The Table That Counted Guests
Barnaby ironed his tablecloth with a warm stone from the hearth. He went slowly, in long straight lines. Whenever he made a crease he said, “Oh, I am sorry,” and went back over it until the crease was gone.
Barnaby was a badger. He lived in a low house at the edge of a wood, with a round green door, a long garden and a lane that ran down to a reedy pond. Tomorrow he was giving a Sunday lunch for the whole wood, and he wanted it to be perfect.
By perfect, Barnaby meant one thing above all. Everybody would have a seat. Nobody would sit on the stairs, or stand in the hall, or eat off their knees. He had once seen a hedgehog try to balance a plate of peas on prickly knees, and he had never got over it.
He had written twenty-two place cards in tiny, careful handwriting, and then worried about the spelling of every single one. He kept a pencil behind his ear and three blank cards in his waistcoat pocket, in case.
And he had the table.
Barnaby’s kitchen table had always done one odd thing. It grew a leaf for every guest who was coming. When his cousin came to tea, there was a small polite pock, like the cork coming out of a bottle of ginger beer. And at the end of the table there was a new leaf, with room for one more plate. Nobody knew why it did this. Barnaby had never liked to ask.
All week, as the invitations went round, the table had gone pock, and pock, and pock. Now it was twenty-two leaves long. It reached from the stove to the round green door and not an inch further, and the tablecloth fitted it exactly.
“Twenty-two,” said Mrs. Peck. Mrs. Peck was a hen who lived next door, and she counted everything out loud. She had already counted the plates, the forks and the peas, and she said the peas were a lot. “Twenty-two places for twenty-two guests. Very neat.”
“Is it, though?” said Barnaby. “Oh dear. Is it one L in Millie Mole, or two?”
“Two,” said Mrs. Peck. “And that is one oh dear.”
Now, a table that grows sounds like the most useful thing a host could own. Barnaby thought so too, on Saturday night.
On Sunday morning, word got round.
It got round the way word does in a wood. The squirrels told the rabbits, and the rabbits told the ducks, and the ducks told everybody, because ducks cannot keep anything to themselves. By breakfast the whole wood had heard that Barnaby was giving a lunch where nobody had to eat off their knees. A great many people found that they would truly like to come.
Mrs. Peck brought the news in at the round green door. Barnaby looked at the end of the table, which was touching the door. Then he shut the door firmly and leaned his back against it.
“It will just have to stay in,” he said.
“Pock,” said the table.
The round green door swung gently open, the way a door does when somebody polite would like to come through. And there was Barnaby, out on the step, still leaning on nothing. Beside him on the step was a new leaf. It was pine, and it did not match the table at all.
“Oh dear,” said Barnaby.
“Twenty-three,” said Mrs. Peck. “And two oh dears.”
“Pock,” said the table, and Mrs. Peck said the new number out loud. The next leaf was painted blue. The one after that had somebody else’s initials carved in the corner, and Barnaby put a saucer over them, because it seemed rude to read them. By the time the first guests came up the lane, the table had gone past the bean rows and was halfway to the gate.
Barnaby had a second plan. If everybody squeezed up, he thought, the table would not need to grow. He asked the rabbit sisters to share a chair, and they did, very nicely. He asked the three voles to share a chair, and they did, with room to spare. He asked a hedgehog and a mole to share a cushion, and they took turns.
“Pock,” said the table, and Mrs. Peck said the new number out loud. “Thirty-one.”
The table did not care about chairs. It counted everybody who wanted to come, and more of them wanted to come every minute. An old hare came up the lane with a stool under one arm and said there had been talk of gravy.
Then there was the tablecloth. The tablecloth did not grow at all. It stopped at the round green door, and everything after that was bare wood: pine, and blue, and somebody’s initials under a saucer.
“They’ll be eating off bare boards,” said Barnaby. “Like a barn. Oh dear.”
So Mrs. Peck sent the ducks round for every tablecloth in the wood. They came back with armfuls. There was a christening shawl from the rabbits, all lace and little holes. There was the sail off the boat on the pond, which nobody was using on a Sunday. There was a red tea towel that covered exactly one plate. And there was a very long scarf belonging to a heron, which went on and on down the lane like a stripe painted on the road.
Barnaby looked at it all. Lace, canvas, tea towel, scarf. Nothing matched anything.
“Oh dear,” he said. “Oh dear, oh dear.”
“Four, five, six,” said Mrs. Peck.
Barnaby sat down on the step. He had run out of room, and cloth, and nerve.
But from the step he could see the whole length of his lunch. The rabbit sisters were sharing a chair and laughing. The voles were sharing a chair and passing the salt. The heron, who had lent the scarf, was standing at the table, because that is how herons sit, and said that standing was very comfortable, thank you. Nobody was sitting on the stairs. Nobody was eating off their knees.
They were all waiting for the gravy.
So at last Barnaby did the sensible thing. He stood up, he fetched the gravy jug, and he started walking.
He walked the whole length of it. Down the kitchen, out of the round green door, past the bean rows and the gate and on down the lane. He poured gravy for everybody, invited or not. Barnaby, being an anxious host, had cooked enough for the whole wood twice. The guests nobody had asked had brought pies and apples and a jug of cream besides. There was plenty of everything. Ahead of him, all the way, the table went pock.
“Thirty-nine,” said Mrs. Peck, walking behind him. “Forty.”
The lane ran out at the reedy pond. The heron’s scarf ran out with it, in a fringe. And beside the pond, with a small polite sound, the last leaf pocked into place.
“Forty-one,” said Mrs. Peck.
Standing at the end of it was Old Wendy.
Old Wendy was a shy otter who lived at the bottom of the lane. She had never once been asked to lunch, by Barnaby or by anybody, because everybody was quite sure she liked her own company best. She was holding a plate. It had been polished until it shone like a small moon.
“I polished it this morning,” said Wendy. “When I heard the table coming down the lane. Just in case.”
Barnaby put down the gravy jug. “I’m so sorry,” he said. “I thought you would rather be left alone.”
“Mostly I would,” said Wendy. She looked at her plate. “Not on Sundays.”
Barnaby took the last blank card out of his waistcoat pocket and the pencil from behind his ear. He asked her how she spelled Wendy. There is only one way to spell Wendy, but she told him anyway, and he wrote it in his tiniest, most careful handwriting.
“Do you want the Old on it?” he said.
“Just Wendy,” said Wendy.
He set the card by her shining plate and poured her gravy, and there was exactly enough left in the jug for one more plate, which was his own. Barnaby said afterwards it was the first time in his life he had got the gravy right. Then he did not go back up the lane to the head of the table, where his own place card was waiting. Wendy had a bench by her door that had only ever held one otter, and it turned out to hold a badger as well. He sat down on it beside her at the far end, by the pond, and they passed each other the peas.
The table, you see, had known who wanted to come better than Barnaby had.
After the pudding, Mrs. Peck walked the whole length of the table and counted, because somebody had to. She counted forty-one guests, one happy badger, and six oh dears, which she said was a record for a Sunday. Barnaby did not say oh dear once more all afternoon.
And to this day, when Barnaby gives a Sunday lunch, the first card he writes says Wendy. He still asks her how to spell it, and she still tells him.