"Well, fancy that now! Och, you may well ask, and I"ll be telling you.
"Tis a poor life being a Banshee--long hours and not so much as sixpence in it for a full night"s work, and I got that sick of it! So I changed me trade. "Sure, you"ll never make a go of it," they told me, "and at your age," they says, "and once you"ve got your station in life," they says, "there"s no changing it." "It"s in the prime of me life I am," says I, "and I"ll not be changing me mind for all your cackling," says I, "and if certain mouths don"t shut up," says I, "I"ll cast spells that"ll make certain people wish they were dead."
That set them back on their heels, you may be sure. Well, "twas the best decision of me life. The money pours in like sorrows to a widow, and I"ll be retiring within the year to live out my days like a proper queen."
Then the Banshee caught sight of David and hobbled over to him, peering into his frightened eyes.
"Ah, the wee darling," she crooned, "the plump little mannikin. What a broth he"d make, to be sure." She pinched his arm, and he started back in terror. "So firm and plump, to make the mouth water. Sell him to me, Phoenix!"
"Nonsense," said the Phoenix sharply. "What we desire--"
At this instant the contents of the saucepan began to hiss and bubble.
"Whoops, dearies, the brew is boiling!" shrieked the Banshee, and she hobbled back to the fire to resume her work. She looked in a recipe book, stirred, clapped her hands, sang hair-raising incantations in a quavery voice, and added a pinch of salt and sulfur. She sprinkled spices from a shaker, waved her wand, popped in a dead toad, and fanned up the fire with an ostrich plume.
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"Now for the hard part," she said, grinning at them toothlessly. She measured out a spoonful of green powder, weighed it in the scales, and flung it into the saucepan. There was a loud explosion. A huge blast of steam flared out and engulfed them. When it had cleared, they saw the Banshee tilting the saucepan over a small bottle. One ruby drop of fluid fell into the bottle. It darted forth rays of light as it fell, and tinkled like a silver coin rolling down flights of marble steps.
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The Banshee corked the bottle and held it up proudly to the light.
"Will you look at that, now?" she crooned. "The finest ever I brewed.
Ah, the mystic droplet! Some swain will be buying that, now, and putting it in a la.s.sie"s cup o" tea, and she"ll be pining away for love of him before the day"s out."
She put the bottle on the shelf, pasted a label on it, and turned to them with a businesslike air.
"Now, dearies, what"ll you be wanting? Philtres? Poison?--I"ve a special today, only five shillings a vial. A spell? What about your fortunes?--one shilling if seen in the crystal ball, one and six if read from the palm. A hex?--I"ve the finest in six counties. A ticket to the Walpurgis Night Ball?"
"We want a Wail," said the Phoenix. "And we shall accept nothing but the best and loudest you have."
"Ah, a Banshee"s Wail, is it?" cried the hag. "You"ve come to the right shop, dearies, to be sure. Now, let me see...." She hobbled to a shelf which contained a row of boxes, ran her finger along them, stopped at one, and took it down. "Here we are--key of C-sharp, two minutes long, only five shillings threepence."
"No, no," said the Phoenix. "A larger one. We have something more than mice to frighten."
"A bigger one? Och, here"s a lovely one, now--five minutes long, ascending scale with a sob at the end, guaranteed to scare a statue.
Yours for ten and six. I call that a real bargain, now!"
"Bah!" said the Phoenix impatiently. "Enough of these squeaks! We want a real _Wail_, my dear Banshee--such a Wail as never before was heard on the face of this earth. And stop this babbling about shillings and pence. We are prepared to pay in gold." The Phoenix took the four pieces of gold from David and carelessly tossed them into the air.
The Banshee"s eyes flew wide open, and she twirled herself around like a top. "Och, the sweet music of its tinkling!" she exclaimed. "The lovely sheen of light upon it! _There"s_ a sight for eyes used to naught but silver! Ah, but dearies, I"ve no Wail worth four pieces of gold. I"ll have to make one up special." She hobbled rapidly around the chamber until she had found a box as large as a bird cage, and an ear trumpet. She opened the box, shook it to make sure it was empty, and put in two heads of cabbage. ("Such monstrous appet.i.tes these Wails do have!" she explained.) She fastened the lid carefully with a catch-lock, and inserted the ear trumpet in a hole in one side of the box. Then she disappeared through a sound-proof door, which they had not seen before on account of the smoke.
Fifteen minutes later the Banshee came out with the box, plugging up the hole in its side with a bit of wax. She was pale and trembling, and beads of sweat covered her face. She smiled weakly at them, seized an earthen-ware jug, and drained it in one gulp. The color began to return to her face.
"Wsssht!" she gasped, wiping her brow with the sleeve of her Mother Hubbard. "Ah, dearies, that was the effort of me life! "Tis a Wail to make one burst with pride, though I do say it meself. Thirteen minutes long by the clock, with a range of ten octaves! "Twould frighten the Old Nick himself!"
"Splendid!" said the Phoenix. "The fact is, I sometimes suspect that that is precisely with whom we are dealing at home."
The light suddenly dawned on David. "Phoenix!" he cried. "I bet we"re going to give the Wail to the Scientist!"
"Precisely, my boy!" The Phoenix beamed.
"Oh, golly golly golly!" David sang as he danced around.
"And I"ll guarantee it, dearies!" the Banshee cackled. "One hundred per cent satisfaction or your money back!"
"Defeat and confusion to the enemy!" the Phoenix shouted, giving the special squawk which was its battle cry.
The Banshee received her gold. The Phoenix told David for goodness sake not to drop the box or let the lid pop open, or they would regret it to their dying day. David, hearing the rustle of the Wail as it ravenously attacked the cabbages inside the box, a.s.sured the Phoenix that he would be careful. The Banshee said, "Ah, Phoenix, do sell the laddie to me," but her tone was more teasing than serious, and they all laughed. Good-bys were said all round, and David and the Phoenix left. The last thing they heard as they felt their way up the dark pa.s.sage was the happy cackling of the Banshee and the clang of the cash register.
They got back to the hotel before dawn and very carefully crept down the fire escape into the Scientist"s room. They put the box on the bedside table, stuck out their tongues at the sleeping Scientist, and crept out again. Then they went home, the Phoenix to the ledge and David to bed, where he fell asleep instantly.
The Wail was wildly successful. The Scientist released it from its box at seven o"clock in the morning. People living in the hotel thought the world had come to its end. The rest of the town wondered if it was a riot, or an earthquake, or both with three steam calliopes thrown in for good measure. David, who lived twelve blocks from the hotel, stirred in his sleep and dreamed he was riding a fire engine. Even the Phoenix claimed later that a kind of moan was borne on the breeze all the way up to the ledge.
The hotel burst into activity like a kicked anthill. People poured down the fire escapes, shot out through the doors, lowered themselves into the street with ropes of knotted blankets. Others barricaded themselves in their rooms by piling furniture against the doors and windows. One guest found his way to the cellar and hid in an ash can for two days. The manager crawled into the office safe and locked the door, without even bothering to remember that he was the only one who knew the combination. The telephone exchange was jammed as calls flooded in to mobilize the Boy Scouts, the Red Cross, the Salvation Army, the National Guard, and the Volunteer Flood Control a.s.sociation.
When the Wail finally died out (which was not until seven-thirty, because it had devoured both cabbages during the night and had grown to more than twice its original size) the police entered the hotel in force, armed to the eyebrows. They found nothing. At the end of a three-hour search the Chief handed in his resignation.
As for the Scientist, he disappeared completely. A farmer living three miles out of town said he saw a man, dressed in a nightshirt and head-bandage, running down the valley road. The farmer guessed the man"s speed to be thirty-five miles an hour. But, he added, there was such a cloud of dust being raised that he could not see very well.
"It might have been fifty miles an hour," he said.
No one doubted him.
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9: _In Which David and the Phoenix Call On a Faun, and a Lovely Afternoon Comes to a Strange End_
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The Phoenix was dead tired. And no wonder--all in one week it had escaped from Gryffons, raced with a Witch, made round-trip flights to the Pacific Isles and Ireland, been caught in a snare, got burned by a short circuit, and been knocked down by an exploding cigar. Even a bird as strong as the Phoenix cannot do all these things without needing a rest. So the traveling part of David"s education was stopped for a while to let the Phoenix recover.
The days went by pleasantly on the ledge. Summer was at its height.
The sun fell on them with just the right amount of warmth as they lolled on the gra.s.s. The air was filled with a lazy murmuring.
"Listen," the murmuring seemed to say, "don"t talk, don"t think--close your eyes and listen." Below them, the whole valley danced and wavered in the heat waves, so that it seemed to be under water.
There were long, lazy conversations that began nowhere and ended nowhere--the wonderful kind in which you say whatever comes to your head without fear of being misunderstood, because what you say has little importance anyway. The Phoenix told of the times and adventures it had had. Of the forgotten corners of the world where life went on as it had from the beginning, and of friends who lived there. Of Trolls who mined metal from the earth and made from it wondrous machines which whirred and clattered and clanked and did absolutely nothing. ("The best kind of machine after all, my boy, since they injure no one, and there is nothing to worry about when they break down.") Of Unicorns ("Excellent chaps, but so frightfully melancholy") which shone white in the sun and tossed their ivory horns like rapiers. Of a Dragon who, having no treasure to guard, got together a pathetic heap of colored pebbles in its cave. ("And really, he came to believe in time that they were absolutely priceless, and went about with a worried frown of responsibility on his brow!") David, in turn, told the Phoenix about the games he used to play when he lived in the flat country, and all about school, and Mother and Dad and Aunt Amy and Beckie.
He could not help laughing now and then over the Scientist"s defeat.
But whenever this came up, the Phoenix would shake its head with a kind of sad wisdom.
"My boy, there are certain things, such as head colds and forgetting where you have left your keys, which are inevitable--and I am afraid that the Scientist is, too."
"Oh, Phoenix, you don"t think he"ll come back, do you?"
"Yes, my boy, I do. I can see the whole train of events: He will recover from his fright. He will be curious about the Wail, and will return to investigate it. Once here, he will remember us, and we shall have to take him into account once more."