Free Anytime Tales by Enid Blyton

hard.
    Matilda stared crossly, “I want those blackberries!” she said.
    “So do I,” said the old lady. “You can share them, can’t you?”
    “You’ve picked all the biggest. You’re greedy,” said rude Matilda.
    “What an unpleasant child you are!” said the old dame, staring at Matilda out of curious green eyes. Those eyes should have warned Matilda that the old lady was magic, for people with green eyes are not the same as ordinary folk.
    “You’re
not
to talk to me like that!” said Matilda— and she stamped her foot. “You’re not to, you’re not to!”
    “Don’t stamp your foot at me, or you’ll be sorry!” said the old lady, and her eyes looked rather fierce. But did Matilda care? Not she!
    She lost her temper all in a hurry, and began to shout and stamp. “I want those blackberries! (Stamp, stamp!) I want those blackberries! (Stamp, stamp!) I want those blackberries! (Stamp, stamp, STAMP!)”
    The old lady looked at Matilda in the greatest surprise. “My dear little girl,” she said, “you shouldn’t have been a child at all. You should have been a pony! Then you could do all the stamping you please!”
    “Give me those blackberries!” shouted Matilda, and she stamped so heavily on the grass that she squashed it flat.
    “I don’t mind horses stamping at me, but I won’t have little girls behaving like this,” said the old dame, and she waved a thin brown hand at Matilda. “Be a pony! Run away and stamp all you like!”
    And then, to Matilda’s enormous dismay, she found that she was no longer a little girl, but a small brown pony with a white star on its head! She had four legs and a long tail!
    She stamped with her forefoot on the grass, and opened her mouth to shout--but she neighed instead: “Nay - hay - hay - hay - hay! Nay - hay - hay - hay -hay!”
    “Well, if you want hay, go and get it,” said the old lady, going on with her picking. Matilda was frightened by her horse-voice and ran away round the field. Oh dear, this was dreadful! She was a pony— fancy that, a pony! She couldn’t speak like a little girl. She couldn’t pick blackberries, for she had no hands. She could still stamp, and she could wave a long tail about—how very, very queer!
    Matilda wanted to go home, so she ran to the field gate. But it was shut. Matilda stamped her foot, and the old lady laughed.
    “Stamp away! I always love to see a horse stamping with its hoof—it’s right for horses to paw the ground! Stamp all you like, little pony, and enjoy yourself!”
    But Matilda wasn’t enjoying herself one bit. Supposing the farmer came by and put her into the shafts of a cart to carry his goods to market? Suppose he wanted to ride her? He was such a big heavy man. And what about her food? Would she have to eat grass?

    Matilda put her big pony-head down to nibble the grass to see what it tasted like. It was horrid! She still had the tastes and feelings of a little girl although she had the body of a pony! Whatever was she going to do? Why, oh, why had she stamped at that old woman?
    Just then George, John, Lucy and Fred came into the field. “Look!” cried Fred. “A new pony! Let’s ride him!”
    Matilda was full of horror. What—let those children ride on her back? Never! She ran away to a corner of the field, and the children followed.
    The pony stamped her foot at them, and the children laughed. “He’s like Matilda!” they cried. “He stamps his foot just like Matilda!”
    Just then the children’s mother came along and called them. “Come out of the field, children. There’s no time to play before tea. Come along.”
    Tea! Matilda felt hungry. How she wished she could go home to eat cakes, and jam too. But what would her mother say if a pony came running into the house?
    Still—she would go home. Perhaps her mother would know her even though she was now a pony. Matilda cried a few big tears out of her large pony-eyes. She cantered out of the gate that the children had carelessly