Дом ста дорог

[284] Neither Peter nor Charmain waited to hear about the bedroom. They dived forward and slammed the bathroom door, opened it again—Charmain giving Peter a stern push to the left—and jammed themselves through it into the kitchen, turned round, shut the door, opened it again, and finally arrived in the living room, where they looked eagerly around for the trolley. Peter spotted it over in the corner and reached it ahead of Charmain. "Afternoon Tea!" he shouted, hammering mightily upon its empty, glass-covered surface. "Afternoon Tea! Afternoon Tea! Aftern—"

[285] By the time Charmain got to him and seized his flailing arm, the trolley was crowded with pots of tea, milk jugs, sugar bowls, cups, scones, dishes of cream, dishes of jam, plates of hot buttered toast, piles of muffins, and a chocolate cake.

A drawer slid out of the end of it, full of knives, spoons, and forks. Charmain and Peter, with one accord, dragged the trolley over to the musty sofa and settled down to eat and drink. After a minute, Waif put her huge head round the door, sniffing. Seeing the trolley, she shoved a bit and arrived in the living room too, where she crawled wistfully and mountainously over to the sofa and put her enormous hairy chin on the back of it behind Charmain. Peter gave her a distracted look and passed her several muffins, which she ate in one mouthful, with huge politeness.

[286] A good half hour later, Peter lay back and stretched. "That was great," he said. "At least we won't starve. Wizard Norland," he added experimentally, "how do we get lunch in this house?"

There was no reply.

[287] "He only answers me," Charmain said, a trifle smugly. "And I'm not going to ask now. I had to deal with a lubbock before you came and I'm exhausted. I'm going to bed."

[288] "What are lubbocks?" Peter asked. "I think one killed my father."

[289] Charmain did not feel up to answering him. She got up and went to the door.

[290] "Wait," Peter said. "How do we get rid of the stuff on this trolley?"

[291] "No idea," said Charmain. She opened the door.

[292] "Wait, wait, wait!" Peter said, hurrying after her. "Show me my bedroom first."

[293] I suppose I'll have to, Charmain thought. He can't tell left from right. She sighed. Unwillingly, she shoved Peter in among the bubbles that were still storming into the kitchen, thicker than ever, so that he could collect his knapsack, and then steered him left, back through the door to where the bedrooms were. "Take the third one along," she said.

[294] "That one's mine and the first one's Great-Uncle William's. But there's miles of them, if you want a different one.

Good night," she added, and went into the bathroom.

[295] Everything in there was frozen.

"Oh, well," Charmain said.

[296] By the time she got to her bedroom and into her somewhat tea-stained nightdress, Peter was out in the corridor, shouting, "Hey! This toilet's frozen over!" Bad luck! Charmain thought. She got into bed and was asleep almost at once.

[297] About an hour later, she dreamed that she was being sat on by a woolly mammoth. "Get off, Waif," she said. "You're too big." After this she dreamed that the mammoth slowly got off her, grumbling under its breath, before she went off into other, deeper dreams.

[ 298 ] Chapter Five IN WHICH CHARMAIN RECEIVES HER ANXIOUS PARENT

[299] When Charmain woke, she discovered that Waif had planted her vast head on the bed, across Charmain's legs. The rest of Waif was piled on the floor in a hairy white heap that filled most of the rest of the room.

[300] "So you can't go smaller on your own," Charmain said. "I'll have to think of something."

[301] Waif 's answer was a series of giant wheezings, after which she appeared to go to sleep again. Charmain, with difficulty, dragged her legs out from under Waif 's head and edged round Waif 's vast body finding clean clothes and getting into them. When she came to do her hair, Charmain discovered that all the hairpins she usually put it up with seemed to have vanished, probably during her dive off the cliff. All she had left was a ribbon. Mother always insisted that respectable girls needed to have their hair in a neat knot on the top of their heads. Charmain had never worn her hair any other way.

[302] "Oh, well," she said to her reflection in the neat little mirror, "Mother's not here, is she?" And she did her hair in a fat plait over one shoulder and fastened it with the ribbon. Like that, she thought her reflection looked nicer than usual, fuller in the face and less thin and grumpy. She nodded at her reflection and picked her way around Waif to get to the bathroom.

[303] To her relief, the bathroom had thawed overnight. The room was full of soft dripping sounds from water dewing all the pipes, but nothing else seemed to be wrong until Charmain tried the taps. All four of them ran ice-cold water, no matter how long they ran for.