spread its red wings and rose up into the air!
“Peter! Chinky! Don't leave me here!” shouted Mollie, trying to wriggle away from the policeman.
“Chair, fly down again!” commanded Chinky.
But, do you know, the wishing-chair was so scared of being put into prison that it wouldn't do as it was told! It flew on, straight up into the air with Peter and Chinky, and left poor Mollie behind. Nothing Chinky could say would make that disobedient chair go down again to fetch Mollie. It flew on and on and was soon out of sight.
Mollie was terribly upset. She began to cry, and the policeman stared at her. “What is amusing you?” he asked. “What are you glad about?”
“I'm not amused or glad!” said Mollie. “I'm not like you silly topsy-turvy people, crying when I'm glad, and laughing when I'm sad. I don't belong to this horrid, stupid country at all!”
“Dear me, I didn't know that,” said the policeman, putting away his notebook. “Why didn't you say so before?”
“You never asked me,” said Mollie, half angry, half frightened. “My friend, the pixie who was here just now, will probably tell the pixie King how you kept me here, and he will be very angry indeed .”
“Oh, you must go home at once,” said the policeman, who was now shaking like a jelly with fright. “You shall catch a bus home. I will pay your fare myself. I will show you where the bus is.”
He took Mollie to a stopping-place—but as the buses all went straight on, and passengers had to jump on and off whilst it was going, Mollie thought it was silly to call it a stopping-place! It was a comical-looking bus, too, for although the driver drove it by a wheel, he had a whip by his side and cracked it loudly whenever the bus seemed to slow down, just as if it were a horse!
The policeman put Mollie on the bus as it came past the stopping-place and threw some money at the conductor. He picked it up and threw it back. Mollie thought that the topsy-turvy people were the maddest she had ever seen.
She sat down on a seat. “Standing room only in this bus,” said the conductor. “Give me your ticket, please.”
“Well, you've got to give me one,” said Mollie. “And what do you mean by saying 'standing room only?' There are heaps of seats.”
She sat down and the conductor glared at her. “The seats will be worn out if people keep sitting on them,” he said. “And where's your ticket, please?”
“I'll show it to you when you give me one,” said Mollie, impatiently. “Give me a ticket for home. I live in Hilltown.”
“Then you're going the wrong way,” said the conductor. “But as a matter of fact no bus goes to Hilltown. So you can stay in my bus if you like. One is as good as another.”
Mollie jumped up in a rage. She leapt out of the bus and began to walk back to where she had started from. What a silly place Topsy-Turvy Land was. She would never get home from here!
Just as she got back to the street from which the bus had started, Mollie saw Chinky! How pleased she was. She shouted to him and waved. “Chinky! Chinky! Here I am!”
Chinky saw her and grinned. He came over to her and gave her a hug.
“Sorry to have left you like that, Mollie,” he said. “The wishing-chair did behave badly. I've left it at home in the corner! It is very much ashamed of itself.”
“Well, if you left the chair at home how did you come here?” asked Mollie in astonishment.
“I borrowed a couple of Farmer Straw's geese,” grinned Chinky. “Look! There they are, over there. There's one for you to fly back on and one for me. Come on, or Farmer Straw will miss his fat old geese.”
“Chinky, quick! There's that policeman again!” cried Mollie suddenly. “Oh—and he's going to the geese—and getting his big notebook out—I'm sure he's going to ask them for a licence or something! Let's get them, quick!”
Chinky and Mollie raced to where the two geese were staring in great astonishment at the policeman, who was looking
Brian Herbert, Kevin J. Anderson