Last Term at Malory Towers

  "Well, stop if you don't know how to back," cried Peter, but the brownie looked really horri¬fied.

  "What—stop before 1 come to a stopping-place? You must be mad. No, no—full speed ahead is my motto. I've got to get all these tired passengers back home as soon as possible."

  "Why are they so tired?" said Mollie, seeing the wizard beginning to nod again.

  "Well, they've all been to a moonlight dance," said the driver. "Very nice dance, too. I went to it. Last time I went to one I was so tired when I drove my bus home that 1 fell asleep when I was driving it. Found myself in the Land of Dreamland in no time, and used up every drop of my petrol." This all sounded rather extraordinary. Mollie and Peter looked at him nervously, hoping that he wouldn't fall asleep this time. Mollie could hardly keep her eyes open. She worried about Chinky. Would he find his way back to the play-room all right? And, oh dear, what were they going to do about the Wishing-Chair?

  Just as she was thinking that she fell sound asleep. Peter was already asleep. The driver looked at them, gave a grunt, and fell asleep himself.

  So, of course, the bus went straight on to Dreamland again, and when Peter and Mollie awoke, they were not in the bus at all but in their own beds! Mollie tried to remember all that had happened. Was it real or was it a dream? She thought she had better go and ask Peter.

  She went to his room. He was sitting up in bed and rubbing his eyes. "I know what you've come to ask me," he said. "The same question I was com¬ing to ask you. Did we dream it or didn't we? And how did we get back here?"

  "That bus must have gone to the Land of Dreamland again," said Mollie. "But how we got here I don't know. I'm still in my day-clothes— look!"

  "So am I," said Peter, astonished. "Well, that shows it was real then. Oh, dear—do you suppose Chinky is back yet?"

  "Shall we go and see now?" said Mollie.

  But the breakfast bell rang just then. They cleaned their teeth, did their hair, washed and ti¬died their crumpled clothes—then down they went.

  After breakfast they ran dow the palyroom at the bottom of the garden.

  Chinky was there! He was lyinson the sofa fast asleep.

  He didn't stir. Mollie shook la.

  "Don't wake me, Nother," ntnured Chinky, trying to turn over. "Let me sleep

  "Chinky—you're not at hout you're here," said Peter, shaking him again.

  Chinky rolled overon his otfcside—and fell right off the sofa!

  That woke him up with a jerite gave a shout of alarm, opened his eves and satsp.

  LT say, did you tip me off tksofa?" he said. "You needn't have done that."

  "We didn't. You rolled off yoielf," said Mollie with a laugh. "How did you gel lack last night, Chinky?"

  "I walked all the way—so nosmder I'm tired this morning," said Chinky, hise;;s beginning to close again. "I did think you mil have stopped the bus and picked meup."

  "The driver wouldn't stop,' splained Peter. "He was awfully silly.really. Wise re very upset at leaving you behind''

  "The thing is, Chinky—hove we going to find out where the Wishing-Chaitlas gone?" said Peter, seriously. "It's only the beginning of the holi¬days, you know, and if we don't jet it back the holidays will be very dull indeei

  "I'm too sleepy to think," saiithinky, and fell asleep again. Mollie shook himmpatiently.

  "Chinky, do wake up. We really are very wor¬ried about the Wishing-Chair."

  But there was no waking Chinky this time! He was so sound asleep that he didn't even stir when Mollie tickled him under the arms.

  The two children were disappointed. They stayed in the playroom till dinner-time, but Chinky didn't wake up. They went indoors to have their dinner and then came down to see if Chinky was awake yet. He wasn't!

  Just then there came a soft tapping at the door and a little voice said: "Chinky! Are you there?"

  Peter opened the door. Outside stood a small elf, looking rather alarmed . He held a leaflet in his hand.

  "Oh, I'm very sorry," he said. "I didn't know you were here. I wanted Chinky."

  "He's so fast asleep we can't wake him," said Peter. "Can we give him a message?"

  "Yes. Tell him I saw this notice of his," said the little elf, and showed it to the children. It was a little card, printed in Chinky's writing :

  "Lost or stolen. Genuine Wishing-Chair.

  Please give any information about it to

  CHINKY.

  (I shall be in the playroom.)"

  "Anything else?" asked Peter.

  "Well—you might tell him I think I know where

  the chair is," said the little elf, shyly.

  "Do you?" cried both children. "Well, tell us, then—it's our chair!"

  "There's to be a sale of furniture at a brownie's shop not far away," said the elf, "and there are six old chairs to be sold. Now, I know he only had five—so where did the sixth come from? Look, here's a picture of them."

  The children looked at the picture. Peter gave a cry. "Why, they're exactly like our chair. Are they all wishing-chairs, then?"

  "Oh, no. Your chair is very unusual. I expect what happened is that the thief who flew off on your chair wondered how to hide it. He remem¬bered somebody who had five chairs just like it and offered it to him to make the set complete."

  "1 don't see why he should do that," said Mollie, puzzled.

  "Wait," said the elf. "Nobody would suspect that one of the six chairs was a wishing-chair—and I've no doubt that the thief will send someone to bid a price for all six; and when he gets them he will suddenly say that he has discovered one of them is a wishing-chair, and sell it to a wizard for a sack of gold!"

  "I think that's a horrid trick," said Mollie, in disgust. "Well, it looks as if we'll have to go along to this furniture shop and have a look at the chairs, to see if we can find out which one is ours. Oh, dear, I do wish Chinky would wake up."

  "You'd better go as soon as you can," said the elf. "The thief won't lose much time in buying it

  back, with the other chairs thrown in!"

  So they tried to wake Chinky again—but he just wouldn't wake up! "We'll have to go by our¬selves." said Peter at last. "Elf, will you show us the way? You will? Right, then off we go! Leave your message on the table for Chinky to see, then he'll guess where we've gone!"

  IV

  HUNTING FOR THE CHAIR!

  The elf took them a very surprising way. He guided them to the bottom of the garden and through a gap in the hedge. Then he took them to the end of the field and showed them a dark ring of grass.

  "We call that a fairy ring," said Mollie. "Some¬times it has little toadstools all the way round it."

  "Yes," said the elf. "Well, I'll show you a use for fairy rings. Sit down on the dark grass, please."

  Mollie and Peter sat down. They had to squeeze very close together indeed, because the ring of grass was not large. The elf felt about in it as if he was looking for something. He found it—and pressed hard!

  And down shot the ring of grass if it were a lift! The children, taken by surprise, gasped and held on to one another. They stopped with such a bump that they were shaken off the circle of grass and

  rolled away from it, over and over.

  "So sorry," said the elf. "I'm afraid I pressed the button rather hard! Are you hurt?"

  "No—not really," said Mollie. As she spoke she saw the circle of grass shoot up again and fit itself neatly back into the field.

  "Well—we do learn surprising things," she said. "What next, elf?"

  "Along this passage," said the elf, and trotted in front of them. It was quite light underground, though neither of the children could see where the lighting came from. They passed little, brightly- painted doors on their way, and Peter longed to rat-rat at the knockers and see who answered.

  They came to some steps and went up them, round and round in a spiral stairway. Wherever were they coming to? At the top was a door. The elf opened it—and there they were, in a small round room, very cosy indeed.
br />   "What a queer, round room," said Peter, sur¬prised. "Oh—1 know why it's round. It's inside the trunk of a tree! I've been in a tree-house before!"

  "Guessed right first time!" said the elf. "This is where I live. I'd ask you to stop and have a cup of tea with me, but I think we'd better get on and see those chairs before anything happens to them."

  "Yes. So do I," said Peter. "Where's the door out of the tree?"

  It was fitted in so cunningly that it was impos¬sible to see it unless you knew where il was. The elf went to it at once, of course, and opened it. They all stepped out into a wood. The elf shut the door. The children looked back at it. No—they couldn't possibly, possibly tell where it was now— it was so much part of the tree!

  "Come along," said the elf and they followed him through the wood. They came to a lane and then to a very neat village, all the houses set in tiny rows, with a little square green in the middle, and four white ducks looking very clean on a round pond in the centre of the green.

  "How very proper!" said Peter. "Not a blade of grass out of place."

  "This is Pin Village," said the elf. "You've heard

  the saying, 'As neat as a pin,' I suppose? Well, this is Pin—always very neat and tidy and the people of the village, the Pins, never have a button miss¬ing or a hair blowing loose."

  The children saw that it was just as the elf said— the people were so tidy and neat that the children felt dirty and untidy at once. "They all look a bit like pins dressed up and walking about," said Mollie with a giggle. "Well, I'm glad I know what 'neat as a pin' really means. Do they ever run, or make a noise, or laugh?"

  "Sh! Don't laugh at them," said the elf. "Now look—do you see that shop at the corner? It isn't kept by a Pin; it's kept by Mr. Polish. He sells fur¬niture."

  "And he's called Polish because he's always polishing it, I suppose," said Mollie with a laugh.

  "Don't be too clever!" said the elf. "He doesn't do any polishing at all—his daughter Polly does that."

  "Here's the shop," said Mollie, and they stood and looked at it. She nudged Peter, "Look," she whispered, "six chairs—all exactly alike. How are we to tell which is ours?"

  "Come and have a look," said Peter, and they went inside with the elf. A brownie girl was busy polishing away at the chairs, making them shine and gleam.

  "There's Polly Polish," said Mollie to Peter. She must have heard what they said and looked up. She smiled. She was a nice little thing, with pointed ears like Chinky, and very green eyes.

  "Hallo," she said.

  Mollie smiled back. "These are nice chairs, aren't they?" she said. "You've got a whole set of them!"

  "Yes—my father, Mr. Polish, was very pleased," said Polly. "He's only had five a long time, and people want to buy chairs in sixes, you know."

  "How did he manage to get the sixth one?" asked Peter.

  "It was a great bit of luck," said Polly. "There's a goblin called Tricky who came along and said he wanted to sell an old chair that had once be¬longed to his grandmother - and when he showed it to us, lo and behold, it was the missing sixth chair of our set! So we bought it from him, and there it is. I expect now we shall be able to sell the whole set. Someone is sure to come along and buy it."

  "Which chair did the goblin bring you?" asked Peter, looking hard at them all.

  "I don't know now," said Polly, putting more polish on her duster and rubbing very hard at a chair. "I've been cleaning them and moving them about, you know—and they're all mixed up."

  The children stared at them in despair. They all looked exactly alike to them! Oh, dear—how could they possibly tell which was their chair?

  Then Polly said something very helpful, though she didn't know it! "You know," she said, "there's something queer about one of these chairs. I've polished and polished the back of it, but it seems to have a little hole there, or somehting. Anyway,

  I can't make that little bit come bright and shining."

  The children pricked up their ears at once. "Which chair?" said Peter. Polly showed them the one. It certainly seemed as if it had a hole in the back of it. Peter put his finger there—but the hole wasn't a hole! He could feel quite solid wood there!

  And then he knew it was their own chair. He whispered to Mollie.

  "Do you remember last year, when somebody made our Wishing-Chair invisible? And we had to get some paint to make it visible again?"

  "Oh, yes!" whispered back Mollie. "I do remem-ber—and we hadn't enough paint to make one little bit at the back of the chair become visible again, so it always looked as if there was a hole there, though there wasn't really!"

  "Yes—and that's the place that poor Polly has been polishing and polishing," said Peter. "Well— now we know that this is our chair all right! If only it would grow its wings we could sit on it straight away and wish ourselves home again!" He ran his fingers down the legs of the chair to see if by any chance there were some bumps growing, that would mean wings were coming once more. But there weren't.

  "Perhaps the wings will grow again this evening," said Mollie. "Let's go and have tea with the elf in his tree-house and then come back here again and see if the chair has grown its wings."

  The elf was very pleased to think they would come back to tea with him. Before they went Peter looked hard at the chairs. "You know," he said to Mollie, "1 think we'd better just tie a ribbon round our own chair, so that if by any chance we decided to take it and go home with it quickly before any¬one could stop us, we'd know immediately which it was."

  "That's a good idea," said Mollie. She had no hair-ribbon, so she took her little blue handker¬chief and knotted it round the right arm of the chair.

  "What are you doing that for?" asked Polly Polish in surprise.

  "We'll tell you some other time, Polly," said Mollie. "Don't untie it, will you? It's to remind us of something. We'll come back again after tea."

  They went off with the elf. He asked them to see if they could find his door-handle and turn it to get into his tree-house—but, however much they looked and felt about, neither of them could make out where the closely-fitting door was. "It's no wonder nobody ever knows which the tree-houses are!

  The elf had to open the door for them himself, and in they went. He got them a lovely tea, with pink jellies that shone like a sunset, and blancmange that he had made in the shape of a little castle.

  "I do wonder if Chinky's woken up yet," said Mollie, at last. "No, thank you, elf, I can't possi¬bly eat any more. It was really lovely tea."

  Now what about going back to the shop and seeing if we can't take our chair away?" said Pe¬ter. "We'll send Chinky to explain about it later— the thing is, we really must take it quickly, or that goblin called Tricky will send someone to buy all the set—and our chair with it!"

  So off they went to the shop—and will you be¬lieve it, there were no chairs there! They were all gone from the window! The children stared in dis¬may.

  They went into the shop. "What's happened to the chairs?" they aksed Polly.

  "Oh, we had such a bit of luck just after you had gone," said Polly. "Somebody came by, no¬ticed the chairs, said that the goblin Tricky had advised him to buy them—and paid us for them straight away!"

  "Who was he?" asked Peter, his heart sinking.

  "Let me see—his name was Mr. Spells," said Polly, looking in a book. "And his address is Wiz¬ard Cottage. He seemed very nice indeed."

  "Oh dear," said Peter, leading Mollie out of the shop. "Now we've really lost our dear old chair."

  "Don't give up!" said Mollie. "We'll go back to Chinky and tell him the whole story—and may be he will know something about this Mr. Spells and be able to get our chair back for us. Chinky's very clever."

  "Yes—but before we can get it back from Mr. Spells, that wretched goblin Tricky will be after it again," said Peter. "He's sure to go and take it from Mr. Spells."

  The elf took them home again. They went into the playroom. Chinky wasn't there! There was a note on the table. br />
  It said: "Fancy you going off without me! I've gone to look for you—Chinky."

  "Bother!" said Mollie. "How annoying! Here we've come back to look for him and he's gone to look for us. Now we'll have to wait till to-mor¬row!"

  V

  OFF TO MR. SPELLS OF WIZARD COTTAGE

  Mollie and Peter certainly could do no more that day, because their mother was already wondering why they hadn't been in to tea. They heard her calling as they read Chinky's note saying he had gone to look for them.

  It's a pity Chinky didn't wait for us," said Pe¬ter. "We could have sent him to Mr. Spells to keep guard on the chair. Come on, Mollie—we'll have to go in. We've hardly seen Mother all day!"

  Their mother didn't know anything about the Wishing-Chair at all, of course, because the chil¬dren kept it a strict secret.

  "If we tell anyone, the grown-ups will come and take our precious chair and put it in a museum or something," said Peter. "I couldn't bear to think of the Wishing-Chair growing its wings in a mu¬seum and not being able to get out of a glass case."

  So they hadn't said a word to anyone. Now they ran indoors, and offered to help their mother shell peas. They sat and wondered where Chinky was. They felt very sleepy, and Mollie suddenly gave an enormous yawn.

  "You look very tired, Mollie," said Mother, looking at her pale face. "Didn't you sleep well last night?"

  "Well—I didn't sleep a lot," said Mollie truth¬fully, remembering her long flight in the Wishing- Chair and the strange bus ride afterwards.

  "1 think you had both better get off early to bed," said Mother. "I'll bring your suppers up to you in bed for a treat—raspberries and cream, and bread and butter—would you like that?"

  In the ordinary way the children would have said no thank you to any idea of going to bed early—but they really were so sleepy that they both yawned together and said yes, that sounded nice, thank you, Mother!

  So upstairs they went and fell asleep immedi¬ately after the raspberries and cream. Mother was really very surprised when she peeped in to see them.

  "Poor children—I expect all the excitement of coming home from school has tired them out," she said. "I'll make them up sandwiches to-morrow and send them out on a picnic."