Free The Kingdom of Carbonel by Barbara Sleigh Page B

waving angrily. ‘I’d show ’em!’
    â€˜Me too!’ said Pergamond shrilly.
    â€˜No, my son,’ said Blandamour. ‘One day when you are older you will have many chances to prove how brave you are. Until we find out Grisana’s plans, we do not know where the danger lies.’
    â€˜Therefore, we must go warily and keep our eyes and ears open. Above all, guard the royal kittens!’said Merbeck. ‘Tomorrow we will come again and hear what you have discovered, and may good luck go with you!’

11

Cat Country
    Rosemary kept her promise to the chair the next morning. While John mended the lock of the greenhouse, she carried dusters and furniture polish down to the Green Cave. She rubbed away until her arms ached and the curves of the dark wood of the chair gleamed with little, bright reflections.
    â€˜The Queen herself really would be proud to sit in you now, just as I promised,’ said Rosemary, sitting back on her heels to admire her handiwork.
    The chair gave a little rock which seemed to show it was pleased. Or had she caught it with her duster?
    â€˜And I know a real queen who might come and sit in you,’ went on Rosemary. There was another little rock. ‘A cat queen!’
    The rocking stopped abruptly.
    â€˜A beautiful, snow-white queen who needs yourhelp,’ she went on hurriedly. ‘Dear rocking chair, you carried me home so splendidly, won’t you help us again? You see –’ Once more she explained about the meeting on the tallest building in Broomhurst.
    â€˜Roofs and walls are Cat Country at night,’ she said. ‘The place will be locked. Our only way to get there is by flying, if only you will take us. I’ll make you –’ she thought quickly – ‘an antimacassar! You know, one of those things to hang over the back – an embroidered one. I promise!’
    Rosemary held her breath. There was a moment’s pause, and then the chair gave another little rock.
    â€˜I knew I could rely on you!’ she whispered, and ran back to the flat to get her nightdress case. It would make an excellent chair-back, she felt. Armed with needles and coloured thread, she went back to the greenhouse to tell John of her success.
    It was beginning to rain. Woppit was asleep in a corner, her untidy whiskers twitching as she chased dream mice around a shadowy dream cellar. The kittens were playing with something that rolled obligingly round the floor, and John was whistling through his teeth and fiddling with the lock which he had taken to pieces.
    â€˜Good!’ he said absently, when Rosemary told him that she thought the rocking chair would take them.
    It was almost cosy in the greenhouse, with the raindrops plopping on the glass roof. They worked away in friendly silence. Rosemary was sewing ‘R.C.’ for Rocking Chair in green chain stitch on the nightdress case. She looked up and bit off her thread. ‘Can you really put it together again?’
    John looked with a puzzled frown at the bits of lock which he had laid out on the floor.
    â€˜If two screws hadn’t vanished into thin air, I could,’ he snapped. ‘You might try to find them instead of sitting there doing nothing.’
    â€˜I’ve been working twice as hard as you!’ said Rosemary. ‘I’ve been making up a flying rhyme for tonight all the time I’ve been sewing!’ But she put down her work and looked for the screws. ‘They can’t have vanished,’ she said. ‘Have you seen them, kittens?’
    Pergamond and Calidor were staring with deep interest at a curled-up wood louse. They looked up, to the wood louse’s relief.
    â€˜Screws?’ asked Calidor. ‘What’s screws?’
    â€˜Do they roll?’ asked Pergamond.
    Rosemary nodded.
    â€˜Then they’re down there,’ said Calidor, peering through the pierced pattern of the iron grillecovering the pipes under the floor