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anything, and really didn’t deserve one.
    “Now, are you going to try hard?” said his father. Leslie nodded, and his eyes shone. A new bicycle! One with a loud bell and a pump. My word, how fast he would go and what fun he would have with the other boys!
    But although he had such a lovely reward offered to him, Leslie didn’t feel at all sure that he would be able to be first in anything, or even quick. He sat and thought about it.
    “If I could get a spell to help me it would make things much easier,” he said to himself. “I’ll go to the old woman who lives in the heart of the wood. People say that her grandmother was a witch, so maybe she knows a few spells.”
    Well, the old woman did. She gave Leslie a queer little yellow pill in a box. “That’s the finest spell I know for laziness,” she said. “It gets into your arms and legs almost at once and makes them quick and strong and active. You’ll be all right if you take that. But mind—if you get that bicycle because of my spell, I shall expect you to ride my errands on it twice a week!”
    “Oh, I will, I will!” promised Leslie, and ran off with the little yellow pill. He took it before he went to bed that night.
    He fell asleep at once. The spell worked away inside him all the night. It got into his arms and legs, and into his fingers and toes. It awoke him in the morning.
    Leslie began to yawn and stretch himself as he always did. But his legs gave him no time to do that— they leapt out of bed at once! Leslie got a great surprise. But he soon had an even greater one. His arms began to work at top speed, and he found himself putting on pants and shirt and jersey and shorts faster than he had ever done before!
    “Goodness!” said Leslie, trying to stop his hands from putting on two shoes at once. But the spell was too strong—he couldn’t stop himself at all. On went his shoes, and the laces were tied up in a twinkling.

    Then his legs took charge of him again and raced him down the stairs at top speed. He fell over the cat and bumped his head. He made such a noise that his father was cross.
    “Leslie! Is there any need to upset the whole household like this? What are you doing?”
    Leslie’s legs had rushed him to the breakfast table, and now his hands were helping him to his breakfast, shaking cereal out of a packet, emptying milk and sugar on to bis plate, and then making him eat so quickly that he almost choked.
    Up and down to his mouth went the spoon, and poor Leslie had no time to swallow one mouthful before the next was at his lips.
    “Leslie! Don’t gobble like that!” said his mother. “Why are you in such a hurry? Yesterday you were so lazy that you took hours over your meal, and today you gobble so fast that you choke. Behave yourself!”
    It was the same with his boiled egg. His hand hacked off the top, and then the spoon dived in and out, and his other hand took bread and butter to his mouth at top speed, so that the egg and bread were finished in about half a minute.
    “Leslie!” said his father, laying down his paper. “Leslie! If you think that this strange behaviour will make me give you a bicycle you are quite mistaken. You are being very silly. Sit back and be quiet whilst we finish our meal. I am ashamed of you.”
    But Leslie could not sit back and be quiet whilst that spell was in him. His legs jumped up and ran him to his school satchel. His hands piled all his books in.

    They snatched his cap and coat, and put them on. Then his legs rushed him to his father and mother to say good-bye, and then he tore out of the house and down the road. He felt rather sick. It wasn’t at all good for him to gobble his breakfast like that.
    “What’s come over Leslie?” said his mother in alarm. “You shouldn’t have promised him a bicycle. Daddy, if it makes him behave like this!”
    School was dreadful for poor Leslie that morning. He was the first there, of course. The others didn’t come for half an hour. But