Free The Borrowers Aloft by Mary Norton

the worn blanket, and she and Arrietty fashioned themselves sarong-like skirts and pointed shawls to draw around their shoulders.
    Seeing this, the Platters decided to light the gas fire and would leave it burning low. The borrowers were glad, because although sometimes the air grew dry and stuffy, they were able to toast-up scraps of the duller foods and make their meals more appetizing.

    One day Mrs. Platter bustled in and, looking very purposeful, went to the closed drawer of the table. Watching her from their box in the corner as she pulled out some of the contents, they saw it contained rags and rolls of old stuff, neatly tied around with tape. She unrolled a piece of yellowed flannel and, taking up the cutting-out scissors, came and stared down on them with narrowed, thoughtful eyes.
    They stared back nervously at the waving scissor blades. Was she going to snip and snap and tailor them to size? But no—with a little creaking and heavy breathing, she kneeled down on the floor and, spreading the stuff doubled before her, cut out three combination garments, each one all of a piece, with Magyar sleeves and legs. These she seamed up on the sewing machine, "tutting" to herself under her breath when the wheel stuck or the thread parted. When her thimble rolled away under the treadle of the sewing machine, they noted its position: a drinking cup at last!
    Breathing hard and with the aid of a bone crochet hook, Mrs. Platter turned the tiny garments inside out. "There you are," she said, and threw them into the box. They lay there stiffly like little headless effigies. None of the borrowers moved.
    "You can put them on yourselves, can't you?" said Mrs. Platter at last. The borrowers stared back at her with wide, unblinking eyes, until, after waiting a moment, she turned and went away.

    They were terrible garments, stiff and shapeless, fitting nowhere at all. But at least they were warm; and Homily could now rinse out their own clothes in the bowl of drinking water and hang them before the gas fire to dry. "Thank heavens, I can't see myself," she remarked grimly, as she gazed incredulously at Pod.
    "Thank goodness, you can't," he replied, smiling, and he turned rather quickly away.

Chapter Fourteen
    As the weeks went by, they learned gradually of the reason for their capture and the use to which they would be put. As well as the construction of the cagelike house on the island, Mr. and Mrs. Platter—assured of vast takings at last—were installing a turnstile in place of the gate to the drive.
    One side of their cage-house, they learned, was to be made of thick plate glass, exposing their home life to view. "Good and heavy" the glass would have to be, Mr. Platter had insisted, describing the layout to Mrs. Platter—nothing the borrowers could break; and fixed in a slot so the Platters could raise it for cleaning. The furniture was to be fixed to the floor and set in such a way that there should be nothing behind which they might hide.
    "You know those cages at the zoo with sleeping quarters at the back where you wait and wait and the animal never comes out? Well, we don't want anything like that. Can't have people asking for their money back ..."
    Mrs. Platter had agreed. She saw the whole project in her mind's eye and thought Mr. Platter very farseeing and wonderful. "And you've got to set the cage," he went on earnestly, "or house, or whatever we decide to call it, in a bed of cement. You can't have them burrowing."
    No, that wouldn't do, Mrs. Platter had agreed again. And as Mr. Platter went ahead with the construction of the house, Mrs. Platter, they learned, had arranged with a seamstress to make them an entirely new wardrobe. She had taken away their own clothes to serve as patterns for size. Homily was very intrigued by Mrs. Platter's description to Mr. Platter of a green dress "with a hint of a bustle—like my purple plaid, you remember?" "Wish I could see her purple plaid," Homily kept worrying, "just so as to get