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- Author: Edward Ormondroyd
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The Banshee's eyes flew wide open, and she twirled herself around like a top. "Och, the sweet music of its tinkling!" she exclaimed. "The lovely sheen of light upon it! There's a sight for eyes used to naught but silver! Ah, but dearies, I've no Wail worth four pieces of gold. I'll have to make one up special." She hobbled rapidly around the chamber until she had found a box as large as a bird cage, and an ear trumpet. She opened the box, shook it to make sure it was empty, and put in two heads of cabbage. ("Such monstrous appetites these Wails do have!" she explained.) She fastened the lid carefully with a catch-lock, and inserted the ear trumpet in a hole in one side of the box. Then she disappeared through a sound-proof door, which they had not seen before on account of the smoke.
Fifteen minutes later the Banshee came out with the box, plugging up the hole in its side with a bit of wax. She was pale and trembling, and beads of sweat covered her face. She smiled weakly at them, seized an earthen-ware jug, and drained it in one gulp. The color began to return to her face.
"Wsssht!" she gasped, wiping her brow with the sleeve of her Mother Hubbard. "Ah, dearies, that was the effort of me life! 'Tis a Wail to make one burst with pride, though I do say it meself. Thirteen minutes long by the clock, with a range of ten octaves! 'Twould frighten the Old Nick himself!"
"Splendid!" said the Phoenix. "The fact is, I sometimes suspect that that is precisely with whom we are dealing at home."
The light suddenly dawned on David. "Phoenix!" he cried. "I bet we're going to give the Wail to the Scientist!"
"Precisely, my boy!" The Phoenix beamed.
"Oh, golly golly golly!" David sang as he danced around.
"And I'll guarantee it, dearies!" the Banshee cackled. "One hundred per cent satisfaction or your money back!"
"Defeat and confusion to the enemy!" the Phoenix shouted, giving the special squawk which was its battle cry.
The Banshee received her gold. The Phoenix told David for goodness sake not to drop the box or let the lid pop open, or they would regret it to their dying day. David, hearing the rustle of the Wail as it ravenously attacked the cabbages inside the box, assured the Phoenix that he would be careful. The Banshee said, "Ah, Phoenix, do sell the laddie to me," but her tone was more teasing than serious, and they all laughed. Good-bys were said all round, and David and the Phoenix left. The last thing they heard as they felt their way up the dark passage was the happy cackling of the Banshee and the clang of the cash register.
They got back to the hotel before dawn and very carefully crept down the fire escape into the Scientist's room. They put the box on the bedside table, stuck out their tongues at the sleeping Scientist, and crept out again. Then they went home, the Phoenix to the ledge and David to bed, where he fell asleep instantly.
The Wail was wildly successful. The Scientist released it from its box at seven o'clock in the morning. People living in the hotel thought the world had come to its end. The rest of the town wondered if it was a riot, or an earthquake, or both with three steam calliopes thrown in for good measure. David, who lived twelve blocks from the hotel, stirred in his sleep and dreamed he was riding a fire engine. Even the Phoenix claimed later that a kind of moan was borne on the breeze all the way up to the ledge.
The hotel burst into activity like a kicked anthill. People poured down the fire escapes, shot out through the doors, lowered themselves into the street with ropes of knotted blankets. Others barricaded themselves in their rooms by piling furniture against the doors and windows. One guest found his way to the cellar and hid in an ash can for two days. The manager crawled into the office safe and locked the door, without even bothering to remember that he was the only one who knew the combination. The telephone exchange was jammed as calls flooded in to mobilize the Boy Scouts, the Red Cross, the Salvation Army, the National Guard, and the Volunteer Flood Control Association. When the Wail finally died out (which was not until seven-thirty, because it had devoured both cabbages during the night and had grown to more than twice its original size) the police entered the hotel in force, armed to the eyebrows. They found nothing. At the end of a three-hour search the Chief handed in his resignation.
As for the Scientist, he disappeared completely. A farmer living three miles out of town said he saw a man, dressed in a nightshirt and head-bandage, running down the valley road. The farmer guessed the man's speed to be thirty-five miles an hour. But, he added, there was such a cloud of dust being raised that he could not see very well.
"It might have been fifty miles an hour," he said.
No one doubted him.
9: In Which David and
the Phoenix Call On
a Faun, and a Lovely
Afternoon Comes to
a Strange End
The Phoenix was dead tired. And no wonder—all in one week it had escaped from Gryffons, raced with a Witch, made round-trip flights to the Pacific Isles and Ireland, been caught in a snare, got burned by a short circuit, and been knocked down by an exploding cigar. Even a bird as strong as the Phoenix cannot do all these things without needing a rest. So the traveling part of David's education was stopped for a while to let the Phoenix recover.
The days went by pleasantly on the ledge. Summer was at its height. The sun fell on them with just the right amount of warmth as they lolled on the grass. The air was filled with a lazy murmuring. "Listen," the murmuring seemed to say, "don't talk, don't think—close your eyes and listen." Below them, the whole valley danced and wavered in the heat waves, so that it seemed to be under water.
There were long, lazy conversations that began nowhere and ended nowhere—the wonderful kind in which you say whatever comes to your head without fear of being misunderstood, because what you say has little importance anyway. The Phoenix told of the times and adventures it had had. Of the forgotten corners of the world where life went on as it had from the beginning, and of friends who lived there. Of Trolls who mined metal from the earth and made from it wondrous machines which whirred and clattered and clanked and did absolutely nothing. ("The best kind of machine after all, my boy, since they injure no one, and there is nothing to worry about when they break down.") Of Unicorns ("Excellent chaps, but so frightfully melancholy") which shone white in the sun and tossed their ivory horns like rapiers. Of a Dragon who, having no treasure to guard, got together a pathetic heap of colored pebbles in its cave. ("And really, he came to believe in time that they were absolutely priceless, and went about with a worried frown of responsibility on his brow!") David, in turn, told the Phoenix about the games he used to play when he lived in the flat country, and all about school, and Mother and Dad and Aunt Amy and Beckie.
He could not help laughing now and then over the Scientist's defeat. But whenever this came up, the Phoenix would shake its head with a kind of sad wisdom.
"My boy, there are certain things, such as head colds and forgetting where you have left your keys, which are inevitable—and I am afraid that the Scientist is, too."
"Oh, Phoenix, you don't think he'll come back, do you?"
"Yes, my boy, I do. I can see the whole train of events: He will recover from his fright. He will be curious about the Wail, and will return to investigate it. Once here, he will remember us, and we shall have to take him into account once more."
"Oh. Do you think it'll happen soon?"
"Oh, no, my boy, nothing to worry about for the time being. But we must remember that it will happen some day."
"Yes, I guess you're right. I think he's hateful!"
"I cannot disagree with you there, my boy. Of course, I have no doubt that, in general, the advancement of science is all to the good. Knowledge is power. But on days like this I sometimes wonder.... Does it not seem to you that the highest aim in life at the moment is to enjoy the sunlight and allow others to do the same?"
"You're right, Phoenix—but then, you always are. I was just thinking the same thing. It's funny ... I mean ... well, you know. Why can't people leave other people alone—and—and—well, just enjoy themselves and lie in the sun and listen to the wind?"
"That is the way of the world, my boy. Getting and spending, and all that sort of thing. But come! Why should we worry over the follies of the rest of the world? A day like this was made for living, not thinking. Begone, dull care!"
And they would forget the Scientist and watch a pair of butterflies chase each other instead.
But one day the Phoenix suddenly stood up with a startled expression on its face. "My dear chap!" it exclaimed. "I have just remembered! Tomorrow...."
"What about tomorrow?"
"Why, my boy, tomorrow another century rounds its mark. To be brief, tomorrow is my birthday. My five hundredth birthday."
"Well, congratulations, Phoenix!"
"Thank you, my boy. Five hundred.... Destiny.... Have I mentioned before, my boy, that I have a magnificent destiny?"
"No. What is it, Phoenix?"
"I—well, it is strange, my boy, but I do not know ... but that it is magnificent no one can doubt."
"Do I have one too?"
"Of course, my boy. We all do."
David was glad of that. He did not know exactly what a destiny was, however, and he tried to think of how one would look. But the only picture which came to his mind was that of a small, mousy creature (his destiny) looking up in admiration to a splendid thing of flame and gold, dazzling to the eyes—the Phoenix's mysterious destiny.
He said, "We'll have to do something special tomorrow to celebrate, Phoenix."
The Phoenix looked thoughtful. "I think we had better do whatever we are going to do today," it said.
"Well, we can do something today and tomorrow, then," said David. "After all, a birthday only comes once a year, and it seems a shame to spend only one day on it. Especially when it's a five hundredth birthday."
"Tomorrow ..." said the Phoenix doubtfully. "I have a strange feeling, my boy—for once, I find myself unable to explain—most odd, most odd ... five hundredth birthday...."
"Ah, well," it went on more cheerfully, "I shall undoubtedly remember later. The pressing question is, what shall we do now?"
David got up, thought for a while, and suddenly flung his arms wide. "Oh, Phoenix," he cried, "it's such a beautiful day, I wish it could go on forever! Couldn't we go somewhere—somewhere where we—oh, I don't know. I can't explain it. Anywhere you say, Phoenix."
The Phoenix looked at him for a long time. "I think I understand, my boy. Yes.... How about one of the forgotten places I told you about? Should you like to meet a Faun?"
It was a green valley, completely enclosed by the barren mountains which towered above it. At one end a waterfall hung on the face of a cliff, a misty thread pouring into a rainbow-arched pool. A brook serpentined through fields and groves of trees. There were flocks of sheep and
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