Барбара Слэй - Carbonel - The King Of Cats

‘Poor little kitten!’ said Rosemary softly.

‘But it had its moments,’ he went on. ‘I took to the broomstick business like a duck to water. Oh, those were the days, when you raced together through the tumbling sky, with the Milky Way crackling below, and the wind in your fur strong enough to tear the whiskers off you! Or leaping and plunging through the midnight sky with a host of others, and the earth twirling beneath you no bigger than a bobbin!’

He was standing now with his back arched and bristling, making strange cat noises in his throat. It was growing dusk, and his eyes glowed hotly. Rosemary waited, a little awed, till the noises in his throat subsided, and then she put out a timid hand and stroked the bristling fur. The cat started and came to himself again. She stroked him gently till the only sign of his excitement was in the twitching end of his tail.

‘But why did you not run away?’ asked Rosemary presently.

‘Because the magic was too strong for me. There was nothing for it but to wait until the prophecy was fulfilled. It went like this…

A kit among the stars shall sit

Beyond the aid of feline wit .

Empty Royal throne and mat ,

Till Three Queens save a princely cat .

‘And did you sit among the stars?’ asked Rosie.

‘Of course,’ said Carbonel, ‘many a night. On Christian name terms with some of them I was… But don’t go and start me off again.’

‘I’m beginning to see!’ said Rosemary, bouncing up and down again. ‘My Queen Victoria farthings are the Three Queens, and they bought you from… from the old woman.’

‘You’d better call her Mrs Cantrip. That’s the name she goes by.’

‘And now you are free! Oh, Carbonel! How lovely. I’m so glad.’ But Carbonel did not seem to share her excitement.

‘That’s not all,’ he said soberly. ‘The prophecy is fulfilled and I am free from HER. I did try to escape, I was a kitten of spirit, but of course she caught me. As a punishment, and to make quite certain, she put another spell on me, and until that is broken I must be your slave instead. It was sheer extravagance throwing good magic about like that, but just like her. Spiteful.’

‘But I don’t want a slave! Carbonel dear, how can we undo it?’

‘I don’t know,’ said the black cat soberly. ‘That’s just it. It was a Silent Magic – they’re the worst kind – and of course as it was silent I didn’t hear it. All I do know is that it must be undone with all the same things with which it was made. If you want to undo it you must have the hat and the cauldron. The broom you have already.’

‘But, of course, I want to undo the spell and set you free! Didn’t you see what she did with the other things?’

‘SHE sold them when I was away on an errand so that I should not know where they are. When we find them we’ve still got to discover the Silent Magic.’ There was silence in the little room, which was almost dark now. Even the noise of her mother’s sewing machine had stopped. Rosemary put her arm comfortingly round Carbonel.

‘We’re jolly well going to find everything. The first thing to do is to discover what has happened to the hat and the cauldron. We will start immediately after breakfast tomorrow!’

Suddenly she realized how sleepy she was. ‘We’d better go to bed now.’ She padded across the linoleum of the bedroom floor and put the broom in the wardrobe. Before she slipped between the sheets she put both arms round Carbonel and gave him a hug, a thing she would have been rather shy of doing when she could hear him talking. But Carbonel seemed to bear her no malice and gave her cheek a little lick. Rosemary lay down and tucked up her linoleum-chilled toes in her nightdress. She was just dropping off to sleep when she thought to herself, ‘He didn’t tell me who his people are, or where they live.’

She was just wondering whether to get out of bed to fetch the broom to ask him, when somehow it was morning. The sun was streaming through the window and her mother was knocking on the door.

4

The Summoning Words

The first thing that Rosemary thought of when she woke was Carbonel. She sat up and called him softly, but there was no answer. He was not on the bed, or under it. He was not even on the dusty little lead roof outside her window. Thinking back, the whole thing seemed so unbelievable that she began to wonder if perhaps she had dreamed it all. But when she went to look into the wardrobe there was the broom, looking rather forlorn in the corner behind her winter coat. Hearing her wrestling with the wardrobe which had a habit of sticking, Mrs Brown called through the door:

‘Rosie! Get dressed, darling. Breakfast is nearly ready and I don’t want to be late on my first day.’ So Rosemary hurried.

Although they could use Mrs Walker’s kitchen with the big black cooker, there was a gas ring and a fire in their room which they used whenever it was possible. With miracles of timing they managed to cook most of their meals here. Rosemary made the toast while her mother tidied the bedrooms.

‘I meant to go and ask Mrs Walker about your Pussums before I went this morning,’ called Mrs Brown through the open door, ‘but I doubt if I shall have time.’

‘He isn’t here, Mummy. When I woke up this morning he had gone. But I am quite sure he will come back. And please don’t call him Pussums, he doesn’t like it. His name is Carbonel.’ Her mother laughed again.

‘What a grand name! You know, if you brush him and feed him up I think he will be a beautiful cat… If he comes back. I had better wait until this evening, then if he is here I will go and see Mrs Walker. I do hope I can persuade her. It would be such company for you. Rosie, darling, do be careful!’

Through the half-open door drifted the unmistakable smell of burning toast. The idea that Carbonel really might not come back filled Rosemary with such alarm that she forgot what she was doing. But of course he would come back! All the same it was a worrying idea. A second piece of toast was smoking ominously when her mother camé in.

‘Rosie, how careless of you! Sitting there looking at it burning!’

‘I’m sorry, Mummy, I really am. I was thinking how awful it would be if Carbonel didn’t come back. I’ll eat the scraped bits of toast myself, really I will.’

‘Are you sure you won’t be lonely while I’m away, darling?’ said her mother anxiously over their boiled eggs.

‘Not a bit!’ said Rosemary, with such conviction that her mother was comforted. ‘When Carbonel comes back,’ Rosemary said to herself, ‘we will search the town until we find the hat and the cauldron, and I expect it will take days.’

‘I want you to take the dressing-gown round to Miss Withers for me this morning. I finished it last night,’ said Mrs Brown. ‘You had better go by bus, and be careful to change when you get to the Town Hall.’

To spend the morning going with a parcel to the other end of the town was the last thing that Rosemary wanted to do, but as she could not explain why, there was no help for it.

After her mother had gone Rosemary tidied the rooms and washed the dishes. Egg, as everyone knows, is one of the most clinging of things to wash away, and it all seemed to take her a very long time. When at last she had finished Carbonel had still not returned. She set out with her parcel, after leaving a saucer of milk in case he came back while she was away. She had half thought of using the broom again, and had got as far as peering into the gloom of the wardrobe, but the faint quiver she felt in the handle, without Carbonel to advise her, was a little alarming, so she said as carelessly as she could, ‘I just looked in to see if you were all right,’ and shut the door again rather hurriedly.