House of Many Ways Read Free Page A

soapflakes. And piled into the back part of it were two more large laundry bags as full as the ones in the kitchen.
    “I shall scream,” Charmain said. “How could Aunt Sempronia do this to me? How could Mother let her do it?”
    In this moment of despair, Charmain could onlythink of doing what she always did in a crisis: bury herself in a book. She dragged her two bags over to the crowded table and sat herself down in one of the two chairs there. There she unbuckled the carpet bag, fetched her glasses up onto her nose, and dug eagerly among the clothes for the books she had put out for Mother to pack for her.
    Her hands met nothing but softness. The only hard thing proved to be the big bar of soap among her washing things. Charmain threw it across the room into the empty hearth and dug further. “I don’t believe this!” she said. “She must have put them in first, right at the bottom.” She turned the bag upside down and shook everything out onto the floor. Out fell wads of beautifully folded skirts, dresses, stockings, blouses, two knitted jackets, lace petticoats, and enough other underclothes for a year. On top of those flopped her new slippers. After that, the bag was flat and empty. Charmain nevertheless felt all the way round the inside of the bag before she threw it aside, let her glasses drop to the end of their chain, and wondered whether tocry. Mrs. Baker had actually forgotten to pack the books.
    “Well,” Charmain said, after an interval of blinking and swallowing, “I suppose I’ve never really been away from home before. Next time I go anywhere, I’ll pack the bag myself and fill it with books. I shall make the best of it for now.”
    Making the best of it, she heaved the other bag onto the crowded table and shoved to make room for it. This shunted four milk jugs and a teapot off onto the floor. “And I don’t care !” Charmain said as they fell. Somewhat to her relief, the milk jugs were empty and simply bounced, and the teapot did not break either. It just lay on its side leaking tea onto the floor. “That’s probably the good side to magic,” Charmain said, glumly digging out the topmost meat pasty. She flung her skirts into a bundle between her knees, put her elbows on the table, and took a huge, comforting, savory bite from the pasty.
    Something cold and quivery touched the bare part of her right leg.
    Charmain froze, not daring even to chew. Thiskitchen is full of big magical slugs! she thought.
    The cold thing touched another part of her leg. With the touch came a very small whispery whine.
    Very slowly, Charmain pulled aside skirt and tablecloth and looked down. Under the table sat an extremely small and ragged white dog, gazing up at her piteously and shaking all over. When it saw Charmain looking down at it, it cocked uneven, frayed-looking white ears and flailed at the floor with its short, wispy tail. Then it whispered out a whine again.
    “Who are you ?” Charmain said. “Nobody told me about a dog.”
    Great-Uncle William’s voice spoke out of the air once more. “This is Waif. Be very kind to him. He came to me as a stray and he seems to be frightened of everything.”
    Charmain had never been sure about dogs. Her mother said they were dirty and they bit you and would never have one in the house, so Charmain had always been extremely nervous of any dog she met. But this dog was so small. It seemed extremely whiteand clean. And it looked to be far more frightened of Charmain than Charmain was of it. It was still shaking all over.
    “Oh, do stop trembling,” Charmain said. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
    Waif went on trembling and looking at her piteously.
    Charmain sighed. She broke off a large lump of her pasty and held it down toward Waif. “Here,” she said. “Here’s for not being a slug after all.”
    Waif’s shiny black nose quivered toward the lump. He looked up at her, to make sure she really meant this, and then, very gently and politely, he took the