Mary Norton - The Borrowers Afloat

ILLUSTRATED BY BETH AND JOE KRUSH

AN ODYSSEY/HARCOURT YOUNG CLASSIC
HARCOURT, INC.
ORLANDO AUSTIN NEW YORK SAN DIEGO TORONTO LONDON

Text copyright 1959 by Mary Norton
Copyright renewed 1981 by Mary Norton
Illustrations copyright 1959 by Beth and Joe Krush
Copyright renewed 1981 by Beth and Joe Krush

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First Harcourt Young Classics edition 1998
First Odyssey Classics edition 1990
First published 1959

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Norton, Mary.
The Borrowers afloat/Mary Norton; illustrated by Beth and Joe Krush.
p. cm.
"An Odyssey/Harcourt Young Classic."
Sequel to "The Borrowers afield."
Summary: The Borrowers, a family of miniature people, journey down
a drain, live briefly in a teakettle, and are swept away in a flood
before finding a new home.
[1. Fantasy.] I. Krush, Beth, ill. II. Krush, Joe, ill. III. Title.
PZ7.N8248BI 1986 [Fic] 86-4613
ISBN 0-15-210345-1 ISBN 0-15-204133-6 (pb)

Printed in the United States of America
Z BB DD FF EE CC AA
C E G H F D (pb)

For Peter and Caroline

"But what do they talk about?" asked Mr. Beguid, the lawyer. He spoke almost irritably, as of foolish goings-on.

"They talk about the borrowers," said Mrs. May.

They stood beneath the shelter of the hedge among wet, treelike cabbages, which tumbled in the wind. Below them on this dark, dank afternoon, a lamp glowed warmly through the cottage window. "We could have an orchard here," she added lightly, as though to change the subject.

"At our time of life," remarked Mr. Beguid, gazing still at the lighted window below them in the hollow, "yours and mineit's wiser to plant flowers than fruit..."

"You think so?" said Mrs. May. She drew her ulster cape about her against the eddying wind. "But I'll leave her the cottage, you see, in my will."

"Leave whom the cottage?"

"Kate, my niece."

"I see," said Mr. Beguid, and he glanced again toward the lighted window behind which he knew Kate was sitring: a strange child, he thought; disconcertingthe way she gazed through one with wide unseeing eyes and yet would chatter by the hour with old Tom Goodenough, a rascally one-time gamekeeper. What could they have in common, he asked himself, this sly old man and eager, listening child? There they had been now (he glanced at his watch) for a good hour and a quarter, hunched by the window, talking, talking...

"Borrowers..." he repeated, as though troubled by the word. "What kind of borrowers?"

"Oh, it's just a story," said Mrs. May lightly, picking her way amongst the rain-drenched cabbages toward the raised brick path, "something we used to tell each other, my brother and I, when we stayed down here as children."

"At Firbank Hall, you mean?"

"Yes, with Great-Aunt Sophy. Kate loves this story."

"But why," asked Mr. Beguid, "should she want to tell it to him?"

"To old Tom? Why not? As a matter of fact, I believe it's the other way round: I believe he tells it to her."

As he followed Mrs. May along the worn brick path, Mr. Beguid became silent. He had known this family most of his life, and a strange lot (he had begun to think lately) they were.

"But a story made up by you?"

"Not by me, no" Mrs. May laughed as though embarrassed. "It was my brother, I think, who made it up. If it was made up," she added suddenly, just above her breath.

Mr. Beguid pounced on the words. "I don't quite follow you. This story you speak of, is it something that actually happened?"

Mrs. May laughed. "Oh no, it couldn't have actually happened. Not possibly." She began to walk on again, adding over her shoulder, "It's just that this old man, this old Tom Goodenough, seems to know about these people."

"What people? These cadgers?"

"Not cadgersborrowers..."

"I see," said Mr. Beguid, who didn't see at all.

"We called them that," and turning on the path, she waited for him to catch up with her. "Or rather they called themselves thatbecause they had nothing of their own at all. Even their names were borrowed. The family we knewfather, mother, and childwere called Pod, Homily and little Arrietty." As he came beside her, she smiled. "I think their names are rather charming."

"Very," he said, a little too drily. And then, in spite of himself, he smiled back at her. Always, he remembered, there had been in her manner this air of gentle mockery; even as a young man, though attracted by her prettiness, he had found her disconcerting. "You haven't changed," he said.

She at once became more serious. "But you can't deny that it was a strange old house?"

"Old, yes. But no more strange than"he looked down the slope"than this cottage, say."

Mrs. May laughed. "Ah, there Kate would agree with you! She finds this cottage quite as strange as we found Firbank, neither more nor less. You know, at Firbank, my brother and Iright from the very firsthad this feeling that there were other people living in the house besides the human beings."

"But" exclaimed Mr. Beguid, exasperated, "there can be no such thing as 'people' other than human beings. The terms are synonymous."

"Other personalities, then. Something far smaller than a human being but like them in essentialsa little larger-seeming in the head, perhaps, a little longer in the hands and feet. But very small and hidden. We imagined that they lived like micein the wainscots, or behind the skirtings, or under the floorboardsand were entirely dependent on what they could filch from the great house above. Yet you couldn't call it stealing: it was more a kind of garnering. On the whole, they only took things that could well be spared."

"What sort of things?" asked Mr. Beguid. Suddenly feeling foolish, he sprang ahead of her to clear a trail of bramble from her path.

"Oh, all sorts of things. Any kind of food, of course, and any other small movable objects which might be usefulmatchboxes, pencil ends, needles, bits of stuffanything they could turn into tools or clothes or furniture. It was rather sad for them, we thought, because they had a sort of longing for beauty and for making their dark little holes as charming and comfortable as the homes of human beings. My brother used to help them"Mrs. May hesitated suddenly as though embarrassed"or so he said," she concluded lamely, and she gave a little laugh.

"I see," said Mr. Beguid again. He became silent as they skirted the side of the cottage to avoid the dripping thatch. "And where does Tom Goodenough come in?" he asked at last as she paused beside the water butt.

She turned to face him. "Well, it's extraordinary, isn't it? At my agenearly seventyto inherit this cottage and find him still here in possession?"