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Coco Bolo: King of the Floating Island

<h2>CHAPTER VI REFRESHMENTS</h2> As soon as the carriage stopped, the Court Crier opened the door and he and the Admiral handed out the two little girls. At the same moment there came running down the steps two rosy-cheeked young women in caps and aprons, white cuffs and turn-down collars, like trained nurses, who courtesied very nicely and said: "If you will please to come with us, Ladies, we will show you to the refreshment room." Walking up the steps behind the two little maids, Margaret and Frances were shown into a large, pleasant room, furnished in green and white, with sofas and rocking chairs and everything they could want. Looking about them, the first thing they noticed was a card tacked on the inside of the door, such as they remembered to have seen once in a hotel bedroom, and supposing it to be the rules of the palace, they thought they had better read it. It was not the rules of the palace, but it was something[Pg 72] just as important, as Margaret soon discovered, when, pulling forward a chair, she sat down to read it—for the card, being put there for the accommodation of small people like the Floating Islanders, was rather low down on the door. "What does it say?" asked Frances. "Can you read it?" "Oh, yes," replied her sister. "This is what it says,"—pointing out each word with her finger as she read it: "'Laws of the Floating Islands. (1) Be Cheerful. (2) Be Polite. Anyone Disobeying These Laws Will Be Put In The Corner And Painted Blue.'" "Oh! So that's why nobody dresses in blue!" cried Frances. "I thought there must be some reason." "Yes; and what a good thing it was we wore our pink dresses and flowered hair-ribbons today. Well, it is easy enough to learn these laws:—'Be cheerful. Be polite'. I know them already. What is this up here?" [Pg 73] All down one side of the doorway were a number of electric buttons, marked, 'Ice-cream', 'Cookies', 'Candy', 'Oranges', 'Bananas', and so forth, and at the bottom, showing how thoughtful the King was, 'Pepsin'. "I suppose," said Frances, "if you want any of these things you just press the button. Do you think Mother would let us have a cooky. I'm rather hungry." "I'm sure she would," replied her elder sister. "And I should like something to drink, too. See! Here are the things to drink on the other door post: 'Lemonade', 'Sherbet', and a lot of other things. What should we ask for? Lemonade?" "Lemonade is good," remarked Frances. "What else is there?" "Here's 'Aërated water'," Margaret spelled out. "Would you like that?" "No," replied Frances. "That's that fizzy stuff. I like it, but it tickles my nose so. I don't think I want that. What's next?" "'Plain water'," read Margaret. "Oh, no. We can get plain water at home." "'Aëro-plane water'" read Margaret. "I wonder what that is." "I expect it's not so plain as plain water, and not[Pg 74] so fizzy as fizzy water," replied Frances. "I think I should like to try it. Suppose you ask for a lemonade and I'll ask for an aëro-plane water, and then we can divide." "Very well. Then I'll press these two buttons and you press the one marked 'Cookies.'" They pressed the buttons accordingly, when, almost in no time, it seemed, they heard something go snick, and turning in that direction they saw that a little cupboard door in the wall had flown open. Inside the cupboard was a tray with a plate of cookies upon it and two glasses, one, a big glass of lemonade with two straws in it, and the other, a smaller glass containing what appeared to be plain water with six round, fat bubbles floating about in it. On the edge of this glass, hanging by a little hook, was a pair of small tweezers. "Why! What are they for?" exclaimed Frances, as she unhooked them and laid them on the tray. "What did they send us tweezers for?" "I'm sure I don't know," replied her sister. "Perhaps we shall find out presently. Bring the tray over here, Frances, and put it on this little table. Ah! This lemonade is good! What does your aëro-plane water taste like?" "Why, it doesn't taste like anything," replied[Pg 75] Frances, in a tone of some disappointment. "It's just plain water. They must have forgotten the 'aëro' part!" "Perhaps the bubbles are the 'aëro' part," suggested Margaret. "Oh, perhaps they are. I'll drink one." But try as she might, she could not catch one of them. Every time she touched one with her lips it bobbed away—the bubbles were so large and so round and so slippery. "The tweezers!" cried Margaret. "Oh! Of course!" exclaimed Frances. "That's what the tweezers are for!" Undoubtedly it was, for, with the help of the tweezers, Frances very soon caught a bubble and popped it into her mouth. Margaret, watching her, saw her eyes sparkle and a look of pleased surprise come over her face. "That tastes, does it?" she asked. For half a minute Frances did not reply; all she said was, "M-m-m," keeping her lips shut tight as though to let none of the taste escape; but presently she opened her mouth and said: "Yes, that tastes. It's the very nicest thing I ever did taste: like—let me see—like pine-apple and strawberry jam and—and—I can't think what else.[Pg 76] Wait till I try another. There are five left. I'll take two more and leave the rest for you." So saying, she caught two more bubbles and then passed over the glass to Margaret, who, in turn, passed over the half-finished lemonade to her sister. As she did so, she saw an odd expression come over Frances' face. "What's the matter?" she asked. "I don't know," replied Frances. "I don't think there's anything the matter, but I have such a funny feeling—just as if I didn't weigh anything. I feel as if I wanted to get up and fly." "Try, then," suggested Margaret. "Perhaps you can if you try. Try." Frances, rather gingerly, got out of her chair, gave a flap with her arms and a little stamp with both feet, and up to the ceiling she went like a feather. It was a high ceiling, but she went up far enough to touch it with her fingers, when she began gently floating down again, her dress standing out all around like a pink umbrella. She looked so comical, with her elbows tucked into her sides and her fingers spread out, her lips puckered up and her eyebrows raised, that Margaret could not help laughing. "Oh, what fun!" she cried, seizing the tweezers and the glass of aëro-plane water. "I'm coming too. Can you wait there, Frances?" [Pg 77] <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/081.jpg" width-obs="373" height-obs="600" alt="" /> <div class="caption">Began gently floating down again</div> </div> [Pg 79] "No, I can't," replied her sister, who was now down about the level of the tops of the pictures. "I'm coming down all the time. And if I were you, Margaret," she added hastily, "I'd only take two of those bubbles—or one. I'm rather too light. It's a good thing I didn't take all six of them or I might have gone straight up to the ceiling and had to stay there, crawling about like a fly. I wonder if—hand me the lemonade, will you?" Margaret dragged a chair to the spot, jumped upon it and handed up the half-glass of lemonade to her sister. Frances, however, did not take the glass in her hand; she took the straws, and leaning forward, tried to drink the lemonade. But though Margaret stood on tip-toe and reached up as far as she could, Frances was still about four inches too high, so she waited a minute until she had come down a little further when she tried again. This time she succeeded, finding, as she had expected, that at every swallow she came down more and more quickly, until presently her feet touched the floor again, when, as she was still rather bouncy, she took hold of the edge of the table to steady herself, and said: "I'll tell you what you'd better do, Margaret: [Pg 80] Take only one of those bubbles at a time and see if it isn't enough. I'm a good deal too light; I shall have to put some stones in my pocket, or something. I'm afraid, if I were to go out of doors, the wind might blow me into the sea. So just take one first, Margaret, and see how that does." This seemed like good advice, so Margaret, taking the tweezers, caught one bubble and ate it up. "M-m-m," she murmured, just as Frances had done. "That is good. There's preserved ginger in it, too, and I think there's just a taste of baked apples. Oh! Isn't it a funny feeling!"—stretching out her arms and dancing about—"I wonder if I could jump up to the ceiling like you did." But she found she could not; though to jump over a big settee in the middle of the room was the easiest thing possible. "Oh, how nice it is to be so light-footed!" she cried. "One bubble is just enough, Frances; that was a good idea of yours. But what are we going to do to make you a bit heavier? There are no stones here to put into your pockets; and you have only one pocket, anyhow. You'd be all lopsided. You'll have to eat something. That's the only way I see." "Yes," responded Frances, "that's the only way; and what we need is something heavy, like that little[Pg 81] loaf of bread you and I made once for Daddy, don't you remember, and he begged to be excused, because home-made bread sometimes gave him the nightmare, and so we gave it to Kim—that time he howled so in the night, and Daddy had to get up and throw his hair-brush at him." "Yes, I remember," replied her sister. "That's the sort of thing we want. Let's look at the list here and see if there's anything likely to do. Ah! 'Pound cake'! That ought to be just the thing." "Pound cake is rather rich, isn't it?" asked Frances. "I'm afraid it is. Well, here's 'Half-pound cake, for infants and invalids.' The very thing. We'll have that." She touched the button; open flew the cupboard, and there inside it was a neat little cake with a silver knife to cut it. "Now," said Margaret, cutting a slice and handing it to her sister. "Eat that and see if it will do." Still holding to the table for fear she should bob up again to the ceiling unexpectedly, Frances ate about half the slice, when she laid down the rest, remarking: "I think that's enough, Margaret. I don't feel quite so much like a dandelion seed as I did. Take[Pg 82] my hand and let us skip down the room and back, just to try." Down the room they skipped, hand in hand, and back again, jumping over the settee on the way and coming lightly down on the carpet, "Like a pair of soap-bubbles," as Frances put it. "Just exactly," Margaret agreed. "I feel like you feel in a dream sometimes, when you just tap your foot on the floor or your fingers on the backs of the chairs and go floating about the room. How glad I am you asked for aëro-plane water, Frances, or we might never—Come in!" Somebody had tapped at the door, and on Margaret's calling, "Come in," the two little maids appeared once more, courtesying politely, to inquire if the ladies were ready to put on their wreaths and slippers. "Wreaths!" cried Margaret. "Slippers!" cried Frances. "We didn't bring any wreaths and slippers." At this, one of the little maids, whose name, they found, was Anita, smiled and nodded, and going to a cupboard in the wall which the children had not noticed before, she came back with two cardboard boxes, one of which she handed to each little girl. "Are we to open them?" asked Margaret. [Pg 83] "If you please, Miss," replied Anita. Each box proved to contain a beautiful wreath made of enameled pink leaves with silver berries—both exactly alike. "Oh! Aren't they pretty!" exclaimed Frances. "Are we to wear them?" "Yes, Miss, if you please," replied the little waiting-maid. "All the court ladies wear wreaths and slippers to match. These are your slippers," running to the cupboard and bringing back two pairs of white satin slippers with big pink rosettes on them. "The King hopes you'll like them." "The King is very kind," replied Margaret. "Yes, these will do beautifully." "Then, if Your Ladyships are ready, will you please to follow us?" So saying, Anita threw open the door, when she and the other little maid, taking hands, went skipping off down a wide hallway, Margaret and Frances skipping after them and poor little Periwinkle with a serious countenance galloping behind, until they arrived at the top of a long flight of steps down which they went, six steps at a time, to find the Admiral and the Court Crier waiting for them. "Quite ready, Ladies?" asked the Admiral. "Then we'll join the garden-party at once." [Pg 84] <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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