An Exciting Trip

The first week glided by, golden with sunshine. The children enjoyed themselves thoroughly, though Nora often complained of the heat. All of them now wore the Baronian dress, and fancied themselves very much in it.

The girls wore tight bodices of white and blue, with big silver buttons, and full skirts of red and blue. They wore no stockings, but curious little half-boots, laced up with red. The boys wore embroidered trousers, with cool shirts open at the neck, and a broad belt. They, too, wore the half-boots, and found them very comfortable.

At first they all felt as if they were in fancy dress, but they soon got used to it. “I shan’t like going back to ordinary clothes,” said Nora, looking at herself in the long mirror. “I do so love the way this skirt swings out round me. Look, Mike — there are yards of material in it.”

Mike was fastening his belt round him. He stuck his scout knife into it. He looked at himself in the mirror, too. “I look a bit like a pirate or something,” he said. “Golly, I wish the boys at school could see me now! Wouldn’t they be green with envy!”

“They’d laugh at you,” said Nora. “You wouldn’t dare to wear those clothes in England. I hope the Queen will let me take mine back with me. I could wear them at a fancy-dress party. I bet I’d win the prize!”

That first week was glorious. The children were allowed to do anything they wanted to, providing that Ranni or Pilescu was with them. They rode little mountain ponies through the hills. They bathed at least five times a day in the warm waters of the lake. They sailed every evening. They went by car to the nearest big town, and rode in the buses there. They were quaint buses, fat and squat, painted blue and silver. Everything was different, every thing was strange.

“England must have seemed very queer to you at first, Paul,” said Mike to the little prince, realizing for the first time how difficult the boy must have found living in a strange country.

Paul nodded. He was very happy to show his friends everything. Now, when he was back at school again in England, and wanted to talk about his home and his country, Jack and Mike would understand all he said, and would listen gladly.

Towards the end of the first week Pilescu made a suggestion. “Why do you not take your friends in the aeroplane, and show them how big your country is?” he asked Paul. “I will take you all.”

“Oh yes, Pilescu — let’s do that!” cried Mike. “Let’s fly over the mountains and the forests, and see everything!”

“I will show you the Secret Forest,” said Prince Paul, unexpectedly.

The others stared at him. “What’s the Secret Forest?” asked Jack. “What’s secret about it?”

“It’s a queer place,” said Paul. “Nobody has ever been there!”

“Well, how do you know it’s there, then?” asked Mike.

“We’ve seen it from aeroplanes,” said Paul. “We’ve flown over it.”

“Why hasn’t anyone ever been into this forest?” asked Peggy. “Someone must have, Paul. I don’t believe there is anywhere in the whole world that people haven’t explored now.”

“I tell you no one has ever been in the Secret Forest,” said Paul, obstinately. “And I’ll tell you why. Look — get me that map over there, Mike.”

Mike threw him over a rolled-up map. Paul unrolled it and spread it flat on a table. He found the place he wanted and pointed to it.

“This is a map of Baronia,” he said. “You can see what a rugged, mountainous country it is. Now look — do you see these mountains here?”

The children bent over to look. The mountains were coloured brown and had a queer name — Killimooin. Paul’s brown finger pointed to them. “These mountains are a queer shape,” said the little prince. “Killimooin Mountains form an almost unbroken circle — and in the midst of them, in a big valley, is the Secret Forest.”

His finger pointed to a tiny speck of green shown in the middle of Killimooin Mountains. “There you are,” he said. “That dot of green is supposed to be the Secret Forest. It is an enormous forest, really, simply enormous, and goodness knows what wild animals there are there.”

“Yes, but Paul, why hasn’t anyone been to see?” asked Mike, impatiently. “Why can’t they just climb the mountains and go down the other side to explore the forest?”

“For a very good reason!” said Paul. “No one has ever found a way over Killimooin Mountains!”

“Why? Are they so steep?” asked Nora, astonished.

“Terribly steep, and terribly dangerous,” said Paul.

“Does anyone live on the mountain-sides?” asked Peggy.

“Only goatherds,” said Paul. “But they don’t climb very high because the mountains are so rocky and so steep. Maybe the goats get to the top — but the goatherds don’t!”

“Well!” said Mike, fascinated by the idea of a secret forest that no one had ever explored. “This really is exciting, I must say. Do, do let’s fly over it in your aeroplane, Paul. Wouldn’t I just love to see what that forest is like!”

“You can’t see much,” said Paul, rolling up the map. “It just looks a thick mass of green that’s all, from the plane. All right — we’ll go tomorrow!”

This was thrilling. It would be grand to go flying again, and really exciting to roar over the Killimooin mountains and peer down at the Secret Forest. What animals lived there? What would it be like there? Had anyone ever trodden its dim green paths? Mike and Jack wished a hundred times they could explore that great hidden forest!

The next day all five children went to the runway beside the hangar where Paul’s aeroplane was kept. They watched the mechanics run it out on to the grass. They greeted Ranni and Pilescu as the two men came along.

“Ranni! Do you know the way to fly to Killimooin Mountains? We want to go there!”

“And when we get there, fly as low down as you can, so that we can get as near to the Secret Forest as possible,” begged Nora.

Ranni and Pilescu smiled. They climbed up into the aeroplane. “We will go all round Baronia,” said Pilescu, “and you will see, we shall fly over Killimooin country. It is wild, very wild. Not far from it is the little palace the King built last year, on a mountain-side where the winds blow cool. The summers have been very hot of late years in Baronia, and it is not healthy for children. Maybe you will all go there if the sun becomes much hotter!”

“I hope we do!” said Paul, his eyes shining. “I’ve never been there, Pilescu. We should have fun there, shouldn’t we?”

“Not the same kind of fun as you have in the big palace,” said Pilescu. “It is wild and rough around the little palace. It is more like a small castle. There are no proper roads. You can have no car, no aeroplane. Mountain ponies are all you would have to get about on.”

“I’d like that,” said Jack. He took his seat in the big plane, and watched the mechanics finishing their final checks on the plane. They moved out of the way. The engine started up with a roar. Nobody could hear a word.

Then off went the big plane, as smoothly as a car, taxiing over the grass. The children hardly knew when it rose in the air. But when they looked from the windows, they saw the earth far below them. The palace seemed no bigger than a doll’s house.

“We’re off!” said Jack, with a sigh. “Where is the map? You said you’d bring one, Paul, so that we could see exactly where we are each minute.”

It really was interesting to spread out the map, and try to find exactly where they were. “Here we are!” said Jack, pointing to a blue lake on the map. “See? There’s the lake down below us now — we’re right over it — and look, there’s the river flowing into it, shown on the map. Golly, this is geography really come alive! I wish we could learn this sort of geography at school! I wouldn’t mind having geography every morning of the week, if we could fly over the places we’re learning about!”