Yesterday, I barely crossed the threshold of my room, and the stuffed dodo clinging to my bookcase glared at me complainingly. But only one of them.
- The other one was taken by Miss Windy - that's what the one-eyed thrush complains.
The flower pots gape sadly at the window.
- Miss Windswept has scraped the earth out of us. She made a shoemaker's scones, Miss Windy.
Indeed, I see that the little angel statue above the desk has both hands over its mouth.
- My mouth is full of mud. Miss Windy stuffed the loaf into me, made me eat the scone.
On the desk, the ink bottle - well, the ink bottle can't talk because it's upside down on its mouth. Not a drop is too much, not even that much ink. But in the middle of the desk there's a veritable sea of black splashing around. A white rose petal floats on it like a boat, torn from the vase.
Well, that's more than enough. I'll take my handkerchief and whip him, and call across to the other room:
- Come here, Miss Windy!
Miss Windbreaker peeped through the door, but only with her head, on which the golden forest was shining and glowing.
- Here you go, Daddy! Do you have dates or chocolate in your hand?
Daddy is ashamed, slips the handkerchief into the wastepaper basket, and is already smiling.
- Come here, Miss Windy, you see a miracle on the desk: a little duck bathing in a black lake.
- Oh, man, I've seen that one! - the golden forest disappears behind the door. And out of the room, out of the kitchen, and even from the porch, slips Miss Windy. She's already outside scaring the Cheese Dog in the snow:
- That's right, old man, if you don't serve me nicely, I'll have you floating in the black sea on daddy's desk.
By the time I had carried Miss Wind in my lap, the black stream had gushed out of the black sea. "Knock, knock, knock," it splashed down on the corner of the desk, right on the porcelain prince whom Miss Windy had left leaning against the table leg. And right on the nose of the porcelain prince, on the very tip of his nose.
- "Well, he's going to be a prince charming," I frightened Miss Windy, and she frowned angrily, like a lily petal wrinkled by the sun.
- So must the useless! How dare he knock the ink off my dad's desk.
- Was the porcelain prince here to be merry? - I clapped my hands together.
- "Of course," said Miss Windy to me, "I could almost see with my own two eyes how you were pushing the ink. I shouted at her that you'd give her one for daring to come into the room when no one was allowed in.
- Like this? Then how dare you come in?
- Me? I only peeped in through the keyhole. Oh, I wouldn't dare set foot in here!
- "Well, all right," I nodded in satisfaction, "but now be a judge, if you're such a good girl. What shall we do with this disobedient prince? Shall we lock him in the cellar?
- He would be scared, poor thing.
- Kneel on corn in the corner?
- No, it would hurt him.
- Should I use the fly swatter?
- It would really hurt him.
- So what do I do with it?
- You know what? Put a sugared almond in the palm of his hand and I'll take it away from him. A punishment I know he won't forget, even when he's a baby.
By the time Miss Windy was done dropping the sugary almond, the ink was dry on the prince's cheek. He was as black as a chimney sweep, and Miss Windy was taking him to the bathing tub when I got his hand.
- Hold on there, my little minion. Let us leave this disobedient royalty as a dupe, and make him a doorkeeper. Let him frighten the useless child who wants to enter his father's room uninvited.
And so it was, and the prince of moles has been guarding my room ever since. No one in the world dares enter it, except - Miss Windy.
