Read Online Movie Shoes by Noel Streatfeild - Free Book Online

that at last they took control. Rachel gripped one of Peaseblossom’s arms, and Jane the other, and they hurried her out of the docks and across the road; but once there, they forgot the direction they had been given and found it was difficult to get them again because nobody in New York walked slowly. Instead the people moved slowly. Instead the people practicing for a walking race. First one of the children and then another stepped forward to ask the way, saying politely, “Excuse me,” but by the time they had got that out the person they had spoken to was almost out of sight and never even knew he had been addressed. At last a man who was held up by the traffic lights noticed them and leaned out of his car.
    “You folks need help?”
    They all explained at once. He was a terribly kind man. He told them to get into his car, and he would drive them to where they could get a bus. As they drove along, he told them that he knew they came from Britain because of their British accents. This surprised the children, who had supposed that it was America which had an accent and not England, unless, of course, you were Scottish or Welsh or something like that, but they kept this thought to themselves. The man was most considerate; he put them down where he said the bus would stop, and told them that in the bus they would have to travel only six blocks. He had been so kind that as he drove away, they felt they had lost a friend.
    The thing they all had forgotten, and had not noticed when the man was driving them, was the traffic drove on the opposite side of the road from the way it did at home, so, in spite of the man’s having told them that they were at the right stop, they thought they must cross the street. Even when they did grasp which bus to take, they made a very silly entrance for they tried to get on the back end, as they did at home. Peaseblossom looked so flustered that Rachel said comfortingly, “We couldn’t know.”’
    Tim was indignant. “If you ask me, American buses are like tortoises; I mean, like you have to give a shut-up tortoise a buttercup at each end to know which end’s going to eat.”
    Peaseblossom had always known the values of American money and had carefully restudied the subject before she left England, but by the time she was on the bus she was in that state of mind when people say, “I’ll forget my own name next!” When the driver told her how many nickels he wanted she became deaf again and repeated in an ever-louder voice, “I beg your pardon?” Fortunately John had given her a lot of small change, and Jane had the good idea of taking her purse from her, tipping the money into her hand and letting the driver help himself. It worked all right, though the bus driver not seem pleased, for he made international bus-driver
    Tim was surprised at this display of grumpiness m a country where everybody seemed so welcoming. As he sat down he whispered to Jane, “It was because you didn’t put the money in that slot machine. Do you think I could go and tell him we aren’t stupid really; it’s only we’ve never seen one of those before?”
    Jane was cross because though she would not admit it, the driver’s being angry fussed her. So she said, “Don’t be a silly idiot; interrupting him when he’s driving will make him hate us worse.”
    To make up for the driver, the people in the bus could not have been kinder. Nearly all of them had expressions on their faces to show they thought seeing strangers get off buses at the right place was the most important thing in life. Tim was so charmed by this that before they left the bus, he thanked everybody. This seemed to cause quite a sensation, for the Winters got off to a hum of “Isn’t he cute! ... Isn’t he darling!”
    Tim looked after the departing bus with affection. “Did you hear what those people said about me?”
    Rachel looked at Peaseblossom. Neither of them said anything, but they made faces which showed they hoped Tim was not