Muddle and Win by John Dickinson Read Free Book Online Page B

textbooks, calculators, neatly ordered pens and a workbook on which Sally’s own hand was writing, in beautiful, round letters, the words Essay on the Fall of Roman Civilization in Britain .
    Sally had finished making the dough, had stood guard over the oven while it meekly did what she wanted, and had turned out two dozen flawless small cakes onto the cooling rack. Now she was doing her homework. She had everything she needed. She had pen, paper, essay plan and the cat curled up in her lap. (The cat wasn’t really needed for the homework, but he had got so much into the habit of jumping up into her lap when he saw her sitting down with pen and paper that somehow it would have felt wrong to start without him. Sally thought he was hopelessly selfish, but she had a soft spot for him all the same because at least he was honest about it.)
    And here, in the high inner chamber of her mind, set within the semicircle of statues, there was another table, exactly like the one Muddlespot could see through the window. It was set with the same books. The same pencils and calculators were laid out upon it. And seated in a chair, cat in lap and head bowed over her writing, was another Sally.
    The
Sally. The central idea of Sally. The Sally who always would be Sally, no matter what changes happened to her in the outside world. The person who had made this mind of arches and statues and golden letters what it was.
    Muddlespot wouldn’t have been surprised to find that the Inner Sally had a head the size of a beach ball – or possibly a small planet. But she didn’t.
    He wouldn’t have been
that
surprised if he had found that the Inner Sally was a fierce little woman about a hundred and fifty years old, with sharp eyes and a face that only ever smiled when the very last grain of dust had been swept off her floor. She wasn’t.
    He wouldn’t have been totally astonished to find that she was really a fire-breathing dragon. She wasn’t.
    The Sally he saw here looked exactly the same as her outer self. Which should have meant that she was entirely happy with the way she was.
    But there was just one little difference.
    Her ankles were tied fast to the chair. Round her waist ran loop after loop of rope, pulled so tight that it must have been horribly uncomfortable. Her arms were free, but only so that she could turn pages and write things. Her mouth was stopped with a great white gag, and muffs were clamped fast over her ears.
    Muddlespot squeaked with dismay.
    She did not see him coming because she was intent on the page. She did not hear him because of the muffs. Only when he reached her and started tugging at the knotted ropes did she realize he was there. She turned her head to him.
    ‘Mmmm! Mmmm! Mmmm!’ she said through her gag.
    ‘Coming!’ gasped Muddlespot. ‘Won’t be a moment!’
    The knots were very tight.
    ‘Mmmm! Mmmm! Mmmm!’
    ‘Just as  . . . soon as I can!’ said Muddlespot, working frantically. ‘There!’
    ‘
Mmmm! Mmmm! Mmmm!
’
    ‘Oh, sorry!’ He pulled the earmuffs away and loosened the gag. It dropped to her neck.
    ‘WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!?’ yelled Sally.
    ‘I  . . . er  . . . freeing you?’
    ‘And who
asked
you?’ She rose to her feet. She towered over him like an emperor over some poor subject. This lasted for half a second before her ankles, still tied to the chair, tripped her up and she had to sit down with a bump. The chair teetered, tipped and sent her sprawling.
    Muddlespot scratched his head. The gag in his hand was definitely a gag. It didn’t look at all nice to wear. He couldn’t think of any reason why anyone would want one. But it was dawning on him that (however odd and crazy it seemed) things were the way they were inside the human mind for a reason. And the reason was that humans really did like their minds to be that way. They had got used to it. Maybe they couldn’t think of anything better. Anyway, they weren’t going to thank anyone who just came along and changed