Annie [antikvár]

1 Every night, just before she feil asleep, Annie would snuggle down in her warm bed and listen to the murmur of her parents' voices outside her bedroom door. Her drowsy eyes, not yet aceustomed to the darkness, would drift slowly around the room, making a last-minute catalogue of all her favourite things. Although she couldn't see the pictures on the walls, she had them memorized — Little Jack Horner puiling a plum out of a brimming pie; Jack-Be-Nimble leap-ing over a candlestick with a wavery flame; Little Miss Muffet jumping up from her tufiet as the spider leered at her; Bo Peep crying over her lost sheep, not noticing that they were gambolling towards her over the hills. Those dear familiar pictures had been there ever since Annie was a baby; her mother wanted to change them for something a little more suitable to Annie's ten years, but Annie didn't want to let them go. On the shelves across from the bed, Annie could make out the dim outlines of her dolls and books, her beloved stuffed animals and the other toys that were crowded together so tightly, they threatened to push each other off. In the far corner stood the favourite toy of all -Annie's rocking horse, as gaily painted as a circus pony, tall and proud and very handsome. Annie would pretend that he was real and that she could ride him out the front door, through the park, over the hills and far away. On the other side of the door, in the cosy living