Some girls, about thirteen years old, gathered in a bedroom by one bed, although time to sleep was announced by Miss Blackwood's yells and screams more than fifteen minutes ago.
The children gathered around Elizabeth's bed. The bed where she would sleep for the first time without Dorothy, her best friend.
The blonde girl, unable to sleep, kept herself busy with a thing she used to do most of the time when she felt restless.
She organized some stuff in that bed. There was a narrow, pinched pot on the bed, its upper part being covered with a canvas that had some small figures cut into it. The bottom of that old and parched pot was completely missing, and on one side it had a bigger crack. At the bottom the pot had a piece of a blurred and broken mirror, with the mirror facing the upper part. There were some more pieces of mirror on the windowsill and on a small almost damaged nightstand. The one on the cold sill faced the dusty window, and the one on the nightstand faced the broken pot.
Elizabeth walked around the room gingerly. She had two more pieces of broken mirror the size of the palm in her hand. Beth moved around the room still spinning those little pieces of the mirror.
At one point, the moonlight reflected by that mirror toward a closet, triggered excitement among the children as it spread into the dark room.
But that wasn't all. Elizabeth took a younger girl by the arm and whispered to her:
"You have to keep this mirror, but be careful not to cut yourself. Hold it as I give it to you ..."
Elizabeth carefully put the mirror in the child's hand. The child beamed with joy, making sure that nothing bad could happen to her. Afterwards she asked another girl willing to help, to do the same with another piece of mirror.
Elizabeth fixed up the piece of mirror at the window, then she got close to the mechanism on her bed. The pot followed; she gave some more indications whispering, after which the light entered the room as she wished.
The system of mirrors brought the light of the moon up to that pot, and the light reached the ceiling of the room through those canvas cuts, in the form of cute little animals.
All the children were surprised at Elizabeth's miracle.
Moreover, when the interesting objects' creator began to move that wheel under that pot, the animals projected on the ceiling started to move throughout the room, as if it were a real green jungle with elephants, rhinos, but also with whales and octopuses. Everything was a real show worthy of the greatest kings and queens.
Even if the spectators were not monarchs' daughters, they enjoyed themselves like real princesses. That room was filled for a few moments by the most privileged children in the world.
They enjoyed themselves until a slammed door and lumping steps could be heard down the corridor. The show ended pretty quickly as it happens to anything that's too good to be long-lasting.
"Miss Blackwood," a kid said in low voice.
All the children ran quickly to their beds, never minding that Elizabeth had plenty of things to hide in the closet by her bed and under it.
Yet, the girl managed to hide them very quickly, and then she lay smiling in her bed. This bed seemed much bigger now and much colder, for Dorothy was no longer near her. Still, the thought that the kids who witnessed her little invention fell asleep wondering what terrific inventions she would come up with the following nights, made her forget her heart-breaking pain.
The door of the room opened slightly, screeching like a train braking violently before stopping. It was wide open for a moment, for someone to look inside. No one dared breathe.
After a few moments it closed with the same squeak and scared kids' quick breath sounded like a starting engine. On the other side of the closed door, one could hear slow steps of heavy shoes stopping from time to time.
The same squeak that made the girls startle could be heard two or three times that night then they could not hear any step any longer.
In silence now, free, they could afford thinking of… anything. They could dream sublimely, because that was the only thing that belonged to those children in this world. The dream was the only world in which they were their only masters.