Mary Norton - Bed-Knob and Broomstick

It was there they had their early breakfast, while the hungry cats prowled around and the city slowly woke to the clang and rumble of a seventeenth-century day. And it was there, without mentioning her name, that they told about Miss Price.

A VISITOR Miss Price slept in Carey's room the night the children were away. She had a restless night. She was not feeling at all happy about having let them go off on their own. She had been caught between two sets of fairnesses. What was fair, she thought, to the children was hardly fair to their parents. Besides, a trip into the past could not be planned with any degree of accuracy. They had seen first how many twists the bed-knob allowed, and then they had made a rough calculation of period. They had aimed for the time of Queen Elizabeth, but goodness knew what they had got. Charles rather cleverly had made a scratch with a pin, from the side of the knob, across the crack, and down the base of the screw. And when Paul twisted, he was supposed to twist until the two ends of the scratch met evenly. All very rough and ready, as neither Miss Price nor the children knew if the period covered by the bed-knob embraced the beginning of the world or just the history of England from 1066 onwards. They had assumed the latter.

"Oh, dear," muttered Miss Price to herself, tossing and turning in Carey's bed. "If they come back safe from this trip, it will be the last, the very last, I shall allow." She had tried to be careful and to take all sensible precautions. The bedclothes had been carefully folded and put away and the mattress covered by a waterproof ground sheet. She had provided the children with a Thermos of hot cocoa, bread and cheese, and a couple of hard-boiled eggs. She had given them an atlas and a pocket first-aid kit. Should she have furnished them with a weapon? But what? She had no weapon in the house barring the poker and her father's sword.

"Oh, dear," she muttered again, pulling the bedclothes round her head as if to shut out a persistent picture of the children timidly wandering through a bleak and savage England inhabited by Diplodocus Carnegii and saber-toothed tigers. And that Neanderthal man, she told herself unhappily, would be utterly useless in an emergency. . . .

Toward morning she fell into a heavy sleep and was awakened by the sudden opening of the bedroom door. The bright sunshine streamed in through the partially drawn curtains, and there, at the foot of her bed, stood Carey.

"What time is it?" asked Miss Price, sitting bolt upright.

"It's nearly nine o'clock. The boys are dressed. I didn't like to wake you-" "Thank heaven you're back safely!" exclaimed Miss Price. "You can tell me all your adventures later. Is breakfast ready?" "Yes, and the boys have started. But-" Carey hesitated.

Miss Price, who had put her feet out of bed and was fumbling for her slippers, looked up.

"But what?" "We've got to lay another place," said Carey uncomfortably.

"Another place?" "Yes-I, we- You see, we brought someone home with us." "You brought someone home?" said Miss Price slowly.

"Yes-we thought you wouldn't mind. Just for the day. He needn't stay the night or anything." Carey's eyes seemed to plead with Miss Price. She grew pinker and pinker.

"He?" repeated Miss Price.

"Yes. His name is Emelius Jones. Mr. Jones. He's a necromancer. He's awfully nice, really, underneath." "Mr. Jones," echoed Miss Price. She hadn't had a man staying in the house since her father died, and that was more years ago than she cared to remember. She had forgotten all their ways, what things they liked to eat and what subjects they liked to talk about.

"What did you say he was?" asked Miss Price.

"He's just a necromancer. We thought you wouldn't mind. He lived near here once, with an aunt. We thought you'd have a lot in common." "Who's going to take him back?" asked Miss Price. She frowned. "No, Carey, I do think this is thoughtless of you. I had made up my mind this was the last trip the bed was going to make, and there you go picking up strange necromancers who you know perfectly well have to be taken home again, which means another journey." She pushed her feet into her bedroom slippers. "Where did you say he was?" "He's in your bedroom," said Carey. "On the bed." Miss Price looked really put out. "Oh, dear," she said. "What ever next?" She slipped her arms into her blue-flannel dressing gown. "How am I to get my clothes, or do my hair, or anything? I really am annoyed, Carey!" She gave a vicious tug as she tied up her dressing gown.

"You must take him down to breakfast, and I'll have to see about him later." Emelius meekly followed Carey down the stairs. He looked dazed and gazed wanly about him. As he took his place at the breakfast table, he staggered slightly against Paul, who was halfway through his porridge.

Carey looked worried. "Mr. Jones, are you all right?" "Yes, I am well enough." "You look so pale." Emelius ran a limp hand across his wind-blown hair. "Small wonder," he remarked, smiling faintly.

Carey gazed at him uneasily; she was thinking of Miss Price. Would he, she began to wonder, give quite the right impression? In the bright light of day Emelius looked far from clean: his tousled hair hung wispily about his ears and his pallid skin was grayish. The long thin hands were stained, she noticed, and the nails were rimmed with black. The velvet of his fur-trimmed robe, though rich, was sadly spattered; and when he moved, he smelled of cottage kitchens.

There was no time to do anything about it, however; Miss Price came in almost immediately, looking slightly flustered. She was wearing her best pink blouse, the one she kept for trips to London. Emelius rose to his feet-long and thin, he towered above the table.

Miss Price, in one swift glance, took in his appearance from top to toe. "So this is Mr. Jones?" she remarked brightly-not, it seemed, to anyone in particular.

"Emelius Jones. Your servant, madam. Nay"-he bowed deeply-"your slave-" "How do you do," put in Miss Price quickly.

"-humbly content," Emelius persisted, "to raise his eyes to one whose subtle craft, maturing slowly through the ages as a plant in the dark earth spreads its roots and sucks its sustenance, bripging forth shoot and stem and branching foliage to burst at length into dazzling blossom, blinding in this your twentieth century the reverent gaze of one who dared to doubt . . ." Miss Price, blushing slightly, moved to her place behind the teapot. "Oh, well," she exclaimed and gave a little laugh, "I wouldn't say that exactly. Do you take milk and sugar?" "You are bountiful," exclaimed Emelius, gazing at her spellbound.

"Not at all. Do sit down." Emelius sat down slowly, still gazing. Miss Price, her lips pursed, poured out two cups of tea in thoughtful silence. As she passed his cup, she said conversationally, "I hear you have an aunt in these parts?" "And a house," put in Carey quickly. To establish Emelius as a man of property might help, in Miss Price's eyes, to enhance his status. "At least, it will be his. On Tinker's Hill . . ." "Really?" remarked Miss Price. She sounded dubious. She helped herself to a boiled egg and began to tap it thoughtfully. "Is there a house on Tinker's Hill?" "Yes, indeed," Emelius assured her, "a comely, neat house-with an apple orchard." Miss Price looked noncommittal. "Really?" she said again, then, remembering her manners, "Porridge, corn flakes, or rice crispies?" He took porridge. Again there was silence-only comparative: Emelius was a noisy eater and not, Carey noticed, a very tidy one. When he drank down his tea in a series of gulps (as though it were medicine, thought Carey), Miss Price tightened her lips and glanced at Paul. "You had better get down, dear," she said.

"I haven't finished," complained Paul.

"Eat up, then. Quickly." Paul, nothing loath, gobbled noisily, copying Emelius. Miss Price, averting her face, took a dainty spoonful of boiled egg, which, closing her eyes, she consumed very slowly. "Oh, dear," thought Carey, who knew this sign. She glanced sideways at Emelius "who, having peeled one egg and eaten it whole, was reaching for another. He picked off the shell abstractedly, deep in thought. Suddenly he gave a large belch.