Knock Three Times!

CHAPTER I

Aunt Phœbe sends a Birthday Present

THIS story really begins with the arrival of a brown paper parcel addressed to Molly, but while the postman is bringing it along the road, there may be just time to explain about Jack and Molly’s birthday, so that you will understand why Molly sat down to supper wishing earnestly that silver bangles were considered useful and necessary presents.

Jack and Molly were twins, and this was their ninth birthday. Such a happy, exciting day it had been; it felt like a birthday all day long, so you can guess how jolly it was, and how special it made Jack and Molly feel. Little did they guess what a weird and mysterious end to the day was now approaching!

They had received a number of beautiful presents, and, to their unbounded joy, a fine new bicycle each from Mother and Father. But there was one particular thing that Molly had wanted for her birthday, and that was a silver bangle.

“Like Mother’s,” she had told Jack, “only silver. One that nearly slips off when I hang my hand down and that I have to push back up my arm—and it jingles.”

As there happened also to be one other thing that Jack wanted specially, a box of paints, the two children had decided some days ago to write to their Aunt Phœbe, who always remembered their birthday, and hint to her as delicately as possible what the most acceptable presents would be. It had been a forlorn hope for Molly, because Aunt Phœbe had fixed ideas about useless and useful presents. Probably she might consider a box of paints useful to encourage Jack’s artistic leanings; but a bangle–! Still, Molly sent her letter and hoped for the best.

On looking at Jack and Molly you would have noticed at once that they both had the same kind of brown, curly hair and the same frank expression about the eyes; but while Molly’s eyes were brown, and her face often wistful and dreamy, Jack’s eyes were blue, and his expression alert and full of energy; there was a certain reckless air about Jack....

But the postman has reached their house, and is handing in two brown paper parcels, and so the story really begins.

“It’s Aunt Phœbe’s handwriting!” Jack exclaimed, as he seized his parcel.

“Yours looks flat—like a paint-box, Jack,” said Molly breathlessly, tugging at the string of her parcel.

“Yours looks like something in a box too. Probably it will be a bracelet,” Jack said encouragingly, hoping that it would be, for he felt he should be almost as disappointed as Molly if it wasn’t.

Jack was the first to vanquish strings and paper, and with a yell of delight he tore the wrapper off his parcel and disclosed a beautiful, shiny black paint-box. For a few moments Mother and Father and Jack were so engrossed in examining and admiring the box that they did not notice that Molly had unwrapped her parcel, until her intense quietness was borne in upon them, and they all three turned round.

Molly stood by the side of the table gazing tearfully at a round, grey-looking thing half buried in a mass of tissue paper.

“What is it, dear?” asked Mother, crossing over to her side.

“It’s not–” began Molly, then stopped because of an uncomfortable lump in her throat.

“Let me see,” said Mother, and she picked up the grey thing and turned it over in her hands. On the other side was pinned a slip of paper, on which was written:

Hoping she will be a good girl on her birthday and have many happy returns. I thought this useful little thing would do for her dressing-table.

“Why, it’s a pincushion!” said Mother.

“What a beastly shame!” said Jack.

“Be quiet, Jack. It’s a very pretty one,” Mother added consolingly.

“Funny shape, isn’t it?” queried Father.

“It’s—let me see—why, it’s the shape of a—what do you call those things?—pumpkins. It’s shaped like a pumpkin,” answered Mother.

“But it’s grey,” objected Father. “Why didn’t they make it yellow or green while they were about it?”

“I suppose Aunt Phœbe thought grey would keep clean longer,” said Jack: “that’s why she chose it.”

Had Aunt Phœbe known when she bought ‘this useful little thing’ what it Really Was—could she have foreseen any of the mysterious happenings that were to follow the arrival of her birthday present—she would have preferred to send her niece half a dozen of the most jingly silver bangles ever made; for she disapproved of adventures in any shape or form, even more than she disapproved of bangles. Yet it was entirely through Aunt Phœbe that Jack and Molly took part in the adventure of the Grey Pumpkin at all.

CHAPTER II

The Adventure Begins

WHEN Molly went up to bed that night she took the pincushion with her and placed it on the dressing-table, and tried her best to think that it looked nice. “It really will be useful,” she told herself, and to prove this she picked up a long pin and stuck it into the pumpkin pincushion, though with a little more violence than was necessary. Then she ran across the room and tumbled into bed.

It was a beautiful moonlight night, and the moonbeams streaming into the room made it almost as light as day. Molly lay there snug, drowsily planning out lovely rides that she and Jack would go as soon as they had both learnt how to manage their cycles; the thought of her bicycle sent a warm thrill through her heart and a smile of content hovering about her mouth.

She could hear Jack in the next room moving noisily about; he always made a dreadful noise in his room, thumping and banging things down and whistling shrilly, until he got into bed. And to-night the extra excitement of having a birthday seemed to make the thumping extra heavy and the whistling extra shrill. Presently the thuds and bumps and whistles ceased abruptly, and she knew that Jack was in bed; and to be in bed and to be asleep were practically the same thing with Jack. No sooner did his head touch the pillow than he was as good as asleep, and no sooner did he open his eyes in the morning than he was out of bed and hunting for his stockings. Sleep did not come so readily to Molly. She would often lie awake for a long time after she had gone to bed, thinking and planning, her brain ticking busily.

Molly was just wondering whether it would be possible for her and Jack to cycle to Brighton and back in a day, and whether Mother would let them go, when all at once she became aware that something was moving in her room; a soft, rolling sound came from the direction of the window.

Molly raised her head and gazed with startled eyes across the moonlit room. She could see something large and round moving softly on the dressing-table. It looked just as if– Surely her eyes were playing her some trick! She stared across at the dressing-table, frightened, yet fascinated. Then she sat up. No, her eyes had not deceived her.

There, in front of the looking-glass, rocking gently from side to side, was the pumpkin pincushion, grown to nearly three times its original size, and growing still larger every second.

Bigger and bigger it grew, until it had grown almost as big round as the front wheel of Molly’s bicycle; then it ceased rocking (and growing) and remained still for a few seconds; then, rolling quietly along the dressing-table and over the edge, it fell with a dull thud to the floor. Across to the door it rolled, bumped softly against it, and drew back a few paces. Molly watched as the door swung open, and the Grey Pumpkin passed out on to the landing.

Molly was filled with amazement. What had happened? What did it mean? She remained quite still, hesitating for a moment. Then she sprang out of bed. Her first fear had vanished, leaving in its place an overwhelming curiosity—and another feeling that she couldn’t define—she just felt that she must follow the Pumpkin.

Her mind once made up, she felt perfectly calm and collected; even collected enough to slip hastily into some clothes and put on her little blue-and-white frock and her outdoor shoes. Never before in all her short life had Molly dressed so quickly.

Meanwhile the Grey Pumpkin was making its way along the moonlit landing to the top of the stairs. She heard it begin to descend—thud, thud—as she whisked into Jack’s room.

“Jack! Jack!” she called in a loud whisper. “Don’t be frightened; it’s only me—Molly. Hush! Are you awake? Oh, Jack, hush!” as Jack uttered a sound between a loud yawn and a groan. “Get up quickly. It’s all right. Only do be quick, quick!”

Jack sat up with a jerk.

“What is it? What’s the matter?” he exclaimed.

“Hush! Don’t make a sound or you’ll spoil everything, p’raps. Put on some clothes, quickly, and come with me. Oh, don’t ask questions, Jack, but do be quick, and don’t make the slightest noise.” And Molly ran back to the landing and listened. Thud, thud, thud, the Pumpkin was rolling steadily and slowly from stair to stair, and, judging by the sound, was already a long way down. “Hurry, Jack,” said Molly.

It was easy for Jack to be quick, though not so easy to refrain from asking questions, but to tell him not to make the slightest noise was expecting a little too much of him. However, he only bumped twice against the water-jug and knocked his hair-brush off the dressing-table and fell over a chair before he was ready, and, all things considered, he behaved in a very creditable manner.

Afterward, when thinking things over, Molly was surprised at her own calmness in remembering to tell him about clothes and being quiet; but remember she did, and found herself explaining to her brother as rapidly as possible just what had happened.

“I know it sounds impossible, Jack,” she said, “but it’s true, and you’ll see it yourself in a minute.”

The two children sped quickly along the landing and down the first flight of stairs, passing from dark shadows into moonlit patches as they went by landing windows, then back into the shadows again and down another flight, and out into the moonlight once more; so on and on, guided by the dull thud, thud of the Pumpkin on the soft stair-carpet below them.

As they reached the top of the last flight the sound ceased.

“It’s reached the bottom,” whispered Molly.

Jack shook his head incredulously; he had not seen the Pumpkin yet and could not believe it was the sole cause of the bumping noise he had heard on the stairs. When the noise ceased they hesitated about continuing their descent. It was pitch-black at the bottom of the last flight, and Molly thought it would be so horrible if one of them put their foot on that rolling grey thing in the dark.

As they waited they heard a slight bump—then a streak of light appeared, and they saw the back door swing quietly open. The Pumpkin—and Jack could see plainly that it was a huge pumpkin—rolled ponderously out, and the door began slowly to close again.

“Quick!” gasped Molly; and the two sped down the last flight, and the next moment were standing breathless outside the back door.

Their garden was long, and backed on to a small wood (which had been the scene of many a picnic during the summer months). A low, broken fence divided the wood from the garden; and it was for this fence that the Pumpkin was heading. It rolled steadily on in a quiet, deliberate way that made it the more uncanny.

Jack and Molly followed—two quaint little figures, moving warily over the grass, with glistening eyes and rapidly beating hearts, half fearful, half curious, and very excited. Jack could scarcely believe his eyes even now, and stared fascinated at the moving grey thing in front of him, as it glided under the broken fence and into the wood beyond. As it gained the woodland path the sound of little twigs and dried leaves crackling as it rolled over them came to the children’s ears.

Jack and Molly clambered over the fence, and in doing so Jack lost one of his slippers, but did not miss it in his excitement, and they both ran a few steps along the path to get in sight of the Pumpkin again.

It was not so easy to see in the wood, for the trees met overhead and screened out the moonlight. Here and there a stray beam penetrated, scattering little pools of silver light on the ground; and each time the Pumpkin passed into these pools of light the children hastened their footsteps, but faltered again each time it glided into the gloom, where it was difficult to see and there was nothing save the crackling of the twigs to guide them.

Suddenly Molly caught hold of her brother’s arm, and they both stood still. The Pumpkin had stopped in the dim light at the foot of a gigantic old tree with a gnarled and twisted trunk. Watching breathlessly, they saw it knock three times deliberately and heavily against the bark, and then roll back a few paces and wait.

There was a low, creaking sound, and the side of the tree swung outward like a door; and the Pumpkin passed in.

The door began slowly to close again. Jack and Molly looked at each other. What should they do? They both felt it was now or never.

“Now!” said Jack.

“Quick!” assented Molly.

Like a flash they reached the door and slipped through—just in time. It closed behind them with a muffled thud, catching the sleeve of Jack’s coat as it did so, and they found themselves in complete darkness.

Their curiosity and excitement turned to sudden fear when they heard the door close behind them, and they stood quite still, with their backs pressed hard against the interior of the tree-trunk, not daring to move. A soft, familiar rolling sound could be heard a short way in front of them. It ceased, there was a short silence, then came three distinct knocks, followed by a creaking noise, and another door opened on the other side of the tree. As the light crept into the interior of the tree the children saw to their astonishment that it was not moonlight, but daylight, the subdued light of evening.

A quick glance showed them the hollow interior of the huge tree and the distance they were from the open door. As they caught sight of the ground they both gave a start, for it was composed solely of half a dozen branches stretched across from side to side, and beneath the branches was a big black hole that went down and down and looked as if it had no bottom. They realized that they were standing at the extreme edge of the hole, on a little step of thick, sticky clay. However were they to walk over on one of those thin branches to the door on the other side without missing their footing and falling down into the hole? But even as they caught hold of hands, determined to make a desperate effort to cross while there was light to see, the Grey Pumpkin passed out into the daylight, and the door swung slowly to again, and they were left in darkness once more.

They stood stock still, not daring to move.

“Oh, Jack, whatever shall we do?” said Molly, almost crying.

“Knock on the door behind us and go back home,” suggested Jack. “Let’s get out of this old dark hole, and the Pumpkin can go where it jolly well likes.... Leave go my arm a moment, Molly, and I’ll turn round and knock.” He turned to suit the action to his words, tearing the corner of his sleeve out of the crack as he did so.

“But, Jack,” Molly said hurriedly. “Wait a minute.... Somehow … I’ve got a feeling that we ought to go on, if only we could.... Don’t knock yet, Jack.... I feel as if somebody wants us, through that door on the other side … if only we could get across. Oh, Jack, do be careful—you’ll slip!”

“Look here,” said Jack, “are you afraid to chance the crossing—do you really think it’s worth it?”

“The Pumpkin must have rolled across without the floor giving way—but then, it—he—I mean, what shall we do, Jack?”

“Shall we try?” suggested Jack.

Molly hesitated. Then “Yes, let’s,” she said. “Only—shall we?” she faltered.

“You stay here while I go across and knock three times on the other door,” said Jack, at once decided. “Then while it’s light you run across.”

“Oh, Jack, do be careful,” cried Molly.

For Jack had already started. He felt with his foot for the thickest branch and stepped recklessly forward. To his delight he found that it was quite easy to walk across, and all their fears had been groundless.

“Why, Moll,” he called joyfully, “it’s as easy as anything. Wait a sec. I’m almost there.”

He reached the clay step on the other side and gave three good knocks to relieve his feelings. With a low creaking the door opened slowly, and as the light streamed in Molly ran quickly and easily across, and the next moment they both stood outside the tree, and the door was shut.

CHAPTER III

The Other Side of the Tree

THE two children gazed in astonishment at the unfamiliar scene in front of them, for here was a place they had never seen before, and yet, apparently, a place within ten minutes’ walk of their home—a place that led out of the little wood at the end of their garden. And they thought they knew every nook and corner of that wood, and of the fields and lanes beyond for several miles round their house. Yet here was a place they had never seen before; and, more puzzling still, the soft glow of evening and sunset had taken the place of the moonlight and gloom which had been all around them in the wood. For they were still standing close to the same big old tree, but instead of the wood continuing for a quarter of a mile on, and ending at the edge of Farmer Hart’s cornfields as it always had done, it ended abruptly right in front of them, by the side of a broad white road. This road stretched away to the left, up and up a big hill. You could see it winding like a white ribbon, bordered by the green and brown trees of the woods that clustered on each side. And, at the top of the hill, where the road ended, glistened the white walls and roofs of a distant city. To the right the road continued past the wood where the children were standing, and sloped down, down, till it was lost to sight in the burning crimson and gold afterglow of the sunset.

Jack and Molly looked up the road and down the road, but all was silent, and not a soul in sight. Then a wisp of blue smoke among the trees on the opposite side of the road caught their attention, and they saw that it was curling from the chimney of a snug little red-roofed cottage, which nestled, half hidden, on the fringe of the wood across the road.

The children looked at each other in bewilderment. Then they turned and examined the giant tree behind them, but that did not help them much. It was certainly the same tree, but it was not the same wood. Something queer had happened—it did not seem to be even the same country. They looked up and down the road again, and behind them and before them—and listened. But all was silent. Their eyes wandered back to the curling blue smoke, the only sign of life within sight.

“Better ask some one where we’ve got to,” said Jack, eyeing the smoke.

“But where’s IT gone?” began Molly, then broke off quickly. “Hush! What’s that!” she said.

She plucked Jack’s sleeve and drew him into the shadow of the trees. A distant sound of voices came floating through the still evening air. There were evidently two speakers, for, as the sounds drew nearer the children could hear a high, loud, jolly voice, flowing continuously, and punctuated every now and then by a low, mumbling voice. After a few seconds the words of the high-voiced speaker became distinguishable.

“Stuff and nonsense!” it cried shrilly. “Pull yourself together, Father. Come now, come now, snap your fingers in its face! Laugh at it, I say, and—tss–” The speaker made a little hissing noise. “Where is it?”

The other voice here murmured some reply too low for the children to catch.

“What’s that?” replied the first speaker. “No—not you. But I’ll tell you what will happen, you’ll be having an attack of melancholia–”

“Oh, not that, not that!” The low voice was raised and pleading. “Don’t talk of melons, Glan, don’t, I pray you. They make me think of those lemons—and the—and–”

“Now don’t you think of that any more,” ordered the high voice. “Come, come, come. Pull yourself together....”

The speakers became visible, wending their way through the wood in which the children were standing. One was a young, fat, rosy-cheeked man, with a jolly smile, wearing a white overall and white baker’s cap; he was clean-shaven, and was the possessor of the high voice. His companion was a striking contrast to him, being old and thin and pale, with a long white beard; he was dressed in a rich, dark-coloured robe, and had a number of keys dangling from his belt. They pulled up short when they caught sight of Jack and Molly; then advanced slowly, with sidelong glances at each other and low whispers.

Molly stepped forward.

“If you please,” she said, very politely, “could you tell us where we are?”

“Could you tell us who you are, little lady?—that’s more to the point,” said the young man pleasantly.

“I’m Molly, and this is my brother Jack,” the little girl replied; which did not enlighten the young man very much.

The old man gazed at them with his small, dull eyes, and ran his fingers nervously through his beard.

“We’ve only just come—through that tree,” volunteered Jack, pointing to the giant tree behind them.

“Through the tree!” exclaimed the old man and the young man together.

“Then you are from the Impossible World,” added the young man in an excited, high voice.

“We live in England,” said Jack with dignity.

“That may be. I don’t know England. But if it lies on the other side of that Tree it is in the Impossible World.”

“Why do you call it that?” asked Molly.

“Because that’s its name in our geography books. This is the Possible World, and always was—except–” The young man glanced at the old man, who turned his head aside.

“Don’t speak of that,” groaned the old man.

“Cheer up, Father,” cried the young man. “Pull yourself together now. Snap your fingers and—tss—it is gone, remember.” And he beamed encouragingly down at the thin little old man beside him, who only looked more depressed than ever at his son’s efforts to cheer him up.

“But how is it we’ve played in this wood—I mean that wood—ever so many times and never found our way here before?” inquired Jack.

“Because though you’ve walked round that tree many times you’ve never come through it before,” said the young man. “There are two sides to every tree, just as there are two sides to every question. When you ‘walk round’ a question, do you see both its sides? No. It is only if you go into a question that you see this side and that. Well, then—when you only walked round that tree it stands to sense that you couldn’t find yourself here. But when you go into the tree—tss”—he threw out his hand—“behold! here you are. It’s perfectly simple.”

It certainly sounded sensible and quite simple as the young man explained it, but Jack and Molly still felt rather mystified.

“But why do you call ours the Impossible World?” asked Jack.

“Because it’s full of impossible things,” replied the young man. “Impossible people, impossible ideas, impossible laws, impossible houses, there is so much impossible misery and injustice, and impossible talk, that it’s quite impossible for any possible creature to live in it. On the other hand, this land (which is the other side of yours) is the Possible World now; for a time it was Impossible, but we sent–” Here the old man winced. “I’m sorry, Father. But you must let me tell the little lady and her brother where they are. I know. You go and sit down under that tree, and think of buttercups.”

“But they’re the colour of lemons,” whined the old man feebly.

“Not all of them—think of the ones that aren’t. There; run along. I shan’t be two minutes explaining.”

And he patted his father on the shoulder as the old man shuffled across the leaves to the foot of a tree some yards away, where he sat down, and remained shaking his head and looking on the ground, mumbling to himself, while the young man explained the cause of his depression to Jack and Molly.

“It’s this way!” he began, after glancing over his shoulder to make sure his Father couldn’t hear. “For hundreds of years this has been the Possible World, because it was possible for everyone in it to be happy. But there came a time when an evil influence crept into the land and made it Impossible. It was through this evil Thing that my Father, who was one of the King’s Advisers, lost his place at Court. The whole country was under a cloud. Then, Old Nancy—she lives in the cottage yonder”—he pointed to the little red-roofed cottage with the smoke curling from the chimney, on the opposite side of the road—“Old Nancy, she discovered a spell, and she saved us—she banished the evil Thing to the Impossible World and our world became Possible again. Lately, my Father has been afflicted with dreams that he says always come to him before trouble overtakes the country, and he fears by some mishap that the country may become Impossible again.”