Marie andthe magicwallpaper

Marie lived in a town. She was afraid of the dark and a night-light

was always turned on by her bed.

Every summer Marie’’’s parents took her to her grandmother

who lived in the country. Marie did not like to stay at her

granny’s, because she was thrifty and did not want to sprare

electricity, so Marie had to switch off the light at night. Marie

was used to sleep with a night-light not to get scared when she

lived in town. When you stay in the dark, it always seems that

somebody is standing there and you can hear some noises.

Grandmother turned the light on and off and

explained that nothing changes when you do it

but Marie was still scared. Then Granny

pointed at the wallpaper: ““‘‘‘‘“±

- Can you see these hares? They are real.

At night, when it is dark they wait for you

to fall asleep. Then they jump down from

the wall and start to chat and play. They run

about your room and they protect you while

you are asleep. So when I switch the lights off,

try to fall asleep as soon as you can, to let the

hares protect you from the dark. »

After this talk the girl did not know what to do. On one hand she did

not intend to gaze in the dark for a long time so she’ would better

follow the granny’s advice and fall asleep. But on the other hand she

was curious to watch the hares play and ski p at night.

Every night Marie lay in bed waiting patiently when her grandmother

goes to bed and switches off the light in the corridor. Then she tried

to pretend that she was asleep, but when she heard a slightest noise

she openved her eyes expecting to see the hares. It was not easy to

cheat them. Once it seemed to her that she noticed some shadow

whitch jumped on the wall and dissapeared.

The wallpaper was old dirty white. In some places it was torn and

Marie could see old newspapers under it. The hares were various —

some of them sat on the grass talking to each other, some of them

had balloons in their paws and the others had balls.

Marie began to take care of them hoping that they would make

friends with her. She sang songs for them and in some places Marie

draw the missing parts of the pictures.

She longed to find herself in the world of these hares but she did not

know how to do it. She tried to imagine herself in that drawn world.

So Marie had an idea - she drew herself among the hares. Now she

was together with them.

Marie was very tired and fell asleep. In her dream she found herself

playing and jumping with the hares. They kicked the ball and let the

balloons fly up into the sky.

In the morning the girl ran up to her grandmother and said that all

the hares were her friends and that she was no more afraid of the

dark. Grandmother sat at the veranda and knitted something.

She smiled.

When Marie came back to town there was no need to switch on

the night-light by Marie’s bed. She took with her a tiny piece of that

magic wallpaper with a hare and put it by her bed.

Tatiana Vorobieva