25
The Green Mixture
Rosemary woke early next morning. She tiptoed into John’s room and shook him gently but quite firmly.
‘Wake up!’ she said. ‘I’m simply dying to hear about your adventures, and how you rescued Calidor!’
A flushed and tousled John told his story, and Rosemary listened with admiration. ‘I got a ride in a lorry back from Fiddleworth,’ he ended. ‘All the same,’ he went on crossly, ‘why couldn’t you let me have my sleep out in peace?’
‘Because if Mother finds you’ve been having your sleep out in peace in your own bed here, when you are supposed to be staying with your Aunt Annabel, there will have to be some pretty awkward explanations!’ said Rosemary, and John had to agree.
They decided that the best plan would be for him to get dressed straight away, go down to the greenhouse and tell Woppit what had happened. Queen Blandamour could then be told as soon as possible that Calidor, too, was safe.
‘You had better hide in the Green Cave until after breakfast, and then come and knock on the front door as though you’ve just arrived,’ said Rosemary.
‘All right,’ said John. ‘It couldn’t be before breakfast, could it?’ he asked wistfully.
‘It couldn’t,’ said Rosemary firmly. ‘That would look very suspicious.’
She left John to his dressing and went to make her mother an early morning cup of tea, because she felt uncomfortable about not telling her what had really happened. Magic was like that, she thought regretfully. Luckily Mrs Brown accepted the fact that Calidor had come back without any awkward questions, and she was delighted to see John again when he politely rang the bell when they were washing the breakfast things.
‘But my dear boy, what a dreadful cold you’ve caught!’ she said when he sneezed violently.
‘I fell id sub water and got awfully wet yesterday. I expect that’s what caused it,’ said John.
She felt his hot forehead.
‘Hm, bed is the best place for you, my dear,’ and to Rosemary’s surprise, he seemed quite glad to go.
When he was tucked up with a hot water bottle, Mrs Brown said, ‘Rosie, you had better get some of that special cold cure from Hedgem and Fudge. It’s wonderful stuff. I must get down to the sewing room now. When these Julius Caesar clothes are done I shan’t be so busy. I can’t think how the Romans managed without sewing machines.’
‘I can go and talk to John, can’t I?’ asked Rosemary anxiously. ‘It’s a wet-feet kind of cold, not a catching one.’
Her mother smiled. ‘All right, darling. Dinner at half past one. You might peel some potatoes before you go.’
When her mother had gone, Rosemary found John some breakfast. First he had some cornflakes while she cooked him some porridge. Then she boiled him two of the largest, brownest eggs in the larder and he finished off with six pieces of toast and marmalade. While he ate she sat beside him and peeled the potatoes on a tray across her knees. When the last crumb had disappeared, John gave a great satisfied sigh and wiggled his toes under the bedclothes, to the delight of the kittens.
‘Dow I feel better!’ he said, and went on in a snuffly voice, ‘I say, I noticed something last night when I was coming home on the back of the lorry. We had to go through the outskirts of Broomhurst, and the whole place was alive with cats. Even the lorry driver noticed. They were running backward and forward along the walls and collecting in corners and waste spaces. In one place, it was a churchyard I think, there was a whole collection of them, with a great striped brute in front who looked as though he was making a speech.’
‘What was he saying?’ asked Rosemary.
‘I couldn’t hear, which isn’t surprising, because the lorry was carrying a load of lemonade bottles, and we were doing fifty miles an hour at least!’
‘But the Fallowhithe cats –?’
‘They were just trotting about their ordinary business. You know, I wonder if Merbeck is right not to warn them what’s in the wind?’
‘I’ve been wondering that,’ said Rosemary. ‘And what I’ve also been wondering is what is happening about Mrs Flackett’s son, Albert. Do you think he is still shutting himself up in his bedroom, refusing to talk to anybody?’
‘Well, you’d better set off to Hedgem and Fudge as soon as you can and find out.’
‘He may even be back at work again,’ said Rosemary hopefully.
But he was not.
When Rosemary reached the chemist shop, Mr Fudge himself was serving behind the medicine counter. There were several customers before her, so she had to wait a little while to be served.
‘I’m sorry to keep you waiting, Madam,’ he said to a fat woman who was tapping impatiently on the counter. ‘One of my assistants is away ill, so that I’m shorthanded. I have another coming next week.’
‘Another assistant!’ This meant that Albert was losing his job, and it was all their fault! Rosemary looked across at the perfumery counter where Albert’s young lady worked. She looked as though she had been crying.
With the bottle of cold cure safely in her blazer pocket, Rosemary walked thoughtfully out of the shop. If only they could find the counter-spell for the red mixture he had tasted by mistake! She looked up at the shop window. The great cut glass bottle of crimson liquid glowed like a huge ruby. Then she glanced at the other window. There stood the companion bottle, gleaming green and vivid as a great emerald.
‘Surely it must be the green liquid which undoes the magic of the red,’ thought Rosemary. ‘But what if it doesn’t? What if it does something quite different, like making you sprout two heads or turn into something creepy crawly? I don’t think I’m quite brave enough just to try and see.’
She turned slowly away and walked on down the crowded High Street. She was so deep in thought that she forgot to look where she was going. Suddenly she bumped into someone carrying an overloaded shopping basket. Several packages fell out.
‘Oh, I’m so sorry!’ said Rosemary, and stooped to collect the fallen things.
As she retrieved a rolling tin of baked beans she noticed the shoes of the owner. They were very large and black with big brass buckles. She looked up quickly. Yes, it was Mrs Cantrip.
‘I’m so sorry!’ said Rosemary again, rather faintly.
The old woman looked at her from beneath the headscarf she was wearing. It was scarlet, with a pattern of bold black shapes. To Rosemary’s surprise she looked almost amiable, so with a rush she said, ‘Please, Mrs Cantrip, you remember the prescription you gave us to make us hearing humans?’
‘Oh, ah, I remember!’ The old woman nodded.
‘Well, if you drink the green liquid from the other bottle, will it cancel out the red magic?’
Mrs Cantrip hunched her shoulders and put her head on one side.
‘So you’ve got tired of being a hearing human, have you? Mind, I don’t say as I blame you. All that animal chatter, as well as human! I wouldn’t be in your shoes when that Carbonel comes back and finds his kittens gone! It might be just as well if you couldn’t hear what he says to you.’
Rosemary opened her mouth to say that the kittens were both safe and sound again, but she remembered just in time and said nothing.
‘You’d best get out of it all. I don’t mind telling you there’s more trouble to come! I’ve got a shot in my locker yet!’ And the old woman chuckled.
‘But the green liquid?’ went on Rosemary.
Mrs Cantrip pursed up her mouth till it looked like a buttonhole and drew in her breath as she considered. At last she said, ‘All right, I’ll tell you. For why? Because it suits me to, and mind you, magic is the one thing that the likes of me can’t lie about, so you needn’t be afraid. The answer is yes. The green potion is not so tasty perhaps, but it’s good and thorough.’