The Wind on the Moon Read Online Free Page B

his glass eye?’
    â€˜I don’t like Dr. Fosfar,’ said Dinah.
    â€˜Nor do I,’ said Dorinda.
    â€˜But you can’t go about looking like match-sticks,’ said their mother, and stood beside them, shaking her head very sadly. She was wearing one of her long necklaces, of yellow beads, and as she turned to look first at Dinah, then at Dorinda, it swung out and became entangled in a twig of the apple-tree.
    â€˜Oh, how annoying!’ she exclaimed, and foolishly took a backward step. The string of the necklace broke, and all the beads fell into the grass.
    â€˜Beads,’ said Miss Serendip, ‘are probably the oldest form of ornament known to man. They have been found, not only in the ancient ruins of Babylon, but in primitive Stone Age dwellings in Northern Europe.’
    â€˜That doesn’t make it easier to find them here,’ said Mrs. Palfrey. Her voice was angry, and Miss Serendip hurriedly went down on her knees beside her. ‘Let me help you,’ she said.
    â€˜Dinah! Dorinda!’ called Mrs. Palfrey. ‘Come and look for my beads!’
    â€˜But Dinah and Dorinda had gone. They hurried through the garden, and past the kitchen-garden, to a rough lawn beyond it on which, every washing-day, the clothes were hung to dry. The lawn was surrounded by a holly hedge, a thick and sturdy hedge, a glittering green in the winter sun.
    â€˜Do we really look like matches?’ asked Dinah.
    â€˜You do,’ said Dorinda, screwing up her eyes. ‘Well, not exactly, of course, but rather like.’
    â€˜So do you,’ said Dinah. ‘Go farther away. A little farther still. Yes, you look very like a match-stick.’
    Dorinda began to cry again.
    â€˜Stop crying,’ said Dinah. ‘Crying makes us worse.’
    â€˜I thought we should enjoy being naughty,’ sobbed Dorinda, ‘but we haven’t really enjoyed it so far.’
    â€˜We enjoyed eating too much,’ said Dinah.
    â€˜But not having pins stuck into us,’ said Dorinda, ‘nor having to cry for days and days.’
    â€˜We did enjoy crying to begin with,’ said Dinah. ‘It was very nice and satisfying. Just to let yourself go, and howl and sob like anything, and make no effort to stop, is quite a luxury, I think.’
    â€˜But it lasted too long,’ said Dorinda.
    â€˜Yes, we have cried too much. The trouble is—I have just thought of this—that we shall have to learn to be naughty. You know how hard it is to learn to be good. Well, it may be just as hard to learn to be naughty. To be naughty in a suitable way, I mean.’
    At that moment they heard behind them a voice saying, ‘There they are. Two match-sticks!’
    â€˜Matches on the washing-green,’ said another voice. ‘Well, I never!’
    Quickly they looked round, and saw, leaning over the hedge, Catherine Crumb the baker’s daughter, and Mrs. Taper the draper’s wife. Mrs. Taper, who was very short-sighted, was determined to get as good a view as possible, so she thrust herself into the hedge, and the branches bent before her, and her face grew red with the effort she was making. Catherine Crumb was jumping up and down with her black hair flapping like a big black crow in a hurry to get home, but Dinah and Dorinda stood perfectly still. They were too frightened to move.
    â€˜Two match-sticks,’ repeated Mrs. Taper. ‘Well, did you ever!’
    â€˜I told you so,’ said Catherine Crumb.
    She had indeed. She had been spying on Dinah and Dorinda for several days, and while they were crying under the apple-tree, she was hidden among the rhododendrons that grew beneath the garden wall. She had heard their mother liken them to match-sticks, and seeing at once a chance of mischief, she hurried away to make it. The garden gate led into a lane, and in the lane Catherine Crumb met Mrs. Taper the draper’s wife.
    â€˜I’ve just seen something,’