The House with Legs

Neil was spending a few days at his grandmother’s house during his school vacation. But he was soon bored. There were only a few houses in the neighbourhood and there were no kids around Neil’s age to play with.

“I am going to visit a neighbour who has fallen ill,” said Neil’s granny. “I’ll come back as soon as I can. Be a good boy and stay safely inside the house until

I return. Don’t step out of the house for any reason!” Neil was an obedient little boy. He promised to stay inside till granny returned.

When granny left, Neil looked around the house for something to play with. Most of granny’s belongings were antiques. Only the big rocking chair interested him. He rocked on it for a while, but was soon bored. “I wonder if granny has any storybooks,” he thought as he walked up to granny’s bookshelf.

All the books were covered in dust. They were all thick, heavy books with hard covers. ‘Cookery’, ‘Gardening’ and ‘Knitting’… None of these books interested him. “Yawn…” Neil felt very bored and sleepy. Suddenly a big brown book caught Neil’s eyes. ‘Magic and Fun spells’ it read. “Now this looks interesting!” he thought wiping off the dusty cover.

Neil opened the book. He saw little VSDUNV Á\LQJ DURXQG KLP :DV WKHUH something magical about this book…? Or maybe it was just dust. He turned to ‘fun spells’, but to cast most of the spells, he’d have to go outside and get certain things; things like spider webs, a black cat’s whisker, a rabbit’s tail... No, that won’t do! Granny had asked him not to go out of the house for anything.

$V 1HLO NHSW ÁLSSLQJ WKURXJK WKH pages, he came across a ‘spell’ that caught his attention. ‘How to give legs to a house’, “This is great,” said Neil. “Granny asked me not to go out of the house but if I give legs to the house,

I can still stay inside and get the house to travel!” So, according to the instructions given in the book, he crossed his thumbs and read out the spell. “Black cat’s tail and dragon’s eggs, Give this house a pair of legs!” ‘Now, shout out and say what you want the legs to do,’ read the book.

“Run legs, run!” shouted Neil as loud as he could.

What was this? The house slanted and went high as if it stood on legs. Neil ran to the window. All the trees and houses were running past him. No wait! His house was running past them. He looked down. The house had two long ostrich legs that had grown out of it.

“Yay!” shouted Neil. The house was moving faster and faster. The legs were running at such a speed. The house ran out of granny’s garden, passed the neighbourhood and ran far away.

´2K QR :KDW LI LW FDQ·W ÀQG WKH ZD\ back to granny’s garden?” thought Neil. By now he was feeling sick from all the shaking and moving. So he quickly turned the page to reverse the spell. He crossed his thumbs.

“Reverse this magic spell right now, Make it do what I want, somehow!” “Change these ostrich legs into a VORZHU DQLPDO·V OHJV DQG KHOS LW WR ÀQG the way back to granny’s garden!” shouted Neil. The running stopped. Then the house started to move very slowly. Neil looked down from the window. The house now had a pair of tortoise legs. “No wonder it’s so slow!” he thought, “We’ll never get home at this rate!”

So Neil reversed the spell again. “Make the legs move faster, but without running,” he said. Up went the house. Down it came. Up it went again… “What is going on?” Neil ran to the window and peeped out the window.

The house was hopping back home, on a pair of rabbit legs.

Neil was getting thrown up and down. He wanted to reverse the spell, but couldn’t sit still and cross his thumbs, because the house was hopping. Finally he saw granny’s garden. He was so happy. He quickly cast a spell to stop the house at the right place. The house stopped and settled where it had always been.

“Whew! What a crazy adventure this was. I’m so lucky to get back home,” sighed Neil. “Maybe I should get the house to dance and celebrate its return!” So he read out the spell to get the house dancing. Slowly the house started to dance… and how gracefully it danced! Neil looked out the window. The house was dancing on two ballerina legs. Neil began to laugh and clap.

But suddenly the ballerina legs started to turn around in circles and spin. Little by little the spinning became faster and faster. Neil felt dizzy.

“Stop! Stop!” he shouted. But it was spinning faster than ever. The book got thrown out the window. Now Neil couldn’t do anything. He felt dizzy and fell down. When he opened his eyes after a while, the house was still.

“Maybe the spell has worn out!” thought Neil. “Or was it all a dream?” He remembered how bored and sleepy he was when he was looking at granny’s books. “Did all this really happen or did I fall asleep?”

He looked out of the window and saw granny returning home. He ran to tell her what happened… Do you think she will believe him?