The Magic Faraway Tree

5.Saucepan makes a muddle

Joe, Silky and Moon-Face were very pleased that Joe was the right way up again.

"It feels funny," said Joe. "I feel quite different the right way up after standing upside down for so long. Thank you, witch. How much is the spell?"

"One piece of gold," said the witch. Moon-Face put his hand into his money bag. He brought out a piece of gold. The witch threw it into the fire, and at once bright golden smoke came out. She took up her knitting needles and began to knit the yellow smoke into the socks she was making.

"I wanted a yellow pattern," she said, pleased. "Your piece of gold came just at the right moment."

"Gosh, this is a very magical land, isn't it?" said Joe, as the three of them walked out of the extraordinary shop. "Fancy knitting socks out of smoke! Let's not go home yet, Moon-Face. I want to see a few more things."

"All right," said Moon-Face, who wanted to explore a bit too. "Come on. Hey, look at the gnome who is selling a spell to make cats sing! Somebody has brought a cat to him, I wonder if the spell will really work!"

A witch's assistant had brought along a big black cat. He handed the gnome two silver pieces of money. The gnome took the cat on his knee. He opened its mouth and blew a tune softly down the cat's pink throat. The cat swallowed once or twice and then jumped off the gnome's knee.

"Will it sing now?" asked the witch's assistant. "I won't go back to my witch unless it can sing."

"It will sing whenever you stroke it," said the gnome, turning to another customer.

The witch's assistant went off with the cat following behind. Joe took hold of Moon-face's arm and whispered to him:

"I'm going to stroke the cat. I do want to hear if it really will sing!" 

Moon-Face and Silky wanted to as well. They giggled to see Joe running  softly after the black cat. He caught up with it. He gently stroked it. 

And then, oh, the peculiar thing! The cat stopped, lifted up his head and sang:

"Oh, once my whiskers grew so long I had to have a shave! The barber said: 'It's not the way for whiskers to behave, if you're not careful my dear cat, they'll grow into a beard, and then a billy goat you'll be or something very weird! "Oh, once my tail became so short It hadn't got a wag, The baker said..."

But whatever the baker said about the cat's short tail nobody ever knew. The witch's assistant turned around in surprise when he heard the cat singing, because he knew that someone has stroked it. He saw Joe and the others grinning nearby, and he was very angry.

"How dare you use up the cat's singing!" he cried. "You wait till I fetch the witch. She'll be after you. And you won't sing if she catches you!"

"Quick! RUN!" said Moon-face. "If he does fetch the witch we'll get into trouble."

So they ran away fastly, and were soon out of sight of the cat and the assistant. The sank down under a tree, laughing.

"Oh dear! That cat did sing a funny song!" said Joe., wiping his eyes. "And what a lovely voice he had. Do you think its whiskers really did grow long?"

Just then the three of them heard a loud noise coming: "Clank! Crash! Rattle! Bang!"

"The old saucepan man!" they all cried. "He's coming up here, too!"

And sure enough, it was the old Saucepan man, grinning all over his face. He had so many kettles and saucepans on that day that nothing could be seen of him except his face and his feet!

"Hello! Hello!" he said. "I guessed you were up here. Having fun?"

"Yes," said Joe. "I'm all right again! look! It's so nice to walk the proper way up again. And Saucepan, we heard a cat sing!"

Saucepan actually hear what Joe said, but he couldn't believe that he heard it right, so he put his hand behind his ear and said, "What did you say? I thought you said you heard a cat sing, but I heard wrong."

"No, you heard right," said Moon-Face. "We did hear a cat sing!"

"Let's go and explore a bit more," said Joe. So they got up and went off.

A witch selling a spell to make ordinary broomsticks fly through the air. The four of them watched in amazement as they saw her rubbing a pink ointment on to a broom handle belonging to an elf.

"Now get on it and say "Whizz away!" and you can fly home," said the witch. The elf sat on the broomstick, a smile on her pretty face.

"I'd like to buy that spell," said Joe. "I wonder how much it is."

The witch heard him. "Three silver pieces," she said. Joe hadn't even got one. But Moon-face had. he took them out of his money bag and gave them to the witch.

"Where's your broomstick?" she said.

"We haven't got one with us," said Joe. "But can't you give us the ointment please?"

"Well, I'll give you just a little," said the witch. She took a tiny pink jar and put a dab of pink ointment into it. Joe took it and put it into his pocket. Now maybe mum's broomstick would learn to fly! At the next stall a goblin was selling a spell to make things big. The spell was in big bottles, and looked like paint.

"Just think what a useful spell this is!" yelled the goblin to the people passing by. "have you got visitors coming to dinner and only a small cake to offer them? A dab of this spell and the cake gets bigger to twice its size! have you got a suit you've grown out of? A dab of this spell and it will grow to the right size. It's great! Amazing! Buy! Buy! Buy, while you've got the chance!"

Saucepan heard all this, he began to look in his kettles and saucepans.

"What do you want?" asked Joe.

"My money," said Saucepan Man. "I always keep them in one of my kettles or saucepans, but I never remember which one. I must buy that spell. Think how useful it would be to me. Sometimes when I go round selling my goods a customer will say to me, 'Oh, you haven't a big enough kettle!' But now, I shall be able to make them bigger! And we can dab the pop cakes with the spell too, it will make them twice as big!"

He found his money at last and paid it to the goblin, who handed him a bottle of the spell. Saucepan was very happy. He wanted to try it out on something. He took a brush and dabbed a flower nearby with the spell. The daisy grew twice as big. Then saucepan dabbed a bee and that grew enormous. It buzzed around Moon-face and he waved it away. 

"Saucepan, don't do any more bees," he begged. "I expect their stings are twice as big too! Look let's go to that store over there and buy some treats. It would be fun to make them twice as big!"

They hurried to the shop, but on the way a terrible thing happened! Saucepan fell over one of his kettles and the bottle which had the spell in it, splashed over Moon-face, Silky and Joe and the old saucepan man too! And in a moment, they all shot up twice their size! They stared at one another. How small the land of spells seemed!

"Saucepan! You really are careless! cried Moon-face angrily. "Look what you've done to us! No what do we do?!"

"We can never get through the hole of the Faraway Tree now!" cried Silky.