The Willoughbys Read Online Free PDF Page B

voice from the dining room. It was the cactus.
    "Tim?" called the coat tree from the hall.
    "Tim?" the lamp called from its table.
    "What?" Tim's voice was muffled.
    "What are you going to be?" asked the cactus.
    "Where will you be, Tim?" asked the lamp.
    "What is your camouflage, Tim?" asked the coat tree.
    From the floor in front of the living room fireplace, Tim replied. "I am wrapped in Mother's mink coat!" he called, his voice still muffled by the fur. "I am camouflaged as a fur rug!"
    "What if someone steps on you, Tim?" the lamp asked in a worried voice.
    "I would be very brave and very silent and completely immobile no matter how bad the pain," he replied. "However, it is unlikely. I have set up a notice that says: THE FLOOR UNDER THIS RUG IS ROTTEN. IF YOU STEP ON THIS RUG YOU WILL FALL INTO THE BASEMENT AND BE DESPERATELY INJURED . Now hush. I hear someone on the front steps."

    The camouflaged Willoughbys all fell silent. They heard the front door open and the voice of the woman Tim had met an hour before. She was speaking now to the prospective buyer.
    "This is a beautifully decorated home," she said. "Such good taste. Please come in and hang up your coat. I'll show you around"

10. An Alabaster Aphrodite

    "I'm amazed that you children don't emerge dirtier from the coal bin," Nanny said. "I expected I'd have to bathe you all and launder your clothes after prospective buyers were here. But each time you reappear quite clean"
    They were seated at the supper table, eating succulent pot roast; nearby, on the counter, was the still warm pie they would have for dessert. Nanny, it had turned out, was an outstanding cook. Even her morning oatmeal, now that she added raisins and brown sugar, was delicious.
    Four prospective buyers had been through the house by now, but no one had shown an interest in buying it. Each one left looking puzzled, murmuring comments about the odd plants and rugs and lamps and furniture and expressing concern over toxic air, bad wiring, a broken furnace, and rotten floorboards.

    "We're very careful," Tim explained. "We have found ways to stay out of sight and remain clean."
    "I'm a lamp," Jane said.
    "You are indeed, dear," said Nanny, leaning over to wipe a bit of gravy from Jane's chin. "A real little lamb."
    "I'm a cactus," Barnaby A said.
    Nanny had gone to the counter to get the pie. She turned and said fondly, "Practice? I didn't know you played an instrument, dear. Where do you practice? You're very quiet."
    "I'm a coat tree," Barnaby B said with a frown.
    Nanny sliced the pie neatly into triangular-shaped pieces. She slid each one onto a small plate. "Poetry?" she said with a smile. "You are poetry? Well, I wouldn't say that, exactly, but it's a lovely thought, isn't it?" She took the children's empty dinner plates away and began to pass the pie around.
    "Where do you go, Nanny, when prospective buyers come?" asked Barnaby A. "You reappear quite clean as well."

    Nanny blushed. "Oh, I don't want to say, really."
    "Tell," Tim commanded, "or we won't eat your pie. Do you camouflage yourself?"
    "I guess you could say that," Nanny replied. "The pie is raspberry, by the way."
    "Are you a rug? Or a coat tree?" asked Barnaby B. "A lamp? Or maybe a cactus?"
    Nanny took a bite of raspberry pie and chewed, with a satisfied look. Then she announced in a prim, educational voice, "I'm a statue. I do this." After setting her fork down on the plate, she got up from her chair and stood beside the stove, where she created a pose with both arms behind her head and one hip jutting forward. "I stand in the upstairs hall, next to the linen closet."
    "But you don't look one bit like a statue, Nanny!" Tim pointed out. "You're wearing a flowered apron, elastic stockings, and lace-up shoes."
    " Now who's being a dodo!" Nanny told Tim. "Of course I don't wear these things. We have plenty of warning before prospective buyers come. As soon as we are notified, I rush to my room and remove my shoes, stockings, apron,