‘Good thing she didn’t tread on us,’ said Hop. Then he saw something that made him shiver in fright.
‘Look!’ he said. ‘There’s a giant hen – and there’s another one – they’re scratching in the ground. Oh my, we’ve run into the chicken yard!’
The brownies trembled in fear. The hens came nearer and nearer, clucking and squawking as they scratched for grain.
Suddenly one of them saw Hop under the big leaf. She pecked at him. He jumped away only just in time.
‘Run!’ he cried. ‘It’s the only chance we have!’
They ran from beneath the leaf and tore across the yard.
‘Squawk – squawk!’ cried all the hens, and tore after them.
‘They’ll catch us!’ panted Jump.
Suddenly, Hop saw a large hole in front of him. Quick as lightning he jumped into it and pulled the others after him.
‘It’s a worm-home!’ he gasped. ‘Come on, it’s our only chance of escaping those horrid birds.’
The hens were pecking and scraping around the hole, their beaks sounding like picks and hammers.
But once more the brownies were safe, for the worm-hole was like a narrow tunnel, and they could pass along it easily, one after another.
‘I hope we don’t meet a worm,’ said Skip. ‘It would be rather awkward, wouldn’t it?’
‘I’d much rather meet a worm than a crowd of huge giants, or a pack of greedy birds,’ said Hop cheerfully. ‘Come on! Goodness knows where this tunnel leads to, but anyway, it must lead somewhere !’
Their Adventure in the Land of Clever People
The three brownies went on through the dark tunnel, hoping they would soon find it came to an end. It felt rather sticky, and Hop said it must be because a worm had lately passed along it.
Just as he said that the brownies heard a peculiar noise. ‘Oh my! I do believe it’s a worm coming!’ Hop groaned.
It was a worm, a simply enormous one, for its body filled up the whole tunnel.
‘Ho,’ shouted Hop in a panic, ‘don’t come any farther, Mr Worm; you’ll squash us to bits!’
The worm stopped wriggling in surprise.
‘What are you doing in my tunnel?’ he asked.
‘Nothing much,’ said Skip. ‘Just escaping from a lot of greedy birds!’
‘Oh!’ said the worm with a shudder. ‘I know all about birds. I’ve had my tail pecked off twice by the greedy things.’
‘Do you know where this tunnel leads to?’ asked Jump.
‘It leads to all sorts of places,’ said the worm. ‘You’ll find cross-roads a little farther on, and a sign-post.’
‘Oh, thanks,’ said Jump. ‘Then I think we’ll be getting on.’
‘So will I,’ said the worm, and began to wriggle towards the brownies.
‘Stop!’ they shouted. ‘There isn’t room for you to go past us!’
‘But I must,’ said the worm. ‘I’ve an appointment with my tailor at six o’clock. He’s making me a few more rings for my body.’
‘Oh, do go backwards till you get to the cross-roads,’ begged Hop.
‘I’m going backwards now,’ said the worm. ‘At least I think I am. It’s so muddling being able to use both your ends, you know. I never know which way I’m really going.’
‘It must be very muddling,’ said Skip. ‘But please don’t push past us; you’re rather sticky, you know, and you’ll spoil our suits, and we haven’t got a tailor like you!’
‘Dear, dear, you ought to have,’ said the worm. ‘I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll bore you a little tunnel to stand in whilst I go past, then I shan’t spoil your suits.’
The worm began to make them a little passage leading out of the main tunnel.
‘There you are,’ he said. ‘Get in there, and you’ll be quite safe.’
The brownies hopped in. Then, rustle-squelch-rustle! The worm pulled his long body past them, called goodbye, and left them.
‘Well, thank goodness, we’ve got over that difficulty,’ said Hop. ‘Now let’s get to the cross-roads before we meet any other worms.’
On they went again, meeting no one but a centipede, who fled past in such a hurry on his many legs that the brownies didn’t know what he was.
‘Must be the fast train to Wormland, I should think!’ said Hop, picking himself up, for the centipede had rushed straight between his legs.
Soon the brownies saw a light in the distance. They hurried towards it, and found that they stood at the cross-roads. In the middle was a sign-post with a lamp on top.
‘To Giantland,’ Hop read. ‘Ugh! That’s the way we’ve just come. What’s this other way? To the Land of Giggles! That sounds silly. To Cross-patch Country! That won’t do for us. Now what’s this last one?’
All the brownies peered at it.
‘To the Land of Clever People,’ they read.
‘Clever People might be able to tell us the way to Witchland,’ said Hop.
‘Yes, let’s go,’ said Jump.
‘I hope they’ll let us in,’ said Skip doubtfully. ‘I don’t really feel very clever, you know.’
‘You’re not,’ said Hop. ‘I’m the clever one.’
‘Yes, you were clever enough to get us all sent out of Fairyland,’ grumbled Skip.
‘Don’t let’s quarrel,’ said Hop. ‘Come on, and see what this new land is like.’
Off they went again, and found that the tunnel they were now in sloped upwards, and was lit by many little green lamps.
‘Green for safety, anyway,’ said Jump, cheerfully.
The lamps suddenly turned red. The brownies jumped in fright.
‘Red for danger!’ said Skip in a shaky voice.
The lamps turned blue. Hop thought of an idea.
‘I expect it’s somebody in the Land of Clever People, showing us how clever they are,’ he whispered. Then aloud he said in an admiring voice, ‘H’m, blue for cleverness!’
All the lamps turned back to green.
‘There you are!’ whispered Hop. ‘Green for safety again.’
They went on up the slope and came to a corner. Just round the bend was a turnstile, and at it was seated an ugly little man, with an enormous bald head. He wore spectacles, and was writing in a huge book. As the brownies drew near he looked at them over his spectacles. Then he spoke in a way that gave the brownies rather a surprise:
‘Good morning. Do I understand,
You wish to enter in this Land?’
‘He’s talking in poetry!’ said Jump. ‘Isn’t he clever! Are we supposed to answer in poetry too?’
‘We can’t,’ said Skip. ‘So that settles it.’
He turned to the turnstile man.
‘Yes, we want to come in,’ he said. ‘You see we . . .’
The bald-headed man interrupted him:
‘Please talk in rhyme. Unless you do,
I simply cannot let you through.’
‘Oh goodness gracious!’ groaned the brownies.
‘They must be terribly clever people,’ said Hop. ‘Let’s see if we can make up an answer in rhyme.’
They thought for some time, and at last they found one they thought would do. Hop went up to the turnstile man and bowed.
‘Will you kindly let us through,
There’s lots of things we want to do,’
he said. At once the man waved his hand to tell them to pass, and his turnstile clicked as they went through. Before they left him he handed them a book of rules.
‘Keep every rule that’s written here,
You’ll find them printed nice and clear,’
he said in his singsong voice.
‘Thank you very much indeed,
I like to have a book to read,’
answered Hop, as easily as anything.
‘Hop!’ cried Jump, when they had got out of the turnstile man’s hearing. ‘Hop! That was clever of you! How did you think of it?’
‘It just came into my head,’ said Hop, quite as surprised as the others.
‘I believe I’ll be quite good at it.’
‘What does the book of rules say?’ asked Jump. Hop read it, and told the others.
‘Nothing much,’ he said. ‘Always talk in rhyme. Make up a new riddle every day. Answer one. Not much, is it?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Skip doubtfully. ‘I think making up riddles is very hard.’
‘What happens if we can’t make up riddles or answer them?’ asked Jump.
‘I’ll look and see,’ said Hop, turning over the page. ‘Oh, buttons and buttercups!’
‘What, Hop?’ asked Skip and Jump.
‘Anyone who can’t make up riddles or answer them is scolded for being stupid,’ said Hop in dismay.
‘Oh, I do wish we hadn’t come here!’ said Jump. ‘This is your fault again, Hop. You’re always leading us into trouble.’
‘Let’s go back to the turnstile man and ask him to let us out,’ said Hop.
So they went back.
‘Please let us out again, because
We find we cannot keep your laws,’
said Hop, after scratching his head and thinking hard for five minutes.
The bald-headed man shook his head.
‘Find rule number thirty-two,
And that will tell you what to do,’
he told them.
Hop found it and read it.
‘We can’t get out of the Land of Clever People until we think of something that their Very Wise Man cannot do,’ he told the others sadly. ‘There isn’t much hope for us, then.’
‘Stay here all our lives, I suppose,’ said Skip gloomily.
‘And be scolded every day,’ said Jump, still more gloomily.
The three brownies went sadly up the tunnel. They hadn’t gone very far before they saw daylight, and to their joy they found that they were once more above ground. They ran out of the tunnel and danced about in the sunlight. Then they stopped and looked to see what sort of country they were in.
‘My!’ said Hop. ‘It’s rather peculiar, isn’t it? It all looks so proper!’
It certainly did look proper. The houses were set down in perfectly straight lines. All the windows were the same size, and all the doors. All the knockers were the same, and they all shone brightly.
The people looked very proper too. They all wore spectacles, and had very large heads and all the men were bald. If everybody hadn’t been rather short and tubby, they would have looked frightening, but as it was they looked rather funny.
Skip began to giggle.
‘They don’t look as if they ever smiled!’ he chuckled.
A fat little policeman came up to them. He put his hand heavily on Skip’s shoulder.
‘You mustn’t giggle here, you know,
Or else to prison you must go.
This is not the Land of Giggles . . .’
He stopped and looked at the brownies. The brownies looked back. Evidently he expected them to finish the rhyme.
‘Oh dear!’ thought Hop. ‘Whatever will make a rhyme for giggles? What an awful word!’
The policeman coughed and repeated his lines again. Then he took out his note-book.
Hop began to tremble.
‘This is not the Land of Giggles,’ said the policeman in an awful, this-is-the-last-time sort of voice.
‘How your little finger wiggles!’ said Hop suddenly.
The policeman looked at his little finger in surprise. It wasn’t wiggling. Still Hop had made a rhyme, so he closed up his notebook and marched solemnly off.
‘That was a narrow escape,’ said Hop in a whisper. ‘It’s a mean trick to leave someone to finish what you’re saying, in rhyme. Now, remember, for goodness’ sake, don’t giggle. We don’t want to be sent to prison, or to the Land of Giggles, do we?’
Night was falling. Lamps began to shine in the little streets.
‘We’d better find a place to sleep,’ said Skip, with a yawn. Another policeman suddenly appeared behind them. Hop saw him in time, and made a rhyme hastily, to fit his last sentence.
‘Oh, look at that excited sheep!’ he said, pointing behind him.
There was no sheep, of course, and by the time the policeman had discovered that, the brownies had fled down the street.
They came to the neatest little house imaginable. In the window was a card. On it was printed:
STEP INSIDE AND YOU WILL SEE LODGINGS HERE FOR TWO OR THREE
‘Just the thing,’ said Hop. ‘Let us ring,’ he added hastily, as another policeman came round the corner and looked at them.
He rang. The door opened, and a kind-faced old woman looked out.
‘Would you let us stay with you?’ he asked, hoping that the old woman would finish the rhyme.
‘What can you pay me if you do?’ she asked, at once.
‘Would a silver coin be enough to pay?’ said Hop.
‘Oh, yes, it would. Please come this way,’ said the old woman, and led them inside.
The house was very neat inside. The room the old woman took them to was strange-looking. It had knobs here and there on the wall, and Hop longed to pull them and see what happened.
‘This is where you are to sleep,’ said their guide, and waited for Hop to finish the rhyme.
‘Always look before you leap,’ said Hop solemnly. The woman stared at him and went out.
‘This rhyming business is making me tired,’ said Hop, when the door closed. ‘I do hope we find some way of getting out of this land soon. What about pressing a few of these knobs? Look, this one’s marked SOUP.’
He pressed it. A little door flew open in the wall, and there stood three mugs of steaming soup!
‘Goodness!’ said Skip. ‘That’s clever, if you like. Let’s have the soup!’
They soon finished it up, and began pressing more knobs. The one marked CHOCOLATE brought them three packets of chocolates, and the one marked APPLES a dish of apples. They thought it a very good idea.
‘Now, if these Clever People had ideas like this only,’ said Hop, ‘and no silly nonsense about rhymes and riddles and things, this would be a pleasant place to live in.’
He pressed a knob marked BED. Immediately a bed rose from the floor under them, and stood there ready to be slept in. The brownies rose with it, and found themselves sitting on it.
Skip gave a loud giggle.
At once the window flew up.
‘Was that a giggle that I heard?’ demanded a policeman, peering into the room.
‘No, just a cough. Don’t be absurd,’ shouted Hop. The window shut with a bang.
‘There are policemen everywhere here,’ whispered Hop. ‘For goodness’ sake, don’t giggle any more and only talk in whispers.’
At that moment there came a knock on their door. It opened, and in came a bright-eyed, prettily dressed little girl.
‘Hello,’ she said. ‘I heard one of you laughing. Are you from the Land of Giggles, by any chance?’
‘No, we’re not,’ said Hop in astonishment. ‘Why aren’t you talking in rhyme?’
‘I’m not one of the Clever People,’ said the little girl. ‘I can’t make up rhymes properly, so I usually don’t talk at all. I come from the Land of Giggles.’
‘What are you here for, then?’ asked Skip.
The little girl hung her head.
‘I was discontented in my own land,’ she said, ‘and I thought I was too clever for my people. So I came here, and now I can’t get away, because I can’t think of anything that the Very Wise Man can’t do. And I get scolded every single day because I can’t make up riddles or answer them.’
‘Who asks them?’ asked Hop.
‘Oh, everybody goes to the market-place and stands in a row for their examination each morning,’ explained the little girl. ‘Then the Very Wise Man comes along, and you have to ask him your riddle and answer his. If you don’t, he sends you to be scolded. It’s to teach you to be clever.’
‘I don’t think it’s clever to do that sort of thing,’ said Skip, feeling sure he would be s
colded every day.
‘If you can help me to get back to my own people, I’d be so grateful,’ said the little girl, nodding her brown curls.
‘We’ll help you,’ said Hop, wondering how they could.
When the little girl had gone the brownies jumped into bed and were soon fast asleep.
Their Adventure in the Land of Clever People (continued)
When morning came, the brownies woke up very hungry. They pressed a few knobs and got a simply lovely breakfast of porridge, honey and cocoa.
‘Now we’d better think of some riddles,’ said Hop. ‘All be quiet and think hard.’
So they thought hard. Hop thought of one first.
‘What pillar is never used in building?’ he asked.
‘Don’t know,’ said the others.
‘Why a caterpillar, of course,’ said Hop, with a chuckle.
‘Very good indeed!’ said Skip. ‘Listen, I’ve got one now. What walks on its head all day?’
‘Tell us!’ said the others.
‘The nail in your shoes!’ chuckled Skip. ‘Now, Jump!’
‘What lion is loose in the fields?’ asked Jump.
‘I know!’ cried Hop. ‘The dandelion!’
‘Right!’ said Jump. ‘Listen, what’s that?’
It was a bell ringing.
‘It must be to call us to the market-place,’ said Hop. ‘Come on.’
They all raced outside, and saw a great stream of solemn, fat little people going down the street. The brownies joined them, and soon came to a wide market-place. The people arranged themselves in straight rows. A clock struck nine.
Trumpets blew, and down the steps of the Town Hall came the Very Wise Man. He had bigger spectacles than anyone else, and a very, very big head.
Then began the examination. First the Very Wise Man asked his riddle, and then a Clever Person answered it and asked his.
On went the Very Wise Man to the next person.
‘Everybody answers all right,’ whispered Hop. ‘No one’s getting scolded.’
Just then the Very Wise Man came to the little girl who had spoken to the brownies the night before. She couldn’t answer her riddle, and she was sent off to be scolded by the Ogre who lived in a little house nearby.