Adventures of the Wishing-Chair by Enid Blyton Read Free Book Online

scared.
    “I say!” he said. “Where’s the chair gone?”
    Chinky and Mollie looked round too. Mollie went pale.
    “It’s gone!” she said.
    “It was here when we began our game,” said Chinky. “It must have slipped out without us noticing. I sort of remember feeling a little draught. It must have been its wings flapping.”
    “Whiskers has gone too!” said Mollie, in alarm.
    “She was asleep on the cushion. Oh, Chinky—will she come back?”
    “Depends where she has gone to,” said Chinky. “She’s a black cat, you know—and if a witch should see her she might take her to help in her spells. Black cats are clever with spells.”
    Mollie began to cry. She was very fond of Whiskers. “Oh, why did we let Whiskers go to sleep on that chair?” she wept.
    “Well, it’s no good crying,” said Chinky, patting Mollie’s shoulder. “We must just wait and see. Perhaps old Whiskers will come back still fast asleep when the chair returns!”
    They waited for an hour or two with the door wide open but no wishing-chair came back. The two children left Chinky and went to their dinner. They hunted about the house just in case Whiskers should have got off the chair cushion and wandered home—but no one had seen her at all.
    After dinner they ran down the garden to their playroom again. Chinky was there, looking gloomy.
    “The chair hasn’t come back,” he said.
    But, just as he spoke, Peter gave a shout and pointed up into the sky. There was the chair, flapping its way back, all its red wings twinkling up and down.
    “Look! There’s the chair! Oh, I do hope Whiskers is on her cushion. Suppose she has fallen out!”
    The chair flapped its way downwards, and flew in at the open door. It came to rest in its usual place and gave a sigh and a creak. The children rushed to it.
    There was no cat there! The cushion was still in its place, with a dent in the middle where Whiskers had lain—but that was all!
    The three stared at one another in dismay.
    “Whiskers has been caught by a witch,” said Chinky. “There’s no doubt about it. Look at this!”
    He picked up a tiny silver star that lay on the seat of the chair. “This little star has fallen off a witch’s embroidered cloak.”
    “Poor Whiskers!” wept Mollie. “I do want her back. Oh, Chinky, what shall we do?”
    “Well, we’d better find out first where she’s gone,” said Chinky. “Then, the next time the chair grows its wings we’ll go and rescue her.”
    “How can we find out where she’s gone?” asked Mollie, drying her eyes.
    “I’ll have to work a spell to find that out,” said Chinky. “I’ll have to get a few pixies in to help me. Go and sit down on the couch, Mollie and Peter, and don’t speak a word until I’ve finished. The pixies won’t help me if you interfere. They are very shy just about here.”
    Mollie and Peter did as they were told. They sat down on the couch feeling rather excited. Chinky went to the open door and clapped his hands softly three times, then loudly seven times. He whistled like a blackbird, and then called a magic word that sounded like “Looma, looma, looma, loo.”

    In a minute or two four little pixies, a bit smaller than Chinky, who was himself a pixie, came running in at the door. They stopped when they saw the two children, but Chinky said they were his friends.
    “They won’t interfere,” he said. “I want to do a spell to find out where this wishing-chair has just been to. Will you help me?”
    The pixies twittered like swallows and nodded their heads. Chinky sat down in the wishing-chair, holding in his hands a mirror that he had borrowed from Mollie. The four little pixies joined hands and danced round the chair, first one way and then another, chanting a magic song that got higher and higher and quicker and quicker as they danced round in time to their singing.

    Chinky looked intently into the mirror, and the children watched, wondering what he would see there. Suddenly the four