Avon Fantasy Reader No. 9 — page 79: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

os _ sky, through the window. There were voices she heard but could not understand; colors she saw but could not name; shapes she glimpsed but which never seemed to resemble any figures she found in picture books. | Sometimes the same voices and colors and shapes came again and again, - until she learned to recognize them, in a way. There was the deep, buzzing voice that seemed to come from right inside her own head, although she knew it really issued from the black, shiny pyramid-thing that had the arms with eyes in it. It didn’t look slimy or nasty, and there was nothing to be airaid of—Avis could never understand why Marvin Mason made her shut up when she started telling about those dreams. But he was only a little boy, and he got scared and ran home to his Mommy. Avis didn’t have any Mommy, only Aunt May; but she would - never tell Aunt May such things. Besides, why should she? The dreams didn’t frighten her, and they were so very real and interesting. Sometimes, on gray, rainy days when there was nothing to do but play with dolls or cut out pictures to paste in her album, she wished that night would hurry up and come. Then she could dream and make everything real again. She got so she liked to stay in bed, and would pretend to have a‘cold so she didn’t have to go to school. Avis would look up at the window and wait for the dreams to come—but they never came in the daytime; only senicht. . Often she wondered what it was like up there. : = The dreams must come from the sky; she knew -that. The voices and shapes lived way up, somewhere beyond the window. Aunt May said that dreams came from tummy-aches, but she knew that wasn’t so. Aunt May was always worried about tummy-aches, and she scolded Avis for not going outside to play; said she was getting pale and puny. But Avis felt fine, and she had her secret to think of. Now she scarcely ever saw Marvin Mason any more, and she didn’t bother to read. It wasn’t much fun to pretend she was a princess, either. Because the dreams were ever so much realer, and she could talk to the voices and ask them to take her with them when they went away. .” She got so she could almost understand what they were saying. The shiny thing that just hung through the window now—the one that looked like it had so much more to it she couldn’t see—it made music inside her head that she recognized. Not a real tune; more like words in a thyme. In her dreams she asked it to take her away. She would crawl up on its back and let it fly with her up over the stars. That was funny, asking it to fly ; but she knew that the part beyond the window had wings. Wings as big as the world. 7 : : : She begged and pleaded, but the voices made her understand that they couldn’t take little girls back with them. That is, not entirely, Because it was too cold and too far, and something would change her. a She said she didn’t care how she changed; she wanted to go. She would — let them do anything they wanted if only they would take her: It would - : 47 EComicboo