The Farthest Away Mountain. Lynne Banks Reid

her knapsack, she took out the toffee, and laid it in the fireplace at the foot of the chimney. Almost at once, a fly who happened to be passing overhead saw it and buzzed down to investigate. Then came another, and another. Old Croak would find a feast awaiting him when at last he had to surface for air.

      Getting out of the chimney, Dakin discovered, was a different matter from getting in, and for a while it seemed she was doomed to stay there for ever. But in trying to draw herself up, she accidentally touched a rough place in the bricks and a little rope-ladder suddenly fell out of the inside rim of the chimney-pot and dangled before her. In no time at all she was sliding down the sloping roof, and clambering down the ladder into the sunny meadow again.

      The meadow was wide, and as long as she was out in the sunshine she felt strangely safe. Could it be that whatever dark forces held the farthest-away mountain in their spell were as afraid of the light as they were of the happy sounds of laughter and birdsong? If so, then Dakin felt she might have discovered a very helpful secret in Old Croak’s cabin.

      But no meadow stretches forever and, quite abruptly, the grass stopped and she found herself walking on rocks, not the smooth, well-worn kind in the green river at home, but spikey, sticking-up rocks, like sharp teeth or knives. Her feet slipped between them and she had to wrench them free. Sometimes a piece of rock she hadn’t noticed would trip her up. She knew if she fell she’d hurt herself badly, and it really did seem, after a while, as if the rocks were alive and doing their utmost to make her stumble and fall in amongst them.

      Whenever she looked ahead the jagged teeth, like the spears of a vast army, seemed to stretch for miles, ahead and on both sides; and even looking back, she couldn’t see any sign of the meadow. The sun had really gone in now and the sky overhead was grey and threatening. She grew more and more weary, but there wasn’t one friendly flat surface to rest on, just the endless, treacherous sea of spikes. It was no good turning back, she could only go on. It was worse than the wood.

      At last Dakin grew so tired she knew that very soon she must either sit down and rest, or fall down. Her head had begun to whirl and she realized she must be terribly hungry. Even without the little troll, her knapsack felt like lead, and her heart felt almost as heavy.

      As she staggered on she felt a lump come into her throat. First she told herself it was just tiredness, then, as it grew bigger, that it was hunger, but despite all her efforts to deceive herself, two big tears bloomed slowly on her lower eyelashes and made two wet, crooked paths down her brown cheeks.

      They met on the end of her chin, and fell with a small splash on a particularly spiteful-looking point of rock.

      What happened next would have surprised Dakin if she hadn’t already had more surprises that day than she knew how to deal with. The rock on which her tear had fallen began to melt, like a fast-burning wax candle. First the sharp point disappeared, then the thickening column beneath it sank and sank with a faint hissing sound, until it had quite melted away and there was nothing left but a flat place – exactly the size and shape of Dakin’s foot.