Unexpected Magic (16 page)

Nancy and Debbie undressed where they were, and Simon tried to do the same. His shirt was stuck to his back by something sticky and smelling loudly of strawberry.

“I think the jellies have leaked on you,” Debbie said, and crawled over to look at the yogurt cups in her basket. The sun had melted every one, and, in the mysterious way things happen at the seaside, every one was half full of sand. Teddy was soaked in strawberry juice. “This is
awful
!” said Debbie, and put Teddy on the branch of a tree to dry.

“Don't grumble, dear,” Auntie Bea called out of her hut. “We're having a
lovely
time!”

The island gave a curious shudder. It made them very uneasy.

“Auntie Bea,” said Nancy, “I really think we ought to move.”

“Nonsense, dear,” called Auntie Bea.

At that, the island gave a bigger shudder and a heave. It felt as if they were going over a humpbacked bridge in a car. And everything was different.

There was a strong wind. They were all kneeling or standing on very short grass, shivering. There were no trees. Teddy was hanging in the air above Auntie Bea's hut. They could hear the sound of waves crashing all around in the distance, from which they could tell they were on another, bigger island. But they had no idea where.

Almost at once, a hot man in a beret came panting up the green slope toward them. He was wearing a brown sweater with green patches on the elbows and shoulders. “I say!” he shouted. “You lot can't picnic here! You're right in the middle of a gun range there!”

The umbrella heaved. Auntie Bea appeared, looking larger than ever. She had her skirt around her neck like a poncho. “Don't talk nonsense, my good man,” she said. The soldier stared at her, and at Teddy hanging over her head. He gave a sort of swallow. “We leave here over my dead body,” said Auntie Bea, and dived back inside her hut.

“That's just what it will be—” the soldier started to say, when the island once more tried to shake them off—if that was what it was doing. There was a jerk, and they were on a small rock in the middle of a lake.

“People don't order me about,” Auntie Bea remarked from inside her hut.

There was another jerk, and they were somewhere dark, with water heaving nearby. Honey began to shiver.

“We're having a lovely day!” Auntie Bea asserted, from behind the umbrella.

The island jerked again, quite angrily, and it was freezing cold, but light enough to see by. There was frost or ice under their bare knees. The frosty space was rather small, and heaving, as if it was floating. The sea was very near, dark green, in frighteningly big waves.

“This is an iceberg,” said Nancy, with her teeth chattering. “That's cheating.”

“How many more kinds of island are there?” shivered Simon. “No, don't tell me. You'll put ideas in its head. Good dog, Honey.”

“Oh!” Debbie shrieked. “Teddy's gone! I want to go home. Teddy!”

Auntie Bea, shielded from the ice by her blanket and screened from the view by her hut, called out, “Don't spoil our lovely day by screaming, dear.”

The iceberg jerked, a bob of annoyance. They were on ice still, but this time it was the top of a mountain. Instead of water, they were surrounded by clouds.

“Teddy!” cried Debbie.

“Lovely day,” repeated Auntie Bea.

Another jerk instantly flung them into sweltering heat, somewhere low down and steamy. Water bubbled between their toes and brown water slid past a few feet away. Honey growled and Nancy gasped. An unmistakable alligator slid by with the water.

“I agree with Debbie,” said Nancy. “I want to go home.”

“Can't we shut Auntie Bea up?” Simon whispered. “She keeps annoying it.”

“You'll feel better when you're in the water, dears,” Auntie Bea called out.

Nancy was still shouting, “No!” when they were pitched somewhere cooler, crowded among bushes under a tall tree. There seemed to be a river in front of them, and park railings beyond that. A banana skin fell heavily on Simon's head. He looked up to find that the tree was full of interested monkeys. Several of them came down to inspect Auntie Bea's hut.

To Simon's amazement, a small boy was staring at them through the railings. “Hey, Mum,” said the small boy, “can I have a picnic on there, too?”

“I want to go home, too,” Simon said uncomfortably.

Two of the monkeys had decided that Auntie Bea's umbrella was fun. They tried to take it up the tree with them. Auntie Bea's hand appeared around the edge of it, slapping.

“Don't be so impatient, dears. I'm nearly ready.”

The monkeys had barely time to chitter angrily before that island tossed them aside, too. Auntie Bea's hut was suddenly in the middle of a neat flower bed. Debbie was rolling in red geraniums. There was a great deal of noise all around, but it was not water. It sounded like traffic. Simon jumped to his feet. He was on a mound surrounded by cars and lorries. Faces were pressed against the windows of a passing bus, staring at him.

“We're on a traffic island now,” he said. “In the middle of a roundabout.”

Nancy stood up, too. “What will it think of next? I say, Honey's not here!”

“Ready, dears,” called Auntie Bea. She stood up out of her hut in her bathing suit. Simon was gazing around for Honey, but even he was distracted by the sight. Auntie Bea was gigantic. The flowers looked pale beside her. She was like an enormous beach ball, only brighter than a beach ball has any right to be. The people going by in cars could not take their eyes off her. The bus ran into the curb. Two cars drove up onto the flower beds. Brakes squealed and metal clanged all around the roundabout.

Only Debbie was not distracted by the sight. She was fond of bright colors. “This is the roundabout at the end of our road!” she said.

“Quick!” said Nancy.

“Run!” said Simon. “Before she says anything.”

They raced down among the flowers. Behind them, Auntie Bea hooted, “I do think cars should be banned on beaches,” and vanished from sight—which caused a further pileup of cars.

Nancy, Simon, and Debbie dodged between the cars and ran on, up their road and into their own house.

“Why are you back so soon?” asked Mrs. Pearson. She did not seem to have gone to the dentist. “Where's Auntie Bea?”

She could not understand what had happened. All Debbie could think of was Teddy, last seen floating in the air over a soldier. All Simon could think of was Honey, last seen growling at an alligator. All Nancy could think of was that she was never going near another island—of any kind—as long as she lived. Neither Mr. nor Mrs. Pearson grasped that something truly odd had happened until the phone began to ring.

The first caller was very polite and very high up in the Army. They had Teddy, he said, on an island somewhere in Scotland. Could any of the Pearsons please reveal the secret formula that made Teddy float in the air? Was it anything to do with the strawberry juice Teddy was soaked in? When nobody could tell him what made Teddy float, the high-up man said that it certainly had military importance, and would Debbie mind if they kept Teddy for analysis? They would send a new teddy.

“I want
my
Ted!” Debbie shouted, but the Army said it was impossible.

The next person to phone was a Swiss Mountain Guide, who had found the beach ball on top of a mountain, complete with the label giving their address. He asked if they wanted it back. They never did answer that, because a policeman called just then, looking rather grim and asking to speak to Auntie Bea. She had caused a Breach of the Peace, he said, and left her radio in the middle of Silas Street roundabout. But nobody, of course, knew where Auntie Bea was by then.

Almost straightaway, there was a puzzled phone call from Iceland. A trawler captain had found a bag of Pearson sweaters floating on an iceberg and wondered if there were any survivors from the wreck. Mr. Pearson had just sorted that one out when someone telephoned all the way from South America. His English was not very good, but he seemed to be saying that the water had ruined the battery in the electric torch. But he wanted to assure them that the buckets and spades were quite safe and very useful.

“Ask about Honey,” said Simon.

But the person in South America had not seen a dog, nor even a satisfied-looking alligator.

“Where's Auntie Bea, though?” Mrs. Pearson kept asking. It was soon clear that Auntie Bea was still traveling. The Foreign Office phoned next. There was, they said, a mysterious complaint from the Russian Embassy. A basket full of jelly and sand in yogurt cups, with the Pearsons' address on it, had somehow appeared on the conning tower of a Russian submarine. The Russians were holding it for analysis. The Foreign Office wanted to know if they would find anything important in the yogurt cups.

“I don't think so,” said Mrs. Pearson weakly. “They—they didn't find my sister as well, did they?”

But Auntie Bea had not been heard of. Nor had she been seen by an excited lady in Greece, who phoned next. This lady wanted the Pearsons to know that she was not so poor that she could not find two dozen hard-boiled eggs for herself, thank you. And she was throwing away the bag of clothes. They were too big for anyone on the island. She rang off before anyone could try to explain.

The American Embassy rang next. Auntie Bea's umbrella had been found in the sea off Honolulu. They wondered if Auntie Bea had been drowned. So did the Pearsons. But since the next two calls were from Sweden and Japan, it began to look as if Auntie Bea was still being jerked from island to island.

Quite late that night, the London Zoo phoned. “It's taken us all this time to trace you,” they said, rather injured. “The address fell off on our monkey island. How did you come to leave your dog there, anyway? The monkeys were trying to play with the puppies.”

Mr. Pearson said—a little wildly—that he could explain everything. Then he found that the zoo wanted him to collect Honey and her six new puppies at once. They were in the Children's Zoo. Simon was greatly relieved. He went with his father to fetch Honey, and did not mind in the least when Honey was carsick, though Mr. Pearson did.

Meanwhile the others were still answering the telephone, and there was still no news of Auntie Bea. They forgot what a trial Auntie Bea had been and became worried. They had tender, troubled thoughts about where she could be. Nancy feared she was marooned on a desert island like Robinson Crusoe, all alone in her bathing suit. Debbie said she was somewhere where they spoke quite another language. Mrs. Pearson wrung her hands and said she
knew
Bea was in China, under arrest.

Three days later, Auntie Bea rang up herself. “You'll never guess, Tom!” she hooted. “I'm in the Bahamas. I've no idea how I got here, and I've had to borrow money for the phone. You needn't bother to come and get me, Tom. I can manage.”

Mr. Pearson thought of all the phone calls, and Debbie still in tears about Teddy and—very crossly—about Honey sick in his clean car. “I'm glad you can manage, Bea,” he said. “Come and see us when you get home.” And he rang off.

C
arruthers was a walking stick for beating Father with.

Elizabeth acquired Carruthers on a visit to Granny, when she was very small. Father had been exploring Granny's attic, and he had found the walking stick there. It was knobby and black, with a silver band just below the curve of the handle. Elizabeth was screaming her head off at the time, but she heard Father telling Aunt Anne about it.

“It belonged to Uncle Bob,” said Aunt Anne.

Father frowned, the way he always did if Mother or Aunt Anne expressed an opinion. “No,” he said. “It was someone with a much stranger history. What
was
the name? Why is that child screaming?”

Elizabeth was screaming because she did not like dark chocolate. Granny had given Ruth and Stephanie milk chocolate, but she had given Elizabeth a large slab of black, bitter stuff—quite uneatable—on the grounds that Elizabeth was “a big girl now.” Mother did not seem to understand when Elizabeth protested. So she screamed, and Mother and Granny tried to find out what the matter was. Mother thought Elizabeth was ill.