Read Online Tom's Midnight Garden by Philippa Pearce - Free Book Online Page B

astounded that he almost believed he had imagined it; but he knew he had not. The girl had stuck out her tongue at him.
    She could see him.
    ‘What did you stick out your tongue for, Hatty?’ asked Edgar, who must be able to see things even out of the corners of his eyes.
    ‘My tongue was hot in my mouth,’ said Hatty, with a resourcefulness that took Tom by surprise. ‘It wanted to be cool—it wanted fresh air.’
    ‘Don’t give pert, lying answers!’
    ‘Let her be, Edgar,’ said James.
    They lost interest in the dog’s curious behaviour, and in Hatty’s. They began to move back to the house. The dog skulked along nervously beside them, keeping them between himself and Tom, and still muttering to himself deep in his throat; the girl walked slightly ahead of them all.
    Tom followed, seething with excitement, waiting his chance.
    They went in single file by the narrow path between the greenhouse and the large box-bush. Hatty went first, then the three boys. Tom followed behind the four of them; but, when he emerged from the path and came on to the lawn, there were only the three boys ahead of him.
    ‘Where’s Hatty?’James was asking. He had been the last of the three.
    ‘Slipped off somewhere among the trees,’ said Edgar, carelessly. The three boys continued upon their way back into the house.
    Tom was left on the lawn, gazing about him in determination and anger. She thought she had slipped through his fingers, but she hadn’t. He would find her. He would have this out with her.
    He began his search. He looked everywhere that he could think of: among the bushes; up the trees; behind the heating-house; beyond the nut stubs; under the summer-house arches; inside the gooseberry wire; beyond the bean-poles …
    No … No … No … She was nowhere. At last, behind him, he heard her call, ‘Coo-eee!’
    She was standing there, only a few yards from him, staring at him. There was a silence. Then Tom—not knowing whether he was indeed speaking to ears that could hear him—said: ‘I knew you were hiding from me and watching me, just now.’
    She might have meant to pretend not to hear him, as, earlier, she must have pretended not to see him; but her vanity could not resist this opening. ‘Just now!’ she cried, scornfully. ‘Why, I’ve hidden and watched you, often and often, before this! I saw you when you ran along by the nut stubs and then used my secret hedge tunnel into the meadow! I saw you when Susan was dusting and you waved from the top of the yew-tree! I saw you when you went right through the orchard door!’ She hesitated, as though the memory upset her a little; but then went on. ‘Oh, I’ve seen you often—and often—and often—when you never knew it!’
    So that was the meaning of the footprints on the grass, on that first day; that was the meaning of the shadowy form and face at the back of the bedroom, across the lawn; that, in short, was the meaning of the queer feeling of being watched, which Tom had had in the garden so often, that, in the end, he had come to accept it without speculation.
    A kind of respect for the girl crept into Tom’s mind. ‘You don’t hide badly, for a girl,’ he said. He saw at once that the remark angered her, so he hurried on to introduce himself: ‘I’m Tom Long,’ he said. She said nothing, but looked as if she had little opinion of that, as a name. ‘Well,’ said Tom, nettled, ‘I know your name: Hatty—Hatty Something.’ Into the saying he threw a careless disdain: it was only tit for tat.
    The little girl, with only the slightest hesitation, drew herself up into a stiffness, and said: ‘Princess Hatty, if you please: I am a Princess.’

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Games and Tales
    T om was half-inclined to believe her, at first. Her gaze was very bright and steady; and, with her red cheeks and long black hair and stiff little dignity, there was perhaps something regal about her—something of a picture-book queen. Immediately behind her was the dark-green