Mary-Mary Makes the Morning Exciting
ONE Saturday morning Mary-Mary’s mother was out, and Mary-Mary’s big brothers and sisters were all feeling rather dull. They wandered about the house and in and out of the garden, saying, “What shall we do? How boring everything is! I wish something interesting would happen.”
“What sort of interesting?” said Mary-Mary, who was blowing air into a paper bag.
“Oh, anything,” said Miriam.
“Some men coming to dig up the road,” said Martyn.
“Or the fire engine coming,” said Mervyn.
“Or someone cutting a tree down,” said Meg.
Mary-Mary screwed up the top of the bag, then clapped her hands on it so that it burst with a loud pop. Then she said, “If I wanted something interesting to happen I’d make it happen,” and she stumped off upstairs.
A few minutes later Miriam, Martyn, Mervyn, and Meg heard a great thumping and bumping noise going on overhead. They all ran out into the hall and shouted up the stairs, “What ever are you doing, Mary-Mary?”
“Something exciting,” said Mary-Mary.
“Well, stop it,” they said.
“You won’t say that when you see me come floating down the stairs,” said Mary-Mary.
“What ever do you mean?” said Miriam.
“I’m learning to fly,” said Mary-Mary.
“It sounds as if you’re jumping off the bed,” said Miriam.
“Oh, no, I’m flying off the bed,” said Mary-Mary. “Like Peter Pan.”
“Well, don’t,” said Miriam. “The ceiling will fall down.”
“Well, that would be exciting too,” said Mary-Mary.
“Don’t be silly,” said Miriam, Martyn, Mervyn, and Meg all together, and they went back into the sitting-room.
Mary-Mary stopped trying to fly, and instead she fetched Moppet from the top of the toy cupboard and whispered in his ear, “You and I will go and do something exciting all by ourselves. We’ll play shipwrecks in the bath.”
She fetched her little sailing-boat and carried it into the bathroom with Moppet. Then she filled the bath with water, put Moppet in the little boat, and floated him out to sea in the middle of the bath.
Moppet floated round quite nicely in the little boat for a while, then Mary-Mary said, “Look out, sailor—there’s a storm coming up in a minute!” And she took the bath-brush and stirred up the water into little waves, so that the boat rocked up and down, just as if it were in a rough sea.
Some of the water splashed over the edge of the bath and made Mary-Mary’s feet wet, so she took off her shoes and socks. Then she locked the bathroom door.
“I will hide the key in a safe and secret place,” she said to Moppet, “because it would be a pity if someone came in while the sea was rough and interrupted me just as I was going to save you.”
Then, when she had hidden the key, she stirred up some more waves with the bath-brush, and slowly the little boat filled with water and began to sink.
“Save me!” she squeaked in Moppet’s voice.
“Yes,” said Mary-Mary in a beautiful, dreamy voice. “I am a mermaid and I will save you.”
She reached down into the water and pulled Moppet out just before the little boat sank to the bottom. Then she sat on the edge of the bath, at the tap end, with Moppet in her lap.
“Oh, thank you, thank you!” she squeaked. “You have saved my life. Tell me who you are.”
“I am a mermaid,” sang Mary-Mary in the beautiful dreamy voice, “and I am sitting on a rock in the middle of the sea, combing my beautiful long hair.” And, as she had no comb, she brushed her hair with the big bath-brush until it stood out in short, wet spikes all round her head.
“I have a beautiful palace at the bottom of the sea, all made of shells,” she sang, “and you shall come there with me and be my mermouse, and we will live happily ever after.”
Then she let the plug out, and when the water had run away she and Moppet climbed in and sat in the bottom of the bath and had a large pretend feast of fish and shrimps in the mermaid’s palace.
But the bottom of the bath was cold and wet. So after a while Mary-Mary said to Moppet, “I’m getting rather tired of living happily ever after, aren’t you? Let’s get out and be ordinary people again.” And they climbed out of the bath and went to open the door. But the door of the bathroom was locked.
Mary-Mary rattled the handle; then she remembered.
“Of course,” she said. “I locked it myself. And I hid the key in a safe and secret place. Now, I wonder where that could have been? Oh, yes—I expect it was under the bath.”
But it wasn’t. Mary-Mary looked all round the bathroom, under the bath, in the laundry box, and on the window-sill; but she couldn’t find the key anywhere.
“It must have been a safe and secret place if I can’t even find it myself,” she said.
Then she heard the others calling to her. “Where are you, Mary-Mary?”
“I’m here,” said Mary-Mary.
“Come down at once,” said Miriam.
“I can’t,” said Mary-Mary.
“Why not?” said Martyn.
“I can’t unlock the door,” said Mary-Mary.
“Oh, goodness!” said Meg. “Now what are we going to do?”
They all stood outside the door and rattled the handle and talked and shouted and banged on the door, but still Mary-Mary was shut up inside.
“Can’t you really remember where you put the key?” said Miriam.
“No, truly I can’t,” said Mary-Mary. And she truly couldn’t. “Perhaps it’s gone down the plug-hole,” she said.
“Oh, you silly girl,” said Miriam, Martyn, Mervyn, and Meg all together, and they all went on talking and arguing about how they should get her out.
Miriam went to ask Miss Summers next door if she could help, but Miss Summers was out. Then Meg went to ask Mr Bassett, who lived near by; but he was out too.
Mary-Mary began to get tired of being shut up in the bathroom.
“I’m getting hungry,” she said.
“Oh, goodness!” said Meg, outside the door. “Will she starve?”
“Of course she won’t,” said Mervyn.
“But we ought to get her out, all the same,” said Martyn.
“What ever shall we do?” said Miriam.
They whispered and talked outside the door for a bit longer. Then all of a sudden Martyn said, “I know! We could get the fire brigade.”
“But why?” said the others. “There isn’t a fire.”
“No,” said Martyn, “but they have long ladders and things. I believe that’s what people do when they get stuck in places: they ask the firemen to come and get them out.”
“Yes, of course,” said Miriam. “Why didn’t I think of it before? We’d better go and telephone them.”
Then Mary-Mary heard them all running away downstairs.
She forgot to feel hungry any more and began to feel rather excited, looking forward to the firemen coming. But what a pity it would be, she thought, if she should miss seeing the fire engine drive up to the house.
“If only I could find the key I could get out and watch them arrive,” she said to herself. “Anyway, I may as well get all ready just in case I find it.”
So she tidied up the bathroom and put on her socks, and then, when she went to put on her shoe, out fell the key on to the floor!
“Of course!” said Mary-Mary. “Now I remember. I put it in my shoe on purpose so that I could forget where it was if anyone came up suddenly and told me to open the door.”
When Miriam, Martyn, Mervyn, and Meg had finished telephoning they all went on to the front step to wait for the fire brigade.
In a very short while they heard the clanging of a bell, and a moment later the big red fire engine came roaring up the road and stopped at the front gate. Then four firemen, in helmets and big black boots, jumped quickly down and ran one after the other up the front path to the house. It was a splendid sight.
Miriam explained all about how her poor little sister had been locked up in the bathroom for hours, and Mother was out, and they hadn’t known what to do.
“That’s all right,” said the biggest fireman. “Don’t you worry. We’ll have her out in no time.”
Then the four firemen went tramping up the stairs in their big black boots, with Miriam, Martyn, Mervyn, and Meg all following behind and telling them which way to go.
But when they got to the landing they all stopped and stared at each other, and the four children said, “Oh!” and the four firemen said, “What’s the meaning of this? Have you children been playing a joke on us?” For the bathroom door was wide open and there was no Mary-Mary to be seen!
“No, truly she was here!” they cried. “She was locked in, and we didn’t know what to do. Oh, where ever can she be?” And they all ran from room to room calling her.
Then one of the firemen opened the front bedroom window, and they all looked down into the garden, and there what should they see but Mary-Mary standing by the gate with a whole crowd of people.
The four Merry children were there, and Tommy from up the road, and Stanley, the grocer’s boy, with his bicycle, and quite a few grown-ups as well. And Mary-Mary was waving her hand at the fire engine, just as if she owned it, and saying, “Yes, it is nice, isn’t it? It was ordered specially for me on the telephone.”
“But where’s the fire?” said Stanley, the grocer’s boy.
“There isn’t one,” said Mary-Mary. “Don’t be silly. We didn’t want a fire; we only wanted a fire engine.”
“Ooh, you are lucky!” said Tommy from up the road. “I wish the fire engine would come to our house.”
Just then Miriam and the others saw Mother hurrying up the road with her shopping-basket on her arm. They all ran downstairs as fast as they could to meet her.
“It’s all right,” they cried, “there isn’t a fire!” Then they told her all about what had happened.
“Thank goodness for that!” said Mother, and she hurried indoors and told the firemen how sorry she was, and how the children had really thought they were doing the right thing. Then she made them all a cup of tea.
The firemen were very nice and said accidents did happen sometimes, and they were glad the children hadn’t been playing a joke on them, because that would be a very serious matter. Then every one suddenly remembered that Mary-Mary was still outside the front gate. So Mother sent Miriam to fetch her in.
Mary-Mary came in with her wet hair still sticking out in spikes all round her head, and her hands and knees black where she had climbed up on the wall to watch the fire engine arrive. Her face was black too, where she had rubbed it with her hands.
“I know now what I’m going to be when I grow up,” she said, smiling brightly at them all. “I’m going to be a fire lady.”
“So you’re the young lady who was locked up in the coal cellar?” said one of the firemen.
“Oh, no,” said Mary-Mary. “I was locked up in the bathroom.”
“Were you really, now?” said the fireman. “I wonder what made me think it was the coal cellar.”
Mary-Mary couldn’t think either; but, as everybody laughed, she laughed too. It was fun having four real firemen drinking tea in her house on a Saturday morning.
When they had finished their tea the firemen showed Miriam, Martyn, Mervyn, and Meg all sorts of interesting things: the ladders with hooks on them for climbing up the walls of houses; the hoses, coiled up tightly like Swiss rolls, that could be joined together to make one long one if they wanted it; and even the little iron lid that covered the hole in the road where they got the water to put out a fire.
Then they all said good-bye, and thank you for the tea, and thank you for coming; and Miriam, Martyn, Mervyn, Meg, and Mary-Mary waved until the fire engine was out of sight.
“Well, that was fun!” said Miriam.
“Just what we wanted!” said Martyn.
“Better than having the road dug up,” said Mervyn.
“Or a tree cut down,” said Meg.
“I’m so glad you liked it,” said Mary-Mary, smiling proudly at them all.
“Good gracious, Mary-Mary!” they said. “Do you mean to say you did all that on purpose?”
“No, not quite,” said Mary-Mary. “I really did lose the key. But when I found it again I thought how disappointed you’d all be, because I knew you so specially wanted something interesting to happen. And I couldn’t dig up the road for you, or cut a tree down, but I’d jolly nearly got you a fire engine without meaning to, so I ran away and hid because I thought it would be such a pity to spoil it.”
“That was sweet of you,” said Miriam.
“You are a sport,” said Martyn.
“Thanks awfully, Mary-Mary,” said Mervyn.
“But you’d better not do it again,” said Meg.
“Oh, no,” said Mary-Mary, “once is enough. But I am glad you all enjoyed it.”
So Mary-Mary made the morning exciting, after all, and that is the end of the story.