"Norton, Mary - Bedknob and Broomstick 01-02 - Bedknob and Broomstick" - читать интересную книгу автора (Norton Mary)

"Well, we didn't exactly enjoy ourselves," she admitted, and tried to push the tuft back again.
"You didn't!" exclaimed Miss Price. She looked worried.
Then out came the whole story. The children often interrupted each other, and sometimes they spoke in chorus, but gradually Miss Price pieced the pattern together. She became graver and graver as they described their adventures with the law and looked aghast when she heard they had actually been taken to the police station. She looked sad when Charles told her how the prison van had brought the bed into the yard and how they had stared at it through the barred window, but she brightened considerably when they got to the bit about the sergeant's garden. Carey copied Mrs. Watkins's voice saying, "Well, pop down and look at the bird, then, but don't you touch them dahlias." They didn't have to describe the rest. Miss Price knew too well what would happen once they were in reach of the bed. "Did anyone see you go?" she asked.
"No," said Carey, "that's when the sergeant went inside for his cup of tea."
"Did the bed go at once?"
"Yes, like a flash. The second that Paul wished. We'd hardly got on it."
"Well," said Miss Price thoughtfully, "let's hope they don't ring up your mother."
"Mother would say it couldn't have been us," pointed out
Charles. "She'd know we couldn't have been in London."
"That's true, Charles," agreed Carey. "And Aunt Beatrice would say at once that we were here. We couldn't have been in London, possibly."
Paul looked bewildered. "Then where were we?" he asked.
"Oh, Paul!" exclaimed Carey impatiently. She turned her back on him and watched Miss Price, who had begun once more to dig holes with the trowel. "What are you planting, Miss Price?"
"Edelweiss," said Miss Price absently. She sighed. "Well, all's well that ends well. You were lucky. It might have been worse, a good deal worse."
Carey watched Miss Price insert a silvery plant in the hole, and Charles rolled over sleepily to observe a formation of Valiants against the peaceful sky.
"I thought edelweiss only grew above the snow line," Carey remarked wonderingly.
Miss Price became rather pink and pursed up her lips. "It grows quite well in my garden," she said shortly.
Carey was silent. After she had thought awhile, she said carelessly, "Are you showing anything in the flower show, Miss Price?"
Miss Price's color deepened. "I might show a rose."
"A new rose?" asked Carey interestedly.
"No, a big one," said Miss Price.
"Can we see it?" asked Carey.
"Well, it's still in bud," said Miss Price unwillingly.
"Could we see the bud?"
"Oh dear, Carey," cried Miss Price, suddenly exasperated, "I'm sure it's your lunch time."
"Not till one o'clock," said Carey reassuringly. "Miss Price."
"Well?"
"If anyone was going in for a flower show, would it be fair for them to use magic?"
Miss Price flattened out the earth round the plant with a trowel. She banged it rather hard. "Perfectly fair," she said.
Carey was silent. Paul lay on his face, watching an earwig in the grass. He held one eye open with his finger. He was very sleepy. Miss Price dug another hole.
"What about the people who can't do magic?" asked Carey after a while.
"What about the people who can buy special fertilizers?" retorted Miss Price, jamming the plant in the hole upside down, and then pulling it out again. "What about the people with hothouses?" She shook the plant savagely to get the earth off the leaves. "What about the people who can afford expensive gardeners?" She sat back on- her heels and glared at Carey. "How am I to compete with Lady Warbuckle, for instance?"
Carey blinked her eyes. "I only wondered," she said timidly.
"I worked for my knowledge," said Miss Price grimly, starting on another hole. Her face was very red.
"Miss Price," began Carey again after a while.
"Well?"
"Why don't you make a whole lot of golden sovereigns?"
"Of golden sovereigns?"
"Yes, sacks and sacks of them. Then you could buy hothouses and fertilizers and things."
Miss Price sighed. She pushed her hat back a little from her forehead. "I have tried to explain to you, Carey, how difficult witchcraft is, but you still think I just have to wave a wand
for anything to happen. Have you ever heard of a rich witch?"
"No," admitted Carey, "I can't say I have."
"Well, I'll tell you why. Money is the hardest thing of all to make. That's why most witches live in hovels. Not because they like it. I was fortunate enough," she added primly, "to have a little annuity left me by my dear mother."
"Aren't there any spells for making money?"
"Dozens. But you can't get the ingredients. What people don't realize," went on Miss Price, "is that there are very few spells that can be done without paraphernalia. You must, if you understand, have something to turn into something and something to turn it twith."
"Yes," said Carey, "I see." And it was indeed as clear as daylight to her.
"And there are very few spells I know by heart," admitted Miss Price. "I have to have time to look them up. And quiet. I can't be fussed." She took up her trowel again. "If I'm fussed, everything goes straight out of my head. Now you must wake up those boys. There's the church clock striking three-quarters."
Carey got up unwillingly. "I wish," she said, "you'd come with us on the next adventure."
"Well," said Miss Price, "it depends on where you go. If I came, I'd like it a good deal better arranged than last night was, for instance."
"We'd let you choose," offered Carey.
"Well," said Miss Price brightly. "We could all plan it together, couldn't we?" She seemed flustered and pleased at the same time. "But not tonight. Beauty sleep tonight. . . ."