Adventures of the Wishing-Chair (4 page)

“Of course!” said the children. Then Mollie cried out in delight, and pointed to the magic chair. “Look! It’s growing wings now! How lovely! It must have heard what we said.”

“We’ll all go,” said Peter, feeling excited to think that yet another adventure had begun.

“Oh, no,” said Chinky at once. “I’d better go alone. This wizard is a horrid one. He might quite well catch you two, as you are clever children, and then think how dreadful I would feel!”

“I don’t care!” said Peter. “We’re coming!”

He and Mollie went to the chair and sat firmly down in it. Chinky went to it and sat down too, squeezing in between the two. “You are such nice children!” he said happily.

The chair creaked, and before it could fly off, the pixie cried out loudly, “Go to the village of Apple-pie!”

It flew slowly out of the door, flapping its rose-red wings. The children were used to flying off in the magic chair now, but they were just as excited as ever. The village of Apple-pie! How magic it sounded!

It didn’t take them very long to get there. The chair put them down in the middle of the village street, and was at once surrounded by an excited crowd of pixies, who shook hands with Chinky and asked him a hundred questions.

He talked at the top of his voice, explained who the children were, and why he had come. Then suddenly there was a great silence, and every one turned pale. The Ho-ho Wizard was coming down the street!

He was a little fellow, with a long flowing cloak that swirled out as he walked and showed its bright golden lining. On his head he wore a round tight cap set with silver bells that tinkled loudly. He wore three pairs of glasses on his long nose, and a beard that hung in three pieces down to his waist. He really was a queer-looking fellow.

“Ho, ho!” he said, as he came near the pixies. “What have we here? Visitors? And, bless us all, this is a wishing-chair, as sure as dogs have tails! Well, well, well!”

Nobody said anything at all. The wizard prodded the chair with a long stick and then turned to the children.

“Ho, ho!” he said, blinking at them through his pairs of glasses. “Ho, ho! So you have a magic chair. Pray come to have a cup of cocoa with me this morning, and I will buy your chair from you.”

“But we don’t want to sell it,” began Peter at once. The wizard turned round on him, and from his eyes there came what looked like real sparks. He was very angry.

“How dare you refuse me anything!” he cried. “I will turn you into a―”

“We will come in half an hour,” stammered Chinky, pushing Peter behind him. “This boy did not understand how important you are, Sir Wizard.”

“Brrrrrnrr!” said the wizard, and stalked off, his cloak flying out behind him.

“
Now
what are we to do?” said Peter, in dismay. “Can’t we get into the chair and fly off, Chinky. Do let’s!”

“No, no, don’t!” cried all the pixies at once. “If you do, Ho-ho will punish the whole village, and that will be terrible. Stay here and help us.”

“Come to my cousin Gobo’s cottage and let us think,” said Chinky. So the two children went with him and Gobo, who was really very like Chinky, to a little crooked cottage at the end of the village. It was beautifully clean and neat, and the children sat down to eat coco-nut cakes and drink lemonade. Every one was rather quiet. Then Peter’s eyes began to twinkle, and he leaned over to Gobo.

“I say, Gobo, have you by any chance got a spell to put people to sleep?” he asked.

“Of course!” said Gobo, puzzled. “Why?”

“Well, I have a fine plan,” said Peter. “What about putting old Ho-ho to sleep?”

“What’s the use of that?” said Chinky and Gobo.

“Well—when he’s asleep, we’ll pop him into the magic chair, take him off somewhere and leave him, and then go back home ourselves!” said Peter. “That would get rid of him for you, wouldn’t it?”

“My goodness! That’s an idea!” cried Chinky, jumping up from his seat in excitement. “Gobo! If only we could do it! Listen! Where’s the sleepy-spell?”

“Here,” said Gobo, opening a drawer and taking out a tiny yellow thing like a mustard seed.

“Well, Peter has a bag of chocolates,” said Chinky, “and he could put the sleepy spell into one of them and give it to Ho-ho.”

“But how do we know he’d take the right chocolate?” asked Mollie.

“We’ll empty out all of them except one,” answered Chinky, “and that one Peter shall carry in the bag in his hand, and he must carry it as though it was something very precious indeed, and Ho-ho is sure to ask him what it is, and if Peter says it is a very special chocolate that he is not going to part with, or something like that, the old wizard is sure to be greedy enough to take it from him and eat it. Then he will fall asleep, and we’ll take him off in the chair to old Dame Tap-Tap, who will be so pleased to have him! He once tried to turn her into a ladybird, so I don’t think she will let him go in a hurry!”

“Good idea!” cried every one, and Gobo danced round the room so excitedly that he fell over the coal scuttle and sent the fire-irons clanking to the floor. That made them all laugh, and they felt so excited that they could hardly empty out Peter’s bag of chocolates on the table and choose one for the sleepy spell.

They chose a chocolate with a violet on top because it looked so grand. Peter made a little hole in it and popped in the spell. Then he left the rest of the chocolates with Gobo, who said he would enjoy them very much, put the violet one into the bag, and went off to get the wishing-chair with the others.

It was still standing in the market-place, its red wings hanging down, for it was tired. Chinky and Peter thought they might as well carry it to Ho-ho’s cottage, which was only in the next street, so off they went, taking it on their shoulders.

Ho-ho was waiting for them, his wily face watching from a window. He opened the door, and they all went in with the chair.

“I see you have brought me the chair,” said Ho-ho. “Very sensible of you! Now sit down and have a cup of cocoa.”

He poured out some very thin cocoa for them, made without any milk, and looked at them all sharply. He at once saw that Peter was holding something very carefully in his hand, which he did not even put down when he was drinking his cocoa.

“What have you got in your hand?” he asked.

“Something I want to keep!” said Peter at once.

“Show me,” said the wizard eagerly.

“No,” said Peter.

“Show me!” ordered the wizard angrily.

Peter pretended to be frightened, and at once put the paper bag on the table, he wizard took it and opened it. He took out the chocolate.

“Ho, ho! The finest chocolate I ever saw!” he said, and licked it to see what it tasted like.

“Don’t eat it, oh, don’t eat it!” cried Peter at once, pretending to be most upset. “It’s mine!”

“Well, now it’s
mine
!” said the wizard, and he popped it into his mouth and chewed it up. And no sooner had he swallowed it than his head began to nod, his eyes closed, and he snored like twenty pigs grunting!

“The spell has worked, the spell has worked!” cried Peter, jumping about in excitement.

“Now, Peter, there’s no time to jump and yell,” said Chinky hurriedly. “The spell may stop at any time, and we don’t want to wake up the wizard till we’ve got him to Dame Tap - Tap’s. Help me to put him into the chair.”

Between them they dumped the sleeping wizard into the chair. Then Mollie sat on one arm, Peter sat on the other, and Chinky sat right on the top of the back. “To Dame Tap-tap!” he cried. At once the wishing-chair flapped its idle wings, flew out of the door, and up into the air, cheered by all the pixies in the village. What a thrill that was!

In about five minutes the chair flew downwards again to a small cottage set right on the top of a windy hill. It was Dame Tap-tap’s home. The chair flew down to her front door, outside which there was a wooden bench. The three of them pulled the snoring wizard out of the chair and put him on the bench.

Then Chinky took hold of the knocker and banged it hard, four times. “rat-tat-tat-tat!”

He yelled at the top of his voice :

“Dame Tap-tap! Here’s a present for you!”

Then he and the children bundled into the wishing-chair again, and off they flew into the air, leaning over to see the old dame crying out in astonishment and delight when she opened the door and found the wizard Ho-ho sleeping outside!

“What a shock for him when he wakes up!” said Chinky, with a grin. “Well, children, many, many thanks for your help. You’ve saved Apple-pie village from a very nasty fellow. It will be nice to think of him dusting Dame Tap-tap’s kitchen, and getting water for her from the well! I guess she’ll make him work hard!”

“Ho, ho!” roared the children, as the chair flew down to their playroom. “Perhaps the wizard won’t say ‘ho, ho ‘quite so much to Dame Tap-tap!”

“No! He might get a spanking if he did,” grinned Chinky. “Well, here we are! See you tomorrow, children!”

THE wishing-chair had not grown its wings for a long time. Chinky and the children had become quite tired of waiting for another adventure. Mollie thought perhaps the magic had gone out of it, and it might be just an ordinary chair now. It was most disappointing

It was a lovely fine day, and Peter wanted to go for a walk. “Come with us, Chinky,” he said. “It’s no use staying in the playroom with the chair. It won’t grow its wings today!”

So Chinky the pixie squashed his pointed ears under one of Peter’s old caps, put on an old overcoat of Peter’s, and set out with the children. Jane the housemaid saw them going, and she called after them :

“If you’re going out, I shall give the playroom a good clean out. It hasn’t been done for a long time.”

“All right!” called back Mollie. “We won’t be home till dinner-time.”

They had a lovely walk, and ran back to the playroom about dinner-time. It did look clean. Jane was just finishing the dusting. Chinky waited outside, for he did not want to be seen. But suddenly Peter turned pale, and said, “Oh, where’s the chair? Mollie, where’s the chair?”

“Oh, do you mean that old chair?” said Jane, gathering up her brushes. “An old, old man came for it. He said it had to be mended, or something. He took it away.”

She went up to the house, leaving the two children staring at each other in dismay. Chinky ran in, and how he stared when he heard the news!

“I know who the old man must have been!” he cried. “It’s old Bone-Lazy, who lives at the foot of Breezy Hill. He hates walking, so I expect he thought he’d get hold of our wishing-chair if he could. Then he’d be able to go everywhere in it!”

“How can we get it back?” asked Mollie, almost in tears.

“I don’t know,” said Chinky. “We’ll have a try anyhow. Come back here after dinner, and we’ll go to his cottage.”

So after their dinner the two children ran back to their playroom. They found a most astonishing sight. There was no Chinky there—only an old woman, dressed in a black shawl that was drawn right over her head!

“Who are you?” asked Mollie. Then she gave a cry of surprise—for, when the old woman raised her head, Mollie saw the merry face of Chinky the pixie!

“This disguise is part of my plan for getting back our magic chair,” explained Chinky. “Now I want you to go with me to Bone-Lazy’s cottage, and I shall pretend to fall down and hurt myself outside. You will run up and help me to my feet—then you will help me to Bone-Lazy’s cottage, knock at the door, and explain that I’m an old lady who needs a drink of water and a rest.”