Барбара Слэй - Carbonel - The King Of Cats

PUFFIN BOOKS

CARBONEL

Barbara Sleigh was born in 1906 in Warwickshire. She took an art teacher’s training course, and began to write stories for children for radio. She was a lecturer at Goldsmiths’ Teacher Training College, then in 1933 joined the staff of BBC Children’s Hour. Three years later she married David Davis, who later became Head of Children’s Hour.

Her first children’s book, Carbonel , the first of what was later to become a Carbonel trilogy, was published in 1955 and is still one of the most popular fantasies for younger children.

Barbara Sleigh died in 1982.

‘I believe you want me to follow you.’

Books by Barbara Sleigh

CARBONEL

GARBONEL AND CALIDOR

THE KINGDOM OF CARBONEL

GRIMBLEGRAW AND THE WUTHERING WITCH

NINETY-NINE DRAGONS

CARBONEL

The Prince of Cats

Illustrated by V H. Drummond

BARBARA SLEIGH

PUFFIN

PUFFIN BOOKS

Published by the Penguin Group

Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd)

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Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi – 110 017, India

Penguin Group (NZ), cnr Airborne and Rosedale Roads, Albany, Auckland 1310, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)

Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, 2196, South Africa

Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

www.penguin.com

First published in Great Britain by Max Parrish 1955

Published in Puffin Books 1961

8

Text copyright © Barbara Sleigh, 1955

All rights reserved

Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 9780141929095

To

Fabia

and the whiskered shades of

Tibby

Tarquin

Quince

and

Spike

Contents

1

Breaking-up

2

Fairfax Market

3

Carbonel

4

The Summoning Words

5

The Search Begins

6

Mrs Walker Says ‘No’

7

Carbonel and Mrs Walker

8

Tussocks

9

John

10

The Spell Works

11

Showing Off

12

Carbonel Explains

13

The Occupier

14

Making Plans

15

Where is the Cauldron?

16

The Cauldron

17

The Wishing Magic

18

Where is She?

19

Mrs Cantrip

20

The Book

21

More Plans

22

The Fête

23

The Full Moon

24

The Battle

25

The End

1

Breaking-up

Rosemary’s satchel bounced cheerfully up and down on her back as she hopped on and off the pavement of Tottenham Grove. She enjoyed school, except for arithmetic and boiled fish on Fridays. But breaking-up, as you will have noticed, even if you have not particularly distinguished yourself, gives everyone a delightful party feeling, particularly at the end of the Summer Term. Rosemary Brown was fizzing with it as she bounced up and down on the kerb.

She had just reached the pillar box at the corner when Mary Winters came by with her friend Arlene.

‘Hallo, Rosie!’ said Mary. ‘We’re going to Blackpool tomorrow!’

‘Blackpool is common, my auntie says. We’re going to Bournemouth.’ Arlene wore brooches, and sometimes a gold bracelet to go to school, although it was not allowed. Her auntie thought a great many things were common. ‘Where are you going, Rosie?’

Rosemary hopped off the kerb, changed feet, and hopped on again with great deliberation.

‘Nowhere!’ she said as carelessly as she could manage.

‘Poor thing!’ said Arlene with maddening pity, and the two friends hurried off, giggling, together.

Rosemary went on doggedly hopping, but the party feeling was only fizzing at half-cock now. Mary and Arlene knew quite well that she was unlikely to be going away. It was hard enough for her mother to manage at all, because she had no money but her widow’s pension, and what she earned by sewing for people. Rosemary stopped hopping. Her satchel was beginning to hurt when she bounced. It was heavy because it was full of end of term things, a rather squashy piece of clay modelling, her indoor shoes and a dirty overall, as well as some books. She ran the rest of the way down Tottenham Grove with her short pigtails flapping up and down sideways, like the blades of an old pair of scissors.

Rosemary and her mother lived at number ten, in three furnished rooms on the top floor, with use of bath on Tuesdays and Fridays, and a share of the kitchen. It was not a very pleasant arrangement, because the furniture was ugly (most of it was covered with horse-hair that pricked, even through a winter tunic), and the bathroom was always festooned with other people’s washing. But it was cheap, and would have to do until they could find somewhere unfurnished, and then they would be able to use their own comfortable, shabby belongings again.

The houses in Tottenham Grove were all exactly alike, very tall and thin, with a great deal of peeling paint and cracking plaster. Once they had been rather grand, with servants in the basement, and carriages driving up to the front doors, and ladies with very large hats and very small waists paying calls. Her mother had told her all about it. But Rosie was not bothering her head about that at the moment. She knew without looking which was number ten, and went running up the twelve steps so quickly that she bumped into Mrs Walker, the landlady, who was slapping the door mat against one of the pillars of the peeling portico.

‘I’m so sorry, Mrs Walker!’ said Rosemary breathlessly.

‘I should think so!’ said Mrs Walker sourly. ‘Home for the holidays? How long is it this time?’

‘Six weeks,’ said Rosie.

‘Well, I don’t know! Six weeks! I should have thought a great girl like you could have been doing something useful.’

She flopped the still dusty mat into its place, and Rosie went slowly upstairs with her satchel bumping on each step as it trailed behind her. When she opened the door of the sitting room she saw that the table was drawn up to the window and already laid.