I always hated it, he answered, even when I was very little. Then
when they took me to the seaside and I used to lie in my carriage
everybody used to stare and ladies would stop and talk to my nurse and
then they would begin to whisper and I knew then they were saying I
shouldn t live to grow up. Then sometimes the ladies would pat my
cheeks and say Poor child! Once when a lady did that I screamed out
loud and bit her hand. She was so frightened she ran away.
She thought you had gone mad like a dog, said Mary, not at all
admiringly.
I don t care what she thought, said Colin, frowning.
I wonder why you didn t scream and bite me when I came into your
room? said Mary. Then she began to smile slowly.
I thought you were a ghost or a dream, he said. You can t bite a
ghost or a dream, and if you scream they don t care.
Would you hate it if if a boy looked at you? Mary asked uncertainly.
He lay back on his cushion and paused thoughtfully.
There s one boy, he said quite slowly, as if he were thinking over
every word, there s one boy I believe I shouldn t mind. It s that boy
who knows where the foxes live Dickon.
I m sure you wouldn t mind him, said Mary.
The birds don t and other animals, he said, still thinking it over,
perhaps that s why I shouldn t. He s a sort of animal charmer and I am
a boy animal.
Then he laughed and she laughed too; in fact it ended in their both
laughing a great deal and finding the idea of a boy animal hiding in
his hole very funny indeed.
What Mary felt afterward was that she need not fear about Dickon.
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