Anytime Tales (6 page)

“I can’t imagine. We’ll tell Aunt Tabitha at tea-time and see what she says,” said Phyllis, excited. “I daren’t wake her now. Come on—let’s finish our job. Put the case somewhere safe till tea-time.”

At tea-time the two girls took in the tea-tray most carefully. Phyllis had made the tea, and had filled the hot-water jug. The bread-and-butter was already cut. The cake Jane had taken out of the tin and put on a plate.

“Dear me! Where is Mary?” asked Aunt Tabitha in surprise, when the girls came in with the tea-things.

“She’s not feeling well,” said Jane. “So she is lying down for a little while. She was in the middle of turning out your little sewing-room, Aunt Tabitha, and we thought we would finish it for her. We took the big seat out of the old arm-chair there, to beat the dust from it—and right down under the seat we found
this!”

Jane gave her aunt the leather case. Aunt Tabitha stared at it in the greatest amazement and delight.

“My lost note-case!” she cried. “Oh, to think it’s found again! There are twenty pounds in it! I lost it nearly two years ago, and hunted for it everywhere! Well, well, well!”

“Oh, Aunt Tabitha—I
am
pleased for you!” cried Phyllis. “I know how horrid it is to lose things—and how lovely to find them again!”

“I do think you are good children to finish turning out the sewing-room,” said Aunt Tabitha. “And to think you were thorough enough to take the cushion-seat out of the chair to beat! Well, well! I’ve thought you were rather careless children—but I’m sorry I thought that now. I think you are good and helpful children, and I am pleased with you!”

Phyllis and Jane went red with pleasure. They each thought how nearly they had slipped away and gone home, but they did not want to tell Aunt Tabitha that. Instead they sat and ate a good tea, and had two slices of cake each because Aunt Tabitha was so pleased with them.

And the next day their aunt took them shopping. She bought a big baby-doll for Jane, with eyes that opened and shut, and a dolls’ house for Phyllis, with real electric lights in the rooms. It was marvellous.

“That’s your share of the twenty pounds you found!” said Aunt Tabitha. “Nice children! Good children! I’m glad you are staying with me!”

“We’re glad, too,” said Jane, and she hugged her aunt hard. And, dear me, wasn’t it a good thing they didn’t run away the day before! You never know how things are going to turn out, do you? It’s always best to go on trying, no matter what happens.

Leslie was one of those boys who are always late for breakfast, late for school, last out at playtime, and behind in all their work. He was lazy and slow, and he just wouldn’t be quick.

Now one day his father called him to him and spoke kindly but sternly to him. “Listen, Leslie. I am going to give you a reward if you try to alter yourself. You will be one of the useless people in the world when you grow up if you don’t stir yourself up a bit, and really try not to be late or slow in everything. If for a whole week you are in time for everything, and even first at some things, and make a few runs at cricket, then I will give you a new bicycle.”

“Oooh!” said Leslie, his eyes opening wide. All his friends had bicycles, but his father had never given him one because Leslie never seemed to try hard at anything, and really didn’t deserve one.

“Now, are you going to try hard?” said his father. Leslie nodded, and his eyes shone. A new bicycle! One with a loud bell and a pump. My word, how fast he would go and what fun he would have with the other boys!

But although he had such a lovely reward offered to him, Leslie didn’t feel at all sure that he would be able to be first in anything, or even quick. He sat and thought about it.

“If I could get a spell to help me it would make things much easier,” he said to himself. “I’ll go to the old woman who lives in the heart of the wood. People say that her grandmother was a witch, so maybe she knows a few spells.”

Well, the old woman did. She gave Leslie a queer little yellow pill in a box. “That’s the finest spell I know for laziness,” she said. “It gets into your arms and legs almost at once and makes them quick and strong and active. You’ll be all right if you take that. But mind—if you get that bicycle because of my spell, I shall expect you to ride my errands on it twice a week!”

“Oh, I will, I will!” promised Leslie, and ran off with the little yellow pill. He took it before he went to bed that night.

He fell asleep at once. The spell worked away inside him all the night. It got into his arms and legs, and into his fingers and toes. It awoke him in the morning.

Leslie began to yawn and stretch himself as he always did. But his legs gave him no time to do that— they leapt out of bed at once! Leslie got a great surprise. But he soon had an even greater one. His arms began to work at top speed, and he found himself putting on pants and shirt and jersey and shorts faster than he had ever done before!

“Goodness!” said Leslie, trying to stop his hands from putting on two shoes at once. But the spell was too strong—he couldn’t stop himself at all. On went his shoes, and the laces were tied up in a twinkling.

Then his legs took charge of him again and raced him down the stairs at top speed. He fell over the cat and bumped his head. He made such a noise that his father was cross.

“Leslie! Is there any need to upset the whole household like this? What are you doing?”

Leslie’s legs had rushed him to the breakfast table, and now his hands were helping him to his breakfast, shaking cereal out of a packet, emptying milk and sugar on to bis plate, and then making him eat so quickly that he almost choked.

Up and down to his mouth went the spoon, and poor Leslie had no time to swallow one mouthful before the next was at his lips.

“Leslie! Don’t gobble like that!” said his mother. “Why are you in such a hurry? Yesterday you were so lazy that you took hours over your meal, and today you gobble so fast that you choke. Behave yourself!”

It was the same with his boiled egg. His hand hacked off the top, and then the spoon dived in and out, and his other hand took bread and butter to his mouth at top speed, so that the egg and bread were finished in about half a minute.

“Leslie!” said his father, laying down his paper. “Leslie! If you think that this strange behaviour will make me give you a bicycle you are quite mistaken. You are being very silly. Sit back and be quiet whilst we finish our meal. I am ashamed of you.”

But Leslie could not sit back and be quiet whilst that spell was in him. His legs jumped up and ran him to his school satchel. His hands piled all his books in.

They snatched his cap and coat, and put them on. Then his legs rushed him to his father and mother to say good-bye, and then he tore out of the house and down the road. He felt rather sick. It wasn’t at all good for him to gobble his breakfast like that.

“What’s come over Leslie?” said his mother in alarm. “You shouldn’t have promised him a bicycle. Daddy, if it makes him behave like this!”

School was dreadful for poor Leslie that morning. He was the first there, of course. The others didn’t come for half an hour. But Leslie’s legs were not going to be lazy, and neither were his hands. They were soon hard at work, pulling up weeds in the school garden, piling them into a barrow, and running the barrow at top speed to the rubbish-heap.

The headmaster was most amazed when he arrived and saw what was happening. Could this be Lazy Leslie? Could this be the slowest boy in the school, weeding at top speed and wheeling the heavy barrow to the rubbish-heap so quickly?

It was too good to be true.

Leslie felt very tired when school began. He wasn’t used to such hurrying and such hard work. He sank down into his seat thankfully. At any rate, he would get a rest now.

But, no, he didn’t. His hands set to work at his sums and copied them down at such a speed that Leslie could hardly see the figures. Then the spell began to work inside his head and his brain made him do the sums. He couldn’t think of anything else but sums. Usually he looked out of the window or round at the other boys, lazing away his time. He couldn’t do that this morning.

“You’ve done enough sums now, Leslie,” said the master in surprise. “You’ve done very well. I am pleased with you.”

That made Leslie glad, but he was feeling very alarmed now. This spell was much too powerful for him. He didn’t like doing everything at such a pace. But it was just the same in the writing lessons.

The boys were told to copy out a page in their history book in their best writing. At once Leslie’s fingers got to work and they wrote page after page. The master stared in astonishment. Leslie usually wrote about half a page, but here he was turning over page after page, filling it with writing. Whatever could have happened?

When playtime came Leslie’s legs shot him off to the cloakroom to get his lunch, and then shot him out to the playground, almost knocking over one or two boys.

“What’s the hurry now? What’s the hurry?” they shouted, and gave him a push. “Stop rushing like this, Leslie. It’s not funny.”

The boys played games in the playground, and Leslie ran about fast and dodged here and there, caught all the others easily, and knocked quite a lot over. The boys didn’t understand what was happening, and they were cross. Peter gave Leslie a slap, and at once Leslie’s fists doubled themselves up and began to hit Peter.