"Ready?" asked Jo, pressing the handle marked "UP." And up they went! What a lovely feeling it was! They really couldn’t help feeling excited.
Silky’ s clock got terribly excited too. It struck twenty-nine without stopping.
"I shan’t wind you up tonight if you don’t keep quiet," said Silky suddenly. And that finished the clock! It lay down in a corner and didn’t say another ding or another dong!
"Where are we off to, I wonder?" said Bessie. But nobody knew!
XX
OFF TO DAME SLAP’S SCHOOL
Jo flew the aeroplane very well indeed. As soon as he was high enough he pressed the "STRAIGHT ON, handle, and the shining aeroplane flew forward.
The children leaned over the side to see what they were flying over. They had soon passed the Land of Take-What-You-Want, and came to a queer desolate country where no trees or grass grew, and not a house was to be seen.
"That’s the Country of Loneliness," said Moon-Face, peering over. "Don’t land there, Jo. Fly on."
Jo flew on. Once he came to an enormous hill, and he had to press the handle marked "UP" or the aeroplane would have flown straight into it. It was really great fun. Jo had had no idea that it was so easy to fly.
The little white goat on Bessie’s knee was as good as gold. It licked Bessie’s cheek every now and then just as if it were a dog! The hens were good and quiet, and the clock lay perfectly still.
The aeroplane flew over a land of great towers and castles. "Giantland!" said Silky, looking in wonder at the enormous buildings. "I hope we don’t land here!" .
"Rather not!" said Jo, and he pressed the “STRAIGHT ON" handle down still further, so that the aeroplane flew forward like a bird, faster and faster.
The children’s hair streamed backwards, and as for Silky’s mop of golden hair, it looked like a buttercup blown in the wind! Over the Land of Lollipop they went, and over the Country of Flop. And then the aeroplane began to make a funny noise!
"Hallo!" said Jo. "What’s wrong?"
"I believe the aeroplane’s tired," said Moon-Face. "It sounds out of breath.”
"Don’t be silly, Moon-Face," said Jo. "Aeroplanes don’t get out of breath."
"This kind does," said Moon-Face. "Can’t you hear it panting?"
It certainly seemed as if the aeroplane was panting! "Er-her—er-her—er-her!" it went.
"Had we better go down and give it a rest?" said Jo. "Yes," said Moon-Face, peering over the side. "It seems safe enough. I don’t know what this land is, but it looks quite ordinary. There’s a big green house down below with an enormous garden. Perhaps you could land on that long smooth lawn, Jo. We shouldn’t get bumped then."
"Right," said Jo, and pressed the handle marked "DOWN." And down they went, gliding smoothly. Bump! They reached the grass and ran along on the aeroplane’s big wheels. It stopped, and everyone got out, glad to stretch their legs.
"Ten minutes rest and the aeroplane will be ready to go off again," said Moon-Face, patting it.
"I wonder where we are," said Silky, looking round. Moon-Face gazed at the big green house in the distance—and then he frowned.
"Oh my!" he groaned. "I know whose house that is! It’s a school, and it belongs to old Dame Slap! All the wicked pixies and gnomes and fairies are sent there to learn to be better! Let’s hope Dame Slap doesn’t catch sight of us!"
Everyone looked about nervously—suddenly down a path came a tall old woman, with large spectacles on her long nose and a big white bonnet on her hair. Moon-Face ran to the aeroplane.
"Quick!" he said. "It’s Dame Slap!"
But the old lady was up to them before they could escape. "Ah!" she said. "So here is another lot of naughty folk sent to me to cure! Come this way, please."
"We haven't been sent to you," said Jo. "We landed here to give our aeroplane a rest. We are on our way home."
"Naughty boy, to tell stories like that!" said Dame Slap, and she gave poor Jo a sharp smack that made him jump and turn red. "Come with me, all of you."
There didn’t seem anything else to do. Jo, Bessie, Fanny, Moon-Face, Silky, the white goat, and the seven hens all followed Dame Slap, looking very miserable. The clock wouldn’t walk, so Silky had to carry it.
Everyone felt very hungry. Jo pulled Dame Slap’s sleeve timidly. "Could we please have something to eat?" he asked.
"Tea will be ready in a few minutes," said Dame Slap. "Heads up, Everyone! Don’t stoop, little girl!" The little girl was poor Fanny, who got a poke between her shoulders to make her stand up straight. Really, Dame Slap was not at all a nice person. It was very bad luck to have landed in her garden.
But everybody cheered up a little at the thought of tea. They were taken into a large hall, full of pixies and other fairy folk. They were all sitting down in rows at wooden tables, but they stood up when Dame Slap came into the room.
"Sit over there," said Dame Slap, pointing to an empty table. The children, Moon-Face, Silky, the goat, and the hens all took their places. The clock was stood at the end, and looked very sulky. The children looked down the tables. Oooh! What lovely buns! What gorgeous biscuits! What big jugs of lemonade!
Dame Slap ran her eyes over the little folk standing at the tables. She frowned. "Twinkle, come here!" she said. A small pixie walked up to her.
"Haven’t I told you to brush your hair properly for meal-times?" said Dame Slap, and she slapped the pixie hard. Twinkle burst into tears.
"And there’s Doodle over there with a torn tunic!" said Dame Slap. "Come here, Doodle."
Doodle came and was slapped very hard indeed. Bessie and Fanny felt nervous, and hoped that their hair and hands and dresses were clean and tidy.
“Sit!” said Dame Slap, and Everyone sat. "Have a bun?" said Jo, and passed Bessie and Fanny a plate of delicious-looking buns, with jam in the middle.
But what a shock for them! As soon as the buns touched their plates they turned into round hard pieces of stale bread! The children didn’t dare to say a word. They saw that the same thing happened to everyone in the room except Dame Slap, who made a marvellous tea of buns, biscuits, and pieces of plum cake.
The lemonade turned into water as soon as it was poured into the glasses. It was dreadfully disappointing. In the middle of the meal a gnome-servant came in to say that someone wanted to speak to Dame Slap, and she went out of the room.
And then, dear me, the children found that the little folk in the room were decidedly very bad indeed! They crowded round them and poked them and pinched them, and made such rude remarks that Fanny began to cry.
They made such a noise that nobody heard Dame Slap coming back again! My goodness, wasn’t she angry! She clapped her hands together and made Everyone jump nearly out of their skin!
“What’s all this?" she shouted, in a very fierce voice. "Form up in a line! March past me at once!"
To the children’s dismay everyone got a good hard slap as they passed the cross old lady—but when they passed her she did not slap them, for she knew that they had been teased by the others. So they were very glad indeed, and felt a little more cheerful.
“Go to the schoolroom," said Dame Slap, when the last of the line had gone by. So to the schoolroom they all went and took their places, even the little green-winged hens.
"Now, please, answer the questions written on the blackboard," said Dame Slap. "You have each got paper and pencil. Anyone putting down the wrong answers will be very sorry indeed.”
Jo looked at the questions on the board. He read them out to the others, in great astonishment.
"If you take away three caterpillars from one bush, how many gooseberries will there be left?"
"Add a pint of milk to a peck of peas and say what will be left over."
"If a train runs at six miles an hour and has to pass under four tunnels, put down what the guard’s mother is likely to have for dinner on Sundays."
Everybody gazed at the board in despair. Whatever did the questions mean? They seemed to be nonsense.
/>
"I can’t do any," said Moon-Face, in a loud voice, and he threw down his pencil.
"It’s all silly nonsense!" said Jo, and he threw down his pencil too. The girls did the same, and Silky tore her paper in half! All the pixie and fairy-folk stared at them in the greatest astonishment and horror.
"Indeed!" said Dame Slap, suddenly looking twice as big as usual. "If that’s how you feel, come with me!"
Nobody wanted to go with her—but they found that they had to, for their legs walked them after Dame Slap without being made to. It was most extraordinary. Dame Slap led them to a small room and pushed them all in. Then she shut the door with a slam and turned the key in the lock.
“You will stay there for three hours, and then I will come and see if you are sorry," she said.
"This is awful," said Jo gloomily. "She’s no right to keep us here. We don’t belong to her silly school. We haven’t been naughty. It was just an accident that we came here."
"Well, what are we to do now?" said Silky, pushing back her golden hair. "It seems as if we’ll have to stay here for three hours, and then say we’re sorry and be slapped! I don’t like it at all."
Nobody liked it. They all sat on the floor and looked angry and miserable. If only they could escape from Dame Slap’s silly old school!
XXXI
SILKY’S CLOCK IS VERY CLEVER
Jo sat hunched up near to Moon-Face. Silky and Bessie and Fanny talked together. The white goat sat on Bessie’s knee and slept. The seven hens tried to scratch the hard floor, and clucked softly.
"Where’s my clock?" said Silky suddenly.
Everyone looked round the room for it. It wasn’t there.
"It must have been left behind in the schoolroom," said Jo. "Never mind, Silky. You may get it back, if we get out of here in three hours’ time."
"I hope so," said Silky. "It was a nice clock, and I liked it having feet to walk about on."
"It’s lucky not to be locked up like us," said Jo gloomily. "If there was a window in this silly round room, we might break it and escape through that. But there isn’t even a small window."
"And there isn’t a fireplace either," said Moon-Face. "If there was we might squeeze up the chimney. Listen!" he said suddenly. "There’s someone knocking at the door!"
They listened. Certainly there was someone outside, knocking gently.
"Come in, if you can!" said Moon-Face. “Unlock the door if the key’s left in."
But the key wasn’t left in! No, Dame Slap had taken that away, you may be sure! `
"Who’s there?" asked Silky.
"Ding-dong—ding-dong!" said a voice softly. .
"It’s my clock!" cried Silky excitedly. "It’s come to join us!"
"Oooh!" said Moon-Face, his big face going red with joy. "Tell your" clock to go and get the key from somewhere and let us out, Silky."
"That’s no good," said Silky. "I noticed that Dame Slap wore all her keys on a string that hung from her waist. The clock could never get our key from her."
"Oh," said Moon-Face sadly. Everybody thought hard.
"Ding-dong-ding-dong!" said the clock outside, and knocked again.
"Look here, clock, it isn’t a bit of good your dinging and donging and knocking to get in!" called Jo. "We are locked into this room, and we haven’t got a key to get us out!"
"Dong!" said the clock dolefully. And then it gave an excited "ding!" and began to dance about on its big feet, up and down, up and down, with its door wide open.
"Whatever is that clock doing?" said Silky, in astonishment.
"Warming its feet, I should think," said Fanny, with a giggle.
But it wasn’t. It was jerking about trying to jolt its own key off the little hook inside it! And at last it managed it. Clang! The key fell to the ground.
"Whatever is your clock doing?" said Jo to Silky. "It must have gone mad."
It hadn’t. It was being very sensible. It kicked at the key with one of its feet—and the key slid under the door and into the room where the children were.
"Oooh, look!" said Moon-Face, in astonishment. "Your clock has jerked its key off the hook—and kicked it under the door, Silky. Really, it’s a most peculiar clock!"
Jo snatched up the key. "It might fit the door!" he said. He tried it in the lock. It almost turned but not quite. He was dreadfully disappointed.
But Moon-Face grinned. He took the key and rubbed it with a little magic powder that he kept in a box in his pocket.
"Now try it," he said. So Jo slipped it into the lock once more—and it turned right round and unlocked the door!
They crowded quietly out of the room, Jo taking the clock’s key with him. Silky gave the clock a hug and it said ding-dong quite loudly with joy!
"Sh!" said Silky. "Don’t make a sound!"
"We’ll try and find our aeroplane," said Jo. "Let’ s try to get out of a door into the garden. We shall soon find it then."
They tiptoed down a long passage—but just as they got to the end, who should they see coming along but old Dame Slap herself!
"Quick! Hide behind these curtains!" said Jo. They slipped behind them—but Dame Slap had heard something and came up to the curtains. She was just going to pull them apart when Silky’s clock walked out, shouted "Ding-dong!" in her ear, and trod on her toes! Dame Slap gave a shout of rage and slapped the clock hard. It ran away down the passage, with Dame Slap after it.
"Good old clock!" said Silky joyfully. "It just walked out and ding-donged in time. Another minute and we would all have been found."
"Come on," said Moon-Face, peeping out of the curtains. "We’d better do our best to get into the garden now, whilst the old dame is out of the way.”
They tiptoed down a long room and came to a door leading into the garden. Just as Jo was going to open it he pushed them all quickly back into, the room.
"Dame Slap is coming in here!" he whispered. "Quick! Hide behind the furniture!"
So, quick as lightning, Everyone crouched down behind sofas and chairs, whilst Dame Slap opened the door and came in, grumbling. "Wait till I get that clock!"
And at that very moment the clock came running in on its flat feet and ding-donged very cheekily at her! Dame Slap picked up her skirts and tore down the long room and up the passage after it! The children and Moon-Face and Silky, the hens and the goats, rushed to the garden door, opened it and crowded out into the garden.
"Find the aeroplane, quick!" cried Jo. They ran down the path and looked for the shining aeroplane.
"There it is!" shouted Moon-Face, pointing to the aeroplane lying on the smooth grass. They all ran to it, and squeezed in.
"I don’t like leaving my clock behind," said Silky. "It has been so clever. I wonder where it is."
"Look! There it is, with old Dame Slap after it!" cried Jo. Sure enough they saw the clock come waddling out from behind a bush, striking hard—and Dame Slap was after it, panting, and very red in the face.
The clock dodged neatly round a bush. Dame Slap tripped over a stone and fell down. The clock shot away to the aeroplane, and Silky helped it in. It sank down into a corner, and struck sixty-three times without stopping.
But this time nobody minded. They thought the clock was really quite a hero!
Dame Slap picked herself up and ran towards the aeroplane. Jo pressed down the "UP" handle. The propeller began to whirr round and round. The aeroplane quivered and shook. It rose gently into the air, and left Dame Slap below looking very angry indeed.
"Answer this question!" shouted Moon-Face, leaning overboard. "If five people, seven hens, one goat, and a clock go up in an aeroplane, put down how many slaps should be saved up for when they get home!" .
Everyone giggled.
"Do be careful where we land next time," said Bessie. "We really must get home soon."
"I think I know where we are now," said Moon-Face as they flew over a curious land where the trees were yellow and the grass was pink. "If you can fly straight on till you come to a silver
tower—then to the right till you come to the Land of Seagulls—then to the left over the Three Bears’ Wood—we shall soon be home!"
"Right!" said Jo. He watched out for the silver tower, and when he saw it, tall and gleaming, he pressed the handle marked "TO THE RIGHT,” and flew on till he came to the Land of Seagulls. This was quite easy to know, for all round and about, flying on snow-white wings, were hundreds of magnificent gulls. The aeroplane had to go slowly through the crowds of lovely birds. Jo flew to the left, and soon they were over the Three Bears’ Wood, and saw the rose-covered cottage where Goldilocks lived with the bears.
"Good! Now it won’t be long before we’re home!" said Jo. He flew on till he came over the Enchanted Wood, and then landed in a field not far from it. Everyone jumped out.
"That was a most exciting adventure," said Fanny. "But I hope we never see Dame Slap again!"
"Oh quick, catch the clock!" said Bessie. "It’s trying to climb out of the aeroplane and it will fall!"
"Dong, dong, dong, dong!" said the clock, and it slid to the ground.
"We’ll have to rush home now," said Jo, picking up his spade. "Goodbye, Silky; goodbye, Moon-Face. See you soon! Bessie, bring the goat, and Fanny and I will shoo the hens in front of us."
They left the aeroplane for Moon-Face and Silky to do what they liked with, and set off home.
And, dear me, how astonished their mother was to see the green-winged hens, the snow-white goat, and the fine garden spade!
"You must have been to the Enchanted Wood," she said. "We’ve been much farther than that!" said Jo.
And they certainly had, hadn’t they?
XXII
THE ARMY OF RED GOBLINS
One day Mother said that she would be out for the whole day, and, if the children liked, they could have the Old Saucepan Man to tea, and any other two friends they had made.
"Good!" said Jo. "We’ll ask Moon-Face and Silky."
Bessie wrote a note, and gave it to the little white goat to take to Moon-Face.