The Tree that Sat Down

Copyright

First published in Great Britain by Jonathan Cape 1945

First published in this abridged edition By Lions 1975

Lions is an imprint of HarperCollins Children’s Books 2015

This edition published by HarperCollins Children’s Books 2016

HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd,

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

The HarperCollins Children’s Books website address is

www.harpercollins.co.uk

Copyright (abridged edition) © Beverley Nichols 1975

Cover illustration © Nicola Kinner 2016

Cover design © HarperCollins Publishers, Ltd 2016

Beverley Nichols and Isobel and John Morton Sale assert the moral right to be identified as the author and illustrators of the work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780006709930

Ebook Edition © 2016 ISBN: 9780008199531

Version: 2016-04-21

For the PRRP

Z

Z

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter One – Judy Meets a Stranger

Chapter Two – The Strangest Shop in the World

Chapter Three – Plots and Plans

Chapter Four – The Struggle Begins

Chapter Five – Bruno Escapes

Chapter Six – More About Bruno

Chapter Seven – Bruno Recaptured

Chapter Eight – A Peacock Spreads his Tail

Chapter Nine – Queer Customers

Chapter Ten – The Wickedness of Miss Smith

Chapter Eleven – Witchcraft

Chapter Twelve – A Tortoise to the Rescue

Chapter Thirteen – The Book of Magic

Chapter Fourteen – Judy in Danger

Chapter Fifteen – Appeal to the Law

Chapter Sixteen – The Night Before the Trial

Chapter Seventeen – Justice is Done

Chapter Eighteen – The Storm – and After

Chapter Nineteen – Happy Ending

Footnote

Collins Modern Classics

About the Publisher

Chapter One

JUDY MEETS A STRANGER

JUDY WAS OUT in the wood, collecting Sleepo.

In case you do not know about Sleepo, I will explain. It was one of the things which Judy’s grandmother sold in The Shop Under the Willow Tree. It was really her own invention, though other people in the wood had tried to copy it. But nobody’s Sleepo was as good as Mrs Judy’s; it did not send you to sleep nearly so quickly, and sometimes it gave you bad dreams. Mrs Judy’s Sleepo never gave you bad dreams … in fact, she had an extra special variety, which cost a penny an ounce more, which gave you the most beautiful dreams. She put a dream in each of these special boxes, which were tied up with green ribbon. Sometimes, if she thought you looked sad, she would pop in an extra dream for luck. The ordinary boxes, which had not got a dream in them, were only tied up with string. But even so, they were very good value for money.

Now I will explain how to get Sleepo, because you might like to try to collect some yourself.

*

Whenever a cat or a dog or a dormouse or any other animal is sleeping, the air it breathes out through its mouth or its nose has got a little Sleepo in it. You cannot see it, any more than you can see the air itself, but it is there.

Now if the animal just goes on sleeping, the Sleepo drifts away, like smoke, and goes up to the ceiling or flies out of the window. But if you take a glass jar, and hold it near its nose, a lot of Sleepo goes into the jar and settles down. And if you bottle it up and recite the right spells over the bottle, it will keep for a whole month; and when you pour it out of the bottle again, it will send you to sleep.

Now that sounds very simple, but it isn’t really quite as simple as all that. First of all, the jar has to be specially treated before it will hold the Sleepo properly. It has to be put under the branches of a willow tree at midnight. And then you have to wait until three willow leaves have fallen into the jar. And they must fall in of their own accord; it is not the least use putting them in yourself, or shaking the branches of the tree.

When the three leaves have fallen into the jar, you must carry it up to your bedroom, and put it as near as you can to your pillow. And every night, before you go to sleep, you must take the jar in your hands and look at the leaves and say:

Sleepo, sleepo, three times three,

Out of the branch of a willow tree;

Sleepo come and make me wise.

Give me rest and close my eyes.

You do this for three nights running; and when you wake up on the third morning you find that something very exciting has happened. The leaves of the willow tree have flown away, and in their place are three pennies. You must take these pennies and buy something with them to give away … you must not spend any of it on yourself. When you have done this (which will be a very nice and kind thing to do) you will be able to collect as much Sleepo as you want. And perhaps you may be able to sell some of it for more than the three pennies that you gave away.

*

Now let us get back to Judy in the wood, and see how she is getting on.

She had just been holding the jar in front of the nose of a baby leopard. It was lying fast asleep in the sun and a lot of Sleepo was coming from its nose. And then a fly settled on its tail, and the baby leopard began to twist and turn, and not so much Sleepo came. So she closed the jar and walked on.

She came to a cornfield in a clearing and wondered if she should go in to look for dormice. They were always sleepy, and it was a very good quality of Sleepo which one collected from them, because they were such amiable animals, and always had the nicest thoughts. However, they were also very small, and it took a dreadfully long time to collect any quantity; you had to hold the jar in front of at least twenty dormice before you got more than half an ounce. What she really wanted was somebody like old Mr Sloth, who hung from a tree, with Sleepo pouring from him in bucketfuls.

Then, through a gap in the trees, she saw something lying on the ground. It was covered with stripes, and at first she thought it must be a rug which somebody had left behind after a picnic. But when she looked more closely, her heart beat fast with excitement, because she saw it was a little zebra, sound asleep. And when zebras slept, they slept very heavily indeed. If she could only tiptoe across without waking him up, she would be able to fill her jar in no time, and go home to tea.

Very cautiously she began to creep through the bushes. Now and then the branch of a wild rose caught in her skirt, and once she nearly stumbled over a stone. But step by step she drew nearer to the zebra. What a pretty little thing he was! He looked so tired – his front legs were crossed over each other, and his head was thrown back into a cluster of ferns; she could see the Sleepo rising regularly, in tiny puffs, through the ferns, like pale blue smoke.

She was nearly on him now, and was just about to undo the lid of her jar, when suddenly the air was rent with a shrill cry. Out of the shadows leapt a boy, with a ragged shirt and red hair. Over his head he waved a glass jar. With a single jump he landed on the zebra’s back and clamped the jar over its nose. For a second the poor little beast seemed stunned, then it jumped to its feet with a loud neigh. The boy was still holding the jar to its nose, but when the zebra leapt up, he was thrown from its back into a bramble bush. As he fell, he clutched his jar very closely to him.

The zebra darted away into the woods and the boy scrambled to his feet. Judy wondered where she had seen him before; then she remembered … of course, it was Sam, whose grandfather had just bought the only other shop in the wood, which was called The Shop in the Ford. (We will tell you more about this shop later.)

Judy did not like the look of Sam very much, but she was a polite little girl, so she said, ‘Good afternoon.’

‘What’s good about the afternoon?’ snapped Sam. ‘And who are you, anyway?’

‘I live in The Shop Under the Willow Tree.’

‘That old dump!’ Sam made a rude face. ‘I wouldn’t live in a place like that if you paid me a thousand pounds.’

Judy was about to say that it was not very likely that anybody would want to pay him a thousand pounds, when she noticed that his knee was scratched.

‘Oh, you’ve hurt yourself!’ she cried.

‘It’s nothing,’ he retorted. ‘And anyway it’s none of your business.’

‘Really,’ thought Judy, ‘he is the rudest boy I ever met.’ However, she made another effort to be pleasant.

‘Were you collecting Sleepo?’ she asked.

‘Sleepo! That stuff! Of course not. I was collecting Wakeo.’

‘Wakeo? Whatever’s that?’

‘It wakes you up. Every time you startle an animal out of its sleep its breath has got a lot of Wakeo in it. Only don’t you go collecting it, because my grandfather’s going to patent it.’

‘I certainly shouldn’t dream of collecting such a thing,’ replied Judy indignantly.

‘You couldn’t even if you tried,’ sneered Sam, ‘because you have to have a magic jar, or it escapes. And anyway, you’d be too frightened.’

‘No I wouldn’t.’

‘Yes you would.’

‘No I wouldn’t.’ Judy stamped her foot. ‘It isn’t because I’d be frightened but because I think it’s very unkind to go jumping about on animals’ backs when they’re tired out and want to sleep.’

‘Pooh! Who cares about being kind to a lot of silly animals?’

‘I do. Besides, I’m quite sure it can’t be good for people to take Wakeo.’

‘Oh, yes it is! It makes them jump and sing and go on like mad. Old Mrs Parrot bought some the other day; she’s a hundred and eight; and after the first dose she climbed to the top of a tree and began to sing hymns.’

‘I don’t think people ought to sing hymns on the tops of trees, not if they’re a hundred and eight,’ replied Judy severely. ‘She might have fallen down and broken her neck.’

‘All the better,’ chuckled Sam. ‘Then we could have sold her some Necko to mend it again.’

‘Don’t you ever think of anything but selling things and making money?’ asked Judy.

‘Not very often. I’m going to be a millionaire. That’s more than you’ll ever be. In fact, if you don’t look out, you won’t have anything left at all. You’ll be turned out of that old shop of yours.’

Judy felt a little cold shudder run down her spine, for her grannie was very poor, and was always afraid of being turned out of the shop.

‘How do you mean?’ she whispered.

‘I mean that all the animals are going to come to our shop. We’re going to sell all sorts of new things, and they’ll be much cheaper, and we’re going to advertise.’

‘Advertise? Whatever’s that?’

‘Of course you wouldn’t know. It means painting things on tree trunks and writing things on leaves.’

‘What sort of things?’

‘Things letting the animals know that we’ve got everything they want – telling them that we can cure them of all their illnesses.’

‘But can you?’

‘Of course not, but we shall say we can. What does it matter as long as we get their money?’

‘It sounds downright wicked!’ cried Judy.

‘You only say that because you didn’t think of it yourself.’

‘I should be ashamed if I did think of such things. It’s wicked … telling lies to poor animals.’

‘Oh, you are goody-goody!’ jeered Sam.

‘I don’t care if I am. I’d rather be goody-goody than a thief.’

Sam shrugged his shoulders and grinned. ‘Have it your own way, goody-goody,’ he said.

Judy could bear it no longer. She turned on her heel and ran rapidly through the wood. And after her came the harsh echo of Sam’s voice, growing fainter and fainter as she plunged deeper into the shadows:

Goody-goody Judy

Judy, Judy

Goody-goody Judy

Judy … Judy …

Chapter Two

THE STRANGEST SHOP IN THE WORLD

THE SHOP UNDER the Willow Tree might just as well have been called The Shop In the Willow Tree, because it would have been impossible to say where the shop began and where the Tree ended. It was a very old tree indeed, so old that the trunk had split open, forming a sort of cave, in which there was always a candle burning at night. When it was cold, Mrs Judy slept in the cave; otherwise she slept in a hammock high up in the branches. She used to swing backwards and forwards in the wind, and if you had looked up through the branches, on a wild night when the clouds were scurrying across the moon, you would have thought that she was some strange bird that was resting there.

The main business of the shop was conducted in what Mrs Judy called the ‘Extension’. This was really an immense branch which had sagged away from the trunk, through sheer age, and had come to rest on the ground, forming a sort of arch. The branch was not dead; it was just old, and it felt that it had earned the right to sit down. And so the arch was a living arch, pale green in spring, gold in autumn, bare in winter – but always strong and warm. Underneath the arch Mrs Judy had dragged an old log, and it was this log which served as a counter.

Apart from the Tree itself and the ‘Extension’ there was another department which Mrs Judy called the ‘Bargain Basement’. This had originally been only a dip in the ground, but Mrs Judy had hollowed it out till it was about four feet deep, and cut some steps down to it, and scooped away the earth from the rocks, which were large and flat, and made excellent shelves. On these shelves were displayed an extraordinary variety of objects, ranging from coconuts for the tits to toy mice for the Manx children.

It was really a wonderful shop, and there were hundreds of things that would have interested you, stored away in the hollows of the trunk or hanging from the branches. But we have not time to look at any more of them just now, because Judy is coming home and we must get on with our story.

*

When Judy had told her grandmother about Sam, Mrs Judy looked very grave.

‘I was afraid this would happen one day,’ she said. ‘We are faced with Competition.’

‘What is “competition”, Grannie?’

‘Some people call it “progress”, others call it “the survival of the fittest”; but whatever name they use, it is always cruel.’

‘Never mind. We shall pull through somehow.’

‘It will not be easy. I am very old.’

‘But the animals all love us.’

‘Yes – but animals are simple creatures. They are not as simple as humans, of course, who spend their whole lives being cheated and deceived. If a man wants to make up his mind about something, he has to read a book about it, and even then the book will often tell him lies. But an animal can sum up a man’s character in a single sniff; an animal can tell whether a man is a friend or an enemy simply by listening to his footfall on the grass. And that is really the most important thing in life, to know who are our friends and who are our enemies.’

‘In that case, surely the animals will know that Sam and his grandfather are their enemies?’

Mrs Judy sighed. ‘I wonder. Those two sound as if they are very cunning. And remember – they are going to give the animals something new, something from the outside world, of which they have no experience. For instance, you told me that they are going to use advertisements. Now human beings know that advertisements are often just another name for lies. Some advertisements are true, of course, some are half-true, but many are plain unvarnished lies. The animals will not know this, because the advertisements will be written up in print, and the only print the animals have ever seen has been in our own shop, and we have never printed anything that has not been true. So the animals will think that print and truth are the same, and if we tell them that print can tell a lie, they will only think that we are jealous.’

‘Oh, why did they ever come to the wood?’ cried Judy. ‘We were so happy here.’

Mrs Judy stroked her hair. ‘We shall be happy again,’ said Mrs Judy. ‘But we shall have to think. We shall have to get some new ideas ourselves – better ideas than any that Sam can think of.’

‘But where shall we get them?’

‘From the Tree of course.’ Mrs Judy spoke quite sharply. She had lived so long under the old willow, climbing its great branches by day, sleeping snugly among its giant roots at night, that she had come to regard the Tree as almost human. More than human, in fact, for she felt that the Tree had some magical power to protect them both, that no harm could come to them as long as they dwelt in its shadow.

‘I don’t see how the Tree can give us any ideas,’ sighed Judy.

‘Ssh! Don’t say such things!’ Mrs Judy looked anxiously upwards; she was afraid that the Tree might hear, and be offended. And sure enough, at that moment there came a cold gust of wind that set the branches swaying and set up a thousand little whispers among the leaves, as though the Tree were murmuring to itself.

But what was it saying? What was the message it was trying to give them?

‘Time will tell,’ she thought. And with that, she had to be content.

Chapter Three

PLOTS AND PLANS

IT IS THE day of the opening of The Shop in the Ford, and we had better pay it a visit before the animals get there, or it will be too crowded to see anything.

When Sam and his grandfather had first come to the wood, the Ford had been a very battered old car, abandoned years ago by some adventurous tourist, who had wandered off the beaten track and lost his way. Brambles thrust through the windows; there was no engine, there were no tyres, and nettles were growing out of the radiator. However, after Sam had cleared the ground, and mended the roof, and given it a coat of bright blue paint, it looked quite smart. And the animals, who had never seen a car before, thought it was very grand indeed.

‘Will it really go?’ demanded PC Monkey. (He was the policeman of the wood, and Sam had got on the right side of him by giving him a bag of nuts.)

‘Of course it will go,’ replied Sam.

‘Where is the engine?’

‘Underneath the bonnet.’

PC Monkey, to Sam’s great annoyance, had then proceeded to lift up the bonnet and peer inside.

‘But there isn’t anything here,’ he exclaimed.

Sam cursed; he would have liked to call PC Monkey a meddling young fool, but he did not dare to offend the law. So he thought for a moment and said, ‘It’s an invisible engine. They go much better than the ordinary ones.’

This had impressed PC Monkey so much that he had gone all through the wood, telling the animals about Sam’s wonderful invisible engine. They had all believed him except Mr Justice Owl, the Chief Magistrate of the wood. Mr Justice Owl had merely sniffed, and observed:

‘In the eyes of the law there is no such thing as an invisible engine.’

‘But the eyes of the law couldn’t see it,’ replied PC Monkey, ‘because it is invisible.’ He thought this was a very clever reply.

‘An invisible engine,’ summed up Mr Justice Owl, ‘is not evidence.’ And when he said something was ‘not evidence’ it was no use arguing with him any more. There was nothing worse than being ‘not evidence’ in the eyes of Mr Justice Owl; if you were ‘not evidence’ you just weren’t worth thinking about. PC Monkey was never quite sure what was evidence and what was not evidence, but if ever Mr Justice Owl told him that he was not he felt that it would be more than he could bear; he would go and hang himself by his tail on the highest tree in the wood.

*

On the morning of the opening, Sam was up early.

Instead of ‘up’ I should perhaps have written ‘down’ for Sam and his grandfather lived in a cave, and Sam slept in the top bunk. It was made of rough planks, and it was filled with hay; sometimes when Sam was getting out of it he stepped on his grandfather’s long beard, because it was warmer than the stone floor. Which shows the sort of person he was, because no polite little boy would deliberately step on his grandfather’s beard, however warm it might be.

Sam finished the work he was doing, and then he went back to the cave, pushed his head inside, and shouted ‘Get Up!’

With a great many mutterings and groanings, Old Sam shuffled out of bed, pulled on his shirt and stuck on his hat and wandered outside, blinking in the September sunlight. When he could see clearly he gazed with astonishment at the object which young Sam was holding up before him.

It was a huge notice-board, and it read like this:

THE SHOP IN THE FORD

Principal Emporium

of

The Animal Kingdom

UNDER ROYAL PATRONAGE

All the Latest Goods

Underneath, in smaller letters, was written:

Goods Delivered to your Door

Try our Speciality – Wakeo!

Visit Our Information Bureau

Special Terms for Large Families

‘What d’you think of it?’ demanded Sam proudly.

Old Sam scratched his head. ‘Looks pretty good to me. Only …’

‘Only what?’

‘What’s an emporium?’

‘It’s another name for a store.’

‘Well why not say so?’

‘Oh, don’t be dumb!’ snapped Sam. ‘We want to make a splash. We want to impress these darned animals, and that’s the way to do it. They’ll spend much more money if they think they’re spending it in an Emporium instead of just an ordinary store.’

Old Sam scratched his head again. ‘Maybe you’re right. But what’s that about royal patronage? I don’t remember seeing no Kings nor Queens round these parts lately.’

‘Gosh!’ cried Sam. ‘Why do they call animals “dumb” when things like you are walking about?’

‘That’s no way to speak to your grandfather,’ quavered the old man.

‘It’s the way I am speaking, so you can do what you like about it.’ Sam spat contemptuously on the grass. ‘Who’s going to prove we’re not under royal patronage? We’ve got a mail-order business, haven’t we?’