Peterkin Part 4

'You've been staring me awake,' I said, very grumpily. 'I'd like to know who could go on sleeping with you wis.h.i.+ng them awake?'

'I'm very sorry if you wanted to go on sleeping,' he replied meekly. He did not seem at all surprised at my saying he had wakened me. He used to understand rather queer things like that so quickly, though we counted him stupid in some ways.

'But as I am awake you can start talking,' I said, closing my eyes again, and preparing to listen.

Pete was quite ready to obey.

'Well,' he began, 'it was this way. Mamma didn't want me to be late for tea, so she stopped at the end of that big street--a little farther away than Lindsay Square, you know----'

'Yes, Meredith Place,' I grunted.

'And,' Pete went on, 'told me to run home. It's quite straight, if you keep to the front, of course.'

'And you did run straight home, didn't you?' I said teasingly.

'No,' he replied seriously, but not at all offended. 'When I got to the corner of the square I looked up it, and I remembered that it led to the funny little houses where Clem and I had seen the parrot. So, almost without settling it in my mind, I ran along that side of the square till I came to Rock Terrace. I ran _very_ fast----'

'I wish I'd been there to see you,' I grunted again.

'And I thought if I kept round by the back, I'd get out again to the front nearly as soon--running all the way, you see, to make up. And I'd scarcely got to the little houses when I heard the parrot. His cage was out on the balcony, you know. And it is very quiet there--scarcely any carts or carriages pa.s.sing--and it was getting dark, and I think you hear things plainer in the dark; don't you think so, Gilley?'

I did not answer, so he went on.

'I heard the parrot some way off. His voice is so queer, you know. And when I got nearer I could tell every word he said. He kept on every now and then talking for himself--real talking--"Getting cold. Polly wants to go to bed. Quick, quick." And then he'd stop for a minute, as if he was listening and heard something I couldn't. _That_ was the strange part that makes me think perhaps he isn't really a parrot at all, Giles,' and here Pete dropped his voice and looked very mysterious. I had opened my eyes for good now; it was getting exciting.

'What did he say?' I asked.

'What you and Clement heard, and a lot more,' Peterkin replied. 'Over and over again the same--"I'm so tired, Nana, I won't be good, no I won't."'

'Yes, that's what we heard,' I said, 'but what was the lot more?'

'Oh, perhaps there wasn't so _very_ much more,' said he, consideringly.

'There was something about "I won't be locked up," and "I'll write a letter," and then again and again, "I won't be good, I'm so tired." That was what you and Clement heard, wasn't it?'

'Yes,' I said.

'And one funny thing about it was that his voice, the parrot's, sounded quite different when he was talking his own talking, do you see?--like "Pretty Poll is cold, wants to go to bed"--from when he was copying the little girl's. It was always croaky, of course, but _squeakier_, somehow, when he was copying her.'

Peterkin sat up still straighter and looked at me, evidently waiting for my opinion about it all. I was really very interested, but I wanted first to hear all he had in his head, so I did not at once answer.

'Isn't it very queer?' he said at last.

'What do you think about it?' I asked.

He drew a little nearer me and spoke in a lower voice, though there was no possibility of any one ever hearing what he said.

'P'raps,' he began, 'it isn't _only_ a parrot, or p'raps some fairy makes it say these things. The little girl might be shut up, you see, like the princess in the tower, by some _bad_ fairy, and there might be a _good_ one who wanted to help her to get out. I wonder if they ever do invite fairies to christenings now, and forget some of them,' he went on, knitting his brows, 'or not ask them, because they are bad fairies?

I can't remember about Elf's christening feast; can you, Gilley?'

'I can remember hers, and yours too, for that matter,' I replied. 'You forget how much older I am. But of course it's not like that now. There are no fairies to invite, as I've often told you, Pete. At least,' for, in spite of my love of teasing, I never liked to see the look of distress that came over his chubby face when any one talked that sort of common sense to him, 'at least, people have got out of the way of seeing them or getting into fairy-land.'

'But we _might_ find it again,' said Peterkin, brightening up.

And I didn't like to disappoint him by saying I could not see much chance of it.

Then another idea struck me.

'How about Mrs. Wylie?' I said. 'Didn't she explain it at all? You told her what you had heard, didn't you? Yes, of course, she heard some of it herself, when we were all three standing at the door of her house.'

'Well,' said Peterkin, 'I was going to tell you the rest. I was listening to the parrot, and it was much plainer than _you_ heard, Gilley, for when you were there you only heard him from down below, and I was up near him--well, I was just standing there listening to him, when that old lady came up.'

'I know all about that,' I interrupted.

'No, you don't, not nearly all,' Peterkin persisted. He could be as obstinate as a little pig sometimes, so I said nothing. 'I was just standing there when she came up. She looked at me, and then she went in at her own gate, next door to the parrot's, you know, and then she looked at me again, and spoke over the railings. She said, "Are you talking to the parrot, my dear?" and I said, "No, I'm only listening to him, thank you"; and then she looked at me again, and she said, "You don't live in this terrace, I think?" And I said, "No, I live on the Esplanade, number 59." Then she pulled out her spectacles--long things, you know, at the end of a turtle-sh.e.l.l stick.'

'Tortoise-sh.e.l.l,' I corrected.

'Tortoise-sh.e.l.l,' he repeated, 'and then she looked at me again. "If you live at 59," she said, "I think you must be one of dear Mrs. Lesley's little sons," and I said, "That's just what I am, thank you." And then she said, "Won't you come in for a few minutes? You can see the Polly from my balcony, and it is getting cold for standing about. Are you on your way home from school?" So I thought it wouldn't be polite not to go in. She was so kind, you see,' and here his voice grew 'cryey' again, 'I never thought about mamma being flightened, and I only meant to stay a min----'

'Shut up about all that,' I interrupted. 'We've had it often enough, and I want to hear what happened.'

'Well,' he said, quite briskly again, 'she took me in, and up to her drawing-room. The window was a tiny bit open, and she made me stand just on the ledge between it and the balcony, so that I could see the parrot without his seeing me, for she said if he saw me he'd set up screeching and not talk sense any more. He knows when people are strangers. The cage was close to the old lady's end of the balcony, so that I could almost have touched it, and then I heard him say all those queer things.

I didn't speak for a good while, for fear of stopping him talking. But after a bit he got fidgety; I daresay he knew there was somebody there, and then he flopped about and went back to his own talking, and said he was cold and wanted to go to bed, and all that. And somebody inside heard him and took him in. And then--' Pete stopped to rest his voice, I suppose. He was always rather fond of resting, whatever he was doing.

'Hurry up,' I said. 'What happened after that?'

'The old lady said I'd better come in, and she shut up the window--I suppose she felt cold, like the parrot--and she made me sit down; and then I asked her what made him say such queer things in his squeakiest voice; and she said he was copying what he heard, for there was a little girl in the _next_ house--not in his own house--who cried sometimes and seemed very cross and unhappy, so that Mrs. Wylie often is very sorry for her, though she has never really seen her. And I said, did she think anybody was unkind to the little girl, and she said she hoped not, but she didn't know. And then she seemed as if she didn't want to talk about the little girl very much, and she began to ask me about if I went to school and things like that, and then I said I'd better go home, and she came downstairs with me and--I think that's all, till you and Clement came and we all heard the parrot again.'

'I wonder what started him copying the little girl again, after he'd left off,' I said.

'P'raps he hears her through the wall,' said Pete. 'P'raps he hears quicker than people do. Yes,' he went on thoughtfully, 'I think he must, for the old lady has never heard exactly what the little girl said. She only heard her crying and grumbling. She told me so.'

'I daresay she's just a cross little thing,' I said. 'And I think it was rather silly of Mrs. Wylie to let you hear the parrot copying her. It's a very bad example. And you said Mrs. Wylie seemed as if she didn't want to talk much about her.'

'I think she's got some plan in her head,' said Peterkin, eagerly, 'for she said--oh, I forgot that--she said she was going to come to see mamma some day very soon, to ask her to let me go to have tea with her.

And I daresay she'll ask you too, Gilley, if we both go down to the drawing-room when she comes.'

'I hope it'll be a half-holiday, then,' I said, 'or, anyway, that she will come when I'm here. It is very funny about the crying little girl.

Has she been there a long time? Did your old lady tell you that?'

Peterkin shook his head.

'Oh no, she's only been there since Mrs. Wylie came back from the country. She told me so.'

'And when was that?' I asked, but Pete did not know. He was sometimes very stupid, in spite of his quickness and fancies. 'It's been long enough for the parrot to learn to copy her grumbling,' I added.

'That wouldn't take him long,' said Peterkin, in his whispering voice again, '_if_ he's some sort of a fairy, you know, Gilley.'