about a parcel of birds and children. And the parrot ruffled his feathers till he looked twice his proper size.
Philip said he didn’t see it.
“Oh, but I do,” said the Pretenderette; “if you fail, then it’s my turn, and I might very likely succeed the minute after you’d failed. So we’ll all go on comfortably together. Won’t that be nice?”
A speechless despair seemed to have fallen on the party. Nobody spoke. The children looked blank, the dogs whined, the camel put on his haughtiest sneer, and the parrot fidgeted in his fluffed-out feather dress.
“Let’s be starting,” said the motor lady. “Gee-up, pony!” A shiver ran through every one present. That a Pretenderette should dare to speak so to a Hippogriff!
Suddenly the parrot spread its wings and flew to perch on Philip’s shoulder. It whispered in his ear.
“Whispering is not manners, I know,” it said, “but your own generous heart will excuse me. ‘Parcel of birds and children.’ Doesn’t your blood boil?”
Philip thought it did.
“Well, then,” said the bird impatiently, “what are we waiting for? You’ve only got to say the word and I’ll take her back by the ear.”
“I wish you would,” said Philip from the heart.
“Nothing easier,” said the parrot, “the miserable outsider! Intruding into our expedition! I advise you to await my return here. Or if I am not back by the morning there will be no objection to your calling, about noon, on the Dwellers. I can rejoin you there. Good-bye.”
It stroked his ear with a gentle and kindly beak and flew into the air and circled three times round the detested motor lady’s head.
“Get away,” she cried, flapping her hands furiously; “call your silly Poll-parrot off, can’t you?” And then she screamed, “Oh! it’s got hold of my ear!”
“Oh, don’t hurt her,” said Lucy.
“I will not hurt her;” the parrot let the ear go on purpose to say this, and the Pretenderette covered both ears with her hands. “You person in the veil, I shall take hold again in a moment. And it will hurt you much less if the Hippogriff and I happen to be flying in the same direction. See? If I were you I should just say ‘Go back the way you came, please,’ to the Hippogriff, and then I shall hardly hurt you at all. Don’t think of getting off. If you do, the dogs will have you. Keep your hands over your ears if you like. I know you can hear me well enough. Now I am going to take hold of you again. Keep your hands where they are. I’m not particular to an ear or so. A nose will do just as well.”
The person on the Hippogriff put both hands to her nose. Instantly the parrot had her again by the ear.
“Go back the way you came,” she cried; “but I’ll be even with you children yet.”
The Hippogriff did not move.
“Let go my ear,” screamed the lady.
“You’ll have to say please, you know,” said Philip; “not to the bird, I don’t mean that: that’s no good. But to the Hippogriff.”
“Please then,” said the lady in a burst of temper, and instantly the white wings parted and spread and the Hippogriff rose in the air. Polly let the ear go for the moment to say:
“I shan’t hurt her so long as she behaves,” and then took hold again and his little grey wings and the big white wings of the Hippogriff went sailing away across the desert.
“What a treasure of a parrot?” said Philip. But Lucy said:
“Who is that Pretenderette? Why is she so horrid to us when every one else is so nice?”
“I don’t know,” said Philip, “hateful old thing.”
“I can’t help feeling as if I knew her quite well, if I could only remember who she is.”
“Do you?” said Philip. “I say, let’s play noughts and crosses. I’ve got a notebook and a bit of pencil in my pocket. We might play till it’s time to go to sleep.”
So they played noughts and crosses on the Pebbly Waste, and behind them the parrot and the Hippogriff took away the tiresome one, and in front of them lay the high pebble ridge that was like a mountain, and beyond that was the unknown and the adventure and the Dwellers and the deed to be done.
CHAPTER VII
THE DWELLERS BY THE SEA
You soon get used to things. It seemed quite natural and homelike to Philip to be wakened in bright early out-of-door’s morning by the gentle beak of the parrot at his ear.
“You got back all right then,” he said sleepily.
“It was rather a long journey,” said the parrot, “but I thought it better to come back by wing. The Hippogriff offered to bring me; he is the soul of courteous gentleness. But he was tired too. The Pretenderette is in gaol for the moment, but I’m afraid she’ll get out again; we’re so unused to having prisoners, you see. And it’s no use putting her on her honour, because—”
“Because she hasn’t any,” Philip finished.
“I wouldn’t say that,” said the parrot, “of anybody. I’d only say we haven’t come across it. What about breakfast?”
“How meals do keep happening,” said Lucy, yawning; “it seems only a few minutes since supper. And yet here we are, hungry again!”
“Ah!” said the parrot, “that’s what people always feel when they have to get their meals themselves!”
When the camel and the dogs had been served with breakfast, the children and the parrot sat down to eat. And there were many questions to ask. The parrot answered some, and some it didn’t answer.
“But there’s one thing,” said Lucy, “I do most awfully want to know. About the Hippogriff. How did it get out of the book?”
“It’s a long story,” said the parrot, “so I’ll tell it shortly. That’s a very good rule. Tell short stories longly and long stories shortly. Many years ago, in repairing one of the buildings, the masons removed the supports of one of the books which are part of the architecture. The book fell. It fell open, and out came the Hippogriff. Then they saw something struggling under the next page and lifted it, and out came a megatherium. So they shut the book and built it into the wall again.”
“But how did the megawhatsitsname and the Hippogriff come to be the proper size?”
“Ah! that’s one of the eleven mysteries. Some sages suppose that the country gave itself a sort of shake and everything settled down into the size it ought to be. I think myself that it’s the air. The moment you breathe this enchanted air you become the right size. You did, you know.”
“But why did they shut the book?”
“It was a book of beasts. Who knows what might have come out next? A tiger perhaps. And ravening for its prey as likely as not.”
“I
