Read Before You Sleep for Free Online Page B

me, she held me tighter than ever before and wrapped me up in her silky hair so that I could hardly move. It was so dark inside her hair that I couldn’t see anything and I told her to let me go. I couldn’t breathe, but she was in a strange sulky mood and she just squeezed me with her cold hands until I felt sleepy.
    Outside, the rain stopped and the house started to creak like the old ship that we went on one summer. Eventually Maho spoke. She said that she had missed me. In a yawny voice, I asked her about the shoe, the foot and the little bag with the lumps inside that Papa had found in the chimneys.
    ‘They belong to the toys,’ Maho said. ‘Your papa shouldn’t have taken away things that belong to the toys. It was a mistake. It was wrong.’
    ‘But they were old and dirty and nasty,’ I told her.
    ‘No,’ she said. ‘They belong to the toys. They put them up there a long time ago, and they shouldn’t be removed by parents. They’re like happy memories to the toys. Now sleep, Yuki. Sleep.’
    I couldn’t understand this. While I was thinking about what Maho said, I started to fall asleep. It was so warm inside all of that hair. And she sang a little song into my ear and rubbed her cold nose against my cheek like a puppy dog.
    Outside my bedroom in the hallway I heard the toys gathering. More toys than ever before had come out to play. All at the same time, and all in the same place. This had never happened before. It must have been a special occasion, like a parade. They had a parade when Maho’s parents left. ‘Toys. Can you hear the toys?’ I whispered into the black fur around my face, and then I dropped further into the deep hole of sleepiness.
    Maho didn’t answer me, so I just listened to the toys moving through the dark. Little feet shuffled; pinkish tails whisked on wood; bells jingled on hats and from the curly toes of thin feet; tap tappity tap went the wooden sticks of the old apes; twik twik twik went the lady with knitting needle legs; clackety clack sounded the hooves of the black horsy with yellow teeth; tisker tisker tisker went the cymbal of the dolly with the sharp fingers; dum dum dum went the drum; and on and on they marched through the house. Down, down and down the hall.

    Shouting woke me up. Through my sleep and all the dark softness around my body, I heard a loud voice. I thought it was Papa. But when my eyes opened the house was silent. I tried to sit up, but couldn’t move my arms and my feet. Rolling from side to side, I made some space in Maho’s hair. It was everywhere and all around me. ‘Maho? Maho?’ I said. ‘Wake up, Maho.’
    But she just held me tighter with her thin arms. Blowing the hair out of my mouth, I tried to move a hand so that I could take the long strands from out of my eyes. I couldn’t see anything. Maho wouldn’t help me either, and it took me a long time to unwind the silky ropes from around my neck and off my face, and to shake them from my arms and from between my fingers and toes where they tugged and pulled. In the end, I had to flop onto my tummy and then wriggle backwards through the funnel of her black hair. She was fast asleep and very still and wouldn’t wake up when I shook her.
    I could only sit up properly when I reached the bottom of the bed. All the sheets and blankets were on the floor again. I climbed off the bed and ran into the unlit hall. I couldn’t see the cold floorboards and could only hear the patter of my bare feet on the wood as I moved down to Mama and Papa’s room. The door to their room was open. Maybe Papa was having a bad dream and was awake, so I stood outside and looked in.
    It was very dark inside their room, but something was moving. I screwed up my eyes and stared at where the thin light coming around the curtains had fallen, and then I saw that the whole bed was moving. ‘Mama,’ I said.
    It looked like Mama and Papa were trying to sit up but couldn’t. And all the sheets around them were rustling.