Part 11: Maid To Measure
“He took me for his housemaid” Nyssa surmised, as she ran. “How surprised he would be if he knew who I am! But I’d best find the mask and gloves, if I can.” As she said this, she came upon a neat little cottage, with celery growing in the garden, and a cricket-pitch behind it, and a scarecrow wearing cricket-pads in one of the celery-beds. On the door was a neat brass plate with the words “RABBIT W?” engraved upon it. She went in without knocking, and hurried upstairs, lest she should meet Sarah Jane and be turned out of the house before she had found the mask and gloves.
“How peculiar,” thought Nyssa, “to be running errands for a rabbit!”
She soon found a tidy little bedroom with a table near the window, and upon it lay two or three pairs of gloves and another mask. There was also a small bottle beside these. “I hope this makes me larger - I am really quite tired of being such a tiny thing!” Nyssa said, and without further ado, she drank from the bottle. Before she had half-finished, she was severely cramped into the small room, her head pressed against the ceiling. She stopped drinking immediately, but to her horror, she continued growing, was forced to kneel upon the floor, and eventually had to put one arm out of the window, and one foot up the chimney.
“How foolish!” she decided. “I wish I had not come down that vent! And what am I going to do? I cannot get out of here now!”
At that point, there was a voice outside, and she stopped to listen.
“Sarah Jane! Sarah Jane!” said the voice. “Fetch me my gloves this instant!” There was a pattering at the stairs, and a rattling of the room door, but as it opened inwards and Nyssa’s foot was pressed against it, the Rabbit was unable to enter.
“Then I had best come in through the window!” exclaimed the Rabbit, pattering away down the stairs again.
“Oh dear!” thought Nyssa, trying to pull in her arm so that the Rabbit should not be frightened. She was waving it about in vain when there was a little scream outside, and a loud cracking and smashing noise.
“My cucumber frames!” shrieked the Rabbit. “Very well, you leave me no choice!”
Nyssa leant forward and could just see the Rabbit running down the garden path, and hurry determinedly towards a sign upon which was written:
U.N.I.T : TOP SECRET
Keep Out
This means You!