PANDORA DOESN’T LIKE TO READ
PATRICIA MORAIS
© Patricia Morais
Revision and proofreading: Laura Urbina
Cover: Joe Chung
Blog:
[email protected] Facebook: facebook.com/patricia.morais.pt
Twitter e Instagram: @TrishM27
Goodreads: Patricia Morais
For Raquel, whose job as a librarian inspired me to write this tale.
1
“Pandora, go get your things.”
“I’m going, mum!”
“Pandora, hurry up, we’re going to be late.”
“I’m coming, dad!”
Pandora was going to spend two whole weeks at her grandparents’ house and she couldn’t be more thrilled. She loved granny and grandad; she also loved their big house and enormous garden. She even had friends there, Mary and Michael, two siblings that lived in her grandparents’ town with whom Pandora shared brave adventures.
“Pandora, are you ready?” Her parents asked.
“All set!” She replied enthusiastically.
The journey to her grandparents’ was long and dreary, the only thing about visiting them that Pandora hated. Can you believe she was forced to be still for two whole hours? She had always hated being locked in a place where she couldn’t run.
“Read a book,” her mother would say, whenever she was forced to sit still in the waiting room of her favourite paediatrician, who offered her lollies if she behaved.
“I don’t like reading,” Pandora always replied with a whine.
Disliking reading was the only thing Pandora didn’t share with her grandparents, who owned the most gigantic library she had ever seen. There where rows and rows of old books, new books, middle-aged books, and the room was bright with a scent of mildew that reminded Pandora of school – but not the good school where she ran and played with her mates. No, no, no, the bad one, where she had to learn and sit still. Pandora didn’t understand how someone who liked adventures so much could spend so much time reading. “What a waste of time,” she would think. “So much time spent reading when they could be exploring outside.”
“We’re here,” Pandora heard her dad saying just as she was drifting off to sleep.
A new hit of energy jolted her like an electric shock. She unfasted her seat belt quickly and ran towards the house.
“Granny. Grandad,” she yelled when she saw them running in her direction. They hugged and exchanged kisses and laughs for a while.
“Let’s go, dear, go put your things in your room and say goodbye to your parents,” they said, and Pandora did what she was told, ready to start two weeks of pure fun.
But when her parents had left and Pandora came downstairs to where granny and grandad were preparing a snack, they both wore grim looks on their faces.
“Pandora, we have bad news.”
“What is it, grandad?”
“Well,” said granny, “Mary and Michael are not here this time. They went on holiday with their parents.”
“Oh!” Without her friends Pandora had no one to play with and explore the big garden. The only thing she had left was the telly with her favourite cartoons.
“And there is one more thing,” granny continued, “the telly is broken. I’m afraid you won’t be able to watch cartoons for a while until we are able to fix it.”
“But what am I supposed to do then? There is nothing!”
“Well, you could read a book from the library,” grandad suggested. “There are so many upstairs.”
“No, no, no. I don’t like to read!”
“Well, dear, then you have to come up with something.”
2
But there was nothing else to do. Pandora and her friends had already explored the entire house last year, they knew every corner. They knew the best places to hide when playing hide-and-seek, where to step if they wanted to climb the rooftop, even that secret room where they weren’t supposed to go because that’s where grandad stored his tools.
In the following days, Pandora played with Bolt, granny and grandad’s dog. Bolt was a great friend to Pandora and an even better explorer. Together they explored the yard that Pandora didn’t know so well. It was so big you couldn’t unravel every secret in just one day. They found their way out of the maze and even discovered a shortcut that made it faster to reach the house.
But, unfortunately, on the fifth day Pandora woke up to heavy rain. It was pouring outside.
“Oh! No,” she gasped.
Pandora went downstairs to find out that grandad was gone for the day and granny was too busy to play with her. She was preparing a big dinner for her friends who were supposed to arrive that night.
Feeling sad, she went back to her room. She noticed a book that her grandparents had left on her bedside table a few days ago but she didn’t even give it a second look. She passed by it, towards the window, to watch the rain fall.
Not long after, she was already feeling bored and started pacing the room from one end to the other, while counting her steps.
“One, two, three, four…” After seven strides she turned around and started counting from the top. “One, two, three, four…” And so on.
“How boring!” She complained throwing herself on top of the bed. She let out a huge moan and looked at the book once more. “It has a pretty cover.” She said. She picked it up and looked at it attentively. She looked at its front and at its back, and very slowly, she decided to open it.
“Oi!” From the book came a loud gasp. There was a little mouse inside a bathtub yelling at her. He tried to grab a towel very quickly, blushing the colour of a tomato. He kept yelling at her. “Can’t you see I’m trying to have a bath? Close the book! Close the book!”
Pandora closed it. Her eyes were wide open and she was feeling very embarrassed.
“Did you see that, Bolt?” She asked. The dog barked in reply.
Pandora went back to counting steps, but this time every time she turned around she eyed the book curiously. After five turns she decided to open it again.
This time, there were rabbits and mice and birds and squirrels, all running around from one little house into the other.
“They look like granny and grandad when they go out shopping at the market.” She said.
She flicked through another page and saw the same mouse she had seen before, but this time he was eating a bowl of molten cheese.
“Hello, again.” She said.
The little mouse looked up and replied. “You again? Can’t a mouse have a little privacy?”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” she apologised. And flicked through a few more pages.
“A unicorn,” she exclaimed.
The unicorn, who was lying down, looked at Pandora. “Well, yes indeed, I am a unicorn.”
“But unicorns don’t exist,” Pandora protested.
“Well, if I am here it’s because I do exist, no? What an insult.”
“I… I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
“Well, now you do.” The unicorn got up. “But what are you doing looking from up there?” He asked
“I opened this book and…”
“No, that’s not what I am asking. Why don’t you come down here?”
“Because I can’t,” Pandora explained looking at the book in her hands.
“Of course you can. You haven’t even tried and you’re already saying you cannot? Come here.”
“But how?” Pandora asked.
“By simply coming,” he replied.
Pandora closed her eyes and, when she opened them she wasn’t in her room in her grandparents’ house, she was with bolt in the same forest as the unicorn. She didn’t even
know how she had done it but the unicorn was looking at her. “Can you or can you not?”
3
Pandora really couldn’t understand how she had gotten there. Even worse: how would she go back home? At least she had Bolt walking faithfully at her side and when the unicorn started talking, she soon forgot.
“There is the Sleeping Valley,” the unicorn pointed at some tall naked trees. “It’s full of sloths that sleep all day. And over there is the Squirrel Corner, they spent the whole day looking for acorn to store during winter. And, have you ever heard the tale of the Ant and the Grasshopper?”
“No,” Pandora answered.
“Those two live over there in that house,” he pointed at a house that almost looked like a boot with pretty chandeliers dangling at the door. “They still don’t get along very well but, the Ant is more relaxed now and the Grasshopper a little more hardworking. There is the Blue Forest…”
Pandora looked at it surprised, she saw large, bulky trees full of leaves that were glowing a blue colour.
“Blue Forest?” She repeated.
“Yes,” the unicorn said. “Where the leaves are blue.”
“But that it’s impossible.”
“Of course it’s possible,” the unicorn said. “Can’t you see they are blue? Just has the unicorns also exist so do the blue leaves. Or are you going to tell me there isn’t also green water?”
“No,” Pandora responded. “That exists. My friends’ pool always turns green in the Winter.”
“That is because it is full of algae.” The unicorn explained. “In the Green Lake the water is actually green.”
They kept walking in the forest until they arrived at