The bathroom mirror’s tale

The bathroom mirror

Matilda lay in the bath in the doll house and soaked herself in the warm water. It was her favourite thing to do before bed. Every night, before she stepped into the bath, she would look in the mirror over the basin and said, “Mirror, mirror, round and bright, who’s the nicest girl tonight?”

And the mirror always showed her her own reflection and said, “Why you, of course. No one is as nice as you.”

But tonight, something bad had happened, and Matilda was not feeling happy as she lay in the bath.

She’d asked the mirror the same question: “Mirror, mirror, round and bright, who’s the nicest girl tonight?” But the mirror had shown her a person with a scowl on her face and black sticky-out hair, looking very angry and fed up. The mirror would only say, “Well, it’s not you, so it must be someone else.”

So Matilda lay in her bath and fumed. Then she slowly climbed out and put on her dressing gown. She opened the bathroom door and peeped out. She could hear her mum downstairs watching the television. Her dad was rattling dishes in the kitchen and her brother was making whizzy, zooming noises on his games console in the bedroom next door.

The only other person in the doll house was a little girl in the spare bedroom. Her cousin.

Matilda glanced at the spare room door and scowled again. Her cousin had come to stay for three days and Matilda was NOT PLEASED. Her cousin had long wavy blond hair and everyone made a great fuss of her. Matilda hated her the minute she walked through the door with her little basket of toys. She hoped her horrid cousin would have nightmares and go home!

Suddenly, Matilda heard something. She crept over to the spare room door and listened. Her cousin was crying! Not just crying, but sobbing. Why would anyone sob if they had long wavy beautiful hair? Not black sticky-up hair like her own?

She pushed open the door and went in. Her cousin was curled up on the bed. Her toy basket was still packed with her toys. And her lovely hair covered her face as she cried.

“What’s wrong?” Matilda asked. “Don’t you want to play with your toys? Can’t you sleep?” She wasn’t feeling very kind and she didn’t really want to hear the answer, but the sobbing was making her feel bad, so she wanted it to stop.

Her cousin looked up. “My mum’s in hospital having a baby. I miss her. She always reads to me at night.”

Matilda suddenly thought of her own mum downstairs watching television. She would be coming up soon to read Matilda a story. She would hate it if her mum didn’t come.

“Would you like me to tell you a story?” she said. “It won’t be as good as your mum’s, but I could try.”

Her cousin nodded, and Matilda told her the best story she could think of. It was all about a mummy who brought home a funny little baby boy as a present for his sister.

Then she pulled the bedclothes round her cousin, kissed her good night and crept back to the bathroom to clean her teeth.

She asked the mirror again: “Mirror, mirror, round and bright, who’s the nicest girl tonight?”

The face that looked back at her was clean and shining, smiley and kind. The black sticky-up hair even looked less horrid.

“Why you are, of course,” said the mirror immediately. “No one is as nice as you. Sleep tight!”

The moral of this tale is that when you look in a mirror, you sometimes see what you are really like inside!