“Just exactly like Alice in Wonderland,” put in the Smallest Sister excitedly.
“Until it runs home,” Betty concluded, “to play with a little girl named Dorothy Wales, and then all of a sudden it gets big and happy and reckless again.”
“Then don’t be gone long,” advised Dorothy eagerly, “because I’m always in a hurry to begin playing with you some more.”
“Thank you,” Betty bowed gravely. “In that case I won’t let the fierce giant eat me, nor the wise giant blow me away with his big laugh, nor the head giant stare at me until I vanish, recklessness and all, into the Bay of the Ploshkin.”
“I’d fish you up, if you did fall into the bay,” Dorothy assured her, with a sudden hug that ended fatally for a coffee-cup she was wiping.
“But it was nicked anyway, so never mind,” Betty comforted her, “and you’ve fished me up lots of times already, so I know you would again.”
“Why, I never——” began the Smallest Sister in amazement.
“All right for you,” Betty threatened, putting away her pans with a great clatter. “If you’ve stopped believing in fairies and if you’ve forgotten how you ever went to the Bay of the Ploshkin and fished up ritherums and did other interesting things, why should I waste my time telling you stories?”
This terrible threat silenced the Smallest Sister, who therefore never found out how or when she had “fished up” her sister. But on the way east Betty, still feeling very like a ritherum, consoled herself by remembering first her own simile, and then Will’s “Maybe I’m not proud to know you!” blurted out as he had put her on board her train. A little sister to hug one and a big brother to bestow foolishly unqualified admiration are just the very nicest things that a reckless ritherum can have. And who hasn’t felt like a reckless ritherum some time or other?
Mr. Morton was pacing the station platform agitatedly when Betty’s train pulled in.