My Naughty Little Sister Read online

  My Naughty Little Sister

  Dorothy Edwards

  illustrated by Shirley Hughes Egmont

  EGMONT

  Copyright

  My Naughty Little Sister

  Text copyright © 1952 The Estate of Dorothy Edwards

  Illustrations copyright © 1952 Shirley Hughes

  Cover illustration copyright © 2007 Shirley Hughes

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Egmont UK Ltd

  239 Kensington High Street

  London W8 6SA

  Visit our web site at www.egmont.co.uk

  First e-book edition 2010

  ISBN 978 1 4052 4942 3

  For my sister, Phil

  Table of Contents

  Cover Page

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  1. Going fishing

  2. My Naughty Little Sister at the fair

  3. When my Naughty Little Sister wasn’t well

  4. My Naughty Little Sister makes a bottle-tree

  5. The wiggly tooth

  6. The fairy-doll

  7. My Naughty Little Sister cuts out

  8. My Naughty Little Sister at the party

  9. The naughtiest story of all

  10. My Naughty Little Sister does knitting

  11. My Naughty Little Sister goes to the pantomime

  12. My Naughty Little Sister goes to school

  13. When my father minded my Naughty Little Sister

  14. My Naughty Little Sister and the good polite child

  15. My Naughty Little Sister and the workmen

  My Naughty Little Sister Series

  1. Going fishing

  A long time ago when I was a little girl, I had a sister who was littler than me. My little sister had brown eyes, and red hair, and a pinkish nose, and she was very, very stubborn.

  When you told her to smile for her photograph, she said, ‘No, I don’t want to,’ but if you gave her an ice-cream, or a chocolate biscuit, or a toffee-drop, she said ‘Thank you,’ and smiled and smiled.

  So you must try to imagine her with a chocolate biscuit and an ice-cream and a toffee-drop, so that you can see her at her very, very best…

  Imagine very hard…There, doesn’t she look a bright, happy child?

  Well now, I’m going to tell you some stories about her which I think you will like.

  The very first story is called Going Fishing and here it is:

  One day, when I was a little girl, and my sister was a very little girl, some children came to our house and asked my mother if I could go fishing with them.

  They had jam-jars with string on them, and fishing-nets and sandwiches and lemonade.

  My mother said, ‘Yes’ – I could go with them; and she found me a jam-jar and a fishing-net, and cut me some sandwiches.

  Then my naughty little sister said, ‘I want to go! I want to go!’ Just like that. So my mother said I might as well take her too.

  Then my mother cut some sandwiches for my little sister, but she didn’t give her a jam-jar or a fishing-net because she said she was too little to go near the water. My mother gave my little sister a basket to put stones in, because my little sister liked to pick up stones, and she gave me a big bottle of lemonade to carry for both of us.

  My mother said, ‘You mustn’t let your little sister get herself wet. You must keep her away from the water.’ And I said, ‘All right, Mother, I promise.’

  So then we went off to the little river, and we took our shoes off

  and our socks off, and tucked up our clothes, and we went into the water to catch fish with our fishing-nets, and we filled our jam-jars with water to put the fishes in when we caught them. And we said to my naughty little sister, ‘You mustn’t come, you’ll get yourself wet.’

  Well, we paddled and paddled and fished and fished, but we didn’t catch any fish at all, not one little tiny one even. Then a boy said, ‘Look, there is your little sister in the water too!’

  And, do you know, my naughty little sister had walked right into the water with her shoes and socks on, and she was trying to fish with her little basket.

  I said, ‘Get out of the water,’ and she said, ‘No.’

  I said, ‘Get out at once,’ and she said, ‘I don’t want to.’

  I said, ‘You’ll get all wet,’ and she said, ‘I don’t care.’ Wasn’t she naughty?

  So I said, ‘I must fetch you out then,’ and my naughty little sister tried to run away in the water. Which is a silly thing to do because she fell down and got all wet.

  She got her frock wet, and her petticoat wet, and her knickers wet, and her vest wet, and her hair wet, and her hair-ribbon – all soaking wet. Of course, I told you her shoes and socks were wet before.

  And she cried and cried.

  So we fetched her out of the water, and we said, ‘Oh, dear, she will catch a cold,’ and we took off her wet frock, and her wet petticoat and her wet knickers and her wet vest, and her wet hair-ribbon, and her wet shoes and socks, and we hung all the things to dry on the bushes in the sunshine, and we wrapped my naughty little sister up in a woolly cardigan.

  My little sister cried and cried.

  So we gave her the sandwiches, and she ate them all up. She ate up her sandwiches and my sandwiches, and the other children’s sandwiches all up – and she cried and cried.

  Then we gave her the lemonade and she spilled it all over the grass, and she cried and cried.

  Then one of the children gave her an apple, and another of the children gave her some toffees, and while she was eating these, we took her clothes off the bushes and ran about with them in the sunshine until they were dry. When her clothes were quite dry, we put them all back on her again, and she screamed and screamed because she didn’t want her clothes on any more.

  So, I took her home, and my mother said, ‘Oh, you’ve let your little sister fall into the water.’

  And I said, ‘How do you know? Because we dried all her clothes,’ and my mother said, ‘Ah, but you didn’t iron them.’ My little sister’s clothes were all crumpled and messy.

  Then my mother said I should not have any sugary biscuits for supper because I was disobedient. Only bread and butter, and she said my little sister must go straight to bed, and have some hot milk to drink.

  And my mother said to my little sister, ‘Don’t you think you were a naughty little girl to go in the water?’

  And my naughty little sister said, ‘I won’t do it any more, because it was too wet.’

  But, do you know, when my mother went to throw away the stones out of my little sister’s basket, she found a little fish in the bottom which my naughty little sister had caught!

  2. My Naughty Little Sister at the fair

  Here is another story about my naughty little sister.

  When I was a little girl, my little sister used to eat all her breakfast up, and all her dinner up, and all her tea up, and all her supper up – every bit.

  But one day my naughty little sister wouldn’t eat her breakfast. She had cornflakes and an egg, and a piece of bread and butter, and an apple, and a big cup of milk, and she wouldn’t eat anything.

  She said, ‘No cornflakes.’

  Then my mother said, ‘Well, eat your egg,’ and she said, ‘No egg. Nasty egg.’ She said, ‘Nasty apple,’ too, and she spilled her milk all over the table. Wasn’t she naughty?

  My mother said, ‘You won’t go to the fair this afternoon if you don’t eat it all up.’ So then my naughty little sister began to eat up her breakfast
very quickly. She ate the cornflakes and the egg, but she really couldn’t manage the apple, and my mother said, ‘Well, you ate most of your breakfast so I think we shall let you go to the fair.’

  Shall I tell you why my naughty little sister hadn’t wanted to eat her breakfast? She was too excited. And when my naughty little sister was excited, she was very cross and disobedient.

  When the fair-time came, my big cousin Jane came to fetch us. Then my naughty little sister got so excited that she was crosser than ever. My mother dressed her up in her new best blue dress and her new best blue knickers, and her white shoes and blue socks, but my naughty little sister wouldn’t help a bit. And you know what that means.

  She went all stiff and stubborn, and she wouldn’t put her arms in the armholes for herself, and she wouldn’t lift up her feet for her shoes, and my mother said, ‘Very well, they shall go without you.’ Then my naughty little sister lifted up her feet very quickly. Wasn’t she bad?

  We went on a bus to the fair, and when we got there, it was very nice. We saw cows and horses and pigs and sheep and chickens, and lots and lots of people. And there were big swings that went swingy-swing, swingy-swing, and roundabouts that went round and round, round and round. Then my naughty little sister said, ‘I want a swing! I want a swing!’

  But my big cousin Jane said, ‘No, you are too little for those big swings, but you shall go on the little roundabout.’

  The little roundabout had wooden horses with real reins, and things to put your feet in, and there were little cars on the roundabout, and a little red fire-engine, and a little train.

  First, we watched the roundabout going round and round, and when it went round all the cars and horses went up and down, up and down, and the fire-engine and the train went up and down too. The roundabout played music as it went round.

  Then, when it stopped, my big cousin said, ‘Get on, both of you.’ There were lots of other children there, and some of them were afraid to go on the roundabout, but my little sister wasn’t afraid. She was the first to go on, and she got on all by herself, without anyone lifting her at all. Wasn’t she a big girl? And do you know what she did? She got into the seat of the red fire-engine, and rang and rang the bell. ‘Clonkle! Clonkle! Clonkle!’ went the bell, and my little sister laughed and laughed, and when the roundabout went round it played nice music, and my naughty little sister said, ‘Hurrah. I’m going to put the fire out!’

  My little sister had four rides on the roundabout. One, two, three, four rides. And then my big cousin Jane said, ‘We have spent all our money. We will go and look at the people buying horses.’

  But my little sister got thoroughly nasty again, and she said, ‘No horse. Nasty horses. Want roundabout.’ There, wasn’t that bad of her? I’m glad you’re not like that.

  But my cousin said, ‘Come along at once,’ and my naughty little sister had to come, but do you know what she did, while we were looking at the horses? She ran away. I said she was a naughty child, you know.

  Yes. She ran away, and we couldn’t find her anywhere. We looked and looked. We went to the roundabouts and she wasn’t there. We went to the swings and she wasn’t there. She wasn’t at the pig place, or the cow place or the chicken place, or any of the other places. So then my big cousin Jane said, ‘We must ask a policeman. Because policemen are good to lost children.’

  We asked a lady if she could tell us where a policeman was, and the lady said, ‘Go over the road to the police-station.’

  So my cousin took me over the road to the police-station, and we went into a big door, and through another door, and we saw a policeman sitting without his hat on. And the policeman said, ‘How do you do, children. Can I help you?’ Wasn’t that nice of him?

  Then my big cousin Jane said, ‘We have lost a naughty little girl.’ And she told the nice policeman all about my bad little sister, all about what her name was, and where we had lost her, and what she looked like, and the nice policeman wrote it all down in a big book.

  Then the kind policeman said, ‘No, we haven’t a little girl here, but if we find her, we will send her home to you in a big car.’

  So then my cousin Jane and I went home, and it was a long walk, because we had spent all our pennies on the roundabout.

  When we got home, what do you think? There was my naughty little sister, sitting at the table, eating her tea. She had got home before us after all. And do you know why that was? It was because a kind policeman had found her and taken her home in his big car.

  And do you know, my naughty little sister said she’d never, never run off like that again, because it wasn’t at all nice, being lost. She said it made her cry.

  But, my naughty little sister said, if she did get lost again, she would find another nice policeman to take her home, because policemen are so kind to lost children.

  3. When my Naughty Little Sister wasn’t well

  I hope you aren’t a shy child. My naughty little sister wasn’t shy, but she used to pretend to be sometimes, and when nice aunts and uncles came to see us, she wouldn’t say, ‘How do you do!’ or shake hands or anything, and if they tried to talk to her she would run off down the garden and hide among the currant bushes until they went away.

  But my naughty little sister talked and talked when she wanted to. She talked to the milkman and the baker and the coalman and the window-cleaner man, and all the other people who came to the door, and when they came she got terribly in their way, because she talked to them so much, but they all liked my naughty little sister.

  One day she upset all the milkman’s bottles, and he only said, ‘Never mind, no use crying over spilt milk,’ and another day she shut the cellar up just as the coalman was going to tip the coal in, and he only said, ‘Well, well now, there’s a job for your father!’ and she climbed up the ladder after the window-cleaning man and then she cried because she was afraid to come down, but he only said, ‘There! There! Don’t cry, dearie,’ and he lent her his leathery thing to wipe her tears on.

  So you see, they liked my naughty little sister very much, but wasn’t she naughty?

  Well now, one day my poor naughty little sister wasn’t very well. She sat in her chair and looked very miserable and said, ‘I’m not a very well girl today.’

  So my mother said, ‘You shall go to bed and have a hot drink, and a hotwater-bottle and we shall send for the doctor to come and see what’s wrong with you.’

  And my naughty little sister said, ‘No doctor! Nasty doctor!’ Wasn’t she a silly cuckoo? Fancy saying, ‘No doctor’ when she wasn’t well!

  But my mother said, ‘He’s a nice doctor. You must tell him how you feel, and then he will make you all better.’

  Then my naughty little sister said, ‘I’m too shy. I won’t talk to him.’ She said it in a cross, growly voice, ‘I won’t talk to him!’

  So my naughty little sister went to bed, and she had a hot-water-bottle and a hot drink. Also, she had her best books, and all her dolls and her teddy bears, but she felt so not-well that she didn’t want any of these things at all.

  Presently my naughty little sister heard a knock on the front door, and she said, ‘No doctor,’ and hid her face under the sheet.

  But it wasn’t the doctor, it was the nice milkman, and when he heard my naughty little sister wasn’t well, he sent her his love, and a notebook with lines on, and a blue pencil to write with.

  Then my naughty little sister heard the front door again, and she said, ‘No doctor,’ again, and hid her face again, but it was the nice baker, and he sent my naughty little sister his love and a little spongy cake in case she fancied it.

  Then she heard the front door again, and she said, ‘No doctor – nasty doctor,’ but it was the nice coalman, and he sent my naughty little sister his love and a red rose from his cap that smelt rosy and coaly.

  After that my naughty little sister began to feel a much happier girl, and she didn’t hide her face any more, so that when the window-cleaner man came to clean the window, she could
see him smiling through the glass, and when he popped his head in and asked, ‘How’s the invalid?’ my naughty little sister said, ‘I’m not a well girl today.’

  The window-cleaner man said, ‘Well, the doctor will soon put you right.’

  And my naughty little sister watched the window-cleaner man rubbing away with the leathery thing, and then she said, ‘No doctor,’ to the window-cleaner man.

  ‘No doctor,’ she said, out loud.

  ‘Yes doctor,’ said the window-cleaner man.

  ‘No doctor,’ said my naughty little sister.

  ‘That’s a silly idea you’ve got,’ said the window-cleaner man. ‘The doctor will make you a well girl again.’

  Then my naughty little sister began to cry and cry. ‘No doctor, no doctor. I’m too shy.’ Like that, in that miserable way.

  And then the window-cleaner man said, ‘What a pity you won’t have the doctor, because you won’t see his listening-thing, or his glass-stick-thing to pop under your tongue, or the doctor’s bag that he keeps his little bottles in.’

  Then my naughty little sister stopped crying and said, ‘What listening-thing? What stick-thing?’

  ‘Ah,’ said the window-cleaner man, ‘I shan’t tell you that. Why should I? But it’s a pity you won’t see that doctor and find out for yourself.’ That’s what the window-cleaner man said.

  Then the window-cleaner man went away, and took his ladder with him, and my naughty little sister stayed in her bed and thought and thought.

  And presently, when she heard a knock at the front door, my naughty little sister didn’t say, ‘No doctor,’ and hide her face under the sheet, even though it really was the doctor this time. She didn’t do anything silly like that at all.