readingladybird

It was the evening before Christmas. Great big snowflakes were falling, carpeting the pavements. A little girl, bare-headed and barefoot, was out walking in the cold.

Her mother had given her shoes – but they’d been too big for her and she’d lost them crossing the street.

Then a boy had run off with them… Her feet ached with the cold and her hands were all red and numb. But the poor little girl didn’t dare to go home.

She hadn’t sold even one box of matches . Her father would get mad for sure. The icy wind pinched at her cheeks and whirled around her neck.

Exhausted and chilled to the bone, she found what shelter she could against a wall at the corner of the street.

She was so cold, poor girl. If she could just strike one match at least she could warm her fingers a little! “Just one”, she thought, “daddy won’t even notice“.

So she took a match from its box and struck it. The little girl cupped her hands round it and for a moment, it seemed as if she was sitting in front of an iron stove with a fine blaze crackling away inside.

She would have stretched out her legs to heat them, but suddenly, the stove disappeared.

The match had gone-out.

The little girl lit another match. This time, it lit up the wall and she could see into the house behind! There was a big table with a pretty tablecloth and candles; all sorts of china crockery and in the middle, a beautiful roast turkey stuffed with chestnuts and apple. And it smelt so good too!

The little girl stretched out her arm to taste a little, but all she touched was the cold, grey wall. The banquet was gone and all that was left was the blackened and burnt stump of a match between her fingers.

She lit another match. This time, what did she see but an enormous Christmas tree. Not just any Christmas tree, but the most beautiful tree she had ever seen, sparkling bright with thousands of tiny lights hanging on its branches.

Once again, the match went out and the tree disappeared, its tiny lights turning back into the stars.

She lifted her eyes skywards to see a shooting star. She thought of her grandmother

She struck yet another match – and her grandmother appeared

“Oh grandma!” the little girl cried, “take me with you! I know you’ll leave when the match goes out, just like the stove, the roast turkey and the Christmas tree!”

So she struck another match, and another, and another to stop her grandmother from leaving her.

She struck a whole handful of matches and her grandmother seemed more beautiful, more real than ever.

Then she took the little girl in her arms and the two of them flew away, up towards the stars, where it’s never cold.

The next morning, they found the little girl dead from the cold, her tiny body half buried under the snow.

On her face she wore a smile, and nobody could guess what she had seen that night, or know how she and her grandmother had gone up to be with the stars.