‘I say!’ he said hopefully.
‘What?’ asked the other two.
‘Supposing I rub some of the ointment that makes people bigger on to the broomstick! It might make it grow bigger!’
‘Then we could go back and fetch Jump!’ cried the mermaid.
So Hop got out the yellow ointment and rubbed some of it on to the end of the broomstick.
It immediately grew much smaller, and Hop nearly fell off ! He just managed to hang on round Skip’s waist.
‘Oh, you silly!’ cried Skip. ‘That’s the wrong ointment.’
Quickly, he took the purple ointment from Hop’s pocket, though he nearly tumbled off in reaching it.
Immediately it grew enormously large.
‘Gracious!’ giggled Hop, who was now sitting down firmly again. ‘There’s room for twenty people at least!’
They turned the broomstick back to the island, and soon after arrived at the castle again. They landed at the front door.
There was a terrible noise going on, and dust flew in clouds out of the windows of one of the upstairs rooms.
‘They’re still trying to settle who’s the strongest!’ said Hop. ‘I’ll run and fetch Jump!’
He jumped off and ran indoors. There he found Jump, looking very scared indeed. How astonished and glad he was to see Hop!
‘Come on, you brave little brownie!’ called Hop. ‘We’ve made the broomstick bigger, and there’s room for you!’
Jump scurried out with Hop and mounted the broomstick with the others. Then once more the magic rhyme was said, and the broomstick rose into the air.
‘Oh, I am glad to be with you!’ said Jump, sighing gladly. ‘The wizard and the red goblin were behaving in a terrible manner. They kept changing each other into different things, and chasing about all over the place!’
‘Well, they’re both about as strong as each other,’ said Hop cheerfully, ‘so they’ll probably have a jolly time fighting each other for a good many days yet!’
The broomstick went sailing on and on over the sea in the bright moonlight, and soon left the island far behind.
Suddenly the mermaid gave a shriek of joy.
‘There is my home!’ she cried. ‘There is my home!’
The brownies looked down, and saw two or three brown rocks sticking up out of the sea. On them lay mermaids and mermen.
‘Quick! Turn the broom downwards!’ cried the mermaid. Jump turned it, and soon they were gliding down to the rocks.
Splash! Splash! All the mermaids and mermen slid into the water and disappeared when they saw the broomstick gliding down to them.
Bump! It came to rest on one of the rocks.
‘Come back! Come back!’ called the mermaid. ‘It’s the little mermaid Golden-hair come back! I’ve been rescued!’
Up popped all the mermen and mermaids again, and as soon as they saw that it really was Golden-hair, what a fuss they made! The cried over her and laughed over her, and patted her and kissed her.
Then one of the mermen brought a shell full of sea-water, and said a spell over it. Golden-hair put her goblin feet into it, and to the brownies’ astonishment, they changed into a beautiful glittering tail.
Then, flick! Golden-hair slipped into the water and swam about joyfully with the others.
‘Stay with us!’ she cried. ‘We will give you a lovely time!’
‘No, thank you,’ answered Hop. ‘We’d very much like to, but we are in search of a stolen Princess, so we must go.’
The brownies hopped on to the broomstick again, waved goodbye to the merfolk, sang the magic rhyme, and were soon off again.
‘I’m glad we were able to rescue Golden-hair,’ said Jump. ‘I do wonder where we’ll go to next!’
‘We mustn’t any of us go to sleep,’ said Hop, ‘else we’ll fall off the broomstick into the sea! Hold on tight till the morning!’
All night long the broom sailed over the sea. Soon the moon went down, and the brownies grew very sleepy indeed.
As the sun rose, they saw that they had left the sea behind at last, and were flying over a wooded country.
‘Let’s go down here,’ said Hop, yawning. ‘I’m longing to go to sleep.’
So they turned the broom downwards, and were soon among the trees.
‘What enormous trees!’ exclaimed Skip in astonishment. ‘I’ve never seen such big ones before.’
They were enormous. When the brownies had landed safely on the ground they craned their necks backwards to try to see the tops of the trees – but they couldn’t.
‘And just look at the grass!’ cried Hop. ‘It’s as tall as a house! And goodness me, is this a buttercup? Why, I could easily go to sleep in one of the buds!’
‘I could go to sleep anywhere !’ yawned Jump, lying down on a daisy-leaf that was as big as a bed. ‘Goodnight, everybody!’
‘Well, we’ll explore the country when we wake,’ said Hop, and he chose a leaf too. Skip climbed into a bud and very soon all the brownies were fast asleep.
Suddenly they were awakened by an enormous noise.
Crash, crash, crash, crash!
Hop woke up with a jump, and looked round him. To his amazement, he saw walking by him the biggest pair of boots he had ever seen. They seemed as large as two small trees. Hop looked above them.
‘Gracious!’ he said. ‘There’s legs in the boots!’
The brownies looked above the legs, and then, with a shout of fear, saw that the legs belonged to a body, and that the body had an enormous head with eyes like little lakes.
‘Ow!’ cried Hop. ‘It’s a giant! We’ve come to Giantland!’
‘Quick!’ said Skip. ‘Hide before he sees us!’
But it was too late. The giant had seen them, and was staring at them in just as much astonishment as they had stared at him. Before they could run and hide, a great hand had come down and picked them all up. Then they were swished up into the air near the giant’s head, whilst he had a good look at them.
‘Brownies!’ said the giant, in a voice very like thunder. ‘Brownies! Oh, the tiny little things!’
‘Let us go!’ yelled Hop in his loudest voice.
‘Oh, he squeaks like a mouse!’ said the giant, with a smile that showed enormous white teeth. ‘Squeak again, little man!’
‘I’m not squeaking!’ shouted Hop, angrily. ‘I’m shouting at you. Put me down, you’re squashing me to bits.’
‘Squeak away, squeak away,’ said the giant. ‘I’ll take you home and show you to my wife. What a find!’
He stuffed the three brownies into his coat pocket and strode off.
‘Oh, it’s like riding inside a camel’s hump!’ said Hop, as the giant’s coat flapped in the wind, and swayed to and fro as he walked.
‘What a terrible fix we’re in now !’ groaned Skip. ‘How in the world can we get away from here?’
The brownies clung together as frightened as could be. At last the giant stopped, put his hand in his pocket, and pulled out the three brownies.
‘Look, wife!’ he said in his booming voice. ‘What do you think of these little chaps?’
‘Oh!’ thundered his wife in delight. ‘Are they real?’
‘Real enough!’ said the giant, setting them down on a table as big as a field. ‘Now then, squeak!’ he said, and gave Hop such a poke with his finger that he fell over and nearly tumbled off the table.
The giant’s wife was delighted with them.
‘We’ll give a tea-party this afternoon, and show them to all our friends,’ she said.
‘No, no, let us go back and find our broomstick!’ begged Skip.
‘Listen to him squeaking!’ cried the giant in delight, and gave him a poke that sent him head over heels.
The giant’s wife carefully put them into a box with some holes punched in to let the air through. She also put in a thimbleful of water and some crumbs of bread. The thimble was as big as a barrel and the crumbs as big as loaves, so that the brownies had more than enough to eat and dr
ink.
They were very upset indeed.
‘We seem to do nothing but get caught by someone or other,’ groaned Hop. ‘If only we could go back to Fairyland!’
‘Well, goodness knows what’s going to happen to us this time!’ said Skip, gloomily. ‘We’re so small, luckily, compared with the giants, that they probably won’t eat us. We shouldn’t make more than a mouthful!’
‘Ugh! Don’t be horrid!’ said Jump, who didn’t like the conversation at all. ‘Let’s talk of something cheerful.’
All the day the giant’s wife kept taking off the lid, and peeping in at the brownies to see if they were all right. She put in three lumps of sugar for them to sit down on, and was very much amused to see them perched up on them. They heard her big voice rumbling all day long. The clatter that her pots and pans made sounded like crashes of thunder.
When the afternoon came, the giant’s wife took off the lid of the box and lifted the brownies out on to the table. She put some fresh water in the thimble, and gave them a rag as big as a table-cloth for a towel, and told them to wash themselves and make themselves smart.
‘My guests will soon be here,’ she boomed, ‘and I want you to be a surprise for them.’
When the brownies had washed themselves and smoothed back their hair the giant’s wife picked them all up and carried them into another room, where a table was laid for tea. In the middle was a cake, and on top, made of pink icing, were three little chairs.
‘Buttons and buttercups!’ groaned Hop. ‘Look what she’s done! We’ve got to sit on the cake!’
Sure enough they had. The giantess popped each one, bump! on to a chair.
‘Now you sit there and don’t move an eyelash,’ she said. ‘Everyone will think you’re dolls. When I say, “Now I’ll cut the cake,” you’re to jump out of your chairs and cheer!’
The brownies felt very much annoyed. They didn’t like the idea of pretending to be dolls at all, just to amuse a lot of giants.
Skip jumped off his chair crossly.
‘No!’ he shouted loudly. ‘I won’t!’
The giantess picked him up and gave him such a squeeze that he felt he was going to choke.
‘Now you do as you’re told,’ she scolded, in her enormous voice, ‘or I’ll give you to the chickens to peck!’
Skip sat down very quickly on his chair. He didn’t like the idea of being given to the chickens at all. Nor did the others. They all sat as still as could be, in case the giantess said anything more.
All around them gleamed great knives and forks and spoons, and huge glasses that seemed as big as houses. From the kitchen came a very nice smell.
‘That makes me feel hungry,’ said Hop, sighing.
‘What about chipping a bit off the cake?’ asked Skip. ‘The giantess has gone out of the room for a minute!’
‘Bite the knobs off the backs of your chairs,’ said Jump. ‘They’re delicious.’
The three brownies bit them off, and very delicious they were. They tasted of honey and sugar, and the brownies were just going to nibble pieces off the back of their chairs, too, when a most enormous noise made them fall off their seats in fright.
It was the guests knocking at the front door!
RAT-TAT-TAT!
The brownies began to tremble. It was rather terrifying to have to face a lot of giants at once.
‘They’re so careless in picking us up and putting us down,’ groaned Hop.
‘And I hate being held tight,’ said Skip.
‘Sh!’ said Jump. ‘Here they come.’
With an enormous noise of tramping, talking and laughing, in walked six of the largest giants you could imagine. They were followed by the giantess and her husband, both of whom were smaller than their guests.
‘HA!’ said a giant, seating himself at the table. ‘I’M HUNGRY!’
‘HO!’ said another. ‘I’M THIRSTY.’
The giantess made haste to bring in the teapot, and soon every giant was stuffing himself with sandwiches as big as mattresses. The noise they made too! It sounded like twenty thousand pigs feeding at once.
Suddenly one of them noticed the cake.
‘HO!’ he said. ‘WHAT A FINE CAKE!’
All the giants looked at it, and thought it was very fine indeed.
‘I’ve never seen such nice figures before as those you’ve got sitting on your cake,’ said a giant.
‘VERY NICE INDEED,’ bellowed a giant with an extra loud voice.
All this time the brownies hadn’t dared to move in case the giantess should keep her word, and throw them to the chickens. They sat like dummies, staring straight in front of them.
‘They look quite real,’ said a giant, and bent closer to look at them. Then he took his fork and was just going to poke Hop with it when that terrified brownie leapt up into the air in fright, and gave an anguished yell.
The giant was so astonished that he dropped his fork with a clatter, and sat open-mouthed. All the giants stared at the brownies in the greatest amazement.
The giantess thought it was time to surprise her guests a little more.
‘Now I’ll cut the cake,’ she said.
At once Hop, Skip, and Jump leapt out of their chairs and cheered as they had been told to do.
The giants jumped in astonishment.
‘They squeak!’ said one.
‘They move!’ said another.
‘They must be alive,’ said a third.
‘They are,’ said the giantess proudly. ‘They’re brownies. What do you think of that for a surprise?’
She began cutting the cake, and the brownies jumped down on to the table. As soon as the giants heard they were brownies they began talking excitedly all at once, and each giant tried to catch a brownie, so as to have a good look at him.
The brownies dodged their great fingers as best they could. They hid behind glasses and under the edges of the plates, and Hop even jumped into the salt-cellar, and covered himself with salt – but it was no good. They were caught and held, and passed from one giant to another.
They hated it, for the giants held them so tightly, and seemed to enjoy giving them a poke now and again, just to see them roll head over heels.
‘I shall break my neck soon,’ panted Hop. ‘That’s twice I’ve been poked over.’
‘Let’s pretend we’re hurt,’ said Skip, ‘perhaps they’ll stop then.’
So Hop lay down on the table and groaned, Skip walked about with a limp and Jump held his head as if it hurt him.
The giantess, who had quite a kind heart, was most upset.
‘You’ve hurt the poor little mites,’ she cried. ‘Look at them! Leave them alone now, do, or you’ll kill them, and I want to keep them for pets, and give them to my children when they come back from their aunt’s.’
‘Oh!’ groaned Hop. ‘Did you hear what she said? Goodness knows what giant children would do with us! What a terrible fix we are in!’
The giantess brought their thimble filled with lemonade, and put some cake crumbs on a cotton-reel.
‘Here you are,’ she said, giving them lumps of sugar to sit on. ‘Sit down at this cotton-reel table, and have your tea, while we watch you.’
The brownies sat down and took the cake crumbs. They were as large as cakes and very nice. When they wanted a drink they went to the thimble and sipped the lemonade.
The giants soon grew tired of watching them, and fell silent. The giantess rose and began clearing away the dishes into the kitchen. Then, one by one, the giants fell asleep.
Hop looked round at them.
SNORE, SNORE, SNORE, went the giants, sleepy after their big meal. They breathed so heavily that they nearly blew the brownies off the table.
‘I say,’ shouted Hop, trying to make himself heard over the snoring, ‘let’s escape!’
‘How?’ shouted Skip. ‘If one of the giants wakes whilst we are slipping away he’ll wake the others, and they’ll all come thundering after us and kill us.’
‘Think o
f an idea, Hop,’ shouted Jump.
Hop thought – then he grinned.
‘What about the ointment?’ he shouted back. ‘Shall we use that on the giants whilst they’re asleep?’
‘Yes, yes!’ shrieked Skip and Jump, nearly deafened by the snores of the giants. ‘Get it out quickly, Hop.’
Hop got out the boxes of ointment and opened them.
‘There isn’t very much left of either of them,’ he shouted. ‘We’ll use both and see what happens. Here, Skip, take the purple ointment, and I’ll take the yellow. Jump, you keep a watch for the giantess.’
Hop and Skip ran across the table, and each climbed up a giant’s arm on to his shoulder. They couldn’t reach his forehead, so they rubbed the ointment on to his chin, and hoped it would act just as well.
Then down they clambered, and up on to two more giants’ shoulders. Hop was nearly blown away by one tremendous giant, who puffed him nearly off his arm.
At last all the sleeping giants had the magic ointment rubbed on to their chins.
‘Now listen!’ shouted Hop, whose voice was getting quite hoarse. ‘I’m going to say the magic words. The giants will grow smaller and bigger, and they’ll wake up in a terrible fright. We’ve got to escape whilst they’re in a muddle. Climb off the table first.’
The brownies clambered down the table-cloth, slid down the table-legs, and landed bump on to the floor. They ran to the door.
Then Hop called out the magic words.
At once three of the giants grew so much smaller that they were only about three times as big as the brownies. The other four grew so much bigger that their heads bumped against the ceiling, their chairs broke with their weight, and they fell on to the floor with yells of fright.
‘OH! OH! OH!’ they shouted in astonishment. The giantess came running in to see what was the matter. She couldn’t believe her eyes.
‘What’s happened?’ she cried. ‘Oh, what’s happened? Why have some of you grown small and some of you big? Oh dear, dear, dear!’
‘Come on,’ said Hop, and he and the other brownies ran out of the door.
The giantess saw them.
‘Oh, you’ve worked a spell on them!’ she cried angrily. ‘I’ll catch you, you wicked little things.’
Hop, Skip, and Jump raced across the kitchen floor as hard as they could, and out into the garden. They hid under a large leaf and watched the huge feet of the giantess go clomping by in search of them.