Arabel and Mortimer by Joan Aiken Page B

entrance to an underground parking garage, which was going to be right underneath Rainwater Crescent Garden. The excavator had dug its deep hole at the end of the garden where the children's sandpit used to be. Arabel was sorry about that; so was Mortimer. They had been fond of playing in the sandpit. Arabel liked building castles; Mortimer liked jumping on them and flattening them out. Also, he liked burrowing deep in the sand, working it in thoroughly among his feathers, and then waiting till he was home to shake himself out. But now there was a hole as deep as a house where the sandpit had been, and a lot of men standing round the edge of it, talking to one another and waving their arms in a very excited manner, while the excavator stood idly beside them, doing nothing, and hanging its head like a horse that wants its feedbag.

    While the excavator had been at work digging, a large crowd of people had collected to watch it. Now that it had stopped, they had all wandered off and were doing different things in the Crescent Garden. Some were flying kites. The kites were all kinds—like boats, like birds, like fish, and some that were just long silvery streamers which very easily got caught in trees and hung there flapping. Mr. Walpole the gardener hated that sort, because they looked untidy in
the trees, and the owners were always climbing up to rescue them, and breaking branches. Other people were skipping with skipping ropes. Others were skating on skateboards along the paved bit in the middle of the lawn where the band sometimes played. This was just right for skateboards, as it sloped up slightly at each end, which gave the skaters a good start, and they were doing beautiful things, turning and gliding and whizzing and jumping up into the air, and weaving past each other very cleverly.

    Arabel specially loved watching the skaters.
    "Oh, please, Ma," she said to her mother, who came into the bedroom presently and started rummaging crossly about in Arabel's clothes cupboard. "Oh, please, Ma, couldn't Mortimer and I have a skateboard? I
would
like one ever so much, and so would Mortimer, wouldn't you, Mortimer?"

    But Mortimer was looking out of the window very intently and did not reply.
    "A
skateboard
?" said Mrs. Jones, who seemed put out about something. "In the name of goodness, what will you think of next. I should think
not,
indeed! Nasty, dangerous things, break your leg as soon as you look at them, ought to be banned by Act of Parking Lot, they should, banging into people's shins and
shopping baskets in the High Street. Oh my dear cats alive,
now
what am I going to do? Granny Jones has just phoned to say she'll be coming tomorrow morning, and your blue velveteen pinafore at the cleaners' because of that time Mortimer got excited with the éclairs at Penny Conway's birthday party; and I haven't yet made you a dress out of that piece of pink georgette that Granny Jones brought for you the last time she came; I'll just have to run it up into a frock for you now; why ever in the world can't Granny Jones give us a bit more
notice
before she comes on a visit, I'd like to ask? There's the best sheets at the laundry, too, oh dear, I don't know I'm sure—"

    And Mrs. Jones bustled off down the stairs again.
    Arabel wrapped her arms round her knees. She liked Granny Jones, but the pink georgette sounded very chilly; Arabel hated having new clothes tried on because of the drafts, and her mother's cold hands, and the pins that sometimes got stuck in her; besides, she would much rather have gone on wearing her jeans and sweater.
    Mortimer the raven had taken no notice of this conversation. He was sitting as quiet as a mushroom, watching Mr. Walpole the gardener, who had gone to the shed where he kept his tools, and wheeled out an enormous grass-cutting machine called a LawnSabre.
    Just now this LawnSabre was Mortimer's favorite
thing in the whole world, and he spent a lot of every day hoping that he would see Mr.