When Mary Lennox was sent to Misselthwaite Manor to live with her uncle everybody said she was the most disagreeable-looking child ever seen. It was true, too. She had a little thin face and a little thin body, thin light hair and a sour expression. Her hair was yellow, and her face was yellow because she had been born in India and had always been ill in one way or another. Her father had held a position under the English Government and had always been busy and ill himself, and her mother had been a great beauty who cared only to go to parties and amuse herself with gay people. She had not wanted a little girl at all, and when Mary was born she handed her over to the care of an Ayah, who was made to understand that if she wished to please the Mem Sahib she must keep the child out of sight as much as possible. So when she was a sickly, fretful, ugly little baby she was kept out of the way, and when she became a sickly, fretful, toddling thing she was kept out of the way also. She never remembered seeing familiarly anything but the dark faces of her Ayah and the other native servants, and as they always obeyed her and gave her her own way in everything, because the Mem Sahib would be angry if she was disturbed by her crying, by the time she was six years old she was as tyrannical and selfish a little pig as ever lived. The young English governess who came to teach her to read and write disliked her so much that she gave up her place in three months, and when other governesses came to try to fill it they always went away in a shorter time than the first one. So if Mary had not chosen to really want to know how to read books she would never have learned her letters at all. One frightfully hot morning, when she was about nine years old, she awakened feeling very cross, and she became crosser still when she saw that the servant who stood by her bedside was not her Ayah. “Why did you come?” she said to the strange woman. “I will not let you stay. Send my Ayah to me.” The woman looked frightened, but she only stammered that the Ayah could not come and when Mary threw herself into a passion and beat and kicked her, she looked only more frightened and repeated that it was not possible for the Ayah to come to Missie Sahib. There was something mysterious in the air that morning. Nothing was done in its regular order and several of the native servants seemed missing, while those whom Mary saw slunk or hurried about with ashy and scared faces. But no one would tell her anything and her Ayah did not come. She was actually left alone as the morning went on, and at last she wandered out into the garden and began to play by herself under a tree near the veranda. She pretended that she was making a flower-bed, and she stuck big scarlet hibiscus blossoms into little heaps of earth, all the time growing more and more angry and muttering to herself the things she would say and the names she would call Saidie when she returned. “Pig! Pig! Daughter of Pigs!” she said, because to call a native a pig is the worst insult of all. She was grinding her teeth and saying this over and over again when she heard her mother come out on the veranda with someone. She was with a fair young man and they stood talking together in low strange voices. Mary knew the fair young man who looked like a boy. She had heard that he was a very young officer who had just come from England. The child stared at him, but she stared most at her mother. She always did this when she had a chance to see her, because the Mem Sahib—Mary used to call her that oftener than anything else—was such a tall, slim, pretty person and wore such lovely clothes. Her hair was like curly silk and she had a delicate little nose which seemed to be disdaining things, and she had large laughing eyes. All her clothes were thin and floating, and Mary said they were “full of lace.” They looked fuller of lace than ever this morning, but her eyes were not laughing at all. They were large and scared and lifted imploringly to the fair boy officer’s face. “Is it so very bad? Oh, is it?” Mary heard her say. “Awfully,” the young man answered in a trembling voice. “Awfully, Mrs. Lennox. You ought to have gone to the hills two weeks ago.” The Mem Sahib wrung her hands. “Oh, I know I ought!” she cried. “I only stayed to go to that silly dinner party. What a fool I was!” At that very moment such a loud sound of wailing broke out from the servants’ quarters that she clutched the young man’s arm, and Mary stood shivering from head to foot. The wailing grew wilder and wilder. “What is it? What is it?” Mrs. Lennox gasped. “Someone has died,” answered the boy officer. “You did not say it had broken out among your servants.” “I did not know!” the Mem Sahib cried. “Come with me! Come with me!” and she turned and ran into the house.

Girl in the Mirror: Excerpt: The Girl in the Mirror is a scary story about a young boy who spends his days sad and lonely until he meets a strange little girl who only appears in the mirror. When I was a child, I spent a lot of time alone. My parents lived in an old house way out in the countryside and there were no other children my age around. I had a little brother, but he was only a baby at the time, so I couldn’t play with him. I was always a little lonely. The old country house where we lived had a lot of small rooms. In the corridor, there was a closet with a sliding door where my father would store his tools. I loved to go in there and play with the tools. It was fun for me at the time. One day, I found an old mirror at the back of the closet. It was an oval shape and the bronze frame was very ornate. Even though it was quite old and dusty, the glass was very clear and I could see myself perfectly. One time, when I was playing in the closet, I happened to glance at the mirror and saw something that shocked me. In the reflection, I saw a strange girl standing behind me. Frightened, I turned around quickly, but there was nobody there. When I looked back at the mirror, I was confused. The little girl was still there. I guess because I was a child, I wasn’t scared of her. I just thought it was strange that she only appeared in the mirror. The little girl had long, dark hair and pale, white skin. Through the mirror, she looked at me and laughed. “Hello,” she said with a smile. We started talking to each other. The girl told me to call her Nana. We would talk all the time. My parents must have wondered why I spent so much time in the closet talking to myself, but they never took the mirror away from me. It seemed that Nana-chan was not visible to adults. One day, when I was talking to Nana-chan, I said, “I’m lonely. I wish I had some friends I could play with.” “Come over here and play with me,” Nana-chan replied. “I can go over there?” I asked. “How do I do that?” Nana’s face became troubled, then she lowered her voice. “I don’t know,” she whispered. “I’ll ask…” I wondered who she was going to ask, but all I could hear was silence. Somehow I felt like whoever it was, they didn’t want me to listen. The next day, when I spoke to Nana, she said happily, “I know how you can come over here now. Come on! Let’s play!” I was happy, but I remembered that my parents had always warned me that I had to tell them before I went anywhere. “OK, but I’ll have to ask my mother,” I replied. Nana’s face became a little troubled again and she said, “Don’t tell anyone about this. We may not be able to meet each other if you tell someone.” I stayed silent because I didn’t want to disobey my parents. Then Nana-chan said, “So you’ll come and play with me tomorrow, OK? Promise?” “Yeah,” I replied, reluctantly. “I promise.” Nana reached out and touched the surface of the mirror with her little finger. “Pinky swear?” she asked with a smile. I reached out and pressed the tip of my little finger to the mirror beside hers. “Pinky swear,” I said. I thought I could feel a slight warmth through the glass. That night, I didn’t sleep very much. I didn’t tell my parents about Nana-chan but as I lay there in the darkness, questions were swirling around in my head. How would I enter into the mirror? What kind of place was it over there? Why wouldn’t Nana come over here? If I went over there, how would I come back over here? As I contemplated such things, I grew more and more anxious. I became a little scared of Nana-chan. The next day, I didn’t go to see Nana. I avoided her the day after that and the day after that. I didn’t go near the closet all week. In fact, I never went into the closet again. The weeks and months passed by quickly and I grew older. The months and years passed and I grew up. I left home to go to high school in the town. After I graduated, I started working in a nearby town. I didn’t go home very much. Eventually, I met a girl and we got married. By that time, I had forgotten all about Nana. Shortly after we got married, my wife found out she was pregnant. She went to visit her parents for a while. I was all alone in the house, so I sometimes visited my own parents for dinner. They still lived in the same house. One night, I decided to stay over and slept in my old bedroom. In the middle of the night, I woke up and went to use the toilet. While I was washing my hands, I happened to glance in the mirror. A sliding door in the middle of the corridor was open. It was the closet where I had played as a child. I thought the door had been closed when I went to the toilet. I turned around and was shocked to see that the door was closed after all. However, when I looked back at the mirror, the door was open. A chill went down my spine and my hands began to shake. I thought I saw the door sliding back slightly in the darkness. At that moment, I remembered Nana-chan.