"What's it for but to be eaten up?" he roared. "First I want it to entertain me and then I want it for dessert. Where are you? Who are you?"
"I'm Queen Crosspatch—Queen Silverbell as was," I said. "I suppose you have heard of me?"
"I've heard nothing good," he growled. "A good chewing is what you want!"
He had heard something about me, but not enough. The truth was he didn't really believe in Fairies—which was what brought him into trouble.
By this time he had seen me and he was ignorant enough to think that he could catch me, so he laid down flat in the thick, green grass and stretched his big paws out and rested his nose on them, thinking I would be taken in and imagine he was going to sleep. I burst out laughing at him and swung to and fro on my flowery branch.
"Do you want to eat me?" I said. "You'd need two or three quarts of me with sugar and cream—like strawberries."
That made him so angry that he sprang roaring at my tree and snapped and shook it and tore it with his claws. But I flew up into the air and buzzed all about him and he got furious—just furious. He jumped up in the air and lashed his tail and thrashed his tail and CRASHED his tail, and he turned round and round and tore up the grass.
"Don't be a silly," I said. "It's a nice big tufty sort of tail and you will only wear it out."
