She had no idea what they had done with the pencil, and when she found it at last under the bed she was so flustered she could think of no rhymes at all. By this time a very pale John was clinging on to the broom with both arms. Rosemary bit the pencil and screwed up her eyes until it hurt, but it was no use. She could think of no poetry at all. John was just saying faintly:
‘I think I’m going… to be…’ when Carbonel walked silently into the room.
Rosemary fell on her knees beside him.
‘Oh, Carbonel, darling! Please, please stop the broom! We forgot to say how many times round it was to go, and now it won’t stop! And John looks as if he’s dying. Whatever shall we do?’
There was no reply, only a faint moan from John, and Rosemary added:
‘But it is no good telling me because I can’t hear!’
The cat struggled free from her enclosing arms and stalked into the centre of the room. There was a pause, and then, haltingly, as though he was waiting to be prompted, John said faintly:
Forgive my rude untutored tongue,
Remember I am very young.
On the bed I pray you lay me,
Or my ride will surely slay me!
And at once, gently as a boat sailing on a peaceful sea, the broom skimmed the bedroom and settled down on Rosemary’s bed, where John lay beside it, thankful for the feel of solid, if rather lumpy, mattress beneath him. Rosemary, wide-eyed and anxious, followed with Carbonel. The black cat put his front paws on the bed and looked at John’s closed eyes and pale face, and Rosemary quickly put her hand on the broom.
‘He’ll be all right in a minute. It all comes of showing off,’ said Carbonel severely. ‘First it was yesterday, you saying the Summoning Words, and me just settling down to my dinner… as nice a bit of liver as I’ve ever seen… to hurry six miles in the sweltering heat, and for what? Nothing at all,’ he added bitterly. ‘If you wanted to show what you can do, why couldn’t you have done something flashy… like turning this boy here into a beetle, or something…’
‘No fear!’ said John, struggling into a sitting position. The colour was returning to his cheeks.
‘Besides, I don’t know how to turn people into beetles,’ said Rosemary.
‘I suppose you don’t,’ said Carbonel grudgingly.‘But there is no excuse for showing off with the broom, when the poor old thing wants all the rest and quiet she can get. I saw several more twigs on the floor next door. And you must have offended her into the bargain. That’s why I put in that bit about “Pardon my untutored tongue.” She only takes her corners like that when she is upset.’
‘I expect that was me,’ said John. ‘I called her a… a mouldy old thing, but I’m awfully sorry. I think it’s a simply wizard broom!’
Rosemary felt the broom wince in a bridling sort of way under her hand.
‘There you go again! It isn’t a wizard broom. Don’t you know a witch’s broom when you see one?’
Rosemary put out her hand and stroked carbonel rather shyly on the top of his head with one finger.
‘Please don’t be cross any more. I said the Summoning Words because I couldn’t bear John not to believe about you. I only half thought they would work when I said them, and I promise never to say them again, unless it’s really important.’
Carbonel looked a little less severe. Rosemary transferred her stroking finger to the soft part underneath his chin, and he did not seem to mind.
‘But it is no good you doing slovenly spells like that,’ he said more gently. ‘The idea of not saying when you wanted the broom to stop! If I had not come back it would have to have gone on going round and round until all the twigs fell out of its tail, and it might have taken months!’
John shuddered.
‘Or until I could think of a rhyme, I suppose,’ said Rosemary.
‘Which would have been much the same thing, seemingly,’ said Carbonel tartly.
12
Carbonel Explains
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‘I say,’ said John. ‘If you want to take care of the twigs on the broom, why don’t you wrap something round them – brown paper, or something.’
‘It might help,’ said the cat doubtfully, ‘but not brown paper. The broom has got its feelings same as anyone else.’
‘I know,’ said Rosemary. ‘My shoe bag!’
She ran to the wardrobe, tipped out her gym shoes, and brought it to the bed. It was made of scarlet flannel.
‘Not a bad idea,’ said Carbonel grudgingly, as they slipped it carefully on. Rosemary drew up the strings and tied them securely.
‘What magic runes are on the side?’ asked the cat suspiciously.
The words ROSEMARY BROWN were embroidered in white chain stitch.‘We have to have that, so that it won’t get lost at school,’ said Rosemary.
‘That is the practical sort of magic that I like to see.’
By now John had completely recovered from his ride on the broom, and was bouncing up and down on the bed.
‘I say, I am hungry. Let’s fry those sausages.’
So they went into the sitting room. When they had mopped up the flower water which John had knocked over in his wild flight, the feast still looked pretty good. Carbonel seemed genuinely touched by the sprats which were piled up on a soup plate. Rosemary showed John how to prick the sausages and he fried everything they could find– two onions, some cold potatoes, and a slightly squashy tomato that made the fat splutter, as well as the sausages. It was a delightful meal, eaten in friendly silence, and neither of them minded that the potatoes were a bit burnt, or that all of the sausages had burst. Carbonel, replete with all the sprats and two saucers of milk, purred sleepily while they ate the cream buns (a little soggy here and there with flower water, but otherwise delicious). When they were comfortably licking the gob-stoppers, Carbonel got up, arched his back, delicately stretched first one front paw and then theother, and sat down, very upright, with his tail curled round his toes.
‘I have something to tell you,’ he said. ‘Today I went to see my People… Strictly incognito, of course.’
‘What does that mean?’ asked Rosemary.
‘I think it means pretending you are not yourself,’ said John.
‘That was where I went the night before,’ went on Carbonel, ignoring the interruption.
‘Goodness!’ said Rosemary. ‘You never told me!’
‘You never asked,’ said Carbonel shortly. ‘I told you that I am a Royal Cat, and that as soon as I am free I must return to my kingdom.’
‘But where is your kingdom?’ asked John.
‘Come here and I will show you.’
Carbonel trotted into Rosemary’s bedroom and jumped on to the window ledge.
‘Behold!’ he said dramatically. Rosemary looked down.
‘Do you mean the back yard?’ she asked doubtfully.
‘Good gracious, no! Don’t you see the roof tops, plains and valleys and canyons of them? And the forests of chimney stacks and wireless aerials stretching away and away into the golden afternoon? That is my kingdom, the undisputed territory of the cats. Now look down. What do you see?’
‘The dustbins in the yard,’ said John cheerfully. But Carbonel did not seem to be listening.
‘You see the garden wall stretching along the end of all the gardens in Tottenham Grove? All walls, like that one, are our highways. What else could they be there for? So many humans seem to think that the proper place for a cat is on the hearthrug. You might as well argue that the proper place for a bird is in a cage. No, it is on the roof tops that we are our true selves. There we live our secret lives, there we skirmish, we royster, we sing songs. Songs of such beauty that men throw up their windows and shout applause.’
Rosemary was not sure that it was always applause she had heard, but she did not say so. The houses of Tottenham Grove were taller than the ones on to which she looked from her bedroom window. She had always liked the huddle of roofs, with different shaped chimney pots, some with cowls that twisted and twirled with the wind, some clustered together in all shapes and sizes, and some in neat rows like sand pies on the beach. It might almost be some strange country, she thought. Below her she could see the top of the wall that stretched along the back of all the smutty little gardens of Tottenham Grove, with the side walls joining it like tributaries. She could see a couple of cats now trotting along, one of them in a purposeful way.