10 I Will Never Forget You!

I Will Never Forget You! Swan landed on the lawn of Little Billy's house, and Little Billy jumped off his back and ran to the living-room window. Very quietly he climbed in. The room was empty. 'Little Billy,' came his mother's voice from the kitchen. 'What are you up to in there? You've been very quiet for a long time.' 'I'm being good, Mummy,' Little Billy called back. 'I'm being very very good.' His mother came into the room with a pile of ironing in her arms. She looked at Little Billy.

'What have you been doing?' she cried. 'Your clothes are absolutely filthy!' 'I've been climbing trees,' Little Billy said. 'I can't let you out of my sight for ten minutes,' his mother said. 'Which tree was it?' 'Just one of those old trees outside,' Little Billy said. 'If you're not careful you'll fall down and break an arm,' his mother said. 'Don't do it again.'

'I won't,' Little Billy said, smiling a little. 'I'll just fly up into the branches on silver wings.' 'What rubbish you talk,' his mother said and she walked out of the room with her ironing. From then on, Swan came every night to Little Billy's bedroom window. He came after Billy's mother and father had gone to sleep and the whole house was quiet. But Little Billy was never asleep. He was always wide awake and eagerly waiting. And every night, before Swan arrived, he saw to it that the curtains were drawn back and the window was open wide so that the great white bird could come gliding right into the room and land on the floor beside his bed.

Then Little Billy would slip into his dressing gown and climb on to Swan's back and off they would go. Oh, it was a wondrous secret life that Little Billy lived up there in the sky at night on Swan's back! They flew in a magical world of silence, swooping and gliding over the dark world below where all the earthly people were fast asleep in their beds.

Once, Swan flew higher than ever before and they came to an enormous billowing cloud that was shining in a pale golden light, and in the folds

of this cloud Little Billy could make out creatures of some sort moving around. Who were they? He wanted so badly to ask Swan this question, but he couldn't speak a word of bird-language. Swan seemed unwilling to fly very close to these creatures from another world, and this made it impossible for Little Billy to see them clearly. Another time, Swan flew through the night for what seemed like hours and hours until they came at last to a gigantic opening in the earth's surface, a sort of huge gaping hole in the ground, and Swan glided slowly round and round above this massive crater and then right down into it. Deeper and deeper they went into the dark hole.