The Fox in the Attic by Richard Hughes Read Free Book Online Page B

Gusting’s very smell, his voice.
11
    â€œTime you got undressed, Miss Polly,” said Nanny. Slowly Polly wandered across to have her jersey peeled off.
    â€œSkin-a-rabbit,” said Nanny, mechanically, as she always did.
    â€œOw!” said Polly, as she always did (for the neck of her jersey was too tight), and wandered off again nursing her damaged ears. Nanny just had time to undo the three large bone buttons on her back before she was out of reach, and as she walked away the blue serge kilt with its white cotton “top” fell off around her feet.
    The rest of her undressing Polly could do herself, given time and her whole attention. It was chiefly button work: she wore a “liberty bodice,” a White-Knight sort of under-garment to which everything nether was buttoned or otherwise attached (constricting elastic being bad for you). But tonight her fingers fumbled feebly and uselessly, fainting at the very first button; for her attention was all elsewhere.
    Gusting had a game which only he played, the Jeremy Fisher Game. A little mat was a waterlily leaf and Gusting sat on it cross-legged, fishing with a long carriage-whip, while Polly swam round him on the polished floor on her stomach, being a fish ... Polly began now to make embryonic swimming movements with her hands.
    â€œStop dawdling,” said Nanny, but without much hope. Polly made a brief effort: something else fell off her, and she stepped out of it where it lay. “Pick it up, dear,” said Nanny, again without much hope.
    â€œNinjun!” said Polly indignantly (Augustine had once said her wandering manner of undressing and scattering her clothes was like a Red Indian blazing his trail, and that had hallowed it).
    Minutes passed ...
    â€œWake up, Miss Polly: stop dawdling,” said Nanny.
    Another brief effort, and so it went on till at last Polly had on nothing but a clinging woolen vest as she stood at the window, her chin reaching just above the sill, looking out through the watery glass.
    In the street far below people were still scurrying past. There seemed no end to them. That was what was wrong with London: “If only there were fewer people in the world how much nicer it would be for we animals,” Polly told herself ...
    â€œWe animals!”—Polly could think a rabbit’s kind of thoughts much easier than a grown-up’s kind, for her “thinking” like an animal’s was still more than nine parts emotion. Except for Augustine it was only with animals she could form friendships on at all equal terms; for she had no child-friends of her own age, and her love for most grown-ups was necessarily more like a dog’s for a man than something between members of the same species. All the most interesting hours of the day still tended to be spent on all fours, and even in bodily size she was nearer to her father’s spaniel than she was to her father. The dog weighed more than the child, as the see-saw had shown ...
    â€œWake up!” said Nanny—still without much hope. “Vest!” A final effort and the vest too lay on the floor. Nanny made stirring sounds in the bath: “Come on,” said Nanny, “or the water’ll be half cold.”
    â€œI’m busy!” said Polly indignantly. She had found a cake-currant on the floor and was trying to fix it in her navel, but it wouldn’t stay there. “If only I had some honey,” she thought ... but at that moment felt herself lifted in the air, carried—her feet weakly kicking—and plumped down in the middle of the large shallow bath. Nanny’s patience was exhausted.
    Polly seized her celluloid frog Jeremy, and once more her thoughts were away: so far this time they were not even fully recalled when Nanny dragged off her hands and soaped her protesting ears.
    â€œNow!” said Nanny, holding up the huge turkey towel she had been warming on the fender: “Or I’ll have to count