Part III Chapter 1 Doctor Dolittle's Garden by Hugh Lofting
BUMPO AND MAGIC
The Doctor himself was, I think, the only one who made no remark at all. Silent and thoughtful, he stood gazing down at the atlas over which Bumpo's huge black fist still hung, holding the pencil point into the heart of the Moon.
"Shiver my timbers!" growled Polynesia hitching herself along the table with her funniest sailor gait. "What a voyage, my lads, what a voyage! Yes, it's the Moon all right.—Well, I suppose he might have hit the Sun. Its picture's there and all the other blessed heavenly bodies. Could be worse."
"I wonder," said Gub-Gub, who had returned from the scullery and was now also leaning over the page, "what sort of vegetables they have in the Moon."
"Tee-hee!" tittered the white mouse. "Such a joke I never heard!"
"I don't see why there shouldn't be rats," said Jip. "The Moon always looks to me as though it was full of holes."
"It should be a cheap place to live," said Too-Too. "I don't suppose they use money there at all."
"Yes, but it would cost a pretty penny to get there, don't forget!" muttered Dab-Dab.
Bumpo's feelings about the strange outcome were quite curious. He seemed dreadfully frightened. I noticed his big hand was trembling as it still grasped the pencil in place. Yet Bumpo was no coward, that we all knew. It was the Unknown, the source of all human fear, that now shook his courage. Gently John Dolittle leaned over and took the pencil from his paralysed hand.
"I don't like it, Doctor," he said in a weak voice at last. "I don't like it a bit. There is ju-ju business here. Witchcraft and magic. Why, only last night you were saying you wanted to go to the Moon. And now when we play this game, with eyes shut, I hit it right in the centre, the Moon itself!"
Beneath his dusky skin he looked quite pale. He drew away from the book and the table as though he feared the baleful influence of that mysterious force which had guided his hand.
"Oh, it's just a coincidence, Bumpo," said the Doctor. "It is odd. I admit—most odd. But—er—well, it's a coincidence, that's all."
"All right," said Dab-Dab finally breaking into the discussion with a more practical voice, "coincidence or not, in the meantime the supper is getting cold. If you'll take that wretched book off the table, Tommy, we will bring in the soup."
"But shouldn't we play it over again, Doctor?" asked Jip. "That's a place no one could get to, the Moon. We are entitled to another try, are we not? according to the rules of Blind Travel."
"Maybe," snapped Dab-Dab, "according to the rules of Blind Travel, but not according to the rules of this kitchen—not before supper anyway. The food's been delayed half an hour as it is. Sit down, every one, and let's begin before it is ruined entirely."
We all took our places at the board and the meal was begun in rather an odd general silence which was broken only by Gub-Gub's noisy manner of drinking soup.
"Well, anyway, Doctor," said Bumpo after a few moments, "you couldn't get there, could you?—To the Moon, I mean."
"Oh, I wouldn't go so far as to say that, Bumpo," replied the Doctor. "On the contrary, I'm convinced some one will some day get there. But of course, for the present until science has provided us with new methods of aerial travel it is pretty much out of the question. As a matter of fact in a way, I'm glad the game turned out the fashion it did. I was already beginning to regret that I had promised Stubbins and Chee-Chee we would play it. I really should stick to my work here. I am awfully keen to get to the bottom of this story the moths told me about a giant race. The more I think of that, and the further I follow it up, the surer I become that it has a foundation of truth."
"You mean you won't take another try at Blind Travel, Doctor?" said Chee-Chee in a sadly disappointed voice.
"Well," said John Dolittle, "I have fulfilled my promise, haven't I? The pencil struck land which no one could reach for the present anyhow. If you'll show me some way I can get to the Moon, we'll go. In the meantime—well, we have our work to do."