Clever Polly and the Stupid Wolf Read online

‘I’ll Huff,’ he announced loudly and dramatically, ‘and I’ll Puff and I’ll Blow your house down.’

  There was a feeble little hiss of air, just the kind of noise a dying balloon makes. Then there was a silence.

  ‘Perhaps you didn’t use them properly,’ Polly called out.

  ‘I only know one way to use bellows,’ the wolf said, very puzzled. ‘Perhaps I didn’t open them far enough.’

  There was a cracking, tearing sound and Polly, as she came out from under the table, saw the wolf throw a pair of broken bellows over the garden wall.

  ‘Guaranteed,’ he muttered crossly to himself. ‘I’ll show them. I could make a better gale of forty miles an hour by blowing myself, with my head tied up in a bag. Bellows indeed.’

  ‘Then you won’t be able to blow the house down,’ Polly said comfortably, seating herself on the window seat again.

  ‘Oh, yes I shall,’ said the wolf, fumbling in his suitcase again. ‘I’ve got a thing here – it works by gunpowder, so it’s awfully powerful. It’ll blow the house down as soon as look at you.’

  From the suitcase he produced something the size and shape of a small vegetable marrow, in a paper bag slightly too small for it.

  ‘What is it?’ Polly asked, very much interested.

  ‘A bomb,’ the wolf said casually. ‘Just a small one, but it’s supposed to be able to blow up a small village or a large factory, so I should think it would about finish your little house, wouldn’t you?’

  He felt inside the paper bag and pulled out a sheet of closely printed pink paper.

  ‘Instructions,’ he read out. ‘How to work the Wonder Bomb, and Guarantee for satisfactory results.’

  ‘Guarantee,’ he snarled suddenly. He screwed the paper up and threw it over the wall.

  ‘Now then,’ he said. He held the paper bag upside down and shook it. ‘Won’t come out,’ he said, puzzled.

  ‘Oh, be careful,’ Polly implored him. ‘If you let that bomb drop it may go off and blow us all up.’

  ‘I’ve got to get it out of the bag first,’ the wolf complained. ‘I can’t see how it works until I get it out.’

  He continued to shake the bag vigorously. Suddenly the paper tore, and the wolf just managed to catch the bomb as it fell.

  ‘Now,’ he said, smelling it doubtfully all round. ‘Somewhere there must be something you have to do to get it to go off. The man in the shop did show me but I can’t quite remember. A pin you pull out, I think, or push in, or something like that.’

  ‘Oh, do be careful,’ Polly said anxiously. She was terribly frightened, but it didn’t seem much use to go and hide anywhere if the whole house was going to be blown up at any moment.

  ‘Instructions,’ the wolf said suddenly. ‘There should be some instructions.’

  He looked inside the torn paper bag. Then he looked in his suitcase. Then he looked at Polly. A moment later he was bounding over the garden wall in the direction in which he had thrown the crumpled ball of pink paper.

  ‘Ow,’ Polly heard from the other side of the wall. ‘Ow. Wow! Ugh! Bother these nettles! Wow!’

  The wolf climbed back into the garden. He sat down on the grass and licked his paws. He had no piece of pink paper.

  ‘You grow a lot of nettles outside your garden,’ he said crossly. ‘And I can’t find the instructions anywhere. I shall have to guess.’

  He smelt the bomb again.

  ‘There’s a bit sticking out just here. Supposing I push it in?’

  Polly summoned all her courage.

  ‘All right,’ she said, as calmly as she could. ‘But you know the danger?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘If it makes the bomb go off at once –’

  ‘It will blow your house up,’ interrupted the wolf triumphantly.

  ‘Yes, but it will blow us up too.’

  ‘Us?’

  ‘Me and you. There won’t be much of me left for you to eat and there won’t be any of you left to be interested in eating me.’

  The wolf considered this.

  ‘You mean I might be killed?’

  ‘If that bomb goes off while you’re holding it in your hand I shouldn’t think there’s the slightest chance of you living any longer than me.’

  ‘Oh,’ said the wolf. He held out the bomb to Polly. ‘Here,’ he said generously, ‘you have it. I’ll give it to you as a present. I haven’t got the brains for this sort of thing. You have a look at it and see how it works. You’re clever, you know, Polly. You’ll soon find out how to make it go off.’

  Polly shook her head.

  ‘No, thank you, Wolf. I don’t want to be blown up any more than you do.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Really. You put it back in your suitcase and take it somewhere a long way away from here and get rid of it.’

  ‘Shall I give it to a little boy who is interested in how things work?’ the wolf suggested, cautiously wrapping the bomb up in the remains of the too-small paper bag.

  ‘No, that would be very dangerous.’

  ‘Yes, I see what you mean,’ the wolf agreed. ‘He might make it go off before I was out of reach.’

  ‘I think you’d better take it back to the shop you got it from,’ Polly said. ‘Now be careful, Wolf. Don’t sling that suitcase about too much, unless you want to get blown to pieces.’

  ‘I’ll be very careful,’ the wolf promised. He picked up the suitcase, holding the handle delicately in his teeth, and trotted towards the garden gate. Just before he went out he put the suitcase gently down and tilting back his head took a long look at the roof of Polly’s house.

  ‘Polly,’ he called out. ‘Polly! When were your chimneys last swept?’

  Polly couldn’t help laughing, but she answered very politely, ‘About six months ago, I think, Wolf. Why do you want to know?’

  ‘Oh, no particular reason,’ said the wolf. ‘I’m just interested in chimneys, that’s all.’

  ‘You must come and see ours sometime,’ Polly said kindly. ‘I’m afraid they’re rather narrow and some of them are very twisty. And of course none of them are quite clean. Still, you could come and look from outside. Only you’ll be careful of the boiling water, won’t you? We always keep a pot of boiling water underneath the only big chimney, just in case anything we don’t want comes down it.’

  ‘Thank you, Polly,’ said the wolf rather coldly. ‘Most interesting. Another day, perhaps. Just at the moment I am rather busy.’

  And picking up the suitcase handle in his mouth again, he went out of the garden gate and trotted, very slowly and carefully, down the road.

  ‘I’m glad,’ thought Polly, ‘he didn’t blow my house down. I only hope he won’t go now and blow himself up.’

  7. Monday’s Child

  Polly was sitting in the garden making a daisy chain. She had grown her right thumb nail especially long on purpose to be able to do this, which meant that for the last two weeks she had said to her mother, ‘Please don’t cut the nail on that thumb, I need it long.’ And her mother obligingly hadn’t. Now it was beautifully long and only a little black. Polly slit up fat pink stalk after fat pink stalk. The daisy chain grew longer and longer.

  As she worked, Polly talked to herself. It was half talking, half singing.

  ‘Monday’s child is fair of face,’ she said. ‘Tuesday’s child is full of grace. Wednesday’s child –’

  ‘Is good to fry,’ interrupted the wolf. He was looking hungrily over the garden wall.

  ‘That’s not right,’ said Polly indignantly. ‘It’s Wednesday’s child is full of woe, Thursday’s child has far to go. There’s nothing about frying in it at all.’

  ‘There’s nothing about woe, or going far in the poem I know,’ protested the wolf. ‘What would be the use of that?’

  ‘The use?’ Polly repeated. ‘It isn’t meant to be useful, exactly. It’s just to tell you what children are like when they’re born on which days.’

  ‘Which days?’ the wolf asked, puzzled.

>   ‘Well, any day, then.’

  ‘But which is a Which Day?’

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Polly. ‘Perhaps I didn’t explain very well. Look, Wolf! If you’re born on a Monday you’ll be fair of face, because that is what the poem says. And if you’re born on a Tuesday you’ll be full of grace. See?’

  ‘I’d rather be full of food,’ the wolf murmured, ‘I don’t think grace sounds very satisfying.’

  ‘And if you’re born on a Wednesday you’ll be full of woe,’ said Polly, taking no notice of the interruption.

  ‘Worse than grace,’ the wolf said. ‘But my poem’s quite different. My poem says that Wednesday’s child is good to fry. That’s much more useful than knowing that it’s full of woe. What good does it do anyone to know that? My poem is a useful poem.’

  ‘Is it all about frying?’ Polly asked.

  The wolf thought for a moment.

  ‘No,’ he said presently. ‘None of the rest of it is about frying. But it’s good. It tells you the sort of thing you want to know. Useful information.’

  ‘Is it all about cooking?’ Polly asked severely.

  ‘Well, yes, most of it. But it’s about children too,’ the wolf said eagerly.

  ‘That’s disgusting,’ said Polly.

  ‘It isn’t, it’s most interesting. And instructive. For instance, I can probably guess what day of the week you were born on, Polly.’

  ‘What day?’

  The wolf looked at Polly carefully. Then he looked up at the sky and seemed to be repeating something silently to himself.

  ‘Either a Monday or a Friday,’ he said at last.

  ‘It was a Monday,’ Polly admitted. ‘But you could have guessed that from my poem.’

  ‘What does yours say?’ the wolf asked.

  ‘Monday’s child is fair of face, Tuesday’s child is full of grace, and I am fair, in the hair anyway,’ Polly said.

  ‘Go on. Say the whole poem.’

  Polly said:

  ‘Monday’s child is fair of face,

  Tuesday’s child is full of grace,

  Wednesday’s child is full of woe,

  Thursday’s child has far to go.

  Friday’s child is loving and giving,

  Saturday’s child works hard for its living.

  But the child that is born on the Sabbath day

  Is bonny and blithe and good and gay.’

  ‘Pooh,’ cried the wolf. ‘What a namby-pamby poem! There isn’t a single thing I’d want to know about a child in the whole thing. And, anyway, most of it you could see with half an eye directly you met the child.’

  ‘You couldn’t see that it had far to go,’ Polly argued.

  ‘No,’ the wolf agreed. ‘That’s the best line certainly. But it depends how far it had to go, doesn’t it? I mean if it had gone a long, long way from home you might be able just to snap it up without any fuss. But then it might be tough from taking so much exercise. Not really much help.’

  ‘It isn’t meant to be much help in the way you mean,’ said Polly.

  ‘And it isn’t what I call a poem, either,’ the wolf added.

  ‘Why?’ asked Polly. ‘It rhymes, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Oh, rhymes,’ said the wolf scornfully. ‘Yes, if that’s all you want. It jingles along if that satisfies you. No, I meant it doesn’t make you go all funny inside like real poetry does. It doesn’t bring tears to your eyes and make you feel you understand life for the first time, like proper poetry.’

  ‘Is the poem you know proper poetry?’ Polly asked suspiciously.

  ‘Certainly it is,’ the wolf said indignantly. ‘I’ll say it to you and then you’ll see.

  ‘Monday’s child is fairly tough,

  Tuesday’s child is tender enough,

  Wednesday’s child is good to fry,

  Thursday’s child is best in pie.

  Friday’s child makes good meat roll,

  Saturday’s child is casserole.

  But the child that is born on the Sabbath day,

  Is delicious when eaten in any way.

  ‘Now you can’t hear that without having some pretty terrific feelings, can you?’

  The wolf clasped his paws over his stomach and looked longingly at Polly.

  ‘It gives me a queer tingling feeling in my inside,’ he went on. ‘Like a sort of beautiful, hungry pain. As if I could eat a whole lot of meals put together and not be uncomfortable afterwards. Now I’m sure your poem doesn’t make you feel like that?’

  ‘No, it doesn’t,’ Polly admitted.

  ‘Does it make you feel anything?’ the wolf persisted.

  ‘No-o-o. But I like it. I shall have my children born on Sunday and then they’ll be like what the poem says.’

  ‘That would be nice,’ agreed the wolf. ‘But one very seldom gets a Sunday child. I believe they’re delicious, even if you eat them without cooking at all!’

  ‘I didn’t mean to eat,’ said Polly coldly. ‘I meant children of my own. Bonny and blithe and all that.’

  ‘What day did you say you were born on?’ the wolf enquired. ‘Did you say Monday or Friday?’

  ‘Monday,’ said Polly. ‘Fair of face.’

  ‘Fairly tough,’ said the wolf thoughtfully to himself. ‘Still, there’s always steaming,’ he added. ‘Or stewing in a very slow oven. Worth trying, I think.’

  He made a bound over the garden wall on to the lawn. But Polly had been too quick for him. She had run into the house and shut the door behind her before the wolf had recovered his balance from landing on the grass.

  ‘Ah well,’ sighed the wolf, picking himself up. ‘These literary discussions! Very often don’t get one anywhere. A tough proposition, this Polly. I’ll concentrate on something tenderer and easier to get for today.’

  And picking up the daisy chain, which Polly had left behind her, he wound it round his ears and trotted peacefully out of the garden and away down the road.

  8. The Wolf in the Zoo

  One day Polly was taken to the Zoo by her mother. She went to see the bears and the sea lions, the penguins and the camels. She saw the fishes and the monkeys and snakes and mice and tortoises. Then she saw the lions and the tigers, and she enjoyed it all very much.

  ‘Now,’ she said to her mother, ‘I want to see the foxes and the wolves. I want to see if my Wolf is like other wolves.’

  Her mother showed her where the cages were, but she said she would sit down and wait for Polly, as she didn’t want to go and see the foxes and wolves herself.

  So Polly went over to the cages and looked at the foxes, who seemed to be asleep, and at a hyena who was awake, but cross. Then she moved on to look at the wolves.

  In one cage there was a smallish wolf eating alone. In the next cage was a very large black wolf, exactly like the wolf Polly knew so well.

  ‘But he is just like my Wolf!’ Polly said in surprise.

  ‘Hullo, Polly,’ said the wolf in a gloomy voice. ‘So you’ve found me at last, have you? How did you know I was here?’

  ‘I didn’t,’ said Polly. ‘It’s an accident. I came over just to look at wolves. I never expected to find you here, Wolf.’

  ‘Oh, dear, oh dear,’ said the wolf. Two large tears dropped from his eyes on to the straw on the floor of his cage, and Polly felt rather sorry for him.

  ‘How did you get here?’ she asked. ‘Did you come here on purpose, or did they catch you like the other animals?’

  ‘The Other Animals!’ the wolf said bitterly. His voice was choked with tears. ‘Would I have come on purpose, do you think? Is it likely that I’d choose to live in this beastly little cage, where I’ve hardly room to turn round, when I might be outside, walking about the country and chasing you?’

  ‘Well, I didn’t know,’ said Polly reasonably. ‘You might have got tired of trying to catch little girls to eat and want to be fed for a change. They do feed you properly here, I suppose?’ she added kindly.

  ‘Bones,’ said the wolf, sounding very sad. ‘That’s all.
Bones. Hardly any meat on them. And raw. Think of that, Polly, for a wolf like me, that’s been used to well-cooked meals, daintily served. Just bones, thrown into the cage, without so much as a sprig of parsley or a morsel of gravy with them. I could cry when I think of the meals you’ve cooked me, Polly, and I look at what they give you here –’

  ‘But how did you get here, then?’ Polly asked, still curious to know.

  ‘There was an advertisement,’ the wolf said. He sounded a little embarrassed. ‘ “Wolf wanted,” the advertisement said. “Large black wolf welcomed by fellows of Zoo something Society. Every care taken and suitable diet provided.” So I came. It was the word Welcome that attracted me,’ he added sadly.

  ‘But didn’t they?’ Polly asked.

  ‘If you call this Welcoming,’ the wolf said, looking round his cage. ‘I’d hardly set foot in the grounds and spoken to one of the keepers before there was such a hullabaloo as you’ve never heard. Men fetching chains, and others fetching ropes, and a sort of cage thing on wheels and me pushed into it as if I was a wild animal. Welcome, indeed!’ The wolf snorted. Then a tear dropped from his eye again. ‘If you knew how I want to be wanted,’ he almost wept. ‘I thought someone really wanted me at last. I’m large, aren’t I? and black? and I’m a wolf. But if I’d been a – snake they couldn’t have been less welcoming.’

  ‘Oh, poor Wolf,’ said Polly. She was very nearly crying herself at this pathetic story.

  ‘And if they think raw bones are a suitable diet, they’ve a lot to learn about wolves,’ the wolf finished with a snarl.

  ‘I’ve got a treacle toffee in my pocket,’ Polly suggested. ‘Would you like it?’ She unwrapped it and pushed it through the bars. The wolf snapped it up so eagerly that Polly’s fingers nearly disappeared too.

  ‘No feeding the animals, Miss,’ a friendly keeper advised her as he passed by. ‘It’s not safe. Treacherous beasts, wolves.’

  The wolf gave a growl that made the keeper more certain than ever that he was a bad-tempered, untrustworthy animal. But Polly understood that he was angry because he was miserable, and though she didn’t put her hand up to the bars again, she didn’t move away.