larry. 'That's an old wives' tale, isn't it, Theodore?
'Well, I wouldn't like to say,' said Theodore judicially. 'I have heard it before, but whether there's any... um... you know... any truth in it, I can't say. All I know is that I have, so far, not felt sick in a car.'
Larry looked at him blankly. 'What does that prove?' he asked, bewildered.
'Well, I am always sick in a boat,' explained Theodore simply.
'That's wonderful!' said Larry. 'If we travel by car Dodo will be sick, and if we travel by boat Theodore will. Take your choice.'
'I didn't know you got sea-sick, Theodore,' said Mother.
'Oh, yes, unfortunately I do. I find it a great drawback.'
'Well, in weather like this the sea will be very calm, so I should think you'll be all right,' said Margo.
'Unfortunately,' said Theodore, rocking on his toes, 'that does not make any difference at all. I suffer from the... er ... slightest motion. In fact on several occasions when I have been in the cinema and they have shown films of ships in rough seas I have been forced to... um... forced to leave my seat.'
'Simplest thing would be to divide up,' said Leslie; 'half go by boat and the other half go by car.'
"That's a brain-wave!' said Mother. The problem is solved.'
But it did not settle the problem at all, for we discovered that the road to Antiniotissa was blocked by a minor landslide, and so to get there by car was impossible. We would have to go by sea or not at all.
We set off in a warm pearly dawn that foretold a breathlessly warm day and a calm sea. In order to cope with the family, the dogs, Spiro, and Sophia, we had to take the Bootle-Bumtrinket as well as the Sea Cow. Having to trail the Bootle-Bumtrinket's rotund shape behind her cut down on the Sea Cow's speed, but it was the only way to do it. At Larry's suggestion the dogs, Sophia, Mother, and Theodore travelled in the Bootle-Bumtrinket while the rest of us piled into the Sea Cow. Unfortunately Larry had not taken into consideration one important factor: the wash caused by the Sea Cow's passage. The wave curved like a wall of blue glass from her stern and reached its maximum height just as it struck the broad breast o the Bootle-Bumtrinket, lifting her up into the air and dropping her down again with a thump. We did not notice the effect the wash was having for some considerable time, for the noise of the engine drowned the frantic cries for help from Mother. When we eventually stopped and let the Bootle-Bumtrinket bounce up to us, we found that not only were both Theodore and Dodo ill, but everyone else was as well, including such a hardened and experienced sailor as Roger. We had to get them all into the Sea Cow and lay them out in a row, and Spiro, Larry, Margo, and myself took up their positions in the Bootle-Bumtrinket. By the time we were nearing Antiniotissa everyone was feeling better, with the exception of Theodore, who still kept as close to the side of the boat as possible, staring hard at his boots and answering questions monosyllabically. We rounded the last headland of red and gold rocks, lying in wavy layers like piles of gigantic fossilized newspapers, or the rusty and mould-covered wreckage of a colossus's library, and the Sea Cow and the Bootle-Bumtrinket turned into the wide blue bay that lay at the mouth of the lake. The curve of pearl-white sand was backed by the great lily-covered dune behind, a thousand white flowers in the sunshine like a multitude of ivory horns lifting their lips to the sky and producing, instead of music, a rich, heavy scent that was the distilled essence of summer, a warm sweetness that made you breathe deeply time and again in an effort to retain it within you. The engine died away in a final splutter that echoed briefly among the rocks, and then the two boats whispered their way shorewards, and the scent of the lilies came out over the water to greet us.