Free Arabel and Mortimer by Joan Aiken

raven is quick on the draw,

Better steer clear of his beak and his claw,

When there is trouble, you know in your bones,

Right in the middle is Mortimer Jones!"
    Mortimer drew himself up and looked immensely proud that a song had been written about him. Arabel sucked her finger and leaned against an apple tree.

    Inside the house, Uncle Urk suddenly thought, "What if Arabel was right about those men being giraffe thieves? Ben says she's mostly a sensible little thing. I'd look silly if she'd a-warned me, and I didn't do anything, and they really
was
thieves."
    So, after thinking about it for a while, he rang up Sam Heyward, the night watchman, on the zoo's internal telephone. "Sam," he said, "I got a kind of feeling there might be a bit o' trouble tonight, so why don't you let old Noah loose? It's months since he had a night out. You never know, if there's any miscreants about, he might put a spoke in their wheel."
    "Okay, Urk, if you say so," said Sam. "Anyways, old Noah might catch a few rabbits; there's a sight too many rabbits about in the park just now, eating up all the wildebeest food."
    Sam left his night watchman's hut to let out Noah the boa, who was very pleased to have the freedom of the park again, and slithered quietly away through the grass. When Sam returned to his hut, he didn't notice that a small tube had been slipped under the door, in the crack at the hinge end. As soon as he shut the door, a sweet-smelling gas began to dribble in through the tube. By slow degrees Sam became drowsier and drowsier until, after about half an hour, he toppled right off his stool and lay on the matting
fast asleep, dreaming that he had put ten pounds on a horse in the Derby called Horseradish, and that it had been on the point of winning when Noah the boa, who could travel at a terrific speed when he chose to, suddenly shot under the tape just ahead of Horseradish and won the race.

    Meanwhile, in Uncle Urk's garden Chris sang,
"Arabel's raven is perfectly hollow,

What he can't chew up he'll manage to

swallow—

Furniture—fire escapes—fencing—and

phones—

All are digested by Mortimer Jones."
    Mortimer looked even prouder.
    Chris sang,
"When the ice cream disappears from the cones,

When you are deafened by shrieks or by moans,

When the fur's flying, or the air's full of stones,

You can be certain—"
    Just at this moment Aunt Effie came home. As soon as she was through the gate, she said, "Chris! Fetch out that meat safe!"
    Looking rather startled, Chris laid down his guitar and did as he was told. He placed the meat safe under the apple tree.

    Instantly, Aunt Effie grabbed Mortimer, thrust him into the safe (which he completely filled), shut the door, and slammed home the catch.
    A fearful cry came from inside.
    "There!" said Aunt Effie. "Now, you go up to bed, Arabel Jones, and I don't want to hear a
single sound
out of you, or out of that bird, till morning—do you hear me?"

    Since Mortimer, inside the meat safe, was making a noise like a troop of roller skaters crossing a tin bridge and shouting, "Nevermore!" at the top of his lungs, it was quite hard for Arabel to hear what Aunt Effie said, but she could easily understand what her aunt meant.

    Arabel went quietly and sadly up to bed, but she had not the least intention of leaving Mortimer to pass the night inside the meat safe. "He hasn't done anything bad in Aunt Effie's house," Arabel thought, "so why should he be punished by being shut inside the meat safe? It isn't fair. Besides, Mortimer can't
stand
being shut up."
    Indeed, the noise from the meat safe could be heard for two hundred yards around Uncle Urk's house. But Aunt Effie went indoors and turned up the volume of the television very loud in order to drown Mortimer's yells and bangs.
    "When he learns who's master he'll soon settle down," she said grimly.
    Arabel always did exactly as she was told. Aunt Effie had said, "I don't want to hear a single sound out of you," so,