Anytime Tales by Enid Blyton Read Free Book Online

begged poor Leslie. But the old woman couldn’t.
    “You’ll have to put up with it for a day or two,” she said, “but if after that you yourself try to be quick and early and work hard, the spell will gradually die away. But if you get lazy again I’m afraid it will come back, and you’ll do everything at top speed, and annoy everyone, and get very tired.”
    So Leslie put up with it for two days more, and then the spell seemed to die away. Leslie tried hard to be early for everything, and to work hard after that, and he found it wasn’t so difficult as it seemed. But, dear me, he had only to get lazy for a few minutes to start up that top-speed spell once more. You will be glad to know he got his bicycle!
    Are you a lazy child? Tell your mother to let me know, and I’ll see if I can get a top-speed spell for you and cure you, too!
    Look Out for the Elephant!
    THERE’s an elephant loose!” shouted Jim, rushing into the school playground. “I just heard a man say so. It’s escaped from the circus.”
    “Where is it, where is it?” cried all the children, rushing round Jim.
    “It’s in the park—and they’re afraid it will trample down all the lovely flowers!’ said Jim.
    “Oh, what a shame!” said Sara. She loved flowers,~~and she couldn’t bear to think of the elephant’s great feet trampling and breaking them all.
    “They’ve sent for men with sticks,” said Jim . “They’ll scare that bad elephant properly, I wouldn’t mind chasing him myself.”
    “But elephants are
nice,”
said Sara. “I rode on one heaps of times at the zoo. They are gentle and kind. They can’t help being big and having enormous feet. I think it’s horrid to send for men with sticks!”
    “All right, then—you go and get the elephant out of the park!” said Jim scornfully. “Go on! See if it will come and eat out of your hand and follow you like a dog! I tell you, big sticks are the only thing to frighten an elephant!”

    Sara stood listening to Jim. She was just about to tell him that an elephant
had
eaten out of her hand at the zoo when she had given him a bun—and then a grand idea came into her head!
    Now when Sara had an idea she always acted on it at once. So she turned and ran into the school. She went to where the eleven-o’clock buns and milk were set ready for the children, and she put twelve of the buns into her school satchel!
    You can guess what her idea was now, can’t you? Well, well—whoever would think of such a thing? Only Sara!
    She ran out of the school gate and made for the park. It wasn’t very far away. There was a place in the hedge she could get through. She squeezed through it, and there she was in the park. Where was the elephant?
    Well, he wasn’t very difficult to see, as you can imagine. There he stood, waving his enormous trunk to and fro, his great feet very near to a big bed of glorious dahlias.
    In the distance Sara could hear shouting, and she guessed that men were coming with sticks.
    “They’ll only scare him and he’ll go galloping over the dahlias,” thought Sara. “I’d better hurry.”
    So she trotted down the path to where the big elephant stood. She went right up to him.
    “You’re awfully like the elephant who gave me rides at the zoo,” she told him, and he looked down at her out of little, twinkling eyes. He flapped his ears and made a little trumpeting noise.

    “Are you asking for a bun?” said Sara, and she put her hand in her satchel. “Well, here’s one.”
    The elephant put out his trunk and took the bun. He swung his trunk up to his big mouth—and the bun was gone! He held out his trunk for another.
    “Well, you can have all my buns if you come quietly down this path with me,” said Sara, “away from these lovely flower-beds. Your feet are so big, you know. Here you are, here’s another bun.”
    She gave him another, and then began to walk down the path to the park-gate. The elephant, seeing that she had plenty more buns, followed her