Arabel's Raven Read online

  They would have taken him away, but he said he wanted to wait for his brother.

  The minicopter had gone down again at once. In a minute up it came with the other Mr. Round. As soon as he landed he noticed Arabel and Mortimer, perched on the ticket machine, and the sight of them seemed to set him in a passion.

  "Grab that bird!" he shouted. "He's the cause of all the trouble! Gnawed through the lift cable and ate the escalator and had my brother and me trapped in utter discomfort for forty-eight hours!"

  "And what was you a-doing down there," said Mr. Gumbrell suspiciously, "after the nine o'clock south had come and gone?"

  Just at this moment a whole truckload of police arrived with Mrs. Jones, who seemed half distracted.

  "There you are!" she screamed when she saw Arabel. "And me nearly frantic. Oh my goodness, there's that great awful bird, as if we hadn't enough to worry us!"

  But the police swarmed about the Round brothers, and the sergeant said, "I have a warrant to arrest you two on suspicion of having pinched the cash from the bank last month and if you want to know why we think it's you that did it, it's because we found your tooth tiepin left behind in the safe and one of Toby's fingerprints on the abandoned motorcycle, and I shouldn't wonder if you did the jobs at the supermarket and the jeweler's and all the others, too."

  "It's not true!" shouted Mr. Toby Round. "We didn't do it! We didn't do any of them. We were staying with my sister-in-law at Romford on each occasion. Her name's Mrs. Flossie Wilkes and she lives at 2001 Station Approach. If you ask my opinion that raven is the thief—"

  But the sergeant had pulled Mr. Toby Round's hand from his pocket to put a handcuff on it, and when he did so, what should come out as well but Sam the squirrel, and what should Sam be clutching in his paws but Mr. Peter Stone's diamond brooch worth forty thousand pounds.

  So everybody said, "Coo," again.

  And Mr. Round and Mr. Toby Round were taken off to Rumbury Hill Police Station.

  The police sergeant hitched a ride in the firemen's minicopter and went down the lift shaft and had a look around the old galleries and disused tram station, and he found the money that had been stolen from the bank, all packed in the plastic garbage cans that had been stolen from Brown's the ironmongers and he found nine hundred and ninety-nine of the two thousand cans of best Jamaica blend coffee stolen from the supermarket, and a whole lot of other things that had been stolen from different premises all over Rumbury Town.

  While he was making these exciting discoveries down below, up above, Mrs. Jones was saying, "Arabel, you come home directly, and don't you dare go out on your own ever again!"

  "Nevermore!" said Mortimer.

  So Arabel climbed down, with Mortimer still on her shoulder.

  "Here!" said Uncle Arthur, who had been silent for a long time, turning things over in his mind, "that bird ought to be arrested, too, if he's the one what ate my escatailors and put my lift out of order, and how do we know he didn't help those blokes with their burglaries? He was the one what helped the squirrel make off with the di'mond brooch."

  "He was flyjacked; he couldn't help it," said Arabel.

  "Far from being arrested," said the bank manager, "he'll get a reward from the bank for helping to bring the criminals to justice."

  "And he'll get one from me, too," said Peter Stone.

  "And from me," said the supermarket manager.

  "Come along, Arabel, do," said Mrs. Jones. "Oh my gracious, look at the time, your father'll be home wanting his tea and wondering where in the world we've got to."

  Arabel collected her red wagon, which she had left outside, and Mortimer climbed onto it.

  "My stars!" cried Mrs. Jones. "You're not going to pull that great black sulky bird all the way home in the wagon when we know perfectly well he can fly, the lazy thing, never did I hear anything so outrageous, never!"

  "He likes being pulled," said Arabel, so that was the way they went home. The bank manager and the supermarket manager and Mr. Peter Stone and quite a lot of other people saw them as far as the gate.

  Mr. Jones was inside and had just made a pot of tea. When he saw them come in the front gate he poured out an eggcupful for Mortimer.

  The Bread Bin

  All this happened one terrible wild, wet week in February when Mortimer the raven had been living with Arabel Jones in Rumbury Town for several months.

  The weather had been so dreadful for so long that everybody in the Jones family was, if not in a bad temper, at least less cheerful than usual. Mrs. Jones complained that even the bread felt damp unless it was made into toast. Arabel had a sniffle, Mr. Jones found it very tiring having to drive his taxi through pouring rain along greasy, skiddy streets day after day, and Mortimer the raven was annoyed because there were two things he wanted to do, and he was not permitted to do either of them. He wanted to be given a ride round the garden in Arabel's red wagon; Mrs. Jones would not allow it because of the weather; and he wanted to climb into the bread bin and go to sleep there. It seemed to him very unreasonable that he wasn't allowed to do this.

  "We could keep the bread somewhere else," Arabel said.

  "So I buy a bread bin that costs me ninety-five new pence for a great, fat, sulky, lazy bird to sleep in? What's wrong with the coal scuttle? He's slept in that for the last three weeks. It's suddenly not comfortable anymore?"

  Mrs. Jones had just come back from shopping, very wet. She began taking groceries from her tartan wheeled shopping bag and dumping them on the floor.

  "He wants a change," said Arabel, looking out of the window at the gray lines of rain that went slamming across the garden like telegraph wires.

  "Naturally! Ginger marmalade on muffins that bird gets for his breakfast, spaghetti and meatballs for lunch, brandy snaps for supper, allowed to sit inside the grandfather clock and slide down the stairs on my best tray with the painted gladioli whenever he wants to, and he must have a change, as well? That bird gets more attention than the lord mayor of Hyderabad."

  "He doesn't know that," said Arabel. "He hasn't been to Hyderabad."

  Arabel and Mortimer went into the front hall. Arabel balanced Mortimer on one of her roller skates and tied a bit of string to it and pulled him around the downstairs part of the house. But neither of them cheered up much. Arabel's throat felt tickly and Mortimer rode along with his head sunk down between his shoulders and his beak sunk down among his feathers, and his feathers all higgledy-piggledy, as if he didn't care which way they pointed.

  The telephone rang.

  Mortimer would have liked to answer it—he loved answering the telephone—but he had one of his toenails caught in the roller skate; kicking and flapping to free himself he started the skate rolling, shot across the kitchen, knocked over Mrs. Jones's vegetable rack (which had a box of brussels sprouts balanced on top of it), and cannoned against a bag of coffee beans and a container of oven spray, which began shooting out a thick frothy foam. A fierce white smoke came off the foam which made everyone cough. Mrs. Jones rushed to open the window. A lot of wind and rain blew in. A jar of daffodils on the windowsill fell over, and Mortimer quickly pushed some daffodils under the kitchen mat; sliding things underneath mats or linoleum was one of his favorite hobbies.

  Arabel mopped up the water that had spilled from the jar. Mrs. Jones wiped up the oven spray foam with a lot of paper towels. The phone went on ringing.

  Mortimer suddenly noticed the open window; he climbed up the handles of the drawers under the kitchen sink, very fast, claw over claw, scrabbled his way along the side of the sink, up onto the windowsill, and looked out into the wild, wet, windy garden.

  "Drat that phone!" said Mrs. Jones, and rushed to answer it. "Don't touch the foam." But just as she got there the phone stopped ringing.

  Mortimer noticed that Arabel's red wagon was just outside the window, down below on the grass, with half an inch of rain in it.

  "Mortimer!" said Arabel. "Come back! You'll get wet."

  Mortimer took no notice. There were half a dozen horse chestnuts floating in the red wagon. The next-door cat, Ginger, was sitting under a wheelbarrow, trying to keep dry. Mortimer jumped out into the wagon (he was up to his black, feathery knees in water) and began throwing chestnuts at Ginger. He was a very good shot.

  "Mortimer!" said Arabel, hanging out of the window. "You are not to throw conkers at Ginger. He's never done you any harm."

  Mortimer took no notice. He threw another conker.

  Arabel wriggled back off the draining board, opened the back door, ran out into the garden, grabbed the handle of the wagon, and pulled it back indoors with Mortimer on board.

  Some of the water slopped onto the kitchen floor.

  "Arabel!" said Mrs. Jones, coming back into the kitchen. "Have you been out of doors in your bedroom slippers? Oh my stars, if you don't catch your mortal end my name's Mrs. Gipsy Petulengro. And where's all this water come from?"

  "I only went to fetch Mortimer, because he was getting wet," Arabel said. "I stayed on the path."

  "Getting wet?" said Mrs. Jones. "Why shouldn't he get wet? Birds are meant to get wet. So you think we should dry him off with the hair dryer?"

  She shoved the wagon outside and slammed the door.

  The phone began to ring once more.

  Arabel thought the hair dryer was a good idea. While Mrs. Jones hurried back to the telephone, Arabel got the dryer out of its box, plugged it in, and started blowing Mortimer dry. All his feathers stood straight up, making him look like a turkey. He was so astonished that he shouted, "Nevermore!" and stepped backward into a pan of bread rolls that were waiting to go into the oven. He sank into them up to his ankles and left bird's-claw footprints all along them. But he enjoyed being dried and turned around and around so that Arabel could blow him all over, in between every feather.

  "That was Auntie Brenda," said Mrs. Jones, coming back. "She says she's taking her lot roller-skating at the rink, and she'll stop by and pick us up, too."

  "Oh," said Arabel.

  "Don't you want to go roller-skating?" said Mrs. Jones.

  "Well, I expect Mortimer will enjoy it," said Arabel.

  "I just hope he doesn't disgrace us," said Mrs. Jones, giving Mortimer a dark look. "But I'm not going out and leaving him alone in the house. Never shall I forget, not if I should live to eighty and be elected beauty queen of Lancaster, the time we went to the movies and when we got back he'd eaten the banisters and the bathroom basin complete, and two and a half packets of assorted rainbow Bath Oil Bubble Gums."

  "Nevermore," said Mortimer.

  "Promises, promises," said Mrs. Jones.

  "The house looked lovely, all full of bubbles," Arabel said. "Mortimer thought so, too."

  "Anyway, he's not having the chance to do it again. Put your coat on; Auntie Brenda will be here in ten minutes."

  Arabel put her coat on slowly. Her throat tickled more and more; she did not feel like going out in the wet and cold. Also, although they were her cousins, she was not very fond of Aunt Brenda's lot. There were three of them: their names were Lindy, Cindy, and Mindy. As a matter of fact, they were horrible girls. They had unkind natures and liked saying things that hurt other people's feelings. They were always eating, not because they were hungry, but just because they were greedy: Life Savers and bags of chips and bottles of Coke. They had more toys than they could be bothered to play with. And they had a lot of spots, too.

  They had not yet met Mortimer.

  Aunt Brenda stopped outside the house in her shiny car.

  Cindy, Lindy, and Mindy put their heads out of the window and stopped eating chocolate macaroni sticks long enough to scream,

  "Hallo, Arabel! We've got new coats, new boots, new furry hoods, new furry gloves, new skirts, and new roller skates!"

  "Spoiled lot," muttered Mrs. Jones, putting Arabel's old skates in her tartan shopping bag on wheels. "So what was wrong with the old ones, I should like to know? Anyone would think their dad was the president of the Bank of Monte Carlo."

  In fact, their dad was a salesman in do-it-yourself wardrobe kits; he traveled so much that he was hardly ever at home.

  Arabel went out to the car in her old coat, old hood, old gloves, and old boots. She held Mortimer tightly. He was very interested at sight of the car; his black eyes shone like black satin buttons.

  "We're going in that car, Mortimer," Arabel said to him.

  "Kaaaark," said Mortimer.

  Lindy and Cindy hung out of the back window shouting, "Arabel, Arabel, 'orrible Arabel, 'orrible, 'orrible, 'orrible Arabel." Then they spotted Mortimer and their eyes went as round as LP records.

  "Coo!" said Cindy. "What's that?"

  "What have you got there, 'orrible Arabel?" said Lindy.

  "He's my raven, Mortimer," said Arabel.

  All three girls burst into screams of laughter.

  "A raven? What d'you want a raven for? He's not a raven anyway—he's just an old molting jackdaw. What's the use of him? Can he speak?"

  "If he wants to," said Arabel.

  Cindy, Lindy, and Mindy laughed even louder.

  "I bet all he can say is caw! See, saw, old Jacky Daw. All he can say is croak and caw!"

  "Stop teasing, girls, and make room for Arabel in the back," said Auntie Brenda.

  Arabel and Mortimer got into the back and sat quietly. Cindy tried to give Mortimer's tail feathers a tweak, but he flashed her such a threatening look from his black eyes that she changed her mind.

  Mrs. Jones got into the front beside her sister Brenda, and they were off.

  Mortimer liked riding in a car. As soon as he was fairly sure that Arabel's cousins were not going to attack him at once, he began to bounce up and down gently on Arabel's shoulder, looking out at the shops of Rumbury High Street flashing past, at the red buses swishing along, at the streetlamps like a necklace of salmon-colored flowers, and the greengrocers all red and orange and yellow and green.

  "Nevermore," he muttered. "Nevermore."

  "There, you see," said Arabel. "He can speak."

  "But what does he mean?" tittered Mindy.

  "He means that where he comes from they don't have buses and greengrocers and streetlamps."

  "Oh, what rubbish! I don't believe you know what he means at all."

  Arabel kept silent after that.

  When they reached Rumbury Borough Roller Skating Rink Mortimer was even more amazed at the big sign, all picked out in pink lights, and the entrance, paved with yellow glass tiles.

  "You get the tickets, Martha, I'll put the car in the car park," said Auntie Brenda.

  Arabel's three cousins were all expert roller skaters. They came to the rink two or three times a week. They buckled on their new skates and shot off into the middle, knocking over any amount of people on the way.

  Arabel, when she had put on her skates, went slowly and carefully around the edge. She did not want to be bumped because Mortimer was still on her shoulder. Also she felt very tired and her throat had stopped tickling and was now really sore. And her head ached.

  Auntie Brenda came back from putting away the car and sat down by Mrs. Jones and the two sisters began talking.

  "We'll have to stay here for hours yet," thought Arabel.

  "Come on into the middle, cowardy custard! Caw, caw, cowardy, cowardy!" screamed Lindy and Cindy.

  "Yes, go on, ducky, you'll be all right, don't be afraid," called Auntie Brenda. But Arabel shook her head and stuck to the edge.

  Mortimer was having a lovely time. He didn't mind Arabel going so slowly because he was looking around at all the other skaters. He admired the way they whizzed in and out and round and through and past and in and out and round. He dug his claws lovingly into Arabel's shoulder.

  "I wish I had three roller skates, Mortimer," Arabel said. "Then you could ride on the third one."

  Mortimer wished it, too.

  "Tell you what," Arabel said. "I'll take my skates off. I don't feel much like skating."

  She sat down at the edge, took her skates off, carried one, and lifted Mortimer onto the other, which she pulled along by the laces.

  "Cooo!" shrieked Cindy, whirling past. "Look at scaredy-baby Arabel, pulling her silly old rook along."

  "Around the rolling rink the ragged rookie rumbles," screeched Mindy.

  "Scared to skate, scared to skate," chanted Lindy.

  They really were horrible girls.

  Arabel went very slowly over to where her mother and Auntie Brenda were sitting.

  "Can I go home, please, Ma?" she said. "My legs ache."

  "Oh, go on, ducky, have another try," said Auntie Brenda cheerfully. "There's nothing to be scared of, really there isn't."

  But Mrs. Jones looked carefully at her daughter and said, "Don't you feel well, lovey?"

  "No," said Arabel, and two tears rolled slowly down her cheeks. Mrs. Jones put a hand on Arabel's forehead.

  "It's quite hot," she said. "I think we'd better go home, Brenda."

  "Can't she stay another half hour?"

  Mrs. Jones shook her head. "I don't think she should."

  "Oh my goodness," said Auntie Brenda rather crossly. "The girls will be disappointed." But she raised her voice in a terrific shout. "Cindy! Lindy! Miiiiindy! Come along—your cousin's not feeling well."

  Arabel's three cousins came trailing slowly across the rink with sulky expressions.

  "Now what?" said Mindy.

  "We only just got here," said Cindy.

  "Just because 'orrible Arabel can't skate—," said Lindy.

  "Can't Ma and I go home by bus?" said Arabel.

  Auntie Brenda and the three girls looked hopeful, but Mrs. Jones said, "I really think we ought to get home as quickly as we can. Besides, I've left my shopping bag in the trunk of your car, Brenda."

  "Oh, very well," said Brenda crossly. "Come along, girls."