Adventures of the Wishing-Chair (13 page)

So, when no one was looking, Peter and Mollie carried the wishing-chair up to the boxroom and stood it safely in a corner. They shut the window up tightly, so that it couldn’t fly out if its wings grew suddenly.

They couldn’t have Chinky to play with them in the house, because he didn’t want anyone to know about him. So they asked Thomas, the little boy over the road, to come and play soldiers, on a rainy afternoon. They didn’t like him very much, but he was better than nobody.

Thomas came. He soon got tired of playing soldiers. He began turning head-over-heels down the nursery floor. He could do it very well.

“I can make awful faces, too,” he said to Mollie and Peter—and he began to pull such dreadful faces that the two children gazed at him in surprise and horror.

“Our mother says that if you pull faces and the wind happens to change you may get stuck like that,” said Mollie. “Do stop it, Thomas.”

But Thomas wouldn’t. He wrinkled up his nose and his forehead and blew out his cheeks—and do you know, the wind changed that very minute!

And poor Thomas couldn’t get his face right again!

He tried and he tried, but he couldn’t. It was dreadful! Whatever was he to do?

“Oh, Thomas, the wind changed—I saw the weathercock swing round that very moment!” cried Mollie. “I did warn you! I do think you’re silly.”

“He can’t go home like that,” said Peter. “Let’s wash his face in hot water—then perhaps it will go right again.”

So they washed Thomas’s face well—but it was as bad as ever when they had finished! Screwed-up nose and forehead and blown-out cheeks... oh dear!

“Do you suppose Chinky would know what to do?” said Peter at last.

“Who’s Chinky?” asked Thomas.

“Never you mind,” said Mollie. “Peter, go and find Chinky and see what he says. I’ll stay here with Thomas. He mustn’t go out of the nursery, because if he meets Mother or Jane, they will think he’s making faces at them and will be ever so cross.”

Peter ran downstairs. He went into the garden and whistled a little tune that Chinky had taught him. He had to whistle this whenever he wanted the pixie.

Chinky whistled back. Peter saw him under a big hawthorn bush, mending a hole in his coat.

“What’s up?” asked Chinky, sewing away.

“We’ve got a boy in our nursery who’s been making dreadful faces,” explained Peter. “And the wind changed just as he was making a specially horrible one— and now he can’t get his face right again. So Mollie sent me to ask you if you could do anything to help.”

“A boy as silly as that doesn’t deserve help,” said Chinky, breaking off his cotton and threading his needle again. “You go and tell him so.”

“Oh no, Chinky, we really
must
help him,” said Peter. “His mother may think
we
made his face like that, and we’ll get into trouble. You don’t want us to be sent to bed for a week, do you?”

“No, I don’t,” said Chinky, putting on his coat. “I’ll help
you
because you’re my friends. There’s only one thing to be done for a person who’s been making faces when the wind changed.”

“What’s that?” asked Peter.

“You’ve got to get a bit of the wind that blew just then, and puff it into his face,” said Chinky. “Then he’ll be all right—but it’s dreadfully difficult to get a bit of the same wind.”

“How can we?” asked Peter, in dismay.

“We’d better go in the wishing-chair to the Windy Wizard,” said Chinky. “He knows all the ins and outs of every wind that blows. I’ve seen the old wishing-chair looking out of the window this afternoon, trying to get out, so I’m sure it’s grown its wings again. Go and see, and if it has, tell Mollie, and we’ll go and get help from the old wizard.”

“Oh, thank you, Chinky,” said Peter, and he ran indoors. He whispered to Mollie all that Chinky had said.

“I think the chair
must
have grown its wings,” Mollie said, “because there have been such queer sounds going on in the boxroom this afternoon—you know, knockings and bumping. I expect it’s the chair trying to get out.”

“I’ll go and see,” said Peter. He ran up the topmost flight of stairs and opened the boxroom door. The wishing-chair was standing by it, ready to fly out—but Peter caught hold of it just as it was slipping out of the door.

“Now just wait a minute,” he said. But the chair wouldn’t! It forced its way past Peter and the little boy jumped into it. “Go to Chinky!” he called, hoping that the chair wouldn’t meet anyone on the way.

The chair flew down the stairs and out into the garden. It went to where Chinky was standing by the hawthorn bush. It was flapping its red wings madly and Chinky jumped into it at once.

“To the Windy Wizard’s!” he shouted. “I say, Peter, isn’t it in a hurry! It must have got tired of being shut up in the boxroom!”

Mollie was looking out of the window. She had heard the chair flying downstairs. She saw it up in the air, carrying Peter and Chinky, and she wished she were in it too!

“Someone’s got to stay with Thomas, though,” she thought to herself. “He’d only run home or go and find our mother or something, if we left him quite alone. What an ugly face he has now! I do hope Peter and Chinky find something to put it right!”

THE wishing-chair rose high into the air, carrying Peter and Chinky. It had stopped raining and was a hot sunny day and the wind the chair made rushing through the air was very pleasant. Peter wished Mollie was with them. It was much more fun to go on adventures all together.

Presently the chair came into a very windy sky. Goodness, how the wind blew! It blew the white clouds to rags. It blew Peter’s hair nearly off his head! It blew the chair’s wings so that it could hardly flap them.

“The Windy Wizard lives somewhere about here,” said Chinky, looking down. “Look! Do you see that hill over there, golden with buttercups? There’s a house there. It’s the Windy Wizard’s, I’m sure, because it’s rocking about in all directions as if the wind lived inside it!”

Down flew the wishing-chair. It came to rest outside the cottage, which was certainly rocking about in a most alarming manner. Peter and Chinky jumped off and ran to the cottage door. They knocked.

“Come in!” cried a voice. They opened the door and went in. Oooh! The wind rushed out at them and nearly blew them off their feet!

“Good-day!” said the Windy Wizard. He was a most peculiar-looking person, for he had long hair and a very long beard and a cloak that swept to the ground, but, as the wind blew his hair and beard and cloak up and down and round and about all the time, it was very difficult to see what he was really like!

“Good-day,” said Peter and Chinky, staring at the wizard. He hadn’t a very comfortable house to live in, Peter thought, because there were draughts everywhere, round his legs, down his neck, behind his knees! And all the cottage was full of a whispering, sighing sound as if a wind was talking to itself all the time.

“Have you come to buy a little wind?” asked the wizard.

“No,” said Chinky, “I’ve come about a boy who made faces when the wind changed—and he can’t get right again. So we thought perhaps you could help us. I know that if we could get a little of the wind that blew at that time, and puff it into his face, he’ll be all right —but how can we get the wind?”

“What a foolish boy!” said the Windy Wizard, his cloak blowing out and hiding him completely. “What time did this happen?”

“At half-past three this afternoon,” said Peter. “I heard the nursery clock strike.”

“It’s difficult, very difficult,” said the wizard, smoothing down his cloak. “You see, the wind blows and is gone in a trice! Now let me think for a moment —who is likely to have kept a little of that wind?”

“What about the birds that were flying in the air at that moment?” asked Chinky. “They may have some in their feathers, you know.”

“Yes, so they may,” said the wizard. He took a feather from a jar that was full of them, and flung it out of the door.

“Come, birds, and bring

The breeze from your wing!”

he chanted.

Peter and Chinky looked out of the door, hoping that dozens of birds would come—but only one appeared, and that was a blackbird.

“Only one bird was flying in the air with the wind at that moment,” said the wizard. “Come, blackbird, shake your feathers. I want the wind from them!”

The blackbird shook his glossy feathers out and the wizard held a green paper bag under them to catch the wind in them. The bag blew up a little, like a balloon.

“Not enough wind here to change your friend’s face back again!” said the wizard, looking at it. “I wonder if there were any kites using the wind at that moment!

He went to a cupboard and took the tail of a kite out of it. He threw it up into the air just outside the door.

“Come, kites, and bring

The breeze from your wing!”

he called.

Peter and Chinky watched eagerly—and to their delight saw two kites sailing down from the sky. One was a green one and one was a red. They fell at the wizard’s feet.

He shook each one to get the wind into his green bag. It blew up just a little more.

“Still not enough,” said the wizard. “I’ll get the little ships along. There will surely be enough then!”

He ran to the mantelpiece and took a tiny sailor doll from it. He threw it up into the air and it disappeared.

“Come, ships, and bring

The breeze from your wing!”

sang the old wizard, his hair and beard streaming out like smoke.

Then, sailing up a tinkling stream that ran down the hillside came six little toy sailing ships, their sails full of the wind. They sailed right up to the wizard’s front door, for the stream suddenly seemed to run there —and quickly and neatly the old wizard seized each ship, shook its sails into the green paper bag, and then popped it back on the stream. Away sailed the ships again and Peter and Chinky saw them no more.

The paper bag was quite fat and full now.

“That’s about enough, I think,” said the wizard. “Now I’ll put the wind into a pair of bellows for you!”

He took a small pair of bellows from his fireside and put the tip of them into the green paper bag. He opened the bellows and they sucked in all the air from the bag. The wizard handed them to Peter and Chinky.

“Now don’t puff with these bellows until you reach your friend,” he said. “Then use them hard and puff all the air into his face! It will come right again in a twink!”

“Thank you so much for your help,” said Chinky gratefully. He and Peter ran to the wishing-chair again and climbed into it, holding the bellows carefully. The chair rose up into the air as Chinky cried, “Home, chair, home!”

In a few minutes it was flying in at the boxroom window, for Mollie had run up and opened it, ready for the chair when it came back again. Peter and Chinky shut the window after them, ran down to the nursery and burst in at the door.

Thomas was still there, his face screwed up and his cheeks blown out!

“I’m so glad you’re back!” said Mollie. “It’s horrid being here with Thomas. His face is so nasty to look at, it makes me feel I’m in a dream! Have you got something to make it right?”