‘It’s all upset. Oh, how clumsy of me! All that lovely vanishing mixture! And after so much trouble!’
‘And what a mess!’ said John. ‘It’s all over me. Lend me a hankie, Rosie!’
Rosemary turned and held out her handkerchief. But John was nowhere to be seen. The handkerchief was taken from her limp fingers by his invisible hand, and she watched fascinated, while it seemed to float unaided in the direction of his voice. When it reached the place where his waist would have been, the handkerchief, too, disappeared.
‘John, don’t! Oh, do come back!’ said Rosemary in distress.
‘Come back? What on earth do you mean?’ said John.
Rosemary swallowed hard.
‘You’ve gone invisible, too!’
16
Invisible
‘Don’t be so silly!’ said John crossly.
‘It’s not silly, you are invisible!’ said Rosemary, and she put out her hand to see if she could feel him. To her relief she could. He felt reassuringly warm and solid.
‘Well, you needn’t put your finger in my eye!’ he said.
‘Oh, my dears, how exciting!’ said Miss Dibdin, her depression forgotten. ‘An invisible boy! Who would have thought I could do it!’
‘Well, I certainly wish you hadn’t!’ said John. ‘What on earth is going to happen to me now?’
‘It’s a pity I can’t make the counter-spell, of course,’ said Miss Dibdin, ‘but I expect you’ll soon get accustomed to it, dear. It may even have its uses, you know!’
‘I don’t want to get accustomed to it,’ said John, sulkily, and then he went on in quite a different voice, ‘But pr’aps you’re right! I may find it quite useful!’ His voice came from somewhere near the hearth rug, as though he was stooping to pick something up.
‘Now then,’ he went on. ‘Suppose you tell us where the royal kittens are hidden!’
This time his voice came, unexpectedly, a few inches from Miss Dibdin’s ear, and she started uncomfortably.
‘They aren’t hidden,’ she said, ‘and although I’m grateful to you for taking such an active part in my little experiment, it’s as much as my life is worth to tell you where the kittens are. Personally I’m thankful to be rid of them.’ She rubbed her scratched hands tenderly as she spoke.
‘Well, if you don’t tell us,’ said John, ‘I might have to make you invisible, too. There is just about enough of the mixture left at the bottom of the saucepan!’
Rosemary turned to where a paper-thin pale-green disc lay on the hearth rug. She supposed this was all that was left at the bottom of the invisible saucepan. Fascinated, she watched it rise from the floor and heard John’s voice keeping pace with it as it advanced toward the retreating figure of Miss Dibdin. The liquid frothed and winked in a hundred bubbles as John twirled the invisible pan. Miss Dibdin had her back against the wall now, and above her head the mixture had taken the shape of something that is just about to be poured.
‘No!’ she said, putting up her hands to ward it off. ‘No! No! I don’t want to be invisible.’
‘I expect you’d get accustomed to it!’ said John. ‘And it may even have its uses! That’s what you said to me, you know. But I won’t do it if you tell me what you’ve done with the kittens!’
‘All right! All right! I’ll tell all I know, if you’ll only put the saucepan down!’
Almost as anxiously as Miss Dibdin, Rosemary watched the green liquid right itself to a disc again and sink slowly on to the table. Miss Dibdin tottered across the room and sat heavily on the bed whose broken, but invisible springs jangled in protest.
‘I’ll tell you all I know, but it’s not very much,’ she said. ‘Katie went off to sell them both this afternoon, somewhere in Broomhurst, because she said no one was likely to look for them there, and she might as well make a bit of money out of them. When I asked her where she was taking them she just laughed and said something about two pins in a packet, and two peas in a peck. That’s all I know about it,’ she ended sulkily.
‘Thank you!’ said John. ‘Come on, Rosie.’
The handle of the door seemed to turn of its own accord, and the door itself swung open. Wide-eyed, Rosemary squeezed through as much as possible to one side. The door closed behind them.
‘You needn’t behave as though I had the plague!’ said John as they went down the uneven stairs. ‘Being invisible may have its uses, but it’s jolly unpleasant.’
‘Oh, John, I’m so sorry!’ Rosemary felt for his hand, and in the dimness of the little downstairs room she threw her arms around him and gave him a hug, a thing that ordinarily she would not have dreamed of doing.
‘All right! All right!’ said John uncomfortably. ‘You needn’t choke me!’ But he said it in a voice that sounded comforted. ‘Come on, you old Rosie!’
They opened the front door and went out into the sunlit street.
‘Let’s get home as quickly as possible,’ said Rosemary to the sound of John’s feet padding beside her. ‘I’m glad you didn’t do it, you know. I mean, I don’t like Miss Dibdin much when you can see her, but invisible –! You don’t think she’ll start brewing any more from that book of hers, do you?’
‘She won’t!’ said John cheerfully.
‘But if she can make it uninvisible again?’
‘It wouldn’t help her much if she could, because she hasn’t got it any longer. I picked it up from the hearth rug where it had fallen. But, of course, you couldn’t either of you see it. And, my good girl, if you used your eyes you’d see that I’ve got the remains of the invisible mixture, too! She’s done quite enough mischief with it already.’
Rosemary backed away nervously as the pale green circle floated toward her. ‘Here, you’d better carry the saucepan. This book needs both arms,’ said John. Rosemary felt gingerly for his arm and slid her fingers down on to the handle.
‘But can you read it and find the counter-spell so that you can stop being invisible?’ she persisted.
‘Of course I can! Let’s find somewhere quiet where we can sit down and I can have a look!’
‘I’d much rather go home,’ said Rosemary.
‘I dare say, but you aren’t invisible,’ said John tartly.
A man in a bowler hat, carrying a brief case, bumped heavily into him and looked after them in a puzzled way.
‘Oh, do come on!’ said Rosemary. ‘Poor man, it must be horrible to walk into an invisible boy.’
‘And it’s pretty horrible for an invisible boy to be walked into by a great hulking visible man. He trod on my foot, but I don’t get any sympathy. Oh, no!’
Rosemary began hotly, ‘Well anyway –’ and then she stopped. ‘Oh, don’t let’s squabble. If ever there was a time to stick together, it’s now. Come on. Let’s cross the road and go into the public gardens over there. We can sit on the steps of the statue.’
‘If somebody thought they were going to sit on a seat and found themselves sitting on an invisible me, I should think they’d go potty,’ said John gloomily.
Keeping close together they crossed the road. It was a small garden, bright with flower beds. In the centre was the statue of a departed benefactor of Fallowhithe. He stood forever leaning on a marble column. There were several mothers sitting on the wooden seats near by, knitting and gossiping in the sunshine, while their small children slept in prams or played around them.
‘How silly marble trousers look!’ said Rosemary.
‘Never mind the statue!’ said John, and pulled her down beside him on the top step. She put out her hand, and although she could not see it she felt the powdery leather of the book’s ancient binding and the little breeze made by the paper as John hurriedly flicked the pages over.