"Blyton, Enid - Famous Five 11 - Have a Wonderful Time" - читать интересную книгу автора (Blyton Enid)

Chapter Six
UNFRIENDLY FOLK
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THE two boys decided they would fetch the water and stack up some firewood while the girls were gone. They "made" their bunks too, by the simple process of dragging off all the clothes and bundling them on the shelf, and then letting down the bunks against the wall.
That done there didn't seem much else to do except wait for the girls. So they took a walk round the field. They kept a good distance from the snake-man, who was doing something peculiar to one of his pythons.
"It looks as if he's polishing it, but he surely can't be," said Julian. "I'd like to go near enough to watch but he's such a hot-tempered little fellow he might quite well set one of those enormous pythons on to us!"
The snake-man was sitting on a box, with one snake spread over his knee, some of its coils round one of his legs, the other coils round his waist. The head appeared to be under his arm-pit. The man was rubbing away hard at the snake's scaly body, and it really seemed as if the python was enjoying it!
Bufflo was doing something with a whip. It had a magnificent handle, set with semi-precious stones that caught the sun and glittered in many colours.
"Look at the lash," said Julian. "Yards and yards long! I'd like to see him crack it!"
Almost as if he heard him, Bufflo got to his feet, and swung the great whip in his hand. Then he raised it - and a moment later there was a sound exactly like a pistol-shot! The lash cracked as it was whipped through the air, and the two boys jumped, not expecting such a loud noise.
Bufflo cracked it again. Then he whistled and a small plump woman came to the steps of his caravan.
"You mended it yet?" she called.
"Perhaps," said Bufflo. "Get a cigarette, Skippy. Hurry!"
Skippy put her hand into the caravan, felt along a shelf, and brought out a packet of cigarettes. She didn't go down the steps, but stood there, holding out the cigarette between her finger and thumb.
Bufflo swung his whip. CRACK! The cigarette disappeared as if by magic! The boys stared in amazement. Surely the end of the lash hadn't whipped that cigarette from Skippy's fingers? It didn't seem possible.
"There it is," said Bufflo, pointing some distance away. "Hold it again, Skippy. I reckon this whip is okay now."
Skippy picked up the cigarette and put it in her mouth!
"No!" called Bufflo. "I ain't sure enough of this lash yet. You hold it like you did."
Skippy took it out of her mouth and held out the cigarette in her finger and thumb once more.
CRACK! Like a pistol-shot the whip cracked again, and once more the cigarette disappeared.
"Aw, Bufflo - you've gone and broken it in half," said Skippy, reproachfully, pointing to where it lay on the ground, neatly cut in half. "That was real careless of you."
Bufflo said nothing. He merely turned his back on Skippy, and set to work on his lash again, though what he was doing neither of the boys could make out. They went a little nearer to see.
Bufflo had his back to them but he must have heard them coming. "You clear out," he said, hardly raising his voice. "No kids allowed round here. Clear out - or I'll crack my whip and take the top hairs off your head!"
Julian and Dick felt perfectly certain he would be able to carry out his threat, and they retreated with as much dignity as they could. "I suppose the snake-man told him what a disturbance old Timmy made yesterday with the snakes," said Dick. "I hope it won't spoil things for us with all the fair-folk."
They went across the field and on the way met Mr. India-rubber. They couldn't help staring at him. He honestly looked as if he were made of rubber - he was a curious grey, the grey of an ordinary school rubber, and his skin looked rubbery too.
He scowled at the two boys. "Clear out," he said. "No kids allowed in our field."
Julian was annoyed. "It's our field as much as yours," he said. "We've got a couple of caravans here - those over there."
"Well, this has always been our field," said Mr. India-rubber. "So you clear out to the next one."
"We haven't any horses to pull our caravans, even if we wanted to go, which we don't," retorted Julian, angrily. "Anyway, why should you object to us? We'd like to be friendly. We shan't do you any harm, or make a nuisance of ourselves."
"Us-folk and you-folk don't mix," said the man, obstinately. "We don't want you here - nor them posh caravans down there, neither," and he pointed to the three modern caravans in one corner of the field. "This has always been our field."
"Don't let's argue about it," said Dick, who had been looking at the man with the greatest curiosity. "Are you really so rubbery that you can wriggle in and out of pipes and things? Do you -"
But he didn't have time to finish his question because the rubber-man flung himself down on the ground, did a few strange contortions, nicked himself between the boys' legs - and there they both were, flat on the ground! The rubber-man was walking off, looking quite pleased with himself.
"Well!" said Dick, feeling a bump on his head. "I tried to grab his legs and they honestly felt like rubber! I say - what a pity these people resent us being in their field. It's not going to be very pleasant to have them all banded against us. Not fair either. I should like to be friendly."
"Well, perhaps it's just a case of us-folk and you-folk," said Julian. "There's a lot of that kind of feeling about these days, and it's so silly. We're all the same under the skin. We've always got on well with anyone before."
They hardly liked to go near the other caravans, though they longed to have a closer view of Alfredo the Fire-Eater.
"He looked so exactly like what I imagined a fire-eater ought to be," said Dick. "I should think he's probably chief of all the fair-folk here-if they've got a chief."
"Look - here he comes!" said Julian. And sure enough, round the corner came Alfredo, running fast. He came towards the boys, and Julian at first thought that he was coming to chase them away. He didn't mean to run from Alfredo, but it wasn't very pleasant standing still, either, with this enormous fellow racing towards them, his cheeks as red as fire, his great mane of hair flopping up and down.
And then they saw why Alfredo was running! After him came his tiny little dark wife. She was shrieking at him in some foreign language, and was chasing him with a saucepan!
Alfredo lumbered by the two boys, looking scared out of his life. He went down to the stile, leapt over it and disappeared down the lane.
The little dark woman watched him go. When he turned to look round she waved the saucepan at him.
"Big bad one!" she cried. "You burn breakfast again! Again, again! I bang you with saucepan, big bad one. Come, Alfredo, come!"
But Alfredo had no intention of coming. The angry little woman turned to the two boys. "He burn breakfast," she said. "He no watch, he burn always."
"It seems queer for a fire-eater to burn something he's cooking," said Julian. "Though, on second thoughts, perhaps it's not!"
"Poof! Fire-eating, it is easy!" said Alfredo's hot-tempered little wife. "Cooking is not so easy. It needs brains and eyes and hands. But Fredo, he has no brains, his hands are clumsy - he can only eat fire, and what use is that?"
"Well - I suppose he makes money by it," said Dick, amused.
"He is my big bad one," said the little woman. She turned to go and then turned back again with a sudden smile. "But he is very good sometimes," she said.
She went back to her caravan. The boys looked at one another. "Poor Alfredo," said Dick. "He looks as brave as a lion, and he's certainly a giant of a man-but he's as timid as a mouse. Fancy running away from that tiny little woman."
"Well, I'm not so sure I wouldn't too, if she came bounding over the field after me, brandishing that dangerous-looking saucepan," said Julian. "Ah-who's this?"
The man that Anne had thought might be the one who could set himself free when bound with ropes was coming up from the stile. He walked easily and lightly, really very like a cat. Julian glanced at his hands - they were small but looked very strong. Yes - he could certainly undo knots with hands like that. They gazed at him curiously.
"No kids allowed here," said the man, as he came up.