The Fairy Doll Read Free Page A

writing-paper,’ said Elizabeth.

    There was a broom made of a fir-twig, a burr for a doorscraper; a berry on a thread made a knocker. ‘In summer I’ll get you a dandelion clock,’ she told Fairy Doll.
    ‘You haven’t got a bath,’ said Josie.
    ‘Fairies don’t need baths,’ said Elizabeth. ‘They wash outside in the dew.’
    It was odd; she was beginning to know about fairies.
    ‘What does she eat?’ asked Josie.
    ‘Snow ice-cream,’ said Elizabeth – it was snowing – ‘holly baked apples, and hips off the rose trees.’
    ‘Hips are too big for a little doll like that,’ said Josie.
    ‘They are fairy pineapples,’ said Elizabeth with dignity.
    ‘Look what Elizabeth has made,’ cried Christabel, and she said in surprise, ‘It’s pretty!’
    Godfrey came to look. ‘Gosh!’ said Godfrey.
    Josie put her hand to touch a toadstool, and a funny feeling stirred inside Elizabeth, a feeling like a hard little wand.
    ‘Don’t touch,’ said Elizabeth to Josie.

    Spring came, and Fairy Doll had a hat made out of crocus, and a pussywillow-fuzz powder puff; she ate fairy bananas, which were bunches of catkins – rather than large bananas
– and fairy lettuces, which were hawthorn buds – rather small; she ate French rolls, the gold-brown beech-leaf buds, with primrose butter; the beds in the moss lawn were planted with
violets out of the wood.
    One morning, as they were all starting off to school, Christabel said, as usual, ‘Elizabeth, you haven’t brushed your teeth.’
    Elizabeth was going back when she stopped. ‘But I have,’ she said. She had been in the bathroom, and ‘Ting. Brush your teeth’ had come in her head. ‘I’ve
brushed them,’ said Elizabeth, amazed. Christabel was amazed as well.
    A few days afterward Miss Thrupp said in school, ‘Let’s see what Elizabeth can do,’ which meant, ‘Let’s see what Elizabeth can’t do.’ ‘Stand up,
Elizabeth, and say the seven-times table.’
    ‘Seven times one are seven,’ said Elizabeth, and there was a long, long pause.
    ‘Seven times two?’ Miss Thrupp said encouragingly.
    Elizabeth stood dumb, and the class began to laugh.
    ‘Hush, children. Seven times two . . .’
    ‘Ting. Are fourteen.’ And Elizabeth went on. ‘Seven threes are twenty-one, seven fours are twenty-eight . . .’ right up to ‘Seven twelves are
eighty-four.’
    At the end Miss Thrupp and the children were staring. Then they clapped.

    In reading they had come to ‘The Sto-ry of the Sleep-ing Beau-ty.’ Elizabeth looked hopelessly at all the difficult words; her eyes were just beginning to fill with tears when,
‘Ting,’ the words ‘Lilac Fairy’ seemed to skip off the page into her head. ‘It says “Lilac Fairy,”’ she said.
    ‘Go on,’ said Miss Thrupp, ‘go on,’ and Elizabeth went on. ‘Li-lac Fai-ry. Spin-ning Wheel. Prince Charm-ing.’ ‘Ting. Ting. Ting,’ went the
bell.
    ‘Good girl, those are difficult words!’ said Miss Thrupp.
    In sewing they began tray-cloths in embroidery stitches; perhaps it was from making the small-sized fairy things that Elizabeth’s fingers had learned to be neat; the needle went in and
out, plock, plock, plock, and there was not a trace of blood. ‘You’re getting quite nimble,’ said Miss Thrupp, and she told the class, ‘Nimble means clever and
quick.’
    ‘Does she mean I’m clever ?’ Elizabeth asked the little boy next to her. She could not believe it.
    Soon it was summer. Fairy Doll had a Canterbury bell for a hat; her bed had a peony-petal cover now. She ate daisy poached eggs, rose-petal ham, and lavender rissoles.
Lady’s slipper and pimpernels were planted in the moss.
    ‘What’s the matter with Elizabeth?’ asked Godfrey. ‘She not half such a little duffer as she was.’
    That was true. She was allowed to take the Sunday newspapers in for Father, and Mother trusted her to wash up by herself.
    ‘You can use my paint box if you like,’ said Christabel.
    ‘You can