The Book of Brownies (The Enchanted World) by Enid Blyton

easily as anything.
    ‘Hop!’ cried Jump, when they had got out of the turnstile man’s hearing. ‘Hop! That
was
clever of you! How
did
you think of it?’
    ‘It just came into my head,’ said Hop, quite as surprised as the others. ‘I believe I’ll be quite good at it.’
    ‘What does the book of rules say?’ asked Jump. Hop read it, and told the others.
    ‘Nothing much,’ he said. ‘Always talk in rhyme. Make up a new riddle every day. Answer one. Not much, is it?’
    ‘I don’t know,’ said Skip doubtfully. ‘I think making up riddles is very hard.’
    ‘What happens if we can’t make up riddles or answer them?’ asked Jump.
    ‘I’ll look and see,’ said Hop, turning over the page. ‘Oh, buttons and buttercups!’
    ‘What, Hop?’ asked Skip and Jump.
    ‘Anyone who can’t make up riddles or answer them is scolded for being stupid,’ said Hop in dismay.
    ‘Oh, I
do
wish we hadn’t come here!’ said Jump. ‘This is
your
fault again, Hop. You’re always leading us into trouble.’
    ‘Let’s go back to the turnstile man and ask him to let us out,’ said Hop.
    So they went back.
    ‘Please let us out again, because
    We find we cannot keep your laws,’
    said Hop, after scratching his head and thinking hard for five minutes.
    The bald-headed man shook his head.
     
    ‘Find rule number thirty-two,
    And that will tell you what to do,’
    he told them.
    Hop found it and read it.
    ‘We can’t get out of the Land of Clever People until we think of something that their Very Wise Man cannot do,’ he told the others sadly. ‘There isn’t much hope for
us
, then.’
    ‘Stay here all our lives, I suppose,’ said Skip gloomily.
    ‘And be scolded every day,’ said Jump, still more gloomily.
    The three brownies went sadly up the tunnel. They hadn’t gone very far before they saw daylight, and to their joy they found that they were once more above ground. They ran out of the
tunnel and danced about in the sunlight. Then they stopped and looked to see what sort of country they were in.
    ‘My!’ said Hop. ‘It’s rather peculiar, isn’t it? It all looks so proper!’
    It certainly
did
look proper. The houses were set down in perfectly straight lines. All the windows were the same size, and all the doors. All the knockers were the same, and they all
shone brightly.
    The people looked very proper too. They all wore spectacles, and had very large heads and all the men were bald. If everybody hadn’t been rather short and tubby, they would have looked
frightening, but as it was they looked rather funny.
    Skip began to giggle.
    ‘They don’t look as if they ever smiled!’ he chuckled.
    A fat little policeman came up to them. He put his hand heavily on Skip’s shoulder.
     
    ‘You mustn’t giggle here, you know,
    Or else to prison you must go.
    This is not the Land of Giggles . . .’
    He stopped and looked at the brownies. The brownies looked back. Evidently he expected them to finish the rhyme.
    ‘Oh dear!’ thought Hop. ‘Whatever will make a rhyme for giggles? What an awful word!’
    The policeman coughed and repeated his lines again. Then he took out his note-book.
    Hop began to tremble.
    ‘This is not the Land of Giggles,’ said the policeman in an awful, this-is-the-last-time sort of voice.
    ‘How your little finger wiggles!’ said Hop suddenly.
    The policeman looked at his little finger in surprise. It wasn’t wiggling. Still Hop had made a rhyme, so he closed up his notebook and marched solemnly off.
    ‘That was a narrow escape,’ said Hop in a whisper. ‘It’s a mean trick to leave someone to finish what you’re saying, in rhyme. Now, remember, for goodness’
sake, don’t giggle. We don’t want to be sent to prison, or to the Land of Giggles, do we?’
    Night was falling. Lamps began to shine in the little streets.
    ‘We’d better find a place to sleep,’ said Skip, with a yawn. Another policeman suddenly appeared behind them. Hop saw him in time, and made a