Magic Faraway Tree Read Free Page A

door.
     
   
Jo led the way up to the very top of the Faraway Tree. Then suddenly Dick gave
a shout of astonishment.
     
   
"Look!" he cried. "There's an enormous white cloud above and around
us. Isn't it queer!"
Sure enough, a vast white cloud swam above them -but just near by was a hole right
through the cloud!
"That's where we go, up that hole," said Jo. "See that branch that
goes up the hole? Come on!"
They all went up the last and topmost branch of the Faraway Tree. It went up and
up through the purple hole in the cloud. At the very end of the branch was a little
ladder.
     
   
Jo climbed the ladder-and suddenly his head poked out into the Land of Topsy-Turvy!
Then one by one all the others followed-and soon all seven of them stood in the
curious land.
     
   
Dick was not as used to strange lands as were the others. He stood and stared,
with his eyes so wide open that it really seemed as if they were going to drop
out of his head!
And, indeed, it was a strange sight he saw. Every house was upside down, and stood
on its chimneys. The trees were upside down, their heads buried in the ground
and their roots in the air. And, dear me, the people walked upside-down, too!
"They are walking on their hands, with their legs in the air!" said
Jo, "Goodness, what a queer thing to do!"
Everyone stared at the folk of Topsy-Turvy Land. They got along very quickly on
their hands, and often stopped to talk to one another, chattering busily. Some
of them had been shopping, and carried their baskets on one foot.
     
   
"Let's go and peep inside a house and see what it's like, all topsy-turvy,"
said Jo. So they set off to the nearest house. It looked most peculiar standing
on its chimneys. No smoke came out of them-but smoke came out of a window near
the top.
     
   
"How do we get in?" said Bessie. They watched a Topsy-Turvy man walk
on his hands to another house. He jumped in at the nearest window, going up a
ladder first.
     
   
The children looked for the ladder that entered the house they were near. They
soon found it. They went up it to a window and peeped inside.
     
   
"Gracious!" said Jo. "Everything really is upside down in it-the
chairs and tables, and
everything. How uncomfortable it must be!"
An old lady was inside the house. She was sitting upside down in an upside-down
chair and looked very peculiar. She was angry when she saw the children peeping
in.
     
   
She clapped her hands, and a tall man, walking on his hands, came running in from
the next room.
     
   
"Send those rude children away," shouted the old woman. The tall man
hurried to the window on his hands, and the children quickly slid down the ladder,
for the man looked rather fierce.
     
   
"It's a silly land, I think," said Jo. "I vote we just have our
lunch and then leave this place. I wonder why everything is topsy-turvy."
"Oh, a spell was put on everything and everybody," said Moon-Face, "and
in a trice everything was topsy-turvy. Look-wouldn't that be a good place to sit
and eat our lunch in?"
It was under a big oak tree whose roots stood high in the air. Jo and Moon-Face
set out the lunch. It looked very good.
     
   
"There's plenty for everybody," said Jo. "Have a sandwich, Silky?"
"Saucepan, have a plum?"
"Crumb?" said Saucepan, in surprise. "Is that all you can spare
for me-a crumb?"
"PLUM, PLUM, PLUM!" said Moon-Face, pushing a ripe one into the Saucepan
Man's hands.
     
   
"Oh, plum," said Saucepan. "Well, why didn't you say so?'
Everybody giggled. They all set to work to eat a good lunch.
     
   
In the middle of it, Jo happened to look round, and he saw something surprising.
     
   
It was a policeman coming along, walking on his hands, of course.
     
   
"Look what's coming," said Jo with a laugh. Everyone looked. Moon-Face
went pale.
     
   
"I don't like the look of him," he said. "Suppose he's come to
lock us up for something? We couldn't get away down the