Now just outside the palace grew a thicket of magic nut bushes. Here Kenneth always stopped on his way to the greater wonders inside, to crack a nut and to have a pleasant surprise. Yes, there at the foot of the marble steps was the thicket, green as usual, and full of brown nuts, mysteriously knobby and promising. Kenneth picked one and knelt down on the gravel to crack it with a stone. But instead of the beautiful velvet cloak, magically folded into a tiny parcel, or a dwarf pony which would quickly grow full-sized, or a picture-book with moving figures on its pages, such as he had found at other times, the nut was stuffed with dusty cobwebs, which were of no use to any one, least of all to Kenneth.
“Oh!” said Kenneth, in disappointment, and then he distinctly heard a queer voice[36] cry, “April Fool!” He looked up and around, but there was no one to be seen.
“April Fool!” cried the voice again. “Ha, ha! Kenneth has such a sense of fun! He is a great joker himself; ha, ha!” Kenneth thought it must be one of the flowers, though the voice sounded different. He wished the good Fairy would come to him. His chin began to quiver, when he heard the same queer voice tittering behind the thicket of nut bushes. There was a little summer-house close by, and into this Kenneth ran to hide the tears which would come into his eyes. What a disagreeable country it was, this Fairyland which he had loved so well! He came here to be happy; but all these ugly tricks fairly spoiled the pretty place. He said to himself that he would never come again. Just then he spied a large, square envelope fastened to the side of the summer-house by a thorn. It was addressed, “For Kenneth.”
“Why, that means me,” he cried, very much surprised. “Perhaps it is a letter from[37] my good Fairy to explain why she has not come to meet me.” And he tore it open eagerly.
It was a fat, bulky letter of several sheets. This was very exciting, for Kenneth had not received many letters in his short life. He unfolded the first sheet. From the middle of the page stared at him these words printed in huge red letters:—
APRIL FOOL!
CHAPTER V THE APRIL FOOL
KENNETH looked at it angrily, then turned over the other pages. They were just the same as the first one. He tore up the sheets and threw them on the ground. It was only an April Fool letter, after all!
“April Fool!” cried a voice, echoing the same hateful words. “April Fool! Ha! ha! What a joke!” It was a funny little voice, louder than those of the flowers, and, instead of being silvery sweet like theirs, it was harsh and disagreeable. Kenneth glanced up, and there, perched on the railing of the summer-house, was the queerest little fellow, making the most horrible faces. With a bound the figure sprang inside, and Kenneth saw him more clearly. He was certainly a fairy, for he had wings, gauzy and beautiful, growing from his shoulders. But his dress was unlike[39] that of any fairy whom Kenneth had met. It reminded him, however, of pictures that he had sometimes seen in books. This fairy wore a suit half of red and half of yellow; one leg and one shoe were red and the other yellow. His doublet was divided likewise, and likewise the funny hood which he wore about his shoulders. The borders of his costume were cut into points, and from every point hung a little bell that jingled and jangled mischievously whenever the imp moved about—which was continually. His cap had two long pointed ears, and in his hand he carried a wand, on the end of which was a copy of himself dressed in red and yellow, and tinkly with many bells. He was a very funny figure, and his mouth stretched from ear to ear in a grin which made Kenneth laugh, too. But Kenneth soon stopped laughing; for there was something about the imp’s smile that was not kindly, and that made one half afraid.
“Who are you?” asked Kenneth, trying to[40] seem very bold. “And what are you laughing at? I don’t see anything so very funny at this moment.”
“Oh, don’t you?” grinned the imp. “April Fool! I do. I am April Fool. Why, don’t you know me?” And turning around he showed Kenneth a large placard, such as he had himself often made, pinned to one of the points of the imp’s doublet. “April Fool!” it read. Kenneth began to understand.
“Oh, you are April Fool, are you?” he said. “I never saw you before.”
“Ho! You never saw me? No, but you have used my name often enough. You remember April Fool’s day every year? Aha! Those were good tricks you played, though to be sure most of them were old enough—old as I am, and that is old indeed, I can tell you, my little joker. But they are good jokes, are they not? One never tires of them, does one?” And again he grinned at Kenneth maliciously.
“N-no,” said Kenneth, doubtfully, looking again at the pieces of the torn April Fool letter and rubbing his eyes, which still smarted from the snuff. “But I think jokes are funnier when one looks on, don’t you?”
“Ha! ha!” laughed the imp. “That is the best joke of all. Why, some folk seem to think as you do. But not I! Now I love a good joke for its own sake better than anything else in the world. I am always in it, for I am the joke itself. Ha, ha!”
“Then it is you who have made all these things happen to me,” said Kenneth angrily. “What do you mean by it?”
“Ha! ha! Don’t you know what night it is? To-morrow is the first of April! What can you expect in Fairyland except the very biggest of jokes? This is my night. But come, now, don’t be sulky. It is only a joke after all, and you are such a joker yourself that you ought to take these little matters very cheerfully. Come with me.”
“I don’t want to come with you,” said[42] Kenneth, hanging back. “I want to go home.”
“Nonsense, you cannot go home yet,” answered the imp. “It is not nearly morning. Now that you have come you must stay here until the time is up.”
“Then I want my good Fairy guide,” said Kenneth.
“Ho!” cried the other in scorn. “She is too silly-kind, too goody-goody. She has no real sense of fun, poor thing.”
“I like her fun best,” insisted Kenneth. “Please take me to her.”
“Oh, very well,” said April Fool carelessly. “If you insist I will bring you to her. But first you must have something to eat, for it is a long journey. Are you not hungry, poor boy?”
Kenneth confessed that he was very hungry. “Then we will go to the kitchen garden,” replied the imp; “and there you can feast as much as you like.”
“Oh, yes! I have been to the kitchen[43] garden,” cried Kenneth, brightening. “The good Fairy took me there; it is a lovely place!”
He followed April Fool out of the summer-house into a narrow path leading on and on and on between green hedgerows full of blossoms. Overhead the birds sang sweetly, and the sky was blue. Kenneth began to feel very happy. At last, in the distance, he caught sight of the kitchen garden, as he well remembered it, with its tall pie-fruit trees, its cooky bushes, its eclair plants, and its ice-cream fountains. The glimpse made him so hungry that he could hardly wait to be there, and he ran ahead, outstripping April Fool himself.
“That is right! Hurry, my boy!” cried the imp heartily. And Kenneth skipped on happily. But suddenly bump! went his head and his knee against something hard, and he came to a dizzy stop, hardly knowing what had happened. There lay the kitchen garden just beyond, but something had stopped him[44] and would not let him pass, something which he could not see.
“Ha! ha! April Fool again!” laughed the imp, holding his sides for merriment. “Don’t you see through this joke? Why, it is perfectly transparent.”
Sure enough! Kenneth put out his hand, and found that it was a wall of glass, which stretched across the path from hedge to hedge; a gateless wall which he could by no means climb over, but through which he could plainly see all the dainties on the other side. Kenneth groaned. “Oh, I am so hungry! What a cruel, cruel joke!”
“Jokes do seem cruel sometimes,” admitted April Fool; “but they are such fun! Oh, my, oh, my! How queer you did look when you bumped against that wall!” and he burst out laughing once more.
“Well, are you going to let me in?” asked Kenneth, trying to keep his temper, though he thought the joke in very poor taste, like most of April Fool’s tricks.
“Oh, no, we cannot enter here,” said the imp. “This is only an impracticable window. We shall have to go around by another way, a détour of some miles. But this time I really promise to take you to the kitchen garden.”
Kenneth was very angry, but he began to suspect that he must let April Fool have his own way on this night. They turned back down the narrow path and began a long, tiresome journey round about and round about to the garden which they had already seen so near.
And what a journey that was! beset by so many surprises, shocks, and practical jokes that Kenneth was nearly frantic before they had seen the end. They were crossing a bridge over a pretty little stream, when in the middle—crash! The whole structure gave way, and down they fell, with a sickening sinking feeling—fully three feet! Then the bridge came to rest on the magic springs which were made to complete this jouncy joke. After this their way led through a pitch-black cavern,[46] which was so silent that Kenneth could hear his heart beat as he felt his way along. Suddenly there was an awful roar, like the growl of hundreds of wild beasts let loose. Kenneth screamed with fright, but the imp cried out, “April Fool!” And immediately the cave was filled with light, showing only an innocent sound-machine which had made all this commotion.
They came within sight of a broad brook, which the imp said they must cross. Kenneth took off his shoes and stockings to wade and stepped down to the margin. But what was his anger to find that it was only a wide mirror over which they were able to pass dry-shod. That was a famous joke, to judge by the imp’s shrieks of laughter when he saw Kenneth put out his foot to wade into the glassy stream. But Kenneth had become so tired of such fun that he did not even smile.
Kenneth grew thirsty, and they stopped to drink at a fountain which gushed clear and sparkling by the wayside. But at the first[47] draught Kenneth found his mouth full of horrid, briny water, such as one swallows by mistake when one is bathing in the sea. Poor boy! This made him all the thirstier, but he was resolved not to show April Fool how wretched and unhappy he really was.
CHAPTER VI THE APRIL-FOOL JOURNEY
AT last, however, when Kenneth was so tired and faint that he could hardly walk another step, they came to the kitchen garden. There were the pie trees and the raspberry shrubs, the caramel plants and the bonbon hedge, brown with luscious chocolates.
“Now, help yourself,” said the imp cordially. And without further invitation Kenneth fell to. A fine cream pie lay under one of the trees, from which it had just fallen. Kenneth cut a wedge out of it with the knife which was sticking conveniently in the tree-trunk, and began to eat it ravenously. But faugh! What dreadful stuff! It was frosted with soapsuds instead of whipped cream!
“April Fool!” cried the imp, dancing up and down, for this was the best joke of all.
[49]“Oh!” whimpered Kenneth, “I hope they are not all April-Fool goodies.” And he ran to the next tree. But a bite was all he needed to prove that he must not trust his eyes this April Fool’s night. The mince pies were made of sand and sawdust, with pebbles for plums. The sponge cake was indeed a real sponge. The doughnuts were of India rubber; they might be fine for a teething baby to bite, but they were a poor lunch for a hungry boy. The griddle-cakes were rounds of leather, nicely browned on both sides. The salad was made of tissue paper; the chocolates were stuffed with cotton wool and other horrid stuff; while the maple sugar, upon which Kenneth was perfectly sure he could rely, turned out to be yellow soap—clean, but not appetizing.
Even the eggs, growing innocently white upon the egg-plant, turned out to be hollow mockeries; some humorous little boy seemed to have blown their insides away, as a great joke. Once Kenneth would have thought that[50] a very funny idea. But now he sat down and cried and cried, he was so disappointed and so hungry.
“Boo hoo! Boo hoo!” sobbed Kenneth. “I want to go home. I don’t like Fairyland one bit!”
“Ha! ha!” laughed the imp. “April Fool! This isn’t Fairyland at all; this is April Fool Land, and you are It. But come, I really think you have had enough of it. I will take you to the true Fairyland, and give you over to your kind, good, serious Fairy guide. Shall we go? One, two, three—out goes he!” And with a snap of his fingers, Kenneth found himself outside the tantalizing kitchen garden, walking toward his good Fairy’s real, truly palace, which gleamed comfortingly through the trees.
At first he dared not think that it was really so; he suspected another joke of April Fool’s. But at last he spied the good Fairy herself, standing at the top of the long flight of marble steps which led up to the palace. Kenneth[51] ran forward and waved his hand eagerly, he was so anxious to exchange guides and to be rid of the hateful imp. But the Fairy did not seem to see him. She was shading her eyes with her hand and looking off over the Christmas trees, appearing troubled.
“Humph!” growled the imp. “There she is, looking for you. And how eager you are to leave me, now that you have enjoyed all the jokes I had to play. Well, good-by! You have only to walk up the staircase to your goody-goody Fairy, and you will be safe from me. I cannot pass into that palace, where the fun is of a different kind from mine.”
“It is a great deal nicer than yours, for it is always kind,” retorted Kenneth, “and yet it is just as funny.”
“Very well, go and look for it, then,” cried the imp, and without another word he disappeared.
Kenneth was much relieved to see him go. He set his foot on the lowest stair and eagerly began the ascent of the marble flight. But no[52] sooner had he lifted his foot to the second step than the staircase itself began to move under him, so that he had to step quickly to keep from falling. Horrible! What did this mean? “April Fool!” cried a voice behind him. “Ha! ha! It is my last joke, and it is a rare good one. You are on a treadmill staircase, Kenneth. You must climb fast or you will fall down and be ground up inside the machine. Hurrah! Step lively, please! Quicker, quicker! Maybe you will reach the top by to-morrow morning.”
Kenneth had to work his little legs faster and faster and faster, as the great staircase revolved under him. Yet however he strove he reached never a step nearer the top, but remained always in the same spot. And the Fairy still looked away over the tops of the Christmas trees, without seeing him.
“Ha! ha!” laughed the imp; but his voice was fainter than it had been, and Kenneth hoped it was fading away. The poor boy was so exhausted that he felt he could not keep[53] up for long. His legs ached and his head ached dizzily, and his poor back, bent over the whirling staircase, ached most of all. “I cannot bear it,” he said to himself, panting and out of breath. “I cannot move my legs any faster. I cannot breathe. I must sit down, even if I do go under to be ground into little pieces.”
