Fire And Hemlock Part 9

"Risk!" Mr. Leroy's fatal laugh set up a faint, chiming buzz from the Ali Baba vases. "Tom, you haven't begun to see the risk you run! You've made Laurel furious."

"Can't Laurel tell me that for herself?" Mr. Lynn asked.

"Oh, she will if you want, believe me," Mr. Leroy said. "But I don't think you'd enjoy it. You'd better let me handle her. If you hadn't been so secretive about this venture of yours-"

"On purpose," Mr. Lynn said in his mildest way.

"Of course," Mr. Leroy agreed. "All right. I admit you've stolen a march on us and that I can't at the moment see how you did it. Now you'll have to pay the price of your low cunning. If you won't let us finance you, you'd better agree to come back into the fold. Laurel wants you where she can keep an eye on you after this." course," Mr. Leroy agreed. "All right. I admit you've stolen a march on us and that I can't at the moment see how you did it. Now you'll have to pay the price of your low cunning. If you won't let us finance you, you'd better agree to come back into the fold. Laurel wants you where she can keep an eye on you after this."

"I am not," said Mr. Lynn in his most quietly obstinate way, "going to agree to live in Hunsdon House again, for you, or for Laurel, or for anyone else." He turned into the line of sunlight and walked away into the living room.

Mr. Leroy turned and went with him. "Some such arrangement's got to be made," he said. Polly watched their two backs moving away, one wide and upright, the other high-shouldered and thin. "We don't like to make threats," came from Mr. Leroy's broad back, "but we're going to keep tabs on you somehow, Tom, and you are going to let us do it. Or do you want trouble for your friends?"

Mr. Leroy's voice faded as they went into the living room. Mr. Lynn's voice came from in there. He sounded angry now, but what he said was drowned in a burst of Mr. Leroy's fatal laughter, as if Mr. Lynn's anger was truly a joke. Then there was silence. And more silence. The house felt empty again.

But it can't can't be empty! Polly thought. They've gone in there, and Mr. Leroy will see the shutter and the window open, and then my footprints, and he'll know I'm still inside somewhere. be empty! Polly thought. They've gone in there, and Mr. Leroy will see the shutter and the window open, and then my footprints, and he'll know I'm still inside somewhere.

She felt cold to the very center of her spine. Her hands shook as they held the oval photograph. When Mr. Leroy found her, she did not think Mr. Lynn would be able to do much to help her. From what she had heard, he seemed to be hard pressed to help himself. She backed away, very gently and quietly, through the open door and into Laurel's bedroom, back to the edge of the fluffy white carpet the bed stood on. If she hid under the bed, it would take a thorough search to find her.

But she stood there instead, listening and thinking. There really was not a sound from downstairs. Nothing but thick, dead stillness. She began almost to wonder if Mr. Leroy and Mr. Lynn had been there at all. There was only her banging heart to tell her that they had been. That, and her anger. Her anger seemed to have been growing all this time, underneath her fear, until it was large enough to hide the fear completely. She thought of Laurel and Mr. Leroy in the audience on television, watching Mr. Lynn. As if they owned him! Polly thought. They don't. They can't. n.o.body owns anyone like that!

She laid the photograph carefully down on the satin quilt of the bed and went across to the pattern of little oval pictures hanging on the wall. Taking one out had left a rather obvious gap in the middle of the pattern. But there were, as Polly thought she had remembered, a number of spare hooks sticking out of the wall round the pictures. Evidently Laurel liked to spread the pictures about and arrange them into different patterns from time to time.

Quite carefully and calmly Polly unhooked pictures and rehung them in new places to make another, wider-s.p.a.ced pattern so that it would not show that one was missing. I might as well do something useful while I'm waiting for Mr. Leroy to find me, she told herself. And I'm wearing gloves, like a good criminal should. It was lucky that all the pictures had the same kind of oval gold frame. Not all of them were photographs, by any means. Quite a number were tiny paintings of a face or a full-length person. Two were black shapes of people cut out of paper, and some wereprobably charcoal drawings. Polly arranged them with real artistry. There was one miniature painting of a young man in old-fashioned clothes, including a cloak thrown back across one shoulder, that Polly thought was much the nicest. He was leaning against a tree holding a sort of banjo, and his face looked nice. She would have liked to put him in the middle. But since the photograph of the fair boy had come from there, Polly sensibly replaced it with a photograph as like it as she could find, of another fair boy who was only slightly more old-fashioned. She left the paintings round the edges, where they had been before. It looked good when she had finished-almost the same. She went and picked up the stolen photo, zipped it carefully into her anorak pocket, and walked softly out of the room and down the stairs, telling herself she was going to her doom.

She did not quite believe she was, even as she went. The house felt so empty. Downstairs, she knew it was empty. The sun had left the open shutter, and the hall and the living room were dim, and as deserted as they were dim. Polly let herself out through the window and pulled the shutter closed. She pulled the window shut and heard the click as it latched itself. It would not open when she tried it. She walked down the steps, between now and here on the vases, and back across her line of footprints. They had spread wide and green in the sun, but they were the only set of footprints. Mr. Leroy and Mr. Lynn had not come or gone this way. The puzzling thing was that they did not seem to have used the front door or the side door either. When Polly peered at these doors from the bushes, she could not see any prints on the frosty gravel, nor any tire marks on the drive. She did not see another living creature until she met Mintchoc sitting on the wall in front of Granny's house.

3.

O they rode on and further on, They waded rivers above the knee, And they saw neither sun nor moon, But they heard the roaring of the sea.

THOMAS THE RHYMER.

Feeling very guilty for a number of reasons, Polly bought Mr. Lynn a copy of The Three Musketeers The Three Musketeers for Christmas and got Granny to help her pack it up. Granny's parcels were works of art made of closely woven string and brown paper. "Well, it's bound to be late and I daresay he's a bit old for it, but they say it's the thought that counts," Granny said as they came back from posting it. for Christmas and got Granny to help her pack it up. Granny's parcels were works of art made of closely woven string and brown paper. "Well, it's bound to be late and I daresay he's a bit old for it, but they say it's the thought that counts," Granny said as they came back from posting it.

"Why are you always like that about Mr. Lynn?" said Polly.

"Like what?" said Granny.

"Sort of sarcastic," said Polly. "Why don't you like him?"

Granny shrugged. "Oh, I expect he's well enough, in himself. I just have my reservations about the company he keeps."

Since Polly knew exactly what Granny meant about the Leroy Perrys, she did not say any more. She just went quietly back to the paper chains she was making.

Dad stayed with them over Christmas, to Polly's delight. "Mind you," Granny said, "I said I wouldn't take sides and I'm not. But I think this is fair."

"Fair!" Dad said angrily. "I've a good mind to get a court order!" He told Polly rather grimly that Mum and David Bragge had gone away together for Christmas. But most of the time he was just as Polly remembered him from over a year ago, laughing and making silly jokes with Granny and Polly. Polly forgot the new wrinkles round his eyes and the gray threads in his curls and romped with him as if she were five years old. There was only one five-year-old thing she refused to do. "Play Let's Pretend now," Dad said pleadingly, several times.

"No," said Polly. "I've gone off it."

"Why?" asked Dad, but Polly did not know.

"Don't pester her, Reg," said Granny.

Polly did not dare show Dad or Granny-particularly Granny-her stolen photograph. She looked at it secretly when she went to bed each night, under her Fire and Hemlock Fire and Hemlock picture. Looking back on that Christmas, Polly was rather surprised at the way she thought a great deal about both her pictures, and scarcely at all about that meeting she had overheard between Mr. Leroy and Mr. Lynn. That was so queer, somehow, that she had to push it to one side of her mind. Instead, she stared at the fire and the mysterious figures behind the hemlock. Up to now Polly had a.s.sumed they were trying to put the fire out. But this Christmas it began to seem to her that the people might really be trying to keep the fire going, building it up furiously, racing against time. You could see from the clouds of smoke that the fire was very damp. Perhaps if they left off feeding it for an instant, it would fizzle out and leave them in the dark. picture. Looking back on that Christmas, Polly was rather surprised at the way she thought a great deal about both her pictures, and scarcely at all about that meeting she had overheard between Mr. Leroy and Mr. Lynn. That was so queer, somehow, that she had to push it to one side of her mind. Instead, she stared at the fire and the mysterious figures behind the hemlock. Up to now Polly had a.s.sumed they were trying to put the fire out. But this Christmas it began to seem to her that the people might really be trying to keep the fire going, building it up furiously, racing against time. You could see from the clouds of smoke that the fire was very damp. Perhaps if they left off feeding it for an instant, it would fizzle out and leave them in the dark.

The stolen photograph had a much more ordinary look. It was slightly faded with age. Polly, from much looking at it, became certain that the bit of the house behind the grinning boy was Hunsdon House. But he was not Seb. From some angles his cheeky look reminded her of Leslie in Thomas Piper's shop. But he had the wrong hair to be either Leslie or Seb, too fair and long and untidy for Seb and not curly enough for Leslie. Besides, he was older than both of them. Polly decided she simply had not met him yet. She hid the photo carefully inside her schoolbag before she went to sleep, because Dad was using the camp bed in her room.

The days pa.s.sed. "Ah well," said Dad. "Back to Joanna again, I suppose." He kissed Polly and left. Polly went home to Ivy and David Bragge and took her photograph with her. But she hid it in her folder with the soldiers, and hid the folder in the cupboard where the cistern glopped. She did not trust Ivy not to throw it away.

"You forgot to give David a Christmas present," Ivy said, handing her a parcel from Mr. Lynn.

Polly had not meant to remember a present for David, so she pretended to be absorbed in opening the parcel. It contained a book about King Arthur and a book of fairy stories and one of Mr. Lynn's hastiest notes. Polly supposed King Arthur was all right, but fairy stories-! Still, she was sure-without wanting to think of Mr. Leroy-that Mr. Lynn had things on his mind, and she tried not toblame him.

School began next day, and rain with it. For weeks Polly arrived at school soaking wet to find Games canceled yet again and everyone depressed and coughing. The Superst.i.tion Club had vanished as if it had never been. At home there was David Bragge and his jokes to avoid, and Mum hanging lovingly over him, consulting him about everything. "What do you you think, David?" Ivy said this so often that Polly took to imitating her secretly and jeeringly in front of the mirror in her little box of a room. "What do think, David?" Ivy said this so often that Polly took to imitating her secretly and jeeringly in front of the mirror in her little box of a room. "What do you you think, David?" With it went a stupid, languishing smile. David did not speak much to Polly. They both seemed to know they had nothing in common. think, David?" With it went a stupid, languishing smile. David did not speak much to Polly. They both seemed to know they had nothing in common.

Then, just before half-term, came a proper letter from Mr. Lynn, thanking her for the book. It must have gone astray in the Christmas post, he said, because it had only just arrived. Do yuo have a hlaf trem? Do yuo have a hlaf trem? he went on in his bad typing. he went on in his bad typing. Or if not, is oyur mother liekly to visit her lwayer agian? I have'ny seen you forages. If yuo come up to London, I promise to meet yuo at the statoin. Or if not, is oyur mother liekly to visit her lwayer agian? I have'ny seen you forages. If yuo come up to London, I promise to meet yuo at the statoin.

Ivy did indeed go and see her lawyer quite often, but she saw no reason to take Polly. "I've enough to buy without spending money on unnecessary jaunts," she said. "You've grown out of all your clothes again."

This was true. They spent a tiring Sat.u.r.day shopping. "All dressed up with nowhere to go!" Polly said bitterly, and she gave up all hope of seeing Mr. Lynn.

Oddly enough, it was David Bragge who paid Polly's fare. Polly did not understand quite why. It seemed to happen because she met him by accident in the middle of town the day school broke up, when she was walking home with six friends. David was across the street, talking to a lady. Polly looked at them because the lady David was with seemed to be Mary Fields. She was not Mary Fields. Polly had lost interest and was turning away when David suddenly waved and came bounding through the puddles on his rather short legs-it was raining, of course.

"h.e.l.lo, Polly!" he called. Polly had to stop and talk while herfriends stood waiting impatiently and getting wet. "Polly," David said earnestly, "I've long felt you deserved rich rewards for sanct.i.ty and forbearance and all that jazz. Is there something you haven't got that you'd like to have? Speak up. Sky's the limit and so on."

Polly looked at his face carefully and saw he meant it. "I need a return fare to London," she said. "And some spending money for when I'm there," she added, since miracles seldom happen and it is best to get the most out of them when they do.

"Done!" cried David. "Money under plain cover this evening as ever is!" And he bounced off again, back to his lady.

He was as good as his word. He put an envelope full of pound notes into Polly's hand that night before she went to bed. Polly had a vague feeling he expected something in return, if only she could understand what it might be, but she did not let ignorance stop her taking the envelope. She wrote Mr. Lynn a hasty card and, on the day she had said, she mounted a fast train at Miles Cross Station and was rattled up to London on the morning of what proved to be the only fine day of the half-term holiday. She felt very brave and grownup, doing it, and she worried all the way in case Mr. Lynn had not got her card or turned out to be doing something else that day.

To her relief, he was waiting for her on the platform, with the sun gleaming mildly on his gla.s.ses and a well-known large hand held out to shake hers. They were talking as if they had not met for five years-or only been away five minutes-before they had even got off the platform.

"Tan Coul must have some more adventures," Mr. Lynn greeted her.

Like a pa.s.sword, Polly replied, "And we must must find out about Tan Audel soon. It's stupid not knowing him." find out about Tan Audel soon. It's stupid not knowing him."

The horse-car, TC 123, was waiting outside, and they climbed into it, still talking. But there was a slight break in their talk as they set off and Polly discovered that Mr. Lynn still drove as heroes do. It seemed to be the way he was made. They shot into the traffic, squealing on two left wheels, cut in front of a bus, tipped a cyclist neatly into the gutter, and dived between two taxis through a gapthat would have been small for the cyclist. But the taxi drivers knew a hero when they saw one and sheered off, honking their horns. Those horns were drowned in a new outburst of honking as the horse-car shot across in front of the oncoming traffic and screamed into a side street on two right wheels. Two old ladies leaped for their lives.

"Missed them!" remarked Mr. Lynn. Polly was not sure if he said it with relief or regret. "The car's feeling its oats," he explained, realizing Polly had gone quiet.

"Do-do you get killed often?" Polly said.

"Old heroes never die," said Mr. Lynn. "But I do rather surprisingly often drive the wrong way up one-way streets. I think I am now."

They were. Somehow they missed the van coming the other way. Polly tried to take her mind off this heroic driving by asking, very casually and carefully, "Were you in Middleton just before Christmas?"

"No," Mr. Lynn said, surprised. "I was stuck here with concerts. I'd have looked you up if I had been. Why?"

"I was staying at Granny's and I thought I saw you," Polly said carefully.

The little car leaped from the end of the side street and heroically dived among traffic going round a large roundabout. "You couldn't have done," Mr. Lynn said, whizzing across the front of a lorry and squealing into the next turning. "I really wasn't there."

"Did you see Mr. Leroy at all?" Polly asked. "I thought I saw him too."

With a jolt and scream of protest, the car stopped for a red light. "I did run into him just before Christmas. Yes," Mr. Lynn said, carefully and with just a touch of grimness. It reminded Polly of the way Dad talked about David Bragge. And he changed the subject by asking about her stay at Granny's.

The lights changed while Polly was in the middle of telling him about Dad and David Bragge. The horse-car set off with a bellowing roar before any of the other cars had moved. There were red lightsat intervals all down that road. Mr. Lynn treated each one as if it were the starting block for the hundred-meter dash, screaming off ahead of all the other cars, only to rein in with a jerk as the next light turned red. It was fun. Polly began to enjoy the way heroes drove. She felt quite used to it by the time they roared into the street outside Mr. Lynn's flat and Mr. Lynn parked the car by the simple expedient of knocking the rear b.u.mper off the car in front of the only s.p.a.ce there. "I don't think my car likes other cars," he explained as he knelt in the road, putting the other car's b.u.mper roughly back in place. "It does this rather often."

"Perhaps it would rather be a horse," Polly suggested.

"That must be it," agreed Mr. Lynn.

Mr. Lynn's landlady, Carla, opened the door for them before they got there. The baby from last time had grown into quite a large toddler, hanging on to Carla's hand and shouting, but otherwise Carla was just the same. "I thought it was you," she said cheerfully. "I heard the crash. Learn to drive, can't you!" As they went upstairs, she shouted after them through the toddler's yelling, "Get him to show you his collection of parking tickets. It may be a record!"

When they reached the privacy of Mr. Lynn's flat, Polly asked, feeling rather mature, "Is Carla a one-parent family?"

"Not quite," Mr. Lynn said. "I think there are several Mr. Carlas. It's rather confusing."

"Oh," said Polly, and felt childish after all.

Mr. Lynn gave her one of his considering looks. "People are strange," he said. "Usually they're much stranger than you think. Start from there and you'll never be unpleasantly surprised. Do you fancy doughnuts?"

They were excellent doughnuts, soft, sugary, and fresh. Polly ate them absently, though, considering Mr. Lynn in return. He was behaving cheerfully enough, but he was not happy. She knew the signs, from Ivy. There was a sort of effort going into his cheerful remarks. She could feel the pushes. She decided not to say anything about it. She knew how useless it was with Ivy when she was in a mood. But Mr. Lynn was not Ivy. Without intending to, she said, "What's the matter? Are you very miserable?"

"Yes," Mr. Lynn said frankly. "But mostly I'm worried and undecided about something. I'll tell you about it, boring though it is, but there's something I'd like you to do first. I've got quite superst.i.tious-"

"So have I!" Polly exclaimed. And they broke off for her to tell him about the Superst.i.tion Club. When she got to the Deputy Head in the mirror, Mr. Lynn gave a great yelp and began laughing properly. Polly stopped then, because she was getting unpleasantly close to telling him how she had stolen the photograph. "What did you want me to do?" she said.

"Cheer me up," confessed Mr. Lynn. "Selfish of me to drag you all the way to London for that, even though it seems to have worked. The other thing is-do you think you'd know the other heroes if you saw them? Tan Thare and Tan Hanivar anyway?"

Polly nodded. "I would. Positive." She could see them both as clearly in her mind as she could see Ivy or Nina or David Bragge.

"Then," said Mr. Lynn, "see if you can find either of them here. Or Tan Audel, if possible."

He plunged to his mantelpiece and brought down a roll of paper from it. After he had spread it out on the hearth rug and it had rolled up and he had unrolled it and pinned it down with two books and a saltcellar, Polly saw it was a ma.s.s photograph of the British Philharmonic Orchestra. It was very posed. Everyone was in evening dress, facing the front, with their violins or clarinets or trumpets held out stiffly to the side.

"Yes, I know," Mr. Lynn said. "The B.P.O. posing for Madame Tussaud's. Rows of stuffed penguins. The conductor comes along with a big key, probably A flat, and winds us all up. Can you see any of them?"

Polly saw Tan Thare almost at once. His face leaped out at her, in spite of an unexpected beard, chubby and carefree and possibly a little dishonest, from the front row of violins. She stabbed her finger on him, crying out with surprise. "Tan Thare! It really is! I don't like him in that beard, though."

"Neither did most of his friends," said Mr. Lynn. "He was held down and forcibly shaved on New Year's Eve. Anyone else?"

He sounded casual, but Polly could tell it meant a lot to him. She searched the photograph again. Mr. Lynn himself came to light among the cellos, although he was not so easy to find. He seemed to have faded away into the rest of the cellists, built into the orchestra like a brick. Tan Hanivar's long nose and gloomy face ought to be easier to find-and there he was! He was among the violins too, over to the right, behind Tan Thare. The gloomy face had a mop of dark hair above it, more than Polly had imagined, but it was definitely poor, shape-changing Tan Hanivar. Polly pointed. "Tan Hanivar. What's his real name?"

"Samuel Rensky. And Tan Thare is usually known as Edward Davies. Any luck with Tan Audel?" Mr. Lynn asked rather tensely.

But Polly still did not know what Tan Audel looked like. She searched and searched the ma.s.s of faces. "Sorry," she said at last. "I just don't know him."

"Him?" said Mr. Lynn. "Er-have you considered, as a female a.s.sistant hero yourself, that Tan Audel might be a woman?" He sounded really nervous about it.

As soon as he said it, Polly knew he was right. "Oh, good heavens!" she said. "I never thought!" Of course Tan Audel was a woman, now she thought. She even knew, dimly, some of the things Tan Audel was famous for. She went back to the photograph, scanning the ladies in dark dresses she had been ignoring up to then, very much ashamed of herself. And there was Tan Audel at last. She was in among the set of those big violins-violas, they were called. "Here," she said, with her finger under the strong, squarish face with strong, square, black hair. Tan Audel was not pretty. But she looked nice.

Mr. Lynn leaped up with a shout. "Ann Abraham Abraham! You've done it, Polly! You truly did it! I can hardly believe it!" He was so excited that Polly had to pull his sweater to get him to explain why.

Then he seemed to think she might find the explanation boring. "It's like this," he said, folding himself down onto the hearth rug rather apologetically. "As soon as I joined the B.P.O., I found Iwanted to leave it-not the orchestra's fault, just my habit of not fitting in very well-and play on my own. But I hadn't any money, and there's only a limited amount a lone cellist can do anyway. The best way to do it was to form a group, a quartet or a trio, because there are quite a lot of things four players can do. But of course they have to be known before they can make any money at it. You wouldn't believe how many good players in the orchestra wouldn't dream of taking the risk. They thought I was crazy. So did I, to tell the truth. Then you came along and told me about heroes. And then there was the horse, which made me sell a picture, and I thought: d.a.m.n it, I can can do it! So I talked to some friends and, to cut a long story short, Ed Davies, Sam Rensky, Ann Abraham, and I got together and tried-" do it! So I talked to some friends and, to cut a long story short, Ed Davies, Sam Rensky, Ann Abraham, and I got together and tried-"

"What went wrong?" Polly asked as Mr. Lynn trailed off.

"Nothing at all heroic." Mr. Lynn gave his gulping laugh. "Cold feet. If we want to form a proper quartet, we're going to have to leave the orchestra and try-but it's always possible we'll end up busking in the Underground a year from now. I thought I'd sell another picture." He pointed. Polly swiveled round to look at the pink-and-blue clown picture leaning against the wall. Her face went hot with guilt and she had to stay turned away when Mr. Lynn said, "I thought it must must be a reproduction or at least a copy, but it turns out to be a real Pica.s.so." He added, sounding unhappy, "It's not money, though. It's-well, are we good enough to foist ourselves on the public?" be a reproduction or at least a copy, but it turns out to be a real Pica.s.so." He added, sounding unhappy, "It's not money, though. It's-well, are we good enough to foist ourselves on the public?"

That made Polly turn back. "Granny says the only way to find out is to try," she said. "I say that too," she added, thinking about.i.t.

"I know," Mr. Lynn said in his humblest way. "And I hope you'll forgive me, Polly. Since it started with you in a way, I thought I'd let you decide. If you could find the right heroes in the photograph, I swore we'd go on. If you didn't, I'd superst.i.tiously decided to sc.r.a.p the whole idea."

"You took a risk!" said Polly. She was extremely glad she had not known how much depended on her finding Tan Thare and the others. "Suppose I hadn't found them? Or what if I did find them,but they weren't the ones you meant?"

Mr. Lynn bowed his head over his big hands and looked ashamed. "I think I'd have approached the ones you chose instead. You have a knack of telling me the right thing." And at that he sprang up. "Now you deserve a treat. Where would you like to go in London? What shall we do?"

The rest of the day was a great golden excitement to Polly. She had never been anywhere much in London, so it was all new and wonderful to her, whether she was in the horse-car screaming round and round the roundabout in front of Buckingham Palace because Mr. Lynn kept missing the road they wanted, or heroically belting along the Embankment, or looking at the Crown Jewels in the Tower, or eating kebab somewhere beyond that. Now Mr. Lynn was happy again, they talked and talked the whole time, but Polly only remembered s.n.a.t.c.hes of what they said. She remembered being in front of the Houses of Parliament, eating a hot dog. She looked up at Big Ben and said suddenly, "Tan Coul and the others have to be on a quest for something."

"Do you insist?" said Mr. Lynn.

"Yes," said Polly. "All the best heroes are."

"Very well," said Mr. Lynn. "What are we looking for?"

Polly replied promptly, "An Obah Cypt." But when Mr. Lynn questioned her, she had not the least idea what an Obah Cypt could be.

Later they were standing looking at the Thames somewhere while Polly ate a choc-ice-she spent most of the day eating something-and Mr. Lynn asked her if she had liked the books he had sent for Christmas.

Polly did her best to be tactful. It was not easy, because the choc-ice had just fallen apart and she was trying to balance a sheet of chocolate on her tongue while she sucked at the dripping ice cream beneath. "King Arthur's all right," she said liquidly.

"You don't like fairy stories. Have you read them?" said Mr. Lynn. Polly was forced to shake her head. "Please read them," said Mr. Lynn. "Only thin, weak thinkers despise fairy stories. Each onehas a true, strange fact hidden in it, you know, which you can find if you look."

"A' ri'," said Polly over a dissolving handful of white goo and brown flakes.

Later still the horse-car broke down in rush hour when they were racing to catch Polly's train. Mr. Lynn was quite used to this. Shouting that the brute always did it when he was in a hurry, he leaped out and pushed the car at a run onto the nearest pavement. There he first kicked it in the tire, and then tore open the bonnet and prodded inside with the largest Stow-on-the-Water screwdriver while he called it a number of very insulting names. Then he kicked it again and it started. "The only language it understands," he said as they roared off again.

They arrived not quite too late for Polly's train and ran toward the platform among thousands of other hurrying people. Polly shouted across the hammering of their many feet, "You know, the way you got the car to start is the only peculiar thing that's happened this time!"