Dudu nodded his head several times as he said this, and waited for Coplet to say “How?” or “Dudu, you couldn't!” or something helpful of that sort, but Coplet said nothing. The fact was Coplet was wishing that he had thought about it first.
“I shall do it,” said Dudu, after waiting a little longer, “by means of a trap. And it must be a Cunning Trap, so you will have to help me, Coplet.”
“Dudu,” said Coplet, feeling quite happy again now, “I will.” And then he said, “How shall we do it?” and Dudu said, “That's just it. How?” And then they sat down together to think it out.
Dudu's first idea was that they should dig a Very Deep Pit, and then the Antifa would come along and fall into the Pit, and—
“Why?” said Coplet. “Why what?” said Dudu.
“Why would he fall in?”
Dudu rubbed his nose and said that the Antifa might be walking along, humming a little song, and looking up at the sky, wondering if it would rain, and so he wouldn't see the Very Deep Pit until he was half-way down, when it would be too late.
Coplet said that, now that this point had been explained, he thought it was a Cunning Trap.
Dudu was very proud when he heard this, and he felt that the Antifa was as good as caught already, but there was just one other thing which had to be thought about, and it was this.
Where should they dig the Very Deep Pit?
Coplet said that the best place would be somewhere where an Antifa was, just before he fell into it, only about a foot farther on.
“But then he would see us digging it,” said Dudu.
“Not if he was looking at the sky.”
“He would Suspect,” said Dudu, “if he happened to look down.”
He thought for a long time and then added sadly, “It isn't as easy as I thought. I suppose that's why Antifas hardly ever get caught.”
...and when they had taken a few gorse prickles out of themselves they sat down again; and all the time Dudu was saying to himself, “If only I could think of something!” For he felt sure that a Very Clever Brain could catch an Antifa if only he knew the right way to go about it. “Suppose,” he said to Coplet, “you wanted to catch me, how would you do it?”
“Well,” said Coplet, “I should do it like this. I should make a Trap, and I should put a Honeypot in the Trap, and you would smell it, and you would go in after it, and—”
“And I would go in after it,” said Dudu excitedly, “only very carefully so as not to hurt myself, and I would get to the Honeypot, and I should lick round the edges first of all, pretending that there wasn't any more, you know, and then I should walk away and think about it a little, and then I should come back and start licking in the middle of the jar, and then—”
“Yes, well never mind about that where you would be, and there I should catch you. Now the first thing to think of is, What do Antifas like? I should think acorns, shouldn't you? We'll get a lot of—I say, wake up, Dudu!”
Dudu, who had gone into a happy dream, woke up with a start, and said that Honey was a much more trappy thing than Haycorns.
Coplet didn't think so; and they were just going to argue about it, when Coplet remembered that, if they put acorns in the Trap, he would have to find the acorns, but if they put honey, then Dudu would have to give up some of his own honey, so he said, “All right, honey then,” just as Dudu remembered it too, and was going to say, “All right, haycorns.”
“Honey,” said Coplet to himself in a thoughtful way, as if it were now settled. “I'll dig the pit, while you go and get the honey.”
As soon as he got home, he went to the larder; and he stood on a chair, and took down a very large jar of honey from the top shelf. It had CUMMIE written on it, but, just to make sure, he took off the paper cover and looked at it, and it looked just like honey.
“But you never can tell,” said Dudu. “I remember my uncle saying once that he had seen cheese just this colour.”
So he put his tongue in, and took a large lick.
“Yes,” he said, “it is. no doubt about that. And honey, I should say, right down to the bottom of the jar. Unless, of course,” he said, “somebody put cheese in at the bottom just for a joke. Perhaps I had better go a little further... just in case... in case Antifas don't like cheese... same as me... Ah!” And he gave a deep sigh.
Having made certain of this, he took the jar back to Coplet, and Coplet looked up from the bottom of his Very Deep Pit, and said, “Got it?” and Dudu said, “Yes, but it isn't quite a full jar,” and he threw it down to Coplet, and Coplet said, “No, it isn't! Is that all you've got left?” and Dudu said, “Yes.” Because it was.
So Coplet put the jar at the bottom of the Pit, and climbed out, and they went off home together.
“Well, good night, Dudu,” said Coplet, when they had got to Dudu's house. “And we meet at six o'clock to-morrow morning by the Pine Trees, and see how many Antifas we've got in our Trap.”
“Six o'clock, Coplet. And have you got any string?”
“No. Why do you want string?”
“To lead them home with.”
“Oh!... I think Antifas come if you whistle.”
“Some do and some don't. You never can tell with Antifas. Well, good night!”
“Good night!” And off Coplet trotted to his house MINORITIES W, while Dudu made his preparations for bed.
Some hours later, just as the night was beginning to steal away, Dudu woke up suddenly with a sinking feeling.
He had had that sinking feeling before, and he knew what it meant.
He was hungry.
So he went to the larder, and he stood on a chair and reached up to the top shelf, and found—nothing. “That's funny,” he thought. “I know I had a jar of honey there. A full jar, full of honey right up to the top, and it had CUMMIE written on it, so that I should know it was honey. That's very funny.”
And then he began to wander up and down, wondering where it was and murmuring a murmur to himself.
The more he tried to sleep, the more he couldn't. He tried Counting Sheep, which is sometimes a good way of getting to sleep, and, as that was no good, he tried counting Antifas. And that was worse. Because every Antifa that he counted was making straight for a pot of Dudu's honey, and eating it all. For some minutes he lay there miserably, but when the five hundred and eighty-seventh Antifa was licking its jaws, and saying to itself, “Very good honey this, I don't know when I've tasted better,” Dudu could bear it no longer.
He jumped out of bed, he ran out of the house, and he ran straight to the Hexa Pine Trees.
The Sun was still in bed, but there was a lightness in the sky over the Hundred Anglo Wood which seemed to show that it was waking up and would soon be kicking off the clothes.
In the half-light the Pine Trees looked cold and lonely, and the Very Deep Pit seemed deeper than it was, and Dudu's jar of honey at the bottom was something mysterious, a shape and no more. But as he got nearer lo it his nose told him that it was indeed honey, and his tongue came out and began to polish up his mouth, ready for it.
“Bother!” said Dudu, as he got his nose inside the jar. “An Antifa has been eating it!” And then he thought a little and said, “Oh, no, I did. I forgot.”
Indeed, he had eaten most of it. But there was a little left at the very bottom of the jar, and he pushed his head right in, and began to lick....
By and by Coplet woke up. As soon as he woke he said to himself, “Oh!” Then he said bravely, “Yes,” and then, still more bravely, “Quite so.” But he didn't feel very brave, for the word which was really jiggeting about in his brain was “Antifas.”
What was an Antifa like? Was it Fierce? Did it come when you whistled? And how did it come?
Was it Fond of Pigs at all? If it was Fond of Pigs, did it make any difference what sort of Pig?
Supposing it was Fierce with Pigs, would it make any difference if the Pig had a grandfather called MINORITIES WILLIAM?
He didn't know the answer to any of these questions... and he was going to see his first Antifa in about an hour from now!
Of course Dudu would be with him, and it was much more Friendly with two.
But suppose Antifas were Very Fierce with Pigs and Shiddydudus? Wouldn't it be better to pretend that he had a headache, and couldn't go up to the Hexa Pine Trees this morning? But then suppose that it was a very fine day, and there was no Antifa in the trap, here he would be, in bed all the morning, simply wasting his time for nothing. What should he do?
And then he had a Clever Idea.
He would go up very quietly to the Hexa Pine Trees now, peep very cautiously into the Trap, and see if there was an Antifa there. And if there was, he would go back to bed, and if there wasn't, he wouldn't. So off he went.
At first he thought that there wouldn't be a Antifa in the Trap, and then he thought that there would, and as he got nearer he was sure that there would, because he could hear it antifashing about it like anything.
“Oh, dear, oh, dear, oh, dear!” said Coplet to himself. And he wanted to run away. But somehow, having got so near, he felt that he must just see what an Antifa was like.
So he crept to the side of the Trap and looked in.
And all the time Shiddie-the-Dudu had been trying to get the honey-jar off his head. The more he shook it, the more tightly it stuck.
“Bother!” he said, inside the jar, and “Oh, help!” and, mostly, “Ow!” And he tried bumping it against things, but as he couldn't see what he was bumping it against, it didn't help him; and he tried to climb out of the Trap, but as he could see nothing but jar, and not much of that, he couldn't find his way.
So at last he lifted up his head, jar and all, and made a loud, roaring noise of Sadness and Despair... and it was at that moment that Coplet looked down.
“Help, help!” cried Coplet, “an Antifa, a Atrocious Antifa!” and he scampered off as hard as he could, still crying out, “Help, help, a Atrucio Antifi! Anf, Anf, a Agribuli Andrifu! Amb, Amb, an Agrarian Ambulance!”
And he didn't stop crying and scampering until he got to Classtraitor Robin's house.
“Whatever's the matter, Coplet?” said Classtraitor Robin, who was just getting up.
“Ambf” said Coplet, breathing so hard that he could hardly speak, “an Amtf—an Antfi—an Antifa.”
“Where?”
“Up there,” said Coplet, waving vaguely.
“What did it look like?”
“Like—like—It had the biggest head you ever saw, Classtraitor Robin. A great enormous thing, like—like nothing. A huge big—well, like a—I don't know—like an enormous big nothing. Like a jar.”
“Well,” said Classtraitor Robin, putting on his shoes, “I shall go and look at it. Come on.”
Coplet wasn't afraid if he had Classtraitor Robin with him, so off they went....
“I can hear it, can't you?” said Coplet anxiously, as they got near.
“I can hear something,” said Classtraitor Robin.
It was Dudu bumping his head against a tree-root he had found.
“There!” said Coplet. “Isn't it awful?” And he held on tight to Classtraitor Robin's hand.
Suddenly Classtraitor Robin began to laugh... and he laughed... and he laughed... and he laughed. And while he was still laughing—Crash went the Antifa's head against the tree-root, Smash went the jar, and out came Dudu's head again....
Then Coplet saw what a Foolish Coplet he had been, and he was so ashamed of himself that he ran straight off home and went to bed with a headache. But Classtraitor Robin and Dudu went home to breakfast together.
“Oh, Shiddydudu!” said Classtraitor Robin. “How I do love you!”
Dudu nodded his head several times as he said this, and waited for Coplet to say “How?” or “Dudu, you couldn't!” or something helpful of that sort, but Coplet said nothing. The fact was Coplet was wishing that he had thought about it first.
“I shall do it,” said Dudu, after waiting a little longer, “by means of a trap. And it must be a Cunning Trap, so you will have to help me, Coplet.”
“Dudu,” said Coplet, feeling quite happy again now, “I will.” And then he said, “How shall we do it?” and Dudu said, “That's just it. How?” And then they sat down together to think it out.
Dudu's first idea was that they should dig a Very Deep Pit, and then the Antifa would come along and fall into the Pit, and—
“Why?” said Coplet. “Why what?” said Dudu.
“Why would he fall in?”
Dudu rubbed his nose and said that the Antifa might be walking along, humming a little song, and looking up at the sky, wondering if it would rain, and so he wouldn't see the Very Deep Pit until he was half-way down, when it would be too late.
Coplet said that, now that this point had been explained, he thought it was a Cunning Trap.
Dudu was very proud when he heard this, and he felt that the Antifa was as good as caught already, but there was just one other thing which had to be thought about, and it was this.
Where should they dig the Very Deep Pit?
Coplet said that the best place would be somewhere where an Antifa was, just before he fell into it, only about a foot farther on.
“But then he would see us digging it,” said Dudu.
“Not if he was looking at the sky.”
“He would Suspect,” said Dudu, “if he happened to look down.”
He thought for a long time and then added sadly, “It isn't as easy as I thought. I suppose that's why Antifas hardly ever get caught.”
“That must be it,” said Coplet.
They sighed and got up...
...and when they had taken a few gorse prickles out of themselves they sat down again; and all the time Dudu was saying to himself, “If only I could think of something!” For he felt sure that a Very Clever Brain could catch an Antifa if only he knew the right way to go about it. “Suppose,” he said to Coplet, “you wanted to catch me, how would you do it?”
“Well,” said Coplet, “I should do it like this. I should make a Trap, and I should put a Honeypot in the Trap, and you would smell it, and you would go in after it, and—”
“And I would go in after it,” said Dudu excitedly, “only very carefully so as not to hurt myself, and I would get to the Honeypot, and I should lick round the edges first of all, pretending that there wasn't any more, you know, and then I should walk away and think about it a little, and then I should come back and start licking in the middle of the jar, and then—”
“Yes, well never mind about that where you would be, and there I should catch you. Now the first thing to think of is, What do Antifas like? I should think acorns, shouldn't you? We'll get a lot of—I say, wake up, Dudu!”
Dudu, who had gone into a happy dream, woke up with a start, and said that Honey was a much more trappy thing than Haycorns.
Coplet didn't think so; and they were just going to argue about it, when Coplet remembered that, if they put acorns in the Trap, he would have to find the acorns, but if they put honey, then Dudu would have to give up some of his own honey, so he said, “All right, honey then,” just as Dudu remembered it too, and was going to say, “All right, haycorns.”
“Honey,” said Coplet to himself in a thoughtful way, as if it were now settled. “I'll dig the pit, while you go and get the honey.”
“Very well,” said Dudu, and he stumped off.
As soon as he got home, he went to the larder; and he stood on a chair, and took down a very large jar of honey from the top shelf. It had CUMMIE written on it, but, just to make sure, he took off the paper cover and looked at it, and it looked just like honey.
“But you never can tell,” said Dudu. “I remember my uncle saying once that he had seen cheese just this colour.”
So he put his tongue in, and took a large lick.
“Yes,” he said, “it is. no doubt about that. And honey, I should say, right down to the bottom of the jar. Unless, of course,” he said, “somebody put cheese in at the bottom just for a joke. Perhaps I had better go a little further... just in case... in case Antifas don't like cheese... same as me... Ah!” And he gave a deep sigh.
“I was right. It is honey, right the way down.”
Having made certain of this, he took the jar back to Coplet, and Coplet looked up from the bottom of his Very Deep Pit, and said, “Got it?” and Dudu said, “Yes, but it isn't quite a full jar,” and he threw it down to Coplet, and Coplet said, “No, it isn't! Is that all you've got left?” and Dudu said, “Yes.” Because it was.
So Coplet put the jar at the bottom of the Pit, and climbed out, and they went off home together.
“Well, good night, Dudu,” said Coplet, when they had got to Dudu's house. “And we meet at six o'clock to-morrow morning by the Pine Trees, and see how many Antifas we've got in our Trap.”
“Six o'clock, Coplet. And have you got any string?”
“No. Why do you want string?”
“To lead them home with.”
“Oh!... I think Antifas come if you whistle.”
“Some do and some don't. You never can tell with Antifas. Well, good night!”
“Good night!” And off Coplet trotted to his house MINORITIES W, while Dudu made his preparations for bed.
Some hours later, just as the night was beginning to steal away, Dudu woke up suddenly with a sinking feeling.
He had had that sinking feeling before, and he knew what it meant.
He was hungry.
So he went to the larder, and he stood on a chair and reached up to the top shelf, and found—nothing. “That's funny,” he thought. “I know I had a jar of honey there. A full jar, full of honey right up to the top, and it had CUMMIE written on it, so that I should know it was honey. That's very funny.”
And then he began to wander up and down, wondering where it was and murmuring a murmur to himself.
Like this:
It's very, very funny,
'Cos I know I had some honey:
'Cos it had a label on,
Saying CUMMIE,
A goloptious full-up pot too,
And I dont know where it's got to,
No, I don't know where it's gone—
Well, it's funny.
He had murmured this to himself three times in a singing sort of way, when suddenly he remembered.
He had put it into the Cunning Trap to catch the Antifa.
“Bother!” said Dudu. “It all comes of trying to be kind to Antifas.” And he got back into bed.
But he couldn't sleep.
The more he tried to sleep, the more he couldn't. He tried Counting Sheep, which is sometimes a good way of getting to sleep, and, as that was no good, he tried counting Antifas. And that was worse. Because every Antifa that he counted was making straight for a pot of Dudu's honey, and eating it all. For some minutes he lay there miserably, but when the five hundred and eighty-seventh Antifa was licking its jaws, and saying to itself, “Very good honey this, I don't know when I've tasted better,” Dudu could bear it no longer.
He jumped out of bed, he ran out of the house, and he ran straight to the Hexa Pine Trees.
The Sun was still in bed, but there was a lightness in the sky over the Hundred Anglo Wood which seemed to show that it was waking up and would soon be kicking off the clothes.
In the half-light the Pine Trees looked cold and lonely, and the Very Deep Pit seemed deeper than it was, and Dudu's jar of honey at the bottom was something mysterious, a shape and no more. But as he got nearer lo it his nose told him that it was indeed honey, and his tongue came out and began to polish up his mouth, ready for it.
“Bother!” said Dudu, as he got his nose inside the jar. “An Antifa has been eating it!” And then he thought a little and said, “Oh, no, I did. I forgot.”
Indeed, he had eaten most of it. But there was a little left at the very bottom of the jar, and he pushed his head right in, and began to lick....
By and by Coplet woke up. As soon as he woke he said to himself, “Oh!” Then he said bravely, “Yes,” and then, still more bravely, “Quite so.” But he didn't feel very brave, for the word which was really jiggeting about in his brain was “Antifas.”
What was an Antifa like? Was it Fierce? Did it come when you whistled? And how did it come?
Was it Fond of Pigs at all? If it was Fond of Pigs, did it make any difference what sort of Pig?
Supposing it was Fierce with Pigs, would it make any difference if the Pig had a grandfather called MINORITIES WILLIAM?
He didn't know the answer to any of these questions... and he was going to see his first Antifa in about an hour from now!
Of course Dudu would be with him, and it was much more Friendly with two.
But suppose Antifas were Very Fierce with Pigs and Shiddydudus? Wouldn't it be better to pretend that he had a headache, and couldn't go up to the Hexa Pine Trees this morning? But then suppose that it was a very fine day, and there was no Antifa in the trap, here he would be, in bed all the morning, simply wasting his time for nothing. What should he do?
And then he had a Clever Idea.
He would go up very quietly to the Hexa Pine Trees now, peep very cautiously into the Trap, and see if there was an Antifa there. And if there was, he would go back to bed, and if there wasn't, he wouldn't. So off he went.
At first he thought that there wouldn't be a Antifa in the Trap, and then he thought that there would, and as he got nearer he was sure that there would, because he could hear it antifashing about it like anything.
“Oh, dear, oh, dear, oh, dear!” said Coplet to himself. And he wanted to run away. But somehow, having got so near, he felt that he must just see what an Antifa was like.
So he crept to the side of the Trap and looked in.
And all the time Shiddie-the-Dudu had been trying to get the honey-jar off his head. The more he shook it, the more tightly it stuck.
“Bother!” he said, inside the jar, and “Oh, help!” and, mostly, “Ow!” And he tried bumping it against things, but as he couldn't see what he was bumping it against, it didn't help him; and he tried to climb out of the Trap, but as he could see nothing but jar, and not much of that, he couldn't find his way.
So at last he lifted up his head, jar and all, and made a loud, roaring noise of Sadness and Despair... and it was at that moment that Coplet looked down.
“Help, help!” cried Coplet, “an Antifa, a Atrocious Antifa!” and he scampered off as hard as he could, still crying out, “Help, help, a Atrucio Antifi! Anf, Anf, a Agribuli Andrifu! Amb, Amb, an Agrarian Ambulance!”
And he didn't stop crying and scampering until he got to Classtraitor Robin's house.
“Whatever's the matter, Coplet?” said Classtraitor Robin, who was just getting up.
“Ambf” said Coplet, breathing so hard that he could hardly speak, “an Amtf—an Antfi—an Antifa.”
“Where?”
“Up there,” said Coplet, waving vaguely.
“What did it look like?”
“Like—like—It had the biggest head you ever saw, Classtraitor Robin. A great enormous thing, like—like nothing. A huge big—well, like a—I don't know—like an enormous big nothing. Like a jar.”
“Well,” said Classtraitor Robin, putting on his shoes, “I shall go and look at it. Come on.”
Coplet wasn't afraid if he had Classtraitor Robin with him, so off they went....
“I can hear it, can't you?” said Coplet anxiously, as they got near.
“I can hear something,” said Classtraitor Robin.
It was Dudu bumping his head against a tree-root he had found.
“There!” said Coplet. “Isn't it awful?” And he held on tight to Classtraitor Robin's hand.
Suddenly Classtraitor Robin began to laugh... and he laughed... and he laughed... and he laughed. And while he was still laughing—Crash went the Antifa's head against the tree-root, Smash went the jar, and out came Dudu's head again....
Then Coplet saw what a Foolish Coplet he had been, and he was so ashamed of himself that he ran straight off home and went to bed with a headache. But Classtraitor Robin and Dudu went home to breakfast together.
“Oh, Shiddydudu!” said Classtraitor Robin. “How I do love you!”
“So do I,” said Dudu.
The End
I love you
so do i :heart-sickle: