A PARTY IN THE AIR
The sun’s rays streaming through wide windows the next morning woke Muffs from her long sleep. She sat up in a bed that she had never seen before and looked about. Someone had taken off her shoes but she was still wearing her dress and it was dreadfully wrinkled. She felt quite untidy in such a clean little bed. The bed was just her size too and had a gay spread with butterflies on it. There were butterfly curtains at the windows too and beyond she could see a door opening into another room, like a palace, with a ceiling all of glass. Along the window sills in both rooms were flowers and growing plants. A long glass tank had plants in it too and tiny fish that swam about and made silver streaks through the water.
“I must be in fairyland,” thought Muffs, not quite sure that she was fully awake.
She climbed out of bed and there were her shoes, side by side, on the floor under the bed. She didn’t put them on at once because the soft rug felt good to her bare feet. It was such a lovely room all green and gold like the studio at home only much, much richer. It was a little bare though. Muffs was used to seeing a great many things crowded into two small rooms and so most places in the country seemed bare. She began exploring first the room and then the hall. She tried to open the door of the room across the hall but it was locked. Then she looked out of the hall window and saw a lawn with hedges and farther down the road was the school where Tommy went.
“Why-ee!” she gasped. “This must be the headless man’s house. He found me in the moving van and put me to bed. I wonder where Tommy is. Tom-meee!” she called, beginning to feel rather frightened.
“Here I am,” cried an impish voice and a tousled head appeared at the foot of the stairs. “Gee! I thought you’d never wake up. Look whose house we’re in. The Bramble Bush Man’s!”
And to prove it he held up the Guide, his gash of a mouth smiling as happily as before. Tommy had placed the glasses on his nose and he looked the same as ever except for his withered leaves and one broken arm.
“But this is the headless man’s house,” Muffs answered, more puzzled than ever.