Читать книгу Naughty Amelia Jane! - Enid blyton - Страница 4

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Well, for a little while Amelia Jane was very good—and then, oh dear, she forgot all her promises, and became really naughty! The things she did!

She took a needle and cotton out of Nurse’s work-basket, and sewed up the sleeves of the teddy bear’s new coat when he wasn’t looking. So when he went to put on his coat, he simply could not put his arms through the sleeves anyhow! He just couldn’t find the way in—because the sleeves were sewn up! How Amelia Jane laughed to see him!

The next night she hid behind the curtain and began to mew like a cat. The toys were not very fond of Tibs the cat, because he sometimes chewed them. So they all stopped playing and looked round to see where Tibs was.

“I can hear him mewing!” said the teddy bear. “He must be behind the door.”

But he wasn’t. Amelia mewed again. The toys hunted all about for the cat. They even looked in the coal-scuttle, and under the hearth-rug, which made Amelia laugh till she nearly choked! She mewed again, very loudly.

“Where is that cat!” cried the golliwog, in despair. “We’ve looked everywhere! Is he behind the curtain?”

“No, there’s only Amelia Jane there!” said the curly-haired doll, looking. “There’s no cat.”

Well, of course, they didn’t find any cat at all! And Amelia Jane didn’t tell them it was she who had been mewing, so to this day they wonder where Tibs hid himself that night!

Then Amelia Jane saw a soda-water syphon left in a corner of the room. She knew how it worked, because she had seen Nurse using one. Oh, what fun it would be to squirt all the toys! She stole towards it—picked it up, and dear me, it was heavy! She ran at the surprised golliwog, pressed down the handle—and out gushed the soda-water all over him!

“Ow! Ooh!” he shouted, in astonishment. “What is it! What is it! Amelia Jane, you ought to be ashamed of yourself!”

But she wasn’t a bit ashamed. She was just enjoying herself thoroughly! She ran after the teddy bear and soaked him with soda-water too. She squirted lots over the clockwork mouse, and made him so wet that for two days his clockwork went wrong, and he couldn’t be wound up. She squirted the pink rabbit, and he got into the wastepaper basket and couldn’t get out, which worried him very much, because he was so afraid that Jane, the maid, would throw him away the next day! But she didn’t, which was very lucky.

“Amelia Jane is up to her tricks again,” said the clockwork clown, frowning. “We shall have no peace at all. What shall we do?”

“Take away her key!” said the clockwork mouse.

“She hasn’t one, silly!” said the golly.

“Lock her in the cupboard!” said the teddy bear.

“She knows how to undo it from the inside,” said the pink rabbit gloomily.

Nobody spoke for a whole minute. They were all thinking hard.

Then the clockwork clown gave a little laugh. “I know!” he said. “I’ve thought of an idea. It’s quite simple, but it might work.”

“What?” cried every one.

“Let’s polish Amelia Jane’s shoes underneath and make them very, very slippery,” said the clown. “Then, if she begins to run after us with soda-water syphons or things like that, down she’ll go!”

“But she won’t like that,” said the curly-haired doll, who was rather tender-hearted.

“Well, we don’t like the tricks she plays on us!” said the golly. “We’ll do it, Clown! When she next takes her shoes off we’ll polish them underneath till they are as slippery as glass!”

The very next night Amelia Jane took off her shoes because she said her feet were hot. She put the shoes into a corner and then danced round the nursery in her stockinged feet, enjoying herself. The clown picked up the shoes and ran away to the back of the toy cupboard with them. He had a tiny duster there, and a little bit of polish he had taken out of Jane’s polish jar when the nursery had been cleaned out. Aha, Amelia Jane, you’ll be sorry for all your tricks!

The clown polished and rubbed, rubbed and polished. The soles of the shoes shone. They were as slippery as could be! The clown put them back and waited for Amelia Jane to put them on. This she very soon did, for she had stepped on a pin and pricked her foot! As she put her shoes on, she thought out a naughty trick!

“I’ll run after all the toys with that pin I trod on!” she thought. “Oooh! That will make them rush away into all the corners! What fun it will be to frighten them!”

She buttoned her shoes and took the nasty long pin into her hand. Then she stood up and looked round, her naughty black eyes gleaming. “I’ll run after that fat little teddy bear!” she thought. So off she went, straight at the teddy bear, holding the pin out in front of her.

“Amelia Jane, put that pin down!” shouted the teddy bear in fright—but before Amelia Jane had taken three steps, her very, very slippery shoes slid along the ground and down she fell, bumpity-bump! She was so surprised!

Up she got again and took a few more steps towards the teddy bear—but her shoes slipped and down she fell! Bumpity-bump! She hit her head on the fender!

“What’s the matter with the carpet?” cried Amelia Jane, in a rage. “It keeps making me fall down!”

“Ha ha! ho ho!” laughed the toys. “Perhaps there is slippery magic about, Amelia Jane!”

“Oh, I believe you toys have something to do with it!” shouted the angry doll. Up she got and took the pin in her hand again. “I’ll show you what happens to people who put slippery magic on the floor! Here comes my pin!”

She tried to run at the golliwog, who was laughing so much that black tears ran all down his face. But down she went again, bumpity-bump—and oh my, the pin stuck into her knee! Yes, it really did—she fell on it!

How Amelia Jane squealed! How Amelia Jane wept! “Oh, the horrid pin! Oh, how it hurts!” she cried.

“Well, Amelia Jane, it serves you right,” said the pink rabbit. “You were going to prick us with that pin and now it’s pricked you! You know how it feels!”

Amelia Jane threw the pin away in a rage. The clown picked it up and flung it into the fire! He wasn’t going to have pins about the nursery!

Amelia Jane got up again. “I’m going to bandage my knee where the pin pricked it,” she said. She ran to the toy cupboard—but before she was half-way there, her slippery shoes slid away beneath her—and down she sat with a dreadful bumpity-bumpity-bump!

The toys laughed. Amelia Jane cried bitterly. The curly-haired doll felt sorry for her. “Don’t cry any more, Amelia Jane,” she said. “Take your shoes off and you won’t fall again. We played a trick on you—but you can’t complain because you have so often tricked us! You should not play jokes on other people if you can’t take a joke yourself!”

Amelia Jane took her shoes off. She saw how the clown had polished them underneath, and she went very red. She knew quite well she could not grumble if people were unkind—because she too had been unkind.

“I’ll try and be good, Toys,” she said at last. “It’s difficult for me, because I’m not a shop-toy like you, so I haven’t learnt good manners and nice ways. But I may be good one day!”

The toys thought it was nice of her to say all that. The curly-haired doll came to help her bandage her knee. The clown put a bandage round her head where she had bumped it. She looked so funny that they didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at her.

Amelia Jane did enjoy being fussed! She was as nice as could be to the toys—but oh dear, oh dear, I do somehow feel perfectly certain that she can’t be good for long!