外文小故事

"We mustn't make a sound," said Polly as they climbed in again behind the cistern.

Because it was such an important occasion they took a candle each (Polly had a good

store of them in her cave).

It was very dark and dusty and draughty and they stepped from rafter to rafter without a

word except when they whispered to one another, "We're opposite your attic now" or

"this must be halfway through our house". And neither of them stumbled and the candles

didn't go out, and at last they came where they could see a little door in the brick wall on

their right. There was no bolt or handle on this side of it, of course, for the door had been

made for getting in, not for getting out; but there was a catch (as there often is on the

inside of a cupboard door) which they felt sure they would be able to turn.

"Shall I?" said Digory.

"I'm game if you are," said Polly, just as she had said before. Both felt that it was

becoming very serious, but neither would draw back. Digory pushed round the catch with

some difficultly. The door swung open and the sudden daylight made them blink. Then,

with a great shock, they saw that they were looking, not into a deserted attic, but into a

furnished room. But it seemed empty enough. It was dead silent. Polly's curiosity got the

better of her. She blew out her candle and stepped out into the strange room, making no

more noise than a mouse.

It was shaped, of course, like an attic, but furnished as a sitting-room. Every bit of the

walls was lined with shelves and every bit of the shelves was full of books. A fire was

burning in the grate (you remember that it was a very cold wet summer that year) and in

front of the fire-place with its back towards them was a high-backed armchair. Between

the chair and Polly, and filling most of the middle of the room, was a big table piled with

all sorts of things printed books, and books of the sort you write in, and ink bottles and

pens and sealing-wax and a microscope. But what she noticed first was a bright red

wooden tray with a number of rings on it. They were in pairs - a yellow one and a green

one together, then a little space, and then another yellow one and another green one. They

were no bigger than ordinary rings, and no one could help noticing them because they

were so bright. They were the most beautiful shiny little things you can imagine. If Polly

had been a very little younger she would have wanted to put one in her mouth.

The room was so quiet that you noticed the ticking of the clock at once. And yet, as she

now found, it was not absolutely quiet either. There was a faint - a very, very faint -

humming sound. If Hoovers had been invented in those days Polly would have thought it

was the sound of a Hoover being worked a long way off - several rooms away and

several floors below. But it was a nicer sound than that, a more musical tone: only so

faint that you could hardly hear it.

"It's alright; there's no one here," said Polly over her shoulder to Digory. She was

speaking above a whisper now. And Digory came out, blinking and looking extremely

dirty - as indeed Polly was too.