A loud laugh rang suddenly through the hall. The King looked uneasily round as though he expected something to happen. But nothing seemed likely to occur.
“Yes,” said Matilda; “Pridmore is…Oh, dear.”
For before her eyes she saw an awful change taking place in Pridmore. In an instant all that was left of the original Pridmore were the boots and the hem of her skirt—the top part of her had changed into painted iron and glass, and, even as Matilda looked, the bit of skirt that was left got flat and hard and square, the two feet turned into four feet, and they were iron feet, and there was no more Pridmore.
“Oh, my poor child,” said the King; “your maid has turned into an Automatic Machine.”
It was too true. The maid had turned into a machine such as those which you see in railway stations—greedy, grasping things, which take your pennies and give you back next to nothing in chocolate, and no change.
But there was no chocolate to be seen through the glass of the machine that had once been Pridmore. Only little rolls of paper.
The King silently handed some pennies to Matilda.
She dropped one in to the machine and pulled out the little drawer. There was a scroll of paper. Matilda opened it and read:
“Don’t be tiresome.”
She tried again. This time it was:
“If you don’t give over I’ll tell your ma first thing when she comes home.”
The next was:
“Go along with you, do—always worrying.”
So then Matilda knew.
“Yes,” said the King, sadly, “I fear there’s no doubt about it. Your maid has turned into an Automatic Nagging Machine. Never mind, my dear. She’ll be all right tomorrow.”
“I like her best like this, thank you,” said Matilda, quickly. “I needn’t put in any more pennies, you see.”
“Oh! We mustn’t be unkind and neglectful,” said the King, gently, and he dropped in a penny himself. He got:
“You tiresome boy, you. Leave me be this minute.”
“I can’t help it then,” said the King, wearily. “You’ve no idea how suddenly things change here. It’s because—but I’ll tell you all about it at tea. Go with nurse now, my dear, and see if any of the Princess’s frocks will fit you.”
Then a nice, kind, cuddly nurse led Matilda away to the Princess’s apartments, and took off the stiff frock that hurt, and put on a green silk gown as soft as birds’ breasts, and Matilda kissed her for sheer joy at being so comfortable.
“And now, dearie,” said the nurse, “you’d like to see the Princess, wouldn’t you? Take care you don’t hurt yourself with her. She’s rather sharp.”
Matilda did not understand this then. Afterwards she did.
The nurse took her through many marble corridors and up and down many marble steps, and at last they came to a garden full of white roses, and in the middle of it, on a green satin-covered eiderdown pillow as big as a feather bed, sat the Princess in a white gown.
She got up when Matilda came towards her, and it was like seeing a yard and a half of white tape stand up on one end and bow—a yard and a half of broad white tape, of course; but what is considered broad for tape is very narrow indeed for Princesses.
“How are you?” said Matilda, who had been taught manners.
“Very thin indeed, thank you,” said the Princess. And she was. Her face was so white and thin that it looked as though it were made of oyster shell. Her hands were thin and white, and her fingers reminded Matilda of fish bones. Her hair and eyes were black, and Matilda thought she might have been pretty if she had been fatter. When she shook hands with Matilda her bony hand hurt, quite hard.
The Princess seemed pleased to see her visitor, and invited her to sit with Her Highness on the satin cushion.
“I have to be very careful, or I should break,” said she. “That’s why the cushion’s so soft, and I can’t play many games for fear of accidents. Do you know any sitting-down games?”
The only thing Matilda could think of was “cat’s cradle.” So they played that with the Princess’s green hair ribbon. Her fish-bony fingers were much cleverer at it than Matilda’s little fat pink paws.
Matilda looked about her between the games and admired everything very much, and asked questions, of course. There was a very large bird chained to a perch in the middle of a very large cage. Indeed, the cage was so big that it took up all one side of the rose garden. The bird had a yellow crest like a cockatoo, and a very large bill like a toucan (if you don’t know what a toucan is you do not deserve ever to go to the Zoological Gardens again).
“What is that bird?” asked Matilda.
“Oh,” said the Princess, “that’s my pet Cockatoucan. He’s very valuable. If he were to die or be stolen, the Green Land would wither up and be like New Cross or Islington.”
“How horrible,” said Matilda, trembling.
“I’ve never been to those places, of course,” said the Princess, shuddering, “but I hope I know my geography.”
“All of it?” asked Matilda.
“Even the exports and imports,” said the Princess. “Good-bye. I’m so thin I have to rest a good deal, or I should wear myself out. Nurse—take her away.”
So nurse took her away to a wonderful room, where she amused herself till teatime with all the kinds of toys that you see and want in the shops when someone is buying you a box of bricks or a puzzle map—the kinds of toys you never get because they are so expensive.
Matilda had tea with the King. He was full of true politeness, and treated Matilda exactly as though she had been grown up; so that she was extremely happy and behaved beautifully.
The King told her all his troubles.
“You see,” he began, “what a pretty place my Green Land was once. It has points even now; but things aren’t what they used to be. It’s that bird—that Cockatoucan. We daren’t kill it or give it away, and every time it laughs something changes. Look at my Prime Minister. He was a six-foot man—and look at him now. I could lift him with one hand; and then your poor maid. It’s all that bad bird.”
“Why does it laugh?” asked Matilda.
“I can’t think,” said the King. “I don’t see anything to laugh at.”
“Can’t you give it lessons or something nasty to make it miserable?”
“I have. I do. I assure you, my dear child, the lessons that bird has to swallow would choke a professor.”