THE AMAZING CHAIR

Anne held her favourite doll tight and climbed into her favourite armchair. It was an old blue coloured chair, which had been well worn out over the years and Anne, loved to sit in it and eat a bowl of her favourite potato chips. Her mother had repeatedly scolded her for eating on the chair, but Anne refused to listen.

One morning, as usual, Anne was siting on her favourite chair eating a bowl of potato crisps, when her mother scolded her for sitting her and as a punishment asked her to get a vacuum cleaner and clean the chair. Anne resented doing the cleaning. She had played all day and was really tired and wanted to rest. But on thinking some more, Anne realised that there might be many things that she might find inside the chair - many things which go unnoticed and keep falling out of people's pockets. She tried to think about the amount of money that may have fallen into the chair and wondered if it was enough to go to the store and buy candy for her. Instead of thinking so much, Anne just decided to look under the cushion of the chair. She shut her eyes and when she opened them again, she found everything around her looking relatively large. Either everything around her had become bigger or she had become smaller. Anyway, Anne entered the chair and as she was small enough to walk in it, she kept hearing crunching sounds below her feet. She wondered what they were and then realized that they were small pieces of her potato chips that kept falling into the couch every now and then.

Just as she was about to walk a little further, she saw a shiny silver coin - which meant money. When she was about to grab it, a small hand came and smacked the coin out of her hand and Anne saw herself staring at one of the queerest creatures she had ever seen. "Who are you?" she asked and he replied "I am the master of this couch and all that falls within it is mine and look what you have done, you just stepped on my dinner and crushed it all up." For a moment Anne was too startled to believe him or say anything. The little man told her that she could come and visit him inside his house in the chair if she promised him that she would not take anything away from him. Anne followed him down the springs of the chair till they reached a little house. Everything in that house looked so familiar. There was a dollar bill, which was used as a carpet. Many stacks of nickels and dimes were gleaming in one corner. There were a few cigarette stubs. A postage stamp was hung on the wall as a painting. There was even Anne's favourite pink ribbon, which had been missing for days and the buttons of her tutu doll's dress.

Anne wished that if this little creature would look away for just a minute, in one quick stroke she would just roll up the dollar bill and take it away, but then again, she was way too small to do that now.

Suddenly Anne heard her mother calling her name. She was off running up the springs of the chair to go and tell her mother about the beautiful; world inside the chair, but the little creature warned her not to go up. He told her that if her mother sat on the chair when she was near the surface, Anne would get crushed to a feather. Anne refused to listen to him and when she reached the surface, she started waving her hands and said "Mother, look at me, I'm here." But her mother was all set to sit down straight ion the chair and once again Anne cried, " Mother don't sit, look at me." And squash went he mother straight on the chair.

The next thing that Anne knew was that her mother was waking her up. When she opened her eyes, she was once again her normal size and she was on her bed and her mother was trying to wake her up. "Wake up Anne, you have a job to do, get down to cleaning the house." Anne looked at her meekishly and said, " Mother I'll clean the entire house but I will never ever clean my favourite chair." And saying this she left her mother with a perplexed look.